A reader in Ohio named Chiara left the following succinct comment:
It’s maybe a good time to be a public school supporter🙂
Ed reform has embraced DeVos/Trump.
The “agnostics” are marginalized and irrelevant- the privatization zealots are now “the movement”. They don’t even discuss public schools anymore- they fight over when privatization should be regulated or unregulated.
It’s a huge opportunity. They’ve abandoned 90% of schools and it’s such an echo chamber they don’t even see it.
So privatization will have 100 Senators, The President, the USDOE, hundreds of House members and 10% of students and families.
Public schools will have no representation or advocates at the federal level, but public schools will have 90% of students and families. Just think about how nuts that is and you see the opportunity.
There’s an opening for some entity or group(s) to represent the interests of 90% of children and families. That COULD be new people with appealing and practical ideas that actually BENEFIT existing public schools. Imagine that! 🙂
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Educational cooperatives! Do we really need federal or state “help”? Found an article online from THE about a group of professors who plan to create a cooperative university.https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/plan-recreate-public-higher-education-cooperative-university
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Sounds like communism to me. Betcha Putin has something to do with it!
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Sorry, just couldn’t resist.
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I just watched a short piece yesterday (sorry, I can’t remember where; on PBS or Democracy Now, maybe) about the loss of truth in Russian news which has bred both confusion and a growing dependency on strong man leadership. Hmmmm…..does that sound at all familiar inside the USA?
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Ciedie,
Russian media was always state-controlled. There was a brief burst of press freedom after the collapse of the USSR, but Putin began killing journalists who thought they could criticize him and his billionaire friends, and that was the end of press freedom in Russia.
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Oh, and how real, how current, this tactic begins to feel…
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Many Americans, like the common citizen of the old USSR who learned “how to read” Pravda, are learning “how to read” our lame stream media. The advantage Americans should have is that, in contrast to those poor folk who had to live under the pseudo-communistic Soviet totalitarian government, there are many other avenues for finding and getting “real” news to read/see. Unfortunately that advantage is also exploited by those who would prefer to keep the oligarchic plutocracy alive and well in the US of A.
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that helps me understand the surge in click-bait fake news
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It’s really pretty remarkable and it happens over and over in ed reform.
They saw no need to offer any benefit to public school parents in Massachusetts when they were selling their charter law. None. The best they could offer people was that public schools would not be ACTIVELY HARMED by their policies.
DeVos and Trump don’t even mention public schools unless it’s to call them “horrible”. 90% of kids in Michigan attend the schools they completely OMIT or, alternately, smear.
THAT is an echo chamber.
It’s such an odd thing. To call themselves “public school advocates” wouldn’t there have to be SOME effort on behalf of public schools? Why not just call themselves “charter and private school advocates”? That at least makes sense.
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They are not just private school advocates. They are advocates for using unlimited amounts of public money to finance private schools over which taxpayers have no control other than to pay the bill. When the taxpayers send the money to corporate schools, the loss of funds harm the educational opportunities for those in public schools, many of whom are the neediest and most expensive to serve. Corporate schools are parasite schools that increase segregation, destroy public schools and communities, and undermine the democratic principles of local democratic control and accountability of schools. Once charters move in, it may be difficult to reverse course as they negotiate sweetheart deals with policymakers. In a California community has to sue to get out of a deal with a failing cyber charter. Charters try to cut local citizens out of the decision making process so they can make a pay for play deal with so called representatives eager to fill their campaign war chests. It is a rigged, crooked system in which the taxpayers, children and local communities are the losers.
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You see it in the ed reform analysis of DeVos and Trump. It’s all about charters and vouchers. Somehow public schools are just omitted from discussion among people who MAKE THEIR LIVING in “public education”
How did this happen? It’s nuts. They’re all lining up to lobby Trump on charters and vouchers and the only mention of public schools is whether Trump will hold them “accountable”. As long as we turn our kids over for testing and the data is collected no one cares if he guts funding or floods markets with charters and vouchers. We’re just collateral damage as the “choice” agenda marches on.
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Here’s The 74:
https://www.the74million.org/
Find me a story about a solid public school. You won’t find one on ed reform sites. In the entire United States these folks can’t find a single solid public school that is outside a “wealthy suburb”.
I could find them one in this COUNTY.
Reading this stuff one would think public schools were this blasted national landscape of despair, filled with greedy self interested union activists and “trapped” children and parents and only these national lobbyists can possibly rescue us from our mediocrity and blindness.
I would suggest they attend too many conventions filled with fellow echo chamber members. They need to get out more. I could find a solid public school in Holland, Michigan but apparently Betsy DeVos can’t. Are they SURE this is “science”? Looks like something else to me.
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As a teacher I the rural public system, I have long felt that the underfunding of our systems was because of these suburban systems. We educate students who then move to these suburbs and fund their education. Our funding, meanwhile, has to rest on the backs of a few property owners. No one wants a wheel tax locally, and the wealthy suburbs vote against the institution of a state income tax. The result? Wild disparity in salary and workload between the wealthy suburban school districts filled with the children of professionals and the rural and small working class school districts. Try finding an elective offered in history in one of these districts. Try finding programs for special needs students. Try finding funding for any of this.
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I pledge to stand up for real public schools – ones that not only receive public funding but are also accountable to the public.
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devos wont last the term of four years ala kathy black in nyc who last all but three months…these debutantes come and go and this one ms devos will be going before she ever comes into our lives….take that to the bank
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Me too
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Here’s an interesting public school program:
“They didn’t look like typical high-school students, wearing hard hats, yellow safety glasses and leather tool belts as they headed off to build houses for Habitat for Humanity.
“I’ve always wanted to be a carpenter,” said Dalaedria James, 17, whose helmet was tucked under her fur-lined coat hood. “Ever since I was little, I just always liked building stuff.”
While many college graduates are having difficulty finding jobs in their fields and paying off college loans, these Columbus City Schools juniors and seniors are working on real construction jobs, and some are getting paid about $500 a week for it, as part of a pilot program that is in its second year. These dozen students, such as senior Demetrius Latham, 17, alternate between attending school for a week and working a 40-hour job the next week at $12.50 an hour.”
Why are programs in public schools never mentioned? Not good enough for ed reformers?
If this was a charter school we’d be hearing all about “innovation” and they’d turn it into a national chain 🙂
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/12/18/more-columbus-students-pursue-education-in-building-trades.html
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Reading so much about the strength and actions of the evil forces working against us is pounding my hope to the ground. I want to read encouraging news and brag about what we have accomplished I want to change the focus from saving a few at the expense of the many to saving the many at the expense of the government and philanthropists (surely, we can find one or two that are willing to invest in the many). I want to hear about more great schools like The Boston Arts Academy.
This article posted by Lisa Guisbond, Executive Director of Citizens for Public Schools MA http://www.wbur.org/edify/2016/12/16/boston-arts-academy-innovation
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I love hearing about this school
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The gorilla in the room is the students. I just spent an evening with people who are local small business people who complained that no one wants to work for them. Since I am not in their shoes, I must take heir experience seriously. It parallels,to an extent, some of the frustrations I feel teaching students who feel no sense of urgency.
Some students are not serious learners. We can make all sorts of comments about inspiration, motivation, and technique, and we still arrive at a significant percent of the students we teach who do not wish to put forth any effort to learn. When I first started to teach, these students made a quiet exit, usually to a low paying job. Particularly problematic students usually turned up in the small town newspaper list of judicial actions, usually for drug or other minor offenses. When NCLB put emphasis on graduation rate, these same students were kept in school, for graduation rate was the one controllable variable in the toxic mix that graded schools. Credit recovery, online classes, and lower standards now regularly masquerade as learning.
I think the result is students who feel no sense of accountability. Only teachers are accountable. Not parents, they are too busy working. Not administration, it is too busy making peace with parents and looking for ways to keep the words tax increase from anyone’s lips. Certainly not political leadership, they are far too busy teaching people they are over taxed.
So my friends who try to hire young people cannot get anyone to work for them who understand that they must first sweep and clean, showing their work ethic before they can be trusted with training. Perhaps they are just wrong about the kids we know. Perhaps we all do not understand how difficult it is to learn to work hard just because the work is there.
All the charter schools seem to be doing about this is removing the students who fail to measure up, something public institutions are now forbidden to do. But something must be done.
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The gorilla in the room is not the students. Perhaps you should take another look at the local small business people.
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