Jack Hassard, professor emeritus of science education at Georgia State University, notes that Georgians will vote in November on whether to create a special district for low-performing schools, modeled on Tennessee’s failed Achievement School District.
If it passes (and who is against “opportunity”?), that means the state will gather together its lowest-performing schools and hand them over to charter operators, most from out of state. The charter operators will have years to demonstrate their stuff. If (and when) they don’t, the schools can be given to other charter operators.
In November when we vote to pick a new president (topic for a future post), citizens in Georgia will vote on a ballot amendment to the state constitution. If passed, this amendment (Senate Bill 133) will create a school district (Opportunity School District) that would authorize the Governor’s office to supervise, manage, and run a new school district made up of schools from across the state that have been determined to be failing, based on scores on standardized tests.
The state calls it the “Opportunity School District.” Hassard calls it the “Misfortunate School District.”
In what sane world would policymakers choose a model that has been tried and failed?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
NC just passed Achievement School District legislation. This is horrible for kids, teachers, public schools and public education in general. But this was the “plan” all along: a calculated theft of our schools right under our noses.
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The Georgia Governor’s office is put in charge of all of the failing schools in the state. That is a way to close them all on this principle: “The buck$ stop here.” Repeat each year and the whole state sysem of public educationis private in no time.
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Of course, opportunity for opportunists, or 040.
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Ballot wording:
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?”
What it really does and how it ought to read, thanks to Sen Vincent Fort:
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow an appointee of the Governor to take over local school operation, buildings, and control of all federal, state, and local funding if a school has low scores on standardized tests or for any other reason a future legislature may allow?”
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Thanks, Bertis. I am not aware of any state takeover that has improved student performance if you don’t include closings hooks, getting rid of their students, and recruiting higher performing students.
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To educate Georgia voters re this issue, use case studies for 20+ years of NJ state takeover districts Jersey City, Paterson, Newark. The result will be a resounding No.
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Why don’t they improve the education of these young people, not by further classifying them as failures but by including ways to help them develop as learners. The idea of another kind of district is another form of discrimination! It’s rather outrages! White middle class kids don’t have bigger brains, they have bigger lives. It’s not about bad parenting. Poor parents also love their kids. They just don’t have the same access to the world! And the schools that the white middle class kids go to aren’t a major mess and insult. I come from these communities and I have founded one of the best afterschool and outside of school programs for poor kids of color. And exposed to new possibilities these young people and their families go through major transformations. And a big part of that includes having to navigate as poor in the wealthiest country in the world. If people actually are interested in advancing these young people’s lives, then there is a need for the experts to step outside of their boxes and have a new conversation about what needs to done.
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I wish I had the time to properly mourn all of the missed opportunities in American public education to give children in public schools who are below grade level in reading and math, the support and success they so need. Every child has 1 shot at a K-12 education. To continually experiment with that 1 shot as if it how children learn to read and write and do well in school is some big mystery, reminds me of the “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” type of stuff. I put so much responsibility for failures of our schools to support children below grade level in our public schools on the backs of the Federal and State elected officials. They place a burden of regulations and changes and “accountability” so massive that it snuffs out so many chances at the local county and school level to properly support our most disadvantaged children. Shame on them, shame on them. Making decisions from afar and creating an environment at the school and county level that is so very hostile to any negative feedback of Federal forced onto State policies from teachers, principals, and county department heads, is a moral issue, not just benign neglect or ignorance on the part of Congressman / Senators / Presidents and State Governors / Legislatures. Everyone wants to pretend they are helping disadvantaged students while giving the education cottage industry another round of “let’s try this for millions of dollars”. It doesn’t matter if you spend trillions of dollars on each student, if you spend it on things that do not help children learn.
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I agree PTA Mom. Our leaders have gone off the deep end. They are taking money from corporations that want access to the money we spend to educate our children. It is not just charter schools; it is the testing and the technology products they want our schools to buy. As a result our children are caught in the crosshairs of commercialization of all things associated with teaching and learning. Our children are being used as guinea pigs to sell “the next big thing.” Evidence does not enter the decision when dollars are the primary consideration. Parents should organize and fight this economic intrusion into public education.
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51 years ago, in 1965, the President and Senators and Congressman wrote a Federal Law that was to close the skill gap in reading, writing and mathematics….. 51 years ago and multiple versions later….. every new idea in education is about closing the skill gap?! I think we could close the achievement gap in 2 sentences…. every parent in our neighborhood knew… you had to get your kids out of the lowest performing classes because of the chaotic behavior by a handful in those classes that made it difficult (impossible for students below grade level) for other students to learn. The local school is so tied down by federal and state regulations, only the most talented principals can set up a school where the behavior of a few doesn’t impact many!! 1. put in place in each local school, a minimum standard of behavior for students in a 1 teacher to 25 students class; students who fall below the minimum behavior standard at that school are taught in a classroom at that same school by 2 unrelated adults in a classroom/program that continues their academic progress until they are given a chance to try the 1:25 regular classroom again. Local parents set the behavior standards. (hiring 2 or 4 or 6 dedicated staff to students with behavior issues (some due to being too far behind in the class academically) is so much cheaper than all day K and all day Pre-K. and massive amounts of standardized testing and complete rewrites of k-12 math and language arts curriculum (Common Core).. so don’t even say that we don’t have the money for this!) 2. put in place in each local school system, a minimum standard for teachers, teachers reviewed by their peers who do not meet that standard, can be given instructions/programs/anything! designed by the local school system to be brought up to speed and try again. JUST THE PRESENCE OF SOME TYPE OF minimums of student behavior and minimum teacher reviews would go so far at creating boundaries in our schools and would give the students below grade level a HUGE boost… they would stop going through the educational Russian roulette of bad teachers and chaos creating classmates. No amount of ill spent money and no amount of rewriting 1000 page federal laws is going to help our students below grade level…………………………………………………. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_and_Secondary_Education_Act “In its original conception, Title I under the ESEA, was designed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to close the skill gap in reading, writing and mathematics between children from low-income households who attend urban or rural school systems and children from the middle-class who attend suburban school systems.[9] This federal law came about during President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” agenda.[6] “
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By the way, the old Title 1 service was mostly used to provide much needed direct assistance to under served students. Title 1 paid for teachers and materials for mostly poor minority students. Compensatory programs including remedial reading, ESL and remedial math were the main recipients, and the instruction had to be supplemental. I was an ESL teacher, and I was partly funded by Title 1. The new ESSA wants district to spend money on unvetted commercial programs including hardware, software and subscriptions. Putting money into “buckets of bolts” rather than direct instruction is short sighted, especially if there is no evidence of success with the products. Technology wears out quickly and must be replaced and updated, and this is exactly what the commercial providers want, a permanent revenue stream paid for with public funds.
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