Reformers have a problem with democracy: They don’t like it. They like state takeovers, mayoral control, anything that eliminates local control. This is right out of the ALEC play book. Why so reformers hate democracy? They don’t believe that regular, non-rich people are smart enough to control their schools. Think Newark, Camden, and other Néw Jersey cities that lost democracy 20 years ago, with nothing to show for it.
So we turn to Holyoke, Massachusetts, which is a low-income city with a large Latino population. EduShyster tells the sad story here.
Well that certainly didn’t take long. The official state takeover time piece barely registered two hours and the Holyoke Public Schools had officially entered a new state: taken over. If you are keeping count at home, that’s about half as long as the public hearing that preceded the vote, during which some 1,000 + Holyokesters, including some who stood for four hours, packed a hall to register their objections to the state’s takeover plans. In other words, nothing to see or hear here folks, especially, it seems, if you were one of the ten members of the state’s 12 member Board of Education who didn’t actually visit a single Holyoke school prior to casting your vote…
One Holyoke
First, can we just acknowledge the extraordinary display on state takeover eve, when residents of a city so divided that whites live up in the Heights while Latinos live in the Flats, came together to oppose the state’s plans? But where you and I saw a standing-room-only crowd and overwhelming opposition, members of the state Board of Education seemed to see something different. Board chair Paul Sagan saw a *data point,* as well as the many theoretical community members who silently supported the state’s takeover but declined to join the two actual community members who spoke in favor of the state takeover at the hearing…..
“Students matter
For once I managed to type those words with straight fingers. How about a shoutout to the students who walked out of Holyoke High School to protest the state takeover? Or this valedictorian, who manages in three and a half minutes to explain the utter nonsensicality of the state’s policy on teaching the students-still-learning English who make up 30% of the student body in Holyoke. And most especially, this student: Donald Willyard, the Board’s sole student member, who took it upon himself to take the unusual step of taking a trip to see Holyoke’s schools prior to voting on whether to take them over. Which he voted against.”
No democracy for Holyoke. Sad. Another victory for reform, but not the children of Holyoke.
Democracy is premised upon a “reform” that benefits a majority of the stakeholders. Otherwise, this is pedagogic tyranny, that benefits those that don’t need any more benefits, because they already have manipulated and oppressed others for decades. Maybe, it is “educational oligarchy”, where rich and powerful controlling interests only look at schools as a way to make more profit, not to enhance the lives of the greatest number of children.
Teachers’ fault! Unions’ fault!
This story isn’t over.
The cabal that is running the department of ed in MA has been playing the long game back to the days when it was under the thumb of John Silber. (What is it about Texans and messing with schools? Only our Diane has seen the light!) Now the stars have aligned and all their dreams are coming true. The Pioneer Institute has its place at the right hand of the governor and all its evil spawn, such as the NewVentures for New Schools are in ascendance.
And just to help out, the Boston Globe has gotten an additional staffer to “write” about education issues from Gates:
“News is spreading that the Boston Globe is going to join the Seattle Times and BRIGHT in taking the “solutions” approach to education journalism, with funding from Gates and others. That’ll allow the newsroom to hire a second K-12 education reporter (not yet named) and let longtime Globe reporter James Vaznis to do more in-depth pieces.”
As if the Globe needs another hired assassin. Remember “jounalism”?
http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2015/04/update-what-really-happened-at-ewa15-this-year.html#.VUQuNVzR-yS
As a retired Massachusetts educator, both at the state and public school levels for thirty years, I send ‘props’yo Chriistine for her spot on analysis. When Greg Anrig left his position of Commisioner of Education, the state enacted the Education Reform Act of 1993 and the end of bilingual education and substitution with “English Language Learners (ELL) the state and its Department of Education moved inexorably to where it is today: a tool of the current crop of ‘deformers’ and privatizers.
It was absolutely obvious to many of us at the Department of Education, especially those of us in Special Education, that the BU takeover of the Chelsea Public Schools by BU (John Silber) and his minions was going to fail. Not strangely, the BU takeover was an abject failure. The failure of the state to grasp the central pedagogic importance of Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE), combined with the imposition of the Common Core and the injection of state support of privatization, are all a toxic brew that will doom the state takeover of the Holyoke Public Schools. Once again, students, parents and education workers will uneccesarily suffer. Follow the state supported transfer of public funds to the private sector.
Blueprint Schools is one of the organizations, involved in Massachusetts education reform. One of the 5 Blueprint Board members is controversial free market economist, Steven Levitt, if their website is correct.
The disadvantage of poor pregnant women having access to free medical care, is addressed in a post at the Levitt/Dubner blog, Freakonomics. The comments that follow the blog post, identify concerns about the paper cited, which was written by a MIT economist. (David Koch is a lifetime Board member at MIT.)
Levitt’s has some fame for his correlations, critically labeled, contrived permutations. The one with the highest visibility, was about abortions linked to reduced crime.
The cabal mentioned by Christine above includes the Commissioner of Education who also sits on the board of Pearson.
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.