Hall And Coates (CA-44)

California state Senator Isadore Hall, widely considered the most corrupt politician in Sacramento, must have been feeling his oats when he snagged a cushy deal at the Alameda Court apartments development he helped push through... with a nice subsidy from the City of Compton. Shortly after the initial approval, the developers contributed $10,000 to Hall. Can you spell quid pro quo? Or you thought only Republicans engage in this kind of bribery? Did he get his place rent free while the other tenants were subjected to leases based on the old racist "rent-to-own" program historically foisted upon African-Americans who were red-lined by the banks? The idea is to take the money but find an excuse-- any excuse will do-- to void the agreement and steal the money while evicting the hapless and helpless buyer. In his much discussed Reparations piece for The Atlantic last week, Ta-Nehisi Coates went into this ugly practice in some depth. "From the 1930s through the 1960s," he reminds his readers, "black people across the country were largely cut out of the legitimate home-mortgage market."

Three months after Clyde Ross moved into his house, the boiler blew out. This would normally be a homeowner’s responsibility, but in fact, Ross was not really a homeowner. His payments were made to the seller, not the bank. And Ross had not signed a normal mortgage. He’d bought “on contract”: a predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting-- while offering the benefits of neither. Ross had bought his house for $27,500. The seller, not the previous homeowner but a new kind of middleman, had bought it for only $12,000 six months before selling it to Ross. In a contract sale, the seller kept the deed until the contract was paid in full-- and, unlike with a normal mortgage, Ross would acquire no equity in the meantime. If he missed a single payment, he would immediately forfeit his $1,000 down payment, all his monthly payments, and the property itself.

The men who peddled contracts in North Lawndale would sell homes at inflated prices and then evict families who could not pay-- taking their down payment and their monthly installments as profit. Then they’d bring in another black family, rinse, and repeat. “He loads them up with payments they can’t meet,” an office secretary told the Chicago Daily News of her boss, the speculator Lou Fushanis, in 1963. “Then he takes the property away from them. He’s sold some of the buildings three or four times.”

Ross had tried to get a legitimate mortgage in another neighborhood, but was told by a loan officer that there was no financing available. The truth was that there was no financing for people like Clyde Ross. From the 1930s through the 1960s, black people across the country were largely cut out of the legitimate home-mortgage market through means both legal and extralegal. Chicago whites employed every measure, from “restrictive covenants” to bombings, to keep their neighborhoods segregated.

The devastating effects are cogently outlined by Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro in their 1995 book, Black Wealth/White Wealth:

Locked out of the greatest mass-based opportunity for wealth accumulation in American history, African Americans who desired and were able to afford home ownership found themselves consigned to central-city communities where their investments were affected by the “self-fulfilling prophecies” of the FHA appraisers: cut off from sources of new investment[,] their homes and communities deteriorated and lost value in comparison to those homes and communities that FHA appraisers deemed desirable.

In Chicago and across the country, whites looking to achieve the American dream could rely on a legitimate credit system backed by the government. Blacks were herded into the sights of unscrupulous lenders who took them for money and for sport. “It was like people who like to go out and shoot lions in Africa. It was the same thrill,” a housing attorney told the historian Beryl Satter in her 2009 book, Family Properties. “The thrill of the chase and the kill.” ... Contract sellers became rich.

Now... back to Compton and Hall, the crooked state senator being boosted by the party establishment for a congressional seat (CA-44) that covers, San Pedro, Wilmington, Carson, Compton, North Long Beach, Willowbrook, Lynwood, Watts, South Gate and West Rancho Dominguez, a district that is over 70% Latino.

After some of the Alameda Court tenants filed a lawsuit over the leases, complaining of violations of their supposed "rent-to-own" provisions, claiming that there was never any intention to let these tenants buy their apartments, they were served with eviction papers-- and further claiming that Senator Hall received special "white glove" treatment and was exempt from the harassment that Plaintiffs endured because of his relationship with the landlord. Instead of being credited towards down payments, the additional payments were confiscated by the property managers to cover "repairs" and "deposits." Sound familiar? And Coates thought this was a practice that was used against blacks "from the 1930s through the 1960s?"

While the plaintiffs continued to proffer rents, their payments were rejected and the retaliatory evictions proceeded. And caught up in the mix was our friend, Senator Hall. He too was served with eviction papers (less than 3 months ago while he was running for Congress)! Somehow he owed rent of $4,800 and ran up utility bills of $5,000! What was he growing?? After allowing Hall to live rent-free in the complex, "Landlord" Doug Baker signed a declaration, under penalty of perjury, that Hall had not paid rent since March, 2015.

Are you listening, California Democrats? You endorsed him for Congress! Yes-- it's a good idea to get him out of LA-- even his landlord agrees-- but is this the best way to do it? Congress has more than enough crooks already.

Blue America has endorsed environmental hero Nanette Barragán in the CA-44 race. If you can, please help her raise the money she needs to compete against the Democratic Party establishment machine behind Hall. You can contribute to her grassroots campaign here.

Will Compton, Carson Voters Send A Progressive Reformer To Sacramento-- Or Another Transactional Political Entrepreneur?

If you've been following the narrative here at DWT, you're aware that Blue America has endorsed our old friend, Compton School Board president Micah Ali for the open 64th Assembly district that covers Compton, Carson and Willowbrook. [You can contribute to his campaign here on our page for state legislative candidates we think have the potential to become national leaders.] Micah has a tough primary on June 3, less than a month away, and he's up against 3 opponents.

Micah has a coherent vision for his community, one he's been working on for many years. His opponents' visions are all about career opportunities-- for themselves. In 2012, President Obama was reelected with 88.7% of the vote in the 64th and two years earlier, Jerry Brown beat Meg Whitman 81.3-11.9%. The district's demography have changed drastically in recent decades and the population is now 62% Latino. Latinos, however, make up just 40% of the voters. Afican Americans, who are just 26% of the population, are 42.4% of the voters. Clearly, whoever wins on June 3, will be the next assemblyman. Going into the final month, Micah has the most cash on hand.

Perhaps if voters in Beverly Hills, Hollywood and the L.A. Times picked the Assemblyman, the least authentic of the 4 candidates, Prophet Walker, would win. Polls of actual AD-64 residents, like the one up top, however, don't show him as a real contender. This is coming down to a race between Ali and Gipson. So who, exactly is Mike Gipson?

A few days ago Carson's effort stop fracking was dealt a fatal blow by none other than Councilman Mike Gipson-- yes, a "Democrat." Gipson decided it would be better to put campaign contributions for his race for the Assembly before the interests of Carson residents so he refused to support the moratorium on highly suspicious and dangerous oil and gas extraction. Because of Mike Gipson's decision to put Oxy's bottom line ahead of the demands of Carson residents and because he chose to ignore the demands of his own community, over 200 oil and gas wells will be constructed within a rock's through of his own neighbors' homes. That's called a "sell out." And all it took was a few grand-- and, in all likelihood, the promise of more campaign contributions to come. We have plenty of politicians in Sacramento following that path already. Gipson has also gathered a team of homophobic advisors around him who were active in the Proposition 8 battle, including an anti-LGBT consultant and convicted criminal, former Compton Mayor Omar Bradley, who has now openly, brazenly endorsed him!

Gipson isn't stupid; he obviously weighed taking that Oxy campaign contribution against the interests’ of Carson residents and decided that the money from Oxy was much more valuable than the vote from Carson residents. It seems clear that Mike Gipson has decided that his climb up the political ladder is more important than the future of Carson’s families.

Based on just this one action-- but, believe you me, there are many many more instances-- we once again express our strong opinion that Mike Gipson does not deserve to be elected as an assemblyman. Furthermore, if being an assemblyman is that important to him and he no longer cares about Carson, then I think it is time for Mike to resign his position as City Council to make room for someone who will stand for the rights of the people. If he resigned, I would at least respect him more for being honest about it and doing the right thing.

One thing Sacramento does not need is more corrupt, transactional politicians willing to sell out their own constituents for campaign contributions from Big Oil and Gas and other avaricious special interests. Gipson is the worst possible choice for assemblyman.


UPDATE: Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health

As voters are getting ready to send in their absentee ballots, this is what they're reading in the local paper:

Also occurring during the recent Sterling/Jenkins madness was the passage of state Sen. Holly Mitchell’s fracking moratorium bill (SB 1132) out of the Senate’s Environmental Quality Committee by a 5-2 vote, making it the second committee to approve the bill. It now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

While this was going on in the state Legislature, the Carson City Council was holding a special meeting at which that body was determining whether to end Carson’s moratorium on fracking in the predominately African-American section of that city. Well, the council voted to lift the fracking ban, igniting the extreme anger of the people who counted on their politicians to keep them safe. But you see, Democratic politicians used to do that-- vote for the common good of the people-- but more and more of them (including black ones) are becoming “corporate Democrats” who side with corporations and businesses and special interests that benefit them personally rather than the people. Republicans have always done that.

So, what happened in Carson? Corporate Democrats prevailed and reactivated fracking in the city. Mayor Jim Dear, a lifelong liberal, sided with Oxy Oil, Watson Land and the Carson Chamber of Commerce and voted to end the fracking moratorium. If you ask him about it, I’m sure he would say: “I did it for the jobs blah, blah, blah.”

Mayor Pro Tem Elito Santarina also voted to frack and Councilman and Assembly candidate Mike Gipson abstained on the issue. If he were a Democrat worth his salt, Gipson would not have abstained, because an abstention is the same as a “no” vote when the item under discussion needs “yes” votes to pass. The only members of the five-member city council who stood with the people were council members Lula Davis Holmes and Albert Robles. Like a true Democrat, Mitchell said this after her anti-fracking bill passed out of committee last week: “People must come before profits. My community needs jobs, but those jobs need to be safe for workers and surrounding communities.”

The Root Of Economic Inequality Goes Right Back To Inequality In Educational Opportunity

One of the brightest hopes for progressive governance in the L.A. area going forward-- not garden variety, corrupt Democratic Party hackish governance but progressive governance-- comes from Micah Ali, president of the Compton Board of Education and a candidate for the 64th Assembly District open seat. I've known Micah for many years and he's been a go-to expert for this blog on reforming California's educational system. This guest post once again deals with an issue he never stops putting in people's faces: the value to society and to the individual of early education programs. After you read it, if you'd like to help Micah beat a sad array of hucksters and machine candidates running against him, you can do that here.

Early Education Narrows The Gap Between The Haves And The Have-Nots
by Micah Ali

Compton, Watts and other South Los Angeles communities are filled with families struggling with the growing income disparity that grips the country.

During the last 30 years the so-called “one percenters” of American income earners have had their incomes rocket upward. For the middle class and those at the bottom, statistics show tiny gains and even backsliding. Since 1988 and through 2012, the median California income rose an embarrassing 7 percent.

Rather than wallow in the inequity of all this, what can we do? As president of the Compton Unified School District, my answer is to empower all kids from the very outset of their young lives. We need universal pre-kindergarten to get kids on par with their peers, rather than have them show up for their first day of school already behind. That’s why I support the expansion of “transitional kindergarten” at the heart of the proposed Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2014 and strongly encourage Gov. Jerry Brown to fund it.

Research has shown investing in universal preschool pays dividends for years to come. Most studies calculate long-term returns of up to $11  in economic benefits for every dollar invested in preschool programs. In Los Angeles County, the early childhood educational space contributes nearly $1.7 billion to the local economy through job creation alone. By educating children at an early age, they will be more likely to stay in school, develop career skills and effectively compete in the global marketplace.

Supporters of strong early education programs include Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman.  “Quality birth-to-five early childhood education for disadvantaged children,” Heckman said recently, “can simultaneously reduce inequality and boost productivity in America. A solid body of research shows the cost-effectiveness of early childhood development in helping to prevent achievement gaps, boost school achievement, promote better health outcomes, improve our workforce, increase productivity and reduce the need for costly social spending.”

When the state asked school districts to introduce at least one transitional kindergarten class last year, Compton Unified School District added the new grade to every elementary school for a total of 32 classes districtwide.

Assembly and Senate Democrats are allied in their support of the Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2014, which would expand existing transitional kindergarten programs to all 4-year-olds. But Gov. Brown unwisely left out resources for this critical investment in his proposed budget.

Universal preschool is a program that I fully support and an issue that I am passionate about not just for Compton, but for all communities in California. The lack of access to affordable preschool programs disproportionately impacts residents in low-income neighborhoods. I believe the key to moving California’s recovery forward as one united economy-- not the tale of two disparate economic recoveries-- is to invest in early childhood education. We need to ensure that all parents and students have access to a quality education. Education is the important bridge we have to cross the growing income gap.

Micah Ali: "How Can Children Learn If Their Parents Are Unemployed?"

Micah Ali talks with a father at drop-off time outside McKinley Elementary's preschool classroom

Micah Ali is an old friend of mine who I met through People For the American Way's Young Elected Officials Network. Blue America has endorsed him in an election next year for a seat in the California state Assembly. But right now he's still the head of the Compton School Board. This week Deepa Fernandes of KPCC hailed him as Compton's foot soldier for universal pre-K.

Born and raised in Compton, Ali has spent six years on the school board-- a job that pays $0-- because he says he wants to improve his neighborhood. His paying job is as the Associate Director of the Los Angeles County Education Foundation-- though Ali said he’s often mixing the two roles.

When Ali first ran for the school board, his slogan was: “Educate Don’t Incarcerate.”

“At that time, in 2007, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was arresting almost 600 or so folk under the age of 18 in Compton,” he said.

“These are kids,” he argued, “that should be in school, not in jail.”

But perhaps his biggest push since he’s been on the board has been a focus on preschoolers.

When the state asked school districts to introduce at least one Transitional Kindergarten class last year, Compton, under Ali's leadership, added the new grade to every elementary school-- for a total of 32 classes district-wide.

Preschool, he said, will “not only bolster the community with an educated workforce, but also bolster California.”

He sees quality education for 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds as a key part of the solution to many of the city’s bigger problems: crippling unemployment and high poverty. Compton’s unemployment rate last year pushed 16 percent. Its poverty rate of almost 30% is one of the highest in the nation.

The statistics roll off his tongue.

“The early childhood educational space contributes some $1.7 billion to the local economy in LA County. How? Job creation,” he said in an interview. “But also when you look at a school district, if we start at an early age educating children they’ll be … far more agile and be truly competitive in a global market.”

In 2012, the rest of school board selected him to be the body’s president-- and kept him in the job when decision-time came back around this year.

When Newark Mayor Cory Booker came to the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles in September to talk about the importance of preschool, Ali was there, dressed in a dapper suit, hobnobbing with early education heavy hitters.

He wanted people to know that Compton has a “firm commitment” to early childhood education.

“We talked about foster youth, individuals who are English language learners, as well as individuals who are just simply disadvantaged by the mere vicissitudes of life,” he said.

He brought an on-the-ground perspective from Compton.

During his visit to McKinley, he connected with parents, from the young couple who arrived in a pick-up truck blaring Alicia Keys, to the recently arrived African immigrant grandfather, to the non-english speaking mothers.

This is not the Compton Ali grew up in, but Ali said he's happy about demographic changes in Compton-- 77 percent of the district’s students are now Latino. He’s learning Spanish to be able to communicate with their parents.

During his recent visit to McKinley, he was surprisingly effective in communicating with one parent, despite the language gap.

After the school visit, Ali headed off to the headquarters of the United Association Local Union 250, which represents plumbers and other blue-collar workers. He was meeting Joe Macias, who runs the union’s apprentice program.

They bump into each other in the parking lot, and they go right to work.

His pitch: the apprenticeship program could really help some of the parents he’d met that morning.

“While their children are in …preschool,” he told Macais, “the parents could possibly receive either job training or be part of the apprenticeship program.”

For Ali, this is all part of helping kids get an education. How can children learn if their parents are unemployed or don’t have a stable home environment?

Doesn't Compton Have Enough Problems Without Criminals Infiltrating The Political System?

Right-wing political hit man-for-hire, Basil Kimbrew

I was saddened this week when a friend of mine, a smart and idealistic young guy who has been working on the ground for candidates, told me he's getting out of the field. "The consultants," he told me in disgust, "run the whole show and its all about lining their own pockets." In the past we talked about the consultants have taken over the DCCC and run the committee not to elect candidates but to enrich themselves. It's exactly as bad-- and dysfunctional-- on the other side of the aisle. Consultants are, more or less, a special class of criminal. And it has infected politics locally as well. This week, here in California, one convicted felon/consultant, Basil Kimbrew, working for Mike Gipson, a candidate for Assembly for Compton, went beyond the loose standards of his profession in trying to undermine Gipson's progressive candidate, Micah Ali, in the race.

Elected to the Compton School Board in the 1990s, Kimbrew was convicted on falsifying his residency for the election, a felony. He started a political consulting firm in 2002 and soon was sentenced to two years in prison for stealing money from the Compton School district. (He had been well-connected enough to get the sentence suspended in favor of a strict 5-year probation that included a complete ban from political consulting or political campaign activities-- which he immediately violated by consulting for candidates in the 2006 election cycle, including his defense attorney Anthony Willoughby’s failed Assembly race. The DA asked, and the judge agreed, to have Kimbrew serve his two-year sentence. After he served his time in prison, he returned to political consulting and went to work on Prop 8, the anti-gay equality amendment to the Constitution. He sells his services to conservative groups needing someone who can help trick traditionally Democratic voters into supporting their right-wing agendas. He's a perfect fit for Gipson.

The attack Gipson paid him to make on Ali is typical of Kimbrew's kind of sleazy politics-- just more so. This week, respected journalist Betty Pleasant, blew Kimbrew's cover and exposed him too the community.

That ex-convict Basil Kimbrew, who was arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned for engaging in political hanky-panky in Compton several years ago, is at it again some more!! Through his “California Friends of the African American Caucus” website, he twice blasted this week some scurrilous accusations and innuendoes against a Compton official, who, in my opinion was simply doing his job, and tied him to a popular Los Angeles woman with impeccable credentials and character to some kind of evil deed. And for what reason? Politics. I am so angry about this that I’m finding it difficult to write about it without using the full range of my expression-- a range that includes words that would not be permitted in a family publication.

This is the thing: Basil has twice accused Micah Ali, president of the Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees, of funding his prospective campaign for the state Assembly by awarding a “lucrative” contract to the St. John Wellness Center for it to establish a clinic on the campus of Dominguez High School. Basil comes to this conclusion because Ali is employed by the Los Angeles County Education Federation (LACEF) that has some kind oversight of the St. John Wellness project, which has established many on-campus clinics for children at plenty of Southland schools.

Basil’s email blast implies that Ali was in cahoots with stellar attorney Cynthia McClain-Hill, who is noted for her altruism and community service, because she serves on the LACEF Board of Directors. In Basil’s mind, since Ali works for the LACEF and McClain-Hill serves on the LACEF board, ergo, together they hatched a devious plot to obtain a political campaign contribution by awarding a Compton school district no-bid, $1-a-year contract to establish a St. John’s clinic on one of their high school campuses. Is that insane, or what?

Of course, Ali denies this, and I believe him because this convoluted scenario makes no sense; and while I don’t know Ali, I do know McClain-Hill very well and she would not engage in such a needless quid-pro-quo. After all, she’s in a position to provide the clinic without getting Ali any money whatsoever. And besides, where is Basil’s proof? He’s simply making a series of wild, unsubstantiated accusations for which he ought to be sued. So why is he doing it? From what I gather, Basil is fronting for two infamous empty suits: Carson City Councilman Mike Gipson and Compton Assemblyman Isadore Hall who are positioning themselves for an upcoming political race in which they’d rather Ali not enter. Yep, Basil is up to his old tricks. Ignore him.

A couple years ago we covered Ali's successful school board race and emphasized that "sleazy charter operators hope to funnel tax dollars into corporate profits-- and high management fees and salaries-- by de-unioninzing the education system. Foward-thinking progressives like Micah are at the forefront of putting the interests of students first and foremost while protecting the hard-won gains of his community's teachers." With Rove-like tactics, Gipson and Kimbrew, are trying to turn Ali's strongest assets into a negative. Blue America has endorsed Micah Ali for this seat and if you'd like to help make the Assembly a little more independent and a little less corrupt, you can contribute to his campaign here.

Louie Gohmert, A Devout Foe Of Public Education, Thinks We Need Shoot-Outs In Schools

A close friend of mine is an elementary school teacher in Compton, one of L.A.'s roughest communities. This year he has a white kid in his class-- for the first time in the decade he's been there. Almost half his young charges have a parent or sibling in prison. One girl's granny is in jail. Gun violence is a fact of life in Compton. Teachers there worry that it's easier for young people to access guns there than to access mental health services or most social services. What they don't worry about is Huckabee's irrelevant assertion that the problem has something to do with not having prayers led by teachers in classrooms. (Yeah, the Huckabee whose son, already famous for torturing dogs, was arrested trying to smuggle a Glock onto a plane... that Huckabee.)

My Compton friend's favorite Member of Congress-- at least in terms of derision-- is not Allen West or Michele Bachmann or Todd Akin. He just loves stories about Texas Neanderthal Louie Gohmert. He was howling last week when I told him Gohmert was the only Member of Congress who voted, in a 398-1 roll call, against a bill to strike the word "lunatic" from federal law. Well Fox News Sunday did a special on the mass murder in Newtown, Connecticut and who better to come on and cater to the morons who watch Fox than Gohmert? Gohmert, like many Republican congressmen, is a gun-worshipper and an NRA stooge and he was the one who had howled the loudest about the victims in the Aurora, Colorado theater mass murder not having had the guns they would have needed for a mass shootout.

During a radio interview on The Heritage Foundation's Istook Live! show, Gohmert was asked why he believes such senseless acts of violence take place. Gohmert responded by talking about the weakening of Christian values in the country.

"You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place," Gohmert said.

...Ernest Istook, the host of the show and a former Oklahoma congressman, jumped in to clarify that nobody knows the motivation of the alleged Aurora gunman. Gohmert said that may be true, but suggested the shootings were still "a terrorist act" that could have been avoided if the country placed a higher value on God.

"People say ... where was God in all of this?" Gohmert said. "We've threatened high school graduation participations, if they use God's name, they're going to be jailed ... I mean that kind of stuff. Where was God? What have we done with God? We don't want him around. I kind of like his protective hand being present."

Gohmert also said the tragedy could have been lessened if someone else in the movie theater had been carrying a gun and took down the lone shooter. Istook noted that Colorado laws allow people to carry concealed guns.

"It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?" he asked.

Sunday, he was, of course, up to the same song and dance on Fox: "Having been a judge and reviewed photographs of these horrific scenes and knowing that children have these defensive wounds, gun shots through their arms and hands as they try to protect themselves, and, hearing the heroic stories of the principal, lunging, trying to protect, Chris, I wish to God she had had an M-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids."

Pressed by host Chris Wallace on why ordinary citizens need semi automatic weapons that shoot 5 bullets per second, Gohmert said that any restrictions on fire arms could lead to the slippery slope of full prohibition and said that American amass weapons to protect themselves from the government.

“For the reason George Washington said a free people should be an armed people,” Gohmert explained. “It ensures against the tyranny of the government, if they know the biggest army is the American people, then you don’t have the tyranny that came from King George. That is why it was put in there and that’s why once you start drawing the line, where do you stop?”

A Mother Jones analysis of 61 mass murders over the last 30 years found that “in not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun.” As one leading expert explained, “given that civilian shooters are less likely to hit their targets than police in these circumstances,” arming civilians could often lead to more chaos and deaths. Law enforcement groups usually oppose state-efforts permitting concealed weapons on college campuses, citing safety concerns.

Micah Ali Takes Compton School District Problems To Education Secretary Arne Duncan

Last we checked in with our pal Micah Ali, the most progressive member of the Compton school board, he was advocating for a different kind of charter schools-- ones that put students first, not profits first.

Micah's 33 and was elected to the School Board in 2007 and he's on his way to DC right now, to meet with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to share his experiences working on public policy supporting English language development strategies-- remember Compton is now a Hispanic majority city-- and the Breakfast in The Classroom program, so important for inner city students when you remember that breakfast sharpens memory and cognitive skills.

Micah is meeting with Duncan and other Department of Education officials as part of a convening of the Young Elected Official Network under the auspices of People for the American Way. Their annual meeting will be addressed by three of the most outstanding Members of Congress concerned with public education, Donna Edwards (D-MD), Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Jared Polis (D-CO). He's looking forward to it and he told us, "As a public education innovator, I, too, must commit myself to being a lifelong learner. The profundity of ideas generated and viable solutions learned from others attending the convening will undergird my constant fight for lower class sizes, parent engagement and vocational technical education for students, who prefer to pursue trades."

Meanwhile, back in Compton Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Anthony Mohr has just thrown out the corporate-inspired parent petition to force a charter conversion at McKinley Elementary. The paperwork wasn't put together properly.

The Compton Unified School District, which governs McKinley, argued that dating each signature was crucial in determining whether a signer's child was enrolled at the school and had legal rights over the child at the time, the AP reported.

Mohr said in his tentative ruling Friday that he understood the “pain, frustration and perhaps education disadvantages” his 14-page decision might cause but added that he needed to follow the law.

Mohr agreed to hear more arguments June 7.

Sleazy charter operators hope to funnel tax dollars into corporate profits-- and high management fees and salaries-- by de-unioninzing the education system. Foward-thinking progressives like Micah are at the forefront of putting the interests of students first and foremost while protecting the hard-won gains of his community's teachers.

To Turn Schools Into Profitable Warehouses, Corporations First Need To Destroy Teachers Unions

I think it's been pretty well established by now that right-wing education "reformer" Michelle Rhee is just a discredited huckster for the corporate push to take over and profitize the school system, she's just the latest tool that corporate America has loosed on the public school system (not unlike, in her own way, Scott Walker, Rick Scott, John Kasich, Rick Snyder, Jan Brewer, etc). Corporate behemoths will never be able to take over the public education system without first destroying the teachers' unions. And that has long been one of the primary goals of the for-profit-charter-school movement.

Micah Ali is a friend of mine and a member of the Compton School Board, a progressive and a tireless fighter for the ordinary working families in some of L.A.'s most economically and socially challenged neighborhoods. Unions don't have a better friend in local government than Micah. So a few weeks ago I was shocked when we had dinner and he told me he was pushing a plan for charter schools. This was from the guy who almost single-handedly prevented the McKinley Elementary School takeover by a for-profit predator. He's got a new plan, though, what he calls a "dependent charter," one that is independent of the school board but not independent of responsibility and accountability. Micah penned an OpEd for the Los Angeles Wave this week explaining his proposal.

Thomas Jefferson said it best when he proclaimed, “Every generation needs a revolution.” But today, we often make the mistake of declaring a revolution against each other based on our own selfish agendas. We must stop wasting time casting blame and attacking one another, and instead start focusing on finding real solutions that work for our schools.

When less than 50 percent of Compton students are not graduating, it is time to take a brave stand. What we need now, more than ever, is to come together for the sake of our children. I am calling to action every stakeholder in the Compton Unified School District to join me in igniting a revolution to ensure that every child has access to a high-quality education in a safe learning environment that meets individual student needs.

We must become open to new educational methods while holding on to what already works. What we do know is that Compton has satisfactory performing elementary schools, although we must increase academic performance levels for our K-5 grade students. Where we are falling short is our middle and high schools, which have some of the lowest academic performance scores in California.

Compton has been a longtime supporter of traditional education. And while that has adequately served our elementary schools, it clearly is not working for our middle and high schools. We need to begin searching for innovative solutions that have proven to work for other school districts. The solutions that I champion are threatening to some because I’m fighting against a system that seeks to hold onto traditional educational methods that have not worked for our schools for decades.

It is time for the Compton Unified School District to study the feasibility of a dependent charter school. It is well documented that dependent charter schools-- charters overseen by a school district-- design programs that suit the individual learning needs of the students, with the ease of certain regulations, allowing teachers and administrators to develop often more effective learning strategies. A dependent charter school can also receive federal funding and other grants that meet the financial needs of a top performing school.

To create a level playing field for our schools to compete on a national scale, we must appeal to our federal and state governments to provide more desperately needed funding to Compton schools. Academic performances in Compton schools began declining in 1978 after Proposition 13 forced California cities to redistribute their taxes, significantly cutting funding from our public schools. Our community must launch a district-wide movement to demand that our federal and state leaders put more local tax monies back into our public schools.

We all know that children are our future. That means we must prepare a generation of college and career-ready students. One way our district can make this happen is by working closely with local trade unions to provide apprenticeship training to our middle and high school students, giving them valuable skills for future job placement.

Another way we can ensure their future is by creating a village setting for our students, parents and teachers. To do this, we must establish small learning communities that will provide immediate intervention for the specific challenges affecting each neighborhood school. But to make this village a reality, our parents must become more active in their children’s education and get involved in parent organizations, like the PTA. Studies have shown that parent engagement is the number one indicator of student success.

When our schools improve, our community improves. How can we tackle other social issues ailing our community-- from the economy, to crime, to housing-- if we lack a skilled workforce to address these problems? It all starts with education.

Like many, I am outraged by the state of Compton’s school performance levels. I challenge the community to redirect that energy by making a positive difference. We are all in a position to do something to improve our schools. I will continue leveraging my position as a board member of the Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees by introducing and supporting measures that result in better educational outcomes for our students. I ask that we join together in making it our collective revolution to fight for the future of our children.

Micah's a cerebral kind of guy; for an action guy he lives a surprisingly big part of his life in the world of ideas and innovations. He points out this his district has always been "a longtime supporter of traditional education... We need to begin searching for innovative solutions that have proven to work in other school districts."

Will Obama Sell Out Teachers-- And Students-- To Corporate Interests?

Corporate America sees a big untapped profit center: dismantling free public education and replacing it with a way to enrich themselves, like they're doing with the prison system. The attack on public employee unions (mostly teachers) is part of this initiative. And where's President Obama? On the wrong side of history... again. Back from some of the best Middle East reporting anywhere, Nick Kristof wrote an OpEd for the NY Times yesterday. But before we look at that one, let's look at one front-line battleground over for-profit charter schools: Compton, California. An acrimonious bid to take over McKinley Elementary School by Celerity Group was unanimously turned down by the Compton School Board. I've been following the battle closely because a friend of mine teaches there and another friend, Micah Ali, is a School Board member. Micah and I had dinner this weekend and we talked about some of the details that weren't part of the L.A. Times report.

After two months of controversy, the Compton school board Tuesday rejected a petition by parents aiming to use a groundbreaking state law to turn over their struggling elementary school to a charter operator.

Board members with the Compton Unified School District voted unanimously, 7-0, to return the petition to parents at McKinley Elementary, saying it failed to include information required by state regulations. District officials also found that parents cited the wrong education code section and failed to provide evidence that they had selected their desired charter operator, Celerity Educational Group, after a "rigorous review process" as required by state emergency regulations.

...The closely watched case represented the first test of a new law giving parents the power to petition for major reforms of low-performing schools, including shutting them down, changing staff and programs, and turning the campus over to a charter operator. Charters are independently run, publicly financed schools.

Under the law, valid signatures representing parents of half the school's students are required to trigger the reforms. In Compton, the petition campaign was organized by Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles-based educational reform group and charter school ally. The group said it submitted parent signatures for 275 of 438 McKinley students, or 62%.

Charter school ally indeed! Behind the effort to bust the teachers unions are a sleazy bunch of self-serving fake "reformers" enriching themselves by shilling for avaricious big corporate interests, the Chamber of Commerce and even, disgracefully, a rival union.

The in-your-face organizer of Green Dot charter schools, Steve Barr, is putting together what’s basically a fake parents’ movement down in Los Angeles-- or at least it’s a top-down alleged parents’ movement, created by Barr and run by paid organizer Ben Austin. The common term for a fake grassroots organization like this is “Astroturf.”

...Needless to say, it's not hard to win plenty of converts with a convincing pitch selling parents on a “guarantee” of making sweeping improvements at their kids’ schools. It’ll be interesting to see how the promise plays out.

I took a look at the fake parent group's website and noted this line in the bio of hired-gun leader Ben Austin, parent of a preschooler:

“Ben is looking forward to sending Fiona to their wonderful neighborhood elementary school, Warner; and is currently working on a Parent Revolution at their failing middle school, Emerson.”

I object on principle to referring to schools as "failing"-- that’s a simplistic and sweeping condemnation. There are children attending the schools damned as “failing,” and to me that amounts to telling them, “You’re failures.”

But forget my opinion; we want data. So I looked up the most recent Academic Performance Index score for Emerson (Ralph Waldo Emerson Middle School, Los Angeles Unified). (The API is California’s accountability reporting system for school achievement; it ranks schools based on a compilation of standardized test scores into a score on a 200-1000 scale, with 800 and up viewed as excellent.)

The 2008 API for “failing” Emerson is 701-- neither stellar nor disgraceful. SFUSD has some very highly regarded and sought-after schools with APIs well below 701.

I thought I’d see how the schools Green Dot runs-- which are hailed far and wide as successful nationwide models-- compare. Turns out the API of the 11 Green Dot schools averages 678.64. Hmm.

Four of Green Dot’s 12 schools have APIs far below Emerson’s 701:

Animo Jackie Robinson 597
Animo Justice 569
Animo Ralph Bunche 636
Animo Watts 614

Two more of Green Dot's "successful" schools have APIs of 705 (Animo Film & Theater and Animo South Los Angeles), which hardly leaves "failing" Emerson in the dust either. (All the listed Green Dot schools are in L.A. Unified.)

The rest of the Green Dot schools range from 715 to 749. (This tally excludes Locke, the highly publicized Watts high school newly taken over by Green Dot, which doesn’t yet have test scores from the Green Dot era.)

And by the way, even the L.A. Times, which has generally been starry-eyed about Green Dot, cops to the big advantage its schools have in terms of creaming more-motivated students (prior to the Locke takeover, which includes a commitment to accepting the students from the neighborhood).

"Green Dot charters, opened as alternatives to failing public schools, attracted motivated families that came from far-flung communities to place their children on waiting lists. As a result, enrollment was predictable and stable. ... The charter operator normally requires a certain amount of parent involvement."

Yet it appears that non-charter Emerson achieves its 701 API without the creaming advantage that the lower-performing Green Dot schools enjoy.

So I’m curious how Mr. Austin sees Emerson as “failing” and views Green Dot as its path to success.

I already know the answer will be some variation on “test scores are only part of the picture,” a view I agree with. Yet to the charter folks, test scores are THE picture when they’re blasting public schools as “failing.” They allow lots  more  nuance and margin for flexibility when it comes to their own schools.

Charter schools are not a magic bullet for education, although they may work very nicely for corporate bottom line and spineless, easily bought off politicians. Interestingly the very first charter school in Compton is the Barack Obama Charter School which, as you can see from the chart below, underperforms (in science) not just public schools across California but even public schools in Compton!


Compare the Academic Performance Index (API) Report for Barack Obama Charter School and next door Lincoln Elementary Public School and you'll see the public school actually outperforming the charter school. Instances where charter schools have done better than public schools are often accompanied by reports of blatant cheating on exams by staff.

Now some relevant points I want to share in Kristof's OpEd from yesterday's Times about how badly teachers are paid in our society. He starts by pointing out the pernicious fallacy that corporate shills like Wisconsin and Florida governors Scott Walker and Rick Scott make when they claim teachers are too highly compensated:

A basic educational challenge is not that teachers are raking it in, but that they are underpaid. If we want to compete with other countries, and chip away at poverty across America, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession.

Until a few decades ago, employment discrimination perversely strengthened our teaching force. Brilliant women became elementary school teachers, because better jobs weren’t open to them. It was profoundly unfair, but the discrimination did benefit America’s children.

These days, brilliant women become surgeons and investment bankers-- and 47 percent of America’s kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers come from the bottom one-third of their college classes (as measured by SAT scores). The figure is from a study by McKinsey & Company, “Closing the Talent Gap.”

Changes in relative pay have reinforced the problem. In 1970, in New York City, a newly minted teacher at a public school earned about $2,000 less in salary than a starting lawyer at a prominent law firm. These days the lawyer takes home, including bonus, $115,000 more than the teacher, the McKinsey study found.

We all understand intuitively the difference a great teacher makes. I think of Juanita Trantina, who left my fifth-grade class intoxicated with excitement for learning and fascinated by the current events she spoke about. You probably have a Miss Trantina in your own past.

One Los Angeles study found that having a teacher from the 25 percent most effective group of teachers for four years in a row would be enough to eliminate the black-white achievement gap.

Recent scholarship suggests that good teachers, even kindergarten teachers, increase their students’ earnings many years later. Eric A. Hanushek of Stanford University found that an excellent teacher (one a standard deviation better than average, or better than 84 percent of teachers) raises each student’s lifetime earnings by $20,000. If there are 20 students in the class, that is an extra $400,000 generated, compared with a teacher who is merely average.

...[P]art of compensation is public esteem. When governors mock teachers as lazy, avaricious incompetents, they demean the profession and make it harder to attract the best and brightest. We should be elevating teachers, not throwing darts at them.

Consider three other countries renowned for their educational performance: Singapore, South Korea and Finland. In each country, teachers are drawn from the top third of their cohort, are hugely respected and are paid well (although that’s less true in Finland). In South Korea and Singapore, teachers on average earn more than lawyers and engineers, the McKinsey study found.

“We’re not going to get better teachers unless we pay them more,” notes Amy Wilkins of the Education Trust, an education reform organization. Likewise, Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform says, “We’re the first people to say, throw them $100,000, throw them whatever it takes.”

Both Ms. Wilkins and Ms. Allen add in the next breath that pay should be for performance, with more rigorous evaluation. That makes sense to me.

Starting teacher pay, which now averages $39,000, would have to rise to $65,000 to fill most new teaching positions in high-needs schools with graduates from the top third of their classes, the McKinsey study found. That would be a bargain.