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Connecticut: Wendy Lecker and Robert Cotto on Charter School Myths and Lies

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2016 //
3

Wendy Lecker,  veteran civil rights attorney, interviews Robert Cotto, member of the Hartford, Connecticut, board of education, about charter schools. Hedge fund managers and billionaires in Connecticut have poured large sums into the coffers of charter schools and of Governor Dannell Malloy to ensure his enthusiastic support for charter schools. They like to claim that charter schools are better than public schools. The interview below says they are wrong. They support privatization, not better schools, just like Betsy DeVos. Governor Malloy’s first state commissioner of education was  a charter school founder (who now works for Governor Raimondo in Rhode Island as director of economic development.)

 

The interview  begins like this:

 

Lecker: Do Connecticut charter schools outperform district schools?

 

Cotto: Connecticut charter schools were supposed to raise achievement, innovate, and reduce racial isolation. In terms of achievement, charter schools do not serve similar proportions of students living in poverty, bilingual children, and children with disabilities when compared to the local districts where they are located. Charter schools serve a more advantaged group of Black and Latino students in our cities. Therefore, simple comparisons of test results are like comparing “apples to oranges” and do not really tell us much about academic improvement. The state has never evaluated charter innovation. While some charters may innovate, the majority of charters operate like traditional schools. Most Connecticut charter schools are highly segregated by race (mostly Black students).

 

Lecker: A writer claimed that if Connecticut charters fail to perform, they are shut down, but that you cannot do that to a district school. True?

 

Cotto: The state almost never closes charter schools because of poor academic performance or financial mismanagement. According to State Department of Education reports, only five charter schools closed their doors since 1999. Three closed because of insufficient funds, one charter school was closed for health/safety violations, and one charter school closed because of lack of academic progress.

 

Between 2010-2013, all 17 charter schools in the state were renewed by the state, despite very low overall test results for some, including Stamford Academy and Trailblazers Academy. Additionally, the state did not shut down Jumoke/FUSE Academy charter school despite a massive corruption scandal that invited an FBI investigation.

 

On the other hand, many public schools in Connecticut have closed and been reconstituted for not meeting test score targets. At least a dozen schools in Hartford have been closed and reconstituted in the last decade.

 

Lecker: Can you describe what happened to Milner school in Hartford?

 

Cotto: In 2008, Milner school was “reconstituted” under the No Child Left Behind law for not meeting test score targets. The non-magnet/non-charter school was in one of the most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Hartford’s North End. In 2012, Milner school was selected by the Commissioner of Education for a second “turnaround” under the management of a private charter company, Jumoke/FUSE, which would be paid a management fee of around $350,000 a year. The idea was that this private charter company could do a better job operating a public school. Jumoke/FUSE hired convicted felons and engaged in financial improprieties. Academic performance of students at the school did not improve under Jumoke/FUSE. In 2014, Jumoke/FUSE ceased running Milner school and Hartford Public Schools regained control.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Hoax, Privatization

Catherine Blanche King: Why Education Should Not Function Like a Business

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2016 //
41

A reader Catherine Blanche King explained in a comment why it is a mistake that schools will improve if they compete with one another, as shoe stores and automobile franchises do. She reminds me of something that Governor Mario Cuomo said many years ago, and I am sorry I can’t remember the words exactly and can’t find the source. He said that if you are a parent and you have several children, you don’t pick favorites but you give the most love and attention to the child who needs it most. I think he was referring then to children with disabilities.

She writes:

Just a reflection to consider on the difference between (1) running a business and (2) running an educational establishment and the principles that underpin both.

In the first case, businesses are commonly run under the principles of capitalism–as at least assumed to be competitive, and as employed presently in most cases. Competition in business and even in, for instance, the Olympic Games, tends to render the best in each instance, category, or business field which gets the prize or the customer base, whichever. What is “the best” (the principles of intelligence and excellence) in each situation, field, or category is an open question. But it’s the underpinning idea of “branding” –whether you are actually the best or not and according to a wealth of criteria for that title.

In the second case, however, running an educational establishment is more like running a family; that is, those who are NOT the best, are the ones who need the most and, under this principle, are the ones who are helped to become better. It’s (what we can call) the principle of generation that comes first and that underpins the other two principles when they are working well.

In concrete terms, the principle of generation is evident in our own families where we may harbor our favorites, but if one child is not as good as another in math, say, then that child is the one who gets the help so that they can become better. If they are not good at soccer, then we try baseball or whatever they want or need. If you put them in competition with others, however, without adequate preparation and direction, they are already set to be “losers.”

It’s under this principle of generation, however, that we love and care for our children regardless, cradle to grave. And as they move from family to formal educational institution, it’s under this principle that we are constantly PREPARING them–ALL of them in a democratic culture–to work as well as they can when they are ready to enter the world where the other two principles (intelligence and excellence) take the reigns in their lives. (Again, what we concretely mean by those terms is analogous and specific.)

Neither of the three principles ever goes away, however, but remain in tension with one another. It’s just which is emphasized and which recedes in each situation. In families, we play games where someone wins or loses, but no one questions where they live or whether they are included. In schools, particularly in a democracy, and beginning in the early grades, competition again has its legitimate place, but again (as most teachers experience) not when it intrudes on legitimate forms that flow from the principle of generation, e.g., caring and inclusion, educational preparation for all where it is needed–that is, we do not eliminate those who fail or who are not at the top in achievements. Rather, resources are applied in accordance with need and where there is less achievement; and regardless of who they are or what group they belong to. Again, inclusion is a given. Here, applying competitive business principles alone is a gross distortion of the body politic of a democratic culture.

Categories Accountability, Funding, Special Education

Stanford Research: Investing in Public Schools Is More Effective Than Privatization

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2016 //
13

This is a project that should interest all readers of the blog as well as state and local school boards and elected officials at every level. It includes a book that reviews education issues around the globe and resources that you may access by clicking the link. The bottom line of a vast amount of research is that privatization is a failed policy, not an innovation. The most effective way to invest public dollars is in improving public schools.

 

Stanford Graduate School of Education Research Center Introduces Cross-National Study Central to Debates about Future of the U.S. Education System

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ralph Rogers
Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education
650.725.8600
ralphr@stanford.edu

 

Stanford, CA – December 13, 2016 – In the midst of the ongoing debate and a potential shift in the U.S. approach to education, the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) is pleased to introduce new research-based evidence and analysis that supports investment in public schools as a better alternative than the privatization of education.

“This book shows how public investment in education outperforms privatization across three continents, addressing this critical question as President-elect Trump’s appointee, Betsy DeVos, considers shifting U.S. education to a voucher scheme,” said Frank Adamson, PhD, the primary editor, chapter author, and Senior Policy and Research Analyst at SCOPE. “This book offers reasoned evidence to policymakers, communities, and families about how investing in public schools produces better and more equitable outcomes than voucher programs.”

SCOPE’s work addresses the question of how results from public investment approaches compare with those from market-based reforms and provides a timely explanation of alternatives based on real evidence derived from policy analysis and actual outcomes in six different countries. In this project, SCOPE has designed and implemented a set of accessible information resources designed to inform the different constituencies involved in this important debate.

The book, Global Education Reform: How Privatization and Public Investment Influence Education Outcomes, with a set of supporting infographics, videos, and research briefs, provides hard evidence supporting investment in pubic schools. Researchers thoroughly investigated the results of experiments with education in Chile, Sweden, and the U.S. and compared their educational outcomes with those of nearby countries with similar economic and social conditions: Cuba, Finland, and Canada (Ontario). At the national levels in Sweden, the U.S., and Chile, market, charter, or voucher systems are associated with greater disparities and lower student outcomes on international tests.

 

SCOPE’s project combined in-depth analysis of the different ends of an ideological spectrum – from market-based experiments to strong state investments in public education. Written by education researchers, including Linda Darling-Hammond, Michael Fullan, Pasi Sahlberg, Martin Carnoy, and others, the authors present long-term policy analyses based on primary and secondary research on the implementation and results of these different approaches.
To best support an open debate on the issue of school reform, SCOPE has created the following set of free information resources:

 
Privatization or Public Investment in Education is a free SCOPE research and policy brief summarizing the findings in the book.
Six Countries. Two Educational Strategies. One Consistent Conclusion is a free infographic presenting an accessible and concise summary of the differences in approaches and outcomes – privatization versus public investment in education.
Our Kids, Our Future: Privatization and Public Investment in Education, a 3-minute video providing an overview of the differences between experimental privatization models and public investment in equitable education systems.
How Privatization and Public Investment Influence Education: A Look at the Research, a more detailed 12-minute video explaining the differences between experimental privatization models and public investment in equitable education systems.
Educational Inequities in the New Orleans Charter School System is a free infographic from SCOPE and the Schott Foundation that explains the impact on students and schools of New Orleans becoming a predominantly charter district after Hurricane Katrina.

 

The Editors
Frank Adamson, PhD, is a Senior Policy and Research Analyst at the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.
Björn Åstrand, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer and Dean at Karlstad University in Sweden.
Linda Darling-Hammond, EdD, is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University, the author of over 300 publications, and a former president of the American Educational Research Association.
About SCOPE
The Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) fosters research, policy, and practice to advance high-quality, equitable education systems in the United States and internationally.

 
These resources can be downloaded or viewed at the SCOPE Global Education Reform web page.

Categories Equity, International, Privatization, Research

Nick Kristof on Donald Trump as the Russian Poodle

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
53

 

Nicholas Kristof can’t understand why Trump continues to deny that Putin hacked into our election to help Trump. Why would Trump support Putin over the professionals at the CIA and FBI?

 

“Let’s be clear: This was an attack on America, less lethal than a missile but still profoundly damaging to our system. It’s not that Trump and Putin were colluding to steal an election. But if the C.I.A. is right, Russia apparently was trying to elect a president who would be not a puppet exactly but perhaps something of a lap dog — a Russian poodle.

 

“In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely (and unfairly) mocked as President George W. Bush’s poodle, following him loyally into the Iraq war. The fear is that this time Putin may have interfered to acquire an ally who likewise will roll over for him.
“Frankly, it’s mystifying that Trump continues to defend Russia and Putin, even as he excoriates everyone else, from C.I.A. officials to a local union leader in Indiana.

 

“Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States.

 

“Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it’s notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia’s “Order of Friendship.”

 

“Whatever our personal politics, how can we possibly want to respond to Russia’s interference in our election by putting American foreign policy in the hands of a Putin friend?

 

“Tillerson’s closeness to Putin is especially troubling because of Trump’s other Russia links. The incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, accepted Russian money to attend a dinner in Moscow and sat near Putin. A ledger shows $12.7 million in secret payments by a pro-Russia party in Ukraine to Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort. And the Trump family itself has business connections with Russia.

 

“It’s true that there will be counterbalances, including Gen. James Mattis, the former Marine commander who has no illusions about Moscow and is expected to be confirmed as defense secretary. But over all it looks as if the Trump administration will be remarkably pro-Putin — astonishing considering Putin’s Russia has killed journalists, committed war crimes in Ukraine and Syria and threatened the peaceful order in Europe.

 

“So it’s critical that the Senate, the news media and the public subject Tillerson to intense scrutiny. There are other issues to explore as well, including his role in enabling corruption in Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world. The same is true of his role in complicity with the government of Angola, where oil corruption turned the president’s daughter into a billionaire even as children died of poverty and disease at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world.”

 

Categories Trump

North Carolina: Ousted Superintendent Wonders: “How Do I Help an Infant in Public Education?”

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
8

June Atkinson, the incumbent Superintendent of Instruction for the state of North Carolina, was beaten by 33-year-old Mark Johnson on November 8. She was surprised by the outcome. Johnson won 50.8% of the vote; of 4.4 million votes cast, Johnson’s margin of victory was 58,000 votes. 

 

Atkinson had worked for the Department of  Public Instruction for 40 years, the last 11 as state chief.

 

Atkinson is the longest-serving state superintendent in the nation and the first woman in North Carolina to hold the job. She lost to Republican Mark Johnson, the second-youngest statewide elected official in the country. Johnson is a lawyer and school board member in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. He received 50.6 percent of the vote in the Nov. 8 election.

 

During an interview at her office last week, Atkinson shifted between moments of sadness, sometimes crying as she spoke about leaving the job she loves, and moments of frustration as she recalled comments Johnson made during the election, some of which she thought were unfair.

 

“I have two pet peeves. One is it bothers me when people swim in the swamp of ignorance or swim in the swamp of dishonesty,” Atkinson said. “It bothers me that my opponent would say disparaging things about people here in the department, that they are incompetent, that there are a bunch of bureaucrats here who don’t work well. I don’t take that personally because I know what it’s like to run for office. It’s the first time, however, I’ve run for office when I felt as if my opponent was dishonest in what he said.”

 

The two have not spoken about the election outcome, Atkinson said, and she doesn’t know what she’ll say when the time comes. She promises a smooth transition when Johnson takes over in January, but it’s clear the transition will be tough.

 

“It’s really hard for me to figure out what I want to say to him, because I don’t know where to start. I mean, he has taught two years. He’s never run an organization that has almost 900 people. He has never traveled to the 100 counties. He doesn’t have a background,” she said. “So, it’s like, how do I teach or how do I help a person who is an infant in public education to become an adult overnight to be able to help public education in this state?”

 

When asked about Atkinson’s remarks, Johnson responded:

 

“I acknowledge that (Atkinson) has been at the Department of Public Instruction for 40 years, and she has a lot of institutional knowledge,” he said. “I look forward to talking to her and hearing what she has to say about running the department and taking that into consideration as I go forward.”

 

Still, he said, Atkinson should not discount his experience as a teacher, local school board member and lawyer.

 

Johnson was a TFA teacher for two years, and a local school board member for less than two years, which should position him well to take charge of the schools of the state of North Carolina.
Read more at http://www.wral.com/ousted-nc-superintendent-on-successor-how-do-i-help-an-infant-in-public-education-/16236296/#2E8eABKf7wCRS4sO.99

 

 

Categories Administrators, superintendents, North Carolina, Teach for America TFA

North Carolina: A Veteran Teacher Writes a Letter to the New State Superintendent

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
2

Stuart Egan is a National Board Certified Teacher in North Carolina. The state legislature (the General Assembly) just passed legislation removing educational authority from the state board of education and handing it to the just-elected state superintendent of education, who is a Republican with only two years of teaching as a member of Teach for America.

 

Egan wrote to Mark Johnson, the 33-year-old neophyte who is suddenly in charge of the state’s schools.

 

The young man who will control the state school system ran against “the status quo,” which was imposed by the legislature that just put him in charge. Will he tangle with the legislature? Will he fight for teachers? Will he roll back over-testing, as he promised?

 

If you have …, “taken issue with what (you) sees as a lack of support for teachers and schools coming from the department and a failure to respond quickly to such issues as the state’s academic standards and over-testing” will you really seek to empower or enable those very teachers and schools the way that people in the GOP controlled NCGA special session just empowered you before you even step foot inside of your new office?

 

When the chair and vice-chair of the GOP controlled State Board of Education say that the General Assembly overstepped its boundaries in granting you as the incoming state superintendent this much power, then that sends more than one red flag into the air.

 

When two former governors, one of whom is Republican Jim Martin, says the special session has gone too far with bills such as the one which enables you, then sirens are screaming.

 

When the John Locke Foundation says that the power grab that involves the role of your office has gone too far, then many are saying that part of hell is freezing over.

 

So, what will you do now that you will have much to say about charter schools and the Achievement School District, the management of monies for public schools, and who is hired in DPI as well as some who may sit on the State Board of Education?

 

Because if someone who was as experienced as your predecessor was as handcuffed as she and was still able to wage battle against the very forces that have actually controlled the very “status-quo” you seem to have run against, will you be willing to battle those very people for the sake of the students and schools now that they have politically enabled you?

 

Or will you bend to the wishes of those who have placed this power within your office through a politically motivated special session that was undertaken solely as a coup against the fact that a democrat won the governor’s election?

 

I eagerly await your answer through your actions in the coming years.

 

 

Categories Administrators, superintendents, North Carolina

Biographer: Trump Believes Rules are Meant to Be Broken

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
55

https://apple.news/A1C6kVIGlSD2AMo2pAdgMzQ

 

Michael D’Antonio writes opinion pieces for CNN. He previously wrote a book “The Truth About Trump.”

 

This article is fascinating in a morbid way, about Trump’s contempt for rules, conventions, promises, commitments. Breaking the rules and ignoring what others think have been his lifelong practices.

 

(CNN) President-elect Donald Trump signaled who he is when he announced he was going to remain executive producer of “The Apprentice” and then dismissed as “ridiculous” the Central Intelligence Agency’s concern that Russia hacked his opponent’s computers to help him win the White House. When given a choice between unreality as represented by TV and the real-world work of protecting the United States from Vladimir Putin, Trump stayed loyal to the money-making fiction and threw the CIA under the bus.

Consider that Trump has refused to sit for nearly all the daily intelligence briefings, which have been prepared for presidents since the 1960s, and his response to the CIA seems consistent with his view of himself and the world. He said he doesn’t need intelligence briefings because he’s so “smart.” By this measure, each one of his predecessors, from Kennedy to Reagan to Obama, must have been woefully unintelligent. At the very least, they worried far too much about the norms that traditionally guided the presidency.
Trump has long used manipulative techniques to get what he wants. These tendencies to shade the truth, break the rules and ignore the damage he does were apparent when he first made himself known as a publicity hound and developer in New York, and they continue to be an essential part of his character.

 

No rules for me

 
When Donald Trump proposed his first big project in the 1970s, he called on politicians whom his father had befriended and funded to grease the skids. In those days, local politics was the kind of swamp Trump now says he wants to drain, and yet he swam as well as anyone. The last step in his bid for approval required that he provide a signed contract indicating he owned the right to develop the site. Trump submitted paperwork, but since it was unsigned it shouldn’t have been accepted. Mysteriously, the city approval came, and Trump later bragged to me about pulling off the deception.

 
Less obvious, but no less significant, was Trump’s decision to use a contractor who hired scores of undocumented workers, in violation of the law, to tear down the Bonwit Teller department store at the site of what is now Trump Tower. In the same period, he destroyed architectural artwork he was supposed to preserve and adopted a fake persona to serve as a spokesman for himself. In Trump’s estimation, the deception was good business.

 

Fast forward to the 2016 election, and Trump is insulting war hero John McCain, inciting the kind of violent practices against protesters used in “the good old days” and demeaning almost every one of his opponents. When he was concerned about losing the election, he began speaking of a “rigged” system, undercutting public confidence in the foundation of the American democracy. The norms of politics have prevented every candidate in modern history from making such dangerous statements. However, Trump has not accepted those rules.

 
Now, as President-elect, Trump believes the standards accepted by other newly elected presidents out of respect for America’s political culture don’t apply to him. Others held press conferences almost immediately after the votes were tallied. Trump has yet to hold one. Others put their assets in trust to avoid conflicts of interest. Trump will not.
He has never acted as if the rules applied to him and, so far, he’s keeping up the practice.

 

One of Trump’s oft-used methods for getting what he wants involves flipping narratives to benefit him. He first did this in the early 1970s, when the federal government charged the Trump Organization with discriminating against minority applicants for apartments. Instead of acknowledging the public good in equal housing and respecting a GOP administration’s effort to encourage equality, Trump put himself above all other considerations. Crying “reverse discrimination,” he claimed he was the real victim in the situation. And though the Trump Organization eventually agreed to comply with fair housing rules, he fought hard against doing the right thing.

More opposite talk came from Trump when he argued that black men have advantages in life that he would have wanted in his youth. “I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.” Every bit of data available suggested that the opposite was true, but the facts wouldn’t get in the way of Trump making a point that played to the racial fears and anxieties of many whites.
In the election campaign, Trump indulged in opposite talk almost every time he was challenged about his fitness for office. Well known for wild rants, he nevertheless insisted he had the best temperament of anyone running for president. Now, as President-elect, Trump is practicing opposite talk without saying a word. By appointing a climate change denier to run the Environmental Protection Agency and a fierce critic of public schools to run the Department of Education, President-elect Trump is communicating that he’s willing to move from opposite talk to opposite action.

 

Read on to see the many rules that Trump has broken and ignored and will continue to ignore. He has said that the president is exempt from conflicts of interest, so he will continue to own his many properties.

 

We are about to see four years of unprecedented corruption as foreign powers clear the way for Trump hotels, casinos, and golf clubs, and curry favor with the president by enriching his children and his company.

 

All this violates the “emoluments” clause of the Constitution, which forbids government officials from accepting any gifts from foreign powers, but no one can enforce the Constitution other than Congress, by impeachment. What are the odds of that?

 

 

Categories Trump

Rahm Emanuel: Don’t Be Afraid of School Choice

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
36

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel published an opinion article in the Washington Post saying something about how choice is a good thing when it is a good thing, so don’t get your knickers twisted against school choice just because Trump is for it. At least I think that is what he is saying. Read it and tell me why you think he (or someone wrote) wrote this article to get people to think well of school choice.

 

I think he is saying that when Democrats promote privatization by charter school, that is a good thing, and we must keep doing it even though Betsy DeVos wants to turn every school into a charter school and/or give every student a voucher to attend a religious school.

 

Sorry, but I have a hard time reading anything allegedly penned by Rahm about schools without thinking of the day of infamy when he closed 50 public schools at one fell swoop. He will be remembered for the brutal, disruptive, heedless closing of 50 community public schools. That, and the awful youth violence that continues to plague Chicago, promoted to some extent by the deliberate destruction of communities.

 

At the same time that Rahm and his hand-picked board of the city’s elite were closing public schools, they continued opening charter schools. Chicago is not an example of the success of school reform. To the extent that we use the federal NAEP scores as a measure, Chicago is still one of the lowest performing urban districts in the nation. It has some very good public schools, but it also has many very poorly resourced schools. Rahm will not be remembered as an education reformer.

 

In this article, he boasts again of Urban Prep Academy. This is the all-black, all-male school where 100% of the students who reach 12th grade graduate and go to college. This is a school that Gary Rubinstein researched and discovered its high attrition rate and its low test scores, lower than those of students in Chicago public schools. When I googled Urban Prep to find the links, I noticed that newspapers around the country still report the news of its “100% graduation rate” and “100% college acceptance rate.”

 

Knowing what Rahm has done to the Chicago public schools, I find it hard to understand why he thinks he is in a position to offer advice to the nation about school reform. The reality is that he is comfortable with Trump and DeVos and the privatization movement and has no qualms about continuing to implement it in Chicago.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Education Industry, Emanuel, Rahm, Privatization

Can Our Democracy Survive Trump?

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
105

The New York Times contains a column that expresses the fears of many people and asks whether our democracy is sturdy enough to survive the reign of Trump.

 

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, professors of government at Harvard, write:

 

 

“Donald J. Trump’s election has raised a question that few Americans ever imagined asking: Is our democracy in danger? With the possible exception of the Civil War, American democracy has never collapsed; indeed, no democracy as rich or as established as America’s ever has. Yet past stability is no guarantee of democracy’s future survival.

 

“We have spent two decades studying the emergence and breakdown of democracy in Europe and Latin America. Our research points to several warning signs.

 

“The clearest warning sign is the ascent of anti-democratic politicians into mainstream politics. Drawing on a close study of democracy’s demise in 1930s Europe, the eminent political scientist Juan J. Linz designed a “litmus test” to identify anti-democratic politicians. His indicators include a failure to reject violence unambiguously, a readiness to curtail rivals’ civil liberties, and the denial of the legitimacy of elected governments.

 

“Mr. Trump tests positive. In the campaign, he encouraged violence among supporters; pledged to prosecute Hillary Clinton; threatened legal action against unfriendly media; and suggested that he might not accept the election results….

 

“Mr. Trump is not the first American politician with authoritarian tendencies. (Other notable authoritarians include Gov. Huey Long of Louisiana and Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.) But he is the first in modern American history to be elected president. This is not necessarily because Americans have grown more authoritarian (the United States electorate has always had an authoritarian streak). Rather it’s because the institutional filters that we assumed would protect us from extremists, like the party nomination system and the news media, failed.

 

“Many Americans are not overly concerned about Mr. Trump’s authoritarian inclinations because they trust our system of constitutional checks and balances to constrain him.

 

“Yet the institutional safeguards protecting our democracy may be less effective than we think. A well-designed constitution is not enough to ensure a stable democracy — a lesson many Latin American independence leaders learned when they borrowed the American constitutional model in the early 19th century, only to see their countries plunge into chaos.
“Democratic institutions must be reinforced by strong informal norms. Like a pickup basketball game without a referee, democracies work best when unwritten rules of the game, known and respected by all players, ensure a minimum of civility and cooperation. Norms serve as the soft guardrails of democracy, preventing political competition from spiraling into a chaotic, no-holds-barred conflict.

 

“Among the unwritten rules that have sustained American democracy are partisan self-restraint and fair play. For much of our history, leaders of both parties resisted the temptation to use their temporary control of institutions to maximum partisan advantage, effectively underutilizing the power conferred by those institutions. There existed a shared understanding, for example, that anti-majoritarian practices like the Senate filibuster would be used sparingly, that the Senate would defer (within reason) to the president in nominating Supreme Court justices, and that votes of extraordinary importance — like impeachment — required a bipartisan consensus. Such practices helped to avoid a descent into the kind of partisan fight to the death that destroyed many European democracies in the 1930s….

 

“Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Trump is a serial norm-breaker. There are signs that Mr. Trump seeks to diminish the news media’s traditional role by using Twitter, video messages and public rallies to circumvent the White House press corps and communicate directly with voters — taking a page out of the playbook of populist leaders like Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey.

 

“An even more basic norm under threat today is the idea of legitimate opposition. In a democracy, partisan rivals must fully accept one another’s right to exist, to compete and to govern. Democrats and Republicans may disagree intensely, but they must view one another as loyal Americans and accept that the other side will occasionally win elections and lead the country. Without such mutual acceptance, democracy is imperiled. Governments throughout history have used the claim that their opponents are disloyal or criminal or a threat to the nation’s way of life to justify acts of authoritarianism.

 

“The idea of legitimate opposition has been entrenched in the United States since the early 19th century, disrupted only by the Civil War. That may now be changing, however, as right-wing extremists increasingly question the legitimacy of their liberal rivals. During the last decade, Ann Coulter wrote best-selling books describing liberals as traitors, and the “birther” movement questioned President Obama’s status as an American.

 

“Such extremism, once confined to the political fringes, has now moved into the mainstream. In 2008, the Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin linked Barack Obama to terrorism. This year, the Republican Party nominated a birther as its presidential candidate. Mr. Trump’s campaign centered on the claim that Hillary Clinton was a criminal who should be in jail; and “Lock her up!” was chanted at the Republican National Convention. In other words, leading Republicans — including the president-elect — endorsed the view that the Democratic candidate was not a legitimate rival.

 

“The risk we face, then, is not merely a president with illiberal proclivities — it is the election of such a president when the guardrails protecting American democracy are no longer as secure.

 

“American democracy is not in imminent danger of collapse. If ordinary circumstances prevail, our institutions will most likely muddle through a Trump presidency. It is less clear, however, how democracy would fare in a crisis. In the event of a war, a major terrorist attack or large-scale riots or protests — all of which are entirely possible — a president with authoritarian tendencies and institutions that have come unmoored could pose a serious threat to American democracy. We must be vigilant. The warning signs are real.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Democracy, Education Reform, Trump

Sheila Resseger on the Expansion of Achievement First Charter Schools in Rhode Island

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
2

Sheila Resseger is a retired teacher in Rhode Island. She writes in response to an earlier post about the proposed expansion of the Achievement First charter chain in Rhode Island. The state commissioner, Kenneth Wagner, is enthusiastic about the increase in charter enrollment by 2,000, even though it will strip more than $30 million from the Providence public schools, which enrolls far more students. What is the logic of diverting funding to charter schools for 2,000 while underfunding the education of 12,000?

 

She writes:

 

Not only was [Governor Gina] Raimondo’s husband, Andy Moffit, a roommate of Cory Booker’s, but he is a (brief) TFA alum and has been employed by McKinsey for some time. He is the co-author with Sir Michael Barber of Deliverology 101. Now I think that’s enough to know about him.

 

My colleague Wendy Holmes and I wrote a piece about Wagner’s support for the expansion of Achievement First for RI Future. http://www.rifuture.org/achievement-first-education-deform/

 

There have been several fiscal analyses of the impact of an AF expansion on Providence public schools and students, and critiques of the Innovative Policy Lab “report” that Wagner relied on when promoting the expansion. Here are a few:

 

Sam Zurier’s “Report on Fiscal Impacts to Providence Public Schools From Proposed Achievement First Expansion” – http://samzurier.com/public/ upload/11-30-Electronic-Cover- letter-and-Report.pdf

 

“Pro-Achievement First Study is Challenged” from the Providence Journal: http://www. providencejournal.com/news/ 20161208/education-pro- achievement-first-study-is- challenged

 

Mark Santow’s public comments at the December 6 RI Board of Education hearing: http://www.rifuture. org/3-reasons-to-oppose- achievement-first-expansion/

 

Tom Hoffman’s analysis of the Achievement First Fiscal Impact Memo prepared by Brown University’s Rhode Island Innovative Policy Lab – http://www.tuttlesvc.org/2016/ 12/a-closer-look-at-browns- achievement.html

 

There is also a new petition from families of Providence public school students opposing the expansion.

https://www.change.org/p/families-supporting-the-providence-public-schools-and-opposing-achievement-first-expansion?recruiter=1251398&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_page&utm_term=des-lg-share_petition-no_msg

 

I will say that these two particular Achievement First elementary schools do enroll a high number of students from Spanish-speaking homes. I heard many parents speak at a public forum praising the education that their children are getting there, compared to what they experienced in the Providence public schools. However, when the chief measure of high achievement as opposed to failing schools is the fatally flawed PARCC assessment, we need to be very wary. The bottom line is that 12,000 Providence students should not have to suffer severe cuts to their schools and programs so that an extra 2,000 students can go to a well-resourced school. All children in Providence and throughout the country need and are entitled to fully resourced neighborhood public schools. The emphasis on test prep in ELA and math is counter-productive and not the direction that we should be going.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Rhode Island
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