Kevin Ohlandt reports that a second charter school in Delaware voted to join the Delaware State Education Association.
This is sure to make the Waltons, Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, and Democrats for Edicarion Reform very angry, because part of their motivation for supporting charters is to break trachers’ Unions. More than 90% of charters are non-union, and their billionaire backers want to keep them that way.
Kevin writes:
Odyssey Charter School teachers and staff voted and an overwhelming majority decided to join the Delaware State Education Association. This is the second charter school in Delaware to do so in 2018. Last Spring, the Charter School of Wilmington also voted to join DSEA. In 1997, Positive Outcomes joined DSEA but opted out in 2000. Delaware College Prep joined in 2012 but closed a few years later due to low enrollment.
With 131 for and 16 against, over 89% of the educators in the school decided a teachers union was the best option for them. Prior to 2018, it was virtually unheard of for Delaware charters to unionize. What turned the tide?
For Odyssey, the decision was clear- they did not like decisions the board was making and felt their voices were not being heard. When former leader Nick Manolakos did not have his contract renewed, the school hired two to take his place. But the tipping point was when their former Board President, who had just resigned, became a leading contender for a third highly paid administrator.
Over the summer this led to those teachers and parents questioning the board about decisions that would affect the school. Parents saw fundraiser after fundraiser to get more money for the school but didn’t feel the money was going towards what the school promised. But they had money for all these administrators.
Remember, Delaware is the state that DeVos gave more than $10 million to expand charter schools, even though there is a problem with low enrollments (I.e., not much demand).
I would wager that ed reform, as a “movement”, has spent more time and money and energy on union-busting than on ANY educational issue in any existing public school. Not a charter or voucher school- an existing public school.
It’s funny because I live in a conservative area and I’ve been a public school parent 25 years. Our teachers belong to a union. Not once in all that time have I heard a single parent raise it as an issue. I have heard everything from lunches to discipline to uniforms discussed, books parents don’t approve of, too much or too little homework, but never have I see the anti-union sentiment that pervades ed reform and drives their activism.
One would think “public education advocates” would work on something in education instead of suing labor unions, bashing labor unions, organizing against labor unions, and on and on. It’s almost like their “movement” isn’t about education at all, and is instead ideologically driven social planning.
I read this commentary at ed reform conferences (there are hundreds of them) and they all stand up there and insist with a straight face that they are not anti-union when every single one of them is employed by or bankrolled by industries or billionaires who are vehemently and specifically working to abolish labor unions.
I mean, come on. If they want to kid themselves they can do that but don’t treat us like idiots. If you’re on the Walton payroll you’re anti-union or you’re no longer ON the Walton payroll. Ask a Wal Mart employee. The 74, the ed reform industry mouthpiece, will sometimes have 3 anti-union pieces per edition.
I don’t mind anti-union activists. It’s a position. I mind anti-union activists who insist I ignore what’s right in front of me.
Any private sector union member who thinks they’ll stop at abolishing public sector unions is a fool. It’s an anti-union agenda and it looks the same in 2018 than it did in 1918. They want low wages and compliant employees. It doesn’t matter if you’re assembling an automobile or coding.
yes yes yes. More. Of. This.
I can’t find this ed reform disaster in Maine reported on any of the ed reform industry newsletters. I wonder why not?
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/10/18/maine-went-all-in-on-proficiency-based-learning-then-rolled-it-back-what-does-that-mean-for-the-rest-of-the-country/
One would think data-based scientists would be interested in massive failures of their experiments. It’s almost like they are paid to be cheerleaders.
Now why would a whole state upend their public education system at the direction of 15 national lobbyists? That’s insane. Yet, Maine did it. And now they wasted 6 years and tens of millions of dollars on a state-wide experiment that never had any research support, but sounded good and was fashionable. It’s a breach of the public trust.
I’ve read more than once when employees for a Walmart store vote to go union, the Waltons close that store and fire all the employees.
an interesting connection here to what I’ve seen happening in our inner-city school district: schools long known to house organized union resistance now closed/broken into multiple chaters
Since the billionare overlords, Trump (although he is a serial lying fake billionaire), Gates, the Waltons, Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, et al. are all psychopaths, they can’t stand the workers (or anyone even other billionaires) having any power.
Psychopaths are out for themselves and micromanage their empires. Democratic Republics are not a fit for a Psychopaths.
I’m sure that not all billionaires are psychopaths but I think most of them are.