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A Dark Day in Arkansas As Court Rejects Abortion Referendum

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2024 //
6

The majority of the Supreme Court of Arkansas opposes abortion. So, they blocked a referendum on abortion access on flimsy technical grounds. Democracy, be damned in Arkansas. To read the background and the Court’s opinions, please open the link.

The Arkansas Times reported:

The Arkansas Supreme Court today likely drove a final stake through the heart of a ballot initiative to restore abortion rights in Arkansas. In a 4-3 decision, the court denied the request from the group backing the measure to restart the review process after the secretary of state preemptively disqualified the group last month due to a piece of paperwork the group failed to include in its final submission of the petition.

Despite collecting signatures from more than 100,000 Arkansans — and despite the fact that the plain language of the statutes appeared to show that the review process for the petition should have continued — the court ruled that paperwork omission was fatal to the group’s effort. 

For those following the case, this has always been the fear: Even if the law was on their side, the majority of the court opposes abortion. Ultimately the law is what the Supreme Court says it is. Among the grab-bag of flimsy arguments offered by Attorney General Tim Griffin, they found a couple they could stretch to suit the purpose of disqualifying the abortion petition.

In a blistering dissent, Associate Karen Baker took the majority to task for their descent into Calvinball:

Even a cursory review of how the present ballot initiative has progressed since its inception demonstrates that both the respondent and the majority have treated it differently for the sole purpose of preventing the people from voting on this issue.

“Today is a dark day in Arkansas,” said Rebecca Bobrow, a spokesperson for Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG), the group leading the petition effort. “This morning, by a vote of 4-3, the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld Secretary Thurston’s disqualification of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment. More than 102,000 Arkansas voters exercised their constitutionally protected right to engage in direct democracy by signing the petition to get the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot. The Court’s majority ratifies Secretary Thurston’s decision to silence those voices.”

Theoretically, AFLG could file a lawsuit in federal court. But for procedural and timing reasons, that is extremely unlikely to help. In all likelihood, it’s over: Citizens will not have the opportunity to vote to restore abortion rights in November.

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Democracy, Education Reform, Gender, Health

Elie Honig: What Will Happen to Jack Smith’s Case Against Trump Now?

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2024 //
2

Elie Honig is a former federal prosecutor who writes at a site called Cafe, where he and other legal experts follow and explain Trump’s legal entanglements. In this post, he speculates on how Jack Smith’s effort to hold Trump accountable for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election might fare in the months ahead.. Note that he points out that the investigation was hampered by the very late start of the U.S. Justice Department.

He writes:

Dear Reader,

I remember vividly the first time I lost a key piece of evidence. The NYPD had caught our defendant in Washington Heights with a fake police badge around his neck and a loaded gun in his waistband, and we charged him with federal firearms and armed robbery conspiracy crimes. Better yet (for us on the prosecution side), we flipped a cooperating witness who would testify that he and the defendant had committed two prior armed robberies together by posing as cops and ripping off drug dealers.

A week or so before trial began, the judge held a conference to handle routine pre-trial housekeeping. I confidently laid out the cooperator’s expected testimony. “That’s out,” the judge ruled, nonchalantly. “Too prejudicial.” For those who think that every judicial decision is rendered in scholarly prose, replete with probing analysis and citations to applicable precedent: welcome to the real world.

It was a kick in the gut. “That’s such bullshit. He can’t do that,” I whined afterwards. “Sure he can,” my supervisor responded. “He’s the judge.”

My experience is a tiny-potatoes version of what the U.S. Supreme Court has done to Special Counsel Jack Smith and his 2020 election subversion case against Donald Trump. The Court declared, for the first time in our history, that a president is entitled to criminal immunity for official acts. That part was no surprise; the law has long recognized civil immunity, and the justices during oral argument seemed in no mood to affirm the lower courts’ outright rejection of Trump’s claim.

But the breadth of the Supreme Court’s decision was astonishing. The majority held, for example, that “in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.” (It remains unclear exactly how a judge is supposed to draw that vital distinction.) And the Court ruled that if conduct is immune, prosecutors can’t base a criminal charge on it – nor can they mention it at all during trial, even as necessary context or background.

Now the case has landed back in trial court, before Judge Tanya Chutkan. She originally wanted the parties back before her today, but Smith asked for a few more weeks to gather his thoughts; he clearly has accepted that there won’t be a pre-election trial, despite his prior dogged efforts. Trump’s counsel, ever intent on slowing things down, happily consented to the prosecution’s request for delay. When Court reconvenes on September 5, it’ll be up to the Judge to pick through the wreckage and figure out what can be salvaged.

On that question, the Supreme Court has offered pointed guidance, and it bodes poorly for the core of Smith’s indictment. Trump’s effort to coerce the Justice Department to gin up proof of non-existent election fraud? Almost certainly an “official act,” and therefore immune and out of the case altogether. Trump’s pressure campaign aimed at his vice president, Mike Pence? Probably out. And Trump’s public statements, including his tweets and January 6 Ellipse speech? Likely toast, too.

The Supreme Court conspicuously reminded Judge Chutkan that it’s unimpressed with her work so far and will be watching her closely. The justices in the majority blasted the lower courts for “the expedition of this case, the lack of factual analysis… and the absence of pertinent briefing by the parties.” Indeed, as we’ve noted here before, Smith, Chutkan, and the intermediate appeals court judges tried to shortcut ordinary process to get Trump tried before the election; the Supreme Court noticed and disapproved. Most importantly on the vital timing issue, the Court has specified that Trump can appeal Judge Chutkan’s decisions about what conduct is (and is not) immune, before trial starts. That means, as a practical matter, there’s a zero-point-zero percent chance this trial happens before the November 2024 election.

If you’ve been hoping that Trump faces accountability for trying to steal the 2020 election before voters head to the polls for the next one, don’t despair – not fully, anyway. (For the record, I’m with you. The real problem is that DOJ took over two-and-a-half years to charge the case.) Judge Chutkan still can – and I believe will – order an evidentiary hearing to enable Smith to air some of his most explosive evidence, before voters head to the polls.

The Judge now must sift through the prosecution’s evidence and determine how much of Trump’s alleged conduct was an official act (and therefore immune), and which conduct can remain in the case. She has some leeway here. The Judge could opt to take “proffers” from both sides – detailed statements by the lawyers about what they expect their evidence to show. That’s a little flat, but it’s also perfectly permissible and efficient. And then there’s the more sensational alternative: the Judge can permit Smith to call live witnesses to expound from the stand on what their trial testimony would be.

I expect Smith to push for door number two, and Judge Chutkan to agree. If that happens, brace for a series of dramatic in-court encounters. We could see Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, take the stand to give his first-ever public accounting of what his boss did (and didn’t do) before and on January 6. And Mike Pence could testify about how Trump begged and eventually threatened him in an effort to get him to throw the election – and how, on January 6, he had to run for his life to avoid the frothing mob.

No, an evidentiary hearing won’t hit nearly as hard as a jury trial and verdict. And we won’t actually see or hear any of it, because federal courts don’t permit cameras or live audio streaming. (Fair enough, given that it’s apparently the year 1892 right now.) We likely already know the most damaging information, as revealed in 2022 during the unforgettable January 6 Select Committee hearings in Congress, and the ensuing 800-plus page report. But, really, imagine: Trump’s own former chief of staff and VP taking the stand in, say, September of an election year, to describe firsthand how their former boss trampled on the Constitution to try to steal an election. Even if we all mostly know the story by now, that simply can’t be good for Trump at the polls, just weeks before voters cast their ballots.

It’s unclear how much of Smith’s case will ultimately survive the Supreme Court’s strafing. He might eventually go to trial on a tattered indictment focused on Trump’s effort to pressure state and local officials, without any of the damning evidence relating to DOJ and the VP and incitement of the rally crowd. Or the wounds inflicted by the Supreme Court might ultimately prove fatal.

But if Smith’s goal is to expose Trump’s conduct to the American public before the election – and let’s face it, that’s plainly been a driving force for the special counsel all along, despite his refusal to acknowledge it – he’ll still have a backdoor path to partial success.

Stay Informed,

Elie

Elie Honig served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York for 8.5 years and as the Director of the Division of Criminal Justice at the Office of Attorney General for the State of New Jersey for 5.5 years. He is currently a legal Analyst for CNN and Executive Director at Rutgers Institute for Secure Communities

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Justice, Scandals, Trump

The Status Kuo: Why Tim Walz Drives MAGAts Crazy

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2024 //
16

I wrote a post on Monday about the relentless GOP attacks on Tim Walz and his wife. They claim his 34 years of service in the National Guard was tarnished; they say he’s not really a coach; they say he and his wife are left wing radicals; they say the Walz family is worth almost $200 million; they say Tim is possibly a spy for China. All lies. Trumpian lies.

In his blog The Status Kuo, Jay Kuo explains why the GOP is aiming their insults at Walz, not Kamala, and why it’s a good thing.

He writes:

There’s a strange phenomenon occurring with the terminally online right. Ever since Vice President Kamala Harris announced that Gov. Tim Walz would be her running mate, many of the right have acted with fury. They’ve attempted to “Swift Boat” his 24-year service record in the Army National Guard. They’ve called him a racist for talking about “white guy tacos.” And they’ve drudged up a nearly 30-year old DUI—for which he took accountability and after which he stopped drinking altogether—to prove he’s somehow not so perfect a role model.

What they haven’t been able to do is make any of this stick. And yet, Walz continues to draw fire, which could otherwise have been directed at Harris.

In other words, Walz is turning out to be a shrewd pick. At net 11 points positive favorability in polls, Walz is immensely more popular than his counterpart on the GOP ticket, JD Vance, who is underwater by nine. And as they continue to rail against him, the right keeps making his fundamental point about them: They are just really weird.

In today’s piece, I explore some theories about why Walz brings out the worst impulses of the right just by being who he is. Then I’ll lay down some political tarot cards and prognosticate about where I think this leads.

Politico Uno Reverse

By most identity measures, Walz should be one of the MAGA right. He’s a midwestern white dude in his late 50s. He loves to hunt and is a sharpshooter. He served for decades in the military and achieved the highest enlisted rank of Command Sergeant Major. He was a football coach who helped lead his team to the state championship.

And yet, despite all these identity markings, Walz in an unabashed progressive. He is for reproductive rights and an ally and protector of gay teens. And there isn’t a bigoted bone in his body. It’s as if when Harris picked him, she played, as writer Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman succinctly described it, a “political uno reverse.” The Walz card threw it right back at them, as if to say, “I’m a guy just like you, but without any of the weird baggage.”

The MAGA GOP’s base is supposed to include white guys like Walz. But here is living evidence that they don’t have all of them or the best of them. That’s why they’re so eager to discredit him, because if they don’t, as psychologist Julie Hotard notes, then Walz will stand instead as a model of what is possible. On many levels, an appealing, white, male Democrat is a far bigger threat to their sense of identity than even a biracial woman candidate for president.

The 2004 playbook

All this helps explain why Republicans have trained their fire upon Walz and are so determined to sink him. To do so, they tried an old play that Walz and the Harris team saw coming for miles.

In an election 20 years ago, Republican dirty trickster and campaign strategist Chris LaCivita created the “Swift Boat” controversy to tarnish John Kerry’s otherwise unblemished military record. It was character assassination from a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and it worked—even though there was no basis in fact for any of it. As NPR recently summarized,

“Their accusations are widely understood to be false. Military records (released by Kerry’s campaign) backed up his combat claims. And while most of the swift boat veterans who spoke out against Kerry did not serve with him directly, the ones who did publicly supported his version of events….The swift boating undercut Kerry’s momentum coming out of the Democratic National Convention, and turned one of his greatest strengths into a liability….“

Now LaCivita is back as senior advisor to the Trump reelection campaign, as are attempts to impugn the military record of Walz, another veteran turned politician. The Trump campaign claimed, for example, that Walz resigned from the military in order to avoid the fighting in Iraq, making him a coward with “stolen valor,” but the timeline doesn’t match up. Walz retired months before his unit received any deployment orders to active duty overseas.

This time, however, Democrats were ready for the bad faith attacks, and reporters (outside of the Fox ecosystem anyway) appeared unwilling to take the bait. So far, the swiftboating of Walz is fading fast from the headlines.

Attacking Mr. Nice Guy

For the past two decades, the GOP has shifted markedly toward being a party of cruelty, of “owning” the libs and drinking their tears, and of being as unpleasant and in-your-face as they can be. That kind of behavior has been rewarded with appearances on Fox and other right wing media, fundraising dollars from the MAGA base, and a spot at the side or in the tweets of the ex-president himself.

As author Patrick S. Tomlinson observed, Walz represents what shouldn’t be an extraordinary notion: that you can be a nice guy, supportive of women, embracing of gay people, and still be all the coded masculine ideals of soldier, football coach, hunter and father that the MAGA right believed it had a lock on. Plus, you can be all those things without ever asking weird questions about menstrual cycles, chromosomes and genitalia.

The right even tried to make a big deal about Walz’s efforts as governor to ensure free tampons were available to girls in school. Rumors circulated that schools had been required to also put tampons in boys’ bathrooms, but those claims turned out to be untrue, while demonstrating how off kilter the right becomes over sexuality and gender. The “Tampon Tim” moniker didn’t stick. On the contrary, there are probably many moms and dads grateful for a governor like Walz who is thinking about their daughters’ needs.

For a party accustomed to attacking its enemies, the GOP is now at a loss over how exactly to attack Walz next. Their latest meltdown over his “racist” comment about eating “white guy tacos” exposed them further as the very “snowflakes” they decry, delicate creatures who don’t understand the basic difference between racism and self-deprecation. And really, don’t they have anything better to do than whine about one of their own making a joke about spice tolerance levels? It’s all very silly, but also bogs them down in their own angry stew. 

And in that obsession to bring him down, the right is walking right into Harris’s trap. Every day that Walz draws their attention is one more day Harris moves closer to the presidency end zone, without anyone getting close enough to tackle her. For his part, Walz appears perfectly happy to distract her would-be assailants.

It’s a play an experienced and successful defensive coach like Walz would appreciate.

The fact is that the GOP hasn’t figured out how to attack Kamala without being racist or misogynistic. Trump has called her “Laughing Kamala,” “Crooked Kamala,” “Lying Kamala,” but none of his schoolyard bully taunts has stuck. He has said she is “low IQ” and the “worst Vice-President in history,” but that didn’t stick either. He also called her a “communist,” but no one takes him seriously. So the empty headed MAGA crowd sticks with “Tampon Tim,” which assumes that none of them have teenage daughters. The girls are grateful to Governor Walz.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Ethics, Fake News, Harris, Kamala, Lies, Propaganda, Republicans, Trump, Walz, Tim

Republican Judge J. Michael Luttig Endorses Kamala Harris

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2024 //
10

Judge J. Michael Luttig was appointed to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush. He served from 1991-2006 on the Court of Appeals of the Fourth Circuit.

He issued the following statement to explain his decision:

Almost four years ago now, on January 6, 2021, a stake was driven through the heart of America’s Democracy, and on that day American Democracy was left teetering on a knife’s edge. On that day, the prescribed day for choosing the American president, there was not a peaceful transfer of power in the United States of America — for the first time in the almost 250 years since the Founding of the Nation. As a consequence of the former president’s continued denial of that appalling day, and his defiance of America’s Democracy to this day almost four years later, millions of Americans still believe that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from the former president, despite the fact that he lost that election fair and square in what has been proven over and over to have been the freest, fairest, and most accurate election in American history. Because of the former president’s continued, knowingly false claims that he won the 2020 election, millions of Americans no longer have faith and confidence in our national elections, and many never will again. Because of the former president’s knowingly false claims, many Americans — especially young Americans, tragically — have even begun to question whether constitutional democracy is the best form of self-government for America. The 2020 presidential election of course was not “stolen” from the former president and he knows that. It was the former president who attempted to steal the 2020 presidential election from the American People, not they from him. To attempt to steal an election in the United States of America is to attempt to steal America’s Democracy. For the former president to continue to persist in the knowingly false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him is a profound affront to American Democracy and to the Constitution of the United States — an affront without any precedent in all of American history.

In his utterly inexplicable obsession to this very day to deny, attempt to justify, even to glorify January 6, and to bludgeon Americans into believing that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him when he knows it was not, the former president has corrupted America’s Democracy. Yet, to this day — to this day still — not only does the former president, and now the Republican Party of which he is again the standard bearer, continue to falsely claim that the former president won the 2020 election. He and his Party defiantly refuse even to pledge that they will honor and respect the vote and the will of the American People in the upcoming presidential election. In this defiant refusal, the Republican candidate for the presidency and the Republican Party have literally taken America political hostage, threatening the Nation with the specter of another January 6, 2021 on January 6, 2025, if the former president again loses his campaign for the presidency by a vote of the American People. Until January 6, 2021, there was a peaceful transfer of power from one President of the United States to his successor for almost 250 years. The peaceful transfer of power from one President of the United States to the next and the commitment of presidential candidates and their respective political parties to the peaceful transfer of power in the next election are fundamental tenets of our constitutional Republic. Adherence to these tenets is essential to American Democracy, American governance and government, and to the Rule of Law in the United States of America. Without the peaceful transfer of power, America would have no democracy. The politicians tell us that America’s Democracy and the Rule of Law are too “abstract” to “resonate” with American voters. If that was ever true in the past, which I do not accept, it is emphatically not true today. For reasons we all know too well, there could not possibly be any more concrete and consequential issues for the Nation and the American voter today than America’s Democracy and Rule of Law. America’s Democracy, and along with it the Rule of Law, were almost stolen from us on January 6, 2021, by the former President of the United States, who is, today, asking us to return him to the Highest Office of trust in the land.

America’s Democracy and Rule of Law are the defining features of our Nation. It is America’s Democracy, Constitution, and Rule of Law that have made America the envy of the world and the beacon of democracy and freedom for the world for almost 250 years. This presidential election is a test of Americans’ commitment to America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law. It is so because the former president and the Republican Party have shamefully made it so. The often lofty, at times even noble, policy differences that have been the hallmark of American Politics and partisan debate for almost a quarter of a millennium pale in comparison to the foundational national policy issues of America’s Democracy, Constitution, and Rule of Law. American Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law are the stakes — the only real stakes — in the upcoming election.. Having made them so, these foundational issues of our times cannot now be wished away by the former president and his Republican Party, as they would have it. And they must not be wished away by the American People. The fact remains to this day that even the loftiest and noblest of policies and policy differences will be comparatively inconsequential unless and until we Americans bring to an end the war on America’s Democracy that was instigated by the former president and his allies on January 6, 2021. For their part, the former president and the Republican Party have determined to prosecute their war against America’s Democracy to its catastrophic end. As a consequence, for our part, “We the People” must bring this unholy war to an end – now. The Founders of our Nation and the Framers of our Constitution feared most of all this very moment in American history, when the American People would be tempted by the seductive demagoguery of a modern-day populist demagogue. In a letter to George Washington in 1792, over 230 years ago, Alexander Hamilton warned of this day and this demagogue, who would “mount the hobby horse of popularity” and whose “objects” “may justly be suspected to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”

Thomas Jefferson agreed with Alexander Hamilton about very little, except about the existential danger to the Republic of a populist demagogue. “If once elected, and at a second or third election outvoted by one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of government, be supported by the States voting for him,” Jefferson presciently wrote to James Madison in 1787. The time for America’s choosing has come. It is time for all Americans to stand and affirm whether they believe in American Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, and want for America the same — or whether they do not. The former president and the Republican Party have cynically framed this choice as a Hobson’s choice and they have cynically forced their supposed Hobson’s choice upon the Nation. But they have chosen as their standard bearer the one man who is singularly unfit to embody and represent not only to the Nation, but to the world, America’s sacred Democracy, Constitution, and Rule of Law. In a word, for America and Americans, this is no Hobson’s choice at all. America’s two political parties are the political guardians of American Democracy. Regrettably, in the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law. As a result, I will unhesitatingly vote for the Democratic Party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own, but I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be.

In the 2024 election for President of the United States, there are no more important issues for America. It is our Democracy, our Constitution, and our Rule of Law that bind us together as Americans. We Americans must never allow ourselves to be put asunder from this that binds us by the siren calls of the politicians and the political sophists, the mercenaries and the opportunists, who entreat us that the only thing that matters in this presidential election is the candidates’ different positions on the sundry policies of the day. All, as if nothing had come before. We Americans know all too well what has come before. We understand what the political class does not want us to understand. That in the presidential election of 2024, the candidates’ policy differences are the least that matters to the United States of America.

J. Michael Luttig

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom, Harris, Kamala, History, Trump

Houston: Enrollment Drops by 9,000

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2024 //
20

Many principals, teachers, parents, and students in Houston are fed up with Mike Miles’ lockstep, scripted curriculum. Miles boasts that test scores are going up, but far more important indicators are in decline, especially morale. After Miles stripped autonomy away from professionals, the district experienced alarming numbers of resignations. Hundreds of uncertified teachers have been hired to replace those who left.

Student enrollment sharply dropped by about 5%.

The Houston Chronicle reported:

Sarah Malik used to think Houston ISD’s Lantrip Elementary School was a great fit for her daughter.

After the departures of the school’s principal and several teachers in the spring, Malik knew they had to go. 

Malik is one of thousands of parents who pulled their child from HISD this year. Several told the Chronicle they were leaving the district due to the stringent reforms, plummeting morale, principal and teacher departures or cookie-cutter lessons that they said did not account for children’s individual learning needs during the previous academic year.

HISD’s enrollment will not be finalized until October, but it appears to be on track to drop below 180,000 students. 

If you read the literature about motivation, you will learn that the most important driver of motivation is a sense of autonomy. Read Edward Deci, Dan Ariely, Daniel Pink. Miles is crushing morale, motivation, and autonomy.

Categories Accountability, Discipline, Disruption, Education Industry, Houston

Peter Greene: Conservatives Think States Can Support Both Public Schools and “Choice.” They Can’t.

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2024 //
21

Peter Greene critiques the conservative idea that states should support public schools and all sorts of choice. Greene explains why this idea erodes the quality of public schools, which enroll the vast majority of the nation’s students. Conservatives blame teachers’ unions for whatever they dont like about pibkic schools, but Greene denonstrates that they are wrong. Open the link to read the full article.

He writes:

In the National Review, Michael Petrilli, Thomas Fordham Institute honcho and long-time reformster, poses the argument that folks on the right don’t need to choose “between expanding parental options and improving traditional public schools.” Instead, he asserts, they “can and should do both.”

On the one hand, it’s a welcome argument these days when the culture panic crowd has settled on a scorched earth option for public schools. As Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation president, put it in his now-delayed-until-after-it-can’t-hurt-Trump-election-prospects book, “We don’t merely seek an exit from the system; we are coming for the curriculums and classrooms of the remaining public schools, too.” For many on the right, the education policy goal is to obliterate public schools and/or force them to closely resemble the private christianist schools that culture panickers favor. 

Pertrilli is sympathetic to the “let’s just give parents the money and be done with it” crowd. 

We’ve inherited a “system” that is 150 years old and is saddled with layers upon layers of previous reforms, regulations, overlapping and calcified bureaucracies, and a massive power imbalance between employees and constituents, thanks to the almighty teachers unions.

Sigh. Reforms and regulations, sure, though it would be nice for Petrilli to acknowledge that for the last forty-ish years, those have mostly come from his own reformster crowd. And I am deeply tired of the old “almighty teachers unions” trope, which is some serious baloney. But his audience thinks it’s true, so let’s move on. 

Petrilli’s point is that conservatives should not be focusing on “school choice” alone, but should embrace an “all of the above” approach. Petrilli dismisses Democrats as “none of the above” because of their “fealty to the unions,” which is, again, baloney. Democrats have spent a couple of decades as willing collaborators with the GOP ; if they are “none of the above” it’s because they’ve lost both the ability and authority to pretend to be public education supporters. The nomination of Tim Walz has given them a chance to get on the public education team, but let’s wait and see–there’s no ball that the Democratic Party can’t drop.

Petrilli sits on a practical point here (one that Robert Pondiscio has made repeatedly over the years)– public schools are a) beloved by many voters, b) not going away, and c) still educate the vast, vast majority of U.S. students. Therefore, folks should care about the quality of public education.

Petrilli then floats some ideas, all while missing the major obstacle to his idea. There are, he claims, many reforms that haven’t been tried yet, “including in red states where the teachers unions don’t have veto power.” I believe the actual number of states where the union doesn’t have veto power is fifty. But I do appreciate his backhanded acknowledgement that many states have dis-empowered their teachers unions and still haven’t accomplished diddly or squat. It’s almost as if the unions are not the real obstacle to progress.

His ideas? Well, there’s ending teacher tenure, a dog that will neither hunt nor lie down and die. First of all, there is no teacher tenure. What there is is policy that requires school districts to follow a procedure to get rid of bad teachers. Behind every teacher who shouldn’t still have a job is an administrator who isn’t doing theirs. 

Tenure and LIFO (Last In First Out) interfere with the reformster model of Genius CEO school management, in which the Genius CEO should be able to fire anyone he wants to for any reason he conceives of, including having become too expensive or so experienced they start getting uppity. 

The theory behind much of education reform has been that all educational shortfalls have been caused by Bad Teachers, and so the focus has been on catching them (with value-added processing of Big Standardized Test scores), firing them, and replacing them with super-duper teachers from the magical super-duper teacher tree. Meanwhile, other teachers would find this new threatening environment inspirational, and they would suddenly unleash the secrets of student achievement that they always had tucked away in their file cabinet, but simply hadn’t implemented.

This is a bad model, a non-sensical model, a model that has had a few decades to prove itself, and has not. Nor has Petrilli’s other idea– merit pay has been tried, and there are few signs that it even sort of works, particularly since schools can’t do a true merit pay system and also it’s often meant as a cost-saving technique (Let’s lower base pay and let teachers battle each other to win “merit” bonuses that will make up the difference).

Petrilli also argues against increased pay for teacher masters degrees because those degrees “add no value in terms of quality of teaching and learning” aka they don’t make BS Test scores go up. He suggests moving that extra money to create incentives for teachers to move to the toughest schools. 

Petrilli gets well into weeds in his big finish, in which he cites the “wisdom of former Florida governor Jeb Bush” and the golden state of Florida as if it’s a model for all-of-the-above reform and not a state that has steadily degraded and undercut public schools in order to boost charter and private operations, with results that only look great if you squint hard and ignore certain parts(Look at 4th grade scores, but be sure to ignore 8th and 12th grade results). And if you believe that test results are the only true measure of educational excellence.

So, in sum, Petrilli’s notion that GOP state leaders should support public education is a good point. What is working against it?

One is that his list is lacking. Part of the reform movement’s trouble at this point is that many of its original ideas were aimed primarily at discrediting public education. The remaining core– use standardized tests to identify and remove bad teachers– is weak sauce. Even if you believe (wrongly) that the core problem of public education is bad teaching, this is no way to address that issue. 

Beyond bad teachers, the modern reform movement hasn’t had a new idea to offer for a couple of decades. 

Petrilli also overlooks a major challenge in the “all of the above approach,” a challenge that reformsters and choicers have steadfastly ignored for decades.

You cannot run multiple parallel school systems for the same cost as a single system. 

If you want to pay for public schools and charter schools and vouchers, it is going to cost more money. “School choice” is a misnomer, because school choice has always been available. Choicers are not arguing for school choice–they’re arguing for taxpayer funded school choice. That will require more taxpayer funds. 

You can’t have six school systems for the price of one. So legislators have been left with a choice. On the one hand, they can tell taxpayers “We think school choice is so important that we are going to raise your taxes to pay for it.” On the other hand, they can drain money from the public system to pay for charters and vouchers all while making noises about how the public system is totes overfunded and can spare the money easy peasy. 

I can offer a suggestion for conservatives who want to help public schools improve.

Get over your anti-union selves.

Please open the link to finish the article.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, School Choice, Segregation, Unions, Vouchers

Orlando Sentinel: President of University of Florida Cashed In on Staff and Consultants

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2024 //
8

Shortly after Senator Ben Sasse left the U.S. Senate, he accepted the presidency of the University of Florida. Silas Morgan of the Orlando Sentinel relied on reporting by the student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, to describe how former Senator Sasse upped the budget for his office by millions of dollars.

The University of Florida’s student newspaper reported Monday that former university president Ben Sasse spent millions of the school’s money to hire GOP political allies.


Sasse, a former Republican U.S. Senator from Nebraska, gave several one-time Senate staff members and other GOP officials lucrative remote positions at UF, according to records obtained by the Independent Florida Alligator.


Among the Senate staffers who joined him at UF are his former chief of staff, Raymond Sass; his former communications director, James Wegmann; his former press secretary, Taylor Silva; and three other former staffers. Both Sass and Wegmann worked remotely from the Washington D.C. area.


Sass’ salary, at $396,000, was more than double his Senate salary. Wegmann’s new position at UF earned him $432,000, while his predecessor in the position had made $270,000.

The hirings contributed to a $4.3 million increase in presidential salary expenses, part of a tripling of his office’s spending compared to what his predecessor, Kent Fuchs, spent during his last year in office, the Alligator reported. Sasse’s office employed more than 30 staff members, while Fuchs had fewer than 10.


Sasse also hired former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, who worked remotely from Nashville, in a newly-created position that paid a starting salary of $367,500 and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s former scheduler, Alice James Burns, who also worked remotely and was paid $205,000.


A report obtained by the Alligator says Sasse spent over $20,000 flying his employees to UF between April 29 and July 29. The only hire who lives in Florida received a $15,000 stipend to relocate to Gainesville.


UF hasn’t responded to requests from the Alligator for a complete log of Sasse’s travel expenses. His travel expenses rose to $633,000 over his first full fiscal year, more than Fuchs spent on travel in eight years.

He also spent $7.2 million on consulting contracts, nearly two-thirds of which went to consulting giant McKinsey and Company, where he used to work as an advisor on an hourly contract. This amounts to more than 40 times what Fuchs spent on consulting in eight years.

Sasse abruptly resigned at the end of July, citing his wife’s failing health. The Alligator says the university did not respond to questions about what would happen to the hires now that Sasse is gone. Fuchs has returned as interim president until the UF Board of Trustees can hire a permanent replacement for Sasse.


Sasse’s hiring by the Board in 2022 resulted in the UF Faculty Senate passing a no confidence resolution in Sasse’s presidential search process due to transparency issues. Legislation passed by Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature earlier in 2022 made records relating to public university presidential searches exempt from Florida’s open public meetings and public records requirements.

His appointment by the board of trustees also generated controversy among parts of the student body, especially the LGBTQ+ community, for political positions Sasse had taken while in the Senate.

Categories Accountability, DeSantis, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Funding, Higher Education

Lawrence O’Donnell: Wake Up, Reporters! Do Your Job

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2024 //
24

Lawrence O’Donnell appears nightly on MSNBC at 10 pm EST. I love his show because he is so smart.

This episode is a must-watch.

As a bonus, here is Robert Reich wondering why the media doesn’t report honestly about Trump’s dementia.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Media, Trump

North Carolina: Republican Candidate for State Superintendent is an Extremist and Crackpot

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2024 //
2

CNN reported that Michele Morrow, the GOP candidate for State Superintendent of Schools in North Carolina, filmed a video on January 6 urging Trump to “put the Coonstitution to the side” and use the military to stay in power. Morrow was in DC for the January 6 rally but she says she never entered the Capitol.

In a deleted Facebook livestream she filmed from her hotel room, Morrow called for mass arrests of anyone who helped certify the 2020 election. “And if the police won’t do it and the Department of Justice won’t do it, then he will have to enact the Insurrection Act,” said Morrow. “In which case the Insurrection Act completely puts the Constitution to the side and says, now the military rules all.”

Morrow was at the Capitol as the attack occurred, according to public videos reviewed by CNN that show her in a restricted area on the northwest side of the Capitol. CNN has seen no evidence that Morrow entered the Capitol building that day or that she engaged in violence, and she was not charged with any crimes.

In March’s Republican primary, Morrow defeated the incumbent North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, a job that manages the state’s $11 billion budget for K-12 public schools and helps set education priorities and implement curriculum standards.

That same month, CNN’s KFile reported Morrow had previously called for the public execution of Barack Obama and the death of Joe Biden and other prominent Democrats in comments on a since-deleted X account.

“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” Morrow wrote in a since-deleted post from May 2020 about Obama. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”

Morrow home-schooled her children. She previously lost a local school board election. She is running now to take control of the education of all the children in North Carolina.

A terrifying prospect.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Elections, Extremism, Fascism, North Carolina, Privatization, Trump

Milwaukee: Three Decades of Charters and Vouchers Produced No Gains for Kids

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2024 //
7

A major, nonpartisan review of Milwaukee schools over the past three decades produced a dismal result: No improvement.

Backed by millions from the rightwing Bradley Foundation, voucher advocates promised that competition would produce gains for all sectors. It didn’t.

Milwaukee has a significant number of charter schools and voucher schools. About 55% of all students are enrolled in traditional public schools. The public schools enroll a disproportionate share of students with disabilities.

Rory Linnane of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported:

Three decades since their beginnings in Milwaukee, publicly funded private school programs and independently run charter schools now enroll over 40% of the city’s students.

Reflecting on the city’s shifting education landscape, a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum examines enrollment, financing and academic outcomes for Milwaukee schools in every sector, including traditional public schools, private schools and charter schools…

‘Transformed system has not transformed outcomes for children,’ researchers say

Milwaukee in the ’90s was “widely seen as the epicenter of ‘education reform’ in the country,” the forum noted, as state lawmakers opened the door for private operators to start their own schools. Proponents argued that the free-market competition would push all city schools to improve.

In 1990, state lawmakers created the country’s first “voucher” program in Milwaukee, providing public funding for students to attend private schools. Soon after, Minnesota lawmakers were the first to write legislation for charter schools, allowing teacher-led nonprofits to operate schools. Wisconsin was one of the first states to follow in 1993, but without the requirement that teachers lead them.

Thirty years later, the forum noted there is “little evidence … that the average Milwaukee child receives a higher quality education today.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Competition, Education Industry, Failure, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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