Last Thursday I flew to Louisiana for a lunch debate with Chas Roemer, who is chairman of the state board of education.
Before the debate, I read online about his strong support for vouchers, charters, evaluation of teachers by test scores. Knowing this, I used my time to demonstrate the poor results of what I expected he would say.
Chas responded that he would not contest anything I said, as there was already too much tit for tat in politics. He talked instead about the value of choice for its own sake. When asked by a member of the audience how he felt about letting public dollars flow to religious schools, he said we must respect people’s religions.
Some in the audience grumbled that his facts were incomplete or misleading. Afterwords, researchers told me that the state education department had removed all trend data about school performance from the state website. No one could get any historical information because it had disappeared.
Where are the investigative reporters?!
As soon as a video is available, I will post it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Facts and real data doesn’t matter to the deformers
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r,
Except when they choose to use them. They are all about choice remember.
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Trend data on every Texas school and district mysteriously disappeared from the Texas Education Agency website about the time Michael Williams was appointed Commissioner of Education. These guys only seem to act as copycats.
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They are destroying public education state by state. Check out what’s happening in Alabama.
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Mr. Roemer got it wrong. No one is opposed to school choice in his beloved state. Any one is free to send their child to a private or religious school. I just do not want to pay for it with my tax money. If they want tax money to go to such schools then these schools should have to obey the law–like meet the needs of the disabled and English language learners. In addition, they should also be required to have their students be tested and subject to every regulation imposed upon all public schools. And here is something else, no one should be allowed to make a profit on the education of a child. If they accept public money, it must ALL be spent on the education of the student.. But isn’t it a waste of time to do this when public schools already exist that do it already.
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I just wish I’d gotten to ask my question, as a parent with children enrolled his public schools, about his remark that the only public school parents that care about their children’s education are the 2% that applied to unmonitored, untested, fly by night, creationism teaching, slavery glorifying, cult leader lead, DVD taught voucher schools. Voucher schools are junkfood for the mind, body and soul.
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CrazyCrawfish: I follow your blog.
I appreciate you not using this opportunity for self-promotion. However, that doesn’t stop this “Krazy” from providing the link to your “Crazy” question:
Keep on asking the inconvenient questions.
🙂
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Thanks for the support and promotion! 🙂
I sent those same questions to the Leaders With Vision group that hosted the event – at their request. They said they would forward them to the participants for responses. I have a feeling without the cameras on Chas mine will go unanswered though. 😦
PS. Nice name. Us crazies gotta stick together.
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CrazyCrawfish: perhaps [riffing a bit off Benjamin Franklin] all us Krazies/Crazies must indeed hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.
🙂
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Off topic, but I watched Michelle Rhee on Real Time with Bill Maher last night. I was disappointed, at first, but I feel Bill handled her well. Does anyone question her stats? He did somewhat, and didn’t have much time with her, but I wish he would have done more.
Thank you Bill, for saying the cause is due to poverty. Do some homework, so when she coms back, you can talk more about comparing different nations. What are other nation’s special education statistics? What happens to their special needs children? We educate ours, and their test scores count.
How do we address poverty? Why do we give free breakfast and lunch to kids who come to school with new Nikes, I-Pads and I-pods, and every computer game that is out there, while parents of other families work hard to provide the essentials (Payless shoes, books, food) for their children, and get no assistance, and don’t have the Nikes and the I-pads?????????? I am well aware that there are many children who need the assistance we as taxpayers give them. How can we better differentiate who needs it and who doesn’t?
What of the “illegal aliens” who have an amazing work ethic, who know how to treat their customers, who want to work, and do it well? In my state, IHOPs were raided, and illegals were sent away. They were outstanding workers and now are greatly missed. Why was this wrong? They provided a service and were as asset to America. We need to fix this. We need these great role models for the children of America.
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Gotta love Bill Maher. And of course, poverty is one of the critical causes of poor school performance generally but I think it’s much more complicated than that. I teach almost all poverty minority kids in a “failing” school, yet about half the students there consistently do well and graduate on time (albeit with a lot of teacher support and effort). So poverty can hardly supply the full explanation of the failing group and we need to look much deeper to understand what is going on and address it.
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I watched her on Bill Maher also. I do think he handled her better than some, but I am sick of the same old questions. We all know what she thinks about merit pay, tenure, and TFA. I think it is time she is asked questions like Why so much of are tax dollars go to these for profit charter schools who cherry pick their children, why these children who get kicked of these charter schools go back to public schools who have to take them yet has lost a lot of their resources to the charter schools, or why charter schools are allowed to exist with virtually no oversight. Or just ask her how many boards she is on and how much money she makes being on these boards. I have seen this woman on three different talk shows pushing her book and she has answered all the same questions. I would like to see someone start asking real hard questions.
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The Louisiana Department of Education has slowly removed data from their website, most recently trend data is no longer available. The department is not posting historically available data because it exposes the failures of the market based reforms. Over the last couple of years they have repeatedly refused to honor record request from parents, community members and research institutions. This is also happening in requests made to individual charter schools. The data is revealing and releasing it to the public makes it difficult for them to lie to the public about the unfounded success. It should be noted that refusing to honor data request happens in several other state agencies including the Governor’s office.
Several groups have filed suits which are presently in the court system, our group Research on Reforms a research based in New Orleans recently filed suit which should be having a hearing soon.
State education officials will do “anything” to privatize public education, their lawlessness is appalling!
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Crooks. You know if it was good news they would buy commercial time and shout it out.
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Mr. Roemer, you are right in one respect, parents should have a choice. Thing is, they always have. In Baton Rouge, imagine if these parents, instead of choosing to segregate their kids by race (“white flight” due to desegregation) or socioeconomic status. The public schools would not be held in such disregard. If these parents would choose to support the public schools instead of stigmatize them imagine the possibilities! What if there were the same tax breaks for donating to public schools as there is for private school tuition? What if these donors would, here’s that pesky word again, CHOOSE to support all the comminity’s children and donate to the public schools. If parents do not mind paying $5k+ to aid in the perception of receiving a quality education imagine what good can come from their choice to donate that money. You see Mr. Roemer, parents have always had a choice. Instead of choosing to help public schools they abandoned them, just as you are.
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Seems like I’ve heard this story before, or another about a different place where actual performance data is non-existent or disappears when it doesn’t suit an agenda.
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They only use “data” if it helps further their cause. You only see in the media what they want you to see, get it? There are no more investigative journalists, and even if they broke one of these stories, you would never see the story on mainstream news. The press is manipulated, spun, and controlled by corporations. Journalists will tell you this “off the record.” Do you think they can just run any story they want to? Ha! Many of you are very naive talking about Democracy and the media like it was 40 years ago. The country has changed a lot since the 1970s. Once the schools are privatized, then you will mysteriously no longer hear about improving our schools. Listen, the elite can’t just come out and say, “We’ve decided to privatize the schools!” That would be too big of a shock for people. They have to build their case, spin their propaganda (the big lie that Americans can’t compete), etc. Common Core is designed to wipe out suburban public schools. The tests will be made so hard that very few students (let alone schools) will “pass.” This will allow the govt. to label all public schools (even the best in the country) as failing. Then, they can say, “The private sector can do better.” Eventually, everyone will pay for their own education or not have one at all. This is master plan behind the curtain, and this is what will happen in the next 15-20 years. They must have got together with large ad agencies, etc. The time is right for them to make this move. Most of the masses aren’t clever enough to dig through the propaganda techniques.
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Yes, as I said before, now is the time for those capable of leaving to leave. In the early 1930s in Germany, the intellectuals saw what was coming with Hitler. Most intelligent people with the means to do so left. This is what I would tell you to do. Yes, I can hear you saying, but this is my country…blah blah. No one deserves to live in the society that is coming down the pipe. It’s going to be awful, and we see how the are dismantling education right now. Today, we can blog and say what we feel, but soon, these kinds of blogs will be shut down or worse. Talk to any novelists, artists, or intellectuals whom you may know. These people know and sense what is coming. Yes, older people like Dr. Ravitch may want to stay and go down fighting, but younger ones deserve a better life. Once these movements start rolling ,there really is little to no chance of stopping them. Think about it! Go back to where your relatives came from. Tell them that the American experiment failed. And “no” they don’t give a damn how many veteran, excellent teachers leave. That is part of the plan: No more career teachers.
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But in the ’30s, German with enough money and a bit of luck ciould go to the US (remember, the immigration quotas were very small). Where can you go today? Canada and Australia are (maybe) a step behind the US in neo-liberalist politics; Britain is far worse than here. And Europe is disintegrating rapidly. After those countries, I don’t see any other options for those who value democracy.
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Just a quick thought…when I started reading about “choice” it took me a minute to figure out it meant charters/private schools. For me, the word “choice” has meant “woman’s right to choose” in the abortion issue. I wonder if anyone else has had my experience? As NPE grows as a national voice, I wonder if there might be another word we could use…? Maybe…” Option”? Trouble is, as I look over synonyms, they all seem so “liberal” and “democratic”….which makes the de-formers look like they’re providing something truly American and great. If only we had a better word….something more “charged.” Thx:)
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Chris Christie tried this new approach also, that is citing “competition” or “choice” as the reason for allowing public education to flounder (was a memo sent out to dephormers to try a new argument?) But this claim too is flawed as it fails in so many other spheres of public services. For instance, society relies on the publicly financed police department without offering choice. If a person wants/needs more protection, they pay for it themselves as in private security or bodyguards. You do not have the right to request your “share” of police dollars and transfer it to a personal bodyguard. Moreover, public dollars are kept secure for fire departments, libraries, the armed forces, snow removal, etc. In all these cases, you have the option of personally making other choices but you DO NOT have the option of requesting your share of taxes back to pay for your personal option. Why is public education different?
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Let me give you some long term experience with reporters. They have been told that if they write certain stories they will never work as a reporter again. One person who told us this in private in an investigation unrelated to education was indeed terminated and walked out of the building with security without their files. This had to do with one of the largest corporations dumping toxics into a river. The L.A. Times once did a half page on a non profit I once had, The Association for Accountability and Equitable Education. Within one week that reporter disappeared forever. More than one reporter has told us they cannot do these stories in private. Just look at the 1996 Telecommunications Act signed by Bill Clinton which ended the “Free Press.”
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