Troy LaRaviere, award-winning principal in Chicago who was dismissed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel for what was probably political reasons (he supported Senator Sanders in the primaries and he is an outspoken critic of Rahm) recently spoke to the Boston Teachers Union. He came to warn them to fight hard against Question 2, which would expand charters. He explained the havoc that charters have wreaked in Chicago, the damage they have done to public schools, even though public schools outperform the charters.
His talk was “Why Public Schools Are Far Better than Charter Schools.”
Although Rahm fired him, LaRaviere was elected by his colleagues as president of the Chicago Principals’ and Administrators’ Association.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
After watching Troy’s video, here’s another:
Marty Walz, a paid Question 2 publicity agent, was just at it again, with the deflection and misdirection about out-of-state funding.
This occurred at a Question 2 debate a few nights ago.
Thankfully, two “NO on 2′ folks — public school teacher Jessica Tang and the NAACP’s MICHALE CURRY — were there to confront Marty.
And confront, they did.
Marty trots out the equivalency fallacy — the idea that the Question 2 opponents, including
… teachers who spend 8 hours a day with children, and more time doing work out of class
AND …
… a bunch of billionaires and Wall Street hedge fund managers who’ve never worked in education (pushing “YES on 2) …
Well, this idea that both groups have equally good motives, and an equal right to influence education, and and equal standing to speak for students regarding Question 2 is nonsense.
Both sides are getting out-of-state funding, Marty argues, so let’s just stop talking about this. Okay?
( 44:56 – )
( 44:56 – )
MARTY WALZ: “So why do we want to talk about ‘Who’s getting more money from out-of-state money?’ … and … ‘Where’s it coming from?’ There’s money coming in from out-of-state on both sides of this. So it’s kind of not an issue that differentiates the “YES” and “NO” sides here.”
MODERATOR JIM BROWDY: “Does it differentiate it, Jessica?”
JESSICA TANG: “It ABSOLUTELY does.”
MODERATOR JIM BROWDY: “How so?”
JESSICA TANG: “We (from the “NO on 2 side) are being outspent 2-to-1! The reason that we’re seeing so many misleading (and unanswered) “YES on 2” ads is because we CAN’T AFFORD to buy as many ads as the other side can. And the majority of the (“YES on 2) money is coming in from out of the state, through “dark money” funds where we can’t even trace WHO is funding it.
“Teachers unions? We KNOW where who THEY are funded by: teachers! People like me. Each one of us puts a little bit of money into our teachers’ union. And we’re fighting this fight, NOT because of any philosophical whatever battle. It’s because the reality is: we are trying day-in and day-out to improve our schools, to provide a quality education for ALL of our students.
“And I DO NEED to mention this, because when we talk about funding, we’re NOT talking about the fact that Boston Public Schools serves TWICE AS MANY severest needs speial students with disabilities (as the charter schools), TWICE AS MANY English Language Learners (as the charter schools).
” … ”
“And we are proud to serve those students, but they DO cost more money to educate, and the current funding formula assumes that the charter schools are having the same numbers of those students in their schools. And they get the money, but they actually don’t have those students. ”
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Marty then disputes this, claiming “the data shows” this, but Jessica comes back with the data, and the source of the data. Marty sticks to her claim that charter schools have the same percentage, and the crowd starts booing.
Regarding the widespread skepticism towards those out-of-state billionaires and Wall Street investors pumping in over $20 million to pass Question 2, the NAACP’s Michael Curry had much to say:
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( 41:41 – )
( 41:41 – )
NAACP’s MIICHEL CURRY: “I think what concerns me, even as Chris made his comment, is this: it shouldn’t be this difficult (to get the government to fully fund schools, JACK),
“The reality is, I see A LOT OF MONEY coming into Massachusetts right now (from out of state) on this on this issue. I see A LOT OF FACES of people who have NEVER fought for black ‘n brown children BEFORE, that I didn’t see here when we were fighting on all these other issues (through the years, JACK) .
‘And that all of a SUDDEN … NOW, THEY CARE about black ‘n brown children? And NOW there’s a lot of money coming from out of NOWHERE to build charter schools, and invest all this money?
“Where were they BEFORE?
“So to me, this is concerning, because the reality is that we could have had all this coalition effort to get the state funding that we need to run quality, high-performing traditional public schools, and we didn’t do that.
— (to CHRIS GABRIELLA, from the “YES on 2” campaign)
“So when you say that you’re ‘tired of’ it (under-performing schools), and you’re ‘fed up,’ and you’re ‘tired of waiting’ (for quality schools, JACK), then where were you? I mean, we should get together, because the real fight is on the traditional public education side. THAT is where we need to put our money and our resources in. I mean, with all this outside money coming in, I wish we could divert that money to the REAL fight. ”
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IT’S UP TO EACH OF US NOW AS INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS TO SPREAD THE WORD to our state and local lawmakers and social media friends everywhere because they need to know right now that the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a warning that charter schools posed a risk to the Department of Education’s own goals. The report says: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals.”
The report documents multiple cases of financial risk, waste, fraud, abuse, lack of accountability of federal funds, and lack of proof that the schools were implementing federal programs in accordance with federal requirements.
Throughout our nation, private charter schools backed by billionaire hedge funds are being allowed to divert hundreds of millions of public school tax dollars away from educating America’s children and into private corporate pockets. Any thoughtful person should pause a moment and ask: “Why are hedge funds the biggest promoters of charter schools?” Hedge funds aren’t altruistic — there’s got to be big profit in “non-profit” charter schools in order for hedge fund managers to be involved in backing them.
And even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its “reporting” on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.” Without needed oversight of what charter schools are actually doing with the public’s tax dollars, hundreds of millions of tax money that is supposed to be spent on educating the public’s children is being siphoned away into private pockets.
One typical practice of charter schools is to pay exorbitant rates to rent buildings that are owned by the charter school board members or by their proxy companies which then pocket the public’s tax money as profit. Another profitable practice is that although charter schools use public tax money to purchase millions of dollars of such things as computers, the things they buy with public tax money become their private property and can be sold by them for profit…and then use public tax money to buy more, and sell again, and again, and again, pocketing profit after profit.
The Washington State and New York State supreme courts and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions.
Charter schools are clearly private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money. Moreover, as the NAACP and ACLU have reported, charter schools are often engaged in racial and economic-class discrimination.
Charter schools should (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that they are accountable to the public; (2) a charter school entity must legally be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) charter schools should be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property.
NO FEDERAL MONEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GO TO CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT FAIL TO MEET THESE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC. Hillary Clinton could, if elected President, on day one in office issue an Executive Order to the Department of Education to do just that. Tell her today to do that! Send her the above information to make certain she knows about the Inspector General’s findings and about the abuses being committed by charter schools.
They are still at it in Chicago. I heard through the grapevine that an elementary school with which I have an association lost their principal because she was too good. Now they have a principal whose experience is as an assistant high school principal. The school is in an area the developers are drooling over. It is prime territory for gentrification. It would push out an entire low income community that has fought hard to remain viable. It is the most diverse area of the city. Only a major support effort saved them from the chopping block a few years ago; they were on Rahm’s list.
It’s a long video, but well worth watching it: I think he is an interesting speaker, and a non-nonsense guy. What he says about the fallacy of common sense and especially about experience vs innovation in education is really basic, though rarely emphasized.