Archives for the year of: 2013
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L.A. Upset!

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2013 //
48

According to the results posted in the Los Angeles Times, with 100% of the vote counted but not certified, Steve Zimmer won by 52-48%!

Assuming that no one discovers a precinct with thousands of uncounted votes, this is a stunning upset!

Zimmer faced the combined opposition of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, billionaire Eli Broad, billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, Michelle Rhee’s teacher-bashing StudentsFirst, the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times, and an assortment of Hollywood elite executives.

Millions of dollars were amassed to knock Zimmer off the school board.

Score: Zimmer beats billionaires!

Friends, there is a huge lesson here for all of us in the Los Angeles race.

We still live in a democracy. An informed public will not be bought.

Those of us who support public education are many. Those who want to privatize it are few.

Steve Zimmer’s victory is a victory for all who care about the future of our public schools and the well-being of our society. His victory is a vote against privatization of a basic public responsibility.

They can’t buy us and they can’t intimidate us.

We won!

Categories Los Angeles, Support for public schools

LA Election: Early Returns (Gasp!)

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2013 //
10

The latest bulletin from Los Angeles: Monica Garcia, with the billionaires’ bundle, easily beat four opponents who had no money, including the fearless Robert Skeels.

But–wow!–the main target of the billionaires, Steve Zimmer, was running ahead of his opponent.

What an upset that would be!

Nearly $5 million was raised by the mayor of Los Angeles and billionaire Eli Broad to knock Steve Zimmer off the school board. Mayor Michael Bloomberg added his $1 million to the anti-Zimmer fund. The maligned and vilified UTLA, which has had the nerve to defend teachers, put about $700,000 into Zimmer’s campaign.

Zimmer is no tool of the UTLA. He is independent, principled, and moderate. His only sin: he offended the powerful privatization movement. He dared to ask questions. He dared to think critically.

I will save the cheering until the results are final, or at least sure.

But I have to say that it would be incredibly exciting if Zimmer does defeat the millions of Bloomberg, Broad, Rhee, Murdoch & company.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles

NY Post: “Obama Blesses Walmart”

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2013 //
7

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post ran an editorial pointing out the irony of Obama selecting the director of the Walmart Foundation to run OMB, the agency that makes decisions about the nation’s spending.

During his 2008 campaign, Obama criticized a hillary Clinton for sitting on the board of Walmart, and he blasted the corporation’s hostility to labor unions and the environment. Norm he praises Walmart for saving consumers’ money.

The Post sees this as a sign that it is time to allow Walmart to open a store in New York City, which will be a death knell for thousands of small businesses.

Categories Obama

Why Do Conservatives Want to Kill Small-Town America?

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2013 //
42

This is one of the best newspaper articles I have read about the damaging impact of vouchers and tax credits on small-town and rural America.

The big question is why so many conservatives want to destroy one of our nation’s most enduring and central institutions: our public schools. There is little or no evidence that “school choice” produces better academic results. It does, however, privatize education.

Since when do conservatives go around blowing up traditional institutions?

The tax credit program in Georgia isn’t supposed to help “poor kids in failing schools.” It is designed to provide money for any child in the state to go to private school. In short, it’s a voucher.

The article’s writer, Leon Galis, says:

“Meanwhile, there’s panic in the one- and no-stoplight towns below the gnat line. In Harry Crews country, small, isolated school districts serving only a few hundred students each, with so few teachers that it’s common for one teacher to cover several grades, face the prospect of somehow having to get along with even fewer teachers.

Superintendents in these districts don’t know how they’ll go from absolute bare bones to less than absolute bare bones and still offer anything remotely resembling education.

Another thing I don’t understand is why self-styled conservatives have so little interest in conserving anything. For many of these map-dot communities, the schools and the churches are the center of community life, the glue that holds these hardscrabble places together.

As Beverly Grant, a retired Quitman County teacher, told the Journal-Constitution, the school system is “the foundation of the community. Basically, it’s the only thing the community really has … .”

Anybody who’s ever been to Quitman County will know exactly what she’s talking about. Starve the schools and you fast-track these towns toward extinction. Why don’t conservatives get that?
And why don’t they get this?: If strewing vouchers around to give people more school choices makes any sense at all, it makes sense only in urban and suburban areas, like Cobb County where Ehrhart is from. In places like that, you can throw a rock in any direction and hit a school.
But in the sparsely populated areas of the state where schools are too far apart even to consolidate, the urban and suburban fascination with “school choice” is a cruel joke. For a voucher to be worth anything, people have to have options, which the residents of the “sparsity” grant districts don’t, unless you count moving away.

To a more jaundiced eye, though, maybe this situation isn’t a case of the right hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Maybe the right hand knows exactly what it’s doing. Because enough people in the “sparsity” districts are reliable Republican voters, the Republicans under the Gold Dome know they can jerk those constituencies around with impunity. And for exactly the same reason, Democrats ignore them. Both parties fish where the votes are. And they’re not in Harry Crews country.

This is all starting to make sense to me now.

Categories Georgia, Vouchers

Teachers in Grand Rapids Say They Qualify for Food Stamps

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
11

Want to know why teachers are demoralized? Read this story from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Michigan has been a national leader in attacking public education, increasing charters, and diminishing teachers’ pay and benefits. Governor Rick Snyder must take pride in crushing his state’s public school teachers.

Oh, did you know that more than 80% of the charters in Michigan are for-profit?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Michigan

Breaking News! Public School Supporters Sitting In Philly Mayor’s Office

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
4

Public school activists are conducting a sit-in in the office of the mayor of Philadelphia to protest school closings.

This is the announcement I just received:

BREAKING NEWS – March 5, 2013 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Hello PCAPS (Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools & Moratorium Endorsers,

The fight for education has just reached new levels! Parents, community activists, retired teachers and allies are sitting in the Mayor’s office as we speak and they are refusing to leave until we win a one year moratorium on school closings.

Members like yourself are joined by NAACP President Jerry Mondesire and Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan.

This is a historic day for public education in Philadelphia!

The School Reform Commission in Philadelphia will vote on March 7, 2013 for the closing of 29 Public Schools after three days of public testimony calling for a one year moratorium. The plan was revised by Dr. William Hite, Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia.

PCAPS is a combination of Parents, Parent Groups, Community, Unions, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Clergy who have come together to fight for Public Education.

http://politic365.com/2013/03/05/pa-school-closings-addition-of-subtractions-dont-add-up/

http://www.citypaper.net/news/Closing_Arguments.html

http://thenotebook.org/

Categories Closing schools, Philadelphia, Privatization, Support for public schools

Viva Eastside Memorial High School!

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
7

On other posts, I have told the story of Eastside Memorial High School in Austin, Texas.

The school board and superintendent (Broad-trained) decided to give the school to a charter chain called IDEA. This was not popular with the community. Many families in the neighborhood pulled their children out of the IDEA charter in protest and sent them elsewhere. In the November election, the community elected a school board member opposed to the charter takeover, and the board severed the contract. Now the state is considering shutting down the school, and the parents and students are trying to block the school’s closure. At the Save Our School Rally last weekend in Austin, a large contingent of parents and students from Eastside Memorial High School marched and chanted in unison, raising their “bear paws” to show their support for their school.

Here is a letter from a parent:

 

Dear Diane, Thank you so much for sharing our story! ~~

There are many misconceptions about our school. Some created by self-serving “we can do better” groups. MOST created and broadcast by our own School District! I wish to address Five. ~~

First, “EMHS is always failing”. When EMHS was “born” in August 2008, it was already rated Academically Unacceptable (AU). That is NOT what they promised the neighborhood. It was supposed to be a fresh start. Our students and staff have lived and worked under this AU guillotine from day one. :-( ~~

Second, “EMHS cannot fix itself.” EMHS is no longer AU. The hard-working students and staff turned the school around. Within two years, grades, test scores and graduation rates were WAY UP. And drop-out and discipline reports were way down. ~~ Their reward? Their beloved and successful Principal was replaced. And (10/20/2011) two months into the new school year the district Superintendent announced that IDEA Charter would take over their school in a year!!! ~~

Three, “The Community does not care.” Many emotionally exhausted, heart-broken students and staff left the school. Many more stayed and FOUGHT BACK. Eventually, thousands across Austin wrote, called, and protested FOR the school. As Diane said, it took an election and 14 months to cancel the IDEA plan. Now the Super is telling another story to scare us all. ~~

Four, “The TEA Commissioner will close EMHS”. But, why would he? EMHS is AA! And scores are way up. ~~ And, there is a lot going on right now in Texas education (testing, funding, etc.). He is busy. Why would he bother messing with our school??? Because the pissed off / embarrassed Super went charging over there to tell him that the new Board had messed up and EMHS was now out of compliance! ~~

Finally, Five: “Nothing at EMHS has worked./ We have tried everything.” Nearing 5 years of existence, EMHS has been subjected to 4 MAJOR restructurings by the District. IDEA is number 5. When I think of how wonderful our little campus family is and how well they are performing. I think about how glorious they might already have become. If not for the constant churning actions of their heartless (stupid?) District. ~~

Despite the District’s constant reminders to the world that EMHS is garbage. Our campus family is one of the most loving, compassionate, hard-working, and determined groups that I have ever had the honor of being a part of. ~~ Please pray for us. Thank you.

Signed: Toni Rayner, EMHS mom x2.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Texas

Why the Bloomberg Reforms Failed

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
9

Mayor Bloomberg plans to start four charter high schools that will open after his term of office ends.

This constitutes an admission that his own efforts to reform the public schools have failed.

The mayor has had 11 years of total control of the public school system. Every year, he closes more schools. Some of the schools he closes are schools that his own administration opened..

Less than 5% of the city’s 1.1 million students attend charters.

The other 95% have been forgotten, adrift in a system that has been reorganized four times, with all regional and district supervision eliminated, with the loss of large numbers of excellent principals and the hiring of large numbers of ill-prepared principals, left on their own and judged by test scores.

What have the 95% gotten? Tests, pre-tests, test prep. School closings. Overcrowded classes.

The major legacy of the Bloomberg administration is the creation of a test-based accountability system that few believe in, but that has the power to close schools and wreck careers and reputations.

“Tweed,” as the central bureaucracy is called, operates with slavish devotion to “data,” but cold indifference to human beings. The young MBAs at Tweed have spent a decade wiping out institutional memory and attempting to create a bureaucratic, efficient, computer-driven system that churns out higher test scores.

The latest public opinion poll (January) showed that only 18% of the city’s voters want the next mayor to have the control that Bloomberg wielded.

The Bloomberg example reveals the shortcomings of corporate reform. It sets parent against parent in battles for choice and space. It destroys neighborhood schools. It gives preference to schools under private management. It shatters communities so they will be unable to organize and fight back. It lacks any vision of what education is or should be. It has neither reformed the public schools nor provided better education for all students.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, New York City, Privatization

The History of the Term “Failing Schools”

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
19

Kevin Kosar, who earned his Ph.D. at NYU in a study of federal education policy, researched the use of the term “failing schools.” It was seldom used until 1990. Since then, as you can see when you open the link, it has become a commonplace term.

This is clearly political, since test scores for every group are higher today than they were in 1990, graduation rates are higher, and dropout rates are lower.

“Failing schools” is a term that enables privatizers to take over more public property and to enroll more students when their neighborhood school was closed.

Categories Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry

Research on School Closings

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
3

Before the passage of No Child Left Behind, public schools were seldom closed for low test scores. School officials and the public understood that low test scores reflected the social and economic conditions in which students live. It made no sense to punish the school because its students were living in poverty. After NCLB and Race to the Top, more and more urban schools are being closed to punish them for their low test scores.

A reader suggested that we read the following research brief:

“Here is a recent Issue Brief from Research for Action that looks into school closings in Washington DC, Pittsburgh, New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Quick but great read:

http://bit.ly/13CAUuN”

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, New York City, Philadelphia, Poverty
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