I learned from Bill Phillis’s posts about a great new organization that has just been launched in Ohio.
If you live in Ohio, join it.
The organization, called Public Education Partners, was inspired by Jan Resseger’s post: https://janresseger.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/my-public-education-platform/
Every candidate running for public office, whether school board, state legislature, the governorship, or Congress should be asked to take a stand: Do you support this platform?
Preamble to PEP’s Public Education Platform
The Ohio Constitution (Article VI, sections 2 and 3) requires the state to secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools and provide for the organization, administration and control of the system. School district boards of education have the constitutional and statutory responsibility to administer the educational program. Boards of education have the fiduciary duty to ensure the educational needs of all resident students are met in an equitable and adequate manner.
The state’s first obligation is to ensure that a thorough and efficient system is established and maintained. The state has no right under the Ohio constitution to fund alternative educational programs that diminish moral and financial support from the common school system. Ohio’s system of school was declared unconstitutional more than two decades ago, yet since that time $11 billion have been drained from the public school system for publicly- funded, privately-operated charter schools. This egregious flaw in state policy must be addressed.
Jan Resseger of Cleveland Heights has aptly defined state and local responsibility for education as follows:
A comprehensive system of public education that serves all children and is democratically governed, publicly funded, universally accessible, and accountable to the public is central to the common good.
The education platform premised on the constitutional responsibility of the state of Ohio as stated in the preamble is:
A comprehensive system of public education that serves all children and is democratically governed, publicly funded, universally accessible, and accountable to the public, is central to the common good.
~Jan Resseger
Ohio Public Education Platform
This education platform is premised on the constitutional responsibility of the state of Ohio:
Provide adequate and equitable funding to Ohio school districts to guarantee a comparable opportunity to learn for ALL children. This includes a quality early childhood education, qualified teachers, a rich curriculum that will prepare students for college, work and community, and equitable instructional resources. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WLdVez25ZjDzzd2irSUwUggj-GflNQuO/view?usp=sharing
Respect local control of public schools run by elected school boards. There are different needs for different schools of different sizes, and each local school board knows what its students, families, and community values. http://www.nvasb.org/assets/why_school_boards.pdf
Reject the school privatization agenda, which includes state takeovers, charter schools, voucher schemes, and high-stakes testing. The school privatization agenda has proven to be ineffective at bringing efficiency and cost savings to our schools. https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Privatizing_Public_Education,_Higher_Ed_Policy,_and_T eachers
Do away with the state takeovers of school districts imposed in House Bill 70. State takeovers of school districts (HB 70), followed by the appointment of CEOs with power to override the decisions of elected school boards and nullify union contracts, is undemocratic, unaccountable, and without checks and balances. http://www.reclaimourschools.org/sites/default/files/state-takeover-factsheet-3.pdf
Promote a moratorium on the authorization of new charter schools while gradually removing existing charters, which take funding and other valuable resources from public school districts. Charter schools remove funds and other resources from public school districts and need to be phased out. For-profit charter schools should be eliminated – tax dollars should never be transferred into private profits. https://knowyourcharter.com/
Eliminate vouchers and tuition tax credit programs. Voucher schemes take desperately needed dollars out of education budgets and undermine the protection of religious liberty as defined by the First Amendment. https://educationvotes.nea.org/2017/02/08/5-names- politicians-use-sell-private-school-voucher-schemes-parents/
Encourage wraparound community learning centers that bring social and health services into Ohio school buildings. These wraparound services ensure that the public schools are the center of the neighborhood, and they include health, dental, and mental health clinics, after school programs, and parent support programs. Cincinnati Public Schools has a very successful program: https://www.cps-k12.org/community/clc
End the test-and-punish philosophy, and replace it with an ideology of school investment and improvement. The tests have narrowed the curriculum to the tested subjects. If national standardized testing is to continue, testing should be limited to the federal minimum guidelines, and there should be no state standardized tests beyond those mandated by ESSA. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer- sheet/wp/2017/01/06/how-testing-practices-have-to-change-in-u-s-public- schools/?utm_term=.45d28f77dcb0
Remove high stakes mandates from schools, and abolish the practice of punishing schools, teachers, families, and students for arbitrary test scores. Do away with mandatory retention attached to the 3rd Grade Reading Guarantee and high school end-of-course state tests. If parents choose to opt their children out of testing, no one should be penalized. http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Dangerous-Consequences-of-high-stakes- tests.pdf
Restore respect for well-trained, certified teachers, and return educator evaluation systems to locally elected school boards. Dismiss Teach for America, which is funded by the Eli Broad Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. https://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/went-wrong-teach-america/
Eliminate the practice of judging teachers by their students’ scores – research has proven it unreliable. http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/TeacherEvaluationFactSheetRevisionJanuary201 6.pdf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I will join. Thanks so much for letting us know.
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Supporters of public education should familiarize themselves with the state constitution and other statutes. It is only when people are armed with information that they can organize and challenge the lawless acts of current administrations. The impulse of wealthy special interest groups often disregard the intention of laws in their haste to privatize public schools. Information is necessary to launch resistance to such undemocratic manipulations. This Ohio group is a step in the right direction. Other states should watch and learn.
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Exactly rt! Making sure that the state constitution is followed is one of the most important factors in fighting against the educational malpractices that have come to dominate the teaching and learning process, especially when laws affecting public education do not adhere to the basic constitutional mandates. As you state, all should be looking into this route.
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Supporters of publicly-operated educational systems should familiarize themselves with both the federal and state constitutions and the appropriate supreme court decisions. Opponents of school choice, keep beating the “dead horse” of the first amendment’s establishment clause.
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No part of the First Amendment is a “dead horse,” Charles.
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Agreed, that no part of the 1st amendment is a dead horse. But continually asserting (incorrectly) that providing parents with the choice to send their children to a school, run by a religious enterprise, is a violation of the establishment clause, 16 years after the Supreme Court ruled that it is not, is beating a dead horse.
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No state has ever voted to send public money to religious schools. Period.
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You say : Q No state has ever voted to send public money to religious schools. Period. END Q
I have found two cases, where state legislatures have voted to send public money to religiously-operated schools. (there are many others)
Q Both Pennsylvania and Rhode Island adopted statutes that provided for the state to pay for aspects of non-secular, non-public education. The Pennsylvania statute was passed in 1968 and provided funding for non-public elementary and secondary school teachers’ salaries, textbooks, and instructional materials for secular subjects. Rhode Island’s statute was passed in 1969 and provided state financial support for non-public elementary schools in the form of supplementing 15% of teachers’ annual salaries. END Q
State legislatures have been voting to spend public money in religiously-operated schools for many years. The spending can go to safety equipment, textbooks, transportation, and other permissible items.
(Are you referring to referenda? In that specific case, I agree with you. No state referendum has ever been approved for school choice. I suspect that none ever will be. Fortunately, many states have a legislative process, and not all states have referendum procedures)
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Charles, this is an example of a comment that has been posted here again and again and again, and I won’t do it anymore.
No referendum to approve vouchers for religious schools has ever passed in the United States.
Of course, legislatures controlled by rightwing and religious money have passed voucher laws, often contravening their state constitutions. Some state courts, filled with rightwing Republicans like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, have blatantly ignored their state constitutions. But up to this date, the people have never voted to approve vouchers, not even in deep red Utah.
Now stop writing your pro voucher propaganda. Go elsewhere with it.
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The leadership at PEP is great. The central Ohio part of the group leads demonstrations in the state capitol. As happy as I am about the growing influence of public education supporters, I will be equally glad, when Fordham folds its tent in Ohio. Each time that I see my tax dollars, squandered on hundreds of ads for for-profit schools- spending that educates no student- I damn Fordham.
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Just signed up. Diane, I’d appreciate it if you could share my contact info with Jan. We live close to each other and I’d like get her advice as I move ahead with my windmill chasing effort to fight testing in my local district.
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done.
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ONCE YOU find her, be ready to read. 🙂
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No problem with reading new stuff. But I refuse to take a test!
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Don’t go getting all commie on us now GregB! 🙂
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This is a concise and clear statement, and should be of use in many states
beyond Ohio. I applaud and support it.
But….
Ohio also has an ESSA plan. In a recent email exchange, Jan asked if the feds would be checking on state compliance with ESSA plans. It is a good question. I think DeVos does not have the staff or interest in nagging states about compliance unless that advances her choice agenda. A few members of Congress may call for something like a public report, but that might be several years down the road. “Implementation” is supposed to begin this school year, even if USDE “approval” has been only a month or so ago.
Even so, state and local politicians/advocates for privatization are likely to ask for evidence of “enforcement” of ESSA, if they can extract any political mileage from that effort, especially in pointing to failures in schools.
Among these ESSA watchdogs are a number of non-governmental agencies and groups, some sustained by the largess of billionaire-backed non-profits, and known to be politically aligned with privatizers (including) charter cheerleaders and the edTech industry.
Here are a few of the self-appointed “monitors” of ESSA plans: The Walton funded 74Million, the Council of Chief State School Officers and Achieve Inc, Bellwether Education Partners, The Education Trust, The Center on Standards & Assessment Implementation in partnership with WestEd, and more recently The Education Commission of the States (aided by $5.3 million in 2018 from the B&M Gates Foundation).
Meanwhile Ohio has come up with a “Strategic Education Plan for Education ” being marketed as “ Each Child, Our Future.” It is unrelated to ESSA but approved by the State Board of Education. It is portrayed as “aspirational” and more comprehensive than the ESSA plan.
This recently minted Strategic Plan is jargon-filled. It was also created by a process engaging 150 “partners” in five task forces, each with a heavy handed role for leaders and participants known to be pushing for corporate management of schools and undermining public education.
1. The Excellent Educators and Instructional Practices taskforce, one of the smallest groups with only six teachers, was led by a HUMAN TALENT EXPERT ??? I discovered that she is a has-been Executive Director of Talent Strategy for Metro Nashville Public Schools in charge educator recruitment, selection, evaluation, and retention. Before that she worked for Education First, Achieve, Inc.
2. The Standards, Assessments and Accountability Taskforce was led by a person representing KNOWLEDGEWORKS, a non-profit that promotes all things computer-based “personalized,” mastery and competency-based and more generally de-schooling education. The final report is replete with competence-based student-centered this and that.
3. Participants in the Student Supports and School Climate and Culture taskforce included representatives form KIPP Columbus (TFA, Doug LeMov plus Duckworth’s Grit), The Thomas B. Fordham Institute (TFA and charter lover). The final report seems to be gaga over tests for social-emotional learning and school culture surveys.
4. The Early Learning and Literacy taskforce was led by a person from BATTELLE FOR KIDS, a national non-profit located in Ohio, promoter of growth in “human capital,” pusher of Common Core, data center for Ohio’s absurd legislated evaluations, including more than 50 data points for teacher education programs–also well-funded by the Gates foundation.
5. The High School Success and Postsecondary Connection taskforce was led by a person from JOBS FOR THE FUTURE, a national organization with 18 projects already shaping public policy in Ohio. Here they are: The Center for Apprenticeship & Work-Based Learning; Student-Centered Learning Research Collaborative; Pathways to Prosperity Network; Postsecondary State Network; Student Success Center Network; Nudging to STEM Success; Early College; Improved Reentry Education; Jobs to Careers; Counseling to Careers; Middle-Skill STEM Pathways Initiative; New Skills at Work; PAY FOR SUCCESS IN K–12 EDUCATION; Digital Career Accelerator; Great Lakes College & Career Pathways Partnership; Lumina Foundation Talent Hubs; Google IT Support Professional Certificate, and Policy Leadership Trust.
Governor Kasich wants public education in Ohio to create jobs for Ohio. Jobs for the Future has a lot of deep-pocket out-of-state “partners.” Among these are: Google, Salesforce.org (cloud computing, artificial Intelligence), Educational Credit Management Corporation Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Social Finance (Pay for Success contracts.
I am not saying that these named facilitators and participants shaped the whole “vision” in this Education Strategy Plan for Ohio, but this state is becoming notorious for bad policies with one of the worst examples the continuing saga of millions in thefts from ECOT, the online charter school and now we are one of four national sites for a “Pay For Success in K-12 Education” program with 90% funding by USDE. This is a bad idea from the get go. Pay-for-success is a financial product sold to investors and rigged to produce profits. See https://www.jff.org/points-of-view/social-finance-and-jobs-future-announce-partners-develop-first-nation-pay-success/
One more observation about the Ohio Education Strategy Plan. There is little vision in the vision statement. “As first step in a long-term journey to create a responsive preK-12 system, Ohio partners identified four equal learning domains that contribute to the holistic success of each child. Here, in lightly edited form, are the learning domains, my comments in parentheses.
FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS—… Each child must know how to critically read, write, work with numbers and leverage technology for future. (The 3R’s and technology, with tech the new basic).
WELL-ROUNDED CONTENT—Students need exposure to and opportunity for exploration of…social studies, science, world languages, arts, health, physical education and career-technical education fields, among others (This sounds like “a little dab will do you.” Exposure and exploration are terms usually associated with enrichments).
LEADERSHIP AND REASONING SKILLS—Leadership is learning from mistakes, listening to and working with others to achieve a common goal. Reasoning skills include critical thinking, problem-solving, design and computational thinking, information evaluation and data analytics.
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING—Competencies like self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, collaboration, empathy, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.
I have yet to see the budget for this embarrassing exercise in “partnering” with over 150 participants. Ohio needs new leadership. I vote for Jan Resseger and Bill Phillis.
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By supporting privatization, the corporate-funded Center for American Progress, which was created by John Podesto, opened the door for education grifters to exploit taxpayers (the Ohio experience).
In order to focus on Democratic efforts, John left the for-profit business that he and his brother, Tony, co-founded. (John ran Hillary’s losing campaign.) Recently, the Jonathan Turley blog reported that Tony Podesto’s file was “sent to the Southern District of New York to be reviewed for possible prosecution” related to the work that the firm did for Manafort. The decision may be that the evidence doesn’t warrant a charge.
Small D.C. beltway world.
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Small D.C. beltway world that decimates Main Street and enriches Wall Street.
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Laura,
” Encourage wraparound community learning centers that bring social and health services into Ohio school buildings. ” This part is very dangerous. Invest resources in hiring district-paid, full time, certified school social workers to coordinate services. Bringing those services INTO schools will mean that sensitive information on vulnerable children and their families will only be subject to FERPA protections rather than much stronger HIPPA protections. Also it creates an ecosystem for predatory non-profits backed by social impact investors. In most communities where in-school services are being pitched, there are already considerable local support services in communities. They just need to be coordinated.
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