For further information contact:
Clovis Gallon, 717-487-2530, clo95@hotmail.com
Lauri Rakoff, 717-577-8327, lrakoff@psea.org
YORK CITIZENS TO SCHOOL BOARD: STOP THE CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF OUR SCHOOLS
Community members will march outside School Board, Community Education Council meetings
York, Pa. (Sept. 12, 2014) – Parents, educators, and members of the York community are calling on York City School Board members to reject the bids of two out-of-state charter corporations competing to take over the city’s public schools.
The School Board is reviewing proposals from Charter Schools USA and Mosaica Education, Inc. to take over every one of the city’s public schools. This would be a first-of-its-kind experiment in Pennsylvania public education, allowing a private corporation to profit from the education of York schoolchildren.
“No other school district in Pennsylvania has handed over every one of its public schools to a for-profit charter corporation,” said Clovis Gallon, a teacher and member of the York City Education Association. “York students should not be treated like guinea pigs in some grand experiment.”
Parents, educators, and members of the York community will march outside of the York City School Board meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 17 and a Charter School Presentation for the Community Education Council on Wednesday, Sept. 24.
The details of both events are below. Media coverage is encouraged.
What: York City School Board Meeting
Where: York City Schools Administration Building
When: Wed., Sept. 17, 5:30-6:30 p.m. (School Board meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.)
Details: The march will occur outside the Administration Building. Participants will then attend the School Board meeting.
What: Community Charter School Presentation
Where: Hannah Penn K-8 School
When: Wed., Sept. 24, 5:30-6:30 p.m. (Community Education Council meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.)
Details: The march will occur outside the school cafeteria. Participants will then attend the Community Education Council meeting and Charter School Presentation.
The corporate takeover experiment is being pushed by the York City School District’s chief recovery officer, an appointee of Gov. Tom Corbett, who falsely claims this is the district’s only hope in the face of financial challenges.
“Gov. Corbett has starved York’s public schools of needed resources, and now his appointed chief recovery officer is blaming the city’s schools for not providing children with a rich enough educational diet,” said Gallon. “What York schools really need is for state lawmakers to reverse the Corbett funding cuts.”
York community members look forward to sending a message to school officials that they support their community schools and strongly oppose a corporate takeover by an out-of-state charter operator.
“Local taxpayers and elected officials should be making decisions about the education of York’s children – not an out-of-state corporation with its eye on the bottom line,” said Gallon.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They should go to Muskegon Heights Michigan, and talk to people there. There were actually TWO all-privatized areas in the US; New Orleans and Muskegon Heights. Mosaica pulled out because as it turns out it’s expensive to improve a school.
“Mosaica Education Inc. will no longer manage the Muskegon Heights charter school district, and plans will begin immediately to seek a replacement company.
The Muskegon Heights charter school board on Saturday, April 26 voted to amend its contract with Mosaica to run the schools from five years to two, effectively ending the contract on June 30. A new company will be sought for a three-year contract, through the 2016-17 school year.
Muskegon Heights Public Schools Emergency Manager Gregory Weatherspoon said the separation came down to an issue of finances. Mosaica, a for-profit company, was running a deficit budget and not making a profit.”
For some odd reason no one talks about Muskegon Heights 🙂
Why is that? There have been 50,000 articles written on The Miracle In New Orleans.
Michigan can’t seem to get any love from the ed reform promotion crew. I never hear a word about the EAA in Detroit anymore, and that was promoted like crazy when they first privatized it. Everyone from Governor Snyder to Arne Duncan were flocking to Detroit. What happened?
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2014/04/mosaica_out_as_manager_of_musk.html
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York, PA is where governor hopeful Tom Wolf is from. This is more than a little worrisome. He is the democratic candidate and a big part of his campaign is that he will support public education and fair funding.
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Are they planning on telling the public about the part where they fire all the local teachers?
“Over the summer Muskegon Heights schools’ then emergency manager laid off everybody who worked at the district and hired Mosaica Education to run operations for 5 years.
Three months in, one in four (20 of 80 total) of the newly hired teachers has quit.
“It’s confusing because I go from this learning process to this learning process to that learning process and it’s just ridiculous how some teachers leave and we have to start all over and learn something new,” Muskegon Heights High School senior Tony Harris said, “It’s just, it’s crazy.”
“We’ve had a turnover of staff that we did not anticipate,” said Alena Zachery-Ross, Mosaica’s Regional Vice President.
She says some of the teachers were leaving in the beginning of the school year because there was no discipline policy in place yet. Since then, she says other teachers have left for jobs at traditional public schools with better pay and benefits.”
I think a field trip to Muskegon Heights is in order. I know the lawmakers are too busy to perform even the most basic due diligence, but maybe someone in the community could volunteer to do their jobs for them. Ask about how much they pay teachers. That’s a good question. I hope the profits aren’t coming out of a reduction in pay for teachers! A for-profit company would NEVER cut wages to turn a profit, right? That’s…unimaginable!
http://michiganradio.org/post/1-4-teachers-muskegon-heights-schools-quit-during-first-3-months-school-year
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Cross posted at
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/York-City-Pennsylvania-P-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Corporate-takeovers-buyouts_Corporations_Diane-Ravitch_Education-140915-158.html#comment511593
with this comment: If the public does not get involved, the road to opportunity provided by the INSTITUTION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS will be closed. IN 50 states and 15, 580 districts the move to privatize education is hidden.
Please let people know about such grassroots movements to stop the Brad/Walton/Koch/Gates billionaires club from monetarizing education.
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York, PA we’re pulling for you and wishing you the best of luck in keeping your public schools out of the hands of corporate reformers. I hope you succeed.
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You will inspire others across the land. Don’t give up this fight.
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Maybe they CAN do it.
It looks like that one kindergarten teacher in Florida just got testing for little kids reduced.
In the whole state 🙂
http://gatorbonbc.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/teacher-refuses-florida-doe-responds-fair-testing-suspended-statewide-florida-2/
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Is there a district that ed reformers have “improved” without privatizing all the schools?
Because I seem to recall we were told they would “improve” public schools, not replace them. I don’t recall a national debate on winding down public schools and replacing them with national charter chains. Is there an ed reform politician who runs on that? Did the governor in Pennsylvania run on that? Did the mayor of Chicago?
Might be good to actually have an election on this “new model of governance” they’re developing in think tanks. This isn’t what they sold to the public.
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Excellent point about the original purpose of the charter school concept and it’s re-purposing to privatize education. We should all keep that in mind when talking with everyone remotely interested in public education.
Thanks for keeping that “problem” at the fore!!
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I also don’t remember anything about how we couldn’t “afford” public schools anymore, so had to outsource them.
Why is this cheaper? How can it be cheaper if they’re taking a profit off the top? Is this some kind of magical budgeting where “markets” just make it cheaper and better, too? Where is the profit coming out of?
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Reblogged this on Bryan Mann and commented:
This is interesting and it is close to home here in PA! Consider this quote from the release: “This would be a first-of-its-kind experiment in Pennsylvania public education, allowing a private corporation to profit from the education of York schoolchildren.”
I am skeptical of private influences in public education.
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Hmm . . . Mosaica? I’ve been studying the corporate takeover of New Orleans public schools for the past decade. Let me share a story that community members in York City will find relevant to their battle. It comes from the Times-Picayune newspaper and reveals how the board of Lafayette Academy charter school in New Orleans terminated its contract with Mosaica, which was paid $773,000 for the first year of its five-year agreement. Nonetheless, Mosaica failed to arrange appropriate transportation for students; did not organize a repeatedly requested after-school program for students below grade level; and kept the school filthy. The school also lacked copy machines and insurance when the school year began. Through a legal arbitration process, a judgment of $350,000 was issued against Mosaica. Find the story here:
http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/charter_school_wins_lawsuit_ag.html
For more on what York City can expect if for-profit operators take over the schools, check out the book Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance, which chronicles the past ten years of “reform” in New Orleans.
I hope this helps.
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Just one more example of US education in chaos destroying the youth of tomorrow. Too many adults now have already become dysfunctional from our declining society. Until we get a strong president and leaders who will get rid of DOE and give education back to the communities where it belongs, this insanity will continue. George Washington’s education was in his garden, and centered about botany and literary classics. He was our smartest and greatest president, but how quickly we forget. Schools today are producing robots, not leaders. Too many people think PhD or MD after a name makes one smart. It is the opposite. What makes people smart is their childhood environment. Our method of warehousing children in daycare and institutional abuse from harsh boring school environments is producing a society of deranged people. We have become a society of workaholics with social and emotional dysfunctional. We need to get back on track and restore authentic learning like Montessori, which is the same as George Washington’s school. Everyone needs to burst the little bubble they are living in and notice that our country may claim to be great, but actually it is a ghetto of dysfunction from traumatic grief and betrayal trauma: loss of trust in government, fear and insecurity, lack of respect for differences in race and religion, and corruption from the wealthy and powerful. We do not need war machines being sent to communities all over the country from the Dept of Defense, we need that money put into healthy public schools to nurture our children rather than abuse them. What will it take for people in this country to wake up, another Civil War?
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You hit the nail on the head, Barb.
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We are collecting signatures through an online petition at:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/stop-the-corporate-takeover-2?source=c.em.cp&r_by=11250132
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