The Sacramento school board is rushing to shut down 11 elementary schools. That’s 20 percent of the elementary schools run by the Sacramento City Unified School District.
The process has been indefensible. Board members and the Superintendent have short-circuited the usual decision making process on school closure in order to jam these through. The California Department of Education recommends a 6 month process, which includes formation of a citizen advisory committee. But the district has given just five weeks between announcing the list of schools on the chopping block, and the final vote on Thursday. There is no citizen committee.
The fierce urgency of now requires immediate action, and no democratic process whatever.
The district has wildly exaggerated the under-enrollment numbers at these schools, cherry-picked numbers regarding costs and revenue, and refused to take into account the impact that displacing so many students will have on enrollment–as students leave the district for charter schools and other districts. Charter operators are already checking out some campuses, eager to take them over. The superintendent is a graduate of the Broad Academy, which suggests that the mass closure is more about about ideology than cost savings or efficiency.
This is an outrage.
Why don’t they hold hearings?
The lights are going out on public schools in city after city because some billionaire thinks it is a good idea.
Some smart and sophisticated young activists in the Hmong and Latino communities have organized to fight this plan. Listen to them here.
Are there no public-spirited citizens on the Sacramento school board? Don’t they feel a civic obligation to protect public education against privatization?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No coincidence that Michelle Rhee’s husband is the mayor of Sacramento.
It’s been an outrage in Sacramento for quite some time, ever since Michelle Rhee married the mayor and then set up shop with “Students First” on K Street. The real questions aren’t being answered…who is getting paid off to make this all go down? McClatchy newspapers will never get to the bottom of it. Where’s Lowell Bergman or Valerie Strauss when you need them?
Maria Goodloe-Johnson did the same in Seattle, despite parent protests, and now those schools have had to be reopened due to enrollment. Shortsighted and ultimately cost the district more money than if they’d remained open. Fools in charge…
“Why don’t they hold hearings?”
What good would that do? Have you been following the “hearings” here in Chicago? The ones sponsored by Wal-Mart? It’s just an illusion of input, and a highly controlled one at that. At the one in Logan Square they tried to lock out about a thousand people. But even for those who get in and get a chance to say their piece, there’s no response and no real consideration. Just kabuki.
SOS … all those schools and ALL THOSE KIDS, PARENTS, TEACHERS are worth saving.
Not to draw ANY historical analogies, but if it looks like a forced relocation and quacks like a forced relocation…..
Can any individuals be prosecuted for blatantly disregarding the law while in their official capacity? We know that the Mayor is in bed with StudentsFirst, but not only literally.
If supporters of the Mayor and his future political ambitions are also likely to profit –or at least advance their agenda towards profit– when the Mayor’s administration is violating the law, then that is something for a prosecutor to look into.
The confluence of charter interests and political ambitions which requires funds to proceed seems to me to be, at a minimum, a conflict of interest.
Now I may have this wrong, maybe it is the school board and not the Mayor’s office that should be the subject of investigation, but someone is benefitting from rushing this process through and my guess is that it is not the children.
So, if it is a criminal matter, as I’m suggesting, then the people to contact are
Tony West, the Department of Justice’s Acting Associate Attorney General.
The main DoJ email is AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Or call Department of Justice Main Switchboard – 202-514-2000
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line – 202-353-1555
http://www.justice.gov/contact-us.html
You could also try the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California
Sacramento Office. Main Phone: (916) 554-2700
Eastern District of California Fax Line: (916) 554-2900
Email (webmaster.cae2@usdoj.gov.)is limited to questions about the website.
“Pursuant to office policy, if you wish to bring a substantive issue to the attention
of the United States Attorney, it should be done in the form of traditional
correspondence sent to our mailing address:
United States Attorney’s Office,
501 I St., Suite 10-100,
Sacramento, CA 95814
I don’t know much about what is going on in Sacramento, but it quacks like a corrupt bargain that smells like a dead duck.
Why don’t they hold hearings?
Well, that would be too much like transparency and due process. We can’t have something as silly as that hold up the grand plan. Remember, democracy has nothing to do with this and should have no role in it. Or, so the “experts” tell us.
Diane writes: “The lights are going out on public schools in city after city because some billionaire thinks it is a good idea.” A disinterested observer might respond, “The lights are going out in small business after small business because so President wants control of the economy.” When the Democrat President tries to rule without true democratic consultation, expect the same strategy from the other side.
You don’t sound disinterested to me, but it you are suggesting that very rich right-wingers are doing this out of spite, it is an interesting interpretation.
Still, there are problems with you portrayal of recent history.
I think you have the sequence wrong as regards the economy — George Bush drove it into the ditch, Barack Obama has just been waiting a long time for the tow truck.
As for consultation, it is hard to consult with obstructionists.
And all of this has little to do with public schools where there seems to be a bi-partisan consensus that we continue reckless policies from ‘accountability’ through testing (with its twin, instituting the risky and experimental Common Core), pursuing the expansion of a set of mediocre and unregulated charters counter to all common sense and reason and, finally, pay-for-performance, also known as turning teaching into piece work.
The sad thing is that a Democrat is driving the push to raze our democratic schools.
When it comes to the schools schools, George also drove into a ditch, but Barack found a deeper ditch and he is headed for a cliff.
It’s digusting that our taxes will be supporting these PRiVATE “public “schools. Are all of these closed schools in the inner city? If so it is the poorest children of color who will be the victims of the Rhee’s and Broads ( and their greedy political supporters).
The schools in affluent communities are never closed and reopened as Charters. … what’s up with that “stuff”?
I guess the rich folks don’t want the TFA five week wonders teaching their kids.
Sacramen-tal under Kevin Rhee ( he’s been gelded) is a pitiful place.
I feel sorry for the real people who live there.
The Sacramento Bee has an update on this story. It profiles one of the schools that is selected for closure. Fruit Ridge Elementary, which the article notes was refurbished in 2011, is located in a neighborhood that has a large HIs[panic population. It lost 400 students two years ago when a Spanish immersion charter opened nearby. The article notes speculation that this charter will move into the closed school. The writer misses the larger point, which is that this is the blueprint for turning the entire district into one without teacher’s unions.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/24/5212798/troubled-area-loses-its-heart.html