Against all odds, parents stand up for change
This afternoon, LAUSD released the results of their Public School Choice Resolution "advisory votes." Unfortunately, what started as a promising attempt to gives parents a say in who runs their child's current or future school devolved into a well-documented sham, with all the electoral integrity of a Soviet election (particularly egregious abuses documented here, here, here, here, and here). Voting sides at schools that were 80% or 90% Latino had no Spanish translation capabilities, and turned away Spanish speaking parents who did not understand the process. Parents were routinely told by their children's teachers that a vote for an alternative to the status quo, such as a charter school, would mean their children wouldn't have a school to attend next year, that only kids with A's and B's would be accepted to their school, that children with special needs or English Language Learners would be kicked out, that they'd be forced to pay tuition, or all of the above. Students as young as six and seven years old were brought in and instructed to vote for District plans, and high school students were given extra credit to do the same. UTLA even ran misleading, focus-grouped radio ads and sent glossy mailings - as if this were some political campaign to be won at any cost - referring to charter schools as "corporations" (false), saying they run "experimental schools," (silly and absurd) and directly insinuating that charter schools would not take all students in an attendance boundary (an outright lie).
"But with the mudslinging and questionable behavior by some district staff, the application process has occasionally deteriorated into an ugly disinformation campaign," declared the LA Times last week. Leading education blogger John Fensterwald called on Cortines to "take all the votes and shred them," due to the extremely discredited process.
It was both telling and sad to see some of the very same people who had been engaged in willfully misleading and lying to parents celebrate these votes as if they had won some grand victory. We happen to think that when parents are confused, mislead, and lied to, everybody loses. We think that when conversations about our schools start with anti-immigrant scare tactics like this, and end in outright lies like this, that we have taken several steps back, not forward. Over the last two months, these conversations about reform and choices in the media and with parents have had almost nothing to do with the only thing that should matter - student outcomes, and helping our children graduate from high school and college.
Even against these odds, it was clear that parents wanted change from the status quo. At the new Barack Obama Middle School in South LA, over half the parents (52%) voted for a non-District plan, with 42% specifically supporting ICEF Public Schools. Over 65% of parents at Central Region Elementary voted for Celerity Educational Group over the District plan, and at the new Central Region Elementary #15, over 47% of parents voted for Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, despite a desperate smear campaign against them. At Valley Region Elementary School #10, over 75% of parents voted for a non-District option, with only 25% supporting the District status quo.
We join with UTLA and others in asking Superintendent Cortines to ignore outside political pressure from any group - be it teachers, charter operators, or anyone else. As the Public School Choice Resolution states, this process should be about one thing and one thing only - kids. To maintain any shred of legitimacy in this process, the Superintendent and the board must make decisions based on who will best help our children learn. Period. If they don't, the parents of Los Angeles will lose all faith in this process, and take back real power over their schools by any means necessary, including the parent trigger.
