Did The Los Angeles County Democrats Read Their Platform?

“And we’ll continue working to increase accountability at charters, holding them to the same transparency standards as public schools.”

– Democratic Party Platform

While there are high expectations that having a former teacher as their Vice-Presidential candidate will strengthen the Democratic Party’s commitment to public education, its 2024 platform was completed before Tim Walz was picked. Still, this document includes a strong commitment to educating our children, especially when the Republican platform promises “to close the Department of Education”. On education policies, the difference between the two parties is stark:

• Under the outline of Project 2025, a Trump administration would “Eliminate the Head Start program” that serves about 833,000 low-income children. The Democrats promise to “provide free, universal preschool for four-year-olds, saving the families of 5 million children $13,000 a year.”
• Project 2025 also calls for the $14.2 billion in federal money sent to schools for the education of school-aged children with disabilities to be shifted to “no-strings” block grants to individual states. The Democrats instead “support fully funding IDEA to prioritize students with disabilities and the special educator workforce.” This would end a five-decade failure by both parties to provide promised funds.
• The $18 billion in Title I funds that support the nation’s poorest students would be eliminated in ten years under Project 2025. The Democratic platform highlights that the Biden Administration provided “an additional $2 billion to high-need, Title I schools” to help them recover from Trump’s COVID pandemic.

The weakest part of the Democrat’s education platform is the party’s commitment to fighting the privatization of public education. Unlike the Republicans, the platform does “oppose the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education.” However, for charter schools, it only calls to “continue working to increase accountability at charters.” This is stronger than what is outlined in Project 2025, which calls for “the new Administration [to] take immediate steps to rescind the new requirements and lessen the federal restrictions on charter schools.” More preferable would have been the Green Party’s unalterable opposition “to the dissolution of public schools and the privatization of education.”

In Los Angeles, effective accountability for these publicly funded private schools is limited by the millions of dollars the Charter School Industry and its billionaire supporters pour into elections. The political arm of the California Charter School Association (CCSA) has controlled the LAUSD School Board for decades as a result of advertising campaigns that have used lies, hypocrisy, abelism, and antisemitism. The CCSA has also legally laundered additional campaign funds through labor unions and the California Democratic party to hide its financial support of candidates until the election has passed.

Any meaningful attempt to hold charter schools accountable for the public funds they receive depends on removing the CCSA’s influence from the Board that is responsible for oversight. Unfortunately, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party continues to ignore its obligation to public education and the Democratic Party’s platform by continuing to endorse Graciela Ortiz in LAUSD’s Board District 5.

To date, the CCSA has not publicly shown support for Ortiz, instead allowing SEIU-99, a union that is supposed to represent special education aids, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and other non-certificated LAUSD employees, to be the front for the campaign. This union secretly took $25,000 to help the pro-privatization School Board Member Monica Garcia’s reelection campaign (full disclosure - I was one of her opponents). The union’s leadership claims that the decision to support Ortiz was unanimous, but conversations with rank-and-file members indicate this is not true.

Ortiz has refused to answer questions about charter school co-location policy and how these publicly funded private schools affect Special Education and student safety. Her opponent, Special Education teacher Karla Griego, answered all of them.

SEIU-99 and the Los Angeles Democratic Party continue to support Ortiz despite serious allegations that have been lodged against her. This includes a lawsuit by a former LAUSD student claiming that Ortiz failed to adequately protect her from being sexually assaulted at gunpoint, an event the candidate describes as an “unfortunate occurrence.” Questions have also been raised about $1,300 donations to her campaign by people who listed their occupation as “Dishwashers.” This seems to suggest that she may be guilty of the same type of money laundering that landed former LAUSD Board Member Ref Rodriguez, also a charter school industry candidate, in jail. There have also been allegations that she coerced her subordinates in the LAUSD to financially support her campaign.

During the primary campaign, the Los Angeles chapter of the California School Employees Association (CSEA) reacted to the allegations swirling around Ortiz by pulling its endorsement. So far, SEIU-99 and the Los Angeles County Democratic Party have remained steadfast in supporting this severely flawed candidate. When financial forms are filed after the election will we find that they did so to protect funding they receive from the CCSA or other Charter School Industry supporters?

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Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.