Bocanegra Rides Again: Running LA Schools from Sacramento

That’s right. AB 1217, states up front that, “This bill would establish a state school located in a county with a population of more than 3,500,000.” 

Now, I don’t pretend to know which billionaire turned sudden education expert is behind this bill, be it old “houses that fall down” Eli Broad, or one of the other daddy-knows-best gang, but I guess now owning the LAUSD in the name of the CCSA isn’t enough profit for them. Because, when you strip aside the horsepuckey about helping needy children, this bill is all about money. 

The Details and the Rub 

Let’s look at the details of the bill, as opposed to the flowery language. We will be blessed with an anywhere-in-LA County STEM school that will make students competent in science, technology, engineering and mathematics -- which is what STEM stands for. One assumes that the purpose for creating this is to enable students to be able to go out and get good jobs that won’t disappear. 

(1) it can be located anywhere in LA County, which means it can draw from any and all local school districts within that area, not just LAUSD. 

(2) the educational plan can be virtually anything agreed to by the new Board and the CA Superintendent of Education. 

(3) allowing for the full range of K-12 students, it can transfer back and forth with high school students, via a “transferability of courses” provision. 

(4) measuring pupil progress will not have to be the same as for regular public schools. The gee whiz language here provides for: “to the extent practicable, the method for measuring pupil outcomes for state priorities shall be consistent with...” 

(5) As to the governing Board, there are to be at least seven members, of which one must come from a UC Campus within LA County, one appointed from the Senate Rules Committee, and one appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly. 

(6) Auditing the books will be done on an annual basis, using “generally accepted accounting principles.” 

(7) “It is the intent of the Legislature that the state school may employ qualified university faculty and STEM professionals to work collaboratively with certificated teachers in instructing pupils.” 

(8) It’s a Charter school, and can get separate state funding to build the facility under the state California School Financing Authority. 

(9) The building trades (BCTC) have a guarantee that any construction will “employ a project labor agreement.” 

(10) Finally, the first independent evaluation of the program won’t occur until “the state school has operated for three complete school years.” 

The Takeaway 

The last time I wrote about my favorite Assembly member, Raul Bocanegra, he wanted the State of California to come in and “fix” the DWP’s billing problems. 

As I pointed out in that article, the great State of California can’t even get its own IT projects right, or for that matter, oversee its very own Board of Equalization or the UC System. 

Well, he’s back at it again, this time with a much more grandiose (and expensive) vision. 

You only need to look at two sections in this legislation to find out what it’s all about. First, the Board structure. In English, some overpaid political administrator from UCLA will be joined by two political appointees from the legislature, so that they can conspire with four (or more) other Board members (chosen we don’t know how.) How about fronts for the Charter School Industry? C’mon. 

The second bit of underhanded nastiness buried in the bill is that this cutesy techno-trendy school will be a “public school” for funding purposes. That’s right. Another publicly funded private school, using our tax money to make a buck. I guess the Charter Schools/LAUSD Board finally figured out that they have broken the bank in extracting money from the LAUSD and are looking for greener pastures (pun intended). 

For those who haven’t figured this out, it means that the new school district gets to play with public funding without any rigorous accounting, and none of the straitjacket financing restrictions that regular school districts must comply with. That’s the great advantage charter schools have over public school districts: accountability for how they spend the cash.  

Maybe they will hire John Deasy and pay for a zillion iPad’s? Tech means expensive equipment, and expensive toys mean contracts. It’s all for the kids, right? 

This sounds like Eli Broad and his Public Schools Now initiative, which I wrote about some time ago in a CityWatch article back in 2015. 

Another potentially troubling concept in the bill is the partnering with university personnel and private sector STEM “professionals.” This can lead to contracts with experimental projects and faculty dealing with how to teach the kids, and/or paying non-profit or think tank folks to do the same. All they need to do to be kosher is to hand their modules off to certificated employees who will do the actual hands-on instruction. All ok, and the contractors get their research paper for publication. 

Finally, none of this gets an outside evaluation until the school has been up and running for three years. Somehow, I don’t find that reassuring. Check out this Salon article on the realities of charter school outcomes. 

So why would an actual good guy like Anthony Portantino agree to co-author this piece of disingenuous flummery? Well, Anthony comes out of the entertainment industry, and Bocanegra authored AB 1839 for the Entertainment Industry, which swapped big tax breaks to get producers to bring filming back to California. Maybe he owed him one. But please, not this one, not without a lot of rigorous debate. 

And this bill is moving like a greased pig through the legislature. Stay tuned.

(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw