I am late posting about the school closings in Sacramento, but better late than never.
In Sacramento, the Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP) and the Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education are working together to protest the closing of seven elementary schools. The closing of these schools will have a disparate impact on children of color and English-language learners. The “savings” to the district will be miniscule.
The HIP press release against the closings follows here:
For Immediate Release Contact
March 7, 2013 Jonathan Tran
626.607.1897
Press Release
School Closures Disproportionately Impact Sacramento’s Most
Disadvantaged, Budget Woes to Continue
SACRAMENTO, CA – On Thursday, Superintendent Jonathan Raymond and four members of
the Sacramento City Unified School Board of Education finalized the last of their “wrong-sizing”
plan. While Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP) is extremely happy for the students and parents of
Mark Twain and Tahoe Elementary; we also recognize that the District’s poorly devised
proposal, arbitrary saving projections and disregard for community input will have devastating
impacts on the Sacramento’s most vulnerable communities. In total, the Board voted to close
seven neighborhood schools—ALL in low-income and socioeconomically disadvantaged
communities.
With poorly developed transition plans and only a month of public discourse, it is clear that the
Superintendent and Board Member’s irresponsible decision will hurt Sacramento’s most
vulnerable populations. According to the California Department of Education, two of every five
displaced student will be Limited English Proficient (LEP). Moreover, while students of color
account for 80.9-percent of the total SCUSD Elementary school population, they account for
more than 93.4-percent of the displaced student population. Finally, students enduring
‘socioeconomic disadvantages’ make up 97.8-percent of the total displaced student population,
compared to only 72-percent of the total Elementary school population.
Overall, the detrimental impacts of these school closures outweigh any fiscal gains. Originally
anticipated to be a savings of $2.3 million, the District’s projected savings has dwindled to $1
million or less than 0.8% of the total budget. These projections do not reflect the drop in
Average Daily Attendance (ADA) that historically follows school closures nor does it include the
unexpected expenses of transition impacted students. In addition, Thursday evening’s board
meeting highlighted the possibilities of on going budget deficits. HIP has maintained that rather
than closing schools, the District must seek out innovative solutions that attract more students—
not disenfranchise parents. Ultimately, the Superintendent and Board Member’s actions will
exacerbate issues of under-enrollment, undermine student achievement and jeopardize student
safety.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It must be pointed out that the Mayor of Sacramento is Michelle Rhee’s husband Kevin Johnson.
Who is mayor and who is his wife is the question to why. They are both totally involved in destruction of public education. You can watch them both uncut in L.A. at George1la on You Tube. The answer to why is simple. Destroy public education for your puppet masters.
Where do the students go?
Maybe they can put them in “strategic hamlet” schools.
They go onto the streets. At LAUSD in 2002 the difference between enrollment and ADA was 14,500 or 2%. This is how many students do not come to school everyday. In 2011-12 with 156,000 less enrollment it has become over 112,000 or 17% for a loss of revenue of over $1 billion/yr. Now let us start to add up the cost of this failure in the criminal justice system, or the “School to Prison Pipeline.” Now we are going to have a real large figure in both the social, economic, and tax cost. Not a hard equation to figure out really. A good way to ruin your society and economy all at the same time. “Good Job Brownie”, right??????
If closing schools and churning students causes them not to come to school. That is a very damaging result. All this school closing and shifting has to create a huge transportation burden for someone, either the schools, the parents, or the students.
LAUSD is not closing schools as they are in Sacramento, they are building more schools even with a 156,000 drop in enrollment. They simply do not care if they come to school everyday. I think it has to do with RTTT and test scores. You can raise your scores by driving off the bottom performers on the scores and not care about any other effects of this policy. Simply put, they are sociopaths. They do not care about the students, parents, public or teachers and employees. The proof is in the pudding as they say. Documented evidence I have in mass quantities on LAUSD and many others.
http://savesacramentopublicschools.org/blogs/overwhelmed-open-enrollment-process-reveals-myth-school-choice
The closure of these elementary schools is due more to Supt. Raymond being a Broad Academy graduate than Kevin Johnson being mayor. Now the Sacramento City Unified “open enrollment” process is unable to accommodate students from the closed elementary schools. Check out the article from today’s Bee and my blog post with the link above. Thanks
Thanks Kate. With that and what George is saying, the real meaning of school choice is clear, go to great lengths to get half way across town to go to school, or give up. As Jimmy Cliff said, “the American dream is not what it seems”.
They’re all connected. Michelle Rhee is on the Board of the Broad Foundation.
Infelizmente, aqui no Brasil estamos sentindo que a imitação dessa política desastrosa já começou e vai se aprofundar para desespero dos professores. O que fazer, além de nos unirmos e denunciarmos? Pelo que parece, perseguir/culpabilizar professor é um problema mundial cada vez mais crescente. Que profissão tão triste!!! Onde fui amarrar meu burro!? Grande e afetuoso abraço em todos e todas.