The Chicago Teachers Union reports on some gains. Most notable is that individual school districts will be able to limit charter school expansion into their districts, a battle now being fought in California. The issue is whether the wishes of charter entrepreneurs should outweigh democratic local control of schools. Illinois says no.
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Let me make clear that I have enormous respect for Senator Warren. I met her in her office in 2015, gave her a copy of my book, Reign of Error, and was greatly impressed by her thoughtfulness and intellect. A few months ago, I attended a fundraiser for her at the home of a mutual friend in Manhattan and was again wowed by her fierce intellect and passionate critique of the status quo.
But I want her now to come out strongly against every aspect of the Trump-DeVos education agenda of privatization, including both charters and vouchers. I want her to support the right of teachers to bargain collectively. I want her to endorse the importance of having well-prepared, credentialed teachers in every classroom.
In this post, Steven Singer criticizes Senator Elizabeth Warren for her unclear signals about K-12 education policy.
When she recently spoke in Oakland, she was introduced by a former charter school teacher who was affiliated with an anti-union, pro-charter group (ironically) called GO Public. Oakland had just gone through a teachers’ strike, prompted in part by the rapid proliferation of charters supported by that same deceptively named organization.
Some defenders on Twitter said that Warren didn’t decide who introduced her.
True. But more worrisome is that her senior policy advisor is a TFA alum with two years of teaching experience.
Teachers don’t want a Michelle Rhee or John White as Secretary of Education. They want someone who supports them, not chastises them as “bad” because they teach the most vulnerable students.
In 2016, Senator Warren supported the “No on 2” campaign to block charter expansion, but she did so while praising charters.
She said at that time:
””In a statement sent out by the campaign organized against the question, Warren, a Cambridge Democrat, praised charter schools in general while expressing concern about the proposed charter expansion’s effect on school districts’ bottom lines.”
If she thought well of charters “in general,” why oppose their expansion?
Please, Senator Warren, make clear that you stand with fully public schools, not privately managed charters funded by the Walton-Gates-Broad combine, and professional teachers.
Reed Hastings, the billionaire founder of Netflix, funded anti-abortion Republicans in Missouri as a way to win their votes for charter school legislation. Hastings likes to portray himself as a “progressive.” What kind of progressive would fund a total ban on all abortions, including abortions related to rape, incest, and the health of the mother?
New York (CNN Business)Netflix has taken a stance against a restrictive abortion bill in Georgia. But its CEO Reed Hastings has been donating to lawmakers who passed one of the country’s most controversial abortion laws.
Florida has a large teacher shortage, about 10,000 at last count. Under the tutelage of Jeb Bush, the Florida Legislature has made testing and privatization the centerpiece of state education policy, while treating public schools and their teachers as enemies for almost 20 years. Florida holds public schools to strict accountability, based on test scores, but imposes no accountability for the religious schools that get vouchers, and showers state money on charters. The Legislature seems to be intent on replacing public schools with charters (half of which operate for-profit) and vouchers and replacing teachers with computers.
This teacher from Polk County has had enough.
Shanna L. Fox writes:
Jeff Bryant explains here why Democratic candidates will have to make a choice between raising teacher pay and funding charter schools.
Up until recently, candidates spoke only about pre-K and postsecondary education.
But the time has come to set forth their ideas for K-12.
In Florida, the choice is stark.
Voters pass tax increases dedicated solely to funding their local public schools, but the Legislature wants to compel them to share any tax increases with charter schools, whether they want to or not.
He writes:
A recent law passed by the majority Republican Florida state legislature and signed by newly elected Republican Governor Ron DeSantis will force local school districts to share portions of their locally appropriated tax money with charter schools, even if those funds are raised for the express purpose of increasing teacher salaries in district-operated public schools. (Charter schools in Florida, as in many states, do not receive funds that are raised through bond referendums, mill levies, or other forms of local funding initiatives.)
Florida teachers have openly opposed the new law, and local school districts have taken it to court to have it overthrown. But given this new law, it’s not at all hard to imagine a scenario, even at the national level, where Democrats pushing to increase funds for teacher pay will have to confront an expanding charter school industry—and now voucher programs—that would claim their portion of that money to use as private institutions for whatever purposes they wish.
“The problem with charter schools isn’t that they’re competing with public schools; it’s that they’re supplanting public schools,” says Justin Katz in a phone call. Katz, who is president of the Palm Beach County Classroom Teachers Association, recently helped organize a rally in West Palm Beach where more than 200 teachers and public school advocates showed up to voice their opposition to distributing funds raised by local tax increases to charter schools.
The protest “was very specific, local, and personal,” Katz explains, because voters in the county had approved $200 million in funding for their schools in a measure that specified increases could be used for teacher raises in traditional public schools and not for funding charter schools.
The referendum was overwhelmingly approved by more than 72 percent of voters. But under the proposed new law, a proportional share of 10 percent, or about $20 million a year, would have gone to the county’s 49 charters. Only a final hour amendment in the state’s Senate averted the loss, when the bill was altered to apply to future bond referendums only.
The language of the referendum that was passed was “crystal clear,” Katz says, that money raised by the bond efforts would not go to charter schools. But the loophole being used to argue for charters to get their share is the use of the term “public schools.”
The new law is “an effort to redefine what are public schools,” he says, in order to give charter schools a right to claim a portion of any publicly raised education funds, regardless of the intent for raising the money. He fears that once charters claim that right, private schools in the state’s school voucher programs will claim it too.
You probably thought that the rightwing Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which supports charters and vouchers but not public schools, was on the opposite side of the political aisle from the Center for American Progress, which is described by the New York Times and the Washington Post as “left-leaning” (which is inaccurate).
Well, they are on the same page in sponsoring a low-budget “moon shot for kids.”
The portal provides a place where, in no more than 500 words, you will sketch your idea for achieving one of those goals with the help of a public or private investment up to $1 billion.
This is not like the Laurene Powell Jobs competition where the prize was $10 million, but it is the same idea.
Reminds me of the Bush I program to “reinvent the schools,” called the New American Development Corporation, which offered cash for the best ideas. It all came to naught, but fortunately it was private money.
Thanks to Peter Greene, who gave me a tip on Twitter that there is no space between Fordham and CAP. Inside the Beltway, everyone is an ally.
This is a school board unlike anything Chicago (or other big cities) has seen.
It consists of experienced people with a history of involvement in the lives of children and schools.
No hedge fund managers (wrong: there is one, but he was a teacher first)*! No CEOs of major corporations! No privatization devotees!
How remarkable!
*Revuluri is currently the Managing Director of Strategic Development at PEAK6 Capital Management, which leverages technology to manage risk in the options market.
Politico Morning Education reports:
BANNING TEACHER STRIKES?: West Virginia’s GOP-led Senate approved the ban on teacher strikes 17-14 as an amendment to broad education reform legislation that DeVos urged the lawmakers to pass. The amendment was approved with “heavy opposition” from Democrats, the Associated Press reported.
— GOP Sen. Charles Trump, who sponsored the amendment, said it’s meant to keep schools running and not as retaliation for two teacher walkouts since last year, according to the AP. But Fred Albert, the president of the state’s American Federation of Teachers chapter, told POLITICO Pro “it’s pure retribution, retaliation.”
—”Already, we don’t have collective bargaining. It’s a right-to-work state,” Albert said, acknowledging that work stoppages in the past have been “truly illegal.” “This is just I think another stab at trying to punish us, making the law perhaps a little more severe with such language,” but he said such measures aren’t likely to float in the House.
— The chamber will continue its work today on education legislation, which would allow for the creation of state charter school and education savings account programs that are opposed by teachers unions who have been protesting at the state Capitol. The GOP-led House will reconvene on June 17.
— In February, the unions waged a two-day strike over a contentious education bill that would have brought education savings accounts and charter schools to West Virginia. The state started the wave of teacher strikes in 2018, helping create a #RedforEd teacher strike movement that continues today.
— DeVos’s push for school choice runs directly counter to what the state’s teachers unions want. She tweeted on Friday, “West Virginia has an opportunity to improve education for all & put the needs of students first. Looking forward to seeing bold moves to offer robust options like charter schools & ESAs and support great teachers. Let’s get it done.”
Resident of Los Angeles: Vote for Measure EE on June 4.
Measure EE is not “just another tax.” It will bring in $500 million every year in ongoing funds, and is what the teachers and the community fought so hard to get through the strike. LA, don’t leave the job you started on the picket lines unfinished!
Measure EE is desperately needed to give local neighborhood schools the resources to educate children and reduce class sizes. Measure EE will bring the funding we need locally to recruit and retain quality staff and offer our students a well-rounded education, including:
—Lower class sizes
—More arts and music classes
—Cleaner, safer schools
—School nurses and librarians
—Guidance counselors and mental health services for students
—Support for students with disabilities and special needs
Supported by UTLA, Mayor Eric Garcetti, SEIU 99 and others (full list here https://www.yesonee.org), the measure needs 66.7% to pass on June 4. Every vote will count in what is expected to be a low turnout election.
This is common sense. Businesses and corporate landlords will pay more than 70% of this tax. Homeowners would pay only 18%. The owner of a 1,200-square-foot home would pay $208 annually, and the owner of the 73-story US Bank Tower would pay $229,206 annually.
Because the cost will be carried by those who can most afford it, those same corporations are pushing an aggressive, vitriolic NO campaign, led by the LA Chamber of Commerce. Joined by corporate lobbyists and landlords who have funneled more than $1.5 million to get Measure EE to fail. The No campaign’s chief organizers, LA Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Maria Salinas, stated publicly at the February 28, 2019 LAUSD Board Meeting that the Chamber would have supported Measure EE if it were drafted as a regressive tax, meaning that that the owner of a 1 million square foot skyscraper would be assessed the same amount as the owner of a 1,500 square foot house. Measure EE is applied per square foot — so that skyscraper-owners pay more than homeowners.
Decades of chronic underfunding of LAUSD schools have come at a steep price, especially for the students LA schools serve, who are overwhelmingly children of color from low-income families. Schools should not be forced to choose between keeping the library open, funding arts and music classes, or having a school psychologist every day. Even though California is the wealthiest state in the nation, it ranks 44th in the country in per-pupil funding.
The choice is simple: Either LA residents step up and vote yes on Measure EE on Tuesday, June 4, or they sit this out, and students suffer.
Call the Chamber today and tell them to stop the vicious attacks on Measure EE!
Chamber of Commerce 213-580-7500
While the charter lobbyists (who call themselves “families”) managed to knock out two bills to harness their unrestricted expansion, two others remain alive, thanks in part to the vigorous efforts of the California NAACP, whose education leader is charter expert Julian Vasquez Heilig.
The two that remain viable are AB 1505 and 1507, which establish local control and oversight of charters.
● AB 1505 – The bill gives local school districts sole authority to approve new charter schools and to consider how new schools would impact the district’s budget in the approval process. Since new charter schools typically attract students – and their per pupil funding – away from traditional public schools, many expect that this measure would make it much more difficult for new charter schools to be approved. AB 1505 passed May 22 and will now go to the state Senate.
● AB 1507 – This bill closes a loophole in state law that has let some districts boost their budgets by approving charter schools outside their boundaries. AB 1507 would require all charter schools approved by a district to be located within it. It passed on May 13 in the state Assembly and is also now headed to the Senate.
If these two bills pass, charters will be authorized only by the district in which they are located. Rural districts in need of cash will not be able to cannibalize urban districts hundreds of miles away by authorizing a charter that they can’t oversee.
Diane Ravitch's blog 