Leonie Haimson, parent activist in New York City, crusader for reduced class size and student privacy, lays waste to the charter privateers in this hilarious post!
First came the devastating resolution passed by the national convention of the NAACP, calling for a charter moratorium.
Then came the attack on charters by Black Lives Matter.
And the topper was John Oliver’s funny and accurate portrayal of charter school graft.
But the privateers (or privatizers, as I usually say) continue their assault on public education with propaganda and lies.
In Massachusetts, they claim that expanding charter schools will “improve public education,” when in fact it will drain money from neighborhood public schools and take away local control.
In Georgia, a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November authorizes the creation of a state district that will eliminate local control, like the failed Tennessee ASD, yet says it will empower communities.
This is Orwellian. That means when you say one thing but mean the opposite. Another word for lying. Like saying “reform” when you mean “privatization.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Like eliminating tenure will spur innovation while elimininating pensions, benefits and paying at or below poverty wages will attract and retain top teaching talent. Also, how privateers call it “the civil rights issue of our time” only to use the disproportionately dispossessed African-Americans of our urban school communities to dispossess any and all in public education regardless of color, creed, or socioeconomic status. Again, it’s the permanent campaign, started by well-funded right wing think tanks, of repeating outrageous lies and claims in hopes to drag along a sheepish public in support of this Grand Theft Edu. All of this is a battle of ideas, a propaganda battle. Jane Meyer’s expose, “Dark Money”, is the exact blueprint for how these nefarious arrogant types operate within their bubble of hubris.
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And how has the Center for Education Reform responded to “John Oliver’s funny and accurate portrayal of charter school graft?” See…
http://getschooled.blog.myajc.com/2016/08/29/a-100000-prize-to-charter-school-that-best-counters-comic-john-olivers-attack/
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“The program was meant to be funny and provocative entertainment,” said CER Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeanne Allen, “but Oliver went way out-of-bounds and far beyond simple entertainment when he used examples of a few poorly run schools to paint all charters, and the whole concept of charter schools, as failures.”
Pot, meet kettle. Go to any ed reform site and read the posts. They are exclusively negative on public schools and exclusively positive on charter schools. They don’t even see it.
It works like this: “this specific charter school in X city is wonderful” and then some national policy screed on “public schools”.
You can even test it with the US Department of Education. You’ll see single charter schools highlighted and then droning lectures on “public schools should….”.
It’s true in whole states. If I go to the Ohio Department of Education I can see pieces about testing, and opiate addiction, and homelessness. That’s the public school section. The charter school section is “this one school in Cleveland is doing a bang-up job”
If I didn’t know better I’d run to a charter school. Public schools are apparently absolute disasters chock-full of “societies problems” which I tend to take it a little personally because on of those “problems” they’;re having so much trouble solving is my son.
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“Ignorance is strength.”
Now pass me the Victory Gin…
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Pro-charter TV ads in MA: “More choice, more money for public schools.”
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Nothing provides more evidence that the charter folks are in it only for the money and they know how corrupt they are.
Why would charter folks need to pretend this is about anything but creating charters that are not subject to the same rules as public schools and your kid may or may not be the right “fit” and there is no oversight like public schools have or ways for your to challenge whatever the charter school thinks about your child. But vote for us anyway because your kid just might be the kid who thrives.
Why not be honest instead of lies? I guess I know now that charter folks don’t believe that they have support at all.
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JB2,
More charter lies. More charter schools means less money for public schools.
Why can’t they tell the truth?
Open more charters and take away money from your local public school.
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“funding” rather than “money”.
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Arne Duncan continues his unbroken record of cheerleading charter schools and either bashing or ignoring the public schools he disfavors.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/08/the-myth-of-the-miracle-school/497942/
I don’t care now because he’s not paid by the public- he’s now free to work for whomever he wants- but the idea that the Obama Administration was at all even-handed on their treatment of the two sectors is nonsense.
This isn’t hard to figure out. He volunteered to write the intro to a glowing review of charter schools. At least he’s consistent.
Someone should clue the President’s team into the fact that public schools haven’t fared real well under their stewardship. Let’s talk about “results”. On what measures are public schools better off? They’re the data people. Show me some data. Not “charter schools opened or state laws changed to ease privatization”. Improving PUBLIC schools.They spent 4 billion dollars of taxpayer money. Where did it go?
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The ‘chink in the armor’ of deceit in “reform” is a testament to the fact that the larger society is starting to catch on to the true intent of this movement. We should continue to counter their false assertions and point out the many flaws in their narrative.
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It is simply astonishing to me that people who say they are about “improving public education” consistently omit public schools:
“Sadly, much of the current debate in Washington, in education schools, and in the blogosphere about high-performing charter schools is driven by ideology, not by facts on the ground. Far too often, the chief beneficiaries of high-performing charter schools—low-income families and children—are forgotten amid controversies over funding and the hiring of nonunion teachers in charter schools. Too often, the parents and children who are desperately seeking better schools are an afterthought.”
Duncan believes this is solely about charter schools. It’s as if public schools don’t exist. He cannot imagine anyone advocating for a public school. They must be anti-charter.
Because it’s all about charters to ed reformers they assume it’s all about charters to everyone. I don’t know what you do with capture this total. There can be no debate because we’re not even talking about the “sector” most people are in.
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“There is nothing inherently good or bad about a charter or any other school and, as I said in a speech to charter advocates back in 2010, it is absolutely incumbent on the charter sector to be vigilant about policing itself and closing down low performers. The only thing that matters is if a school is a great school. It doesn’t matter to me whether the sign on the door of a school has the word “Charter” in it, and it doesn’t matter to children. Nor does it matter to most parents. ”
It “doesn’t matter” to the Preesident’s team whether the school is a public school or a charter school. Just ignore the fact that the 7 previous paragraphs are about supporting and expanding charter schools. Not a word on improving public schools.
The omission is the “tell”. People don’t consistently omit any mention of things they value. I bet I could spend a day in Chicago and find a solid public school. Not Arne Duncan. He has yet to see one.
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“it is absolutely incumbent on the charter sector to be vigilant about policing itself and closing down low performers…”
The reform business ONLY cares about “low performers”. Police those, close those! As long as your charter school gets decent results, no policing necessary. Do whatever you need to do, dump whatever children you need to dump, because all the charter sector oversight agency cares about is your performance.
And the “reformers” wonder why BLM and the NAACP aren’t supporting their desire to have charter schools treat so many children like trash to be thrown out the door because all they can think about is “we just need to make sure we aren’t low performing! we can do anything we want to your kids in the name of test scores! Why don’t you support us teaching your kids using methods we would never allow for our own?” And, of course, hiding it all because we actually can’t admit what we are doing because we don’t really believe it ourselves. Results uber alles!”
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Boy, the Obama Team are really promoting Whitmire.
http://hechingerreport.org/how-one-teacher-set-a-gold-standard-and-other-secrets-of-top-charter-schools-success/
He’s relentlessly negative on public schools as per usual. Is he an “agnostic”? Really?
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In Delaware, charter schools tried to get our Dept. of Education to change how they are funded by local districts. It was done under the radar of pretty much everyone. I broke the news on Saturday, and by the end of the day Sunday, our Secretary of Education stood down after thousands protested on social media and legislators swarmed the Secretary on a Sunday. It was a crazy 24 hours in Delaware!
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Excellent work Kevin! Mil gracias.
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Add to that bad week the NLRB ruling (the post after this).
Keep the good news (for us) & the bad news (for the charter industry) coming!
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THANKS for this, Diane.
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