Louisiana will hold elections for its state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on October 12. This year, as in the past, out-of-State billionaires are spending heavily to keep control of the state board to promote privatization policies. During the tenure of State Superintendent John White, a former deputy to Joel Klein in New York, the state’s ranking on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Is near the absolute bottom in both mathematics and reading, in both 4th and 8th grades. New Orleans has gone all-Charter and its score are in the bottom third of the state’s districts while its schools are highly segregated and stratified. This much is clear: Disruption has won control of the state board but done nothing to improve education.
A site to discuss education and democracy
BESE recommendations from veteran educator Michael Deshotels –
Dear Friend of Public Education:
With just a few days left before the election of a new BESE, you can help restore sanity and independence to our State Board of Education.
Out of state donors are making huge contributions to elect candidates that LABI and John White will totally control. You will surely see their ads in your mailbox and on radio and television. Do not be deceived! These are not friends of public education. They will be committed to John White, school privatization, obsessive testing, crushing test prep., etc. But the results of these so called reforms have been terrible using the very measures they (the reformers) think are so important; Our ranking on NAEP is the worst ever! Why would we want to continue failed policies? Just so that LABI never has to admit that they were wrong, that they know noting about education, and that our students are suffering instead of thriving because of their takeover of education? See this latest post on my blog. http://louisianaeducator.blogspot.com
Here is my abbreviated voting guide listing independent minded, solid public education advocates. Please do your best to get them elected!
District 1: including St. Tammany and Jefferson. I recommend Lee Barrios
District 2: including Orleans, St. Charles, St. John, St. James and part of Assumption: I recommend Dr. Ashonta Wyatt
District 3: including St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Lafourche, Terrebonne, St. Mary, Iberia, St. Martin, part of Iberville and part of St. Landry: I recommend Janice Perea.
District 5: including Northeast LA and down to Rapides and Evangeline Parishes. I recommend Dr. Stephen Chapman
District 6: including EBR, Livingston, Ascension, Tangipahoa, and Washington Parishes. I recommend Gregory Spiers
District 7: including Southwest LA. I recommend Timmie Melancoin
District 8: including part of EBR, East and West Feliciana, St. Helena, Iberville, Pointe Coupee, Avoyelles, part of St. Landry part of St. Martin, and part of Assumption. I recommend Vereta Lee.
4 Comments
Leave a comment
-
Diane Ravitch's Blog by Diane Ravitch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at dianeravitch.net.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
t’s up at OpED. https://www.opednews.com/populum/modify_quicklink.php
with these links from your site Embedded at Oped)
MY comment:
It is Shared knowledge that MAKES DEMOCRACY POSSIBLEhttp://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
. An ignorant citizenry is the goal, not just the profit made by the businesses that take over our schools.The war on public schools continues because the power elite need an ignorant, stressed population that knows nothing and have little skills. Just a few recent articles that show that Louisiana is not alone:
Jeff Bryant: How Sharp Operators Fleece School Districts of Millions Investigative journalist Jeff Bryant has published a bombshell article about entrepreneurs who operate superintendent searches, then call on their Superintendents to buy professional development, technology, training, and other services. The conflicts of interest and self-dealing are shocking. Districts lose millions of dollars and buy services they don’t need, while the search service continues to pay them.Most of us are familiar with the case of Barbara Byrd-Bennett, former Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, who is currently serving a jail sentence for taking kickbacks. But the web of corruption has involved many superintendents and school districts.
Bill Phillis: Beware Privatizers Running for Local School Boards! Bill Phillis, founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, warns: Anti-public school advocates run for seats on boards of education to attempt to completely privatize districts. Privatizers run for local school boards, as they have in Atlanta and other cities. Teach for America has a special outfit called “Leadership for Educational Equity,” which trains its recruits to go into politics and helps to fund their campaigns.
Bombshell in California: E-Mails Reveal Charter Lobby’s Goal of Complete Privatization of All Schools in the State ;Blogger Michael Kohlhaas received a huge trove of leaked emails from the Green Dot Charter School organization in Los Angeles.He has been releasing them as he reviews them.No one has disputed their accuracy. Yesterday, Kohlhaas released one of the most startling of these documents, in which the charter lobby reveals its ultimate goal: by 2030, every student in the state of California will attend a charter school or a “charter-like public school.”and in Rhode Island: Providence Plans to Defund Its Public Schools to Expand “No Excuses” Charter
Amy Frogge: How Edupreneurs Took Nashville for a Ride
and so much more. go to the Ravitch blog and get Diane’s daily posts, to learn how America’s schools are being demolished
Have you seen this well-written and thought provoking article by George Packer in The Atlantic?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/when-the-culture-war-comes-for-the-kids/596668/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=other&utm_campaign=opencourse.GdeNrll1EeSROyIACtiVvg.announcements~opencourse.GdeNrll1EeSROyIACtiVvg.1v73l9PrSzGT8KDD6agHSw
>
Yes, the article has been thoroughly discussed here.
Packer chose one of NYC’s best, most progressive public schools.
He did not like it because he felt pressured to opt out of testing.
It is in no way typical of NYC public schools.
NYC has the lowest opt out rate in the state.