Schwatzenegger stacks the California Board of Ed

[Hannah Bell]

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been working overtime to expand charter schools in California. Since 2004 on their behalf, he has secured federal funding, removed school district approval obstacles, supported state bond funding, signed legislation to provide charters with tax exempt and low cost facility financing for school facilities, and removed roadblocks so charters can access millions in construction project funds. In addition, Schwarzenegger has insured that the California State Board of Education (SBE) is continually loaded with pro-charter members.

I suggest you take a moment to contrast Schwarzenegger’s intense, and near single-minded focus on fostering the expansion of charter schools (which serve less than 4.6% of the children or 285,617 kids) with his extreme neglect of the schools attended by the remaining 95.4% (5,966,394 kids) of California’s children.

http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/navigation/fstwopanel.asp?bottom=%2Fprofile.asp%3Flevel%3D04%26reportnumber%3D16


Ending their State Board of Education terms just recently are Rae Belisle and Jorge Lopez.

RAE BELISLE

the recently-stepped-down CEO of EdVoice, had been appointed by Schwarzenegger in February 2009. She was a full SBE participant for one year until March 2010 when the Senate refused to give her a confirmation hearing. They had received staunch opposition to Belisle... Belisle is a strong charter school advocate, who had previously given controversial legal advice to the SBE.

JORGE LOPEZ

the executive director of the Oakland Charter Academy, had been appointed in March 2009 and fully participated on the SBE until February 2010 when he abruptly withdrew his name. His withdrawal coincided with the point in the senate confirmation process when his financial documents and business arrangements were being reviewed and concerns were arising about complicated business and real estate arrangements with his partner Ben Chavis (of American Indian Public Charter School fame).

Three new Swarzenegger appointments are awaiting confirmation:

ALAN ARKATOV

who, among other activities, sits on the board for Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, a charter management organization which has opened 16 charter schools in the Los Angeles area. Source here. Alliance received a total of $2,525,000 from the Broad Foundation between 2006 and 2008. Alliance has received $4,635,100 from the NewSchools Venture Fund since 2003.

BEN AUSTIN

is an assistant city attorney for Los Angeles and the executive director of the Los Angeles Parents Union (formerly the Small Schools Alliance, aka the Parent Revolution).

He used to work for Green Dot Public Schools and also served as a Deputy Mayor under Richard Riordan. Austin was involved with the “Parent Trigger,” an initiative where if enough parents can be convinced, pressured, and tricked to sign a petition, a school will be closed down and replaced with a charter. Eli Broad contributed nearly 50% of the funding for the launch of the LAPU and gave a total of $4,469,040 to Green Dot from 2005-2008.

JEANNIE OROPEZA,

program budget manager for the California Department of Finance, was also nominated, but on April 28 the Senate Rules Committee recommended rejecting her nomination because her job at the Department of Finance presented a conflict of interest.

The confirmed members sitting on the SBE with strong ties to charter schools and/or Eli Broad are:

TED MITCHELL (SBE President)

is the President and CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, an organization which supplies charter management organizations with extra funding. He has been a member of the CSE since 2007 and was reappointed in February 2010. Mitchell has multiple strong connections to billionaire Eli Broad.
Mitchell's NSVF salary was $480,000 in 2007 (Form 990). NSVF received a total of $9,115,000 from the Broad Foundation (EIN 954686318) from 2002 to 2008.

Also, 2002 news reports revealed that Eli Broad had offered to donate $10 million to Occidental College in an attempt to persuade Mitchell (then O.C. President) to run against a L.A. school board trustee. Furthermore, Mitchell revealed to his trustees that that former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan had also offered to donate money to cover a top-level executive position at the college if Mitchell ran for the seat. Mitchell did not run. Read here to learn about the close relationship between Broad and Riordan as longtime friends and allies in ed deform.

YVONNE CHAN

is the principal of a conversion charter school in LA, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center. Chan was appointed in 2005 and reappointed in 2008. Her term ends in 2012. Vaughn International Studies Academy, the high school at Chan’s “learning center,” is in the International Studies Schools Network (ISSN or Global Studies Schools), a charter management organization started by the Asia Society in 2003. Both Chan and Eli Broad have been speakers for the Asia Society. Broad donated $12,500 to the Asia Society in 2007 and $2,500 in 2008.

Schwarzenegger has been generous to Chan. From a May 2008 press release:

Today at one of the nation’s leading charter schools, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, Governor Schwarzenegger announced the allocation of $463 million in Proposition 1D funds for new construction and modernization projects for 29 charter schools statewide. The Vaughn Next Century Learning Center will receive $6 million of the $463 million to build seven new classrooms for 189 students at the center’s high school, Vaughn International Studies Academy…

…“This funding is exactly what our kids need to continuing excelling at Vaughn,” said Vaughn Next Century Learning Center Principal Dr. Yvonne Chan. “I will now be able to move forward with the new classrooms my students need and make improvements to our campus so we can continue to make a difference in this community.”


JOHNATHAN XAVIER WILLIAMS

is a charter management organization founder and co-director (The Accelerated School network in South Central Los Angeles). Williams is a member of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) and the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO). (Update: See article from 1/2007 "Charter School is in default on $9.9 million LAUSD Loan", h/t Caroline Grannan)

DAVID P. LOPEZ,

President of The National Hispanic University in East San Jose, was appointed to the SBE in July 2006, and reappointed in March 2010. He is awaiting reconfirmation. The National Hispanic University is a small, private non-profit institution which also runs the Latino College Preparatory Academy, a charter high school, adjacent to its campus.

RUTH BLOOM (SBE Vice President)

was appointed in 2004 and reappointed in February 2007. Her term ends in January 2011. Bloom is a partner in a jewelry company (AR Designs), and is heavily involved with collecting art, art education, and art museums, both in Southern California and Sun Valley, Idaho. From the 1990s until February 2009, Bloom served with Eli Broad on the board of trustees for the LA The Museum of Contemporary Art. Broad is LACMA’s Founding Chairman and Life Trustee.

And here's something interesting. In September 2007, Ruth Bloom (listed as Arts Educator from Marina Del Rey), a stated Democrat, gave $20,000 to Schwarzenegger, according to ElectionTrack.

ONLY TWO SBE MEMBERS APPEAR NOT TO HAVE ALLEGIANCES TO THE PROMOTION OF CHARTER SCHOOLS OR DIRECT CONNECTIONS TO ELI BROAD OR THE BROAD FOUNDATION

JIM ASCHWANDEN

Aschwanden is executive director of the California Agricultural Teachers’ Association, and serves on advisory councils for Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo and Chico State University. In addition, he has served as Vice-Chair of the Vocational Alliance, a consortium of educational organizations supporting Career and Technical Education, for the past several years.

GREGORY W. JONES

Jones is a State Farm insurance executive. In addition, he is chair of the California Business Roundtable and chair of California Business for Education Excellence.

http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/

[YvonneCa]

1. Vote Jerry Brown for Governor...

...of California! :7

[Starry Messenger]

2. Jerry is actually pro-charter.

Sad but true.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/jerry-brown-raised-12-million-for-his-two-oakland-schools/Content?oid=1712012


Jerry Brown Raised $12 Million for His Two Oakland Schools
Ten years after Brown founded two Oakland charter schools, their test scores remain uninspiring — despite the millions he's showered on them.

The amount of money Brown raises for these two schools makes it impossible to compare his schools to regular public schools, while at the same time raising questions of equity. A hallmark of public education in California is that all schools spend about the same money per student. But the arts and military schools spend up to twice as much on each of their kids than other Oakland public schools.

Since being sworn in as California attorney general in January 2007, Brown has solicited more than 400 separate donations for his two schools, totaling $11.8 million, according to reports filed with state Fair Political Practices Commission. The contributions came from big corporations, well-funded foundations, and wealthy individual donors, including many donations from his stable of political campaign contributors. The Oakland School for the Arts received $7,739,612 in donations that he solicited, while the Oakland Military Institute got $4,092,200. The huge donations are unusual in the world of charter schools, where many campuses struggle just to make payroll and rent.

So does Brown's educational experiment prove that throwing money at California public schools isn't the way to raise students' academic performance? Or does it say more about the former mayor's failings as a manager? After all, public schools in other states that receive about the same amount of money as his school — such as in New York — tend to perform better academically. And Brown's hands-on approach to his schools is not constricted by collective bargaining agreements, because both the arts and military schools are non-union.

One thing is for sure: Brown's arts school is not spending huge sums trying to educate children from difficult backgrounds — at least not compared to most Oakland public schools. Just one-third of the arts school students last year qualified for free or reduced-price lunches, a standard measurement of poverty level. By contrast, about 68 percent of students in the Oakland public school district qualify for such lunches, and at the Oakland Military Institute, the percentage was 77 last year.