Cohn’s reasoning builds off the premise that the nation’s second-largest school district is so sluggish and unresponsive that it is beyond repair:

LAUSD’s governance structure is fundamentally broken and needs to be replaced by smaller units of school governance that are much more capable of delivering educational change that better serves students and their parents. In addition to being nimble and flexible, smaller school districts are physically closer to the parents they serve, and can initiate change strategies in a much more timely fashion.

Breakup would be good for struggling kids

And he also notes the timing is right because of the new education spending rules kicking in. The rules are billed as shifting resources to the neediest students:

The argument for breakup becomes even stronger today when you consider the important equity promise of Gov. Jerry Brown’s remarkable LCFF/LCAP school funding reform initiative, which places even greater authority at the local level to get things right for kids. When Los Angeles Unified screws up, more than half a million California youngsters are denied a critical opportunity to get a decent education during their one shot at using education to alter their life chances.

Cohn, who is the director of the Urban Leadership Program at Claremont Graduate University, made those observations in an essay for EdSource. The piece is unsparing:

Last October, you had students at Jefferson High School still walking the halls and in auditoriums without scheduled classes even though school had started back on Aug. 12. Even worse, you had a superintendent giving a deposition in court (Cruz v. California) that he was powerless to get these students scheduled in the right classes, and that he needed assistance from the State of California to get this basic responsibility done. …

The missteps of the district are legion – everything from expensive attorneys arguing for the district that a middle school student was mature enough to consent to have sex with a teacher to the billion-dollar iPad and MiSiS technology debacles and school board elections where records have been broken for adult special-interest-group spending.

No single event better captures the failure of this system than the recent revelation that 75 percent of the current class of 2017 is not on target to meet the school board’s 2005 adopted policy requirement that all students must meet UC/CSU A-G college entrance requirements in order to receive a high school diploma …

District shows callousness to disabled students

Cohn also offers an anecdote that implies the district is not just poorly run but cruel. He wrote that it resisted providing minimum legally mandated help to disabled students even after a federal decree. This “intransigence” speaks to larger problems of lack of accountability and slowness in implementing change, Cohn suggests.

Cohn’s tenure in San Diego was marked by school board battles, and he faced criticism for the district’s perceived hostility to charter schools. But his run in Long Beach was remarkable, as these details from his bio point out:

During his tenure as Superintendent, the LBUSD achieved record attendance, the lowest rate of suspension in a decade, decreases in student failure and dropout rates, and an increase in the number of students taking college preparatory classes. Through exemplifying this commitment to leadership and improved student achievement, he won the McGraw Prize in 2002, and the district won the Broad Prize in 2003.

Having a distinguished educator from next door knock the Los Angeles Unified is unusual and has caused buzz in education circles — not the general media. Still, Cohn’s criticism is so harsh that he may face a counterattack from the CTA and its largest local branch, United Teachers Los Angeles. They branded former state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, as “dangerous” when she began criticizing the union and LAUSD in 2007. When Romero ran for state superintendent of public instruction in 2010, she finished third in the primary after facing a brutal series of CTA-funded attacks.

Remember, these iPads are costing taxpayers $1 billion. That’s 1/7th what the Proposition 30 tax increase is bringing in this year.

But who pays if the iPads are lost or stolen, which will happen often? The Times asked:

“The question emerged after revelations that 300 or so students at Roosevelt High School skirted security measures on the device and visited unauthorized websites. In response, the district suspended all home use of the Apple tablets, which have gone out to about two dozen schools so far.

“Ultimately, officials want the iPads used at home — that’s considered a key element of their educational value.”

But if the iPads go home, the kids will jailbreak them. It’s just the way of things. When Bill Gates was in high school, back in the early 1970s, he “jailbroke” the school’s primitive computer system to assign himself seats next to cute girls.

The only thing that has changed is the power of the computer systems. The kids always will find ways to jailbreak any system. I don’t know how to do it. And I don’t even have an iPad. But no doubt there are Web sites with instructions.

The cost

“But their dollar value also became a concern at a meeting Wednesday of a district committee overseeing technology efforts. Senior district officials acknowledged that they haven’t decided on consequences if the $700 iPads are lost or broken.

“‘It’s extremely disconcerting that the parent and student responsibility issue has not been hammered out, and that different parents and students received different information during the rollout,’ said Board of Education member Monica Ratliff, who chaired the meeting.”

Although privat- sector companies mess up too and lose money, usually they would have thought of the cost, and potential loss, early on in the process. Companies that stay stupid too long go broke. Not government. Mistakes are made up with tax increases.

Then there’s the problem of parents’ ability to pay. A lot of these kids’ families are poor. That’s why they need to be given the iPads, instead being asked to buy them in the first place. How will the money be extracted from the parents?

What will be the role of the Los Angeles School Police Department — a gigantic department within the school district? The LASPD’s actual mission statement (all caps in original): “THE MISSION OF THE LOS ANGELES SCHOOL POLICE DEPARTMENT IS TO ASSIST STUDENTS, TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS AND OTHER STAFF IN PROVIDING A SAFE AND TRANQUIL ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS CAN TAKE PLACE.”

The LASPD even gets support from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Air Support Division. So the LASPD could use the LAPD-ASD’s helicopters to track down the LAUSD’s lost iPads, using Apple’s “Find My iPhone, iPad and Mac” feature.

Finally, if a family won’t pay for a lost or stolen iPad, will the LASPD arrest and imprison them, as it does in cases of truancy? (See page 9 of this LAUSD PowerPoint, screen shot below.)

In the first half of the year, legislative leaders, political parties and political action committees lured campaign contributors with limousine rides, gourmet meals and swag bags loaded with booze and iPad Minis, a CalWatchdog.com analysis of campaign spending reports has found.

Californians for Jobs and a Strong Economy, a political action committee funded by multi-national corporations and special interest groups, spent heavily in support of Democrat Leticia Perez, a Central Valley state Senate candidate who narrowly lost a July special election. The PAC filled its campaign coffers with checks from the state’s most active special interest groups, including $250,000 from Chevron, $80,000 from the California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, $25,000 from Wal-Mart and $38,000 from PG&E.

But you have to spend money to make money. The committee attracted its contributors by spending $73,140 on a fundraising event at French Laundry, Napa Valley’s most exclusive restaurant. The television chef and culinary critic Anthony Bourdain considers it the best restaurant in the world. Earlier this year, the Daily Meal named the Napa Valley establishment “the finest restaurant in the U.S.”

“A great meal is a kind of journey that returns you to sources of pleasure you may have forgotten and takes you to places you haven’t been before,” the three-Michelin-starred restaurant explains on its website.

Limo rides for Perez and Huff

Legislative leaders took a more literal kind of journey with their campaign contributors. Democratic Speaker of the Assembly John Perez and Republican Senate leader Bob Huff expensed limousine rentals to their campaign committees, according to semi-annual disclosure reports.

Perez rang up $1,872 in charges to Abe’s Limousine & Tours during a December trip back east for the White House holiday reception. The speaker was accompanied by two unidentified individuals, according to his latest campaign report. The speaker’s office did not respond to CalWatchdog.com’s request for a comment about the trip.

Limo rides were a bipartisan affair. In May, the Senate GOP leader took a dozen contributors out to a San Francisco Giants ballgame to raise funds for his 2016 Assembly bid. Sacramento-based Universal Limousine and Transportation charged $1,448 for the night. “Whether it’s to impress that important business client, or for a wedding or a special night out on the town, our richly appointed stretch limousines are a perfect way to travel worry-free and in style,” Universal Limousine, the company they used, boasts on its website.

Huff’s group rang up an additional $584 in charges once they arrived at AT&T Park. Although profligate with its fundraising, Huff’s 2016 Assembly committee has been frugal with fellow Republicans. The committee hasn’t parted with any of its cash this cycle. It did not report any contributions to any targeted Senate candidates nor has it transferred any funds to the state party.

But while Huff didn’t share his campaign cash with the state party, he shares its taste in limo companies. In April, the California Republican Party accumulated $1,272 in transportation charges with the same company.

2013 Speaker’s Cup swag bag: iPad Minis and booze

Of course, expensive meals and limo rides don’t last. To make sure that the state’s major political donors treasure the memories, campaign committees spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury swag bags that included expensive booze and iPad Minis. None came close to rivaling this year’s Speaker Cup, considered “the jewel of the legislative fundraising circuit.”

Held annually at the swanky Pebble Beach Resort, the Speaker’s Cup helps California Democrats raise more than a million dollars per year from the state’s biggest special interest groups. The event, which is underwritten by AT&T, gives wealthy benefactors quality face time with legislators as they hit the links or relax at the world-renowned 22,000-square-foot spa.

“The Speaker’s Cup is the centerpiece of a corporate lobbying strategy so comprehensive and successful that it has rewritten the special-interest playbook in Sacramento,” the Los Angeles Times wrote in a 2012 profile of the annual event.

The feature item of this year’s swag bag was an iPad Mini, bought and paid for by the event’s lead sponsor, AT&T. The telecommunications giant, which routinely lobbies the legislature, spent just shy of six-figures on 253 iPad Minis as an in-kind contribution for the 2013 Speaker’s Cup. On May 4, the committee reported a $99,596.69 expenditure at the San Francisco Apple Store.

It wasn’t the company’s only Speaker’s Cup expense. AT&T also plopped down $4,801 for a VIP reception held at Pebble Beach and left a $60,000 down payment for next year’s event.

On the same day that AT&T loaded its shopping cart with iPads, Diageo, the world’s largest producer of spirits, donated $29,504.04 worth of alcohol to the California Democratic Party, which organized the 2013 Speaker’s Cup.  The multi-national corporation made additional in-kind contributions during the first half of the year. In total, Diageo donated $76,091 worth of alcohol to the state’s Democrats. The California Republican Party also reported an in-kind contribution of $262 worth of wine, or .34 percent by volume compared to Democrats.

This isn’t the first time that legislators have been caught using campaign funds for luxury items. In 2007, then-Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez charged thousands of dollars in questionable campaign expenses. Among the list of charges reported by the Times: $47,412 in airfare, $8,745 at an exclusive Spanish hotel; $5,149 at a Bordeaux wine seller; $2,562 at Louis Vuitton; and $1,795 at a Parisian restaurant. The Fair Political Practices Commission later concluded that Nunez had not broken any state laws.

State law bans campaign committees from making expenditures “which confer a substantial personal benefit.” However, the state’s political watchdog has carved out an exception for any activities that have a political, legislative or governmental purpose.

Although generally a liberal, this was before the Political Correctness plague. So he didn’t turn every piece of literature or work of art into a Marxist morality tale against “dead white males.” And he didn’t hate me because I was a young conservative. He engaged me in intelligent discussions.

I remember him disdaining even the multimedia of his day, including mimeographs and overhead projectors. “All I need is a blackboard and chalk,” he said, using a piece of chalk to point at the blackboard. We also had a Humanities book that had pictures, poems, etc.

He was right. After his lectures, which always involved a lot of involvement with students, I would go out and check what he talked about, using encyclopedias, books and records.

Too bad he’s not in charge of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is going to provide iPads to all its 640,000 students by the end of 2014. Reported TheVerge.com, “The board will use the $30 million in tax money to fund the first 31,000 devices but will look for additional funding in order to secure the remaining tablets.”

That means voters passed the Proposition 30 $7 billion tax increase to give kids iPads.

It’s just a gimmick. The real problem is the state’s rotten curriculum the LAUSD must follow, now made worse by the adoption of the dumbed-down federal Common Core standards, themselves another gimmick; and the lack of good teachers.

Good teachers

No doubt there are many good teachers in the LAUSD, the equivalent of my Michigan teacher four decades ago. But there are just way too few of them. And despite some challenges from charter schools, and the new “parent trigger” law, there just isn’t enough incentive in the closed government system to make things as great as they ought to be. It’s like forcing everyone to buy a Yugo.

The iPads themselves might allow the kids to break out of the system and find Web sites that teach something original and good. But even if the LAUSD puts restrictions on what the kids can see, no doubt many kids also will find ways to “jailbreak” the restrictions and gain access to pornography, racist sites and other things I don’t want my tax money supporting.

And if the kids can find out things on their own on the iPad, then why not just get rid of the school as an expensive appendage to real learning?

Let’s list the recent gimmicks: “Whole Word” reading, the “New New Math,” President George H.S. Bush’s “Goals 2000″ scheme (signed into law by President Bill Clinton), President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” scheme, President Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” scheme, Common Core, an iPad in every youthful hand.

All are gimmicks. All don’t work. All never could work.

The only thing that works is pulling your kids out of these gimmicky schools and using private, parochial or home schools.