Christine Langhoff is a retired teachers in Massachusetts who is an activist on behalf of public schools. She warns here about the unfolding plot to impose a state takeover of Boston public schools. Having been decisively rebuffed at the polls by the state’s voters in 2016, the Walton allies on the state board have found another way to disrupt and control the Boston public schools and install Broadies and other willing allies to advance their privatization agenda.
Christine writes:
Massachusetts’ state board of education has been moving inexorably toward a takeover of the Boston’s schools. On March 13, the same day as schools shut down, DESE announced a MOU with Boston’s superintendent. In response, Alain Jehlen, Board Member of Citizens for Public Schools, is taking a deep dive into how and why the state rates city schools so poorly on the Schoolyard News website.
Here’s Part 1:
“Boston has 34 schools (out of about 125) that rank in the bottom 10 percent in the state. BPS as a whole is 14th from the bottom out of 289 districts. Why is it rated so low?
“One major reason is that the rating system was designed in a way that almost automatically puts Boston and other urban centers with large numbers of low-income students and recent immigrants at the bottom.
“Here’s how it works: The state rates schools and districts mostly according to test scores. But there are two ways they could use the scores. State officials picked the one that makes urban areas look worse.”
The current board of education is loaded up with Walton connected folks. No doubt that has some impact on decision making.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I taught in another economically disadvantaged city in Massachusetts and that is exactly what happened there. The state took control, installed a puppet administrator, got rid of talented, dedicated teachers and converted many schools to charters.
Maybe we need a catchy motto for people to realize that elections have consequences. “Vote for a governor that’s red, and your public schools are dead.” When a Republican governor is installed, privatization of the common good follows They will impose privatization by hook or by crook. They do not care about democracy. They will lie, cheat and steal their way in order to move public money into private pockets. They will invite their wealthy, nefarious friends in to share in the spoils and help them dismantle public schools. Just so people understand, “moderate” Republicans are extinct along with the dinosaurs. We have observed the same MO play out in state after state. When are the voters going to learn? Vote blue, no matter who!
Today, of the just over 1 million infected in this country, approximately 60,000 have died. These numbers are ever shifting, too.
Right now, death rate in the U.S. is 5.8%/million
People are worried about basic needs. Everyone needs a haircut. Mothers have informed me that their children are anxious and some are having nightmares.
Instead of being president, tRump chooses to attack China, WHO, calls cadets back when there’s COVID-19, an equal opportunity virus and just to be in front if a camera to hear himself spout delusional statements about his greatness. This is right out of the Dictator’s playbook.
And now this!
We are facing a mega health and security national crisis and the deformers pull this one. Who does this? What sickening people.
“5.8%/million” is not mathematically meaningful. You meant to write that there is currently a 0.58% death rate in the US (58,000 deaths out of 1,000,000 confirmed cases).
However that figure of 0.58% only reflects the known cases (just over 1 million in the US). The actually number of cases is surely higher, which means that 0.58% is not accurate. The 0.58% figure would be lower, if the true number of actual cases were known.
(CORRECTED:)
“5.8%/million” is not mathematically meaningful. You meant to write that there is currently a 5.8% death rate in the US (58,000 deaths out of 1,000,000 confirmed cases).
However that figure of 5.8% only reflects the known cases (just over 1 million in the US). The actually number of cases is surely higher, which means that 5.8% is not accurate. The 5.8% figure would be lower, if the true number of actual cases were known.
The number of deaths is now more than 65,000 and growing
The number of deaths is nearly 66,000.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
That’s 199 deaths for every 1 million people.
The death rate is higher in Italy, Spain, UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden.
The death rate continues to rise.
Scary numbers indeed. My brain simply didn’t register the magnitude of the 5.8% figure at first, and thought it must have been 0.58%, but 5.8% is accurate and very unsettling.
Since the chart on the website doesn’t give the percentage deaths figure in terms of total cases, I created a spreadsheet from that chart and calculated the percentages (for countries with more than 100 deaths, and percentage rates of 5.0 and above). Here’s the result:
Belgium 15.7%
UK 15.4%
France 14.7%
Italy 13.7%
Netherlands 12.4%
Sweden 12.1%
Hungary 11.4%
Algeria 10.7%
Spain 10.2%
Mexico 9.5%
Indonesia 7.7%
Brazil 6.9%
Philippines 6.8%
Egypt 6.7%
Iran 6.4%
Canada 6.3%
Ireland 6.1%
Romania 6.1%
Switzerland 5.9%
USA 5.8%
China 5.6%
Greece 5.5%
Argentina 5.1%
Denmark 5.0%
Ecuador 5.0%
Poland 5.0%
The current Massachusetts board’s decisions, including the move to intervene in Boston, are undoubtedly influenced by the Walton mindset, but the state accountability formula used to justify intervention was put in place under Democratic Governor Deval Patrick. It basically measures student family income and calls it “school performance.”
Thanks to you for your work, Alain!
Your point about Deval Patrick is correct, of course. It’s an indication that the neoliberals have done public education no favors, either.
I appreciate your shout out to me, Diane, but all credit goes to Alain Jehlen at Schoolyard News. * Schoolyard News is an independent, parent run news site, and in a short time has become quite indispensable.
Here are the links to
Part two:
https://schoolyardnews.com/how-the-states-formula-for-labeling-underperforming-districts-and-schools-helps-charter-schools-ae809a93dc18
Part three:
https://schoolyardnews.com/an-explanation-for-bostons-low-scoring-schools-hiding-in-plain-sight-8a6d4feafb5c
Part four:
https://schoolyardnews.com/how-the-states-inaccurate-ratings-hurt-boston-children-127d656b1af2
And here is the latest post, in which a Boston teacher who is also a Boston Public Schools graduate, explains why the MOU the state declared with the superintendent, on the very day schools closed due to coronavirus, will not help the schools.
https://schoolyardnews.com/deses-criticism-of-bps-misses-what-s-wrong-and-the-mou-won-t-fix-it-4a99b7e4a53e