A reader named Lisa sent this comment, who is upset that Mayor Marty Walsh intends to close 1/4 of all public schools in Boston and replace them with charters. I said in an earlier post that he pulled the wool over voters’ eyes by pretending to be a supporter of public schools, unlike his pro-charter opponent. Will the birthplace of public education join the rush to privatize its schools?
Lisa writes:
Walsh didn’t pull the wool, he outright lied. He told me, to my face, that Boston was not going to be another Chicago or Philadelphia. He bald face lied.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is the era of stealth candidates, who are funded by the corporate education demolition derby. They are financially supported by the oligarchs to lie so they are elected, and then are in a position to fulfill the agenda of a Bill Gates, and doesn’t Gates rhyme with Hates.
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Gates rhymes with Hades?
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BREAKING….
“It’s not true! It’s not true!”…
or so says Mayor Walsh in a press release from a half-hour agao:
Statement from Chief Communications Officer, Laura Oggeri
For Immediate Release
November 09, 2015
Released By:
Mayor’s Office
— For More Information Contact:
Mayor’s Press Office
617.635.4461
Below is a statement from Laura Oggeri, Chief Communications Officer for the City of Boston:
“The Mayor has never said, nor does he have a plan to close 36 schools. Mayor Walsh has proven his dedication to Boston Public Schools by, in the past year alone, providing unprecedented budgetary support, extending learning time for students, adding 200 pre-kindergarten seats to the district, and hiring a first-class Superintendent. The Mayor also launched a multi-year Educational and Facilities Master Plan this fall to guide smart investments in Boston’s schools with the goal of providing all students with a high-quality, 21st-century education.
The Esquire article is untrue and unsourced, and references meetings that the Mayor has never had. We are extremely disappointed at the spread of misinformation.”
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Some politicians will leak agendas before they are implemented to see if there will be resistance and if the resistance looks like it will lead to an open rebellion, then they will deny, deny, deny, and back peddle furiously.
I’m not saying that’s what his mayor is doing it—just saying.
For instance, President Reagan did this with the national home mortgage IRS tax dedication and his administration backtracked in a blur of speed when it looked like more than 100 million Americans were ready to hit the streets and set the country on fire because most Americans live one or two pay checks from poverty and ending up homeless.
Then that SOB managed to slip through an end to the credit card interest deduction on middle class IRS tax. Without a change in income or living expenses, our taxes leaped three thousand dollars in one year due to the fact that my wife at the time had been in a car accident that wasn’t her fault (rear ended at a red light), had gone through brain and jaw surgery and we had used our credit cards to bridge that period in our lives so we didn’t lose our home.
For that reason, I will despise Reagan to the day I take my last breath and then continue to curse him in hell or wherever I end up.
Messing with any element of the economy, social safety net programs like Social Security, and large tax deductions for the middle class usually means a few benefit and many lose. Usually, the richest beneift and the middle class gets shafted.
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Thank you veteran teacher Lloyd Lofthouse for your true experience with “” President Reagan did this with the national home mortgage IRS tax dedication and his administration backtracked in a blur of speed… “”
For this reason, it would be for the best public interest, if you, teacher Ken, Laura Chapman, Susan Schwartz, and Dr. Ravitch can publish a GUIDE BOOK of INFORMATION about HISTORY of all educational FLIP-FLOP POLICIES within 50 years from 2015.
This kind of information can be used to cultivate all new educators, parents and students to unite and to fight for their democratic rights in demanding for American Public Education autonomy, teaching tenure, local control, and elected positions for all levels in education administration to prevent a corrupted appointment position from Governor, or Chancellor. May King
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BREAKING….
“It’s not true! It’s not true!”…
or so says Mayor Walsh in a press release from a half-hour agao:
Statement from Chief Communications Officer, Laura Oggeri
For Immediate Release
November 09, 2015
Released By:
Mayor’s Office
— For More Information Contact:
Mayor’s Press Office
617.635.4461
Below is a statement from Laura Oggeri, Chief Communications Officer for the City of Boston:
“The Mayor has never said, nor does he have a plan to close 36 schools. Mayor Walsh has proven his dedication to Boston Public Schools by, in the past year alone, providing unprecedented budgetary support, extending learning time for students, adding 200 pre-kindergarten seats to the district, and hiring a first-class Superintendent.
“The Mayor also launched a multi-year Educational and Facilities Master Plan this fall to guide smart investments in Boston’s schools with the goal of providing all students with a high-quality, 21st-century education.
“The Esquire article is untrue and unsourced, and references meetings that the Mayor has never had. We are extremely disappointed at the spread of misinformation.”
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BREAKING….
“Oh, yes, it IS true! It IS true!”
… or so says the the author of the ESQUIRE article.
ESQIURE Blogger Charles P. Pierce released a statement where stands by his story, insisting that the Mayor, thru his spokesperson, is deceitfully using semantics in the statement denying his and Public School Mama’s story:
In the past, the Mayor has confirmed, and in the statement, does not deny that there will be schools “consolidated”. Well, according to Pierce, that means the student bodies of different schools will be combined, and the schools merged, leaving some of those buildings “empty”. In the process, this will bring to an end the existence of some traditional public schools in Boston…. i.e. “close” them.
The newly “empty” buildings will actually be leased—as in occupied, and in use by charter companies. So technically, the Mayor can then argue that they will remain “open” as schools… privately-managed charter schools, that is. These “open” schools that will be new occupants of the buildings will be privatized “charter schools,” not traditional Boston Public Schools.
Unlike the public schools, these charters
— WILL NOT BE transparent to the public;
— WILL NOT BE accountable to the public via a democratically-elected school board;
and
— WILL NOT educate all the public, as they will have possess the Eva-Moskowitz-ish ability to exclude the most expensive, and most difficult-to-educate students — special ed., English Language Learners, homeless, foster care, behavior problem kids…. either at the front end, or pushing them out later on down the line.
Pierce claims that there are ten documents unearthed in the FOIA request confirming all of this, including one with “talking points” the Mayor and his people should use to verbally downplay, minimize, and conceal the actual amount of school privatization that the plan will truly put in to effect — in other, words… how to lie to citizens of Boston about what’s really going on.
Pierce ends he rebuttal with this bit of snark:
“Despite the claims of the Mayor’s office, (Pierce’s ESQUIRE) Blog post was neither untrue nor unsourced. However, the Blog is newly concerned by the reading comprehension levels of those entrusted with the education of Boston’s public school students.”
http://www.boston.com/news/education/2015/11/09/mayor-office-calls-esquire-article-his-charter-school-stance-untrue-and-unsourced/zK5t3yBZih31bvhPGstDIK/story.html?p1=story_hp
—————————–
CHARLES P. PIERECE:
“The Mayor ‘has never said, nor does he have a plan to close 36 schools.’ The Mayor HAS said that he plans to ‘consolidate’ schools.
“How can he consolidate schools if he does not close some?
“Oh, wait—if he leases some of the ‘consolidated’ school buildings to charter schools then the buildings will technically remain open. They just won’t be Boston Public Schools. Despite the expressed concerns of the Mayor’s office, the Blog post was sourced and linked to twelve relevant documents obtained in response to what Boston public school blogger Mary Lewis Pierce [no relation] described as a FOIA [Massachusetts Public Records Act] request.
“Among those records was an agenda for a meeting between the Boston Compact and Mayor Walsh and a Boston Compact talking points memo prepared for the Mayor in which the Mayor is scripted to announce and define Enroll Boston.
“Despite the claims of the Mayor’s office, the Blog post was neither untrue nor unsourced. However, the Blog is newly concerned by the reading comprehension levels of those entrusted with the education of Boston’s public school students.”
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He should be recalled.
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What did he get for this? Donations from Gates, Walton and Dell to set up and run a One Boston website for a couple of years? Was it worth trading his entire credibility for?
It’s not just that they make secret deals and lie constantly. It’s that they make secret deals that are a really, really bad bargain for the public.
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Chiara, I bet what he got was far more valuable. The promise that reformers’ deep pockets would not be emptied for his opponents. We often think that politicians do things for direct benefit, but a lot of times it’s to prevent an attack.
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Hey Diane, he’s denying it.
Below is a statement from Laura Oggeri, Chief Communications Officer for the City of Boston:
“The Mayor has never said, nor does he have a plan to close 36 schools. Mayor Walsh has proven his dedication to Boston Public Schools by, in the past year alone, providing unprecedented budgetary support, extending learning time for students, adding 200 pre-kindergarten seats to the district, and hiring a first-class Superintendent. The Mayor also launched a multi-year Educational and Facilities Master Plan this fall to guide smart investments in Boston’s schools with the goal of providing all students with a high-quality, 21st-century education.
The Esquire article is untrue and unsourced, and references meetings that the Mayor has never had. We are extremely disappointed at the spread of misinformation.”
He should release all the communications he had with the foundations, as a good faith transparency gesture. Gates and Walton are quasi-governments at this point. They should have to provide some level of transparency.
http://m.cityofboston.gov/news/Default.aspx?id=20423
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Yes, he should be as transparent as possible and then NEVER, EVER allow a corporate Charter school to open in Boston while he is the mayor. In fact, he should close most of the ones that are already there and open. I’m not talking about Charter schools that are part of the community based, transparent, non-profit, democratic public schools—-those public school charters that are alternative schools for the most at risk children.
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