At a town hall meeting in Detroit, students, families, and teachers spoke out against the damage caused to them by the false promise of “school choice.” Allie Gross covered the meeting for the Detroit Free Press.
One parent described the wonderful school attended by his child with cerebral palsy; it was to save money.
“In 2008, Alfred Wright enrolled his son, Timothy, in kindergarten at Oakman Elementary/Orthopedic, a small school on the Detroit’s northwest side that specialized in teaching students with special needs.
“Timothy had recently been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and the school — which came with spacious hallways, discreet changing rooms, small class sizes, and an on-site nurse — seemed like the perfect match.
“And, according to Wright, it was. For five years, he watched his son thrive in the close-knit and accepting community. Oakman not only was prepared to accommodate Timothy’s needs but it helped Wright, as a parent, better understand his child.
“But then the seemingly unexpected happened. In spring 2013, Roy Roberts, Detroit Public Schools’ second emergency manager, announced that Oakman would be one of six schools to close the following school year. It would add to the list of nearly 100 district schools that had shuttered since 2009, when the state took over DPS due to finance.
LWright and the rest of the parents were given two traditional public school options: one that was 1.2 miles away and the other that was 2.4 miles. Both choices fell within the bottom 5 percent of schools in the state for academic performance. More notably, neither were handicap accessible.
“All of the things we feared happened,” Wright said, explaining how issues at Henderson Academy, where Timothy ultimately ended up, ranged from bullying and isolation to a lack of knowledge and preparedness when it came to educating students with special needs.
”This reality — instability, uncertainty and inefficient resources — is why on Tuesday night, Wright and Timothy made their way to Wayne State University’s Law School to participate in an Education Town Hall hosted by the #WeChoose Campaign. A movement made up of 25 organizations from across that country — including the NAACP, Advancement Project, Dignity in Schools and Journey for Justice Alliance — the group is working to support racial justice and end educational inequality via, among many things, town hall gatherings that bring attention to what the group sees as “the illusion of school choice.”
“Parents, students, and educators do not choose the sabotage of their neighborhood schools, school closings, zero tolerance policies that target black and brown students, punitive standardized testing school deserts,” the group’s mission statement explains. “We choose equity, not the scam called school choice.”
Wait until they see what Betsy Devos has in-store for the parents of kids who learn different or are differently abled. Their hell has just begun.
Yay! “CHOICE” has become a “SPIN” word.
Yep, my head spins every time I hear that word in connection with local community public schools.
Posted at OEN: https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Detroit-Families-Student-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Neighborhood_Policies_Public-Education-180220-717.html
Here are links from the SEARCH FIELD at the Ravitch blog to the best articles and voices who speak TRUTH about school choice and charter schools.
There are 15,880 school systems in 50 states
https://www.opednews.com/Series/15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html?f=15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html making it easy for The EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX to dismantle education in this nation by defunding it, and by then pointing (in the media which they OWN) to ‘failing schools’ and those, bad, lazy, teachers. https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf
NOW, instead of public education for all, they propose the notion that YOU have choices… but vouches do not pay enough to put a child in a top school, and charter schools kick out whomever they please… including special needs kids.
Privatization is a hoax. Diane Ravitch wrote the BOOK on this.
Click to access eic-oct_11.pdf
As in so many other instances, the snappy catchwords of those pushing/promoting/selling corporate education reform need more than just an English-to-English translation.
Just as they use and misuse numbers & stats, they use and misuse words like “choice.”
They don’t just avoid and resist at all costs “saying what they mean and meaning what they say.” They prey on others by consciously letting unwary customers/consumers/clients think that “choice” means to the end user what it means to the chief beneficiaries, enforcers and enablers of rheephorm.
In other words, where almost everyone else would think that parents and communities have control over who gets to choose what and when and how, what is really—not Rheeally—being proposed is letting a MINUSCULE [self-aggrandizing] MINORITY decide what choices the vast majority has.
This comes out in a myriad of ways. One of the most widespread is incapsulated in that abhorrent countrywide charter phrase that is used when denying parental choice: “your child is not a good fit.” Followed up, seemingly from a universal handbook, with the advice to send that worthless/unruly/low-test-scoring piece of trash back to the very public schools that the charter folks have sternly denounced as “factories of failure.” Especially common in the no-excuses franchises which have to protect their reputations as attrition mills, er, Centres of Education Excellence.
The use and misuse of language has a very long history. And, sadly, nothing “creatively innovative” in its current rheephorm iteration. As just one recommendation, I would suggest interested readers of this blog look at George Orwell’s classic, POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
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The Wrights are talking to the correct groups about Timothy’s education. As a classified student, Timothy should be entitled to an appropriate education under IDEA and a building that is handicapped accessible. Maybe it is time to file a class action lawsuit against Detroit and Michigan.
“Testing School Deserts.” Three words fraught with descriptive prophecy.
No ReBlog button … what happened to it?