"I knew I needed to be an example to my scholars." — Lisa Sims (Crescendo Teacher)
LAUSD Creates Calamity for Crescendo Corporate Charters, my newest Schools Matter piece, looks at the events leading up to the closure of the Crescendo Corporate Charter Chain, an affiliated LAUSD charter. Aside from providing a cogent chronological narrative, my essay explores some very important topics.
- We see why John Allen's cheating was only exposed because Crescendo's teacher force were unionized teachers with due process protections that gave them the courage to be whistle-blowers.
- We see how many of the district employees like Jose Cole-Gutierrez, and Board Members elected by the vile right-wing Coalition for School Reform, are nothing more than proxies for the lucrative charter-voucher school industry.
- We see how the notorious Vielka McFarlane of the infamous Celerity Corporate Charter Chain was so arrogant that she lied to Superintendent John Deasy's face and mocked the rest of the LAUSD Board, by hiring one of John Allen's cheating principals. Ultimately McFarlane's hubris and arrogant defiance of ethics and the public commons resulted in Crescendo's closure.
- We see how LAUSD Board Member Dr. Dick Vladovic, who was elected with copious funds from Philip Anschutz and the reactionary Coalition for School Reform, tried to shift the blame to the whistle-blowing teachers. This despite the fact that John Allen, his executives, and his board were the only ones responsible for the cheating.
- Lastly, we learn that No school should ever be closed as a punitive measure, not even a charter school. I make the social justice case for preserving Crescendo Schools by converting them to public schools under either ESBMM or Pilot models.
Published 2011-08-02 on Schools Matter, please read it there and share widely.