When I first read that The Mind Trust had proposed a sweeping reorganization of the Indianapolis public schools, I assumed it was another reform scheme to dismantle and privatize public education.
But I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, so I held my tongue. I decided to wait and see.
Today I received an invitation from The Mind Trust to hear one of the nation’s leading voucher advocates and all doubt was dispelled.
When I saw that the event was co-sponsored by the anti-teacher, anti-public school group “Stand for Children,” as well as Education Reform Now (the Wall Street hedge fund managers’ front-group), no further question remained.
Something tells me that Howard Fuller, the speaker, won’t acknowledge that the children in voucher schools do no better than those in public schools. Nor will he admit that black children in Milwaukee schools, whether public, charter or voucher, have NAEP scores about the same as black children in Mississippi. That’s the result of 21 years of competition, with public dollars divided three ways.
Indiana, once so proud of its tradition of public schooling, is now the playground for privatization, for-profit charters, TFA, and entrepreneurs of all stripes.
Time for Hoosiers to wake up before the reformers sell off or give away the public sector.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Fuller also won’t tell you that he is Board Chair of CEO Leadership, a City of Milwaukee charter school (not School Board) that is at the bottom of barrel among the city’s charter schools and scores worse than the School District. However, he is now getting a $250,000 planning grant to start two more, so called “Quest” schools. He also won’t tell you that he had had defacto control of Milwaukee’s charter school process, which approved three Rocketship Schools (related to KIPP), yet his wife, Deborah McGriff, is on their leadership team and is no doubt being paid.
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This article describes how we are selling so much of our public assets and resources–and our futures–to the “privatizing” class:
http://www.nationofchange.org/five-looming-curses-privatization-1347974225
Item #3 discusses education specifically. From what I’ve seen, I doubt the public has any real idea of how much the privatizers are getting away with, and how many of our conservative and progressive politicians are using their offices, the public’s property, and our tax money, as assets to cut deals for their personal selfish gain.
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Don’t laugh. Indiana sold one of its highways to a private company. The company proceeded to raise tolls and has an agreement that if the state builds a highway that may take dollars away from the privately owned one the state must make up and pay the difference to the private highway owner! Perhaps the burgeoning fiscal scandals in public education may get the public’s attention that government has a positive role to play and that politicians can’t shirk their responsibilities by trying to privatize everything.
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The Mind Trust formed the CEE-Trust a while back. The Cities for Educational Entrepreneurship Trust is present in at least 16 cities. I also understand that the Mind Trust’s plan for Indianapolis, “Opportunity Schools” is nearly fully implemented in a few of these cities. Cleveland is one I think.
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Mind Trust CEO David Harris is a moderately skilled manipulator in public fora; I hope citizens of Indiana pay close attention and seek information that goes beyond the surface hype. Additionally, The Mind Trust’s Facebook deletes constructively critical comments in a fairly random manner. It would be hard to prove that they silence posters without taking screenshots. And, if you post ‘too many’ times, they block your ability to post.
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Ravitch: “the speaker, won’t acknowledge that the children in voucher schools do no better than those in public schools. Nor will he admit that black children in Milwaukee schools, whether public, charter or voucher, have NAEP scores about the same as black children in Mississippi. That’s the result of 21 years of competition, with public dollars divided three ways.”
The two questions remain, Diane: a) why are there no differences between public, charter or voucher schools in academic achievement and b) what belies the remark that schools in Milwaukee are about the same as in Mississippi?
I will reserve my own judgment regarding your judgment in making this kind of crude comparison, but I will say that underlying the charge by the rightists that higher education “progressives” are too elitist is the kernel of truth that many of “us” are often ham-fisted when it comes to a serious analysis of public education, the assaults on it, and the role of that teacher education may inadvertently play. From the comment that public funding of education is “divided three ways”, one could surmise that you may think that the primary (only?) reason public schools are contributing to educational disparities is that public schools are being underfunded and money that should rightly go to public schools is being funneled to charters and that is the main problem. Now, I know you will object to such a charge; that you speak about all the other issues, etc. But it is hard to believe someone about a “broader” analysis when so much of the argument revolves around privatizing vs.public funding. Public schools are grossly underfunded and the “public dollars” that are available are then “divided three ways”; very true. But it is NOT the only reason why we are seeing such disparities and chronic/historical underachievement by children of color and, broadly, working class children. Historically, as soon as the working class began to provided the right to a public education, the people teaching them have been grossly under-prepared and, today, with the growing diversity of the school population, teachers prepared in teacher education remain grossly under-prepared by grossly ineffectual teacher educators who themselves have been products of historically behind-the-times preparation.
Why, indeed, is Mississippi the comparison to which Milwaukee (and others) is made to show how “bad” privatization and public schooling has become? What exactly is being said there? I am not interested in putting words in other people’s mouths, but it seems too difficult to interpret such a charge except that somehow black children in Mississippi are poorly taught and as poorly taught as black children (plug in any oppressed group here and the point would seem the same) in MIssissippi and that somehow it is understandable to accept such “poor” outcomes if children are in Mississippi but for children in Milwaukee, well, it’s “appalling”. What kind of mentality does it take to make such a comparison as a “proof” of how bad privatization is?
Perhaps you are simply trying to make the case that educational disparities are “really bad” because of privatization and the proof is, what? That they are no better than in publicly funded schools (or is it just publicly funded schools in the South)?
There is, of course, a better answer to the privatization assault on public education by the Wall Street mouthpieces of the Democratic Party-Obama Administration, the under-funding of public schools, and the ineffectual level of teacher preparation that unfortunately exacerbates the funding and privatization problems in public education. However, such an answer, as the Chicago teachers have found recently, is not going to come from singular and narrow analyses. Rather, it must come from understanding the very real economic and social framework under which public education is tolerated in a system based on promoting private profit over human social need (I found it interesting that Karen Lewis spoke of establishing a “framework” for the current contract negotiations that, regardless of the legal maneuvering to prosecute the strike, included social conditions for teaching and learning in public schools–indeed as one teacher observed “the struggle continues”).
First, schools must be funded and they must be funded in favor over the production of military might and private profit. Indeed, education and the health and welfare required to make education successful for the vast majority of people in our society must be supported in OPPOSITION to our country’s willingness to make War. And, by War, I submit not only military war, but the war that is waged against working people every day as well. Only then can we even make the case that education is properly funded.
Second, the people who teach children must not only be able to do their job–with safety, security, and adequate resources– they must also be prepared to teach children (a) who are different than them and (b) who struggle with education the most. Their can be no “specialization” in teaching “affluent” kids vs “struggling” (read black, brown, Asian, Indian, and special needs kids). There can be no teacher preparation based on “research-based” instruction whose validation is primarily based on sanitized studies that “work” for ideal kids in ideal conditions. And, there can be no teacher education program that “specializes” in “non-diverse” teachers for a non-diverse school system. And, finally, there can be no teacher preparation that upholds the sanctity of teacher “in the classroom” when those classrooms are the Petri dish of contagiously poor academic outcomes.
Yes, I know these are tall orders and one could argue that it is better approach to work with one or two “pieces of the puzzle” and somehow let others deal with the “bigger picture”. However, I believe one of the lessons of the CTU fight is precisely that one cannot simply take one or two pieces and win partial solutions. What is needed is that “framework” that Lewis and her colleagues/comrades began to try to achieve through their struggle.
To win the battle against privatization, one must combat the basis of the move toward privatization–profit over human need. To win the battle for public education in which children of the working class and oppressed communities actually overcome the centuries of planned ignorance aimed at making them “better workers” one must combat the belief that funding War and funding schools are both laudable goals that must be “balanced”; There Is No Balance Between War and Learning–either War wins or learning must win, they are diametrically opposed. We will be much better served–and our “comparisons” will become more accurate–when we systematically incorporate these issues in preparing new teachers and when teachers systematically recognize the true charge of our profession is based on the principles of educating the children who struggle the most and that education is one in which children learn early and often that they are the engines of fundamental social change in the interests of human need over profit.
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The two points I made were fairly straightforward, nowhere near as complex as your response.
1. Students in charters and vouchers do not outperform students in public schools.
2. Choice and competition did not improve the academic scores of black children in Milwaukee. They have very low scores on NAEP.
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The fact that you believe your points were simply “straightforward” only belies the difficulty. You seem unable to acknowledge that there are unfortunate similarities in the experiences of children, especially children of color, in both public and charter schools (which are indicated by the lack of difference in outcomes). We cannot keep thinking that privatization is the sole problem. Indeed, the existence of charter schools has a genesis in the ineffectual nature of public schools; most of which is a result of a lack of support, but also because of the nature of schools and the role they serve in this kind of society. The issue is not straightforward at all
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From NBCNews.com 8/21/12 There, even some of the most vociferous champions of vouchers now believe a free-market approach to schooling needs limits.
Howard Fuller, the founder and director of Marquette University’s Institute for the Transformation of Learning and a long-time voucher supporter, says he continues to believe in the importance of school choice for low-income families. But he no longer believes a free-market approach to accountability will safeguard taxpayer dollars and the well-being of children.
“Parent choice alone will not guarantee quality,” he said.
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The fact that you believe your points were simply “straightforward” only belies the difficulty. You seem unable to acknowledge that there are unfortunate similarities in the experiences of children, especially children of color, in both public and charter schools (which are indicated by the lack of difference in outcomes). We cannot keep thinking that privatization is the sole problem. Indeed, the existence of charter schools has a genesis in the ineffectual nature of public schools; most of which is a result of a lack of support, but also because of the nature of schools and the role they serve in this kind of society. The issue is not straightforward at all.
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You keep missing the point. The charters and voucher schools face the same problems as public schools. The change in management doesn’t solve any problems.
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