Former superintendent Ramon Cortines with 20th Street families over the summer. (Photo by Omar Calvillo.)

LA Unified has rejected a parent petition to take over a failing elementary school in South Central Los Angeles, reversing district policy and essentially asserting that no California school qualifies under the state “parent trigger” law.

Parents of 20th Street Elementary School were informed of the district’s rejection in a letter late Saturday, the last day the district had to notify the parents. They had hoped to be able to take over the school and possibly create a charter through the state’s Parent Empowerment Act, or parent trigger, which has been used twice to help under-performing LA Unified schools.

“We are so disappointed, all the parents are really upset,” said Guadalupe Aragon, one of the parents who started the petition drive. “We just want our children to have the same opportunities to get to college that other children in the district have, and this was our only way to do it. We are very angry.”

After two years of trying to get changes at the school, and dropping the threatened trigger by the parents at least once, the 20th Street Parents Union filed again last month to take over the school with 57 percent of the families (the parents of 342 students) signing a petition.

“This is shameful,” said former California state senator Gloria Romero, who authored the law, after reading the district’s letter. “They have a brand new superintendent and she is harking to the past, in a sense. Where is the leadership? It’s supposed to be a new game with LA being unified. This does not bode well for the spirit of the law.”

The law was passed in 2010 and used at two LA Unified schools in 2013. That year, statewide tests were suspended in anticipation of computerized tests based on the Common Core State Standards. The following year former Superintendent John Deasy argued that the district was exempt, for one year, from the parent trigger by a federal waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind law that allowed LA Unified and seven other California school districts to create their own metrics for academic performance in the temporary absence of statewide standards.

One of the first things interim Superintendent Ramon Cortines did when he took over was to reverse Deasy’s edict and lift the ban on parent triggers. King worked under both Deasy and Cortines.

King and her staff met with parents only five days before the letter was sent out rejecting their petition. The meeting last Monday, held at district headquarters, was called by King and also attended by representatives of Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, which was brought in by the district to see if it might be a solution for the parents.

Joan Sullivan, CEO for Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, said she was invited to attend the meeting at the district to offer some sort of solution for 20th Street. Partnership was offering a hybrid of a charter and traditional school as an option, which they have done in 17 schools over the past eight years in the South Central LA area.

“Parents are asking for a choice, and we could offer a good option,” said Sullivan said. “We take on whole schools and support them with the current student body and most of the staff and use the parent involvement and voice.”

At last week’s meeting, the district “never told us that our school may not be eligible or that there was any problem with our petition,” Aragon said.

In a statement Monday to LA School Report, King said, “Some parents were dissatisfied with our efforts and filed petitions under the Parent Empowerment Act to change the governance structure of 20th Street Elementary School. Because the law doesn’t apply to this situation, we returned the petitions. However, we remain committed to working with parents to address all concerns in a timely manner.”

The letter to the parents, written by LAUSD General Counsel David Holmquist, gave four reasons why the parents’ petition was denied, including some of the same reasoning that Deasy used.

20th Street Parents Union meeting.

First, the letter said the school doesn’t have an Academic Performance Index under 800 as the law requires. That’s not true, according to Gabe Rose of Parent Revolution, a group that helps parents organize and take over a failing campus. He said the API score of the school is based on the past three years of scores, and 20th Street has a score of 765. There is no API score for this school year because the state suspension of testing.

Second, the letter notes that a school must fail to show Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), but the district letter states that 20th Street has in fact improved, based on state data released in December. However, the AYP no longer measures test scores, because of the suspension in testing, but simply measures the attendance of students during the test. LA Unified released data showing that 20th Street has 96.29 percent attendance compared to 95 percent for the district.

The Anaheim School District used a similar argument regarding AYP to to fight a parent trigger at Palm Lane Elementary School, but it was rejected by a judge last summer. The district has appealed the ruling.

Third, the district said that a federal waiver granted to the California Office to Reform Education, or CORE, exempted the district and “relieved LAUSD from the requirements of taking improvement actions,” according to the letter by Holmquist. But the U.S. Department of Education, which granted the waiver and was asked to clarify its conditions, stated at the time that neither the federal government nor any other entity can override a state law.

In its fourth reason for rejecting the 20th Street petition, LA Unified said the parents didn’t state whether they wanted to have a solution within the district or create an independent charter school. But according to the state trigger law, parents’ petitions are not required to state their preferences. Aragon and other parents said they always had the intention of entertaining charter management organizations to help their school.

One of those is Magnolia Public Schools, led by CEO Caprice Young, a former LA Unified school board member. She said, “We absolutely want to support the families of 20th Street Elementary School, and we know we have a phenomenal program that can help them. We like working with proactive families, and this shows that LAUSD does not want parents to be involved, otherwise they would support this.”

Young said she remembered when Cortines reversed Deasy’s initial stance against the triggers, and said, “LAUSD has a moral obligation to uphold this.”

Romero said the district shouldn’t waste taxpayer money fighting parents on this issue, especially since she created the law to avoid just that. The law firm of Kirkland & Ellis has offered to handle the legal issues for parent triggers at no cost throughout the state.

Mark Holscher, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, said his firm is helping the parents in communities that couldn’t afford legal representation on their own. He said he cannot discuss any plans yet that the 20th Street parents may have about pursing a case against LA Unified but did say the situation is very similar to the one they represented in Anaheim.

“The LA Unified School District sent our clients an email on Saturday and said they were inspired by the courageous conversations of the parent leaders, but those are empty words,” Holscher said. “What they’ve done is refuse to even consider the parent trigger law. Parents tried to work with the district on the last petition. LAUSD didn’t honor what they said they would do. They can’t ignore the Parent Empowerment Act.”

In response, King said, “LA Unified is committed to partnering with all parents of 20th Street Elementary School to provide our students with high quality learning opportunities and to help them succeed. We are continuing to strengthen instructional supports and enhance social-emotional and parent-engagement programs that are essential to the school community. We look forward to working with the school community to build a unified vision that addresses the needs of all students.”

Romero said the district must do more. “Ultimately, the parents and schools will prevail,” Romero said. “LAUSD needs to read the law. It would be in the best interest of reform for LA Unified to accept the parent petition and not fight the parents. The sacrifice is that they are losing more time for kids. It’s shameful.”

This article has been corrected to note the year that John Deasy requested the one-year exemption, which was in 2013, and that the Anaheim School District had used the AYP argument in its rejection of the Palm Lane trigger, not the CORE waiver argument. 

Gloria Romero, former CA State Senator

Gloria Romero, the former state senator who authored the California Parent Trigger law is asking LA Unified board president Richard Vladovic to schedule a public discussion on the district’s legal opinion that the law does not apply this year.

District lawyers say the Federal waiver granted LA Unified and seven other California school districts, allowing them to to create their own metrics for academic performance in the temporary absence of statewide standards, sets the law aside.

“Of course, I dispute the legal interpretation and I am in the process of seeking a state opinion on the matter,” she wrote to Vladovic. “Nothing that I have seen lends support to the legal opinion of LAUSD.”

She adds that none of the other districts granted a waiver has made such an interpretation.

Vladovic’s chief of staff, Chris Torres, said in an email that Vladovic intends to help arrange to put her request on the agenda of a future meeting.

The district’s legal interpretation is important, so far as parent groups who want to enact changes this year through the state law, which permits parents to initiate action at their children’s school if they can secure signatures from a majority of school parents.

The district is contending that without state-approved metrics for measuring academic performance while Common Core testing is phasing in, the law cannot apply because action through Parent Trigger requires two years of data to show a school is failing.

In her letter, Romero questions several aspects of the district’s decision, including whether the board was aware of such an exemption and why the legal decision was made without public discussion or announcement.

She also asks Vladovic that if the district was certain in its legal analysis, why did the district negotiate with parents at West Athens Elementary School for changes in exchange for their assurance not to use the Parent Trigger law, when in the absence of the law, the parents would have had no such leverage.

Finally, she asks, “Perhaps even more importantly — how could a District simply erase away a law and make a pact to keep this information away from the public?

]]> https://www.laschoolreport.com/romero-pressing-for-lausd-hearing-on-trigger-waiver/feed/ 4 https://www.laschoolreport.com/outside-group-challenging-lausds-view-of-parent-trigger/ https://www.laschoolreport.com/outside-group-challenging-lausds-view-of-parent-trigger/#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2014 19:30:23 +0000 http://laschoolreport.com/?p=27624

Gloria Romero

* UPDATED

Parent Revolution, an organization that helps parents petition for change at poor-performing schools, is disputing an LA Unified legal opinion that says the state law that gives parents that right is invalid this year.

The conflict came to light in an LA Times story this morning, citing an opinion from a district lawyer sent to Gloria Romero, the former California lawmaker who wrote the 2010 “Parent Trigger” law.

Romero, who founded the California Center for Parent Empowerment last year, said in an interview this morning she felt “angry and betrayed” by a legal decision that was reached last fall by the district but not shared with her until she learned about it three weeks ago.

“I’m not saying LAUSD is wrong on the legal interpretation; I just don’t know, and that’s why I’m seeking another legal interpretation from the state,” she said, “But LAUSD’s decision violates the spirit and intent of the law.”

“What I want to know,” she added, “is why did they keep this quiet all this time.”

The district’s opinion stems from a Federal waiver granted LA Unified and seven other California school districts, allowing them to to create their own metrics for academic performance in the temporary absence of statewide standards — measures used to determine whether a school is failing.

LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy said in an interview that the metrics used by LA Unified and the other districts granted the waiver still give parents the right to use the Parent Trigger law, so long as a school has been deemed in need of improvement for two consecutive years, ending with the 2014-2015 school year.

Under the waiver, he said, “We are completely aligned with the state law.”

California’s previous statewide standards were set aside for two years — 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 — while districts phase in the Common Core State Standards curriculum.

Romero said the district’s position was clarified in a letter she had requested and finally received two days ago from Kathleen Collins, a district lawyer.

Parent Revolution called the district’s legal interpretation “laughable,” insisting that a district has overridden state law. “The only entities that are capable of altering or invalidating California’s Parent Empowerment Act are the state legislature or a judge. Neither has done so,” the group said.

Parent Revolution also cited a letter to Deasy from the Department of Education in Washington, which granted the waiver, that says neither the federal government nor any other entity can override a state law.

In her Nov. 22 letter (starts on page 6), Assistant Secretary of Education Deborah Delisle wrote, “The requirements to determine whether schools have made adequate yearly progress (AYP) and to identify schools for improvement, corrective action and restructuring have not been waived, and any State laws or regulations, including those related to AYP or school improvement status, are not affected by the waivers granted to your district.”

Romero said the confluence of federal law, state law and a district decision might ultimately lead to a lawsuit to clarify who has the ultimate authority in the matter. Such a lawsuit would require plaintiffs, presumably parents whose efforts to use the Parent Trigger law would be blocked by the district.

Gabe Rose, a spokesman for Parent Revolution, said his organization is currently working with several groups of parents who are “considering options for improving their children’s schools, including the use of Parent Trigger.”

* Adds explanation from LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy

Gloria Romero, from her days as State Senate Majority Leader

Gloria Romero is stepping down from her position as Director of California Democrats for Education Reform (or DFER) to start a new organization, the Foundation for Parent Empowerment.

“I am thankful for the opportunity to have worked with DFER, but believe that it is time to move past party politics and focus my skills and organizing with parents who form the true base of any education reform movement,” she said in a statement.

In 2010, as a California State Senator, Romero authored the country’s first “parent trigger” law, which allows a majority of parents to replace a school’s leadership. But the fiercely independent Romero hasn’t always agreed with the tactics employed by Parent Revolution, the non-profit that has helped organize every parent trigger campaign in California to date.

Romero’s new organization will focus on empowering parents to affect change at their children’s schools.

“A myriad of federal and state laws exist which, when combined, offer parents greater opportunities to become more actively involved in helping their children pursue the American Dream via education,” she said.

Romero’s independence and unpredictability have earned her many enemies. Last year, she even broke with DFER’s national organization to support LA Unified and seven other California school districts in their quest for a No Child Left Behind waiver.

Nevertheless, DFER Executive Director Joe Williams lent a quote to Romero’s goodbye press release, saying, “We are extremely grateful for all the great work Gloria has done for children and families in California as an elected official in the California Legislature as well as her leadership of DFER in California.”

Previous posts: Reform Group Splits over Federal Waiver for LAUSD; Mayor Overreached Against Zimmer, Says Reformer; How Prop. 32 Could Affect LAUSD

A controversial bill aimed at ensuring teachers accused of sexual misconduct and other immoral acts can be more easily removed from the classroom is now awaiting referral in the Senate Rules Committee before its eventual hearing by the Senate Education Committee.

Given the array of allies and opponents focused on teacher misconduct — especially after reports of ongoing sexual misconduct at Miramonte Elementary School shocked LAUSD — the bill’s next step will be closely followed and hotly debated.

Recently passed by the House, the bill (known as AB 375) being championed by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo) will be heard and referred in the next seven to 10 days, according to the Senate Rules Committee’s Bob Franzoia.

“The Education Committee should hear this bill by June 26 or July 3,” said Franzoia.

The Buchanan legislation is a response to the Miramonte scandal, where Los Angeles Unified elementary school teacher Mark Berndt was fired and charged with 23 counts of sexual misconduct with students.

Berndt appealed the case and the district chose to pay $40,000 to drop his challenge, according to the Sacramento Bee.

A previous and somewhat stronger version of the legislation, AB 1530, was proposed and defeated last summer, thanks in large part to opposition from teachers unions.

Lawmakers’ votes against the legislation made national news and contributed to the defeat of at least one Assemblymember in November 2012.

Buchanan’s AB 375 would set a deadline of seven months for the administrative appeal, start to finish, expanding the current law’s deadline of 60 days

However, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has expressed concerns about the legislation despite amendments made earlier this month.

Deasy is not alone.  The current union-backed bill doesn’t strengthen the teacher dismissal process nearly enough, according to former State Senator Gloria Romero.

In a highly critical piece published by the Orange County Register, Romero asked, “what good is shortening the [dismissal] timeline if it only results in a the same flawed outcome?”

The California Teachers Federation says the bill’s timeline is needed to give removed teachers ample time to prepare their cases.

And, according to CTA spokesperson Frank Wells, AB 375 is also opening the door to companion legislation aimed at holding school districts and administrators accountable for school employees accused of child abuse.

“AB 375’s companion bill, AB 1338 would strengthen reporting and employee education requirements on school districts,” Wells told LA School Report.

“We believe school districts should face penalties for not following the law and failing to report serious misconduct to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing; that is an issue that still needs to be addressed.”

Previous posts: Mixed Reactions to New Teacher Dismissal Bill, Villaraigosa Expresses Concerns About Teacher Dismissal Bill, Deasy Wants Stronger Teacher Dismissal Bill

Gloria Romero

Earlier this week, a number of civil rights and school reform groups including Democrats for Education Reform (or DFER) sent a letter to United States Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan opposing the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver that LAUSD and eight other California school districts had applied for.

But the next day, Gloria Romero, head of the California chapter of DFER, sent her own letter to Secretary Duncan in support of the LAUSD waiver request.

So what happened?

According to an initial account in Education Week, Romero described the dueling letters as the unintentional result of miscommunication between the state and national divisions.

Commenting on the waiver issue at EdSource, Romero wrote that the national letter “reflected the DC branch and was, unfortunately, submitted without input from the CA DFER office which has long supported the CORE waiver request.”

“I understand the national [DFER organization] is looking at this and saying, let’s be consistent federally,” Romero told LA School Report. “But I think, locked in the bowels of Washington DC, they weren’t privy to the real issues on the street. They didn’t understand — these are the reformers.”

“The CORE group came together to overcome the political obstacles at the state level,” said Romero.  “We need to reward the guys willing to reform by any means necessary.”

“It probably is unusual, but I felt strongly that this was a state issue,” she said — adding later, perhaps a bit jokingly: “I might be out of the job tomorrow. Who knows?”

Previous posts: Civil Rights Groups Oppose LAUSD Waiver;  New Concerns About LAUSD “Waiver”; District Waivers Worry State Education Chiefs

Santiago’s appearance with Sanchez was interpreted by some within UTLA to mean that Sanchez carried the Assembly Speaker’s stamp of approval.

“In no uncertain terms, it was made clear to us that Sanchez is protected all the way up and down the power structure of the State,” said a highly placed source within UTLA.

This was one of the reasons that UTLA endorsed Sanchez in the primary — and one of the reasons the union leadership and members may struggle tonight when the House of Representatives reconsiders the union’s District 6 endorsements.

But it is not entirely clear whether pulling Sanchez’s endorsement would have any political consequences, in Sacramento or in Los Angeles — or even how it might affect the runoff.

Eric Bauman, Chair of the LA County Democratic Party, Vice Chair of the State Party and a Senior Advisor to Speaker Perez confirms that Santiago went to the endorsement meeting, but said Santiago’s presence wasn’t a message.

“It does not reflect the Speaker’s position, and the Speaker hasn’t endorsed in that race,” he said. “It’s just coincidental that Tony Sanchez is close friend with the Speaker’s staff.”

But former State Senate Leader Gloria Romero, now director of California Democrats for School Reform, thinks the message was implicit.

“It’s definitely a message that was being sent,” she said in a recent telephone interview with LA School Report. “In the political arena, you know who the Speaker’s staff is. That was message. Cause there’s no reason for Miguel to go with Sanchez to that meeting.”

Indeed, Sanchez has many a Sacramento connection. Not only is he friends with Santiago, but also his brother-in-law is Steve Veres, State Senator Kevin de Leon’s district director.

The speculation has been that the 30-year-old Antonio Sanchez is being groomed for office as a State Assemblyman. (In this scenario, State Senator Alex Padilla would run for Secretary of State, Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra would jump over to the Senate, and Sanchez would run for Bocanegra’s seat.)

Further complicating the situation is that the UTLA leadership genuinely likes Sanchez, a former aide to the Mayor who’s also been endorsed by the LA County Democratic Party, the LA County Federation of Labor, the SEIU and the Coalition for School Reform.

“The book on him is, when he was in the Mayor’s office, he got things done,” said the UTLA source. “He’s been working extremely hard. He’s not just a politician that expects to be coronated.”

They also aren’t opposed to a moderate Board member — a consensus builder, as it were, and might hope to avoid both a costly runoff and any possible consequences in Sacramento.

SB 10, the bill to make it easier to fire teachers accused of harming children, is up for consideration again this year. In one possible scenario, stripping Sanchez of his endorsement would give powerful Sacramento lawmakers an additional reason to move the bill forward.

“The message we’ve gotten, through a back channel, is that if UTLA pulls their endorsement [for Sanchez], get ready, here comes SB 10,” said the UTLA source.

Sanchez supports SB 10. His opponent, Monica Ratliff, opposes it.

The LA County Democratic Party’s Eric Bauman thinks this idea is ludicrous.

“I can tell you that there is nobody I know of in Sacramento that would make that play,” he said. “The speaker is very close to the CTA [California Teachers Association].”

Romero agrees that there’s probably not any direct connection between the Sanchez endorsement and SB 10 — largely because SB 10 is going to pass.

“This time, there’s gonna be a lot more publicity, and a lot more pressure on the Assembly,” she said. “I think that it goes [through] this year in some form.”

In the end, the most immediate reason not to strip Sanchez of his endorsement and focus on Ratliff may be that doing so could set off a competitive runoff and UTLA is said to have little more than $100,000 left in its coffers — which UTLA leadership controls, not the House of Representatives.

Previous posts: District 6 Candidate Hardens Position on Deasy Leadership, Union Schedules Special Session To Reconsider Endorsements*, Union Endorsements Could Affect District 6 Runoff, After Election, Board Status Quo Remains Intact

Romero has had public disagreements with Villaraigosa in the past, and she first made her negative assessment of the outcome in an LA Times piece last week.

Now, in a new Orange County Register commentary, the head of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) – California writes, “The balance of power on the school board has shifted away from the mayor, who overreached, and from the broader reform community.”

Gloria Romero, the former Democratic state legislator who is now heading the California chapter of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), announced her support for School Board President Monica Garcia last Wednesday, urging supporters to contribute to Garcia’s campaign.

The pro-charter, pro-accountability group issued a report card on Garcia and incumbent Steve Zimmer on Thursday morning. However, DFER-California isn’t providing any of its own funding, according to Romero, and a quick look back at advocacy group endorsements and outside funding reminds us  that resources are no guarantee of victory.

Money is great — everybody wants it, and it’s always good to have more than the other person.  (We’ll find out the latest fundraising figures Friday.)  But in LA and elsewhere, a big cash advantage doesn’t  always translate into a victory speech.

As KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reported last week, outside funding has been increasing in LA for at least a decade — the majority of the increases coming from the pro-charter, pro-accountability side of the debate, but also including state and national union funding.

Much the same has been happening at the national level, as this look back at 2012 from the Huffington Post recounts.

DFER endorsed and/or funded a handful of local school board candidates in 2012, with mixed results. For example, DFER-endorsed candidate Bill Ponder lost his effort to win a seat on the San Diego Board of Education.

StudentsFirst, the Sacramento-based school reform advocacy group run by former Washington DC schools chief Michelle Rhee, endorsed and/or funded candidates in 2012 — including Brian Johnson for State Assembly, who lost in the primary despite a funding advantage.

Closer to home, the Coalition for School Reform endorsed and funded Luis Sanchez in 2011 — but lost.

Sacramento-based StudentsFirst (headed by Michelle Rhee) has given $500,000 to oppose Proposal 2, a Michigan state constitutional amendment codifying collective bargaining rights that has been backed by labor groups, according to Michigan Live. (StudentsFirst PAC donates $500,000 to campaign against union-backed Proposal 2.)

These kinds of splits between Democrat-affiliated education reform groups, elected officials, and teachers unions are still relatively few, but can no longer be considered rare.  Other examples include Mayor Villaraigosa’s support for the parent trigger and President Obama’s refusal to support the striking teachers in Chicago.

Portrait In Numbers Of LAUSD’s Decline In Arts Education
In the last three years, Los Angeles Unified has had to cut nearly $1.5 billion from its annual operating budget, which is now roughly $6 billion. “Arts education is one of the most impacted components of LAUSD instruction as a result,” according to the district. KPCC

Teacher evaluation resolution pulled from LAUSD agenda
School board member Steve Zimmer has pulled his controversial resolution on teacher evaluations from Tuesday’s board agenda because of concerns it could interfere with sensitive negotiations between the district and its teachers’ union. Daily News

Schools Urged To Use Up Technology Vouchers
About $66 million, including $10 million for LAUSD, remains from a state antitrust settlement with Microsoft, and officials want districts to use the vouchers before they expire during 2013. LA Times

LAUSD Moves Up Deadline For Magnet Schools
Applications for Los Angeles Unified’s 172 magnet programs are due on Nov. 16 because of the academic year’s early start. LA Times

Porter Ranch Community School To Get Short-Term Street Parking Under City Compromise
Plans are being finalized to allow short-term street parking near the new Porter Ranch Community School, and new signs should be going up by mid-October along Mason Avenue, officials said. Daily News 

How Gloria Romero Became the Face of Proposition 32
With Election Day still one month away, the battle to pass Prop. 32 has seen its share of political shockers, including the sudden injection of $4 million of Koch brother money to the Yes on 32 campaign, along with millions more from Charles Munger Jr. But nothing has been more surprising than the decision of Romero, a former California State Senate Democratic majority leader, to serve as the measure’s frontwoman. Frying Pan News (blog)

You can read the Zimmer press release announcing the withdrawal here.

“This is a huge priority for us, for unions,” David Goldberg, a teacher in Los Angeles and an elected CTA board member, told me yesterday. This morning, the CTA also released a new web ad entitled “Meet a SuperPAC Billionaire who supports Prop 32.”

According the great new website Dollar, Dollar Bill, this latest contribution brings CTA’s total spent against Prop 32 to $16 million. That dwarfs their total of $1.5 million spent on Proposition 30, which would temporarily raise taxes to avoid further cuts to public education.

The ballot measure, which goes before California voters in November, would have enormous long-term implications for public education. Most Democrats are either against the measure or staying as far away from it as possible, with the exception of Gloria Romero.

“No on 32” has raised a total of $33.8 million, almost entirely from unions. “Yes on 32,” meanwhile, has raised only $2.5 million, mostly from wealthy individuals like Charles Munger, Jr. ($600,000) and Jerry Perenchio ($250,000).

“It’s not surprising that union leaders are willing to spend millions and millions of their members’ dues to protect their ability to pull that money automatically out of their paychecks,” Yes on 32 spokesman Jake Suski told me yesterday. “It’s ironic that they’re spending so much money of their members’ dues simply to avoid asking for that money.”

“The argument that this is somehow looking out for our members is ridiculous,” said CTA board member Goldberg when we spoke on the phone. “California is basically the last state where we still have a strong voice in labor. Across the country, millionaires and billionaires are taking over the process. Workers in general, we’re all struggling to survive.”

In the last decade, political spending by the CTA in California has dwarfed that of any individual or interest group.

Miramonte lawsuits are on hold, attorneys hope to settle KPCC: Attorney Luis Carrillo is the one who pushed for the stay. He says the temporary delay gives his clients a chance to engage in settlement discussions with the school district. The talks would be facilitated by a mediator and could begin as early as November.

Charters draw students from private schools, study finds LA Times: The study by a Rand Corp. economist found that more than 190,000 students nationwide had left a private school for a charter by the end of the 2008 school year, the most recent year for which data was available.

CSUDH grant will aid LAUSD math teachers Daily Breeze: California State University, Dominguez Hills in Carson has received the first of three grants to support the development of math teachers in economically challenged areas of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong Mother Jones: Attendance: up. Dropout rates: plummeting. College acceptance: through the roof. Kristina Rizga’s mind-blowing year inside a “low-performing” school. ALSO: The Kids Are All Right Mother Jones: Students today score better on tests than you did.

Colleges ranked by “bang for your buck”, California schools dominate list KPCC: The Washington Monthly’s top 10 “bang for your buck” schools include 5 in California: UC San Diego, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Riverside.

Cramming For Tests Doesn’t Work, Says UCLA Study LA Weekly: The main problem? Sleep deprivation.

Fairfax music program’s loss Bev Hills’ gain Weho News: Ray Vizcarra, Fairfax High School’s bandleader, has taken a job at Beverly Hills High, after facing the prospect of likely being laid off.

Los Angeles college students face more crowds, fewer classes LA Times: Students on Los Angeles campuses struggle with trying to get needed classes, or any at all, as state budget cuts continue to take their toll on the community college system.

Middle Schoolers Make a Scale Model of 6 Blocks of Broadway Curbed (blog):  Middle school students at the Bresee Foundation summer camp have created a scale model of six blocks of Broadway and the whole thing is installed temporarily right now at the Blackstone Building at Ninth and Broadway.

El Camino Real Charter High School to stage reading of ‘8’ (Press Release): El Camino Real Charter High School’s internationally acclaimed theatre program has been selected as one of the only high school companies in the nation to stage a reading of Academy Award-winner Dustin Lance Black’s latest play, “8,” it was announced today. “8” is an unprecedented account of the Federal District Court trial in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), which ruled California’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples unconstitutional.

Most local school districts ignore state’s anti-gay bullying law Daily News: None of the six Long Beach area school districts has complied with AB 9’s July 1 deadline, and only one, Long Beach Unified School District, has since met the requirements, a Press-Telegram investigation has found.

Why rush this gutted education bill into law? Modesto Bee (opinion):  In Doe v. Deasy, the judge found that the Los Angeles Unified school district had never obeyed the Stull Act in evaluating teachers.

Gloria Romero’s Revenge NBC/Prop Zero (blog): California’s public employee unions have long prided themselves on their toughness. If a Democratic politician stepped out of line, they would move to punish that politician.

Cortines’ accuser details long friendship that went bad LA Observed:  Scot Graham, the LA Unified leasing chief who has sued ex-superintendent Ramon Cortines for sexual harassment and filed $10 million claim with the district, says he first met Cortines in San Francisco’s gay community in the 1980s.

Why Do Schools Have Friday Off? It’s Admission Day! AOL Brentwood Patch: The Los Angeles Unified School District observes the anniversary on the last Friday of August—it’s a paid holiday for the teachers.

Students rally to beloved Pacoima teacher’s side with blood donations Daily News: While Arlena Tupaz lay in her hospital bed in Panorama City on Saturday, less than 10 miles away her current and former students gathered to lend a hand — actually an arm — for their beloved teacher.

Los Angeles colleges resume $6-billion campus building projects LA Times: Spending on most new construction projects in the Los Angeles Community College District’s $6-billion campus building project has resumed, virtually ending a moratorium that had been the centerpiece of efforts to reform poor planning, questionable spending and other flaws uncovered in the program.

The latest word from EdSource is that AB 5 is being revised slightly to try and mollify opponents and also to help make the state eligible for a No Child Left Behind waiver (see: Fuentes agrees to compromises on AB 5: Are they enough?). If approved, the amended bill could go back to the State Senate education committee early next week. But it’s not clear that’s going to happen without further changes. Romero, EdVoice and other education reformers are still strongly opposed to the law — as is LAUSD’s John Deasy.

What is AB 5? Why do ed reform groups, not to mention Deasy, hate it so much? And what is Fuentes offering to change?

The back story goes all the way back to the 1971 Stull Act, which mandates that teachers (and other accredited employees) in California be evaluated by objective criteria, including pupil progress. In almost every interpretation, that boils down to one thing: test scores.

Flash forward to 2011, when a group of anonymous parents and students teamed up with Ed Voice to sue LAUSD on the grounds that it was not enforcing the Stull Act, since it wasn’t using pupil progress to evaluate teachers or principals. The suit was called Doe v. Deasy, the irony being that the named defendant, Superintendent John Deasy, actually agreed with the plaintiffs. A judge recently ruled that the district was in fact not adhering to the Stull Act, and he ordered LAUSD and the unions to come up with a new evaluation system that would satisfy the law by December 4.

Which brings us to AB 5. Sponsored by Fuentes, the bill would essentially re-write the Stull Act. The “pupil progress” section would be obliterated, replaced with what the bill calls a “best practices teacher evaluation system.” The bill goes on to list the many attributes “best practices” would include, but the short of it is that teachers would be evaluated on what they do in the classrooms, as opposed to how their students perform.

“This is a bill that was ghostwritten by the CTA,” says Gloria Romero, former State Senate Majority Leader (and now head of California Democrats for Education Reform). “If enacted the way it is, it will set us back 40 years, in terms of teacher evaluations. It needs to be rewritten or abandoned.”

(CTA has not yet responded to my request for comment.)

On Wednesday, Ed Voice took out a full-page ad in the LA Times blasting Fuentes’ proposal: “AB 5 guts objective accountability of adult job performance in schools just as voters are being asked to invest more in education.” A number of other ed reform groups are lobbying against the bill, including Educators 4 Excellence, Students First and Alliance for a Better Community.

When I spoke with Superintendent Deasy last week, he said he found the timing of the Fuentes bill, coming so soon after the judge’s order in Doe v. Deasy, “unusual.” He also expressed dismay that the bill is funded by $89 million out of the Quality Education Investment Act, or QEIA, which provides money to low-income, low performing schools in order lower class size. That bill was the product of heavy lobbying from, yes, the CTA.

“CTA, which is like this very powerful organization, have spent every ounce of their capital making sure nothing happens to QEIA,” said Deasy. “This bill takes away QEIA funds – this is how AB 5 is being funded. I find that perplexing. I don’t understand it.”

“All sides of the issues agree that the QEIA funds are important and not something we should be cutting,” says Evan Stone, co-founder and co-CEO of Educators 4 Excellence.

According to a document sent to us by Ed Voice, the QEIA cuts would weigh heavily on LAUSD. District schools stand to lose a total of $30 million if AB 5 passes. Bell Senior High, for example, would lose $1.1 million, while John Adams Middle School would lose $300,00.

SI&A has helpful links to the Fuentes proposal and the recent changes he’s offered (see: Student scores at heart of new teacher ratings nationally).  The Senate has until August 31, the last day of the legislative session, to do something about AB 5.

“Everybody is on pins and needles,” says Romero. “This is the time of the year when, basically, the legislature is on call, so they can meet at any time.”  She’s not sure what’s gonna happen, but she knows one thing: “Sausage-making is taking place.”

Gloria Romero (photo by Celeste Freemon)

Prop 32 would have huge implications for LAUSD politics, drastically limiting the amount of money unions could spend on local races. In 2011, UTLA spent over $2 million on school board races. And at first it seems like a straightforward, partisan issue– Democrats and Unions vs. Republicans and rich guys.

But one Democrat has stepped forward to support prop 32: Gloria Romero, California Director of Democrats for School Reform:  “Unless we’re willing to tackle how the money flows,” says Romero, “we’re not going to ever see education reform in California.”  This raises the question:  will other Democrats and school reformers follow Romero’s lead? Or will they be fearful of pissing off the Democratic establishment? Turns out the politics of prop. 32 — and the implications for LAUSD — are not as straightforward as they may seem.

If passed, prop. 32 would ban:

• Direct contributions from unions and corporations to state and local candidates
• Direct contributions by government contractors to politicians  who control those contracts (a similar measure already exists in Los Angeles)
• Automatic deductions by corporations and unions from employees’ paychecks to be used for political activity

It’s that last provision, dubbed paycheck protection (or, derisively, “paycheck deception”) that so frightens unions. Much of their political influence comes from these automatic deductions, which are funneled into political campaigns in massive amounts. The California Teachers Association, for example, dumped a staggering $118 million into campaigns from 2001 to 2011, far exceeding any other individual, corporation or PAC.

Sac Bee columnist Dan Walters has a good summary of the debate to come:

Whatever the term, it’s clearly part of a nationwide effort by conservative groups to hamstring union political influence.

Several other states have adopted similar laws, and they appear to have sharply reduced the political money that unions can collect.

The real issue for voters, therefore, is whether they believe unions have an unfair advantage in gathering money from payroll deductions to spend on friendly politicians, or whether restricting such fundraising would unfairly limit their ability to participate in politics.

(It was something of a surprise to see Common Cause, a good government group usually devoted to getting money out of politics, come out against the proposal.)

Take the last school board race. Marguerite LaMotte only raised $70,000, while her opponent, Eric Lee, raised only $30,000. But the SEIU local 99 and UTLA spent a combined $583,000 in independent expenditure campaigns (essentially advertising campaigns that are independent from the official campaign– like the Swift Boat attack ads against John Kerry in 2004) supporting LaMotte, making the race a cakewalk. The same thing happened in Richard Vladovic’s race. Prop 32 wouldn’t stop the spending, but it would hamper the raising of the money.

Now, Prop 32 is selling itself as a measure to take money out of both sides of politics– unions and corporations. But school board races (as well as school reform-influenced assembly races, like Brian Johnson’s recent effort) don’t always stack up like this. A lot of times, it’s rich guys like Eil Broad or Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix) throwing down a couple hundred thousand dollars.

And so Prop 32 has the potential to shift the balance of power over to the school reformers in a big way.

Romero’s decision to support prop 32 was in part a result of the failure of SB 1530, which would have made it easier to fire teachers who commit sexual or physical acts on students. The bill, sponsored by Alex Padilla, died in committee after a number of Democrats, including Betsy Butler and Mike Eng, abstained from voting.

“That little tiny bill,” says Romero, who was the first female speaker of the assembly in California, “that was an example of a very moderate bill. The [assembly] members were too afraid to vote.

“In education, over and over, [bills like that] get killed. Reformers run for office, most don’t get elected. People are afraid to take on reform for fear they’ll get taken out. Yolie Flores was afraid to run for reelection. You see this over and over. We can try running candidates, but until you deal with how the money flows, it’s not gonna change.”

Prop 32, she says, would “begin to move special interest money out of the political arena, out of holding [assembly] members hostage.”

Yes on 32 has raised around $4 million, mostly from rich guys like Charles Munger Jr. and Jerry Perenchio. The No side has raised about $8 million, almost entirely from unions. The CTA has given $685,700– so far. They have the means to spend much more, but are also trying to get Obama re-elected and pass Jerry Brown’s millionaire tax.

At least one Democrat is mad at Romero. That would be chairman of the LA County Democratic Party and Vice Chair of the state party. After Romero’s announcement, Bauman posted this on his Facebook page:

So will other school reformers follow Romero’s lead? Or will they be fearful of pissing off the Democratic establishment? The measure is fairly popular– an early poll showed Yes on 32 leading 60% – 30%– in a state where Democrats have a large majority. On the other hand, a lot of money can swing those poll numbers fairly quickly.