Peter Greene points out in this post that legislatures have a nasty habit of overlooking the central question about charter schools: their funding.
They pretend that they can run two publicly funded school systems without any additional cost.
They pretend that the funding for charters is not subtracted from the funding for public schools.
Public schools are getting hammered by the loss of public tax dollars that have been diverted from public school finances into charter and choice school accounts. Charters, having forgotten the era when they bragged that they could do more with less, complain that they are underfunded compared to public schools.
The problem here, as with several other choice-related issues, is in a false premise of modern school choice movement. That false premise is the assertion that we can fund multiple school districts for the same money we used to use to fund one single public system.
This is transparent baloney. When was the last time any school district said, “We are really strapped for funds. We had better open some new schools right away!” Never. Because everyone understands that operating multiple facilities with multiple staffs and multiple administrations and multiple overhead expenses– all that costs more than putting your operation under one roof.
But the choice pitch has always been some version of, “Your community can have twelve different schools with twelve different flavors of education in twelve different buildings with twelve different staffs– and it won’t cost you a nickel more than what you’re paying now!” This is carnival barker talk, the same kind of huckster pitch as “Why buy that used Kia? I’ll sell you a brand new Mercedes for the same price!”
Adding charters and choice increases educational costs in a community. Sometimes we’ve hid that by bringing in money from outside sources, like PTA bake sales to buy a public school office equipment, or pricey benefit dinners for charters, or increasing state and federal subsidies to help charters stay afloat.
But mostly school choice is the daylight savings time of education– if we just shuffle this money around in new and different ways, somehow there will be more of it.
This trick never works. And we talk all too rarely about why it never will.
Only, unlike daylight savings time which doesn’t lengthen the day, but does increase daylight hours, charter schools decrease daylight. They prefer to keep stuff in darkness, all the better to promote the illusion that an illusory opportunity for a few is a good deal for all.
Daylight Savings Time does not increase daylight hours. Whether daylight runs from 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. or from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. matters not to Mother Nature. Either way, she provides roughly 16 daylight hours in midsummer.
Yes, of course. Thanks for the clarification. Nature does its thing, of course. Daylight savings time just changes the arrangement of when during the day, the sun rises and sets by the clock.
nice analogy: decrease light, decrease knowledge, decrease independent voice
“Reformers” have deliberately ignored the negative impact of private charters on public schools. Public schools are just a host for parasites, and privatization is a lose-lose process for them. In fact, one of the objectives of privatization is to weaken the common good while diverting public money into private pockets. There is no evidence to show that this process is helpful to all students. It gives a handful of students so-called choice at the expense of all the other students, and the results are often no better.
When reformers say “choice”, what they really mean is that charter schools should get to choose who they want to teach and who they don’t.
The choice rests entirely with the charter school. That is the most important part of their system and is absolutely imperative to them that part of the system remains. It is the reason that they spare no expense to fight oversight. Spending money to make sure the choice remains entirely in the hands of the charters themselves is because they cannot exist unless they are the choosers.
The myth that parents get to choose should have been called out years ago. Parents get to choose ONLY if the charter school wants their child. And that is not choice at all.
How they get away with this nonsense is beyond me. It is like Putin saying voters in Russia have a choice. Yes, they can choose anyone they like, as long as he approves of their choice.
“is in a false premise of modern school choice movement.”
Correction:
“is in a false premise of modern PRIVATE school choice movement.”
Tangential to the posted subject- SSIR promotes a webinar this summer ($39) in which the founder of a S.F. area charter school – funded by Gates, described “neuroscience” that gave a solution to student “apathy, anxiety and purposelessness”. Drumroll…the answer is automation…, technology,… I could have sworn I read research that contradicts that.
“Self regulation” is a big buzz word in corporate reform. The objective, as I understand it, is to make the working class and poor feel that they control their response to their lives. it is ideologically based in individualism. The hidden objective is to condition people to accept their crappy gigs instead of real jobs. They also seek to condition students to accept crappy, boring, cheap, data mining personalized learning so they can become compliant drones. The leaders of tomorrow will be the children of the wealthy that will receive a comprehensive education that is rich and varied in a fancy private school so they will be tomorrow’s bosses. Tiered education promotes a caste system. This may become a reality if we do nothing and allow public education slip away.
America is so fortunate to have Diane.
And, so unlucky to have bill and melinda gates and john and laura arnold (Enron, hedge funds, and the anti-pension campaign with Pew).
It’s even worse because it isn’t just that there are two or more publicly funded systems. It is that there is one system — the public system — that is forced to bear all kinds of indirect costs for all the other systems.
Multiple systems that can pick and choose who they want to serve, and a public system who gets the students all the other systems don’t want to teach.
The incentives in such a system are clear.
Maybe off-thread, but just want to mention something that shocked me (well, shouldn’t have)–read in Chicago paper that one of the Morehouse grads (who’d had his tuition paid by their guest speaker), who is also a grad of the Chgo. charter school Urban Prep. (grad & success rate in college has been ?ed), is going to become a teacher, & is going to grad school at…Relay. Oy!
It is great he made it through college.
But Relay is a phony grad school. He will learn to be a charter teacher.
Once again this argument supports the false narrative that districts are entitled to the students just because they live within their boundaries. The dollars connected to the students do not belong to the schools, they belong to the parents and parents should be able to determine the school that is the best fit for their child – unless of course this debate is not about what is best for students but what is best for districts? Parents should be able to make decisions about what is best for their children, if the school is not providing the right learning environment then parents should be able to have alternatives, or is that right only reserved for wealthy white families?
Take charter schools out of the equation and just look at the argument you are making about choice in general. “Because everyone understands that operating multiple facilities with multiple staffs and multiple administrations and multiple overhead expenses– all that costs more than putting your operation under one roof.” doesn’t answer the question what is best for students. It is hard to support that one building with 3000 students is better for kids, than 12 buildings of 250 kids. The idea that economies of scale is good for students is just false. As policy makers and educators people are stuck in this false notion that we need to create these mega high schools. There needs to be a paradigm shift on how schools and school buildings are built and organized. If the main reason we continue to build these massive buildings is to save money and to create a state of the art athletic complex, then we are once again leaving kids out of the equation.
As a parent, if the only choice my district provides my child is a one size fits all traditional high school with 3000 students, and that is not appropriate for them, and I can’t afford to send them to private school or move, should I just shut up and accept the status quo? Fine, if you are afraid to have the conversation about charter school options, at least promote the idea of choice within the district because there are an awful lot of kids with disabilities, black, brown, GLBTQ kids, and just plain alternative learners who are suffering because they have no choice but to endure. To my mind that is cruel and unusual punishment and far worse than any choice option you are worried about.
Peter, you already acknowledged that your charter school is 97% White students.
I thought charters were supposed to “save poor kids” from “failing schools.”
Were all those White kids failing? Were they all in terrible Minnesota public schools?
Why so much segregation in Minnesota charters?
Sometimes Peter regales us with Koch economics. Does he, similar to the Koch’s, Walton heirs and Bill Gates, think Americans should be prevented from “enduring” democracy, from owning common goods and from having the transparency of Sunshine laws and FOIA requests? He prefers branded contractor schools operating like say the government contractor, Blackwater, prefers Walmart-like school monopolies, or embraces the globalist vision of foreign-owned U.S. education?
Unlike Diane, Peter’s bank account drives his view?
“The dollars connected to the students do not belong to the schools, they belong to the parents and parents should be able to determine the school that is the best fit for their child. . . ”
Ay ay ay ay ay.
The very false and misleading concept that the taxpayers dollars should be the parents’ to spend as they see fit. What a crock!
I guess I should be able to take my defense dollars and spend them wherever I choose for my own defense, eh! Or take my conservation dollars and spend them on whatever I think might be related to conservation like some guns to hunt feral hogs or . . . .
Do you get the message?
Take your private school without taxpayers’ dollars and go ahead and run it in the free marketplace of private schooling, ya know, the way it should be.
Diane, I’m not sure where you got your data from, but to clarify we are 76% white, the three district high schools in our area that we primarily draw from are 62%, 71% & 79% white and have 21,000, 29,000 & 22,000 students respectively, while we have around 160 students. Currently 45% of our students are receiving special education services, compared to 17% in district. The district also was recently sued for discrimination of GLBTQ students and saw a large exodus of those students because they didn’t feel safe. To your question of were those white kids failing, the reality is 80% of our students started in their home/district high school and they come to us at least a year behind in credits and an average of 2 years behind in math and reading with very little hope of graduating on time.
My point is not about charters being saviors, it’s about having an option when the school you are assigned to is not working for many different reasons, some but not all are within the control of the school. Is it not the right and humane thing to do to give students other options to be successful? You can’t truly believe that the modern suburban high school of 25,000+ is good for ALL students. Step off the soap box for just a second and ask if that is the only option are we doing right by all kids?
As a white male I can’t begin to speak for parents of color, but my conversations with them has lead me to understand that for many black, brown and Hmong families having their kids in culturally responsive schools with kids, and teachers who look like them is a priority, and something that white families have taken for granted forever. Many of them feel that their kids can’t get a fair and equitable education in predominately whites schools, and who am I to judge their decision when my kids went to schools where the majority of kids and staff looked just like them?
“You can’t truly believe that the modern suburban high school of 25,000+ is good for ALL students.”
I can’t truly believe that there is a modern suburban high school that has 25,000 students. Please name that high school.
Duane, forgive my mistake in adding an extra zero, 2,500+. Thank you for the correction.
How much do you individually make off of the 160 kids?
You’ve checked out the NonPartisan Education Review chronology of Fordham’s funding, Fordham, your ideological sibling? Do you agree with Fordham’s “no excuses” treatise written by Pondiscio at EdWeek?
Linda, I make $86,000/year. Slightly less than my district counterparts, but I serve all administrative roles and teach regularly – definitely not a complaint, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I have no love for no excuses schools – very much the opposite of my education philosophy.
Eva Moskowitz makes $750,000. The folks who run KIPP make close to half a million. Charter operators in Los Angeles make far more than public school principals, and some make more than the district superintendent. A really good gig where you set your own salary.
Minnesota data- average public school size (1) primary school- approx. 400 students (2) middle school – approx. 550 (3) high school- approx. 470. A school with 160 students calculates to about 40% of an average primary, 30% of a middle and 34% of a high school. The most common pay for a Minnesota principal is around $100,000.
Pay of $86,000 is only 14% off the mode while the school size is 30-40% off the average.
How much do the teachers at a school of 160 get paid?
Linda, our teachers are all paid within the geographic norm for their experience. They have smaller class sizes (16:1), and smaller case loads and much more agency than the majority of other teachers. We are a teacher powered school and our school board has a teacher majority which means that they approve the salaries.
good for you. And you run a segregated white school.
Oh Diane, you are so entrenched in your ideological views that you just throw out claims even when you are given demographic data. Have a wonderful night.
Peter, I read about charter corruption every day of the week. If you want to call that ideological, go right ahead.
A GOP House that’s predicted to have zero black representatives and only 11 women is just the ticket for the return to the 1950’s that Peter and the Koch’s want. But, unlike the 1950’s, the year 2020 will strengthen oligarchy with a handful of people expanding their share of wealth beyond the current 50%.
The GOP IS the White Man’s Party.
WMP
Peter,
How much more do you make than the highest paid teacher in your school? How much does the least paid teacher make?
Before this gig, what was your highest salary?
Linda, I find it very interesting that you want all of the answers from me, and I have given them to you, but you hide behind an anonymous first name. But I will continue to answer your questions, however, the only personal information I will give you is my own.
As I stated earlier, our teaching staff a competitively compensated for the geographic norm. Additionally as I stated, with a teacher majority school board they set not only my salary, but approve the budget for their own salaries.
My salary is based on a 25 day longer work agreement, and I am the only administrator, so I take on the duties of building principal & district superintendent, plus some teaching duties, as well as leading multiple offsite learning opportunities.
I don’t consider what I do as a “gig”, I have spent the last 30 years in the non-profit youth work world. I was a Biology teacher at the school for 8 years prior to being selected as school director, I have been on the schools elected board and I have served on my children’s public school board. Almost 20 years prior to that I was a youth camp director and I think I topped out at about 38K.
It is also interesting how the conversation has been deflected to me personally when I joined this thread asking a simple question,
“As a parent, if the only choice my district provides my child is a one size fits all traditional high school with 3000 students, and that is not appropriate for them, and I can’t afford to send them to private school or move, should I just shut up and accept the status quo? Fine, if you are afraid to have the conversation about charter school options, at least promote the idea of choice within the district because there are an awful lot of kids with disabilities, black, brown, GLBTQ kids, and just plain alternative learners who are suffering because they have no choice but to endure. To my mind that is cruel and unusual punishment and far worse than any choice option you are worried about.”
Anonymous Linda, what are your solutions to this real issue? I’ve put skin in the game to help young people succeed that others have ignored or thrown away – have you?
Many charters take the kids likeliest to succeed and toss the others back to the public schools.
Peter,
Is your “skin in the game” the taxpayers’ money? FYI- You didn’t identify how much more money you make than the highest paid teacher in your school. You did state that your current, personally- crafted job pays about a $50,000 premium over a prior job. That could be viewed as an inducement to defend the gig.
Three types of people are obligated to identify when commenting at a blog. (1) Those with vested interest. (2) Those representing their employer’s perspective. And, (3) those who make threats of harm against named individuals. If any of those applied to me I would disclose my last name.
My solution is public schools which evolved to (a) provide transparency (b) provide a democratic process to oversee taxpayer spending (c) diminish the likelihood of racial and gender prejudice by school authorities (d) prevent personal financial gain at the expense of students (e) provide efficient use of resources and, (f) safeguard access to education regardless of first language and academic level.
There are lots of public parks that find a way to meet the diverse wants/needs of park visitors. Pubiic schools are the same.
BTW, history shows us that without strong worker collectives with democratically elected leaders, nations have high income inequality and, in the case of the U.S., oligarchy has been the result.
“around 160 students”
According to the MN Association of Charter Schools the Northwest Passage High School has 153 students.
“Tell me lies, tell me lies
Make it all sound good
Make me believe that fairy tales
Can happen in the hood
And when I get my heart involved
Decide to let my guards down
Show me that you’re just like them all
I shouldn’t of trusted you around” (Ann Marie)
Ok, Duane what’s your point. 153 on the arbitrary day that MDE makes it count. We have rolling enrollment and a highly mobile population. Throughout any given year our numbers could fluctuate between 150-180 students.
My point being that a lot of what I hear from private charter school promoters is not quite the full truth. In this case 153 is not “around 160.” Now I do understand that perhaps you do now have 160 but how can we check that? What I am saying in regards to private charter school supporters is “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”. Unfortunately, in regards to private charter operators, which by the way is probably about 99% of them, the situation is way past the “twice shame” level. So I have a strong tendency to take anything a private charter operator says/writes with at least a cup of salt.
Duane, healthy skepticism is appreciated, but 68% of charters in the U.S. are free standing, independent, non-profits. (Personal note – I’d probably be ok if most of the other 32% closed down)
Here are the details for MN: https://www.mncharterschools.org/_uls/resources/A_Primer_on_Minnesota_Charter_Schools.pdf
Peter,
I was talking about private charters in all of the US and by private I mean those that are not authorized by the district as part of said district in which the buildings are located. I know that some states have written in their charter laws that private charter schools are to be considered public. Can you say legerdermain of word usage?
Those same private charter schools have argued and won in the courts and before the NLRB that they are private and should not have to open their books nor be subjected to the same laws and policies that govern true public schools. So which is it? A false naming of a private school as a public one or are they really private schools and should thus be called so? Hint: the latter.
Again, just part of the falsehoods and misdirections by the private charter school crowd. The vast majority of private charter schools are not public anymore than Boeing, Raytheon, or any company that does business with the government. Tell those companies that they are public and should open up their books and practices. . . Ain’t gonna happen.
One has to admit the private charter school crowd certainly knows how to distort the English language better than most. It’s one thing (the only thing?) that makes them stand out in a crowd.
I’m curious about what besides being part of a district would make a charter public in your mind? What if they were required to have a publicly elected school board, annual financial audits, independent nonprofit authorized, annual review, accept all students, meet the same teacher licensing requirements, same student graduation requirements? Would that still qualify as a public school?
No, it’s public only if the school is a part of the district, authorized by the district and not a separate private entity.
For-profit charters are prohibited in Michigan, but 80% of the nonprofit charters are operated by for-profit corporations.
Peter-
Who owns the assets?
Is Envision Charter school in the San Francisco area, one of the 68% freestanding, independents? Did Gates give $3,000,000 to Envisions?
At SSIR, you can read about a $39 webinar opportunity to learn how “neuroscience” led Envision’s founder to believe automation… technology,… was the solution to student apathy, purposelessness and anxiety.
Philanthropy, ain’t it grand when it sidles up next to $39 products?
I will say I like the fact that you are still teaching while doing the administrative duties. As it should be for all adminimals, eh!
Peter,
A publicly elected school board for charters would ruin the 2 charters in our school district. The charters are authorized by our district but have their own board made up of parents of students. Our elected school board is run by the union as the school district is the largest employer. They put raises on the ballot for every district employee when they want to get people out to vote. If someone does get elected that the union doesn’t want, the union gets members to show up to all the meetings and cause so much disruption that nothing can get done.
Wendy,
The people who show up to vote are the neighbors of the community.They likely want to protect property values with their votes. And, unlike you, they understand the significance of the economic multiplier effect to the community’s survival.
The profiteers of Silicon Valley education won’t be showing up to vote because they live in wealthy enclaves far from the community. Local retailers could vote but, they’ve been replaced by the owners of Walmart. The 6 heirs to the Walton fortune, in particular Alice Walton, are busy bidding up the price of artwork instead of filling up with gas in the town or visiting the dentists and hair salons. BTW, the 6 have wealth equivalent to 40% of Americans combined.
If school staff have such a sweet deal, there must be lots of people like you vying for the jobs? You want to be a school bus driver?
Is that local charter operator getting amounts of money like ECOT’s owner or like Eva Mscowitz, whose 19-20 year son, a general studies college student was listed as a teacher at the school? Oh, wait, in most cases the public can’t find out what private businesses like charters pay for salaries and advertising.
My figure came from a comment you posted here earlier. I may have remembered wrongly but I recall your defending highly segregated charter schools–one for Hmong students, one for Hispanics, one for African-Americans, one for Somalis, one for whites, etc. I think you are still defending segregation. The fundamental idea of the American public school was a “common school,” one where the children of the community, from every background, learned together and learned to understand and appreciate their differences, not to fear the “other.”
Diane, the only thing I am defending the ability for historically underrepresented and marginalized families to be able to choose schools that are culturally responsive and meet the needs of their children, same as white families have had forever. You also continue to imply that the schools you reference are forcibly segregated. Have you ever really looked into any of those schools? Talked to the parents and asked them why they choose those schools? Talked to the students and asked them about their experiences? It seems very easy for you to put your white privilege ahead of the needs of POC.
Peter,
School choice was the battle cry of every Southern white segregationist. It is odd coming from a charter school leader in Minnesota. George Wallace and every Southern governor lauded voluntary school choice so that black and white children could choose to go to school with children just like themselves. In the 1970s, the US Supreme Court rejected those arguments. I hope you will read Stephen Suitt’s history of school choice: https://dianeravitch.net/2019/06/21/stephen-suitts-the-racist-history-of-school-choice/. You are in bad company.
Peter,
“same as white families have had forever. ”
Your statement is false on the face of it. Does white man’s guilty conscience mean much to you? It should because you appear to have that guilty conscience for historical injustices that you haven’t had a part in. Don’t throw that nonsense off on the rest of us with a light skin color.
“Talked to the parents and asked them why they choose those schools?”
Yes, talk with the parents who chose those schools, you know the “whites only” ones. I’d bet that they gave the same reasons as the parents to whom you refer.
Segregation is segregation no matter the skin tone or ethnicity.
The vested interests from the anti-public education collective have gamed internet search engines like Google. The change helps those like Peter who have a dogma but, no intellectual curiosity. One topic where the change is evident is statistics about child abuse and homeschooling. A couple of years ago, legitimate data could be found in the first 5 pages of the search. But now, propaganda sources hold all of the spots. Compounding the problem is Devos’ ideology which limits and tailors the data that the Dept. of Ed. collects.
A few years ago, a search of why parents select a charter school would generate legitimate findings (some even funded by billionaire reformers). The findings showed that parents don’t select education using the decision process/criteria associated with consumer choice e.g., the better product. Now, the results prioritize the reformers’ alphabet soup of organizations.
In an anecdotal illustration, a mother laughed when she told a group of us the story about her young daughter who saw the ads for a cyber K-12 school and begged her Mom to enroll her. The little girl interpreted the school’s T.V. advertising as a promise she would get prizes at the different school.
All of the wasted dollars spent on broadcast ads to get students to enroll in schools where the operators get rich off of them. It’s a profoundly sad example of politics in the American oligarchy.
…and many charters take the kids that don’t fit at their traditional school. We’ve established this point. I go back to the original question concerning kids, what options do offer for the 1/3 of the students for whom their traditional district school doesn’t work?
The schools for kids who don’t fit should be authorized by the district to meet the needs of the students in the district. If you don’t see that the charter industry has turned into a machine to suck public dollars into private bank accounts, you are not paying attention.
Diane you’re right the districts “should” be addressing the needs of more of their students, but for the most part they aren’t – that’s my original issue. The article says we can’t create multiple schools to support multiple learner needs. Maybe you should use your platform to ask districts to look inward and ask how they can do a better job (and I certainly don’t mean test scores) of serving the needs of all students.
“Anonymous Linda” you still don’t answer the question – how can schools better serve students for whom the traditional model doesn’t work. Your list of structural requirements is a minimum we can agree on but it doesn’t address learning. My skin in the game is getting up everyday and supporting some of most vulnerable kids for 30 years. I don’t have any beef with you, I just asked for a dialogue about how schools can get beyond traditional one size fits all modalities and better serve kids.
Here is an answer about what NOT to do for those students: do not send them to a privately managed facility where no one is accountable.
Peter,
You don’t have a leg to stand on. The ACLU, SPLC, BLM, and NAACP, among others, warn America about the threat of privatized education.
Your side is backed by hedge funds, tech tyrants, and the libertarian, richest 0.1%. If they were the altruists they claim to be they would be funding your school (and, your $50,000 premium pay) without expecting tax dollars to be added.
One of Peter’s convenient beliefs that is self-serving- he postulates that employees voting the boss an increase in salary is an example of a democratic process.
BTW Peter, the principals in the public schools to whom you compare yourself likely have far better credentials.
“There is a reason for enthusiastic support in the Black community: parents see for themselves how their children are flourishing in charter schools,” the letter said. “For many urban Black families, charter schools are making it possible to do what affluent families have long been able to do: rescue their children from failing schools. The NAACP should not support efforts to take that option away from low-income and working-class Black families.”
Linda I thing you should update your talking points. https://www.the74million.org/article/the-war-that-wasnt-a-year-after-its-much-hyped-launch-the-naacps-push-for-a-charter-school-moratorium-has-run-out-of-steam/
Of course you would quote Campbell Brown’s website, she who led the fight against unions, teachers, tenure, job rights, and public schools. That’s your crowd.
Teacher powered schools provide educators the type of autonomy that actually does create a democratic process. https://www.teacherpowered.org/
Peter,
I’m sorry to say that the charter industry is corrupt. It is a magnet for greed and hucksters. I take you at your word that you are not in it for the money, but you are part of a movement fueled by the most reactionary forces in our society. The Waltons. The Koch brothers. The DeVos family. Crooks too. Shame on you.
Individual autonomy is not the same thing as democracy. Sometimes one person’s personal choice restricts another’s freedom. There is always a balance, but it seems to me that the evidence-based reasoning and the common good are essential features of democracy. It’s hard to see how charter schools that decrease funding for public schools and increase segregation serve the common good. Similarly, individual teachers’ personal curricular or instructional choices my or may not serve equity. Should teachers have autonomy to teach creationism or climate change denial in a science class? How about the civil war as the war of northern aggression? How about shaming as a behavioral control strategy?
Arthur, Teacher Powered schools still have democratically elected school boards, some with majority licensed teachers. I would rather put my trust in professional educators than democratically elected school boards that actually want to teacher “Intelligent Design” and “both sides” of climate change like in parts of Texas & Florida.
In other words, as the charter industry often reminds us, democracy is THE problem. Trust entrepreneurs and corporations.
Peter W. is the poor man’s Reed Hastings, only saddled with the need to rationalize
Anonymous Linda, you are really good at name calling and identifying what you think is wrong with others, yet you hide behind your computer and don’t offer solutions for students or teachers. Until you share your credentials and offer something that actually helps, you have zero street cred with me. As with everyone I would invite you to do what hundreds of other educators have done and visit our school, talk to teachers, students and parents, and ask questions. It may surprise you how many educators from across the educational spectrum are actually working together and supporting each other. Until then I am heading out to a conference where teachers and school leaders from district, charter and alternative schools are coming together to do the work.
“Alice Walton and Bill Gates have ‘street cred’ “- Peter W. steps in it, when he goes off script. The following will help Peter get back on script.
George Tewksbury- “The rationale given by reformers… we must break the monopoly of public education that is not properly educating our children…every child deserves quality education.” But then, Tewksbury adds, “A deployment of failure without any acknowledgement that the source of their wealth and power is relationally connected to the disempowerment of communities of color and working class.”