Nancy Kaffer, writing for the Detroit Free Press, assesses the failure of School Choice in Detroit.
Charters, like public schools, underfunded. Large classes. Teacher shortage.
Well, the good news for billionaires is that their taxes stay low instead of funding good schools for all students.
In Chicago, 1,000 teachers from 32 charter schools voted to join the nation’s most militant teachers union, the CTU. There are 125 charter schools in Chicago, according to CPS data.
“Unionized teachers at Chicago’s charter schools are one step closer to unifying with their counterparts in the city’s public school district, a historic move that would strengthen opposition to austerity and neoliberal education reform.
“Last week, members of the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (ChiACTS)—the American Federation of Teachers local representing about 1,000 educators at 32 charter schools—voted to merge their local with the nearly 30,000-member Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).
“The unification vote passed with the approval of 84 percent of voting members, ChiACTS said. Before the merger can move forward, CTU members will also have to vote on the measure this fall.
“Our overwhelming vote for unity affirms that charter educators are educators first, and servants of the public with a shared commitment to the futures of our students across the city,” ChiACTS president Chris Baehrend told In These Times.”
Charter lobbyists attempted to dissuade ChiACTS members from approving the merger by describing the CTU as “anti-charter school.” But union leaders dispute this characterization.
“CTU has been very clear that they do not have a problem with our schools. They have a problem with the charter model of public school management,” Baehrend told In These Times….
“Though CTU undoubtedly opposes the expansion of charter schools, as demonstrated by the union’s successful effort to win a moratorium on the opening of new charters last fall, Baehrend said ChiACTS shares this goal.
“Charter proliferation does not help the charter schools that already exist. It actually spreads the pot of money more thinly,” he explained. “We’ve been seeing the nasty effects of it lately. This year, we’ve had budget cuts, layoffs and enrollment decline in the majority of the schools we represent.”
This raises many interesting questions. The major funders of charter schools are militantly anti-union (the Walton Family Foundation). More than 90% of charters are non-union. The business model of charters relies on a constant turnover of young teachers who don’t stay long enough to expect a higher salary or a pension. While it is satisfying to see charter teachers demand a fair contract and the right to bargain collectively, it is important to remember that the reason every Republican governor and so many rightwing philanthropies support charters is that they see them as weapons to bust unions. Can the unionization of charters in Chicago change the anti-union purpose of charter schools?
At a public comment session of the Denver school board, Kate Burnite, a student who had just graduated from DPS, scolded the entire Denver school board for taking dark money from the Koch brothers, DFER, and other outside groups who love charters. All seven board members were funded by corporate outsiders.
Kate called upon the board to represent the people of Denver, not the big money that funded their campaigns.
She is well-informed and fearless. Watch the proceedings. Find Kate’s 2 minute speech at two hours into the proceedings.
Or you can see it on Facebook here:
Also be sure to watch the mother at one hour and 40 minutes into the livestream, who asks why the board closed Gilpin, which she described as the best integrated school in Denver, where test scores were on the rise.
All over the country, PBS stations are showing anti-public school propaganda in a three-hour series called “School Inc.” This series was paid for by libertarian foundations who want for-profit schools, vouchers, charters, and for-profit teachers, competing for students. The lead funder is the Rose-Mary and Jack Anderson Foundation, which supports radical libertarian causes and acts as a funnel for Donors Trust, which bundles money from the Koch brothers and DeVos family for their favorite causes.
PBS emendation accepting money for the series, which has no opposing views and which was never fact-checked, because it likes to show divergent views.
Really?
Would PBS accept funding to run a three-hour program that was opposed to abortion rights? That argued that homosexuality was a sin? That attempted to prove that climate change was a hoax? That insisted that the Sandy Hook massacre of children and staff never happened? That defended Confederate flags and monuments in public space?
The Network for Public Education encourages you to write an email or call your PBS station. Apparently, some local stations watched the series and decided not to show it. Most, however, are running it without any rebuttal.
Here is my rebuttal, which was seen only in New York City.
Here is my written commentary.
The irony is that these foundations do not believe in public education or public television.
Jane Mayer, author of “Dark Money” and other exposes of the power of big money, wrote an article In 2013 for the New Yorker about the difficulty that NYC’s PBS station encountered when it agreed to run a documentary that focused on David Koch and other super-rich who live in a luxury high rise apartment building on Park Avenue.
PBS gets so little public funding that it depends on the gifts from fabulously wealthy people. Can PBS afford to bite the hand that funds it?
“Park Avenue” includes a multifaceted portrait of the Koch brothers, telling the history of their family company and chronicling their many donations to universities and think tanks. It features comments from allies like Tim Phillips, the president of the Kochs’ main advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, and from activists in the Tea Party, including Representative Michele Bachmann, of Minnesota, who share the Kochs’ opposition to high taxes and regulation. (It also contains a few quotes from me; in 2010, I wrote an article about the Kochs for this magazine, noting that they were funding much of the opposition to President Barack Obama by quietly subsidizing an array of advocacy groups.)”
“A large part of the film, however, subjects the Kochs to tough scrutiny. “Nobody’s money talks louder than David Koch’s,” the narrator, Gibney, says, describing him as a “right-wing oil tycoon” whose company had to pay what was then “the largest civil penalty in the E.P.A.’s history” for its role in more than thirty oil spills in 2000. At one point, a former doorman—his face shrouded in shadow, to preserve his anonymity—says that when he “started at 740” his assumption was that “come around to Christmastime I’m going to get a thousand from each resident. You know, because they are multibillionaires. But it’s not that way.” He continues, “These guys are businessmen. They know what the going rate is—they’re not going to give you anything more than that. The cheapest person over all was David Koch. We would load up his trucks—two vans, usually—every weekend, for the Hamptons . . . multiple guys, in and out, in and out, heavy bags. We would never get a tip from Mr. Koch. We would never get a smile from Mr. Koch. Fifty-dollar check for Christmas, too—yeah, I mean, a check! At least you could give us cash.”
“For decades, federal funding for public broadcasting has been dwindling, and the government’s contribution now makes up only twelve per cent of PBS’s funds. Affiliates such as WNET are almost entirely dependent on gifts, some of which are sizable: in 2010, WNET received fifteen million dollars from James Tisch, the C.E.O. of Loews Corporation, and his wife, Merryl. (James Tisch is now the chairman of WNET’s board.) In New York City, such benefactors inevitably live in lavish buildings. Indeed, several relatives of WNET board members live at 740 Park.”
Betsy DeVos will scale back civil rights enforcement by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights because they take too much time.
“The Department of Education is scaling back investigations into civil rights violations at the nation’s public schools and universities, easing off mandates imposed by the Obama administration that the new leadership says have bogged down the agency.
“According to an internal memo issued by Candice E. Jackson, the acting head of the department’s office for civil rights, requirements that investigators broaden their inquiries to identify systemic issues and whole classes of victims will be scaled back. Also, regional offices will no longer be required to alert department officials in Washington of all highly sensitive complaints on issues such as the disproportionate disciplining of minority students and the mishandling of sexual assaults on college campuses.
“The new directives are the first steps taken under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to reshape her agency’s approach to civil rights enforcement, which was bolstered while President Barack Obama was in office. The efforts during Mr. Obama’s administration resulted in far-reaching investigations and resolutions that required schools and colleges to overhaul policies addressing a number of civil rights concerns.
“That approach sent complaints soaring, and the civil rights office found itself understaffed and struggling to meet the department’s stated goal of closing cases within 180 days.
The office’s processing times have “skyrocketed,” the Education Department spokeswoman, Liz Hill, said, adding that its backlog of cases has “exploded.” The new guidelines were to ensure that “every individual complainant gets the care and attention they deserve,” she said.”
Of course, the ED has $1 million a month for DeVos’s Security detail. Money well-spent, in her eyes.
A year or two after the horrific massacre of children, teachers, and the principal of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, I began getting comments on the blog asserting that there was no massacre. I blocked those comments but I went to the link and watched the video that supposedly “proved” their claim. The video was disgusting. It purported to show fathers laughing until the TV cameras came on. It showed one of the children sitting on President Obama’s lap. Etc.
Why this elaborate effort to “prove” Sandy Hook was a hoax? President Obama, they said, wanted to manufacture this hoax to promote gun control.
This article in the Washington Post was written by a mother of a six-year-old who died at the school.
She is angry that Megan Kelly is interviewing the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has spread the Sandy Hook hoax far and wide on his radio show. One of his most devoted listeners is Donald Trump.
Megyn Kelly is no fool. I hope she shows what a vicious, ignorant, vile man this Alex Jones is. How unthinkable to exploit the tragedies of the families of Newtown.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association rejected the for-profit promotion of Depersonalized Learning! MTA delegates also adopted a resolution calling for full funding of public schools.
Massachusetts is the highest performing state in the nation on NAEP tests, yet the rightwingers on the state board keep trying to shove corporate reform on their successful public schools and teachers.
Thank you, MTA and your valiant leader, Barbara Madeloni.
Madeloni wrote the following to the MTA membership:
“The Annual Meeting of Delegates, which is the highest decision-making body in the MTA, convened on May 19 and 20 to discuss, debate and vote on policy. In this e-mail, I highlight several of the New Business Items that were approved by the delegates. You can read all of those NBIs here in the members’ area of the MTA website. (First-time users will need the number on their MTA membership cards to log in.) The votes of the Annual Meeting delegates reinforce the membership’s commitment to defending public education and building union power to bring about the schools our communities deserve.
“Personalized Learning: The New Threat to Public Education
NBIs #6, #12 and #13 address the threat posed by the state’s promotion of computer-based “personalized learning” strategies, including one through a program called MAPLE/LearnLaunch. This overview is long, but well worth watching. It explains the real dangers of handing over our schools and students to corporate education technology entities.
“Teaching and learning are deeply human activities. We cannot let ed tech companies depersonalize learning or make education a technocratic endeavor. We must assert the centrality of face-to-face relationships – community – and our professional knowledge and autonomy as essential to public education.
“NBI #6 asserts that the MTA opposes DESE’s MAPLE/LearnLaunch partnership and calls for the MTA to create a web page to “share strategies to combat the harmful effects of unvalidated ed tech products on our students, and to defend teachers’ professional judgment and standards against interference by business interests.”
“NBI #12 calls for a web page dedicated to informing members about the threat to public education posed by privatization, including but not limited to personalized learning programs. This connects to our existing page on State Takeovers/Privatization and encompasses the many forms that privatization is taking in preK-12 and higher education. (Important note: The current page includes a link to a form where members in Level 4 and 5 schools are asked to report on their experiences. Please take a few minutes to fill this out if you are in one of those schools.)
“NBI #13 calls for the MTA to update its 2016 report, Threat to Public Education Now Centers on Massachusetts, to include a section on corporate support for personalized learning.
“Hold the Commonwealth Accountable: Fully Fund Our Public Schools
“NBIs #9 and #10 call for the MTA to prepare to file a lawsuit against the governor and Legislature if they fail to address the school funding shortfall identified by the nonpartisan Foundation Budget Review Commission. The commission determined that public schools are underfunded by at least $1 billion a year. NBI #10 says that in the event a lawsuit must be filed, it should seek to end the state’s punitive accountability system until and unless the schools are fully funded. Moved by retiring Springfield Education Association President Tim Collins, these two NBIs represent one way the MTA is responding to the failure of the Commonwealth to abide by its Constitution and “cherish” our public schools.
“On a related note, the City of Brockton recently set aside $100,000 toward funding a similar education lawsuit, and officials in Worcester are also discussing the issue.”
Indiana has been taken over by the forces of corporate school reform, under a succession of Republican governors devoted to school choice: Mitch Daniels, Mike Pence, now Eric Holcomb. The public schools got a brief respite when educator Glenda Ritz was elected State Commissioner in 2012, but Pence spent four years attacking her Office and taking away its powers. Indiana has the gamut of privatization reforms: charter schools, vouchers, cybercharters.
The epicenter of the privatization movement is Indianapolis, where an organization called The Mind Trust has led the effort to destroy public education.
A teacher in Indiana recently left a comment about what she encountered when she returned to teaching in the public schools: lessons learned from charters.
She writes:
“I believe this “hypernormalization” can be traced back to the use of TFA teachers in our public school system. I had to come out of retirement to go back to the classroom for economic reasons and found an Art teacher position in the Indianapolis Public Schools. I joined a staff of over 50 teachers in a K-6 school with mostly young teachers (less than 10 years experience), TFA teachers, administrators with NO teaching experience and no teacher’s license, and a building with a high needs student population that was in complete chaos. The principal and assistant principal were only concerned only with “creating classroom culture,” or making sure that all the students walked in straight lines with a bubble in their mouth, hands clasped behind their backs. Data collection and testing was the driving force behind everything and it was of utmost importance to point out to any staff member their “numbers” to make sure the customers (parents) would be happy. With all of the emphasis on the outcome and none on actual learning, the building was reduced to violent fights and constant behavior disruption as evidence by the 12 staff members that were dedicated to behavior remediation. When I made comments or brought up ideas about changing the way behavior was addressed, or looking into more emphasis on learning and less on data collection I was regarded as a horrible relic from the past that had no idea how to teach in today’s public schools. I was force fed TFA propaganda, pummeled with articles about data from pro-TFA researchers, and forced to watch videos on the TFA Youtube channel to bring my thinking into the same place as the inexperienced teachers and administrators that demonstrated they knew nothing about how public schools work. As a teacher of over 30 years, with all kinds of recognition and accolades for excellence, I am regarded as an out of step relic who can’t possibly know what I am doing.
“TFA is like a virus that has infected the teaching profession and is slowly killing education. The sad part is that TFA’s philosophy is solidly grounded in the IPS school system, and I don’t see it changing with our GOP led state legislature imposing their micro management of IPS and other large urban school systems in Indiana; and I see the same thing happening in Florida, Ohio and many of the other super-reformy states.
“If any of us have any hope of stopping the normalization of what isn’t normal for learning, then we need to identify the sources such as TFA and end their participation in public education.”
Jan Resseger, the great social justice advocate based in Ohio, reviewed the origins of Andrew Coulson’s “School Inc.” now airing on PBS.
Resseger points out that the film was produced by “Free to Choose Media,” a libertarian group known for its production of Milton Friedman’s 10-part series based on his book of the same name.
“On his blog The Grade, on the website of the Phi Delta Kappan, Alexander Russo printed a very thoughtful review of School Inc. by Amy Shuffleton, Associate Professor of Cultural and Educational Policy Studies at Loyola University Chicago. She writes: “Two major premises, that education is best categorized as an industry and that industry is best subjected to unfettered free market forces, are maintained throughout. The upside of this approach is that those premises give the series a strong through line as it builds its argument across three hour-long, globe-trekking episodes. The downside is that the series never considers countervailing accounts of education and presents only strawman versions of the evidence that challenges his (Andrew Coulson’s) ideals… Supporters of traditional public schooling can find grounds to quarrel with Coulson’s interpretations all the way through.”
Who, besides Andrew Coulson and the Cato Institute, were involved in producing this film? Shuffleton explains: “School Inc was produced by Free to Choose Media. According to a Free to Choose spokesperson, it was created by Coulson, who raised the funding necessary to make it… Free to Choose network shares a name with its first production, the 10-part series by economist Milton Friedman that aired on PBS in 1980. Friedman, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, argued that free market economic principles are the basis of human freedom and wellbeing. Friedman’s neoliberal followers have opposed government regulations in a host of domains, including education.” The foundation now called EdChoice, which promotes the privatization of public education, was formerly named the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice….
If you google for reviews of the three-part School Inc., you will find several besides the column I have referenced here by Amy Shuffleton at The Grade. The other reviews were part of the promotion of the film—from the Cato Institute, Free To Choose Media, the National Review, and the Civitas Institute, a far-right North Carolina “think tank” affiliated with Art Pope.
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