Archives for category: Budget Cuts
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Lessons from Pittsburgh

By dianeravitch
September 17, 2013 //
23

I had a wonderful inaugural event in my book tour in Pittsburgh. It was organized by parent activist Jessie Ramey, who writes the blog Yinzercation, and union activist Kipp Dawson. It was co-sponsored by seven local universities, the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, and a galaxy of educational justice groups, including GPS (Great Pittsburgh Schools).

The audience included many elected officials, including the newly elected mayor, school board members, and Superintendent Linda Lane.

The event began with a long and fabulous set played on African drums by about 20 students, who seemed to range in age from 9-13 or so. They were great!

I spoke, then was followed by the Westinghouse high school marching band. They arrived with great vivacity, but their story was heartbreaking. This school, which produced a number of legendary jazz greats, has been decimated by budget cuts. The school’s jazz program was shut down years ago. Now the marching band has no instruments, and their uniforms are hand-md-downs. A speaker, Reverend Thornton, pleaded with the crowd, to make donations to help the band that has neither instruments nor uniforms nor a stable band director.

Anyone want to see the “crisis in American education”? Come see how the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is denying a thorough and efficient education to the children of Pittsburgh. Especially the children of color.

Categories Budget Cuts, Pennsylvania

G.F. Brandenburg: The Rules of Rhee’s Teacher Town Halls

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2013 //
40

As you may know, Michelle Rhee is holding three “teacher town halls” in which she and Steve Perry and George Parker talk to an audience who are allowed to submit questions.

George Parker was previously the head of the D.C. teachers union; he now works for Rhee.

Steve Perry, once a commentator for CNN, runs a magnet school in Hartford. Earlier this year in Minnesota, he spoke at a public forum and called unions “roaches” and accused teachers of being responsible for the “literal death” of children.

The first was held in Los Angeles, the second in Birmingham, and the third will be held in Philadelphia on September 16. (Ironically, I will be speaking in Philadelphia on the next night at the Free Library.)

G.F. Brandenburg, retired D.C. math teacher, explains here how the “teacher town halls” work.

Philadelphia is a great place to have a genuine conversation with teachers.

The governor cut the state education budget by $1 billion.

Thousands of teachers and other school staff were laid off last spring.

Many schools are opening without guidance counselors, social workers, teachers of the arts, basic supplies.

Teachers should try to attend Rhee’s “teacher town hall” and see what solutions the panel offers.

Categories Budget Cuts, Philadelphia, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Unions

George Schmidt: How to Manufacture a Budget Crisis and Impose Harsh Remedies

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2013 //
24

George Schmidt, who taught for many years in the Chicago Public Schools but was fired by Paul Vallas for releasing test questions, edits Substance News. Here is his analysis of Chicago’s perennial budget crisis:

Sorry this is very long, but I have a hunch that many people will want to know how the “austerity” lies that feed all those “necessary school closings” and teacher layoffs are created in the fictional propaganda offices of school districts across the USA — not just Washington D.C.

The “deficit” claims have to be reported (and accepted) as “fact” in order for the liars who are operating the “school reform” offices get away with all these attacks.

But: Let’s not give Michelle Rhee credit where she was only following a script that was previously written and perfected in — you’ll never guess — Chicago. As long ago as when Michelle Rhee was failing as a Teacher for America “teacher” and using masking (or duct) tape to maintain order in her classes, Chicago had perfected the process of “eternal austerity” in its education budgets. Every year (except one) during Arne Duncan’s term as “CEO” (2001 – 2008), Duncan held a press conference to announce that CPS was facing an enormous “deficit.” Duncan’s predecessors had been doing the same for a decade, concocting a “deficit” using what the former Board Secretary told me was their “magic number.”

That’s right — a “magic number.” According to Tom Corcoran, who first laid out the plan for me after his retirement, CPS officials would meet and decide what was needed to have a certain “deficit” (the “magic number”) and then arrange the preliminary numbers in the next year’s budget to create that “deficit.” Throughout the 1990s, the “magic number” every year was “$300 million!” That number then became a headline across the top of the front page of the Chicago Tribune, and was repeated endlessly until it was believed by everyone who was paying attention to the official version of reality.

Anyone familiar with a budget process knows how easily a “deficit” can be created in a future budge:

Overestimate expenses.

Underestimate revenues.

And this was the “Chicago Plan” from the days when MIchelle Rhee was still learning to “pass” her literature classes in high school thanks to Cliffs Notes.

Because the Chicago budget is projected for the next fiscal year, it’s difficult to challenge the magic number except based on history. The audited financial statements of Chicago’s public schools do not come out until six months after the end of the fiscal year, and that has been the first time the city has an accurate accounting of its school finances, since the lying about the magic number has been going on now for more than two decades.

Anyone interested can read the CAFR (the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report) of Chicago Public Schools, because they are public (by law) in December of each year. Unfortunately for the truth, the CAFR for a fiscal year comes out nearly two years after the BIG LIE of each magic number is created and spun to the public. Therefore, the CAFR for the current fiscal year we’re in in Chicago won’t be available until December (when it’s presented to the Board of Education members) and January (when we squeeze it out of CPS using the Freedom of Information Act). The FY 2013 CAFR will be available in December 2013, but FY 2013 ended two months ago, on June 30, 2013. And the Magic Number (another billion) was lied around and picked up by the corporate media in Chicago during the early months of 2012, during the first year of Rahm Emanuel’s Board of Education.

“Everyone” knows that Chicago’s public schools were facing a “billion dollar” deficit for the current fiscal year (FY 2014, July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2014). Everybody can read hundreds of stories from the past eight months in Chicago’s corporate media citing that figure. The New York Times repeatedly cited it, so, as most intelligent people knew, it HAD to be true.

BS.

The “Billion Dollar Deficit” was concocted the same way it always was, and then repeated over and over propaganda style in a way that would have been approved by the tyrants of the 20th Century.

One of the features of that “Billion Dollar Deficit” was that Chicago had “zeroed out” its “reserves.” That part of the big lie was part of the story told by Penny Pritzker and others on Rahm’s Board during that first year (leading up to the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012). “Everyone” knew that CPS was facing a “Billion Dollar Deficit!” just by reading the newspapers and the quotes, from the Chicago Tribune through The New York Times. Blach Blachhhh Blahhhhhhh…

Suddenly, on July 24, 2013, CPS announced that its proposed budget had eliminated that Billion Dollar Deficit! — partly by “finding” more than $600 million in “reserves” it didn’t have. Of course, the July 24 report to the Board took place after Barbara Byrd Bennett and the Board had ordered the closing of 49 of the city’s real public schools (because of the need to save money because of that “Billion Dollar Deficit!”) and fired about 3,000 school workers (most of them, teachers) because everyone knew CPS was facing a “Billion Dollar Deficit!”

Anyone who wants to read the Power Point that shows how CPS “balanced” its new budget after telling the latest version of Magic Numbers for six months, with the help of the city’s (and nation’s) corporate media can go to the CPS Website:

http://www.cpsboe.org/meetings/meeting-videos/15

where there are videos of the presentations of the Board meetings.

In the third video, national readers can witness Tim Cawley, who currently serves as “Chief Administrative Officer” for CPS, and Barbara Byrd Bennett, who was brought to Chicago after helping destroy the public schools of Detroit, do a Power Point about that FY 2014 proposed budget. The public can also download that Power Point to have while watching the video of Cawley reading carefully from his scripts.

Cawley is just the latest in a long line of CPS officials who have presented the Magic Numbers with a straight face to an uncritical public.

Not one of the city’s corporate media noticed that a “reserve” that had been “zeroed out” supposedly 13 months earlier had not only fattened up, but reached a historic high — more than $600 million. And “everyone” who was reading the papers (including as I’ve said, The New York Times) knew that CPS had been facing a “Billion Dollar Deficit!”

The difference this year is that leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union began studying how CPS budgets in the room from which I’m writing this five years ago. We began, not with news clippings or CPS “Proposed Budget”, but with the CAFRs. Each year, we were able to track the same lies.

This year, as everyone read on the front page of The New York Times, the reason for the “Billion Dollar Deficit!” is the teacher pensions! And just in case The New York Times missed it, Tim Cawley repeated that over and over and over in his presentation the you can view on line.

But just so people reading this know, the New York Times reporters who did that front page story about the CPS “pension crisis” never called the Chicago Teachers Union or the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund to check the facts they were reporting — as “news” — from Rahm Emanuel and his allies and minions.

While it would be nice to say that Michelle Rhee was responsible for the “austerity” nonsense that drives all those teacher layoffs (and not, “pension reform”) and other “reforms” (close 49 “underutilized” schools, as in Chicago), as a matter of historical fact, one of the place that invented this whole scam was Chicago. Back when Michelle Rhee was honing her mendacity skills in elementary and high school.

Again:

All you need to reach a “Magic Number” for a “deficit” is to:

First: Underestimate revenues and

Second: Overestimate expenses…

And…

MOST IMPORTANTLY:Enjoy the services of a corporate media trained to treat a quote from an authoritative “source” (Michelle Rhee; Tim Cawley; Jean-Claude Brizard; Barbara Byrd Bennett) as if it were a “fact” even when the facts contradict the words oozing out of the mouth of the latest talking heads of “school reform.”

But you don’t have to believe me. Just read that front page story in The New York Times from a month ago about how Chicago’s schools will be broke because of the high price of all those teacher pensions. Here we go again…

Categories Budget Cuts, Chicago

Jon Pelto: the Power of a Student’s Voice

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2013 //
4

While the adults struggle over the future of education in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the students are tested and tested and their voices are seldom heard.

This student’s voice will be heard, thanks to Jonathan Pelto.

The student feels buried in a deep hole while adults keep shoveling dirt on him.

Today is Election Day for the school board in Bridgeport. Time to elect those who extend a helping hand, not a test or a shovel full of dirt.

Categories Budget Cuts, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers

A Brave Superintendent in Long Island

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2013 //
10

Steven Cohen is superintendent of the Shoreham-Wading River
Central School district on Long Island in Néw York. At a time when
others quietly acquiesce, Superintendent Cohen spoke out in
“Newsday.”

He wrote that the schools are being swamped by a
tsunami of untested “reforms,” at the same time that their budgets
are restricted by Governor Cuomo’s 2% tax cap, which voters may
override only by winning 60% of the local vote. Costs don’t stop
rising, so many district will be forced to cut teachers and
essential services to students. He bravely calls out the state
Regents for forcing a “reform agenda” on public schools that may
yet hurt children.

For his courage, insight, and willingness to
speak against an unjust status quo, Steven Cohen is a hero of
public education.

“By Steven Cohen Shoreham-Wading River Central
School District

“Shoreham-Wading River’s greatest challenges in the
2013-14 school year are the same as those of sister districts
throughout Long Island and the rest of NYS. Will we find ways to
preserve, and where possible improve, valued educational programs
without having sufficient resources to cover increasing costs? Will
NYSED’s demands to implement untested — and very controversial —
changes in curriculum standards and assessment, called for in the
Regents Reform Agenda, help or hurt children?

“We do not control increasing pension costs. We have little control over increases in
the cost of medical benefits. We have little control over costs
associated with state mandates. We are bound by the new tax levy
limit. What we do control is the size of our teaching and support
staffs. So if we do not get help to meet increases in pension
costs, health costs and mandate costs, either we must ask our
communities to provide greater resources by a supermajority vote
(while the economy continues to sputter), or we must increase class
size, eliminate valuable programs, or do both. And while we
confront these difficult fiscal problems, we are required to train
new teachers and retrain veteran teachers to instruct students
according to new, untested, curriculum standards, and assess both
students and teachers by methods whose reliability is highly
uncertain.

“Our public schools are being told to do things that no
private schools are forced to do. Private schools have not embraced
the so-called benefits of the Regents Reform Agenda (why not?). An
entire generation of children is being put at risk of receiving a
defective — and perhaps damaging — education should these
untested “reforms” prove to be what many of us fear: false gods.
Will the Regents, many of whom send their own children to private
schools that are not hobbled by insufficient resources, or subject
to their own “reforms,” insist that all children — whether they
learn in public, private or parochial schools — be forced to
benefit from their recommended improvements? “These are the
challenges we face in 2013-14.”

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Budget Cuts, Honor Roll, New York, Students, Teachers

Geoffrey Canada, Will You Help the Children in Philadelphia?

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2013 //
34

This note came from a reader, who may know that Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone has $200 million in the bank and two billionaires on its board. The reader wonders if Canada might help restore the library in the school where she worked in Philadelphia, which is closed due to budget cuts:

“Saw a group of charming students from Canada’s program at the 50th anniversary March on Wednesday. Staff photographing the group for PR. Gave them a copy of A. Philip Randolph’s bio with notation that high school in Philadelphia named for him has no library.

“Held up my sign:

“Philadelphia, Mississippi: 1963 Black children not allowed in libraries

“Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 2013 No school libraries”

Barbara McDowell Dowdall English Department Head (Ret.) A, Philip Randolph Technical High School

Categories Budget Cuts, Philadelphia

John Wilson: Who Is America’s Most Deceptive Governor?

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2013 //
42

John Wilson, formerly executive director of the NEA, now writes in “Education Week,” where he posed the question above. Which governor ran as a moderate, then revealed himself as an anti-government, anti-teacher, anti-public school extremist as soon as he was elected?

Perhaps you think of Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Paul Page in Maine, John Kasich in Ohio? Or your own governor?

No, says Wilson, the prize for the Most Deceptive Governor of all goes to Pat McCrory of North Carolina. He had been a decent mayor of urbane Charlotte, giving no hint of his radicalism . He did not campaign on a platform of destroying public education, restricting the right to vote, restricting access to abortion, and appointing inexperienced cronies to fat government jobs.

Yet he has turned out to be the governor of ALEC’s dreams, using the one-party control of government to implement a radical agenda of privatization.

“Educators know his deception very well. He campaigned as a supporter of public schools and teachers; yet he signed an appropriation bill that cut over 5,000 teachers and almost 4,000 teacher assistants, eliminated pay to teachers who earn a masters degree in the future, and refused to provide a pay increase to the state’s teachers, despite the fact that they are close to being the worst paid in America. Governor McCrory supported legislation that reduced textbook funding to $15 per student even though a reading textbook in elementary school costs $35. Hundreds of millions of dollars were cut from programs that affected the services of students directly.”

While cutting public schools, McCrory has signed legislation for more charter schools and for vouchers. His senior education advisor, be it noted, is a TFA alumnus named Eric Guckian, who formerly worked for New Leaders for New Schools and is a devotee of charters and digital education. But obviously no fan of public schools or experienced teachers. Guckian joins the constellation of TFA leaders such as Michelle Rhee, John White of Louisiana, and Kevin Huffman who seek to dismantle public education and the teaching profession.

Categories Budget Cuts, North Carolina, Privatization, Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching

NC Teacher: Who Will Want to Teach?

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2013 //
34

A reader in North Carolina reflects on the Legislature’s
many punishments imposed on teachers: “As a teacher in NC, I am
disappointed yet not surprised by the recent cuts. Another year
without a raise while our health insurance premiums continue to
rise, the demand increases, leadership decreases, and class size
balloons. The people who make the most money on the district and
state level are so disconnected from the daily operations of the
classroom, that they have no idea what it means to teach. I have
never been so discouraged in my professional life. If an
exceptional teacher can not earn enough income to support his or
her family, then they will undoubtedly leave the system. And then
who is left to teach the children…..NC should think about
this…”

Categories Budget Cuts, North Carolina, Teachers and Teaching

NC Teacher: Walk in Our Shoes

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2013 //
39

This teacher in North Carolina has an invitation for the
legislators cutting the schools’ budget and the pundits who applaud
them: Walk
in our shoes.

 

She writes: “I’d like to put out a call to
every politician who had a hand in passing NC’s new budget. To
every policy maker who thinks this is a good (or even just
acceptable) idea.

 

To every parent forsaking public education.

 

To every taxpayer lamenting the “waste” of money that our schools are
in their minds. I’d like to challenge you to walk a day in our
shoes.

 

“Walk the halls in the scuffed up loafers of the high school
teacher who has been required to write his own textbook, because
there’s no money to buy them. “Sit on the carpet in the polka
dotted flats of the 2nd grade teacher tasked with teaching 25
students all day with no teacher assistant. Oh, and did I mention
that 4 are gifted, 5 have disabilities, 8 speak English as a second
language, and 15 live in poverty?

 

“Follow a child with behavioral
problems down the hallway in the well-worn Keds of the special ed
teacher who fights for appropriate services for her students,
because the law says they are entitled to a “free and appropriate
public education,” but the people with the money just keep saying
they can’t fund what she needs.

 

“Conduct awhile in the shiny black
shoes of the band teacher purchasing sheet music and instrument
repairs with his own paycheck. “Clean the green slime off of the
Sperrys of the middle school teacher who has to stop his after
school science club because there are no funds for materials.

 

“Walk out the door at 6pm in the sandals of the third year teacher, still
bright-eyed and hopeful that her 55 hour week makes a difference.
Then, kick them off as she sits down for two hours of research and
paper-writing, diligently putting in the work to earn an advanced
degree that will no longer provide her any hope of increasing her
$32,000 salary.

 

“Please, come find us. Come walk in our shoes. See
what you’ve left us with, and let’s see if YOU can ensure that
every third grader can read, that every student graduates high
school college and career ready. Because we can’t. And we aren’t a
group of people that often admit there’s something we can’t do.

 

We can cause light bulbs to turn on inside little minds. We can inspire a
love of historical facts. We can make any math concept relevant to
real life. We can love a child who doesn’t know what that feels
like, and we can show them that they can learn.

 

But to do all of this without sufficient funds, sufficient staff, and, most of all,
sufficient appreciation and respect, is simply becoming too tall of
an order.

 

So you give it a try. Then let’s talk.”

Categories Budget Cuts, North Carolina, Teachers and Teaching

The Biggest Fallacy of the Common Core Standards: No Evidence

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2013 //
100

Lately, I have noticed that defenders of the Common Core are smearing critics as Tea Party fanatics and extremists. That is what Arne Duncan said to the nation’s newspaper editors last month, when he claimed that opponents of the Common Core are members of “fringe groups,” people who don’t care about poor kids, and people who falsely accuse the federal government of having something to do with the Common Core. When interviewed on PBS, New York State Commissioner John King also said that the Tea Party was behind the criticism of the new standards.

They would like the public to believe that there is no responsible, non-political, non-ideological opposition to the Common Core standards.

This is not true, and I wrote this piece to explain why reasonable people have good reason to be concerned about the overhyping of the Common Core.

I understand that there are good elements to the standards.

In many states, they may be better than existing standards. In others, they may not.

But I don’t see why they are being rushed into production without a fair trial of their strengths and weaknesses.

No set of standards, no new product, emerges straight from the minds of its creators without seeing how it works in the real world of fallible human beings.

Until we see what happens to real children in real classrooms, the “standards” are words on paper without meaning.

It is only when they are tried out by real teachers in real classrooms with real children, when they are improved through trial and error, that we will know how they work and whether they can be called “standards.”

I cross-posted this piece on Huffington Post so it would reach many more readers.

I print it here for your reaction and comment.

I invite you to open the link and leave comments on Huffington Post.

Testing

Boosters of the Common Core national standards have acclaimed them as the most revolutionary advance in the history of American education.

As a historian of American education, I do not agree.

Forty-five states have adopted the Common Core national standards, and they are being implemented this year.

Why did 45 states agree to do this? Because the Obama administration had $4.35 billion of Race to the Top federal funds, and states had to adopt “college-and-career ready standards” if they wanted to be eligible to compete for those funds. Some states, like Massachusetts, dropped their own well-tested and successful standards and replaced them with the Common Core, in order to win millions in new federal funds.

Is this a good development or not?

If you listen to the promoters of the Common Core standards, you will hear them say that the Common Core is absolutely necessary to prepare students for careers and college.

They say, if we don’t have the Common Core, students won’t be college-ready or career-ready.

Major corporations have published full-page advertisements in the New York Times and paid for television commercials, warning that our economy will be in serious trouble unless every school and every district and every state adopts the Common Core standards.

A report from the Council on Foreign Relations last year (chaired by Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice) warned that our national security was at risk unless we adopt the Common Core standards.

The Common Core standards, its boosters insist, are all that stand between us and economic and military catastrophe.

All of this is simply nonsense.

How does anyone know that the Common Core standards will prepare everyone for college and careers since they are now being adopted for the very first time?

How can anyone predict that they will do what their boosters claim?

There is no evidence for any of these claims.

There is no evidence that the Common Core standards will enhance equity. Indeed, the Common Core tests in New York caused a collapse in test scores, causing test scores across the state to plummet. Only 31 percent “passed” the Common Core tests. The failure rates were dramatic among the neediest students. Only 3.2 percent of English language learned were able to pass the new tests, along with only 5 percent of students with disabilities, and 17 percent of black students. Faced with tests that are so far beyond their reach, many of these students may give up instead of trying harder.

There is no evidence that those who study these standards will be prepared for careers, because there is nothing in them that bears any relationship to careers.

There is no evidence that the Common Core standards will enhance our national security.

How do we know that it will cause many more students to study math and science? With the collapse in test scores that Common Core brings, maybe students will doubt their ability and opt for less demanding courses.

Why so many promises and ungrounded predictions? It is a mystery.

Even more mysterious is why the nation’s major corporations and chambers of commerce now swear by standards that they have very likely never read.

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for high standards. I am opposed to standards that are beyond reach. They discourage, they do not encourage.

But the odd thing about these standards is that they seem to be written in stone. Who is in charge of revising them? No one knows.

When I testified by Skype to the Michigan legislative committee debating the Common Core a couple of weeks ago, I told them to listen to their teachers and be prepared to revise the standards to make them better. Someone asked if states were “allowed” to change the standards. I asked, why not? Michigan is a sovereign state. If they rewrite the standards to fit the needs of their students, who can stop them? The federal government says it doesn’t “own” the standards. And that is true. The federal government is forbidden by law from interfering with curriculum and instruction.

States should do what works best for them. I also urged Michigan legislators to delay any Common Core testing until they were confident that teachers had the professional development and resources to teach them and students had had adequate time to learn what would be tested.

Do we need national standards to compare the performance of children in Mississippi to children in New York and Iowa? We already have the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which has been making these comparisons for 20 years.

Maybe I am missing something. Can anyone explain how the nation can adopt national standards without any evidence whatever that they will improve achievement, enrich education, and actually help to prepare young people — not for the jobs of the future, which are unknown and unknowable — but for the challenges of citizenship and life? Thebiggest fallacy of the Common Core standards is that they have been sold to the nation without any evidence that they will accomplish what their boosters claim.

Across the nation, our schools are suffering from budget cuts.

Because of budget cuts, there are larger class sizes and fewer guidance counselors, social workers, teachers’ assistants, and librarians.

Because of budget cuts, many schools have less time and resources for the arts, physical education, foreign languages, and other subjects crucial for a real education.

As more money is allocated to testing and accountability, less money is available for the essential programs and services that all schools should provide.

Our priorities are confused.

Categories Budget Cuts, Class size, Common Core, Education Reform
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