Chancellor Kaya Henderson is closing 20 public schools in DC, displacing 3,000 children. She has abdicated her responsibilty to improve the schools and is instead following the corporate reform script: close public schools while opening more privately managed charters.
The Washington Post has an article advising parents and students how to accept the destruction of their community school. They should be offering advice on how to resist.
There is plenty of shame to go around as the privatization movement gobbles up more schools, more children, more public funding. In most cities and states, the charters do not get different results when they serve the same children. Why the rush to eliminate public schools that are community hubs?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why? Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. – Close the schools, libraries, mental health centers, healthcare facilities and youth activity centers and play the “Why are THEY so violent” game for the media. Once the areas are abandoned, the city will give juicy government contracts to real estate developers to build another batch of government buildings and gentrified housing. The actual cost? Loss of hope and loss of lives for the little people – especially the little people of color.
you forgot the privatized correction centers or whatever those idiots now call prisons –
By all means, fill up those privatized prisons! Ka-ching! How Dickensonian! Are there not spaces in workhouses and gaols?
What has become of America? We have now returned to our roots in Olde England.
As everyone agrees, it is an outrage, but did anyone look at the article? I think that is also an outrage! The one part :
“To find the best fit for your child, here are some tips from officials with D.C. public schools and the Charter School Board, and experts on school choice.”
If one is fortunate enough to have access to the internet, you can look for tips from the public schools and the charters. Looking at the public schools (for about 5 minutes), I couldn’t find anything relevant, whereas on the charter I easily found a map of the charters and could easily select ones in different areas. If I didn’t know of a neighboring public previous to this search, guess what kind of school I would chose.
And shouldn’t Chancellor Henderson be in charge of the public school information …write to her..if you are correct maybe that was her intention…long term goal..privatize all of DC. Well, not really….they will need a place for the sped, ELL, the behaviorally disordered and the poor test takers.
School closings have been happening in rural areas for decades–the heartbeat of these communities is just “too expensive” and besides why do people live there anyway?
I don’t know why people want to live in rural areas, but they do and think that small towns and rural environments are best for the children. In some cases they are right. And as taxpaying Americans they deserve quality public schools in their own communities. There is no such thing as a public school that is “too expensive”
People in the country can have the schools they can pay for. If they can’t pay for it all themselves, then those of us in suburban areas with lots of extra money should pay for them in the interests of providing good schooling to everyone in the society. Anyone should get what he deserves, whether he can pay for it or not. Right?
I’ll tell you why the rush to eliminate public schools, even if they are community hubs. It’s the ONLY way to get rid of the 1/3 to 1/2 dead wood teachers who are in them.
Obviously you are not a teacher or you would know that there are very few teachers who are “dead wood” and most of those could be restored with a little mentoring and professional development as well as an environment that assumes that they are quality educators and want to do a good job.
Obviously twinkiecat you know absolutely nothing about me, or my experience with education, both as parent and worker. A teacher has to be certifiable to get taken out of the classroom. Mere incompetence never works. Would it were so that you are right.
Possibly you would know about certifiable?
Please talk about something for which you have knowledge. It is easy to get rid of teachers–no privatization necessary.
The “dead wood” are the administrators.
I believe Susan Nunes, that the proper pronoun is “of which you have . . . ” But I do agree with you that the dead wood are the administrators. What’s your remedy for THAT?
The troll doesn’t throw this kind of obvious, baiting inanity out there with the hope of sparking a productive discussion. It does so specifically to sidetrack the discussion. I know I’m guilty myself, but we really should stop feeding it.
Growl, grump, growff, Dienne,
I’ll eat you whether a woman or man.
You’re just nasty, mean and unhappy.
I assume this is sarcasm?
I assume he is ignorant, angry, crude and he need attention. Get a better hobby!
Deadwood? Go to any elementary school and you will find the hardest working people in the United States. Add to that the fact that about 50% of all new teachers quit during the first five years, making it the most self-selective of all the professions.
Fortunately the majority of our citizens DO appreciate the work that teachers do and that’s why their children are often high achievers. On the other hand, citizens who show gross disrespect for teachers usually have offspring who are low-achieving. The parents blame it on “the school” and the “deadwood” teachers. Does this shoe fit?
Ordinarily I would say don’t feed the troll. However, LInda Johnson, your reply gave me the biggest smile of the day! Your words ring true.
Yes, we know from experience that this guy’s kids are…..
Many of my best students were the children of teachers, who sent them to the private school at which I taught. Now WHY was that?
So you say…you have no credibility here.
Harlan, would you give me the source of your data about “dead wood” teachers?
No data, Diane, merely one parent’s anecdotal experience. But, I thought we were against Data Driven Decision making here because we are against comprehensive testing?
I’m sure it was Fox news. How could 1/3 or 1/2 of an entire staff be deadwood? He probably wants to open a charter and make lots of money off of kids.
Oh, Harlan, you’re so full of it your eyes must be brown.
Duane Swacker
That is entirely unnecessary. There is dead wood in any profession including teachers.
The percent is probably the same in all professions also.
My experiences tell me the dead wood
is almost unrecognizable and at most is in the 1-4% range of all people in any profession.
Don’t be silly.
Egbegb,
That’s now what he posted:
“It’s the ONLY way to get rid of the 1/3 to 1/2 dead wood teachers who are in them.”
So it is not silly to point out his ignorance and hatred of our profession. Clearly 1/3 to 1/2 is not 1-4%.
Why would you want to defend such hatred? If only we could get rid of the dead wood on this blog.
RATS! (to quote Charles Schultz)
It was Harlan I meant to address my comment to.
Harlan — Wise up.
Lets talk about verifiable issues not rumors of “1/3 to 1/2”. Those
numbers are simply not sustainable by anyone.
Duane Swacker, I apologize for not being more thorough.
Ed
Yes, my eyes brown. Troll happy. Love snarky insult. Show what teachers really made of.
Sorry, Harlan, but this is–and has been for a very long time–ALL about the money that ruthless enterpreneurs (such as indicted junk bond king, Michael Millken) can make, and Kaya is but one of their school official buddies (who can be found throughout the country).
It is NOT about so-called “deadwood” teachers, and it is CERTAINLY NOT about what’s good for our kids.
Sorry, retiredbutmissthekids
It must be about kids.
It’s just not possible for “teachers” or schools to deal with the cultural issues
many of the kids in our failing schools experience daily. That is a different problem
than teaching.
Over my 40 years, I see teachers as roughly the same as when I went to school – no better and certainly no worse. I liked all of my teachers – some better than others — but never saw a bad teacher. I still haven’t.
I object to some teaching “methods” (I’m math and science person), but unless I
study the new methods in detail, my objections are faint opinions that I cannot and will not defend.
Kids in at risk schools and failing schools have a far different problem. They live
in situations where no teacher or school can help. (The only solution for such
kids that I can think of is a fairly remote boarding school.)
The home environment is fully 50% of the problem. How can
a society deal with that part of the problem?
The informal attitude toward schooling began to break up in 17th century New England. The Massachusetts School Law legislation of 1647 attempted to establish a system of schools by government order and provide means to enforce that order. It was unsuccessful and neither in the Declaration of Independence nor in the Bill of Rights is either the word ‘school’ or the word ‘education’ even mentioned. At the nation’s founding, nobody thought ‘School’ a cause worth going to war for and nobody thought it a right worth claiming. In 1779 Thomas Jefferson used public education as a political agenda. Not much has changed since. When will we – students, parents, educators – claim the right to an outstanding public education and when will we go to war over that claim?
Ewa,
Not sure where you’re coming from with comment but the fact is, is that each state has taken upon itself the obligation to provide for a “free and appropriate” education, usually for all younger than 21.
You don’t have the RIGHT to an outstanding public education. What you have is the FREEDOM to try to get one for your kids. That. Is. All. The effort to grant a right where there isn’t one has generated the public school/union bureaucracy which extorts tax money from the general populace. You all and Arne Duncan and Barack Obama and the union bosses are ALL in the same bed together. You’ve made your bed, now lie in it.
Diane,
Don’t be mad at me. It’s Friday. I’m exhausted. This guy is an idiot. Can we get rid of him? He makes the most ignorant comments….my 7th graders would be insulted and annoyed.
I second Linda. Do you see what happens when it shows up around here? It commands center stage and the actual topic of the post is all but forgotten. That’s intentional.
I’m all about free speech as much as you are, Diane, but Harlan isn’t about free speech. Harlan is about Harlan’s ego and silencing everyone else.
HU,
The brown eyed troll aspect suits you well (suits me well sometimes too-ha ha). As an admitted teacher you must then fall under your statement of “showing what teachers are really made of”.
But aside from that let me correct your incorrect assertion that there is no “right” to a public education. That right is enshrined in each state’s constitution. And since that right has not be adjudicated to be against the national constitution that right is valid and legally enforceable.
I stand partially corrected about the legal right to a free and appropriate education since it is enshrined in each state constitution, but charters and vouchers satisfy that requirement, not a traditional public school (monopoly) which is what most of the commenters here are plumping for. Thank you for your clear and sensible comment. One out of fifty, or so. Is that a fair sample of the level of commentary the nation is to expect from public school teachers? It is the abuse and ignorance that creates the troll-fantasy, who is merely impatient with the brown eyed nonsense through which any truth seeker must wade in the halls of the average public school. Unions and privatizers are morally equivalent—just the normal rent seeking where government taxing power generates a disbursement stream. The DC system, highest cost, lowest performance, is a direct symbol of Washington’s influence on every area of life. Education is a state matter and the Feds should get completely out of it. Next to the 100th power for screw up, Obamacare. And you idiot public school teachers voted its perpetrators in.
I await Linda’s call for censorship. The mindset of the typical seventh grade teacher. I’m just the messenger. But that’s how liberals think. If I kill the messenger, it won’t be true. Shut up the troll, and the tsunami won’t come. We’re for tolerance of everything— with which we agree. You guys NEED me as your stinging gadfly to get your smug rumps running.
Maybe instead of this syrup and sweetness, the Washington Post should get letters suggesting that parents send their kids ONLY to schools run by professionals and staffed only by professional, certified, education degreed teachers. Also, parents of special needs kids, especially severe special needs whose kids should not be in the “inclusion” cop out need to demand that their kids be serviced only at the schools run by professionals and the paper and the charters need to know that they are REQUIRED BY LAW to provide transportation for those students, even if the school the parents have chosen is across town. I mean, what is this thing about the charters not providing transportation? All that is is a way for the charters to screen out poor students.
Is Chancellor Klein another non-teacher trying to do a teacher’s job, like Michelle Rhee was?
Yes, but the Rheeject (remember she is actually a North Korean Spy Agency plant sent to ruin American public education so that NK can become the top dog nation in the world some day) was a teacher at one time, a self admitted crappy teacher at that.
Mr. Underhill–Teachers did not crash the economy 3 times in the last 25 years and get bailed out by trillions of taxpayer dollars. Wall Street Banks did that trashing, yet no one from Wall Street has been indicted or punished. So, your anger is grossly misplaced, sir, and should be aimed at the proven wreckers of American life and dreams, the corporate sector and its banks. Besides, the private charters taking over these closed schools have no tack record of improved performance over the public units being summarily destroyed. They do provide even more profits for the corporate sector which has already looted its way through all other sectors of the nation.
Mr.?
You are quite wrong. The idiots who elected Barney Frank et. all generated the unable to pay mortgage receivers, whose mortgages, which the government KNEW were schlock mortgages, were then sold by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the Wall Street bankers who then tranched them internationally. No, the crime started in Washington with Democrats before it went viral to Wall Street. Like Oedipus, YOU are the criminal, the cause of the plague because of your immorality and blindness. You rail against Wall Street, but the Democrat congresses of the past passed the shit securities which Wall Street just wrapped in a little fake gold wrapping paper before putting them on sale. Same thing is happening now. The is NO PUBLIC SECTOR, my friend, irashor. ALL the money comes from private business activity. Your anger is grossly misplaced if you direct it as American business, at “the corporate sector.” It is the Democrats and all their supporters who are looting the nation. Enjoy it while you can.
We had started a bit of a discussion about market failure. Do you want to continue it?
As a former superintendent I understand why it is necessary to close underutilized schools… and I also know it is difficult to do even if the school is expensive to operate on a per-pupil basis… even if the school is a fire hazard… and even if the taxpayers don’t want to invest in needed renovations and/or upgrades. This is because public school districts are overseen by democratically by elected officials who find it very difficult to make decisions that are unpopular to their constituents.
Democracy is an anathema to businessmen, who close factories without seeking any public support and unilaterally eliminate jobs and benefits of non-union employees. DC’s decision to close 20 public schools in the name of economy would make sense if they weren’t replacing them with non-union charter schools that operate under different rules, charters that evidently require parents to place their children in distant schools. It’s clear this decision is anti-democratic and anti-education… but it WILL help the shareholders who invest in charter chains.
As I stated in response to Mr. Underhill–it’s ALL about the money.
I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read all of Diane’s posts today
(so maybe it’s here), but Chicago parents ARE fighting back–with facts–insofar as claims of “underutilization” as being the cause of school closings and conversions. Don’t know how to link, but would recommend that you read a recent post in Mike Klonsky’s
“Small Talk” Blog, whereby Wendy Katten (head of a Chicago parent organization) carefully and factually explains the situation in a letter to the CPS Board. Required reading for total understanding of the situation, nationwide!
Is this it?
http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2013/01/wendy-kattens-letter-to-bbb.html?m=1
And 50,000 Frenchmen can’t be wrong. Ha. “Democracy” is the word used when the communists are losing control of the electorate, when the peasants know something is wrong. The REAL democracy is the democracy of the market place. Oh, but we Hyper Holy Public School teachers should be exempt. Like Mother Church, exempt, of which you do so much to try to destroy the influence.
Pure, unsubstantiated, balderdash –
Sorry— an unregulated market place leads to limited choices and plutocracy…. and that seems to be where we are headed with the privatization movement. Oh… there ARE market forces in effect in public education: this article I wrote a few years ago describes how they work and how they contribute to inequity in schools: http://waynegersen.com/2011/04/26/merit-pay-an-agreeable-fantasy/
An excellent article, Superintendent Gerson. Your remedy seems to be fund poor schools as they need to be. Well and good. The only source for that funding must be economic growth. Obama just raised taxes, so growth won’t come. I agree with your article’s recommendation, but there your economics stops. If you vote Democrat, you are voting against your own remedy. True?
Remember that the Oracle of Trondheim was a troll, Linda. You NEED to heed my screed.
Growth, of course, comes in part from investment in infrastructure and knowledge. Government expenditure plays an important role in each, so I don’t think you need to be so pessimistic about future growth with higher taxes. In any case the empirical link between high marginal tax rates and growth rates is very weak. Here is a piece from Business Insider:http://www.businessinsider.com/study-tax-cuts-dont-lead-to-growth-2012-9
Why do the charts leave out the Reagan boom? The question is what will produce more private sector jobs. Blodget’s charts seem ok, but my “faith” is that there is something phony in them. What we really need is a flat tax. Continued government borrowing to finance spending must ultimately be self destructive because it requires higher and higher taxes to pay off, and that leaves less money in the hands of consumers in general, and consumer spending is what drives the economy. I can’t tell you what is wrong here, but I am pretty sure something is wrong. One doesn’t pay off the debt on one’s credit card (i.e. the debt ceiling) by borrowing more. It just isn’t sensible, no matter what the charts appear to show. Perhaps the highest tax rates are not the operative number. If people have more money to spend, and more people are working, it just stands to reason that they will unless they fear the debt burden will become crushing.
It is convenient if one can discount data that does not conform with the theory one “knows” to be correct, but it is not really helpful. The earth does revolve around the sun and economists have to deal with the world as the world presents itself.
One thing you might remember is that a significant amount of government spending is best thought of as investment. There is, of course, some obvious things like basic research, infrastructural, and education, but government investment in health like the WIC program also increase productivity in the country.
The saving numbers don’t add up. The math has already been done: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/12/21/mass-school-closings-why-the-numbers-dont-add-up/
This is actually in response to Linda–YES, that’s the post! Thank you for making it available to the readers here.
In response to Ed (egbegb)–I agree with much of your response to me (I taught in low income schools, and the students’ lives were incredibly bad–boarding schools would have helped them where we could not).
I would ask, though, that you read the link that Linda provides above, because therein lies the point that I was trying to make. I was basically talking about unwarranted school closings (saying that the schools may be “underutilized” in fact may not be accurate) which have been occurring in city after city under the guise of saving money to help students. In a recent post here about a Philadelphia school closing, you can read about people begging for their neighborhood school for more than one reason. As it so happened in Chicago, children can be transferred to schools across gang territories, putting their very lives at risk. People interviewed in this post think highly of their teachers.
In view of these points, I stand by my statement that it is NOT about the children, but about privatization and public school money
diversion to charter school operators. A crime, to be sure.
It was both sad and very telling that missing from the list of strategies for parents was “finding out about the experience and expertise of the teachers” in a given school.
At the highest cost per student in the nation and the worst performing schools, perhaps all of them should be closed. At least the DC Opportunity Scholarships got kids out of
schools that were violent. I think the charter schools have a higher graduation rate than the public schools.
When kids are selected by lottery, there are peer effects. That’s a way to escape the “bad” kids. What shall we do with the “bad” kids? Any ideas? Aren’t public schools responsible for all kids?
Ms. Ravitch,
So which lottery are you referring to?
1) The DCPS Pre-school\Pre-K lottery or
2) The DCPS out-of-boundary lottery or
3) The DCPS magnet high school admission lottey (selective)
4) DC Public Charter school lottery (random)
Assuming you are talking about #4, why do you think that #4 hurts the ‘community hub’ but #1 through #3 do not?
All lotteries are a selection mechanism.
What shall we do with the “bad” kids?
Give them the same safety, well-being (yes, this means health-care), respect , dignity, and rich cultural & educational experiences that the “not bad” kids already get from their environments. Address the politics of poverty.
Desegregate. Don’t track. When these “bad” kids are mixed in with the “good kids” they begin to feel and act as “good kids” too.
“safety, well-being (yes, this means health-care), respect , dignity,…” is not education.
Those issues must be addressed, but if you want to do it through the school system, then teachers are no longer teachers. They must become policemen, social workers, judges, councilors, nurses, physicians assistants and mom’s before they are teachers.
Solving the social issues of at risk kids should not be done in the schools in my opinion. That is after the fact. It is closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.
America society must deal with it’s cultural issues successfully. Then, the school issues, the poverty issues and a whole bunch of other issues will magically shrink in magnitude.
My view is the key is two parent homes. Between 1950 and 1990 the number of single parent families as a percentage of all families doubled (12% to ~24%). Kids from single parent families fail in life much more often than those from 2 parent families (up until now, that means a man and wife parents). Fix the single parent problem — and it is a problem — and many social issues will shrink in size.
The bad kids do destroy education for the good kids. Rhetorical questions don’t cut it any more. Do we infect the whole barrel of apples because we don’t want to keep the rotten ones within its staves? I say no. You exclude the bad apples. And the international test scores tell you that when we do that, our schools are ok.
You tell ME what school should do about bad kids. GOOD schools are NOT responsible for all kids. The larger society, possibly, but not good schools. That’s the fallacy. You want to use schools to fix society. Can’t, and moreover, should not be done. Privatization and charterization is a symptom of the failure of that philosophy. We need to rethink the society, yes, but reforming education by retaining inclusivity is spitting against the hurricane.
What if YOU were the rotten apple? Not hard to imagine.
On a more constructive note, what would you do to fix the DC school system? Anyone?
Are unions in any way to blame?
You start by trying, not by closing schools. That’s like a mechanic saying, “I don’t know how to fix your car, so I am tossing it in the dump and advising you to buy a new one.”
I agree, but they have been trying in DC for quite a while without a lot of success. I am not intimately familiar with the DC school issues. I only see the numbers ($/student & test scores) and those numbers don’t even remotely suggest a likely path to success.
With our Federal Government owning DC and all the government officials living in or nearby, I find it embarrassingly irresponsible that DC is NOT the best of school systems. There are almost no “constitutional limitations (even from the literalists)” in the District of Columbia. There is really no excuse for the DC school system delivering such failed results. The Fed Gov (Dept of Ed) should solve that problem (it has $46B to play with annually) before it spends a cent elsewhere, in my opinion.
I thought Michelle Rhee reformed DC……didn’t she claim improvements under her reign? So many reformers (Rhee, Vallas, Duncan, Klein) led systems that are in need of reforms as soon as they leave. What gives?
But mechanics — competent, trustworthy, ethical mechanics — say this all the time! It all depends on the condition of the car.
Closing is the best solution for a number of chronically dysfunctional schools. I don’t know what that number is. It’s definitely more than zero but definitely less than the number that the folks running DC and NYC schools would hope to see closed.
I actually worked at an idyllic public school for 15 years. This was a school classified as “low socio-economic” situated along the border of Mexico. Most of the studentsspoke Spanish as a first language and their neighborhood was riddled with drugs, gangs, and crime. We had a strong leader as our principal who recognized that teachers, the community, and of course, the students should have ownership of ttheir school. Instead of forcefeeding us tests and curriculim from the top down, we were put in charge of our own destiny. This caused a grass roots revolution that pushed our kids out of a cycle of poverty into a world of hope and opportunity. It can be achieved anywhere, I’m confident of that. So,what happened to that lovely idyllic school, you might ask? After fifteen years of incredible social and academic growth for our stidents and community, we got a new superintendent and a new principal that believed test-taking was more important than social, emotional growth that comes with a well- rounded community geared curriculum. Teacher and student morale dropped to the basement and now it’s just another unhappy place to have to go to everyday.
My view is that teachers are responsible for doing their best at delivering an education to willing students. If anyone has been in a classroom with less than motivated kids you know that challenge is great all by itself. Kids whose home life is disruptive are very difficult to reach. in a class of 20 to 25 kids if 10 or more are from single parent homes and crime is rampant in their neighborhood or home, I fail to see how any teacher can be held accountable for the test scores of the class. Test scores are much more than just the teacher and student.
I don’t actually recall ever seeing a bad teacher. I’ve read about a few (the NYC rubber room and those few idiot teachers (males and females) fooling around with students but I would guess 995+ in 1000 teachers do their best at teaching.
egbedb –
Perhaps Mr. Peabody, Sherman, and the WABAC Machine could assist you with your strange thought that two parent households will restore our education system/schools to their former glory. While you are at it , go back to an even earlier time and prevent the use of fossil fuels so climate change won’t occur. The list could be endless.. We have what we have and we have to work with and hopefully improve things. Fantasyland is not in my zipcode.
Our children need our best. If they need a social worker for the moment, I’ll be that person. A nurse, situation diffuser, cheerleader, hugger/huggee, praiser, scolder, protector, listener…anything that I can do, I will because they are children entrusted to us and trusting of us and it is their right to have us do everything we can for them. How can we say that we will teach and to heck with any other needs they might have? They are children egbedb and we are charged with their care. We are even paid (poorly I admit) to have the priviledge.
So if the “bad” ones bother you egbedb, well, there’s always the WABAC Machine.
DISGUSTING, isn’t it? I seem to be using the word “disgusting” a lot when I see what us happening to our young and our teachers. What a travesty and in the name of high standards and teacher accountability. How about some accountability from politicians? I’d like to fire our politicians except they have huge corporate $$$ behind them. That is the pity.
one comment asked “On a more constructive note, what would you do to fix the DC school system? Anyone? Are unions in any way to blame?”
I think that one way is to figure out who is throwing the babies in the river (see: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/01/scam-alert-coleman-as-perpetual-huckster.html) and stop them. And we all know who they are!
This plan sounds like total chaos. I can’t believe people think this nonsense up. Can you imagine? All Parents, hurry quick, look around, research, try to play a lottery and win your ticket to the school of “choice”. This is beyond stupid. How many lotteries do you enter? A lot of charters don’t have bus systems so are you forced to go into the “lottery” at your closest school? What if you don’t get chosen. Do you have to use a public bus to send an elementary kid across town to the school that drew them? Crazy. Do I not understand this plan or is it just plain chaos.
BTW–This Tuesday-1/8–the PBS “Frontline” story is about Michelle Rhee. I just saw the trailer, &, from that, it looks like a puff piece, but I really hope not. Check your local listings!
We are feeling the pin DC is facing in Chicago as well.In Chicago, Chicago Public Schools is seeking to close up to 140 schools. The educators, clinicians, paraprofessionals, parents and community members as speaking out about this. Even today, educators handed out information about school closings at different train stops across the city. And unfortunately, we are seeing these school closings occur primarily in African American neighborhoods. People are speaking about this and there its even a petition on the White House website that was established by a community member that resides in one of the neighborhoods that will be hit hard by these school closings. It is at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-education-policies-promote-massive-closing-traditional-public-schools-while-expanding-charter/7N4DRln5….please sign and share.
Ah, the wit and wisdom of a true blue fire breathing disciple of ArneRhee&Co! And on this humble blog, no less…
“I’ll tell you why the rush to eliminate public schools, even if they are community hubs. It’s the ONLY way to get rid of the 1/3 to 1/2 dead wood teachers who are in them.” Oh my. And when asked for the source of this crushing statistical slam dunk? “No data, Diane, merely one parent’s anecdotal experience. But, I thought we were against Data Driven Decision making here because we are against comprehensive testing?”
Let us all prostrate ourselves at the feet of the undisputed master of inventive data-driven drivel!
I can’t explain why but at this moment I feel myself inclining even more strongly to the positions voiced by the opponents of the charterites/privatizers.
In due course the vast majority of posters on this blog will get back to the truly important business of saving public education from the edubullies. But a momentary break in the action for a well-deserved laugh or two is appreciated. Please keep the chuckles coming.
🙂
DC still has too many school buildings, a shameful relic of the dual segregated system that endured until the 1950s. Coupled to this this, replacement/renovation of school buildings was not anywhere near what was needed and there are still problems with operation of the physical plants. One of the better things that Adrian Fenty did was to actually start building new schools and renovate many others, something that has continued under Vincent Gray and yes, not everything has gone well, but it is an improvement on the prior situation
Closing schools always runs into NIMBY resistance.
Great conversation Thank you for allowing this conversation
minus the insults by certain people. Two points 1) It’s school
system for the Mass historian. My questions to Dianne about the car
analogy. 2) What happens when the car can no longer drives like it
use to because of wear and tear? Or maybe the car never got the
maintenance it deserved? How about the car not having the
technology that is now required to pass emission? What do are kids
tell us about school? How does it need to change. Privatize is not
the answer. Neither is asking saying we have a system that is
working for children, especially poor children. Many kids cant
read, drop out or end up in jail.
Below is the concluding portion of a post by the blogger Sultan Knish on Prohibition, the income tax, and the funding of big government, which describes by implication what in his view, and in mine, is the relationship of both the reformers and the traditionalists to money and morality, namely rent seeking from a source of government spending inherently unconstitutional (income tax) and immoral (lottery for education).
Except for purely private education, we are all implicated in the corruption which is defended on the basis of the greater good. The only difference between we libertarians and you progressives is that we acknowledge that public education is an inherently corrupt enterprise, whereas progressives do not. Purity is impossible. The only question at stake is who gets the criminal money, the unions or the education service capitalists, of which Pearson is a good symbol. But, we were all born to sin, I suppose, and we try to do the best we can though we are always neck deep in muck. Posing as an angel, however, is distasteful. That’s where the hypocrisy Knish mentions comes in for educators. If you accept the King’s shilling, you’re in the army.
“Prohibition is long gone but the consequences of it, including the cat and mouse game between organized crime and national law enforcement, the personal income tax and the budget deficit, the pressure group that forces the will of the minority on the majority and the promise that the government can perfect the men it rules over and the national orgy of hypocrisy that follows are still with us today.
With the end of Prohibition, the State accepted the idea that it had to corrupt in order to uplift, damn in order to save and do evil in order to do good. It had to become truly corrupt to be truly moral in the service of the greater good.”
Would you like to continue are discussion of market failure? We had started by thinking about the existence of firms as evidence of market failure.