Valerie Strauss: the Real Losers in the de Blasio-Moskowitz Charter Battle

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1. john a says:

   April 14, 2014 at 8:34 am

   This is such a piece of depressing news, though necessary to read. What, if anything, can be done to protect public school kids? Will BDB step up and continue to fight, or will he leave the kids behind and move on to a new piece of ‘progressive’ agenda?

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2. Chiara Duggan says:

   April 14, 2014 at 8:58 am

   At the same time this was happening, Democrats in the US House and the Obama Administration were pushing for increased federal funding for building charter schools.

   Here’s Democrats for Education Reform celebrating their big win:

   The Democrats in the US House are claiming the bill includes regulatory provisions for charter schools, where they would be forced to serve a population that is like that of public schools, but that isn’t true, reading the language. They can’t regulate thousands of schools at the federal level as far as “lotteries”.

   The bill includes some gentle suggestions to charter school management companies, but no regulation.

   Charter school promoters got everything they wanted, and Democrats got zip on regulation in return.

   This is what we get when we hire a bunch of “relinquishers” and “agnostics” to negotiate with passionate supporters of charter schools and anti-public school Republicans, I guess.

   More mush from the wimps on the “D” side.

   We probably need someone at the table who values public schools. Charter school advocates versus “relinquishers” and “agnostics” means public schools lose every time. And they have been losing every time. No surprise there. They don’t have an advocate.

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3. Alan says:

   April 14, 2014 at 9:01 am

   Disabled students. The hard to teach students for whom charter schools were originally conceived to serve…

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   • caligirl says:

     April 15, 2014 at 9:04 am

     Your comment should be in bold print…how far afield we have come.

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4. Chiara Duggan says:

   April 14, 2014 at 10:58 am

   Interesting piece about another charter battle. It’s mostly negative towards public schools and public school parents, but at least they admit charter school billionaires have an overt agenda of privatizing public schools:

   “The charter movement also is blundering into some problems of its own making.
   Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ recent idiotic comments calling for private corporations to run all public schools are seriously damaging the movement, affirming fears of loss of public and parental control. And in San Jose, Rocketship’s ambitious expansion plans overreached and have fed fear that charters run roughshod over public agencies.”

   You think? Could Reed Hastings get elected on a platform of having private corporations run all public schools? No? Then why are media supporting a back-door effort to do just that?

   http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_25525334/mercury-news-editorial-charter-school-battle-san-jose

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5. Lloyd Lofthouse says:

   April 14, 2014 at 11:20 am

   “co-locating in the same buildings as traditional public schools”

   Maybe I’m slow and someone else saw this tactic for what it is before the thought just occurred to me this morning.

   Cancer always starts small and catching it early and getting rid of it is vital to survival. But cancer is tricky and there is a risk that it will mutate and return even more lethal.

   Has anyone else seen that “co-locating” is a cancer that will eventually spread to other rooms, and then take over the entire traditional public school that will then be no more?

   There’s a lot of truth in the old saying that if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile and then they’ll just keep taking until no room is left for everyone else.

   And if the Common Core and the linked test results that are used to judge students, teachers and schools in the public system are so vital and important to improve education, why hasn’t Obama and his pet parrot, Arne Duncan, asked Congress for legislation that would make Common Core and its cancerous test mandatory in all private sector schools with the results made just as public as those from the public schools are?

   To me, this double standard is the canary in the coal mine and anyone who can reason should be seriously alarmed and asking questions. The Koch brothers, for instance, are also at the heart of rolling back gains made by women over a very long period of time; funding false studies to cast doubt on the causes of global warming, etc.

   The decades long war on the public schools, women’s rights, the acquisition of much of the traditional media, the fight against legislation to clean up the environment and reduce CO2 emissions, the propaganda that denies the science of evolution, etc. are all part of the same master plan and the same names keep popping up: the Walton Family, the Koch brothers, Eli Broad, etc.

   On their side, they have the money and own most of the media. All we have is public opinion but the public can be easily fooled and mislead if there is no way to reach the public and educate them on the issues and the facts that reveal the truth behind what’s going on.

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   • retiredbutmissthekids says:

     April 15, 2014 at 3:17 am

     Lloyd, this is ALL a cancer–the tumor started in 1973 (ALEC) and has been growing–slowly but surely.
     Everyone, read the next post–it’s never too late to operate on this sucker (money sucker from public funds). Yes, WE can & we WILL!

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     • Lloyd Lofthouse says:

       April 15, 2014 at 11:44 am

       Actually, the cancer started much earlier in 1955 with Milton Friedman, the father of neo-liberal economics and also the father of the school privatization movement.

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6. 2old2teach says:

   April 14, 2014 at 11:59 am

   “And if the Common Core and the linked test results that are used to judge students, teachers and schools in the public system are so vital and important to improve education, why hasn’t Obama and his pet parrot, Arne Duncan, asked Congress for legislation that would make Common Core and its cancerous test mandatory in all private sector schools with the results made just as public as those from the public schools are?”

   We will have charter schools rushing to claim their rights as private enterprises rather than public since the government cannot legislate what happens in a private school. Of course if they are private, then the question becomes why are our tax dollars going to support them?

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7. Ken Watanabe says:

   April 14, 2014 at 2:51 pm

   Nothing is more distasteful than cookies made for her zombie schools fed by zombi-e-llionaires and Cuomo.

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8. Michael Fiorillo says:

   April 15, 2014 at 10:45 am

   Et tu, Weingrew?

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9. julie says:

   April 15, 2014 at 1:16 pm

   I fine it ironic that the name of her charter is success academy. Really? What kind of success is it that kicks out the disabled to make room for those with far fewer challenges than the disable kids have. As a society in general we are in serious danger of losing our compassion and caring for those less fortunate than the so called successful. To do so is truly to be a moral and spiritual failure. A blight on are collective karma as a country and a society and nothing to be proud of whatsoever. And yet the billionaires and the politicians actually think they have won a battle. They have instead lost out to greed and avarice and indifference. A dark cloud hovers over our educational system and I shudder to think where these people who are so self righteous and sure of themselves are actually taking us.

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   • Lloyd Lofthouse says:

     April 15, 2014 at 2:35 pm

     The fake Ed Reformers use patriotic and positive titles as another tactic to fool the people.

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