LAUSD School Board Promotes John Deasy To Superintendent -- Without So Much As A Job Interview

By Simone Wilson Wed., Jan. 12 2011 at 1:30 PM

John Deasy, man of the hour

Well, we were right: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's superintendent of choice made it past the L.A. School Board yesterday. Board members voted him in 6-0; only Steve Zimmer, of Board District 4, abstained.

John Deasy will now be promoted from deputy superintendent to the highest throne in the Los Angeles Unified School District -- he's set to replace 78-year-old Ramon Cortines as soon as the tireless workhorse steps down (finally!) this spring.

The mayor, unsurprisingly, praised the board's decision right off the bat, as if there was ever a chance they might defy him:

"John Deasy is the right person for this job and the Los Angeles Unified School District is lucky to have him,'' the mayor said. "John understands the unique challenges facing the LAUSD and has already benefited from on-the-job training as deputy superintendent.''

The overall sentiment among city officials (and the Los Angeles Times) is that Deasy is an excellent choice -- extremely capable of handling a low-income, low-performing school system like L.A.'s. He may have a shady history of allegedly lying about his credentials and snatching up money wherever he can find it, but he also has some pretty stellar statistics to show for those school districts he's overseen: the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and of Prince George's County Schools in Maryland.

According to Zimmer, though -- the one abstaining board member -- even the most qualified candidate On Earth should have some friendly competition.

"We didn't have a process -- internal or external -- for the most important job in public education in the United States right now," he tells the Weekly. "It has nothing to do with John Deasy. I'm a big fan. ... But I can't be sure that I got the best person for the job if I didn't get to even talk to anybody else."

Zimmer says that in 2008, when Superintendent Cortinas selected Deasy to be his deputy, he and the board "never, ever" got the impression that "Deasy would be superintendent-in-waiting."

However, that's exactly what went down yesterday. An inside source told the Weekly on Monday that Mayor Villaraigosa was "making all the moves behind the scenes to make [Deasy's promotion] happen." Even the Times picked up on the fact that Villaraigosa had met with Deasy and Board President Monica Garcia last Wednesday to discuss "transition issues."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who also hasn't commented about the selection -- and who declined to be interviewed -- has been quietly involved. He has been meeting regularly with Garcia and Deasy. And staff at the district and City Hall confirmed that the mayor was aware of the pending vote, apparently before even some board members.
Cortines, who has had a strained relationship with the mayor in recent months, has not been involved.

However, high-strung Hollywood blogger John Walsh says he had the story first, and jucier:

"Ramon Cortines, LAUSD Superintendent (as I write this) has been told to clean out his desk because he will be gone within a week. The background -- Mayor Antonio delivered that message to LAUSD Board Member and Broad/Riordan puppet Monica Garcia in a secret meeting earlier this week. Antonio is, of course, merely doing the bidding of his brain -- Eli Broad and Broad's sidekick former Mayor Richard Riordan."

Before he was hand-picked by said L.A. politicians and millionaires, Deasy served as head schools official at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which tells us a thing or two about his interest in monetization of education. (The Gates are huge proponents of charter schools, and often throw their money at district overthrowers like Parent Revolution).

However, he's likewise semi-popular among the more reform-minded of teachers' union affiliates, in part for encouraging new training and evaluation methods instead of giving up on districts altogether -- like, say, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Board of Education picks.

School District 1 candidate Eric Lee, a reformist up for Margueritte LaMotte's seat in March, tells the Weekly he would very happy to serve under Deasy.

"Deasy looks at the quality public school argument -- that whatever works for the benefit of the children is what we must embrace," says Lee. "People try to make this argument between the reformers and the unions, but that's not my argument -- that's an adult argument." He claims Deasy is about the kids, not the adults.

And although Lee opines that "LaMotte's votes have demonstrated she is carrying forth a union agenda," LaMotte has similarly come out in huge support of Deasy -- most importantly, with her vote.

Perhaps it was for this political versatility that the L.A. Unified School Board was so quick to hand Deasy his $330,000 contract yesterday (that's $80,000 more than Cortines). Zimmer speculates that, among a "number of factors," some of his "colleagues were reluctant because of what happened in the [David] Brewer process. ... Or maybe they felt they didn't need to do a search because they felt like they had the right person."

Either way, he says, "We were not talk-heavy in any form."

Clearly.

According to a Los Angeles Times article today, Board Member Margueritte LaMotte was likewise a little weirded out by the lack of application process, though she voted for Deasy without contest on Tuesday.

LaMotte also said she was concerned that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa may have played too large a role in the hiring process but decided to vote for Deasy in an "effort to move forward," she said.

Everyone seems to have forgotten about the skeletons in Deasy's closet. The Weekly blogged back in June about Deasy's spineless resume, including a PhD "after completing only nine credits" and a faculty position at Loyola Marymount that the school could not confirm. Yesterday, another education-watcher unearthed a few of Deasy's slimy connections:

A year after taking over as superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District in 2001, Deasy recommended that his school system pay $125,000 for a survey performed by the National Center on Public Education and Social Policy, which is run by Felner. The survey was later extended for two more years at the same price, for a total of $375,000.
In 2010 Felner was sentenced to 5 1/4 years for misappropriating funds from a research grant and from contracts with urban school districts.

Mayor Villaraigosa hosted a feel-good brunch today, where city officials welcomed Deasy to the wolf pack and the brand-new superintendent tried to speak Spanish (ouch).

We're crossing our fingers -- and you should too -- that this legacy pick will make good on the glimmers of progressive reform he's shown thus far. And at $330,000 a year, it would be the least he could do.

Tags:

John Deasy, John Walsh, LAUSD, Margueritte LaMotte, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, School Board, superintendent

We Recommend

Loadsofpower

WHY does Deasy get a $330k / yr salery, while teachers get ZERO! sorry they get a longer school year with larger class sizes, and more furlough days. How about a pay cut dude! $142 millon "short fall", start with your salery and your PERKS!

Radadaxis7

Yes, bang up job, Mr. Deasy. Those random metal detectors oughta solve the problems on campuses in the inner city in no time--It is official! Students have no 4th Am Rights on an urban LAUSD campus now. Whoo Hoo! These students were already searched on a whim, cuffed, humiliated, hunted, but now it is open season. They accept this, so do their teachers and apparently frightened parents--we know what happens now if educators actualy interject sense, maybe a little integrity. Principal abuse of teachers has produced several credible studies and books in the last couple of years but big city schools are filling up the rubber rooms to teach whistle blowers and burnt out school marms a lesson anyway. They are examples for the rest. Nothing more persuasive than a monkey on a stick.No need to defer to due process. LAUSD protocol from CBA is not unlike policy. You get to make it up as you go along.But you already know this.Look how you engineered your own appointment.. Laws make educrats impervious to prosecution and civil liability--- lawless, unchecked power enables such wanton corruption, no teacher, no parent, no student, no vendor no attorney, not even Gloria Allred can stand up and win against LAUSDThe ultmate bully.So please, no more insulting allusions to teacher unions with too much power.

UtLA is a pretense; we pay $800 annually for priviledge of membership doing teachers (and students) more harm than good. As one colleague said, "the kids are dollar signs to the district and that's pretty much how UTLA sees teachers."

We are at the mercy of administrators and district issued directives to turn over school staff.---not bad teachers. Mostly really fine teachers, in fact, are being demoted, driven out, displaced, demoralized and discounted. Teachers are disposable. This is cost effective.Cold, cruel economy, as John Swift knows too well, makes such perfect sense people overlook inherent perversity of profiteering from poverty. They don't want to hear the truth about the big business of education. Students are counted. They do not count-- at LAUSD, so lets just make it official and treat these working poor children like animals. And let's put parents through hell with faulty calling systems, no emergency plans in place, and by overreacting while we are at it.

My compliments; brilliant use of this fear to implement fascist structure:you set the tone with search & destroy edge, expedited your careerist agenda. Take no prisoners, sir. That's LAUSD's motto.Well, except for the PI schools on lackdown.You adeptly threw the beleaguered GHS admin. under the bus with accusations about policy --reflexes like these must make you the envy of other educrats : well played. There is no policy about these impractical wands or much else until an educrat decides to enforce it. Always after a tragic twist of cruel fate.Arbitray. Inequitable. As usual.Now no one is asking why overcrowding (student numbers assigned to GHS here are suspect), poor conditions and UNDERstaffing allowed at schools (thanx to unrelenting cuts educrats seem to dish out without taking)? It should not be tolerated. But we may be suffering from Stockholm syndrome or something.

Why are schools like Gardena HS treated so differently than those LAUSD campuses in affluent areas? is a rhetorical question.

I bet over at San Marino students have PTA, not POs with offices on campus.No fences. Gardena used to coat its fences with axle grease, but kids still escaped.Frankly, I don't blame them.

Of course there are no fences at good schools; there is no need for campus police, drug-siffing dogs, punitive truancy policies, or civil liberties denied to ensure "clean, safe schools." You slap a program in place, add a cheesey slogan and you cover collective rear end of district. Effacy for nepotists has never been better. Look how eagerly our mayor facillitated your apparent take over.Malibu and affluent beach cities on the west side?......Probably not preperation for what is ahead as these mostly open campuses are state of the art ; they boast resources, small class size, limited remediation, few unsupported EL or IEPs and none of a hood's social challenges, Sure, a small district in fabulously wealthy community works well. Malibu HS, even Santa Monica HS are producing students that thrive.Students do that.Even when they go to LAUSD schools in chaos, it happens. In spite of policy that deprives many of music and art, reducing them to RANDOM searchs, tardy sweeps, busses--conditions that has us herd them around like livestock--students from GHS and schools like it go to college or trade schools. Recent college stats show our students grow up to be more than wage slaves or criminals churned out in penal systems your system is feeding youngsters into. But these successful students are rarely celebrated for incredible achievements nor are teachers in the trenches with them. We just soldier on.Cortenies' culture of failure certainly will not be missed, but one has to worry a little about what you have in store for us next.Outcry to fire all teachers and an apparent effort to make our students seem beyond redemption is an astute concession to our pecking order. We (teachers and students) are not LAUSD. Wrong demograhics. Wrong side of the tracks. Wronged. Rich white bratts have a helluva history with guns on campus, after all, so why aren't they being patted down before class? Why are their teachers congratulated for skewed scores secured by positions in parts of L.A. where ghetto birds do not hover? Lockdown isn't anticipated with provisions like the paper cup from teacher's desk kids locked down in class past 5 PM were expected to urinate in. How delightfully degradingAll animals at LAUSD are equal. Some animals are more equal than others.

Yes, Mr. Deasy, your influence will no doubt make an impression.Autocrats are all the rage in public education these days. Who needs an election or consults with union members in "collaborative communities" anymore? Your money and powerful connections demonstrate what really matters in America today.Well done.