In a front page story in the New York Times about the budget crisis in Philadelphia, parent leader Helen Gym said this:
“The concept is just jaw-dropping,” said Helen Gym, who has three children in the city’s public schools. “Nobody is talking about what it takes to get a child educated. It’s just about what the lowest number is needed to get the bare minimum. That’s what we’re talking about here: the deliberate starvation of one of the nation’s biggest school districts.”
The story says that Philadelphia does not have an elected board but fails to explain that the city has been under state control for more than a decade. During that decade, also unmentioned in the story, Paul Vallas “saved” the schools.
Maybe Pennsylvania doesn’t want to pay for schools anymore. Maybe it just wants ill-tended buildings, large classes, no arts, nothing else. But lots of prisons.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Helen Gym has been wonderful as an advocate for public education.
Great to have parents like her fighting with us.
Prisons are already privatized because no one cares.
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Unfortuantely the governor of PA has not deviated from his platform – which is to increase tracking, build more prisons and give parents more options for their children’s education – charters and vouchers! I am baffled as to why so many are afraid to speak out to so few.
I am also baffled, and concerned. When we don’t speak up, then the reformers are empowered. There is a quote that I cannot recall verbatim, (I’m sure others on this sight will!) Something like, “First they came for the communists, but I am not a communist, thenn they came for the (some other group) but I was not (that group). Finally there was no one left, so they took me.”
There is an eerie silence. Especially in Westchester County where I teach and where my own children attend public school. I teach in a school district with a more urban demographic, but my local union is tight-lipped and many of my colleagues roll their eyes when I and another colleague do speak up. It’s like they think things won’t/can’t happen here. I wonder if they will be ready to listen now that te test scores have been rolled out.
Parents, too. I have sent links to this blog to the school board members of the district in which I live(thanks, Diane, six million and seven!). I also plan to send links to the PTA leaders. The public won’t know if we, who are in the know, don’t speak up!
Martin Niemoller said that towards the beginning of the Nazi regime. He eventually was killed in a concentration camp. That quotation is in my classroom (I teach the Holocaust, among other things):
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392
Oops. Thought he died in a camp, but it turns out that he didn’t. Still a good quote, though.
Governor Corbett, who just failed to disclose as required by law his recent purchase of a condo in Hilton Head SC (presumably his new tea party home for when he is removed from office next year), claims the state cuts were necessary to right the state’s fiscal ship. Really? Pennsylvania under his leadership refuses to tax the oil and gas companies who despoil the state with Fracking, and thereby refuses to act responsibly to easily restore the budget cuts and save the schools. The Pa Republicans in Harrisburg rejected the city’s request to raise the tax on cigarettes, simply out of spite. Mayor Nutter says he acted to save the schools by authorizing The 50 million loan, but this is clearly too little and too late and simply reinforces the impression that all he is about is blaming the school teachers and their union. Such is our leadership. Kudos to Helen Gym for telling it like it is.
More on Philly: http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/pa-governor-corbett-takes-philly-schools-ho
Nobody is talking about what it costs to pay former campaign aides either. (It’s a different state, but all the same…)
http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/08/15/5084730/young-mccrory-staffers-get-big.html
Lots of people who are responsible for funding schools and are looking to do it cheaply are students of Human Biodiversity (HBD).
“Maybe Pennsylvania doesn’t want to pay for schools anymore. Maybe it just wants ill-tended buildings, large classes, no arts, nothing else. But lots of prisons.”
So you’ve been to California.
One way to change the tide in public education might be to change the voting laws in our nation. Every child age five and above should be given the right to vote. There’s power in those little people and I really believe they would vote for the candidates who would improve conditions in our public schools and do away with the expensive and time consumming testing that goes on all year. We would see arts, physical education, and libraries properly funded and staffed. We would have project base learning and reasonable expectations. It’s a dream but a beauiful one.
Those little people are smarter than the standardized tests show. They know when things are as they should be.
Five year olds definitely have a keen sense of justice, that’s for sure. Try slicing one brownie so much as one millimeter bigger than another.
In any case, I’ve never understood voting age at 18. We allow kids to hold jobs at 16 (earlier, in some cases), and they’re getting taxes deducted from their paychecks the same as the rest of us – isn’t that taxation without representation?
I am quite familiar with the quantum brownie distribution practice, and yes, five year olds have mastered that discipline!
As for the vote, it isn’t just taxation without representation, in the case of the younger, unemployed little people, it seems that their interests are twisted and misrepresented. They are being held hostage by our so called representatives who represent their own interests – sadly.
We need more examples of state takeovers that FAILED to turnaround schools and whether or not the schools are in worse shape than before ‘takeover’.
Meanwhile in Connecticut:
quote: “The State Education Resource Center — drew a lot of attention last year following the Connecticut Post’s disclosure that the nonprofit was used to help craft and shepherd Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s education reform agenda through the legislature.
The organization — which will receive $15 million in state funding this fiscal year– is currently not required to employ contractors without competitive bidding for the job and is not subject to having its meetings or other documents open and available to the public. The State Department of Education, conversely, is bound by the state’s open records and meetings laws and competitive bidding requirements.
“Recently some questions have arisen…[proposed legislation] would require SERC to create a governing board that would be subject to public disclosure and contracting laws, effectively making them a public authority. Asked why the nonprofit was turned to for help in hiring contractors for crafting and selling the controversial education reforms proposed by Malloy, Pryor said, “Because the mission of SERC is to provide support in this department’s mission. It seemed to make sense.”
We have students in Buffalo housed at the Erie County Holding Center. They’re looking for a teacher to provide instruction after school. They still have to take the exams. For their finals they return to their home school and they are assigned an officer to make sure they don’t escape.
Thank you Diane. Too bad the quote has to be so darn depressing. I agree with my fellow Pennsylvanians that the person left off the hook is Governor Corbett. Corbett has made it a singular mission to destabilize and underfund districts all across the Commonwealth. With Governor Corbett the assault on schools is not a maybe. It’s a reality.
8 of those 10 years of state ruled education in philadelphia was with Ed Rendell. Who prior to that was the Mayor of Philadelphia. He is now a giddy pundit with mika and Joe on msnbc, watching the catastrophe from a cushy box seat. It is not surprising that Corbett is blamed for everything here. We dont give him a complete pass here but reality bites for Ed Rendell’s record.
Allyson schwartz is running for governor of Pennsylvania and this is a perfect post to blame everything on Corbett to give her a leg up. She has really screwed most of her district in the suburbs bringing her philly crony activities here. Rubber bisquit is right,
Rendell has been running the show in philly for 20 years. Much of what is going down was set up way before 2 years ago when Corbett took office. Short memory here…
Naturally