Tom Ultican, retired teacher of physics and advanced mathematics, has become a scholar of the privatization movement.
in this post, he reviews the efforts of the charter lobby to undermine the effort to reform the egregiously defective charter law in California.
At times like this, you need a scorecard to keep track of the multitudinous organizations created by the billionaires who want to replace public schools with charter schools.
Ultican is one of the few people able to sort out the charter menagerie.
The Waltons, Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, and assorted billionaires think they can create the illusion of popular support by spinning off more and more AstroTurf groups that have no connection to parents or teachers. Just money. Their ruse is failing. Betsy DeVos must be enjoying the charade.
Congratulations to Superintendent Tony Thurmond for getting a reasonable set of recommendations for charter law reform from a deeply divided task force.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I posted Tom’s article itself at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Hired-Guns-Scholars-and-t-in-General_News-Billionaires_California-Politics_Education_Education-Funding-190616-444.html#comment736543. with this comment, using info from Diane’s blog: https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/13/tom-ultican-how-the-destroy-public-education-movement-destroyed-the-public-schools-of-kansas-city/
“A must read, if you are trying to grasp the great CON. game that is being called “CHOICE!Know this about th e ‘touted’ PORTFOLIO MODEL which Tom explains in the post below as he has chronicles the advance of the DPE (Destroy Public Education) Movement
The portfolio model posits treating schools like stock holdings and trimming the failures by privatizing them or closing them. The instrument for measuring failure is the wholly inappropriate standardized test. This model inevitably leads to an ever more privatized system that strips parents and taxpayers of their democratic rights.
Objections to the portfolio model include:
“It creates constant churn and disruption. The last thing students in struggling neighborhoods need is more uncertainty.
Democratically operated schools in a community are the foundation of American democracy. Promoters of the portfolio model reject the civic value of these democracy incubators.
Parents and taxpayer no longer have an elected board that they can hold accountable for school operations.
Ultican wrote this post about the deliberate and heedless destruction of what was once a vibrant school district .The city and the school district were, to begin with, victimized by white flight. Subsidized by federal housing policies, whites abandoned the city. Responding to a court order, the state poured huge sums into magnet schools in hopes of luring white students back, but it didn’t work.
“Then the DPE moved in, like vultures, to feast on the carcass of the remaining public schools.
“Ultican describes the rapid turnover in leaders, beginning with John Covington, who was placed in Kansas City by Eli Broad. Covington closed numerous schools to make way for school choice and charters.That was a massive and costly failure.
“At present, this is expensive, as he shows the Kansas City school district has only 14,216 students but spends more than double what is spent in the similar-size Springfield, Mo., district. The charter in the districts, each of them considered a “school district,” has almost as many students. There are currently 20 separate local education agencies operating in what was once the Kansas City school district (each charter is its own local education agency). Twenty school districts competing for students.
Now the same local-national money combination is funding a new group, SmartschoolKC, with the same portfolio district agenda. (funded by Walton and other billionaires.)”
“The portfolio model posits treating schools like stock holdings and trimming the failures by privatizing them or closing them. ” Trimming the failures; pushing out the unwanted; separating and discarding those who are no longer welcome…
Ann O’Leary’s understanding of the impact of charters is way behind the times. She still sees charters as “islands of opportunity,” but recent research has show the setting up parallel systems is too costly. Charters have failed to deliver on their promises. They have become islands of segregation, dirty politics and profiteering for no better academic results. Let us not forget all the waste, fraud and embezzling in the charter sector as well.
Likewise, standardized testing has not changed outcomes for poor students. Testing is not a program. It merely ranks, rates and is used as a vehicle of privatization. Standardized testing narrow curricula and provides no benefit to poor students. It is a unfair “accountability” tool as test scores simply show the results of test prep and the socioeconomic levels of those taking the test.
Real change takes investment. The best hope for equitable improvement is to invest in public schools that serve all, not pre-selected, students. Public schools are the public trust. They are democratically operated and transparent. All students deserve schools with professionally trained teachers. All students deserve stability and support for their various needs, and that is what well resourced public schools with wrap around services can provide. Blaming schools and teachers is another false assumption of so-called reform. Market based education has produced nothing but disruption which is not helpful to poor, struggling students. Perhaps O’Leary should read up on some of the current legitimate research. Test, punish and privatization have failed.
The United States seriously needs to segregate the working people from the wealthy one percent. Think about that for a moment and avoid a knee jerk reaction because of the word segregate, and lets come up with some creative ways to isolate the wealthiest 1-percent so they cannot meddle in the lives of the other 99-percent.
My first proposal is a separate tax code for the wealthiest 1-percent starting at a tax rate of 99-percent for every dollar over one million (based on the value of their gross worth) and with no loopholes. We can start by taking away most of Betsy the Brainless’s yachts and mansions until what she owns/worth is worth about one percent of what she has now.
Second, they are not allowed to donate money to any political campaign or employ lobbyists in any way, the shape of form. They can’t even use service animals to manipulate people with doggy love. Those crimes will be felonies with a minimum sentence of 25 years in a maximum security prison without a chance of parole.
And more suggestions, please:
We should stop spending so much money on corporate welfare. According to Forbes, the US spends ten times as much on subsidies to fossil fuel than it does on education.https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/06/15/united-states-spend-ten-times-more-on-fossil-fuel-subsidies-than-education/?fbclid=IwAR0A-8PDMft3EYNk-XVndt7xbq9TtrzzV1E3w3OmOlkrx-LmMVEoNghUUVw#780a1b784473
I totally agree. No more corporate welfare of any kind.
The threat to democracy is at the border between public education and privately managed charter schools. The charter invaders want to seize management of public schools for profit as well as for religious and political indoctrination.
Two years later the privatization of public education remains a treat to democracy, for without public school teachers teaching democracy, the growth of privatized public schools means teaching democracy becomes a choice no longer institution of public education’s goal.