“Stand For Children Louisiana” is an Evil and Malicious Corporate Front Group for Evil People and Organizations

I did not realize just how corrupt and connected the organization known as “Stand For Children Louisiana” was until I looked into some of their finances and their background.  I decided to do this after being told about this slanderous commercial attacking BESE member Carolyn Hill, on BESE member elect Jada Lewis’ behalf.  In case you didn’t see it, here it is:

Yes.

This is actually a campaign commercial (it’s hard to tell with all the flashing lights and rolling news feeds so I recorded it so you can pause the screen.)  This aired on a local channel, WBRZ.  You will note the call letters of the faux news broadcast are WBRD, so to a casual viewer it looks legit.  “Stand” even used the local background drop of our bridge across the Mississippi that our local news uses.  This commercial aired in the last week of the election and was responsible for tricking voters into thinking the police were after Carolyn Hill for numerous crimes.  The commercial even displays case numbers.

(Note:  I ran for BESE in the same market as Carolyn (EBR) but a different district and we are longtime friends and allies.  Carolyn was the first BESE member I met in the flesh after leaving LDOE when I attended a local community meeting on alternative forms of student discipline about 4 years ago.  She got me interested in trying to do more to help our children in this state and our community by her example.)

I know this commercial was effective because I had voters come to my Facebook page and tell me they wished they could vote for me for my stands on issues (which are basically the same as Hill’s) but all they could vote for was Lewis, or “the criminal” so they really had no good choice but certainly couldn’t keep a criminal in office.

This commercial is based on fictional information, at least about BESE member Carolyn Hill.  The case numbers are not legit (according to Hill’s staff who called all the DAs of all the neighboring Parishes they are only partial numbers or meaningless numbers and Hill has no outstanding warrants and never did.)  That’s not to say maybe some Carolyn Hill somewhere on earth might have some bench warrants, but there are over 100 Jason Frances in the US, here are the “top”25 Carolyn Hills just on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Carolyn/Hill

The other accusations are BS too.  BESE positions come with a laptop or iPad to communicate with the State e-Mail system securely.  Would you want BESE members communicating private student info outside of a secure system like Hillary Clinton or Ash Carter? The position requires travel all over the state and reimburses BESE members for travel and also provides a per diem.

This is how Stand chose to stand for children, by lying and deceiving people about a real champion of children in their community.

Of course this behavior wasn’t limited to Stand but this was one of the more egregious cases.  In addition to the primetime commercials Stand also spent tens of thousands of dollars on direct mail to people’s homes, warning them about Carolyn Hill.

But not only does this organization not “stand for children”, it doesn’t stand for the “Louisiana” part of its title either! 98% of their funding came from corporations, tax exempt entities including one funded by the Sierra club (seriously), and billionaires outside of our state. Several of these organizations probably broke federal laws and should lose their tax exempt status for contributing to a purely political organization that spent all their money on attack ads and propaganda.

I compiled a list of Stand’s donors and clients after their February registration filings.  I investigated each one and I will do this for every other organization that overran our state with their dirty blood money.

Stand Funding and Expenditures BESe

Stand actually split into 2 separate “Stand for Children Louisiana” groups this year.  Both are controlled by former LDOE (a deputy superintendent to John White and Chief of Staff for Vallas of RSD) and John White/Paul Vallas loyalist, Rayne Martin.  It’s not clear why they split into two groups, but I suspect they may have been planning of using their separate identities to bypass state limits on PAC donations.

I have included the data as an Excel spreadsheet for you to do your own calculations and roll-ups, but I will also post some summaries.  First let’s look at donors.  Only Stephen Rosenthal (Leslie Jacob’s brother, the RSD’s chief architect, and Gray Parker, President of the Booth-Bricker fund which is funded by all the out of state ed reform all stars, are from Louisiana) about 98% of this 781,000 dollars worth of funding comes straight from out of state (to produce slanderous attack ads on behalf of charter school vampires.)

Action Now Initiative is actually a 501c4 organization, a Tax Exempt non-profit and basically big time charter school supporters, Laura and John Arnold’s,  front organization from Texas.  Here’s this groups 2013 Tax return.  Don’t you think it’s time this “advocacy organization” started paying taxes instead of paying for slanderous attack ads?

Jim Walton of Arkansas, one of the Walmart heirs, dropped 250 gs here. Jim and his sister Alice shit all over our elections again this year with their obscene wealth and callous disregard for children or choices other than charter schools. I bet charter school chains will be opening up in between those  Walmart McDonalds and a Walmart hair salons in the near future.  One step closer to WALL-E!

The Sixteen Thirty fund gave 250k and access to their mailing list and phone numbers.  They are another tax exempt 501c org based in DC with a progressive agenda.  The Sierra club is one of their primary funders. Their primary mission is stated as environmental.

In addition to saving spotted owls the Sixteen Thirty Funds also pays to produce slanderous commercials and promote charter schools. Despicable.

Stacy Schusterman gave 250k.  She is an Energy magnate from Oklahoma and co-chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman foundation, a Jewish based group with the dual mission of saving Israel and apparently lying about innocent people around the workd and persecuting them with lies for the sake of the education reform movement.  Nice. https://www.schusterman.org/

We believe that by investing in the education reform movement and its leaders, we can do our part to better prepare today’s learners to be tomorrow’s qualified workforce and engaged citizens.

Of course the National Stand organization backs lying about opponents “for the children”  and chipped in 50k for that cause.

Finally, what outrageous campaign of lies would be complete without at least one local Louisiana traitor, like Stephen Rosenthal, the brother to the Recovery School District “architect” Leslie Rosenthal Jacobs (Jacobs is currently  a member of governor elect John Bel Edwards k-12 education transition team. and has a Wikipedia page describing how awesome and important she is sourced with information from her own website, EducateNow!.

Stand for Now actually spent at least 860 thousand (I didn’t get all the details from the Stand to Stand transactions so it was a bit more.)

MB Public Affairs is the California based “political vulnerability research” attack group that prepared the report on Carolyn Hill.  They are considered a beloved company. . . by Tobacco companies and Genetically Modified Organism (GMOs) producers hoping to prevent labeling of their products.  They research individual members of community organizations on these companies behalf’s to smear individual members and harass them into silence.  Jada Lewis ran as a Democrat against Democrat Carolyn Hill, but MB Public affairs is a well known republican attack dog.

The latest financial filings in California for the “No on 37: Coalition Against the Deceptive Food Labeling Scheme” reveal a $7,500 payment to the Sacramento-based political consulting firm MB Public Affairs. Here is how The Los Angeles Times described the firm last year: “MB Public Affairs is headed by Mark Bogetich, a garrulous operative known to his friends as ‘Bogey,’ who has helped a number of Republican candidates neutralize their opponents. In recent years, MB Public Affairs has worked for Altria, once known as the Phillip Morris Cos.” Bogetich has also been called “the go-to guy for [the Republican Party]” and “the only game in town.” The Los Angeles Times article explains how last year MB Public Affairs filed more than 50 Public Records Act requests to dig up dirt on a small but effective group called the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy

Almost every FlipBESE candidate in the last BESE election was described as a Trojan Democrat in Republican clothing.  It’s pretty clear Jada Lewis is nothing more than a plant of the Republican party running as a Democrat in a primarily Democratic district.  She fooled them, with MB Public Affairs help, and Stand for Children Louisiana’s lies and misrepresentations.  The groups primarily involved in Jada’s Lewis’ media campaign were Clay Young Enterprises LLC and Innovative Advertising LLC.  My guess is Clay Young produced the commercial based on their advertised specialty and portfolio.

Other BESE candidates supported by this Out of State front organization were:

• Gary Jones
• Holly Boffy
• Tony Davis
• Kira Orange-Jones
• and local Orleans school board candidate John Brown.

These are bad people funded by bad people to do bad things to Louisiana and our children for the sake of money and power. Stand for Children Louisiana is the vehicle for making this all happen.  Do not trust or believe any of these people.

Update: 12/19

As Dr. Mercedes Schneider pointed out in her recent blog, Rayne Martin is no longer listed as “formally” affiliated with Stand. Rayne passed the reins to Carrie Griffin Monica midyear.  However once a reformer, always a reformer.  Rayne is still affiliated with the same circle of education do-badders and it is not uncommon for them to go to a private “consulting” company for a larger payoff with less public scrutiny.

 

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A Chance to Have Your Voice Heard About Public Education in Baton Rouge

A new grassroots public education initiative is trying to get off the ground next week.  Tuesday, January 20th, at 8:15, Beyond Bricks EBR is kicking off a community-wide initiative to start gathering feedback from the public about what they want their public education to look like.  This event is being held at the Albemarle Headquarters at 451 Florida Blvd on the 16th floor.

The Advocate covered this launch in this article.  This initiative was launched by Anna Fogle to gather feedback from the community and to foster a spirit of engagement with our public school system.

Fogle, a mother of two children in public school and board chair of the Baton Rouge Association for Gifted and Talented Students, said the catalyst for Beyond Bricks was the legislative session last spring.

Her organization along with the Children’s Coalition of Greater Baton Rouge and the parent group One Community One School District were raising concerns about an ultimately unsuccessful proposal, developed by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, to shift power from the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board and superintendent to school principals

I’ve known Anna for years, she is a staunch defender of public schools and children, and I’ve worked occasionally with the One Community One School District organization.  What Anna, OCOSD, and others are trying to do is engage community members who actually use the Public School system and would like to have their input heard as well as those who have only heard bad things about the school system from the media which is generally hostile towards the public school system in Baton Rouge.  For years, business and industry led by the Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce and Lane Grigsby have dictated the direction our school system is going.  They have dictated the direction based on what they think is best for them and their businesses, not what is best for public school children and parents.   These business interests have sponsored harmful legislation to break up the district and even created their own faux grassroots organization called FuturePAC to funnel campaign donations through to support candidates they believe will ignore the public and follow their agenda without question.

The candidates funded by these groups  have overwhelmingly been in favor of eliminating the public school system and replacing it with a privately run charter based system that will have no accountability to the public in regards to how these disparate private entities spend our tax dollars or how they  treat our children.  The schools being created by these private operators belong to them, not to the community.  They can close overnight, and they have.   If a private charter school employs abusive teachers or principals, or disregards the rights of disabled students the public has no recourse. At most a school could lose their “charter”. . .eventually.  In that event the charter operator keeps the school and the community is left with the kids to try and convince other for profit charter schools to enroll for free.  Many of these charter schools, like Inspire National Heritage Academy in Baton Rouge are refusing to provide transportation to students and families to save costs.  Any “cost” they save is profit for them and a new cost for you to incur.

Maybe you like the charter schools the Chamber and Grigsby have recruited to Baton Rouge?  This meeting is open to all philosophies so you could express that and explain to other concerned parents why you believe charters are a good thing. If you have some reservations or questions about the direction EBR is going I would recommend you come to this meeting.  This will not be the only event held by Beyond Bricks EBR, but it is the first one.

My brief charter ranting notwithstanding, I believe Beyond Bricks is trying to encourage a positive atmosphere, so I would try to come with ideas about how to improve out current system and what sorts of programs and improvements you’d like to see.  I personally would like to see Pre-K programs offered to families of all income levels.  I feel from personal experience that I was further behind my wealthier peers by not attending Pre-K in  my youth.  I’ve seen my own kids excel at school with access to Pre-k.  My daughter is reading almost four grade levels higher than the second grade class she is in, and we’re not exactly sure what her math level is since she answered every question correct on her recent math assessment. I am not bragging for myself.  I am a terrible teacher with no patience or attention span.  I owe all her progress to her teachers in her public school in EBR.

I would also like to see an expansion of the Montessori program that is only available on a limited basis at two schools, Belfair and Dufrocq.  Those programs cost money, but they work.  Charter schools cost even more money, and more often than not they don’t work.  EBR is more than capable of providing “choice” to families in Baton Rouge, if given the chance and funding.

The EBR school district is doing some great things, but most people rarely hear of those, especially those without children in the public school system.

At a retreat in October of 2013 a PR consultant working for the EBR school district explained it best:

Also during the retreat, public relations consultant Melissa Landry led a brief discussion on how the board can improve its public image. She said that surveys show the community, overall, believes the district is headed in the right direction. But some of the people who have the worst perception of the district are those who don’t have children enrolled there or don’t have children. That could be because they hear only negative news from the media, Landry said.

So bring your ideas and your enthusiasm about the EBR public school system and come to Beyond Bricks EBR this Tuesday or one of the other meetings that will be announced later.

Details are below.

Please RSVP Here
Metered parking is available and nearby parking lots are mapped here.
This is an inclusive initiative for all philosophies.
Please email  the name of any education advocate you believe should be involved to
info@beyondbricksEBR.org
Stay connected:
www.beyondbricksEBR.org
https://www.facebook.com/Beyondbricksebr

National Heritage Academies makes money for themselves, but no sense for taxpayers

In the 2012-2013 school year Inspire charter Academy, one of National Heritage Academies schools in Baton Rouge La, took in 6.8 million dollars in revenue from state and federal sources according to their own records.  Of that 6.8 million, only about 1.3 million went towards teachers and their salaries.  Approximately 2.8 million was classified as instructional expenditures, or about 40%.  The remaining 60% went towards management fees, rent and profit.  For the same school year, East Baton Rouge Parish (EBR) spent 200 million on instructional expenditures out of 400 million in revenue or 50% of their budget.  Without delving too deeply it is clear that the school district spends more on their students that this charter school.

The rent on the building Inspire is leasing from itself at 5454 Foster Dr. is a little over 1 million dollars a year.  The building they acquired is valued at around 5 million according to the assessed value.  Inspire has a 5 year charter that is up for renewal for another 5 years at the EBR school board meeting tomorrow.  With the rent they have paid to themselves out of the taxpayer funded MFP and Federal Funds an ordinary school district could have purchased the building outright, and owned a 5 million dollar building.  NHA will continue to lease this building at 1 million dollars a year (or more) to itself for as long as it stays in business.  Even though some charter schools calls themselves “non-profit”, there are still plenty of ways to make money off the charter school.  For instance, if/when NHA pulls out or loses its charter the parent corporation will retain ownership of a 5 million dollar building purchased with tax payer funds (that factor in building costs and maintenance) and EBR will have nothing.

Another way charter schools like Inspire make money is by collecting money that factors in costs that they do not incur.  For example, in EBR, 7% of revenue goes towards transportation.  NHA schools make the claim they want to have neighborhood schools and so don’t provide transportation.  Here is a statement made by a board member of NHA run Willow Academy in Lafayette from the advocate.

http://theadvocate.com/home/8410250-125/story.html

The location is within walking distance for students the school targets, said Jay Miller, a member of the charter school’s board, Louisiana Achievement Charter Academies.

“We’re not providing bus service, so we felt it was essential that neighborhood kids would have an opportunity to come to school and have easy access to the school,” Miller said.

The problem with this statement is that Willow Charter Academy is in a Mall shopping center parking lot, surrounded by 4 and 6 lane highways on all sides.  There are  no nearby subdivision except for one which is blocked by an impenetrable forest.  Kids would have to walk for quite a while along dangerous and busy roads in rough parts of town to get to Willow, even if there were crosswalks and crossing guards.  Parents that want their kids to attend must drive their kids to school.  This arrangement allows NHA to pocket the money other districts spend on transportation, while also excluding the neediest students, those students without parents with reliable transportation, thus improving their demographics and lowering the higher costs associated with educating the poorest of the poor students.

I use this as an example to show how NHA operates in general.  Some schools are closer to subdivisions and some kids might be able to walk.  Most can’t walk to Inspire or to NHA Advantage at 14740 Plank Road in Baker.  Inspire does not appear to have made many efforts to make their campus accessible to the “walking” community either.

One of the ways charter schools try to appeal to the public is by making the claim that they will improve educational outcomes for students over what they would receive in the traditional school districts.  While we can’t verify or disprove that claim for Willow Charter Academy yet, we do have some years of data for Inspire and EBR.  The district score for EBR, which loosely ties to the average of all SPS Scores, is 81 for 2014

Inspire’s score is just above an F, and only because it received 6 of LDOE’s mysterious Bonus/Progress Points that appear to have rewarded it for declining from 2013 to 2014, while other schools that actually improved their SPS scores by more than 10 points (on their own) received no bonus/progress points.   How ironic that the schools that actually made progress received no progress points to their overall score but Inspire actually declined and got 6.

Wow.

LDOE has always been known for their creative use of math, but this seems either arbitrary or some interesting favoritism.  Remove the arbitrary Bonus / Progress / Favoritism points and Inspire had a 52 in 2013 last year and a 51  in 2014.  Now that’s some progress.

While NHA Inspire is obviously not the worst charter school in EBR, it is worth noting that it scores 30% lower than the overall EBR system, and that with receiving “progress  points” while actually declining.  This is after 5 years so it’s not like this is a new operator taking over a failing school.  This is a new school.

So how does this scheme work I wondered?  Fortunately there are current and former employees willing to speak out.

NHA does not pay teachers or administrators very well, but promises bonuses when enrollment targets and test score targets are met.  They build schools in areas where the current schools are rated low (Inspire) so that it doesn’t take much convincing to get people to come.  But then the added bonus of a gift card for families and stipends for administrators when they meet or exceed an enrollment goal is held out there.  In my short time at Inspire, I made over $8000.00 in enrollment bonuses.

Very little money is spent on educational materials; even less on technology.  But they do like those gift cards – they send them out twice a year as employee “incentives”

In my [redacted] years in this business, I have been in a lot of schools in a lot of districts.  Very few have been as controlling as the NHA schools.  And when I asked about the lack of technology, I was told that there is no research to prove that it leads to higher test scores, so that’s not where they invest their money.

Willow has been started by a group of young administrators from Atlanta who were paid very large bonuses and housing allowances to relocate here for a year or two.  My friend is [redacted] appalled at the lack of emphasis on the children.  It’s all about the testing and meeting targets so that more money can be made.

I actually already did a story on NHA and their gift card bounty/bribery program for encouraging people to enroll in their schools.  If you would like to see some examples of their gift card scheme take a peek below.

https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/charter-schools-are-now-paying-kids-to-try-them-out/

I found another example of how NHA saves money from this source’s information.  If you don’t spend money on computers you can pocket that money too.  Who needs computers or an education on how to use them anyway?  I hear computers are just a passing fad, so maybe NHA is right to keep kids from learning how to properly use computers in a controlled environment.

The point is, NHA and other charter operators like them, are not focused on doing any more than will keep them in the school business.  Their business model is to muddle along and vacuum up as much money as they can in the process.

I can’t go into all the schemes large scale charter operations like NHA and Charter Schools USA use to scam taxpayers.  I’m not that creative or dastardly.  However there are plenty of folks that are.  Perhaps you should attend one of the meetings like the one mentioned below to find out all the ways you can make loads of money by selling and leasing back real estate to yourself and other important education stuff.

From: “Mara Kane”

Date: January 6, 2015 at 2:02:14 AM CST
To: (deleted)
Subject: Meet Our Speakers – For-Profit Education Co.’s for PE Investors – Jan. 14 Conference 

Dear (deleted),

Investors are encouraging for-profit education companies to restructure debt, sell and lease back real estate, implement efficiency improvements…even improve relationships with regulators who worry about the cost-benefit gap of the schools’ curriculums.

In addition, investors are increasingly focusing on service providers that are targeting for-profit education — from marketing and enrollment services to course instruction and fundraising.

In short, after a rough patch, the future of the for-profit marketplace is brightening, and this Capital Roundtable conference will highlight the ways many middle-market investors are doing well.

Register Now for Private Equity Investing in For-Profit Education Companies on Wednesday, January 14.

Meet the Chairman & Our Speakers

Our chairman, Jeff Keith, is operating partner of Chicago-based Sterling Partners. He has more than twenty years of experience leading finance and operations teams, with a wide range of senior executive roles under his belt.

Jeff will be joined by 20 other senior industry professionals, including —

• Philip A. Alphonse, Partner, Vistria Group
• James A. Bland, Partner, HCP & Co.
• Ryan Craig, Managing Director, University Ventures Fund
• John M. Larson, Executive Chairman, Triumph Higher Education Group
• Robert Lytle, Partner & Co-Head — Education Practice, The Parthenon Group
• Malcolm P. Youngren, Dir. — Online Education, Quad College Group

Click here to see the full speaker list

Need more information? Contact Joanna Russell, at 212-832-7300, or jrussell@capitalroundtable.com.

Looking forward to seeing you,

Mara Kane
Producer, The Capital Roundtable
mkane@capitalroundtable.com
212-832-7300

Feel free to give these guys a call and let them know what you think about their “business model”; that involves our children and tax dollars.  I will give this to them.  We really are being schooled.

East Baton Rouge Parish Teachers are under siege and need our help

For the past month I’ve been interviewing and receiving testimonials from East Baton Rouge Teachers in most of the area’s non-magnet high schools. This investigation started as a conversation with a teacher (who had recently become a follower.) This teacher explained no one speaks for them, no one sees their stories.  They relayed teachers in EBR are terrified to speak out about the travesties and indignities being heaped upon them in the name of “improving outcomes.” These outcomes are determined by some easily manipulated statistics that comprise School Performance (SPS) scores. I listened and I was honestly shocked and infuriated by what I heard.

Our teachers are under siege, from all quarters, and only a few on the breaking edge (and perhaps breaking point) are able to speak out – even anonymously.

As part of my investigation I spoke to and corresponded with numerous teachers from many different schools, teaching a wide variety of subjects. The teachers I spoke to have diverse experience levels , comprise both genders, and the stories all sound sadly similar. The basic story goes like this:

In the past few years EBR’s discipline policies and promotion policies have been weakened substantially. This is a result of  two absurd policies coming from Superintendent Bernard Taylor’s office.

I phoned the EBR central office to speak to someone in charge of discipline hearings for EBR. (Taylor has never returned any of my calls or e-mails to date (even on positive stories I’ve tried to pitch to him) so I didn’t bother with trying to get a response from him.) I introduced myself as a concerned parent and education blogger and I was assured the director over discipline hearings would be calling me back. That was 10 days ago, so I’m pretty sure I will be getting no call or explanation.

I also reached out and contacted the EBR school board to discuss this matter. I do not have any statements on record, but those I talked to seemed surprised and outraged by what I was describing in the school system. Let me just say, I was surprised by what was described to me as well, but not in a good way.

The first misguided policy in play seems to be one where only murderers, kids who bring explosives, discharge guns or bring illegal drugs to school can be expelled.  All other violations, even those that result in hospitalization of the victims, must be tolerated, and tolerated repeatedly.

The second destructive policy EBR has implemented is that children have no responsibility for making their grades or passing their classes. Teachers must do everything they can push, pull or drag kids to pass their classes. In practical terms this means tests are given over and over until a student “passes” and “extra credit” must be created and awarded to whatever extent is possible to ensure students pass their classes.

As a result of the first policy it appears violent thugs run many of our high schools, free to beat, steal, and threaten the lives of any who oppose them. Student’s that assault teachers multiple times do not get expelled, they get returned to the same teacher’s classrooms. Students who threaten to kill their teachers and classmates are sometimes just given a warning and sent right back to class.

Here are some recent stories that have appeared in our newspapers about our students and their assaults on each other of our teachers in the past month. This is by no means a complete list, just a representative one that I find disappointing no reporters in any of our local mainstream media are covering:

March 2

http://theadvocate.com/home/8504480-125/mckinley-high-teen-accused-of

Police: Student said loaded pistol was for protection

Authorities with the multiagency School Drug Task Force on Friday arrested a ninth-grade McKinley High School
student accused of taking a loaded handgun to school.

February 25th

http://www.wbrz.com/news/student-accused-of-repeatedly-kicking-teacher/

BATON ROUGE – Authorities arrested a 17-year-old Baton Rouge student after school officials said she repeatedly kicked a teacher who tried to break up a fight.

Deputies arrested Raven Davis after the fight at Tara High School
Tuesday and booked her into the parish jail on charges of battery and disturbing the peace.

February 22

http://theadvocate.com/home/8440545-125/baton-rouge-police-and-fire

• Sisters accused of disrupting school

  • Two sisters were arrested Thursday afternoon on accusations they showed up to McKinley High School
    and tried to back up a younger sister allegedly involved in a fight earlier in the day.
  • The school was put on lockdown during the ordeal.

• Teen shot in robbery Thursday in Gardere (outside of school)

  • A planned robbery disguised as a drug deal didn’t go as scheduled Thursday night in the Gardere area.
  • One of the teenagers involved in the planned robbery, a 14-year-old boy, was shot and seriously injured, while an 18-year-old was arrested on accusations he had the gun that another person used to shoot the boy, an affidavit of probable cause says.

• Students accused of threatening educators

  • East Baton Rouge Parish school system employees contacted authorities in at least two cases this week in which students threatened educators, leading to the arrest of two 17-year-old students.
  • Dominic Demontay Powell, 17, 9870 Scotland Ave., was booked into Parish Prison on Friday accused of shoving a Scotlandville High School administrator while being questioned about suspected marijuana use, an affidavit of probable cause says.Inside the school official’s office at the high school, the administrator told Powell to empty his pockets. Powell took out a cigarette, a lighter and some money, the affidavit says. When the administrator moved to grab the money, Powell shoved him and said, “Don’t touch my money,” the affidavit says.
  • In a second incident on Friday, Demarcus Devonte Kimble, 17, 5656 Autumn Blossom Ave., is accused of walking into a teacher’s lounge at Belaire High School and cursing at a teacher, an affidavit of probable cause says. When told by the teacher to leave the room, Kimble is accused of threatening the teacher, saying he would get someone to come to school and hurt her, the affidavit says. Powell was booked into Parish Prison on a count of assault on a school teacher.

I have received numerous tips from sources about violence in schools that is not making its way into our local media at all:

February 22 (report from source)

“Good…by the way, three Brm [Broadmoor High school] students arrested and recommended for expulsion for bring BB guns to school this week. On-campus cop caught them. No news coverage. School system wants it BURIED”

February 19^th (report from source)

. . .at Belaire HS
early this year a student was beating the shit out of a teacher while students watched, some cheered. A coach at nearby La Belaire Elementary happened to be on campus and saved the teacher…all reliable sources…Brdmr [Broadmoor High School] student caught with drugs and knife on bus today. We’ll see how school system reacts.

February 18^th (report from source)

Big fight after Scotlandville [HS] basketball game last night at Brdmr. [Broadmoor HS] involving about one dozen boys, two expelled from earlier in the year…Someone was seriously injured. Investigation continues. Keep you posted.

I have received numerous e-mails, conducted interviews, received letters describing what teachers are seeing and feeling in our area schools.  Here are a few for you to review. (Note: Many more have come in since I originally published this story.)

February 7^th

Letter from a teacher

One additional interesting note this week. One of our new, young teachers was shocked when a junior student refused to work and told her in front of the class she would not fail him no matter how low his grade was (36%). “You can’t fail me,” he assured her. “You’ll get in trouble. Not me. I’ll pass.” He then laughed at her. She assured him he would fail, but he refused to believe it. One hour later we were reminded in a meeting with our so-called instructional specialist (another non-teaching, out-of-state joke) that we needed to allow students to make up all work or retake tests regardless of any and all circumstances. Later in the same day, one of my sophomores asked me it were true teachers got into trouble if they had too many students with grades of D or F. I lied to cover my ass and sell the bluff, the only protection I have. Which is sad. It is becoming increasingly clear students are aware of how weak and vulnerable teachers really are. This is a really bad sign. Life before Bernard Taylor, Orlando Ramos [Associate Superintendent of EBR schools] and Michael Haggen [Deputy Superintendent of Innovation and Reform for EBR] would have NEVER allowed this to happen. It would not even be allowed to give birth! So many teachers are plotting their retirement/exit it is shocking.

February 6^th

Letter from a teacher

Yesterday, a teacher tossed a student into the hallway because he was a constant disruption. This student regularly causes grief to all teachers and we cannot expel him. While in the hallway, he bangs on the wooden door with his fists and screams at her to let him back in class. She refuses as a male instructor walks up, as his next door class was being disturbed, and twice asks the student to calm down. He curses the teacher and tells him to mind his own business. The male prods him away from the door and the student lands a swinging elbow on the teacher’s chest. He was taken to the office, but the school system will not allow anything to be done. The student repeated the exact same behavior today, but the male teacher did not respond to calm the situation. Why get involved? …Prior to Christmas, three teachers in one day had their body, life or property threatened. One student threatened “to fucking kill” a teacher for making him leave a class. Another teacher broke up a fight in class and broke a finger doing it. Another teacher was told his parents and brothers were going to “find you, break the windows in your house and fuck you up!” In all three incidents, students were either recommended for suspension or expulsion. The school system returned them all to school. No communication with or apologies to teachers were offered. In one of those cases, a student taunted his teacher with, “told y’all you can’t do shit to us no more”….This week a teacher tried to discipline a student disturbing class, he refused to leave class when asked and then blurted out, “I’m gonna bring a gun to school and kill all you mutha fuckers”. He went to the office and dropped out before “discipline” (joke) could reach him…NOTE: DO NOT MENTION ME OR THE SCHOOL…I’LL KEEP INFO COMING. THESE INCIDENTS ARE A RESULT OF DR. MICHAEL HAGGEN’S [Deputy Superintendent of Innovation and Reform] EDICT THAT ALL STUDENTS SHOULD BE IN SCHOOL REGARDLESS.

An interview with another teacher:

I have been with EBR for 27 years and taught in [redacted] for 6.5 yrs before coming here because a spouse was moved here by [redacted]

I LOVE what I do and most days it is rewarding and fulfilling.  Lately, not so much.

I really do not know what to tell you.  Ask me some specific questions.

What grades and subjects do you teach
I am an elective teacher in the [redacted]

Are student discipline matters handled fairly in your opinion?

Most of the time they are handled at the school level.  It’s when serious matters go to the school board that there is some strange stuff happening.  We had a boy that was starting fires in the restroom at my school.  He was caught and expelled.  Until the school board hearing process happened and he was sent right back to us.

Do you feel more safe or less safe at school around students and what has changed, if anything?

I do not feel as safe as I used to.  A kid once made a fake bomb out of cell phone and warned all the kids that at a certain time it would go off and not to be near my desk.  This was handled and the kid was expelled.  he did try to get into prom and a seven foot police officer escorted him off the property.

Is Common Core an issue?

It is an issue in that the fun and creativity of planning lessons and activities has been sucked right out of teaching.  In my elective class I am required to teach reading and writing skills THEIR way.  I am not trained to do this.  Even the PE teachers MUST do it!

Do teachers bear more of the burden in ensuring kids make the grades and pass than students because of policies and counseling directed to ensure no students fail subjects or have you seen no difference lately in how your administrators monitor the grades you assign your students

KIDS MUST PASS!!!!!  Tons of paperwork goes with this and a core teacher could explain it better than me.

Have you been a victim of violence or verbal death threats from students that you feel were not addressed seriously enough or have you seen/witnessed other teachers suffer physical or psychological abuse from students and if so, is this a more recent escalation?

See above.  I do know of other teachers that had threats made to them and nothing was done to the student.  The offenders remained in the same class with the same teacher.

How is that for starters?  I have follow ups depending on your answers

I hope some of this helps.  I am NOT a writer.

Letter to me from a retired EBR teacher who retired early to escape the abuse, Taylor and the reformers

After 25 years of service I walked away from the public school system in Baton Rouge fed up with being treated like a second class citizen. I had no interest in writing this until I saw that WBRZ news clip about Taylor’s bullying and I figured I might as well do this. I am retired. They cannot hurt me now.

This once was a noble profession of motivated teachers. Now I see us (them)as down-trodden. Their morale destroyed by students who can seemingly do as they please with little to no consequence. Last year I was slapped by a female high schooler and called a “bitch” after I told her to leave my class because she was disrupting it. This girl had done this before to me and other teachers but nothing was ever done. This time was no different either. She returned to my class the next day with a warning and a smirk on her face. The school administration said the school system wanted to modify her behavior and give her more chances. I was livid. I wanted to walk out of the door and never return. That was the day I decided to consider retirement.

Teachers once could control what they taught, how they taught it and when. Our testing was good enough. Our decisions were valued. Since Taylor and his ilk have taken charge of the school system we teachers are mere robots. We have no control of our professional lives. I just could not take it anymore.

I am only in my mid-50s and planned to teach for 30 years, but I knew I would probably have a heart attack, get beaten up by a 16 year old trying to break up a fight, or have my self-esteem chewed up by a system of overpaid jackasses who clearly have no idea what the teaching climate is like in a public school system. Sometimes I miss teaching, but I also understand to go back means dealing with this “reform” and the corruption behind it.

Since leaving, my blood pressure has dropped and I sleep better.

Hope this helps

Letter to me from another EBR teacher

I was talking with a group of students in my class last year when suddenly one of the girls started crying and ran out of the room!! When I looked to see what happened a young man had gone behind my back while my back was turned and switched the video we were watching to a fight on YouTube. I realized the girl who ran out of the room was getting beat up on the screen. She was humiliated.

I ran to the door and yelled for the girl to come back. At the same time I told the young man (who was 16 years old and 6’2″ and about 175 lbs) to “get out of my room and go to the office.” He responded by telling me we would kill me. As he moved out in to the hall he started screaming at me, “I want to kill your fucking ass!”

Two other teachers heard the commotion and came into the hall. As one of them escorted the student to the office, he repeatedly turned back and screamed.,” I will hunt you down and kill you!”

This student was given a five day suspension and sent right back to our school. He has been in and out of jail on a least one occasion this school year, and gives me an evil look every time I see him on campus. He should have faced legal repercussions. Instead he was given a slap on the wrist and sent out to terrorize others.

East Baton Rouge Parish public school teachers are being bullied by students and the school system on a scale most people would only think occurred in far-fetched fictional films. I’ve spoken with many more teachers than the one’s directly quoted here. I heard stories of many teachers ending up in emergency rooms and hospitals with very severe injuries, and the students involved are not expelled, simply sent back to the same schools and classes. I’ve had these stories multiply corroborated. EBR teachers don’t know who to complain to, dislike their thankless jobs more each day, and many are looking for an exit from a school system that does not support them in these matters.

As you can see from some of the letters I’ve reproduced here teachers are fleeing the profession to escape the violence and absurdity of Common Core, the reform movement, the lack of support, and the dramatic shift of responsibility from students to teachers for completion of student work and graduation. This is what happens when non-educator statisticians and number crunchers get put in charge.  (Note: I used to be one working at LDOE.) They worry more about raw numbers like improving graduation rates that John White, the Louisiana State Superintendent of Education has incorporated into SPS scores. These scores determine which schools and school districts get taken over by the state. To improve these scores EBR has taken the absurd stance that students can only be expelled for guns and illegal drugs.

The terrorizing of teachers is gut-wrenching to hear, but even worse is the underlying terrorizing and bullying of our students. Students are being beaten outside of school, having these fights recorded, and then played back on school grounds. Students are killing each other over things that happen at basketball games. Students are setting fires in schools, creating bombs and threatening classmates, and setting up drug deals and robberies and then shooting each other outside of school.

On February 12^th the head of APEL, Keith Courville was interviewed by Baton Rouge’s WBRZ-TV, where not one invited teacher met with him for an on-air interview to discuss their abuse by EBR public school superintendent Bernard Taylor. The teachers were upset enough to complain to APEL, but as one teacher told me, “not ready to commit career suicide over the matter.” The irony in that teacher’s remark was that Taylor was exposed by WBRZ phoning teachers and threatening their jobs if they did not keep quiet regarding his so-called reform tactics. However, that does not make teachers any safer from Taylor, his deputy superintendents, or the teenage students that  terrorize teachers daily and are rarely punished.

Teachers at six Baton Rouge public high schools (Broadmoor, Belaire, Scotlandville, Tara, McKinley and Woodlawn) have stories of abuse by students and the school system that are common and disturbing. just as was in the case of the WBRZ story, not one was willing to be quoted directly out of fear of Taylor. The abuses ranged from students stealing from them, slapping their faces, pushing them down, beating them unconscious, threatening to destroy their property, cursing them in their classrooms, and multiple cases of teachers being threatened with death. None of these cases resulted in expulsions or permanent removals from the schools or teachers classrooms.

Misguided school reform might have driven Superintendent Taylor to these dangerous and deluded policies, but we concerned citizens and parents must never allow our public schools to become worse than the charter schools, voucher schools, virtual schools and Recovery School District we are trying to fight back against or we have already lost.

When we allow our students to be tormented by hoodlums because we fear our system will be taken over by the state if we kick them out, we have already lost the fight.

When we allow our standards and education to be watered down so everyone can graduate without even trying, just to improve our graduation rate we are not doing our children any favors, we are ruining them for the rest of their lives and we are validating everything the reformers say about how inferior our public schools are.

When we allow our teachers to be beaten and abused, we are guaranteeing they will flee for their health and lives, faster than Common Core and wildly inaccurate teacher evaluations and VAM scores would have accomplished on their own.

When we allow students to threaten their teachers with death on a routine basis, and slap them across the face without facing any repercussions for their assaults we are abusing all our children as well as our teachers. We are teaching our kids that this behavior is ok, which is exactly the wrong lesson.

I am not a John White style reformer. I am a reformer of the reformers. I know not everything our kids learn in school is attributable to a test score and our kids will by no means be college, career, or life ready witnessing and conducting themselves as these teachers are reporting our school system is permitting and enabling.

An investigation needs to be launched over these ridiculous and harmful policies and changes need to be made. I believe Superintendent Taylor is directly responsible for these outrageous situations and policies. I gave Taylor’s cronies a chance to explain themselves and they declined. Now it’s time for us take back our school system from someone who is intent on destroying our schools, destroying our teachers and destroying our students.

Just as many teachers ended their letters to me with “I hope this helps.” I have the same wish. I don’t see anyone else speaking up for these teachers and our students, but I hope this helps.

(edited for grammar and typos on 3/13/14)

The backstory of EBR “cheating” scandal

Recently John White has been trying to stir up a lot of controversy about what he initially called a “cheating” scandal.  Here is one of the earlier reports of what is turning out to be a completely made up EBR cheating scandal.  He unloads quite a laundry list but to date has not been able to back it up and has scaled it back every time anyone asks about it.  However the damage he made to public perception may already be done, which was probably his intent from the start. . .

Here is a brief synopsis of what happened and what I’ve heard cobbled together from several sources.

LDOE reported in the media that EBR was being investigated for a cheating related scandal.  When asked about Chas Roemer said he was briefed and “very concerned” about what he had heard.  (Who knows what that was since he never elaborated. ) When EBR and others started investigating and asking specific questions about this scandal, LDOE tried to change it to a massive graduation fixing scandal that was reported by an anonymous tipster.  When this story was questioned LDOE admitted it involved one child who may or may not belong to an EBR school board member that may have been marked as a graduate while being 1 credit short.  EBR claimed this was caught, LDOE has not released the text of the anonymous “tipster” to my knowledge (which they could do and redact the identity) if any such tipster actually existed.  Now LDOE is frantically trying to search for any evidence of erroneous data to try and smear EBR with.

This is not a new technique. LDOE uses audits to try and intimidate and drum up negative material on districts they are targeting for takeovers.  They have reportedly audited St Helena at least 7 different times in the last few years trying to get enough dirt to take over the rest of their school district.  This may be in part due to a personal dispute between Jessica Tucker Bagian (former TFA recruit and current head of Accountability and LDOE) and Superintendent Dr. Kelli Joseph, who Bagian is reported to be holding a personal grudge against because she was once a teacher that reported to Dr. Joseph when Joseph was her principal.

Once LDOE targets your district for takeover, expect them to pull out the dirty tricks textbook and go through it play by play.

LDOE does not really care about data or cheating of allies and may even encourage it to bolster their case for more charters and reform policies.  Many districts have been accidentally or intentionally masking dropouts for years by flagging them as entering adult education programs. . .from which they never receive a GED and never get marked as dropouts, thus dramatically improving the state’s dropout rate while not significantly improving their completer rate.  I reported this error to them many times.  I’ve had some honest districts reach out to me about this after I resigned and I helped them correct it.

LDOE doesn’t even care if some school districts don’t even report entire schools to them like in St James and Iberville. (They built brand new schools, Academies, which they send high achieving students to which have never been reported to LDOE and thus skew accountability for their entire parishes.)  As long as the superintendents are subservient or completely compliant to their demands, they can get away with almost anything.

https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/east-iberville-and-msa-east-are-actually-the-same-school-probably-connected-by-an-underground-metro-system-my-bad/

https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/st-james-parish-is-proudly-displaying-that-the-science-and-math-academy-is-part-of-both-lutcher-and-st-james-high-schools/

https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/atlanta-you-aint-got-nothin-on-cheatin-compared-to-louisiana/

EBR superintendent Bernard Taylor and Superintendent White have long had a contentious relationship.  In no small part due to the fact White and LDOE see EBR as a vulnerable and valuable next target for privatization of the public schools in the model of New Orleans.  We even have a New Schools for Baton Rouge program lead by a former LDOE staffer selecting charter schools for most of North Baton Rouge.  The reason for this timing is because of South Baton Rouge though.  With the new legislative session starting in a month or so, White is/was trying to drum up reasons to implicate EBR in some sort of scandal damage the perception of EBR in the news and minds of EBR citizens so they and the legislature would be more inclined to vote to divide Baton Rouge into two cities, St George and Baton Rouge.  This would allow St George to form their own wealthier whiter district in the south, taking 2 thirds of the sales tax revenue dedicated to all EBR public schools in the process.  This would simultaneously bankrupt the EBR system by saddling them all the retirement costs and paying of the bonds for the schools in the South they no longer owned, while also dramatically lowering their SPS scores making it possible for the State to take over all of East Baton Rouge’s remaining schools.  After just getting hit with a 1.5 billion dollar judgment for how they handled kicking out veteran teachers in New Orleans, you can be sure all the teachers will be put on a RIF (Reduction in Force) list and simply never called back to create a lot of unemployed teachers in both the new city of St George (many of which work in the incorporated zone and all of which won’t be employable in a new St George school system.

However the strangest twist I have heard is that all of this scheming was done at the behest of Jindal staffers and some legislators which may even include Senator Bodi White, who sponsored the successful drives to create Central, Zachary and Baker school systems and is the driving force behind the creation of new School District and now a new city in south Baton Rouge in the form of the proposed city of St George.

My what a tangled web we weave, Louisiana.

If anyone finds the smoking gun about intentional lying and collusion Jindal may have his own Chris Christie Bridge Scandal to explain before his presidential run.

Based on these comments on a Nola.com article about this “scandal” White’s tactics appear to be working.

Guest Blogger, PegLeg Mickey, returns with some ill tidings and tidbits

EBR Supe Pokes White in the Eye

In the grogshop this week, I heard a snatch of conversation that warmed my rotten soul. There’s been a bit of story boiling up in the Advocate about the LDoE investigating East Baton Rouge Parish for cheating on tests and then it switched to graduation. Seems some counselor okayed a student graduating when the student was short one credit.

Considering the number of students who graduate from EBR public schools each year, I think one error is pretty small potatoes, but it seems “White Lies” White wanted to investigate 4 years of graduation data. I’ve been very surprised that nothing more has shown up in the Advocate on the topic.

It seems Superintendent Taylor told White that he’d have access to the data as soon as he produced the law or policy that allowed the LDoE to dig around in the district’s records. Ain’t that a poke in the eye. The district is fairly certain that the LDoE will be looking for anything they can use to harass Taylor and the district, not just checking credits. It’s been obvious for a long time now that White and his minions the Rubber Stamp BESE, and their mouthpiece, TheAdvocate, would like to convert EBR into another RSD system like the one in Orleans.

Accountability policy DOES allow for auditing graduation data. The accountability staff is sharp enough to evaluate the data and point out a few choice spots where problems are highly likely to be found. An MFP audit is also well within the rights of the LDoE. Seems White may be cowering a bit because a few legislators have jumped into the fray on EBR’s side. The session starts early this year, and there are predictions that Jindal has lost some support. The Common Core hullabaloo has yet to diminish, and of course Bobby still has hopes to gather his stupid party members (his words) for a run at the White House … but I meander.

Kudos to Taylor for poking White in the eye.

Maybe he can gouge it out next time.

I know a few good stores that carry eye patches.

A salty tidbit – there are murmurings of Pointe Coupee Central High School being turned back over to the district.

You read it here first.

                   

For the full press release from Mickey  please refer to the following PDF, which I was not able to format as a blog post.

EBR Supe Pokes White in the Eye

Notes from CCF

This is the first I’ve heard of Pointe Coupee being returned to the school district but not the first but not the first time I’ve heard of the highly publicized but completely made up EBR cheating scandal.  Quite a laundry list.

Here is a brief synopsis of what happened and what I’ve heard cobbled together from several sources.

LDOE reported in the media that EBR was being investigated for a cheating related scandal.  When asked about Chas Roemer said he was briefed and “very concerned” about what he had heard.  (Who knows what that was since he never elaborated. ) When EBR and others started investigating and asking specific questions about this scandal, LDOE tried to change it to a massive graduation fixing scandal that was reported by an anonymous tipster.  When this story was questioned LDOE admitted it involved one child who may or may not belong to an EBR school board member that may have been marked as a graduate while being 1 credit short.  EBR claimed this was caught, LDOE has not released the text of the anonymous “tipster” to my knowledge (which they could do and redact the identity) if any such tipster actually existed.  Now LDOE is frantically trying to search for any evidence of erroneous data to try and smear EBR with. 

This is not a new technique. LDOE uses audits to try and intimidate and drum up negative material on districts they are targeting for takeovers.  They have reportedly audited St Helena at least 7 different times in the last few years trying to get enough dirt to take over the rest of their school district.  This may be in part due to a personal dispute between Jessica Tucker Bagian (former TFA recruit and current head of Accountability and LDOE) and Superintendent Dr. Kelli Joseph, who Bagian is reported to be holding a personal grudge against because she was once a teacher that reported to Dr. Joseph when Joseph was her principal. 

Once LDOE targets your district for takeover, expect them to pull out the dirty tricks textbook and go through it play by play.

LDOE does not really care about data or cheating of allies and may even encourage it to bolster their case for more charters and reform policies.  Many districts have been accidentally or intentionally masking dropouts for years by flagging them as entering adult education programs. . .from which they never receive a GED and never get marked as dropouts, thus dramatically improving the state’s dropout rate while not significantly improving their completer rate.  I reported this error to them many times.  I’ve had some honest districts reach out to me about this after I resigned and I helped them correct it.

LDOE doesn’t even care if some school districts don’t even report entire schools to them like in St James and Iberville. (They built brand new schools, Academies, which they send high achieving students to which have never been reported to LDOE and thus skew accountability for their entire parishes.)  As long as the superintendents are subservient or completely compliant to their demands, they can get away with almost anything. 

https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/east-iberville-and-msa-east-are-actually-the-same-school-probably-connected-by-an-underground-metro-system-my-bad/

https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/st-james-parish-is-proudly-displaying-that-the-science-and-math-academy-is-part-of-both-lutcher-and-st-james-high-schools/

https://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/atlanta-you-aint-got-nothin-on-cheatin-compared-to-louisiana/

EBR superintendent Bernard Taylor and Superintendent White have long had a contentious relationship.  In no small part due to the fact White and LDOE see EBR as a vulnerable and valuable next target for privatization of the public schools in the model of New Orleans.  We even have a New Schools for Baton Rouge program lead by a former LDOE staffer selecting charter schools for most of North Baton Rouge.  The reason for this timing is because of South Baton Rouge though.  With the new legislative session starting in a month or so, White is/was trying to drum up reasons to implicate EBR in some sort of scandal damage the perception of EBR in the news and minds of EBR citizens so they and the legislature would be more inclined to vote to divide Baton Rouge into two cities, St George and Baton Rouge.  This would allow St George to form their own wealthier whiter district in the south, taking 2 thirds of the sales tax revenue dedicated to all EBR public schools in the process.  This would simultaneously bankrupt the EBR system by saddling them all the retirement costs and paying of the bonds for the schools in the South they no longer owned, while also dramatically lowering their SPS scores making it possible for the State to take over all of East Baton Rouge’s remaining schools.  After just getting hit with a 1.5 billion dollar judgment for how they handled kicking out veteran teachers in New Orleans, you can be sure all the teachers will be put on a RIF (Reduction in Force) list and simply never called back to create a lot of unemployed teachers in both the new city of St George (many of which work in the incorporated zone and all of which won’t be employable in a new St George school system. 

However the strangest twist I have heard is that all of this scheming was done at the behest of Jindal staffers and some legislators which may even include Senator Bodi White, who sponsored the successful drives to create Central, Zachary and Baker school systems and is the driving force behind the creation of new School District and now a new city in south Baton Rouge in the form of the proposed city of St George.

My what a tangled web we weave, Louisiana.