"NVMI is a case study in shamelessness."
-- East Area Progressive Democrats
After putting in the work to elect Dr. Rocio Rivas and end control of the LAUSD School Board by forces loyal to the Charter School Industry, supporters of public education looked forward to big, positive changes in the country's largest school district controlled by an elected board. This optimism was increased with the elevation of long-time public school supporter, Jackie Goldberg, to the Board's Presidency.
There have been some victories for the children of Los Angeles under the new majority, most notably the Rivas-led rejection of a waiver that would have allowed Bright Star charter schools to add more classroom capacity using taxpayer money during a decades-long period of declining enrollment. Unfortunately, there have also been unforced errors. Perhaps the most perplexing occurred when Scott Schmerelson, usually a reliable supporter of public schools, went out of his way to defend the North Valley Military Institute (NVMI), a charter that has become the poster child for why publicly financed private schools do not work. He then went on to be the only vote to reject fulfilling NVMI's PROP-39 request on multiple campuses, a move that if successful would have resulted in moving a LAUSD school off of its own campus.
While numerous agencies have allowed NVMI to continue operating despite operational deficiencies, fiscal mismanagement, and poor results, the East Area Progressive Democrats have been paying attention. Yesterday Los Angeles County's largest Democratic club released the following letter expressing its concerns about the charter school's "pattern of fraud, gross mismanagement and waste of taxpayer money":
EAPD's letter was addressed to the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) Board as this body considered a lease agreement with the charter school. The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) and its Board were also named as this is the body that a pproved the NVMI charter after its renewal was rejected by the LAUSD Board, including Schmerelson.
In making its case, EAPD points to the recently uncovered letter requesting that the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT) perform an "extraordinary audit" to investigate "illegal activities" by NVMI. The "violation of law" noted in LACOE's December 2022 letter to the school was also mentioned. Like the small part of an iceberg visible above the water, the deficiencies detailed in this letter only scratch the surface of NVMI's disastrous history.
After concluding that "NVMI ceased to operate in full compliance with its LACOE charter long ago", the EAPD calls for an end to "this disastrous shell game". Will those named in the letter do their part "to protect public dollars... and stop the ruinous enabling of this rogue organization"?
"While the Superintendent is not being transparent or accountable, the School Board has a duty to be."
-- Parents Supporting Teachers
Equally as perplexing to those who worked to elect a pro-public-education majority on the LAUSD School Board has been the lack of willingness to hold Superintendent Carvalho accountable for his failures. Even after a disastrous response to the hack of the District's computers and a strike that caused LAUSD students to miss three days of instruction, the elected board continues to cede authority to the leader with autocratic tendencies. In a press release sent out today, Parents Supporting Teachers (PST) addressed the Superintendent's latest controversy, the "unilateral decision" to cut funding for the highly regarded Primary Promise literacy and numeracy program:
As the "only organically created group of [its] size exclusively dedicated to parent communication and education support in the entire LAUSD", PST has been in the lead in fighting for reversing "Carvalho's abrupt and appalling decision to cut Primary Promise, a successful targeted intervention for struggling K-2 students learning reading and math." This program has benefitted 14,000 students since it was implemented under Austin Beutner in 2020. Data previously released by the district showed that these students had "incredible growth rates as a result of this specific type of targeted intervention." Now without providing any data to prove his case, the Superintendent has drastically cut back on the program claiming that it is not working as intended.
While the organization calls on the entire "School Board to restore the program in the budget, so LAUSD can keep giving our vulnerable students this individualized attention in reading and math that they need", the message seems particularly targeted towards one specific representative. Tanya Ortiz-Franklin ran on a platform focusing on educational equity and Primary Promise is "a program that many teachers and parents have seen work for elementary school students, in particular Black students and English Language Learners, to keep them at grade level in reading and math." Additionally, "extensive analysis, data, and feedback from teachers, students, and families show these students, in particular Black and Latino students, make dramatic gains compared to their peers."
To date, 1,710 concerned stakeholders have signed PST's petition calling on the LAUSD to save Primary Promise. The Board can listen to these voices and force the Superintendent to change course or they can ignore them now and wait to see what their constituents say when they go to the polls next year.
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs. He was elected to the Northridge East Neighborhood Council and is the Education Chair. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him "a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles." For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.
