The ever perspicacious Jeff Bryant points his readers to the stories to watch in the year ahead.
One is vulnerable governors, including two who have been among the worst in inflicting harm on public schools: Pat McCrory of North Carolina and Mike Pence of Indiana. Supporters of public education in both states should flock to the polls to restore public education.
Two is charter schools. There will be more financial scandals. There will be more community resistance to closing schools and handing the kids and buildings over to charter operators.
Three is the Opt Out movement. The more the federal government and states try to tamp it down, the more parents rebel and join the movement. Repression fires resistance.
Four is the Friedrichs case before the Supreme Court. If Friedrichs wins, public sector unions will suffer grievous harm.
Five is Chicago, which is a tinderbox because of Rahm Emanuel’s brutish handling of school issues and police brutality, with the emerging story of cover-ups.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’d like to add a possible sixth story, if not for this calendar year, then not too long afterward.
In the likely event of a Friedrichs Supreme Court decision going against the unions, look for a Berlin Wall-style collapse of the Unity Caucus/Weingarten regime in the AFT, whereby demoralized, sold-out teachers (along with garden-variety freeloaders) decide to “send a message” to their union misleaders, and withhold dues money.
That will be a good thing, even if it takes a disaster (which a Friedrichs loss would be) to bring it about. At that point, teachers will have to rebuild their unions from the ground up, minus Weingarten-type collaborators with so-called reform.
The UFT/AFT has been a zombie union for quite a while now, and its neutralization-euthanasia under its reform-enabling regime was inevitable. The question now is whether and when it will be able to raise itself up from the ashes. It’s going to be a long, hard slog, at best…
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Union members could look to the Chicago Teachers Union to see how to rebuild their unions before total collapse. From what I understand, Karen Lewis’ predecessor (whose name utterly escapes me at the moment), had a Randi-like stranglehold on the union despite widespread dissatisfaction with her. But Karen and the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators started building a coalition that, after a few years, was big enough and strong enough to take control of the union. It’s a lot of work and it doesn’t happen overnight. But the other alternative is Randi for life or until meltdown.
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The previous CTU leadership was never as deeply entrenched, or as united, as Unity Caucus, which is the last of the great urban political machines.
Unity Caucus has a large and effective patronage system which, combined with member apathy, gerrymandered voting and high turnover, has led to a permanent government in the union. That, combined with NYC’s vastness (Chicago’s school/student population would barely equal that of Brooklyn, so you can imagine the challenge faced by the opposition) means that only an epochal event like Friedrichs might get these misleaders out of union headquarters.
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Michael Fiorillo,
Yours is a sobering, sad, and completely truthful parable about teacher unions’ self destruction and their opportunity for rebirth and reinvention, the latter two being very, very difficult but worth the effort over the next two generations. Perhaps it will not take that long, given the level of poverty and shrinkage in the middle class.
I have ALWAYS been saying that the American people are going to have to have their noses bloodied and pummeled into the ground in order to wake up and realize, metaphorically speaking, that they are being dominated and destroyed by the overclass.
The overclass?
They’re H-E-E-E-E-E-RE!
Americans are slow learners, individualists, intellectually anesthetized, fattened up, overly entertained, geared up for war, put down for sex, sugared up, drugged up, outspent, debt-ridden, car-driven, violent-happy, dumbed down, and tuckered out from the work place and pop culture establishment out there.
Our propaganda machinery is brilliantly strong, relatively quiet, and effectively forceful.
However, this will be an opportunity for growth.
It starts with horrible suffering. It walks slowly over into the realm of becoming informed. It progresses to consensus. It unfolds into activism, and sometimes aggression. And it brings about change.
It won’t be the first time . . . . . Nor the last.
It is a dark, sad, and oppressive time to be in America.
And yet, one of the most exciting times.
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Thanks Diane!
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Parents and teachers shouted him off the stage at a PTA meeting in 2013.
“You ended up cancelling further meetings like that?” O’Donnell asked.
“Well, we restructured them. So that meeting got to a place where it just wasn’t productive. Folks were screaming and yelling, it was hard to have a real conversation,” King said in an exclusive interview with “CBS This Morning.”
“Why were people screaming and yelling?” O’Donnell asked.
“Some of it was the politics of the moment… Some of it was misunderstandings that folks have,” King said.
Why is it such a firm belief in ed reform that any opposition to their ideas is based on “politics” or “misunderstanding”?
Is there any possible set of circumstances where someone can lodge a legitimate criticism of anything they do, or is all opposition just summarily dismissed like King does here?
It’s a REALLY odd attitude for “public servants” to have. Where does it come from and isn’t it oddly anti-educational to learn absolutely nothing from work experience, and instead cling to this notion that all disagreement/debate is somehow illegitimate?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/secretary-of-education-john-king-jr-unfazed-by-politics/
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Neither the U.S. Dept. of Ed. nor, the Ohio Dept. of Ed. serve the public. Americans don’t want to be forced to send their tax money, which they intend for students, to Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
The fact that Duncan delivered $71 million to Ohio to expand charter schools and, the Walton’s committed to spend a billion over the next 5 years, for charter schools, is ample evidence that the public’s input is not wanted and will be willfully ignored.
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Chiara: you have provided an excellent example of why, time and time again, rheephormsters large and small seem oblivious to facts & logic & fair play & data—
Because they are. Oblivious, that is, to anything that disturbs the happy thoughts they are thinking to (and of) themselves and peddling to others. And one of the most pernicious is their assumption (revealed in practice) that they are, somehow someway, especially knowledgeable and expert in all matters educational even when it is patently untrue.
For example, refer to a posting of 11-3-2013 on this blog re Mr. King’s bizarre understanding of Montessori and CCSS—
[start first paragraph of posting]
I received an email from a Montessori teacher in Wisconsin. She asked me to publish this so that Dr. John King, State Commissioner of Education in New York, understands that the Montessori school to which he sends his own children does not have a philosophy aligned with what he proposes for Other People’s Children.
[end first paragraph of posting]
The rest of the posting consists of a basic commentary by the Montessori teacher referenced in the first paragraph; the thread is well worth reading too.
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/11/03/montessori-teacher-to-john-king-montessori-is-not-about-testing-and-common-core/
Given that attitude, the problem never lies with heavyweight rheephormistas but with everyone else failing to understand them correctly and properly carrying out their directives. Look at the reactions of Bill Gates during the softball interview by Lyndsey Layton—I admire her strong stomach, persistence and fierce politeness in the face of a a thin-skinned petulant sabe-lo-todo [Sp. for “know-it-all”] whose handlers are there to make sure the reporter ‘plays nice.’ Or Arne Duncan in his April 30, 2013 speech to the AERA [google] annual meeting in which he is somewhat for/somewhat against/somewhat for and against standardized testing—all three all at the same time! And for good measure this Pearson employee par excellence chastises the audience—many of them some of his fiercest critics re the misuse and abuse of standardized testing—for, GET THIS, not getting standardized testing right!
😱
In a word: the shot callers and “thought leaders” of the self-styled “education reform” movement fiercely resist taking even the first step towards self-correcting—when life presents them with learnable moments they simply shut their eyes, plug their ears, and in the immortal words of the strongly pro-rheephorm LATIMES keep repeating “Neener neener!” [The last from an editorial!]
For ordinary folks that get sucked in by the sales pitches and hyperbole, well, not everyone is like a King or Gates or Duncan. I refer interested readers to comments oaths blog by Jack re Adelanto, CA and recent developments there regarding ordinary folks that at first bought in, quite fiercely, to rheephorm. 12-5-2015, thread under the posting entitled “What You Need to Know About The Parent Trigger and the Adelanto Charter School.” [There are other postings and threads as well re the same.]
And just look at how many second thoughts abound in New Orleans, home to so many rheephorm miracles of educational excellence. Google “edushyster” and “blog” and “Andre Perry” just for a taste.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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“Charter schools are here to stay…because they work”, possibly originated with the Heartland organization. An article, at their site, ended with that catchy slogan. Sourcewatch reports that Heartland has partnered with ALEC on issues and, that it is funded by multinational corporations.
The first part of the phrase also appeared as a headline for a Wohlstetter viewpoint, written for WYNC. Wohlstetter co-authored a recent paper with Fordham, which was funded by Arnold and the Walton’s. She is on the Eli Broad Charter School Prize Review Board.
Spokespersons for various state charter school associations and various privatizing candidates for school boards, used the phrase.
The phrase headlined a Bellwether piece for US News. Bellwether receives funding from Gates. ( Bellwether’s “human capital pipeline”, could have lead the story, but, it didn’t.)
An internet search of the phrase, in quotes, cites the American Enterprise Institute/ University of Michigan Prof. Perry and, Campbell Brown’s, “74” site, which is funded by the Walton’s.
The Black Alliance for Educational Opportunities, which is funded by Gates and the Walton’s, was another result from a search for the verbatim phrase. BAEO’s founder was quoted in the referenced article, saying, “I was always clear that people who support universal vouchers are using the poor…” In the comment thread, Joe Nathan praised Fuller.
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