Anette Carlisle, public education advocate in Texas, describes how State Commissioner Mike Morath, a non-educator, bought into the anti-democratic strategy of killing local school boards and privatizing public schools. He swallowed whole the disruption program of the Center for Reinventing Public Education, one of the Gates-funded think tanks that call for the abandonment of public schools.
Despite a full decade of failure, phony “reformers” claim that education will improve if private corporations and entrepreneurs take over from elected school boards. It hasn’t worked anywhere, and it won’t work in Texas.
Carlisle writes:
Texas has chosen to abandon our local public schools, locally elected school boards, superintendents and our 5.4 million schoolchildren in favor of a “my way or the highway” single system directive by Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath. That’s why I’m standing up to say, “Whoa! Hold your horses, please, Mr. Commissioner.”
It’s an effort that’s been building for years, right under our noses. People said, “Surely not,” but here we are.
Look back to 2019 and the Center for Reinventing Public Education’s (CRPE) report centered around the System of Great Schools (SGS) concept. The System of Great Schools “starts from the premise that local school districts are ill-positioned to improve schools directly,” and local districts should “get out of the business of managing instruction in schools.”
Morath, according to the CRPE, “prioritized the SGS initiative as a signature project” and even “smoothed the path for the SGS team to work inside the agency” when other TEA staff disapproved.
It’s just one example of the state telling school district leaders to take a hike and locally elected boards to get out of the way.
Earlier this year, The Texas Tribune interviewed Commissioner Morath, and his thoughts on local control came more clearly into focus. Asked about the state’s takeover of Houston ISD, Morath said, “This is basically a grand, philosophical question that is a right for state legislatures around the country to try to answer. Why do we have schools? Do we have schools to teach children, or do we have schools to have elected school boards?”
The takeaway? Local communities don’t know what’s best for kids. The state does.
Who knew that a conservative Republican Governor and his ignorant State Commissioner would launch a state takeover of public schools?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The System of Great Schools “concept” is identical to a system-wide privatization plan. There is no difference, other than marketing and rebranding by ed reformers.
Recognizing that charging into cities and closing public schools wasn’t working for them politically, they changed the branding. There is no practical difference between this “new” idea and all the other ed reform plans, which all end with every public school replaced by a private contractor.
What Texas public school families should worry about is what happens to their existing public schools while ed reformers transition to their (preferred) privatized system. If ed reformers capture local government the disfavored public schools will be deliberately starved and weakened to clear them out for charters.
so exactly said: “If ed reformers capture local government the disfavored public schools will be deliberately starved and weakened to clear them out for charters.”
Morath has been charged with enabling a “smash and grab” on many large mostly minority school districts in Texas. By moving decisions to the state level, it is easier for privatizers to gain access to public schools. By the way Florida is moving to mostly appointed, not elected superintendents for the same reason. This is in opposition to conservatives that traditionally support local governance. While privatizing public schools is losing public support, wealthy corporations are attempting to grab as many public schools as they can before the public can actively organize to resist. The pandemic like Hurricane Katrina provides a cover for a nefarious attack on public school systems.
Texas has many more poor students than most states. As reported earlier on this blog, several major cities are being targeted for “hostile takeover” in the corporate “portfolio” districts. This is a widespread attempt to undermine democratic control of public schools. It unfairly targets minority majority school districts. This plan is an attempt to transfer massive amount of public money into private pockets without any democratic input. The plan is also a well known top down loss of local control, but local communities must mobilize to stop the incursion before the charter lobby gets a foothold.https://dianeravitch.net/2019/04/17/lynn-davenport-look-out-texas-here-comes-kitamba-consultants-to-privatize-your-public-schools/
By the way Robert Reich just posted an excellent video on the pitfalls of privatizing certain essential services that bring people together. He mentions public education as a needed common good service.https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=992731357816723¬if_id=1597684285116642¬if_t=watch_follower_video&ref=notif
The only thing “new” we’ve seen from the ed reform “movement” in the last 20 years is that some of them opposed private school vouchers in the past, and now they all lock-step embrace private school vouchers.
Do you need 50 think tanks for that? Couldn’t they have just put in the Barry Goldwater vision and been done with it?
Here is the link to the System of Great Schools. It is a model for school “choice” made possible by the results from an A-F grading system for schools, and a formula for identifying so-called “quality seats” needed and available if local school boards are demolished.
This is a massive and official privatizing scheme and is the official policy of the Texas. Learn more, because this is part of a national initiative.
https://www.systemofgreatschools.org
Look at a few details here to see how they are proselytizing: “Talent Operations and Pipeline Resources.” This “subsystem” includes relying on the anti-union New Teacher Project (TNTP) for hires, and a pipeline developed by Achievement First, Education First, the New Schools Venture Fund, and others for on the job training of teachers with a minimum role for higher education programs. https://www.systemofgreatschools.org/toolsandtraining
From the looks of the New School Venture Fund website it looks as though the initiative is coming from the parents of under served students. This, of course, it a misleading lie. If you look at the donor page, it includes the usual suspects including the Waltons and Silicon Valley. The venture is a reference to venture capitalism, not charity.https://www.newschools.org/about-us/our-donors/
Why should this group be classified as a non-profit when their objective is wholly political? Why should donors get a tax benefit when they target and attack a public institution?
Thank you for sharing this. It is an honor! Thank you for your dedicated work on behalf of public education!
The list of Deformer failures is a lot longer than a decade. Those failures started with “A Nation at Risk” in 1983, and each failure was worse and did more damage to public education than the last one. These Deformers act like they are all gambling addicts that keep doubling down after each lost bet and they never stop losing more than they win if they ever win.
Worst of all Lloyd, they have so much money they are like the “terminator” that just keeps coming. People like the Waltons and Gates are undeterred by repeated failure.
I love the gambling addict analogy, Lloyd. Indeed, one looks at Deformer policy and thinks, what the ____? Why do these people continue to say, well, this has clearly failed, so let’s do a lot more of it?
Do we have schools to teach children, or do we have schools to have elected school boards?”
Yikes!!!! Save this one as a perfect example of the logical fallacy known as the false disjunction. Would you like to live a satisfying life or to be happy? Do you like vanilla or ice cream? Here, an actual disjunction:
Would you like an accountable, transparent, elected school board or an unaccountable, opaque one appointed by some unilateral, autocratic authority like a governor, a state education commissioner, or a CMO?