The Mayor of Rochester, Lovely Warren, has called upon the New York State Education Department and the Board of Regents to take over the city’s public schools, oust the elected board, and appoint a different board of its choosing. She claims that Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has a plan, but apparently this is not the case. To say this is incoherent is an understatement. The state has not expressed a desire to take control of Rochester city schools. Mayor Warren apparently has decided to throw them under the bus, abandon local control, and let the state take responsibility.
THIS MATTERS: 56% of the children in Rochester live in poverty, the third highest rate in the nation! Only Gary, Indiana, and Flint, Michigan, have higher rates of child poverty.
What is Mayor Lovely Warren doing about it?
Here is another point of view, from journalist Rachel Barnhardt. She explains that the negative and misinformed attitudes of public officials guarantee that the children will not get the support they need to succeed in school.
She writes:
We don’t blame the mayor for poverty, so why do we blame the school board?
The Rochester City School District is the worst in the state. It’s also the district with the highest concentration of children who live in poverty. The research is clear: poverty impacts educational outcomes.
Mayor Lovely Warren says poverty is no excuse. Poor children can learn. Black children can learn. We must do something.
She’s right.
We must solve poverty.
No one has been able to figure out how to solve poverty. We’ve been nibbling around the edges with various programs and initiatives, none of which has been transformative.
In the meantime, we must figure out what to do right now. The crisis is urgent. (It’s been urgent since I attended city schools in the early ‘90s.)
Warren does not offer a clear path and stops short of asking for mayoral control. She has been an ardent advocate of charter schools. The mayor also sees community schools, where extra resources are dedicated to addressing issues related to poverty, trauma and education, as a potential solution.
Community schools, however, show mixed results. School 17 has a chronic absenteeism rate of 40 percent and fewer than 10 percent of children are proficient in reading and math. Charter schools siphon money and students away from the district, and don’t always succeed.
Warren also offered another solution, one parents like her have been implementing for decades: abandon the district.
In her State of the City address, Warren said parents who send their kids to city schools are “sacrificing” children. If you can pull your kids from the district, she counseled a friend, you should do so.
That’s what got us into this mess. We have a segregated school system because of the wholesale disinvestment in our schools. We have children denied opportunities because of where they were born.
What would happen, Barnhardt asks, if all parents returned to the public schools instead of abandoning them? What would happen if everyone acknowledged that we have a common fate and we must stand together?
She bravely concludes:
We will never fix the schools long as we refuse to acknowledge that separate is not equal.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
it’s up at OEN: https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/What-Will-Happen-to-the-Pu-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Educational-Crisis_For-profit-Education_Public-Education-190602-716.html with this comment: “We will never fix the schools long as we refuse to acknowledge that separate is not equal.”
15,880 separate schools systems in 50 states!
This is how it is done. One by one… instead of investing in our public education system, they derail local control, and hardit over to the state, which then gives it to the corporate entities and charter schools.Iit is all about $$$ not kids… and thus our future citizens will be wage-slaves with little knowledge and skills…and ignorance will replace knowledge of democracy.
The Mayor of Rochester, Lovely Warren, has been playing a very bad role for years when it comes to education, but her efforts regarding education over the past year have been especially rotten. She is confused and uninformed about so much. It is embarrassing and painful. She is an ineffective leader. Lovely Warren, like some state education officials and local elite in Rochester, supports all the things that will make things worse for Rochester’s African American community. She is not a defender of public education or remotely serious about solving poverty, even though hundreds of serious studies and experience itself confirm again and again the destructive impact of poverty (and segregation) on student success.
Is she really confused and uninformed and ineffective? Or is she really very effective in service to her overlords?
Maybe we shouldn’t assume bad intentions in the absence of evidence, but I’m far too weary of this scenario to keep granting the benefit of the doubt. Lovely Warren, like Elizabeth Warren, has had plenty of opportunity to educate herself and see the damage that privatization is doing to the people she claims to speak for. If it’s truly ignorance at this point, it’s willful.
“We will never fix the schools long as we refuse to acknowledge that separate is not equal.” WHAT??? WHAT??? We acknowledged that SIXTY-FIVE (65) years ago, and conditions have continued to worsen.
Dr. Tell
Who could possibly be a “defender of public education,” especially and particularly URBAN Public Education in its current state???
Are you saying that she is advocating “privatization?”
Howard J. Eagle believes the propaganda from the Fox echo chamber.
“We will never fix the schools long as we refuse to acknowledge that separate is not equal.” WHAT??? WHAT??? We acknowledged that SIXTY-FIVE (65) year ago, and conditions have continued to worsen.
Which “propaganda” is that (exactly and specifically)???
HJE, If you do not name the person you are asking a question, you cannot expect to get an answer.
Or is that an open question to the world?
In addition, be specific. What “propaganda” are you talking about — the Russian propaganda that was used to help elect fake, serial liar, failed honest businessman, con-man, fraud, illegitimate, President Donald Trump, Moscow’s Agent Governing America?
“Russian propaganda that was used to help elect fake, serial liar, failed honest businessman, con-man, fraud, illegitimate, President Donald Trump, Moscow’s Agent Governing America.” WHAT??? WHAT??? I thought we were talking about education in the Rochester City School District.
Hopefully, you learned something about what I meant when I alleged that you were not specific enough with your question?
I have my doubts though that you learned anything since you didn’t answer my question: who was your poorly written question directed to?
But, Trump’s lies and propaganda, where he repeats some of his lies over-and-over, are not much different from what the vultures supporting publicly funded private sector charter schools do every day to mislead people/parents.
Mayor Warren is all about Mayor Warren. She keeps the school district at arms length, criticizing its shortcomings without investing any political capital in the solutions so as not to be in any way held accountable for the pitiful state of the school system. She’s really good at talk and at finger pointing, but accepts no responsibility at all for the consequences of her feckless leadership. She wants somebody else, anybody else to take responsibility for her failure to lead.
Those not from the area need to take what Rachel Barnhardt says with a grain of salt as well, however. In addition to being a journalist, she’s also a several times failed political candidate – herself long on criticism and finger pointing and bereft of practical solutions and consensus building ability.
A politician who advances the agenda of the Koch’s ALEC, like Mayor Warren does with her education proposal, fails her constituents more than politicians who are inept.
Without the opportunity to lead and to fail, judgements about a politician’s effectiveness are susceptible to error.
Listen Sit,
What have you done in the past six years of your miserable life? At least your text implies that you are not very happy. Well, firstly, Mayor Warren is our mayor not THE mayor. Mayor Warren is not charged with the health and welfare feeding and prosperity of the Rochester city school district nor the students receiving curriculum. Those who think the mayor is the Wizard of OZ usually are those who abrogate their own personal responsibility to someone else so they do not have to feel guilty about their in action. When I first came to Rochester I did not like Mayor Warren. I did not like her because I didn’t know her. I have grown to respect the woman. I have watched and the word is watched how she thinks and she’s coming along very well I believe in the education situation. This is especially evidenced by the last paragraph of her recent article which I will not cite here. What has Mayor Warren done in the last six years of her miserable life? Perhaps, her life has not been miserable. Perhaps she has done wonders for Rochester in six years. Perhaps she is happy. My concern for her is that she does not dilute her efforts from her Mayoral responsibilities. She is a mayor, not a distinguished educator. She keeps the buses running sort of, picks up the trash, fills the potholes plows the streets, inspects houses, keeps law and order and 1 million things that neither you nor I can conceive of.
You made a couple comments. And there is one I am curious about. You mentioned the local elite. I want names. I don’t want hand waving’s and gestures and fingers pointing here and there. I want names. I want to know who local elite are. I think your writing style implies that you are a person of color. The colored community in Rochester IS Rochester. Do the math. We are not talking about color anymore. We are not talking about racism anymore. They seem to me to be distractions from the CORE issue. And sir, I believe you hit the nail on the head. Elitism. Caste privilege if you prefer. I make the same mistake you do. I have a million things to say and can’t boil them down to 100 words. Mayor Warren thinks. I like this. Right or wrong is not the issue. Thinking is. I have a T shirt saying, “I am dangerous because I think”. Take care.
Robert,
The draft laws of the Koch’s ALEC serve neither the 99% nor democracy. They serve corporate interests. Bill Gates and Mark Z-berg, as individuals, not their foundations, are investors in the largest, for-profit seller of schools-in-a box. The founder of 4 Gates-funded ed organizations stated the goal of charters, “…brands on a large scale”. The anticipated ROI for the schools-in-a-box venture- 20%.
Gates lives in the state with the most regressive tax system in the U.S. The poor pay a rate up to 7 times the rate that the rich do in the state of Washington. Bill Gates and his Microsoft co-founder spent $500,000 to defeat the re-election of Washington state judges who had rendered verdicts favorable to public schools.
A politician promoting the ALEC/Bill Gates’ solution to a manufactured crisis, is no friend to a government of the people, by the people and for the people..
Due to the limitless capacity of our species for greed, cruelty, and self-delusion, solving poverty can go only so far, ending well before ending poverty. The poor will always be with us.
Thanks to Shawgi Tell (Diane posted 3 of his articles previously) and to Rachel Barnhardt.
Allies for the Network for Public Education’s goals find voice at the foremost education blog, Diane’s, and their voices are read in numerous other grassroots forums.
In addition to the focus on what privatized public schools destroy, like democracy, with hope, a plan to stop the impact of the self-appointed representatives of New York citizens via a Gates-funded association of state employees will gain support. Based on information at the State Education Technology Directors Association site, the public employees group promotes digital learning, public-private partnerships and offers programs about scaling up and, offers “pitch fests” for technology products. A prior SETDA director said the organization lobbies government. Who is SETDA lobbying for…the funder, Gates, the private partners of SETDA (Gold, Silver, Event and Strategic) or, for the public-paid technology directors? All 50 state governments are part of SETDA, including New York.
Instead of throwing caution to the wind and yielding to a state takeover, Warren should reach out to public schools that have been successful in turning around poor performing schools. She should form a committee to study how these schools made positive changes. State takeovers are generally a ticket to a more splintered privatized system with no better results. She should reach out to the institutions of higher education in New York State for guidance in developing a plan. My small school district was able to help the neediest students after doing such a self study. It was followed by an action plan. There is no magic in the process, and it involves serious investment.
It also does not help that Rochester has lost a number of good jobs in recent years due to companies closing, and an eroding tax base gives the district fewer resources. One thing they do not need is more charter schools to siphon off more money.
??? WHAT???
“Warren should reach out to public schools that have been successful in turning around poor performing schools” — such as??? We already have “an action plan.” All we need now are the right folks to oversee its implementation — period: http://www.nysed.gov/common/nysed/files/programs/main/rochester-de-report-11-14-18.pdf
Ohioans lost $1 bil to the grifters from charter schools. And, the state’s government was corrupted by the campaign donations of charter operators.
It’s ironic that Carl Palladino in Buffalo, wants the same loss of democratic governance for communities in New York that Lovely Warren wants. The NAACP, BLM, ACLU and SPLC are on the other side, opposing privatization.
The DFER List includes Crystal Peoples-Stokes representing Buffalo in the N.Y. Assembly
The Disruption machine believes that the problem with public education is democracy. Better to let one autocrat make decisions.
“Mayor Lovely Warren says poverty is no excuse. Poor children can learn. Black children can learn. We must do something.”
Mayor Lovely Warren is not Lovely. If this mayor is not ignorant, then she is a corrupt, lying Republican or a corrupt, lying neoliberal corporate owned Democrat.
This mayor says, “We must do something” and then she removes the “we” from the equation by wanting to get rid of the elected school board.
BS!
She’s a democrat and an African American who naively believes that she is doing what is best for the children of Rochester. I believe that she is tragically and horribly wrong, but I don’t doubt her sincerity.
What does being an African American have to do with her decisions?
Clarence Thomas is also an African American and look at his alleged behavior toward women, like Anita Hill’s allegations, and his conservative politics.
Just because someone is an African American does not mean they have the best interests of that ethnic group.
For instance, Ben Carson and Cory Booker.
C
Hedge fund managers and tech monopolists used/use people who look like the targeted group to gain acceptance for their agenda.
What kind of politician buys into a plan that robs a community’s citizens of their democracy?
Georgia Governor Talmadge was the first to propose privatization because he wanted to defeat the court’s mandated integration.
In contrast to Mayor Warren and N.Y. legislative leader, Ms. Peoples-Stokes, New York state legislator, Andrea Stewart-Cousins incurred the wrath of a hedge funder when she opposed charter schools. The same hedge funder sought to profit from people’s pensions by privatizing them.
It would be very surprising if Mayor Warren who has a law degree didn’t know what the parties involved gain from privatization and what is lost.
You made SOME good points, but we are NOT a singular, so-called “ethnic group.”
Drop money from helicopters. Was that not what Bernanke said at his conformation hearing would be his solution to a steep recession or a depression, . So if the answer for a national crisis of low demand is distributing money, why is that not the answer for communities mired in poverty because industries have disappeared.
If you don’t like just dropping the money you could put it into something more useful like any of the technologies need for a new green economy.
On second thought, we only drop money to billionaires to prevent losses on Wall Street. Or like when we have a 40% corporate tax cut.
Republicans and neo-liberal corporate democrats only drop money on corporations. The rest of us don’t count. To them, anyone that lives in poverty is a loser and should be euthanized.
Ninety-nine percent of the population only counts as numbers:
A. as consumers going into debt to keep the 1-percent and corporations wealthy, and their overpaid CEOs rich, or
B. as workers paid poverty wages – they don’t even rate numbers – with no benefits to make sure the wealthy keep growing their wealth and the power it buys and corporations keep making record profits.
How about dropping billionaires from helicopters?
Can you make poem out of that one.
But only helicopters hovering above the craters of active volcanoes or as high as possible over Mt Everest during the worst winter weather there.
Lloyd Lofthouse
Was that a poem. LOL
If it was a poem, it was inspired free-verse to figuratively imagine throwing corrupt, power hungry, even self-anointed stable genius pretend billionaires that lie a lot, into the hottest part of an active volcano and then cheer them on as they swim to the nearest steaming beach.
as high as possible over Mt Everest
high ku?
The challenge is that Mt. Everest is 29,029 feet tall
While turbine-engined helicopters can reach around 25,000 feet. But the maximum height at which a helicopter can hover is much lower – a high-performance helicopter like the Agusta A109E can hover at 10,400 feet.
That means dropping them out while moving and not hovering — probably over the North or South Col of Mt. Everest considered the most dangerous areas of the mountain.
Altitude is the No. 1 cause of death on the north side, whereas falling into a crevasse was the No. 1 cause of death on the south side.
It all depends on what “last’ thrill the chopper pilot wants for his billionaire passengers, death by altitude or falling into a crevasse.
Billionaire High ku
Drop the billionaires
Out of flying planes
Drop them onto bears
Drop them into flames
Drop them into craters
Drop them in crevasses
Drop them in with gators
Drop them on their a**es
Perfect!
Drop them in with snakes
Drop them in with ghost
Anything it takes
Just make sure their toast
They’re there
It was a group effort
When I saw “How about dropping billionaires from helicopters?” Iwas reminded of David Letterman’s “Will It Float?” demonstrations.
The “takeover” requires a state law, highly unlikely, legislature adjourns June 19th and there hasn’t been a whisper.. Andrew Brown, the Board of Regents deputy chancellor indicated there were discussions and a plan, except l, the other 16 Regents knew nothing about any plan … maybe the charter PACs will run to support Warren .. BTW, Rochester just hired a new superintendent… maybe candidates should have pass Regents exams to be eligible to run
The takeover does require state legislation and it does appear that this is not going to happen for now. But it may be unwise to think that the rich in Rochester, along with their media and political representatives, are definitely going to drop this for the next legislative session in 2020. Even if they did pursue a coup of the public school district (RCSD), I think it would be an uphill battle. The frenzied and hysterical intensity with which the city’s main newspaper, the tone-deaf neoliberal Democrat and Chronicle, has been trying to force a takeover down the throats of Rochestarians for one year now has been mind-numbing.
“…maybe candidates should have pass Regents exams to be eligible to run” — WHAT???
Drop the fools n save our schools!
Drop the fools
From helicopters
Save our schools
From VAM adopters
Billionaire
Is full of gas
Heated air
With little mass
Big buffoon
Will float, you know
Hot balloon
So let ’em go!
(Just kidding, of course. Everyone knows billionaires are heavier than air, from eating out so much)
Try again. Only kidding.
“What would happen, Barnhardt asks, if all parents returned to the public schools instead of abandoning them?”
Perhaps the white teachers of Rochester, who comprise 80% of the workforce in a district that is 86% black and Latinx, can get the ball rolling here and show everyone how it’s done: no more privates and/or moving to the suburbs “for the schools,” but instead put your own kids into the RCDS schools where you work
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/local/communities/time-to-educate/stories/2018/08/02/solve-rochesters-teacher-diversity-problem-city-needs-grow-its-own/850146002/
Tim,
What’s the proportion of African American and Hispanic teachers at Success Academy charters?
Here is some information: https://www.google.com/amp/s/mets2006.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/success-academy-charter-school-staff-diversity-why-is-the-staff-overwhelming-white-tone-deaf-by-choice-a-diverse-workforce-is-essential-in-the-21st-century/amp/
Ten of the Success Academy schools have 20% or more teachers of color and
Five had less then 20%. These figures are reported as being from the 2013-14 school year.
The staff at Success Academy turns over so frequently that the data from four or five years ago is not accurate. It’s schools typically have a teacher churn rate of nearly 50% annually.
Successful Teacher Turnover
When teachers give notice
The fraction will change
Like Tweets of the POTUS
The ” facts” are in vain
te-
What’s the demographics of Fordham management? Fordham sponsors contractor schools with 5400 students in Ohio.
I would certainly welcome any more recent data. Perhaps someone her might provide it.
“…put your own kids into the RCDS schools where you work.” YES!!!
Linda,
I googled that for you. Here is a link to the staff page: https://fordhaminstitute.org/about/fordham-staff
While it is difficult to judge racial identity from photographs, I would say that at least one person on the Ohio staff is African American and at least two others are people of color. So lets say that 3 out of 10 on the Ohio staff are people of color.
To give this number some context, over 93% of the teachers in Ohio are white, 4% are African American, .7% are Hispanic, .4% Asian, and .1% identify as mixed race according to the Columbus Dispatch (https://www.dispatch.com/news/20170716/ohio-students-are-far-more-diverse-than-their-teachers). So a little less than 1 out of every 10 teachers in Ohio are people of color.
TE,
I was a board member at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Institute from 1998-2008. There were no people of color on the board are on staff. Perhaps things have changed. It remains a far-right organization that pretends to care about people of color.
There is a terrific segment, “The Education of T.M. Landry,” on the premiere tonight of the New York Times investigative show, The Weekly, on FX (it’s on now, & will probably be on OnDemand). It’s about “a tiny school in rural LA that attracts national attention for sending students to the Ivy League; an NYT investigation shows that the viral success stories were full of deception, & that the truth was much darker.”
Ms. Ravitch,
Where did/do your children and grandchildren go to school???
A grandparent has no authority in the choice of schools unless they are guardians by law.
HJE, you just revealed you have not read much of Diane’s Blog. Are you another programmed puppet for the kleptocrats?
In addition, no matter where her grandchildren go to school, how is that her responsibility since it is the adult parents who make that decision and one of them is not a child Diane gave birth to and raised? All a grandparent can do is offer an opinion.
Howard,
I believe that public money should go to public schools only.
I believe people should pay for private choices themselves and not expect the government to pay for private or religious schools.
I have personally paid for scholarships for children to attend Catholic schools. I support Catholic schools but I don’t support public funding for them.
I am a graduate of public schools. My two sons went to private schools, which my husband and I paid for.
My grandsons went to a mixture of public and private schools.
Next year, the two younger ones will both attend NYC public schools.
And the older ones?
PUC Schools, the charter organization co-founded by LAUSD former-board-member-and-current-criminal Ref Rodriguez, had a school in Rochester. This is what happened to it:
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/01/11/roc-achieve-charter-school-closes/2554092002/
I am right in the middle of a situation like this one here in Springfield, Massachusetts.
I can only say that I am very tired of lazy public officials who abdicate their responsibilities to the constituency that elected them.
Shame on Mayor Warren and everyone else involved in this mess.
Indian reservations have higher poverty rates. (Just a comment on top three cities statement)
When property is stolen from the poor by barbarians who have control, poverty is an expected result. When a barbaric system like slavery denies a person the fruits of their labor, same outcome.