It was an awesome spectacle this Tuesday at Beaudry. In concert with the superintendent’s job evaluation and on cue for maximal impact and disruption, a parade of circus performers enacted astroturf’ed performance art for the full spectrum of media, replete with daisies for Deasy. Cute. [Some were confused by the distribution of flowers they thought were mums: Um, no….] These provided a convenient visual for labeling those allowed to speak during public comment and those precluded. There are allegations of speaker’s cards refused those without daisies. And video from the close of the session showing angry stakeholders denied a voice in the comment process. Tuesday’s debacle was directed from stem to stern by off-stage handlers and PR professionals. While meanwhile the rest of us stayed home, unrepresented and unheard regarding the malfeasance of this superintendent’s reign.
Understand well who is able to turn out on a weekday. Understand better who is unable to.
Anyone with a job, will be unable to attend the circus. That would preclude attendance by any of the 91% of teachers who voted “no confidence” in their leader and employer. They were represented by a mere one, their union president, and by one of their own fired in microcosmic display of the superintendent’s immature, irascible and unprofessional modus operandi. Likewise no school administrators were present, though their own rank and file confess similar dismay with those at the top.
Most missed in their inability to attend, were the preponderance of LAUSD parents employed in ways that utterly preclude representation at these ubiquitous daytime, downtown LAUSD board-farce theatricals.
Anyone with preschool-age children will be unable to attend; few would bring their young ones into such chaos, preferring instead to enrich the child’s life with things child-like, rather than subject them to the intensity of a mob.
Anyone with a child whose school ends before mid-afternoon would be unable to attend an event downtown; Beaudry is too distant from parenting responsibilities, and the risk of traffic forcing an uncollected child to remain alone on the street is too great. No aides or librarians remain at our schools to staff a benign locale for uncollected children.
The only adults able to be present for this charade are those whose job is quite literally to attend that venue. This would include the media, who would be well advised to investigate what proportion of circus participants were remunerated for their time and attendance expenses (transportation, parking, etc). A transcript is available of just such strategizing from the CLASS end of the partisan spectrum. But with the exception of a few retired educators and ultra-dedicated activists, the rest of Los Angeles simply could not appear for this Halloween-season masquerade. We have responsibilities that preclude such extravaganza and what results is a wholly unrepresentative charade of partisan bullying.
It is a testament to the power of money and the organization it can buy when excluded from that madding crowd is 99% of the population of immediate, direct stakeholders in the future of LAUSD. It leaves those of us with actual skin in this game – teachers, parents, students, administrators – enervated and alienated; ignored and disrespected: shut out. At least as bad is that this show of force subjects our elected officials to undue, unfair and disproportionate pressure from highly specialized special-interest groups. Excluded, utterly, from the entirety of Tuesday’s shenanigans, was an authentic voice of LAUSD stakeholders. Beware the Big Lie.
10 Comments
October 31, 2013 at 9:04 pm
Beautifully written. Thank you.
Thank you Ellen Lubic for waiting hours to get in and reporting all you saw so clearly. It was heroic to face these demons in any conditions, least of all while in pain. Your devotion to this cause is otherworldly. .
October 31, 2013 at 6:10 pm
I wonder how the School Board Members came to the conclusion that Deasy’s performance merited him a contract extension. After all, he would have fired them all if they met only 1 of the 9 standards they had set for themselves. If stakeholders were being denied the right to speak, how come the School Board Members, the people who voters picked to represent them, didn’t do anything about it? If our elected officials won’t stand up for us, what does that mean for the future of public education? More importantly, what does it mean for our country’s representative democracy? I think it is so easy for all of us to point the finger at other individuals for the seeming corporate take-over of LAUSD. Ultimately, it is up to the people of LAUSD to stand-up for themselves. As I learned in my intro to comparative ethnic studies class, only the ‘oppressed’ can free themselves from their own ‘oppression.’
October 31, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Kim, what time were you there? I have a complete video of everything from 6:30 A.M. that I will upload to youtube. You are in for a big surprise!
October 31, 2013 at 1:26 pm
What a total disgrace. We experience this kind of horse and pony show in Huntsville, Al quite often under our Broad ‘educated’ superintendent. When you do not have truth and honesty on your side you much resort to such tactics….
October 31, 2013 at 12:42 pm
I am an educator of 45 years and the representive of the Los Angeles retired educators group, Joining Forces for Education. Because I am handicapped I was let into the building ahead of the wildly excited bussed in, and seemingly paid participants, in this circus of a day.
I immediately asked for a speakers form as first in the room, but was denied one by the LAUSD monitor Vanessa, who said to me there would be no public comment allowed.
Within moments of this, the Parent Revolution group and others of the orchestrated event for the media photo op, rushed in. And they were given speakers forms monents after I was refused one. Those were the people with the yellow daisies behind their ears, which I saw the two stategists from Parent Revolution and United Way, running their political theater event, give to this select group.
I immediately went back to the LAUSD monite, Vanessa, who was now handing out these forms, and requested one yet again. Again she refused me while handing them rapidly to this select group chosen to be allowed to speak.
Only pro Deasy speakers were given forms, with the exception of Mr. Wattles and Mr. Fletcher who are well known to the BoE. This was so heavy handed that it was apparent the FIX was in and the issue had been settled. This day was a total sham.
It was certainly one more coffin nail in democracy at LAUSD.
November 2, 2013 at 9:09 pm
It is inexcusable that not all stakeholders who wished to speak on the matter had an opportunity to do so. In fact, besides completely denying a group of people who had a particular view on the matter, it is un-American to infringe on individuals 1st amendment rights. I believe that the School Board Members of Los Angeles need to address the allegations that only stakeholders with a certain viewpoint had an opportunity to speak. Furthermore, it is our School Board Members responsibility to ensure that all stakeholders are heard! As a voter, as well as someone who believes in the importance of freedom of speech, I am very upset to hear that not all students, parents, and teachers had an opportunity to speak.
October 31, 2013 at 11:47 am
The astroturfs got into the board room first and grabbed all of the speaker cards. That’s why there were no opposing views heard.
October 31, 2013 at 12:36 pm
Let us be clear: there is a war going on for control of the LAUSD; for the lives of children. The ‘bad guys” want to roll-over all resistance and will let nothing block their path. In 1939-40, it was called a blitzkrieg. To think otherwise, to be surprised by their tactics,as well as those of the school board, is to verge on the delusional.
The single critical question is whether any group will coalesce and push back against the ‘bad guys’? Resistance to injustice is not new. There is no need to ‘reinvent the wheel’. Look back to the struggles of the Civil Rights and anti war movement. Form alliances with educator and community groups, reach out to parents and, perhaps, have neighbors help with child care. No doubt, I realize that I sound alarmist, hyperbolic. My response : “look whats going on with the elected officials and privatizers”. redqueeninla, your blog uses the phrase “shock and awe”. Those are truthful words and can’t be denied.
Control over the LAUSD is passing out of the public domain. The situation is serious. It is no longer a question – if it ever was – of adducing valid research and holding teach-ins or debates; it just does not make a difference; it does not change the belief system of those in power or those that fund them: the ‘billionaire boys club”, the ever so helpful foundations and their school board minions.
Let the powers that be deal with collective resistance.
If not now, when?