The New York Times spotted an important new trend: the new wave of Democratic elected officials are not in favor of charter schools. We knew this had to happen. Democrats could not be Democrats and remain in alliance with Wall Street, hedge fund managers, billionaires, the Walton family, the DeVos family, and the Koch brothers.
Eliza Shapiro writes:
Over the last decade, the charter school movement gained a significant foothold in New York, demonstrating along the way that it could build fruitful alliances with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other prominent Democrats. The movement hoped to set a national example — if charter schools could make it in a deep blue state like New York, they could make it anywhere.
But the election on Tuesday strongly suggested that the golden era of charter schools is over in New York. The insurgent Democrats who were at the forefront of the party’s successful effort to take over the State Senate have repeatedly expressed hostility to the movement.
John Liu, a newly elected Democratic state senator from Queens, has said New York City should “get rid of” large charter school networks. Robert Jackson, a Democrat who will represent a Manhattan district in the State Senate, promised during his campaign to support charter schools only if they have unionized teachers.
And another incoming Democratic state senator, Julia Salazar of Brooklyn, recently broadcast a simple message about charter schools: “I’m not interested in privatizing our public schools.”
No one is saying that existing charter schools will have to close. And in fact, New York City, which is the nation’s largest school system and home to the vast majority of the state’s charter schools, has many that are excelling.
Over 100,000 students in hundreds of the city’s charter schools are doing well on state tests, and tens of thousands of children are on waiting lists for spots. New York State has been mostly spared the scandals that have plagued states with weaker regulations.
But it seems highly likely that a New York Legislature entirely under Democratic control will restrict the number of new charter schools that can open, and tighten regulations on existing ones.
The defeat is magnified because Mr. Cuomo, a shrewd observer of national political trends with an eye toward a potential White House bid, recently softened his support for charter schools. Mayor Bill de Blasio is a longtime charter opponent with his own national aspirations.
And New York is not the only state where the charter school movement is facing fierce headwinds because of the election.
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, an enemy of public sector unions, was unseated by a Democrat, Tony Evers, a former teacher who ran on a promise to boost funding to traditional public schools.
In neighboring Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat who promised to curb charter school growth, beat the incumbent Republican, Gov. Bruce Rauner, a supporter of charter schools. And in Michigan, a Democrat, Gretchen Whitmer, promised to “put an end to the DeVos agenda.”
Ms. Whitmer won her race for governor decisively against the state’s Republican attorney general, Bill Schuette, who is an ally of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary under President Trump. Ms. DeVos has been an outspoken proponent of charter schools in her home state of Michigan and nationally.
Voters on Tuesday gave Democrats control of the New York State Legislature. It seems likely that the body will restrict the number of new charter schools that can open.CreditHolly Pickett for The New York Times
Now charter school supporters are wrestling with the unpleasant reality that a supposedly bipartisan movement, intended to rescue students from failing public schools, has been effectively linked to Wall Street, Mr. Trump and Ms. DeVos by charter school opponents.
Derrell Bradford, the executive vice president of a national group that backs charters, 50CAN, acknowledged that the election results raised new challenges. He said the situation was especially fraught because Mr. Trump has championed charter schools, making the issue toxic for some Democrats.
“I find it frustrating that the president’s support is often used as the reason for people to abandon support of charters and low-income families,” Mr. Bradford said.
Where insurgent national Democrats support charter schools, they do so carefully: Representative Jared Polis, the Colorado Democrat whom voters sent to the governor’s mansion on Tuesday, founded two charter schools. But he has made sure to criticize Ms. DeVos’s vocal brand of school choice advocacy.
Tuesday’s results were compounded by other recent blows for charters in liberal states.
In 2016, Massachusetts voters rejected a referendum that would have expanded the state’s high-performing charter schools. Though backers poured $20 million into the race, it was no match for Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders, progressive stars who opposed the initiative.
Philanthropists tried again in California over the summer, when they spent $23 million to bolster the former Los Angeles mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, in the primary for governor. Mr. Villaraigosa, a Democrat, was easily beat by Gavin Newsom, the Democratic lieutenant governor, who has been vague about the role of charters as he seeks to make California an epicenter of opposition to the Trump administration.
Some advocates find a sliver of hope in the fact that even the most liberal Democrats acknowledge that charter schools are here to stay. Many opponents want to slow growth, not destroy charters.
“No matter how hostile some of the cities get to charters, the charters have endured,” said Jeanne Allen, the chief executive of the Center for Education Reform, a national school choice advocacy group.
In New York, the insurgent Democratic candidates’ criticism of charters was somewhat less central to their campaigns than their support for traditional public schools. And though most of those Democrats said they would reject any plan to expand charter schools, they are aware that charters are popular among some families in their own districts.
“You don’t want to alienate anybody,” said Alessandra Biaggi, who in the Democratic primary unseated one of the charter lobby’s most reliable allies, State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, in a Bronx district. “I understand why charter schools exist, I understand why they have come to the Bronx, I really get it. But we’ve got to focus on improving our public schools.”
But even the best-case scenario — widespread political ambivalence, rather than animus, toward charters — would have significant consequences for charter school supporters in New York.
The Legislature may not even bother to take up charter advocates’ most pressing need: lifting the cap on the number of charter schools that can open statewide. Fewer than 10 new charter schools can open in New York City until the law is changed in Albany.
That means the city’s largest charter networks, including the widely known Success Academy, will be stymied in their ambitious goal of expanding enough to become parallel districts within the school system.
“I understand why charter schools exist,” said Alessandra Biaggi, who will represent part of the Bronx in the State Senate. “But we’ve got to focus on improving our public schools.”
But it is the smaller, more experimental charter schools that may have the most to lose.
“A new generation of schools will be thwarted,” said Steven Wilson, the founder of Ascend, a small network of Brooklyn charter schools.
And charters will now be partially regulated by the movement’s political foes. State Senate Democrats, with the lobbying support of teachers’ unions, are likely to push laws requiring charter schools to enroll a certain number of students with disabilities or students learning English. Previous proposals indicate that those politicians may force charters to divulge their finances, and could make it harder for charters to operate in public school buildings.
Those legislators could even impose a limit of about $200,000 on charter school executives’ salaries. At least two operators made over $700,000 in 2016.
Charter school advocates in Democratic states said defeat has made their political mission clear: Convince the holdouts of their liberal bona fides.
“What people don’t understand is that our previous politics obscured just how progressive the vast majority of people in the charter movement actually are,” James Merriman, C.E.O. of the New York City Charter School Center, said.
Still, some of the political wounds New York’s charter school sector has sustained appear self-inflicted, especially in light of the state’s eagerness to challenge Mr. Trump’s agenda.
Days after the 2016 election, Eva Moskowitz, the C.E.O. of Success Academy, interviewed with Mr. Trump for the role of education secretary. When she announced that she would not take the job, Ms. Moskowitz praised the president on the steps of City Hall.
The next day, Ms. Moskowitz hugged Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, when she visited a Success Academy school. A few months later, Ms. Moskowitz welcomed the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to the same school during the fight to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which Mr. Ryan helped lead.
Students peered out the windows of the Harlem school as angry protesters waited outside, playing bongos and waving signs.
After a backlash from her staff, Ms. Moskowitz said she “should have been more outspoken” against Mr. Trump.
The situation got worse when one of Ms. Moskowitz’s most prolific donors, the hedge fund billionaire Daniel S. Loeb, said last summer that a black state senator who has been skeptical of charter schools had done more damage to black people than the Ku Klux Klan.
His comment was met with fury from black supporters of charter schools, some of the movement’s most indispensable allies.
On Tuesday, that senator, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, became the next leader of the New York State Senate.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ding, dong. The witch is dead!
Hooray! Finally!
Shapiro should not have stated this as G*d’s wisdom without attribution: “tens of thousands of children are on waiting lists for spots.” That’s a journalistic sin. Charter schools’ “long waiting list” claims are endless, unprovable, sometimes disprovable, and overall PR BS. No journalist who’s not wide-eyed and gullible should swallow them, and no journalist should state them as fact without attribution. (That is, charter schools CLAIM to have long waiting lists, but that can’t be verified.)
OK, got that off my chest!
Otherwise, it’s good to see the story.
I just said the same. Parents who have no interest in charters are bombarded with charter ads in their mail. Why recruit if there is a waiting list?
My first involvement with the charter issue was in 2001 over an Edison charter school in my district — now-fizzled Edison was a for-profit company, traded on the NASDAQ, set up to take over schools all over the country, treated (including by mainstream media in supposedly impartial news reporting) as a miracle run by saints, as so many charter scams have been. Edison was hustling like mad for students in our community, including by pushing its promotion of a free computer for each student — yet all the press unquestioningly touted its “long waiting list.” That was a little cognitive dissonance. I tested by calling to ask if Edison Charter Academy had room for my kindergartner, and oh yes, they had an immediate opening.
Fool me twice, shame on me, and that should go for Eliza Shapiro too.
This is a highly biased article. It will be a happy day when white twenty-somethings like Shapiro wake up to the reality that charter schools are a regressive, not a progressive, movement. I can’t wait until these young charter boosters have kids and have to deal themselves with the environment their beloved charters have wrought.
I noticed that, too. Eliza Shapiro has done some really lazy and uninformed reporting for the NY Times. There were a lot of other serious journalistic breaches in that article, like this one in which Eliza Shapiro “reportersplains” why there is opposition to Success Academy in her most condescending manner.
“The next day, Ms. Moskowitz hugged Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, when she visited a Success Academy school. A few months later, Ms. Moskowitz welcomed the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin…”
Um, no Eliza. “Hugging” Ivanka Trump has no effect on what happens in public schools – nor does a visit from a Republican politician to a charter. But Eliza, do you know who DOES have an effect?
Betsy DeVos. She’s the Secretary of Education, Ms. Shapiro. And when the DeVos nomination was in doubt, Eva Moskowitz made it her personal mission to write op eds and give countless interviews to demand the Senate confirm Betsy DeVos. Moskowitz ENDORSED DeVos to insure that the DeVos agenda would happen.
THAT is why Eva Moskowitz is linked with Betsy DeVos’ policies. Not because Ivanka Trump visited the school. But because Eva Moskowitz ENDORSED DeVos and gave interviews and wrote op eds to lobby for DeVos.
There is something really insulting about Shapiro’s misleading article that it was because of a hug. Shapiro has done some decent reporting in the past, so either she has received her marching orders from the pro-charter editors at the NY Times and she values her job more than her journalistic integrity, or she is just getting lazy.
Leaving out the fact that Moskowitz worked so hard to insure Betsy DeVos’ confirmation? Because to Eliza Shapiro, Moskowitz hard work to make sure DeVos had power was not nearly as important to her critics as her hugging Ivanka? What kind of education reporter is Eliza Shapiro, anyway? One certainly trying to cover up the real reason why people are critical of Moskowitz. That’s why Eliza Shapiro repeated the charter propaganda of the “tens of thousands” of kids on waitlists.
I suspect that Eliza Shaprio’s article is a sign that she plans to leave out anything really damaging to favored charters to keep her bosses happy and that will mean she continues to insult public school parents by claiming that their objection to Eva Moskowitz is a hug and not the fact that we know that Betsy DeVos would not have been confirmed without greedy charter CEOs willing to go to bat for her by lying about how great DeVos would be for children everywhere.
I agree with you! This sentence jumped out at me, too: “Over 100,000 students in hundreds of the city’s charter schools are doing well on state tests, and tens of thousands of children are on waiting lists for spots.” Either the Times editors have to do a better job of fact-checking… or maybe they have to stop inserting boiler-plate phrases into articles that contradict their “conventional wisdom”.
All politics are local. And, so is public education.
Look at the list of posts below – one school board, one city, one state at a time Tuesday awakened and determined to keep public education public and local control the will of folks who truly care about children and learning and the common good.
Could it possibly be the next chapter in Dr. Ravitch’s Reign of Error is “The Day the Public Educators took back the Reins?”
Goals 2000, the infamous Governor’s Conference, NCLB, RTtT, ESSA are tragic landmark events in what Dr. Ravitch wrote as the Reign of Error. And look what evolved – collateral damage and all. Charters, profits, and public education on life-support.
They began as a once-good idea by a progressive educator to put non-traditional innovation in the hands of teachers and local folks
.. which evolved to a very small number of well-intended single-school charters (not “networks” and franchises) popping up without shady investors
However – that
… evolved to the idea that to “save” the schools in regions that were truly failing kids charters were the answer and politicians latched on to them
… which evolved into the misnomer that education is the civil rights movement of our generation and students of color and living in poverty needed to be rescued from big bad government (promised 40 acres and a mule and instead got Jim Crow)
… which evolved to a rich white folks and hedge funders under the guise of “let’s save kids” who invested in militaristic hard-hearted educators in order to make a profit
…which appealed to even richer white folks who hate taxes (and people different from themselves (and hated government until they owned it) and love brash screaming tough guy school leaders and politicians
(… and there is the spinoff of “reformers” who jumped on the bandwagon with a testing regime and vendors who salivated at the $ of common core and testing industry)
However – the hard-hearted “educators” and rich white folks endgame was for the former to make thousands on the tough-leader speaker circuit and the latter to make millions on the backs of kids and unsuspecting Peace Corps-like teachers. (Unlike others, I contend they did not want to totally kill public education – they just want to strip it bare bones to lower taxes as much as possible just like deteriorating infrastructure, parks and anything else public they don’t use)
But wait – PARENTS, TEACHERS, ADVOCATES, BLOGGERS, NEW ORGANIZATIONS (NPE) and grass root efforts (aka opt-outs) and strong willed determined education leaders like Drs. Ravitch and Burris persisted… and persisted… locally and nationally…
November 6, 2018 must stick as the tide turner.. as the next chapter as the day the voters –parents, teachers and local public educators, and bona fide educational leaders – took back the Reins of Public Education and the Common Good
What journalists like Shapiro don’t understand is that politicians are opposing charters, because their constituents oppose charters.
When reporters fail to understand that basic fact given all the information there is out there — including a Massachusetts referendum that went down to defeat despite an enormous amount of money spent by reformers to get it passed — then one has to guess that it is willful ignorance. Shapiro and other journalists “don’t understand” that because if they did it would require them to actually report on why that is.
If Shapiro was actually to report on WHY the NAACP called for a moratorium on charters, I doubt her pro-charter bosses would be pleased. So she’d rather pretend the opposition is based on disliking Moskowitz hugging Ivanka Trump because that’s so much easier to dismiss than the very real ethical and immoral actions in which a FEW selected students (and many greedy adult charter administrators) benefit at the expense of the vast majority of students who pay the cost.
While I like to,hear noises about “improving our public schools”, I am keeping a wary eye on the meaning of this metaphor. Both parties are guilty in recent years of telling the electorate that we can get vast improvement in some service without raising taxes. We cannot. Charter school advocates probably see charters as a way to educate the “deserving” underclasses without spending much money. They dare not say that out loud for fear of being found out by an electorate that wants to view itself as empathetic.
This same electorate, however, cannot look its own greed in the face and vote for political leaders who will fund initiatives that will build a better society. Hiding behind Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, the wealthy of our society refuse to pay for their fair share of public support, opting instead to flood the media with the idea that what is wrong with schools resides within the teaching corps. They find allies in some education schools, where underpaid professors see a way to monetize their ideas by selling them to school systems.
So do not count me as excited yet, but I am feeling a bit more positive about the trends that are described above.
Anyone whose child goes to a public school which is competing for state funding with a neighboring charter school knows that the system cannot be sustained in its current mode. Buffalo has sued to keep more charters from opening (which leech the limited number of white students from their roles along with the funding) but to no avail. Perhaps now some common sense will prevail.
Next stop – eliminate all that testing and let teachers get back to what they do best – teach.
ah, just imagine…
Agreed. As I mentioned above, Shapiro is a twentysomething Ivy grad, so assume unmarried and childless. She has no clue personally about the negative effects of charters on our neighborhoods. As a journalist, she conveniently ignores the NAACP’s call for a moratorium on charter schools and the recent complaints from Harlem residents to Chancellor Carranza about the proliferation of charters in Harlem. Youngsters like Shapiro think their support of charters has them engaged in a civil rights struggle.
On the surface Charters seemed like a great idea. Even I, at first, liked the thought of some sort of control over how a school is run (the original outline had the teachers as a part of the process), but the reality just didn’t live up to the original premise. What killed it for me was the way the system was funded – creating a haven for a few privileged students while leeching away from the resources available for the majority of the children in the district. I won’t even go into the graft which is inbred into the system.
Eliza Shapiro is the daughter of Susan Chira, who was an Assistant Managing Editor at the NY Times and is still at the NY Times. Her father is a professor at Columbia Journalism School.
The top brass at the NY Times are rabidly pro-charter. That is surely good enough reason for Eliza Shapiro to ignore the NAACP’s call for a moratorium on charter schools. That is surely a good enough reason for Eliza Shapiro to parrot the press releases of charters with “tens of thousands” on the wait list. That is surely a good enough reason for Eliza Shapiro to fail to mention even once that Eva Moskowitz used her charter platform to lobby for Betsy DeVos’ confirmation as Sec. of Education. That is surely enough of a good reason for Eliza Shapiro to focus instead on “hugs”.
There is no need to report anything but what the education reformers feed you if you work at the NY Times. When Shapiro’s predecessors did not do that, they were summarily removed. No doubt Eliza Shapiro is going to continue to write only the stories that the pro-reformers believe are fit to print.
I find it interesting that when Eliza Shapiro wrote for Politico, she did a story that included the fact that a scholar, Roy Germano, was fired by Eva Moskowitz for daring to do what he THOUGHT he was hired to do and report his findings about the school culture. But she never really followed up and it’s odd that she remains so ridiculously unskeptical and accepting of all the propaganda that Success Academy and other pro-charter organizations put out. She embraces their views entirely.
The junior group of Democrats is so far not willing to support Pelosi as the Speaker of the House. Pelosi is trying to woo them for their support. I don’t know what the outcome will be, but the times “they are changin.”https://www.wsj.com/articles/nancy-pelosis-bid-to-be-speaker-isnt-quite-a-done-deal-1541723233?mod=hp_lead_pos10
Great! Thanks for this information, retired teacher.
The DEMS who went stupid re: charters better rethink their ridiculous “policies” re: supporting charters. Charters are about Jim Crow Laws.
Be careful, the battle may be shifting, but it is not over. Charter schools were part of Rephorm 1.0. The new wave is Rephorm 2.0 which is all about so-called “personalized” [sic] learning (and the inherent data-mining and social impact bonds). That can be (and is being) done just as easily in public schools as in charter schools. If anything, public schools may be more favored for this purpose since it’s fewer different systems to get on the same track. Broken record alert: make Wrench in the Gears part of your regular reading.
Agreed. These billionaires have no intention of stopping, even if their focus may shift from one bad idea to another.
That is why it is important to keep reminding them that everything they have done has not only failed, but hurts children and families
The single most effective way to rein-in the charter school industry is something that every taxpayer and voter would find completely reasonable: Require these charter school corporations to file the same detailed, public domain financial reports that public schools file. Taxpayers have the absolute right to know how charter school corporations are actually spending each penny of taxpayer money. And it’s vital that taxpayers have this information because even the non-political Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report warning that so much taxpayer money is being skimmed away by charter school corporations that: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting goals.”
State authorities must also diligently monitor how charter school corporations are resegregating school children. Both the NAACP and ACLU have issued reports that document how charter school corporations are resegregating our nation’s children from each other and how charter school corporations discriminate racially and socioeconomically against American children of color. A very detailed nationwide research report by The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA also shows in clear terms that these charter school corporations suspend extraordinary numbers of non-white students.
I agree that not enough is said about the fact that charters receive public money, yet there is no oversight. IMHO it’s a scam.
No, I am talking about administrative oversight i.e, parent has a complaint about a charter school and turns to the DOE, which in turn says to the parent, “Sorry we have no jurisdiction over that school.” That’s what I am talking about.
Also public schools are audited, so I’m not sure what you are getting at here beyond grasping at straws for some impudent reply. The fact that Harlem parents are complaining about the number of charters should tell you something, Tim, but that’s a fact I suppose you’d rather ignore.
You mean a detailed independent audit like this one, which every single charter school in NYS must file annually?
Click to access Icahn-Charter-School-1-2016-17-AFR.pdf
Good luck finding one of these for a traditional public school in New York City; such audits don’t exist.
This piece understates both Governor Cuomo’s allegiance to the charter sector and the immense power he wields over the legislative process, and it really underestimates the backlash politicians would face if they started taking charters away.
Only charter schools have gifts in the millions and discretionary funding from billionaires, not charter schools.
With this article, we might speculate that media is finally separating Democrats from the Center for American Progress (charter promoters). CAP has pretended to be and, inexplicably been accepted as, the “liberal” voice. How much distance there is between Pelosi/Schumer and the GOP/CAP remains to be seen. This week, Vox reported on Pelosi and Schumer’s recommendation in May that teachers receive raises at the expense of the rich. Their suggestion, take the wealthiest 0.1% tax cuts, and use them to give raises to teachers. CAP’s recommendation in August had a different spin which was more easily linked to a GOP plot- give teachers federal tax credits and repackage the talking point as salary increases (the plan depletes the federal coffers). Defunding government makes the elimination of Social Security an easier sell.
Thank you Scisne and Linda:
Both of you are excellent in exposing the very important reasons to cultivate all voters regarding their focus and their unity into WRAPPED AROUND Public education with fully funded pension to teachers and resources to all students like books and equipment in all classrooms.
Teachers and students need to have interacting time through going to field trips in all historical museums, all scientific industries, all agricultural states, all sport hall of famed, and most of all, all important musical/classical plays stages.
American children will set the best example of how a well rounded human being to be trained and grown up in all aspects of body, mind and spirit in Public Education at each level of K-12 system.
American citizens will not alienate Charter school system,
1) AS LONG AS Charter school operators MUST NOT “hurts its own certified teachers, children and families”
2) AS WELL AS MUST NOT ROB TAX PAYERS FUND.
3) MOST OF ALL, all Charter teachers must be certified at the same level as public education teachers.
4) All students from Public or Private school systems must pass their final grade 12 STATE EXAM regarding American history, so that they have the same self respect for their American History = to avoid the past mistakes in war and to improve the civilization in peace, love and beauty. Back2basic
“Where insurgent national Democrats support charter schools, they do so carefully: Representative Jared Polis, the Colorado Democrat whom voters sent to the governor’s mansion on Tuesday, founded two charter schools. But he has made sure to criticize Ms. DeVos’s vocal brand of school choice advocacy.”
Polis has been called a progressive, yet when it comes to education, he is anything but. The Colorado Sun reported the names of his transitional educational committee, and only one K-12 public school advocate, Amy Baca Ohlert, is on it. The others either represent Colorado higher ed or “public” charters. This is a slap in the face to Colorado Democrats, considering that they insisted that the Colorado DFER organization cease and desist from using the name “Democrats” in their title. The state president of DFER is on Polis’ transition committee, as well as Mike Johnston. He has just shown his true colors.
To my friends who think that the Democratic majority in the House has seen the light of day when it comes to charters, guess again. The power brokers and rising stars (e.g. Hakim Jeffries) are 100% pro-charter because that’s where they get their funding — NOT necessarily because of ideology or beliefs. So long as there are Democrats in “safe” Democratic seats (e.g., Hakim Jeffries) have to rely on raising $$ for re-election, they will be beholden to the charter backers, and We the People will be screwed. Being able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from one “industry” trumps having an ethical position for most of these folks.
NOTHING WILL CHANGE because 1) House Dem leadership WILL, in the dark of night, support charter laws and charter funding in their legislation; and 2) we haven’t yet gotten serious about public financing of campaigns.
To: dorothy siegel
Thank you for your cautious words and pessimism expressions.
First of all, I hope that you will sincerely reply by answering and explaining some of my questions as follows:
1) Why did the current USA president show his fear by threaten, intimidate, and bully all new house Representatives?
2) Why should corrupted corporate spend millions of dollars to support their own candidates on the Nov 6th election?
3) Last, but not least, would you agree to Dr. Ravitch? – “…That is why it is important to keep reminding them that everything they have done has not only failed, but hurts children and families.”
In conclusion, I hope that you will spread out loud and clear by repeating Dr. Ravitch’s wisdom so that all charters supporters will be awaken sooner. Thank you for your caution of the bad Charters Operators and blind followers. Back2basic
May,
Thank you for your kind and wise words. I visited your home country, Vietnam, in January. I met many wonderful kind people. I wondered why we ever had fighting and war. So many things happen in life that are inexplicable. The guide told us that Vietnam is a “socialist country with a capitalist economy.” Very puzzling. People with power make commitments that harm others without power.
Dearest Dr. Ravitch:
How are you? It is up to you to publish this reply to you.
First of all, all Western People will not and cannot understand the common greediness and cruelness among Communists, Fascists and Capitalists.
1) All of the leaders have the same intelligence, but different desires in life due to their background from parents and their own karma.
2) Communist leaders desire to control others by making population being submissive, worry about daily food shortage and less education.
3) Fascist leaders desire to control others by killing smart population, by enslaving skillful population, last but not least by brainwashing young generation into killing robots who do not have humanity.
4) Capitalist leaders desire to enjoy immoral sexuality, drinking alcohol and gambling by manipulating population into addiction, and then brainwashing smart population to be their puppets who will harm population in their own communities and their own country.
IMHO, all visible Angels and Saints on Earth, regardless of their different racial and cultural backgrounds, will unite peacefully for their same mission = sustain and maintain people faith in humanity.
However, the best solution is to clearly show and lead people all paths/actions/ thoughts with all pros and cons in each path/action/thought. As a result, all Angels and Saints can be peacefully live in their tranquility and achieve their own enlightenment.
I always respect, love and admire your compassion, wisdom, and dedication to American Public Education and all young and veteran public educators. May God bless you with health, happiness and tranquility or enlightenment sooner in life.
Respectfully yours,
May, your secret admirer forever.
Thank you, May.
I pray you regain your health and strength.
To all readers might understand differently or misunderstand the word immoral sexuality:
I would like to clarify the true meaning of “Capital Immoral Sexuality.”
The rich and the power abuses their own make-up legal term in system to call “consensual sexual activities”. But the truth is that CORRUPTED Capitalists USE MONEY, DRUG and POWER TO ENFORCE all naive, trusting, and good looking young MALE and FEMALE INTO human trafficking or prostitution as being HIGH CLASS ESCORT.
Both COMMUNIST and FASCIST are happily joining with CAPITALIST to gain wealth and power. In the end, all are burnt in HELL. Back2basic
Calling Michael Winerip!! (I think I misspelled his name–it’s been so long–but he was the REAL deal NYT Ed Reporter.)
&, of course, that’s why they reassigned him. Just as they do–w/o any professional regard–to teachers.
Anyway, Diane, do you know where he is now?
Mike Winerip was offered early retirement and took it.
That was after the NY Times took him off the education beat, where he was wonderful, and assigned him to cover “Boomers.”
The problem with this article is that it’s sloppy writing and too broad. Case in point in CA, Newsome states something that appears vaguely neutral with respect to the”I’m still getting money from reformers.” The fight over the State Superintendent is on a pins and needle suspense, and the money that reformers have spent to support their puppet candidate (a R) is outrageous. In Oakland, a seat was just bought by a Board of Ed candidate supported by GO – a reformers’ financing operation that is branching out to all parts of the state – to the tune of $140K+ all to buy a a seat on a board that is already bought off and doing the bidding of their handlers. All of these candidates are Democrats. There maybe signs that there is movement but it’s certainly neither decisive enough, nor strong enough to affect changes for our children in their public schools, nor for us parents needing to fight constantly.
Update to the first sentence: The problem with this article is that it’s sloppy writing and too broad. Case in point in CA, Newsome states something that appears vaguely neutral with respect to the issues, for me that translates to: ”I’m still getting money from reformers.”