Stephen Singer describes how Governor Tom Wolf solved a knotty problem. The state Charter Appeals Board was appointed by his Republican predecessor seven years ago. When local districts rejected charter applications, the disappointed charter operators could count on the CAB to reverse the local decision. A former member of the CAB applied for a charter, was rejected by the district she was moving into, and was swiftly approved by her former CAB colleagues.
Governor Wolf solved the problem. He fired every single member of the CAB. He nominated a slate of local school board members, educators, and others concerned about the well-being of the public schools, which enroll the vast majority of the state’s students.
The CAB never took into account the fiscal impact of the charter on the local district.
The legislature, controlled by Republicans, can approve Governor Wolf’s nominees or leave the CAB with no members.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The “reinventing schools” effort in ed reform is 100% echo chamber members:
“The substack is co-hosted by Lisa Snell, director of K-12 education policy for Stand Together, aka the Charles Koch Institute. Previously she spent 23 years as Director of Education at the Reason Foundation. Her co-host is Adam Peshek, who is part of the same Kochtopus, having arrived Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd (formerly FEE). Peshek also works at Yes, Every Kid, a rebranding of some standard reform ideas.”
The Koch employees and the Jeb Bush employees interview a charter school owner on how the public schools they didn’t attend, don’t work for and don’t support should “reinvent”. Turns out public schools should all “reinvent” to be exactly like the Summit chain of charter schools.
What a lively and diverse debate. Why, it ranges all the way from the Koch family vision for public education to the Bush family vision for education, with some contributions from the Zuckerberg family vision for education and since THOSE visions are identical two of the three participants are redundant.
https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2021/05/more-koch-ed-privatization.html?spref=tw
Here’s some more ed reform scholarship:
“JeanneAllen
of EdReform
drops in to shed a bit of light on the corruption of teachers’ unions.”
Wherein a full time, paid charter/voucher promoter – a representative for anti-union employers- tells us unions are very, very bad.
They spend a lot of time in the echo chamber complaining that Weingarten makes 600k but does anyone have any idea what the thousands of full time charter/voucher promoters make? The total has to DWARF 600k. Just Walton and Gates and Bush alone have a big payroll and that’s not including the tens of Walton and Gates funded mouthpieces.
They have two former US Dept of Ed secretaries as paid members of the echo chamber. Those two alone must total a million in compensation.
Gov. Wolf is a patient man. He has repeatedly tried to work with the uncooperative legislature that has resisted every attempt to require any level of accountability in the charter sector. Some legislators are invested in the charter industry that is fleecing the taxpayers. Kudos to Wolf for taking a decisive action to curb the crooked dealings of the charter lobby in Pennsylvania.
So many states are trying to smash and grab the common good. I watched a vlog yesterday about Texas. The people in Houston continue to try to defend their public schools, but the state is working against them. Kandice Webber wants a public school advocate to run against complicit Harold Dutton, a complicit corporate Democrat, in Houston. State representatives are trying to pass a takeover law that would apply throughout the state. The charter lobby is trying to hijack the Texas public schools. Houston activist, Kandice Webber, describes the shenanigans in this link. https://politicsdoneright.com/2021/05/kandice-webber-calls-out-state-rep-harold-dutton-and-calls-for-his-replacement/
Brilliant! I love it when Democratic politicians realize they have to stop worrying about the disingenuous and dishonest attacks that come from the so-called “liberal” media about how the Dems aren’t being “bipartisan”. The Republicans will never agree to anything except their own agenda and would rather have nothing because they don’t care about doing good for their constituents, they care about remaining in post.
Firing ALL the board! Let the right wing Republican legislature leave CAB with no members! It will be very hard for them to approve any new charters!
And ignore it when the NYT and their “both sides — lies and truth – must be reported as equal” journalists criticize the democrats because the Dems weren’t kicking the football with Lucy again and the reporters believed that this time Lucy planned to hold it still.
exposing the world we live inside where “both sides” means that lies and truth must be reported as equally relevant. NICELY said