Major victory over a corporate charter school chain and their trade association

 Adapted from my Twitter thread.

ON Tuesday, March 23, 2021 I got my second big win in court against a charter school corporation. It was also a major victory over their Califonria Charter Schools Association (“CCSA”) trade association, which tried to use this case to carve out immunity to the California Public Records Act (“CPRA”). I represented @DotKohlhaas in this action.

Here was my tweet from the day before, after skimming through the tentative:

TFW the tentative ruling is 80% in your favor, so you won't be arguing from a position of weakness during the hearing. 😍😍😍 pic.twitter.com/SnWy8woEaH

— Robert D Skeels, JD, Esq 🔻 (@rdsathene) March 23, 2021

My first win against a corporate charter school was a year ago as third chair in a suit to overturn a wrongful expulsion of a student of color. The Partnerships to Uplift Communities (“PUC”) charter chain (of convicted felon Ref Rodriguez fame) violated that student’s due process rights. Violated isn’t a strong enough word for what they did. PUC unilaterally changed the charges at the appeals hearing and branded the child as a terrorist in his permanent record. Under the tutelage of the brilliant partners at the law firm I was a part-timer at the time (I am currently transitioning to full time there), plus sage advice from @DrPrestonGreen, we built a strong case.

It was my argument that the charter corporation never proved specific intent — a crucial element to Ed. Code § 48900.7, as well as PUC’s glaring lack of notice afforded to the student, that saw the court overturn the wrongful expulsion and give the student their life back.

This latest case was a charter trying to hide all its dirty secrets by not complying with the CPRA. The scandal-ridden The Accelerated Schools (“TAS”) charter chain’s leaders absconded when the community started pushing back and started asking questions about union busting.

Michael Kohlhaas dot org sent sent TAS several CPRA requests in 2018, which they ignored (unlawfully). A year later, I filed the petition for writ of mandate for them. Some ten months later TAS sent some records, but claimed “blanket exemptions” on a bunch of other ones.

The Accelerated Schools Sued To Compel Compliance With The California Public Records Act - My First…

As you may know I have been making requests of charter schools under the California Public Records Act for about a year…

michaelkohlhaas.org

The good folks at Michael Kohlhaas dot org documented the part when it was decided to continue with the litigation. This was for Hilda, an amazing educator, and all the other people wronged by TAS/CCSA.

In October 2020 The Accelerated Schools Produced Five GB of Records In Response To My 2019 Requests…

Remember all the way back in December 2019 when I was forced to file yet another lawsuit seeking to enforce the…

michaelkohlhaas.org

An infamous law firm that only represents lucrative, privately managed charter school corporations staked out the position that any communications with the charter school industry’s trade association — the CCSA — was subject to a range of exemptions under the CPRA.

I suppose I can’t blame them. The charter industry — long used to unaccountably spending tax dollars in total secrecy — fought tooth and nail the imposition of the CPRA and Brown Act added by Ed. Code § 47604.1(b)(2)(A). When the law took effect January 2020, charter school corporations were already looking for ways to skirt the law. At the firm I’m a junior associate at, we use the CPRA for pre-discovery work against charter corporations. Michael Kohlhaas dot org, on the other hand, has used it to expose some of the ugliest, scandalous conduct by an industry already infamous for scandal. Uncovering the vile Nick Melvoin’s sharing Los Angeles Unified School District’s (“LAUSD”) confidential legal strategies with their party-opponent in a lawsuit (the CCSA) was a blockbuster revelation enabled by the CPRA.

It Appears That Icky Sticky Nicky Melvoin Revealed Confidential Attorney Client Information From…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about an episode in January 2018 when the California Charter School Association actually…

michaelkohlhaas.org

Of course, when you start using the sunshine laws on one of the darkest and vilest industries hatched out of the neoliberal project, you’re going to expose a lot of charter school scandals. There’s so many documented here:

California Charter Schools Association - Michael Kohlhaas dot org

In January 2019 I started investigating Los Angeles charter schools using the California Public Records Act and…

michaelkohlhaas.org

Back to TAS claiming blanket exemptions. When I tried to explain the law to them, they responded: “The claim based on your legal analysis that these exemptions do not apply to the records withheld in this matter is incorrect.”

I was a little nervous going into this, but got a great deal of advice from three National Lawyers Guild attorneys who have also represented Michael Kohlhaas dot org in the past like the incomparable Matthew Strugar, Colleen Flynn, and Abenicio Cisneros. The two former helped me with procedural questions and sample pleadings. The latter provided me argument strategies for my reply brief and gave me the best authority to cite on exemptions (Golden Door Properties, LLC v. Superior Ct. of San Diego Cty., 53 Cal. App. 5th 733, 267 Cal. Rptr. 3d 32, 64 (2020), as modified on denial of reh’g (Aug. 25, 2020))(“Golden Door”). How on point was that case? The Court cited that same case three times in their minute order.

We had already prevailed since the lawsuit caused TAS to produce some records last October, but the dispute over the blanket CCSA exemptions was a proxy political battle. TAS surprisingly claimed exemptions on emails that Michael Kohlhaas dot org had obtained via CPRA from other charter school corporations that had followed the law. Weird hill to die on, but this was the CCSA trying to establish blanket exemptions. The Court ruled that every one of those emails was not exempt! A major win for us.

Also, because we caught TAS in (several) obvious lies, including one where they claimed in one pleading that only a small percentage of documents had been exempted, and then had a high-paid TAS executive claim in their sworn declaration that there were “hundreds of thousands” of records exempted. We pointed out that inconsistency, which led to the court granting our request for a privilege log. Better still, the court used Golden Door to order TAS to produce declarations for each record they claim exempt. While we didn’t get everything we put in our prayer, this was a major victory — especially in regards to the claims for blanket exemptions from the CCSA. I’m sure this isn’t the last time they’ll try this strategy, but at least we can share how to argue against it.

The final disposition will be decided in the summer, but TAS having to produce privilege logs supported by sworn declarations totally justified us continuing to litigate after the settlement offer. Let the corporate charter school industry know that they aren’t going to be able to hide their dark secrets anymore. Here’s a few excerpts from my briefs that probably didn’t sit well with the corporate charter school industry, their CCSA trade association, and their hired mercenaries. ¡La lucha continua! https://twitter.com/rdsathene/status/1375727433198936067

Lastly, huge shout-out to Michael Kohlhaas dot org. They’re doing the lord’s work. From exposing self-dealing by tax payer funded Business Improvement Districts (“BIDs”), to uncovering some extremely disturbing activities by the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”), to putting the lucrative, corporate charter school industry on notice that the sunshine laws are coming for them, to using the CPRA to protect the most vulnerable in our communities, as like I always say: “not all heroes wear capes.”

Modern Day Michael Kohlhaas Exposes Enemies of Homeless People - Invisible People

To his followers, he's known as Michael Kohlhaas. But his real name is actually Adrian Riskin, a fact that sometimes…

invisiblepeople.tv

If #LAUSD's Nick Melvoin did engage in acts of moral turpitude…

The esteemed Professor Diane Ravitch wrote about one of the newest revelations on the Michael Kolhaas dot org website. She writes:

"He says that [Nick] Melvoin as a member of the board was privy to the LAUSD legal strategy in its perennial struggle with the charter lobby. He says that Melvoin shared this strategy with the charter lobby."

This is very serious.

I don’t have time to look into this closely, but if this Nick Melvoin—an attorney—was sharing confidential information with the opposing party in litigation, then he has likely violated a number of The State Bar of California’s Rules of Professional Conduct. At issue are several parts of Rule 8.4 Misconduct (e.g. 8.4(a), 8.4(c), 8.4(e)), Rule 1.11, and others—particularly those governing conflicts of interest and the duties of honesty and candor.

I strongly encourage people to visit How to File a Complaint Against an Attorney on The State Bar of California’s (CalBar) website. Calbar has the authority to investigate and discipline attorneys. The conduct that Melvoin has allegedly engaged in would likely result in discipline, or even disbarment, given the severity of the acts. However, CalBar will only take action if they’re aware of Melvoin’s alleged conduct.

LAUSD District 5 Special Election morning after (March 6, 2019)

Looks like the two good candidates — Jackie Goldberg and Graciela Ortiz — will be in the run-off, and the vile California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) has no candidate to support in Los Angeles Unified School District 5. The CCSA shouldn’t be able to replace their convicted felon Refugio “Ref” Rodriguez with another one of their own ever again.

Glad to see that right-wing privatizers Allison Greenwood Bajracharya, Heather Repenning, and Ana Cubas are likely done. Cubas couldn’t even manage 1,000 votes on Tuesday — I finished with 5,244 votes in 2013 #LAUSD #EdReform

Florina Rodov: The Truth About Charter Schools

“[W]hen teachers aren’t unionized, they’re exploited — and when teachers suffer, so do kids.” — Florina Rodov

This amazing piece by Florina Rodov on Shondaland is a must read. Taking place at one of the seedy charter corporations here in Los Angeles, the story Rodov tells is all too familiar to all of us that are anti-privatization activists. Much of the mistreatment of faculty and students mirrors the accounts in Professor Horn's Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through "No Excuses" Teaching. Hat tip to Leonie Haimson, whose Tweet regarding this essay caught my eye.

An excerpt, but please go and read the whole work:

"But I soon realized there was a gulf between charter school hype and reality. Every day brought shocking and disturbing revelations: high attrition rates of students and teachers, dangerous working conditions, widespread suspensions, harassment of teachers, violations against students with disabilities, nepotism, and fraud. By the end of the school year, I vowed never to step foot in a charter school again, and to fight for the protection of public schools like never before."

Conference presentation on criminal defendant Ref Rodriguez

Legal scholar Robert D. Skeels gave a twenty minute talk on criminal defendant Refugio “Ref” Rodriguez of the California Charter Schools Association at a conference on school privatization on October 1, 2017.

Criminal defendant Ref Rodriguez, an introduction

Corporate charter school mogul Refugio “Ref” Rodriguez has been in the news lately. First, for his being elected President of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education. Second, he is facing criminal charges of three felony counts, including conspiracy and perjury, and 25 misdemeanor counts of assumed name contribution.

Who is this rising star of the California Charter Schools Association? How did he end up on LAUSD’s board despite having never attended, nor worked at a public school? Why are these charges no surprise to Los Angeles public education activists? All of the questions and more answered in a talk by Robert D. Skeels at 2:30 PM during Defend Public Education NOW’s Opposing Charter Schools Conference. This talk, and topic, is one of many at the event.

Conference: Opposing Charter Schools
Saturday, September 30, 2017 from 11 AM — 4 PM
Southern California Library
6120 S Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90044

Robert D. Skeels is a Juris Doctor candidate specializing in education policy and the law. His work appears in a range of publications including Jacobin, Truthout, and CounterPunch. He is one of the contributors for schoolsmatter.info

Privatizer Nick Melvoin wants Betsy DeVos style policies for Los Angeles

"Melvoin’s people are not ordinary constituents passing daily through LAUSD’s school house doors. These are an extremely rarefied set of LA’s ruling class, the managers and not the workers of this great city." — Sara Roos

Nick Melvoin is a right-of-center, neoliberal privatizer who is close to David F. Welch and many other anti-public-education billionaires. The list of contributors for his Los Angeles Unified School (LAUSD) Board run contains some of the most virulent reactionaries bent on destroying the public commmons, and making education an easy source of revenue for the various industries they profit from.

David F. Welch is the right-wing, extremist millionaire that started the vile Nonprofit Industrial Complex (#NPIC) "Students Matter" which initiated/funded the Vergara v. California and other anti-public-education lawsuits.

• The Big Money Behind California's Tenure Lawsuit
• David Welch: The Man Behind Vergara v. California

Fortunately, the California Court of Appeals didn't agree with the arch-reactionary trial judge in Vergara, overturned his wrongheaded holdings, and vacated his judgement: Another defeat in court for right-wing privatizer David F. Welch.

Former Teach for America, Melvoin has worked with other organizations like Teach Plus, and testified for Welch in the Vergara action. Testified, in bad faith, against the very public schools that he worked for. Laura Moser writes in Slate:

"Nick Melvoin taught at one of those high-poverty schools in Watts, Los Angeles—until he was laid off, two years in a row, a victim of LIFO. Melvoin, who is now a teacher organizer with Teach Plus and a recently declared candidate for the L.A. Unified school board, testified on behalf of the plaintiffs in Vergara and thinks that overturning the statutes contested in Vergara “would be a game changer. It’s necessary but not sufficient,” he said."

One has to ask if Melvoin was really put out by layoffs, why didn't he go to work at one of the charter corporations he is so concerned about increasing market share for? Instead of questioning a system that doesn't provide enough resources to keep public school teachers employed — hence last in, first out policies, Melvoin disingenuously held himself out as the "poster child" for a policy that he, and other Betsy DeVos acolytes, falsely frame as an issue of teacher longevity versus quality.

Melvoin's almost irrational hatred of public schools is best summed up by his desire to entirely supplant them with privately managed institutions, including charter schools. When news broke of decades of scandal by Celerity Charter Corporation and their corrupt founder, Vielka McFarlane, Melvoin wrote an Op-Ed providing political cover. McFarlane is best known for the incident where she and her administrators claimed Emmett Till deserved to die, in defense of her firing teachers over a social justice lesson plan. McFarlane's reputation for dishonesty and greed even earned her the ire of former LAUSD Superindendent Johh Deasy, an individual generally not known for taking issue with wealthy charter school executives. That Melvoin positioned himself as McFarlane's champion says much.

Melvoin would bring the entire Betsy DeVos agenda to Los Angeles. His penchant for segregation, privatization, and subsidizing the greed of the charter school industry is peerless.

Tell California State Senators to support SB 808

Network for Public Education (NPE) is helping to support California Senate Bill 808. The legislation, while it doesn't go far enough, is an important first step towards reeling in the outrageous excesses of the charter school sector. My letter to my State Senator appears below, as well as the call to action letter from NPE.

Senator de Leon:

I am a third year law student, studying hard so that I can become an attorney and defend families of children with disabilities against discrimination by the lucrative charter school industry. Prior to my studying law, I wrote for numerous publications about the essentially unregulated charter sector, exposing abuses, fraud, misrepresentation, and more importantly, discriminatory conduct towards the most vulnerable students.

Charters discriminate against English language learners, students with disciplinary histories, students with disabilities, and more. Meanwhile, their high-powered executives—many of whom are not even educators—pull down astronomical salaries and use their ability as unregulated 501c3s to award no bid contracts to their friends, relatives, or in the case of a current Los Angeles School Board member, to their own consulting firm. Since members of the taxpaying public don't elect charter school boards, there exists a system that puts public money into private hands with no mechanisms to ensure even a modicum of transparency or oversight.

Furthermore, my alma mater, UCLA, has conducted several studies demonstrating that charter schools exacerbate segregation, and fuel the so-called "school to prison pipeline." A perusal of the studies compiled by UCLA's The Civil Rights Project / Proyecto Derechos Civiles would cause any reasonable person to realize that decades of letting the revenue-stream-driven charter school industry "regulate" itself has resulted in an abject situation.

Therefore, I'm asking you to please support SB 808. This bill would give California’s democratically elected, local school boards the final say when it comes to the approval of charter school petitions. The present system takes away community control, forcing districts to navigate reduced budgets and high legal costs for schools over which they have no authority.

Schools that receive public dollars must be responsible to the public. Thank you.

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Dear Robert D,

NPE and NPE Action have long been concerned about charter schools in California. You can read our NPE reports about them here.

Now there is a chance to make a small improvement. On April 26th, SB 808 comes up for a hearing before the Senate Education Committee.

This bill would give California’s democratically elected, local school boards the final say when it comes to the approval of charter school petitions. Under current laws, charter petitioners can appeal to state and county boards of education, thereby taking away community control, forcing districts to navigate reduced budgets and high legal costs for schools over which they have no authority. Meanwhile, charter schools often receive blank checks, in the form of pro-bono legal work, funded by the billionaire-backed lobbying group, The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). We need to level the playing field, so that all schools which receive public funding are responsible and accountable in the same ways.

Here is what we need you to do.

1. Send an email to your Senator. We make it very easy- just click here.

2. Call the members of the Senate Education Committee and ask them to vote YES on SB 808.

• Benjamin Allen, Chair (Santa Monica) 916-651-4026
• Scott Wilk, Vice Chair (Santa Clarita) 916-651-4021
• Cathleen Galgiani (Stockton) 916-651-4005
• Connie M. Leyva (Chino) 916-651-4020
• Tony Mendoza (Artesia) 916-651-4032
• Richard Pan (Sacramento) 916-651-4006
• Andy Vidak (Hanford) 916-651-4014

Let them know that the taxpayers of California deserve local, democratically elected and accountable officials overseeing how their children are educated and tax dollars are spent. Let them know that you are tired of charter school scandals. California's children and taxpayers deserve better.

Thank you for all that you do.

Carol Burris

Executive Director of NPE Action

Yolie Flores Aguilar email colluding with charter school executives

“PLEASE don’t forward this email. simply state it in your own words.”—Yolie Flores Aguilar

This email was addressed to some 60 individuals, including myself, on February 4, 2017. While its authenticity is not absolutely certain, I have researched the email addresses in the email body and they all seem legitimate. The content is consistent with the language that these charter school executives use both in public and internal conversations.

Yolie Flores Aguilar was an employee of the infamous Gates Foundation (of ALEC and Discovery Institute donation fame) while she sat on the LAUSD Board. She brought a resolution to give away new schools built with taxpayer dollars to privately managed charter school corporations.

Here Flores colludes with several well paid charter executives to avoid public mention that her resolution (inappropriately named Public [sic] School Choice) was essentially a real estate bonanza for the lucrative charter school sector. Marco Petruzzi and Ben Austin of Green Dot/Parent Revolution, Judy Burton of Alliance, Mike Piscal of ICEF are the big names in this secret missive. The lot of them have been plagued by scandals, but most of them are still profiting mightily from the charter industry.

Flores is currently running for U.S. Congress. If she's capable of this sort of duplicity and malfeasance while on a school board, imagine her in another position of power to further serve her corporate masters. Arch-reactionary Betsy DeVos would love to have more neoliberal Democrats that support her school privatization agenda of charters-vouchers. DeVos already has corporatists like Corey Booker in her thrall, Yolie Flores would be no different.

The second document should help authenticate this email chain. It's an email from Dr. Danny Weil with Yolie Flores Aguilar's <itsyolie@sbcglobal.net> email address in the to field. I recall she had a blog by the same name (i.e. "itsyolie"), and remember seeing emails from her from that address back in that era.

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Yolie Flores Aguilar email colluding with charter school executives by Robert D. Skeels on Scribd

Dr. Danny Weil email with Yolie Flores Aguilar's <itsyolie@sbcglobal.net> email address by Robert D. Skeels on Scribd

Gulenist Caprice Young lies in a Magnolia Science Academy Press Release

“Magnolia should be ashamed of this reprehensible behavior; attempting to use innocent students and parents as human shields to hide their criminal activity” — Robert Amsterdam, Esq.

This video segment is significant in that Gülenist Caprice Young claimed in her most recent "press release" and "protest" smear of those investigating her corporate charter cult that LAUSD had found no connection between Magnolia Science Academy (MSA) and the Gülen charter network. The video puts to lie Young's assertion. Clearly there was an intentional misrepresentation in Magnolia's press release.

The same MSA press release stated that LAUSD has never found any irregularities with Magnolia's finances. This assertion, repeated by Young on numerous occasions, is an intentional misrepresentation on both her and the corporate charter chain's part.

Magnolia, its parent Pacifica Institute, and their cult leader Fethullah Gülen are all high profile Armenian Genocide deniers. To make matters worse, their entire public relations campaign is paid for with money that is supposed to be used in classrooms. Magnolia enlisted the help of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) for this Gülen misinformation campaign, and CCSA's "CEO" Jed Wallace is quoted in the press release in which misrepresentations about both Magnolia's connections to the Gülen Network, and their audit results appear.

The CCSA is currently attacking an Armenian candidate running for California Assembly, spending obscene amounts of money. That the CCSA, Jed Wallace, and Caprice Young are simultaneously attacking Armenian candidates for office, while working hand-in-hand with organizations that actively deny the Armenian Genocide is highly disconcerting.

Shining light on the charter school industry's biggest player

“This increasingly well-rooted network provides the Gulen Movement with daily access to the minds of over 45,000 students, and yearly access to hundreds of millions of hard-earned tax dollars.” — Sharon Higgins

The largest chain of charter schools in the United States is that of those associated with the secretive Gülenist religious cult. With financial might sufficient to buy off politicians, and the political clout to push legislation, Gülen charters, like all charter schools, are the inevitable result of what happens after putting public money into private hands. Gülen is just one of many cults dominating the corporate charter school industry. Charter schools are symptomatic of the privatization of the public commons.

After years of being able to remain in obscurity while silencing their opposition, the Gülenist Network is beginning to find itself under ever increasing scrutiny. The Turkish government hired Amsterdam & Partners LLP to investigate. Their findings are even more shocking than many Gülen observers expected. Additionally, a full length documentary film entitled KILLING ED has been released, which outlines the shadowy Gülenist Network’s pervasive involvement with privately managed charter schools.

While some of lucrative charter school industry's top profiteers have been brought in to attempt damage control, there remains hope that this story of corruption, greed, and indoctrination will begin to reach an ever widening circle of people.

Please find below Amsterdam & Partners LLP’s press release, press conference video, and trailer for KILLING ED. Stopping the charter school industry must become one of our top priorities if we value public education as a society.

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State of California Urged to Investigate Gülen-linked Magnolia Charter Schools

By Editor | Published: February 16, 2016

The following press release was distributed to media on Tuesday, February 16, 2016:

LOS ANGELES, February 16, 2016 – A formal complaint has been issued under the California Uniform Complaint Procedure (“UCP”) urging the California Department of Education to conduct a full investigation into the financial practices of the Magnolia Public Schools charter school network, which currently operates 11 active charter schools in California.

The UCP Complaint – brought by the law firm Amsterdam & Partners LLP, in conjunction with interested California taxpayers Dr. José Moreno and Tina Andres – notes that a 2015 audit conducted by the California State Auditor discovered widespread accounting impropriety and raised numerous other important questions about Magnolia’s financial practices. Notable among them is Magnolia’s connection to the global organization of charter schools and businesses headed by Turkish national Fethullah Gülen, a reclusive Islamic cleric who resides in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

“The State Auditor was unable to verify the propriety of a staggering 69% of financial transactions from a sampling at the Magnolia schools, but it did identify large contracts from Magnolia to affiliated vendors, and revealed that Magnolia has improperly spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on immigration lawyers to import teachers from Turkey,” said Robert Amsterdam, founding partner of Amsterdam & Partners LLP. “Although Magnolia’s CEO and Superintendent insists that there is no connection between Magnolia and the Gülen Organization, we respectfully direct the California authorities to Magnolia’s financial ties to the Pacifica Institute in Irvine, and to the similarities between Magnolia’s operating profile and that of other known Gülen Organization charter schools.”

Tina Andres, one of the individual Complainants, said, “Magnolia’s misuse of public funds is intolerable. They use our tax dollars to pay for visas to hire Turkish teachers, while there are plenty of talented and highly qualified teachers looking for positions in our area.”

Magnolia has submitted multiple new charter school applications valued at more than $48 million each. The UCP Complaint asserts that the volume of negative findings of the California State Auditor from a mere sampling of Magnolia’s transactions and vendor agreements should have spurred a comprehensive investigation into the Magnolia charter school network, and that the State of California owes a fiduciary duty to California taxpayers to probe further.

The UCP Complaint was delivered to the California Department of Education, as well as to various stakeholders concerned about the issue. It is available for viewing at http://magnoliacomplaint.com, where supporters may also sign a petition urging the California Department of Education to initiate the requested investigation

Dr. José Moreno is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Chicano & Latino Studies at California State University, Long Beach, and a former President of the Board of Education for the Anaheim City School District. He has four children currently attending public schools in Anaheim, where Magnolia is seeking to expand. Tina Andres is a veteran public school teacher in the Santa Ana Unified School District, which hosts a Magnolia school. She has two children attending public schools in the district, one of which is a charter school.

Amsterdam & Partners LLP – an international law firm with offices in London and Washington, DC – acts for the Republic of Turkey, and is conducting a global investigation into the alleged illegal activities of the Gülen Organization. Additional information about Amsterdam & Partners LLP is available at www.amsterdamandpartners.com.

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Gülen Charter Schools Investigation Press Conference

Robert Amsterdam, lawyer at Amsterdam & Partners LLP, holds press conference updating the public on the latest developments and upcoming legal suits relating to alleged illegal conduct by the U.S. charter school network controlled by controversial Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen.

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Documentary film exposing charter schools and the Gülenist Network

KILLING ED is a new documentary feature film that exposes a shocking truth: that one of the largest networks of taxpayer-funded charter schools in the U.S. are a worst-case-scenario—operated with questionable academic, labor, and H1-B visa standards by members of the “Gülen Movement” – a rapidly expanding, global Islamic group whose leader, Fethullah Gülen, lives in seclusion in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

Guest Post: Tom McIver: Caprice Young and the Master of Deception

“Jed’s predecessor, Caprice Young, made over $250,000 for her work at the CCSA. Check out the cast of characters on CCSA’s board of directors.” — Kenneth Libby

These pages have addressed right-wing school privatization pusher Caprice Young before. Her early history working with Richard Riordan, predatory capitalist and junk bond felon Michael Milken, and racist, bigoted, anti-immigrant nativist Steve Poizner was discussed in a piece that also exposed her profiting from the dubious online charter school sector. What was missing from that piece is that she openly boasts of Walmart's John Walton being her mentor. Another piece addressed her taking the helm of Fethullah Gülen's failing Magnolia corporate charter chain.

Credit to Young. Two times she was able to step into situations where charter schools had squandered millions of taxpayer dollars, and make the investigations go away. Young, along with her Gülen corporate charters in Los Angeles, are currently being investigated by Amsterdam & Partners LLP.

I received a communiqué from Dr. Tom McIver in November of 2013 regarding another one of Young's unsavory colleagues, which, in turn, was another one of her charter business "ventures" (read scams). However, I had just returned to UCLA after a nineteen year hiatus to complete my BA, and my focus was on that. The email went unnoticed until recently. Checking the links led to me asking for clarification, and with his permission, his initial email, and excerpts from another email appear here:

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From: tmciver@
Subject: Caprice Young and the Master of Deception
Date November 03, 2013 17:46:35 PST
To: rdsathene@

Robert Skeels,

I came across some blog posts by you that mentioned Caprice Young. At one point, when she was supported by the Milken Foundation, she was collaborating with Al Seckel, who I know all too well. He has boasted of his partnership with her, e.g. this interview with billionaire (and convicted sex offender) Richard Epstein: http://web.archive.org/web/20101112051416/http://www.jeffreyepsteinscience.com/2010/10/jeffrey-epstein-talks-perception-with-al-seckel/

Here they are at Jeff Pulver's prestigious DLD conference joined by Arianna Huffington and CNN chief Jonathan Klein:http://blip.tv/140conf/140-characters-conference-the-democratization-of-information-2801228

Seckel is currently defendant in this fraud case: http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/03/10/34803.htm This case is just the tip of his fraud. In case you are interested, attached is timeline of his activities (including his association with Young).

Tom McIver

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I too discovered the DLD link was dead.  The whole session was on video, but no longer.  I have put my Seckel timeline online and updated it and added links: http://undeceive.weebly.com/ I do not mind attribution.  Seckel is reportedly dead, as the now timeline indicates.  Some new information has come to light, and I hope more will follow.

DLD is a global conference network (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital LifeDesign). Here is there speaker bio for Seckel (mentioning the panel with Young): http://dld-conference.com/users/al-seckel

Tom McIver

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Excerpts from McIver's original chronology implicating Young (emphasis mine), which is displayed below. His updated chronology timeline is here.

2009 Oct 29: Seckel hosts presents and hosts panel on information technology and education at internet entrepreneur Jeff Pulver’s 140-Characters conference; panelists include Arianna Huffington, Jonathan Klein (CNN chief), and Caprice Young (Milken Institute). http://blip.tv/140conf/140-characters-conference-the-democratization-of-information-2801228

2010 Oct 23: Seckel and Maxwell host G4G10 event at their “beautiful Malibu home.” Features Robert Lang and Chris Palmer origami displays and guest of honor Nolan Bushnell (Atari). Attendees include Jeff Scanlan, Catherine Mohr, Stuart Anstis, Jonathan Delbruck, Solomon Golomb, Caprice Young, Irving Biederman, Brad Templeton, Arana Greenberg, Brock Pierce, Michael Kaliski, Victoria Skye, Amy Sterling Casil, Eric Gradman, Brian Deagon, Philip Lelyveld, Richard Bilow, Glenn Kaino, Michael Naimark, Sanford Climan

2010 Oct: Seckel interview is lead item on Jeffrey Epstein’s science website. Self-promotional claims here are similar to his original Wikipedia entry. Says he got funding for “massive interactive website on thinking skills” with friend Caprice Young (Milken Institute). Claims “Tommy” Gold was his Cornell advisor, and at Caltech he was in Feynman’s “very close inner circle” with Michael Douglas and one other person, spending hours with him “almost every other day.” Claims to be very close to M. Gell-Mann, and friends with “Shelly” Glashow, Lisa Randall, Sean Carroll, and Jimmy Wales. http://web.archive.org/web/20101112051416/http://www.jeffreyepsteinscience.com/2010/10/jeffrey-epstein-talks-perception-with-al-seckel/

Gülenist Caprice Young's association with Al Seckel by Robert D. Skeels

California charter school industry bill attempts to eliminate only source of public oversight

“…charter schools have used their public characteristics to qualify for public funding under state constitutional law, while highlighting their private characteristics to exempt themselves from other laws that apply to public schools.”—Professors Preston C. Green and Joseph Oluwole

School privatization promoting Nonprofit Industrial Complex (NPIC) EdSource has long been a source of both political cover, and highly biased "journalism" on behalf of the lucrative charter school industry. Their pay-to-advocate paradigm is evidenced by a donor list that is replete with the usual suspects of ideologically charged (read reactionary) billionaires and foundations. On March 30, 2016 they posted a puff piece on behalf of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) regarding AB 2806, a bill that would further block oversight of charter schools, and impede any investigations into charter school wrongdoing. Trade association CCSA, essentially a U.S. Chamber of Commerce for the lucrative charter school industry in California, has increasingly used its seemingly endless source of lobbying funds to push the bill.

My comments are reproduced here:

The lengths these revenue hungry charter school executives will go to avoid any and all oversight is astonishing. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Office of the Independent Monitor (OIM) are the only organs of public oversight that come close to the de minimis scrutiny these privately managed schools should be subject to. As a legal scholar whose research into the various misrepresentation and malfeasance perpetrated by the charter sector, I depend on access to information gathered by the OIG/OIM. I would find impossible to discover facts that would otherwise remain undisclosed by the secretive charter industry without these bodies. I am not alone in this regard. The United States Census Bureau is on record for not being able to report information on charter schools because of their private nature (US Census Bureau. (2011). "Public Education Finances: 2009 (GO9-ASPEF)". Washington, DC: US Government Printing O ce. Print. vi).

It is in the public interest that charter schools be subject to a modicum of oversight. One would think that it would be public policy that any organization that takes public money should be subject to public scrutiny. AB 2806 would severely hamper the OIG's already minimal ability to investigate an industry that essentially runs with no other public oversight or control. The charter industry's attempts to eliminate this one mechanism for holding them accountable is unconscionable, but not unexpected.

The irony of well-heeled charter school executives like Caprice Young decrying the OIG should not go unnoticed. In defense of her beleaguered Magnolia charter chain, Young has written several Op-Eds. In them she discusses a 2015 audit of the schools claiming it was "financially solvent", but omits that scores of previous audits found the chain insolvent. For instance, the 2014 audit revealed them "operating on a $1.7 million deficit" and that there multiple instances of "missing, misused funds" (SPRC, 2014). This misrepresentation by omission alone impeaches Young's credibility beyond any reasonable standard. Moreover, it demonstrates why public agencies like the OIG and OIG are so critical. AB 2806 is further evidence of the lucrative charter school industry's revenue-first agenda, and their ongoing efforts to avoid any oversight is another example of how they harm both their own students, and the students in our public schools.

Defeat AB 2806 & Empower the LAUSD Inspector General's Office

Trailer for KILLING ED

Trailer for KILLING ED from Visual Truth Projects on Vimeo.

Profiteer Caprice Young, the secretive Gülen Cult, and California Charter Schools Association's worst nightmare is here.

Open letter to Dan Woods regarding the Gülen Network's Magnolia Charter Schools

"The Walton family, founder of Wal-mart, the worldwide retail giant, has donated millions of dollars to schools considered to be associated with the Gülen community." — Charter School Scandals

From: *****@ucla.edu
Subject: Open letter to Dan Woods regarding the Gülen Network's Magnolia Charter Schools
Date: February 02, 2016 14:22:46 PST
To: d.woods@mpglaw.com

Mr. Woods:

Just read your heavy-handed letter [1] to Arthur M. Pakowitz, Esq.

As a courtesy I wanted to address some of your concerns, which are clearly based in your ignorance regarding both privately managed charter schools, and the shadowy Gülen cult that your client is associated with.

Regarding your insistence that the Magnolia corporate charter school chain's financial information is transparent. This simply isn't the case, and it wasn't until the public school district called for an audit that one was conducted. Said audits revealed millions of "missing, misused funds" [2]. These were public dollars, squandered under the private management of your client.

You then make the absurd assertion that "Magnolia's eleven charter schools are public schools…" In case you actually believe that misrepresentation, let me disabuse you.

Generally charter schools are not public schools. Both existing case law and public policy have long established this. The Washington State Supreme Court (2015) held that charter schools are not "common schools" because they're governed by appointed rather than elected boards. The 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals (2010) ruled that charter schools are not "public actors." The California Court of Appeals (2007) ruled that charter schools are not "public agents." The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) joined many other government agencies in unequivocally determining that charters are, in NLRB's words, "private entities."

By definition if a charter school is run by a for-profit company, or a (501c3) non-profit corporation (e.g. Magnolia Educational and Research Foundation), then it is not a public school. The United States Census Bureau frames this issue best: "A few "public charter schools" are run by public universities and municipalities. However, most charter schools are run by private nonprofit organizations and are therefore classified as private." [3]

Because these lucrative charter schools are not public, and are not subject to even a modicum of public oversight, they are able to get away with violating the constitutional rights of their students. The decision in Scott B. v. Board of Trustees of Orange County High School of the Arts saw Rosa K. Hirji, Esq. write: "The structures that allow charter schools to exist are marked by the absence of protections that are traditionally guaranteed by public education, protections that only become apparent and necessary when families and students begin to face a denial of what they were initially promised to be their right." [4]

Lastly, there is ample documentation tying the Magnolia corporate charter school chain to the Gülenist Movement, namely through their intertwinement with the Los Angeles based Pacifica Institute—a Gülen organization which denies the 1915-1918 Armenian genocide. [5] Moreover, Fethullah Gülen's ties to the Magnolia charter schools was reported to Turkish readers as early as 2010. [6]

Far be it for me to do your research for you, but as a courtesy I offer the following footnote [7] as starting point for your own additional discovery.

I understand that the model rules of professional conduct call upon you to vigorously represent your client's interests, but one would expect an attorney of your standing to at least base your arguments in a modicum of reality. I suppose in a way I owe you and your firm a debt of gratitude inasmuch as you provide examples of the type of attorney I don't want to be—seemingly ones that hold billable hours more important than the public interest.

---

[1] https://twitter.com/GooseNetworkUSA/status/694588816066121728
[2] http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2014/07/21/17031/audit-finds-missing-misused-funds-at-la-charter-ne/
[3] US Census Bureau. (2011). Public Education Finances: 2009 (GO9-ASPEF). Washington, DC: US Government Printing O ce. Print. vi
[4] https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/childrights/content/articles/winter2014-0114-charter-schools-upholding-student-rights.html
[5] http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/30/local/la-me-0930-ottoman-band-20110930
[6] http://gundem.milliyet.com.tr/walmart-tan-gulen-okullarina-bagis/guncel/gundemdetay/27.08.2010/1281603/default.htm
[7] Compendium of Magnolia/Pacifica/Gülen resources:

• Gulen charter schools 101 + webinar video http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/p/gulen-school-characteristics.html
• Gulen charter school lists http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/p/list-of-us-gulen-schools.html
• The Gulen Movement & its schools in the news http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/p/the-gulen-movement-and-its-schools-in.html
• Gulen Charter School Enrollment in 2013-2014 http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
• Mónica García champions the Gülenist Charter Movement in LAUSD http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/08/monica-garcia-champions-gulenist.html
• Financially malfeasant charters run by shadowy religious cult escape LAUSD scrutiny http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2015/03/financially-malfeasant-charters-run-by.html
• Turns out Caprice Young has been working for Gülen's charter network all along http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2015/02/turns-out-caprice-young-has-been.html
• What are Ref Rodriguez's ties to the Gülen cult, and why is the Armenian community supporting Bennett Kayser? http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2015/04/what-are-ref-rodriguezs-ties-to-gulen.html

Advocating Public Education and Social Justice

Robert D. Skeels
Juris Doctor Candidate
UCLA '14, PCL '18
*****@alumni.ucla.edu

"Problem posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor" — Paulo Freire