A letter from a teacher:
Dear Diane,
Is there ANY way to get this website KnowYourCharter and information to the Obama admin and policy makers (maybe more important, the general public) before public ed is completely de-funded and destroyed?
Is there money that can be raised to launch a major ad campaign that can inform the public of what is happening? 60 Minutes maybe? Is anyone out there who is working on this?
The average person is not aware of how out of control things have become. Anyone I talk to who isn’t in education is only vaguely aware of charter schools and not at all aware of the billions that have been made by profiteers and the billions of taxpayer dollars that have been wasted on this insanity. This includes many public school parents.
The “bad school/bad teacher” propaganda has been heard loud and clear. If you repeat a lie loud enough, long enough and often enough, the people will believe it.That’s a paraphrase from Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda guy. Fraud and waste surely have to be looked into before charter schools are so blindly supported by this administration.
The news that congress plans to increase charter school funding was like a kick in the gut. Charters are supported even by those politicians who have no financial interests. I just don’t get that. This blog is a godsend, and we support and hold each other up, but we are preaching to the choir. We need to reach a much larger audience. The children of America are being screwed.
Just another frustrated Kindergarten teacher California
Diane Ravitch's blog 
AMEN!!!, California kindergarten teacher!!! We support each other from coast to coast! 🙂 I have been saying this for over two years now!!! If the general public REALLY KNEW what was going on in our public education system and with OUR hard-earned tax dollars, this insanity would be stopped immediately!!! THANK YOU for such a heart-felt, well-said letter! Diane, PLEASE!!, is there ANY way to get this on 60 Minutes, 20/20, or one of the other news programs?
I think it’s pretty naive to assume they don’t know exactly what they’re doing.
Yes, Jon, the profit mongerers DO KNOW exactly what they’re doing. The general public DOES NOT!!!
Nor do many teachers have a clue about what is going on with privatizing, charters, Vergara, CC, RttT, the billionaire sharks, and all the many issues of killing public ed. I am continually shocked when I meet teachers who seem to have no interest in how and why their profession is being stolen by Wall Street vultures.
Agree … totally. It’s hubris.
I agree with this post. People just do not understand or at least are not informed about what is going on in public education. We need more network coverage of this issue that is based on research and current data about all the fraudulent spending. It is ridiculous how our legislators say they want only research based instruction and research based curriculum yet they totally ignore all the data on charter schools. Is it going to take us marching in the streets? Is it going to take a major revolution to turn this around? So many decisions being based only on money rather than what is good for students. I acknowledge there are some excellent charter schools but we need some valid data about this entire charter movement conveyed on network TV, PBS is not enough..
That’s true, many people have no idea how insidious this whole charter movement is. There Are teachers who don’t know also but to expect the money people to allow media they control and politicians they own to cut this unsupervised theft of public monies is naive. The opposition to this has to be mass based. Teachers, parents, students have to opt out Nd refuse to participate in this destrction of public ed
Absolutely!!!
Don’t hold your breath, Marilyn as the MSM is owned by those who seek to destroy public education.
“This includes many public school parents.” And teachers.
I keep wondering the same thing. However, I’m also very concerned about this whole country in general. Public education is just the latest. Medicine was taken over by profiteers long ago. Top universities are sold out to varying degrees, as far as I can tell. The president works for the corporations, and so does his party, and we will no doubt be facing the next election for that office with two utterly corporatized faces. (I wish I could escape the country before I have to listen to many who call themselves liberal, left, or progressive cheering for HC, and congratulating themselves on how enlightened they are not to be Republican.)
We even have for-profit prisons. This country is like a parody of what democracy is supposed to be.
So, yes, the word needs to get out in a much broader way. When it hits people’s children, it hits home. Once people realize what’s happening in education, they may begin to realize that it’s part of a large and sinister picture. That’s a little too scary to take, though, maybe.
Information is relatively limited about charters schools, except for those of us that seek it out on line. This is why I try to cross post the Ravitch blog and duke it out with the right wingers on other blogs to reach others and perhaps change some opinions. I don’t do it to look for a fight, I do it because the media has a gag order on disseminating unbiased information. When only 13% of the people in the media discussing education are educators, we have a problem.
Our big problem is that there is collusion between the billionaires and the government. We are trying to battle those that have mountains of money at their disposal. They have deliberately crafted laws to harm public education. In addition to the ideological zealots, we have lots of opportunistic privateers that are looking to exploit the federal honey pot for their own gain. Families, students and teachers are caught in the middle of this mess. The federal government should not be partial to charters schools when there is no evidence that they are worth the trouble and expense, but it is difficult to match the influence that money provides with reason and right. http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/education_reforms_big_lie_the_real_reason_the_right_has_declared_war_on_our_public_schools/
You are not alone. I post articles and links from this site elsewhere.
This goes right to the point. As a parent I have chosen to research, investigate, and get to the truth but that is not because mainstream media has called attention to it. And to the point media is where the power lies. Look at what was done with smoking. What knocked it off it’s wheels is when for every second of a commercial the cigarette companies aired supporting cigarettes, the American cancer society was given equal time to show it’s link to cancer. As a result the cigarette companies cried uncle. The media would love this Common Core situation because it involves all the elements that makes news these days. Corruption, greed, fraud, lobbyists, and politics…..and a villain…..if anyone whom reads this knows of a way to get this story to mainstream media do it. Yes, let’s start building a campaign……a positive campaign for the sake of our beloved teachers and our children.
Yes!
The war on teachers is part of the resentment strategy that underpins the neo-liberal and Republican agenda. Instead of directing the anger of displaced workers toward the .1% where is belongs, politicians in both parties have directed anger toward public sector employees who have wages, benefits and pensions that private sector employees once had… wages, benefits and pensions that were stripped from them when corporations made cuts to increase their profits because they placed a higher premium on shareholders than they did on the well being of our country. The politicians are happy to feed this resentment because the corporations who gutted the economic well being of their employees are paying the bills for their campaigns… And when progressive politicians who are not beholden to these corporations try to point out what’s really happening, politicians in both parties cry “class warfare”…
So true!!!, wgersen!!!
It is not only the Republican agenda…so much of this has happened under Democratic leadership such as Obama/Duncan. And so many of the oligarchs stealing public ed are themselves Democrats as with Eli Broad.
True— that’s why I called it “…the neo-liberal and Republican agenda”… I may be delusional but I keep hoping that the Bernie Sanders progressive-wing might have a chance to move the Democrat party in a different direction than it’s headed since the so-called centrists took control in the 1990s… we need to get money out of politics so that true compassion can return to our country… and not the oxymoronic “compassionate conservativism” that GWB promoted that led to NCLB…
Hillary has already hit LA doing huge fund raising. I worry that the same media sources that shut out our information will also shut Sanders out. But I am SO glad he is in the race. Agree with all you say.
Vote for Bernie Sanders.
wgerson…In California, the Democratic Latino legislators, of whom there are many, mainly are supporters, and probably are investors, of/in charter schools. Former LA mayor, Villaraigosa, and his claque including Perez, Nunez, and de Leon, are all in Eli Broad’s Rheeform arena.
With the BoE election on May 19, the Latino charter school owner, Rodriguez, a multi millioniare owning at least 12 PUC charter schools and now a proven law breaker, is getting what appears to be total support from these Dem leaders and their organizations. The SouthWest Voters group is offering $25,000 for inner city Latinos to vote. First time in my long life I have seen such blatant bribery, ostensibly to vote for the (very rich Latino who plays poor Mexican) candidate.
LAUSD voters…vote for Bennett Kayser and Scott Schmerelson.
The smart thing about Know Your Charter is not that it reaches “the public” it’s that it reaches public school parents.
I would just respectfully suggest that the public school advocacy movement focus less on charters and more on the system-wide effects ed reform (including charters).
Public schools in a given area are systems. When you pull one string in a system the fabric changes. Charter policy has a direct and sometimes negative effect on existing public schools in this state. Know Your Charter shows that. I know exactly how money is going to for-profit “cybercharters” in my district. Because of Ohio’s pro-charter funding scheme, that harms EVERY kid in my son’s school.
Limiting this debate to “charter schools: good or bad?” ignores public school parents. You’re not reaching them because you’re not talking about the effects of ed reform on their schools.
The truth is there isn’t a whole lot of upside in ed reform for existing public schools- any public school- and 90% of Ohio children attend public schools. I think public school advocates should ask the exact same question charter school advocates ask, which is “how do ed reforms benefit our schools?”
I feel as though I am living in another country.
Chiara, in California, the most diverse state in the union, and Los Angeles with the second largest school system in the nation, we just read a report on who supports charters and school reform, and on that list is the NAACP, Gay etc. organizations, Latino groups, and many others we consider knowledgeable.
Some parents in the inner city who are involved with their children’s schools are part of these organizations.
But the preponderance of inner city poor parents do not read or write in their first language, much less in English, so how do you inform them not to sign off on Parent Trigger and charters? How do you deal with parents who have NO interest in schools or their own children, many of these are either in prison or are drug dealers and other societal misfits. This is the real world that NO one here seems to talk about.
So when you say, Chiara, that “you’re not reaching them because you’re not talking about the effects of ed reform on their schools” you don’t understand that some of us, as volunteers, go to their communities and beg their priests, the local orgs, anyone that has access to them, to let us talk about the dangers of ed reform, and we bring translators so they can understand in their own languages. Rarely are we welcomed. The Chamber of Commerce and United Way has far stronger holds on them.
We are burned OUT for there is virtually no support and in our next election on MAY 19, the Latino BoE candidate, a charter millionaire now exposed through an audit of his school/business, is a long time law breaker, is in league with the main Latino Voters group to pay these people to vote, and of course that means, they vote for him. ‘Sell your vote for cash,’ is the new watchword in the inner city districts.
And our only print paper, the LA Times endorsed this Latino candidate whose coffers are filled with the money from the billionaires you lambast here.
Corruption comes in many colors. So, please do not cast the first stone until you come help us.
I understand why parents whose children are in schools with kids with terrible discipline want a way for their kids to get out.
We have a massive discipline problem in this country that nobody even talks about, not even here.
The problem in Ohio was not that we weren’t focusing enough attention on charters. Our lawmakers spend PLENTY of time on “choice”. Other than testing public school kids it seems to be the only thing they are interested in.
We’re allowed to ask what the effects are on public schools.That matters. Our schools have value.
I think lawmakers have an absolute duty to do so, but since they’ve apparently “relinquished” yet another part of their jobs, it will fall to public school advocates to ask that question every single time “movement” members push for changes in the system that affect our schools. If you’re going to plunk down a charter across the street from my public school I am allowed to ask how that affects the children in the public school, because IT DOES affect them. That’s how systems work. Pretending Ohio can set up a separate system of schools with NO impact on existing public schools is a lie. It’s not true. Trade-offs to accomodate “choice” are being made. Unless public schools demand a seat at the table when these trade-offs are made our schools will continue to be ignored.
Chiara,
Thank you so much for making this point. It’s a very valid one! Still, back to our original question–Diane or anyone else, PLEASE, isn’t there SOME WAY to get these ed reform points on 60 Minutes, 20/20, or any other investigative news show? Many, many parents–if they were more informed–would stand with our movement. California Kindergarten teacher is correct–we are always only “preaching to the choir” here. We need to get our message OUT to the masses!
Teacher from Georgia, you are right. We need to get our message to the public. We all have to work together. Join the Network for Public Education. Join your state or local Save Our Schools. Join BATs. Get active. Organize. Throw the rascals out.
We need big name educational campaign with TV commercials. I cannot tell you how many parents still think Charters are private schools. Once you explain to them what they really are and the real agenda it only takes minutes to convert them. This is a great example of how truly uninformed parents are and how NOT engaged they are.
Right, Karen!!! Diane or anyone, PLEASE, I know there are some donors out there that would fund something like this for us!!
“. . . parents still think Charters are private schools.”
That’s what the charters tell the courts, that they are private and not subject to outside accountability.
Yes, but in their PR materials, they always refer to themselves as “Public Charter Schools,” as if they fear that people will see through them if they don’t misdirect and misrepresent.
Charters are run with taxpayer funding…but without public oversight. This is a dream business that does not have to come up with cash and has no regulations. Rather like the Mafia. And it is now vast. Do you really think that 60 Minutes is magically going to turn this around?
This has been in the works by the oligarchs for decades while Americans have been lulled into a trance. It is only part of the “New World Order” that papa Bush used to describe. In reality, a world where a few at the top prosper and all the rest are merely interchangeable cogs in their machine.
Diane remembers those days when she served in the Bush Cabinet…and her lesson in life changed her course180 degrees to an about face, and to being the prime voice speaking for public education.
Maybe if each of the now 14 million hitters on this site would volunteer 10 hours a week, in the streets, at BoE meetings, in State Houses, etc., there might be a dent of change. Role models like Mark and Leonie and others, seemingly are all in the Eastern states, but they are my personal rays of hope (plus the BAT activists).
In LA, there is a small group of protesters who keep trying to turn the tide . Our opponents to ‘informing the public’ are the richest and most powerful people in the world….we have Eli Broad and Richard Riordan and Austin Beutner and other Rheeformer glitzy billionaires like Geffen, living right here in our midst…and they have bought United Way, CoC, and many others of the ‘public service groups’ with their donations and their clout. They control pretty much all the media….so where do you suggest we go from here?
California leads the nation in public school students living in poverty. 53% of our K – 12 (really K – 9) students are Chicano/Latino, and the next 30% are mainly poor people of color. Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Anaheim Hills, all have great public schools, and even great public charters. Get the picture?
Ellen in 2012 60 minutes did a story called “U.S. charter schools tied to powerful Turkish imam.” Just google to get the segment. It is time for all of us to send some emails asking them to do a follow up to this segment. In addition we need to request they expand the story to include all charter and cyber charters in the US and the controversy surrounding them.
The program you are referring to was on the Gulen Charter Schools and the Gulen Movement (the 147 or so, schools, include the Harmony Schools in Texas and the Magnolia Schools in California…most under investigation by the FBI.) I have been writing about this Turkish Imam who believes in strict Sharia Law, and who is the largest charter operator in the US, for some years. I suggest everyone google him and read up on this foreign national who is fomenting revolution in the Middle East as he attempts to regroup for a new Ottoman Empire with himself as the leader….using the money of American taxpayers to do all this. It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, but it is all for real. Read my articles on Gulen at City Watch Today.
And even with the 60 MInutes show, virtually no follow up was done by other media sources.
The writer of this piece asked Diane:
“Is there ANY way to get this website KnowYourCharter and information to the Obama admin and policy makers (maybe more important, the general public) before public ed is completely de-funded and destroyed?”.
I really don’t mean to laugh or make fun of this question, but I have to ask one question: SERIOUSLY?! The Obama Administration and “policy makers” could not be MORE aware of the Charter school scandal. The problem is that a vast majority of them are PART of the scandal because they benefit financially with campaign contributions. They have NO intention of letting any FACTS or morals get in their way. And I am not only talking about Republicans! A majority of the supposedly “liberal” Democrats make deals with the devil in order to keep their personal power. Just like all the Democrats who voted for Cuomo’s budget on April 1st. They attempt to justify their actions by saying that continuous compromise and a never ending slide to the right is still better than having Republicans in power. I’m not swallowing that cool-ade!
As a Green Party member I refuse to vote for candidates and a political party (the Democrats) who do nothing year after year about getting money out of politics and about fixing our completely corrupt electoral system. We need public financing of elections. We need instant runoff voting so that the “spoiler” effect will be eliminated. And we need Proportional Representation so that third parties can make headway in this country. But the Democratic Party does not want these policies because it will strip them and their corporate funders of their power.
The issue of true education equality is directly tied to all the other issues of our day (climate change, police brutality, poverty, war, racism, etc.). Nothing will ever change
for the better is we keep voting for candidates and a party that is addicted to monied interests. Break your addiction! Vote Green Party!
Daniella…agree with most of your comments…but now we have a choice and can vote for Bernie Sanders. No matter what, the media will not give an even shake to Bernie or to Jill Stein.
My comments on charter schools can only be strongly reiterated here on today’s blog. Obviously my views are not just my own.
But
Actions, not just words are essential.
Yes. The Network for Public Education is an attempt to do this, but I wrote in comments to this blog 2 years ago that we needed to raise our own big money and form a coalition of skilled media and PR people to volunteer to develop a strategy to of what this California teacher suggests. Diane is our one woman answer. But she does not reach the BIG audience we need. Diane, dear dedicated Diane my hero, is preaching to us the choir. We need to reach all of America. Bill Moyers also preaches to our choir. Who else wants to join in the real PR battle for public education?
I just read every comment and it make my point even better than I do. We need PR pros who think like Diane help us get the public attention we need. it is a little late. But I told Diane and her readers this 2 year ago. That this battle was against giants and we need a task force PR savvy strategists. Who love teachers. Teachers have no time or skills in mounting such an endeavor. Like Diane I am getting older and the media has fractured in the 2years waisted.
I’ll have to look into what Bernie Sanders says, because I’ve been planning to send a donation. I better look into it. Be right back.
Okay, back.
http://www.ontheissues.org/social/Bernie_Sanders_Education.htm . Includes “Rated 83% by the NEA, indicating pro-public education votes.”
For a little while, people will be paying attention to what Sanders says, especially as the press will characterize it as a battle with Clinton. Maybe he can get the message out.
Diane R is also able to get herself on new shows, etc., at times.
And how about making documentaries? Video is cheap these days, and software easy to come by.
BTW, just found these leg report cards from NEA
http://www.nea.org/home/50437.htm
http://www.nea.org/home/50436.htm
Okay, that House rep one is kind of interesting to scroll through. There’s an article in there for somebody with more time this summer than I have, to look at the school rankings and graduates in the states full of F’s.
HISD is a prime example of what you can do WRONG. School districts across the nation have been deliberately set up to fail so that the private sector can suck up as many tax dollars as possible while doing as little as legally possible. These ‘for profits’ are an organized effort to steal our children’s education money, our inmate’s rehabilitation money and using mental health patients to take more of our tax dollars and provide nothing for the investment we are making, as a result of profit taking. What do we do to remove this from the political realm and put it back into the hands of professionals?
Here’s the reality for frustrated kg teacher, as George Carlin told it….long ago. Forgive the language… listen to the truth!
A huge number of people whom I meet in my community, in NYC, an everywhere as I travel — are ignorant of anything and everything, and ‘schools’ do not enter into their consciousness. . They are perplexed when I mention the TPP, do not know who Bernie Sanders is, seem to ‘recall’ hearing the name Ravitch, but know the deflated football story, and the biker killings, and what celeb has a baby bump.
If ALL the teachers in the 15,880 school districts in 50 separate states, were able to get on the same page… maybe THAT will wake the public up…but it may be too late… The legislatures are taking over the schools at a record pace, and there are no educators on board with these elected politicians who are in the pockets of the very people who profit by failed schools…
There is no one but US to ensure that things change… we teachers must make it happen.
Diane and teachers made th eOPT out movement happen.
IN NY, there is this call for teacher to get the news out there.:
“NYCTeachers.com will be launching NYCEducationNews.com in September 2015, just in time for the new school year. The website will provide one place for everyone to get all of the news that pertains to NYC Education. The site will include PEP meeting information, all contracts that the DOE is proposing (who won the contract and why), DOE sports, academic news, charter school news, multi-school building news, list of Deputy Chancellors, and a lot more. The site will provide complete transparency for the workings of the NYC DOE, and in a format that the general public will be able to understand and follow.”
“We are looking for current and retired teachers, administrators and education professionals, to become key contributors for NYC Education News. If you are interested please contact Vernon Jones @ vjones@nycteachers.com”
Because, if we leave news about education up to the media or wait for the ONE to explain to the people the war on PUBLIC EDUCATION… it will be over.
Look –here is the reality:
Finally, Morris Dees wakes up to the loss of our best teachers– a travesty which ensured that schools fail so they can be replaced by charters— BUT ironically, the woman he mentions Karen Horwitz, put up this site OVER A DECADE ago to show the systematic elimination of the professional staff that made it possible for charter schools to replace public schools
http://endteacherabuse.org
and SHE wrote a book “White Chalk Crime” to explain what they were doing.
it is not as if the process is not ‘out there,’ This RECENT ARTICLE, shows how they took out the teachers in LA so SCHOOLS WOULD FAIL, AND they could bring in Charter schools
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
Then there is THIS…. WHICH I WROTE 2 DECADES AGO
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/The_Insane_War_on_Teachers_and_Democracy.html
AND THIS, WHICH I WROTE five years ago
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Carlin go it right.