Christine Langhoff, retired educator, wrote the following information about the corporate reform assault on Boston Public Schools. Voters overwhelmingly rejected expansion of charter school, but the privatization movement is never dissuaded by public opposition. They think democracy is the problem and have no qualms about ignoring the will of the people when it conflicts with their ambition.
Langhoff writes:
Last week, this rather odd Tweet appeared from the Boston Public Schools Twitter account:
The language about “choice” made me remember that NPR featured this article about how “coaches” are helping parents choose schools for their children.
Of course, most BPS parents don’t have money for this sort of help. No worries! There’s an edu-business non-profit for that: EdNavigator https://www.ednavigator.com
And they’re coming to Boston! After a successful run in – New Orleans?
So who is behind EdNavigator? The “leadership” page shows a bunch of folks from TNTP and some KIPPsters
https://www.ednavigator.com/who-we-are/leadership
And the Board of Directors is full of a bunch more charteristas, including Chris Stewart, aka @CitizenStewart, as Director of Outreach and External Affairs:
https://www.ednavigator.com/who-we-are/board-of-directors
Their partners page shows many hotels, i.e. low income workers. Remember that the Pritzker hedge fund family of Chicago own Hyatt Hotels :
https://www.ednavigator.com/who-we-are/our-partners
The plan is to offer school choice counseling as a “benefit” to low income workers and by developing this “trust” in their workers, the public school system is supplanted as the knowledgeable entity on education.
“Our Navigators combine expert knowledge of schools with a deep understanding of our communities. Most are accomplished former teachers, school leaders, or counselors, and all have passed a background check, received privacy training and adhere to a strict code of confidentiality.
They’re like pediatricians for your educational health, and they’re always ready to answer questions, troubleshoot problems, and get things done. In a recent survey, 95 percent of EdNavigator members said that their Navigator is “the person I trust most for information and advice about education issues.”
https://www.ednavigator.com/how-we-help
Here in Boston, EdNavigator goes by the name of Boston School Finder
https://www.bostonschoolfinder.org/about
About Boston School Finder
“Boston School Finder is being developed and distributed by a committed and diverse team of Parent Ambassadors supported by local non-profits. These parents and guardians represent nearly all the neighborhoods of Boston, and enroll their children in BPS, charter, Catholic, and private schools.
Funding for Boston School Finder was provided through the Boston Schools Fund and the Barr Foundation, two local non-profit organizations. Web design and development was provided by a team of volunteers who work at Wayfair, a Boston-based e-commerce company specializing in home goods.
Many other organizations, including the City of Boston, Boston Public Schools, the Boston Charter Alliance, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and community organizations from all around the city are providing guidance and input on the site.”
They’ve hired “Parent Ambassadors”
https://www.bostonschoolfinder.org/about/contact
And have detailed information about enrollment for public, private, charter and religious schools
https://www.bostonschoolfinder.org/about/enrollment
Since November 29, some pages for the website have been removed, but here’s some of the information that has gone missing:
2017 Barrr Foundation grants:
Ed Navigator Inc.
To support the EdNavigator expansion to Boston.
• Year Awarded: 2017
• Amount: $500,000
• Term: 24 months
• Program: Education
Boston Schools Fund Inc. To support the development and implementation of the Boston School Finder Family Information Tool.
• Year Awarded: 2017
• Amount: $300,000
Term: 12 months
The Barr Foundation is also a champion of Unified Enrollment, which in turn is part of CRPE’s Gates Compact, all of which will have a detrimental effect on Boston’s public schools.
http://www.bostonschoolsfund.org/boston-compact/
Also in the missing link from November 29, was this list of Board members
PRESIDENT WILLIAM F. AUSTIN
TREASURER WILLIAM F. AUSTIN
CLERK JILL SHAH
DIRECTOR WILLIAM F. AUSTIN
DIRECTOR JILL SHAH
DIRECTOR KATHRYN EVERETT
Austin taught math at Roxbury Prep, which is the charter where John King was a founding teacher before he moved on to New York state and then to replace Arne Duncan. (It is also the school with the persistently highest suspension rate in the state of Massachusetts.) Austin has overseen its four-campus expansion. Shah and her husband own the on-line furniture store Wayfair; her husband is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank.
On Tuesday, Austin confirmed to a member of the Boston Teachers Union that the above is accurate.
So, charteristas and billionaires. Color me skeptical that these organizations are well suited to helping Boston parents choose public schools for their children. It seems, too, that the parents most likely to utilize the bostonschoolfinder.org website are the best educated and most advantaged to begin with.
The Boston City Council held a hearing on Tuesday evening, December 5, which I attended, with the purpose of getting this information on the record. The hearing was on the school assignment process, which has been a colossal boondoggle, featuring algorithms written by MIT students. The current plan was enacted in 2013, and there were supposed to be yearly reports about progress, or lack of and necessary improvements along the way. No reports have been issued over the past four years.
When Councilor Tito Jackson (who supported the “No” position on last year’s charter expansion ballot question) probed for a reason for the lack of reporting, the School Department’s answer was that we’ve had three different standardized state tests, so no judgments can be made about the quality of the schools, information parents need to choose a school. When Jackson asked about Unified Enrollment, the School Department claimed to know nothing about it, that there had been no meetings on the topic. But Mayor Marty Walsh has filed legislation to fast track Unified Enrollment, then later denied he did so after reports became public.
“Currently, students have a list of school options comprising only district schools and can apply also to as many charters as desired. Under unified enrollment, unless school list lengths are expanded, the presence of any charter school on the list necessarily will bump a district school off of it, reducing district school options, states QUEST in its report published on Sept. 18, 2017. Under bill H.2876 filed by Rep. Alice Peisch and co-sponsored by Walsh, Carvalho and Rep. Dan Hunt, charter schools could elect to give enrollment preference to students living near the school.”
http://baystatebanner.com/news/2017/oct/11/quiet-push-unified-enrollment/
(Rep. Alice Peisch, by the way, has been a staunch supporter of charter expansion and was one of their spokespeople during last year’s Question 2.)
On Friday, December 8, the School Department released another plan informed by an MIT algorithm for start times for our schools. Ostensibly, the goal was later start times for high schools, many of which begin now at 7:15. There are no school buses for high schools, which means kids often need to leave home by about 6:00 to arrive at school on public transportation. There has been an uprising among parents since new times were revealed because they have changed start times in 105 of 125 schools (84% of all BPS schools) ostensibly in order to change 21 high school start times.
Under the new plan, many elementary schools are scheduled to begin at 7:15, with afternoon dismissals as early as 1:15. Adding before and after school care to schedules for the littles could mean an 11 hour day away from home. When parents began to push back, asking how they could be expected to juggle work schedules with these new school hours, these pieces of advice were offered:
“My new bell time doesn’t work for me, what can I do?
• For students who are eligible for transportation and where we have capacity on our buses, BPS will provide transportation from off-site, before-school programs to school; and from school to off-site, after-school programs.
• Your school likely has before- or after- school programming. More than 90% of all BPS schools have after-school programing and 90% of BPS schools starting after 9:00 AM have a before-school program. Additionally, we will continue to work with programs and schools to expand available before- and after-school programming across BPS.
• BPS is happy to provide parents, guardians, and students with letters to employers notifying them of a school scheduling change and explaining why this may necessitate a change of working hours. For this, please email starttimes@bostonpublicschools.org.
• We realize that in some cases, the only option for families may be to change schools. For more information on this process, please visit a BPS Welcome Center, its website, bostonpublicschools.org/welcomeservices, or call 617-635-9010. Please also consider attending the BPS School Showcase on Saturday, December 9, at TD Garden; the event begins at 9:00 am and ends at 1:00 pm. For more information, visit bostonpublicschools.org/registrationevents.”
https://www.bostonpublicschools.org/Page/7016
The Boston Globe weighed in, essentially telling parents to suck it up:
Parents have posted a petition which has garnered over 4,700 signatures since Saturday.
When I start to add up all this chaos, I come to one conclusion: it’s deliberate.
It makes enrollment in traditional schools more difficult.
It makes school schedules more onerous for parents and kids.
It will destabilize the entire school system.
It will drive families away.
It will make the privatizers gleeful.
It will subvert the voters’ emphatic NO to an expansion of the charter industry.
Right here in the cradle of public education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I came to the same conclusion that the start time debacle (conducted with charter backers behind closed doors since April) was deliberately created to disrupt the system and disgruntle families, teachers, students. Boston needs an elected school board and much more transparency now, before it is too late. How do we best go about advocating for re-instating an elected school board?
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Boston: organize, start a campaign. Agitate for an elected board.
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Oh, it’ll be completely unbiased. They’ll present the “government schools” as full of thugs and bullies and low achievers – just like the good folks at the US Department of Education do. DeVos can’t give a speech without not just bashing public schools but bashing public school STUDENTS. Our kids are the thugs and bullies she wants to save other kids from.
They use totally unbiased language, like people “fleeing” or “escaping” public schools- that’s because it’s science! Scientists always sound like political operatives.
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Trump science: CDC gets a list of forbiddend words. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-gets-list-of-forbidden-words-fetus-transgender-diversity/2017/12/15/f503837a-e1cf-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.d9feee947e2f
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no one has confirmed it so it is my cynical opinion only — they are grooming Riley (receivership of Lawrence) to be the next commissioner; they have already replaced Riley in Lawrence with a “Board” ; however, only one person from Lawrence (so far) is on the Board — the Mayor (who was just newly re-elected). When reps met with Wulfson and asked when the schools would be returned under the School Committee in Lawrence they say “Lawrence is not ready yet”. I have never seen a list of the required steps to be “ready”. In my opinion it is similar to what Curmudgucation, Jersey Jazzman and NEPC have provided us about Newark (minus of course the direct funds allocated to City of Newark). but claiming a “Lawrence miracle” is most likely false.
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SICK, SICK, SICK. I truly think the deformers hate anyone who is not rich … that’s US.
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Thus I’d s shame.
Sent from my iPhone
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Well, I am very sorry to hear this, because I’ve been considering looking for a job up there for next year….
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Such a sadly relevant statement about so many things these days: “…the privatization movement is never dissuaded by public opposition.”
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Thank you, Diane, for posting this.
Parents called a meeting on Sunday afternoon, organized on FaceBook, and with a few hours’ notice, some 150 people were in attendance. A previously scheduled School Committee hearing strected to 7 hours on Wednesday, as an overfilled meeting room spilled out into adjacent corridors with parents and teachers (many who are also parents) giving voice to their anger. The various excuses coming from the mayor and the superintendent’s offices have pacified no one.
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Here’s a parent’s report: https://schoolyardnews.com/parents-say-no-to-new-start-times-at-marathon-school-committee-meeting-e9489b794c94
Behind all of this is the Gates-funded Boston Compact, which seeks Unified Enrollment that would put charter and Catholic schools on the form parents must use for enrollment in public schools, and seems to be a piece of the transportation issue given as a rationale for all these schedule changes.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ODfIL1gGu8DiHan87MPE2azE6IM3ynSN/view
Thomas Birmingham is credited in the lore of ed reform as the legislator who put Massachusetts on the shining path to glory with his 1993 legislation. It gave more state money to public schools, and grew out of a lawsuit about equity. It also allowed the first charters to open in the state. Now Birmingham is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Pioneer Institute, which is a proponent of directing public money to charters and religious schools. On Friday, Birmingham published an article in a Boston Catholic paper proposing that Catholic schools receive public money. He claims that because the Blaine Amendment was founded on anti-Catholic bigotry of the 1850’s, it should be overturned.
https://www.thebostonpilot.com/opinion/article.asp?ID=181036
Remember, the Catholic Church in Boston not only failed to protect children from sexual abuse at the hands of its pedophile priests, but in a conspiracy that led all the way to the Cardinal, they hid the truth, allowing rape and abuse to continue as they moved offenders from one parish to another. Perhaps in an era where Betsy DeVos seeks to destroy that wall between church and state in our public schools, it seems an opportune moment to push for public funding of Catholic education. The #MeToo movement ought to be a reminder that it is not.
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Let’s not forget that MA voters rejected tax aid for private schools in 1982 62% to 38%, and again in1986 by 70% to 39%.
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Beat me to it. The People have spoken. Not only do oligarchs ignore democracy, they consider it their enemy.
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See Denver. I wrote this is February 2016.
If you give them an opening, they take over. And an elected school boarddoesnt necessarily change anything. Denver is recognized for its elected board, especially by ada I’d Osborne, while slamming reform down residents’ throats. Denver has just found reformers with high name recognition and with big outside money support to take over education.
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Maybe I am not seeing it. How do you “force” choice on anything? If Boston parents are given the choice of excellent public schools, or lousy non-public schools, I believe that the informed parents will choose for their children to attend the excellent schools.
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