Bail Reduced for MVUSD Board Trustee Mike Rios Second Felony Arrest

Judge Becky Dugan reduces bail for Mike Rios from the original bail which was set at $500,000.00 to $250,000.00. Riverside County’s District Attorney’s Office had sought a bail increase of ten times the original bail amount of fifty-five thousand.


As with Mike Rios’ other pending charges related to the attempted murder charge, the D.A.’s office will seek a 1257.1 hearing regarding the legal source of any monies used to secure bail in this case, however here they have also chosen to challenge Mr. Rios’ source of collateral as well.
In the Riverside Case No. RIF1201429 for  two counts of attempted murder, as well as witness intimidation and several criminal enhancements Rios’ bail was reduced by Judge Becky Dugan from the set uniform bail schedule of one million dollars down to a mere $250,000.00, where she cited Rios’ benefit to the community (by benefit I think she meant he was an elected official).


In order to obtain bail on that case, Rios allegedly used a credit card for the required 10% or $25,000.00 and his present home on Palm Shadows Dr. as the needed $250,000.00 collateral. With a new bail amount of equal to his last, it would seem almost impossible for Rios to obtain bail as his only true source of securing the needed collateral was his home, and that is already being used for the prior bail amount.


Mvgordie.com will be looking into the issue of the use of his residence to secure the prior bail, as years ago in his attempt to circumvent the payment of child support Mr. Rios quick claim deeded that residence in its entirety to his alleged wife Dora Landaverde-Torres. If the home hasn’t been deeded back to Mike, or she took other actions which would allow it to be used on his behalf the bondsman is holding a trust deed on a home which Mike would have had no legal right to use for such financial purposes.


If the latter is true, the bail bondsman can revoke bail on Mike Rios and place him back into the custody of the Riverside Sheriff’s office until he makes bail on that prior amount.

Thanks to MVgordie for this story

No Population has Their Human and Civil Rights So Casually and Routinely Trampled as do Homeless Americans.

No Population has Their Human and Civil Rights so Casually and Routinely Trampled as do Homeless Americans.

April 5, 2012  

For decades, cities all over the country have worked to essentially criminalize homelessness, instituting measures that outlaw holding a sign, sleeping, sitting, lying (or weirdly, telling a lie in Orlando) if you live on the street. 

Where the law does not mandate outright harassment, police come up with clever work-arounds, like destroying or confiscating tents, blankets and other property in raids of camps. A veteran I talked to, his eye bloody from when some teenagers beat him up to steal 60 cents, said police routinely extracted the poles from his tent and kept them so he couldn't rebuild it. (Where are all the pissed-off libertarians and conservatives at such flagrant disrespect for private property?)

In the heady '80s, Reagan slashed federal housing subsidies even as a tough economy threw more and more people out on the street. Instead of resolving itself through the magic of the markets, the homelessness problem increasingly fell to local governments. 

"When the federal government created the homelessness crisis, local governments did not have the means of addressing the issue. So they use the police to manage homeless people's presence," Jennifer Fredienrich told AlterNet last year. At about the same time, the arrest-happy "broken windows theory," which encourages law enforcement to bust people for "quality of life" crimes, offered ideological support for finding novel ways to legally harass people on the street. Many of the policies end up being wildly counterproductive: a criminal record bars people from the very programs designed to get them off the street, while defending unconstitutional measures in court ends up costing cities money that could be used to fund homeless services. 

Here is an incomplete list of laws, ordinances and law enforcement and government tactics that violate homeless people's civil liberties.

1. Outlawing sitting down. People are allowed to exist in public, but sometimes the homeless make that civic rule inconvenient, like when their presence perturbs tourists or slows the spread of gentrification. One solution to this problem is the "sit-lie" law, a bizarrely authoritarian measure that bans sitting or resting in a public space. The law is clearly designed to empower police to chase homeless people out of nice neighborhoods, rather than protect cities from the blight of public sidewalk-sitting.

Cities around the country have passed ordinances of varying awfulness: some limit resting in certain areas during certain times of the day, while progressive bastion San Francisco voted in November 2010 to outlaw sitting or laying down on any city sidewalk.  The measure was bankrolled by some of the richest people in the city, who poured so much money into the campaign that homelessness advocates were outmatched  $280,000 to $7,802, reported SF Gate. (After the measure passed, Chris Roberts of the SF Appeal found that support for the law was strongest in the richer parts of the city with the fewest homeless.)

Supporters of sit-lie claim the law helps police deal with disruptive behavior like harassment and public drunkenness, and that getting people off the street will get them into shelters. Homelessness advocates counter that the disruptive behaviors associated with some homeless people are already against the law. 

2. Denying people access to shelters. In November the Bloomberg administration tried to institute new rules that would force shelters to deny applicants who failed to prove they had no other housing options, like staying with relatives or friends (NYC's overcrowded shelters being so appealing that people with access to housing are desperate to sneak in). A State Supreme Court judge struck down the new measure in February, admonishing the mayor's office for rushing through the plan without adequate public vetting. (Critics also argued the new rules would conflict with a New York consent decree that guarantees shelter to all homeless adults who ask for it.) Not easily discouraged from making the lives of poor people harder, Bloomberg fumed, "We’re going to do everything we can to have the ability to do it ... Or let the judges explain to the public why they think that you should just have a right to walk in and say, 'Whether I need services or not, you give it to me.' I don’t think that’s what this country’s all about."

Homeless families are not covered under the 1981 decree that guarantees shelter space to homeless single adults, so they've had to prove need to get a space at a shelter for years. The results have not been great. A report prepared by the New York city council cited a study showing that many homeless families who are turned away often end up reapplying, suggesting that their needs were not accurately assessed -- and that they likely ended up sleeping on the street or in subways. NBC New York recently profiled a mother and two kids (6 and 10), who were sleeping in Penn Station after being turned away from the shelter three times. 

In 2010 Bloomberg also tried to institute a policy charging homeless families rent if at least one member worked, at a rate that would have forced a family making $25,000 to pay $946 a month. (After major protest by homelessness advocates the policy changed so instead of flowing to the city the money would be funneled into savings accounts used to help families find housing.) 

Patrick Markee, senior analyst for Coalition for the Homeless, tells AlterNet that the bigger problem is the Bloomberg administration's ideologically driven policy to limit access to federal housing programs. In 2005 Bloomberg replaced federal housing subsidies with temporary assistance programs like Advantage, which subsidized housing for a limited time and only if at least one member of a family is employed. Rocky from the start, Advantage was killed in 2011 when the state withdrew funds. 

A 2011 study by the Coalition for the Homeless found that the rate of homeless families in New York had exploded to a record 113, 533 people -- 42,888 of them children -- sleeping in shelters.

3. Making it illegal to give people food. Two weeks ago, Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter announced a citywide ban on giving food to the hungry in public parks. Amidst outcry by homelessness advocates and religious and charity groups, Nutter insisted the policy is meant to draw unhoused people to indoor facilities where they might benefit from medical care and mental health services. Critics pointed out that the policy -- rushed to go into effect in 29 days -- may have more to do with planned renovation of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the construction of a new museum, as Isaiah Thompson reported in the Philadelphia City Paper.

Public feeding bans are not new, and they continue to crop up despite being routinely overturned by the courts. The city of Orlando, for one, is committed to wiping out the scourge of public food donation, embroiling itself in a five-year battle with Food Not Bombs that has cost the city more than $150,000.

A 2006 statute forced charity groups in Orlando to obtain special permits, only two of which were issued per year, and punished feeding more than 25 people with 60 days in jail or a $500 fine. A federal judge overturned the law in 2010, citing a litany of constitutional rights breached by the measure: freedom of speech, freedom of religion (one of the plaintiffs was a religious organization), freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. "Rather than address the problem of homelessness in these downtown neighborhoods directly, the City has instead decided to limit the expressive activity which attracts the homeless to these neighborhoods," the judge said in his ruling.

Orlando officials took up the case again, pushing it further and further up the courts, until a panel of judges finally voted in favor of the city in 2010. The law got worldwide attention when Food Not Bombs activists continued to feed the hungry. Twelve people were arrested and Orlando's mayor unhelpfully deemed the group "food terrorists," reported the Florida Independent. "Why is it that in certain US cities feeding pigeons is OK, but giving a homeless child a handout is a $2,000 fine," the National Coalition for the Homeless asked in a 2010 report on food bans (Dallas can fine churches $2,000 for distributing food in certain areas). 

4. Installing obstacles to prevent sleeping or sitting. Many cities have invested in their homeless torture infrastructure, spending thousands to install obstacles preventing the homeless from sleeping, standing, or sitting in parks, under bridges and next to public transportation.

The city of Minneapolis installed "bridge rods" -- pyramid structures meant to keep the homeless from sleeping under bridges. It hasn't worked -- apparently it helps people store their stuff -- but the effort costs the city $10,000 a year. Benches in Honolulu bus stops were swapped out for round, concrete stools, according to a roundup of anti-homeless laws by Coalition for the Homeless. 

Sarasota, Florida just got rid of all the benches in its city parks. The city also instituted a smoking ban in conjunction with the bench removal, citing it as another way to repel the homeless who gathered in the area. The city later expanded the ban to public spaces throughout the city, but an exception was eventually carved out for a city-owned golf course (for totally mysterious reasons). 

Manteca, California changed the sprinkler schedule from day to night in order to water any homeless who tried to sleep in a local park. 

5. Anti-panhandling laws. Standing on the street and saying something like, "Occupy Wall Street!" or "Do you have a dollar?" -- clearly falls under constitutionally protected free speech. Still, cities all over the country enforce strict anti-panhandling laws that make it illegal to ask for money, food or anything else of value around tourist attractions, and in some cases city-wide. A 2009 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless found that 47 percent of cities surveyed had some form of measure prohibiting begging in some public spaces, while 23 percent forbid it anywhere in the city. 

There are already laws on the books against aggressive panhandling -- Rudy Giuliani deftly exploited them to purge homeless people from Manhattan in the 1990s -- so arguments that panhandling laws are required to protect tourists from mistreatment at the hands of the city's homeless fall flat. Many panhandling laws protect against such threatening behavior as asking for money next to a bus stop, public bathroom, train station, taxi stand, on public transportation, or after dark. In Orlando, a city ordinance forbids telling a lie or "misleading" when asking for money. A St. Petersburg ordinance proposed in 2011 -- that ended up being shelved -- would have banned misleading signs.

Fines for panhandling can go into the hundreds of dollars and months of jail time. 

6. Anti-panhandling laws to punish people who give. Some cities are so eager to spare their citizens the horrors of panhandling they've instituted laws protecting them from themselves. In 2010 Oakland Park, Florida, made it illegal to give money to panhandlers. The Los Angeles Times reported: Under the ordinance initially passed last month, anyone who responds to a beggar with money or any "article of value" or buys flowers or a newspaper from someone on the street would face a fine of $50 to $100 and as many as 90 days in jail. "You're going to put someone in jail for giving someone a coat when it's cold or a hamburger if they're hungry?" City Commissioner Suzanne Boisvenue said Wednesday. "For me, it's so wrong." She cast the only "no" vote at the March meeting.

7. Feeding panhandling meters instead of panhandlers. Cities across the country have launched programs that encourage people to feed "panhandling meters" with change rather than give directly to the homeless. The bulk of the cash goes to homeless charities. While many homeless advocates applaud the giving sentiment behind the meters, they also point out that the machines can make the issue abstract and easier to detach from emotionally. As the National Coalition for the Homeless says on their blog, "Donations to service organizations are always encouraged, but we should never let these meters discourage acknowledging those who ask for money are fellow human beings. Just as ignoring the issue of homelessness will not help end it, ignoring the people directly affected by homelessness will not help them help themselves."

For many homeless people, a conversation of a few minutes helps ward off loneliness. Francine Triplett, a middle-aged woman who ended up on the streets after escaping domestic abuse, toured the country a few years back as part of a panel raising awareness about homelessness. Triplett said the worst part for her was not being hungry or cold, but being treated like she didn't exist. People walking by "treated us like we was a big old bag of trash," she told the Philadelphia Weekly Press.  "All I wanted was conversation. I didn't want food," she recently said during National Poverty Awareness Week according to the Weekly Press. 

8. Selective enforcement of laws like jaywalking and loitering. Many laws that apply to all citizens, like loitering or jaywalking, end up being selectively enforced against homeless people or based on race. A UCLA report on LA's efforts to clean up Skid Row found that the 50 extra officers assigned would cost $6 million -- more than the $5.7 million the city allocated  for homeless services. Their favored method was going after people for infractions like jaywalking, which do not get strictly enforced against the general population. Defendants in many cities have sued police departments for discrimination in selectively enforcing the law. 

9. Destroying possessions of the homeless. Police regularly conduct sweeps of homeless encampments, destroying or confiscating tents, blankets and other private property, including medications and documents, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. The destruction of property caused by law enforcement raids clearly violate constitutional protections against search and seizure without due process, but most cities continue to rely on the tactic to clear out public areas (a strategy that could come into play in crushing the Occupy camps). Here's how a homelessness advocate described a Dallas raid in Pegasus News: ... a Crisis Intervention team from the City of Dallas (now part of the Dallas Police Department) raided the homeless camps under a bridge. All of the personal possessions of the camp inhabitants — clothing, blankets, coats, years worth of belongings — were shoveled up by two bulldozers, and four to five loads comprising the contents of the "cardboard community" were dumped into city trucks and taken to the landfill. 

In 2008, following five sweeps one right after the other, police in Port Charlotte, Florida rounded up the people from the camp, making them take a "Homeless Class of 2008 photo. Residents of homeless shelters also have their property rights routinely trampled by police.

10. Kicking homeless kids out of school. Unsurprisingly, good educational opportunities are not bountiful for homeless children. The country's estimated 1.35 million homeless youth face a number of obstacles to regular schooling, ranging from residency requirements that are tough to meet when a family is transient to a lack of immunization records. According to a Department of Education report, 87 percent of homeless kids were enrolled in school in 2000; only 77 percent attended regularly.These difficulties were highlighted in a 2011 case in which a homeless Connecticut woman used her babysitter's address to enroll her child in a public school in the area. Her efforts to provide her kid with an education earned her a first-degree larceny charge. The babysitter who helped was evicted from her public housing complex.

Better Ways

There are municipalities that do not mutiliate the Constitution to address the problems associated with homelessness. In Daytona Beach, service providers and business groups banded together to lower rates of panhandling with a program that hires homeless people to clean up downtown areas. In exchange, they received transitional housing. Portland, Oregon's "A Key Not a Card" program allows outreach workers to set up homeless with permanent housing. These efforts are driven by the fact (shown in multiple studies) that housing, which lowers rates of hospitalizations and arrests, ends up being way cheaper for cities.

Child Abduction Syndicates in Indonesia Thrive On Weak Policing

A recent surge in reports of children being abducted directly reflects the police’s lack of seriousness in dealing with the issue, a leading child protection advocate contends.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, the chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak), said on Thursday that the police’s approach to child kidnappings was “weak” and focused only on punishing individuals rather than rooting out entire syndicates.

“We’re now seeing an increase in these cases because the way the police are handling them is very weak,” he said.

“So far, the police have been treating each case as an isolated crime, when instead they should be looking at the bigger picture and the syndicates involved. Most child abductions involve a syndicate, and it’s these that the police should be waging war on.”

Arist was responding to a recent string of abductions and sexual violence against children across the country.

In the past three months, eight young girls were kidnapped from their homes in Bantaeng and Jeneponto districts in South Sulawesi, while earlier this month police rescued a one-year-old girl who had been kidnapped from her home in Yogyakarta so she could be sold to a couple in Jakarta.

In the South Sulawesi cases, the children were all found alive but had been sexually assaulted. Police have not yet named any suspects.

In the Yogyakarta case, however, a sex worker was arrested for kidnapping the one-year-old. A West Jakarta man was arrested for trying to buy the youngster.

Arist said the hallmarks of child-abduction syndicates could be seen in most cases of babies or infants going missing.

“The targets are always children from poor families who need money for treatment at a hospital, maternity clinic or community health center,” he said. “The syndicates typically have people scoping out those places, and it’s also possible that some of the hospital or clinic staff are involved.

“These people pretend to help the parents by offering to assist with their paperwork, but what they’re really doing is registering the child for a birth certificate under the name of a family that has already paid for the child.”

Komnas Anak received 120 reports of child abductions last year, up from 111 in 2010, Arist said.

“These were only the cases that were reported to us and they’re not nationwide data,” he said. “So far this year, we’ve received four reports of abductions, including one of a pair of twins that occurred just a few days ago.”

The flurry of reported abductions mirrors recalls a period in 2010 when a rash of kidnappings prompted communities in the Greater Jakarta area to carry out vigilante attacks.

Three men were killed and eight attacked by mobs in separate incidents in Bogor and Tangerang last August by mobs who feared they were planning to kidnap local children.

At the time, Arist agreed that the attacks may have been prompted by paranoia over the unsolved abductions.

INDONESIA: At least 182 children aged 0 to 12 were reported missing by their parents in 2011, up from 111 in 2010, the National Commission on Child Protection

JAKARTA, 9 April 2012 (IRIN) 

Recent cases of missing children in Indonesia have raised concerns about human trafficking and a lack of law enforcement resources to combat it, say child welfare activists.

At least 182 children aged 0 to 12 were reported missing by their parents in 2011, up from 111 in 2010, the National Commission on Child Protection chairman, Arist Merdeka Sirait, told IRIN.

“These are only the cases that were reported to us, so there are likely more cases out there, but even one child missing is a tragedy,” he said. Thirty-nine of the missing children were babies stolen from maternity clinics.

Sirait said he suspected that a human trafficking network could be seeking to use the children for illegal adoption, commercial sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, and domestic and international child labour.

“Such crime usually involves people who are close to the children. In cases that happened in maternity clinics, employees are usually involved,” he said.

“But police usually treat such cases as ordinary crimes, and are not serious about tackling the larger human trafficking network,” he noted.

In recent months, local media have reported cases of children being kidnapped from their homes. Eight young girls from poor families in Bantaeng, in South Sulawesi Province, have been taken since 2010.

Pribuadiarto Nur, deputy minister for child protection at the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection, said data on human trafficking in Indonesia were “sketchy”.

In 2011, police investigated 126 cases, in which 68 of the victims were children, but the actual number who have disappeared could be much higher, he said.

“This crime is trans-national in nature. Provinces near the border with Malaysia and Batam, near Singapore, are especially vulnerable,” Nur told IRIN.

In 2008, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono set up the National Task Force Against Human Trafficking, one year after parliament passed the human trafficking law. Under this law, all forms of human trafficking are punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Ahmad Sofian, the national coordinator for the NGO, End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) Indonesia, said in 2011 his organization identified 425 children nationwide as victims of trafficking, mostly for sexual exploitation.

As many as 120 of these children are being cared for by ECPAT Indonesia. “Victims of child trafficking are a hidden population. It’s hard to come up with accurate statistics, but estimates range between 40,000 and 70,000 every year,” Sofian said.

Less than 1 percent of cases are brought to court. “Investigating cases of child trafficking is not a priority for police because of difficulty in gathering evidence and a lack of funding,” Sofian said.

“The scenes of the crime and the locations of the children are often different,” he said. “The cost of investigations is higher than other criminal cases, but the budget is the same.”

The victims are usually women under 18 years old from poor families in villages who are lured by the prospect of jobs and scholarships in the cities, he said.

An estimated 30 percent of women in prostitution in Indonesia were below the age of 18, according to a 2010 ECPAT report.

“Friending” the victims

A report by the National Task Force Against Human Trafficking, published in January 2012, notes that members of trafficking rings use the internet, including the popular social networking site, Facebook, to lure their victims to big cities such as Jakarta, Semarang and Surabaya. Indonesia is second only to the US in the number of Facebook users.

Traffickers also use victims, with the ringleaders promising them more money and better facilities if they recruit more victims, the report said.

“The police have reported that they often experienced difficulty in investigating human trafficking because perpetrators and their victims usually refuse to reveal the identity of the ringleaders.”

According to the 2011 US Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report, Indonesia is not “fully complying” with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but is making “significant” efforts to do so.

WHY WON'T THE ACLU FIGHT FOR FREE SPREECH for EDUCATORS?

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2012

Is the ACLU actively supporting the suppression of free speech in schools?

    

Originally Published on the
San Diego Education Report Blog



By Maura Larkins

Why is the San Diego ACLU trying to silence free speech for teachers at the same time that it is protecting free speech for students (protecting free speech for all is one of its major stated purposes.) I understand why school attorneys want to keep the public unaware of what goes on behind closed doors in our schools, but why is ACLU attorney David Loy so interested in helping them?

I have long wondered if the ACLU was doing California Teachers Association little favors by refusing to take free speech cases for teachers. The recently-retired CTA head counsel Beverly Tucker had previously worked for the ACLU.

I got my answer on April 28, 2010 (see email below from David Loy). Yes, I learned, the ACLU definitely tries to silence teachers who don't speak through the union.

I attended the Annual Membership meeting of the San Diego ACLU today, and listened to ACLU attorney David Loy boast about how the ACLU had protected student free speech.

I asked him, "What about free speech for teachers?"

Mr. Loy responded with only one case, Johnson v. Poway, a case in which the ACLU supported a teacher who draped huge banners with religious admonitions across his classroom. The ACLU's victory in the district court was overturned by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal:

"We thus reverse and remand with instructions that the district court vacate its grant of injunctive and declaratory relief, as well as its award of damages, and enter summary judgment in favor of Poway and its officials on all claims. Johnson shall bear all costs. Fed. R. App. P. 39(a)(3)."

Daniel R. Shinoff, Jack M. Sleeth, Jr. (argued), Paul V. Carelli, IV, Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, APC, San Diego, California, for defendants-appellants Poway Unified School District, et al

David Blair-Loy, ACLU Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties, San Diego, California, for Amicus Curiae American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties in Support of plaintiff (Johnson)

Apparently California Teachers Association didn't take part in this case.

Neither David Loy nor Kevin Keenan could think of another case in which the ACLU had defended freedom of speech for teachers, but they noted that the ACLU frequently defends the free speech rights of law enforcement officers. Is this perhaps because the police unions don't donate to the ACLU like the teacher unions do?

Even Lori Shellenberger, the San Diego ACLU's "civic engagement" attorney, is vehemently uninterested in free speech for teachers. She spoke at the Annual Membership meeting about the voting rights workshops she held for parents throughout the school district, and giving parents the chance to speak about what they wanted from schools. I told Ms. Shellenberger, "What good are voting rights when parents don't know what is going on in schools? Democracy requires an informed electorate. You want to expand parent participation, but you keep parents ignorant by silencing teachers who know what's going on in schools." Ms. Shellenberger said she wasn't interested in free speech. Her associate Vince Hall specifically told me he wasn't interested in my letter to the ACLU board.

It would seem to me that Shellenberger and Hall are unlikely to improve schools unless they're willing to work toward transparency in schools, to reveal the secret life of schools. They are basically asking parents to stand up and address the powers behind the curtain of secrecy in schools in the manner in which Dorothy, the Tin Man and friends addressed the Wizard of Oz. The ACLU wants to make sure the curtain is not pulled back revealing a charlatan pulling strings.

Interestingly, Mr. Keenan is convinced that the U.S. Supreme Court will overrule the Ninth Circuit. "We always win," said Kevin Keenan. If the ACLU wins in the U.S. Supreme Court, it will not be with the aid of the civil libertarians on the court, I believe. It will be with the aid of those who want the U.S. to be a Christian nation. Mr. Keenan's goal is apparently to win, not to stick to the ACLU's principles. He spends years trying to get the cross taken down from Mount Soledad in San Diego, only to turn around and try to get it erected (figuratively speaking) in a classroom in Poway.

Not so. The ACLU tried to silence my website discussions about Stutz law firm, which represented the school district in this case. The Court of Appeal didn't go along with the ACLU's position, ruling instead thatan injunction completely silencing my discussion of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz was "exceedingly unconstitutional."

Mr. Keenan bemoaned the fact that the San Diego Zoo has more members that the ACLU does, even when counting all ACLU members in the entire country. The reason might be that the ACLU compromised its principles a bit too often, pushing out ordinary people who demand equal treatment with the good old boys and girls in the ACLU power structure. In fact, Mr. Keenan said to me, "I'm surprised you're still a member." I'm not the one who has a problem with equal treatment for everyone, Mr. Keenan. But I'm curious, how many ordinary people has the ACLU intimidated into giving up their civil rights? They tried to get me to take down my website, but I didn't think much of their exhortations.

Mr. Loy tried to get me to obey an obviously unconstitutional injunction:

from dblairloy@aclusandiego.org
to Maura Larkins
date Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 9:18 PM
...However, the law does not allow anyone - a government official or a private person - to disobey a court order because they believe it is illegal. Under the law, the proper course is to seek appellate review of an order, and/or a stay of the order,rather than to disobey it. The rule of law in our system depends on compliance with court orders until or unless they are stayed or reversed...
David

Mr. Loy must also have known I was not legally required to de-publish the information about Stutz law firm on my website while the injunction was under appeal. (The mandative aspects of an injunction are staying during that time.) Either Mr. Loy was shockingly ignorant of the law, or he was intentionally deceiving me about the law to protect Stutz law firm when he said, “The rule of law in our system depends on compliance with court orders until or unless they are stayed or reversed...”. Why would he do this? To earn “civility” awards from the Bar Association? As a sort of trade-off of free speech rights, helping Dan Shinoff silence a teacher in exchange for Mr. Shinoff’s agreeing to settle student speech cases? To please donors to the ACLU who care less about education than they do about preserving the power of certain individuals in schools?

The Court of Appeal didn’t agree with Stutz law firm and the ACLU; on August 5, 2011 it ruled that the injunction Mr. Loy wanted me to obey was “exceedingly unconstitutional.” Of course, Mr. Loy knew perfectly well that the injunction was unconstitutional when he insisted that I must obey it.

But here’s the larger question: why did the ACLU board support Mr. Loy’s actions?

JUDGE JAMES STIVEN

I asked this question of ACLU board member Hon. James Stiven. He said, "I'm not getting involved because I'm a part of this organization." Wait a minute. Isn't that exactly why he has an obligation to get involved? He's on the board! He's in charge!

I said, "So if ACLU lawyers do something hostile to civil rights, you wouldn't intervene?"

He said, "I don't know that they have done anything wrong."

I said, "Yes you do. You're a judge."

Here's what they've done wrong:

1) To start with, David Loy aided and abetted a violation of my constitutional rights. I believe he intentionally gave me false legal advice in an effort to silence me.

2) The San Diego ACLU seeks and gets money by false advertising. I have heard ACLU speakers around town repeating what Kevin Keenan said at the 2012 Annual Membership meeting, "We guarantee rights for all people, not just the people we like. We stand up for equal protection of all people."

3) The above tactics have been approved at the highest levels of the San Diego ACLU. The San Diego ACLU Board knows about and tacitly approves the above actions.

FROM 2001 to 2003, I "taught for America."

Originally from an op-ed piece by Jesse Hagopian

After graduating from college, I headed for the Bronx, N.Y., where I underwent Teach for America's (TFA) "teacher boot camp." With just five sleepless weeks of on-the-job training teaching summer school to fourth-graders, team meetings and night classes, I was given the stamp of approval and shipped off to Washington, D.C.

The Seattle School Board is expected to vote Wednesday whether to bring TFA to our school district, and before they decide, they should consider the lessons of my experience.

At 21, I found myself in a public elementary school in the ghetto of South East Washington, D.C. — in a classroom with a hole in the ceiling that caused my room to flood, destroying the first American history project I ever assigned the students.

One lasting memory came on my third day of teaching sixth grade.

I had asked the students to bring a meaningful object from home for a show-and-tell activity. We gathered in a circle and the kids sat eagerly waiting to share their mementos. One after another, each and every hand came out of those crumpled brown lunch sacks, clutching a photo of a close family member — usually a dad or an uncle — who was either dead or in jail. By the time it was my turn, all I could do was stare stupidly at the baseball I pulled out and pick nervously at the red stitches.

Working in the "other America" was a personally powerful experience and made me decide to dedicate my life to finding a solution to transform public education and the broader society that would allow such neglect to occur.

But while TFA allowed me this window into the problems of our country, it didn't prepare me to address these challenges. With only five weeks of training, it wasn't just that I was not equipped to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of students with a wide range of ability levels, create portfolios that accurately assessed student progress, or cultivate qualities of civic courage — it was that I didn't even know that these things were indispensable components of an effective education.

As well, TFA often overemphasizes the importance of test scores, driving corps members to narrow the curriculum to what's on the test to prove that they are effective teachers. Yet even by this measure, TFA-ers don't make the grade.

Consider a six-year study of TFA out of Stanford University that looked at more than 4,000 teachers and 132,000 students on six different tests and found not one case where TFA educators performed as well as certified teachers. Moreover, TFA's own statistics show that a mere 33 percent continue teaching after their two-year commitment — creating high turnover in the very schools that most need the continuity and stability.

Seattle has an abundance of teachers with teaching certificates and master's degrees struggling to get a teaching position in the local public schools — West Seattle Elementary School, a target school for TFA, had some 800 applicants for a single job. Why bring in undertrained TFA recruits when we have so many young teachers in Seattle who have spent years developing their skills?

TFA is being presented as a solution to the problems in our public schools. But the reality is, in this era of cash-strapped school districts, officials are lured not by the quality of TFA-ers but by the fact that young teachers who leave the district and make room for more young teachers provide an inexpensive alternative to investing in more experienced teachers who will earn a higher salary.

Yet, if the Seattle school district truly wants "excellence for all," it will need highly trained teachers who have a lasting commitment to the profession — not the revolving door that has come to be known as "Teach for Awhile."

Jesse Hagopian teaches history at Garfield High School and is a founding member of the Social Equality Educators (SEE).

E-mail article 

 Ex-NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf arrested in Montana

Congratulations: Credit where Credit is do. MVUSD California Distinguished School -

Hidden Springs Elementary

MORENO VALLEY, CA

 California Distinguished School

Testing and the State Trustees

California Department of Education

Search  

Advanced | Site Map | A-Z Index

• Curriculum & Instruction
• Testing & Accountability
• Professional Development

• Finance & Grants
• Data & Statistics
• Learning Support
• Specialized Programs

• Home »
 
• SBE Home »
 
• Public Notices & News »
 
• Public Notices

Printer-friendly version

State of California

Edmund G. Brown Jr., Governor

CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION

1430 N Street, Suite 5111
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-319-0827
Fax: 916-319-0175

March 15, 2012

Norma Martinez
State Trustee
Greenfield Union School District
493 El Camino Real
Greenfield, CA 93927

Dear Ms. Martinez:

On behalf of the State Board of Education (SBE), we wish to thank you for your service as State Trustee of the Greenfield Union School District (SD). You have done an exemplary job and your commitment to the students, parents, and community of Greenfield is greatly appreciated.

As you know, at the September and November 2011 SBE meetings, the members of the SBE approved your recommendation to move towards the Exit Plan and return full local governing authority to the local governing board on or before June 30, 2012.

As you proposed, and we agreed in our follow-up discussions, your last day of service will be May 25, 2012. This will allow time for continuing work on some critical components of the exit plan, including the development and approval by the governing board of the academic plan for closing the achievement gap, development of a superintendent evaluation process, and continued governance training.

Consistent with our mutual agreement, please consider this letter notice pursuant to Section 10 of the MOU, effective March 26, 2012, of termination of the MOU between you, as Trustee of the Greenfield Union SD, and the State Board of Education. With the termination of this MOU, full authority for the governance of the Greenfield Union SD will return to the local governing board beginning on May 26, 2012.

Upon termination of this MOU, the Greenfield Union SD will be responsible for calculating your final paycheck based on your monthly compensation and expense allotment, as specified in the MOU, through May 25, 2012. As is required by Labor Code section 227.3, your final paycheck will also include payment for any annual leave days earned through May 25, 2012 that you have accrued but not yet used.

Again, on behalf of the State Board of Education, we thank you for all that you have accomplished in your two years of service.

Sincerely,

Michael W. Kirst (signed)
President

Susan K. Burr (signed)
Executive Director

cc: Patricia L. de Cos, Deputy Executive Director
      Tom Torlakson, State Superintendent of Public Instruction
      Members, State Board of Education
      Nancy Kotowski, Monterey County Superintendent of Schools
      Maria Castillo, President, Greenfield Union SD
      Trevor McDonald, Superintendent, Greenfield Union SD

Download Free Readers

California State Board of Education
1430 N Street, Suite #5111
Sacramento, CA 95814

Contact SBE  |  Web Policy 

“NEA IS Not Happy When You Publicly Disagree With THEM” 

Don't I Know...

Originally posted by Mike Antonucci March 25th, 2012,

There was a big stink over the weekend in Connecticut when Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green published an internal e-mail from Connecticut Education Association executive director Mary Loftus Levine. It read:


NEVER send anything to anyone until you send to Phil and me first. We spoke last night and we are not happy when you publicly disagree with us. AFT is playing you off against us, to get a deal. NO deal is always better than a bad one. From here on, I will be the spokesperson. If you want a caucus call one. While we appreciate all you do, you do not set policy, but rather advocate for our CEA positions. Now, if we disagree with what you sent we will let YOU know and you can send our changes as CEA’s. I will review later. Thank you. Also, if anyone attempts to contact you, please let me know immediately and refer them to me. Thanks again.

My first taste of NEA Democracy(?)

Two weeks previous to this statement, Randi Weingarten

pres for the AFT proclaimed, " a union must always be a democracy."

The “deal” referred to regards the ongoing negotiations between the teachers’ unions and Gov. Dannel Malloy over his teacher evaluation legislation. Once again the AFT in Connecticut is reported to be more willing to cooperate than is CEA.The first problem occurred because Green originally thought the memo had been sent to CEA members. Instead, it was an e-mail to a single CEA employee – apparently the union’s legislative coordinator – and inadvertently cc’ed to an entire listserv. I was unable to find any public statement that triggered the e-mail response.While Loftus Levine is justified to correct an employee whose opinions contradict company policy, (Bullshit! Randi Weingarten AFT said a union must be a democracy!) I’m amused at her substitution of ”our changes as CEA’s” (hers and those of CEA president Phil Apruzzese). I was under the impression – pounded into me by numerous union officers – that the members set policy through their representative bodies. (Not with CTA the California Equivelent to the CEA.) It is the job of the president to carry out those policies as spokesman for the organization. The executive director oversees the staff and has no policy-making function. That's just not the way it works in reality. It is also ironic that the executive director of a teachers’ union would address an employee as if he were a misbehaving child. What could be more undermining of a lobbyist’s status than to constantly get mommy’s permission?We all know real life isn’t like civics class, but the tolerate-no-dissent tone of CEA’s memo might help explain why teachers’ unions enjoy the PR image they do today. Sorry but I have to republish a memento from my personal CTA experience.

BLATANTLY PLAGIARIZED FROM MVGORDIE.COM: The Recall of MVUSD BOARD TRUSTEE Mike "Miguel" Rios

The seeking of a recall of Board Trustee Mike Rios will soon be underway once all the legal requirements are met, and the Riverside County Registrar of Votes gives it approval to seek signatures to place it upon a ballot.


There is something however that must be kept in mind, be you for or against the recall attempt of Mr. Rios, and that is that it isn’t so much the recall itself that is important in this process, it is about the right of the people to be heard and to decide the full outcome of this matter, whether you as an individual are in support of his recall or against it, all that is being sought here is that the people get the right to choose.


 Mr. Rios is not what he claims, “the true voice and only voice for the people of Moreno Valley.” You the citizens of Moreno Valley are the only true voice of Moreno Valley, and as such you should support the rights of others to seek a vote of the people (all the people) on this important issue. As this process moves along, mvgordie.com will be placing upon its site, information as to whom you can contact if you seek to sign the petition, or even work to assists in its circulation for signatures. There is however certain laws which must be followed in this process, such as in order to sign the recall petition, you must: 1. Be of at least 18 years of age and a registered voter. 2. You must live within the City of Moreno Valley. 3. You must live within the District boundaries of the Moreno Valley Unified School District (in otherworld’s , those who live within Moreno Valley, however are in the Val Verde Unified School District, would be ineligible to sign the petition as the elected official sought to be removed is within the MVUSD boundaries). THANKS AGAIN TO MVGordie.COM

Disenfranchised-Educators

Moreno Valley Educators

 Are You In or Out? 

The Neo-School Counselor
School Counseling Videocast
Disenfranchised-Educators