One thing reformers don’t like is to hear from teachers or parents or the public. We see the same pattern repeated again and again.
Reform can only be successful when power is consolidated in the hands of the mayor, preferably when the mayor has a puppet board appointed by him and that serves at his pleasure. (See New York City.)
Reform can only be successful when it is rammed through the Legislature with a minimum of public notice and a minimum of public hearings. Fast action means no public deliberation. Reformers say, “We can’t afford to wait,” but what they mean is, “Our collective mind is made up, and we don’t have to waste time listening to those who don’t agree.” (See Louisiana.)
Reform can only be successful if the governor and the state commissioner get to make all the decisions. That way, they can circumvent and ignore public opinion in the districts that they control. (See Connecticut or Idaho or New Jersey or many other states).
Reform can only be successful if the governor controls the state board of education and its members do what he wants. That way, they can ram through the changes that must take place right now, without public deliberation. (See Louisiana and many other states.)
Reformers are so certain they are right that they can’t wait to hear other views.
Reformers don’t like democracy.
Readers: Feel free to add your state to the lists above or to suggest other ways in which reformers take control of the political process and exclude those who disagree with their policies.
Diane
P.S. This is how it worked in Idaho:
As a resident of Idaho, as a student teacher in Idaho and as the parent of a child attending a public school in Idaho, there was a great deal of outrage directed at Luna and his political allies when these “reforms” were first proposed. Remember, according to Mr. Luna everything was hunkydory in the land of Idaho’s educational system during his campaign to remain in office. Within just a few days of being re-elected, Luna was hit with the disturbing realization that teachers needed to lose their collective bargaining rights, every high school student needed a laptop supplied by their district, students needed to generate so many class units in online classes and only those venders on an approved list could supply the on-line requirements…oh, and the fact that those approved venders had supplied a large chunk of Luna’s campaign funds had nothing at all to do with this sudden epiphany and anybody who said otherwise was a “union thug”.Phone calls were made in the tens of thousands, letters to the editor of all the papers were written and published. Rallies were staged and attended. Over flow crowds attended and spoke against these “reforms” at the public hearings. The overwhelming sentiment from the public was negative. We the people spoke up and the state legislature said “so what”…and pushed it through anyway. On a fast track, because apparently the situation was so bad that only immediate action could rein in all the “bad teachers” and indiscriminate over spending in the public schools.Believe me, there was diversity of opinion. Unfortunately, the majority voice of parents and educators were effectively ignored.This is how it worked in South Dakota:
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
South Dakota, House Bill 1234: Governor proposes merit pay, math/sci bonuses, end of continuing contract, and statewide test-based teacher evaluations in January. Teachers, parents, citizens swamp public meetings in opposition. Legislature passes bill by end of February. Bill creates numerous committees appointed by governor and legislature. Sec. Ed. Melody Schopp calls HB 1234 a “gift” to teachers that opponents just don’t understand. Citizens now working to refer HB 1234 to public vote.
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Collecting these stories is a good idea. I wonder if we could also collect examples where democracy is being practiced, where parents and teachers and students are being heard.
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I am a parent of students in Denver Public Schools. This fits the Administration. The community, parents, teachers and students were told that selection of a new principal would be a collaborative effort. This meant the District reviewed the resumes, picked five to interview, selected the questions, and forced the Principal Selection Committee to select the top two (although the Committee said none were acceptable). Then the top 2 were presented at a public meeting, where questions were screened, and time was limited to thirty minutes (out of respect for the candidates time). They do not understand why the community is angry. And class sizes do not matter, says the superintendent who sends his kids to private schools, and never went to public school himself…
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They sure like bullying, intimidation and being the puppet master.
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My friend teaches in Nebraska and says that most of this is NOT happening there. Maybe we need to look at the few states that didn’t adopt the common core, Nebraska being one of them.
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In NY, the legislature passed the recent APPR legislation in the middle of the night, as “an emergency” thus bypassing three days of review.
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Governor Cuomo put together an education advisory committee that only included his supporters
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“Reformers don’t like democracy.”
Diane, this one-sided statement so lacks credibility that it damages your reputation as a scholar.
In the last 30 years, both sides in the reform-vs-no-reform debate have pushed their agendas aggressively. When one side is losing the debate that side uses this old and tired argument.
When reformers aren’t getting their way, they blame entrenched teachers unions, union political contributions, and politicians who are “bought” by said unions and money.
When reform opponents aren’t getting their way, they blame corporate titans, their ties to the political system, etc.
There are plenty of examples over the years of BOTH sides in this debate circumventing democracy to get their way. My message is the same to both sides: If you don’t feel you are being heard, vote the bums out.
I was very disappointed with the results of the Wisconsin gubenatorial recall vote. How can such a radical politician with such disdain for organized labor win in a state like Wisconsin? Education reform opponents are losing on most fronts and need to exam how and why they are out of touch with the American public.
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Ed, when tens of millions are spent on lobbyists and misleading PR campaigns on behalf of corporate interests it’s hard to call that democracy. In Wisconsin do you think Walker would still be governor if he didn’t raise $30Million from out-of-state business interests?
Here in IL the SB7 law that attempted to dissolve the union was funded with millions of out of state dollars. Where are the parents’ voices in that?
Democracy is not served by unlimited political spending by outside groups and wealthy individuals.
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Ed, if you lived in a city where the mayor has total control of the school system, you might feel otherwise. Where the mayor picks the members of the board of education, and they serve at his pleasure; if you lived in a city like Denver, where corporate money beat grassroots candidates for the school board; or in Louisiana, where a member of the state board of education was beaten with a campaign chest 50 times what she could spend, mostly from out-of-state sources; where public meetings are held, but no one making the decisions cares what the public says or wants; where legislatures are rushing to pass anti-teacher legislation with few or no hearings and no attention to evidence. I could go on, but if you read the comments, you will learn what is happening in state after state. I don’t know of any state where voters said, “We don’t want public schools anymore. Please hand our tax money over to for-profit corporations and others who will spend it with minimal if any oversight.”
Diane
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Here in Chicago there is a coalition of parent, teacher and community groups that is working to replace our appointed CPS school board with one that is elected and representative of the different communities in the city. Here is a news story about the effort. http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/06/09/parents-teachers-begin-citywide-petition-for-elected-school-board/
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The story is still unfolding in New Hampshire. According to UNH’s respected Granite State Poll, sentiment among parents in the state is almost three to one (58% to 19%) against using state funds to help children attend private or religious schools.(http://bit.ly/zHYPCr ), But the Tea Party has its own three to one majority in our Legislature.
They intended for the new voucher proposal to fly under the radar but the radical anti-public education agenda drew broad opposition. Most of the 30 plus anti-public education bills failed but leadership was able to pass the state’s first voucher plan, funded, in the modern way, by business tax credits. The only support from outside the legislature itself was from the band of little Christian schools in the state. The story is here: http://bit.ly/rVsO63 .
The Governor opposes the bill and may veto it, even in the face of a veto proof majority vote in the legislature. If it passes, it will be challenged in court and then by citizens seeking accountability.
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Fellow blog readers this phenomenon is all stemming from the common core standards movement lead by a group of conspirators who call themselves the National Governors Association and their counterpart made up of the state ed dept heads (I forget the name) They pride themselves on all of these initiatives as it is not the federal govt. mandating these things but states voluntarily doing these things. I say hogwash to that. How is 48 states (last I checked 2 were still out) forming a union of sorts and all agreeing to carry out similar policies any different than a collection of 50 states carrying out the same policy? beats me….I used the term hogwash because I am reminded of the time newly elected U.S. Senator Obama came to rural Woodstock IL for a townhall meeting in its historic opera house on the square, and I asked him about NCLB and all this testing. His repsonse, “We have a saying where I come from: You don’t fatten the hog by weighing it.” I guess when Bill Gates creates a Hog-weighing app, that changes the whole dynamic of things.
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The Common Core Standards were created by a consortium that consisted of the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and a group called Achieve. Their activity was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The standards were written in about 18 months time by a small group headed by David Coleman of Student Achievement Partners. Coleman will now be head of the College Board. The Gates Foundation paid to have the standards evaluated. Gates is now underwriting the creation of model lessons and resources that will be produced (and sold) by Pearson.
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Diane, Thank you for filling it the many blanks I left you. I was just doing some research on each of the organization’s websites and discovered that the NGA is having their annual summer meeting in Virginia July 15-17 and the CCSSO in Couer ‘Dlene (totally botched spelling) ID July 13-16. Thought I’d point this out to you and your readers. I can only assume that a lot of policy will be crafted there. Unfortunately according to the NGA’s website their meetings are closed to the public, which I am stunned they are able to do. Of course the 2013 NGA meeting will be right here in Milwaukee, WI.
I noticed that the vice chair of the NGA will be the chair of the VA meeting….Dave Heineman of Nebraska I believe his name is. I don’t recall having heard much about the world of public education in Nebraska. I do know that they have not yet applied for NCLB waiver.
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In Pennsylvania Governor Corbett has been following the ALEC script to the letter. This year he cut education funding by $1 billion and raised funding for prisons by $700 million. This includes what will be three new privately owned, for profit prisons. School districts throughout the state are cutting programs and laying off teachers.
In Philadelphia, public schools are under full scale attack. The School Reform Commission has announced plans to turn over 65 public schools to charters and a goal of have 40% of Philadelphia’s students be in charters by 2017. All blue collar workers are in the process of being laid off and replaced with a low paid, non-union workforce.
The School Reform Commission is the state body (three members appointed by the Governor and two appointed by the Mayor) that has been running Philadelphia schools for ten years. It ostensibly took over the Philadelphia School District due to mismanagement, but in the last ten years has made the District’s financial situation much worse.
After repeated attempts to privatize schools over massive community opposition, the agenda of a series of SRC’s to privatize Philadelphia’s public schools was greatly advanced during the tenure of Dr. Arlene Ackerman. At the same time as she was Superintendent, she was serving on the Board of the Broad Foundation. After she was forced to resign in August, 2011 after getting into a turf war over proposed charters with Mayor Nutter, her appointments, most who received training from the Broad Foundation, continue to advance the privatization agenda. They have brought in the corporate raider the Boston Consulting Group and a group of corporate privatizers calling themselves the Great Schools Compact to oversee the transfer of public schools to charters.
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One of the most shocking pieces of news out of the Pennsylvania school funding crisis created by Gov. Corbett was the cost-cutting plan by many districts to ELIMINATE KINDERGARTEN. What an incredibly stupid and short-sighted idea. It would take decades to recover from such a decision.
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In California, the parent trigger was rammed through the legislature buried in a bill ostensibly to qualify the state for the RTTT competition. The entire process took place between Thanskgiving and early January when virtually no one was watching amd schools were on break.
Senator Gloria Romero, now paid staff to DFER carried the bill written by Ed Voice, an advocacy group funded by Broad, Walton, Hastings et al to promote their privatization agenda.
The parent trigger has never been successfully applied, but is now making its way through state houses all around the country.
The lesson? We must be vigilant, because big change can be buried in seemingly small bills.
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