In this superb article in the New York Times, David Kirp shows how the public schools of Union City, New Jersey,succeeded despite all the obstacles of poverty.
The article summarizes his fine book “Improbable Scholars.”
Union City created excellent schools without charters and without Teach for America. And without Cory Booker or Mark Zuckerberg.
Let’s celebrate the good work of the teachers and principals of Union City!
A reader who is a parent in Wisconsin notes that the far-right group American Federation for Children is reaching out to disability groups to get their support for vouchers. AFS is committed to privatization, and they know full well that vouchers for special education students is a first step. It is also high on ALEC’s agenda. It arises not from concern for the students, whose rights are protected by federal law in public schools, but out of concern for their own political agenda, which is anti-public education, anti-union, and anti-professionalism.
Writes the reader:
More about Wisconsin and vouchers — I and two other parents of students with disabilities have just had a column published in Wisconsin’s Capital Times:
Amanda’s link above, about expanded vouchers expected to be part of the budget plan, also holds true for special needs vouchers, although the Walker administration has been silent on that aspect so far. Just this week, however, the national American Federation for Children lobby has begun contacting disability groups across Wisconsin, with a pitch for putting the vouchers INTO the budget.
This although no statewide disability group in Wisconsin is asking for these vouchers, and we particularly DON’T want them in the budget where they wouldn’t get a separate public hearing. Such a controversial statewide policy change, full of problems and pitfalls, must be debated and exposed and voted on separately!
Stop Special Needs Vouchers, a statewide grassroots group led by families of students with disabilities, is spreading the word: we need to keep special needs education strong in Wisconsin public schools. We’re on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/StopSpecialNeedsVouchers — please join us!
A few days ago, I published a post on the blog of the New York Review of Books about the battle over teacher evaluation by test scores.
Unlike this blog, whose readers are mostly educators, the NYRB blog goes to hundreds of thousands of highly literate non-educators. So my challenge was to briefly explain Race to the Top and the bitter struggles over how teachers should be evaluated and by whom.
Please take the time to read this post, read the comments and–if you are so moved–add your own comment to help explicate the issues.
In Florida, a criminal record is no barrier to collecting public dollars, if you are not in a public school.
Ain’t deregulation wonderful?
Teachers often feel powerless in the face of the assaults against their profession. Often they are directed to do things that they know are educational malpractice, and they have no choice but to comply.
The best way to resist is through collective action, like the testing boycott of the Seattle teachers. One person standing alone is admirable but will be fired. What is necessary is for entire faculties to speak as one. Think of the Chicago Teachers Union. Their detractors changed the state law to prevent them from striking, raising the requirement for a strike vote to 75%. Their enemies, organized by Jonah Edelman of the notorious Stand for Children, and paid for by the equity investors of Chicago, thought that 75% would make a strike impossible.
But CTU patiently educated, mobilized, and organized. When the vote came, more than 90% of the members authorized the strike. And the strike was supported by parents, who understood that the teachers were fighting for their children.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us all that mass protests could defeat big money and political power. He taught us not to be afraid. He taught us the power of collective action by the powerless. Together, in concert, when justice is on your side, mass action cannot be defeated.
A new book gathers stories about stories of courage in response to the attacks on teachers and on public education. This article profiles one teacher who organized his colleagues to resist a merit pay plan in New York City. Why resist a plan that would produce more money for teachers? Because it would harm students.
If all of us showed courage whenever possible, if all of us worked together to alert the public to educational malpractice, we could stop it.
Oh, and the merit pay plan that the city designed and implemented, the one described in the link? It failed and was canceled after a three-year trial and more than $50 million wasted.
I was invited by the Bill Moyers’ show to write the section on education for President Obama’s State of the Union address. Not to write what I think ke WILL say, but what I think he SHOULD say.
Read it here
and please add your comment.
Amanda Brooker writes about the good work in her school and district. It is important that everyone recognize that the effort to make public schools intolerable and to privatize public education is national. Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Tony Bennett, and Michelle Rhee are among its leaders.
Dr. Ravitch,
My superintendent Michelle Langenfeld and I feel like we know you on a first name basis, as we are avid readers of your blog. I am proud to say that I am working in a school district that is reforming on our own (and not RheePhorming) under the leadership of Dr. Langenfeld. The Green Bay Area Public School District has almost 60% students on free or reduced lunch, the highest ELL population in the state (20%), and 45% minority . Our student growth has been rising over the years, considering that we have hundreds of kids entering kindergarten only recognizing 0-3 letters or numbers, and unable to hold a pencil. And if our high school students stay in our schools for their four years, we show more than a 90% graduation rate. http://www.gbaps.org/Hot-Topics/Documents/Reform/Growth%20Handout.pdf
This is in spite of being weighed down with mandates and high stakes testing; our staff is working hard.
We want to share with you what is going on in Green Bay, Wisconsin:
http://www.wbay.com/story/20608613/expanded-school-vouchers-expected-to-be-part-of-budget-plan
http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/news/local/green_bay/governor-stirs-student-voucher-debate
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/viewart/20130117/GPG0101/301170390/Wisconsin-Republican-Ellis-to-push-for-voucher-vote
Needless to say, working in public education in Wisconsin has been a very exciting place to be the past two years. We’ve seen nothing like it. But your blog also lets us know that we are not alone in the insanity. Thank you for standing up for what is right in public education.
The waivers offered to states by Arne Duncan removed the NCLB deadline of 2014, in exchange for states agreeing to accept punitive mandates and loss of state and local control.
The waivers took the heat off Congress to repeal NCLB. NCLB is a train-wreck. By removing the deadline, Congress can now tinker around the edges. The punishments, the firings, the school closings, the toxic testing–goes on. Thanks, Arne.
From Wendy Lecker in Connecticut, civil rights lawyer and fighter for equity:
“The waiver mandates increase the over-emphasis on standardized tests. They require implementing a teacher evaluation based in significant part on standardized test scores- for every teacher; in every grade and subject. They require impementation of the Common Core State Standards, and the computerized standardized tests that are the main feature of CCSS. They continue to base school and district performance on standardized test scores. To move away from the obsession with standardized tests, don’t look to the “waivers” for help.”
About 90% of the nation’s charter schools are non-union. The charter owners want it that way. It enables them to hire and fire at will and to make unreasonable demands on teachers, like a 9-hour or more work day. Some charters routinely expect teachers to work 50 or 60 hours a week. Unions get in the way of the owner’s control over the lives of teachers. Owners also like high turnover as they can constantly replenish their staff with those at the bottom of the salary scale and never have pension obligations.
The AFT announced that teachers at a few charters have voted to unionize. It is a drop in the bucket. But an important drop. Factory owners fought to keep unions out 100 years ago. Workers rebelled. Will teachers? Or is there an endless supply of college graduates ready to work two years and move on?
Here is the AFT press release:
AFT Welcomes Charter School Educators in Michigan, California and New York
Washington—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten released a statement welcoming charter school educators into the AFT family following victories in Michigan, California and New York.
“More than 200 charter school educators and school employees in Michigan, California and New York will walk into their classrooms Monday morning with a stronger voice for their profession and for their students. I congratulate the educators at Detroit’s Cesar Chavez Academy, Los Angeles’ Ivy Academia and Ithaca, N.Y.’s New Roots Charter School on their efforts to win a union voice, and I welcome them to the AFT family.
“Their strength and determination—in the face of enormous odds—demonstrates their commitment to each other and the children they serve. And they will now have the support of 1.5 million AFT members beside them in their continued effort to strengthen their schools.”
Background
On Feb. 7, in the shadow of Michigan’s recent passage of so-called right-to-work legislation, teachers and counselors on the four campuses of Detroit’s Cesar Chavez Academy won an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board after a five-month effort. Cesar Chavez is the largest charter in Detroit and is the second-largest charter in Michigan. The Detroit victory was the first election conducted by the NLRB since a December ruling that charter schools may be considered private sector employers.
In the same week, teachers at two other charter schools successfully won access to the path toward certification under their states’ public sector labor laws. In Los Angeles, teachers at Ivy Academia received voluntary recognition of their union after 54 of 56 faculty members signed a union petition. United Teachers Los Angeles now represents more than 1,600 educators at independent charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Also, on the East Coast, educators at New Roots Charter School in Ithaca, N.Y., recently received voluntary recognition of their union at the end of January.
NCLB is a disaster. The absurd idea that 100% of all students would be proficient simply by testing them every year and firing their teachers and principals and closing their schools is now exposed as a great fantasy.
Do waivers help? Or are they just another way to fasten the federal noose and pave the way for privatization?
This reader reflects:
“As a mother, educator and someone who worked on a state waiver for NCLB, I often felt like I was doing the devil’s work. I do NOT agree with standardized testing as the primary measure of a school, student, or teachers effectiveness. I also know that the NCLB rules of 100% of all students performing on grade level by 2014 was wildly unrealistic. Sadly what I have discovered is, at least in my state of Maine, there is a sense of hopelessness & helplessness among educators with regard to their ability to impact any of this. I disagree. It’s time that teachers make their voices heard, and take back the reigns of their profession. Which is the exact reason why I elected to get involved in the NCLB waiver process in my state. It was a glimmer of hope that perhaps all of this hoopla over standardized testing would be diminished over time.”
