Jeannie Kaplan was an elected school board member in Denver for two terms. She has watched the complete takeover of the corporate reform movement with a sense of shock, dismay, alarm. Vast sums of money are expended at each local school board election to keep the privatizers in control.
For the moment, Denver is the darling of the corporate reformers. It has choice. Charter schools. Teach for America. High-stakes testing. Common Core standards. A non-union workforce in new schools. Alternative teachers and alternative leaders. It has everything that reformers want.
Except results.
Study after study hails the Denver reforms.
But by every measure, Denver students are not getting a better education. Segregation is growing. The curriculum is narrowing.
Reform is succeeding but the students are not.
Churn, churn, churn=stagnation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“SUPPOSED Reform is succeeding but the students are not.”
We should always qualify the term “reform” as used by the edudeformers with an appropriate adjective/adverb such as so-called, supposed(ly), alleged(ly), dubious(ly), questionable, suspect, specious, etc. . . .
Even when quoting such as Betsy DeVos says that “these [dubious] reforms. . . ” The [. . .] is a well known means to inject truth into the edudeformers twisted statements.
Oh, it doesn’t matter anyway. Denver’s complete capitulation to ed reform wasn’t enough.
DeVos bashes Denver, probably because there are still public schools there.
They won’t be happy until every public school is shuttered, teachers unions are eradicated (actually ANY union is eradicated) and every child has a “backpack voucher”.
The idea that one can compromise with zealots is misguided. They’ll push “choice” in Denver until the last public school closes.
Here’s an ed reform piece about our “choices” on reform.
“In Detroit, the school district responded to charter growth by bankrupting itself. It lost enrollment, took on debt, and continued its academic and operational dysfunction.
“In failing to respond productively to charter growth, the district hurt students and cost taxpayers nearly a billion dollars.”
They have to explain why the DeVos, Duncan, Broad charter plan in Detroit failed and so they blame it on the public school system.
Ed reform can’t fail, it can only BE failed! Their ideas and execution are perfect- it’s just that the pesky public schools keep getting in the way of their innovative genius!
https://relinquishment.org/2017/03/27/charters-growing-in-your-city-you-have-5-options-for-childrens-sake-choose-wisely/
Public schools are an inconvenience to these people. A barrier to be bulldozed while they pursue their vision of privatized education. They’ll grudgingly allow that some schools have to stay open during the transition, but don’t expect anything more!
We’re lucky they’re allowing our schools to exist. It’s very generous of them.
DeVos praised Denver one day for Choice, criticized it another day for not offering vouchers. Once you open the door to Choice, it is difficult to stop it. Unfortunately, in many ways vouchers are the logical conclusion of choice and privatization. Privatizers might have thought about that before they started down this road. Bottom line: in Denver 3/4 of our families don’t even participate in choice. Most of those want great neighborhood schools, which differs from “reformers” great schools in every neighborhood.
This is an amazing analysis and indictment of the reformist “success” after a decade (actually more) of interference and micromanaging efforts. I don’t know much about Denver except that it was an early captive of the nonsense of William Slotnick, hired by the Broad and a couple of other foundations to conduct a do-over of teaching with pay for performance at the center determined by the totally invalid SLO.
Randi should be asked to comment on the situation in Denver because I remember her bragging about the role she played in the original breakthrough agreement that started them on this path. #collaborationdoesntwork.
AND, after all that she has been done to help abuse teachers, students and our nation’s poorest schools, she KEPT HER JOB. This says volumes about why we have ended up where we are.
So-called “Reformers” have different measures of success than those of us who value equity, democracy, and justice. For them, the spread of privatization is an end in and of itself. They are so sure of their ideology that evidence of better education for all students is not necessary. At best, segregation does not matter to them. At worst, for some, it is a desirable outcome. Most have abandoned the idea of systemic reform. Their goal is to save a few. If you have different values, you have different goals, choose different strategies, and apparently count different results as evidence of success.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
I fear you are right. And most of the “reformers” come from a private school background, where their parents made a CHOICE for them…private school, not public school which then leads to no appreciation for a) public education, and b) the public school as the heart of the community. Is there any way to combat this fast moving train in Denver? We would welcome your thoughts!
“And most of the “reformers” come from. . . ”
Help us Jeannie! You forgot the “alleged”, or “so-called” or “specious” before “reformers”.
We really do need to start telling it like it is and not use the edudeformers false language.
A short response to a really big question: Jeannie, I think you’ve asked the essential question, we are all struggling with. But, I think the answer lies not just in thinking about turning back the tide. We must, of course, resist. So efforts such as, Opt Out to resist testing are essential. However, my thinking is that conservatives are advancing their agenda because they are winning the values and ideas war. We need to fight back with ideas and strategies that make more sense to people, not defensively, but offensively.
We need to come up with better solutions to improve education for more kids that resonate with people’s core values. I’ve tried to do that across many articles, including the last: Don’t Be Fooled: Public is Better.
I know this is far from a sufficient answer. We need to search together for what I think is the sweet spot between the pro-social values many folks hold in common and how they their current self-interest.
Compounding the matter is the fact that, even by their own debased metrics of high stakes tests, virtually all of these schools are failures for everyone except for the few adults (certainly not teachers) making big money.
If the criminal justice was not so tilted toward punishing the poor and workers, and looking the other way at systemic looting by the Overclass, these people would all be subject to the RICO statutes.
So-called education reform, looked at objectively, is racketeering.
“So-called ‘Reformers’. . . ”
A big smiley face LIKE!!
I have frequently been thinking about the challenge you raise – how can we present a positive alternative offensively? Denver offers unique challenges in many cases.
Opting Out has never been as strong as one would have hoped for several reasons:
Many parents do not wish to cross their schools’ leaders who push the importance of taking the test; schools are punished in the school ratings; schools can be closed for low participation resulting from lower participation rates; because DPS has a bonus pay system, teachers and principals lose money for low participation/scores.
I couldn’t find the piece you referenced, “Don’t be Fooled…” but I did find good strategies in “The Winning Democratic Alternative…”
http://www.arthurcamins.com/?p=448
We have fallen behind in the war of words and in the public relations battle.
Reform, choice, charters, accountability, great neighborhood schools, all sound good to those who want to believe their public school system really does have the children’s best interest at heart.
We have fallen behind in educating the public, a very difficult task with little money and little means to spread the truth.
That being said we have to figure this out, as you well know. Equity is declining, segregation is increasing, class sizes in traditional schools in Denver at least are skyrocketing, teacher churn is staggering (DPS had 22% turnover in one year, the most in the state), and supports of all kinds are declining.
What is our antidote to so-called reform? How do we get it to catch on? How do we implement it?
Jeannie,
Here is the “Don’t Be Fooled” Link: https://goo.gl/ynLz9o
Thanks,
Arthur
Amen. Where is that America? Beyond sad.