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CTC Whistleblower Kathy Carroll Jury Awards $3.1 M AG Harris & Brown In Cover-Up
CTC State Whistleblower Kathleen Carroll Wins Nearly $3.1 Million In Lawsuit against CTC, supervisors and state for retaliation over whistleblowing. AG Kamala Harris And Governor Brown Spent Millions Fighting Whistleblower’s Lawsuit And Defense of CTC Misdeeds. The trial exposed a illegal effort by numerous CTC top officials and Ting Sun the chair to fire Kathy Carroll because of her going to the State Senator Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg for an audit of the agency. AGKamala Harris and Governor Brown have spent millions fighting whistleblower Kathy Carroll and slandering her character and integrity.
CTC State Whistleblower Kathleen Carroll Wins Nearly $3.1 Million In Lawsuit against CTC, supervisors and state for retaliation over whistleblowing
AG Kamala Harris And Governor Brown Spent Millions Fighting Whistleblower’s Lawsuit And Defense of CTC Misdeeds
http://www.upwa.info/documents/8-9-16-Carroll-win-lawsuit.htm
8/9/16
By Steve Zeltzer
workweek [at] kpfa.org
After more than 15 days of a trial and a wait of nearly 6 years after being fired, Commission on Teacher Credentialing CTC lawyer and whistleblower Kathleen Carroll won her state lawsuit against the agency for an illegal termination with malice.
She won $2,844,528. The jury also awarded punitive damages against Lee Pope, who was the Assistant General Counsel of the agency of $130,000 and former CTC Chief Counsel Mary Armstrong for $90,000, which brought the total damages for Carroll to $3,064,526
The jury at Sacramento Superior Court voted unanimously that she had been fired for going to Senator Darrell Steinberg and the California State Audit Board over corruption, cronyism and a massive backlog of “rap” sheets and credentials that were putting California public school children in potential danger.
Carroll had sued the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, CTC in November 2012 after she was fired for blowing the whistle on the massive backlog of credentials for teachers. This state agency is controlled by Governor Brown who appoints the commission members. It is also charged with credentialing the 300,000 teachers in California and investigating possible criminal violations of credentialed teachers, principals and supervisors.
The Backlog And Lies
While working at the commission in 2009, Carroll became aware of the massive backlog of credentials for thousands of teachers that were being held up. There were also serious charges of misconduct against teachers that were not being processed as a result of the backlog. According to her, there were boxes of cases that had been sent to the commission and were being ignored.
There was also an organized cover-up of the backlog by top officials. Mary Armstrong, the chief counsel of the CTC, on August 6, 2009 told the commission that there was no backlog when questioned at a Commission meeting. The agency later admitted that indeed there were over 12,600 cases that were backlogged serious charges against teachers and credentialed staff.
The failure to receive credentials in a timely matter also put thousands of teachers in economic jeopardy, since many were waiting for the documents to get their jobs at public schools throughout the state. Many of these teachers likely ended up teaching at charter schools where credentials were not required.
CTC Committee Member Kaufman Backed Up Carroll
A witness for Carroll at trial was her friend attorney Michael Kaufman, who was a Public Member on the Committee of Credentials that reported to the Commission. Kaufman also testified at trial that in November 2009, he listened at the CTC web site to an audio recording of Armstrong’s “little backlogs” and her August 2009 statement to Commission Young. Kaufman believed that Armstrong’s answer to Young to be false based on stale files he had seen as a Committee member, and based on anecdotal comments he had heard within CTC. Kaufman felt that the “little backlogs” response violated Armstrong’s duty of loyalty and truthfulness to her client, the Commission. In Jan. 2010, Kaufman telephoned Commissioner Young and told her why he felt Armstrong’s “little backlogs” statement was untrue, that he had heard of a backlog exceeding 10,000 unexamined documents, and that consequently public school students could be at risk. Kaufman advised Young that the State Auditors should be brought in to investigate. Commissioner Young said she would take the matter up with Commission Chair Ting Sun.
Carroll Goes To Senator Steinberg For State Audit
After raising the issues of backlog with management staff internally and getting no results, She contacted the office of State Senator Darrell Steinberg in Sacramento and convinced Steinberg and his staff that there were serious deficiencies, corruption and nepotism at the state agency, which required a state audit. Steinberg agreed and the legislature voted for an audit of the agency.
Ting Sun Helps CTC Managers Target Carroll
Carroll also discussed the issue with Michael Kaufman and he also supported going to the state for an audit.
The CTC management found out about the whistleblowing in 2010 through the help of Commission chair Ting Lan Sun. She had been told in confidence by Kaufman that Carroll was the staff member who was concerned about the backlog. He was promised by Ting Sun that he would only give her the name if she kept it confidential. But immediately after learning about Carroll’s whistleblowing, she went to the CTC managers to move on Carroll. Sun went to Mary Armstrong and Lee Pope who then went into overdrive to target Kathleen Carroll.
A Layoff Based On Fabrication To Get Rid Of Carroll Fails
One critical witness who came forward and testified for Carroll at the trial was former CTC HR assistant Katrina Hollingsworth. Krista Hill, the head of Human Relations HR at the agency, had sought to arrange for the layoff of Carroll with the ruse that there were economic problems at the agency that required the layoff of the least senior attorney. Armstrong and Pope had met with Hollingsworth to discuss how they could layoff Carroll for supposed economic reasons.
Hollingsworth however told Armstrong and Pope it would look odd to layoff one person, and would require a lengthy economic analysis prior to any layoff.
CTC HR director Krista Hill who was involved in this conspiracy to fire Carroll was allowed to stay at the agency and also later transferred to another agency in the state government despite her role in the frame-up.
Armstrong and Pope also later targeted and went after another worker Diana Mansker who had worked with Carroll on cases at the agency. Mansker who is also an SEIU 1000 member felt that there was a reign of workplace bullying, intimidation at the CTC and terror she faced daily to drive her out of the agency. She believed that she was being “tortured” at the agency when managers told her she could not talk to anyone about her work. This prevented her from doing her job and she was forced to take an early retirement because of the workplace bullying.
In the court, Ani Kindall, who is presently the Senior Staff Counsel at the Division of Professional Practices, even defended the firing, and said that they did not have proper personnel rules and said that Carroll “deserved to be fired”. She also told the jury that “there are no fucking policy and she (Diana) deserved to be sworn at.”
After Lee Pope and Mary Armstrong found out that Carroll was the whistleblower, the Executive Director of the agency Dale Janssen in an effort to do damage control and stall the State Bureau Of Audits hired a so called "independent" investigator on March 24, 2010 to make a report on the backlog. The outside consultant Elisabeth Ison was supposed to make an investigation of the backlog. Although she was a lawyer, she was not licensed as an investigator, which is required under the law.
Ison began the investigation, but instead of focusing on the backlog, her investigation focused on the whistleblower who had exposed the backlog.
Star Witness And “The Stalker”
One of the star witnesses for the agency presented by State lawyers handling the case was former CTC vice chair Barbara Kilponen who was also the chair of the Fullerton Joint Union High School District. In 2010 Ison had interviewed Committee member Barbara Kilponen, from Fullerton. CTC clearly intended Kilponen to be a star witness against Carroll, but Kilponen failed to deliver, and her testimony actually exposed the efforts to frame Carroll.
At the trial, Kilponen testified that a few minutes into the interview, investigator Ison quickly turned the interview away from CTC. Ison suddenly told Kilponen, “now tell me about the stalker”.
At trial under cross-examination, Kilponen conceded that Carroll had never, in 2007 or any other time, made any sort of sexual proposition to her, that Carroll had never touched her, never attempted to kiss her, never discussed having a romantic or a sexual relationship with her. Kilponen conceded at trial there had been absolutely no intimate initiatives by Carroll and that she never told Carroll not to contact her.
Kilponen also testified that Pope and Armstrong pressured her for information they needed about the alleged 2007 sexual harassment incident. Kilponen said Pope wanted the statement to portray Carroll as a stalker desirous of an inappropriate social relationship with Kilponen. At the trial, Kilponen said she cooperated with Pope in preparing the harassment statement but did not know Carroll was being setup for termination based on the statement. However, under cross-examination, Carroll’s attorney pointed out that Kilponen had previously admitted under oath at Carroll’s State Personnel Board SPB hearing that she knew Pope and Armstrong intended to terminate Carroll. Kilponen’s testimony at trial was that of a troubled person who was manipulated by Pope and Armstrong to attack Carroll, a woman young enough to be Kilponen’s daughter.
Kilponen also testified that Pope and Armstrong had told her that they needed information quickly from her about this supposed sexual harassment incident that had allegedly taken place in 2007. Kilponen testified that Pope was pushing her to put out a statement, which she drafted and he was working on, that portrayed Carroll as a “stalker” and that Carroll was in an inappropriate social relationship with Kilponen.
The Firing Of Carroll And Kaufman
The top officials of the CTC with the support of the chair Ting Sun put Carroll on administrative leave on September 27, 2010 and fired Carroll on November 29, 2010 even before the audit had been publicly released at a state legislative hearing.
Lee Pope who was Carroll’s direct supervisor also refused to allow her to have a representative from her union, CASE, at the September 27, 2010 discipline meeting where he violated her Weingarten rights, and then had her escorted out of the CTC building by HR director Krista Hill.
At the trial, Pope testified that he did not dislike Carroll personally and “didn’t get into personal attacks”. He also claimed that he was not aware that Carroll was behind the audit.
Although he said he was embarrassed by the state audit, he claimed it did not bring the end of his career and that “When you work for the government, things happen”.
In court testimony, Carroll’s supervisors also admitted that she (Carroll) had never been counseled, reprimanded or ever written up for any misconduct or violations until she went to the state auditor.
Ten days after Carroll was fired, in an action stated to be without precedent, CTC also fired Kaufman from the Committee, for his speaking up and “acting like an attorney.”
Carroll’s Healthcare Cut Off By CTC And Brown
After her COBRA benefits expired, for a time, Carroll had no healthcare. This was life threatening as Carroll must take immunosuppressant medications daily to prevent her body from rejecting her heart. When Carroll eventually went on Medical, she was initially denied access to the specific immune-suppressant medications she needed to survive, a condition known to CTC and to the State.
Lee Pope and the CTC were also aware of her serious health issues while they continued to harass and bully her at the agency.
Release Of State Audit
The state audit was eventually released at a public hearing in May 2011 and Carroll testified about not only the backlog but also the extensive corruption, cronyism, nepotism and lack of oversight.
At the hearing about the audit, Senator Steinberg expressed concern about the Legislative Audit Committee JLAC report about the abysmal conditions at CTC and publicly praised Carroll for coming forward, even at the cost of her job.
(see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01340zecyA0). Carroll also testified at JLAC (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ux7F71oUo0 ).
JLAC Chair Ricardo Lara also wrote Gov. Brown concerning the Audit results: backlogged cases at CTC included misconduct ranging from distribution of pornography to students, to kidnap, to rape. Lara pointed out that BSA found that 43% of surveyed CTC employees expressed fear of retaliation, and 40% believed that familiar relationships threaten hiring practices and procedures. Lara’s letter further stated, “Over the years, the Commission’s management has done nothing to address the backlog and has even lied about its existence.”
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/audit/2010-119-BSA-report.pdf
Lara asked for the dismissal of Sun, Janssen, and Armstrong. These individuals, as well as Pope, soon left CTC.
Part of the top-level corruption at the agency included the very people who were going after Carroll. Lee Pope had arranged to give his son and daughter jobs on the commission and many friends and cronies of Armstrong had also been placed as employees of the commission.
Part of Carroll’s charges, which were confirmed by the SBA included a complete lack of proper personnel procedures with rampant cronyism, workplace bullying and intimidation at the agency.
Obstruction of Justice By Kamala Harris? Efforts To Stop Suit Fail
The state Attorney General Kamala Harris and CTC also sought to argue that since Carroll was a lawyer for the agency, she could not divulge potentially illegal activity at the agency. Harris sought to claim that there was confidentiality required by Carroll and the attorney-client privilege prevented Carroll from taking the CTC to court. The Federal court ruled that in fact Carroll had the right to sue in a retaliatory discharge suit when an attorney is terminated for refusing to violate their professional obligations.
In denying CTC’s legal argument, the Federal Judge noted that CTC’s “reasoning is faulty in several critical respects: first, the CWPA's text does not say what the AG Opinion says it does; and second, the interpretation that follows from this textual misrepresentation contravenes California Supreme Court precedent.” This favorable Federal decision now allowed Carroll to resume her wrongful termination litigation. The decision, which took place on August 16, 2013, was now almost three years since she had been terminated by the agency.
http://www.bna.com/california-state-lawyer-n17179876995/
Corruption And Ting Sun’s Connections
After the corruption scandal at the CTC, Ting Sun was not reappointed by Brown, but when her term ran out, she was rewarded by being appointed to the California State Board of Education by Brown. She runs the Natoma Charter school in Sacramento as Executive Director and also is on the board of a Fettulah Gulen controlled charter school chain called Magnolia in California. Gulen is now being charged by the Erdogan government in Turkey with attempting to overthrow the government in the recent coup.
Gulen schools have been involved in corruption scandals throughout the country and have even been raided by the FBI. She is also a big supporter and one of the leaders of the California Charter Teacher Association CCTA where she was past Vice President of Leadership and Quality for the California Charter Schools Association.
The Brown appointed State School Board is now controlled by charter operators and privatization advocates and they have been approving many charter schools despite opposition from school districts and even County Boards of Education.
One thread that runs through the cast of characters in this corruption cover-up crisis is the link to privatization of education and the charter industry, which Governor Brown not only supports but also is part of. He set up two military charter schools in Oakland while he was mayor, and got corporations to give money to them instead of Oakland public schools, which were in dire need.
Background of Commission, Charters And Privatization
After being fired, Carroll also began to intensively research the background of the Commission Board and staff as well as the charter privatization network and she discovered numerous links and financial conflicts of interests.
Statewide, the charter supporters are funded by billionaires, such as Reed Hastings at Netflix, the Gates Foundation, Eli Broad’s Broad Foundation, the Fisher family KIPP Foundation and Zuckerberg at Facebook. These so called “education” experts have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into charters, charter candidates and massive network of pro-charter operations in California and throughout the country to privatize and destroy teacher and education unions.
Carroll also discovered that many of these officials who have been appointed by Governor Brown or elected to boards have financial conflicts of interest but have not been investigated and prosecuted by AG Kamala Harris despite appeals.
Cover-up And Collusion By AG Kamala Harris And Governor Brown
The trial results not only exposed the misconduct and the corruption at the agency but also a story about the cover-up and collusion by Attorney General Kamala Harris and Governor Brown who runs the commission through his appointments. He is directly in charge of the CTC in the executive branch and was fully aware of the audit and it’s damaging evidence against an agency he was in charge of.
Instead of filing criminal charges against CTC managers for being part of the corruption and conspiring to cover-up the corruption and cronyism at the agency, they went after the whistleblowers that included not only Carroll but Mansker and CTC Commission member and lawyer Michael Kaufman.
Kaufman also sought to file bar charges against some of the lawyers at the agency for their unethical activities. However the State Bar officials refused to act on them despite extensive documentation provided to them by Kaufman.
Even former Senator Darrell Steinberg who is now the mayor of Sacramento had also written a letter to Governor Brown asking that there be no retaliation against Carroll for her whistleblowing at the agency. This was completely rejected however by Brown who worked to continue the false accusations against Carroll and allowed his agency to continue to fight against her in court.
Millions Of State Funds Spent Fighting Whistleblower and Stalling Trial
The cost to the California people of millions of tax dollars in an effort to cover-up the ongoing corruption and malfeasance at the agency raises fundamental questions about the integrity and culpability of these officials who were and are personally aware of the systemic corruption at the CTC.
The California state audit provided in depth documentation of the cronyism and systemic corruption, yet Brown and Harris helped defend the termination and efforts to destroy whistleblower Kathleen Carroll. They have fought her struggle for justice and accountability and have allowed their attorneys to slander and assault her character and professionalism. The jury has vindicated Carroll but the silence from Harris and Brown is deafening.
Thousands Of California Teachers Harmed
Thousands of teachers in California have also been directly harmed by the systemic corruption and cronyism at the agency. Many California teachers have faced false testimony in the drive by managers to get them out of the schools throughout the state. Many of these teachers have failed to get any real justice at the CTC. This has been combined with the efforts of charter supporters and privatizers including Governor Brown to scapegoat teachers for “bad” schools and Ting Sun and the CCSF have sought to bring in Teach For America TFA teachers to replace professional teachers saving hundreds of millions of dollars for the charter industry. This shortchanging of the children with new teachers without proper training and experience has created a further discrimination, segregation and divisions in the California public education system. This also is part of the efforts to destroy the public school system and has also helped create a shortage of teachers in California.
Terrorism And Bullying Of Teachers Sanctioned By Brown’s CTC
The continued lack of transparency and favoritism at the board continues as it fights teachers who have been bullied and even put in teacher jails without proper democratic and just cause procedures. Presently there are lawsuits that thousands of teachers at the UTLA have been put in “teacher jails” thereby violating their labor and human rights. The agency under Linda Darling-Hammond has also refused to allow teachers and education staff to have the same rights as school principals and other school managers at CTC hearings.
More Cover-Ups Of Management Abuse By CTC
At San Francisco Martin Luther King Middle School, charges were made that the school principal Natalie Eberhard had physically abused an African American special education student and there was a cover-up by the Assistant Principal Anthony Paxton. In the investigation that was held, CTC staff lawyers refused to interview the teachers and education workers that made the charges of misconduct and allowed Eberhard and the assistant principal Anthony Braxton to stay at the school after bullying and a covering-up the incident. Not only was the abuse allowed by the CTC staff but also 17 staff members were driven out of the school by Eberhard. The UESF union had a press conference to protest the bullying and violence at the school but refused to pursue charges against Eberhard and Braxton at the CTC for violations of the education code and it was left to the teachers and staff to demand accountability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI166lxS-5g
The board under the present chair Linda Darling Hammond has also worked with Attorney General Harris and Governor Brown to pursue the defense of the real corrupt officials while fighting Carroll every inch of the way.
Corporate Media Silence About CTC Systemic Corruption
The case also has raised the question of the corporate media. The Sacramento Bee was MIA despite the fact that they are in Sacramento where the trial was being held, and covered the release of the state audit on the CTC. They also covered Kathleen Carroll’s loss of her challenge to the firing at the State Personnel Board SPB. The SBP has a long record of failing to defend state whistleblowers and being completely under the control of state administrators and the very managers who are involved in bullying and terrorizing state employees.
The lack of coverage of this important trial about the retaliation by CTC whistleblower Carroll speaks volumes about the role of the media in failing to expose the connections between top government officials and systemic corruption of agencies that they are personally responsible for having oversight of.
It is quite possible that Harris and Brown will appeal Carroll’s court victory. Those who are concerned with protecting not only whistleblowers but also want accountability in the workplace need to focus on these top officials and their own culpability in this serious corruption, cronyism and workplace bullying that threatens the children, public education and the people of California.
Additional information and media
http://www.upwa.info/documents/Carroll-v.-CTC.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ux7F71oUo0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLa6YCVB-8A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56SWb4z5-l4
https://youtu.be/dLz13AlBQhk
http://www.dailycensored.com/ca-state-whistleblowers-lawsuit-exposes-web-of-corruption-and-deceit-at-the-commission-on-teacher-credentialing-ctc/
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/audit/2010-119-BSA-report.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvbRz9KK3F4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkPLjDjSNqA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zVuIU2dMmY
Tears, hugs follow jurors’ $3.1 million award to whistleblower in teacher credentialing case-Sacramento woman reacts to $3.1 million court judgement in her favor
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article96739087.html
AUGUST 19, 2016 2:00 PM
Tears, hugs follow jurors’ $3.1 million award to whistleblower in teacher credentialing case
Sacramento woman reacts to $3.1 million court judgement in her favor 1:05
Kathleen Carroll, a former attorney for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, lost her job after disclosing a three-year backlog in teacher misconduct complaints and other problems at the agency. Then-state Auditor Elaine Howle characterized the commission as one of the “worst run” agencies she had ever investigated. Loretta Kalb The Sacramento Bee
BY LORETTA KALB
lkalb [at] sacbee.com
A Sacramento woman fired from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing after disclosing a three-year backlog in teacher misconduct complaints has won a $3.1 million jury verdict in a lawsuit against the agency and two of its executives.
Whistleblower Kathleen Carrroll, an attorney for the commission until her termination in November 2010, revealed sweeping backlogs, nepotism in the agency and favoritism that within a year led to a blistering state audit of its educator discipline process. Then-state Auditor Elaine Howle characterized the commission as one of the “worst-run” agencies she had ever investigated.
Carroll said she wept after the jury verdict. “This has been six years of my life,” she said this week. “As the jurors were walking out, some of them had tears in their eyes and came to me and hugged me. It was very emotional. I think they put themselves in my position. They seemed very compassionate about what I went through.”
Sacramento Superior Court jurors issued their verdict Aug. 10 following a 20-day trial and after little more than six hours of deliberations, said Dan Siegel, Carroll’s attorney in Oakland. The whistleblower retaliation suit named the commission along with former general counsel Mary Armstrong, who headed the division that oversaw teacher sanctions, and assistant chief counsel Lee Pope. Both have since retired.
The commission issued a statement expressing, in part, disappointment with the outcome. Neither Armstrong nor Pope responded to Sacramento Bee requests for comment.
In 2012, Carroll lost her appeal to the State Personnel Board for reinstatement, failing to prove she was dismissed because of whistleblowing. But Superior Court jurors this month did find that Carroll’s whistleblowing contributed to the commission’s decision to fire her. Jurors held the commission liable for the bulk of the $3.1 million in damages. The award included punitive damages against Pope of $130,000 and against Armstrong of $90,000. The law does not allow punitive damages against public agencies.
Carroll said the years of court battles have been emotionally and financially draining. As a heart transplant recipient, she deals with high medical bills and has spent all her personal and retirement savings. She has not been able to buy tickets to visit her mother in Connecticut, who is 87 and in ill health. “There were many times I felt like I have got to see my mom and this is not worth it,” she said. She said her mother cannot understand why Carroll has not to come to visit.
“I could have just looked the other way,” Carroll said. “But I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. These were not little offenses; they were serious.”
Siegel said that while many complaints against school employees with credentials are routine, others can involve child molestation, child pornography or drug addiction. “What Kathy learned was there was a huge backlog of work” of all sorts that wasn’t being processed, he said. During the years required for the commission to act, teachers could leave one school district and get a job in another.
Carroll said some cases would have resulted in mandatory license revocations because of court convictions.“They are automatically revoked,” she said, “and that was not happening. That was one of the things that pushed me.
“There were stacks of paper everywhere. Some were in desks and some in boxes. They hadn’t been entered into the computers. Student assistants were finding those serious convictions in some of those stacks.” The day of that discovery, she said, “my heart dropped.” One case left unaddressed for three years involved a middle school teacher arrested for allegedly showing pornography to a student, she said. When the commission finally pursued it, they could no longer find witnesses.
“That person is still teaching today,” she said.
When she sounded the backlog alarm with colleagues, she said, “I was shunned like I was radioactive.” Then, according to the lawsuit, Armstrong told commissioners at a public meeting in August 2009 there were only little backlogs from time to time.
Siegel said when Carroll raised the issue, executives at the commission “basically blew her off.” In mid December 2009, Carroll turned to the Bureau of State Audits’ whistleblower hotline and later spoke to a member of then-Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s staff. “They did their due diligence and concluded she knew what she was talking about,” he said. Steinberg requested the audit, which began in mid-2010.
Siegel described Carroll as an admirable character who “went out on a limb” for what she believed. He said that in the months leading up to Carroll’s firing in November 2010, some of the commission’s executive leadership “began plotting to see how they could get rid of her.” They tried to lay her off, proposing her elimination as a cost-cutting measure tied to just one employee, according to the suit. Ultimately, the commission fired her outright.
The audit found major flaws in nearly every aspect of the commission regulatory process, including lapses in launching investigations, gathering facts, tracking cases and revoking or suspending teacher credentials for misconduct. The backlog reached 12,600 cases at one point. Surveys tied to the audit showed that 40 percent of employees said hiring and promotion at the agency were compromised by family relationships or favoritism. And 43 percent of respondents at the commission said they feared retaliation if they filed a grievance or formal complaints.
At a Joint Legislative Audit Committee hearing in May 2011, then-Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, a Bell Gardens Democrat, said he wanted to see a shake-up of the commission’s 15-member governing board and called for resignations at the head of the agency.
“Somebody needs to be held accountable for the gross mismanagement of the commission,” said Lara, who chaired the committee and is now a state senator. The next month, Executive Director Dale Janssen said he would retire.
The commission this week signaled that it could appeal. “The Commission will carefully consider all legal options before deciding how to move forward,” the agency statement said. “The events surrounding this case occurred nearly seven years ago under far different circumstances. The commission has undergone a complete transformation in serving the needs of California's students and teachers.”
The commission meets Sept. 8-9 and is expected to consider in closed session whether to recommend an appeal of damages, said spokesman Joshua Speaks. Commissioners could also consider whether to recommend that the state pay the punitive damages jurors found against Armstrong and Pope.
Asked what’s next for her, Carroll said, “My priority is to see my mom.”
Loretta Kalb: 916-321-1073
AG Kamala Harris And Governor Brown Spent Millions Fighting Whistleblower’s Lawsuit And Defense of CTC Misdeeds
http://www.upwa.info/documents/8-9-16-Carroll-win-lawsuit.htm
8/9/16
By Steve Zeltzer
workweek [at] kpfa.org
After more than 15 days of a trial and a wait of nearly 6 years after being fired, Commission on Teacher Credentialing CTC lawyer and whistleblower Kathleen Carroll won her state lawsuit against the agency for an illegal termination with malice.
She won $2,844,528. The jury also awarded punitive damages against Lee Pope, who was the Assistant General Counsel of the agency of $130,000 and former CTC Chief Counsel Mary Armstrong for $90,000, which brought the total damages for Carroll to $3,064,526
The jury at Sacramento Superior Court voted unanimously that she had been fired for going to Senator Darrell Steinberg and the California State Audit Board over corruption, cronyism and a massive backlog of “rap” sheets and credentials that were putting California public school children in potential danger.
Carroll had sued the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, CTC in November 2012 after she was fired for blowing the whistle on the massive backlog of credentials for teachers. This state agency is controlled by Governor Brown who appoints the commission members. It is also charged with credentialing the 300,000 teachers in California and investigating possible criminal violations of credentialed teachers, principals and supervisors.
The Backlog And Lies
While working at the commission in 2009, Carroll became aware of the massive backlog of credentials for thousands of teachers that were being held up. There were also serious charges of misconduct against teachers that were not being processed as a result of the backlog. According to her, there were boxes of cases that had been sent to the commission and were being ignored.
There was also an organized cover-up of the backlog by top officials. Mary Armstrong, the chief counsel of the CTC, on August 6, 2009 told the commission that there was no backlog when questioned at a Commission meeting. The agency later admitted that indeed there were over 12,600 cases that were backlogged serious charges against teachers and credentialed staff.
The failure to receive credentials in a timely matter also put thousands of teachers in economic jeopardy, since many were waiting for the documents to get their jobs at public schools throughout the state. Many of these teachers likely ended up teaching at charter schools where credentials were not required.
CTC Committee Member Kaufman Backed Up Carroll
A witness for Carroll at trial was her friend attorney Michael Kaufman, who was a Public Member on the Committee of Credentials that reported to the Commission. Kaufman also testified at trial that in November 2009, he listened at the CTC web site to an audio recording of Armstrong’s “little backlogs” and her August 2009 statement to Commission Young. Kaufman believed that Armstrong’s answer to Young to be false based on stale files he had seen as a Committee member, and based on anecdotal comments he had heard within CTC. Kaufman felt that the “little backlogs” response violated Armstrong’s duty of loyalty and truthfulness to her client, the Commission. In Jan. 2010, Kaufman telephoned Commissioner Young and told her why he felt Armstrong’s “little backlogs” statement was untrue, that he had heard of a backlog exceeding 10,000 unexamined documents, and that consequently public school students could be at risk. Kaufman advised Young that the State Auditors should be brought in to investigate. Commissioner Young said she would take the matter up with Commission Chair Ting Sun.
Carroll Goes To Senator Steinberg For State Audit
After raising the issues of backlog with management staff internally and getting no results, She contacted the office of State Senator Darrell Steinberg in Sacramento and convinced Steinberg and his staff that there were serious deficiencies, corruption and nepotism at the state agency, which required a state audit. Steinberg agreed and the legislature voted for an audit of the agency.
Ting Sun Helps CTC Managers Target Carroll
Carroll also discussed the issue with Michael Kaufman and he also supported going to the state for an audit.
The CTC management found out about the whistleblowing in 2010 through the help of Commission chair Ting Lan Sun. She had been told in confidence by Kaufman that Carroll was the staff member who was concerned about the backlog. He was promised by Ting Sun that he would only give her the name if she kept it confidential. But immediately after learning about Carroll’s whistleblowing, she went to the CTC managers to move on Carroll. Sun went to Mary Armstrong and Lee Pope who then went into overdrive to target Kathleen Carroll.
A Layoff Based On Fabrication To Get Rid Of Carroll Fails
One critical witness who came forward and testified for Carroll at the trial was former CTC HR assistant Katrina Hollingsworth. Krista Hill, the head of Human Relations HR at the agency, had sought to arrange for the layoff of Carroll with the ruse that there were economic problems at the agency that required the layoff of the least senior attorney. Armstrong and Pope had met with Hollingsworth to discuss how they could layoff Carroll for supposed economic reasons.
Hollingsworth however told Armstrong and Pope it would look odd to layoff one person, and would require a lengthy economic analysis prior to any layoff.
CTC HR director Krista Hill who was involved in this conspiracy to fire Carroll was allowed to stay at the agency and also later transferred to another agency in the state government despite her role in the frame-up.
Armstrong and Pope also later targeted and went after another worker Diana Mansker who had worked with Carroll on cases at the agency. Mansker who is also an SEIU 1000 member felt that there was a reign of workplace bullying, intimidation at the CTC and terror she faced daily to drive her out of the agency. She believed that she was being “tortured” at the agency when managers told her she could not talk to anyone about her work. This prevented her from doing her job and she was forced to take an early retirement because of the workplace bullying.
In the court, Ani Kindall, who is presently the Senior Staff Counsel at the Division of Professional Practices, even defended the firing, and said that they did not have proper personnel rules and said that Carroll “deserved to be fired”. She also told the jury that “there are no fucking policy and she (Diana) deserved to be sworn at.”
After Lee Pope and Mary Armstrong found out that Carroll was the whistleblower, the Executive Director of the agency Dale Janssen in an effort to do damage control and stall the State Bureau Of Audits hired a so called "independent" investigator on March 24, 2010 to make a report on the backlog. The outside consultant Elisabeth Ison was supposed to make an investigation of the backlog. Although she was a lawyer, she was not licensed as an investigator, which is required under the law.
Ison began the investigation, but instead of focusing on the backlog, her investigation focused on the whistleblower who had exposed the backlog.
Star Witness And “The Stalker”
One of the star witnesses for the agency presented by State lawyers handling the case was former CTC vice chair Barbara Kilponen who was also the chair of the Fullerton Joint Union High School District. In 2010 Ison had interviewed Committee member Barbara Kilponen, from Fullerton. CTC clearly intended Kilponen to be a star witness against Carroll, but Kilponen failed to deliver, and her testimony actually exposed the efforts to frame Carroll.
At the trial, Kilponen testified that a few minutes into the interview, investigator Ison quickly turned the interview away from CTC. Ison suddenly told Kilponen, “now tell me about the stalker”.
At trial under cross-examination, Kilponen conceded that Carroll had never, in 2007 or any other time, made any sort of sexual proposition to her, that Carroll had never touched her, never attempted to kiss her, never discussed having a romantic or a sexual relationship with her. Kilponen conceded at trial there had been absolutely no intimate initiatives by Carroll and that she never told Carroll not to contact her.
Kilponen also testified that Pope and Armstrong pressured her for information they needed about the alleged 2007 sexual harassment incident. Kilponen said Pope wanted the statement to portray Carroll as a stalker desirous of an inappropriate social relationship with Kilponen. At the trial, Kilponen said she cooperated with Pope in preparing the harassment statement but did not know Carroll was being setup for termination based on the statement. However, under cross-examination, Carroll’s attorney pointed out that Kilponen had previously admitted under oath at Carroll’s State Personnel Board SPB hearing that she knew Pope and Armstrong intended to terminate Carroll. Kilponen’s testimony at trial was that of a troubled person who was manipulated by Pope and Armstrong to attack Carroll, a woman young enough to be Kilponen’s daughter.
Kilponen also testified that Pope and Armstrong had told her that they needed information quickly from her about this supposed sexual harassment incident that had allegedly taken place in 2007. Kilponen testified that Pope was pushing her to put out a statement, which she drafted and he was working on, that portrayed Carroll as a “stalker” and that Carroll was in an inappropriate social relationship with Kilponen.
The Firing Of Carroll And Kaufman
The top officials of the CTC with the support of the chair Ting Sun put Carroll on administrative leave on September 27, 2010 and fired Carroll on November 29, 2010 even before the audit had been publicly released at a state legislative hearing.
Lee Pope who was Carroll’s direct supervisor also refused to allow her to have a representative from her union, CASE, at the September 27, 2010 discipline meeting where he violated her Weingarten rights, and then had her escorted out of the CTC building by HR director Krista Hill.
At the trial, Pope testified that he did not dislike Carroll personally and “didn’t get into personal attacks”. He also claimed that he was not aware that Carroll was behind the audit.
Although he said he was embarrassed by the state audit, he claimed it did not bring the end of his career and that “When you work for the government, things happen”.
In court testimony, Carroll’s supervisors also admitted that she (Carroll) had never been counseled, reprimanded or ever written up for any misconduct or violations until she went to the state auditor.
Ten days after Carroll was fired, in an action stated to be without precedent, CTC also fired Kaufman from the Committee, for his speaking up and “acting like an attorney.”
Carroll’s Healthcare Cut Off By CTC And Brown
After her COBRA benefits expired, for a time, Carroll had no healthcare. This was life threatening as Carroll must take immunosuppressant medications daily to prevent her body from rejecting her heart. When Carroll eventually went on Medical, she was initially denied access to the specific immune-suppressant medications she needed to survive, a condition known to CTC and to the State.
Lee Pope and the CTC were also aware of her serious health issues while they continued to harass and bully her at the agency.
Release Of State Audit
The state audit was eventually released at a public hearing in May 2011 and Carroll testified about not only the backlog but also the extensive corruption, cronyism, nepotism and lack of oversight.
At the hearing about the audit, Senator Steinberg expressed concern about the Legislative Audit Committee JLAC report about the abysmal conditions at CTC and publicly praised Carroll for coming forward, even at the cost of her job.
(see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01340zecyA0). Carroll also testified at JLAC (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ux7F71oUo0 ).
JLAC Chair Ricardo Lara also wrote Gov. Brown concerning the Audit results: backlogged cases at CTC included misconduct ranging from distribution of pornography to students, to kidnap, to rape. Lara pointed out that BSA found that 43% of surveyed CTC employees expressed fear of retaliation, and 40% believed that familiar relationships threaten hiring practices and procedures. Lara’s letter further stated, “Over the years, the Commission’s management has done nothing to address the backlog and has even lied about its existence.”
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/audit/2010-119-BSA-report.pdf
Lara asked for the dismissal of Sun, Janssen, and Armstrong. These individuals, as well as Pope, soon left CTC.
Part of the top-level corruption at the agency included the very people who were going after Carroll. Lee Pope had arranged to give his son and daughter jobs on the commission and many friends and cronies of Armstrong had also been placed as employees of the commission.
Part of Carroll’s charges, which were confirmed by the SBA included a complete lack of proper personnel procedures with rampant cronyism, workplace bullying and intimidation at the agency.
Obstruction of Justice By Kamala Harris? Efforts To Stop Suit Fail
The state Attorney General Kamala Harris and CTC also sought to argue that since Carroll was a lawyer for the agency, she could not divulge potentially illegal activity at the agency. Harris sought to claim that there was confidentiality required by Carroll and the attorney-client privilege prevented Carroll from taking the CTC to court. The Federal court ruled that in fact Carroll had the right to sue in a retaliatory discharge suit when an attorney is terminated for refusing to violate their professional obligations.
In denying CTC’s legal argument, the Federal Judge noted that CTC’s “reasoning is faulty in several critical respects: first, the CWPA's text does not say what the AG Opinion says it does; and second, the interpretation that follows from this textual misrepresentation contravenes California Supreme Court precedent.” This favorable Federal decision now allowed Carroll to resume her wrongful termination litigation. The decision, which took place on August 16, 2013, was now almost three years since she had been terminated by the agency.
http://www.bna.com/california-state-lawyer-n17179876995/
Corruption And Ting Sun’s Connections
After the corruption scandal at the CTC, Ting Sun was not reappointed by Brown, but when her term ran out, she was rewarded by being appointed to the California State Board of Education by Brown. She runs the Natoma Charter school in Sacramento as Executive Director and also is on the board of a Fettulah Gulen controlled charter school chain called Magnolia in California. Gulen is now being charged by the Erdogan government in Turkey with attempting to overthrow the government in the recent coup.
Gulen schools have been involved in corruption scandals throughout the country and have even been raided by the FBI. She is also a big supporter and one of the leaders of the California Charter Teacher Association CCTA where she was past Vice President of Leadership and Quality for the California Charter Schools Association.
The Brown appointed State School Board is now controlled by charter operators and privatization advocates and they have been approving many charter schools despite opposition from school districts and even County Boards of Education.
One thread that runs through the cast of characters in this corruption cover-up crisis is the link to privatization of education and the charter industry, which Governor Brown not only supports but also is part of. He set up two military charter schools in Oakland while he was mayor, and got corporations to give money to them instead of Oakland public schools, which were in dire need.
Background of Commission, Charters And Privatization
After being fired, Carroll also began to intensively research the background of the Commission Board and staff as well as the charter privatization network and she discovered numerous links and financial conflicts of interests.
Statewide, the charter supporters are funded by billionaires, such as Reed Hastings at Netflix, the Gates Foundation, Eli Broad’s Broad Foundation, the Fisher family KIPP Foundation and Zuckerberg at Facebook. These so called “education” experts have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into charters, charter candidates and massive network of pro-charter operations in California and throughout the country to privatize and destroy teacher and education unions.
Carroll also discovered that many of these officials who have been appointed by Governor Brown or elected to boards have financial conflicts of interest but have not been investigated and prosecuted by AG Kamala Harris despite appeals.
Cover-up And Collusion By AG Kamala Harris And Governor Brown
The trial results not only exposed the misconduct and the corruption at the agency but also a story about the cover-up and collusion by Attorney General Kamala Harris and Governor Brown who runs the commission through his appointments. He is directly in charge of the CTC in the executive branch and was fully aware of the audit and it’s damaging evidence against an agency he was in charge of.
Instead of filing criminal charges against CTC managers for being part of the corruption and conspiring to cover-up the corruption and cronyism at the agency, they went after the whistleblowers that included not only Carroll but Mansker and CTC Commission member and lawyer Michael Kaufman.
Kaufman also sought to file bar charges against some of the lawyers at the agency for their unethical activities. However the State Bar officials refused to act on them despite extensive documentation provided to them by Kaufman.
Even former Senator Darrell Steinberg who is now the mayor of Sacramento had also written a letter to Governor Brown asking that there be no retaliation against Carroll for her whistleblowing at the agency. This was completely rejected however by Brown who worked to continue the false accusations against Carroll and allowed his agency to continue to fight against her in court.
Millions Of State Funds Spent Fighting Whistleblower and Stalling Trial
The cost to the California people of millions of tax dollars in an effort to cover-up the ongoing corruption and malfeasance at the agency raises fundamental questions about the integrity and culpability of these officials who were and are personally aware of the systemic corruption at the CTC.
The California state audit provided in depth documentation of the cronyism and systemic corruption, yet Brown and Harris helped defend the termination and efforts to destroy whistleblower Kathleen Carroll. They have fought her struggle for justice and accountability and have allowed their attorneys to slander and assault her character and professionalism. The jury has vindicated Carroll but the silence from Harris and Brown is deafening.
Thousands Of California Teachers Harmed
Thousands of teachers in California have also been directly harmed by the systemic corruption and cronyism at the agency. Many California teachers have faced false testimony in the drive by managers to get them out of the schools throughout the state. Many of these teachers have failed to get any real justice at the CTC. This has been combined with the efforts of charter supporters and privatizers including Governor Brown to scapegoat teachers for “bad” schools and Ting Sun and the CCSF have sought to bring in Teach For America TFA teachers to replace professional teachers saving hundreds of millions of dollars for the charter industry. This shortchanging of the children with new teachers without proper training and experience has created a further discrimination, segregation and divisions in the California public education system. This also is part of the efforts to destroy the public school system and has also helped create a shortage of teachers in California.
Terrorism And Bullying Of Teachers Sanctioned By Brown’s CTC
The continued lack of transparency and favoritism at the board continues as it fights teachers who have been bullied and even put in teacher jails without proper democratic and just cause procedures. Presently there are lawsuits that thousands of teachers at the UTLA have been put in “teacher jails” thereby violating their labor and human rights. The agency under Linda Darling-Hammond has also refused to allow teachers and education staff to have the same rights as school principals and other school managers at CTC hearings.
More Cover-Ups Of Management Abuse By CTC
At San Francisco Martin Luther King Middle School, charges were made that the school principal Natalie Eberhard had physically abused an African American special education student and there was a cover-up by the Assistant Principal Anthony Paxton. In the investigation that was held, CTC staff lawyers refused to interview the teachers and education workers that made the charges of misconduct and allowed Eberhard and the assistant principal Anthony Braxton to stay at the school after bullying and a covering-up the incident. Not only was the abuse allowed by the CTC staff but also 17 staff members were driven out of the school by Eberhard. The UESF union had a press conference to protest the bullying and violence at the school but refused to pursue charges against Eberhard and Braxton at the CTC for violations of the education code and it was left to the teachers and staff to demand accountability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI166lxS-5g
The board under the present chair Linda Darling Hammond has also worked with Attorney General Harris and Governor Brown to pursue the defense of the real corrupt officials while fighting Carroll every inch of the way.
Corporate Media Silence About CTC Systemic Corruption
The case also has raised the question of the corporate media. The Sacramento Bee was MIA despite the fact that they are in Sacramento where the trial was being held, and covered the release of the state audit on the CTC. They also covered Kathleen Carroll’s loss of her challenge to the firing at the State Personnel Board SPB. The SBP has a long record of failing to defend state whistleblowers and being completely under the control of state administrators and the very managers who are involved in bullying and terrorizing state employees.
The lack of coverage of this important trial about the retaliation by CTC whistleblower Carroll speaks volumes about the role of the media in failing to expose the connections between top government officials and systemic corruption of agencies that they are personally responsible for having oversight of.
It is quite possible that Harris and Brown will appeal Carroll’s court victory. Those who are concerned with protecting not only whistleblowers but also want accountability in the workplace need to focus on these top officials and their own culpability in this serious corruption, cronyism and workplace bullying that threatens the children, public education and the people of California.
Additional information and media
http://www.upwa.info/documents/Carroll-v.-CTC.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ux7F71oUo0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLa6YCVB-8A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56SWb4z5-l4
https://youtu.be/dLz13AlBQhk
http://www.dailycensored.com/ca-state-whistleblowers-lawsuit-exposes-web-of-corruption-and-deceit-at-the-commission-on-teacher-credentialing-ctc/
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/audit/2010-119-BSA-report.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvbRz9KK3F4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkPLjDjSNqA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zVuIU2dMmY
Tears, hugs follow jurors’ $3.1 million award to whistleblower in teacher credentialing case-Sacramento woman reacts to $3.1 million court judgement in her favor
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article96739087.html
AUGUST 19, 2016 2:00 PM
Tears, hugs follow jurors’ $3.1 million award to whistleblower in teacher credentialing case
Sacramento woman reacts to $3.1 million court judgement in her favor 1:05
Kathleen Carroll, a former attorney for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, lost her job after disclosing a three-year backlog in teacher misconduct complaints and other problems at the agency. Then-state Auditor Elaine Howle characterized the commission as one of the “worst run” agencies she had ever investigated. Loretta Kalb The Sacramento Bee
BY LORETTA KALB
lkalb [at] sacbee.com
A Sacramento woman fired from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing after disclosing a three-year backlog in teacher misconduct complaints has won a $3.1 million jury verdict in a lawsuit against the agency and two of its executives.
Whistleblower Kathleen Carrroll, an attorney for the commission until her termination in November 2010, revealed sweeping backlogs, nepotism in the agency and favoritism that within a year led to a blistering state audit of its educator discipline process. Then-state Auditor Elaine Howle characterized the commission as one of the “worst-run” agencies she had ever investigated.
Carroll said she wept after the jury verdict. “This has been six years of my life,” she said this week. “As the jurors were walking out, some of them had tears in their eyes and came to me and hugged me. It was very emotional. I think they put themselves in my position. They seemed very compassionate about what I went through.”
Sacramento Superior Court jurors issued their verdict Aug. 10 following a 20-day trial and after little more than six hours of deliberations, said Dan Siegel, Carroll’s attorney in Oakland. The whistleblower retaliation suit named the commission along with former general counsel Mary Armstrong, who headed the division that oversaw teacher sanctions, and assistant chief counsel Lee Pope. Both have since retired.
The commission issued a statement expressing, in part, disappointment with the outcome. Neither Armstrong nor Pope responded to Sacramento Bee requests for comment.
In 2012, Carroll lost her appeal to the State Personnel Board for reinstatement, failing to prove she was dismissed because of whistleblowing. But Superior Court jurors this month did find that Carroll’s whistleblowing contributed to the commission’s decision to fire her. Jurors held the commission liable for the bulk of the $3.1 million in damages. The award included punitive damages against Pope of $130,000 and against Armstrong of $90,000. The law does not allow punitive damages against public agencies.
Carroll said the years of court battles have been emotionally and financially draining. As a heart transplant recipient, she deals with high medical bills and has spent all her personal and retirement savings. She has not been able to buy tickets to visit her mother in Connecticut, who is 87 and in ill health. “There were many times I felt like I have got to see my mom and this is not worth it,” she said. She said her mother cannot understand why Carroll has not to come to visit.
“I could have just looked the other way,” Carroll said. “But I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. These were not little offenses; they were serious.”
Siegel said that while many complaints against school employees with credentials are routine, others can involve child molestation, child pornography or drug addiction. “What Kathy learned was there was a huge backlog of work” of all sorts that wasn’t being processed, he said. During the years required for the commission to act, teachers could leave one school district and get a job in another.
Carroll said some cases would have resulted in mandatory license revocations because of court convictions.“They are automatically revoked,” she said, “and that was not happening. That was one of the things that pushed me.
“There were stacks of paper everywhere. Some were in desks and some in boxes. They hadn’t been entered into the computers. Student assistants were finding those serious convictions in some of those stacks.” The day of that discovery, she said, “my heart dropped.” One case left unaddressed for three years involved a middle school teacher arrested for allegedly showing pornography to a student, she said. When the commission finally pursued it, they could no longer find witnesses.
“That person is still teaching today,” she said.
When she sounded the backlog alarm with colleagues, she said, “I was shunned like I was radioactive.” Then, according to the lawsuit, Armstrong told commissioners at a public meeting in August 2009 there were only little backlogs from time to time.
Siegel said when Carroll raised the issue, executives at the commission “basically blew her off.” In mid December 2009, Carroll turned to the Bureau of State Audits’ whistleblower hotline and later spoke to a member of then-Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s staff. “They did their due diligence and concluded she knew what she was talking about,” he said. Steinberg requested the audit, which began in mid-2010.
Siegel described Carroll as an admirable character who “went out on a limb” for what she believed. He said that in the months leading up to Carroll’s firing in November 2010, some of the commission’s executive leadership “began plotting to see how they could get rid of her.” They tried to lay her off, proposing her elimination as a cost-cutting measure tied to just one employee, according to the suit. Ultimately, the commission fired her outright.
The audit found major flaws in nearly every aspect of the commission regulatory process, including lapses in launching investigations, gathering facts, tracking cases and revoking or suspending teacher credentials for misconduct. The backlog reached 12,600 cases at one point. Surveys tied to the audit showed that 40 percent of employees said hiring and promotion at the agency were compromised by family relationships or favoritism. And 43 percent of respondents at the commission said they feared retaliation if they filed a grievance or formal complaints.
At a Joint Legislative Audit Committee hearing in May 2011, then-Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, a Bell Gardens Democrat, said he wanted to see a shake-up of the commission’s 15-member governing board and called for resignations at the head of the agency.
“Somebody needs to be held accountable for the gross mismanagement of the commission,” said Lara, who chaired the committee and is now a state senator. The next month, Executive Director Dale Janssen said he would retire.
The commission this week signaled that it could appeal. “The Commission will carefully consider all legal options before deciding how to move forward,” the agency statement said. “The events surrounding this case occurred nearly seven years ago under far different circumstances. The commission has undergone a complete transformation in serving the needs of California's students and teachers.”
The commission meets Sept. 8-9 and is expected to consider in closed session whether to recommend an appeal of damages, said spokesman Joshua Speaks. Commissioners could also consider whether to recommend that the state pay the punitive damages jurors found against Armstrong and Pope.
Asked what’s next for her, Carroll said, “My priority is to see my mom.”
Loretta Kalb: 916-321-1073
For more information:
http://www.upwa.info/documents/8-9-16-Carr...
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The award was near $3.1 million.
Commission On Teacher Credentialing Stacked By Gov Brown With Charter Operators And Privatizers
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/commission/commissioners.html
Members of the Commission
• Linda Darling-Hammond — Chair
• Kathleen Harris — Vice Chair
• Joseph A. Aguerrebere — Interim Ex-Officio Representative
• Kirsten Barnes
• Constance Baumgardt Blackburn
• Kate Williams Browne — Ex-Officio Representative
• C. Michael Cooney
• Marysol de la Torre-Escobedo
• José L. González
• Alicia Hinde
• Bonnie Klatt
• Shane P. Martin — Ex-Officio Representative
• Haydee Rodriguez
• Ref Rodriguez
• Tine Sloan — Ex-Officio Representative
• Michelle Zumot
• Current Commission Vacancies
Linda Darling-Hammond — Chair
Position: Faculty Member
Appointed: August 2011
Term Expires: November 2017
Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she has launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and the School Redesign Network and served as faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the National Academy of Education. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of school reform, teacher quality and educational equity. From 1994-2001, she served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, led to sweeping policy changes affecting teaching in the United States. In 2006, this report was named one of the most influential affecting U.S. education and Darling-Hammond was named one of the nation's ten most influential people affecting educational policy over the last decade. In 2008-09, she headed President Barack Obama's education policy transition team.
Among Darling-Hammond's more than 300 publications are The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (Teachers College Press, 2010); Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs (Jossey-Bass, 2006); Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do (with John Bransford; Jossey-Bass, 2005), winner of the AACTE Pomeroy Award; Teaching as the Learning Profession (co-edited with Gary Sykes; Jossey-Bass, 1999), which received the National Staff Development Council's Outstanding Book Award for 2000; and The Right to Learn (Jossey-Bass,1997), recipient of the American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Book Award for 1998. Among recent recognitions, she is recipient of the 2011 Brock International Prize in Education and the 2009 McGraw Hill Prize for Innovation in Education.
Kathleen Harris— Vice Chair
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: August 2011
Term Expires: November 2017
Kathy Harris has been a classroom teacher in the Piner-Olivet Union School District for 25 years. From 1998 to 2009 she served as the Regional Director of the California Reading and Literature Project at Sonoma State University. She has done extensive study in the areas of reading, reading readiness, assessment, English language development, school reform, school leadership, and professional development, and has engaged in many field experiences with both teachers and principals, working to improve student achievement through effective professional development, technical assistance, and school reform. Kathy Harris has provided professional development in English Language Arts and English Language Development for K-12 teachers and administrators throughout the state as well as within the eight county region of the Sonoma/North Coast region of the California Reading and Literature Project. She continues to provide professional development focused on the California Common Core State Standards.
Kathy Harris became involved with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Development work in 2009 as a member of the National Council of Teachers of English Review Panel. In December of 2009 she joined the CCSS Development Team working on Text Complexity, and is actively working on this component of the CCSS. In 2010 she served as a member of the California Academic Contents Standards Commission. She is currently teaching 4th and 5th grade at Olivet Elementary School in Santa Rosa.
Joseph A. Aguerrebere
Position: Interim Ex-Officio Representative of California State University
Appointed: June 2015
Term Expires: Ongoing
Joseph A. Aguerrebere currently serves as Assistant Vice Chancellor of Teacher Education and Public School Programs at the California State University, Chancellor's Office.
Previously, he was President and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) based in Arlington, Virginia. Prior to leading NBPTS, Dr. Aguerrebere was deputy director of the Education, Knowledge, and Religion unit of the Ford Foundation in New York. In addition to his management responsibilities, his grant making focused on the development of human capital in educational settings working with key organizations in the U.S. and abroad.
His professional career began as a high school teacher in Southern California, serving in five diverse school systems as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and district office administrator in elementary, middle, and high school settings. He later served as a tenured professor of educational administration at California State University, Dominguez Hills, in Los Angeles and was director of the Future Teacher Institute and national director of the Consortium for Minorities in Teaching Careers.
He received his Ed.D. and M.S. degrees in educational administration, and B.A. degree in political science, all from the University of Southern California.
Kirsten Barnes
Position: Non-Administrative Services Credential Representative
Appointed: July 2013
Term Expires: November 2016
Kirsten Barnes has worked for the Hanford Joint Union High School District for the past 21 years. She began her career as a teacher for the continuation high school and after obtaining her counseling credential became the counselor of the continuation high for 5 years before transferring to Hanford West High School. She has been at Hanford West for the past 13 years. Kirsten also works part time in the evenings as a teacher and counselor for Crossroads Charter School in Armona, California.
Kirsten is the current President Elect of the California Association of School Counselors, (CASC), a State Council Representative for the California Teachers Association, Treasurer and Bargaining Chair of her local association: HSEA, and Vice Chair of the Tulare Kings Service Center Council. She is also a member of American School Counselor Association, National Education Association, Humane Society and the SPCA. She received her Masters in School Counseling from Fresno Pacific University and her Bachelors in Liberal Studies from Mount St. Mary's College.
Constance Baumgardt Blackburn
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: November 2008
Term Expires: November 2016
Connie Blackburn has been a Kindergarten teacher at Central Elementary School in the Escondido Union School District in San Diego County for 23 years. She holds a Multiple Subjects teaching credential from California State University, Dominguez Hills and a specialist credential for Communication Handicapped from California State University, Los Angeles. Her area of expertise is in early literacy and cross curricular integration. An eighth generation Californian, she comes from a family of educators. Previously, she has taught the Deaf in Los Angeles County, Louisville, Kentucky and Houston, Texas.
Educated in the Torrance Unified School District in Los Angeles County, she holds a B.A. in Liberal Studies from California State University, Dominguez Hills and an M.A from California State University, Los Angeles. She was selected as a California Teacher of the Year in 2003 and currently serves on the executive board of the California Teachers of the Year Foundation. She believes passionately in supporting the teaching profession and has served as a master teacher for teacher candidates since 1989. In addition, she has served as a Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) support provider.
Kate Williams Browne
Position: Ex-Officio Representative of the California Community Colleges
Appointed: September 2014
Kate Williams Browne is a tenured professor and Chair of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) Department at Skyline College and Coordinator of the San Mateo Region of the California Early Childhood Mentor Program. She currently serves as President of the Faculty Senate of Skyline College and Executive Secretary of the California Community College ECE Faculty Association. A native Californian and the first in her family with a college education, she holds a BA (with Academic Honors) in Psychology from Stanford University and MA (with Academic Scholarship) in Early Childhood Education from the University of Michigan. Her education credentials include Elementary Certification from Michigan, a Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential from California, a California Children's Center Permit and a California Community College Credential.
Among Kate's professional experiences are ECE teacher and administrator (including parent co-op, child care, bilingual preschool, kindergarten/first grade and 15 years at Stanford's Bing School); textbook writing (Beginnings & Beyond: Foundations in Early Childhood Education, Beginning Essentials, To Teach Well: ECE Student Teaching Guide, and Guiding Young Children in a Diverse Society); and higher education instructor (Stanford University, Foothill, De Anza, Canada and Skyline Colleges). She also served on the Steering Committee for the ECE Competencies Integration Project at the California Department of Education. Among recent recognitions, she is the recipient of the Meyer Award for Teaching Excellence (Skyline College), ECE Professional of the Year (Peninsula Association for the Education of Young Children) and Who's Who of American Professional Women.
C. Michael Cooney
Position: Public Representative
Appointed: June 2011
Term Expires: November 2017
Michael Cooney is a partner in Investment Group of Santa Barbara and President and General Counsel of Cimarron Management Company. Mr. Cooney is also currently a member of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. He served on the California Student Aid Commission from 2000-2004 and was Chair of that commission for 3 years. He was on the Board of Directors at EdFund from 2006-2010 and a trustee with Montecito Union School District from 1977 to 1988. Mr. Cooney also was a partner with Price, Postel & Parma in Santa Barbara, California for 30 years.
Marysol de la Torre-Escobedo
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: December 2015
Term Expires: November 2019
Marysol de la Torre-Escobedo received her Bachelor's Degree from UC Berkeley and her Clear Social Science Teaching Credential and M.A. in Education from Stanford University. In 2003, she began her teaching career as a founding member of East Palo Alto Academy High School. As a founding member of EPAAHS de la Torre-Escobedo worked closely with the Stanford School Redesign Network and their efforts in meeting the needs of all students and creating a model of school reform.
De la Torre-Escobedo has taught AVID, Economics, Spanish, US History, and World History in the Bay Area, the Dominican Republic, the Glenn County Juvenile Hall, and Chico. She has been a teacher for the Chico Unified School District since 2007. In 2010, she co-founded Chico's first in-district charter school, Inspire School of Arts & Sciences, where she currently teaches. In 2013, she was selected as a Chico Rotary Educator of the Year and she also received the Golden Apple/KHSL Teachers are Heroes Award in 2014.
De la Torre-Escobedo is the first generation daughter of Mexican immigrants. She currently resides in Butte County with her husband and two children, ages 6 and 4.
José L. González
Position: Administrative Services Credential Representative
Appointed: June 2014
Term Expires: November 2019
José L. González has been an educator for 18 years. He is the current Superintendent of the Planada Elementary School District, a position he has served since November 2010. Prior to serving the Planada Learning Community, José was Superintendent/Principal of the Ballico-Cressey School District for four and a half years. Aside from his professional duties as an educator, José is the Immediate Past President of CALSA, serves on the SEAC Board of Directors, ACSA Superintendent's Council, and most recently received a gubernatorial appointment to serve on the CTC. In 2009, José was awarded the ACSA Region IX Superintendent/Principal of the Year Award.
José is the son of Mexican and Portuguese immigrants. Growing up, he saw the challenges his mother and father faced due to a lack of formal education. As a result, José feels a deep commitment to ensuring that all children, regardless of their personal struggles or circumstances, receive the quality education that will give them opportunities in life. He is married to María González who is a Second Grade Teacher in Livingston. They have two beautiful daughters, Alexí 15 and Alía 9.
Alicia Hinde
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: August 2011
Term Expires: November 2016
A native Californian, Alicia grew up on the beaches and in the mountains of Santa Cruz. She knew she wanted to be a teacher in kindergarten when Ms. Condor, her kindergarten teacher, allowed her to eat the cheese cut into various shapes upon reciting the correct shape name.
Alicia has been teaching elementary school for 15 years in the Cambrian School District, where she lives for the joy and excitement for learning on her students' faces. Aside from teaching full time, Alicia has spent time active in her teacher's union where she served as President for four years. She also is a representative for California Teachers Association's State Council where she serves as Chair of the Credentials and Professional Development Committee.
Alicia has three wonderful children, ages 9, 11 and 13 who enjoy laughing, the beach and throwing big parties. In her free time Alicia can be found underwater scuba diving and taking pictures to bring back to her students. She also enjoys poetry, hiking and fine wine.
Bonnie Klatt
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: June 2014
Term Expires: November 2017
Bonnie Klatt currently teaches high school English and serves as English Department Chair at the Performing and Fine Arts Academy at Natomas Charter School. Prior to working at Natomas Charter School, she worked for five years as a consultant and administrator for the California Department of Education and the California State Board of Education on projects including the California High School Exit Examination, a variety of programs within the Charter Schools Division, and the implementation of new statewide assessments. Before joining the Department of Education, she taught high school English, media literacy, and AVID in the Center Unified School District and in the Grant Union High School District for a total of 15 years. At Center High School, she acted as a technology mentor, helped to implement and build a California Partnership Academy program, and co-developed districtwide writing assessment tools.
Ms. Klatt is a lifelong resident of the state and has either attended or worked for California public education institutions since kindergarten. She earned her B.A. in English at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her M.A. and teaching credential in English at California State University, Sacramento.
Shane P. Martin
Position: Ex-Officio Representative of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities
Appointed: June 2008
Term Expires: Ongoing
Shane P. Martin, an educational anthropologist by training and expert in the areas of intercultural education, cultural diversity, Catholic schools, and charter schools, was appointed dean of the LMU School of Education in 2005 and dean of Graduate Studies in 2012. Dean Martin is visible in the education community as past chair of the Green Dot Public Schools Board of Directors, and a member of the Loyola High School of Los Angeles Board of Regents and Teach For America Los Angeles Board. He is a speaker in a variety of arenas - civic, business, and education - and keynotes conferences in the United States and internationally. Professional activities include serving as past president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Education Council and regular invitations to review articles and manuscripts.
In addition to honors in "Who's Who in the World, in America, and in Education," Martin received the National Catholic Educational Association's (NCEA) Michael J. Guerra Leadership Award in 2005 and Catherine T. McNamee, CSJ, Award in 2009, and the Loyola High School Alumni Association's Cahalan Award in 2008. He is a member of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Board of Examiners and the California Committee on Accreditation Board of Institutional Reviewers. He is currently chair of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Catholic Education.
Dean Martin earned his Ph.D. in International and Intercultural Education at the University of Southern California, a Master of Theology degree at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley (JSTB) with a specialization in Hispanic Ministry, and his Master of Divinity degree also from JSTB. An LMU alumnus, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1980 and holds his California State Clear Secondary Teaching Credential. Before returning to LMU as a faculty member, Martin's classroom teaching experience included six years in middle and secondary school settings and work in 17 Latin American countries.
Dean Martin's published books are: Justice, Care, and Diversity: Addressing the Needs of All Students in Catholic Secondary Schools (NCEA, 2009), with E.F. Litton, Equity, Advocacy and Diversity: New Directions for Catholic Schools (NCEA, 2004), with E.F. Litton, and Cultural Diversity in Catholic Schools: Challenges and Opportunities for Catholic Educators (NCEA, 1996). He has contributed to many peer-reviewed publications on the topics of cultural diversity in Catholic schools, technology and learning, social justice in education, and multicultural education. He also has presented numerous scholarly papers, including those at the National Catholic Educational Association, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Educational Research Association.
Haydee Rodriguez
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: June 2014
Term Expires: November 2016
Haydee Rodriguez is a bilingual/bicultural National Board Certified Teacher in Social Studies who received her bachelor's (with distinction) in History from San Diego State University and earned a master's in education in 2002 from Stanford University. While a graduate student at Stanford, Rodriguez participated in the founding of East Palo Alto High School, a student-centered/teacher-led school. Additionally she has been with the Central Union High School District since 2005; during this time Rodriguez has advised the Interact Club and as coach has taken the ACADEC and Mock Trial teams to victory at the county-level and on to state competitions. Rodriguez has taught AP Spanish Literature and Language, Humanities, US History and is currently teaching US Government and Theatre at Southwest High School in El Centro, CA.
Rodriguez has received various awards and fellowships, among them the merit-based Governor's Teaching Fellowship in 2001, NCSS Student Teacher of the Year, in 2008 she was named ACSA Imperial County Teacher of the Year and was selected by Rotary International to represent Southern California in a group study exchange in Ghana and Togo. In 2009, she served on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) Social Studies-History Standards Committee and is currently serving on the NBPTS Board of Directors.
Rodriguez has demonstrated her commitment to equity, access and social justice by serving on various boards such at the AAUW-Imperial County, Orphanaid Africa, Literacy Volunteers of America, and ICAC.
Rodriguez was born in Mexico and was raised in a rural border town in Southern California where she currently resides.
Ref Rodriguez
Position: Public Representative
Appointed: July 2013
Term Expires: November 2016
Dr. Ref Rodriguez is President and CEO of Partners for Developing Futures (Partners). Partners is a social venture investment fund that primarily invests in high-potential, early-stage minority-led charter schools and charter school networks that serve underserved students. Partners' mission is to efficiently identify, recruit, and support leaders of color in creating and growing high-quality charter schools and charter school networks.
Prior to joining Partners, Ref co-founded and served as co-Chief Executive Officer of Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), a charter school management organization serving communities in the Northeast San Fernando Valley and Northeast Los Angeles. During his tenure, PUC developed 10 schools and became a well-regarded charter management organization in California. Ref's original inspiration for starting a charter school was to offer high quality learning experiences for youth in the predominantly Latino working class community where he grew up. His outrage for being considered "fortunate" for having graduated from college because of his socio-economic background is what drives him to create and support schools where college graduation is an expectation for all. Before joining the charter schools movement, Ref worked in the business sector and as a teacher and administrator in Catholic parochial schools. He is the first of five children of Mexican immigrants to graduate from college. Ref is an advocate for the health and welfare of vulnerable populations. He has been appointed to boards and commissions that focus on serving those most in need.
Ref is adjunct professor in the School of Education at his alma mater, Loyola Marymount University where we helped develop a Master's and Administrative Credential Program for aspiring leaders in charter schools. He is a fellow of the Aspen Institute-Pahara Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education, Class of 2007. He is a fellow of the German Marshall Fund's Marshall Memorial Fellowship Program, Class of 2011. Ref holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara.
Tine Sloan
Position: Ex-Officio Representative of University of California
Appointed: May 2007
Term Expires: Ongoing
Tine Sloan is the Acting Director of the Teacher Education Program in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara. She has taught courses in the Ph.D. and Teacher Education Programs focused on issues in human development, educational psychology, teacher education, and assessment. Her primary research interests revolve around teacher education, particularly with respect to teacher and teacher educator learning, as well as to the role that policy and context play in this learning and in program development. Related to this is her interest in understanding, developing and using valid and reliable assessments of teacher and student learning. All of her work is framed by her primary interest in understanding and advocating for the well being of children in educational contexts. Prior to coming to UCSB, she spent 3 years in Singapore and was a member of the faculty at the National Institute of Education in Nanyang Technological University. Dr. Sloan completed her teacher certification at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 1988, and her master's and doctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996.
Michelle Zumot
Position: Designee, Superintendent of Public Instruction
Appointed: July, 2011
Term Expires: Ongoing
Current Commission Vacancies
• Public Representative (2 vacancies)
• School Board Member Representative
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/commission/commissioners.html
Members of the Commission
• Linda Darling-Hammond — Chair
• Kathleen Harris — Vice Chair
• Joseph A. Aguerrebere — Interim Ex-Officio Representative
• Kirsten Barnes
• Constance Baumgardt Blackburn
• Kate Williams Browne — Ex-Officio Representative
• C. Michael Cooney
• Marysol de la Torre-Escobedo
• José L. González
• Alicia Hinde
• Bonnie Klatt
• Shane P. Martin — Ex-Officio Representative
• Haydee Rodriguez
• Ref Rodriguez
• Tine Sloan — Ex-Officio Representative
• Michelle Zumot
• Current Commission Vacancies
Linda Darling-Hammond — Chair
Position: Faculty Member
Appointed: August 2011
Term Expires: November 2017
Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she has launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and the School Redesign Network and served as faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the National Academy of Education. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of school reform, teacher quality and educational equity. From 1994-2001, she served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, led to sweeping policy changes affecting teaching in the United States. In 2006, this report was named one of the most influential affecting U.S. education and Darling-Hammond was named one of the nation's ten most influential people affecting educational policy over the last decade. In 2008-09, she headed President Barack Obama's education policy transition team.
Among Darling-Hammond's more than 300 publications are The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (Teachers College Press, 2010); Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs (Jossey-Bass, 2006); Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do (with John Bransford; Jossey-Bass, 2005), winner of the AACTE Pomeroy Award; Teaching as the Learning Profession (co-edited with Gary Sykes; Jossey-Bass, 1999), which received the National Staff Development Council's Outstanding Book Award for 2000; and The Right to Learn (Jossey-Bass,1997), recipient of the American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Book Award for 1998. Among recent recognitions, she is recipient of the 2011 Brock International Prize in Education and the 2009 McGraw Hill Prize for Innovation in Education.
Kathleen Harris— Vice Chair
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: August 2011
Term Expires: November 2017
Kathy Harris has been a classroom teacher in the Piner-Olivet Union School District for 25 years. From 1998 to 2009 she served as the Regional Director of the California Reading and Literature Project at Sonoma State University. She has done extensive study in the areas of reading, reading readiness, assessment, English language development, school reform, school leadership, and professional development, and has engaged in many field experiences with both teachers and principals, working to improve student achievement through effective professional development, technical assistance, and school reform. Kathy Harris has provided professional development in English Language Arts and English Language Development for K-12 teachers and administrators throughout the state as well as within the eight county region of the Sonoma/North Coast region of the California Reading and Literature Project. She continues to provide professional development focused on the California Common Core State Standards.
Kathy Harris became involved with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Development work in 2009 as a member of the National Council of Teachers of English Review Panel. In December of 2009 she joined the CCSS Development Team working on Text Complexity, and is actively working on this component of the CCSS. In 2010 she served as a member of the California Academic Contents Standards Commission. She is currently teaching 4th and 5th grade at Olivet Elementary School in Santa Rosa.
Joseph A. Aguerrebere
Position: Interim Ex-Officio Representative of California State University
Appointed: June 2015
Term Expires: Ongoing
Joseph A. Aguerrebere currently serves as Assistant Vice Chancellor of Teacher Education and Public School Programs at the California State University, Chancellor's Office.
Previously, he was President and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) based in Arlington, Virginia. Prior to leading NBPTS, Dr. Aguerrebere was deputy director of the Education, Knowledge, and Religion unit of the Ford Foundation in New York. In addition to his management responsibilities, his grant making focused on the development of human capital in educational settings working with key organizations in the U.S. and abroad.
His professional career began as a high school teacher in Southern California, serving in five diverse school systems as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and district office administrator in elementary, middle, and high school settings. He later served as a tenured professor of educational administration at California State University, Dominguez Hills, in Los Angeles and was director of the Future Teacher Institute and national director of the Consortium for Minorities in Teaching Careers.
He received his Ed.D. and M.S. degrees in educational administration, and B.A. degree in political science, all from the University of Southern California.
Kirsten Barnes
Position: Non-Administrative Services Credential Representative
Appointed: July 2013
Term Expires: November 2016
Kirsten Barnes has worked for the Hanford Joint Union High School District for the past 21 years. She began her career as a teacher for the continuation high school and after obtaining her counseling credential became the counselor of the continuation high for 5 years before transferring to Hanford West High School. She has been at Hanford West for the past 13 years. Kirsten also works part time in the evenings as a teacher and counselor for Crossroads Charter School in Armona, California.
Kirsten is the current President Elect of the California Association of School Counselors, (CASC), a State Council Representative for the California Teachers Association, Treasurer and Bargaining Chair of her local association: HSEA, and Vice Chair of the Tulare Kings Service Center Council. She is also a member of American School Counselor Association, National Education Association, Humane Society and the SPCA. She received her Masters in School Counseling from Fresno Pacific University and her Bachelors in Liberal Studies from Mount St. Mary's College.
Constance Baumgardt Blackburn
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: November 2008
Term Expires: November 2016
Connie Blackburn has been a Kindergarten teacher at Central Elementary School in the Escondido Union School District in San Diego County for 23 years. She holds a Multiple Subjects teaching credential from California State University, Dominguez Hills and a specialist credential for Communication Handicapped from California State University, Los Angeles. Her area of expertise is in early literacy and cross curricular integration. An eighth generation Californian, she comes from a family of educators. Previously, she has taught the Deaf in Los Angeles County, Louisville, Kentucky and Houston, Texas.
Educated in the Torrance Unified School District in Los Angeles County, she holds a B.A. in Liberal Studies from California State University, Dominguez Hills and an M.A from California State University, Los Angeles. She was selected as a California Teacher of the Year in 2003 and currently serves on the executive board of the California Teachers of the Year Foundation. She believes passionately in supporting the teaching profession and has served as a master teacher for teacher candidates since 1989. In addition, she has served as a Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) support provider.
Kate Williams Browne
Position: Ex-Officio Representative of the California Community Colleges
Appointed: September 2014
Kate Williams Browne is a tenured professor and Chair of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) Department at Skyline College and Coordinator of the San Mateo Region of the California Early Childhood Mentor Program. She currently serves as President of the Faculty Senate of Skyline College and Executive Secretary of the California Community College ECE Faculty Association. A native Californian and the first in her family with a college education, she holds a BA (with Academic Honors) in Psychology from Stanford University and MA (with Academic Scholarship) in Early Childhood Education from the University of Michigan. Her education credentials include Elementary Certification from Michigan, a Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential from California, a California Children's Center Permit and a California Community College Credential.
Among Kate's professional experiences are ECE teacher and administrator (including parent co-op, child care, bilingual preschool, kindergarten/first grade and 15 years at Stanford's Bing School); textbook writing (Beginnings & Beyond: Foundations in Early Childhood Education, Beginning Essentials, To Teach Well: ECE Student Teaching Guide, and Guiding Young Children in a Diverse Society); and higher education instructor (Stanford University, Foothill, De Anza, Canada and Skyline Colleges). She also served on the Steering Committee for the ECE Competencies Integration Project at the California Department of Education. Among recent recognitions, she is the recipient of the Meyer Award for Teaching Excellence (Skyline College), ECE Professional of the Year (Peninsula Association for the Education of Young Children) and Who's Who of American Professional Women.
C. Michael Cooney
Position: Public Representative
Appointed: June 2011
Term Expires: November 2017
Michael Cooney is a partner in Investment Group of Santa Barbara and President and General Counsel of Cimarron Management Company. Mr. Cooney is also currently a member of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. He served on the California Student Aid Commission from 2000-2004 and was Chair of that commission for 3 years. He was on the Board of Directors at EdFund from 2006-2010 and a trustee with Montecito Union School District from 1977 to 1988. Mr. Cooney also was a partner with Price, Postel & Parma in Santa Barbara, California for 30 years.
Marysol de la Torre-Escobedo
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: December 2015
Term Expires: November 2019
Marysol de la Torre-Escobedo received her Bachelor's Degree from UC Berkeley and her Clear Social Science Teaching Credential and M.A. in Education from Stanford University. In 2003, she began her teaching career as a founding member of East Palo Alto Academy High School. As a founding member of EPAAHS de la Torre-Escobedo worked closely with the Stanford School Redesign Network and their efforts in meeting the needs of all students and creating a model of school reform.
De la Torre-Escobedo has taught AVID, Economics, Spanish, US History, and World History in the Bay Area, the Dominican Republic, the Glenn County Juvenile Hall, and Chico. She has been a teacher for the Chico Unified School District since 2007. In 2010, she co-founded Chico's first in-district charter school, Inspire School of Arts & Sciences, where she currently teaches. In 2013, she was selected as a Chico Rotary Educator of the Year and she also received the Golden Apple/KHSL Teachers are Heroes Award in 2014.
De la Torre-Escobedo is the first generation daughter of Mexican immigrants. She currently resides in Butte County with her husband and two children, ages 6 and 4.
José L. González
Position: Administrative Services Credential Representative
Appointed: June 2014
Term Expires: November 2019
José L. González has been an educator for 18 years. He is the current Superintendent of the Planada Elementary School District, a position he has served since November 2010. Prior to serving the Planada Learning Community, José was Superintendent/Principal of the Ballico-Cressey School District for four and a half years. Aside from his professional duties as an educator, José is the Immediate Past President of CALSA, serves on the SEAC Board of Directors, ACSA Superintendent's Council, and most recently received a gubernatorial appointment to serve on the CTC. In 2009, José was awarded the ACSA Region IX Superintendent/Principal of the Year Award.
José is the son of Mexican and Portuguese immigrants. Growing up, he saw the challenges his mother and father faced due to a lack of formal education. As a result, José feels a deep commitment to ensuring that all children, regardless of their personal struggles or circumstances, receive the quality education that will give them opportunities in life. He is married to María González who is a Second Grade Teacher in Livingston. They have two beautiful daughters, Alexí 15 and Alía 9.
Alicia Hinde
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: August 2011
Term Expires: November 2016
A native Californian, Alicia grew up on the beaches and in the mountains of Santa Cruz. She knew she wanted to be a teacher in kindergarten when Ms. Condor, her kindergarten teacher, allowed her to eat the cheese cut into various shapes upon reciting the correct shape name.
Alicia has been teaching elementary school for 15 years in the Cambrian School District, where she lives for the joy and excitement for learning on her students' faces. Aside from teaching full time, Alicia has spent time active in her teacher's union where she served as President for four years. She also is a representative for California Teachers Association's State Council where she serves as Chair of the Credentials and Professional Development Committee.
Alicia has three wonderful children, ages 9, 11 and 13 who enjoy laughing, the beach and throwing big parties. In her free time Alicia can be found underwater scuba diving and taking pictures to bring back to her students. She also enjoys poetry, hiking and fine wine.
Bonnie Klatt
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: June 2014
Term Expires: November 2017
Bonnie Klatt currently teaches high school English and serves as English Department Chair at the Performing and Fine Arts Academy at Natomas Charter School. Prior to working at Natomas Charter School, she worked for five years as a consultant and administrator for the California Department of Education and the California State Board of Education on projects including the California High School Exit Examination, a variety of programs within the Charter Schools Division, and the implementation of new statewide assessments. Before joining the Department of Education, she taught high school English, media literacy, and AVID in the Center Unified School District and in the Grant Union High School District for a total of 15 years. At Center High School, she acted as a technology mentor, helped to implement and build a California Partnership Academy program, and co-developed districtwide writing assessment tools.
Ms. Klatt is a lifelong resident of the state and has either attended or worked for California public education institutions since kindergarten. She earned her B.A. in English at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her M.A. and teaching credential in English at California State University, Sacramento.
Shane P. Martin
Position: Ex-Officio Representative of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities
Appointed: June 2008
Term Expires: Ongoing
Shane P. Martin, an educational anthropologist by training and expert in the areas of intercultural education, cultural diversity, Catholic schools, and charter schools, was appointed dean of the LMU School of Education in 2005 and dean of Graduate Studies in 2012. Dean Martin is visible in the education community as past chair of the Green Dot Public Schools Board of Directors, and a member of the Loyola High School of Los Angeles Board of Regents and Teach For America Los Angeles Board. He is a speaker in a variety of arenas - civic, business, and education - and keynotes conferences in the United States and internationally. Professional activities include serving as past president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Education Council and regular invitations to review articles and manuscripts.
In addition to honors in "Who's Who in the World, in America, and in Education," Martin received the National Catholic Educational Association's (NCEA) Michael J. Guerra Leadership Award in 2005 and Catherine T. McNamee, CSJ, Award in 2009, and the Loyola High School Alumni Association's Cahalan Award in 2008. He is a member of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Board of Examiners and the California Committee on Accreditation Board of Institutional Reviewers. He is currently chair of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Catholic Education.
Dean Martin earned his Ph.D. in International and Intercultural Education at the University of Southern California, a Master of Theology degree at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley (JSTB) with a specialization in Hispanic Ministry, and his Master of Divinity degree also from JSTB. An LMU alumnus, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1980 and holds his California State Clear Secondary Teaching Credential. Before returning to LMU as a faculty member, Martin's classroom teaching experience included six years in middle and secondary school settings and work in 17 Latin American countries.
Dean Martin's published books are: Justice, Care, and Diversity: Addressing the Needs of All Students in Catholic Secondary Schools (NCEA, 2009), with E.F. Litton, Equity, Advocacy and Diversity: New Directions for Catholic Schools (NCEA, 2004), with E.F. Litton, and Cultural Diversity in Catholic Schools: Challenges and Opportunities for Catholic Educators (NCEA, 1996). He has contributed to many peer-reviewed publications on the topics of cultural diversity in Catholic schools, technology and learning, social justice in education, and multicultural education. He also has presented numerous scholarly papers, including those at the National Catholic Educational Association, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Educational Research Association.
Haydee Rodriguez
Position: Teacher Representative
Appointed: June 2014
Term Expires: November 2016
Haydee Rodriguez is a bilingual/bicultural National Board Certified Teacher in Social Studies who received her bachelor's (with distinction) in History from San Diego State University and earned a master's in education in 2002 from Stanford University. While a graduate student at Stanford, Rodriguez participated in the founding of East Palo Alto High School, a student-centered/teacher-led school. Additionally she has been with the Central Union High School District since 2005; during this time Rodriguez has advised the Interact Club and as coach has taken the ACADEC and Mock Trial teams to victory at the county-level and on to state competitions. Rodriguez has taught AP Spanish Literature and Language, Humanities, US History and is currently teaching US Government and Theatre at Southwest High School in El Centro, CA.
Rodriguez has received various awards and fellowships, among them the merit-based Governor's Teaching Fellowship in 2001, NCSS Student Teacher of the Year, in 2008 she was named ACSA Imperial County Teacher of the Year and was selected by Rotary International to represent Southern California in a group study exchange in Ghana and Togo. In 2009, she served on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) Social Studies-History Standards Committee and is currently serving on the NBPTS Board of Directors.
Rodriguez has demonstrated her commitment to equity, access and social justice by serving on various boards such at the AAUW-Imperial County, Orphanaid Africa, Literacy Volunteers of America, and ICAC.
Rodriguez was born in Mexico and was raised in a rural border town in Southern California where she currently resides.
Ref Rodriguez
Position: Public Representative
Appointed: July 2013
Term Expires: November 2016
Dr. Ref Rodriguez is President and CEO of Partners for Developing Futures (Partners). Partners is a social venture investment fund that primarily invests in high-potential, early-stage minority-led charter schools and charter school networks that serve underserved students. Partners' mission is to efficiently identify, recruit, and support leaders of color in creating and growing high-quality charter schools and charter school networks.
Prior to joining Partners, Ref co-founded and served as co-Chief Executive Officer of Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), a charter school management organization serving communities in the Northeast San Fernando Valley and Northeast Los Angeles. During his tenure, PUC developed 10 schools and became a well-regarded charter management organization in California. Ref's original inspiration for starting a charter school was to offer high quality learning experiences for youth in the predominantly Latino working class community where he grew up. His outrage for being considered "fortunate" for having graduated from college because of his socio-economic background is what drives him to create and support schools where college graduation is an expectation for all. Before joining the charter schools movement, Ref worked in the business sector and as a teacher and administrator in Catholic parochial schools. He is the first of five children of Mexican immigrants to graduate from college. Ref is an advocate for the health and welfare of vulnerable populations. He has been appointed to boards and commissions that focus on serving those most in need.
Ref is adjunct professor in the School of Education at his alma mater, Loyola Marymount University where we helped develop a Master's and Administrative Credential Program for aspiring leaders in charter schools. He is a fellow of the Aspen Institute-Pahara Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education, Class of 2007. He is a fellow of the German Marshall Fund's Marshall Memorial Fellowship Program, Class of 2011. Ref holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara.
Tine Sloan
Position: Ex-Officio Representative of University of California
Appointed: May 2007
Term Expires: Ongoing
Tine Sloan is the Acting Director of the Teacher Education Program in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara. She has taught courses in the Ph.D. and Teacher Education Programs focused on issues in human development, educational psychology, teacher education, and assessment. Her primary research interests revolve around teacher education, particularly with respect to teacher and teacher educator learning, as well as to the role that policy and context play in this learning and in program development. Related to this is her interest in understanding, developing and using valid and reliable assessments of teacher and student learning. All of her work is framed by her primary interest in understanding and advocating for the well being of children in educational contexts. Prior to coming to UCSB, she spent 3 years in Singapore and was a member of the faculty at the National Institute of Education in Nanyang Technological University. Dr. Sloan completed her teacher certification at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 1988, and her master's and doctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996.
Michelle Zumot
Position: Designee, Superintendent of Public Instruction
Appointed: July, 2011
Term Expires: Ongoing
Current Commission Vacancies
• Public Representative (2 vacancies)
• School Board Member Representative
For more information:
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/commission/commissio...
CA Charter School Funders 20th Anniversary Dinner of California Charter School Association CCSA
CA Charter School Funders
http://www.teijastearns.com/shop/images/stearns_cacharterprogram.pdf
Bill & Melinda Gates
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. Bill and Melinda Gates, whose estimated net worth is $66 billion according to FORBES, have signed the Giving Pledge, promising
to give away the majority of their wealth in their lifetime, and have, through their foundation, granted more than $25 billion to their causes. Both say their philosophy of giving was passed to them
from their parents, who supported local charities and participated in community projects when Bill and Melinda were children. In the United States, their giving seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources–have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Their investments in California have had a tremendous impact on California charter schools – strengthening statewide advocacy, the growth of high-quality charter high schools and establishing new methods for improving teacher effectiveness.
Eli and Edythe Broad
Eli and Edythe Broad are the founders of The Broad Foundation,
a national entrepreneurial philanthropy that seeks to dramatically transform American urban public education so that all children receive the skills and knowledge to succeed in college, careers and life.
The Broad Foundation’s mission is to dramatically transform urban K-12 public education through better governance, management,
labor relations and competition. Since 1999, The Broad Foundation has provided nearly $400 million to significantly improve student achievement in urban areas by creating and supporting strong leadership, school district efficiency, competition, best practices
and teacher quality. The Broads have been instrumental in bringing positive education reforms to Los Angeles Unified School District including helping the Los Angeles charter school community grow to serve more students than any city in the country.
Doris and Donald Fisher
The Doris & Donald Fisher Fund is a San Francisco-based philanthropy created by Doris and Donald Fisher, founders of the Gap, Inc. The Fund seeks to leverage change in K-12 public education, especially
in schools serving disadvantaged students, by making strategic investments in organizations whose products, policies or services bolster student academic achievement, or otherwise expand the public’s ability to provide a high quality education to all students. The Fisher Fund supports the creation and replication of high-performing public charter schools, innovative human capital initiatives, and public policy solutions at the state and federal levels. The Fund’s grantees include groundbreaking organizations such as KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) and Teach For America. A true entrepreneur and visionary, Mr. Donald Fisher served on the California State Board
of Education and helped launch the California Charter Schools Association.
Michael and Susan Dell
The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation focuses on urban poverty initiatives that directly and measurably transform the outcomes of impoverished urban children around the globe. With a focus on urban education in the United States, they have funded initiatives that create a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration and innovation through the systematic use of data at all levels of educational administration—from the classroom to the school board room to
the statehouse. In California, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation invested to strengthen the performance management of high-quality charter management organizations and helped the entire California charter school movement accelerate the number of quality seats through greater access to data.
Carrie Walton Penner
Mr. Reed Hastings
Reed Hastings co-founded Netflix as a DVD rental-by-mail company
in 1997 and since led its transformation to become the world’s leading streaming subscription service for watching movies and television programs. In addition to being CEO of Netflix, Reed is a member of the board of directors of Facebook, as well as several educational non-profits, including the California Charter Schools Association. Reed is an active educational philanthropist and served as President of the California State Board of Education from 2000 to 2004. Mr. Hastings currently serves on the CCSA Board of Directors. He was awarded
a Hart Vision Award in 2001 for his leadership role in the California charter school movement.
The Walton Family
The Walton Family Foundation is more focused than ever on sustaining Sam and Helen Walton’s timeless small-town values
and their deep commitment to making life better for individuals
and communities alike. Sam Walton’s son, John, was committed to supporting outstanding programs that work to systematically improve K-12 education in the U.S. and tirelessly advocated for innovation
and choice within the educational system. His focus on education stemmed from his belief that all parts of American society are affected by the educational opportunities we make available. Since the Walton Family Foundation helped launch the California Charter Schools Association in 2003, more than 600 charter schools serving more than 200,000 students have been established in California. John Walton passed away in 2005, but his legacy will live forever as an avid charter leader, supporter and friend.
Charter School Operators
Mary Bixby, Charter School of San Diego
Mary Searcy Bixby has led The Charter School of San Diego since
its inception in 1994. She serves as the spiritual and organizational leader for the school’s support team and is responsible for its short- and long-term objectives, growth and strategic plans. Continuing her decades-long commitment to educational reform that has touched the lives of more than 33,000 students, Bixby created The Altus Institute. Altus acts as a resource for innovative methodologies regarding alternative education and serves as an overarching guide to its many entities- The Charter School of San Diego, Audeo Charter School and Mirus Secondary School. For her legendary contributions to education in San Diego County, Bixby was named a Remarkable Leaders in Education by the University of San Diego.The California Network
of Educational Charter Schools acknowledged Mary’s innovative
work that led to the creation of a citywide charter school when they awarded her with their first Senator Gary Hart Vision Award in 1995.
Judy Burton, The Alliance of College Ready Public Schools
Judy Ivie Burton, Alliance President and CEO, brings her expertise to the Alliance in successfully leading and operating public schools. She launched the Alliance College-Public Schools, a non-profit charter management organization whose mission is to open and operate a network of high performing middle and high schools in California
that prepare all students for success in college. The Alliance has grown from its first charter high school in 2004 to a network 15 high schools and 6 middle schools. 100% of Alliance schools significantly outperform neighboring schools. Four Alliance high schools are CA Distinguished Schools and three are among the top 10 high schools in LAUSD. In June 2012 97% of Alliance high school seniors, graduated in 4 years and 86% were accepted into 4-year universities. Judy Burton was the recpient of a 2010 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award and currently serves on the CCSA Board of Directors. The Alliance Dr. Olga Mohan High School received the Hart Vision Charter School of the Year Award in 2011.
Yvonne Chan, Vaughn Next Century Learning Center
Dr. Chan is the founder and principal of the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Los Angeles, which serves 3,000 pre-kindergarten- 10th grade students living in poverty. She is also an adjunct professor at UCLA. Dr. Chan served as a member of the California State Board of Education for seven years and as a Commissioner of the Los Angeles City Commission for Children Youth and Families. Ms. Chan was awarded a Hart Vision Award in 1999 for her leadership role in the California Charter Schools Movement.
Jacqueline Elliot, Ed.D, Partnerships to Uplift Communities, PUC Schools
Dr. Elliot has been dedicated to public school reform since 1986 when she first became a teacher in Pacoima, California. Dr. Elliot helped convert Montague Elementary School to charter status in 1996 and began collaborating with Dr. Ref Rodriguez in 1998 while founding the first start up charter school in the San Fernando Valley; Community Charter Middle School (1999). Together, Dr. Elliot and Dr. Rodriguez have collaborated and supported each other’s efforts while co- founding and operating Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), which now has a total of 13 high achieving charter schools located in the NE San Fernando Valley and NE Los Angeles. Jacqueline Elliot currently serves as Regional Representative on the CCSA Member Council, is on the CCSA Board and is the 2013 Hart Vision Charter School Leader of the Year.
Gene Fisher, Watts Learning Center
Gene Fisher is the founding President of the Watts Learning Center’s Board of Directors and has served as its CEO since the school opened in 1997. As a consultant in 1995, Mr. Fisher conducted focus groups that revealed the public’s great concern about low achievement in traditional public schools, especially for children from low-income inner city communities. The results of these studies were the foundation for forming Watts Learning Center Charter School. He has received numerous commendations from local government, state and federal legislative bodies for his work toward improving the quality of life for Californians. Watts Learning Center was named the 2007 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year by CCSA.
Sandra Fisher, Watts Learning Center
The Watts Learning Center Charter School was established as an independent charter school in 1997. Sandra Fisher is a founding member of the Watts Learning Center Board of Directors. She
has been involved with the Watts Learning Center from the time it opened. She believes that a quality public education for all students strengthens our democracy. Watts Learning Center was named the 2007 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year by CCSA.
Pat Golding, Hickman Community Charter Schools
Pat Golding is the Founder and Director of Hickman Charter School. Ms. Golding is a leader and pioneer in the California charter schools movement and served in the early years on the California Network of Educational Charters (CANEC) Board, six years on CCSA Board of Directors and is currently serving on CharterSAFE JPA Board.Ms. Golding received the 2003 Hart Vision Charter Leader of the Year award.
Charlie Leo, Natomas Charter School
Charlie Leo embodies the phrase “edupreneur”. He is the Co-Founder and served as the Executive Director of the nationally renowned Natomas Charter School for 19 years. During this time, Natomas Charter School has expanded from 80 students in a single program
to over 1,400 students, spanning grades K-12, in five very unique educational academies. Charlie facilitated the design and construction of three campuses including the $40 million NCS main campus, which houses the state-of-the-art, award winning Benevenuti Performing Arts Center. Natomas Charter Schools was named the 2006 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year by CCSA.
Joe Lucente, Fenton Charter Public Schools
Joe Lucente is a pioneer in the charter school movement and recognized as one of the state’s leading experts in charter school finance. In 1993, Mr. Lucente led the conversion of one of the first conversion charter schools in California. Once considered one of the worst elementary schools in LAUSD, Fenton Avenue Charter School became a California Distinguished School and a national model of a successful conversion charter school honored by the White House, U.S. Congress and California Legislature. A fearless warrior for charter school student equity and as past-President of the California Network of Educational Charters (CANEC), he was a driving force in the creation of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Fenton Charter Public Schools, a CMO formed in 2012 that currently operates three charter schools in the L.A. area. Mr. Lucente was awarded a Hart Vision Award in 1997 for his leadership role in the California Charter Schools Movement. Fenton Avenue Charter School is the 2013 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year.
Dave Patterson, Rocklin Academy Charter Schools
Dave Patterson is the founding Superintendent of Athlos Academies. Dr. Patterson is also the founder of the Rocklin Academy Family of Schools (2000 – 2012) and currently serves as Executive Director Emeritus. CCSA recognized Dr. Patterson as the recipient of the
Hart Vision Charter School Leader of the Year Award in 1998 and again in 2012 for outstanding leadership and excellence in education. He has also previously served for many years as an elected school board member at Rocklin Unified School District and also Del Paso Heights Elementary School District. Dr. Patterson has also served as the Director of Governmental Relations for the California Network
of Educational Charters, representing California’s charter schools before the legislature, the State Board of Education, CDE and the Governor’s Office. Prior to serving as Director of Governmental Affairs, Dr. Patterson served for ten years at the California Department of Education. Dr. Patterson also served as long-term member of the CCSA Member Council. He is a recognized expert in school reform policy and research, charter school law and policy, and in state and national efforts to improve public schools.
Rick Piercy, The Lewis Center for Educational Research
Rick Piercy is President/CEO of The Lewis Center for Educational Research, which oversees 2 California charter schools, the Academy for Academic Excellence in Apple Valley and the Norton Space and Aeronautics Academy in San Bernardino. He has been an educator for over 30 years and has served on the Boards of both CANEC and then CCSA since 1996. With his talent for innovation and creativity, he has and continues to provide educational opportunities for children and teachers in California, the Nation and worldwide. Mr. Piercy currently serves as an officer on the CCSA Member Council and was named the Hart Vision Charter School Leader of the Year in 2002.
Ana Ponce, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy
Ana Ponce is the Chief Executive Officer of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy (CNCA), a network of high performing charter schools serving more than 3000 Pre-K through 12th grade students near Downtown Los Angeles. CNCA schools are recognized as models for serving predominantly Latino English Language Learners and have won various awards and distinctions including the Title 1 Academic Achievement Award, the California Association of Bilingual Education Seal of Excellence, the California Distinguished Schools award, and the Effective Practice Incentive Community (EPIC) award. Originally from Mexico, Ana grew up in the neighborhood where her schools
are located, and which she vowed to transform when she chose to teach. She kept her promise and built a network of schools in that community as a beacon of hope for all who dream that attaining educational success is a reality for immigrant children. In 2011, Forbes named her one of the “Seven most influential educators in the world.” Ana currently serves as the Secretary of the CCSA Board of Directors.
Ref Rodriguez, Ed.D, Partners for Developing Futures
Dr. Ref Rodriguez is President and CEO of Partners for Developing Futures (Partners). Partners is a social venture investment fund
that primarily invests in high-potential, early-stage minority-led charter schools and charter school networks that serve underserved students. Prior to joining Partners, Ref was Co-Chief Executive Officer of Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), a charter school management organization serving communities in the Northeast San Fernando Valley and Northeast Los Angeles.
Larry Rosenstock, High Tech High
Larry Rosenstock is CEO and founding principal of High Tech High, a network of eleven K-12 public charter schools in California, and is Dean of the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. He has taught carpentry in urban high schools in Boston and Cambridge and was principal of the Rindge School of Technical Arts, and of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. Mr. Rosenstock and his work have been featured on Oprah, Lehrer, Newsweek, and Forbes. He
is a winner of the Ford Foundation Innovations in State and Local Government Award, is an Ashoka Fellow, and won the McGraw Prize in Education. Mr. Rosenstock currently serves on the CCSA Board of Directors.
Don Shalvey, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Don Shalvey is the Deputy Director for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s US Programs Education initiative. In 1992 Mr. Shalvey served as the Superintendent of San Carlos School District, where he sponsored California’s first Charter School. In 1998, he and entrepreneur Reed Hastings, co-founded Californians for Public School Excellence, a grass-roots organization that led to the passage of the Charter Schools Act of 1998. Later that year he co-founded Aspire Public Schools, the nation’s first CMO. Mr. Shalvey is a Hart Vision Award winner and in 2009, he was elected to the Charter School Hall of Fame by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Mr. Shalvey currently serves on the CCSA Board of Directors.
Irene Sumida, Fenton Charter Public Schools
Before joining Fenton Avenue Charter School, Ms. Sumida served the Los Angeles Unified School District for twenty-seven years in a variety of capacities including assistant principal, coordinator, classroom and mentor teacher. In July 1993, the year Fenton Avenue Elementary was authorized by LAUSD to convert to independent charter status, she became the Director of Instruction and then the sole Director in 2005. Under Ms. Sumida’s direction, the CMO, Fenton Charter Public Schools was established to continue the growth of the Fenton schools. She is
a member of the Board of CharterWorks, served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of CCSA, continues to serve as a board member of CCSA Advocates, CharterSafe, and the Board of Directors of the Charter and Autonomous Schools Leadership Academy (CASLA). Ms. Sumida was awarded a Hart Vision Award in 1997 for her leadership role in the California Charter Schools Movement. Fenton Avenue Charter School is the 2013 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year.
Ting Sun, Natomas Charter School
Ting Sun is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Natomas Charter. She has more than 25 years in the field of education, most all of which have been dedicated to educational reform and charter schools. In addition to teaching and school administration, Ting has served on the CANEC Board, managed the federal charter schools start-up grant at CDE, initiated quality and leadership programs as Vice President of Leadership and Quality at CCSA, and conducted charter reviews as senior consultant for Cambridge Education. Ms. Sun also served on the CCTC from 2007-2011 and as Chair of the CCTC from 2009-2011. Ting is also a long-time member of the PSAA Advisory Committee. Natomas Charter Schools was named the 2006 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year by CCSA.
Johnathan Williams, The Accelerated School Community of Schools
Johnathan Williams founded The Accelerated School in 1994 and
is currently the Chief Executive Officer of The Accelerated Schools. The Accelerated School was the 1st charter school in South Los Angeles, and among the first in the state. Under his leadership, The Accelerated Schools completed construction of a $50-million dollar comprehensive pre-K—12th grade school complex. In 2001 TAS was recognized by TIME Magazine as “Elementary School of the Year.” Graduates of The Accelerated Schools have been accepted to, or
have graduated from numerous universities, including UCLA, USC, Yale, Cornell, Berkeley, and MIT, among others. Johnathan is also a founding board member of California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) and Education Sector. He was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger
to the California State Board of Education (2004-2011), and currently serves as an appointee of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the LA City Recreation and Parks Board of Commissioners, and as Vice President of the LA Memorial Coliseum Commission. Mr. Williams is also a lifetime member of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).
Some of CCSA’s Legacy Award Winners were unable to attend tonight’s dinner and will be presented with their awards at a later time.
Elected Officials
Governor Jerry Brown
Governor Edmund G. (“Jerry”) Brown Jr. has held a variety of statewide elected offices during a career that has spanned nearly
four decades. Brown is serving his third term as California’s Governor, and he is a former Secretary of State, former candidate for President, former Mayor of Oakland, and former California Attorney General. During his tenure as the Mayor of Oakland, Brown founded two charter schools. One, the Oakland Military Institute (OMI), is a college preparatory academy in collaboration with the California National Guard and serves students from 6th through 12th grade. Many students at OMI come from low-income families (80% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches). OMI graduates have been admitted to the University of California system, West Point and Yale. Brown also founded the Oakland School for the Arts (OSA), which is devoted to intensive pre-professional training in the arts within a college-preparatory curriculum. OSA is an audition-based charter school that serves 6th-12th grade. As a Mayor of Oakland, Brown helped set a trend across the nation of mayors becoming more involved in education issues. Governor Brown has been a powerful advocate for charter schools by rejecting legislation that would be harmful to charter schools and supporting improved financing options and greater funding equity.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson
Kevin Johnson was elected as the 55th Mayor of the City of Sacramento in November 2008 and re-elected to a second term in June 2012. He is the first native Sacramentan, and the first African American to be elected to the office. His top priorities include improving public safety, creating jobs and economic development, reforming public education, promoting good government and enhancing the quality of life for all Sacramentans. The Mayor has taken on a range of national leadership positions, including his current roles as Second Vice President of the US Conference of Mayors, Vice President of the National Conference of Black Mayors, and Chair of US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Education Reform Task Force. Before taking public office, he led a diverse career as a professional athlete, entrepreneur and nonprofit executive. He served as Chief Executive Officer of St. HOPE (Helping Others Pursue Excellence), a nonprofit organization he founded in 1989 and led until January 2008. Originally focused around providing afterschool programs to at-risk youth in Mayor Johnson’s native Oak Park neighborhood, St. HOPE expanded to pursue a broader program of urban revitalization through public education, civic leadership, economic development, and the arts. Today St. HOPE consists of three divisions: St. HOPE Academy, St. HOPE Development Company, and St. HOPE Public Schools.
CA Charter School Funders
http://www.teijastearns.com/shop/images/stearns_cacharterprogram.pdf
Bill & Melinda Gates
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. Bill and Melinda Gates, whose estimated net worth is $66 billion according to FORBES, have signed the Giving Pledge, promising
to give away the majority of their wealth in their lifetime, and have, through their foundation, granted more than $25 billion to their causes. Both say their philosophy of giving was passed to them
from their parents, who supported local charities and participated in community projects when Bill and Melinda were children. In the United States, their giving seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources–have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Their investments in California have had a tremendous impact on California charter schools – strengthening statewide advocacy, the growth of high-quality charter high schools and establishing new methods for improving teacher effectiveness.
Eli and Edythe Broad
Eli and Edythe Broad are the founders of The Broad Foundation,
a national entrepreneurial philanthropy that seeks to dramatically transform American urban public education so that all children receive the skills and knowledge to succeed in college, careers and life.
The Broad Foundation’s mission is to dramatically transform urban K-12 public education through better governance, management,
labor relations and competition. Since 1999, The Broad Foundation has provided nearly $400 million to significantly improve student achievement in urban areas by creating and supporting strong leadership, school district efficiency, competition, best practices
and teacher quality. The Broads have been instrumental in bringing positive education reforms to Los Angeles Unified School District including helping the Los Angeles charter school community grow to serve more students than any city in the country.
Doris and Donald Fisher
The Doris & Donald Fisher Fund is a San Francisco-based philanthropy created by Doris and Donald Fisher, founders of the Gap, Inc. The Fund seeks to leverage change in K-12 public education, especially
in schools serving disadvantaged students, by making strategic investments in organizations whose products, policies or services bolster student academic achievement, or otherwise expand the public’s ability to provide a high quality education to all students. The Fisher Fund supports the creation and replication of high-performing public charter schools, innovative human capital initiatives, and public policy solutions at the state and federal levels. The Fund’s grantees include groundbreaking organizations such as KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) and Teach For America. A true entrepreneur and visionary, Mr. Donald Fisher served on the California State Board
of Education and helped launch the California Charter Schools Association.
Michael and Susan Dell
The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation focuses on urban poverty initiatives that directly and measurably transform the outcomes of impoverished urban children around the globe. With a focus on urban education in the United States, they have funded initiatives that create a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration and innovation through the systematic use of data at all levels of educational administration—from the classroom to the school board room to
the statehouse. In California, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation invested to strengthen the performance management of high-quality charter management organizations and helped the entire California charter school movement accelerate the number of quality seats through greater access to data.
Carrie Walton Penner
Mr. Reed Hastings
Reed Hastings co-founded Netflix as a DVD rental-by-mail company
in 1997 and since led its transformation to become the world’s leading streaming subscription service for watching movies and television programs. In addition to being CEO of Netflix, Reed is a member of the board of directors of Facebook, as well as several educational non-profits, including the California Charter Schools Association. Reed is an active educational philanthropist and served as President of the California State Board of Education from 2000 to 2004. Mr. Hastings currently serves on the CCSA Board of Directors. He was awarded
a Hart Vision Award in 2001 for his leadership role in the California charter school movement.
The Walton Family
The Walton Family Foundation is more focused than ever on sustaining Sam and Helen Walton’s timeless small-town values
and their deep commitment to making life better for individuals
and communities alike. Sam Walton’s son, John, was committed to supporting outstanding programs that work to systematically improve K-12 education in the U.S. and tirelessly advocated for innovation
and choice within the educational system. His focus on education stemmed from his belief that all parts of American society are affected by the educational opportunities we make available. Since the Walton Family Foundation helped launch the California Charter Schools Association in 2003, more than 600 charter schools serving more than 200,000 students have been established in California. John Walton passed away in 2005, but his legacy will live forever as an avid charter leader, supporter and friend.
Charter School Operators
Mary Bixby, Charter School of San Diego
Mary Searcy Bixby has led The Charter School of San Diego since
its inception in 1994. She serves as the spiritual and organizational leader for the school’s support team and is responsible for its short- and long-term objectives, growth and strategic plans. Continuing her decades-long commitment to educational reform that has touched the lives of more than 33,000 students, Bixby created The Altus Institute. Altus acts as a resource for innovative methodologies regarding alternative education and serves as an overarching guide to its many entities- The Charter School of San Diego, Audeo Charter School and Mirus Secondary School. For her legendary contributions to education in San Diego County, Bixby was named a Remarkable Leaders in Education by the University of San Diego.The California Network
of Educational Charter Schools acknowledged Mary’s innovative
work that led to the creation of a citywide charter school when they awarded her with their first Senator Gary Hart Vision Award in 1995.
Judy Burton, The Alliance of College Ready Public Schools
Judy Ivie Burton, Alliance President and CEO, brings her expertise to the Alliance in successfully leading and operating public schools. She launched the Alliance College-Public Schools, a non-profit charter management organization whose mission is to open and operate a network of high performing middle and high schools in California
that prepare all students for success in college. The Alliance has grown from its first charter high school in 2004 to a network 15 high schools and 6 middle schools. 100% of Alliance schools significantly outperform neighboring schools. Four Alliance high schools are CA Distinguished Schools and three are among the top 10 high schools in LAUSD. In June 2012 97% of Alliance high school seniors, graduated in 4 years and 86% were accepted into 4-year universities. Judy Burton was the recpient of a 2010 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award and currently serves on the CCSA Board of Directors. The Alliance Dr. Olga Mohan High School received the Hart Vision Charter School of the Year Award in 2011.
Yvonne Chan, Vaughn Next Century Learning Center
Dr. Chan is the founder and principal of the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Los Angeles, which serves 3,000 pre-kindergarten- 10th grade students living in poverty. She is also an adjunct professor at UCLA. Dr. Chan served as a member of the California State Board of Education for seven years and as a Commissioner of the Los Angeles City Commission for Children Youth and Families. Ms. Chan was awarded a Hart Vision Award in 1999 for her leadership role in the California Charter Schools Movement.
Jacqueline Elliot, Ed.D, Partnerships to Uplift Communities, PUC Schools
Dr. Elliot has been dedicated to public school reform since 1986 when she first became a teacher in Pacoima, California. Dr. Elliot helped convert Montague Elementary School to charter status in 1996 and began collaborating with Dr. Ref Rodriguez in 1998 while founding the first start up charter school in the San Fernando Valley; Community Charter Middle School (1999). Together, Dr. Elliot and Dr. Rodriguez have collaborated and supported each other’s efforts while co- founding and operating Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), which now has a total of 13 high achieving charter schools located in the NE San Fernando Valley and NE Los Angeles. Jacqueline Elliot currently serves as Regional Representative on the CCSA Member Council, is on the CCSA Board and is the 2013 Hart Vision Charter School Leader of the Year.
Gene Fisher, Watts Learning Center
Gene Fisher is the founding President of the Watts Learning Center’s Board of Directors and has served as its CEO since the school opened in 1997. As a consultant in 1995, Mr. Fisher conducted focus groups that revealed the public’s great concern about low achievement in traditional public schools, especially for children from low-income inner city communities. The results of these studies were the foundation for forming Watts Learning Center Charter School. He has received numerous commendations from local government, state and federal legislative bodies for his work toward improving the quality of life for Californians. Watts Learning Center was named the 2007 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year by CCSA.
Sandra Fisher, Watts Learning Center
The Watts Learning Center Charter School was established as an independent charter school in 1997. Sandra Fisher is a founding member of the Watts Learning Center Board of Directors. She
has been involved with the Watts Learning Center from the time it opened. She believes that a quality public education for all students strengthens our democracy. Watts Learning Center was named the 2007 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year by CCSA.
Pat Golding, Hickman Community Charter Schools
Pat Golding is the Founder and Director of Hickman Charter School. Ms. Golding is a leader and pioneer in the California charter schools movement and served in the early years on the California Network of Educational Charters (CANEC) Board, six years on CCSA Board of Directors and is currently serving on CharterSAFE JPA Board.Ms. Golding received the 2003 Hart Vision Charter Leader of the Year award.
Charlie Leo, Natomas Charter School
Charlie Leo embodies the phrase “edupreneur”. He is the Co-Founder and served as the Executive Director of the nationally renowned Natomas Charter School for 19 years. During this time, Natomas Charter School has expanded from 80 students in a single program
to over 1,400 students, spanning grades K-12, in five very unique educational academies. Charlie facilitated the design and construction of three campuses including the $40 million NCS main campus, which houses the state-of-the-art, award winning Benevenuti Performing Arts Center. Natomas Charter Schools was named the 2006 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year by CCSA.
Joe Lucente, Fenton Charter Public Schools
Joe Lucente is a pioneer in the charter school movement and recognized as one of the state’s leading experts in charter school finance. In 1993, Mr. Lucente led the conversion of one of the first conversion charter schools in California. Once considered one of the worst elementary schools in LAUSD, Fenton Avenue Charter School became a California Distinguished School and a national model of a successful conversion charter school honored by the White House, U.S. Congress and California Legislature. A fearless warrior for charter school student equity and as past-President of the California Network of Educational Charters (CANEC), he was a driving force in the creation of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Fenton Charter Public Schools, a CMO formed in 2012 that currently operates three charter schools in the L.A. area. Mr. Lucente was awarded a Hart Vision Award in 1997 for his leadership role in the California Charter Schools Movement. Fenton Avenue Charter School is the 2013 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year.
Dave Patterson, Rocklin Academy Charter Schools
Dave Patterson is the founding Superintendent of Athlos Academies. Dr. Patterson is also the founder of the Rocklin Academy Family of Schools (2000 – 2012) and currently serves as Executive Director Emeritus. CCSA recognized Dr. Patterson as the recipient of the
Hart Vision Charter School Leader of the Year Award in 1998 and again in 2012 for outstanding leadership and excellence in education. He has also previously served for many years as an elected school board member at Rocklin Unified School District and also Del Paso Heights Elementary School District. Dr. Patterson has also served as the Director of Governmental Relations for the California Network
of Educational Charters, representing California’s charter schools before the legislature, the State Board of Education, CDE and the Governor’s Office. Prior to serving as Director of Governmental Affairs, Dr. Patterson served for ten years at the California Department of Education. Dr. Patterson also served as long-term member of the CCSA Member Council. He is a recognized expert in school reform policy and research, charter school law and policy, and in state and national efforts to improve public schools.
Rick Piercy, The Lewis Center for Educational Research
Rick Piercy is President/CEO of The Lewis Center for Educational Research, which oversees 2 California charter schools, the Academy for Academic Excellence in Apple Valley and the Norton Space and Aeronautics Academy in San Bernardino. He has been an educator for over 30 years and has served on the Boards of both CANEC and then CCSA since 1996. With his talent for innovation and creativity, he has and continues to provide educational opportunities for children and teachers in California, the Nation and worldwide. Mr. Piercy currently serves as an officer on the CCSA Member Council and was named the Hart Vision Charter School Leader of the Year in 2002.
Ana Ponce, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy
Ana Ponce is the Chief Executive Officer of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy (CNCA), a network of high performing charter schools serving more than 3000 Pre-K through 12th grade students near Downtown Los Angeles. CNCA schools are recognized as models for serving predominantly Latino English Language Learners and have won various awards and distinctions including the Title 1 Academic Achievement Award, the California Association of Bilingual Education Seal of Excellence, the California Distinguished Schools award, and the Effective Practice Incentive Community (EPIC) award. Originally from Mexico, Ana grew up in the neighborhood where her schools
are located, and which she vowed to transform when she chose to teach. She kept her promise and built a network of schools in that community as a beacon of hope for all who dream that attaining educational success is a reality for immigrant children. In 2011, Forbes named her one of the “Seven most influential educators in the world.” Ana currently serves as the Secretary of the CCSA Board of Directors.
Ref Rodriguez, Ed.D, Partners for Developing Futures
Dr. Ref Rodriguez is President and CEO of Partners for Developing Futures (Partners). Partners is a social venture investment fund
that primarily invests in high-potential, early-stage minority-led charter schools and charter school networks that serve underserved students. Prior to joining Partners, Ref was Co-Chief Executive Officer of Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), a charter school management organization serving communities in the Northeast San Fernando Valley and Northeast Los Angeles.
Larry Rosenstock, High Tech High
Larry Rosenstock is CEO and founding principal of High Tech High, a network of eleven K-12 public charter schools in California, and is Dean of the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. He has taught carpentry in urban high schools in Boston and Cambridge and was principal of the Rindge School of Technical Arts, and of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. Mr. Rosenstock and his work have been featured on Oprah, Lehrer, Newsweek, and Forbes. He
is a winner of the Ford Foundation Innovations in State and Local Government Award, is an Ashoka Fellow, and won the McGraw Prize in Education. Mr. Rosenstock currently serves on the CCSA Board of Directors.
Don Shalvey, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Don Shalvey is the Deputy Director for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s US Programs Education initiative. In 1992 Mr. Shalvey served as the Superintendent of San Carlos School District, where he sponsored California’s first Charter School. In 1998, he and entrepreneur Reed Hastings, co-founded Californians for Public School Excellence, a grass-roots organization that led to the passage of the Charter Schools Act of 1998. Later that year he co-founded Aspire Public Schools, the nation’s first CMO. Mr. Shalvey is a Hart Vision Award winner and in 2009, he was elected to the Charter School Hall of Fame by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Mr. Shalvey currently serves on the CCSA Board of Directors.
Irene Sumida, Fenton Charter Public Schools
Before joining Fenton Avenue Charter School, Ms. Sumida served the Los Angeles Unified School District for twenty-seven years in a variety of capacities including assistant principal, coordinator, classroom and mentor teacher. In July 1993, the year Fenton Avenue Elementary was authorized by LAUSD to convert to independent charter status, she became the Director of Instruction and then the sole Director in 2005. Under Ms. Sumida’s direction, the CMO, Fenton Charter Public Schools was established to continue the growth of the Fenton schools. She is
a member of the Board of CharterWorks, served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of CCSA, continues to serve as a board member of CCSA Advocates, CharterSafe, and the Board of Directors of the Charter and Autonomous Schools Leadership Academy (CASLA). Ms. Sumida was awarded a Hart Vision Award in 1997 for her leadership role in the California Charter Schools Movement. Fenton Avenue Charter School is the 2013 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year.
Ting Sun, Natomas Charter School
Ting Sun is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Natomas Charter. She has more than 25 years in the field of education, most all of which have been dedicated to educational reform and charter schools. In addition to teaching and school administration, Ting has served on the CANEC Board, managed the federal charter schools start-up grant at CDE, initiated quality and leadership programs as Vice President of Leadership and Quality at CCSA, and conducted charter reviews as senior consultant for Cambridge Education. Ms. Sun also served on the CCTC from 2007-2011 and as Chair of the CCTC from 2009-2011. Ting is also a long-time member of the PSAA Advisory Committee. Natomas Charter Schools was named the 2006 Hart Vision Charter School of the Year by CCSA.
Johnathan Williams, The Accelerated School Community of Schools
Johnathan Williams founded The Accelerated School in 1994 and
is currently the Chief Executive Officer of The Accelerated Schools. The Accelerated School was the 1st charter school in South Los Angeles, and among the first in the state. Under his leadership, The Accelerated Schools completed construction of a $50-million dollar comprehensive pre-K—12th grade school complex. In 2001 TAS was recognized by TIME Magazine as “Elementary School of the Year.” Graduates of The Accelerated Schools have been accepted to, or
have graduated from numerous universities, including UCLA, USC, Yale, Cornell, Berkeley, and MIT, among others. Johnathan is also a founding board member of California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) and Education Sector. He was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger
to the California State Board of Education (2004-2011), and currently serves as an appointee of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the LA City Recreation and Parks Board of Commissioners, and as Vice President of the LA Memorial Coliseum Commission. Mr. Williams is also a lifetime member of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).
Some of CCSA’s Legacy Award Winners were unable to attend tonight’s dinner and will be presented with their awards at a later time.
Elected Officials
Governor Jerry Brown
Governor Edmund G. (“Jerry”) Brown Jr. has held a variety of statewide elected offices during a career that has spanned nearly
four decades. Brown is serving his third term as California’s Governor, and he is a former Secretary of State, former candidate for President, former Mayor of Oakland, and former California Attorney General. During his tenure as the Mayor of Oakland, Brown founded two charter schools. One, the Oakland Military Institute (OMI), is a college preparatory academy in collaboration with the California National Guard and serves students from 6th through 12th grade. Many students at OMI come from low-income families (80% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches). OMI graduates have been admitted to the University of California system, West Point and Yale. Brown also founded the Oakland School for the Arts (OSA), which is devoted to intensive pre-professional training in the arts within a college-preparatory curriculum. OSA is an audition-based charter school that serves 6th-12th grade. As a Mayor of Oakland, Brown helped set a trend across the nation of mayors becoming more involved in education issues. Governor Brown has been a powerful advocate for charter schools by rejecting legislation that would be harmful to charter schools and supporting improved financing options and greater funding equity.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson
Kevin Johnson was elected as the 55th Mayor of the City of Sacramento in November 2008 and re-elected to a second term in June 2012. He is the first native Sacramentan, and the first African American to be elected to the office. His top priorities include improving public safety, creating jobs and economic development, reforming public education, promoting good government and enhancing the quality of life for all Sacramentans. The Mayor has taken on a range of national leadership positions, including his current roles as Second Vice President of the US Conference of Mayors, Vice President of the National Conference of Black Mayors, and Chair of US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Education Reform Task Force. Before taking public office, he led a diverse career as a professional athlete, entrepreneur and nonprofit executive. He served as Chief Executive Officer of St. HOPE (Helping Others Pursue Excellence), a nonprofit organization he founded in 1989 and led until January 2008. Originally focused around providing afterschool programs to at-risk youth in Mayor Johnson’s native Oak Park neighborhood, St. HOPE expanded to pursue a broader program of urban revitalization through public education, civic leadership, economic development, and the arts. Today St. HOPE consists of three divisions: St. HOPE Academy, St. HOPE Development Company, and St. HOPE Public Schools.
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