Major school districts in North Carolina have decided to close school on May 16, when teachers will mass in the State Capitol. That is the day the General Assembly reconvenes.
There are few states in which the state legislature has been more punitive towards teachers and public schools than North Carolina.
#RedForEd rolls on.
The Los Angeles Unified School District board voted to appoint a wealthy investment banker, Austin Beutner, as its superintendent by a vote of 4-3. The deciding vote was cast by Ref Rodriguez, a charter founder who is waiting to stand trial on multiple felony indictments related to campaign finance. The initial vote was kept secret for more than a week. Then another vote to taken to offer a contract to Mr. Beutner, and that was approved 5-2.
After many years as an investment banker, Beutner served briefly as deputy mayor of Los Angeles and served briefly as publisher of the Los Angeles Times. He has a close association with Eli Broad, the octogenarian billionaire who has declared his hope to put half the students in the nation’s second largest school district into privately managed charter schools.
The two career educators on the board were the dissenters. Scott Schmerelson released a statement decrying Beutner’s lack of any education experience.
George McKenna issued this statement today.
For Immediate Release May 2, 2018
Contact: Patrice Marshall McKenzie (213) 259-9763
STATEMENT FROM BOARD MEMBER DR. GEORGE J. MCKENNA III
REGARDING THE SELECTION OF LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT
As an experienced lifelong public-school educator, I feel compelled to voice my dissent regarding the selection of a non-educator to lead the second-largest school district in the nation.
In an abbreviated and rushed process without open community forums or input from school and District staff, parents and students, a majority of the Board of Education selected the new superintendent with a 5 to 2 vote. This choice of a person with no experience as an educator in K-12 school districts reflects the lack of concern for the continuity and stability of the District.
The premise that a non-educator is a better fit to lead a large educational organization because of limited managerial experience in outside business experiences is fundamentally flawed and politically motivated. To intentionally seek non-educators to serve as superintendents reflects a lack of respect for the professional educators who have demonstrated effective service and leadership within school systems, along with a denial of the Board’s ultimate responsibility to establish policies that govern the District and hold the Superintendent accountable.
The primary purpose of a school district is to establish and adequately resource effective schools, which are ultimately dependent on teachers, administrators and other school site staff. The dream of business-style governance being used in an urban school district to turnaround failing schools and/or lessen the achievement gap is a myth that has not materialized. This continued experiment on the neediest students and families is an injustice and an avoidance of the reality that our communities need the best educational leadership that be found.
Despite the enthusiasm by some for “outside” and “non-traditional” leadership for school districts, the reality is that this strategy never results in the reversal of underachievement in our neediest schools and communities. It is hard to believe that a governing board of a multi-billion dollar company would hire an inexperienced novice to lead their company in time of greatest need. This decision was predetermined by outside influences with a profit and political motive that will continue to expand without providing adequate resources to our neediest schools.
Although this decision was predictable and disappointing, I encourage our great team of employees and parents to continue communicating their needs and concerns to the superintendent, to me and the other Board Members.
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333 South Beaudry Avenue, 24th Floor / Los Angeles, California 90017 Telephone (213) 241-6382 Facsimile (213) 241-8441 E-Mail:George.mckenna@lausd.net
Dana Goldstein has an article in this morning’s New York Times about how some states and districts are filling teacher vacancies caused by low pay. They are hiring teachers from other nations on temporary work visas to whom an American salary looks princely.
The latest wave of foreign workers sweeping into American jobs brought Donato Soberano from the Philippines to Arizona two years ago. He had to pay thousands of dollars to a job broker and lived for a time in an apartment with five other Filipino workers. The lure is the pay — 10 times more than what he made doing the same work back home.
But Mr. Soberano is not a hospitality worker or a home health aide. He is in another line of work that increasingly pays too little to attract enough Americans: Mr. Soberano is a public school teacher.
As walkouts by teachers protesting low pay and education funding shortfalls spread across the country, the small but growing movement to recruit teachers from overseas is another sign of the difficulty some districts are having providing the basics to public school students.
Among the latest states hit by the protests is Arizona, where teacher pay is more than $10,000 below the national average of $59,000 per year. The Pendergast Elementary School District, where Mr. Soberano works, has recruited more than 50 teachers from the Philippines since 2015. They hold J-1 visas, which allow them to work temporarily in the United States, like au pairs or camp counselors, but offer no path to citizenship. More than 2,800 foreign teachers arrived on American soil last year through the J-1, according to the State Department, up from about 1,200 in 2010.
“In these times, you have to be innovative and creative in recruiting,” said Patricia Davis-Tussey, Pendergast’s head of human resources. “We embrace diversity and really gain a lot from the cultural exchange experience. Our students do as well.”
The district, which covers parts of Glendale, Avondale and north Phoenix, is a hotbed of activism in the teacher walkout movement, known as #RedforEd. Picketing educators say they have had to move in with their parents, apply for food stamps and pay out of pocket for classroom essentials like graph paper and science supplies. They argue that taxes are too low to adequately fund schools, or for teachers to secure a middle-class lifestyle.
In response to the teacher walkout, Republican lawmakers introduced a budget that provides new funding for salaries and classrooms. But leaders of the #RedForEd movement said the bill fell far short of their demands, and would restore only about a quarter of the $1.1 billion in annual cuts that they say schools have weathered since the last recession.
In Pendergast, where salaries of around $40,000 are a source of pain and protest for the district’s American educators, Mr. Soberano is thankful for the pay.
Much like other foreign workers, he went into debt to find a job in the United States. He said he used savings and a bank loan to pay $12,500, about three years’ worth of his salary in the Philippines, to Petro-Fil Manpower Services. That is a Filipino company of Ligaya Avenida, a California-based consultant who recruits and screens teachers for the J-1.
The payment covered Mr. Soberano’s airfare and rent for his first few months in Arizona, as well as a $2,500 fee for Ms. Avenida and a fee of several thousand dollars to Alliance Abroad Group, a Texas-based company that is an official State Department sponsor for J-1 visa holders. The J-1 lasts three years, with the option for two one-year extensions. For each year he works in the United States, Mr. Soberano will owe Alliance Abroad an additional $1,000 visa renewal fee.
“You have to make some sacrifices to leave your family way back home,” Mr. Soberano said. Every night, he prepares lessons for his seventh- and eighth-grade science students, and every morning, he wakes up at 4 a.m. to video chat with his wife and two teenage daughters, who are ending their day in Manila. Despite their separation, he said the experience has been rewarding, “teaching in a different culture, but also, financially.”
The school districts that recruit teachers like Mr. Soberano say that they have few other options, because they can’t find enough American educators willing to work for the pay that’s offered. They say that the foreign teachers are being given valuable opportunities, and that American students are enriched by learning from them. But critics argue the teachers are being taken advantage of in a practice that helps keep wages low and perpetuates yearslong austerity policies.
Though J-1 teachers account for only a tiny share of Arizona’s 60,000 public schoolteachers, international recruitment has spread quickly in recent years, as sponsor companies market themselves to districts facing shortages and word spreads among administrators. According to the State Department, 183 Arizona teachers were granted new J-1 visas last year, up from 17 in 2010.
Tomorrow.
Teachers from across the globe tell Pearson investors:
Stop the exploitation of vulnerable kids!
International protest and actions planned at annual shareholders meeting
For Immediate Release
What: Teachers from around the globe, education unions and members of parliament from Kenya will be protesting both outside and inside the Annual General Meeting of Pearson to urge investors to stop funding Bridge International Academies.
When/Where: Friday, May 4th Press conference and protest at 11 AM. The shareholders meeting starts at 12PM at which point the protest will continue inside the meeting. IET London, 2 Savoy Place, London WC2R
Who: Wilson Sossion, General Secretary, Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary, National Education Union (UK), Angelo Gavrielatos, Project Director, Education International (EI) will all be available for interviews.
Contact: Angelo Gavrielatos at +61488012045
Why: Pearson is a huge edu-business which invests in the US owned corporation called Bridge International Academies. This for-profit corporation is making money off the education dreams and aspirations of poor families in Africa and Asia. We want Pearson shareholders to be aware of this hurtful investment and to stop supporting a company that seeks to profit from vulnerable kids.
***
London, May 2, 2018 – Education activists, teachers and union leaders representing 32 million educators worldwide will come to London to urge shareholders at the Pearson Annual General Meeting to stop funding Bridge International Academies, a for-profit company that makes money by shortchanging the education of thousands of at risk children.
Bridge is one of the largest education for-profit companies in the world, with plans to sell basic education services directly to 10 million fee-paying students throughout Africa and Asia by 2025. Bridge’s business plan is predicated on the employment of unqualified staff delivering a highly scripted, standardised curriculum in substandard facilities.
Despite their slick marketing, the company uses cost-cutting techniques aimed at minimising operational costs in order to maximise profit. In both Uganda and Kenya, Bridge schools have been ordered to shut because of the company’s neglect and disregard for national legal and educational requirements.
In announcing the closure of these schools, authorities in Kenya and Uganda have cited the company’s failure to seek registration to operate, failure to employ qualified teachers, failure to conform to national curriculum requirements and use of unsafe facilities. Bridge has retaliated by taking legal action against its critics in an attempt to silence them.
Wilson Sossion, General Secretary, Kenya National Union of Teachers, who is being sued by Bridge, will travel all the way to London to denounce the corporation’s practices in his own country.
“Learners are precious human beings destined to enjoy rich and fulfilling lives and help build decent and strong societies. They should never be seen or treated as remote, unknown pieces of education business supply chains,” said Wilson Sossion.
“By supporting Bridge, Pearson is actively undermining the attainment of free quality education for all, and going against its own motto of education as a “never-ending road of discovery, challenge, inspiration, and wonder,”’ said Angelo Gavrielatos, Project Director at Education International.
“Pearson goes to great lengths to talk about how central teachers are to the achievement of quality education for all yet, it supports these for-profit chains who use unqualified staff delivering scripted lessons in a robotic structure. Adding insult to injury, poor families must pay ever increasing fees to sustain a business that shortchanges their education dreams,” he added.
“Every child has the right to a free, high quality education, with trained teachers and a safe learning environment. Bridge exploits this right for profit, and in the process delivers a sub-standard education that deepens inequality in the communities it “serves”. Pearson’s investment in this exploitative business model is wholly indefensible,” stated Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union (NEU).
***
Education International is the global teacher trade union federation representing more than 32 million educators in 172 countries.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers is the largest teachers’ trade union in Kenya.
The National Education Union is the largest teachers’ union in the UK, established in 2017 after the amalgamation of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL). Both unions have a history of opposing the privatisation of education both nationally and internationally.
Angelo Gavrielatos
Project Director
Email: Angelo.Gavrielatos@ei-ie.org
Tel: +32 2 224 06 11
Fax: +32 2 224 06 06
5 bd du Roi Albert II | 1210 Brussels | BELGIUM
http://www.ei-ie.org
Tens of thousands of teachers in Arizona went out on strike last Friday, demanding a restoration of deep budget cuts over the past decade and pay raises. The legislature passed a new budget today that fell short of meeting their demands.
The strike may end, for fear that teachers will lose public support if they stay out longer.
”The legislation signed by Gov. Doug Ducey (R) early Thursday did not meet all the demands initially laid out by the groups coordinating the walkout, and some teachers had hoped to keep schools closed until legislators committed to a larger budget. But it was enough progress for union leaders to recommend teachers return to the classroom and prepare for another battle later in the year….
”The budget bill gives teachers a 9 percent pay raise next year, which, combined with a 1 percent raise already given, gets them halfway to the 20 percent hike they have called for. Ducey has promised that the second installment will come by 2020, though that is not guaranteed by the package he signed.
“The plan steers bulk money to districts and gives them the discretion to dole out the raises as they see fit, meaning not all teachers will receive the same percentage pay bump. An analysis done by the Arizona Republic found that a minority of districts under the plan will not receive enough money to give all their teachers 20 percent increases.
“The bill also hikes state spending on schools by $200 million per year more than Ducey originally proposed at the start of the year. Still, it comes up well short of the walkout organizers’ demand that funding be restored to 2008 levels, adjusted for inflation.”
So…the districts will decide who gets a raise. Overall funding remains far below what it was pre-2008.
Are the Koch brothers giving each other a high-5?
Will the teachers remember in November and vote out these scoundrels?
NPR Illinois has been covering the harsh disciplinary policies at the high-scoring Noble Network of charter schools.
After publishing one piece about “dehumanizing” discipline, NPR learned about another issue. Girls who are bleeding because of their menstrual period and need to go to the bathroom at once must wait for an “escort,” if the incident happens during class. If the escort is late, the girl bleeds on herself. Sometimes they are allowed to tie a sweater around their waist to hide the blood on their trousers, and they won’t get a demerit.
Two teachers persuaded the administration to let girls wear black trousers instead of khaki, to hide the bloodstains.
Would any public school do this to students? Is this inhumane discipline resreserved for low-income students of color in “no-excuses” charter schools?
Be sure to read the comments. Many were posted by people who say they are current or former teachers at the Noble Network.
Eric Blanc, writing in the Jacobin magazine, describes the epic battle that is unfolding in Arizona between the privatization movement and most of the state’s teachers.
For most of the past two decades, the archconservatives and ALEC have sought to destroy public education in the state.
Can the striking teachers change the narrative?
”Winning won’t be easy. Arizona’s educators have powerful enemies. And the prevalence of charter schools across the state is a serious obstacle in the current strike. But if Red For Ed can sustain its momentum in the coming days and months, it just might be able to reverse the privatizing tide…
”Arizona has long been a favored target of the right-wing Koch Institute and ALEC, a hyper-conservative Koch-funded corporate legislation mill. A number of leading Arizonan politicians are deeply embedded in, and indebted to, these bodies. Governor Doug Ducey has been part of the Koch network since 2011 and more than a third of Republican legislators were wined and dined last year at ALEC’s annual summit to promote “free-market” model legislation.”
Beth Lewis, a leader of the #RedForEd movement, said last week,
“Why are teachers being forced to do more with less every single year? Our legislators, our state leaders, simply refuse to invest in our public schools. Our governor and many of our state leaders are being propped up by out-of-state big money donors. That’s the reason we are here. These people want to push things like voucher schemes to take money out of our already starving public schools.”
The state is awash in charter schools and voucher schools. And behind many of them is the pursuit of money.
“Since 1994, Arizona has witnessed a proliferation of state-financed but privately run charter schools. With over 180,000 charter students, Arizona now has proportionally more than any state in the US. ALEC was clearly justified in ranking Arizona number one in its Report Card on American Education.
“Many of these schools generate millions of dollars in private revenue. In 2014–2015, for example, BASIS charter schools made just under$60 million for the for-profit BASIS corporation that services its schools. “It’s true that some charters want to do right by students and staff, but they are few and far between,” notes Owen Kerr, a ninth-year Arizonan math teacher who was formerly employed at Imagine and BASIS charter schools. “Business is business. So I can see that though a number of charters try to do things differently, most are set up to make money.”
Charter schools are largely unaccountable. Teacher turnover is high. Working conditions are poor.
“The negative effects of privatization go far beyond draining public funds. Unlike real public schools, which are generally subject to the oversight of democratically elected school boards and superintendents, charters are accountable only to their own internal boards plus the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, whose members are appointed by the governor. In the absence of real oversight, Arizona’s charters have been plagued by fraud and financial scandals…
”Politicians like Governor Ducey tout the high test scores achieved by charter schools such as BASIS, while conveniently overlooking the fact that these scores were produced by excluding or pushing out students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Many working-class families are deterred from applying to charter lotteries, since charters do not have to provide free lunch or transportation to school, unlike regular public institutions. For students who do make it into the charter system, rates of attrition are very high. Arizona charters are often particularly inhospitable to students with special needs or learning disabilities. Kevin Brown, a school psychologist in the Washington Elementary School District, notes that “‘school choice’ is just a nice way of saying that all the high performers need to be segregated from low performers (students and families who are disadvantaged socially and economically).”
The #RedForEd movement has awakened the public to the dire condition of education in Arizona. Will the public stay awake?
We will find out in November, when the reactionary Governor Ducey faces a Democratic opponent, educator David Garcia, who is allied with the striking teachers.
Justin Parmenter, a teacher in North Carolina, explains that teachers in his state have good reasons to walk out, like teachers from West Virginia to Arizona. The state legislature has kept their pay low and failed to fund the schools adequately. At the same time that the Tea Party dominated legislature was administering cuts to schools and teachers, it was cutting taxes for corporations and expanding charter schools.
Consider the facts of the last several years:
The day of reckoning in North Carolina is May 16, when the Legislature reconvenes.
Expect to see teachers at the State Capitol on May 16.
They will be there to demand that North Carolina make good public education a priority.
I recently visited Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where I learned about a very successful program called “The Kalamazoo Promise.”
The concept is simple: Every student who attends the Kalamazoo Public Schools from kindergarten through senior year and graduates receives a full scholarship for any public or private university in Michigan where he or she is accepted. All costs, tuition, books, fees, are covered. For those who attend the KPS schools for four years of high school, 65% of tuition is covered.
The donor or donors are anonymous. They do not seek recognition or honor.
The effects of the Promise have been impressive. Enrollment in KPS, which had been declining before the Promise was launched in 2005, has increased by 25%. A pre-kindergarten program has been adopted by the schools. Students are working purposefully, knowing that they can win a debt-free college education if they persist. Parents, teachers, and the community are collaborating around the goal of student success. The Promise is available to students for two-year colleges, trade schools, or four-year colleges. It can be used at any point for ten years after graduation.
When I spoke in Seattle, I recommended that someone in the audience tell Bill Gates about the Kalamazoo Promise. It is far more successful and appreciated than any of his interventions into education. Without breaking a sweat, Bill Gates could launch the Washington State Promise and guarantee every high school graduate in the state a debt-free college education. Instead of being a goat for sinking billions into test-based teacher evaluation (which failed), Common Core (the reform that dare not speak its name), and charter schools (which are highly controversial and often ineffectual), he would be universally praised for making postsecondary education available at no cost to all high school graduates in the state. Washington State has no income taxes and no corporate taxes. This would be a swell way to give back.
For all those billionaires out there looking for a sound way to invest in education, explore the Kalamazoo Promise. We know that more and more students need a postsecondary education to succeed in the twenty-first century, and we know that the cost of that education burdens students with intolerable debt. Stepping in to aid students to reach that dream is a win-win.
Parent activists are still in a state of shock in Los Angeles in reaction to the board’s selection of the totally unqualified banker Austin Beutner as Superintendent.
Reportedly a billionaire like his pal Eli Broad, although possibly only a multimillionaire, he will be paid $350,000 for his inexperience.
The first order of business will be downsizing the district, which has lost students to charter schools. Instead of fighting to regain students, Beutner will encourage the growth of privatization.
He is the quintessential corporate reformer who can be counted on to bring the mindset of a corporate raider: cut costs, cut staff, reorganize, downsize.
Beutner is everything that Broad loves in a Superintendent: a reformer dedicated to swing the axe, close schools, and fire educators.
Howard Blume writes:
””Beutner and members of the board majority seem unlikely to continue targeting charter schools as part of the problem. On the contrary, they are widely expected to take steps to encourage their growth in a range of schooling options for families, especially with academic performance lagging at many traditional campuses.
”That means the district has to look to other ways to increase revenue — a goal held in common with the prior board — and may try to reduce district spending by shrinking the traditional school system. Savings could come through employee layoffs, closing campuses and freezing or reducing salaries and benefits.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 