Tom Ultican has been writing a series of posts about the “Destroy Public Education Movement,” a phrase coined by Professor Jim Scheurich of Indiana University, who has been documenting this vile effort to privatize public schools.
In this post, Ultican writes about current events in Oakland, where the school board seems to be cooperating with the demise of the district.
He writes:
“A “Systems of Schools” plan has been introduced by the destroy public education (DPE) forces in Oakland, California. The plan basically posits that with 30 percent of students in charter schools, the system has become inefficient. Therefore, the school board needs to review resources and close schools in areas with too many seats and overlapping programs.
“However, since Oakland’s school board has no authority over charter schools it is only public schools that can be closed or downsized unless charter schools voluntarily cooperate.”
Read on.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Happy Mothers Day, everyone. Wait, it’s still called Mothers Day isn’t it, or have they changed it to Charter School Mothers Day yet? You know why A Nation at Risk was such nonsense? Not just because American public schools are great, and always have been. It’s also because moms are great, always have been.
Even the the bee eater’s mom. She really had her hands full, what with Michelle going around taping all the neighbors’ kids mouths shut all the time. Bill Gates used VAM data to evaluate his mother. She hated it, but he didn’t listen. Eli Broad opened an unaccredited Fathers Academy to train dads to undermine moms’ efforts. Also, the Walton family own a chain of stores where kids can buy cheap, imitation moms built by oppressed workers from around the world. Betsy DeVos just learned how to spell ‘mom’.
Ha ha ha.
VAM = ” Value Added by Mothers” based on growth of standardized test scores of the kids in the family.
Since Bill Gates’ test scores were always at the top, they never grew, and hence …
Bill to his mother: “sorry Mom, but you’re fierrrrD!”
Well, let’s hope Diane Ravitch’s “organization” continues to find ways to fight the privatization of education.
Even though I’m blogging, I’m working on my new book. It will show the collapse of the privatization movement, which is a dying creature lashing out, grabbing, destroying, doing harm, but dying nonetheless
presaging a funeral which would be massively attended
“The DPE movement has developed an approach using local money in concert with national money to promote charter schools, denigrate public schools and campaign for privatization friendly policies like unified enrollment.”
There are several problems in the above statement. First, a public school district, a local arm of the state, is being targeted by outside money. These outside actors are not stakeholders; they are political agents, and they should be excluded from donating to elections if they do not reside in Oakland. If enough money is siphoned from public schools, public schools will be the schools of last resort serving mostly the expensive classified students. Billionaires are trying to actively hijack the public money. This behavior goes far beyond any notion of competition. Parents and social justice groups must fight back and organize to resist. States need to change their campaign laws to prohibit the buying of seats and elections by outside billionaires and corporations.
The “Systems of Schools” theme is being promoted to normalize an “equivalence” of charter schools with public schools and private schools.
Here is one example of the argument, with extended international comparisons of systems. The Systems of Schools theme is being promoted by Chiefs For Change and clearly intended to tap into the idea that pluralism (in systems) and choice are allied concepts. See page 17 for the rhetorical moves that are being advocated http://edpolicy.education.jhu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/PluralismBrief-Jan2018.pdf
When Joel Klein was chancellor of the NYC schools, “system of schools” was his mantra. He closed many public schools, opened charters and small schools
“Systems of Schools” = Systematically Stretching Truth for Private $$$$.
In other words, plain English, they are lying SOBs.
I wonder if a law passed to exclude non-Oakland residents from contributing to a candidate for Oakland office would even hold up? Altho what’s going on here obviously isn’t kosher, such a law probably isn’t, either.
In the long run the goal should be publicly-funded campaigns. Taxpayers have direct interest in limiting the campaign budget, & there’d be no grounds for giving one candidate a bigger budget than another. The needle may be moving in that direction somewhat– according to my anecdotal info that my google-newsfeed category “campaign reform” gets a lot more stories than it did a few yrs ago. Most of the initiatives seem to be at the municipal & state level. Special interests will fight it tooth & nail.
But in the short run the effort should be to dig out, expose, & widely disseminate the sources of candidate funding during the campaign. Locals dislike outsiders trying to swing their elections.
Bethree,
NPE is writing a report about outside funding flooding state and local school board races. It is a betrayal of democracy when very rich people who don’t live in the district or even the state choose the local or state school board.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Walton Family Foundation, Heartland Institute, 74 Million and other fans of charter schools are pushing the idea that “choice” in schools is limited nation-wide by “charter school deserts.”
An April 2018 report, based on a study funded by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation comes just as there are other reports of some slowing of charter school growth nationwide, and a concurrent promotion of the idea that charter expansion into the suburbs is needed. Diane probably has this report in hand for her book-in-progress.
What is a charter school desert? According to the lead author of a study, Andrew Saultz from Miami University, there are charter school deserts all over the US. The study, with state-by-state reports on charter elementary school deserts draws on data from the GreatSchool.org website (2014-2015) and US census tracts identified by poverty levels of the population (see note below on the software).
Charter school deserts are formally identified as “areas of three or more contiguous census tracts with moderate or high poverty and no charter elementary schools.” In a low poverty tract, from 0% to 20% of the population lives at or below the poverty line. In moderate poverty tract, from 21% to 40% of the population lives at or below the poverty line. In a high poverty tract, 41% to 100% of the population lives at or above the poverty line. These three thresholds of poverty have been color-coded onto maps for each state and major metro areas.
The maps in the report are “visual approximations” of the areas where “parents, policymakers, and educators with information about which high- and medium-poverty communities do not have access to charter schools today. These groups can use our findings to better understand the supply of schooling options in their states and cities and perhaps press for changes that would improve that supply. Likewise, charter operators and authorizers will find the data helpful as they consider where to establish new schools. (p. 3)
Among the caveats for the whole project (p. 33 ) are these:… Although we focus on school locations, location alone is insufficient to ensure that families have viable access to schools. Nearby schools may not be available to families if they’re filled to capacity, if policies prohibit transfer, or if transportation is unavailable. Third, some rural areas may lack charter schools simply because the population is too thin to support them. Fourth, our report does not address school quality, but the companion website allows users to view schools’ math and English language arts proficiency data. Finally, visually identifying charter school deserts is inevitably vulnerable to human error, as they may be identified differently based on how contiguous census tracts are positioned and how “desert circles” are drawn.
The whole report is actually designed to stretch the concept of poverty and aggrandize the need for charters in suburbs and other geographies. The authors assume that charters are inherently better and also entitled to take students from public schools. These aims are explicit. Nothing is changed in the charter strategy for expansion to the “underserved residents” of suburban communities with less than acute poverty as demonstrated by census tracks.
“First, the charter sector needs to move beyond city boundaries. We urge charter management organizations, other school operators, and philanthropies and organizations that boost, assist, and encourage charters, to widen their gaze and consider opening schools in places that haven’t yet been on their radar but whose residents deserve more options.”
“Second, we must address the policy and practical barriers in some states that keep charter schools from locating where they are needed. In short, if disadvantaged families are increasing in number outside the city, so should the number of philanthropists willing to support them there. We also need elected and appointed officials to adopt more supportive charter school policies, including those that allow these innovative public schools of choice to locate anywhere in the state” (p.7, 21).
The report also continues the myth that charter schools are underfunded and whines that charters have a problem with financing facilities and transportation (p. 22). https://edexcellence.net/publications/charter-school-deserts-report
https://www.the74million.org/article/bradford-the-politics-partisanship-of-americas-education-reform-debate-time-for-a- suburban-strategy/.
The maps in this study are designed to justify charter expansions while ignoring larger issues that influence poverty in families, neighborhoods, schools, and so on. In fact, the pitifully narrow use of the software the Fordham study can be appreciated if you look at some of the illustrations at the following website. See especially how poverty is also mapped by access to a range of social services and “opportunities” for reducing poverty.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284162786_Poverty%27s_place_the_use_of_Geographic_Information_Systems_in_poverty_advocacy
In other words charters are going through a manifest destiny phase. They want to expand even though there is no legitimate need in a particular area. Expansion will always be on their minds. It is the life blood of capitalism. It is not about the students; it is about grabbing more public money.
Bank fraud expert William Black coined the term “control fraud” to describe the situation that prevails in businesses that are actually scams. He pointed out that one of the sure signs of control fraud is very fast growth in the absence of any legitimate justification for such quick growth.
Many charters have much in common with the criminal banks that Black has studied. They not only grow very fast, but the people controlling them push out anyone who disagrees with the policies leaving a bunch of “yes men and women” in place. It’s no accident that many charters have engaged in criminal fraud.
“Charter school deserts”
A cheek-blowing desert
A testing Sahara
Where kids aren’t measured
And aren’t in terror
Where teaching is drier
Than Gobi itself
And teachers they fire
For trying to help
Don’t forget San Diego:
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/may/07/san-diego-school-board-members-are-running-unoppos/
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/may/09/sdusd-superintendent-seeks-charter-changes/
https://timesofsandiego.com/education/2018/05/08/charter-schools-costing-san-diego-unified-65-9-million-annually-report-finds/
Sorry, the first link above is not directly related. This one is related: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/may/11/charter-or-labor-majority-stake-san-diego-county-s/
A line in the article caught my eye, and is oh so true of many reports, writings, etc. . . .
“‘It [the Sandia report] was great stuff,’ Golarz [former Indiana school administrator] said. ‘I remember, when it came out, thinking, ‘‘Finally, somebody’s unraveled this damn thing and showed all the flaws.’ But nobody read it.”’
THE “DAMN THING” that has been unraveled and that has been shown all the flaws is the educational standards and standardized testing regime.
And hardly anybody has read it.
Much less taken it to heart and done something to prevent that educational malpractice from abusing and harming the most innocent of society, the children.
Noel Wilson has “unraveled THAT DAMN THING” and then some in his never refuted nor rebutted 1997 seminal work “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
And hardly anyone has read it.
Much less taken it to heart and done something to prevent the abuse and harming of the most innocent of society the children.
As it is, the powers that be that are being challenged will never give any legitimate critiques any credence whatsoever as it is best to ignore those well-substantiated criticisms in an attempt to bury them in the trash heap of lost and forgotten time and history.