LA School Report founder Jamie Alter Lynton

Dear Readers:
I am thrilled to announce today a partnership between LA School Report and the online education news site The 74.

I founded LA School Report more than three years ago on the belief that there is an urgent need for quality journalism in the education arena; that without vigorous scrutiny, decisions made by elected officials, special interests and district bureaucrats go unchecked. Why the urgency? Because the Los Angeles public school system – which ranks among the worst in the country –  is profoundly failing the vast majority of students, especially those who are not white and middle class. At the same time the district’s sheer size and diversity make it a national player. If this district can turn itself around, the whole country will benefit.

Since our launch, LA School Report has sought to bring some of the critical issues facing the public school system to the forefront. In this short time, a lot has happened: we have seen in quick succession the district bailed out of a budget crisis with a windfall from the state only to be faced with predictions of bankruptcy; a statewide suspension of academic progress tests that leaves the district – and parents – with no accountability measures, and a fractious, erratic school board that has hired three superintendents in five years and, in a recent clumsy move, put charter schools in its crosshairs instead of targeting its failing schools for improvement.

Amid these events and others, from our daily coverage of the Vergara trial to our in-depth reporting on school board elections, LA School Report has broken stories, won awards and helped galvanize a resurgence of education reporting in Los Angeles.

I believe that more attention and more public discourse spell good news for the 650,000 students in Los Angeles public schools, and in joining forces with The 74 – which takes its name from the number of public school students nationwide – the deeply rooted challenges facing this enormous and unwieldy district will now get a national audience.

With The 74 roster of smart, veteran journalists, we are ready to expand our reach and deepen our coverage. We usher in this next phase with a new executive editor, Laura Greanias, who has been a journalist in Los Angeles for nearly 25 years, including 15 years at the L.A. Times and most recently as city editor of the L.A. Daily News.

Along with our own seasoned staff, who under the leadership of managing editor Michael Janofsky has brought you quality reporting day in and day out, our new partnership will allow us to continue to bring you quality reporting with context and analysis – always with one primary question in mind: What is in the best interest of students?

While our comment section sometimes served as a lively place for informed debate with differing opinions on education issues in Los Angeles, it has increasingly become a repository for diatribes, name-calling, politicking and personal attacks.

As a group of social scientists pointed out in a study called “The “Nasty Effect:” Online Incivility and Risk Perceptions of Emerging Technologies”:

“Much in the same way that watching uncivil politicians argue on television causes polarization among individuals, impolite and incensed blog comments can polarize online users based on value predispositions utilized as heuristics when processing the blog’s information.”

Reuters ended comments on news stories last fall, following Popular Science, which had grown weary of science skeptics. Others, like the Huffington Post now offer comments only through Facebook.

Here at LA School Report, we have asked our readers many times to tone it down. In many cases, it has not worked. While other sites have the capability of vetting comments sections, we have neither the staff nor the technology, and in those instances we have taken down uncivil comments, we are accused of being censors.

With apologies to our readers who have contributed to the healthy debate around education issues, we will be posting our stories without comments — at least for now.

As always, we welcome civil discourse and encourage any and all readers to bring thoughtful points of view to our coverage.

At the same time, we ask readers to refrain from using the site for name-calling, personal attacks, political campaigning and vitriol. We reserve the right to moderate or delete objectionable material, including comments that contain live links.

To make a comment on our site, go to the bottom of the post, click on the words “leave a reply”  then sign in with Facebook, Twitter, Google or Disqus.

Valley Prep Charter in Van Nuys is not overseen by LAUSD

A tiny, rural school district in northern Los Angeles County is under growing scrutiny over its approval of more than 20 new charter schools in the last few years, the majority of them serving students outside of its own district boundaries. At least three are within the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The small district, called Acton-Agua Dulce Unified (AADUSD), is home to just three traditional schools, 1,100 students and one site-based charter school that opened just this year. The district is teetering on the brink of insolvency: it has seen a sharp drop in enrollment in recent years and not enough revenue to meet its budget needs of $10 million – all of which have contributed to its unusual charter policy.

“I’m not denying there is a financial component,” says Acton-Agua Dulce superintendent Brent Woodard, referring to the charter approvals. “But bottom line is I’m an advocate for kids.” He says the district has little choice because of its dwindling resources.  Approving the slew of new charters is good for the charters and good for his district, he says, which has charged up to a 7 percent fee to manage.

“We’ve been called rogue,” he said. “I would disagree.”

Charter schools are independently run but publicly funded schools, typically authorized by local districts that are responsible for overseeing operations and performance. The vast majority of the 1,200 charter schools in California operate within the boundaries of the districts that authorize them.

The large-scale approval approach taken by Acton-Agua Dulce has raised the ire of neighboring school districts, including Los Angeles Unified — where three of those charter schools, Valley Prep Academy 9-12, K-5, and 6-8 opened in the valley at the start of this school year.

Both LAUSD and another neighbor, Newhall Unified, have filed lawsuits to stop the charter schools from operating. According to Sue Ann Salmon Evans, a lawyer representing both LAUSD and Newhall Unified, these out-of-district approvals are a misuse of the charter school act, which states a charter should be located within district boundaries unless it is unable to do so. Those cases are considered “exceptions.”

“Just because they don’t have a building, should they be allowed to pepper the state with charter schools? That’s inconsistent with the charter school act,” she said.

Last month LA Superior court Judge James Chalfont partially agreed, ruling that a newly opened school in Newhall Unified, Einstein Academy, did not have a valid charter and must return to AADUSD to be re-authorized by early next year. The reason: more evidence is needed to establish that the school could claim an exception. The ruling also forbids AADUSD from basing its charter approvals on whether they generate revenue. But the judge allowed the school to continue operating without interruption.

LAUSD is awaiting action by the same judge, perhaps as early as this month.

Part of the issue can be reduced to accountability: while charter schools operate under plenty of scrutiny, their authorizing bodies, primarily school districts, have limited oversight.

“There is very little commonality,” says Myrna Castrejón of the California Charter School Association (CCSA). “There are districts that overreach; there are others that do a very poor job authorizing. We think its time to take a close look at the quality of charter authorization oversight.”

The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) is one entity that oversees school districts, but it does not have authority to tell a district what to do — and can only intervene if a district is financially unstable.

“We count the beans; we can’t tell them what to do with the beans” says Kostas Kalaitzidis, spokesman for the office.

In the case of Acton-Agua Dulce, an independent audit requested by LACOE found the district to be in near insolvency. Among other issues, the report questioned the high fee the district claimed to oversee the charters. In August it directed the district to cut that fee by $740,000, as well implement cost-saving measures such as layoffs.

But the county does not have the authority determine whether or not Acton-Agua Dulce’s proliferation of out-of-district approvals is a valid practice. That is up to the courts or the legislature.

In September, a bill intended to address the issue went to Governor Jerry Brown, but he vetoed it, saying that “while this bill attempts to solve a real problem,” it was written too broadly.

FOUR VOTES NEEDED (AND ITS PUBLIC)
When the board meets behind closed-doors on Oct. 21 at least four members must approve of Deasy’s performance to extend his contract beyond its current expiration, in 2016.  Ditto for ousting Deasy — a consensus of four is a tall order for a fractured board, long plagued by in-fighting and competing ideologies. According to our math (see below) there are not many signs that four members are seeing eye to eye – especially when they know the vote would have to be made public.

LOOMING ELECTION
The variables at play for each board member on ‘the Deasy question’ can be reduced to the election next March, when four of the seven members must defend their seats. School board elections can cost millions, pitting the teachers union against a coalition of SEIU and reform groups. Board members and even the teachers union, may want to avoid having Deasy’s departure become a campaign issue.

STUDENTS HAVE MADE PROGRESS
To complicate matters, the district has shown improvement under Deasy, and while the teachers union may condemn him, his policies and stances seem to be popular with the public, including his pivotal support of the Vergara lawsuit last year that challenged teacher tenure laws. He has modernized, streamlined and reorganized at LAUSD, prevailed under dismal economic conditions and formulated a budget this year that was praised publicly by every single board member.

BOARD OWNS iPAD CONTROVERSY TOO
Like it or not, the school board was complicit in every phase of the now controversial initiative to purchase iPads for LAUSD students.  While Deasy is taking heat for his push to put iPads in the classroom, the board supported him in the effort, voting unanimously as recently as January to approve Phase II of the rollout. The board may now find it hard to make iPads an excuse for ousting him.

DEASY MAY LEAVE FIRST
Deasy has told close confidants that he is fed up with the hostility on the board, and is concerned about his health. The LA Times reports talks have been underway, and reaching an agreement would enable both sides to announce an amiable parting, leaving the ugliness of recent months behind them. This is the option that would suit his detractors on the board just fine.

 WHERE DO BOARD MEMBERS STAND ON JOHN DEASY?

Bennett Kayser
District 5 (Griffith Park, Huntington Park)
Kayser, a former science teacher, who was elected in 2011 with the help of more than a million dollars from the teachers union, is considered Deasy’s staunchest opponent. He has voiced opposition to most of the Deasy-led reforms including expanding school choice options and charter schools. He surprised members of the board when he circulated a memo more than a year ago asking for a Deasy succession plan. Kayser is up for re-election in March against three opponents.

Monica Ratliff
District 6 (East San Fernando Valley)
One of the most recent additions to the school board, Ratliff, a former lawyer and 5th grade teacher, was elected with the support of the teachers union. She was the only abstention last year at Deasy’s performance review. Despite voting to support Phase 2 of the iPad rollout, Ratliff has emerged as the program’s most vocal critic. In August, she released a report highly critical of Deasy’s role in the program. Deasy issued a memo calling Ratliff’s report, “false and misleading.”  

Tamar Galatzan
District 3 (West Valley, Sherman Oaks)
The only board member with children enrolled in the district, Galatzan was elected in 2007 with the help of then Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and a coalition of education reformers. Re-elected in 2011, Galatzan has consistently supported Deasy-led initiatives including increased school autonomy and expanding school choice. Galatzan is up for relection in March, facing at least four opponents.

Monica Garcia
District 2 (Downtown, East Los Angeles)
First elected in a special election in 2006, Garcia ran unopposed in 2009 and won easily again in 2013 with the help of reform groups. Calling her newsletter ‘the Cradle of Reform’, Garcia is an unabashed booster of school choice, charter school expansion and a staunch supporter of Deasy. She served as the president of the school board for six years, including when Deasy was first hired as superintendent.

Richard Vladovic
District 7 (East LA, San Pedro)
A former teacher and principal, Vladovic was first elected in 2007 and again in 2011 with the help of reform groups and then Mayor Antontio Villaraigosa. While lately Vladovic has become a less predictable supporter of reform efforts and of the superintendent, he is up for re-election in March and may want to be cautious. Last year, he cast his vote to support Deasy on the same day his colleagues on the board were deciding whether or not to censure Vladovic for alleged sexual harassment.

George McKenna
District 1 (South LA)
The most recent addition to the school board, McKenna was elected last August in a special election with the support of the teachers union. He has publicly criticized Deasy for his handling of a sex abuse case at Miramonte elementary school where Deasy removed the entire staff after a teacher was accused of lewd conduct. The teacher was later convicted and most of the staff returned. McKenna himself was the area supervisor at the time.  While sources say McKenna is not an ally of Deasy’s, he did tell the LA Times that he would let Deasy serve out his contract, and he is facing an election in March.

Steve Zimmer
District 4 (West LA, Hollywood)
A former teacher, Zimmer was elected first in 2009 and again in 2013 after a bruising battle against a reform-funded candidate. While considered friendly to many reform initiatives he was elected with financial help from the teachers union. Often seen as a swing vote on the board, Zimmer avoids picking sides, and frequently steps in to play the role of conciliator in a controversy. Last year, Zimmer came out publicly to support Deasy before his review. This year, according to a source, while he would like to avoid a vote – he might not be willing to pull the trigger in a tie-breaker.

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy

The LA Unified school board has scheduled a last-minute closed-door meeting next week to discuss its top employee, superintendent John Deasy. Sources tell LA School Report that the meeting was called to give the seven school board members a chance to discuss what criteria they would like to include in the superintendent’s upcoming annual performance review, scheduled for Oct. 21.

The closed session, as well as a “special” open meeting were added to the board schedule late yesterday — the closed session reportedly at the request of board member Monica Ratliff, one of Deasy’s more vocal critics. Both meetings are set for September 30, starting at 4 pm.

According to people familiar with the closed session agenda, board members will have the opportunity to discuss what they consider fair game for Deasy’s annual performance evaluation. Under no circumstances, said one of the sources, would a vote be held to determine Deasy’s employment. According to that source, Deasy has the right to attend, but because it is not his official performance review, he isn’t required to.

When reached by LA School Report, the superintendent declined to comment. School board members did not return messages seeking comment.

While the board is bound by no legal requirements to cite any reason for dismissing Deasy — he is essentially an at-will employee whose contract with the district allows the board to fire him at any time — his contract has the unusual stipulation made at his behest that requires the board to evaluate his performance annually based on broad goals, such as graduation rates, student proficiency, attendance, parent engagement and school safety.

To renew his tenure, four of the seven board members must find his performance  “satisfactory.”

Three sources who discussed the newly schedule meeting with LA School Report said at this juncture there are not enough votes to fire Deasy, who was hired in 2011 to take over from Ramon Cortines under a friendlier school board.

But that, of course, could change.. Despite academic gains and lower dropout rates districtwide under Deasy’s leadership, he has also generated widespread criticism for any number of issues, including fallout for the iPad program, the continuing problems with the student-tracking system known as MiSiS and his strong-willed leadership style.

How much those factors and others, the good and the bad, should count in a review will be determined in the closed session — and likely divide the members between those who would keep him and those who would vote him out.

Previous Posts: What’s next *if* Deasy is out? Speculation abounds; Deasy on his critics: Constant attacks are ‘politically motivated’; Teachers union changes tactics, urges board to ‘evaluate’ Deasy*

Attorney General Kamala Harris (photo by KNX)

California Attorney General Kamala Harris appeared at LA Unfiied’s Malabar Elementary School today to highlight a report on truancy released by her office this week that shows a high correlation between attendance problems and both income and race.

But the argument she’s using to bring attention to the issue is curious: the report notes the high rates of absenteeism “interfere with students’ right to an education under the California Constitution.”

Sound familiar? You may remember that students’ rights argument from the Vergara case, in which a judge struck down California’s teacher tenure and dismissal laws based on findings that the laws interfered with students’ right to a quality education protected under the California constitution.

But Harris apparently didn’t buy it – late last month she joined the teachers union to fight that ruling by filing an appeal on behalf of the state, putting her at odds with recent public polling on the issue.

Meanwhile, back to the report. It found a high correlating between truancy and race: 37 percent of African American elementary students sampled were truant, the highest of any subgroup (including homeless students) and 15 percentage points higher than the rate for all students. African American elementary school students are also chronically truant at nearly four times the rate of all students.
The report could not pinpoint the exact reasons for the stark difference without better tracking and data. It noted that, “African American children experience many of the most common barriers to attendance – including health issues, poverty, transportation problems, homelessness, and trauma – in greater concentration than most other populations.”

Harris has crafted legislation – now awaiting the signature of Governor Jerry Brown – which she says will help address some of the issues. Among the proposed fixes are beefing up student support systems and streamlining how the state shares and tracks student absences.

Marked by voter low-turnout, the unofficial final results were: McKenna, 14,940; Johnson, 13,153. Voter turnout was low, with just eight percent of the voters coming to the polls.

The two candidates, both African American, split support among black leaders and elected officials, some of whom went to the mat to help the candidate of their choice: Congresswoman Maxine Waters took the unusual step of using her own campaign funds to send out campaign literature on behalf of McKenna; Mark Ridley-Thomas campaigned door-to-door for Johnson and used his network to raise money for his bid.

Outside influence was also an issue. Despite making his reputation when he was a principal and school turnaround champion by challenging the teachers union, McKenna won the support of the union in the special runoff, which used its political muscle to help reach out to voters. Johnson meanwhile attracted almost $800,000 in outside superPAC money, much of it from reform-minded education funders, who see him as a strong supporter of LA Unified’s outspoken Superintendent John Deasy.  McKenna has refused to publicly share his views on Deasy, while his union backers, UTLA, have frequently demanded Deasy’s resignation.

Despite significantly less money, McKenna won by a safe 7 percent margin, but that amounted to the difference of a few thousand votes. Due to low voter turnout and renewed strength by the Johnson camp, McKenna lost voters since the June 3 primary. In that race he received 20,000 votes – 5000 more than he attracted in yesterday’s election. Johnson gained about 3000 more voters than he had won in the June primary election.

In the end, almost 9 months after long-time board member Marguerite LaMotte died in office, the school board will now once again have a full, seven member panel, and the south Los Angeles district, plagued by poverty and low performing schools, will once again have representation. As the new board member, McKenna could provide the deciding vote in a number of crucial issues facing the district including threats from the teachers union that is preparing to strike. But his role will need to be renewed by voters in just six months, when the regularly scheduled school board race takes place in March of next year.

Set for August 12, the stand-alone election not only falls in the dog days of summer, but also hits on the first day of school, when parents tend to have their minds on other things.

Some election experts are predicting that turnout could drop below the disappointing primary turnout, which was  just 13 percent.

“It will be really low, probably under 10 percent,” says Bill Carrick, a Democratic political strategist, who doesn’t have a horse in the school board race.

The vacancy, left by the death of longtime school board member Marguerite LaMotte, is a runoff contest between the top two vote-getters from a field of seven in the June primary: Alex Johnson an up-and-coming aide to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, and George McKenna, a retired school administrator with a long record of service in LAUSD.  McKenna won the primary with nearly 45 percent of the vote — shy of the 50 percent he needed to win outright. Johnson came in second, with 24 percent.

That election coincided with the statewide primary, but still underperformed estimates.

Even more pessimistic is Fernando Guerra, director the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, who told LA School Report that a runoff might attract only 5 percent of the 340,000 voters registered in the district.

A look at the history of orphan elections in the LA area supports those predictions. (See graphic).

The most recent special election in Los Angeles last December, when Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, son of the County Supervisor, Mark Ridley Thomas, won the contest for a vacant state assembly seat in south LA, in a race that garner an 8.6 percent turnout. Two other special elections last year were also marked by low turnout: Holly Mitchell won for state senate in south LA with a turnout of 5.5 percent, and Nury Martinez won for city council, with a turnout of 11 percent.

If low turnout predictions hold, each voter who does go to the polls has outsized clout.  A turnout of 5 percent in the school board race would translate into a candidate winning the race with as few as 8,500 votes.

Should a parent company operate its charter school network as a single entity, as MPS does with its 11 California charters? Or should each school be run independently, with separate budgets and governance?

LA Unified last month closed two MPS schools, saying financial problems at the parent company rose to the “level of fiscal mismanagement.”  But by scrutinizing the financial health of the overall charter management organization, the district has tread into uncharted territory for an authorizer.

“This is an emerging issue, and my guess is a lot of legislatures will have to address this in the near future,” says Kathy Christie of the Education Commission of the States, which compiles research on charter school practices nationally.

The school closures followed a District audit that not only examined Magnolia Science Academy 6 and Academy 7, both high-performing schools, but also MPS as the parent group. The audit found among other things that MPS met the IRS definition of being “insolvent” as of June 2013, that it owed millions of dollars to the schools it oversees and that it transferred money between schools. It also found that it paid millions of dollars to a third party non-profit, Accord, for educational services with little accountability.

All that, the audit said, “not only raises significant questions about the governance and overall health of the organization but . . . of its future likelihood of success.”

As a result, LA Unified is expanding its investigation into the district’s other MPS schools, Superintendent John Deasy told LA School Report last week.

MPS disputes the findings of the audit and denies any fiscal malfeasance. (MPS is in court today, asking a judge to block the district’s effort to close the two science academies. See story here.)

One of the central questions for the district is the structure of governance: the Magnolia network runs its 11 schools under an “umbrella model,” using a single, tax-exempt non-profit status, under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and one governing board.

And even as California continues to strengthen laws that govern the accountability of individual charter schools, the effort does not extend to the parent organizations, which answer to the IRS, not to the school districts. Thus, contracts between the parent company and third parties, as well as money transferred between the parent and the schools, is hard to track and not necessarily in the purview of the local school district.

Kim Onisko an accounting consultant for MPS defends the umbrella practice, saying it is perfectly legal and vastly more efficient for the schools. “Otherwise, you would need a board for every school,” he told LA School Report.

While other charter operators use the same approach, many do not. One of the largest networks in LA Unified, the Alliance for College-Ready Schools, applies a different model. Says CFO David Hyun, “We don’t want to run the risk of jeopardizing the whole network for one school. Let’s say you have a catastrophe at one school, you don’t want it to circulate through the whole system.”

For the Alliance, which operates 22 high-performing charters serving high-needs students in Los Angeles, separating each school’s operations makes good business sense, Hyun said. Each school is run as an individual non-profit, with a separate governance structure and separate programmatic and financial accountability.

That model is gaining favor in some states. Colorado, for example, passed a law last year that requires each individual charter school to be organized as a nonprofit corporation, separate from its management organization, so that the schools are more accountable to the district.

But in California, short of an operator electing to run its networks that way, the relationship between a school’s finances and the finances of its parent company remains undefined.

In fact, there is even confusion over whether a district can require a charter applicant to provide any information about its parent organization, according to Alice Miller of the California Charter School Association, which is helping MPS protest the closures.

“That’s not covered by charter law,” she said. “A [Charter Management Organization] has the option of providing, or not providing the information. The law has never been expanded to include that requirement. It may never have occurred to anyone when charter law was created.”

Previous Posts: Magnolia going into court to keep 2 of its charters open; Magnolia charter troubles having an impact beyond LA Unified; JUST IN: LAUSD expands probe into Magnolia charter schools; oanaokcn

In a letter outlining a recent fiscal audit that led to the closure of the two LA Unified schools, Magnolia Science Academy-6 and Magnolia Science Academy-7, district officials detailed a number of irregularities and called the parent organization itself “insolvent.”

At least one other county has noticed.

“We will pay attention to this – we wouldn’t want to find out that our school would have to close because other schools are in trouble,” said Don Bolce, director of special projects at the Santa Clara County Office of Education, which renewed a charter petition last year for a Magnolia school located on the outskirts of Cupertino after reviewing concerns about the school’s finances.

“We recognize that with a charter school that is part of a charter management organization, a problem at one school could impact other schools – if there is a problem, it endangers the system,” he told LA School Report.

Messages seeking comment from Mehmet Argin, the MPS chief executive, were not immediately returned.

MPS currently operates 11 schools across California: eight in LAUSD, plus three others, including one in Santa Ana that has been of concern to school and county officials in Orange County despite winning approval for $18 million in facilities bond money.

Magnolia has also closed — and attempted to open — numerous other schools in various districts in recent years. (See list below).

For MPS, the problems in LA Unified are just the latest in a series of issues that have plagued the nonprofit in recent years. It has faced numerous audits of its schools as well as accusations of an association with a Turkish group called the Gulen movement, an Islamist-based group involved in education in countries around the world that has been accused of creating a cult-like environment in its schools.

An examination by LA School Report of public documents reveals a history of concern by officials around California who have repeatedly flagged financial issues.  Here is a rundown of some of the activity that MPS taken in recent years:

District Charter – San Diego Unified School District 

• SD Magnolia Science Academy 2
  Closed 2010: MPS had won a charter petition to open the school in 2009, but after a year’s delay, it opened with only eight students enrolled. It was closed by the district mid-semester in 2010.

• Magnolia Next Generation Charter
  Denied 2014: MPS submitted a charter petition numerous times to the school district to open Next Generation. In denying the charter this year, the district said the organization was “demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in the petition because the petitioners have presented an unrealistic operational plan for the proposed charter with respect to facilities and enrollment.”

• Magnolia Science Academy 3
  Awarded petition but never opened: charter expired, June 2014

• Magnolia Science Academy – San Diego open since 2005
  Renewal petition slated for 2015: The district sent warnings to MPS in both 2011 and 2012 after finding it had a negative ending fund balance and an inadequate reserve.

Countywide Charter – Santa Clara County Board of Education

• Magnolia Science Academy — Santa Clara
  Renewal approved 2013: Reservations stemming from its financial footing were flagged in a staff report that cited concerns with the school’s “negative fund balances, negative cash flow, poor fiscal accounting procedures, and internal control weaknesses.” Since then, according to Bolce, the county monitored its progress, and the school made the necessary adjustments. “Our biggest concerns were that we saw some operational concerns, the thing that was driving it for us – we had concerns about the school’s solvency…that was because the state was deferring payment.”

Statewide Benefit Charter

• Pacific Technology School-Orangevale  (Near Sacramento)
  Closed 2013: This school strugged with enrollment and financial issues, and was flagged by the state as being in “Poor Financial Condition.” According to a memo issued by Secretary of Education, Tom Torlakson last year, the school had  a “negative fund balance trend is an indicator that demonstrates poor fiscal management practices and if unabated may result in financial insolvency or (California Dept. of Education/State Board of Education) action.” The school was closed in June 2013.

• Santa Ana Pacific Charter/Magnolia Santa Ana (190 students 6-12)
  Renewed April 2014: Operating for five years as a “statewide benefit charter,” authorized by the California Department of Education, this school was forced to seek a new authorizer when its sister school in Orangevale closed. (The state requires an operator to have two schools under a statewide benefit charter). Last year, the state put it on a list of schools in “Poor Financial Condition,” and when the operator sought authorization from the Santa Ana Unified School District, the district denied the petition, citing fiscal concerns. The appeal was denied by the Orange County Department of Education in February of this year. On appeal, the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools State Board of Education voted in favor of awarding a the charter despite a staff report citing financial concerns.The school is on track to receive $18 million dollars in bond money for a new facility.

Previous Posts: JUST IN: LAUSD expands probe into Magnolia charter schools; ‘Fiscal mismanagement’ cited in closing 2 Magnolia charters; Two LAUSD charter schools face closure after fiscal audit

Coinciding with the California statewide primary on June 3, the special election was called to fill the District 1 board seat, left vacant by death last year of longtime member Marguerite LaMotte.

We asked Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, whose expertise in local politics helped steer Mayor Eric Garcetti, among many others, to victory, for his armchair analysis based on the number of candidates in the field — although not on the specific candidates themselves.

Carrick concedes, “It’s tough to get to ‘fifty-plus-one,’ ” the magic majority for an outright win.

Tough but not impossible.  Here’s what he says the potential winner needs:

Great name recognition: “In a large field, with lots of challengers name recognition is especially important. Running up a huge margin in a race without an incumbent is hard. The kind of name ID a candidate would need usually doesn’t come easily with a non-incumbent.”

A robust campaign operation: The idea, he says, is to generate enough community support that the second-place candidate stays below 40 percent. It’s harder in such a larger field, he says, making the campaign operation all the more important.

Hope the lesser-known candidates don’t ‘pop’: “If the lowliers add up to more than 10 percent combined, it gets much harder.”

Fingers-crossed for a high turnout: It helps the frontrunner in a crowded field; low turnout magnifies the power of each vote cast.

What could all this mean for the presumed front-runner, George McKenna?

McKenna may have what it takes to avoid a runoff, but the math is not in his favor.

A familiar, well-liked figure in the district and a retired LAUSD administrator, he does have name recognition. He was the subject of a made-for-TV movie about turning around a failing school in the 1980s called the “George McKenna Story,” starring Denzel Washington. He’s also well-funded, with $122,000 raised (including $10,000 of his own) through the last reporting period, according the the City Ethics website.

The problem may the lesser-known candidates hanging below 10 percent. While Alex Johnson, an aide to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, is running second, according to sources, and he, too, has a well-funded campaign, $208,000 as of the last reporting period. It is the rest of the pack that could siphon votes from McKenna.

Genethia Hudley-Hayes, who held this same seat 15 years ago, is also a recognizable name in the district. She has raised $105,000, including $40,000 of her own, and has recently distributed mail pieces, although details have not yet been made clear on the Ethics website.

Another unknown factor is the appeal of Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, a teacher and coach, who is one of three candidates endorsed by the teachers union. While UTLA’s super PAC, PACE, is staying out of the race, Hendy-Newbill got a boost this week with an endorsement from an advocacy group led by Diane Ravitch, one of the strongest voices in the country opposed to standardized testing and charter schools.

District 1, which covers a wide swath of south LA, stretching east to the 110 freeway and west through Mar Vista has over 300,000 registered voters, but the turnout has been historically low for school board elections. Last time, in 2011, the turnout was below 15 percent.

Using those turnout numbers, in order for McKenna to beat Johnson outright, the other five candidates would have to share fewer than 5,000 votes.

With three weeks to go before the election, George McKenna, a leading candidate for the LA Unified school board representing south LA, is refusing to clarify whether he supports John Deasy, the district’s current superintendent.

McKenna’s unwillingness to provide a clear answer comes at an important time for the school district, the second-largest in the country, as it faces contract negotiations with teachers and other union members, an approaching deadline on a challenging budget and an ongoing shift in curriculum.

Although Deasy has an impressive record in his three years at the helm, including raising student achievement and graduation rates, recent school board elections have eroded his support.

While The Los Angeles Times endorsed McKenna from among the seven candidates in an editorial that indicates he is a strong supporter of Deasy, there has been concern by some who have discussed issues with him that he could be changing his story behind closed doors.

A source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told LA School Report of attending a meeting in which McKenna said flatly, “the first thing he would do is fire Deasy.”

McKenna denied that in a letter to LA School Report  saying, “this is a total fabrication as I never said that or ever conveyed such sentiments.”

Fueling uncertainty were remarks McKenna made during and after a candidate forum earlier this week. The first question, from a charter school parent and former teacher, directly addressed the question of mixed messages:

“We have heard widely different reports on your point of view on Superintendent Deasy and his tenure with the district. Very specifically, do you believe the superintendent is doing a good job with the district and if elected would you support keeping Deasy’s current contract in place through 2016, or would you work to reopen and reconsider?”

McKenna dodged the question, answering, “Your question to me is not misplaced, but it is a question I have no interest in, whether the superintendent’s contract is reopened or not.”

After the forum, when LA School Report sought to clarify McKenna’s response, he again declined to answer directly, saying, “I am not an elected official, I am a private citizen watching a Superintendent in the newspaper.”

Despite numerous follow-up efforts to elaborate, McKenna would not budge:

LA School Report: “What other information would you need about John Deasy’s performance in order to decide on?”
McKenna: “You give me a particular issue.”
LA School Report: “No, no I’m asking what you would need as a board member?      (he addresses another person)
LA School Report: “But the voter needs to assess these candidates based on what we think their positions are going to be…”
McKenna: “I know what you are trying to do…”
LA School Report: “No, no it’s not uncommon to find out what a candidate’s position is…”
McKenna: “For you. For you as a journalist…”
LA School Report: “As a voter…”
McKenna: “I cannot tell the voter what my position is on John Deasy. I’ve never supervised him, I never have.”
LA School Report: “But we’re asking you to [supervise him] if we vote for you…”
McKenna: “If I get there, I will.”
LA School Report: “Then you’ll tell us your position?”
McKenna: “Not my position, each issue one at a time.”

He added moments later: “Who gives a damn about John Deasy? Whoever is the superintendent that’s the one I’m about. John Deasy might take himself out before I come. He might run if he sees me coming. He might look for some place else to work. So this would be a moot discussion.”

The District 1 seat has been vacant since late last year when long-time school board member Marguerite LaMotte, a vocal Deasy opponent, died in office. Covering much of south LA, the district has been plagued with low-performing schools, and community members are eager to have a representative on the board in place.

The election will be held on June 3, with a runoff scheduled for August if no candidate exceeds 50 percent of the vote.

*Updated to reflect McKenna’s response.

The latest forum for candidates running in a special election to fill the vacant seat in South LA’s District 1 produced unexpected agreement last night on some of the most volatile issues in public education.

The four contenders who participated — Alex Johnson, Rachel Johnson, Genethia Hudley-Hayes and George McKenna — saw eye to eye on nearly every core issue involving charter schools, including those that have been particularly contentious for the Los Angeles Unified school board.

The consensus could be partially attributed to catering to the crowd: the event was sponsored by CCSA Families, an advocacy group affiliated with the California Charter School Association, and more than 200 parents and teachers, many of whom were wearing CCSA Families t-shirts, filled the room at at Mount Moriah Baptist Church.

But the area has long been plagued with low-performing schools in a high-needs population, and charters have proven popular with parents.

Even the sole candidate endorsed by the teacher’s union, Rachel Johnson, was unabashed in her support of charters – despite the union’s fierce criticism.

“We [must] move past that adversarial ‘oh, the charter schools are taking us over’ idea” she said. “No. Charter schools are educating our students.”

Seven candidates are competing in the June 3 special election. The four last night agreed that charter schools are higher performing than traditional public schools and should be used as models; that there should be no cap or limit on charter growth; that ‘co-location’ between public charter schools and traditional public schools should be supported.

Perhaps most surprising was consensus that charter school operators should be allowed to takeover failing traditional school – a privilege that the board stripped from charter operators in its agreement with the teachers union three years ago.

The event was marked by polite restraint and only the slightest sign of criticism.

“We can’t keep doing the same old things that we were doing [30 years ago],” Alex Johnson, an aide to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, said to much applause. “We just can’t. It is ineffective, and it is unacceptable and our children deserve change here and now.” Two of his opponents, McKenna, and Hudley-Hayes are more than twice his age, 33, and have been involved with LAUSD for decades.

If there were buzzwords of the evening, they were “accountability,” mentioned by every candidate numerous times; “choice” and “scale.”

“If they (charter schools) are doing a better job, we need to figure out what they are doing, find out what can be brought up to scale,” said Hudley-Hayes.

In a rare divergence, McKenna, a recently retired administrator, broke rank with the others on the question of his support of current LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy. While his three adversaries voiced support for Deasy, McKenna said the issue of whether the superintendent is doing a good job and whether he would support re-opening Deasy’s contract, “is a question I have no interest in, whether the superintendent’s contract is reopened or not.”

McKenna later told LA School Report that as a private citizen, he doesn’t “know enough about the Superintendent’s performance” to evaluate him and refused numerous times when pressed to answer.

McKenna also got the closest to touching controversy by bringing up teacher and principal effectiveness, the third rail of education.

“We cannot have effective schools if we don’t have effective teachers…the performance of the schools is based on the teachers and the most critical person in any school is the principal,” he said. “You cannot have an effective school with an ineffective principal.“

The room expressed approval of his position, and that might have been because the teacher’s union, a vocal opponent to evaluations and charter growth in general, was not represented in the crowd or on the stage.

Two other candidates endorsed by UTLA did not appear at all: according to a CCSA staff member, Sherlett Hendy-Newbill canceled due to a scheduling conflict, and Hattie McFrazier,  did not respond to the invitation.  Omarosa Manigault canceled due to a last minute illness.

Graciela Martinez and Himelda Gonzalez, both mothers at a charter school in South LA, said they came to the forum unsure whom they would support.

They went home saying they would vote for McKenna, impressed with his views on accountability of principals.

“The principal is the most important,” said Martinez, pausing to find the right phrase in English. “if the head is not working, the school is not working.”

Called the “Sunshine Committee,” it is intended to bring transparency to the negotiating process. According to a district memo issued last August, the committee’s mission is to provide a forum for parent representatives to review initial bargaining proposals between LAUSD and its labor partners. Among the items on the agenda today are teacher evaluations and an initial bargaining proposal from the principals’ union, AALA.

The formation of the committee signals a policy change for the district, which for years fulfilled its disclosure requirements by giving only minimal public notice at school board meetings, as required by law. Any public access to the secretive negotiation process is a rarity in California, where negotiations with school employee unions is specifically exempted by law from the Brown Act, which requires public access to meetings of local agencies.

In practice, however, the new committee is still a long way from transparent. According to a district staff member, the Sunshine Committee’s meetings are not considered public; no minutes of the meetings are taken; the names of the parent-members appointed to the committee are not publicly available, and information about the contract proposals themselves is not posted on the website.

The staff member said the office is currently updating its website, and some documents relating to past meetings, could not be made available.

In addition to negotiating with the principals union (AALA), LA Unified is expected to enter into labor negotiations with its two largest labor partners SEIU and UTLA in the next few weeks.

Discussions related to collective bargaining issues is one of the few occasions in which school board members may meet or discuss issues outside of public view.

* A previous version of this story stated that a document presented before the committee in August was not available on the LAUSD website. It is, and can be found here.

Genethia Hudley-Hayes

Despite her inability to substantiate a number of academic credentials and other claims on her resume, Genethia Hudley-Hayes still has the backing of  her major supporters in the race for the LA Unified District 1 board seat.

“Outsiders don’t get it,” said one longtime south Los Angeles activist who spoke to LA School Report on the condition of anonymity. “Our community closes rank when it feels attacked.”

Still in her camp is one of her biggest endorsers — U.S. Congresswoman Karen Bass, whose district overlaps with the open board seat, left vacant by the death of longtime board member Marguerite LaMotte.  Bass told LA School Report, “There has been a lot of carelessness and it’s extremely unfortunate. But I will continue to support her.”

District 1 stretches from Hancock Park south to Long Beach. The population is increasingly Hispanic, but for 40 years, voters have consistently elected a black woman to the school board.

Former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who along with Bass announced his endorsement of Hudley Hayes in February, before discrepancies in her resume were confirmed, has apparently not changed his position. Messages left by LA School Report asking if he has withdrawn his endorsement were not returned.

The timing is important: with candidates busy preparing direct mail pieces timed to drop when vote-by-mail ballots arrive early next month, a high-profile face featured on campaign literature can make a big difference in swaying voters. The special election is scheduled for June 3.

Bass said Hudley-Hayes, who served as on the school board as president more than 10 years ago, bring the board together. “She has a long track record of working on educational issues,” she said. ” She was able to build consensus amongst board members on a variety of issues at a contentious period of time.”

Via KPCC

In his first State of the City speech, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti laid out a plan to boost job creation, safety and the city’s ability to compete in a global economy.

Noticeably absent, however, was any mention of the vast education challenges facing the city.

The Mayor’s vision of Los Angeles was notable for its optimism and his passion. And the half-hour speech (transcript here) was heavy on specifics — including a focus on neighborhood improvements, DWP rates and carpool lanes. He cited how he “pushed and prodded” the feds to open a lane on the 405 earlier than expected, and he pledged to “pave more streets and fix more sidewalks.”

But wait, is he talking . . . potholes?

I couldn’t help but flash back to my home town, Chicago, where the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, ran the city with an iron fist for more than 20 years in the 60s and 70s. Boss Daley knew how to fill a pothole, but sadly, at the same time he presided over a disastrous decline in the city’s pubic education system.

Mayor Garcetti’s goal, of “building a better city,” while admirable, is ultimately not achievable without addressing the elephant in the room — education — and his hands-off approach is bad for students, parents and ultimately the economy. The recent departure of Thelma Melendez, who carried the title of education deputy but in practice was almost invisible makes matters worse. And, so far, he hasn’t named a replacement.

Granted, the mayor’s office in Los Angeles officially exerts very little control over the vast LA Unified School District, run by an often fractured seven-member elected board. But that didn’t stop Garcetti’s predecessors from using the bully pulpit to try and enhance the educational opportunities for city students. The outgoing Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, who considered improving public education his mission, devoted a large portion of his 2013 State of the City address to education and saw it as vitally linked to job-growth and the economy.

The district is slowly improving, but challenges like high dropout rates and low student achievement are so profound that it’s hard to argue that all hands should not be on deck, especially those of the mayor.

And the excuse of not having mayoral control? Well, the last time I looked, the mayor doesn’t have much influence on the 405 federal highway project, either.

Genethia Hudley-Hayes

Rather than jump to conclusions in the case of allegations first reported here earlier this month, that a LA Unified School Board candidate, Genethia Hudley-Hayes, has numerous inaccuracies in her resume, we at LA School Report embarked on our own due-diligence.

What we found were a series of repeated conflicts and inconsistencies over a number of years, without any apparent attempt to publicly set the record straight, thus posing serious questions about her candidacy for LA Unified school board race on June 3.

The controversy first came to light when campaign staff for Alex Johnson, one of her opponents, approached the Hudley-Hayes campaign before the filing deadline, recommending she drop out quietly for what his campaign calls “a pattern of pattern of academic falsification.” (See story here). Instead, Hudley-Hayes, a longtime civic leader and public servant, responded publicly that she would not be “bullied” out of the race. (See story here).

To get to the bottom, our own reporters have done their best to verify, independently, the accuracy of her current resume and her past biographies. Here are the inconsistencies LA School Report has found:

1. Hudley-Hayes’ current resume states that in 1972 she received a “M.Ed Pepperdine University, Malibu California.”

According to the public relations office of the graduate school for education and psychology at Pepperdine University, “Genethia Hudley-Hayes graduated in 8/1978 with an M.S. in ECE- Early Childhood Ed.”

That date conflicts with the date listed on her current resume by six years.

2.  Hudley-Hayes’ current resume states that in 1976 she received an “MBA, emphasis on non-profit management California State University, San Jose and The Center for Nonprofit Management.” Hudley Hayes told LA School Report that the degree was issued by the Center for Nonprofit Management to a class of 18 people that year.

According to the public relations office at SJSU (as it is now known) it has “no record of a person by this name obtaining a degree from San Jose State.”

While there is a Center for Nonprofit Management in Los Angeles, it was founded in 1979 and does not award degrees. We requested degree documentation from the Hudley-Hayes’ campaign, which responded the candidate “can not find the certificate in her belongings” from 38 years ago.

We can find no independent verification of this degree.

3. Hudley-Hayes’ current resume states that in 1994 she became a “Certified Mediator, State of California.”

While training programs do offer degrees and certificates, according to the Southern California Mediators Association the state does not certify mediators. They told LA School Report,

“A reference to a “state certified” a mediator would not be accurate.”

In addition to discrepancies on her current resume, Hudley-Hayes also faces serious additional issues on past biographies including reference to a doctorate from American University.

• On the LAUSD website a biography from her term on the LA Unfied School Board states that, “she was awarded a doctorate in education in May of 2000, with a specialization in public policy.”

• In a biography on the L.A. Fire Department website from 2005 when Hudley-Hayes was appointed to the Fire Commission, states that in “in 2000, she was awarded a doctorate in Political Science/Public Policy.”

• In a 2010 a biography announcing her appointment as special trustee for the Compton Community College District Hudley-Hayes is referred to as “Dr. Hudley-Hayes” with “a doctorate in education with a specialization in public policy from American University.”

• In the announcement in 2010 for re-appointment to the Fire Commission the press release states that, “in 2000, she was awarded a doctorate from American University in Public Policy.”

Hudley-Hayes’ campaign spokesman told LA School Report she received an honorary doctorate from American World University in 2000, not American University, and described the mistake “a typo.” Hudley-Hayes says she no longer includes it on her resume although it appeared in a press release from 2010.

American World University is an unaccredited degree program which is considered a “fraudulent or substandard degree” by at least two states. The phone number listed on its website is not working.

Independent confirmation of an honorary doctorate could not be confirmed.

In addition, Hudley-Hayes failed to clarify the impression given to the public over a number of years that her degree was awarded by a highly regarded academic institution, rather than through a unaccredited online program.

How many resume errors can voters tolerate? That remains to be seen. Let us know what you think.