I received an email from a daily reader of the blog who asked me how she could explain the downside of corporate reform to friends at a dinner party in the suburbs who know nothing at all about the issues. She said that her friends were liberal Democrats, but their own children are grown, and they don’t read the blogs. What could she say that was direct, accurate, and informative?
We exchanged emails and began creating a list of snappy explanatory comments. Our combined list is below. Would you be good enough to send me your suggestions?
Your friend says, “So what do you think of the education reform movement?” Or, “How could anyone be opposed to education reform?”
And you answer, “What you call education “reform” is not reform at all. It is a way of making public schools look bad so they can be turned over to private managers. That’s privatization of one of our fundamental democratic institutions.”
Well, they may look at you and wonder if you have gone off the deep end, so you have to give them examples of what “education reform” actually means.
Like “for profit charter schools that are supported with tax dollars”
Like “excessive testing that makes money for test companies but isn’t good for kids”
Like “giving standardized tests to children in kindergarten and the earliest grades”
Like “turning kindergarten into first or second grade, where children study academics instead of playing”
Like “Race to the Top that pays schools to use the Common Core”
Like “charter schools that are never held accountable because their owners make big contributions to politicians”
Like “charter schools that get high test scores because they exclude kids with disabilities, kids learning English and remove those with low test scores”
Like “corporate charter chains replacing neighborhood public schools”
Like “virtual charters where kids lose 180 days of math for every 100 days of school”
Like “vouchers that go to fundamentalist schools where kids learn creationist science and the evangelical version of history”
Like “teachers are evaluated as ineffective or effective by the test scores of their students, even though research demonstrates that this is a flawed method”
Like “uncertified, inexperienced teachers who are assigned to the kids with the greatest needs”
And for a fanfare: “Our nation has pursued failed market-based policies for 15 years. It is time to do what works, based on evidence and experience.”
The list could be longer. Send me your suggestions. We could put them on a palm card so that anyone is prepared to answer the questions at any time.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Reform School”
Their product is disruption
Their pitch is “failing schools”
With lots of rank corruption
And loads of testing tools
Their goal is liquidation
And everything must go
The essence of the Nation
The public schools we know
I do think it’s hard to explain because peoples’ experience in schools is a snapshot- they move thru at a certain period in time.
I have a weird advantage because I had 4 thru one public school district over a period of years so I watched “market-based” ed reform really completely capture policy in Ohio, to the point where no one else outside “the movement” is ever heard or even consulted. I saw the changes up close. I remember the year we lost field trips, and I remember the year we lost art teachers in the lower grades. Two years ago we lost all the assistants in the music program.
I can make a much longer list of what we have lost under ed reform than what we have gained. That’s the bottom line for me.
If this were really “about” improving public schools would public schools just take loss after loss after loss? Are public schools “better”? Mine isn’t. In a lot of ways it’s worse.
Teachers of course have an even longer and more informed view, over decades sometimes.
I agree with the idea that the schools are worse in general. My children certainly do not get to do many of the things that I did in public schools like field trips, putting on a play, real science lab work, journalism classes, and so on. Also, they are not writing as much. Writing is obviously one of the most important skills for college, but they waste so much time taking stupid tests. The students I get in my college courses are not as prepared as the ones from 10 years ago. Education reform has not helped.
Teachers ratings are determined by the scores of students they don’t teach.
Teachers get five weeks of training.
No elective subjects.
Students are taken out of class to go to the statehouse to protest.
Teaching is treated as a job to do only two or three years before going on to something else.
And ELA teachers’ ratings are determined by ELA tests, when 95% of English/language arts ability is a function of the language exposure a kid has received outside of ELA class (unlike math, the majority of which is taught in math class at school).
“Built-in Failure”
Built-in failure is really success
Shuttering schools is opening chests
Coffers filled with public jewels
For which the Wall Street vulture drools
“Canary in a Goldmine”
The Mother Lode’s attracting
The Gates have opened wide
Canary isn’t acting
The public school just died
“The Game-Changers”
Reformers changed the game
From “Life” to “Monopoly”
And rules are not the same
As any fool can see
“The Master Plan”
Initial step‘s to break their will
The second step’s to tame
The final step’s to work the mill
With robots, all the same
Aw, hell, just give them this link
One more that sums it all up
“School Deform from A to Z”
A is for Avarice, driving the Huns
B is for Billions, from public school funds
C is for Coleman, the Core of the trouble
D is for Duncan, who made it all double
E is for Eva, a charter school nut
F is for Failure, for those who are cut
G is for Gates, who has bankrolled deform
H is for Hack, the Deformian norm
I is for Ignorance, willful and not
J is for Journey, to Plunderland spot
K is for Kopp and her front, TFA
L is for Loopy, the Common Core way
M is for Money, the ultimate goal
N is for Nihilist, standardized soul
O is for Onerous, testing in schools
P is for Pearson, for tests and for tools
Q is for ‘Quality’, gauged by a score
R is for Rigor, of zombies and more
S is for Standards, established by hacks
T is for Testing irrelevant facts
U is for Unicorns, fairies and rest
V is for VAM, which is random, at best
W’s for Winnowing, wheat from the chaff
X is for X-out, of schools and of staff
Y is for “Y’all better do as we’ve said”
Z is for Zimba, quite clueless ‘bout ed
Like losing all ability to track what happens to public money because charters are exempt from many public disclosure laws. Is the charter sending janitorial contracts to the principal’s wife? Maybe. Is the charter chain sending construction contracts to a board member’s company? Maybe. And what about sending money to a cult leader in exile? That too is possible because no one is watching.
Friends? R U kidding. Most people I know, and the media know nothing.
There is a piece in the newspaper today about Charters in Oakland, and a bout a teacher who is being charges for some sexual thing…more bad teacher… but nowhere, is the re the truth about the LEGISLATIVE takeover, or the civil rights abuse that removed tens of thousands of tenured teachers in order for schools to fail, or the the defending of schools . The media is the tool and explaining that democracy goes down with the schools is the task! But the media is owned by the oligarchs.
As true as all these comments are, they can all be answered by the lie that “public schools are worse, so we have to give something else a try.” Or, even more naively, “why is that a bad idea?” Not everyone understands that standardized tests might be inappropriate for 5-year-olds. And even saying that it hasn’t worked in 15 years just gets the response, “that’s why we need to keep innovating.” So it seems to me that the best response will always data demonstrating that “reform” schools fail on their _own_ terms (testing) and that public schools are, as a rule, as successful as ever.
There’s a privatization puppet out here in Los Angeles, Nicholas Melvoin, who’s running against School Board President (and defender of public schools) Steve Zimmer.
He wrote an article in which he freely admitted that yeah… this is a hostile takeover of the schools by corporations … and that’s a good thing.
He even had the audacity to say near the end of his article that is this corporate takeover doesn’t work, “we’ll just try something else.”
https://www.the74million.org/article/opinion-maybe-a-hostile-takeover-is-precisely-what-the-los-angeles-unified-school-district-needs
That’s what passes for public policy with these guys.
Forget the fact the hostile takeover very well may make this not just worse, but far worse, perhaps irreversibly worse … or that it may take decades to undo the damage doen …
“We’re still going to to execute a hostile takeover whether the public wants it or not, even if we have to shove it down an unwilling public’s throats … because we corporate reformers answer to no one. Indeed, we’re calling for the eliminations of all school boards elected by the public, or any similar mechanism by which the public can hold us accountable.”
I would ask them if they remember such a hostile, almost adversarial relationship between their lawmakers and their public schools when they were in school.
Ask them how lawmakers and public schools somehow ended up on different “sides”.
We have a whole group of people in government, people we’re paying, who believe it is their mission to battle the public schools our kids attend to the point where the head of the US Department of Education felt comfortable running around the country accusing the people who run public schools of “lying” and hinting they had bad motives.
All of the GOP candidates are running AGAINST public schools. All of them. The Democratic candidates are too frightened to even mention public schools at all. That’s the scenario we’re faced with. We have opponents of our schools and then a bunch of useless potted plants who are too scared to defend existing public schools.
We don’t have advocates in government. We’re political orphans, which is amazing, since the VAST majority of children attend public schools!
Ask them if there’s something really fundamentally wrong with this picture.
Where teachers no longer have a voice
Where noneducators are making decisions about what is best for all children
Where “public charter school” is a charter school in disguise
Money that should be used to educate all children is profiting private companies.
As a certified teacher with a Master’s degree plus 60 graduate credits, it sickens me that charters are hiring new college graduates (with no education courses) to try to teach my children. Is that the kind of teacher you would want for your children? It’s a changing parade of inexperienced teachers.
Children in preschool are now being tested at length. It’s required by the district, and it serves no purpose. It does not evaluate nor inform future instruction. It is completely inappropriate and a waste of money, time and energy.
The “reform” reach goes from preschool to post graduate. Don’t hire from unaccredited colleges and universities.
What happened to “Separation of church and state!!!!!” And education for every child so that all can learn.
In low income neighborhoods, we can educate all children. You just need committed staff, resources, smaller class size, and decent facilities. If you look at the original model of Head Start, it provided education to children and parents, nutrition, health monitoring, special needs identification and therapies, such as speech, physical and occupational therapy which often brought the children up to age level. The program was was an amazing success. Now…. There is a script that teachers are supposed to follow. And test, test, test. It’s a sick product of our “reform” movement. The best of the best teachers are being chewed up and spit out by our system, and no one cares. If anyone sees what is happening, they are not doing anything about it. We believe they want us to fail. That way they can say they were forced to take over this poor failing school because the teachers didn’t perform.
Why doesn’t President Obama see that he has participated in destroying inner city public school education? Would a letter writing campaign directly to him make him more aware of the destruction he has fueled?
President Obama’s stance seems to be the most difficult to explain!
You can argue all the faults of “reform”, there are many examples to show the destructive tendencies but when they hit you with the fact that this is Obama’s educational policy, what do you say then?
I’ve said this before: Obama is from Hawaii. In Hawaii, the public schools are notoriously “bad” and everyone tries to go to the huge and famous and private Punahou School. That’s where Obama went. He probably thinks we should raze the public schools.
Charters subscribe to “no nonsense nurturing,” which is actually “no nurturing nonsense.”
I’m going to steal that line. 😉
Where tests standardized tests are above grade level and are rigged so that about two thirds of students fail in order to serve the public school failure narrative.
Where the teachers are rated by an unknown formula based on students standardized scores.
Where research about teaching and learning is disregarded
Where politics take priority over what is best for students
I sometimes say half-jokingly that I can shut down a dinner party in less than 10 minutes with my tales of the current state of education. I have learned that being Debbie Downer doesn’t always help the cause. What I think we need, aside from raising awareness, is to guide discussion back to the values we hold for the purpose of education in a democracy. I just read the New Yorker article about AltSchool: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/altschools-disrupted-education and to me it’s a good place to start asking – what values underlie this approach to teaching and learning? Are these values important in your opinion?
One of the secrets to the success of early childhood education in Reggio Emilia is the public’s engagement in discussion and evaluation of values. Given the tone at the Republican debate this week, I’d say many are hitting rock bottom in terms of their stated values.
Here are my suggestions.
1. Read Crabgrass Frontier, by Kenneth Jackson, and American Apartheid, by Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, to understand that there is absolutely nothing unintentional or “market-based” about patterns of residential segregation. It is the result of decades of racist activity: steering, redlining, discrimination, exclusionary zoning, white flight, and intimidation by private citizens and law enforcement. Contrary to self-serving and self-soothing conventional wisdom, all of these factors, from blatant steering to mortgage discrimination to cross burnings to white flight, are active and ongoing. The upshot: even liberal suburbanites have a vested economic interest in a system that profits from
keeping enormous numbers of poor minority children in “diverse” metropolitan areas warehoused in concentrated yet isolated
hypersegregation.
2. Read Reign of Error, by Diane Ravitch, to understand that the state of America’s public schools has never been stronger than it is at this moment: the narrative that there has been a massive decline in educational quality in the past 15 years simply isn’t supported by the evidence.
3. Read CREDO’s urban charter study and the four large-scale random assignment studies that show a clear, consistent, and growing advantage for charters that serve at-risk minority kids in the country’s hypersegregated inner cities.
4. Familiarize yourself with the vast and important differences in charter school laws from state to state. If you live in New York, for example, and someone is warning you about for-profit or virtual charters, or talking about billionaires investing in charter schools, he is most likely either ignorant or a bullshit artist. Possibly both.
5. Understand that charter schools are extremely popular among families living in hypersegregated neighborhoods. Much of the opposition to them comes not from the grass roots, but from special interest groups for whom the emergence and growth of the charter sector represents a direct economic threat.
6. As a suburbanite like it or not, consciously or not, you are participating in a system that benefits and profits from the exclusion of others. Ask yourself if it is moral and just to insist that the most discriminated-against, marginalized, and victimized segment of society be forced to stay in generationally dysfunctional traditional public schools for the benefit of others. It is bad enough that “separate and equal,” which is illegal, has been adopted as an acceptable policy goal by so many progressive protectors of the status quo.
Oops. I guess that won’t all fit on a palm card. Here’s a version that will:
Be wary of what “progressives” tell you about education reform. The end.
But what if you’re not a suburbanite (I’m not), and your kids don’t go to hypersegregated schools (mine don’t), and your school district is inundated with charters – or not – depending on the month (mine is) – so much so that the District cannot make demographic projections with any accuracy?
Our school District population has ebbed and flowed over the past 10+ years as charters have come in, students flock to them, so traditional public schools close, but then families become disenchanted with the charters and leave, charters shrink or close, and the district becomes overcrowded with students flowing back into the regular schools. But, oh wait, we learned last June that a charter would close in September, leaving the District two short months to figure out what they would do with hundreds of students coming back to the district. Those students are now in a rented charter building that doesn’t meet NYS specs for public schools, so it’s not a permanent solution. But now a couple of applications for new charter schools in our city are on the Regents’ desks.
I was originally a cautious proponent of charter schools. But now I am against them for purely practical reasons. Our school district, which does have lots of problems, has to spent so much time, energy and money just processing the kids coming in and out of charter schools, figuring out where they are academically for placement, figuring out where they are going to put kids, how many textbooks to buy, etc. that they have little left over to tackle the more serious questions of actual education.
I am not sure that a dinner party in suburbia, among persons who do not have children in school (or only grandchildren in school), and who may not have attended public schools will favor any discussion about issues.
If there is political talk among “liberal democrats” the starter might be why there is so much discussion about preschool and college loan foregiveness, but not the big in-between. Specifics, local examples, personal experiences are the key.
Like Diane you missed the whole point, Which you have explained so well or shall I say at least provided excellent links to in the past >
What do the Walton foundation ,Exon mobile , The Business Round Table and a slew of Billionaires have in common .
Lets think oh they all seek to pay decent , wages ,protect the environment, provide consumer product protection . Nah none of that
Oh yes they are concerned with the future of Americas children especially of color. Nah
Ah :the Corporatocracy that seeks to maintain a system of obseene profits and wealth
Provide the link to perhaps
When Billionaires Become Educational Experts
“Venture philanthropists” push for the privatization of public education.
By Kevin K. Kumashiro
The Powell Document
Click to access 5b-powell_memorandum.pdf
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
by John Perkins
Multi billionaires are not in this for the few trinkets that are to be made in education >
Knowledge is power and they prefer the American people to be ignorant . To that end they must control the education system from K-University turn it into a certificate bearing program to serve the corporatocracy . They will use the Media they own to drive this and many other points home .
Time to add 1984 to the list
you are exactly right. The people behind this want to see the end of our democracy, and the best way to god that is to end education so that the people will elect a man who talks about his genitals in a national debate and believes this is appropriate.
It is not about money. Those who profit from the privatization are pawns in the hands of people who already have the wealth once reeved for nations. These 84 people, these families are overseeing the destruction of our nation.
Smaller class size, need for nurses, counselors, nutritious food and quality after school programs.
The foundation of education has always been based on, “the philosophy of education” whereas now it is “education as a business”.
“The Hypocritic Oath”
The Hypocritic Oath
Is taken by Reformen
It certifies their growth
To hypocriti-Coremen:
“The tests and Common Core
Are really something nice
But my kids must endure
A Core-less sacrifice”
Like the shuttering of neighborhood schools labeled as failed even as they have been STARVED of resources so that charters can take their place
Like kids bused all over a city in the name of choice because their neighborhood school has been closed
Like children of color, living in poverty being subjected to “no excuses” charter schools.
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2016 16:00:46 +0000 To: dpayne34@msn.com
I think we need to add.. “The movement is premised on the claim that public schools are failing, but all of the available statistical data actually show the opposite.”
Hello Diane, Below is the letter to the editor that I wrote to The New Yorker in response to the article in the March 7 issued titled “Learn Different.” I hope you will respond to the piece as well. Best, Cathy Toll
Dear Editors:
Rebecca Mead chooses to tell two stories in her piece, “Learn Different.” One, that people with financial and time resources can find a different kind of education for their children, is an old story, albeit this time it is told with digital gadgets included. The other, that educators cannot provide solid school experiences for children and it takes outsiders to develop schools that work, is somewhat newer, and it is popular among education “reformers.” There are many other stories Mead could have told, such as:
* The story about free-market gurus who want to shut down public schools and are promoting “personalized learning” as a way to reduce the need for teachers and schools – touted as a “back door” to reaching their goals among some inner circles.
* The story of the many, many teachers who have had to set aside innovative approaches to education — the approaches they want to implement in their classrooms — because they are hampered by standardization and teacher evaluation systems based upon test scores, and the story of how Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton Foundation are influential in making this the reality in public schools.
* The story of the hundreds of thousands of teachers who do not give up on public school children such as those in San Jose (the example in the article) but, rather, persist despite challenging conditions.
* The story about professional educators who know what is going on in their classrooms as it happens, without resort to video recordings that they view later.
* The story of teachers who have gone through educator preparation programs and done graduate work in their field and therefore know how to help students value and learn from literature without reducing it to data and in fact know that reducing literature to data is a terrible idea.
* The story of the field of education, in which questions such as the value of standards, effective assessment, and helpful environments for learning (topics the folks at AltSchool think they are discovering) have been examined and debated for years.
* The story of the failure outsiders’ attempts to change schools when they have no educational background nor any understanding of the politics of education.
There are important stories to be told about education. I hope that *The New Yorker* considers telling some that are new and show a journalistic effort to see its stories in light of the bigger picture.
Cathy A. Toll, Ph.D.
Greenville, Wisconsin
*Cathy A. Toll, Ph.D.* Chair & Graduate Program Coordinator Department of Literacy & Language University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh 800 Algoma Boulevard Oshkosh, WI 54901 920.424.4444
On Sat, Mar 5, 2016 at 10:01 AM, Diane Ravitchs blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “I received an email from a daily reader of the blog > who asked me how she could explain the downside of corporate reform to > friends at a dinner party in the suburbs who know nothing at all about the > issues. She said that her friends were liberal Democrats,” >
Cathy, thank you for writing your letter to the editor. Your points are important.
I definitely think that it is hard to explain that education reform isn’t really reform at all. I think a major part of this is that the media and the way these policies present themselves is in such a positive light. They sound pretty good to someone who doesn’t understand what the implementation of these policies will be like.
“The Wizard of Reform”
The Wizard of Reform
With testing and with VAM
Had conjured up a storm
A lion-scaring scam
He bellowed “schools have failed”
And “teachers are a log”
But Wizard was unveiled
By lady with a blog
One of the most important posts. Looking forward to the sequels.
The root cause of the corporate assault on public education is something called “The Billionaires’ Disease.” Many billionaires — with the notable exception of Warren Buffett — are delusional. They have accumulated not only great wealth, but all the things that go with it, such as being surrounded by sycophants who tell them they are geniuses. In fact, most billionaires believe themselves not only to be geniuses, but that they alone are responsible for the wealth they have accumulated; they rationalize away the key and essential roles played by others in the success of their businesses. So, in their delusion they view their self-identified genius as being applicable to other areas, such as government and public education, notwithstanding the fact that they have no experience or expertise in these areas. So what we have today are billionaires with no governmental experience who think they know best who our elected officials should be, and billionaires who never taught a classroom full of children but who think they know exactly what “reforms” are needed in public education. And, of course, what’s needed in public schools is the charter school business model because the business model is the only thing the billionaires know even a bit about. And of course there are plenty of simpering sycophants to tell the billionaires how insightful they are because these sycophants see an opportunity to cash in on unregulated charter schools to bleed tax money away from children and into their own pockets. If only there was a cure for The Billionaires’ Disease perhaps the billionaires could turn their resources to combating the true root causes of problems not only in schools but throughout our nation: Poverty and racial discrimination.
Like: paying Wall Street for all those children who go to PreK and avoid the need for Special Education services.
For powerful one-liners that say it all:
http://www.mountainmaninsights.org
click on: Mountain Man Insights
At top of page: Search by topic: SCHOOLS search
It might be more productive to talk about ways to actually make education better than to counter all the things wrong with current education “reform.” Here are some ideas in an article from 2014 in the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/20/the-strategic-campaign-public-education-supporters-need-in-nine-steps/
My suggestion to anyone who is trying to understand corporate education reform is to watch the movie Major League. It is about the deliberate creation of a failure narrative for the sake of profit. Sound familiar?
Major League is a baseball comedy released in 1989. The owner of the Cleveland Indians wants to move the team to a more profitable location in Florida, but is prohibited from doing so unless attendance at Indians games plummets. Consequently, she intentionally sabotages the team. She trades top prospects for unknown players. She sows discord in the locker room. She does everything she can to undermine the team, all in an attempt to create a failure narrative that will allow her to move the team to a more profitable market.
Then there is the irony that the movie is set in John Kasichs Ohio, in the same city the Republicans will be holding this years convention.
I will admit to being a bit nostalgic about this movie. It was the last movie I ever saw in a drive in theater. In 1990 I married the girl I saw that movie with. I started teaching in 1992. Since then public education has come under assault, the middle class is shrinking, and drive ins are all but extinct. Sad. On the other hand, we are still married and I am still teaching.
Here is the trailer (an oldie but a goodie)
I’ve been at those dinners, trying not to sound like I am a maniacal nut. It’s hard. I’ve learned to introduce just one simple idea and let things drop after that.
So I might talk about how our suburban schools rate right up there with any in the world but we have horrific numbers of poor kids and they bring the averages down. I’m bad at remembering exact numbers so I say single low digits percentage in Finland, somewhere close to a quarter of all kids in US are poor.
Or I might talk about how school districts are a form of local government (legally defined borders, supported through taxes, democratically elected leadership, open meetings and records) and how if we give that up for all private schools, we’ve given up some of our democracy (and I might add that this is a definition of facism).
Or I might talk about how charters “counsel out” students, how they don’t serve children with disabilities like my child has. How it is a civil right, that government has to treat everyone equally but private schools don’t. That if public schools disappear, so would a guaranteed education for our children with disabilities.
Or I might say that calling charters “public schools” is misleading. Receiving public funds for providing a service does not make the organization “public.” The company that has the contract to pick up our city’s trash is privately held, and people can understand that concept.
We really need a brochure we can all buy in bulk and hand out as needed!
Out here in California, a major charter chain has been desperately fighting off attempts by its teacher to form a union. They initially engaged in some of the most despicable union suppression tactics.
The teachers filed against them with the states “Public Employee Relations Board” (PERB), who upheld the teachers’ claims, and ordered the charter management to stop all illegal union suppression activities forthwith. Pursuant to that end, PERB filed in court, and asked a judge in L.A. Superior Court to issue an injunction for the Alliance management to stop.
The management’s next response?
They responed in court saying that their schools were and are “private actors”, and not subject to state labor laws that apply to public employees. The name of this chain is “The Alliance of College-Ready Public Schools”, and their lawyers just argued in court that they’re “private”.
This story is told in another thread:
https://dianeravitch.net/2016/03/05/los-angeles-how-the-biggest-charter-chain-fights-unionization/
California’s stop education officer, State Superintendent Tom Torlakson blew a gasket when he heard this, and blasted the Alliance management in an open letter:
Click to access 11-25-2015-Tom-Torlakson-Letter-to-Alliance.pdf
Finally, one more thing, the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) was a key ally to the Alliance management in all of this, and provided legal assistance to the Alliance management in their union suppression. I posted CCSA’ “Charter Schools 101” video, with my response here:
– – – – – –
Here’s a video from the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) where they share “CHARTER SCHOOLS 101” — and my responses to the CCSA:
( 00:07 – 00:15)
( 00:07 – 00:15)
NARRATOR: “But what IS a ‘charter school’ ?
“Charter schools are innovative PUBLIC schools designed by educators, parents, or civic leaders … ”
——
Oh NO, they’re NOT, you lying sacks o’ sh%#!
That is most certainly NOT what your CCSA lawyers argued in court last December in your attempts to crush the teachers trying to organize at the Alliance chain.
You argued that they are “private actors” exempt from any jurisdiction of either PERB or the court system,
———
( 00:15 – 00:28)
( 00:15 – 00:28)
NARRATOR: ” … charter schools are held accountable by their authorizing body, usually a school board, the County Office of Education, or the State Board of Education.”
——
Oh NO, they’re NOT, you lying sacks o’ sh%#!
That is most certainly NOT what your CCSA lawyers argued in court last December in your attempts to crush the teachers trying to organize at the Alliance chain.
In court, you argued, that when it comes to teachers unionizing, those same political bodies mentioned — local/County/State Boards of Ed. — have the same authority to protect or support charter teachers right to unionize as they do to protect the same rights of fast food workers, or retail clerks at Best Buy or Target, or whatever private sector workers to exercise their rights to unionize … i.e. none.
———
( 00:28 – 00:31)
( 00:28 – 00:31)
NARRATOR: ” …and (charters are held accountable) by the parents who choose to send their parents to those schools.”
——
Oh NO, they’re NOT, you lying sacks o’ sh%#!
Even if 100% of the parents vote, or sign petitions supporting the goals of their teachers to form a union, THOSE SAME PARENTS HAVE ZERO SAY INTO WHETHER OR NOT THAT UNION IS FORMED.
———
———
( 00:53 – 00:101)
( 00:53 – 00:101)
NARRATOR: ” … (charters) are places where adults work together to BUILD A PROFESSIONAL CULTURE, a place where TEACHERS and parents HAVE A STRONG VOICE IN SCHOOL DECISIONS.”
—————-
Ha!
If those teachers even attempt to exercise that “voice,” they are either fired, or, should they try to unionize to protect their right to exercise that voice, are met with union-busting tactics right out of the 1800’s.
If the charter operators deem it so, that school has the same “professional culture” as the kitchen at McDonalds …. i.e. none, as in the charter model, teachers are no longer professionals on a par with doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc, but merely low-paid, low-status, powerless service workers … and there’s nothing that the workers/teachers can do about it … or so the CCSA argued in court last December.
It fails to address and worse, deliberately distracts from the real problems with public education and real neccesay solutions to deliberately perpetuate the decline of peoples rights to opportunity, equality, liberty, and democracy .
Like, “remember Michael Milken, Junk Bond King, epitome of greed, after serving time fraud on a racketeering plea bargain, has run prominent education businesses like K12 and Knowledge Universe.”
I have been close friends with a woman since we were 16, and we were even roommates when I first began my teaching career. She and I both attended public schools and we also sent our combined 5 kids to public schools in Boston. Over the years, she has heard my insider’s tales of local deeds and misdeeds from the various schools were I and my husband taught. We’ve traded stories from the perspective of parents from the several different schools our kids attended. She knows I’m passionate in my support of our schools, and she’s well informed about local and national politics.
But the way she looks when I try to explain the on-going chicanery and destruction of our schools is the way someone looks when they are evaluating whether now is the moment to commit you for involuntary admission for treatment of paranoid visions of a vast conspiracy.
Try this: Ed reformers are business people. Business people seek revenues and profits. That’s fine. Business people seek cash flow. Fine. Business people seek to mitigate the impact of economic cycles on their companies. Fine. Business people have spotted an opportunity to intercede in education, not because of their unwavering interest or concern for this endeavor, but to make money. Not so fine. How? Public education exists by law and must, therefore, be funded by a flow of tax money paid by citizens of a municipality. Generally, this cash flow is guaranteed. Therefore, business people have noticed that by intervening in education, they can enter the tax payer to government cash stream and collect a sizable chunk of that money as revenue. Now it gets even more interesting. Businesses always wish to minimize cost and maximize profit. Fine. However, in education, they accomplish this by eliminating the most costly input (students) who require extra services in favor of working with higher quality input (students) who require minimal extra effort to educate; who will score higher on standardized tests that are sold to govt by a division of the “educational” company; then claim success while blaming public schools and teachers for performing poorly even though they are required to accept all input (students) whose test scores on standardized (sold by edu-businesses to govt) are not uniformly high. Not so fine.
Our website explains the problem pretty well… We give our book away for free there with the express purpose of explaining ed reform. https://weaponsofmassdeception.org/
Dear Elizabeth,
I introduced your site at Oped News, where I write about the war on the INSTITUTION of public education.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Weapons-of-Mass-Deception-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Deception_Education_Future_Ideas-160306-756.html#comment586726
See My series there blue button link on my author’s page: http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
You can meesage me there with your email , and we can correspond by email.
I think you will like my introduction and my comment, both taken from your site.
My articles get headlined, so you will see it at Oped Daily Newsletter, and I hope that my Google presence brings you more views.
Best Susan Lee Schwartz
Dr. Ravitch,
I support what you stand for in many ways, but when you throw Christians out for Creationism, it is here where I cannot support you. While we may differ in our beliefs of the history of the universe, it does not make it right to say it is wrong to teach it.
I agree with you about charters and vouchers and thank you for your continued fight against the governments push to feed into private programs.
Thanks, James. We will have to agree to disagree. I believe in keeping religion in church and out of the school. I believe in freedom of religion, separated from the state. I won’t impose my religion on you, and you should not impose yours to my children.
I do not want my tax dollars to support a religious institution, in the form of vouchers or any other form. That’s separation of church and state. Those tax dollars are for public schools which are for everyone. Religious institutions need to do their own fundraising and get money from their supporters, not the government. This has nothing to do with whether or not you believe in, or teach, creationism.
Great list. Looking forward to seeing the updated version.
Here is fodder for the conversation: an excellent resource from STAT- Us BCPS that outlines the edtech ties to Baltimore County’s overwrought one-laptop-per-student initiative:
https://statusbcps.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/stat-without-principle/comment-page-1/#comment-29
I always explain it by talking about how Pearson owns education in this country– the tests, the test prep, the technology… and how all of these reforms are fattening the wallets of the rich and creating a barrier between students and the arts and experiential learning. Then I go into my spiel about the two years I worked at a school run by a charter organization where we were told not to smile at the students– we were their to help them academically, not to coddle them. That usually stuns people, but if you haven’t been in the world of urban education reform, that’s what it looks like. 😦
Like standardizing lessons, teachers, and students. This makes it harder for teachers to be creative, tap into their own ideas and experiences, respond to individual and classroom needs, create interesting lessons, be passionate, allow for a variety of opinions, educate students about local history, and to model for students that it is okay to be oneself. It is truly un-American.
I actually am attending a district meeting about testing on Thursday. We live in NYS; as you know, we have a strong opt out movement. However, my district failed miserably at handling this last year, with no policy or practice in place for opt out students, and no information for parents aside from the threats of lost school aid for skipping legally mandate tests. They failed to hold any kind of hearing and then, when parents showed up at board meeting a few days prior to testing, didn’t allow people to comment because they hadn’t been placed on the agenda 30 days ahead of time. In the end, we had large numbers of opt outs who didn’t properly opt out, meaning inform the district so that the proper code could be placed on their tests papers. Students were then hounded to retake the exams later.
This year they’ve sent a newsletter overstating the ‘dramatic’ changes in testing in NYS (Questar, moritorium on scores as eval tools, 50% of items released) and, again, telling parents their kids must sit for these tests or we’ll lose our Title I money.
I’ve spent three weeks trying to craft the perfect question that doesn’t take too long to ask, doesn’t sound like I’m giving speech, and is something of a zinger. I won’t have time for speech about how ridiculous their bullet points are, but need to get my point across.
This is where I am right now: Given that parents are still angry about how much tests drive instruction, how little timely and useful data to inform instructional planning is collected from those tests, and the amount of money the state spends with private companies to construct them, you (meaning my BOE) should expect continued opts outs. What do you plan to do with and for those students? Why have you (BOE) not issued a statement that says that you recognize the flaws in the system, that parents will choose to use opting out to protest those flaws, and that should a parent decide to do that, they need to submit X form by X date so that we can better plan our staff and room use? Several nearby districts have done that; why do you (BOE) lack the courage to recognize the situation?
I’ll point out that we receive a higher percentage of total budget in Title I money than the more proactive districts, but that Title I specifically remains a small portion of our overall budget. If I have more time I’ll point out the fact that no one has been denied funding and ESSA requires each state to develop their own policies that do not have include denying funding.
Thoughts?
I think your last point about not losing funding is key. Be sure to get that in because that is the argument used against opting out.
Dr. Ravitch,
I am a lifelong liberal and a teacher for 18 years. I have watched Real Time with Bill Maher for years, even decades. I agree with much of what he says, with one of the exceptions being public school issues. I think he and his audience need to hear from someone like you. On his show, you could reach many like-minded people who just need to be better informed.
I have also been following you for years and I thank you for keeping me so educated on issues dealing with my profession and for your ongoing fight to save our public schools.
I wish Bill Maher would invite me for a conversation
Bill Maher started a petition to get President Obama on his show. Maybe we could do the same to get him to invite Diane on his show.
I AGREE… Please… see if you can get him to interview you after his monologue… he interviews great people, Diane. I mean he is respectful and his staff does its homework…they will be thrilled to have you.
Tell Bill about the “Reign of Error,’ the BIGGEST lie o f all Mr Coleman’s Common Core, and VAM a mendacious assessment of no value that was their weapon of mass deception to get the best of the teachers to run for their lives.
Tell him how lies from administrators in the schools, keep novice practitioners from getting tenure.
Get in a pitch for the NPE and let millions out there know that what Bill talks about,– Zombie Lies and how Lies — are THE NEW NORMAL WHEN MEDIA TALKS ABOUT ‘SCHOOLS’ , and that IT CAN BE SEEN IN Its most insidious incarnation as the legislatures ACROSS THE NATION take over ‘failing schools’ and get rid of those “bad teachers.”
Tell his audience of millions, that the INSTITUTION of public education is going down at lightening speed even as the media touts reform and the guy to replace the last Liar, Duncan, is the charlatan King.
Jessica has a great idea.
YOU are the voice, Diane!!!!
If only I knew how to contact their staff. I have been on their website numerous times and can’t find any info.
I have seen what charter schools are doing and it is highway robbery. LLC’S running schools with no transparency. We have put the education of our children in the hands of businessmen and all they care about is profit. Two huge examples are Bay City Academy, Bay City MI and Grand Traverse Academy, Traverse City, MI, both of these schools have handpicked board members that are in it for the money. We are letting these people steal from the state and taxpayers filtering money into their own pockets, creating leases that pay them millions of dollars. Major decisions are made with government money and they just put it into their pockets. What a crime this is. If anyone bothered to look at the contracts they set up for themselves they would be appalled at the deceit. Traverse City come on look into this stuff. Take care of your children. Don’t help these crooks steal more money.
.
Here is an article I wrote back in 2013 that may address some of the “How do your explain” questions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/07/18/key-questions-begging-for-answers-about-school-reform/
reibelcastillo says:
April 1, 2016 at 11:06 am Edit
Chaters school shuld not protect or cover crimes . Unfortunate only one arrest on the news , why ? Shuld be hundreds more arrests ,
A lovely teacher could not punishment kids like that . I hate Selfishness ; Charter School ( city of Hialeah Education leaders hated me , I hate clild abuse , nation wide I sendind and SOS a lot of girls sex – arasment crimes are covering in this Charter .
I hate injustice and sufering . Considers how parents felt when kids in Chaters where cruly mistreated . My wife and I are destresed because , This Charter principal , teacher/ baseball coach vos and the police / Mayor Rulers MEMBERS owners of this Charter . Where , are treating us abusive . God and people with principios hates cruelty
Dears parents . Education is turning direction , stand up is the solution . Charter school ( The Titany ) to much money , only reach Peple on board , the salilors ( Kids ) shuld not paid the consecuence , the Titany ( SOS ) is an international law , Rescue or rescue . Enemies of Pubkic school , shuld know , nothing is personal , is about principios and go by the book . the law . Who they feel about that ? I feel very desapoiment , as those parents sufering they way my family is sufering , reason ? I told thoses Kids haters . I won’t quit , is an honor fakow Jesus and God steps as ; Martin . L. King . I called my self with modest the Martin L. King leather here in Hialeah fl . 33018 – 33014 . They will , try to stop me , but the most they arasment , the worts they treating my family and many more innocents kids . I get stronger . God suport any one who is on the justice side .
Reibel Castillo .
May God bless you and suport you parents too .
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reibelcastillo says:
April 1, 2016 at 11:10 am Edit
I STAND UP PATENTS
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