I earlier posted the text of the speech I gave to the CSBA on December 1, 2017. I usually deviate from the written text, and I did in this instance. I followed Marshall Tuck, who made his name working in the charter industry for the Green Dot charters. There were about 4,000 people in the audience.
California is overrun with charters. The California Charter School Association is a powerful lobby in Sacramento, always seeking more funding and less accountability. CCSA is supported by billionaires like Reed Hastings of Netflix and real estate mogul Eli Broad. Governor Jerry Brown is their ally. He vetoed legislation to ban for-profit charters. If Hastings and Broad had their way, there would be no elected school boards, and every school would be privatized. They may be successful in their own careers but they know little or nothing about education. They just don’t like democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for speaking and thank you for sharing your speech.
California is indeed over run with charters. Sad.
What is this country becoming?
Thank you for this inspiring and informative address. I plan on sharing it with friends and colleagues. I would like to see this speech sent to every state representative as well as local school boards. I would like to see it sent to DeVos as well!
One of the things that struck me was how out of touch the America 1st crowd is. The media and privatizers enjoy criticizing us for our middle of the pack NAEP scores. We are America 1st for the highest childhood poverty rates of any industrialized nation. Our high poverty rates go largely ignored.
Thank you for this, Diane.
Please see this: Transforming Public Schools In Just NINE Steps | The Merrow Report
https://themerrowreport.com/2018/01/09/transforming-public-schools-in-just-nine-steps/
Diane posted it. Please read the comments.
You are indefatigable. You are selfless. You are an articulate leader. In a word, you are a wonder. I am always in awe of your strength and your dignity. Thank you.
Thank you.
Amazing detail on the charter fraud in California for this California audience and from an “official citizen” by way of Texas and NYC.
I think they were not well-informed prior to your talk and perhaps a little stunned by the evidence and your clear distinction between public schools and privately run charters–contract schools. By the end of the presentation they were ready to give a solid round of applause for your closing on the importance of supporting public schools, the civil rights issue of era, and not privately run contract schools. Inspiring.
Thanks for this I have shared it on my Indivisible Public Ed Board. All you CA folks please contact your Assembly member and ask them to support about AB 1478, the charter transparency bill, co-sponsored by the CTA, which was recently re-activated. I am doing so even though my assembly person received in excess of $2.6 Million in contributions from EdVoice and other pro-charter groups. Info on the bill from last year. https://www.cta.org/en/Blog/2017/April/Educators-help-pass-two-bills.aspx
Ray, I just looked up the legislative info on this bill and unfortunately it looks like it failed to pass on 1/29 😦 …
Terrific speech, it struck the perfect balance between specific detail and overarching and noble aims of public education. Hope it gets widely disseminated and discussed/debated among local school boards throughout the country…
Massive fraud in one of Florida’s voucher programs:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/mckay-scholarship-program-sparks-a-cottage-industry-of-fraud-and-chaos-6381391
One prosecutor in the piece said they would prepare cases against the operators of the scam schools and then the cases would quietly die- he thinks there was political interference from the governor’s office.
This is the scholarship for kids with disabilities and a county fire marshal had to shut down one of the schools . The school just moved the kids to new unsafe buildings and continued operating.
Diane, you are truly an amazing woman- the gift that keeps on giving. We need your voice now more than ever because these people are not going away. The network of right wing lawmakers and lobbyists are still introducing laws to degrade & dismantle the public education system and reduce the teaching profession to a cheap, computer algorithm. Are there other states whose reps & media are promoting the following failure narrative for public teacher prep? Be on the look out for more “reform”
Here is what’s happening in TN:
Spotlight on Teacher Prep Programs
Teacher preparation programs took center stage this week as both House Education Committees heard presentations on the topic coordinated by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) and the State Board of Education.
The presentation largely focused on the results of a new state report card aimed at providing more accountability for higher education teacher preparation programs.
“When I see this data, we think we can do much better than this, and in fact we must do much better than this,” Mike Krause, the THEC Executive Director, said.
The report card covers factors such as the percentage of completers with an ACT score of 21 or higher, percentage of racially and ethnically diverse completers, beyond year one retention rate, percentage of completers with a Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (teacher evaluation) score of three or higher, among others, and contends that 50 percent of Tennessee’s teacher preparation programs are in the lowest two performance categories. One trend of concern to THEC is the lack of diversity among Tennessee’s teacher preparation programs, which are primarily composed of white females. Several members raised questions as to how THEC and the State Board of Education are defining diversity.
“We are having conversations with our programs about whether we need to expand our measure of diversity to include things like first generation graduates or other poverty measures. Right now, it really is a racial diversity measure on the report card,” Dr. Sara Morrison, the Executive Director of the State Board of Education, said.
THEC highlighted the need to increase the presence of male teachers and other races in state classrooms. According to Krause, research shows students perform better when there is diversity in the classroom and perform better when entering the workforce.
Rep. Eddie Smith (R-Knoxville) asked how Tennessee colleges were responding to the data, which Krause characterized as “overwhelmingly positive.” Krause pointed to UT Martin as an example. Chancellor Keith Carver presented to members on how UT Martin has identified and implemented needed changes in its program in response to the state report card and subsequent meetings with THEC and the State Board of Education. The programs at UT Knoxville and UT Chattanooga were also referenced in the hearing as examples of programs with positive efforts underway.
Several members asked questions regarding a “teacher warranty program,” and whether such an idea would be feasible in Tennessee. This is the second time this session a mention has been made in a legislative committee regarding a warranty as it relates to teacher preparation programs. While legislation has not yet been filed to this end, it is likely.
Rep. Jimmy Matlock (R-Lenoir City) voiced frustration that change is not happening fast enough in Tennessee’s teacher preparation programs. He urged greater accountability for programs.
“We seem to be constantly hearing ‘change is coming, there’s a new day awakening,’ but we come back and see [data] like that. I’m not sure how anybody could be optimistic,” Matlock said.
Teacher preparation is shaping up to be a major topic of legislative interest this session. We will continue to update advocates as the issue progresses.
2.Bill Filed to Scrap Humanities General Education Requirement
A bill filed this week, HB1754 by Rep. Tilman Goins, aims to no longer require first-time college students at two-year or four-year higher education institutions to take more than six credit hours of Humanities course work to satisfy the institution’s general education requirements. The legislation also would require first-time college students to complete at least three credit hours of economics course work to satisfy general education requirements. There could be a large fiscal impact in regards to time spent on curricular adjustments, as each campus would have to review their general education requirements for nearly 500 majors, as well as ensuring there are sufficient resources available to provide an appropriate economics course for all students. The University opposes attempts to legislate curricular requirements at its institutions, particularly those that may impact accreditation.
I just posted the following on my blog at eduissues.com a few minutes ago and will do the same on Nextdoor.com to reach other members of my local community in San Mateo, CA. (Note that the text below is missing the hyperlinks in the original.)
Thank you, Diane!
“Video of Diane Ravitch Speech to the California Association of School Boards
I wrote about this speech several days ago at “A Wake-Up Call Re California Public Schools!” which contains the prepared text of the speech. Now the video has been posted at her blog.
Dr. Ravitch, a former Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush administration and a professor of education history at New York University , presents a powerful indictment of the forces arraigned against public education, portraying an attack on our democracy, and reveals shocking information about the misuse of public funds by charter schools in California.
Every taxpayer in the state should watch this speech!”
Thing is, if those supe adminimals didn’t know the vast majority of what Diane stated, well, let’s just say it’s a good example of adminimal behavior-not willing to take the time to know and not standing up against the edudeformer crowd and their private charters.
My bad, I thought it was the superintendents’ group. Still no reason for the school board members to not know also nor to not take a stand.
Unfortunate that the video was delayed. I continue to call attention to it, but California AB 1478 that would have increased charter school transparency was voted down in the Assembly on the same day this post went up 😦 …
The video was delayed because it took six weeks to get it from CSBA.