Mercedes Schneider has been reading the Senate bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as No Child Left Behind). She has been reading it line by line. This is the fourth of five installments.
Mercedes finds that the statutory language is extremely supportive of “public” charter schools, which are public when they want the money but not “public” when it is time for an audit or accountability. The bill makes a few suggestions of reform, but none is strong enough to rein in the scandals that clutter the charter industry. If anything, the embrace of privately managed charters by Democrats shows the party’s abandonment of public education. We expect Republicans to advocate for school choice, but now Democrats are on the same side.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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Unfortunate but true. Only with relentless and high profile criticism of that abandonment and sell-out is there hope. And as Diane have often noted, parents are well-poised to make noise, along with really courageous administrators and citizens.
I am really distressed to see so many in higher education on the wrong side of this matter, and in some cases surviving and making reputations by bashing teachers, and thinking that the achievement gap is easily fixed by tweaking this or that, and producing research one step away from the significance of navel gazing, and letting economists assume the stage as if they had superior wisdom and data munchers are god-like.
Economists are the only “intellectuals” who are darlings of the politicians who are simultaneously cutting resources for education, demanding it become more :cost-effective,” while ensuring that policies offer up huge perks to large corporations.
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THIS IS WHY we need to find a third party candidate to support for President. Hillary is another Andrew Cuomo pretending to be a Democrat. Everything fits into public education…this is NOT a narrow one issue perspective…education touches democratic rights, civil rights, buying and selling of computers, hardware and software, human capital of teachers, busses and other vehicles, machinery, buildings, rented space, land, support staff, administrators, grounds departments, sports, sports, sports, data management of students, future consumers of college programs and degrees, future consumers of products, financial capital that equates to political power, workers rights, think about how education touches everything. Education sets up the opportunity for mobility. Education impacts how people perceive themselves and their place in society. IF THIS NEW SYSTEM IS SOOOOO RIGHT FOR EDUCATION then why aren’t schools like Sidwell Friends and Philips Exeter jumping onboard? Because this is about taking advantage of people for profit. This about villanizing a system and people using the same strategies of propaganda and ostracizing teachers as others just like the Nazi propaganda machine. Read history it is all there. The same strategies to target a people, a profession and then once that destruction is complete feed on the remains for profit of the worst kind. Education is all encompassing if it weren’t the power brokers wouldn’t be fighting so hard or dirty. There is money to be made at the expense of educating our children. THE POWERFUL who support this CCSA plan are exploiting out children’s educational system for their own profit. Teachers and other are suppose to give and sacrifice for children and yet it isn’t recognized that this plan is only about profit for the privateers. NOTHING about this is for the good of children, education, democracy, civil rights, a strong healthy robust future. We are public, we are proud, we are not for sale.
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Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Mercedes finds that the statutory language is extremely supportive of “public” charter schools, which are public when they want the money but not “public” when it is time for an audit or accountability.
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The evidence is overwhelming that too many of our elected representatives have abandoned the transparent, non-profit, democratic public schools to help corporations profit off of our children while stabbing our teachers in the back.
Will this be a mortal blow to our republic and democracy that favors the growth of wealth for 1% of our population over our Constitution and Bill of Rights that supports our republic and all the people?
Is it time yet to call for a revolution and take to the streets?
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There are many reasons to demand that your congressmen vote this bill down. If you haven’t picked one to get really upset about yet……this is certainly an easy one to argue.
Accountability is supposedly the goal of education reform. More charter schools is what this movement is pushing for. Charter schools are not accountable to parents because there are no elected school boards. Charters are not accountable to the taxpayers because they do not get audited annually as other public schools do. They are not accountable for educating all children either. So if more charters is going to be the result of this lousy bill and the continuation of this misguided reform, let the reformers be honest and stop talking about accountability.
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Send emails and letters to your Senators, Representative, and President Obama:
http://www.petition2congress.com/15080/stop-common-core-testing/
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