EduShyster’s guest columnist is Andy Spears, who writes regularly about school politics in Tennessee. In this post, he describes the barbaric choices forced on public schools, as they compete for survival. One will be turned into a charter school, regardless of the wishes of the parents, students, and local community, and the other will remain a public school, at least until next year, when the same game will be played again.
Spears explains the “Thunderdome” concept:
Education reformers everywhere are looking to Tennessee for the newest way to blow up the system and disrupt the status quo. The new approach comes via Nashville, where both the local school system and the state’s Achievement School District are busy handing over *priority schools* to charter operators. The new twist is that two schools compete to determine which will be converted to a charter. Think the education reform equivalent of Thunderdome: two schools enter, only one leaves.
Two schools enter, one school leaves
Tennesee’s version of Thunderdome kicked off when Metro Nashville Director of Schools, Jesse Register, suggested that KIPP be given an elementary school in East Nashville. When parents at Inglewood Elementary resisted the KIPPing of their school, Register introduced the Thunderdome concept. KIPP would get a school, but it would be EITHER Inglewood or Kirkpatrick Elementary.
A deadline was set, and with no clear criteria for deciding which school would survive, parents were left to determine on their own what tactics might help their school escape KIPP’s clutches. Inglewood parents entered Thunderdome in full force, aligning with a new parent-led movement, East Nashville United, to resist plans to turn all of East Nashville into an *all-choice* school zone. NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia even stopped by, telling those gathered at Inglewood that she was on their side.
So, who won round one? Well, KIPP, of course. They got a school! And, since it was Kirkpatrick, Inglewood parents can take a break from worrying about next year and start worrying about the year after that. Because the game must be played again and Inglewood may yet again find itself in the education reform equivalent of a fight to the death.
Spears describes how parents in both Memphis and Nashville have tried to fight back. But who cares what they think?
He also drops the hint that Chris Barbic, who runs the so-called Achievement School District (which has promised to turn the state’s lowest-performing schools into the top 25% of the state’s schools through the miracle of chartering), has been rumored to be a successor to the leader of the Metro Nashville public schools, which would give him a free hand to turn all the schools in the system over to private charter operators. Or possibly, Spears says, he might be a successor to John King as state commissioner in New York. If he moves on, would the ASD still have to meet its five-year target? Or would it just become an unstoppable machine for chartering all the urban public schools in Tennessee?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Oh God, Please don’t let him come to NY…
This is another one, from Pennsylvania:
Privatize, or shut down your schools. I guess that’s what they mean when they say “choice”. No public option:
“A state-appointed official wants to give Charter Schools USA a minimum of three years to take over and improve student performance.
Parents, teachers, students and school officials are overwhelmingly opposed to that idea — which would be the first public-to-charter conversion in Pennsylvania and among the first in the country.”
“Representatives from The York Dispatch and Charter Schools USA had agreed to meet Tuesday, but the company canceled that meeting due to illness.
Instead, the company asked the newspaper to submit written questions.
The York Dispatch submitted 36 questions Tuesday afternoon. By Wednesday evening, Charter Schools USA had responded to three of those questions.”
I guess I’m unclear on why a national charter company has to cancel a meeting with the local newspaper due to “illness”. They were all out sick that one day? Meeting-with-newspaper day?
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/breaking/ci_27161874/charter-schools-usa-expands-plans-york-city?utm_content=buffer0e35c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
The state of Tennessee has been a darling of USDE, Gates, and all who want to rate teachers by test scores, require merit pay with VAM a major component, including Lamar Alexander who will probably keep that VAM/EVAAS in any policies that are tied to federal funds.
I think the FAKE public education reformers are almost all connected to Bill Gates in some way—even learning from him how to achieve their goals.
I’m almost finished reading “The Educator and the Oligarch” by Anthony Cody, and it is obvious to me that Bill Gates will say anything in public to fool as many people as possible so they will think of him in positive ways while behind the scenes, his money is doing the exact opposite of many of the things he says in public.
I’ve also learned that Bill Gates has spent BILLIONS seeding school boards, state governments, the federal government, Congress and even the White House to do what he wants and his behavior and how he spends his vast wealth—-not what he says in public—-reveals a man who has nothing but contempt for a democracy where the people have a voice.
It is obvious that Bill Gates only values his agenda and his goals—-once you follow where his money goes and ignore what he says in public.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Educator-And-Oligarch-Challenges/dp/1942146000