Carl J. Petersen
Bio
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for students with SpEd needs and public education. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Opinions are his own.
Stories (308)
Filter by community
County School Board Punts
“Why is accountability too much to ask of charter schools?” – Steven Singer, Gadfly On The Wall Under AB 1505, the decision to uphold the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) vote to close down the Crete Academy Charter School should have been easy. Unfortunately, the unelected Board of the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) has a history of overlooking charter school failures. I, therefore, took the opportunity to remind them of their responsibilities to students and taxpayers before they considered the appeal of the Crete Academy Charter School on Tuesday, May 13, 2025:
By Carl J. Petersen8 months ago in The Swamp
Oops
“F*ck you with the freest of speech this Divided States of Embarrassment will allow me to have!” – Eminem The CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo) mega-prison in El Salvador is the type of place America used to condemn. As the leader of the free world, we were supposed to be against a prison whose occupants are purposely dehumanized, confined to 100-person cells for 23½ hours a day, with lights always on. We were supposed to be against making people disappear into this type of hellhole, losing contact with their families for the rest of their lives.
By Carl J. Petersen8 months ago in The Swamp
A Change of Rhythm
“Man plans, God laughs.” – Yiddish proverb My co-workers and I thought we were gathering for the facility-wide “communication meeting” held periodically throughout the year. The area was noisy as workers from different lines and shifts greeted each other. When someone we did not know stepped up to the microphone instead of our plant’s leader, it was the first sign that something was off.
By Carl J. Petersen9 months ago in Beat
Failing Charter School Will Continue To Operate
“Closure of the charter school is in the best interest of pupils.” – LACOE Staff Going into the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) Board meeting on April 1, 2025, the KIPP chain of publicly funded private schools already had three strikes in its attempt to renew the charter of KIPP Sol. First, the Charter School Division of the LAUSD had looked at the school’s declining results and recommended that it be closed. In January, the LAUSD Board voted to approve this recommendation. The chain quickly appealed to the County and, upon review of the data, concluded that “KIPP Sol failed to meet or make sufficient progress toward meeting standards that provide a benefit to pupils of the school.”
By Carl J. Petersen9 months ago in The Swamp
Your Taxes At Work
“We had -- had already taken -- Joe [Wyatt], being one of them, was already broken down. He was already taken out. So the next step was the easy one. Once Brad got these pictures, Billy was next in line.” – From the deposition of Sukhbir Dhillon
By Carl J. Petersen9 months ago in The Swamp
Is The Resistance Dead?
“Democracy dies in the dark” – Masthead of the newspaper that turned off the lights Republicans govern with audacity. Whatever levers of power they control are declared to be the most representative of the people, an assessment that shifts with election results. They declare mandates when none exist. When reality does not fit their needs, they create a new one.
By Carl J. Petersen10 months ago in The Swamp
Who’s In Charge?
“The door was opened. That’s why I thought I could go certainly into it.” – LAUSD Board Member Karla Griego As Dr. Rocio Rivas, Chairperson of the Committee of the Whole, prepared to move on to the next item on the agenda she was interrupted by LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. Rocked by the recent scandal of being sued by his predecessor for allegedly misspending PROP-28 funds earmarked for expanding arts programs, Carvalho sought to use the appearance of the District’s auditor to try to repair his image. Most importantly, he wished to challenge the allegation that he had used these funds to pay for programs that existed before voters passed the proposition.
By Carl J. Petersen10 months ago in The Swamp
The LAUSD School Board Drops The Ball Again
The Watts Learning Center “did not consistently attain measurable increases in academic achievement in all academic performance indicators schoolwide and for all numerically significant student groups between 2022 and 2023 and between 2023 and 2024 based on California School Dashboard data.” – LAUSD Charter School Division
By Carl J. Petersen10 months ago in The Swamp
