Community Corner
Daily News Editorial Misses The Mark
The problem is not that the Board and the Superintendent are not working together, the real problem is that the board is not doing it's job.
This editorial minimizes the extent of Deasy’s failures. The MiSiS crisis is far more than a computer program that has failed, it is the district’s failure to recognize how bad the problem was. Despite the continued talking point that “only” 1% of students are effected, it, at a minimum, disrupted the education of all Special Education students, English Language Learners, Gifted Students and seniors applying for college. The iPad scandal is not about simply supplying iPads to every student, teacher and administrator. The fact is that the Superintendent never made a case that these devices were so important that we needed to pay for them using normal funding channels. Instead, he stole money that voters approved for repair and construction. Meanwhile, students suffered during the heat wave because air conditioning units did not work.
Tamar Galatzan may have been trying to save herself when she said “I can’t remember the last time we got an update on the program...and we don’t supervise anyone who works for the superintendent, which is who was running it,” but she was, in fact, demonstrating why she no longer deserves to be on the board. First, the use of “we” was inappropriate. Bennett Kayser had sent a warning letter to the Superintendent in July that something was amiss with MiSiS. Second, it is her job to supervise the superintendent. With the $1.3 billion iPad project, she not only failed to supervise, she ran interference for the Superintendent. When Stuart Magruder questioned this program as a member of the Bond Oversight Committee, she led the effort to block his reappointment and voted three times against doing so.
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Tamar Galatzan has said that “when you get down to it, who cares who’s on the school board?” As a father of five and a taxpayer, I care. I have seen the ways that Dr. Deasy’s policies have hurt my children and Ms. Galatzan has allowed it to happen. I am, therefore, running against her in the election on March 3, 2015. Additional information can be found at www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com
