EduShyster interviews reformer Andy Smarick, best known as the reformer who believes that local school boards and neighborhood schools are an anachronism. He preaches the doctrine of “relinquishment,” in which public schools abandon their “monopoly” and make way for a wide variety of choices, mostly charter schools.
Smarick foresees a future in which parents choose any school they want without regard to district lines. He sees the choice movement as the wave of this future. For some reason, he holds up Chicago and New York City as examples of cities where there was “the illusion of democratic control.” It is an odd choice since both cities are under mayoral control, and parents have no illusion of control at all. They do not have elected school boards; they have boards hand-picked by the mayor.
EduShyster asks many questions to determine the contours of his vision, but she does not ask the crucial question: If all schools were charter schools, how would that improve education? We know that charter schools on average do not have higher test scores than public schools, so what is the point? Isn’t there some value to neighborhood schools, the one choice that parents do not have in New Orleans or other districts where reform has taken hold?
Curiously, Smarick holds up the District of Columbia as an exemplar of parental choice. But why would any district want to be like D.C.? What is the evidence that D.C. offers better education than other districts? In fact, D.C. has the biggest achievement gaps of any urban district tested by NAEP.
So when Andy Smarick talks about a future of high-performing seats, I can’t help but point out that charters are not all high-performing, that seats don’t perform, and that buildings don’t perform. Children “perform.” Is it better to move them to a charter school or to make sure they get the small classes, rich curriculum, and experienced teachers in neighborhood schools? As EduShyster points out, no body of citizens or parents has voted to get rid of public schools. Waiting lists for charters are dubious measures, since many contain the same names or are inflated.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Indeed. At issue is destroying our public schools using any lies they can think of… because there are tax payer dollars to be gleaned. Here are their weapons of mass deception- how they try to fool us via common core, high stakes testing, teach for America, charter schools, VAM- etc. I worked on this book for about a year after realizing that the GED, owned by Pearson, was/is nearly impossible to pass. In Washington State we had had 13,000 GEDs earned per year and in 2014 only 2,850. What a travesty for those people, mostly low income and now can’t get a job or get financial aid for school. http://weaponsofmassdeception.org/
On a smaller scale, this same “close-unprofitable-charters-as-a-business-decision” thing happened 5 years ago in Los Angeles. Witnessing all of this riveting drama unfold remains a memorable and pivotal event in the evolution of my own thinking on school privatization, and my decision to join the fight against it.
http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/26/charter-school-closing
Without any forewarning or even input from the public, Green Dot made a profit-and-loss-based decision to close one of its schools, Animo Justice, located in the northern end of L.A.’s South Central region. I attended a forum where parents and students were railing against being treated as commodities instead of human beings, and their schools as a McDonald’s franchise that wasn’t selling enough Big Macs, so hey… too bad…we’re closing it, folks.
To their credit, Green Dot had allowed the students to vote to choose their school colors, uniforms, mascot names, etc. three years earlier when the school first opened. As a result, the closing hit the kids hard, who responded with sadness and incomprehension at first, then rage and civil disobedience later (VIDEO BELOW). This was all to no avail, however, the school closed, and the kids were unceremoniously dumped back into nearby Jefferson High, from which the kids were lured initially… (this is not necessarily a bad thing, or a slight to Jefferson, which has made some major strides in the last decade, and has many excellent faculty members whom I know personally.)
Green Dot CEO Marco Petruzzi told the protesting students they simply had no money—“no rich guy to write them a check”—to continue operating the school, to which students replied with a question that Petruzzi failed to answer, “Then how is Green Dot able to open six new schools next fall?” Part of the reason is that those new schools were in nicer parts of town… i.e. a Green Dot co-location at Venice High School.
Los Angeles’ Robert Skeels and San Francisco’s Caroline Grannan covered this at the time:
From Skeels article:
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“As Leonard Martin, a candidate for the California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, commented, ‘Like an employer closing a branch plant to save money, Green Dot decided to close one of its many ‘subsidiaries’ in LA. That decision was taken without input from those most affected by the closure: students, teachers and parents.’
“It isn’t surprising that Green Dot, like other corporate charter management organizations (CMOs), is far more concerned with its bottom line than it is about the education of its students. For CMO boards–stacked with businesspeople, hedge fund managers and investment bankers–and their executives culled from Wall Street and large corporations, children are mere commodities and a means to channel public money into private hands.
“We need to fight for the resources to insure that our schools are fully funded and serve our communities, rather than corporations. While we have a long way to go, the fact that families at charter schools are willing to fight shows that people are tired of billionaires and politicians undermining public education.”
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And from Neon-Tommy’s Kevin Douglas Grant:
http://www.neontommy.com/2010/03/two-south-la-high-schools-unit
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“(High school junior) Mario Silva told a fledgling coalition of 70 parents, students, teachers and activists Friday evening that he believes Green Dot, a company that has been praised often by national media for its role in reshaping L.A.’s public schools, is putting profit motive over the needs of Animo Justice’s students:
” ‘As soon as we failed to rake in enough for Green Dot to profit and
prosper, we were pushed aside.’ Silva said. ‘Thrown aside like products in a supermarket.’ ”
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For some video coverage, watch this: (including marching miles
to the Green Dot offices, and staging an ultimately futile sit-in):
(The footage is kind of raw and unpolished, but it
gives a good idea of what went on. Some of these
kids are now in their early 20’s… I wonder whatever
became of them…)
When I walk into a grocery store, I have tremendous choice in breakfast cereals (within the limits of the number of companies that actually make them). They are stacked neatly on the shelves with a staggering number catering to various tastes in a relatively small area. Markets work pretty well when they can do that.
The delusion that public school can work like the cereal aisle of a grocery store is just insane. Imagine if every public accommodation worked like that. Instead of a public library in your town that anyone can get to, you’d get two dozen reading rooms scattered across the community with a focus on only 1-2 genres of books and having tiny collections. Instead of a public park, you’d have a large number of 20’x20′ squares of grass that people can “choose” from. Let’s forget having a public water works that pipes water into each home. Now you can choose from a system of 2 dozen pipes competing to hook up to your home.
Some things become ungainly and impossible when they are done solely as a private good instead of a public good. Some things contribute to our lives because we all share them together and have a stake in their being nurtured for the benefit of others.
I don’t want the forces that make my choice of breakfast cereal work as it does operating my public schools. The purposes are not compatible.
Hi Daniel! Deb Owens here. You have mentioned some of my work on your tweets etc. a number of times. You are “right” on particularly as you unpack Smarick’s misguided use of Milton Friedman’s ideas regarding education reform! Interestingly, last year I addressed an article by the conservatively indefatigable Andy Smarick. His ideas about education reform were misguided then, and as we see, continue to be problematic.
http://publicschoolscentral.com/2014/08/11/the-conservative-mind-and-education-reform/
But even in the cereal aisle, the apparently immense choices are not quite what they seem, since behind the clever marketing and packaging, one is largely left to choose among a handful of genetically modified grains that are basically vehicles for ingesting sugar.
What’s the transportation cost? Happy motoring. Who needs a neighborhood grocery store when driving a half hour makes more sense. Choose a great school an hour across town? 50 million free Segways from the Dept. of Ed? Every Child Commutes Act?
If it isn’t “better” for the public after public schools are gone can the public get them back?
How would that work, given the realities of our political system, legislative and regulatory capture by contractors and others, the revolving door between government and the entities and contractors they are supposed to be regulating, etc.
This is an irrevocable decision they’re making, is it not? Once the public loses democratic control and public ownership of public schools, that’s gone.
Shouldn’t there be some kind of cost-benefit analysis on that prior to state and federal lawmakers signing on, as they have done?
Also, if the goal is to privatize public schools don’t lawmakers have an ethical duty to run on that? That has not been happening. Can we get some kind of assurance that they will begin doing so, perhaps beginning with the 2016 Presidential race? Because “consent” without accurate, complete information as to goals of lawmakers and others is no consent at all.
“If it isn’t “better” for the public after public schools are gone can the public get them back?”
Chile and Sweden privatized their schools years ago and their quality dramatically declined while stratification severely increased, so both countries are trying to figure out how to get public education back. It’s very challenging and a lesson we should be learning from them. Profiteers don’t want the gravy train to end. As the Education minister in Sweden said recently, “It’s a genie-in-the-bottle situation. How do we change a system that has gone on so long in allowing quite big profit in schools?”
See, “It’s a political failure’: how Sweden’s celebrated schools system fell into crisis” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/10/sweden-schools-crisis-political-failure-education
Thanks. I thought Sweden was particularly interesting because a political party apologized for privatizing the schools- the Greens said they were sorry. Not that they were “misled”, not that “mistakes were made” but that THEY made a mistake and they were sorry.
Imagine political leaders officially admitting error and apologizing to voters in the US for a policy error.
Never happen. Not in a million years.
More info to clarify:
Only 14% of the students in Sweden attend private schools. But PISA results show that Sweden fell from being in the top 5 to the 23rd position. Anyone one can see that 14% of the students could not have dragged the country down. As a matter of fact the (86%) public schools performance declined more than the (14%) private schools.
As some one once said “the devil is in the details.”
Well, Raj, choice and competition did nothing for Sweden. Certainly it did not lift the public schools. Several months ago, I posted a commentary on the dismal state of education in Sweden by economist Henry Levin. He was there. Ill find and repost for you. Chile is the other nation that took Milton Friedman’s advice. Ugh! Why can’t we be content being America?
Diane,
I cannot blame the competition for the dismal performance of the 86% public schools in Sweden. Do you agree that the 14% private schools are performing better than the 86% public schools and the private schools are not the primary reason for the dismal performance of Swedish schools? It is mathematically impossible.
No, the devil is in neoliberal reformsters like Raj, who use the arguments of other reformsters that ignore the issues and try to prop up Sweden, so they can keep up the choice charade and gravy train rolling to profiteers here. (Do a search and you can see how Raj just repeated what other reformsters have said, in order to promote continued support of the model in Sweden.) Thank goodness Swedish officials are not fooled by neoliberals like they are in this country.
Here is the article by Henry Levin that Diane mentioned: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/03/26/the-swedish-voucher-system-an-appraisal/.
According to the Swedish Institute (2015), in 2014, around 17% of compulsory schools (elementary for ages 7 through 15) as well as 50% of upper secondary schools (high school for ages 16 through 18) were charter schools. They attracted about 14% of all compulsory school students and 26% of all upper secondary school students.
9th Grade is a seminal year in Sweden, since 10th, 11th and 12th Grades are optional. So, after that point, there are 6 national college prep programs and 12 vocational programs offered to upper secondary students. In 2014, 13% of Swedish 9th graders didn’t have the grades to qualify for upper secondary school. Students could however go into one of 5 introductory programs and then move on to upper secondary. https://sweden.se/society/education-in-sweden/
Wish we had more vocational options for our high school students!
Sweden is not just concerned about test scores, upper secondary acceptance and completion rates. Unlike for US officials, increased stratification as a result of privatized education matters to them.
Here’s a more recent article that Diane posted about the schools in Sweden: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/07/24/slate-swedens-school-choice-disaster/
“High Performing Seats”
High performing seats
In high performing schools
The empty seat just beats
Unruly classroom fools
Everybody gets everything they want with no downside risk attendant to replacing the existing system with a privatized model.
That’s a fairy tale.
Suggest you look at the values of Andy Smarick as seen the direct quotes at th e following website in addition to EdShyster.
Why anyone gives an ounce of credibility to his ideas is beyond me, but the Fordham Institute and others who want market-based everything do not care about the intellectual or moral integrity of their messages or their messengers. http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2015/03/another-peek-behind-neoliberal.html
Given that Ohio is second worst in the nation on charter schools, I’m baffled why we’re allowing this think tank/lobbying group (whatever!) to turn existing public schools into their “vision” of Ohio charters.
Thanks but no thanks. I don’t want Ohio public schools to turn into Ohio charter schools. I don’t know why anyone who actually lives in this state would.
You’d think they’d clean up their own side of the street before pontificating on existing public schools.
Something that’s not often mentioned in all of this choice is transportation. In Utah,we have terrible air quality problems, particularly in the winter. It doesn’t help that we have all of these parents driving their kids to all of these choice schools all over the place. It really adds to our emissions here. Neighborhood schools, where kids can walk or bike or take buses, are better just for that reason.
Transportation is a limiting factor in Ohio’s (modified) open enrollment. What it means is those parents with the time and money to travel can open enroll, and those that can’t, don’t.
I think they would have been better off just investing in all the public schools instead of a 15 year laser-like focus on “choice”.
Doing one thing means not doing something else. That’s reality.
It’s extremely limiting in Utah, too. Transportation is not only an air quality issue, but a segregation issue. The poor, and generally minorities, can’t get to the charters, which therefore segregate by default. I’m not sure it’s what was intended, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it WAS intended.
In reading this interview, I’m reminded of Orwell’s “1984”, with Smarick talking in some kind of “Corporate Reform Newspeak”, where definitions of words are changed to mean the exact opposite of what they originally and previously meant.
In the Brave New Smarick-world, cancelling elections, dissolving 200 year-old democratic bodies like school boards, and then putting formerly public entities like school districts under totally private management, where the public has no decision-making power whatsoever, and the for-profit management has no obligation to provide any transparency to the public, and cannot in any way be held accountable to the public…
… why, all of this is just another and different “form of democratic control,” superior to that old stupid system of… you know… various candidates having to make their case in a free and open market-place of ideas, and then voters taking all this in, and making an informed decision about how they want schools run, and who should be running it… and then removing them if and when the public believes this is the right way to go.
Huh?
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SMARICK:
“We just assumed that democratic control meant that a city had a single school board and that that school board owns all public schools in the district, makes decisions about all of the contracts, makes decisions about all of the principals, makes decisions about where kids go to school based on these residential zones. That is one form of democratic control.
“What I’m trying to push maybe you, and definitely other people on, is that we can have democratic control but not believe that is synonymous with the elected school board that we’ve had for 100 years.”
“I don’t think you can have the kind of elected school board we’ve had for 100 years and simultaneously have community and parental empowerment.”
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Batshit crazy!
He also goes on about his new system will bring true “community empowerment”, where the citizens will at long last “own” the school system.
Really, Andy?
Well, Andy backed Michigan’s Governor Snyder when he turned over entire school districts like Highland Park and Muskegon to be run by for-profit management, in which the public was totally denied any decision-making power. Under Snyder’s plan, those for-profit corporations were put in charge of those schools, and handled all the money funding them, with everything being outsourced to those for-profit companies.
Let’s see. Did the public end up “empowered” and end up “owning” those schools, with this new form of “democratic control” of schools that Snyder, with Smarick’s backing, brought them?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/08/high-j08.html
This article details how, in one of those districts, Highland Park, the for-profit ed company in charge, Leona Group, LLC, discovered that running high schools involved higher costs—and lower profits–-than running elementary or middle schools.
In response, Leona closed all the high schools, one-by-one, claiming that continuing their operations was “not feasible” financially or profits-wise. When the last public high school recently closed last week, parents and students were taken aback, not thinking that this was even possible, as the students now had to face hours of commuting on a 3-bus route on public transportation to attend the closest school…. either that, or attend a military charter school, with uniforms, extreme discipline, and all the rest that goes with that.
All of this, and what results from it, is what corporate reformers call “school choice” and “the invisible hand of the free market” at work.
“But wait, my ‘choice’ is to have my children attend a tradition public school in my neighborhood, under the oversight of a democratic school board that my fellow citizens and I elect. Can’t I have THAT choice?”
Nope, not going to happen. The “invisible hand of the free market” and Andy Smarick’s new version of “democracy” says otherwise.
When interviewed, those now-outraged parents and students were not even aware that their school district and its schools were run by this for-profit corporation.
Here’s the story:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/08/high-j08.html
The company, Leona Group LLC, and Governor Snyder, in so many words, told the community that, like it or not, we’re doing this. There’s nothing that your or anyone can do to stop us, so just shut up and accept it.
The situation in Michigan is also covered on this blog here:
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/06/09/for-profit-company-will-not-offer-high-school-in-michigan-takeover-district/
When an “education specialist” extrapolates from the 20-year abysmal record of charter schools, painting a wholly different and opposite, scenario of success and, he cites some relationship to “high performance”, there’s something fishy.
Does the charter sales job require, at least, a canned response to the schools’ academic failures, as cited by Students First Ohio, Fordham Institute, etc. and, documented comparisons by knowmycharter.com? Is there a defense for the continuing corruption, detailed by state auditors, Akron Beacon Journal, Dayton Daily News, Truthout, Detroit Free Press, etc. ?
What’s Smarick proposal to fix the the financial sector, from which, the charter school backers prey? If he has an idea to stop their “high performance” from dragging down GDP, it’d be great.
Smarick’s ideas have a host of problems, in common with most other reformy advocates. Goodness knows they are full of the assumptions that others have pointed out above, but the very last assumption Diane mentioned is a particularly pernicious one.
That is a very true statement, but it leave out another element of the “choice” equation and one that has been as systematically pursued by reformy forces: making charters the only attractive option for parents by purposely defunding district schools. We’ve seen this here in Philadelphia, where state control and a high-poverty tax base means we’re dependent on state and federal dollars. The former governor and his reformy allies made sure that urban districts like Philly were consistantly shortchanged, even of the meager funding doled out to more favored districts in the state. The result is that many of the district schools have been stripped to the bone (minimal teaching staff, few or no councilors, nurses, librarians, aids, etc., etc., ad nauseam) while charters (with lower costs and outside financial backing) have not had to make these cuts. This leaves parents with the “choice” of putting their child into one of the stripped-down neighborhood schools, trying to get them into a magnet school (slightly less stripped-down, but still underfunded), or caving in and trying to get them into any charter school that looks like it has sufficient funding and will take them.
This is the whole problem with school “choice” in a nutshell: it will never be an actual free choice on the part of most parents. It will always be controlled by where the money goes.
I remember when this first happened, and Michelle Rhee came to Philadelphia.
When asked if she supported more funding to bail the schools out of this crisis, Rhee responded that, no… on the contrary… you just need to fire all your high-paid veteran teachers, and replace them with low-paid novices—most with minimal training—then institute “merit pay,” replace public schools with privately-run charters, and everything will be fine.
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/09/15/michelle-rhee-tells-philadelphia-how-to-solve-its-problems/
Bonuses instead of raises are a horrible idea for middle class people.
It’s a rip-off. People in government shouldn’t be promoting it. It’s bad for the middle class.
When ed reformers travel the country promoting one-time bonuses over increases in wages they are giving people bad financial advice. That they don’t KNOW it’s bad financial advice is an indication of how out of touch they are.
No one should fall for this. It’s obviously a bad deal.
http://time.com/3342841/bonus-bad-news/
Utah school districts are looking to raise taxes in order to offset the monies taken from districts by charter schools:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/2606861-155/utah-school-districts-eyeing-tax-increases
Same here. Ohio’s charter funding formula takes more out of public schools than the state puts in. The difference is made up by local funds, if it’s made up at all.
If OH grants 4k in state aid per kid in a public school, and that kid leaves the public school for a charter, that kid takes 5k with them, leaving the remaining kids in the public school with an actual loss of 1k.
90% of Ohio kids attend public schools. For some reason their interests weren’t considered. At all.
http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2015/06/09/profiting_billions_from_failing_kids_ohios_charter_funding_model_1201.html
Sorry, but I’m making a really long post. Skip it if you wish.
Here’s a great new article about how the total privatization of New Orleans schools has all along been based, in large part, on bogus data and myths:
http://citationsneeded.com/2014/05/24/charter-schools-katrina-memory-hole/
In this vein, Smarick loves that sleazy politicians and corporate reformers from Louisiana dishonestly and cynically exploited the Katrina tragedy in New Orleans, took advantage of the weakened state of affairs there, and then rammed through legislation that wiped out public schools there. He laments that there aren’t more Katrina’s in every big city so the process can be repeated nationwide, and then lays the groundwork for precipitating such artificially-created Katrina-like scenarios elsewhere.
Smarick’s methodology: why simply induce “a financial and political crisis” where none exists—a crisis that will create similar post-Katrina-like conditions, vulnerability and instability that, in turn, will enable money-motivated corporate reformers to wipe out all the public schools there, and replace them with privately-run charters, as was done with the total privatization of New Orleans schools after Katrina.
Smarick even details all this in a plan. He let the cat out of the bag as to their sleazy secret game plan… still available on-line. (link BELOW) In districts where there is still an elected school board, people like Reed Hastings, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, etc. finance the campaigns of corporate puppets like LAUSD’s newly-elected Ref Rodriguez to carry this plan out.
BELOW Smarick details this plan of using a slow, stealth charterization to cause the collapse of public school districts and public education overall:
http://educationnext.org/wave-of-the-future/
(If any privatization proponent or corporate reformer ever tries to claim that they want charter schools to complement the public school system, or co-exist with public schools to provide parents with “a family of different school options—public, charter private”… RE-READ THIS BELOW. The privatizers don’t want co-existence; they want to conquer and devour all… and don’t you forget it—check out New Orleans… THE WALL STREET PRIVATIZERS / CHARTERIZERS WANT IT ALL).
(CAPS MINE and parentheticals () mine, Jack)
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ANDY SMARICK:
“Clearly we can’t expect the political process to swiftly bring about charter districts in all of America’s big cities. However, if charter advocates carefully target specific systems with an exacting strategy, the current policy environment will allow them to create examples of a new, high-performing system of public education in urban America.
“Here, in short, is one roadmap for chartering’s way forward:
“FIRST, commit to drastically increasing the charter market share in a few select communities until it is the dominant system and the district is reduced to a secondary provider. The target should be 75 percent.
“SECOND, choose the target communities wisely. Each should begin with a solid charter base (at least 5 percent market share), a policy environment that will enable growth (fair funding, nondistrict authorizers, and no legislated caps), and a favorable political environment (friendly elected officials and editorial boards, a positive experience with charters to date, and unorganized opposition).
“For example, in New York a concerted effort could be made to site in Albany or Buffalo a large percentage of the 100 new charters allowed under the raised cap. Other potentially fertile districts include Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Oakland, and Washington, D.C.
“THIRD, secure proven operators to open new schools. To the greatest extent possible, growth should be driven by replicating successful local charters and recruiting high-performing operators from other areas (see Figure 2).
“FOURTH, engage key allies like Teach For America, New Leaders for New Schools, and national and local foundations to ensure the effort has the human and financial capital needed.
“LAST, commit to rigorously assessing charter performance in each community and working with authorizers to close the charters that fail to significantly improve student achievement.
“In total, these strategies should lead to rapid, high-quality charter growth and the development of a public school marketplace marked by parental choice, the regular start-up of new schools, the improvement of middling schools, the replication of high-performing schools, and the shuttering of low-performing schools.
“AS CHARTERING INCREASES ITS MARKET SHARE IN A CITY, THE DISTRICT WILL COME UNDER GROWING FINANCIAL PRESSURE. The district, despite educating fewer and fewer students, will still require a large administrative staff to process payroll and benefits, administer federal programs, and oversee special education. WITH A LOPSIDED ADULT-TO-STUDENT RATIO, THE DISTRICT’S PER-PUPIL COSTS WILL SKYROCKET.
“At some point along the district’s path from monopoly provider to financially unsustainable marginal player, the city’s investors and stakeholders—taxpayers, foundations, business leaders, elected officials, and editorial boards—are likely to demand fundamental change.
“That is, EVENTUALLY THE FINANCIAL CRISIS WILL BECOME A POLITICAL CRISIS.
“If the district has progressive leadership, ONE OF TWO BEST-CASE SCENARIOS WILL RESULT:
“THE DISTRICT COULD VOLUNTARILY BEGIN THE SHIFT TO AN AUTHORIZER, developing a new relationship with its schools and reworking its administrative structure to meet the new conditions.
“Or, believing the organization is unable to make this change, THE DISTRICT COULD GRADUALLY TRANSFER ITS SCHOOLS TO AN ESTABLISHED AUTHORIZER.
(In other words… Bye, bye, traditional public schools—the ones accountable and transparent to the citizen-taxpayers! Hello, total privatization of schools where the public loses all input and decision-making power to the private sector! Andy Smarick’s wet-dream-come-true!)
“A more probable district reaction to the mounting pressure would be an aggressive political response. Its leadership team might fight for a charter moratorium or seek protection from the courts. Failing that, they might lobby for additional funding so the district could maintain its administrative structure despite the vast loss of students. Reformers should expect and prepare for this phase of the transition process.
“In many ways, replacing the district system seems inconceivable, almost heretical. Districts have existed for generations, and in many minds, the traditional system is synonymous with public education.
“However, the history of urban districts’ inability to provide a high-quality education to their low-income students is nearly as long. It’s clear that we need a new type of system for urban public education, one that is able to respond nimbly to great school success, chronic school failure, and everything in between. A chartered system could do precisely that.”
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That’s the billionaire privatizers’ gameplan that, now that he’s been elected, a useful (and well-paid) idiot like LAUSD’s Ref Rodriguez will execute as he follows the orders of his corporate masters.
In short, there’s no New Orleans’ Hurricaine Katrina to go all “Shock Doctrine” on the public school systems in cities like Los Angeles, so what’s a privatizer to do?
Just follow the Smarick plan, and deliberately induce a “financial and political crisis”—where none yet exists—that will create chaos, vulnerability, and instability… and this can be exploited to bring about the eventual destruction the public schools in that city (re-read Smarick’s plan above).
Again, it’s straight out of Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine.”
Eventually, as the percentage of traditional public schools shrinks, and the percentage of charter schools within a district grows, the ever-increasing cost of maintaining the district’s salary, health benefits, retirement, etc. will cause the district to collapse from within.
The end game is then to replace current school boards (and democratic governance systems) with a small pseudo-“board” whose sole function is to rubber stamp charter school authorizing… and which has no actual control over charter schools’/charter chains’ functions after doing so… no transparency to the public, no accountability to the public, and no enforced or enforceable requirement that these charters educate all of the public—i.e. those who are expensive or difficult to educate, and who will not produce high scores on tests… special ed., English language learners, recent immigrants, homeless, foster care.
That’s why out-of-state billionaires, Wall Street hedge fund charter proponents, etc. are pumping millions into campaigns of school board candidates committed to carry out Smarick’s plan of privatization.
Again, for a short video summary of Smarick’s plan, watch the Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ speech to the California Charter Schools Association convention:
(Each time I listen to this, I think, “Are these guys so clueless and arrogant to consider that someone in the room could videotape this?” Like when Mitt Romney told a business luncheon that 47% of Americans are moochers off the government…)
Why does Edushyster interview these folks? What am I missing?
I will ask EduShyster to respond
Thank you so much, saw her response.
I think the reason is obvious.
To quote George Bernard Shaw’s admiration of Leon Trotsky’s writings attacking Joseph Stalin: (from memory… not exact quote)
“Trotsky doesn’t merely cut off Comrade Stalin’s head. He makes sure to turn it sideways, so as to reveal there are no brains inside.”
Here’s a little bit of a different take on why Washington DC is booming:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/opinion/the-lobbying-bonanza.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
It’s “swarming” with lobbyists . It’s like some “decline and fall of the republic” story.
The politics industry has done very, very well over the last decade. They’re rolling in cash.
In the photo accompanying the N.Y. TIMES article, that one lobbyist—second from the left with his hands in his pockets—looks like Dwight Schrute from “THE OFFICE”, only with a shorter haircut…. errr… at least, he does to me.
Seriously, can you see the resemblance?
http://theoffice.wikia.com/wiki/Dwight_Schrute