Deborah Meier, one of the great education thinkers of our time, says we were duped.
The corporate reformers stole the good words like “reform” and “choice,” to cover their intentions. They borrowed language from the civil rights movement but not its noble goals.
What do they want?
Bust the unions.
Make money.
Their favorite vehicle: charter schools.
She writes:
“However, the idea of Charter Schools opened the eyes and ears of folks with quite different intentions. They saw that there was money to be made right and left and center. Buildings were “sold off” for nothing or nearly nothing. Public funds were used to start schools whose principals and leaders were paid a half million and more for being the principal” or “superintendent.” Publishing companies and private tech companies saw $$$$$ everywhere. By the time we wake up to what is happening we will no longer have a public education system in reality. Some charters will be legit—truly serving public purposes with public money and boards made up of educators, community members, etc. But most will be in the hands of folks with no other connection to the schools they “serve” than they have to anything else stockholders have—how much money can be made off of this! Meanwhile… that their revolutionary ideas will have demonstrated no significant improvement in the situation facing America’s poor children in terms of test scores is just fine without them.
“They did this with language resonating with the valiant words of “borrowed” from the civil rights movement. Except they seemed to have left out terms like “equal funding” or “integration.” They did it despite the cost to teachers of color, to public unions which Martin Luther King Jr. died defending. And on and on. They did this by adopting noble words (mea culpa) like choice and autonomy and self-governance and small scale and on and on. They did this by playing with data to confuse our judgment.
“Shame on us for being duped.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I completely agree. Here’s an excerpt from my most recent piece on JVH’s Cloaking Inequality blog discussing TFA’s claims to the “civil rights” mantle:
Playing the civil rights card is a somewhat new strategy in TFA’s ever-evolving communications platform. This is understandable, as Slick Willies often find it hard to stick with one story, especially when evidence starts to catch up with them. And so, Villenueva-Beard had her talking points ready to go as she declared, “Teach For America is looking to channel the energy and the leadership of young recent college graduates and young professionals to commit to, what I would consider, the greatest civil rights issue of our time today, which is education inequity.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I think of civil rights, I think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks. I don’t think of the Walton Foundation (Wal-Mart) and billionaire hedge fund managers-cum-charter school impresarios like Bruce Rauner who bankroll TFA. Ask yourself, if King, X, or Parks were with us fighting the “greatest civil rights issue of our time”, would they really be marching arm in arm with the Waltons and the Rauners? Wasn’t King assassinated in Memphis while supporting union organizing by sanitation workers? (See Honoring MLK: Remembered For the Extremist That He Was) Last I heard, Wal-Mart was firing people for that kind of activity. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but think that if the Waltons really cared about low-income children, wouldn’t Wal-Mart just pay their low-income parents a living wage?
The full piece can be found at: http://cloakinginequity.com/2014/02/06/its-sommer-time-tfa-alum-critiques-co-ceos-slick-willie-interview/
“I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but think that if the Waltons really cared about low-income children, wouldn’t Wal-Mart just pay their low-income parents a living wage?”
No cabe duda, señor.
But where would the profit be in that??
TFA placed a bunch of young, naïve kids in the EAA of Detroit. This is a crime. There were seasoned teachers who had worked in those schools and were far superior to recent TFA grads. The EAA schools are out of control. It is a crime that TFA has the nerve to claim they are helping a modern civil rights movement.
#TFA PROMOTES inequity. They practice learning to teach on the most vulnerable population and then move on to greener pastures, treating inner city schools as a farm team. There is a clear link between high turnover and student achievement. Besides, teaching is about more than turning smart people loose in a school.
The word “reform” was used in the early 20th century by companies that wished to benefit from education by creating the public school system along with the horror reports of the current status of American education. As then, publishers were the big beneficiaries, this time they have joined wit the computer industry.
Reblogged this on Roy F. McCampbell's Blog.
Since these “reformers” are boycotting public education, I propose we organize to boycott them in return, starting with Pearson. Let’s compile a list of the most anti-public school corporations today, then send it out across the country. They’ve hurt what we value: children. Let’s hurt what they value: profits.
There is an app called Buycott for just this purpose. It scans barcodes and lets you know if the company should be boycotted. There are already a couple of education campaigns like stop common core, and avoid ALEC
There is an App for this called Buycott. There are already campaigns that’s would be good to join. The app checks barcodes and let’s you know whether a purchase violates any of the campaigns you support.
“The corporate reformers stole the good words like “reform” and “choice,” to cover their intentions. They borrowed language from the civil rights movement but not its noble goals.”
To study the behavior of the “edu-reformers” is to learn about the ugly and destructive effects of propaganda. To be a teacher and student today is to feel the damaging effects of this propaganda everyday but mightily strive not to be destroyed by it, lift others who are despairing, and share the truth.
Thank you to Deborah Meier, Diane Ravitch, and many others for helping us to share the truth about “edu-reforms” and survive this dark time in education.
Yes! And Amen!
Appropriating words and symbols from the “other side” to gain support. One can either re-define them (to gain support your side) or imply that the meanings are yours, too (Look, we’re after the same things!).
I was not duped—when I was a school administrator and experienced various attempts at charter schools around me, I connected the dots immediately. Any novice administrator can figure out quickly that most of a school’s budget is allocated for personnel. If you can reduce the number of teachers, employ non-certified teaching personnel, and raise class size using the magic word technology, bingo— you can make some money in schools. Not only can you make money, but when legislators allow charter schools to skim students from public schools, now you can claim that your business platform increases student achievement –it was all so transparent. The problem for me, was not that I did not understand what was going on, but my professional organizations became complicit in this bait and switch maneuver and what teaching organizations did come forward to challenge this business platform were systematically removed or not invited to the policy making table. I am still scratching my head trying to figure out how the AFT thought that some form of compliance with corporate schooling model would modify the Pearson’s of the world. The sole goal of the private sector is to make money –let me repeat to make money—that’s it—what is in the best interest of children is not even considered in corporate meetings rooms.
Anther “nail on the head” post Alan.
Notice these people do not let their own children anywhere near the mess they have created.
Alan,
If I may ask, how long ago were you in administration?
“Any novice administrator can figure out . . . ”
I certainly don’t agree with that statement. Most novice administrators only know to follow directions and do what they are told to do and believe what they are told what is right and good. That’s been my experience at least in twenty years of teaching. (after over twenty years in the business sector)
I was an administrator for 21 years–high school principal for 17 years. Learned the facts of school finance when I did my first master schedule and the business manager came into my office and asked what teacher-student teaching ratios was going to use for sectioning classes—he added if I would could raise the sectioning ratios by 1 student we could eliminate 6 teaching positions. And so began my long journey in trying to serve the best interests of students and still meet bottom line budget constraints.
Have you ever looked at how much charters spend on administration? I worked in one that used 25% of its budget on admin. The upper admin was largely the “CEO” and his family. The schools were a cash cow. The teachers were paid very little and had few benefits. The turnover was high. Can you imagine how many public tax dollars this family paid themselves???? Unreal. This has nothing to do with civil rights. It is all about the money.
Whenever the private sector becomes involved it is always about “follow the money.”
No less than CAPITALI$M is at $take. The Charter $$School Movement a failed “REFORM” that won’t be allowed to die.
The legacy of Milton Friedman is noteworthy. Friedman, 1979 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, along with his wife Rosa, promoted vouchers for school choice through public television and a best-selling book Free to Choose (1990, 1997).
The Milton and Rosa Friedman Foundation was an early supporter of the Education Industry Association (EIA) founded in 1990. EIA is a lobby for de-regulated but tax-subsidized private and for-profit education.
Among the most prominent pushers of standardized tests for data mongering in education, along with exotic algorithms to measure “value” are economists and statisticians. Since 1971, for example, economist Eric Hanushek has forwarded the concept of a value-added metric to rate a teacher’s production of gains in students’ test scores.
Thomas Kane, Professor of Economics and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Director of Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research is a pusher. Kane has served as a deputy director of U.S. education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (amous for funding the launch of the Common Core State Standards initiatives persuading Arne Duncan that teachers who produce above average gains in test scores are “effective.”
In 2013, Kane and Douglas Staiger, Professor of Economics at Dartmouth, reported on their Gates-funded studies of various measures of “effective teaching,” known as the MET project. Publicity for the MET project has overshadowed informed criticism of the premises and results of these studies (e.g., Rothstein & Mathis, 2013).
Here’s one big step in reclaiming the civil rights narrative: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2014/02/civil_rights_hero_james_meredi.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-TW
Thanks to Anthony Cody for tweeting.
In defending “against” the corporate take over “initiatives”–We must establish a Democratic (organization) in each school/district. The power to make decisions (about all aspects of schooling) must mirror the democratic frameworks we have established to maintain freedom and Democracy in our government. So! How do we go about moving toward this goal (i.e. independence)?
Educators must conduct (site-based) action research, learn to apply theoretical constructs in their classrooms/schools, and keep their philosophy of education relevant. Practitioners must also continue to improve their instructional techniques (i.e. craft).
I am in agreement with “most of the comments” posted on various Blogs about the “motives of corporate entities”! However, I believe that in many ways EDUCATORS have taken the poor me position. May I encourage all practitioners to fight for their freedom and for the PUBLIC schools that have blessed our nation (with strong independent thinkers) for decades.
Has anyone considered the significance of preparation (to fight)?
I spent more that TEN years developing the means (i.e. mechanisms) required to “prepare” practitioners. However, I cannot force them to “prepare” for the Battles ahead.
I shall make a declarative statement to “BOTH” sides (i.e. public and private interests)–PREPARE to DEFEND your INTERESTS!
Visit my Blog @ http://kennethfetterman.wordpress.org
Sample My books on Education Reform/Teacher Training @
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/kennethfetterman
THOSE INDIVIDUAL THAT STUDY (I.e. prepare) WILL PREVAIL!
We were duped indeed, for a while. I rejoice that Deborah has raised her voice to take this on. Here’s the comment I posted on her blog, asking her to look into Ford Foundation gifts to the Forum for Education and Democracy.
Also, I pointed out that Coalition of Essential Schools affiliate “Great Schools Partenership” has sold iWalkthrough, a distinctly non-liberatory data-driven teacher surveillance tool, to my school.
It has lots of links, and will get caught in the filter, so I’ll post it as a reply.
My comment on Deb’s blog:
Deborah, this is hard. Remember how Diane had to break openly with former allies when she stood up against the corporate reformers?
I’m not sure the Forum for Education and Democracy can be counted as an asset anymore. Can you follow some money there for us, please? The Ford Foundation is listed as a funder (top of the list, in fact) on their Our Team page. Can you find out how much Ford is giving them?
http://www.forumforeducation.org/our-team
And I know you have worked a long time with fellow-convener Linda Darling-Hammond, but she still stumps for Pearson’s Common core tests, on the old “place at the table” argument. She writes:
“I continue to try to work on this agenda with one of the two assessment consortia (Smarter Balanced) and with the Innovation Lab Network states, because I want to try to make what is happening as productive as it can be, and perhaps more instructionally helpful than it might otherwise be. ”
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/10/24/linda-darling-hammond-on-the-common-core-standards/
Finally, The Coalition of Essential Schools and the Forum have merged. I have a bad feeling about this.
http://www.forumforeducation.org/node/1010
Here is a Coalition of Essential Schools affiliate, the Great Schools Partnership, which is all over my building imposing a corporate teacher evaluation system on us (while they occasionally make vague reference to constructivism out of the other side of their mouths).
http://www.essentialschools.org/affiliates/666
A data-driven surveillance nightmare is what they’re really selling, though. Claiming our union had approved, they ordered us to submit multiple 3 minute walkthrough checklists on each other, and upload reports on them to our online corporate evaluation website. Meet iWalkthrough:
http://www.greatschoolspartnership.org/iwalkthrough/
Deborah, can you work to actually talk these people back over, where they may belong, or else at least expose their twisting and expropriation of progressive education vocabulary in the service of the corporate take over?
Not all of us were duped. Jerry Bracey and the Sandia statisticians debunked A Nation At Risk before the end of the 1980s. I first challenged the Illinois proposed “standards” during my 1994 campaign for CTU president. By then, many of us could smell all the rats lining up (after all, the Marva Collins Hoax had been floated in Chicago — and debunked by Substance — during the early 1980s. Susan Ohanian and others were organizing in a half dozen different places by the mid-1990s, and “One Size Fits Few” joined the many Bracey books (and the annual Bracey Report — including the Rotten Apples) by the late 1990s. Ken and Yetta Goodman were reminding everyone who listened to, as Ken always put it, the problem “is not with the tests, but with the standards themselves…” We could see then that “standards and accountability” were two phrases, heavy with noisome content, that would be locked together like the other buzzwords of tyrants, last century, this, and beyond.
And of course I and Substance were sued for a million dollars (“copyright infringement”) in 1999, when we got too close to the reality by publishing the CASE (Chicago Academic Standards Exams) tests. That publication allowed everyone who wanted to read to see how some tests were worse than others. But no simple-minded (or complexly defined “psychometrician” approved) testing program could reduce the complexity of real teaching of real children to a simplistic (but profitable) “Bottom Line.”
That’s why Chicago (the belly of the beast, even as early as January 1999, when Paul Vallas ordered that I be sued and publicly attacked) went crazy attacking me and substance. It was nicely orchestrated. Both daily newspapers called for my firing as a teacher on the same day in their lead editorials. Later, Judge Richard Posner — the poseur of “public intellectuals” — devoted a 19-page Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision to pontificating on the sacred sanctity of secret tests and attacking me and Substance. These sacred Secret Tests had become the obvious High Mass altar of the whole “standards and accountability” scam.
We were facing beliefs, a perverse theology, not anything in the real world, let alone “evidence based.” That’s why they have gotten away with the shape shifting in their pretexts for charters and other privatization scams. Remember when charters would provide “superior performance” and also be incubators of “innovation”? Until those both crashed and burned? But by then, as we heard again in Chicago the past couple of weeks (and we reported at Substance in our monthly reports on the Board of Education meeting here) the REAL REASON for charters — at least this month — is CHOICE. And when the majority of parents are finally heard shouting that the choice we all want is for good public schools?
… well, we’ll have to wait until the next chapter of this free market Summa Theologica comes out.
One of those who enabled us to survive to the point where we are now helping Chicago — and the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union — fight these things on the grand scale was Deborah Meier, who was early on our side and with the assistance we needed (we had donations from more than 1,000 different people to enable us to pay our lawyers to fend off the attacks on me, us, and the First Amendment)…
Not ALL of us were duped. Just, maybe, the majority. And for far too long.
That’s why it’s infuriating to listen to propaganda justifying all of the actions from Race to the Top on over to the right. People aren’t quite that dumb. . . eventually they/we figure out that we have been bought and sold. So now what? That’s the most important question. Now what?
In union states the charters serve to union bust. In non-union states I guess they just serve to make money, segregate and exclude. . .none of which embodies the mission of public education. It is shameful for sure.
But . . .now what?
Organize and fight. Run for office on a third party. Talk to people and find like-minded souls.
And, think about this. Public schools are essential to community. Public schools lay the foundation for democracy. Public schools are instrumental in teaching children to work together. Public schools aren’t there “for the teachers” but for the students.
What do private and privately owned charter schools do? They create new communities, often exclusive communities. This may be the wave of the future. Break up existing communities because you have some issue with “catchment” areas and change the dynamic of public school service to all in a given, manageable area, and give not equal but more power to the few to segregate, rule, and select a means of empowering the few instead of the many.
This is not about education. It is about opportunity and indoctrination for the few. Throw creativity and critical thinking out the window.
So, sort of educational gerrymandering!
Exactly! Well put!
And re “creativity” and “critical thinking”. That is a sop to teachers. It is the Big Testing, Big Data, Big Money, and Big Authoritarianism that is the real “common core”.
deb, Ang & donasonora: thank you for your comments.
Another consequence: notice how when charterites/privatizers are caught with their hands in their cookie jar it turns out that it is difficult to find anyone—and I mean anyone—who can be held responsible for it?
Forget about the weak “accountability” claim of charterites/privatizers. The charterization/privatization of public education includes a diffusion of responsibility that makes almost any sort of responsibility, most especially moral and legal, impractical.
It is small wonder, then, that eduprenuers and their political enablers so often find charterization/privatization irresistible. You can engage in the most egregious conduct and have little chance of suffering any negative consequences.
Except, every once in a while, for having the spigot of public money turned off so that you are no longer able to increase your $tudent $ucce$$.
Other than that, the ed biz makes a lot of ₵ent¢ to the leaders of the “new civil rights movement” of our time…
😎
“The charterization/privatization of public education includes a diffusion of responsibility that makes almost any sort of responsibility, most especially moral and legal, impractical. ”
What? No accountability? lol
Yes, sigh, “accountability” is only for the other side. “We don’t need it because … because …. well, you can trust us! Afterall, we’re only doing this for your benefit!” lol
YES!
After all, accountability is only for the little people.
As usual, great summation, KTA.
Ang: it’s scary when you channel Leona Helmsley…
But you are so right!
😎
This is nothing but a bank heist. This is yet another wealth transfer upward to the tiny number of elites at the expense of everybody else. Soon ALL public assets will be liquidated to enrich these criminals and parasites. It won’t stop with education.
I taught with so many good, kind teachers who only wanted the best education for their students. Teachers were in a system of local control. There was no need to think that outside forces would ever enter their community. (Well, that is not quite true, as Southern states had found that legal segregation brought in those outside forces to remedy the situation for students.)
At the beginning of NCLB, teachers believed that it was just another reform that would go away, another swing of the pendulum. I did see, at the beginning, some wonderful in-house computer programs that really did help teachers in assessment. Teachers created benchmarks and common tests; teachers created school programs to help students do better.
And then it happened. The spin put on NCLB by corporations and those they controlled in Washington quickly spun it out of teacher control to outside (corporate) control. Companies started to take over what teachers could control. The last bastion for privatization, where tax dollars (or user fees) could flow to private hands, was the American school system. As in other areas of labor, employees needed to be tightly controlled and unions needed to be squashed.
And those who espoused the glories of the free market, those self-proclaimed patriots of America who hated Communism, started sounding so much as the Communists leaders who espoused the glories of their system. The Communist leaders went bankrupt, but those American zealots could count on a steady flow of cash to espouse their ecstatic visions of corporate control.
In a war, you first demonize those you want to attack and eventually take under control. And teachers were demonized. And public schools. Once you enter their territory, you look to then win hearts and minds and find locals who will work with you. Look, you could be victorious like us, by becoming educational entrepreneurs! To the corporatist, all the “great teachers” could be pacified with money (merit pay, bribes to give up employment rights). Corporatists would claim to be empathetic with parents, offering what they said parents really wanted, private schools. Why, it’s your patriotic God-given right as an individual to choose the school you want!
Most teachers, like most Americans, did not see the 1% and corporate takeover of America, until they woke up bankrupt and under control. For three decades now, Americans have been cautioned not to question authority or utter the most powerful word, “Why?”
After 1980, just as corporations began shedding their American image, Americans were turned from being “citizens” to being “consumers”. American citizenship is both inclusive and active. Being a good American consumer requires exclusiveness and passivity, accepting of the latest advertising campaign, the only activity being the act of buying. “Choice” is what the corporation wants to sell you. What patriotic activity to do when attacked? “Go shopping.”
Teachers, as all their fellow Americans, must become citizens again, questioning authority, asking “why”, and being active. That is democracy, that is our birthright. Join together with fellow teachers to ask “why”, question authority, ask “where is your evidence?”. Ask it of school boards, politicians, your community via Letters-to-the-Editor. Remember, the spark from one firebrand can light a thousand fires.
Yes, exactly. We need to start asking “why”. When you ask “why”‘, you put the other side on the defensive. We, the American people, need to ask all the corporatists “why”, not “how much to buy into the ‘new (and much worse) American way’?”
Yes, no more buying in to their narrative. We all need to think of Dorothy who started to appease the Wizard but was shouted down by his bellow of “Silence!” That happened right before he was revealed to be a fraud. 🙂
What I mean is: the same people and organizations that are pushing the CC into public schools are organizating the private charter schools that won’t be using the CC. It is like an arsonist collecting the fire insurance.
Unwittingly we may be assisting them with their success and in turn losing our jobs.
I think that the main thing schools need is smaller class size. Then they need parents who take on some responsibility for their children.
If you note, there are objections being raised against the CC on different fronts. It was somewhat perpetually puzzling to me until a light came on. I probably don’t have it figured out yet.
But, think about it. Homeschoolers, charter schools, private schools are against CC. As more of those people decide to exit their community schools, who benefits? Charters and private schools! Observe the vocal rejections of CC. Of what political persuasion are they?
Teachers who are caught in the midst of this due to years spent working for the education of all students are against the privatization of schools but by speaking out against CC they are part of their own demise.
It may not be beneficial to try to group CC and charter/privatization into the same discussion for a convincing objection to either since they feed of one another.
That is why I have been experiencing cognitive dissonance in this dialogue. We really need to push back against each but not in the same breath.
deb, I think I may have had a flash also of what you are saying, but it left me. 🙂 From what I see, politicians and others of influence (ex. Jeb Bush and Bill Gates) push for both in the same breath.
In decades past, one could easily find a “strange bedfellow” with which to enjoy common ground. Is that even possible in today’s political climate? Would someone who considers CC a UN imposition want to link up with me? 🙂
ok, the flash might be back. Are you saying that, by bringing up what’s wrong with CC, teachers will drive parents to home/private schools?
Yes. I am thinking that it is an outcome that plays into the hands of the privating advocates. However, they may just be covering all bases by benefiting from either venture.
If the number of teachers is reduced, if salaries are lowered, if teachers are perceived as the ones to blame (for the perceived problems in education), if schools of education are thrown under the bus, the privatizing entrepreneurs can swoop in with “the answers”.
These vultures are parroting the whines of the disgruntled. They are gaining momentum. They are selling their “brand”, trying to cast public schools as a villain. I am hoping they crash and burn before too much time has passed.
So glad you brought up the “go shopping” comment…saddest point in American history…after being visciously attacked and 3,000+ Americans dead on 9/11, our president (who could have asked us to do ANYTHING…like walk to work from now on, buy wind generators, buy solar powered roof panels, donate billions to help those personally attacked….) tells us to “go shopping”…capitalism at its best!
Yes, a tragic bit of ” advice” to follow a tragic event.
Of all the things our president could of suggested…..
Colleagues and friends…please watch the video link below to see what we in LA are up against. Deasy, the LAUSD Superintendent, who is supposed to work with and support his teachers, expresses his real agenda while testifying for the plaintiffs in the landmark Vergara case…and then, being interviewed by the PBS reporter, he shows his real colors and supports the charter schools he is embedding at record pace.
http://video.pbssocal.org/video/2365173174/
This photo op event staged at Union Station, like the one staged in front of the Ed building before his contract renewal last Oct. 29, features all the carfed actors who again were probably bussed in for this show. The yellow scarves took the place of the yellow daisies…as in Deasy/daisy, but the Broad/Deasy lawyers hang out in the background.
Ellen Lubic
addendum…although the California Vergara case, paid for by David Welch and Eli Broad, with the powerful Ted Olson representing the 9 plaintiffs, all children in inner city LAUSD schools, is purported to be about civil rights, it is really a case that can break the backs of teachers unions.
If and when this case reaches SCOTUS, and with their 5 – 4 makeup, we can foresee another verdict like Citizen’s United. This activist, hyper conservative majority can extend this civil rights claim to denigrate and destroy teacher’s unions, tenure, and any safe harbor agreements like health care and retirement coverage for public school teachers nationwide. It is imperative that teachers and other interested parties across the country follow this case and fight against a positive outcome for these plaintiff pawns of the billionaires.
The Deasy iPad fiasco is also touted by Deasy/Broad as a civil rights case, with every child who does not have an iPad advertised as being discriminated against by those who object to this fraud.
Now this Vergara case comes up with the same billionaires fighting for the civil rights of inner city children and claiming that it MUST be easier to fire inept teachers.
Many taxpayers in LA want to fire the inept Superintendent, the Broad Academy-trained Deasy…but this all seems to be getting more and more undemocartic when one side has all the money to press their cases.
Yes, Deb, it contunues to be Follow the Money.
Ellen Lubic
How disappointing. Some fought so hard when you, Deborah, were given the chance to create options in New York City.
Where is your criticism of the low time inequities in NYC involving elite magnet schools that are allowed to use admissions tests? Apparently that’s ok?
Joe, lots of us see the gold rush behind the charter movement. You seem to be the only person who doesn’t.
I see lots of gold in both district & charter worlds.
Joe, I’ve come to the conclusion that admissions tests, unwanted co-locations, lottery-creamed student populations, and even abundant outside funding (e.g., six- or even seven-digit PA budgets at wealthy schools, like PS 321 in Brooklyn, or corporate grants and donations) all pass muster with most commenters here so long as these measures don’t cost any unionized teachers their jobs.
Seems to be true, Tim. But there are some great union leaders working hard to help youngsters and help them members create great options within districts.
Tim, I strongly disagree with you. The main theme I see in the comments here is that all children should have equal access to a great public education.
It is a very tired old trope to argue that public school advocates just want to protect the jobs of unionized teachers. I’ve been reading this blog for over a year and have seen no evidence to support that whatsoever.
Some of the specific issues you mentioned may be unique to New York City. I’ve lived in a few different states, and have never come across admission tests, co-locations, or abundant outside funding for public schools that weren’t charters. There is nothing called a “PA” in my community, I don’t even know what that is.
Remember that this blog has a national audience, that may explain why some of the topics you mentioned are not emphasized in the comments here.
But if you read carefully you will see that the commenters on this blog support Diane’s mission of a better education for all.
Sorry for the awkwardness of this response, Concerned Citizen, but I want to avoid posting multiple URLs and have this end up in moderation.
Yes, many of these issues may be specific to New York City, where Diane and I live and where I send my children to traditional public schools. New York is a fascinating laboratory for educational and social issues–we have a lot of choice; many excellent traditional district schools (exam and zoned); a robust, high-performing charter sector; several dozen elite private schools where tuition is $40,000/year and climbing fast. It is also a shockingly segregated city and metropolitan area, and there are hundreds of thousands of kids zoned for perennially struggling schools that neither you nor I nor anyone who comments here would ever send our kids to.
Sometimes even tired old tropes contain a kernel of truth. Here are a few examples of arguments I’ve frequently seen cited as being a reason to curtail or end choice or charters, but I seldom if ever see the same objections when they involve district schools staffed by unionized teachers.
The New York City Department of Education operates a suite of selective K-5, K-8, and high schools that are only accessible to children scoring at a certain level on an entrance exam. The test for entry into elementary school is administered when the children are 4 years old. These schools by definition “cream,” thus destabilizing local zoned schools, and in many cases they create a haves/have nots dynamic within school buildings. Google “nytimes gifted talented separated” and read the first article for an example.
Parents Associations (or PAs) at schools in well-to-do NYC neighborhoods raise six or even seven figures annually to support their children’s educations. Most often this money is used to hire assistant teachers, or to allow the principal to shift money around and hire an extra art or music teacher. This is a key criticism of charters, that their funders allow them to have luxuries their district counterparts cannot. The idea of paying for assistant teachers is a pipedream at the majority of NYC public schools, many of whose PAs are lucky to scrape together a couple thousand dollars annually. Google “way beyond bake sales” for more.
Lastly, there’s the issue of co-location. If you have read this blog carefully during the past year, you’ve heard a lot of glowing praise for the Castlebridge School, an unzoned progressive school modeled after Deborah Meier’s Central Park East, for its decision to opt out of early elementary assessments. Castlebridge admits students the same way a charter school does, and the creamed, skimmed result is a student population that stands in stark contrast to the district school in which it is housed, PS 128–far greater numbers of white students, far fewer ELLs, and far fewer children who are eligible for free or reduced price lunch. Furthermore, Castlebridge was permanently placed in the PS 128 building over strong objections from the PS 128 community. Yet there was hardly a peep from those who would have vehemently opposed the placement were Castlebridge a non-unionized charter school. Google “castlebridge public comment analysis”.
There seems to be a double-standard on many of these issues. I would strongly disagree with anyone who thinks children should have no choice at all other than the school they are zoned for, but I can at least appreciate the intellectual consistency of that argument. I fail to see a meaningful difference between the examples I’ve posted here and some of the allegations leveled at charters.
ALEC’s influence in electing candidates who promote vouchers.
http://educationvotes.nea.org/2014/01/26/alec-sponsors-linked-to-new-efforts-to-recruit-groom-anti-public-education-candidates/
http://educationvotes.nea.org/2014/02/10/alecs-voucher-playbook-keep-expanding-leave-public-school-children-nothing/
As ALEC keeps expanding, public schools disintegrate.
See Henry Giroux’s article about what’s happening in America and make the connection between the corporate takeover of public education and what’s already happened to so many public institutions (health care, media, food production, our legislative bodies, etc. etc.).
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/21656-totalitarian-paranoia-in-the-post-orwellian-surveillance-state