Superintendent Steve Cohen’s article, posted this morning, got a huge response and many tweets and retweets.
Here he speaks directly to a reader of his post:
“We’ve had at least 30 years of plutocratic leadership in the US, and that reality puts us way behind the curve. What other choice do we have but to gather up our political, moral, cultural resources and resist? These resources may prove to be insufficient. But we know that doing nothing, or believing that our plutocrats are democrats, will just bring us more of what we have. If parents care about their kids’ futures, they must step up, and soon.
In the 1934 gubernatorial election in California, a Methodist minister was asked why he intended to vote for Upton Sinclair, who was then running far behind the Dem and Rep candidates. Wasn’t a vote for Sinclair a “wasted” vote? The minister’s response was, “I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it, than to vote for something I don’t want and get plenty of it.”
We’re at such a point. We need a third party. Now.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t think I’m complaining. I’m doing my job, and being a citizen at the same time. In that way, I am very fortunate.
On the taxpayer issue: taxpayers are paying much more to subsidize plutocrats than they are to support public education. If the tax money we wasted on propping up criminal banking behavior and wasteful defense spending (which along would get American taxpayers out of the hole they’re in) were instead spent on high quality public education and the wrap-around services poor children need, as well as economic investments that would create a forward-looking economy for the majority of citizens, we wouldn’t have taxpayer complaints.
Europeans pay more in taxes than we do, but they do not complain about it because for their taxes they get public health care, education, child care, good public transportation, unemployment insurance, and much more.
The key to the taxpayer conflict is this: when taxes are raised to be spent on programs that benefit all citizens, such as Medicare, there is no griping. But when taxes are raised to be wasted on military adventurism, and programs that benefit only a part of the community, they arouse hostility.
Yet another reason we need that third party!
Mike, how is Cohen’s wish for better education for all of our children biting the hand that feeds him? On the contrary, is this the precisely the job he’s being paid to do!
Dal, Mike doesn’t understand that the superintendents work for their community and its children, not for John King, who does not have their experience or wisdom.
http://www.tribstar.com/local/x202287885/Graysville-s-RCA-lauded-as-successful-rural-charter-school
Diane, don’t know if you’ve seen this but it’s really disturbing. They’re closing rural public schools in Indiana. The only way to keep a local public school is to privatize it, turn it into a charter. The schools are under-funded because they have no local tax base, and teachers are (of course) paid less.
National charter orgs are touting this as a “success” for ed reform:
“Until fall 2012, Rural Community Academy was the only rural charter school in Indiana. That changed when Canaan Community Academy opened in southern Indiana, using the Graysville model.
Pierce said the Canaan residents found themselves in the same place that the Graysville community was in more than a decade ago — a similar place to where the community of Dugger is now experiencing, with school closure pending.
“We asked what they were going to do to this building,” Pierce said of the Graysville closing, “and they said, ‘turn off the utilities, put plywood on the windows and abandon the building.’ That’s what Canaan was facing, too.”
As a Graysville native loyal to her community, Pierce said she was like many people who wanted to see the local school stay. The building opened in 1927 as the Turman Township Grade and High School. Her own grandmother graduated in 1929.
She said that closing small schools leads to the deterioration of the rural community, and it sets aside a useful building that is a focus in the community.”
The schools use a lottery system. I don’t know what happens to children who don’t win the lottery. I assume they cannot attend a public school where they actually live.
Is this what we want? No public schools at all? Our one and only “choice” is a charter school or we simply don’t get a school? How do ed reformers defend this? They’re celebrating the fact that Indiana is abandoning the entire concept of local public schools.
Chiara Duggan: I have just finished reading THE PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVANTAGE — WHY PUBLIC SCHOOLS OUTPERFORM PRIVATE SCHOOLS (Nov. 2013) by Christopher A. Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski. The paperback edition is inexpensive.
It has been mentioned recently on this blog—
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/10/19/why-charter-schools-do-not/
For the mindset behind what you are describing, this book—which at first glance looked like a bore—is a good read.
The owner of this blog contributed a comment on the back cover: “This important book provides clear evidence that the ‘free-market model’ of schooling does not match the hype of the privatization movement. It demonstrates that public education is a valuable and successful institution. It must be protected and strengthened, not privatized.”
Thank you for your info.
😎
Be careful what you wish for in terms of a third party… Maine may be a good example of what COULD happen if the progressives abandoned the Democrat party… their moderates and progressives split their votes and the guy in the Governor’s office could be Ted Cruz’ running mate. The best case scenario would be for the Democrats to get behind someone like Elizabeth Warren who has stood up to the banks and seems the most likely of all Democrats to abandon NCLB and its stepchild RTTT.
At what point does the “lesser of two evils” suffocate us? On education policy at the national and state levels, there is no difference between the political parties. Cuomo and Christie and Obama are the same. If there was a real difference, Diane Ravitch wouldn’t have had to write her wonderful book. If someone like Richard Rothstein could become Secretary of Education, we would have a genuine, functioning, democracy. But we don’t.
Books like Diane’s and the efforts of progressive and knowledgeable people like Richard Rothstein are needed now more than ever. Because the party system has failed us. That people like these are outside the mainstream tells me that the mainstream is yet another toxic waste site.
Thank you Steve Cohen!
Amen. I’ve been singing this song for a while now. Nothing will change until we lone soloists become a vast chorus.
Elizabeth Warren is a co-sponsor of S.1094 which is the latest re-authorization of the ESEA. If you read the bill you will learn it is an even worse incarnation of NCLB and RTTT, so I would not be so sure which direction you think she wants to take education in.
Sorry, have to disagree with you. He is in a job that demands a high salary, that does not make him part of the problem. He is standing up and voicing an opinion of discontent. Would you be happy if he was paid nothing. Maybe all of us should work for nothing and then we would have the right to complain?
Part of his job as superintendent is usually to insure that only students who live in the district attend district schools. Suspect students are investigated, in some school districts there is a bounty for every student turned in.
This makes the concern about “apartheid ” an interesting one when voiced by an official in charge of enforcing what might arguably be called the system of educational apartheid that is the local school district system.
TE,
Did you get “caught” slipping your son into the elementary school of your choice? (halfway funnin ya)
No, both my middle and youngest sons went to our local, title 1, public elementary school. My foster son did not join us until high school, but I believe he went to the required elementary school when he lived in the United States.
TE, you really need to be careful there. Most schools and districts receive about 35% to 40% of their funds from property taxes or other local taxes, like bond measures and parcel taxes. The taxes are applied to those who live in the area. Someone who lives outside the school’s boundaries is paying these taxes to another district. If someone from out of a school’s boundaries sneaks into a school, that student is not contributing to the school’s funding formula. For instance, while twenty of these types of students wouldn’t necessarily hurt a single elementary school too much, there is a tipping point (about 50 for a 250 student elementary school, for instance) where it would start to eat into the local student resident population funding. As a thought experiment, consider the funding problems my sample elementary school would have if half of its population didn’t live in the district’s boundaries.
Most states realize that there are students who are sneaking into transfer schools and they know about these funding issues. They even have a process called interdistrict transfers to keep these students on the up and up so districts know when they need to be careful with funds. When parents want an interdistrict transfer, they need to get a waiver from their home district and apply to the transfer district. The two districts usually develop some form of agreement to educate the student and provide whatever is needed to the transfer district (transportation costs are not included usually for obvious reasons). When schools are maxed out right before their tipping point, no more transfers can be taken. Most states have this type of policy: http://mb2.ecs.org/reports/report.aspx?id=268
Districts in more affluent areas tend to have more interdistrict transfers and students sneaking in. These districts are also predominately funded by their local tax revenue and feel the hurt more when this happens. If the district receives a significant sum of its funds from local taxes, then they need to ensure that others outside the district are not leeching off them.
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the SW River Central District, of which Steve Cohen is the superintendent, has a large number of interdistrict transfers or students sneaking in. Nor do you have information that his district engages in a bounty for heads caught. However, it is plain as day that you have an axe to grind on this issue. Perhaps YOU can take the middle road on this issue and suggest better funding solutions to solve this problem instead of throwing your rhetorical venom wantonly at any superintendent who happens to walk by.
I asked the question to find out what the policy is for this district (it would also be interesting to find out what the policy is for Rye, his former district. Some districts offer bounties, some hire private detectives, some jail mothers who do this for their children.
When you use the word apartheid, the creation of residential boundary lines naturally comes to mind. My local district ends in farm fields in all directions so there is little room to play those games. Is the same true for Rye and SW River?
TE, what is your point? Allowing some students outside district boundaries to enter the school system does nothing to change the two tiered school system we have in place.
As for the salary issue, I am much more concerned about administrators that cash in on their contacts and become shills for all the companies that seek to enrich themselves from taxpayer money while destroying public education.
The reason our property taxes go up is because property owners are being asked to shoulder an ever increasing burden of schooling costs as corporate taxes, income taxes, and inheritance taxes are cut. Why don’t you direct some of your wrath at these businesses that use extortionary tactics to win subsidies and tax breaks from state and local governments?
My point is that district lines are used to create the two tiered system of education in this country. District lines enforce educational apartheid.
I am sure residents in a district who pay huge sums in their local taxes wouldn’t call it “educational apartheid.” They’d probably call it “parasitic education.” And they would be especially incensed when they couldn’t hire another teacher when they needed one due to the number of these type of students in their schools.
TE calls it a boundary issue. So let’s look In Missouri where the money follows the student and is not tied up in boundaries. A district gets more money for every transfer it gets. However, Missouri still has a two-tiered system. What? How can that be, especially when there is no limit on the transfers and the money follows the student? Well, if reports about it are true, it ultimately bankrupts the district where large populations leave and hurts the students and families who remain. That’s because it is also a funding issue, and a poverty issue, and a priority issue, and a cultural issue, and a transportation issue, and a health issue, and a community issue, and an activity issue, and a parent issue, and a whole host of issues. To boil the problem down to boundaries is a gross mischaracterization of the two-tiered problem and does nothing to help solve the problem.
Additionally, most districts accept transfers when they file the necessary paperwork. So it is not exactly “educational apartheid” is it?
I am sure the citizens of this fine suburban school district would view other people’s children as parasites.
Steve,
Thank you for taking on, and exposing the reality behind the private interests that threaten public education in our country. The overarching interest in promoting a robust experience for all students is not contradictory to those who advocate a well rounded education for our students. Special interest spending and the systemic agenda beyond addressing issues related public education represents a much greater threat to the the republic than can possibly be imagined.
David
Whoa Mike. Closet? Not according to what he’s writing. Why such hysteria?
Bravo Steve Cohen!
Imagine if Philadelphia had you as Superintendent instead of that toady of corporate deform, Hite, who goes along to get along. Imagine if we in Philadelphia had a mayor, someone who leads and represents the interests of those who voted for him, not the few and corrupt who pay for his campaign and demand more school closures and vouchers in return; instead we get a “democrat” who actively works to bust our unions.
Yes, we need a third party, and we need parents to wake up to what is happening to the educational system they support with their taxes. It is being destroyed by the bipartisan efforts of democrats and republicans – both have sold out to wall st, Pearson, TFA, KIPP, and the rest.
I agree with that minister – it is well past time we voted for what we want.
Let’s get our history right. Upton Sinclair, formerly of the Socialist Party, started his EPIC (End Poverty in California) campaign by running and winning the Democratic gubernatorial primary. At that point the elite of the Republican and Democratic Parties united around the Republican candidate. They used masterful modern media techniques to attack him. His was not a “wasted 3rd party vote.” He ran as a Democrat and lost. But his campaign did help shift the Democrats and the New Deal to the left. Let’s not use Sinclair’s campaign as a reason for 3rd party talk. See http://www.thenation.com/article/155381/upton-sinclairs-epic-campaign#
I do, however, agree with those who attack so-called reformers in both parties, but we need to be more aware of our history before we simplistically call for 3rd parties. They make more sense in local school board elections where party identity is not as important, but are unlikely to succeed in municipal, state or federal elections. Building coalitions to win Democratic primaries makes more sense and using fusion in states like New York and Connecticut is also a viable strategy, witness win what happened in NYC’s mayoral and City Council elections. Also see what happened in the Bridgeport school board.elections. http://onlyinbridgeport.com/wordpress/working-families-party-wins-coalition-control-of-school-board-republican-larcheveque-wins-seat/
Diane, while we are on the topic of heroes to add to the honor roll, I would like to nominate historian James MacGregor Burns. In his new book on the Enlightenment, Fire and Light (St. Martins Press 2013), he concludes (267-268):
” The charter school movement….risks hollowing out public schools financially and educationally, abandoning them to those who have no choice….We can’t afford the decimation of public schools…Only if we build on their remarkable successes, if we improve and expand public education, will we be able together, as one people, to think our way out of the dilemmas and crises we face now and those that lie ahead.”
Why the hell can’t we have three or four political parties, that is 3 or 4 viable political parties as is the case in Canada or in many of the other democracies? Obviously we can’t have more than 2 parties in this country because the Rs and Ds control everything and are not about to give up power without a fight but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have more choice (oh, that word, the “c” word). I wish we had a modern day Norman Thomas but with an actual chance of winning. Ralph Nader’s observations on the duopoly were and are spot on. However, the prevailing attitude is that God has ordained that there shall be an R and a D political party and that’s the end of that story so shut up already about third parties. Maybe the rule by duopoly explains why we have such low voter turnout?
Mike, your attacks on Steve Cohen are really over the top, nasty and vicious. Take a chill pill.
Mike,
I pay taxes on Long Island–I have a house on the North Fork–and would gladly pay higher taxes for leadership like Steve Cohen and David Gamberg. They have courage, integrity, and wisdom. They care about children. They care about their communities. They have character.
I would rather pay them the salary they deserve than pay somewhat less for a time-server who takes orders from Albany and D.C.
Diane
MikefromLongIsland: a word of advice. I will not allow you to use my blog to insult Steve Cohen or anyone else. Disagree respectfully or go away.
I am all for sensible protest against specific things, like the over-testing as a means to make certain others rich, while others suffer or starve. However I find it detestable that the media is able to depict Republicans/conservatives as heartless. Any depiction of the GOP on TV is always negative and that is part of the problem. Do not mix the greedy with the pragmatic. Being homeless, my state senator helped me with a severe disability and he is a republican. To be fair, the democratic senator offered the same help and the one Senator from Maryland took the lead on unemployment benefits.
My heartfelt desire is no man is left to fend defensively and this is inclusive of every single person. Political correctness is the bane of our citizenry when measures are passed in the dead of night and the specific language of legislation are never read. And last, this inane notion of everything is bad associated with Bush and everything good Obama or democrats. We can see both parties as doing heinous things.
Reblogged this on Middletown Voice and commented:
“We’ve had at least 30 years of plutocratic leadership in the US, and that reality puts us way behind the curve. What other choice do we have but to gather up our political, moral, cultural resources and resist?”
Dialectics and propaganda on top of propaganda. It’s all a set up. Read Edward Bernays.
Let’s all repeat: apartheid. Good class.
Dialectics for regionalism 101
I thank Steve Cohen for his voice on this topic. The one reader wants to complain about his salary as though he shouldn’t be outspoken because of it however the other side of that coin would be that he would have more to lose. People at all levels need to fight and push back and yes hopefully find a third party that will really represent public needs and not special interest needs.
We don’t need a third party, we need a second party. This one party of corporatism isn’t working.
Nice little twist of victimage, TE. However, it still does not prove your point.
The goal should be to make all schools good, not further exacerbate the situation. And most “choice” plans that are out there, only make things worse. Show me one that works, and you will be on the road to persuading me.
A laudable goal.
My point is that the superintendent of a suburban district in the New York metropolitan area with fewer tha 5% of students economically disadvantaged taking up the cry for separate but equal schools as a way to end educational apartheid is less than convincing.
Just for the record, in no way do I favor “separate but equal” schools, in part because there is no such thing, as I’m sure you know, but because that doctrine is pernicious . And you are right to focus in on racial, class and ethnic barriers that impede families from moving where they might wish to settle. I wish I knew how to solve that problem, and we all know that income inequality and “savage inequalities” in schooling are important elements of contemporary schooling. Still “College and Career Ready” is yet another obstacle put in way of providing high quality public education for all students.
I mentioned elsewhere that perhaps the Regents’ attempt to destroy high quality local education might create conditions for coalition-building that could then serve to bring the underlying problems you rightly cite to the fore. These issues haven’t been on the political radar since the 1960s. Maybe a coalition of white suburban moms and black and Hispanic parents–as far fetched as that might seem– could lead somewhere beneficial, since all these folks want high quality education for their kids. Maybe the idea of treating all kids equally with regard to schooling could be broadened to include employment and housing as well.
While there may be problems with the messenger (his specific situation not convincing you), what does this have to do with the quality of his message? Can you not divorce the two for analysis puproses?
Does he use specific evidence from his situation as the sup of this district to prove his point?
The use of the word apartheid requires an examination of the creation of areas of white privilege and bantustans. The phrase was used to elicited an emotional reaction, but in this case, is a double edged sword.
It seems to me that district lines (and in a more diverse school district than yours, school catchment lines) are also one of the obsticles put in the way of providing high quality public education for all students. Would you agree?