Will The LAUSD Board Restore Promise To The District?

“Primary Promise, unanimously supported by every board member in 2020 when it started, is the most promising early literacy program in the nation. This is not only backed up by data, but with abundant anecdotal evidence from teachers, parents and students.”

– Parents Supporting Teachers

It has been a little over a year since Alberto Carvalho made the move from Miami. While the Superintendent’s Twitter feed shows that he is living his best life in Los Angeles, the benefits to the students of the LAUSD have been a brand new district logo and a glossy pamphlet detailing Carvalho’s “Strategic Plan.” Ignoring the promise to prepare students to be “Ready For The World,” Carvalho has subjected the students to a strike, the release of extremely personal information in a computer hack, and a reduction of opportunities for children with Special Education needs.

I addressed my thoughts about the Superintendent’s tenure in my public comment before the School Board went behind closed doors to evaluate his performance:

I would first like to note that the evaluation of the Superintendent is something that should not be done behind closed doors. The goals that have been laid out for him, his progress toward meeting these objectives, and his plans for improvement should all be a matter of public record. Additionally, the stakeholders of the district deserve to see how each of you does your part in holding him accountable.

Yesterday, The Los Angeles Times released an article detailing their investigation into the elimination of "Primary Promise" from many schools. This article details the many problems with how the Superintendent eliminated this program, which is indicative of how he runs the District as a whole. It presents a road map to how you should be conducting your evaluation today.

As an example, the Times describes "The abrupt and unannounced change to Primary Promise”. Last year, parents were saying the same thing about the Aut-Core program. Out of nowhere, Aut-Core was suddenly made unavailable during the IEP process forcing parents to search for a replacement for these classes even though they knew that the old one was driving results for their children.

The Times also notes that the budget for Primary Promise was sharply reduced "without a public discussion or acted on by the Board of Education." Families attending the Lokrantz Special Education Center have had the same experience as that school has been starved of students and had classrooms replaced by district office space.

The article’s author, Howard Blume, notes that Carvalho "did not make himself available for an interview," "the district did not provide budget information” and that "the district also has refused to release data justifying its move away from Primary Promise." This lack of transparency echoes Carvalho's response to the data breach last September and the denial that sensitive personal information had been released even though investigators had leaked the fact that this exposure had occurred.

After reading the article I am left wondering if the data that Carvalho says backs up his decision actually exists. After all, he said that the hackers had only attacked once when they had actually been in the system for over a month. In that case, the lie was told to protect his reputation. Why would he lie about a program like Primary Promise? I hope it is not a matter of protecting his ego from a popular program put in place by his predecessor.

As damning as the article is for this District, it does not reveal anything that those of us who watch the district have known for a while. Instead of leading this district in partnership with the stakeholders, Carvalho thinks that he can enforce his agenda by decree. You can't ignore the fact that this has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many. If you aren't going to address this problem in public, you at least have to do it when you retreat behind closed doors.

On a separate note, I saw on the Superintendent’s Twitter feed that he visited Lokrantz. Thank you for doing this. Hopefully, this visit showed you how special this school is and you will take the steps needed to save it.

It should be noted that Superintendent was not present for comments by the public. Should this be a surprise?

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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.