EDUCATION POLITICS-A 4LAKids reader wrote me last week with some new/some other horror ongoing in the District, trying to get me engaged …to see if we could get more folks motivated about whatever it was.
I asked him to please stay focused on the challenge at hand: Superintendent Deasy. Dr. DZ. (Photo)
(I may not have actually said ‘Please’; part of the DZ contagion is that we forget to be polite/kind/patient/empathetic.)
Being done with DZ won’t change everything – but it will reverse the overall direction. The downward spiral. The climate of fear+helplessness. It starts us on the path out of here and ends the speculation over How Will He Survive This One? … and the agonizing déjà vu /all over again: Isn’t this where we were … exactly a year ago?
A year ago we didn’t know about the Apple-Pearson emails.
A year ago we hadn’t had the MiSiS Experience.
We didn’t know about the canceled-but-not-quite-really iPad procurement.
A year ago we didn’t know the answer to the question: What Else Can Go Wrong?
And if you are one of those driven by the fierce urgency of reform now you have witnessed the lassitude and inertia of the current situation: A standoff with neither retreat nor advance – just the knee-jerk reaction-of-the-week to the crisis-of-the-week. We measure progress where-we-find-it in minuscule increments – well within the rounding error. And the parents and the educators and the students are waiting.
ON TUESDAY AT 4:01 PM THE BOARD OF ED MEETS IN CLOSED SESSION WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT’S ANNUAL REVIEW ON THE AGENDA. We are assured that they will not vote Tuesday, they won’t reach a conclusion – this is just a preliminary meeting to establish whatever it is that needs establishing.
“The meeting was called to give the seven school board members a chance to discuss what criteria they would like to include in the superintendent’s upcoming annual performance review, scheduled for Oct. 21.
“According to people familiar with the closed session agenda, board members will have the opportunity to discuss what they consider fair game for Deasy’s annual performance evaluation. Under no circumstances, said one of the sources, would a vote be held to determine Deasy’s employment. According to that source, Deasy has the right to attend, but because it is not his official performance review, he isn’t required to.” LA School Report.
For the curious, this just gets curiouser. LA School Report is not a publication that parties opposed to the superintendent would normally leak to. The author of the scoop about the closed session meeting was neither a reporter nor an editor, but the very publisher herself.
“Who would have her on their speed dial?” you might ask if you believed in Machiavellian machinations and man-behind-the-curtain intrigue. Who indeed?
The Special Meeting schedule was posted dutifully on the Board of Ed website – with a promise that the agenda would follow that very day: [●Order of Business Available on 9/24/14]
That didn’t happen for 48 hours – and when it did it was:
a.) barren of information and
b.) posted as District offices closed on Friday afternoon.
If there is DZ Timing, this is it.
And, speaking of timing, seeing as how the pot is simmering already, why not give it a stir?
A story came out Friday – based on evidence previously undisclosed - that seemed intended to cast discredit on new Board member George McKenna: DOCUMENTS FILED IN MIRAMONTE LAWSUIT CLAIM SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER McKENNA KNEW OF ALLEGATIONS AGAINST CHILD PREDATOR. As a writer who has been known to write comedy I know how critical timing is. And how rarely accidental.
There is intrigue enough here for a Raymond Chandler novel – I am waiting to see what the pseudonymous Martin Eden of “All The Superintendent’s Men” (that unwelcome contributor to LA School Report)– makes of it. Though I seriously doubt if LASR will publish it!
STAY FOCUSED: There will be red herrings and false leads. MacGuffins, misdirection and sleight-of-hand. Don’t be distracted by Breakfast in the Classroom or even the UTLA Contract Negotiations. Don’t even be distracted by MiSiS – though that may take some effort! Miramonte was horrible, horrible! – but it is yesterday’s news resurrected to misdirect your attention from what is, and isn’t, going on at 333 South Beaudry. Remember that almost every school district in almost every state in the union will be taking Common Core Tests on computers this spring – and apparently only one of them (¿guess who?) is relying on School Construction Bond Funding to pay for the testing devices.
And when you hear that John Deasy is The Indispensible Man listen to that warning voice that comes in the night And repeats- how it yells - in your ear: “There are no indispensible men.”
There are no magic bullets. We are not waiting for Superman. Eli Broad and Bill Gates are not Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny in their spare time.
Remember what our anonymous principal wrote: "...comparing this to what an abused spouse must feel...hearing the promised words of change that lulls one into trusting that everything will be ok – only to repeat the cycle once more."
Remember what Churchill said about Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat? It’s like that. Let’s stop the bleeding and get on with the rest.
(Scott Folsom is a parent and parent leader in LAUSD. He is the former President of Los Angeles 10th District PTSA and represents PTA as Vice-chair the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee. Scott is a member of the California State PTA Board on Managers. He blogs at the excellent 4 LA Kids … where this perspective was originally posted.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 79
Pub: Sep 30, 2014
