Remember when the Republican Party demanded local control of schools? Insisted on local control?
No longer.
In its quest for school privatization, the GOP has turned firmly against local control of schools. The local school board is the biggest obstacle to privatization by charters, so Republican governors like Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin create new state entities to bypass local school boards. It is hard to believe that Republicans were once staunch advocates for local control, but that was when the local school boards opposed desegregation.
Youngkin is proposing legislation that will enable “regional” boards, appointed by the State Board of Education (appointed by Youngkin), to authorize new charter schools. Local control is dead.
The Youngkin-backed charter school bill would let the state Board of Education create “regional charter school divisions” made up of two or three localities. Each of the localities would have to enroll at least 3,000 students and have at least one school struggling with accreditation.
The regional bodies would have the power to approve new charter schools, and would be made up of eight board members appointed by the state Board of Education, and one member appointed by the localities included in the regional division.
Under that system, localities would always have minority power and would be unable to reject charter school applicants — outnumbered by board members appointed by a charter-friendly state government.
Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Rockingham who introduced the bill, said the proposal addresses a key hurdle for charter schools to open in Virginia: That they need authorization to open from the local school district, which would compete with the school for enrollment and the funding attached to those students.
“We don’t have many people even applying because they know what the answer is going to be: no,” Obenshain said in an interview.
Republican solution to the problem: Eviscerate the power of the locally elected school boards and shift decisions to a board made up of Youngkin appointees.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
But that is a way to get local control…in the hands of the extremists. Any democratically elected school board would be responsible to govern with a broad-based political coalition. But a charter only needs the approval of a few bureaucrats whose basic philosophy is that the country should be ruled by a special moral elite, hand picked for its adherence to sounding like Christians and picking the pockety of the public.
All fascism starts with local control. In name only.
It’s more common for the right wing to have the goal of Christian nationalism when they scheme for school privatization. There are others who have the same goal, but are associated with
the Democratic Party. They undermine public schools and unions just like those on the right. They may run charities funded by the usual rich pseudo Democrats. They admit a “Christian” overlay to their dubious altruism. It can be difficult to distinguish between their motivations-a goal for religious schools or for more money from villianthropists. When the money is laundered through their own charitable organizations, the waters get muddied.
My previous post having been put into moderation, I guess, I will reiterate that this is an attempt by extremists to get local control by a vocal minority.
well, never mind, it appeared
As long as public schools refuse to innovate, we will perish! How many decades does it take for educators to understand this?
Public schools are far more innovative than charter schools or voucher schools, which have inexperienced teachers and high teacher turnover. The “successful” charters are no-excuses schools, where the pedagogy is 19th century.
caplee68,
Refuse to “innovate”???
How many decades does it take to
understand?
If the gov. established PE to
function as the “Boss”, the
gov. would YEILD.
As long as money’s “protection racket”
is painted as a democracy by the
“foundational cornerstone of democracy”,
what do you expect?
Off topic, as always:
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/im-a-public-school-teacher-the-kids
Bari Weiss’ substack-
Making book courtesy of the right wing?
Maybe she and her arch conservative buddies can launch a course on the subject at Grievance U, in Austin, Texas.
Apparently Bari and Flerp are a mission to protect CANADA’S children from doctors and health officials.
CANADIAN TEACHER SAYS CANADA TRYING TO HURT CHILDREN, BARI WEISS VERY CONCERNED, FRIENDS ASK BARI IF SHE IS ADVOCATING FOR THE US TO INVADE CANADA TO “SAVE THE CHILDREN”.
Lol! How desperate is Bari now?
Bari Weiss got publicly criticized by a conservative student at LA private school Harvard Westlake who actually had been an admirer and supported many of Bari’s ideas.
The conservative student mistakenly thought that if he told Bari Weiss that she had published many false things, she would want to correct the record.
He did not realize that Bari Weiss had joined the side that believes that misleading the public in pursuit of your efforts and trying to foment violence and hatred toward whatever common enemy by mischaracterizing that enemy. Flerp, I’m sure you are familiar with the tactic.
Is this CANADIAN teacher for real? Of course, but also real are are all the doctors and nurses who are begging states not to make mask mandates illegal (except in fancy private schools that anti-mask governors send their children attend since their own children’s lives are special.)
Here is the conservative student politely calling out Bari’s lies — of course being Bari, she didn’t feel any need to correct them.
What is wrong with these adults? They have no moral compass anymore.
https://hwchronicle.com/100679/opinion/guest-editorial-a-letter-to-bari-weiss/
Thanks for the link NYC
Thanks to my respondents for showing the concern for students that I’ve grown accustomed to here!
Sure, banning mask mandates shows a concern for students.
Supporting charter schools that suspend 18% of their kindergarten and first graders when those charter that suspend so many have virtually no white students is “showing concern for students”. Just not “those” students.
Thanks to flerp for showing the concern for truth and honesty that I’ve grown accustomed to here!
flerp, shouldn’t you be posting some more links to twitter feeds that demonize teachers trying to address racism? Have you run out of links to twitter feeds with misleading descriptions of out of context video clips to get people to hate perfectly nice educators?
Interesting that lately, you post links to a woman whose integrity is already in question to profess that you and Bari Weiss are more concerned with students than people here.
The “respondents” repeatedly show concern-
for students’ parents who deserve to vote for school board members, in exercise of their democratic rights,
for students who shouldn’t have to witness a favorite teacher sacked for being gay,
so that students aren’t shortchanged by profit takers fleecing their schools,
so that the health-comprised student or teacher avoids the Covid infection that could be a death sentence,
for the female and male students who could be indoctrinated at the taxpayers’ expense to give up their reproductive rights.
for the student denied the right to expand his/her knowledge because library bools are banned.
Flerp – what I see in you is someone who reads right wing arguments, posts them as if they are objective and, who cares about one student- his own child with singular focus on the present.
Linda, for the thousandth time, my kids are ok. If I needed help for them, I certainly wouldn’t appeal to the readers of this blog. I am extremely well-off, for the time being at least. We will manage through this situation. I’m concerned for millions of other students who have lost years of their development. Absolutely zero shits given by anyone here, though.
flerp, it is shocking to hear you smear the folks at this blog in this way.
I don’t know which is worse — that you hold yourself out as some morally superior person when so much of what you post reveals exactly which kids you really care about, or that you project your own lack of integrity on everyone else here because they are able to acknowledge the COMPLEXITIES of this difficult situation, while yuou just want to score some political points and hold yourself out as a morally superior human being.
Bari Weiss? Really? Why am I not surprised that you would embrace someone who professes some concern for kids when her real agenda is scoring political points to gain favor of those whose largesse subsidizes their lifestyle.
That link points out exactly how much people like you and Bari Weiss care about students. Even one of Bari’s admirers recognized that she was certainly not acting on the behalf of students like him, as she claimed to be.
flerp says “I’m concerned for millions of other students who have lost years of their development”
There are many teachers here that I don’t always agree with, but they care a lot more about those students than you do. They care about them all the time, not just when they help score political points.
Ripofflichens have been interested in Local Control, and States’ Rights, for that matter, only at times when it was easier to bully locals and buy governors into their corporate agendas than it was to deal with the Feds. As easy as that was, it just wasn’t easy enough for the money and power hungry appetites of their corporate puppet-masters, so now they’ve turned to pushing the charter con on all fronts at once.
Ripofflichens: These people are interested in tearing lichens off of surfaces?
I think I need an education.
There are reeducation camps for that!!!
Or will be soon.
I happen to think that lichens are among earth’s most fascinating extant forms of life. Using them to form a new name for a political party bothers me some. I would hate to hurt their feelings. I am a sensitive kind of guy.
“would be made up of eight board members appointed by the state Board of Education”
Carefully selected to ensure 100% charter cheerleading and rubberstamping. Why bother with eight? One would do. They’ll all vote in lockstep anyway.
I suppose they have to put a “debate and discuss” veneer on it – a performance for the public.
and the word “carefully” here could even be written “long-term strategically” these days as the privatizing game seals deal after deal after deal
So far the “efforts to improve public schools” by ed reformers in Virginia consist of :
Proposed laws banning books and speech, directives ordering the repeal of mask mandates, and a huge expansion of charter schools.
“Public school students” have received absolutely nothing of value. They’re barely mentioned.
It happens in every state where ed reform dominates- all productive work on existing public schools grinds to a halt as they promote The Agenda, which is mostly either irrelevant or harmful to public school students.
They’re just warming up, Virginia. You can expect every legislative session and executive action from now on to be solely devoted to attacking public schools or promoting and marketing charters and private school vouchers. There is no upside for public school students. There never is.
And we also remember that “Local Control” is really NOT the issue. Just a slogan they hide behind. Now, massive infusions of cold, hard CASH into the private coffers of Youngkin and his minions, well that is the gravy train.
Trash Spotsylvania. Fire the Super without cause, Threaten to Burn Books and BURN through the school district’s finances using chaos + mayhem and the entire operation is so shattered and battered that it resembles a war zone. No one wants their child enrolled in The Siege Of Leningrad Elementary, and suddenly the Charters look compelling.
I have noticed that you often have a good way of saying what I meant to add.
beautifully, perfectly said, Kathy!
State control of charter authorization is the playbook for how complicit governors intend to promote privatization. Red states don’t want democratically elected boards of education to get in the way of their authoritarian plunder.
Youngkin and others with his same cultural agenda were enabled in the charter school agenda by individuals and families who enjoy national liberal reputations. The money for spin tanks, academics and PR is provided by libertarians like Gates, Arnold, Walton heirs and Koch. The charter school plan also benefitted from people like those in the Edelman family.
Marion Wright Edelman is on the Robin Hood Board and she posted an endorsement for
Stand for Children (6-4-2021) at her site, Children’s Defense Fund. And her son, Jonah Edelman, co-founded Stand for Children. Peter Edelman sits on the board of the Center for American Progress Action Fund while CAP advocates for charters. Son, Josh, worked for Gates and now works for Biden.
Youngkin owes a debt to the Edelman’s.
I’m curious if Josh will demand from charter and voucher schools what he requested of D.C. public schools in a letter to the D.C. state board of ed. in which he described himself as a civil rights and education activist i.e. 75% of each school’s ratings based on academic, outcomes-based measures of student achievement and heavily weighted ELA and math in school ratings …on track for college and career. He should have added to the letter a demand that taxpayers not be fleeced by charter schools. Btw- Seth Andrew signed the same letter that is posted at DFER’s site.
Members of the middle class and poor Black community should be asking Biden to rid the U.S. Ed Dept of “liberals” who support charter schools. But then, liberals educated in the highly prestigious expensive private schools of D.C. and who receive big salaries from “philanthropies” are probably too well-connected to be fired.
Reminiscent of the Edelman and others. From The Big Cheat by David Cay Johnston.
Sarah Kendzior, a journalist turned scholar of autocratic governments, says that nepotism is an early sign of an emerging regime dedicated not to democracy and freedom but to perpetuating itself. “Oligarchs and plutocrats often operate in a similar way to the mafia,” Kendzior told me, “maximising family structure for power and profit, only it’s not recognised as such when cloaked in prestige and respectability.”
Interesting.
Ivanka’s “prestige” was short-lived and, may have only existed in the minds of the Trump’s. The right wing seems to have forgotten her courting of the Chinese.
From the news today:
“What’s your message for voters of color who are concerned that without the John L. Lewis Voting Rights Act they’re not going to be able to vote in the midterm?” [the reporter] asked.
McConnell replied, “Well, the concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”
Hey, Mitch. Your Klan undergarments are showing.
Chuck Todd, recently, sounded like McConnell. Nikole Hannah Jones called him on it during the interview.
C’mon, give him a little credit. He didn’t use the word “real” before “Americans” like Sarah did.
LOL. Killing a voting rights bill on the same day when he posted an “MLK Tribute.”
“Be these juggling fiends no more believed / That palter with us in a double sense.”
That’s awesome, Greg. Thanks for sharing. You are going to make a Drive-by Truckers fan of me yet.
Bob Shepherd
GregB
More depressing yesterday was the Biden news conference. Personally I do not think his policies have been wrong or failures including Afghanistan. However his inability to defend , his inability to answer questions, his lack of the political skill to capitalize on some of the questions was depressing. Take the question on the suburban moms and schools. Would not the obvious answer be that if I were a suburban mom, I would be mad as hell at Governors and State legislatures endangering my children’s health. With anti mask and anti vaccine policy punishing local school boards trying to protect our children.
The News max correspondent should have been told I’m not going to call you a “nasty person” but why don’t you go ” drink a bottle of bleach and shove a blue light up you know where.
James Carville said “you need good story tellers and ever story need a villain” Biden played right into the Rights depiction of him. Requiring MSNBC to make excuses for hours.
We are doomed !
every story needs
Well, he went kinda soft on him, I think.
The Republican Party has a long, hard-core history of telling voters one thing that sounds like the GOP support our democracy, and then doing the fascist thing once they are in power.
I realaly do think ed reform’s hard Right turn against public schools leaves an opening for public school advocates and supporters.
They are relenetlessly and exclusively negative about public schools. Most people still use public schools and most people still support them. We haven’t had a positive agenda for public schools or public school students in this country for 20 years. Maybe people are ready for one.
If only the Democratic Party understood that!
The Republicans have learned that attacks on the local school do not hurt their chances of staying in control so long as they call schools “the government.” Since Reagan convinced everybody that government is fundamentally bad back in 1980, no one has been able to successfully run on a platform that suggests that government is good if it is run correctly.
It is reminiscent of Andrew Jackson’s Famous toast (in the middle of the nullification controversy) and John C. Calhoun’s re-joiner:
Said Jackson: “To the Union. It must be preserved”
Calhoun’s response was less direct: “The Union, next to our liberty the thing we hold most dear.” or something to that effect
The problem with democracy is that people remember little sayings better than logical realities. The problem with anything less is that it is tyranny.
Evidently, one doesn’t even need “little sayings.” Socialist! Fake news! CRT! seem sufficient to the task. Nice and chantable, like HH.
What we know to be true is for the past 100 years, locally elected school boards have overseen the local public schools. Much of the funding for these schools came from local taxpayers and state funding. Because of the community tax base, not every child’s education is funded the same. It always gets back to $$ which creates the haves and have nots.
The push and pull going on right now centers on the question: what are schools to be and do? In general, there is consensus that schools should teach kids how to learn. But beyond that there seems to be discourse. Is the 6-12 education mission to create innovators, doers and independent thinkers or workers to fill jobs? When public schools say, “career and collage ready”, they are not saying explores, adventures, or servant leaders. The “what” schools are to be and do, ultimately is decided by the folks paying the taxes and voting, not the educators. Teachers who do not live in the district in which they teach, are employees of the district, and have very little real power to facilitate change or policy. Ultimately, parents and community members have the power.
School districts reflect, and are extensions of, the community’s personality and culture.
Teaching and learning is organic. The structure to support public schools in the United States is political. Those who have the political power and control the money, will determine what is right for schools do.
A new model is needed and the funding stream to support it.
The Center for American Progress- still talking about charter schools- still calling them public.
CAP appears to like the idea (Gates- Bellwether has the same idea) that churches are the place to go to find support. Dec. 16, 2021’s article, “going to every church and talking to every pastor”
What would CAP do if it wanted Democrats to win instead of Republicans?
All corporate language is word soup. When they say reform, they mean privatization. When they say local, they mean privatization. When they say standards based, they mean privatization. You get the idea. They just mean privatization.
More anti-democracy hedge-fund billionaire scum.
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) receives funding from Gates.
The issues that the organization addresses are centered on poverty. K-12 is not included as a topic.
Peter Edelman is a CLASP Trustee.