This teacher read about the student in Philadelphia who died of an asthma attack; there was no school nurse because of Governor Tom Corbett’s massive budget cuts.
“I currently teach middle school in the South Bronx. These children raised in and in the shadows of dystopian housing projects and buffered by the emotional and societal detritus of poverty have seen the organizing and “purifying” fires of reform take away their library, classroom space, increase class size, excess teachers to the point of understaffing due to budget limitations, ending after school enrichment and extra curricular activities and even the ability to pay a complete staff of educators. However, it was two years ago when our school-based clinic was closed ( the only medical care many of our students experience) that I understood and allowed myself to believe fully the truth. In the Huxleyian landscape of reform, my wise-beyond-their-years, empathetic, thoughtful students are officially Epsilons.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
But the reformers (watch out for anyone who claims to want to reform schools or any public good, from schools to Social Security and Medicare) claim that charter schools do not drain any funds or resources from the real public schools. They claim that when a student leaves the district school for a charter “Nirvana,” that’s one less kid to worry about in the public schools and there’s no loss of funds to the public school. Total propaganda, the teacher from the South Bronx illustrates the damage and destruction to the public schools by this charter movement. Co-location is a hideous practice, it’s like a parasite attaching itself to a host and draining it of blood, in the manner of a lamprey eel.
“These children raised in and in the shadows of dystopian housing projects and buffered by the emotional and societal detritus of poverty have seen the organizing and “purifying” fires of reform take away their library, classroom space, increase class size, excess teachers to the point of understaffing due to budget limitations, ending after school enrichment and extra curricular activities and even the ability to pay a complete staff of educators. ”
Thanks you Diane. I think it’s really, really important to talk about what reform does to existing public schools. Somehow, with all the excited chatter about miracle charters and electronic devices and innovation, the schools that 90% of kids attend, public schools, were abandoned by city, state and federal leaders.
They should have an advocate, too.
Diane,
I’m not responding to do this blog, but I’m hoping you get this and perhaps can pass it along. I’m a Philadelphia school teacher and I know you are well aware of our dire situation and the offensive against public schools right from the top of state leadership. I wrote an article for the Philadelphia Daily News that was published yesterday and it shows how the episodic insensitive comments & perpetual policy of Governor Tom Corbett meets the Philadelphia School District Policy for being a “bully.” If a teacher made these comments they would either be fired, transferred, required to take sensitivity training, or at the very least receive a written reprimand for his/her personnel file. There shouldn’t be a double-standard, especially from the highest public office in the state – it’s not the message we want to teach our students, and he should be called out and accountable for it. I was inspired and emboldened to write this after Superintendent Hite sent a letter to the staff to support the anti-bullying awareness month and intervene and report any bullying. And that is just what I did in my commentary article. Please share.
Thanks, Jeff Rosenberg
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20131023_Letters__According_to_policy__Gov__Corbett_is_a_bully.html
Loved your article…loved your words. I hope it gets some people to think differently. Take care.
While it’s entirely possible that the Bronx middle school teacher’s school budget has seen some small cuts, it should be pointed out that the situation in New York is nothing at all like what’s going on in Philadelphia. New York City is spending about $20,000 per student ($25,000 if you include retiree benefits, capital costs, and debt service), and the overall budget has gone up significantly in every year of Bloomberg’s mayoralty.
Talking about per pupil spending doesn’t mean a whole lot unless you compare it to the general cost of living/doing business for that city. $20,000/per student sounds like a lot of money, but factoring in prices in NYC, it probably comes out somewhere about in the middle of per pupil spending nationwide.
As far as the overall budget, how much of that is going to charters, testing and otherwise into private pockets that doesn’t directly benefit the majority of public school students?
“As far as the overall budget, how much of that is going to charters, testing and otherwise into private pockets that doesn’t directly benefit the majority of public school students?”
Yes, and how much $ is going into consulting, testing compliance, training and electronics for the new testing, materials for the new testing? All endless money pits that do not benefit the students.
Also how much more does it cost to educate ESL or special needs students (physical, emotional, behavioral, learning issues)? You know, the type of students increasingly represented in the public schools.
Well, we have plenty of money to fund the NSA which unconsitutionally invades our privacy, to fund our military industrial complex ad nauseum. Education? Fight poverty? Fight climate change? That is another matter entirely.
Wow, isn’t it nice that all this has happened while a billionaire was mayor. Isn’t it so nice that billionaires are ruining schools and creating for-profit schools where their friends can make a ton of money off of school children?