I am a K-12 graduate of the Houston Independent School District. I am appalled that Texas officials would dare to strip Houston citizens of their elected board because of ONE LOW-PERFORMING HIGH SCHOOL. Wheatley High School happens to have a high concentration of students who live in poverty (88%), don’t speak English, and have special needs (19%).
The Texas Education Agency and Commissioner Mike Morath should be ashamed of themselves. Since when did Republicans become advocates of authoritarianism and enemies of local control?
Commissioner Mike Morath, who is not an educator but a software developer, joins this blog’s Wall of Shame.
For Immediate Release November 7, 2019 |
Contact:
Oriana Korin 202-374-6103 |
Educators Question State Takeover of HISD |
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HOUSTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and Texas AFT and Houston Federation of Teachers President Zeph Capo issued the following statements in response to the Texas Education Agency’s announcement that it plans to take over local control of the Houston Independent School District:
Capo said:
“This is a power grab to disenfranchise families in Houston—particularly families of color—who just exercised their voice in a democratic vote on control of the city’s public schools. Now, the state government wants to step in and ignore that vote and exercise state control over this community because of one below-grade school, when the rest of them are scoring in the top tier in math and reading.
“What Houston’s students and their families really need is leadership: leadership that is committed to serving the needs of our local schoolchildren and the needs of the teachers who greet them every day. Educators must be assured that they, their students and their classrooms will be the focus of every decision, and our campuses must be able to thrive as safe and welcoming places for teaching and learning, unfettered by the machinations in Austin.
“The HFT has one goal: to look out for students—not to play politics with how we educate them.”
Weingarten said:
“This takeover by the Texas Education Agency strips the entire Houston community—particularly Houston’s families—of their basic right to have democratically governed public schools. It’s curiously timed during the exact moment the public are casting their votes to make changes in the Houston school board. But the fact remains: Teachers, parents and the community of Houston know what is best for Houston, and they have worked together over the last decade to see real improvement in Houston’s schools. Alarmingly, rather than focusing on that improvement, Austin bureaucrats are using one school’s challenges as the basis for stripping everyone in Houston of their voice.
“The state is playing a crude game of politics with public education in a shameful power grab that ignores students’ educational needs and disrespects the educators in the classroom. Using grossly flawed judgment, politicians in Austin have decided to use a blunt instrument that will undermine and disrupt the mission of community control of public education.
”We’ve been here enough times to know that our first priority must always be students, and our national union will do whatever we have to do to support the educators in this city in standing up for their kids and their schools against the state’s overreach. Our country’s history is replete with efforts to disenfranchise people of color and women, but Texas should not go down that ugly path again with this effort to take over the Houston school system.”
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| The American Federation of Teachers is a union of 1.7 million professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
I hope the parents protest including the Latino parents. Why should largely minority districts be denied local democratic control of the school district where they pay taxes?
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Posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Shame-on-Houston-s-Texas-E-in-General_News-Diane-Ravitch_Education_Education-For-All_Education-Funding-191107-643.html
With this comment : The war on public schools is the war on democracy by the power elite who know thatshared knowledge is the core of democracy http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
and that income equality depends on citizens who can apply knowledge — what they learn– to critical thinking skills which is required for income equality.
The war on the INSTITUTION of PUBLIC Education, which is critical for any citizenry to thrive, began in the nineties, when I was there, and experienced the first assault as they came for the educated, experienced, PROFESSIONAL TEACHER-PRACTITIONERS. Hundreds of thousands of the top teachers were sent packing as the media (owned by the billionaires) sold the fake stories of ‘burned-out, lazy teachers.
I was the NYS Educator of Excellence at that moment, with Harvard and Pew studying my practice in order to document the principles of learning that I used to enable by students to be so successful by any and all criteria, including those assessed through actual performance (like writing for example) and by tests (3rd highest scores in NY STATE when 3/4 of children in NYC kids failed.
20 years later, I have reported on the demolition of public schools for decades, and so has Diane Ravitch, the former ass’t SECRETARY OF EDUCATION, and top academic voice in America, who has written about the privatization movement for and the demolition of American Education. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/06/05/trump-devos-demolition-of-american-education/
Her latest book lays out what we must do. “Slaying Goliath “THE PASSIONATE RESISTANCE TO PRIVATIZATION AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS – Dr Ravitch is one of the foremost authorities on education and the history of education in the United States. Her book is an inspiring look at the ways in which parents, teachers, activists citizens are successfully fighting back to defeat the forces that are privatizing America’s public schools.
The NPE, which Dr. Ravitch founded is the other reliable place for FACTS about our public schools,. Newsletters – Network For Public Education ,. OUR CITIZENS need a reliable place for news about EDUCATION & PUBLIC SCHOOLS. https://networkforpubliceducation.org/newsletters/
Also, here at OEN, see my series many which follow the devastation of our public schools https://www.opednews.com/Series/PRIVITIZATION-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150925-546.html
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Diane Ravitch writes of those who have privatized the schools, the Disrupters, who believe America’s schools should be run like businesses, with teachers incentivized with threats and bonuses, and schools that need to enter into the age of the gig economy in which children are treated like customers or products. She writes of the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Waltons (Walmart), Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and many more, on the right and the left, as well as corporations, foundations, etc., intent on promoting the privatization of one of our most valued public institutions.
Ravitch lays out, in extensive detail, the facts showing that the ideas put forth by school privateers have failed; that their promises of higher test scores have not come to pass; that the “great hope” of Common Core has been a dud.
Arrayed against these forces, Ravitch writes of the volunteer army–“the Resisters”–that has sprung up from Seattle, Texas, and Colorado, to Detroit, New Orleans, and Buffalo, New York–parents, teachers, grandparents, students, bloggers, religious leaders, brave individuals, who, spurred on by conviction, courage, determination, and the power of ideas and passion, are fighting back to successfully keep alive their public schools.
Amazon.com: Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools (9780525655374): Diane Ravitch: Books
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Let’s remember that charters close their low performing campuses enrolling economically disadvantaged students to circumvent accountability. Wheatley HS is 93.8% economically disadvantaged, 78.9% “at-risk”, 20.5% special education and student mobility is 28.5%. Wheatley would be evaluated under the “alternative academic accountability standards if it was operated by a charter. Regardless, TEA assigned HISD an academic accountability rating of 88.
At the same time as HISD’s takeover, TEA has approved the following charters, operated by appointed boards, to expand despite operating campuses with a lower rating than Wheatley HS:
KIPP Texas – 4 campuses rated 46-54
International Leadership of Texas – 3 campuses rated 45-58
Harmony Science Academy (Waco) – 51
Jubilee Academies – 3 campuses rated 50-51
Great Hearts – 56
The takeover of HISD is SOLELY to allow TEA, Abbott, Lt. Dan and crew to implement the largest portfolio of privately operated charters in the nation. It is not a coincidence that John and Laura Arnold reside in Houston, have funded the expansion of the portfolio model and are funding IDEA’s expansion in Houston. It is time for everyone that cares about kids and democracy to take a stand!!!!!
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