Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy fears that Governor John Kasich plans to privatize the public schools of Youngstown:
Bill Phillis writes:
According to a November 20 Youngstown Vindicator article, the state representative-elect from Youngstown said the Governor told her he would like to shut down Youngstown City Schools and replace the district with a great charter school. Could this happen? That scheme already exists in New Orleans. Look for it in the state budget bill to be unveiled by the Governor in February 2015.
Ohio law provides that charters are privately-operated entities with near zero accountability and transparency. A charterized Youngstown School system would signal that a private, non-transparent, unaccountable system is superior to a publicly-controlled, accountable, transparent system. It would signal that privatization is superior to democracy. It would tell the world that democracy has failed in Youngstown Ohio. What is next? A privatized city council for Youngstown?
Ohioans better wake up to the erosion of democracy via the charter school scheme. If the complete privatization of pubic K-12 education happens, democracy will be history.
William Phillis
Ohio E & A
Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Oh, no, Say it isn’t so. This is my hometown. I graduated from The Rayen School, as did my parents. Both of them were Youngstown Public Schools teachers. I read this with an incredible heavy heart. Youngstown keeps getting the worst of all socio-economic experiments. It has become a little Detroit in many ways. This breaks my heart – again. Looking at Youngstown and Denver, one has to believe privatization is winning. How do we stop this madness?
Whenever I hear someone’s from Youngtown, I always feel obligated to ask if they knew Ray Mancini and/or Ed O’Neil when they were growing up.
As an Ohio resident, I totally believe John Kasich would do this. He is mean spirited and would make a great dictator. He wants to be President of the U.S., but so many people extremely dislike him. 4 more years as Ohio governor……..I can’t hardly fathom the horrible changes he will make. His twin daughters are protected through private schools, but he can and will wreak havoc in the Ohio public school systems. He has done a lot of damage already.
Kasich is trying hard to rebrand himself as a moderate for a presidential run. But he is extremely far right in ideology and action. He is not most Ohioans’ governor. In his first governatorial election, he won by a very slim margin with 49% of the vote. In the last election, only 25% of eligible voters re-elected Kasich. Yet he governs as if he has a mandate. I’m not sure what is wrong with Ohio. We are sinking fast economically with fewer middle class jobs than ever. We lag in about every economic indicator including job growth and median income. The schools are decimated and teachers demonized. Yet voters seem asleep.
“In the last election, only 25% of eligible voters re-elected Kasich. Yet he governs as if he has a mandate.”
About 18% of eligible voters voted for Bill De Blasio, aka Mr. Mandate.
Sounds like Kasich was re-elected in a landslide, then. Maybe voting should be mandatory.
School choice – with or without vouchers – is the only answer. Why should my kids be enslaved to a school I don’t think works? The teachers unions and the districts argue that parents are too dumb to make decisions about where to send their kids. These same parents who are smart enough to select a plan from Obamacare, and have the right to vote for president are somehow incapable of choosing the school they prefer for their kids. Huh? School choice would force schools to compete and be responsive to parents – and have consequences for their success or failure.
How may I tankeryou???
As opposed to democracy? I am always amazed how “free market” evangelists with a hammer view every situation as a nail.
KIPP has almost 100% poor minority students and they far outperform other schools. Why not just copy what they do? Oh right, the unions don’t wanna. Got it. Kids lose. Again. Educate or incarcerate.
Can tanker me: have you checked KIPP’s attrition rates? Did you know that KIPP took over Cole middle school in Denver and left town when they didn’t succeed? Best to look at all sides, not just one.
“All sides?” There’s only one “side” – the kids , what is best for students not the adults. The teachers and admin unions and school construction companies and textbook publishers and the legislators that are owned by these groups are not the same as a students or parents union – which is needed so that we students n parents can strike if we don’t like the learning conditions. I’ve looked at “all sides” and public ed has been an utter failure for 30 years while the small pockets of success in public schools – which exist and should simply be copied by all – are rejected by the faux “stakeholders” who are only job holders. Go look at edutopia.org and see what actually works in public ed and ask why everyone doesn’t just copy these things. What works in Ed is NO mystery. Try looking at even ONE other side other than the one driven by magical thinking not data.
Vouchers work. School choice works. Enslaving kids to your choice for them is immoral and has failed. Choice leads to competition leads to improvement. Parents who can figure out obamacare can certainly select a school for their kid. Why is everyone on this blog Anti Choice? What are you afraid of? Improving? Change? It’s the civil rights issue of our day and you guys are standing in the school house door.
Can tanker me: why not look at research? School choice does not “work.” If you refer to test scores, there is not a single evaluation of vouchers and charters that show they produce superior academic performance, even if test scores is your only measure. The charters that get higher scores do not accept the same proportion of students with high needs as public schools. There is no evidence that can convince an ideologue.
If some public ed works why don’t all public schools schools simply copy those methods? After you answer that… Who are you to enslave my child to your choice of school? School choice raised NYC ‘s dismal 45% graduation rate to 65% – quickly – still dismal but much better. New Orleans new systems works miles better than the old system. The DC vouchers worked. Stop being paternal and autocratic while pretending to be for the kids. Ideology has nothing to do with which data you want to ignore. show me public schools that work and tell me why every school doesn’t just copy that? Let’s start there.
If some public ed works why don’t all public schools schools simply copy those methods? After you answer that… Who are you to enslave my child to your choice of school? School choice raised NYC ‘s dismal 45% graduation rate to 65% – quickly – still dismal but much better. New Orleans new systems works miles better than the old system. The DC vouchers worked. Stop being paternal and autocratic while pretending to be for the kids. Ideology has nothing to do with which data you want to ignore. show me public schools that work and tell me why every school doesn’t just copy that? Let’s start there.
In the battle of wits, a ditto head, is unarmed.
Maybe it’s time for teacher preparation programs to support a vote of “No Confidence” in the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Preparation (CAEP). CAEP’s recent release of Building an Evidence-Based System for Teacher Preparation (http://caepnet.org/resources/building-an-evidence-based-system-for-teacher-preparation/) reads like a manifesto to create for-profit teacher prep factories to run “21st Century School” factories. The report essentially mandates at least five (likely more) nationally norm-referenced exams for teacher candidates (all linked to federal mandates) — and that’s all you need. There’s really no need for any authentic teacher preparation as we know it. The report cites NCTQ and Kate Walsh numerous times, and appears to be modeling itself after Kate Walsh’s ill-conceived ABCTE program (abcte.org) — notice how close it is to AACTE (aacte.org). ABCTE requires only a mere 60 hours of contact with real students prior to graduation. Unfortunately, this 60 hours will probably be sufficient for 21st Century, norm-referenced-MicroPearson-soft-robo teachers “Dave, please turn back to your screen and continue with your next exam or I’ll have to employ the off task gear.”
You are correct. The Director of the newly merged accrediting bodies, Sharon Robinson, is also a trustee of Corinthian Colleges a for- profit and scandal-ridden on-line chain of schools some of these offering teacher education, in addition to Kapan and others.
I read the new accrediting rules and realized that these are not based on the best independent judgment of teacher educators and they are designed to radically reduce the role of higher education faculry in preparing teachers. The rules for accreditation have been customized to please USDE and Gates who want teacher education programs to be responsible for the test scores that their graduates produce when a district hires them. In addition, the merged organization was under pressure to have this bizarre document signed because any accrediting program for teacher education not approved by USDE is in trouble. Sudents who apply to such programs are ineligible for any federal scholarship programs. The squeeze was on, and not much different from the iron-fist micromanagement for Pre-K to 12.
Kasich and the state legislators are just doing the ALEC agenda in education, pandering to the republican base and with a lot of help from RTTT which seems to have been written by McKinsey&Co.
RTTT encourages states to change their existing legislation to permit this kind of “disruptive innovation.” The takeover has nothing to do with improving education. It has everything to do with privatizing another “sector of the economy.” Ohio has for profit prisons. For a look at that industry and all of the parallels with for-profit schools that market themselves as public charters and serving students needs, read this http://www.americanbar.org/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/human_rights_vol38_2011/human_rights_summer11/prisons_for_profit_incarceration_for_sale.html
The lasting legacy of ed reformers in Ohio won’t be that they opened scores of charter schools, it will be that they did lasting damage to existing public schools.
They’ll leave public schools in this state worse than they found them.
I resent paying every one of them. I don’t even think they’re performing the basic duties that come with the jobs they chose to take, let alone “improving” anything.
Here’s the latest evidence that charter schools don’t outperform public schools in this state. This is third grade reading scores.
http://www.marionstar.com/story/news/local/2014/11/20/third-grade-reading-county-schools-pass/70009050/?appSession=909132066252567&RecordID=1767&PageID=3&PrevPageID=2&cpipage=1&CPIsortType=&CPIorderBy=&cbCurrentRecordPosition=1
Once again, Ohio’s much-maligned and very unfashionable public schools beat charter schools in test scores, as they have for the last 15 years.
It doesn’t matter. They’ll continue to disinvest in public schools and open more charter schools. This has absolutely nothing to do with “data” and everything to do with ideology.
“Everything to do with ideology.”
But, mostly money.