Once again Raschke's bid for school board appears to have been based on raising the most money to pursue a personal and select agenda for Bullis. Further evidence of more last-minute dark Bullis money pouring into her coffers should come as no surprise.

Her claims as a candidate to want to bring equal representation to Mountain View's attendance areas in ALL of Los Altos schools apparently rang hollow to many voters when she was clearly raising big money from Bullis parent contributions in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills.

Within the Crossings neighborhood Raschke had been vocal against the rights of disabled persons. She argued on online forums that portable basketball hoops should be allowed to be placed in sidewalk handicap access ramps since people in wheelchairs should be able to use driveways instead to access sidewalks. She even pointed out that one member's request for reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws for ADA compliant mailboxes would come at an added expense of all members! Very impractical, insensitive and showing poor judgement for someone who was an aspiring elected public official!

Thankfully money could not win a seat in this case. Voter doubts on Raschke’s judgment and commitment to the democratic process and the equal rights of all students and ALL schools in her run for a public office is what gave Bryan Johnson his victory at half the cost.

Let's just be thankful that dark money and the machinations of Bullis did not win out.

The other issue with Tanya was that her campaign materials hid her ties to BCS even though she had been a long-time BCS parent and opted out of LASD years ago. At the most combative time in the LASD/BCS relations, Tanya was the communication chair for BCS and was one of the leaders of the BCS protest in front of LASD district offices. The elephant in the room was the question of how she was going to work to improve LASD when she hadn't been involved in LASD for years and was only focused on getting a campus for BCS.

Bryan was known to LASD parents who had seen him volunteering for numerous LASD activities.

Bullis Charter does not have an elected Board and BCS parents try to get elected to the LASD Board. They clearly misrepresent their BCS links but so far all three attempts have ended in failure. Raschke should try to get appointed to the BCS Board instead of trying to destroy public education.

The Measure GG campaign had to spend way over $100K to barely (4% of the total) pass muster.

But since the fix was in for the candidate Bryan, the Raschke supporters only coughed
up $16K. Not exactly a mass of funding.

And remember this was for a 2 year term, not a real seat.

Nice to know from one of the comments that Tanya is a basketball supporter, allegedly.

I should add that in my opinion, the Measure GG campaign was directly supportive of Bryan for School Board. Why raise money for your campaign when you can piggy back on a $150K machine already doing its thing?

This idea that it's imperative to disenfranchise the 15% of parents whose kids attend Bullis rather than another public school in LASD is very dangerous. There's something not quite right about the attitude, a rotten fish smell, you know?

@Most Interesting, how are BCS parents disenfranchised when they have no kids in LASD. If anything they sign up for being "disenfranchised" by BCS by sending their kids to a school with a nominated Board. Also remember BCS is selective and does not take any and all comers.

@Interesting, how is a 2-year term not a real seat. Does he get only half a vote? You make no sense at all. Typical BCS supporter.

@More Interesting - when you write "This idea that it's imperative to disenfranchise the 15% of parents whose kids attend Bullis rather than another public school in LASD is very dangerous." I think you're way off base. BCS parents have full voting rights in LASD board elections, it's selection of BCS board members they're locked out of. And if you're referring to BCS parents being locked out of LASD board decision-making, that's disingenuous given how much input they provide at every board meeting dealing with BCS matters. Anyway, why would a BCS parent want to make governing decisions for non-BCS schools and students? BCS families chose charter -- over district.

The fact is that BCS is part of LASD by virtue of the law. The board shirked responsibility for supervising them in a decision that has been renewed a couple of times as they have successfully operated one of the best charter schools in the country. That doesn't mean that they don't have a geographic preference for LASD that gives them a higher fraction of local residents that the other LASD schools. (BCS has a few non-residents, but in lower proportion that does LASD due to LASD accepting the kids of teachers who live outside the district.)

The board is basically openly jealous of the extremely good performance of BCS in terms of innovation. The entire district is 95% filled with very high economic class students, and this is consistent through LASD -and- BCS. This makes for an interesting situation where unlike most public schools in California, and unlike most charters as a subset, the kids all enjoy a well funded education. But BCS does it better, for a good bit less money. BCS has as many special needs kids as the other LASD schools operating with the traditional bureaucracy.

So, by refusing to look evenly at BCS as a public school, LASD is not respecting the legal choice that those parents are making in their selection of BCS as their kids public school.... to the detriment of the performance of LASD as a whole. Most especially it's to the detriment of the non-BCS schools in the district, which are mostly 1/2 the size of BCS. Despite the costs of being small, they don't work as well. What could happen if this were utilized to learn to improve their performance?

So, having 1 board member with an open mind would be a normal thing to happen, if there weren't backroom dealing going on. It certainly isn't going to give BCS any control. It's not like one board member will then result in still more BCS-friendly board members being elected.

BCS is part of CalSTRS, the state teacher retirement system. So they too are being hit by the shortfall in the funding for the vested benefits of CalSTRS, just like LASD. All their teachers are considered public employees so far as CalSTRS is concerned, and they have to pay the higher contributions out of their funding too.

@Public Education, no one I know thinks BCS is illegal or thinks LASD is jealous, but people in our community know BCS has a significant demographic bias in enrollment which explains simply the marginally higher standardized test scores compared with LASD schools. Yes, standardized test scores are still very popular. BCS spends more per student (check with the county) but has far fewer students requiring extraordinary levels of learning support

Hard to say since there are no API scores being calculated these days. The new tests are not easy to compare. Yes, the smarter kids are attracted to BCS. I guess that gives the school there an advantage. But that's not something that anyone knows. What is the average IQ of an LASD student at Oak or Gardner Bullis? Is it really any different from the kids at BCS? Hmm, quite a question. You supposedly have 3 to 10 of low income kids at Gardner Bullis and Oak, out of 350 or 450 total students. Is that really enough to skew the scores of those schools? More likely the smart kids are seeking a more flexible program and that makes them go to the bother of applying to BCS. But we're talking only about the very smart kids, say the top 10%. That's a lot more than the fraction of low income kids at any school but Oak and Almond. Oak and Almond have 8% or so low income kids.

ugh, let's not even raise IQ and smartness, please. so many reasons to avoid: IQ is a flawed metric, smartness is counterproductive to learning, we have no actual data on kids in our community, there's no evidence of selection on these bases, on and on. there are obvious and highly regrettable ethnic and socio-economic biases at bcs but apparently the law and the county board allow them to operate. these inequities made me oppose parcel tax sharing with bcs. district schools enroll more difficult students and need all the available funding. so much for fairness! school-level aggregate test scores are a game parents enable and bcs has played it well. charters serve parents first, politicians second and students third.

We are all privileged to live in an area like Los Altos. I'm very proud to be a BCS parent. My 6th grader is in Costa Rica this week. That's a tremendous opportunity that I was not able to partake when I was growing up. I immigrated to this country for university, worked hard for that scholarship, worked hard to get a great job, and have been a general beneficiary of the tech industry here in the Valley - it's the classic immigrant story. I now want my kids to sample a better life than I had and I appreciate what BCS has to offer - language, arts, music, etc. That I would prefer BCS over my LASD school is simply personal preference. Sure, I do think BCS is slightly more academic than my LASD school, but it's splitting hairs. I like the kids at BCS - they are more of a fit for my child than my local neighborhood kids.

I just don't want LASD taking this right, this option, this educational choice away from me. I don't understand politics in the US. I think local politics like in Los Altos is even more confusing. It is clear that the LASD board is not supportive of BCS. So I am afraid, very afraid that the LASD board will take away my rights. So that's why many BCS families are appreciative that someone as brave as Tanya would volunteer and stand up for our rights. In my home country, political leaders do many bad things and use politics for their own self-serving purposes. I am concerned the LASD board puts their families and their kids above others.

@I've worked hard to give my kids a better life

I doubt yours is the classic immigrant story. BCS is like a private school. More than $5,000 a year is demanded of parents each year for each student. BCS students travel to Washington DC, Costa Rica and China in grades 6-8. Tax dollars don't pay for these luxury trips, parents do and only wealthy parents life yourself who came to college here no doubt supported by wealthy parents. You are therefore getting a very twisted view of what is a classic immigrant story in the United States.

This discussion has veered far from the issue of the obsessive fear that motivates certain LASD parents to work hard to fight someone outside the religiously faithful anti-BCS belief to join the school board. It's still a valid thing to consider: Did LASD's Measure GG campaign work to elect Bryan over Tanya?

What's true is that LASD spends about $6K more in public funds per student than is given to BCS as a public school option for LASD students. It's not the other way around. LASD has MUCH more funding than does BCS. If you want to say that this makes BCS into a private school which gets little public funding, you could to that, but I don't see why. BCS is no more a private school that is Oak or Gardner Bullis or Santa Rita. BCS has a smaller congested campus like a private school (Pinewood) but that doesn't make it a private school. BCS is different in characteristics compared to the traditional LASD schools, but that doesn't make it private. It makes it a different option, where all the other schools try to be cookie cutter similar.... and you can check that out and take it to the bank. The only difference is that the PTA's at each school spend varying amounts on different odd projects to perk up the campus site. $1500 per kid at one school and $300 per kid at another. And none of that money counts in the $6K extra per student as mentioned above.