Edward F. Berger describes his experience as part of a team of parents and educators who created one of the first charter school in Arizona. At that time, in the mid-1990s, charters were held to high standards of accountability.
But then the charter movement changed. Instead of working to strengthen public education, it began to see itself as a competitor and received funding from enemies of public education.
Charter schools, he writes, like district schools, are designed to fail. However, unlike district schools, they have become a vehicle for privatization and undermining teacher professionalism.
He writes:
The Koch-ALEC machine saw ‘school choice’ and ‘charter schools’ as a vehicle to carry out their mission. Within a short time they were able to control legislatures, by-pass or infiltrate the state school boards, and set up appointed (not elected) boards/organizations to “supervise” charter schools. These new boards stripped away accountability.They opened the gates to a chaos of partial schools with little accountability to children and taxpayers.
In most states, the politicians in charge followed the direction of corporations controlled by The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the parent of this organization, the Koch-funded continuation of the John Birch Society and its tenets. (Google ALEC, and verify this information). These powerful, well-funded politicians have several guiding tenets:
1) To destroy public education (not just district schools).
2) To destroy all forms of worker representation (associations, unions);
3) To “privatize” public tax dollars for their own use and profit
4) To end Representative Democracy in America.
This is a post you should read.
Click on the link in the posting.
Then ask yourself: what does this blog contribute to the effort to ensure a “better education for all”?
IMHO, what the leaders and promoters and enforcers of the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement can’t and won’t and refuse to provide. Quite literally, the kind of information that will enable viewers to begin to make sense of what is happening in, and to, public schools, and to the vast majority of students and parents in this country.
If you rely on the rheephorm establishment and its MSM advocates and enablers, you will be lost in a confusing blizzard of jargon and slogans and hype. How to make your way to some firm ground?
As in so many other cases, let a very dead and very old and very Greek guy lead the way:
“To find yourself, think for yourself.” [Socrates]
And let some homegrown talent explain why, if we don’t want to be in thrall to tortured numbers & stats and self-serving arguments, we need to get the facts straight:
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” [Frederick Douglass]
Just my dos centavitos worth…
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Mr. Berger, I read your entire column, and agree with most of it. But in your second to last paragraph, you write this…
“It is time for a merger of successful charter schools with their public school districts. It is time to support the creative and risk-taking educators who, at great personal and financial risk, have stepped outside of the often petrified public education systems and demonstrated other effective ways. It is time they, and their
proven ideas, join and strengthen district public schools, and that they stay in leadership roles as proven change agents”
I don’t know where to start. As a public school educator with ten years experience in a progressive Texas school district, I have no idea what a charter school can teach me, at least something that does not seem to violate federal regulations, or my own conscience.
When charter schools are filled with students of all stripes and colors, with interested and involved parents, with people from all social-economic levels, then I will listen to what they have to say. So far, the evidence does not seem to support this.
Building two roads to reach the same destination if foolish.
Given the billions of dollars and immense political power supporting charter schools, to say that educators have taken … “great personal and financial risks” to open them is utterly preposterous. What risk is there when you partner with Bill Gates and Eli Broad?
The time may come when charters, having imploded and lost political support due to incompetence and corruption, desperately seek to re-affiliate with the public school systems they leeched off for years. If that happens, there needs to be a rigorous system in place to cull the legit schools from the frauds.
Perhaps then we can start talking about re-building, rather than bleeding, public education.
I agree about the Koch/John Birch Society/ALEC/corporate drivers of faux education “reform,” but Berger forgot to mention that those folks are still fighting the Civil War and are very intent on winning it. That is just the Republican/Tea Party, too. Then there are the neoliberals that have infiltrated and dominated the Democratic party, ever since Clinton turned the party hard-right in order to appeal to Southerners, and who support the same things but use smoke and mirrors to try to conceal how similar they really are are to the radical right in the GOP.
And, as mentioned by others, I totally disagree with Berger’s last paragraphs, which indicate there is something of value to be learned and imported from charters, or that they have leaders who should be emulated and “stay in leadership roles as proven change agents.”
Charter schools that get high test scores, like KIPP et al., typically do so by taking kids from families with high educational levels (most states don’t report this demographic data but California does), narrowing the curriculum, focusing on massive test prep, treating children of color as if they are wild animals in need of draconian, humiliating methods of taming that require they learn their place and demonstrate immediate compliance, and by dumping the most challenging children. The charters that don’t do these things are rare, certainly not the ever growing chains, and very few charters, if any, that have a majority of children of color from low income and low education families get high test scores, because poverty and inequity have not been addressed.
We knew this from the get-go, too, so there was never a need to waste decades of time spending billions of dollars confirming how family income and family education impact academic outcomes. Unless, of course, the aims all along have been for the South to win the Civil War, resulting in a segregated, highly stratified society where public education will not be producing people that will attempt to maintain democracy and who will fight for a better life for the underclass.
To all Educators in this website:
This is my favorite year-end summary. I hope that you agree with me. Happy Holidays from back2basic.
Here is the summary of all useful and helpful information and link from all educators and parents:
1) From: KrazyTA
November 29, 2014 at 3:02 pm
(in Mercedes Schneider’s thread: “Is There Anyone in the U. S. Department of Education Who Believes in Public Education?”)
“With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.”
William Lloyd Garrison was right then. He’s right now.
2) From: Laura H. Chapman
November 29, 2014 at 12:28 pm
Policies on data mining? “The future, like everything else, is no longer quite what it used to be.” Paul Valéry, poet.
It is no surprise that the Gates funded Teacher-Student Data Link Project started in 2005 is going full steam ahead. By 2011 his project said the link between teacher and student data would serve eight purposes:(which are completely fraudulent and opposite to a century of educational research, this is my emphasize)
1. Determine which teachers help students become college-ready and successful, (=train students to be robots for factory)
2. Determine characteristics of effective educators, (=serfs)
3. Identify programs that prepare highly qualified and effective teachers,(=submission)
4. Assess the value of non-traditional teacher preparation programs,(=TFA in 5 weeks, or Phd in 6 months)
5. Evaluate professional development programs,(destroy teaching dignity = silent serf)
6. Determine variables that help or hinder student learning,(rank and yank)
7. Plan effective assistance for teachers early in their career, and (=effective control)
8. Inform policy makers of best value practices, including compensation.(null licence + invalidate Due Process + overpower union by corruption)
3) From: readingexchange
November 29, 2014 at 11:32 am
“Educational experts were no longer found in the classroom. Now they are in corporate offices. They are in government offices.”
“Meanwhile, testing programs, which would also double as curriculum outlines…”
These are the two specific points that have driven the “transformation of education”.
Public school education is NO LONGER driven by experienced classroom teacher expertise BUT BY corporate and powerful government interests.
I do battle with this strong and well-funded attempt to control classroom instruction everyday. I refuse to relinquish my sacred responsibility as a teacher to powers far more rich and powerful than I, even though I know the odds are against me. I will hang on my by fingernails as long as I am able and teach in a manner which honors my students and their inherent rights as individuals in a free society.
4) From: Robert Caveney
November 29, 2014 at 11:45 am
There is a 3rd way from the Latin origination of education, educere, meaning to LEAD OUT the student FROM WITHIN.
IF we could, and we can (we have evidence), by leading students through INNER EXERCISES in an “inner gymnasium”, little by little (it takes about a month), students begin to BETTER HEAR THE WISE PART WITHIN, develop THE SKILL OF THE WILL, and a deep satisfaction takes hold;
THEN it becomes safe to provide the very autonomy students need to work on challenges JUST RIGHT FOR EACH STUDENT.
This is real education work – leading out the student from within – done by trained educators. Only students can do the knowledge work, the reading, writing and arithmetic.
Leading out students from within solves a structural problem of ‘the-one’ and ‘the-many’ that is unique to education work.
5) From:Dawn
November 30, 2014 at 3:55 pm
The Underground History of American Education is the book to read if you are looking for a real historical perspective based on facts. JOHN TAYLOR GATTO read over 2,500 books, conducted 100’s of interviews and worked on it 12 hours/day, 7 days/week, for 10 years. It is an 8″x12,” 400-page text.
John Taylor Gatto received the New York State Teacher of the Year award in 1990 and was named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1991.
Here is his acceptance speech:
“The only reason I received this award ” the only reason I’ve been a GREAT teacher for my students ” is because:
I didn’t do a single thing you told me to.
I ignored your ‘standards,
I thwarted your bureaucracy and I taught unauthorized material.
I filled out those forms that said the students were in their desks, when they were really taking horizon-expanding study trips.
I had them read real books instead of those inane, dumped-down textbooks of yours,
I taught them real history instead of the porridge of revisionist pabulum you call ‘social studies’.
“Your bureaucracy is a mill that grinds up human beings and turns them into consumer fertilizer for a planned economy.
Human potential erodes as hungry minds sit in listless boredom, and teachers operate without the tools they need, just so you guys can fill your administration buildings with cushy jobs and give contracts to your cherished vendors.
“That’s why most of our students can’t read after 12 years of education ” yes, even though it only takes 3 months to learn how to read. That’s why most kids follow the herd into a bleak future instead of thinking for themselves.
“I am OFFICIALLY turning in my RESIGNATION as of today.”- JTG, 1991
There are many more wonderful posts. However, in order to make my point across, the above 5 posts are evidently shown the True Teaching POWER.
And this below link is very excellent to all parents and gullible TFAs plus all young and inexperienced teachers to watch:
6) From: Akademos
November 29, 2014 at 9:08 am
Have you seen or shared John Eppolito’s presentation against Common Core?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=5w4xD7nzLD8
I hope that people in general will appreciate the impartial judgment from Dr. Ravitch who allows everyone regardless of their backgrounds and personal opinion to freely contribute their inputs and evidences regarding the chaos/ destruction of America Public Education from business tycoons with agenda that loots public education fund away from tax payers.
I greatly appreciate Dr. Ravitch and many “Gurus” in teaching career with age of 65+ who have thirty years+ hand on experience in K-12 classrooms.
May God bless all of conscientious educators with strength and endurance to complete their god-given mission in cultivating and maintaining humanity in the mind and heart of their students in K-12, now and forever after.
Very respectfully yours,
May King from Canada
Here’s a PDF from a 1997 John Merrow report on PBS, contrasting the Arizona, California and Mn approaches to chartering. Merrow felt (as did many of us) that California approached the charter idea in a much more responsible way than did Arizona. It’s interesting to see that you felt things were fine for a while in Arizona and then went back.
Click to access CharterGamble.pdf
Many others feel that Arizona was much too loose in giving out charters, and has increased accountability.
m4potw: you are most kind.
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To those you listed, with profuse apologies to others I regretfully leave unmentioned, I add a few more that I wish to thank for their contributions to this blog.
To señor Duane Swacker, who never lets errant numerical pipe dreams ruin the quality of our discussions on this blog.
To Bob Shepherd: who eschews CCSS monocultural ‘closet’ readings for, well, exactly the opposite—and always remembers to bring an abundant supply of flashlight batteries so we’re never in the dark.
To Chiara: who reminded us that the rheephorm “choice” argument is a truncated phrase that should be understood as “choice not voice.”
To Linda: whose plea to “Grow a heart please” reminded us that real human beings, not hard data points, are at the heart of discussions like those to ensure a “better education for all.”
To SomeDAM Poet: for prodigious efforts to unearth the heretofore unknown first versions of the legendary rheephorm saga “The Lord of the BlingRing.”
To FLERP!: with whom I often disagree but makes me think.
There are so many others, e.g., Laura H. Chapman and Lloyd Lofthouse and Dienne and Yvonne Siu-Runyan and… I’ll never get to the end.
At a loss for words, I’ll let a very old and very dead and very Greek guy pick up the slack:
“Light is the task where many share the toil.” [Homer]
And last but not least, thank you to the owner of this blog.
Homer knew the type.
“And what he greatly thought, he nobly dared.”
Whatever your holidays, may they be merry.
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