Over the vociferous opposition of parents and educators, the Kentucky state senate voted to authorize charters in the state, thus opening it up to exploitation by entrepreneurs, out-of-state corporations, and hucksters.
The threat to public schools could not be clearer, as the state senate voted 23-15 to betray their constituents and go with the big money backing private management of charter schools that have no track record of improving student achievement.
The Republican governor Matt Bevin is a Republican free-markets ideologue, so he will of course sign the legislation.
Parents will have to continue the fight to preserve their communities and public schools from the privatization vultures.
The new charters will be required to have certified teachers, which the so-called reformers said was an intolerable burden that would prevent innovation, like having untrained teachers in the classroom. The reformers’ idea of innovation sounds amazingly like the schools of the 19th century–unregulated schools with no certified teachers.
But reformers got what they wanted: charters and money. They are looking out for adult interests, not for families, kids or communities.
The bill allows for school boards and only the mayors of Louisville and Lexington to approve charter schools in those districts or cities. Earlier in the day, the Senate Education Committee added language saying charter school teachers must be a qualified teacher and that students will not be able to go to a charter school across county lines unless a regional charter is created.
The changes also require mayors to provide written notice saying they want to be an authorizer of charters and clarified that only the mayor of Louisville would be able to authorize charter schools in Jefferson County, as opposed to mayors from the county’s smaller cities.
After passing the full Senate amid criticism from Democrats on how charter schools would be funded, Republican senators fought back and filed an amendment to an unrelated House budget bill — House Bill 471 — which seeks to transfer federal funds and state money to cover the costs of students who move to charter schools.
Sen. Ray Jones, D-Pikeville, was furious at the move, saying “this is one of the worst things I have seen happen to public education in my lifetime.”
There’s Con-stituents and there’s Pro-stituents —
the Pros knows what fellows feather their beds.
presumably that’s an abriefiation of “prostitutuents”
(Man was it ever difficult to get the self correct to accept that word. But, luckily, next time it will be much easier)
I ❤️ it when somebody actually gets one of these.
These folks voted for him. Now they’ll have to deal with the consequences.
So I think Trump supporters start seeing the consequences of their votes. Many in Kentucky will say “What have I done?”, and many millions more will say the same when they lose their health insurance. They don’t listen to arguments (which I think is the case with most voters), but they will see the light as they face the facts.
Surely SOME will figure this out? But while many Trump voters may suspect that they have been made fools, it is likely that the majority will keep turning on the voices of the far-right — daily endless doses of Fox news and AM radio talk shows telling them that no matter the actual outcome of Trump’s actions, it will never, ever, be because of Trump. Blame, blame, blame while drug abuse clinics are shut down and birth control access is denied; blame, blame, blame while local schools are closed and the voucher game doesn’t pay enough to get Janey and Jimmy into a private school; blame, blame, blame while the air and water become polluted, the storms get bigger and FEMA has been discontinued…
Sad. They’re going backwards.Kentucky had one of the best education policy environments in the country throughout the 1990’s. They started progressive changes in their laws & policy at the elementary level such as low class sizes, no grades for early elementary & expanded pre-k, & others. They are such a poor state that it was a struggle to fund many initiatives but they were headed in the right direction, until now.
Speaking of backwards, the DNC under Perez isn’t moving in a direction of pro-public education. He has appointed most of the same cast of characters who back education privatization. Some of the most worrisome are DeRay McKesson (TFA star) who always found a camera crew to film his arrests at BLM protests. Jennifer Granholm education policies are indistinguishable from Arne’s.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/new-chairman-begins-remake-democratic-national-committee-n734001
I don’t know how it is possible to stop the Charter Express Train if parents keep enrolling their kids in charter schools. The evidence of charter corruption and failure does not sem to resinate with the general population. How many more years of flat or falling PSEA scores will it take?
Bmarshall,
The choice crowd no longer claims that their schools will get higher scores because there is no evidence to support the claim. At least they noticed.
Now they advocate choice just for the sake of choice. Choice is good because it is good.
Some parents confuse charters with magnet schools. Some working parents enroll their children in whichever school is closest to home and have no idea of the differences. Also, if some white parents want a majority white school, some charters have white attendace boundaries.
cros-poste at OpEd news https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Kentucky-Legislators-Capit-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Budget_Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Corporations-170317-260.html#comment650435
with 2 comments taken from posts here at Diane’s amazing blog!
Comment 1
The Washington Post has some of the details of the DeVos-Trump budget for the U.S. Department of Education. It is a bloodbath for public schools and teacher education, and a bonanza for school choice and privatization
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trump-seeks-to-slash-education-department-but-make-big-push-for-school-choice/2017/03/15/63b8b6f8-09a1-11e7-b77c-0047d15a24e0_story.html?utm_term=.244ff74dce2d.
AND CHOICE HERE, like in the Health-care GOP lingo is an Orwellian word for NO choice !
As Rolling Stone puts it “The downside of this, as became clear in public-school systems across the country, is charter schools and voucher programs entice parents with the promise of more “options,” while weeding out the children that neither charters nor private schools have the capacity to educate. Many parents have opted for “choice,” only to be turned away. This is particularly acute with regard to kids with behavioral issues like attention-deficit disorder. “The words are ‘Your child may be better served elsewhere,'”” says one Michigan legislator.”
“If there’s a kid on the corner without a coat, the city will rally behind him and there’ll be hundreds of coats donated,” Ross says. “But very rarely does anybody take the time to ask, ‘Why doesn’t he have a coat?'””
Now THAT is a question!
See my series on Legislative take-overs using information thatDiane Ravitch provides about the state legislatures which are taking over the local schools, with nary an educator on board, and giving them to charters, with not a shred of oversight!
https://www.opednews.com/Series/legislature-and-governorsL-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150217-816.html
OR read her piece on the A Slick Campaign for Privatization privatization,,
https://dianeravitch.net/?s=PRIVITIZATION
Here is a link to Diane’s posts on charter school corruption https://dianeravitch.net/?s=corruption.
My comment 2-
Everyday, another state hands over our schools, the ONLY ROAD TO INCOME EQUALITY, to privateers, spinning this outrage in the Orwellian manner, calling this end of real public education “choice”.
When Health care was privatized, we saw how ‘choice’ worked for the insurance companies but not for the people.
Scholars Preston C. Green III, Bruce D. Baker, and Joseph Oluwole investigate whether the charter industry is repeating the errors of Enron.Their peer-reviewed article appears in the Indiana Law Journal. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2924886