CommentsSAVING OUR SCHOOLS-Austin Beutner, the current Superintendent of LAUSD, was essentially appointed to his position by Eli Broad and his Billionaire Buddies who funded their charter school supporting candidates for the Board of Education.
This majority group on the Board, while seeming to consider a valid educator for this vital position, had, in fact already had secret meetings to select Beutner, a non-educator businessman, in a possible violation of the Brown Act. Broad, who still wields way too much influence over LAUSD, had similarly forced the appointment of former-Superintendent John Deasy who left in disgrace after wasting almost $1 billion on outdated computers, driving the district into a financial crisis with bad decisions that left the District paying billions for lawsuits as well.
These and other machinations are reported minimally by the not-so-thorough LA Times which leans toward Beunter's points of view. This is not surprising since various Times education articles have been paid for by the Broad Foundation. Beutner, who for a short while was publisher of the LA Times until he was fired by the Chicago Tribune, has a growing reputation as a corporate “hit man," so to speak. He seems to go from job to job dismembering organizations to make them ripe for takeover. In the case of the LAUSD, his goal is to turn it into 32 districts, each rated like a corporation, and then to eliminate districts he deems unsuitable. This would enable them to be turned into more charter schools which receive “public” funding but are run like private schools that are not overseen financially or academically by any official educational government entity.
Beutner has a history of partnership with Broad, including their attempt to buy the LA Times a few years ago, following this same “hostile takeover” pattern. Their greed, deception, and manipulation are now focused on LA public schools and Beutner is assigned to follow the plan of using Broad's 501(c)(3) non-profit called Great Public Schools Now to convert all LAUSD schools into charters. They will be paid for by California taxpayers but run by CEOs as corporations.
LAUSD teachers and UTLA are set to strike on Monday, January 14 in an effort to save the public schools and benefit students by hiring more teachers, nurses, librarians, counselors, as well as asking for minimal pay raises.
Below are some important facts that show how Beutner's current distortion of budget reports should not be trusted. He has not bargained with the UTLA union in good faith, but rather has bypassed them and used the media to falsely report the status of the budget. He also continues to lobby his position to State legislators instead of engaging in realistic bargaining.
According to teacher’s research, every student gets state ADA (Average Daily Attendance) funding of $13,452 a year as of 2016-17. The following figures are based on some of their analysis of the financials based on a total of 600,000 students served by the district. The teacher’s assessment is that it is to the advantage of the district to keep as many students in school each day of the strike in order to collect the Average Daily Attendance money which funds the budget. A long-time inner-city classroom teacher posted these figures on Facebook recently. They seem to disprove the lies, charts and hyperbole that Beutner is putting forth to the media and to the state regarding reserve funds of almost $2 million. The figures seem to show that it is in Beutner’s best interest as the prime money manager to keep the strike going for as long as possible by refusing to negotiate in good faith.
#BeutnerMath posted on Facebook by a teacher states:
A teacher poses this scenario...
"Each student brings in about $63 per day. It is one of the reasons LAUSD has been so strict about student attendance.
100 students = $6,300
1,000 students = $63,000
100,000 students = $6,300,000
600,000 students at $63 per student = $37,800,000 per day
If LAUSD is not paying 33,000 teachers who are on strike, they are saving a lot of money." (I add that if they have these students at school, even if there is no instruction, they still get the ADA.) "Beutner sees students as backpacks full of cash so increased attendance during a strike means a high profit margin." (With 30,000 teachers not being paid during the strike being a huge savings to the district.)
"He will continue to keep schools open so long as he can make a profit." (I add that he has no real incentive to bargain with the union on a level and fair playing field.)
"Make no mistake. Beutner and company were counting on a strike, and each day the teachers are on the line will increase the reserve" (which he keeps saying is too little money to hire teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, and to decrease class sizes.)
This teacher also writes, “…since the California Department of Education lists average ADA for LAUSD for the school year of 2016-17 it is $13,452. This is the last year on record. So $74 per day would be more accurate, assuming perfect attendance.
In addition, teachers on FB remind us that by overloading classrooms with about 40% more students (who actually must sit on the floors) and not hiring back teachers (40,000 in California were terminated during the 2008 recession along with librarians, nurses, janitors, and other support staff) the budget and the reserves can be inflated.
Beutner the business maven seems to think, as do Broad, Deasy, and the profiteers, that this situation will help them in their takeover. It is in their best interest not to build new classrooms, not to hire more teachers and support staff, not to stop charter schools from co-habiting with public schools, but rather to “charterize” the entire district and use low pay non-credentialed Teach for America young people as teachers to increase “profits.” They consider it to be a good education to have 50 students sitting in front of computers with only a monitor in the room, with no credentialed face to face teachers. This is far from an optimum education. University trained teachers interacting with students cannot be replaced.
It is imperative that taxpayers understand how these Wall Street privatizers are using public funds to finance their own profiteering schemes and how they draw from the public to put legally dedicated education funding dollars into their own deep pockets.
(Ellen Lubic is Director of Joining Forces for Education, a public policy educator and journalist, RESIST leader, and an occasional CityWatch contributor.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
