Alfonso Flores is small but fit, with thick, rounded shoulders and a certain way of holding himself that says he could control a lot of space around him — quickly, if need be. His soft voice and kindly brown eyes suggest something more complicated is going on inside.
In late fall 2012, Flores found himself standing on the curb near Jordan Downs Housing Projects in Watts, waiting for Pastor Maudine Clark, a tiny, gnome-like figure, to wave him over to an apartment where a local drug lord had agreed to meet with him.
Flores, 42, who was raised in Koreatown by a big, loving family of teachers, was curious rather than nervous. He served in U.S. Army Special Forces for six years, an "operator" who, among other things, trained guerrillas for U.S. allies. One of his key duties was to gain the trust of locals in hostile territory in order to achieve specific goals. The Green Beret warrior lost a kidney trying to save Rangers at the Black Hawk Down disaster in Somalia, fought in Colombia's coke wars and rescued Kuwaitis in the Middle East. He rose to leadership in Special Forces A Team, and got out alive in 1997 to marry the girl he'd loved since high school.
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Monica Ratliff: The Woman Who May Change L.A.You could say this more or less prepared him to teach at crazy-making LAUSD, which he'd dreamed would be "fun" and "mellowing down." Instead, Flores encountered teams of teachers union lawyers protecting incompetent adults who had no business being around kids. He saw lazy teachers form alliances against weak principals to avoid teaching their reading, math and writing lessons. He saw gifted teachers close their doors to these betrayals and take their own students soaring.
LAUSD's entire, corroded system reminded him of something: "the Middle East."
In honor of his parents and grandmother, who instilled in him a powerful sense of social justice, Flores chose to teach at downtrodden Normandie Avenue Elementary School, whose student population is heavily black and Latino. He became a mentor teacher, running almost every special program, only to be wooed away, to Global Education Academy charter school near Figueroa and 41st streets.
"What I learned in LAUSD is that every stride you make gets canceled down the hall by a teacher like 'Mr. Q,' who had a little TV in a drawer and watched it all day — you can't get rid of the Mr. Q's," Flores says.
The charter school was highly rated, but for Flores, even it had too many pinheaded bureaucrats. He started following the news in 2011 about poor Compton parents fighting to take over disastrous McKinley Elementary School by using California's new Parent Trigger law. Under that law, if parents get signatures from half the parents at a school, they can force the district to fire the principal or teaching staff. Parents can even wrest the school away from the district and put out requests for competitive proposals from charter schools or other school operators, then hand the school over to whomever they believe has a great plan to turn it around.
"This group called Parent Revolution was helping Compton parents," Flores says, "and they had a job opening for community organizer. I applied, but I told them I didn't have any experience."
Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution, was overwhelmed by Flores' résumé. "No experience as a community organizer?" Austin laughs out loud. "Oh, Alfonso! He persuaded Colombian villagers to get their kids out of the cocaine wars! He ran all kinds of crazy committees at his school and had people rowing in the same direction. No experience? Alfonso has this gut understanding of how to help communities fix things that've gone really, really bad!"
Which is why Flores was meeting the Crips gang lord, a guy he knew only as James. Flores and his Parent Revolution crew had rented a tiny house on 108th Street in Watts, not far from Weigand Elementary, after hearing from mothers that the school had suffered a major drop in achievement and test scores under new principal Irma Cobian. Under past principal Frances Pasilla, Weigand was on a three-year roll, its Academic Performance Index jumping 111 points. But by the end of Cobian's first year, the API dropped 31 points to 688, then flat-lined. Last week, Weigand's latest scores fell again, even as kids at other badly disrupted school sites — such as Miramonte Elementary — held steady.
To understand how far Weigand fell, on average 54 percent of the students across all grades were proficient or advanced in math under Pasilla; under Cobian, 33 percent are. Under Pasilla, Weigand was a 5 in the Similar Schools Rankings, in which 100 socioeconomically identical schools are compared on a 1 to 10 scale statewide.
But as impoverished schools continually improved statewide in recent years, Weigand fell back, plummeting to a 2 in the Similar Schools Ranking — which LAUSD Superintendent of Schools John Deasy calls "disastrous."
The mostly young and Latino mothers wanted to remove Cobian by gathering signatures under Parent Trigger. Parent Revolution collects petitions through door-to-door visits and house meetings, traipsing around communities with clipboards. But this was secrecy-laden Watts, where strangers might be DEA, immigration or turf competition. Pastor Clark had warned the newcomers: "The Crips might think you're doing things. You might end up in an alley." She agreed to set up a meeting.
Green Beret? Doubt it.
Lost a kidney in Somalia? Yeah, right. Check out his LinkedIn profile - I never heard of Purple "Stars". Flores - I think you meant Purple Heart.
Did this reporter even ask for proof he was Special Forces?
It's a sad day when even mentors can't tell the truth.
Let's deal with real legal facts. The California "Parent Empowerment", Trigger, law, rules and regulations state that signatures cannot be obtained with intimidation, promises of any kind or any other kind of persuasion of that nature. I like the Parent Empowerment Law for use against terrible districts like LAUSD who do not listen to parents and students as least under the last boards of education. I do not like the illegal way in which Parent Revolution has used it in California and everywhere else in the U.S. they have been. First ask the question of why is it that on their front page they have the button Parent Trigger Laws. Hit the button and go to the bottom of the page and hit the button law and regulations and gee it is empty; Try to find any information on their website of their involvement in Florida or anywhere else. Nothing. In Florida they had a 15 page law and a misleading video up all produced by Ben Austin here in L.A. Ben Austin is a political professional. He knows what he is doing.
Mrs. Stewart, are you really so bad as a reporter that you did not check the California law, rules and regulations and how those signatures were obtained all of which is in the public sector before you wrote this false story of what happened and with no mention of the illegal methodology which they used in obtaining those signatures? If so, you should not be a reporter. A reporter is not supposed to be a "True Believer" who does not double check. The simplest of checks would have found out this information. Parents, teachers and community testified at the LAUSD Board at the 24th Street and other time and in the San Bernadino Papers on this I found the stories and you cannot with Lexus Nexis? This is not believable or credible. Green Beret's are highly trained in intimidation and psychological warfare and every sign of that is here. Why do you think our military is so hated around the world? It is because of these arrogant illegal acts by Green Beret's and others like that on them. It is not OK there and it is not here. You should not praise these kind of acts. The district is dirtier than you think or have the capacity to know. I can give you $20 billion in documented theft, 117,000 student not coming to school every year cost them only $1.35 billion last year alone, I know their budgets and how they lie to state agencies about their numbers and facts. I have them documented and with the state of California and with Torlakson with this information way over your head as you simply do not want to know and have been told not to know or print or it is your job as so clearly shown with this article. I have the proof of this do you?
I work at a charter as a part-time instructor for less that $20/hr. This is not gainful employment and I am constantly in debt from student loans for attending public universities that are in the process of being privatized. The "charterization" (yes, that's a term) of our public schools means profit for shareholders and managers alongside the cheapening of each educators' life. I would happily work full-time as a salaried employee for $45k/year, which is still not enough to buy a home in L.A. But, instead, I am always seeking more work so that I can survive. Make no mistake about it: the privatization (i.e. charterization) of our K-12 educational system is a sham. Teaching must be recognized as a career and not an act of charity or semi-volunteerism.
Alfonso was peeling potatoes in Somalia. He quit as a teacher. Now he plays judge and jury sentencing educators to termination. That's no way to achieve reform. Support building on the talents of educators, track successes, and bring together stakeholders. Celebrate our educators who are brave enough to show up everyday in Watts to lead and teach without sensationalizing it. Celebrate our educators who do not seek fame and make themselves out to be heroes because they know and help improve the lives gang members' children. Our educators have always been the true heroes; they don't need a rag-mag to declare it. They do the job daily, selflessly--what would our city look like without them? Alfonso is looking for credit because he deserves none. Read about Parent Revolution in Time Magazine--they call it toxic. This LA Weekly story is a desperate attempt to repair their soiled image--they don't care who they harm. Sad.
So, despite all the studies showing that Charters are less effective than public schools, the LA Weekly continues to run one sided pro-charter articles. I guess the corporation that runs the Weekly must have big money invested in a charter corporation.
@JoeyJoeJoeJr Yes, teaching at a school raped by Parent Revolution (chartered or not) turns teachers into those who work on an ad-hoc basis, never knowing if some unhappy parent or stakeholder has an axe to grind, and instead of looking towards their own generational failures, takes it out on teachers. The future of education especially in LA Unified is bleak at best. Even schools experiencing an increase in API scores still graduate functional illiterates. Very troubling.
@rbettleman Let's see them roll up their sleeves and help on campus prepare new principals and support teachers. It's one thing to oust a principal, but what about true help. Or are they just planning on destroying until no one will risk working in our schools? By the way, the people who "look out for the kids" are at schools right now all over the city today providing them with care; they are principals and teachers. Parent Revolution does not interact with children--they have no idea what it takes.
@rbettleman Don't believe it. Parents Revolution is for profit (for the profit of its employees). They empower ineffective parents and get them to project their failures onto the teachers and staff of inner city schools. You can change the staff of a school, but the pervading culture remains. Do some research into the organization and its staff.
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