Reader Chiara has often noticed that in her home state, Ohio, state officials seem to have forgotten that public schools exist, even though more than 90% are enrolled in public schools, not charters or voucher schools. Why does the schooling of the students in non-public “choice” schools obliterate any interest or concern for the vast majority of students? As she often points out, 93% of the children are in public schools, but state officials and the legislature focus exclusively on charters and vouchers.
Chiara makes the point:
“What’s great about living in a state where the government is captured by ed reformers is, 90% of education business conducted by publicly-paid employees focuses on charter and vouchers. Year after year, session after session, it’s “choice” but the “choice” is never a public school.
“They never seem to get around to doing anything for the unfashionable public schools. It’s remarkable how utterly and completely the favored sector dominates every aspect of the political maneuvering.
“If it wasn’t for testing, public school students would never be mentioned at all.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Glad I don’t teach in the Ohio public schools anymore. Ohio has gone stupid.
Kasich vowed in his campaign for governor to “break the backs” of teachers. Teaching in Ohio has gone downhill ever since. Republicans, with Battelle for Kids, are engaged in a massive statistical inquisition to find, expose, and publicly destroy what they think are hoards of “bad teachers” in the state. We have bad science using bad data based on bad tests.
True, well said. Every year our budget declines drastically…..and the corruption and cover-ups associated with this matter
contribute continually to the demise of our schools. The deception of corrupt politicians and corporations who often perform their duties under the cloak of darkness is not as secret as they would like. We are put under the gun daily, to perform as if we have no idea as to how our job should be done. Next week there is a curriculum audit.
The Global Financial Sector is dead set on re-engineering every sphere of society to fit it’s gilded heart’s desire. Neither it nor its media minions nor its puppet politicians care one bit about the messy business of addressing what the planet’s human population needs or wants. Militarizing public education is just one part of that retrofitting job and they are going to go full throttle up until we all crash.
It’s all about the 7%.
Here’s the Kasich pick for state school superintendent:
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/05/is_the_charter_school_run_by_s.html
The whole discussion is centered on charter schools. It’s pretty amazing if you think about it.
The single thing i read this year in local media regarding the Obama Administration and Ohio public schools was the huge charter grant. It’s as if public schools don’t even exist.
Here’s Fordham- the leading ed reform lobby in the state:
http://edexcellence.net/articles/four-ways-to-fuel-healthy-competition-in-education
The state legislature spent all of last year “reforming” charter schools. Looks like they’ll spend all of next year expanding charter schools.
Other than the umpteenth revision of the standardized testing scheme(s), I can’t find a word about existing public schools in any ed reform plans.
I think back to how this agenda was sold to voters in this state- it was sold as “improving public schools”. At some point public schools apparently dropped completely off the agenda, and no one in the ed reform echo chamber noticed.
I have to agree with Chiara. She has been hammering on this very important point.
I think this is also true at the national level, where major foundations, think tanks, and media have helped to propagate charters as if a panacea and added credibility to federal support for charters.
I have looked at the 2012 redacted application for a federal grant that the KIPP Foundation submitted to get funds for KIPP charter school expansion. That application is a case study in fuzzy math. Three uncritical reviews of this proposal illustrate the lack of accountability in that program.
Taxpayers have been enlisted to pay for KIPPster uniforms, pennants, marketing campaigns targeting low income and minority families, musical instruments, easels, office supplies,computers, furniture, benefits (health, pensions, etc) for senior foundation officials who earn six-figure salaries. Then there is travel (air, ground, meals, lodging) for small armies of administrators and staff to recruit “talent,” then travel all over the country for network oversight and “professional development,” including all expenses for one major conference.
Friends of KIPP at USDE did not want anyone to see student performance and attrition by subgroups. I looked an another charter application for the same federal program same year. The only redactions were signatures on supporting letters and phone numbers.
Both proposals redacted information on the amount of money that other foundations sent to the KIPP Foundation–Walton, Gates, etc.
At the end of the application, there are copies of school performance reports. These reports are aesthetic exercises–five-color charts that obscure more than they disclose. Even with missing detail, these charts show that many schools have a high percentage of students who leave (attrition) and a (questionably) high percentage of students who are receiving special education. There is no information about these services.
There’s a complete absence of a positive agenda for existing public schools in ed reform. That’s remarkable all by itself, but when you add the fact that none of them NOTICED this complete absence you really get a sense of how captured they are.
Washington seems to be totally captured by high performing charters, especially Kipp. The lobbyists seem to be writing the laws. The TPP is an example of that.
Can we focus on just 3 reasons charters are so favored by legislators? They are the one’s who control the budget and who could stop support. 1…2…3…?
1. Campaign contributions to legislators
2 and 3: see 1
Are you an adminimal by day trade?
So…How do we expose that motivation? In Ohio, William Lager of Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) is supposedly one of the biggest contributors but how do you know who he gives money to? I have tried to look it up but it is like trying to find charter sponsors and other fiscal data…very difficult for the average citizen. I think journalist and those trained in investigation need to get up to speed. We have “knowyourcharter.com” and it exposes how much Ohio public districts send to charters. Why is there not a “smellofmoney.com” site to report what is going on? If I knew who to contact to protest decisions made from money influence and I could show exactly how much went to who, then I would badger and try to incite truth and engagement from fellow citizens tired of this.
rgthornbury are you a member of our OhBATs on fb we are all about finding this accountability the more on this the better! We have a public page and a private page so we can feel free to discuss issues!
join us at OhioBATs on fb private page we are always looking into where the funds go and so much more we are also as you can see on twitter. The more the better to keep an eye on CBUS! We have a postcard writing campaign right now about accountability for charters Bill 298
I’m an Ohio teacher. John Kasich despises public schools. I’m a registered Republican, and I can’t stand him. It has been great seeing him drop out of the presidential race. You can see how much he would love being President of the United States. He is so arrogant, and he loves to hear himself talk. Kasich said that the best thing about running for president was the relationships he built. He has no clue about building relationships. The man is a dictator.
My Battelle for Kids linkage is on my e-mail right now, and I have to go through and mark that I am 100% fully responsible for educating each of my students. It doesn’t matter that no one else takes responsibility. It is all placed on the teacher. Yes, we have to absorb all of the variables, even the ones we have no control over.
The greatest thing is that when the Value Added Monster comes looking for me next year, I can tell the monster to throw my silly value added (only dependable for measuring cattle weight gain) out the window! I’m going on to better and brighter things! My husband said that I will immediately notice that the sky is bluer, the grass is greener, and it will be Iike when Dorothy sees Oz for the very first time! No more abusive career for me! I will run in the opposite direction and never look back! It is NOT OKAY to treat teachers the way we are treated.
Anyone thinking of going into this abusive career? Don’t do it!!!!!!!! Move on and do not look back!!!!! RUN!!!!! RUN!!!!! RUN!!!!!!
Republican voters, are responsible for the national and state Supreme Court appointments. At the state level, the elected and appointed judges, favor the wealthy.(The wealthy own charter
schools). At the national level, judges repeatedly rule against
the 99%….. cause and effect.
In the last presidential election, the moneyed class gave Dems 4 times the amount labor did. The math explains why Dems abandoned labor. What it doesn’t explain, is why labor votes Republican. The policies affected your life and you woke up?
Hi Linda, My husband and I were life-long Democrats. We switched to the Republican party eight(8) years ago when Obama became president over Hillary. We liked Hillary a lot 8 years ago, and we did not like President Obama. We were right all along over President Obama. The sad thing is that 8 years later we do not recognize Hillary anymore. We voted for President Clinton both times. Actually, we vote for who we want. The party doesn’t really affect who we vote for. The new president will have a lot on their plate to clean up. Our country is in trouble.
I presume you’ll vote like your husband, for Trump. It fits.