Toni Jackson, a teacher in Memphis, wrote a powerful article about what “reform” is doing to her city, and especially what it is doing to black and brown children.
She writes:
There is a stench in the air in Memphis and it’s a smell that is permeating throughout black school districts. One can get a whiff of it in Newark, N.J., Philadelphia, New Orleans and most urban areas that received Race To The Top federal dollars for education. This awful stench derived from education reform and it’s been perpetrated on minorities with lower incomes and those who live under a lower socio economic status.
This stench has led corporations and politicians to the belief that they can control the education of African American and minority children (black and brown students) simply because they were granted millions of dollars by the government. They want to buy our children and they believe the federal government has given them the power to do so with the money allotted to improve student achievement.
So these Nashville politicians have neatly packaged the Shelby County School District, which is 85 percent African American, in a box where students are behind, teachers are ineffective, teaching jobs are tied to test scores, and student scores are tied to whether a school is slated for takeover or is closed altogether.
These politicians have aligned themselves with rich corporate types and they have passed laws that will give themselves total and complete power over urban schools, urban teachers, urban children, and young black and brown minds from K-12 grades in Memphis, which will lead to generational control. We have seen this before, Memphis. We have fought this fight before and now 50 years later, we are facing the same thing our grandparents faced when they went against a power structure designed to have access and control over the minds of our children. It was called the civil rights era and the legal case was Brown vs. Board of Education. That is where the state would like to take us, but we’re not going back there.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ms. Jackson and a large group like minded citizens should go to Washington and picket outside the White House. They should be sure to call the press before they do it.
State Senator Rice and Mayor Baraka are heading to DC to meet with Secretary Duncan. I wish them luck with that excursion.
Toni Jackson,
We are already back there in Newark.
Diane, I nominate Toni Jackson to your honor roll.
Toni, you give the lie to those who claim the mantle of civil rights as they dismantle our public school system for their own benefit. Brava!
Picketing, appealing, calling the press etc. achieve nothing.
The proto-fascist power structure of America allows these useless exercises simply as safety valves to vent a permissible amount of the pent up rage that’s been building in communities concerning the selling of our public educational system to profit whores.
Militant community organizations like the Black Panthers, must be organized in order to provide a highly visible presence in Black and Latino neighborhoods that won’t be intimidated or ignored, and will ensure that further subversions into our schools by outsiders will be resolutely challenged by any means.
School administrators that insist on continuing non-parent and non-community approved school programs and procedures; as Ms Jackson outlined in her letter, will be “encouraged” to leave those facilities permanently. Police presences will be met with people’s defense groups.
These educational issues must be brought before the country in a decisive way.
When the ed-reformers and their friends in ALEC, and their other bought and paid for politicians write and push their agendas through, they know and expect the pleading and pliant hands of appeal. We must counter with the fists of resistance.
“I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless, robots who protect them and their property.”
― Assata Shakur,
Please tell me what the “civil rights” schools have done for African American students? A 30 percent graduation rate in our inner cities is something to be proud of? A dropout rate double that of whites? It’s not about claiming a mantle of civil rights; it’s about taking care of the minds of young African Americans; and right now the only places where it’s working is the charter school sector, the Catholic school sector, and reform districts like NYC and Newark. The public schools where you find most of the failure are already controlled by private corporations: the unions, bus companies, textbook companies, etc. Sorry to sound so harsh, but there was plenty of corporate money in the public school system — we spend more per child than most, if not all, industrialized countries — before the folks that Ms. Jackson complains of arrived. –pbm
“. . . and right now the only places where it’s working is the charter school sector, the Catholic school sector, and reform districts like NYC and Newark.”
Bullshit!
Which ‘civil rights schools’ pbm? Your comment doesn’t make sense to me.
Would you care to elaborate? I am not sure that I caught your drift.
Most urban charters aren’t performing any better than public schools unless they are selective and have high attrition rates. This is not a legitimate solution. The urban corporate schools are not the Lakeside School. They are offering a cheap, substandard product that freezes out community input. Their goal is to make a profit from poor children. This is another example of exploitation of poor minorities by Wall St.
Greed and Control.
I am a teacher in Albany NY there is no doubt that the present policies are directed at the minority communities. In NY state the schools are under attack from the federal government and now where I live Cuomo has sold the public schools to Wall street bankers. I’m trying to fight the take over of the schools not just by the federal government by the 1% people who want to make money off the backs of children and really will never care if they learn or not. We need to unite and work together.
The rich get richer and the poor get whatever the rich decide. They have decided to take away your control of your children’s lives. This is just the way the Capitalistic System works. Like Corporations being considered “People”, the rich can do anything they want. The next Trade agreement with China will make this very clear to most Patriotic Americans of whom they do not belong.
Rome is burning.
“The Stench of Reform”
The stench of “reform” is in the air
With VAM pyres burning everywhere
And “civil rights” as rallying cry
“Reformers” seize the public pie
I can hardly wait for States to more quickly towards charter schools, I’d like every teacher in every State who is able to retire to do so – such a shortage of teachers would occur. Teachers need to stop putting their classroom before themselves and their own families. If they cannot look after themselves by protecting their own family they will definitely not be able to look after anyone else’s.
If teachers take affirmative action we may then see the support of parents once they are confronted with paying extra taxes for education as is now being proposed …” In Nevada, two-term Republican Governor Brian Sandoval has proposed $1.1 billion in new or continued business, tobacco and other taxes to pay for education and initiatives such as expanding full-day kindergarten.”