Jonathan Pelto writes here that yesterday was a very bad day for public education in Connecticut.
The State Board of Education voted to hand out $80-100 million over five years to privately managed charters, most known for excluding the neediest kids.
And they voted full steam ahead on Common Core, pet project of the corporate elite, guaranteed to increase testing and costs of hardware, software, and materials with no known benefit to children.
Pelto concludes:
“But whatever his reasoning, it is worth repeating again and again… Dannel “Dan” Malloy has become the most anti-teacher, anti-public education Democratic governor in the country.”
New Yorkers would disagree. We accord that title to Andrew Cuomo
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not only did the State board vote to approve these charters. They approved these charters in the face of widespread community opposition in Bridgeport and Stamford. Not only did the community oppose the charters, BOTH democratically elected boards of education, in Bridgeport and Stamford, approved resolutions OPPOSING the charter applications. Malloy’s appointed state board of education trampled the will of parents, the electorate and the democratically elected school boards.
It’s ridiculous to run a local school out of a state agency. It will never work.
Which is probably why no one was stupid enough to create this moronic ed reformer governance structure before, where the state agency is so far removed from the school, the local public entity.
Connecticut probably has a county or city agency overseeing every other public state entity; health department, child support, police, public schools.
There’s a reason for that.
Why would charter schools be the single exception to that rule of Good Governance 101?
NPE, BATS, Opt-Out, and other activist org’s should encourage parents, teachers, and the public to boycott Democratic Party traitors like Cuomo and Malloy by casting a protest vote for a minor party candidate or just don’t vote election day and have school rallies instead(look how well Eva did with hers in Albany). In antebellum America, black folks denied civil rights and not allowed to vote put on their own festival called Negro Election Day to celebrate their culture and to satirize the status quo. We need a People’s Election Day this Nov. and every Nov. after. Boycott and undermine the Dems–let’s not take it any more, no one will fight for us, our kids, and our schools except us, so let’s come out swinging. Only when the renegade corporate Dems lose b/c of voter disgust will we have a chance to get their attention and discipline them. Many will say we assure a GOP victory and shoot ourselves in the feet by boycotting the degenerate Dems, that we will get even worse GOP devils than these smiling toothy corporate Dems, but pls notice how Cuomo has relentlessly savaged and sabotaged progressive mayor DeBlasio and nullified the progressive “landslide” that brought Deblasio into office. That landslide has to nullify the corporate Dems. It will mean several election cycles with GOP narrowly winning but needing Dem voters disgusted by the Dem Party to continue staying home to win. Let’s start talking up an electoral boycott of corporate Dems and hand these bull artists a headache they richly deserve. In the long term, if the Dems are not disciplined by mass abandonment, not pulled to the progressive side, we will have no choice but to push a third party of our own to win in the long haul.
Are you running for office Ira?
“Dannel “Dan” Malloy has become the most anti-teacher, anti-public education Democratic governor in the country.”
New Yorkers would disagree. We accord that title to Andrew Cuomo.
Great another divide and conquer strategy by the edudeformers-arguing over who has the worst dimocrap governor!!
He wants to be the next Obama
Amen!
Yes and that was not the ONLY bad news yesterday. With the newest Supreme Court decision the money people will have even more leverage. Sad days for democracy.
Pay to play doesn’t increase corruption, according to Justice Roberts.
As long as one relies on the strict statutory description of “corruption” and catches the politician and donor actually exchanging money for favors.
Everything else if fair game.
“Pay to play doesn’t increase corruption, according to Justice Roberts.”
The mind boggles. He really said that? I mean, sure, if you change the definition of “corruption”, I guess. But to most rational human beings, pay to play = corruption. Guess it depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
Democrats are running on a “big campaign donors first!” platform this year. It’s brilliant.
They’re going to get slaughtered, and they deserve every bit of that.
Dienne
April 3, 2014 at 1:06 pm
“Pay to play doesn’t increase corruption, according to Justice Roberts.”
No! That’s not exactly what he said 🙂
I said that. He said deregulated campaign finance doesn’t increase corruption.
The dissent said it doesn’t increase corruption only if one relies on the statutory defintion of “corruption”.
Also, I just wanted to mention that the Ohio charter school story is breaking open 🙂
We have never, in this state, had this much attention given to the charter school sector and the complete lack of accountability and transparency.
“the Akron Beacon Journal launched a creative multi-city journalism project to expose the lack of transparency in the operation and regulation of Ohio’s charter schools. The Beacon Journal has created NewsOutlet.org, a collaboration of the journalism programs of the University of Akron, Youngstown State University, and Cuyahoga Community College, along with two newspapers, the Beacon Journal and the Youngstown Vindicator and several public radio stations. Already reporters have exposed the secrecy and conflicts of interest built in to charter school governance in Ohio along with the extraordinary expense that Ohio law imposes on public school districts for busing children to charter schools.”
Good job, journalism students!
Here is the really bad news for public education in the United States, especially local control.
The Supreme Court ruling yesterday, five to four, opens the door for more purchased elections and policies by billionaires.
The discussion on this morning’s NPR program is worth listening to if you have about 50 minutes to spend with another Diane (Rehm) and her guests who have followed this case at http://thedianerehmshow.org/
For the gist of the ruling and what it means go to http://www.npr.org/2014/04/02/298374001/supreme-court-strikes-down-pillar-of-campaign-finance-limits
This ruling gives the greatest influence over political campaigns to billionaires. For people who care about public education, here is one more thing to watch for: Fewer restrictions on funding political campaigns for school board elections and for state elective offices in education.
An incipient trend bearing on public education is timing school board elections so a single ballot will include all local and state elections, and with the party identifications of candidates unambiguous. In addition to “bundling” of local and state elections (and all other ballots issues in one big menu of choices), this sort of bundle of candidates and issues adds national candidates for office as needed.
For school board activity, timing of elections is usually coordinated so members are elected before July. They are on duty for the start of school year and only rarely change all policies, all at once. At minimum, this scheduling reduces chaos. Unfortunately, it does not favor a big turnout for the elections. Bundling of local, state, and national elections is likely to be justified as a way to increase voter turnout. It will also produce longer ballots, especially if isses are included.
The Supreme Court ruling favors the growth of explicitly partisan school boards, even if candidates wish to be non-partisan. Billionaires can now control the funding and political packaging of candidates for any public office, with super-pacs formed by like-minded billionaires. Bundling of elections and issues is certain to extend to the entire process of voting with the heat from right-to-vote suppoters cooled by more restrictions.
Even without this recent “blessing” from the Supreme Court we have seen the power of money in politics, extending to efforts by the Koch brothers to shape the othcome of local school board elections.
The Supreme Court ruling increases that like-minded billionaires will form super-duper-size pacs, with the loudspeakers for their agendas shaping public opinion, voting (and perhaps diminished voting from the disillusioned). Policies that the super-rich favor will become the future. Bill Moyers’ post about “how to vote against the Koch Brothers” was made before this Supreme Court ruling. See http://billmoyers.com/2014/04/01/how-to-vote-against-the-koch-brothers/
Ah… more corporate welfare. More ways to funnel the taxpayer’s money into the hands of cronies. This country is full of crooked politicians. The bullying by the overlords never ends. I thought Obama was trying to stop bullying in this country. All over the country the state and national governments ignore the will of the people and sell themselves to the highest bidder.
It is a very bad day today in the City of Phoenix. See: http://www.examiner.com/article/phoenix-city-council-and-mayor-approve-75-000-000-bonding-for-charter-school
The Mayor sends his son to a Montessori charter school run by parents. This is a very big disappointment. Things keep getting worse here, as well.