Archives for the month of: April, 2018
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Leonie Haimson: Is Colorado’s Rebuke to DFER a Turning Point in the Battle Against Privatization?

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2018 //
15

 

Leonie Haimson writes here about the stunning rebuke administered by the Colorado Democratic Party to “Democrats for Education Reform” last Saturday. 

It is hard to overstate the commanding position of DFER in that state. Senator Michael Bennett is DFER-approved. So are two of the leading Democrats running for Governor. DFER’s Dark Money has captured the Denver school board.

Until now, no one has stood up to them. No one could match their cash.

Will DFER survive this denunciation? Of course. But their stamp of approval might turn into a stigma for real Democrats. Real Democrats do not support the DeVos privatization agenda. Real Democrats support public schools u dear democratic control.

Leonie writes:

”Let’s hope that the Colorado vote is a turning point, and that it is no longer politically or ethically acceptable for progressive Democrats to act like Republicans when it comes to education policy.”

Wouldn’t that be great?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, DFER, Education Industry, Privatization

Puerto Rico: President of the Teachers Association Denounces Privatization of Island’s Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2018 //
12

Mensaje: Aida Díaz, president of the Teachers Association of Puerto Rico (AFT), spoke on television and denounced the privatization of the Island’s public schools.

 

Good afternoon and thank you for allowing me to enter your homes.

• For decades, the public education system, its students and teachers, have had to fight hard battles to advance the right to an education of excellence,

• The rights acquired by teachers have been threatened by the administrations on duty. The Association of Teachers has successfully confronted them in the courts, administrative forums and the Legislature.

• All administrations have attempted against public education and its teachers, but never, never, have we witnessed an effort to dismantle our education system as Governor Rossello and Secretary Keleher intend to do. We had never seen such a clear intention to run over our teachers and students.

• First the Governor and his Secretary told us that they had to close schools and closed 167.

• Then, they awarded operators with 100 charter schools and educational vouchers, opening the door to fraud.

• And I wonder … and I know that you too, to benefit whom? To the teachers and the students, or is it to advance the interests of the Fiscal Control Board and the vulture funds?

• Governor Rosselló and Keleher now want to close 283 schools. If we allow it, they mean 450 schools closed in less than a year. 35% of schools.

• There are 450 affected communities, over 8,000 displaced teachers and thousands of families and students whose lives were interrupted without foundation. To the tragala!

• Has anyone thought about the effect that these closures are going to cause the small businesses that depend on our schools, the corner shop or the lady who sells “limbers” to keep her house?

• Has anyone thought of those teachers, who with their own money bought materials because the government does not help?

• Has Secretary Keleher thought of the thousands of students with health conditions whose parents walk to their schools to give their children medicine because there are no nurses?

• If the enrollment of students was reduced by 15%, how is the closure of 35% of the schools justified?

• How does the Governor allow his Secretary to disparage our people, opening a call for outside managers, with a payment of $ 125,000 per year?

• These acts reflect the little respect we have for our people.

• The Governor said he was not going to do more of the same, and he’s right. No one has tried to close down a third of the schools, run over thousands of teachers, displace thousands ofstudents, close Montessori schools because they refused to become charter, and affect thousands of small businesses.

• No Governor has placed public education in the hands of third parties or given a blank check to a Secretary who disparages our people.

• GOVERNOR: ENOUGH!

• Do not criticize the Control Board when your actions are so aggressive towards teachers and our students. We are paying too high a price for the irresponsibility of the Government.

• Paulo Freire, said “teaching demands to know how to listen”.

• Governor, you have an obligation to hear the voices of thousands of teachers, parents, students, small businesses, whose lives will be marked by the closing of 35% of schools. Listen to the mayors.

• Governor, listen.

• The Association, as the exclusive representative of the Magisterium will continue taking firm actions to protect the future of our education system. The voices of children, parents and teachers are silenced by NO ONE

• Therefore, teachers, parents, students and communities, join us to create a human shield to protect our education, next Wednesday, April 25 from 3:30 in the afternoon, at the Capitol. To defend our schools!

• The voice of the people must be heard because the future of our children depends on the present they live.

May God bless and protect Puerto Rico

To see and hear her speak, you can watch the video.

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Colorado: Teachers Plan to Walk Out, Descend on Legislature to Demand Higher Pay, Better Funding

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2018 //
5

 

The Denver Post reports that some teachers in Colorado plan to assemble at the State Capitol today to air their grievances, namely, low salaries, which have contributed to teacher shortages.

Inspired by walkouts in other states, teachers will meet with legislators to make their case.

“Earlier this year, 100 CEA members told lawmakers about a survey of more than 2,200 CEA members that showed the average educator spent about $656 a year out of their own pockets for student needs. Many CEA members presented invoices to the General Assembly for the past due amount.

“The CEA said educators in Colorado have had their pay cut by more than 17 percent when adjusting for inflation. A recent study from the Education Law Center, a group that advocates for more school funding, ranked Colorado dead last in the competitiveness of its teacher salaries.

“The typical 25-year-old teacher at the beginning of his or her career in Colorado makes just 69 percent of what a peer with a similar education level who works similar hours earns, the Education Law Center said….

”The CEA on Monday will lobby lawmakers to restore and increase education funding — K-12 public schools in Colorado are underfunded by $828 million in the current school year — and to secure a stable retirement program, CEA president Karrie Dallman said.”

It remains to be seen whether Colorado teachers will enlarge the protest and close down schools across the state. Public schools have been shortchanged by the Legislature.

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Colorado, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance

California: Two Charter-Loving Billionaires Give $8.5 Million to Villaraigosa Campaign

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2018 //
16

 

Did you ever imagine that the passion for privatizing public schools would motivate two billionaires to dump a fat gift into Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign for governor?

Who else but Reed Hastings and Eli Broad would consider their love for school privatization to be the leading issue in the governor’s race?

“Netflix CEO Reed Hastings pledged $7 million and Los Angeles real estate entrepreneur Eli Broad promised $1.5 million to an independent expenditure organization called Families and Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa for Governor 2018, which is run by the California Charter Schools Association Advocates.

“Antonio Villaraigosa will be a governor for all Californians, keeping the American dream possible in California with good schools, safe neighborhoods, affordable health care, and opportunities for everyone to succeed,” said Gary Borden, executive director of the charter schools group…

”[Gavin] Newsom is leading most polls, while his fellow Democrat Villaraigosa is fighting it out with Republican John Cox, a Rancho Santa Fe (San Diego County) businessman, for second place, according to a nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California survey this month. Only the top two finishers in the June 5 primary, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to the general election in November.

“Villaraigosa’s campaign had $5.9 million in the bank at the end of 2017, the most recent campaign finance disclosure period. Newsom had $19.5 million.

“You knew it was going to happen. Here you have entrenched political interests where there are billions of dollars at stake,” said state Treasurer John Chiang, who has been mired deep in the polls behind Newsom, Cox and Villaraigosa.

“Villaraigosa has long been an advocate for charter schools. The education platform on his campaign website says that “poor families also deserve the right to access high-quality schools and publicly chartered schools often provide that access. High-performing public charters playing by the same set of rules as other public schools are laboratories for innovation and creativity.”

“Steve Smith, spokesman for the 2.1 million-member California Labor Federation, which endorsed Newsom, said the cash infusion to the independent expenditure group “shows that the Villaraigosa campaign hasn’t gotten off the ground, so the billionaire charter school guys came to his rescue.”

The Network for Public Education Action Fund has endorsed State Treasurer John Chiang for Governor because of his unequivocal support for public schools. Perhaps the infusion of charter school money for Villaraigosa will help Newsom decide where he stands (he has already been endorsed by the California Teachers Association).

Categories Billionaires, California, Charter Schools

Leonie Haimson: New York City and State Have Made No Gains on NAEP

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2018 //
32

 

Leonie Haimson points out that, despite much boasting, New York City and New York State have made no gains on NAEP from 2013-2017.

What she did not include is a graph showing that New York State’s NAEP scores have been flat from 2003-2017.

naep

Categories NAEP, New York, New York City

Why I Am Supporting Cynthia Nixon for Governor of New York

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2018 //
42

 

If you read the previous post, you know that Governor Andrew Cuomo declared war on public schools and their teachers in his 2014 campaign. He continued to lash out at teachers and the UFT as selfish and greedy even after he was re-elected. In 2015, after his election, he told the editorial board of the New York Daily News that the union (the United Federation of Teachers) had turned the public schools into a “teacher employment program.” He echoed the talking points of the charter sector, saying that 250,000 children were “trapped in failing schools” because of the greedy teachers’ union and the rest of the “education establishment.” He declared himself the champion of the state’s charter schools, which enroll about 5-6% of students, as opposed to 90% in the public schools. Cuomo gets large donations from hedge fund managers and Wall Street executives who have been the financiers of charter schools. His $30 million campaign chest consists mainly of donations from the same people who back privatization of public schools.

After Mayor DeBlasio was elected in 2013, he wanted to charge rent for the use of public school space to charters that could afford it. However, Cuomo persuaded the legislature to require the New York City Department of Education to provide free space to charter schools, to allow them to expand as much as they wished, and to pay the charters’ rent for private facilities if they could not find suitable public space.

Cuomo made his contempt for public schools clear in 2014, and nothing he has done since then has changed his image as a foe of public education. He insisted on a 2% cap on local taxes for public school districts that need to raise their revenues; a district can’t raise its own taxes unless the increase is approved by a supermajority of 60%. Cuomo’s hand-picked State University of New York charter committee authorizes charter schools, including Success Academy; it has been extremely lax in holding its charter schools accountable.  Only months ago, it voted to allow Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy to certify its own teachers, without benefit of the professional preparation offered by education programs at SUNY or elsewhere.

Cuomo has cynically helped Republicans retain control of the State Senate. In 2014, he won the endorsement of the Working Families Party by promising to help Democrats get elected to the Senate (a bizarre commitment by a Democratic governor). The day after he won the WFP endorsement, Cuomo broke his promise and continued to support the Independent Democratic Caucus, a group of eight “Democrats” in the Senate who caucus with the Republicans. This is not the behavior of a progressive Democrat.

Even now, Cuomo is bullying unions and progressive groups to support him “or else.” The UFT, which Cuomo ridiculed three years ago, has joined Cuomo’s efforts to marginalize small progressive groups or other unions that dare to support Cynthia Nixon. The leader of the Working Families Party said that Cuomo told small activist groups—Citizen Action, Make the Road and NY Communities for Change— that if they don’t support him, they can “lose my number.” Meaning, don’t bother ever to call me in the future. He pressured the unions to stop funding them, deriving them of needed income to survive. These are not the words or deeds of a man with a commanding lead in the polls (currently, 40 points ahead of Nixon). Or a man who knows how to live with dissent.

I will vote for Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging Cuomo in the Democratic primary and now has the endorsement of the Working Families Party. I admire her willingness to step away from a very successful career as an actress to run against Cuomo. Unlike Cuomo, she is a public school parent, and she understands that urban schools in the state have been shortchanged. She has also criticized the insular atmosphere in Albany, where “three men in a room” make all decisions. She has promised an open and ethical government.

Four years ago, law professor Zephyr Teachout ran against Cuomo. Teachout had no money, no name recognition, no media exposure, and a threadbare campaign. Cuomo refused to shake her hand or even to look at her when they came face to face. When they met at a parade, he turned his back to her. Teachout nonetheless won 34% of the vote in the Democratic primary and swept large swaths of upstate New York, which is in deep economic trouble. Teachout, an ethics expert, is now the treasurer of the Nixon campaign.

Cynthia Nixon is fearless. When a journalist asked her why she was qualified to run against Cuomo, she responded, “My chief of staff was not convicted on three counts of bribery. That’s number one.”

A few days ago, Cynthia Nixon blasted Cuomo as a “corporate Democrat.” 

“The time is up for corporate Democrats, for politicians who campaign as Democrats but govern as Republicans,” Nixon said to a gathering of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in Washington, D.C.

“It can’t just be business as usual anymore,” Nixon said. “I know that our country can do better. We have to turn the system upside down.”

Nixon, who is challenging Cuomo for both the Democratic and Working Families Party nominations, attacked Cuomo for “taking charter school hedge fund money and making education policy accordingly.” She vowed to halt the flow of public funds to charter schools.

Music to my ears, after eight years of watching Obama, Duncan, Jerry Brown, Dannel Malloy, and other prominent Democrats do flip-flops for campaign money from hedge funders.

To those who say Nixon is unqualified because she has not previously run for political office, I say that I would rather vote for an inexperienced candidate who shares my values than for an experienced politician who does not.

Cuomo is likely to get a lot of union endorsements because the unions want to be on the side of the likely winner. They are afraid to cross Cuomo. They know they will pay a price if Cuomo wins and they don’t endorse him. He gets even.

I am not a union member. I am one person. I am free to cast my vote for the person who has the best ideas and the best vision for improving life in New York State for everyone.

Call it a protest vote. Call it a vote of conscience. It is my vote and I will cast it for the person I hope will be the next Governor.

That is Cynthia Nixon.

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Resistance

What Cuomo Said about Public Schools and Teachers in His Last Campaign

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2018 //
44

Lest we forget. This is the real Andrew Cuomo. 

I said when he ran for his second term in 2014 that he sounded like Scott Walker.

Vowing to break “one of the only remaining public monopolies,” Gov. Cuomo on Monday said he’ll push for a new round of teacher evaluation standards if re-elected.

Cuomo, during a meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board, said better teachers and competition from charter schools are the best ways to revamp an underachieving and entrenched public education system.

“I believe these kinds of changes are probably the single best thing that I can do as governor that’s going to matter long-term,” he said, “to break what is in essence one of the only remaining public monopolies — and that’s what this is, it’s a public monopoly.”

He said the key is to put “real performance measures with some competition, which is why I like charter schools.”

Cuomo said he will push a plan that includes more incentives — and sanctions — that “make it a more rigorous evaluation system.”

Cuomo expects fierce opposition from the state’s teachers, who are already upset with him and have refused to endorse his re-election bid.

“The teachers don’t want to do the evaluations and they don’t want to do rigorous evaluations — I get it,” Cuomo said. “I feel exactly opposite.”

He backed off because of the success of the Opt Out movement, after 200,000 students chose not to take the state tests.

He formed a commission and tempered his language. But he continues to privilege charter schools, because that’s where the big campaign contributions come from, the ones that have built a war chest for him of $30 million.

Will the unions that he blasted in 2014 support Andrew Cuomo in 2018?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Teacher Evaluations

Good News: Pittsburgh Will Drop Teacher Performance Pay and Raise Salaries

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2018 //
9

Pittsburgh was once one of Bill Gates’ favorite cities. He showered it with millions to try out his ideas about how to improve teaching and test scores. But it didn’t work.

Now Superintendent Anthony Hamlet is scrapping the last vestiges of the Gates plan.

Pittsburgh Public Schools is scrapping a performance-based pay system, giving all its teachers at least a 2 percent raise and paying its least experienced teachers as much as 15 percent more per year.

The tentative changes are included in three-year contracts overwhelmingly approved Wednesday by the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, said Nina Esposito-Visgitis, the union’s president. The union represents about 3,000 teachers and support staff.

A little more than 2,000 members voted on the contracts, which were approved by 90 percent of teachers, 90 percent of paraprofessionals and 77 percent of technical and clerical employees.

“We really focused on the new teachers. We were falling behind other districts in terms of our starting salary,” Esposito-Visgitis said. “A lot of money was put at the bottom of the salary schedule because we want to attract the best and the brightest in Pittsburgh.”

Superintendent Anthony Hamlet issued a statement Wednesday night thanking “parents, stakeholders and the larger city for their patience” through stalled negotiations that nearly culminated in districtwide school closures.

Hamlet said he expects the new contracts to help reduce teacher turnover and improve school stability.

“It’s a testament to our members and to both negotiating teams that we were able to resolve things,” Esposito-Visgitis said. “We’re glad this chapter is over.”

 

 

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Merit pay, Pittsburgh, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay

Good News! Colorado Democratic Party Overwhelmingly Passes Motion Against DFER

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2018 //
19

 

The group that calls itself “Democrats for Education Reform” represents hedge fund money and Wall Street and advocates for charter schools and high-stakes testing. Although it has no evident connection to education other than its name, it has funneled campaign contributions and Dark Money into state and local elections to support privatization of public schools. It has strongly backed test-based evaluations of teachers, despite the evidence against it.

Today, the Colorado Democratic Party voted on a minority report critical of DFER. The motion required a 2/3 voice vote. It passed easily.

The motion said:

”We oppose making Colorado’s public schools private, or run by private corporations, or segregated again through lobbying and campaign efforts of the organization called Democrats for Education Reform and demand that they immediately stop using the Party’s name, I.e., “Democrat” in their name.”

To learn about DFER, read this:

Click to access IntendedConsequencesofDFER.pdf

 

 

Categories Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Democrats for Education Reform, DFER

Good News: Working Families Party Endorses Cynthia Nixon and Jumaane Williams

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2018 //
65

 

New Yorkers will have a progressive slate to vote for in the gubernatorial election. The Working Families Party has endorsed Cynthia Nixon for Governor and City Councilman Jumaane Williams for Lieutenant Governor.

Andrew Cuomo will be challenges from his left on education, housing, jobs, infrastructure, and every other issue. This should be interesting.

If you want to make a donation to their campaign on the WFP line, use this link.

 

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York
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