As Education Reform Advances, A Shifting Power Structure Reveals Fractured Movement
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Ben Austin is sworn in as a new member of the California Board of Education.
The executive director of school reform advocacy organization Los Angeles
Parents Union will serve through 2013. (Photo courtesy Parent Revolution)
On his first day as a member of the California Board of Education, Ben
Austin voted against a proposed charter school at Piru Elementary in
Ventura County.
"I think most outside observers would consider
me an easy vote in favor of a charter school," said Austin, the executive director
of LA-based school reform group Parent Revolution, after his first day
in Sacramento. "But there's nothing inherently good about a charter."
A
group of teachers at the school had petitioned to take Piru out of the
control of the Fillmore Unified School District. They contended that
parents and teachers could run the school more effectively than the
district could. However, the board rejected the request by a 6-2 vote.
Speaking from his hotel room May 5 after what he described
as a 12-hour first day, Austin said he voted against the charter
proposal because the district was already making steady progress
improving student performance. He wanted to make it clear that the
charter model is not desirable in every case.
"We don't support
all charters," Austin said. "It doesn't help to have underperforming
charter schools representing the charter movement."
Austin's
star has been rising as the head of Parent Revolution, a non-profit
started by charter school operator Green Dot Public Schools in 2006 as
"a coalition of parents who tired of sending our kids to broken
schools."
In Los Angeles and across California, the charter
school model has been promoted by leaders ranging from Schwarzenegger
to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to Senator Gloria Romero.
But
as Green Dot prepares to close one of its 19 Los Angeles schools, Animo
Justice High School, after just four years in operation, Parent
Revolution is coming under fire for failing to support parents and
students at the south LA school.
At the same time, the
aggressive growth of Green Dot, which made its name working to overhaul
the underperforming Jefferson High School and Locke High School,
appears to be slowing.
Given that Education Secretary Arne
Duncan was reported to have told Green Dot's founder Steve Barr that he
had apparently "cracked the code" for reforming education, the
organization's challenges may be a matter of national significance.
The Call
A
former deputy mayor under Mayor Richard Riordan, employee in the
Clinton White House, and an early supporter of President Barack Obama,
Ben Austin has abundant connections at the highest levels of the
Democratic Party.
However, he said, he did not expect the call
he received in March from Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
asking if he'd be interested in joining the state Board of Education.
"I just got a call out of the blue," Austin said. "It was very surprising."
Austin
believes Schwarzenegger nominated him board because of his work
overhauling the notorious Locke High School, aggressively seized by
charter school operator Green Dot in September 2007.
"Pundits
thought we had no chance of success," he said, talking about a school
that had been sending just 5 percent of its graduating class to
college. "I think people noticed that."
Austin, who failed to
qualify for the ballot in the Los Angeles Unified School District board
election last March because he submitted hundreds of supporter
signatures from outside his district, said he brings a unique
perspective to the state board.
"The idea of Parent Revolution
is to think about education differently," Austin said. "Not from the
perspective of a board member but as a parent."
The Objectors
Austin's
critics say he is not what he seems, and that it is no surprise
Schwarzenegger nominated him for the board. Activists like Robert D.
Skeels allege that Green Dot and Parent Revolution are part of a power
structure that funnels public funds into private hands at the expense
of poor communities.
Robert D. Skeels addresses a group of parents, students and teachers at a March
forum about the closing of Animo Justice.
(Photo by Kevin Douglas Grant)
Skeels, an immigration rights activist in
LA for the past 20 years, said that although those organizations are
non-profits, they still use a corporate model that places the budget
over the needs of students.
He cited the closure of Animo
Justice as an indicator that Green Dot does not have communities' best
interests at heart, chalking the relationship up to a class war between
rich whites and poor non-whites.
"The way Green Dot is closing schools like Animo Justice says a lot about who they are as an organization," Skeels said.
He
said he believes that Austin is only pretending to show concern for
students at underperforming schools, and that his primary concern is
promoting the "privatization" of public schools. He laments the fact
that Parent Revolution has not reached out to parents at Animo Justice.
"[Austin]'s
really good at appropriating the language of social activism," Skeels
said. "But Parent Revolution has never actually launched any event,
any rally, anything that involves community organizing."
Austin
rebuts this charge, dismissing it as a personal attack made in lieu of
a substantive argument. His deputy director, Gabe Rose, went a step
further, using the term AstroTurf as a derogatory term for a grassroots organization.
"You can say that parents are AstroTurf tools who don't know what's going on, but parents speak for themselves," he said. "I find that quite insulting."
"I
believe in empowering poor people and the disenfranchised," Austin
said, relaying a story about some concerned parents he had met earlier
that day at the board meeting. He said he told them they "will be
ignored" unless they leverage the options now available to them, such
as recently passed Parent Trigger Law.
Parent Revolution
played a key role in lobbying for the legislation, which allows an
organized majority of parents to force a failing public school to leave
its district and become a charter school under new leadership.
"The Parent Trigger Law gives parents the power to say: 'Give me a better deal or I'm leaving,'" Austin said.
Skeels
argues that Parent Revolution, launched by Green Dot as the Los Angeles
Parents Union (LAPU) in 2006 and until recently largely funded by the
charter operator, is not a community-based organization as its staff
claims.
"How are you a grassroots organization when you get hundreds of thousands of dollars from Eli Broad?" Skeels asked.
The
Broad Foundation is a philanthropic organization created in the 1960s
by Eli Broad and his wife Edythe as a vehicle to donate some of the
$2.1 billion Broad made as founder and CEO of Fortune 500 companies KB
Home and SunAmerica.
Tax returns available through the National
Center for Charitable Statistics confirm that LAPU received $275,000
between 2005 and 2008, while Green Dot received almost $4.5 million.
The foundation contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to various
types of other public and private institutions during that time.
Education
reform advocates like Sharon Higgins claim that charter school
operators like Green Dot, backed by philanthropists like Broad,
represent a threat to the public educational system on the whole.
Last
year the Oakland native created The Broad Report, a Web site devoted to
countering "Eli Broad's efforts to dismantle public education." The
site chronicles what she considers to be a large network of public
officials, including Schwarzenegger, Obama, Education Secretary Arne
Duncan and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and philanthropists who seek to
dismantle the public school model.
Earlier this month she wrote
about: "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."
Austin is quick to point out that he
sees charters as only a small part of the solution, but that the
existence of charters provide key leverage for parents stuck in
underperforming district-run schools.
"The social justice endgame is to serve all kids," Austin said. "We'll never even get close to that with charters alone."
The Businessman
Green
Dot CEO Marco Petruzzi took the reins of the charter school operator in
October 2008, succeeding larger-than-life founder and mover-and-shaker
Steve Barr.
"The reason I was brought in as CEO was to build a
sustainable infrastructure, particularly in tougher financial times,"
Petruzzi said.
A former partner at Bain & Company, an
international management consulting firm, Petruzzi went on to found a
small consulting firm for charter schools, R3 School Solutions. He
said he agrees with Austin, a close friend of his, that the charter
school movement is still a fledgling one with limited power.
"California
is still very much weighted towards traditional union-backed politics,"
Petruzzi said. Green Dot's relationship with LA's main teachers'
union, United Teachers Los Angeles, has been contentious. Green Dot's
teachers are not part of the UTLA and the union has declined to set
foot in Green Dot schools.
UTLA President A.J. Duffy was quoted
in The New York Times in 2007 saying: "We could have and probably
should have organized the Green Dot schools. They started with one
charter school, now have ten, and in short order they'll have 20
schools in Los Angeles, with all the teachers paying dues to a
different union. And that's a problem."
Green Dot teachers
continue to be organized through the Asociation de Maestros Unidos, a
chapter of the California Teachers Association. Their initial,
three-year contract is due to expire at the end of June.
Petruzzi
said Green Dot's primary concern right now is the troubled economy. He
explained that the organization actually receives more than 90 percent
of its funding from the state and federal government, and that the
federal money it had been getting is about to dry up.
"Everybody
is struggling in LA. It's brutal what's happening," Petruzzi said.
"Next year, there is no federal government funding. That's it."
On
top of that, 25 percent of Green Dot's state funding will be deferred,
forcing the organization to cover expenses such as teacher salaries
without actually yet having all the funds in its budget.
Petruzzi
said that the economic climate has also radically changed the
philanthropic landscape, and that charter schools cannot expect the
same level of support from organizations like The Broad Foundation and
Walton Foundation.
"It's just the reality of the new economy," Petruzzi said.
He said the decision to close Animo Justice balanced the financial reality Green Dot and the viability of the school.
"It
started off on the wrong foot and it never really recovered," Petruzzi
said, explaining that all Animo students had been offered places at
other Green Dot schools to finish their degrees.
"This is not an abandonment of the students."
Skeels,
who has been working closely with students, parents and teachers from
Animo Justice, objects to Green Dot's closing of the school and the way
it has been handled.
"Public schools don't have that option. They can't say, 'We're closing up shop,'" he said.
A
recent decision by the LAUSD board may indicate that Green Dot's future
growth is being challenged in other ways. In February the board
placed 30 public schools under new management as part of a major reform
effort created to turn around troubled schools.
Green Dot,
along with nationally recognized charter operators Alliance for
College-Ready Public Schools and ICEF Public Schools, was denied access
to any of the schools despite initially being selected by the board as
one of the top applicants.
"I was clearly disappointed," Petruzzi said. "It was kind of sad to see [the process] fall prey to politics as usual."
The
majority of the schools were turned over to teacher-led groups, not
charters, a decision that may have long-term national effects.
"It's
too early to tell," Petruzzi said, adding that he supports their
efforts and has invited some of them to visit Locke High School as a
resource. "We have a vested interest that this goes well for them."
At
the same time, Green Dot plans to open two new middle schools in the
fall, tentatively named Animo Jefferson Charter Middle School - in
South LA - and Animo Westside Charter Middle School in Venice.
Climate Change
Gabe
Rose is the deputy director at Parent Revolution. He joined the
organization about a year ago after graduating with a dual political
science/communications degree from UCLA. His thoughts about education
reform resonate with those of his boss, Austin, and reflect a similar
attitude.
"People have tried to do top-down change for the past
10 years and it just hasn't worked," Rose said from the LAPU offices in
the World Trade Center downtown. "But there's so much dynamism right
now. There are so many people brining their full attention to bear on
fixing education."
He defended the organization as being firmly rooted in the communities it serves.
"We're constantly out talking to parents," Rose said. "Not just informing them but also listening."
Rose
thinks that the political climate appears to be turning in favor of
education reform. He credits President Obama for some of it.
"Obama helped define education as a progressive issue." Rose said.
Austin went into greater detail describing Obama's contribution at a state and local level.
"He's
giving a lot of political cover to people like me, Gloria Romero, and
[Sacramento Mayor] Kevin Johnson," Austin said, describing a "new
generation of reformers within the Democratic party."
Petruzzi's
survey of the political landscape includes a state Board of Education,
governor, and gubernatorial candidates from both parties who are
"reasonably pro-charter." However, he said there is "amazing
opposition in Sacramento" to charter schools, referring to the State
Assembly and Senate.
Parting Ways
Although
neither Green Dot nor Parent Revolution has made any secret about the
relationship between the two organizations, Austin said they are
disconnecting from one another. Parent Revolution will cease to
receive funding directly from Green Dot.
"This is not about
Green Dot," Rose said. "We're not doing anything for Green Dot." The
Parent Revolution Web site lists Green Dot as one of LAPU's coalition
members.
Additionally, Rose contended that Austin's seat on the state board will have no direct effect on Parent Revolution.
In
a fierce battle between two contingents of education reform advocates,
personified by Green Dot, Parent Revolution, and a spectrum of
pro-reform public officials on one side and less connected,
all-volunteer organizations and activists on the other, every decision
can become a piece of ammunition for the other side.
"I don't get paid to do activism," Skeels says from his home in Echo Park. "Ben Austin does."
Austin sidesteps the personal attack, preferring to focus the conversation on educational policy.
"I
frankly think the education debate has become tired and stale," Austin
said. "If in three years we're still having this conversation we'll
have fundamentally failed."
The irony, perhaps, is that both contingents of reformers see themselves as underdogs.
"It's an understatement to say we're the underdog," Austin said. "The other side has all the power."
Comments
Petruzzi says there is "amazing opposition in Sacramento" to charter schools, referring to the state assembly and senate. Oh? If only that were true! Didn't the legislation just pass the anti-public education, pro-charter bills that Petruzzi, Austin and Green Dot lobbied for?
An underdog with an array of billionaires, checkbooks at the ready, to fund its every move, and with the avid support of the president of the U.S., the governor of California, and so on? That really is an interesting new definition of "underdog."
This is a good piece, though there's one erroneous notion behind it: the assumption that Rose and Austin actually believe in the principles they extol. Both are paid spokesmen, mouthpieces, flacks. They extol whatever principles they're paid to extol. On that basis I even disagree with my co-blogger Robert Skeels here: "...[Skeels] believes that Austin is only pretending to show concern for students at underperforming schools, and that his primary concern is promoting the "privatization" of public schools. "
I would restate that: Austin's primary concern is promoting whatever he's paid to promote, and pretending to show concern for whatever he's paid to pretend to show concern for.