Academia Semillas del Pueblo, a Failing School, Gets an L.A. Times Puff Piece

By LA Weekly Mon., May 7 2012 at 2:59 PM

Updated with response from the Times on next page.

Fred Noland

By Hillel Aron

The Los Angeles Times printed an odd take on Academia Semillas del Pueblo, the failing charter whose kids are nowhere near state standards on reading, writing, adding and subtracting -- even as compared to their identical, struggling, working-class, Latino, socioeconomic twins throughout California.

The school's founder Marcos Aguilar is protected on high by Los Angeles Unified School District Board President Monica Garcia. The LatExtra article in the L.A. Times was designed to survey the debate from a safe distance after L.A. Weekly beat the Times to the Semillas story.

"Things would be easier if Academia Semillas del Pueblo didn't have such low test scores," writes longtime education reporter Howard Blume. Easier for whom?

Easier for the school's underwhelming adult overseers?

Well, yes. And it would be easier if we all could fly.

Blume mentions Academia Semillas' exceedingly low test scores, and he even links to the L.A. Times' own California Schools Guide.

The California Schools Guide's facts about Semillas Academia are easily ten times more harsh, and far more realistic, than those published in the LatExtra section.

The California Schools Guide shows that Semillas' unofficial statewide "API" rank is at the bottom. Even more sobering, Semillas earns a lowest of the low 1 out of 10 in California's "similar schools ranking," which measures hundreds of poor, struggling, heavily Mexican immigrant schools in California -- against one another.

Update: Blume tells the Weekly that 'It's not an editorial. We did lay out what their test scores were. They were bad."

The Times story today goes on: "Semillas has long enjoyed community support...."

Er, sort of. Semillas has at least as many community enemies and critics as friends.

"...including from influential allies..."

Such as?

Monica Garcia, LAUSD School Board president

We've named some of these allies, including Monica Garcia, Nury Martinez, Steve Zimmer and Richard Vladovic, the school board members who voted last week to ignore California state law by letting this failing school continue to teach small children.

But where is the Times' effort to expand this list of influential allies? (The board members who stood against Monica Garcia were Tamar Galatzan, Marguerite LaMotte and Bennett Kayser.)

"...but narrowly escaped closure recently when the school's charter came up for renewal."

Surely the narrow escape was due to the influential allies, no? And not all that narrow, right? Monica Garcia almost certainly made sure she had the votes from Martinez, Zimmer and Vladovic, yes?

The Times makes no mention of why these four elected politicians voted to ignore Superintendent John Deasy's recommendation to shutter the school.

The paper doesn't challenge Garcia's view that schools that experiment with children should be allowed continue churning out students who cannot read or do their arithmetic, as compared to the identical socioeconomic kids elsewhere.

The paper doesn't challenge Garcia's view that experimental failing schools deserve to continue on for more than a decade, affecting many children.

Toward the end of the piece, Blume includes a "let's hear from the other side" paragraph.

Yet Blume doesn't choose to quote from the many groups and people on the legitimate, thinking other side who are aghast at how far behind the Semillas children are falling -- and who have cogent arguments about why this is bad.

Instead, Blume chooses a clueless, right-wing, D.C.-based organization called Judicial Watch.

"The school is not much more than a training ground for the Mexican Reconquista movement, which seeks to conquer the American Southwest -- by force or by ballot box -- and return it to Mexico," Judicial Watch says.

Blume and the Times thus provide readers a hysterical-sounding straw man instead of a thoughtful opponent who understands what is unfolding at Semillas.

Update: Blume says, "It's not meant to be a defense of the school. It includes both sides. ... The school was originally the subject of a lot of attention (involving the Reconquista) -- something we covered as a news story several years back."

We can see the Los Angeles Times future vision now: an army of El Sereno fourth graders marching on Phoenix, blowing up tanks and humvees.

Tags:

Academia Semillas, API rank, California Schools Guide, fluff piece, Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times, Marcos Aguilar, similar schools ranking

We Recommend

PESJA Los Angeles

While Mr. Aron's characterization of the Birchers at Judicial Watch as a "clueless, right-wing, D.C.-based organization" is spot on, he is without a sense of irony in that he's writing for a "clueless, right-wing, Culver City-based publication."

Point in case is the Weakly's ongoing obsession (a fetish really) with standardized tests, which is understandable since none of its education beat writers have even an inkling of matters regarding pedagogy. Testing isn't teaching. The problem with Academia Semillas del Pueblo isn't scores or curricula, it's that it's a privately run corporation.

PESJA supports many of the programs Academia Semillas implements, like ethnic studies and multi-lingual immersion. If they were a public school, we would defend them against bigots and NCLB-lovers. However, when wealthy charter school executives like Marcos Aguilar are shoveling $109,729 of the community's taxes into his pockets a year, we have grave concerns that the media aren't noticing that their trumpeted "free market solutions" to education inevitably fair again and again due to charter sector greed.

Academia Semillas should have been converted back into a public school with public oversight. That way we could have kept the good things about the school, while jettisoning the avaricious charter school operators. Unfortunately, the lucrative charter sector holds so much sway in this town -- from 10900 Wilshire Blvd. to 333 Beaudry Blvd. -- that it was guaranteed that Aguilar would continue to control his cash cow. Sadly it's bad for the students and gives cultural studies an undeserved bad name.

If Hillel Aron, Jill Stewart, and Simone Wilson would put down the Ayn Rand just long enough to learn something about education, we would get insightful and informative articles without the provincial reductionism that is the hallmark of the Weakly.

hillel

i'm no writer– no wait, i am a writer– but i believe it is spelled 'weekly.' i've put down my ayn rand, maybe you should learn to spell, seeing as though 'education' is in the name of your organization.

PESJA Los Angeles

We beg to differ. On the street your veritable bastion of yellow journalism is know as the Weakly -- as in WEAK -- which is apropos for the indefensible Libertarian slant of this rag. Far be it for us to point out to an Echo Park hipster (ironic much?) that our intentional use of LA Weakly is pure sarcasm. Thanks for the "spelling lesson" junior.

rdsathene

I was calling this Randite rag the LA Weakly long before you were!

Truth and consequences

Hillel is a joke who expects to be taken seriously when he grows up. If, he grows up.

fishouttawater

Why are you blaming Hillel when you should be castigating Monica Garcia for her arm-twisting push to help this failing school continue and thus send these can't-read-or-count students into their future schools where they certainly will fail? Don't kill the messenger.

Truth and consequences

Hillel is a joke who expects to be tarn seriously when he grows up. If, he grows up.

D. Estes

What makes him a joke? Can the facts of what was stated be disputed, I don't think so! Why attack the author for providing an objective and honest account of the school's situation and those who supported the lie. Now that's a joke!