This letter is an excellent description of the damage that so-called reformers do to good school districts. In this case, it is Douglas County, Colorado. I urge Amy to join the Network for Public Education, which will connect her to others in Colorado who understand the facade of reform that brings a wrecking crew into the district. Carol Burris will reach out to her.
Can you help?
Amy writes:
I’m a mom of two daughters in Highlands Ranch, CO (an affluent south suburb of Denver, which is heavily Republican). My school district (DCSD-Douglas CO School District) has been under siege since our local 2009 elections, when a majority of “Reform” candidates were elected from within our 7 district “boundaries”, and more in 2013. I admit, I voted for most of them, and I’m so sorry. I didn’t understand what the “Reform” movement was, or how it could dismantle an entire thriving and successful district so quickly.
Over the last 4 to 5 years, as I’ve watched the teacher’s union be dissolved, charter schools (from outside CO) invade and fail, and vouchers drain public money away from neighborhood schools. I’ve watched on-site school teachers/administrators who I have great respect and admiration for, either leave (for neighboring districts… they’re actually called “refugees” within the school systems), retire early, become fearful of speaking up, and sink into a slump of morale. I’ve never been a political person, and I’ve traditionally leaned conservative, but the last 4 years, I’ve become active with other parents in our district to stand up against this “reform” DCSD board agenda that has depleted and destabilized our local school system. We’ve gone from once being the top performing district in the state (attracting top educators/teachers), to having the highest teacher turnover in the state, and massive budget shortfalls.
The board’s pet project, creating the new C.I.T.E. teacher evaluation program, is a dismal failure, and has cost us as taxpayers millions. Our district’s legal fees over the last 8 years are staggering, not to mention millions in fines from the CO BOE, for non-compliant decisions of our Reform board directors. Bottom line… our district needs help.
This November’s election will give citizens the opportunity to replace several of the Reform board members, and despite our county being heavily Republican, I feel parent and teacher grass root groups have a chance. But my concern is that SO many residents in our county simply don’t understand the complexity, and direct links between these board members, and harm in our schools. I’ve been a (moderate) registered republican most of my life, but in this area, I’ve become pretty darn “liberal”, based on watching the impacts on my daughter’s schools, and researching “why”.
We are a county/district packed with “families”. Many Denver citizens have/had moved to our suburbs specifically to get into our school district. I BELIEVE, despite resident’s political identification, that this is an issue that can be persuasively won (taken back) in our county. However, during our last few election cycles, lobbyists, money, and out-of-state players seem to flood into our little district. I’ve come to realize Douglas County, CO, is somehow very important to much bigger players. A group called LPR (Leadership Program of the Rockies…
http://www.leadershipprogram.org ) has been a major influence on our district, and I’ve come to feel as though our local citizens are being manipulated by this group. More directly, by its members and graduates (the 4 remaining “reform” board members are all affiliated with LPR.) They and have even appointed/hired other LPR members to positions within the district… (I.e. the F-Time attorney recently hired to work in our school administration). Is it even normal for a previously highly successful school district to have a FT “in-house” attorney as a school district employee?
I’m really just one small person, and there are certainly others also advocating in my district who are much more knowledgeable about everything that has occurred over the last 10 years. I’m reaching out to you, because of what I’ve read about you, your passions, and your impressive educational and professional background. Do you have any insight or advice for how our grassroots citizens (who understand the need to stand up and “do something”) should proceed between now and the crutial elections this November? Specifically…
* what are the best and most effective ways to get our local community “aware” of these issues? (as many people just find the topic boring, and/or assume no matter who is elected, the “district” is bigger than any one board member)
* assuming we get local voters better educated, what practices result in getting them to ACT (I.e. voting; and potentially across their GOP “party” identifications, if only on this ONE local issue)?
* How do we find, solicit, and promote the best potential “anti-reform” school board candidates for this November’s local election? The “Reform” candidates in previous elections have come across as VERY intelligent, highly educated, and very “successful” people with high level jobs… even I incorrectly “assumed” (in prior elections) that these professional smart people (I.e. an attorney, a rocket scientist etc) would make logical good decisions for our kids and schools. Because they had very professional “day jobs”, and kids in our schools, I guess I assumed lobbyists or outside influences wouldn’t have much effect on them. Now I know each received sizable campaign donations from places like the local GOP party, and LPR sources.
* how can we most effectively raise money for our future candidates, to be able to compete against heavily funded “reform” candidates?
* Is it possible to keep these special interest and even “national” entities out of “our” small local elections?
Thank you for the important work you do. And if I don’t hear back from you, know you have inspired “little people” like me about the crutial importance of public education, and why we can’t treat it as a for-profit commodity.
Most Sincerely,
Amy Smith
Highlands Ranch, CO
Citizen and mom in the Douglas CO School District
YouCanReachAmySmith@gmail.com
PS: these are websites involved local parents and teachers have formed over the last few years…
Involved Douglas County teachers and Citizens…
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dc4publicedu/
SPEAK for DCSD…
https://www.facebook.com/SPEAK-for-DCSD-113649758761679/
Douglas County Parents…
https://www.facebook.com/DouglasCountyParents/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
” (I.e. the F-Time attorney recently hired to work in our school administration). Is it even normal for a previously highly successful school district to have a FT “in-house” attorney as a school district employee?” they like this one to get cronies on a pension plan.
We had a person (with Boston tie/cronies) assigned to a position in Chelmsford/Billerica MA and he was a “no show” just assigned to enroll in the pension benefits. There was an indictment but no one went to jail.
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Knew Douglas County was repressive and YES…a BACKWARDS school distirct, but OY! It is worse than I thought. Thank you for this information, Amy and Diane.
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If this is The Leadership Program of the Rockies she’s talking about it actually looks like an educational scam ITSELF. They charge tuition and pay cable personalities big bucks to speak:
The edu-scams are multiplying! There’s now an educational scam program where graduates then promote educational scams! 🙂
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You have no idea. They were originally called the Republican Leadership Program and changed their name in 1992 to LPR for ‘tax purposes’ (I have a copy of an email from one of their ‘graduates’.
They brag on their website they introduced vouchers as board members (that’s DCSD), and received an award at their annual retreat in 2011 or 12 for doing so. 3/7 current board members, 2 former DCSD BoE Presidents, and, wait for it, the committee for choice (aka vouchers) in 2009-10 contained people from LPR that didn’t live in our district.
I have an infographic of LPR’s influence I put together (before the lawyer was hired) that includes our CURRENT INTERIM SUPERINTENDENT who has no administrators license, opened a charter, and was selected over a career educator and administrator that had support from bi-partisan sides. If you’d like to see it, let me know.
Additionally, Jeb Bush (yep, that one) donated to little ‘ol DCSD BoE candidates in 2013 – all the way from FL. $5k to be exact. EACH. add that to oil magnet Alex Cranberg (Houston, TX) $25k EACH to reform candidates, and 96%+ of their funding came from outside DougCo. For a board of education position. There’s MUCH MORE going on here behind the scenes and has been since 2010. Parents are finally seeing the results instead of the buzz words, and convinced their neighbors and friends to cross party lines to get 3 pro-public ed BoE members on in 2015, but that was the minority. This year, with the majority up, I expect over $1M in dark money to flow in, like it did in Jefferson County – down the road – in 2015.
As reform directors have done for the past 7 years, one that is term limited steps down with about a year to go, so an new LPR grad can take their place. It’s a pattern we’ve called out, but with 70% of the county population without kids in the schools, money matters.
For the replacement this year, 4 finalists were named. Literally the ONLY person the two LPR grads on the majority would consider was the LPR grad that ‘moved in the district’ 5 months prior to his appointment. Each minority board Director offered to give up their first choice for ANY of the other 3. Guess what happened – the President let the state statute run out and used it to appoint the LPR candidate.
DougCo has been a hot bed for activity and testing to vet ALEC legislation – it was DeVos’ified before she even dreamed of buying influence outside of MI.
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Your community has been usurped by the free market libertarians while you were napping and trusting for the best. Now you are going to have to organize and actively fight back. Your school district should be a cautionary tale for other trusting, right leaning suburban districts. Other communities in North Carolina and Massachusetts have fought and beat back the billionaires and corporations that attacked, but it takes a lot of efforts and grassroots outreach including a team that will work tirelessly knocking on doors and holding rallies. You have to mobilize parents that value strong public schools. Corporations and billionaires want to dismantle public schools because they represent democracy, and billionaires will never use public schools. They have no need for them other than to see them as source of revenue and “troublesome” democracy.
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Too many districts with the “best” schools basking in their corner of the frighteningly elitist “high scores” game have been blindly accepting while inner city and much poorer districts have been invaded, abused, harassed, labeled and ultimately dismantled; when you do not stand up adamantly to protect teachers and schools in any district, the lucrative reform game soon comes to you.
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Amy, our SD has a core group of a few moms in every elementary, middle and HS. They stand outside the gates at dismissal with info or petitions. As they’ve gotten to know the parents, their ‘help’ has increased a lot. They also do other ‘kid’ projects like local parks etc. The more they talk, the more they grow.
Please don’t worry about how people self-identify. 80% of the country is in the middle politically. They’ve been taught to vilify the other side. As more and more people wake up, you will find less republicans or democrats because they’re all moving to independents. What I’ve personally seen in our SD is that once the blinders come off re: party affiliation, they’re so angry at being misled that we ALL pull together on similar ‘privatization’ issues like private prisons, private juve’s, private CPS, privatized medicare, parking, etc.
Then true change can happen.
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“Please don’t worry about how people self-identify. 80% of the country is in the middle politically. ”
I find that statement very powerful. As Amy said, she voted for many of the reformers because their bios looked good: they were successful, intelligent, hardworking people. Who would have thought they were out to privatize education? A few years back, I would have found that idea in the class of conspiracy theory and not in a good way. Who in their right mind would want to destroy public education especially in a district where it obviously worked well. I guess we need to look beyond our own political prejudices and focus on the goal/mission.
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what are the best and most effective ways to get our local community “aware” of these issues? (as many people just find the topic boring, and/or assume no matter who is elected, the “district” is bigger than any one board member)
I find that local school policy is of most interest to local parents using the school, also to teachers who live locally. If you can get the largest core of school-involved on your side, you have most of the battle won.
The narrative should be about local interests and values, NOT outside interests and outside profit-making entities.
* assuming we get local voters better educated, what practices result in getting them to ACT (I.e. voting; and potentially across their GOP “party” identifications, if only on this ONE local issue)?
Frame it in terms of what’s best for OUR kids. Parenting is tough, full-time work, but parents have good instincts about what works for their kids, educationally. You can make connections across party lines in that way.
* How do we find, solicit, and promote the best potential “anti-reform” school board candidates for this November’s local election?</i
Try to find involved parent volunteers to run — PTA presidents, band booster leaders. These are volunteers who have a better idea how schools run best, and who will likely have good connections to other families in the community.
* how can we most effectively raise money for our future candidates, to be able to compete against heavily funded “reform” candidates?
You will likely have to rely on a larger pool of volunteers who can give hours of time to campaigning to offset large amounts of outside cash. Volunteers need to get out and talk to voters. You can use the outside cash as a liability for your opponent. You can use the narrative that you have the hearts, minds, and interests of the community whereas your opponent is beholden to outside values and agendas.
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Massachusetts is proof that thousands of. volunteers beat millions of dollars.
See referendum on expanding charter, question 2, 2016. Defeated 68%-32%
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Also it goes without saying, follow school board meetings closely to stay on top of the issues.
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Amy, I think you can do this. NPE can help you build a local network and gather steam.
But after looking at the website of this lself-appointed leadership group and their programming, their heros, and their philosophy I conclude that they are really hostile to everything “public” unless it is titel to their version of Barry Goldwater patriotism.
The readings and the blog posts of at the website express reverence for market-based solutions to everything (Friedman), no handouts, absolutism that the founding fathers (no mothers) had everything right.
This leadership group seems to want your schools to be indoctrination centers. To get there, they have conjured a belief that your schools (all schools in the nation) are undermining their beliefs.
If you cannot reserve time to read their preferred books, try for some online “Cliff notes” and summaries. I think that this will help you get to some of the key talking points you need.
I first heard of Douglas County by way of a cockamamie pay scale for teachers. The school board decisded to pay more for “hard to fill” jobs. It rated the importance of teachers by grade levels and the subjects they taught. Those classifications, with very thin reasoning, became the basis for initial pay and maximums teachers could earn, depending on the job assignment.
After visit the “leadership” website, I can imagine how that group may have pushed for the scheme.
Be aware that privatizing public schools, making them available for indoctrination into ultraconservstive values, can begin with budget issues and claims of inefficient/ineffective spending. Here is a fairly new method working in tandem with more investments in technology and cuts in teacher pay.
Calculations are made on the cost of offering various subjects for various grade levels. The calculators work from an existing budget and take into account (for each grade and subject) the present cost of teacher salaries and benefits, allocations of space, special equipment, time spent teaching and other matters.
Exercises of this kind are intended to eliminate high cost items. In one exerscise for a high school, the cuts would be for advanced placement courses, foreign language instruction, music and art. More bang for the buck can be had by outsourcing some of these subjects to community groups other than schools, putting students into larger classes, increasing the use of online learning and so on. I would not be surprised (nor should you be) if these “leaders” will go for this thinking as one more method for undermining your schools and your community.
http://educationnext.org/breaking-down-school-budgets-2/ 2009
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The website for LfR has a classic libertarian theme – they have a statement about why tax dollars should not support National Public Radio (NPR) etc. — the organization preps individuals to run for office and advocate for this platform.
The board is primarily finance executives — as is the case with the Manhattan Institute, the NYC version.
The questions I suggest you ask out loud:
“Why are these outsiders involved in your SD?”
“Why are all these board members sponsored by the same outside group?”
“Don’t local folks know what is best for your SD?”
The outside the Commonwealth funding of the charter initiative in Mass. really offended people and mobilized residents to fight for their schools.
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Amy, run for the school board! You are passionate and informed, and you can make a positive difference. You have cred.
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The Republican party at this point might as well just call itself the Libertarian Party because that is what it is about now. I feel sorry for the people duped by them. It is not my dad’s party where there were moderates ànd actually some ethical people and their biggest complaint was money spent on the Tse Tse fly or the army buying $500 dollar toilets. Those days are long gone. No the end game now is this weird radical transformation to some Ann Ryand(where does the y go?) society where everything is privatized. So then the Federal government is just the miltary and the leadership – you know like your local third world country. No thanks – I prefer a democracy with a healthy dose of socialism. thanks bernie for normalizing socialism.
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I think libertarianism, in the spirit of Ayn Rand, has a hard time accounting for humans as social beings, that working together as a community can benefit all the individual members. Libertarianism celebrates individualism and abhors the community.
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Ayn Rand; but you reminded me that my Girl Scout leader was trying to get me to rad Ayn Rand when I was 12 or 14 and I refused; but I had to respect her authority at that time . She was angry because her dad was a banker in Boston at the time of FDR so she had a lot of built in negatives when it came to politics . Just as Skinner’s philosopher got translated into all the psychology courses the Ayn Rand “philosophy” became translated into psychology books … this is unfortunate because it ignored other psychological theories that have more substance (e.g., Bruner made sure that Vygotsky got translated from the Russian to English because that psychological frame of reference was missing in the Pavlov/Skinner tradition.) We still see evidence in the schools from this over-stressing on Skiiner/Pavlov and Ayn Rand fits in there.
Ann Ryand(where does the y go?)
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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I just sent this message to Ms. Smith, using the email in the post. In case that doesn’t work, I’ll reprint it here:
Hello Ms. Smith,
I’m writing because of the letter you sent to Diane Ravitch, who posted it on her blog. I don’t know if this email address works, but just in case it does:
I completely understand how frustrating it can be to fight against the kind of forces you describe. In my state, the larger fight is usually at the state level in the Legislature, but battles in local school districts are not uncommon.
One of the things we do is help local parent groups organize, educate their members about how schools function and the problems they face, and help them be effective advocates for their children’s school at the local and state level.
The first thing I would say is that you need to stake out an identity that is non-partisan and moderate. No matter how you or your allies may feel, it’s important not to scare off potential members by looking as if you are simply a front for some organization they have been told is only interested in money and not kids. It used to be that basic support for quality, locally governed public education was something the two main political parties had in common. I still think that can be the case, and that’s what motivates our own efforts to stay non-partisan and work with anyone who shares our values about education.
Second, since you have a few months before the November elections, this is exactly the time to start organizing. Whether you run for school board yourself, or recruit someone to do so, this is the time to start refining your message and building grassroots support. I don’t know how large your district is or how school board campaigns are traditionally run, but you don’t necessarily need a lot of money to run a strong campaign. Usually, groups that have to spend a lot of money do so because they don’t really have local support but need to look like they do. In contrast, a group such as yours can use volunteer time and effort in place of money. The last few elections have clearly shown that going door-to-door, in areas where you are likely to find supportive or at least open-minded people, can be more powerful than advertising buys and expensive mailers that just get recycled. It matters to people that someone will actually come to talk to them, hear their concerns and take them seriously. It’s even more powerful when the candidate him/herself can do that, but well-briefed volunteers who can speak convincingly about the candidate’s values and ideas work nearly as well.
You need to pull together a coalition, preferably across parties and from different segments of the community. Business leaders, teachers, parent groups, and so on. You can do this by articulating what you believe your schools should be offering your community. The critical first step is to lay out your values with regard to education: lift every child to their potential; prepare children to be productive members of the community; offer a broad-based education that can benefit students no matter where they go in life; and so on. It has to reflect what you and your group really believe, expressed in a way that other parents will hear and feel themselves agreeing.
Then, you need to identify some concrete things the current board has done which undermine or otherwise do not support your community’s values. I’m sure the reformer groups have a nice narrative to explain what they have done, but you need to develop your own to explain why their policies are actually not in the best interest of your community’s children. It also helps to have some sort of alternative idea, so that you are not seen as simply being negative.
You’ll need to focus your message for different groups: Since it sounds like the school district has been running into trouble both financially and in terms of academic results, you can argue that the board’s current policies are undermining the attractiveness of the community and property values. (That’s for the employers and those who don’t have children in the schools.)
For current parents, your group needs to point out the things that have changed in your schools and how that has not benefitted students. Whether it’s teacher turnover, narrowing of programs, cutbacks in materials, etc, it’s important to link the board’s actions to concrete impacts on your schools which have eroded the quality of education. You need to talk about them from the perspective (frame) of your basic values, so that parents intuitively get why these policies were not constructive.
Lastly, many people, regardless of their political view, don’t like the idea of outsiders taking power and undermining local control. Try to identify current board members with the agenda of outside groups. Explain how those groups do not align with your community’s values. Underline that they are more interested in making things look a certain way than in actually helping children.
Even if you do not put forward a candidate, this kind of messaging effort can help bring together important parts of the community and send a message to current board members. People who have been active in support of their schools through their parent organizations, or who have worked to help pass school bonds and the like, can be your strong early core group. The PTAs and PTOs themselves will likely be shy about advocacy, but you can look to their leaders for potential allies. You need people who are known in their local school communities and can spread your message among people who respect them. You can involve teachers, especially those who are currently parents in the district, as long as you stay distinct from any union efforts. (The unions may be your allies, but you want to ensure you have a separate identity.)
I think this message is long enough, but it probably just touches the surface. If there is anything we can do to help, please let me know. I know several local parent group leaders who have successfully organized to support schools even in relatively conservative communities, and they may be able to offer more advice.
Right now, if you and parents like you don’t stand up for your schools, no one will. It’s not just your children, but the next generation of children who will be affected, along with your whole community. It’s not an easy road, by any means, but it matters so much.
Best of luck!
Steve Norton
Michigan Parents for Schools
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