From reader Chiara:
This is absolutely amazing. [Ed: read the story in the link]
The Ohio Department of Education has chosen a lobbying group. StudentsFirst, to direct efforts to “inform” parents on whether to turn over a bunch of public schools to private contractors under the Parent Trigger:
“Columbus Superintendent Dan Good said yesterday that the district is working to understand all the nuances of the law. On Tuesday, the school board is to hear a presentation by the Education Department and StudentsFirst, the group that the department chose to inform and organize parents”
Rules released by the department yesterday refer to StudentsFirst as a “neutral third party,” but Columbus Education Association President Tracey Johnson said the group is not neutral; it’s a school-reform lobbying organization.”
This is ridiculous. Our state Department of Education is completely captured by lobbyists.
They’re a joke. I resent paying these people. I think StudentsFirst should put them on the payroll and take them off mine. They are actively working against existing public schools in this state.
Chiara is right. StudentsFirst, founded by Michelle Rhee, is not a neutral third party. It actively lobbies and advocates for charters, vouchers, and high-stakes testing in states across the nation. It also supports the parent trigger. According to the article cited by Chiara, one in five of the schools in Columbus are eligible for parent takeover, even though many of them have been reconstituted and turned around previously. The laws have been written in such a way as to label many schools as failures without actually doing anything to help them. This sets them up for privatization. StudentsFirst has no track record of improving schools. It is a lobbying organization for privatization.
Expose such idiocies and nonsense, declaring StudentsFirst “neutral,” ridiculous. When authority is drunk with power and out-of-control, language use also goes out-of-control.
Governor Kasich thinks paying the fox to guard the henhouse is the best idea ever. This is the worst example of cronyism I have seen in a long time and that’s saying something.
Ohio State Department of Education is part of the problem. The institution is at the mercy of the state legislture for funding and survives by not questioning much that comes down the pike.
But the Ohio Department of Education jumped in front of the legislature 6 months ago when there was political momentum to start regulating charter schools.
There were a series of newspaper exposes, the legislature, under pressure, started talking about acting, and the ODE came out and basically preempted legislative action- they said they would start regulating charter schools.
I read that as protecting charter schools from regulation, because the ODE already knows they don’t have sufficient statutory authority to regulate the schools.
Why did they do that? If they’re at the “mercy” of the legislature, why are they protecting charter schools from legislative action that might actually give them some authority to regulate?
“Ohio” (with apologies to Neil Young)
StudentsFirst and Rhee are coming
We’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Schools closed in Ohio
Gotta get down to it
Charters are shutting us down
Should have been done long ago
What if your local school was
Found shut down in your town
How can you run when you know?
Ah, la la la la…
Gotta get down to it
Charters are shutting us down
Should have been done long ago
What if your local school was
Found shut down in your town
How can you run when you know?
StudentsFirst and Rhee are coming
We’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Schools closed in Ohio
Schools closed in Ohio
Schools closed in Ohio
Schools closed in Ohio
This gives you an idea how little authority the ODE has over these schools. There were a series on newspaper reports on corruption. The ODE vowed to begin regulating the schools. But they don’t have any authority to regulate the schools:
“The Ohio Department of Education Wednesday blasted a education organization from northern Ohio for allegedly illegally trying to open a charter school in the closed VLT Academy building in Pendleton. It’s referring the group’s leaders for potential disciplinary action.
VLT Academy closed abruptly this summer after its sponsor refused to renew its contract and the school became involved in legal troubles.
Since then the Portage County Educational Services Center has been recruiting students and teachers at the former VLT building. It claimed it was opening a new charter school there called Hope 4 Change Academy.
But the Ohio Department of Education, says no way. In a scathing letter, it said it never approved the new school, nor will it.
Portage County ESC has already been sanctioned twice in three years for the low performance of the other schools it sponsors. Plus, it had failed to properly vet the school’s operator and made other misrepresentations about the school.”
They’re completely ignored, and is it any wonder? They just placed a lobbying group as a “neutral third party”.
Why should anyone in the state take them seriously, including charter management companies?
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2014/08/27/state-blasts-charter-school/14709863/
I wonder how we can fight the money. They are winning behind the scenes in 15,5880 districts in 50 states, and the ordinary people, the workers I met in Montauk and East Hampton this week, do not even know what is happening in the school district where there kids go. What is the Common Core?” asks one woman. “my kid hates it,” she added.
“THEY’ the Broad/ Walton,Koch/Gates brood are winning… they own the politicians and the media…. we need a leader… a real motivator to get the teachers out there to lead the discussion. The voice of the teacher is MISSING IN ACTION, and they do not have to divide to conquer, it is already cut-up and distributed.
Republicans have turned Ohio into third world status. The Dispatch and Plain Dealer are mouthpieces of the GOP and rarely report news as much as propaganda. It is a constant drumbeat of anti-teacher articles while propping up the Republicans. The state has lost tech or manufacturing and increasingly relies on raw resources like fracking or minimum wage service jobs. Kasich is increasingly downright bizarre in public and the political machine is primping him for a presidential run. Teachers are increasingly portrayed as the Enemy by a far right tea party and jobs in education are dismal if even available. Ohio has had 21 consecutive months of terrible job growth well below the national average. Median income is dropping. The unemployment rate is dropping, not due to more jobs, but because people are leaving the workforce. Such is the “Ohio Miracle”.
Can it get worse? Ohio looks like they are electing Kasich to another 4 years. Unbelievable.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
StudentsFirst, founded by Michelle Rhee, is not a neutral third party. It actively lobbies and advocates for charters, vouchers, and high-stakes testing in states across the nation.
They are banking on the ignorance of the parents, and they very well may win.
As the Columbia Journalism Review stated in a lead article a very few months ago:
“Who cares if it is true?”
I would think this is a BIG conflict of interests! Can’t a lawyer or several lawyers get involved in something so utterly ridiculous and dishonest?
It’s education carpetbagging at its worst.