LAUSD: Confronting The Beast

The one good thing to come out of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) Joint Commission on LAUSD Governance this week was meeting parents, teachers, and business leaders who want alternatives like vouchers and charters as much as I do.

Each of them testified to LAUSD’s terminal failures. The only dissenting voice was that of School Board member Jon Lauritzen who, after listening to the uninterrupted evidence of LAUSD’s institutional retardation, had the gall to request a $100,000 raise AND an end to term limits. Talk about cojones!

As a career criminal investigator, I testified that no organized criminal enterprise has harmed more children in America than the LAUSD, and that it was pointless to buy new drapes for their sinking ship. Until charter schools and vouchers replace LAUSD control, millions of school children risk the intellectual vandalism that has been forced upon generations of children before them.

Little has changed since Democrats created Jim Crow to undermine the teaching of black children. More than half of all black males in the 9th grade today will drop out of school. LAUSD does today what Jim Crow did to blacks 70 years ago.

As a career cop, I’ve seen commissions come and go. Commissions have only two purposes:

1. They provide a venue where politicians and bureaucrats pretend to care about public concerns, and
2. They make new politicians look more impressive than they really are, i.e., the Mayor appointed me to this committee and that commission.

The difference between commission appointments and merit badges is that Girl Scouts usually have something to show for their effort.

The highlight of the evening came when I confronted The Beast herself, Board member Julie Korenstein. I met her a few weeks ago at a Valley Vote meeting when I asked her about LAUSD’s unusually high drop-out rates. Outdoing Lauritzen’s chutzpa, she insulted her audience AND Latinos by saying that many weren’t really dropping out, but were probably returning to Mexico after receiving their education. No one asked whether she thought the high number of black drop-outs were returning to Africa.

When the meeting finally ended, The Beast asked, “Are you running for office?”

I ignored the question and reminded her that if we divided LAUSD’s $13.4 Billion budget into 727,000 students we’d have about $18,000 to spend on each student.

She disputed the budget number and I told her where she could find LAUSD's budget link on my education paper. I checked the next day to find that someone had killed the link. (I found and saved this one.)

The Beast rationalized that children only get $7000 of the $18,000 and the rest goes to building schools (like the Belmont Learning Center – more drapes for the sinking ship).

When I brought up the subject of vouchers, she said she opposed them because she didn’t want her tax dollars to go to Jewish, Catholic, or Islamic Schools. When I asked about the overwhelming majority of Jews, Christians, and Muslims who didn’t want their tax dollars wasted on what Harvard University calls LAUSD’s dropout factories, The Beast said they could pay extra for private schools.

Let them eat cake!

The Beast has no problem extorting billions of tax dollars to harm millions of public school children whose second-class parents cannot afford private school. To board members, our children obviously exist to serve LAUSD.

Korenstein and Lauritzen’s demonstrated incompetence proves that they are not fit to manage our public schools. In many ways, their comments made the best case for charter schools and vouchers than the concerned parents, teachers, and business leaders who demanded change.

I spent my professional life protecting civil rights of LA's working-class families and poor. Of the gang members, robbers, burglars, drug dealers, and other predators I incarcerated, there is no greater menace to our children than the moonbats who infest LAUSD management.

It’s time that Democrats and LAUSD return public school funds back to parents and teachers who really care about education. The Jim Crow era of public education must end.