As it happened, Michelle Rhee and I nearly crossed paths in
Philadelphia. This
article describes our contrasting visions for the public
schools of Philadelphia. She spoke on September 16, in a panel that
included George Parker, the former head of the Washington Teachers
Union, who now works for Rhee, and Steve Perry, ex-CNN commentator.
Governor Tom Corbett cut $1 billion from the schools in 2011, while cutting corporate taxes. He later added back a small part of the cut, but he left many districts in terrible fiscal trouble.
Philadelphia public schools have a deficit of $300 million, and
thousands of staff have been laid off, including teachers, guidance
counselors, social workers, librarians, and many others. Bear in mind that the Philadelphia public schools have been under state control for more than a decade. During that time, Superintendent Paul Vallas launched the nation’s most sweeping privatization experiment, which failed, according to independent evaluations.
According to this article (and in an op-ed published in the Philadelphia
Inquirer), Rhee saw the fiscal crisis as an opportunity to
introduce performance pay. How that would close the budget deficit
was unclear.
In my presentation at the Philadelphia Free Library, I read the language of the state
constitution, which unequivocally assigns responsibility to the
state of Pennsylvania to support a thorough and efficient education
for every child. That is not the case today. Governor Tom Corbett
expects the state-controlled School Reform Commission to squeeze
savings out of the teachers’ contracts, cutting salaries, benefits,
and laying off more teachers. That is not the way to go.
Someday the children of Philadelphia will be the voters of Pennsylvania or
some other state. They must be educated to choose their leaders
wisely. Someday these children may sit on a jury where YOU will be
judged. Just hope that they have the wisdom, knowledge, and
compassion to judge you fairly. My view: The children of
Philadelphia are as worthy of a good education as the children in
the nearby suburbs. They need small classes, experienced teachers,
arts programs, well-maintained facilities, guidance counselors,
libraries staffed by librarians, up-to-date technology. They need
what the parents in the suburbans want for their children. And they
deserve nothing less.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s going to be hard for people to choose intelligent leaders (since many are pathological liars and/or socio/psychopaths) since they’ve cut Civics out the curriculum and many states don’t require American Government to graduate.
Also sorry to see what happened to George. He really bought into that solutions-based ‘new unionism”. At the WTU meetings we heard that a lot. Just SMH
SMH???
So much hooey???
SMH = Shaking My Head…just asked my 15 year old son
Between education acronyms and text talk I’m lost! WTF!
“Also sorry to see what happened to George. He really bought into that solutions-based ‘new unionism'”
Exactly what is this solutions-based new unionism?
.
Here’s why I ask: Gates provided $775,000 “to support the use of a scaled-down collective bargaining contract and to amplify the voice of reform-minded teachers in select cities” to the Future Is Now (FIN) schools, which Teachers For A New Unionism is affiliated with. Steve Barr is on their board and FIN schools are charters. I could find nothing regarding scaling down collective bargaining on their website though, just a lot of stuff about teachers being involved in their union. Maybe others can find that though: http://teachersforanewunionism.org/
Gates has also funded AFT and, in 2012, Randi Weingarten promoted “solutions-driven unionism”. Is that something completely different or the same thing? i.e., Is Gates and his agenda infiltrating the union?
It’s Friday and it’s late so my snarky take is: I look at it as selling out your members and somehow profiting from it.
Yeah, it all seems rather hinky to me, too. A year later, AFTER the grant for “scaling down collective bargaining,” Gates awarded FIN even more, $3,000,000 “To amplify teacher voice and empower teacher leaders through union participation”
Randi Weingarten has had close ties with the Broad Foundation for ten years. In its 2009 annual report http://tinyurl.com/6w5sps2, it says:
“Teacher unions have always been a formidable voice in public education. We decided at the onset of our work to invest in smart, progressive labor leaders like Randi Weingarten, head of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City for more than a decade and now president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). We partnered with Weingarten to fund two union-run charter schools in Brooklyn and to fund New York City’s first incentive-based compensation program for schools, as well as the AFT’s Innovation Fund. We had previously helped advance pay for performance programs in Denver and Houston, but we were particularly encouraged to see New York City embrace the plan.” (See the picture in the 2008 Broad Foundation Annual Report, page 14 and a featured Weingarten quote on page 15.)
Also see: http://tinyurl.com/oztuo3
Weingarten is a horrible, immoral, depraved person. She will never be able to escape herself. . . . but her members are fleeing her, one by one.
Without freedom there is no democracy. This is why the corporations and money mongers want to control education via the politicians. It’s this BASE, and I don’t mean a base in baseball.
Great post, Diane. Thank you.
You were great in Denver. TY for speaking to the FULL house.
Rhee vs. Ravitch is hardly a fair fight. Rhee should be allowed a handicap.
Here’s my take on it plain and simple:
1. Rhee does not work for the interests of the public schools; she works for the interest of people who are either forced through or go through her organization to obtain an education that they do not pay for. There is a difference.
2. She really needs to quit using the word “sucks.” Sorry. It does not sound hip, it sounds ridiculous. It sounds undignified. It sounds silly. It might have had some kind of impact when she first used it in describing her daughters playing soccer, but she has dipped into the lives of other people’s children now and she would be better suited to clean up her vocabulary.
3. The options provided by anyone subscribing to too much testing, rigid top-down control of curriculum and what it looks like, VAM and vouchers and for-profit charters should remember the following in executive decision-making on behalf of the public’s schools (not on behalf of individual members of the public who might have the misfortune or the good luck of being rerouted through some other institution that has taken the public’s money, but on behalf of the public’s schools):
We should be considering the following list for determining which options should be dropped from consideration immediately:
1.alternatives which require means that are unavailable
2.alternatives which violate the basic values of the decision makers
3.alternatives which violate the basic values or interests of others whose support is essential for implementing the decision
(Etzioni, 1967, pp. 286-288 )
Reformers are not fixing public schools because the list here shows that none of what they offer fits in this criteria. The reformers want to fix public options for education, not public schools. So it is simple: those offering solutions that hurt public schools are not good options for the public.
It seems to me the reason we have so many wolves in sheep’s clothing is that two very different causes have been mingled and mixed:
1. public schools
2. education options for the public
These are two different things and should be considered separately. If number 2 hurts number one, then of course number one has every reason to not like number two. But the problem is some people forget that number one’s value impacts all of us in our country. Blinded by money, some might not think so. But money does not buy everything. And I pity those who think it does. Right now, Gates money and Walmart money is drying a lot of tears of those who would be otherwise crying about the detriments number two is causing to number one. One day, that money will not be there anymore (it always runs out). Then what?
So when someone offers choice, they have changed the conversation from one about public school to one about public options for education.
Two different things.
We have to quit having both conversations at the same time.
There is no middle road between two different subjects.
Joanna Best: if they insist on the word “choice,” how about at Michelle Rhee’s next ‘open meeting’ someone asks:
“I would like everyone to have the choice to send their children to a school as good or better than Harpeth Hall where one of your children has gone/is going. How are you going to give us the kind of choices you and other wealthy people have?”
*For those not in the know, click on the following link, then click on the menu entitled “About Us” and under that, for starters, “50 Reasons”—
Link: http://www.harpethhall.org
Of course, you may first have to pony up some $tudent $ucce$$ just to attend, and then your question has to pass muster with the “Political Correctness Police” running the product launch—sorry, ‘public gathering’—but hey, who said “freedom” is “free”?
Your last sentence is dead on.
Although for the “messy middlers” there is always Jim Hightower’s wry comment: “The middle of the road is for yellow lines and dead armadillos.”
🙂
Krazy TA:
I finally had a breakthrough on discussing this (these) issues with folks who make idealistic, grand statements such as “people trapped in shitty schools should have a choice to go somewhere else.” Ok let’s replace the word schools with housing. So as a tax payer, do you want to pay for everyone to choose where they live? Shop around. Anything you want is OK. The tax payers will cover it.
Well, that is a bad idea isn’t it? To me school choice on the public dollar is no different. Re
Replace the word school with real estate and see if the arguments hold water. They don’t. In fact they seem silly.
We have to bring this conversation home to people. The notion of shopping for schools on the public dollar is beautiful in an esoteric way. But it ain’t realistic.
And damned if I am going to sit back and watch public schools get destroyed for some esoteric idea that our country cannot afford. It is not prudent. It is not wise.
Unless we open up letting everyone choose whatever housing they want on the public dollar, why in the heck would we, could we, afford to do that for schooling meanwhile flushing what has been built up over generations down the toilet? No way Jose. Can’t happen.
“Thorough and efficient” — oh boy. If the originalists and the loose constructionists could get together and agree on what that phrase means, that’d be just great. Thanks in advance!
It’s crazy to elevate this know-nothing Rhee to the status of a worthy foil to Dr. Ravitch. It’s as though one were to say that both Alan Guth of MIT and Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church were both in town to talk about cosmology.
Like comparing a Happy Meal to a fine restaurant in the heart of Paris . . . . .
or a store bought tomato in the winter to a home grown summertime tomato. (sorry just got done picking about three dozen tomatoes-put the plants in real late due to rainy spring)
Yes!
In the history of conflict most wars can be summed up in one or two major battles.
Recognizing this fact it is time that Ravitch VS Rhee becomes a reality.
I am willing to pay the going pay-per view rate to see a Ravitch VS Rhee debate in a public forum with a single moderator.
What do you say, Dr. Ravitch?
My $49.95 waits in the offing!
Diane:
Is it accurate to say that Corbett cut the PA school budget by $1 Billion when most of the cut came from the end of federal stimulus $$s?
Click to access ELCBudgetAnalysis2.16.12.pdf
Bernie, the document you sent does not support your point.
“Detailed Budget Analysis A. Loss of Education Funding Since 2008
TOTAL LOSS OF FUNDING EQUALS NEARLY $1.5 BILLION
Since 2008, school districts have lost nearly $1.5 billion in total funding previously received from the state or from federal stimulus. This represents a 15 percent cut in education funding from the highest level provided in recent years, with an even greater impact if inflation is taken into account. High poverty school districts have absorbed much more of these cuts than wealthy districts. The cuts have been up to ten times larger in poor districts on a per-student basis.
$422 million
$878 million $165 million $1.47 billion
Net loss in 2011 of $655 million in federal stimulus minus $233 million increase in state dollars for basic education
34 state funding programs eliminated since 2008 17 state funding programs reduced since 2008 TOTAL FUNDING LOST SINCE 2008
Governor Corbett’s budget proposal does nothing to address this massive loss of funding in recent years or the resulting inequities for high poverty school districts.
Forgive the formatting, but I read that nearly $1.5 billion was cut, of which $422 million was federal stimulus spending. I read that the cuts were up to ten times larger in poor districts on a per -student basis.
Sounds awful to me. Doesn’t it?
Diane:
The ELC analysis is confusing and incomplete on a number of counts. In 2008, Rendell was the Governor and State revenues were under pressure. Federal stimulus monies were used as an off-set. Apparently neither the Democratic nor the Republican Governor felt it wise to raise taxes during a recession.
The 34 programs data point is highly misleading, since most of these were program that were very small and it is unclear whether the activities of the large program were rolled in to another program category.
A look at actual Total State allocation to District Schools is:
2004-5 $7,135,479,527.39
2005-6 $7,410,059,546.76
2006-7 $7,986,650,489.22
2007-8 $8,382,855,871.13
2008-9 $9,171,697,427.07
2009-10 $8,755,198,630.02
2010-11 $8,670,492,218.38
2011-12 $8,917,851,235.72
Current State School planned spending
2012-13 $ 9,769,981,000 (available)
2013-14 $10,036,277,000 (budget)
The ELC focuses on basic education – but that is only about 70% of the budget. The State spends big junks of money on Special Ed, Charter Schools, Social Security and Pensions.
Actual district education spending in Pennsylvania has grown considerably until the last year. 2013-14 is apparently set to increase.
2004-05 $19,652,904,115.52
2005-06 $20,829,010,936.32
2006-07 $21,801,108,550.78
2007-08 $22,915,219,678.01
2008-09 $23,496,869,636.82
2009-10 $24,330,128,693.48
2010-11 $25,097,498,695.50
2011-12 $24,761,443,032.89
Data can be found here:
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/summaries_of_annual_financial_report_data/7673/afr_other_financial_information/509049
Corbett only became Governor in 2011 so his first budget was 2011-12. It is unclear to me whether the lack of a coherent means of allocating funds has been an historical issue for Pennsylvania or is due to changes introduced by Corbett.
Perhaps the ELC can provide you with a better summary.
Regardless I would be careful in characterizing the changes in the level of education funding in Pennsylvania.
Bernie1815,
Go to Philly or Pittsburgh, and you will see the budget cuts. Corbett is polling in the low 20s because of his hostility to public education.
Diane:
I am not trying to defend Corbett. I was trying to determine what the facts are concerning Pennsylvania’s Education Budget.