Jeff Bryant aptly describes the battle for control of public education in New York City. A group of billionaires–actually, nine of them–have formed an organization called “Families for Excellent Schools.” The name, like all of those invented by the corporate reformers, is intended to confuse the public into thinking that the group consists of families who are eager to improve all schools or families who are on the waiting list for a charter school. In fact, the “families” that contribute to this group have one goal: to increase the number of charter schools, without regard to collateral damage to the public schools that enroll the other 1 million children in public schools.
The billionaires, as Bryant shows, have opposed Mayor de Blasio’s programs to expand universal pre-kindergarten, to support struggling schools instead of closing them, to provide more reading specialists and counselors, and to make more AP classes available. They have used their considerable clout to demand more charters and to oppose equitable funding for public schools. A lawsuit that ended years ago called the Campaign for Fiscal Equity directed the state to pay the city billions more to fund public schools, but Governor Cuomo has ignored the CFE decision and pretends that charter schools are THE answer.
Bryant writes:
Understand that de Blasio’s desire to ramp up funding for new education programs comes at a time when powerful forces who control state education policy in New York state are convinced public schools need to make do with less. As a recent article in The Nation explains, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo “has banked his gubernatorial legacy” on refusing to adequately fund his state’s public schools.
Reporter George Joseph traces Cuomo’s stubborn refusal to abide a court-ordered overhaul of the Empire State’s education finances to a “coalition” of extremely wealthy people – principally, only nine individuals – who back an organization, Families for Excellent Schools, and operate a Super PAC that has smashed almost all lobbying records in Albany, the state capital, and influenced elections with massive campaign donations.
Joseph finds that FES – combined with New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany, another powerful organization financed by the same individuals – now largely shapes education policy in the state, a policy that strongly opposes the legally required equitable funding of New York public schools.
“The state owes its schools a whopping $5.9 billion, according to a recent study” Joseph points out. “Yet somehow in this prolonged period of economic necessity, billionaire hedge-fund managers continue to enjoy lower tax rates than the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers.”
The state’s stingy attitude toward education funding flies in the face of recent research studies showing funding levels for education have real consequences for students. Even people who are politically conservative recognize this.
The billionaires say that it is not necessary to “throw money” at the public schools, but meanwhile they don’t blink at spending $40,000 a year for their own child’s education in private schools that offer all the things that poor kids don’t have: small classes, the arts, beautiful facilities, up-to-date technology, no standardized testing, and no teacher evaluation based on test scores.
Instead, they fight doggedly for charter schools, which skim the most motivated students and families from the public schools, further harming them.
Is there a billionaire in the United States who wants to help all children, not just some children? Is there one who will join the fight against privatization of public education?
Thanks Diane. And good question.
No, not a good question, except in a rhetorical way.
Hoping to and/or relying on monied interests is no way to ensure that proper funding will exist for ALL students. Those responsible for the lawsuit that requires the state to adequately fund all schools need to go back to the courts and demand that the court’s decision needs to be enforced.
“. . . demand that the court’s decision be enforced” Ay ay ay!
I agree, Duane, that we should not rely on a tiny subset of monied individuals to shape education policy and to ensure proper funding of public schools. However, a billionaire voice in total support of public education and against reformsterism would be welcomed, IMO.
Yes, it would be welcomed!
And a TAGO to “reformsterism”!
Unfortunately, it is the Executive branch that is responsible for enforcing court decisions. The courts do not have any power to enforce their decisions.
What, then, does it take for court’s decisions to be abided by? The wording in Brown vs Ed was “with all due haste” and then it took way too many years for many states to comply. I guess “all due haste” only applies to everyday, common folk/ and not the white collar/political types, eh!
The Bryant article, IMO, explains Vanity Fair’s latest issue which gave a page to praising Melinda Gates and several pages to bash deBlasio for his unwillingness to cater to NYC’s wealthy. VF was at one time a magazine worth the paper and ink consumed in its publication.
The only way to beat charters is to out charter the charters. We need …. An Uber Charter.
Back in 2012 in California, we had a statewide ballot proposition or referendum that would increase taxes on all socio-economic groups, where, in rock-solid, air-tight language, every penny of the increase would go to fund public education. That particular school year—2012-2013—if it failed, that would mean two weeks would be cut from the school year. If passed, two weeks would be added. So the difference between passing and failing was a full month of school.
This was Proposition 30.
Billionaire school privatizer made public statements supporting Prop 30… a facade he put on to present himself as a supporter of all schools—public or charter.
The Prop was losing… until a court order forced the anti-Prop 30 forces to reveal the source of its campaign funds. Tens of millions were coming from an unknown shell organization in Arizona. The court order revealed that the one funding this out-of-state group was… wait for it… Eli Broad… the same guy who was publicly claiming he was supporting Prop 30.
When the public found out about this duplicity, this turned the tide, and Prop 30 was passed, leading to lower class sizes, class size caps, a fuller, richer curriculum, and… last year’s double-digit 10% raise for UTLA teachers, counselors, health & humans services, etc. (the one that was cursed in Eli Broad’s plan to privatize Los Angeles’ schools… as decent pay at public schools would pose an obstacle to staff their non-union charter schools).
The goal of Broad and his billionaire privatizer allies is to crash the public system, starve it of funding and resources, and that, in turn, will sky-high class size, layoffs, and general chaos, and… yeah… lower test scores. The privatizers will then use all that—that they actually caused through that initial starvations—as justification for closing public schools and replacing them with privatized, non-uinion schools as profit centers for the charter chains they own and/or with which they are allied.
On that score, I just found this great article over at Campbell Brown’s “The74” website. An L.A.-based, bought-and-paid-for advocate of school privatization—and former two-year TFA wonder boy, naturally—makes the refreshing admission…
“Forget all those denials people are making… the Broad Plan IS all about a hostile takeover Los Angeles public schools ! And so what if it is? That’s precisely what’s needed. Doncha know!”
https://www.the74million.org/article/opinion-maybe-a-hostile-takeover-is-precisely-what-the-los-angeles-unified-school-district-needs
This piece has ever corporate reform cliche:
1) use of the phrase “status quo” – CHECK
2) unregulated, unaccountable, totally non-transparent, privately-run charters are accountable because… they might be closed every five years- CHECK
3) turning schools over to private management = “innovation” – CHECK
5) use of term “college ready” and bogus “college ready” stats – CHECK
6) idiotic analogy of privatized charters / public schools WITH Federal Express / U.S. Post Office – CHECK
7) false claim that competition from charters forces public schools to improve – CHECK
8) written by a two-year TFA wonder boy now making a six-figure salary to promote school privatization — CHECK
… and on it goes…
Peter Greene also wrote a great column about a school privatization forum where moderator Derrell Bradford and panelist Rebecca Sibilia are positively orgasming over the possibility of school districts being forced into bankruptcy, and how the resulting Katrina-like chaos and disaster will lead to “great opportunities” to privatize schools.
Check out these cold-blooded, sociopathic, ivory tower douchebags salivating at the “opportunities” such bankruptcy disasters offer:
(go to 27:12)
(27:12)
Here’s Peter “CURMUDGUCATION” Greene’s take on this:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/10/what-happens-after-you-blow-it-all-up.html
———————————
PETER GREENE: “And all that brings us to the (Sibilia) quote that has circulated, where she envisions bankruptcy as a great way to blow up a district, specifically getting rid of all its ‘legacy debt’ so that they no longer have to pay for like buildings and pensions, which is totally cool because having a school district go bankrupt is no problem for students, just the adults. Which is just– I mean, I imagine that students would notice that their district is collapsing financially and cutting programs and teachers and resources with a chainsaw.
” ‘Bankruptcy is not a problem for kids,’ is a statement that in the best of contexts is still grossly tone-deaf and reality-impaired. In the context of Sibilia’s discussion of how to blow up public schools so we can has charters, it’s even more tone-deaf and reality-impaired.
“And while the tone of the whole panel is, as I said, disturbingly light and happy, Sibilia is just so thoroughly gleeful about the prospect of districts becoming bankrupt, their pensions zeroed out and their teaching staff scrubbed. I have seen people less excited about getting engaged to the eprson of their dreams.”
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Here’s PR WATCH’s Jonas Persson’s take on this:
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/09/12932/bankruptcy-huge-opportunity-privatize-schools-says-edbuild
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JONAS PERSSONS: “Held at the luxurious Hyatt Regency Hotel in the Business District—far from the wards devastated by Katrina—the AFC Policy Summit was a celebration of New Orleans’ school privatization spree in the aftermath of the disaster took the lives of 2,000 Americans and destroyed entire neighborhoods.
“But in the absence of a new hurricane that would sweep away public schools, a man-made calamity might do the trick. Such was the argument of Rebecca Sibilia, who is the CEO of a new non-profit education group: Edbuild.
“ ‘When you think about bankruptcy … this is like a, this is a huge opportunity for school districts. And this is something that Ed Build is going to focus on. Like bankruptcy is not a problem for kids; bankruptcy is a problem for the people governing the system, right? So, when a school district goes bankrupt all of their legacy debt can be eliminated. And when we are answering questions that Andy [Smarrick] and Mike [McShane] put forward, like how are we going to pay for the buildings, how are we going to bring in new, umm, operators when there is pension debt? Like if we can eliminate that in an entire urban system, then we can throw all the cards up in the air, and redistribute everything with all new models. And so, you’ve heard it first: bankruptcy might be, like, the thing that leads to the next education revolution,’ Sibilia explained.”‘
Here’s a video of Sibilia’s joyful response to the idea that bankruptcy is a “huge opportunity.”
“A Naked Power Grab”
“ ‘This sounds like an attempt at a naked power grab,’ Saqib Bhatti an expert in municipal finance with the Roosevelt Institute told the Center for Media and Democracy. Bhatti explained how bankruptcy could potentially lead to the kind of public-to-private “redistribution” Sibilia has in mind.
“ ‘Once you’ve cleared any hurdle the state has set up and file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, the case goes before a federal judge who reviews the bankruptcy plan the municipality has submitted. The judge can only accept it or reject it, and is not allowed to propose any changes. This gives you plenty of leeway to impose radical policy changes under the guise of saving money. You could, for example, turn traditional public schools into charters and undo union contracts,’ said Bhatti.
“Bhatti was drawing upon his experience examining the Detroit bankruptcy.
The Detroit Bankruptcy Blueprint
“Two years ago, the city became the largest in U.S. history to file for federal bankruptcy protection.
“ ‘Conventional wisdom,’ Bhatti wrote in In These Times, ‘held that bloated pensions had bankrupted Detroit.’ But, as he demonstrated:
“ ‘[The] bankruptcy was not borne out of financial necessity and was not a foregone conclusion. It was a political decision made by state officials. Gov. Rick Snyder and the Michigan Legislature chose to push the distressed city over the edge in order to accomplish two otherwise difficult political goals: slashing pensions and regionalizing the Detroit Water and Sewage Department.’
“Using a phrase coined by Naomi Klein to describe the corporate takeover of public schools in New Orleans post-Katrina, Bhatti referred to the bankruptcy push as “disaster capitalism at its finest.”
“In fact, Detroit came to provide a blueprint for how bankruptcy (or the mere threat of bankruptcy) could be used to radically restructure or privatize public assets under the guise of fiscal responsibility.
“Even though the Detroit bankruptcy did not directly affect the urban school district, school privatizers nevertheless took note.
“While the idea of districts filing for bankruptcy was not exactly new, it had not been very vocally embraced as a policy prescription before.
“Former George W. Bush education official Andy Smarrick, author of The Urban School System of the Future, proposed in a 2010 essay that the mechanism be available so that ‘failing’ public schools would go belly up in much the same way as failing private companies:
” ‘After undergoing improvement efforts, a struggling private firm that continues to lose money will close, get taken over, or go bankrupt … Urban school districts, at long last, need an equivalent.’
“But in 2010, with municipal bankruptcies far and few in between, the prospects of a major urban school district actually going through the ordeal appeared rather remote. Detroit changed everything.
“Disaster Capitalism Is Now Expressly Embraced by the Corporate Right
“At an education reform meeting in 2011, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner argued that Katrina was not all bad. There were, he said, ‘bright spots’ as the hurricane literally swept away public schools and paved the way for charter and voucher schools.
“With Detroit in fresh memory, it is hardly a surprise that Governor Rauner is now making a callous push for the Chicago Public Schools District to declare bankruptcy to “restructure contracts” and address a $1.14 billion budget shortfall instead of raising revenue to meet the need to fund 21st century schools. He also tried to blame teachers’ unions for balking at having their contracts torn up and pensions gutted.
“Rauner has pitched bankruptcy as a last resort once all other options are exhausted, but preaching to the choir behind closed doors in New Orleans, Sibilia threw caution to the wind. Not only did she suggest that this was the solution the corporate school reform movement has been waiting for; she also made it clear that once bankruptcy is declared, the current public school teachers have got to go:
“ ‘The schools of choice that will largely replace the old schools have new teachers; they have a completely different teaching corps than those of the public schools.’
“What Happens After You Blow It All Up?”
“EdBuild board Member Derrell Bradford, who moderated Sibilia’s panel–titled ‘Knocking out Yesterday’s Education Models’ joked that the working title of the panel had been
“What Happens After You Blow it All Up?”
“But it’s no joke for the children and families and educators affected by the reformers’ willingness to push every lever—no matter how disruptive or destructive—to undermine public schools and funnel money to the for-profit firms who turn around and spend big bucks on lobbying, elections, and non-profit groups, such as AFC and EdBuild, that help advance their bottom line at the public’s expense.”
—
“EdBuild contacted CMD/PRWatch to complain that Sibilia’s quote was inaccurate and taken out of context. We stand by our story and have added a video showing her making the comments we quoted. Our original quotation did omit verbal tics such as “umm” and “like” but is substantively accurate:
“When you think of bankruptcy … this is a huge opportunity. Bankruptcy is not a problem for kids; bankruptcy is a problem for the people governing the system, right? So, when a school district goes bankrupt all of their legacy debt can be eliminated . . . How are we going to pay for the buildings? How are we going to bring in new operators when there is pension debt? Look, if we can eliminate that in an entire urban system, then we can throw all the cards up in the air, and redistribute everything with all new models. You’ve heard it first: bankruptcy might be the thing that leads to the next education revolution”
– See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/09/12932/bankruptcy-huge-opportunity-privatize-schools-says-edbuild#sthash.UrPvxa5m.dpuf
CORRECTION:
I left out Eli Broad’s name in an early paragraph:
It should read:
“Billionaire school privatizer Eli Broad made public statements supporting Prop 30… a facade Broad put on to present himself as a supporter of all schools—public or charter.”
I’m sure the billionaire boys had a great deal to do with the changes in Part 154 Regulations in New York. This new legislation for English Language Learners establishes an “alternate pathway” for content and common branch teachers to receive English as a New Language (formerly ESL) certification. Like TFA, what this essentially does is allow charter schools to enroll only the most motivated and proficient English Language Learners without having to hire a separate teachers. Now charter schools can say that they have as many English Language Learners as public schools without having to waste their money on “human capital” (ie: teachers).
The students?? Who cares! Public schools will now have one so called dually certified teacher in a classroom of 35 students, 10 of whom are English Language Learners, and told to “differentiate.” We’re back to the days where our English Language Learners are lost in the crowd. Sink or swim. Pathetic.
“. . . common branch teachers. . .”
Please explain! TIA!
In NY a common branch license is K-6
Thanks! Had no clue.
Massage and torture numbers & stats so that charters and privatization come out smelling like roses—
And public schools stink?
Is this what is what meant by CC math?
Go figure…
😎
“alternative pathways” = dumbing down of the teachers
Oh, I forgot anyone can teach. . .
. . . just like most everybody can have sex and become a parent, right!
I’m a retired ESL teacher from New York so I understand ELLs well. All ELLS are not the same. My guess is charters may try to cream off the motivated Asians and Eastern Europeans and leave the Hispanics and most Haitians for public schools as they are usually seriously under educated and require lots more attention. They will also try to get the motivated advanced students that may be just about ready to function without too much support as they understand, read and write in English, though not perfectly, but most of the instruction will be comprehensible to them.
The so-called “successful” charter schools may have ELL students with college educated parents – one of whom is completely fluent in English and has often completed a college degree at an American university! The want to raise their child “bilingual” so speak to them at home in a different language. But these kids are a world apart from the students who are growing up having to translate for non-English speaking parents who don’t even have a high school degree. Any pretense that both kinds of ELL students are similar is nonsense.
Something is very wrong when billionaires can try to block the plans of the mayor. Nobody voted for them. They are entitled to an opinion like any other citizen. Beyond that, they should go back to making money, and let the elected mayor govern.
IS there a billionaire who’d like to donate to the cause of saving public education?
It stands to reason there MUST be if in fact the philanthropy is really about educating kids. What are the odds that, in the scenario that these donation really ARE about education, every one of this countries wealthiest people agree that charters, merit pay and trst and punish is the answer? No one disagrees with that?
Not Warren Buffett, who talks a good game about the middle class but, gives his “charitable ” money to Gates. Gates and Buffett claim they are spending down their fortunes on “philanthropy”. So why, when the richest men list came out this week, were they ranked 1st and 2nd?
The mind-control regime of marketing and propaganda continue to showcase the
balance between confusion and illumination.
The Nation article (“9 Billionaires”) fills in many details: http://www.thenation.com/article/9-billionaires-are-about-remake-new-yorks-public-schools-heres-their-story/
The Nation article highlights the role of the PAC, New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany. This makes clear the link between Cuomo and the Republicans’ control of the NYS Senate.
The NYS legislature has always been corrupt and feckless, but it used to provide a counterweight to the Governor’s power. Not anymore, now that leaders of both legislative chambers have been taken down by corruption charges.
Education policy would have been harder for Cuomo to push through, if the legislative leaders were stronger.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Is there a billionaire in the United States who wants to help all children, not just some children? Is there one who will join the fight against privatization of public education?
Readers should be aware that the Bryant editorial was produced by the communications arm of a 501(c)(4) organization that won’t reveal its donors or funding sources. There are more than a few reasons for non-billionaire New Yorkers and New York City public school parents like me to be critical of de Blasio’s (antidemocratic) control of the schools. Money isn’t the problem; whatever money the state owes has been made up for and much, much more by city taxpayers.
The fact is that hardly anything has changed from the Bloomberg regime. Schools are still penalized budget-wise for having veteran teachers. Much-ballyhooed restructurings in the bureaucracy (“networks” becoming “borough support centers”) and family engagement have had no effect on what happens inside of school buildings. We are nearly two full years into the de Blasio mayoralty, and 80% of the central managerial employees hired by Bloomberg are still there! Test prep is still rampant and children routinely miss recess and gym, music and art. Mayor de Blasio owns this stuff, no one else.
Universal pre-K has not been the success the vested interests would have you believe. The programs are not reaching the kids who need them the most: https://www.propublica.org/article/de-blasio-pre-k-program-adds-12000-kids-only-195-from-poorest-zip-codes. When they are co-located with DOE schools, they have created a space crunch for K-12—the same administration that insists our schools are too crowded for charters had no problem ordering them to make room for 15,000 new students. Last but not least, the administration is putting the cart before the horse when it claims that all these new seats, especially the ones that are in CBOs (privatization!!!!), are all “high quality”. The jury is out on that, and the administration has been quite coy about how they intend to monitor and measure quality.
Finally, the rezoning of PS 307 and PS 8 in Brooklyn Heights highlights de Blasio’s embarrassing unwillingness to address what is far and away the most pressing issue facing public education in NYC—the absurdly segregated state of its zoned neighborhood schools, a condition that long predates charters or choice. Here was a chance for a mayor who ran on a platform of a “tale of two cities” to lead on an important issue, and he’s run away from it as fast as he can. How could this happen?
It’s likely simple: the UFT is happy to let the integration dog lie. Rezoning means enrollment patterns change, which means that some teachers might have to change schools. And merely upper-middle-class mayors let consideration of their personal wealth influence their policy decisions the same way the insanely wealthy ones do: removing the premium of the relatively privileged school zone where his home is located could cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Better to just say you care deeply about integration and leave it at that.