FBI raid casts shadow over both LA school chief and Trump | Opinion

LOS ANGELES – In a normal world, an FBI raid of a school superintendent’s home and office would cast a long shadow of suspicion over his tenure and authority.

Under the Trump administration, however, the morning after the arguably most corrupt president in U.S. history announced in his State of the Union address a “war on fraud” and with Kash Patel running the FBI, the shadow casts in both directions.

Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District ‒ who, following the raids on Feb. 25, was placed on paid administrative leave ‒ has been a passionate and outspoken advocate for protecting our undocumented students and parents. That defiant stance alone could be enough to provoke an investigation by what has become an intensely weaponized U.S. Department of Justice.

This doesn’t mean Carvalho is innocent. But with a now-tainted DOJ, which has investigated perceived enemies of President Donald Trump, any reasonable person would be suspicious of the federal prosecutors' motives.

Which is shameful ‒ and a shame. Because scrutinizing the head of a school system, to be certain he isn’t corruptly spending any of the hard-earned tax dollars intended to help teachers help students learn and succeed, is not only reasonable; it's essential.

Who are Los Angeles parents and teachers supposed to trust?

In fact, the teachers of LAUSD are currently engaged in a contract dispute in which Carvalho and his staff are claiming that they cannot afford to increase our salaries, despite a reserve fund in excess of $5 billion.

The board of the nation's second largest public school district even voted recently to send out 3,200 notices of possible layoffs.

After working without a contract since June, the union and the district are in the fact-finding phase of an impasse that could result in a strike ‒ and one fact worth knowing is whether or not Superintendent Carvalho has squandered or embezzled funds.

But is a weaponized DOJ a trusted source of information? 

I want to believe in the dedicated professionals of the FBI, but their work has been tainted by their leadership.

I want to believe in the integrity of the superintendent with whom I share a deep commitment to educate our students and protect our community from federal harassment. But the LA school district is no stranger to accusations of dysfunction, sexual misconduct and corruption.

What we don't know about LA superintendent, and what we do know about Trump

We will see what federal investigators find from the raid at Carvalho's home and office, how credible and damning the evidence is, and how far they go if they fail to find anything truly incriminating.

What we do know is that for Trump, vengeance is a guiding principle. Now, every action his administration takes, including much needed investigations of suspected public corruption, is tainted by his lust for payback ‒ not to mention the dazzling hypocrisy of his own exploitation of the presidency.

Meanwhile, the teachers of Los Angeles wait for a reasonable contract offer, and the rest of America’s workers and their families hope for the best.

Larry Strauss, a high school English teacher in South Los Angeles since 1992, is the author of “Students First and Other Lies: Straight Talk From a Veteran Teacher” and "A Lasting Impact in the Classroom and Beyond," a book for new and struggling teachers.