Eric Blanc has gone to every teacher strike while writing a book about them. From what he saw this week in West Virginia, he concludes that strikes work. The teachers defeated a dangerous privatization bill.
Teachers made clear that they would not compromise, even though union leaders warned them they could not win.
The teachers won. They did not compromise.
Valerie Strauss sums up why the teachers’ renewed strike in West Virginia is different. It is not about pay. It’s about a fight for the future of public education. The teachers were fighting not only the local supporters of privatization. They were fighting the Koch brothers and ALEC.
Strauss writes:
This time, it wasn’t about pay.
West Virginia teachers walked off the job across the state Tuesday to protest the privatization of public education and to fight for resources for their own struggling schools.
It was the second time in a year that West Virginia teachers left their classrooms in protest. In 2018, they went on strike for nine days to demand a pay increase, help with high health-care costs and more school funding — and they won a 5 percent pay hike. On Tuesday, union leaders said that, if necessary, they would give up the pay hike as part of their protest. They are fighting legislation that would take public money from resource-starved traditional districts and use it for charter schools and for private and religious school tuition.
“Teachers are willing to forsake their raises for the proposition that public education must be protected and that their voices must be protected,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who went to Charleston, W.Va., for the strike Tuesday. “This was absolutely an effort to defund public education, and teachers fought it.”
Barely four hours into the strike, with hundreds of teachers packed into the statehouse, the Republican-led House of Delegates voted down the state Senate’s version of the omnibus education bill — despite pressure to pass it from conservative and libertarian groups, including some connected to the Koch network funded by billionaire Charles Koch.
It was not clear whether the House vote would put the bill to rest for good, but the episode underscored a growing determination among teachers around the country to fight for their public schools.
“I am DONE being disrespected,” Jessica Maunz Salfia, who teaches at Spring Mills High School in Berkeley County, W.Va., wrote in an open letter (see below) on Monday about why she was going to protest Tuesday.
West Virginia teachers remain at the forefront of a rebellion by educators throughout the country who began striking last year over meat-and-potatoes issues such as pay and health-care costs. But that movement has morphed into something broader: a fight in support of the U.S. public education system that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos once called “a dead end.”
In state after state, teachers are saying the same things: Pay matters, but the future of public education matters more. Privatization is intolerable, whether by charters or vouchers.
No compromise with privatization!
This letter by the head of the Atlanta AFT local was addressed to the chair of the board of Atlanta Public Schools, who is an alumnus of Teach for America. Four members of the school board are TFA alumni, presumably trained by TFA’s Leadership for Educational Equity and primed to support charter schools, not public schools. What is the connection between TFA and privatization? Why does TFA favor charter schools over public schools? Why would a locally elected school board want to relinquish its responsibilities to corporate charter chains controlled by out of state entities?
February 18, 2019
Jason F. Esteves, Board Chair
Atlanta Board of Education
130 Trinity Ave., SW
Atlanta, GA 30303
Dear Board Chair Esteves:
You, Eshe Collins, Matt Westmoreland, and Courtney English are TFA products.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Verdaillia Turner, President, Atlanta Federation of Teachers
VT/ksf
I just received this email from the “Campaign to End Child Poverty.” Open the link: parents, churches, and public libraries are offering meals and safe spaces for children and supporting the teachers’ just demands. The teachers are turning their backs on a pay raise because the legislature and governor broke their promise not to introduce charters and vouchers, which will further defund the public schools.
#55STRONG!
West Virginia Teachers and Service Personnel are again taking a stand – a bold, brave stand for OUR Children, Our public education system and OUR Future.
WE stand with them in full support! #55Strong!
With Senate leadership rushing a vote with little time for most to read and digest the changes, teachers and service personnel are standing against a bill that will benefit outside interests and line a business person’s pocket before it will ever support WV children in the classroom.
Our teachers and service personnel are fighting back against an omnibus education bill that does not lower classrooms size, support the needs of special ed students, fully fund counselors and a social worker in every school. They are not accepting a 5% pay raise, if OUR children are not put first!
The decision to stand against this bad bill is not an easy one. We know this. Lets show solidarity in our ACTIONS.
Here is what YOU can do:
Stay tuned for more details as they develop!
We stand in power and solidarity! West Virginia Strong! 55 Strong!
Jennifer
Samuel Abrams, Director of the Centerfor the Study of Privatization at Teachers College, Columbia University, reports here about the introduction of charter schools and vouchers on the Island after the hurricane Maria.
Abrams explains why the charter industry will not be able to turn Puerto Rico into New Orleans.
Unlike Hurricane Katina, many schools in PR were not destroyed. Unlike Nola, there remains an intact teachers’ union to fight against complete privatization. In New Orleans, all the teachers were fired and the Union was crushed.
He writes:
“The island’s Education Reform Act, approved in March 2018 in the wake of Hurricane María, which wrought havoc the previous September, introduced charter schools as well as vouchers, with the stipulation that no more than 10 percent of schools could be charter schools and no more than 3 percent of students could attend private or non-district public schools with the use of vouchers.
“In the first year following the Education Reform Act, one charter school opened: Vimenti, an elementary school in San Juan operated by the Boys and Girls Club of Puerto Rico.
“According to an article published by Noticel,Vimenti started in August 2018 with a kindergarten and first grade, enrolling 58 students in total–31 of whom come from the neighborhood, 27 of whom come from nearby, and 13 of whom are classified for special education. The plan is to add one grade per year as students progress through school.
“Supplementary funding for Vimenti, reported Noticel, comes from the Colibri Foundation, which donated $1 million, and the singer Marc Anthony, who gave $500,000.
“In the hearings last week, the Department of Education considered proposals for four more charter schools in San Juan, five in Humacao, one in Bayamón, three in Caguas, six in Ponce, two in Arecibo, and nine in Mayaguez.
“In contrast to Vimenti, these schools would not be new schools built one grade at a time but, rather, conversions from traditional schools to charter schools.
“According to a school administrator with direct knowledge of the hearing process, it is expected that at least 13 of the proposed conversions will be approved for the 2019-2020 year while the remaining 17 will be approved for the 2020-2021 year.
“For charter schools, the baseline for determining the 10 percent was the number of schools as of August 15, 2018, which means that if additional public schools across the island are closed, the proportion of charter schools could in time exceed 10 percent. The government of Puerto Rico closed nearly 25 percent of the island’s schools following Hurricane María. Before the storm, there were 1,110 schools. A year later, according to a report by Education Week, there were 847.
“Whether 14 schools or 31 in 2019-2020, the number of charter schools in Puerto Rico would mark striking growth. By comparison, Minnesota, the state that introduced charter schools with legislation in 1991, opened one charter school in 1992 and six more in 1993. By 2017, there were 164 charter schools across the state, enrolling 6.5 percent of the state’s public school students.”
Ironically, Abrams points out, Puerto Rico already has a choice sector within the public system.
“Although charter schools and vouchers are new to Puerto Rico, the concept of alternative forms of public school management is not new. The island’s Instituto Nueva Escuela (INE), in fact, sets the international standard for running neighborhood public Montessori schools.
“INE, celebrated in a recent story published by El Nuevo Dia, comprises 44 schools across the island enrolling 14,600 students. Like conventional neighborhood public schools, schools in the INE network require no application. Unlike conventional neighborhood public schools, the schools in this network all employ the Montessori child-centered curriculum and get significant supplementary funding from foundations.
“According to Ana María García, the founder and director of INE, the network spends 10 percent more per pupil–or $6,600 compared to $6,000.
“García was pressured by the Department of Education, she said in an interview in San Juan last week, to transform INE into a charter network, but she refused, contending that fundamental to INE was the idea that the network’s schools be open to all students in the neighborhood, without any application process. García prevailed.
“In recognition of García’s work, as El Nuevo Dia reported in a separate story, the American Montessori Society will be presenting García with its highest honor, its Living Legacy Award, at its annual meeting in March. “
A year ago, teachers in every school in all 55 counties in West Virginia closed down the schools when they walked out to protest low pay, high healthcare costs, and the looming threat of school choice.
They were promised a 5% salary increase, a commission to figure out how to low healthcare costs, and a veto by the governor if the legislature tried to pass school choice, which would drain even more money away from the state’s ill-funded schools.
The legislators lied. They are in the midst of passing legislation to pull the rug out from under the teachers, the kids, and the public schools. The legislature wants charters and vouchers, even thought the governor promised to veto such a bill.
The teachers are going out again.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/18/us/west-virginia-teachers-strike/index.html
CNN reports:
(CNN)Almost a year after West Virginia teachers and other school employees shut down schools across the state, demanding higher pay and better benefits, union officials announced Monday night they would go on strike again.
Bill Raden of Capitol& Main reports here on the sources of the contributions for the March 5 LAUSD special election for the empty seat created by the resignation of Ref Rodriguez, who stepped down after being convicted of money laundering in his campaign for the board. He relies on the spade work of Sara Roos, who blogs as “Red Queen in LA.” Early vote by mail has started.
Raden writes:
“The latest update on the money race in Los Angeles Unified’s March 5 special election to fill out the term of disgraced Board District 5 member Ref Rodriguez comes courtesy of intrepid ed blogger Sara “Redqueeninla” Roos. In a must-read, granular analysis, Roos breaks down the race’s campaign donations by profession or “affinity.” The results? “An awesome display of the power of machine politics” reflected in the number and size of donations from city contractors, developers, commissioners, public employees and appointees, political consultants and public-private partners.
“Of the top four money recipients, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy executive Allison Bajracharya drew 75 percent of the charter-related donations in the race, which comprise 45 percent of her campaign’s receipts. Former Eric Garcetti aide Heather Repenning is second, with 15 percent of all charter donations (or seven percent of her campaign’s overall contributions). Though Repenning, who also leads the top four with a whopping .81 patronage rating, has pledged that she would refuse charter school money, the independent expenditure committee backing her candidacy has already banked a $5,000 check from millionaire businessman and charter super-patron Bill Bloomfield.”
To get the whole story, read Sara Roos’ investigative report here.
Full disclosure: I support Jackie Goldberg, former teacher, former member of the LAUSD board, who served three terms in the state legislature, where she was chair of the Assembly Education Committee. she is deeply knowledgeable about education. I contributed to her campaign.
As is clear in Sara Roos’s tables,Jackie is not #1 in fundraising.
Word is that the charter lobby is sitting out the special election,waiting to see if there is a runoff. Then they will pour millions into defeating Jackie Goldberg. She is their worst nightmare.
Which will win? Money or knowledge/wisdom/experience?
In the Public Interest is a nonpartisan organization that tracks the privatization of public services and assets.
Its latest report:
Is school security the next gold rush? A year after the harrowing school shooting in Parkland, Florida, investor cash is pouring into the school security market. But big money was already being spent on unproven technology shielded from public view. “Schools and other education-related buyers are the fifth-biggest market for surveillance systems across the world but the top market in the United States, with $2.7 billion in revenue in 2017.” The Washington Post
A warning to D.C.’s education leaders. A former board member at Indianapolis Public Schools describes her experience working with former superintendent Dr. Lewis Ferebee, who also happens to the D.C. mayor’s choice for the next D.C. Public Schools chancellor: “Under Dr. Ferebee’s leadership, we created ‘Innovation Network Schools’— partnerships between IPS and charter schools. But it turned out that Innovation Network Schools aren’t really partnerships at all. In fact, they’re an underhanded way of turning over public resources and assets to private hands.” 730DC
Huge salaries for charter school leadership. Journalist Rachel Cohen digs into charter school administrator salaries in Washington, D.C., revealing startling figures: “The head of Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School and the highest-paid charter official in D.C., received a 24 percent salary increase between 2015 and 2016, from $248,000 to $307,000. Then, in 2017, she received another 76 percent increase, bumping her compensation to $541,000.” Washington City Paper
Police in school don’t make students of color feel safer. Rann Miller of the 21st Century Community Learning Center critiques the final report from President Trump’s Federal Commission on School Safety: “The recommendations from Trump’s school safety panel benefit school privatizers, and institutions like prisons, at the expense of people of color. It’s the American way.” The Progressive
“Wherever there’s a battle over public education lately, a billionaire is somehow involved.” Jacobin Magazine weighs in on the upcoming Oakland teachers strike: “Although charter schools don’t improve student outcomes, they have all sorts of destructive impacts. As noted above, they massively drain resources from public schools. In the 2016–17 school year alone, Oakland Unifed School District lost over $57 million in revenue to charter schools, according to a report by In the Public Interest.” Jacobin
ICYMI: the U.S. spends more on its prison system than it does on public schools. The country’s incarceration rates have more than tripled over the past three decades, even as crime rates have fallen. During the same period, government spending on K-12 education increased by 107 percent. Daily Mail
BREAKING BAY AREA NEWS: In a news conference this afternoon, the 3,000-member Oakland Education Association union set a strike date of Thursday, Feb. 21. Please see OEA news release below…..
Mike Myslinski
Headquarters Communications
California Teachers Association
408-921-5769 (cell)
NEWS RELEASE
February 16, 2019
Oakland Education Association
272 East 12th Street
Oakland, CA 94606
Contacts:
–OEA President Keith Brown on cell at 510-866-8280.
–Mike Myslinski with CTA Communications on cell at 408-921-5769.
On Twitter: @oaklandea, #Unite4OaklandKids, #WeAreOEA, #RedForEd, #WeAreCTA
OEA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oakland Education Association Sets Strike Date
of Thursday, Feb. 21, to Fight for Oakland Schools
Priorities Remain – Smaller Class Sizes, More Support for Students,
Living Wages and a Halt to Destructive School Closures
OAKLAND – To stand and fight for the quality schools that all Oakland students deserve, educators in Oakland Unified School District will go on strike on Thursday, Feb. 21, the president of the 3,000-member Oakland Education Association (OEA) announced at a news conference today where he was flanked by parents, students and teachers standing in solidarity.
“Bargaining with the district has not — in two years — produced an agreement that will pay teachers enough to allow them to stay in Oakland, or make class sizes more conducive to teaching and learning, or provide our students with the supports they need to thrive,” OEA President Keith Brown said. “The only option that Oakland teachers, parents and students have left to win the schools Oakland students truly deserve, and to take control of our school district back from the control of billionaire campaign donors, is for the 3,000 members of the Oakland Education Association to go on strike.”
In key areas such as salaries and hiring more counselors to support students, a new report by a neutral state-appointed fact-finder comes somewhat closer to what educators are demanding than what the district is offering, but still does not go far enough, Brown said. The new report is non-binding. It’s release means that educators can legally strike.
For example, the report by fact-finder Najeeb Khoury recommends 6 percent in retroactive raises – 3 percent in 2017-18 school year and 3 percent this year – but no guaranteed raise for 2019-2020, while the last final offer by the district was only 5 percent over three years. Oakland educators are seeking 12 percent over three years to help halt the district’s teacher retention crisis. The report also supports hiring more counselors and reducing the student-to-counselor ratio from 600:1 to 500:1. OEA had sought a 250:1 ratio.
Years of district neglect, overspending at the top, and the unregulated growth of the charter industry have starved Oakland schools of necessary resources, OEA President Brown said. One in five Oakland educators leaves the district each year due to low pay, leaving nearly 600 classrooms without an experienced teacher last school year. Class sizes are high, and students are without full-time nurses and an adequate number of counselors. Yet, OUSD received $23 million in additional revenue this year, and receives 25 percent more funding per student than the average unified school district statewide, Brown said.
“There is only one party in our bargaining with Oakland Unified School District that is pushing to improve our public schools for 36,000 Oakland students, and that is the Oakland Education Association,” said Brown. “It is time for the Oakland school board and our superintendent to make a choice – are they on the side of the billionaires who fund their campaigns and are pushing for more draconian budget cuts and school closures that will further hurt our kids, or are they on the side of teachers, students, and parents fighting for the schools Oakland students deserve?”
In an open letter to Oakland teachers, parents and students on Friday, Brown declared, “We are in a struggle for the soul of public education in Oakland, and billionaires can’t teach our kids.” He criticized school board members who were backed by billionaires for pushing a competition-based “portfolio” model for Oakland that “has led to a patchwork of privatization, school closures, and unimproved student outcomes in districts like New Orleans, Newark and Detroit.”
Brown said the fact-finder supports OEA’s bargaining goals by finding that the district’s “teacher retention crisis is much worse than the state average and must be addressed, that lower class sizes will help improve educational outcomes for students, and that more supports for students are possible. Further, the report affirms that the unchecked growth of charter schools is creating a systemic inequity that is starving our public schools of the resources they need to thrive.”
The entire fact-finder’s report is posted on the union’s website: www.oaklandea.org. The full and comprehensive OEA presentation to the fact-finder – titled “Remedying Educational Malpractice,” with extensive data supporting the union’s positions – is also posted on the website and can be foundhere.
Oakland educators plan to strike for smaller class sizes, more school counselors and nurses to adequately support students, and living wages to allow educators to stay in Oakland. Teachers are also calling for a halt to a billionaire-backed plan to close up to 24 neighborhood schools in primarily African American and Latinx Oakland neighborhoods. In addition to being disruptive and destabilizing for students and communities, school closures will also lead to further loss of students to charter schools – privately managed, but publicly funded schools that make up 30 percent of student enrollment in Oakland, and are already costing Oakland schools over $57 million a year, according to a key study.
The OEA union announced Feb. 4 that 95 percent of educators who took part in a strike authorization vote cast ballots in favor of allowing their union leaders to call a strike, if necessary, and strike preparations are continuing. The OEA Executive Board backed the strike option.
There is a groundswell of community support for Oakland educators. OEA is a co-sponsor of theBread For Ed campaign that has raised more than $46,000 to feed students in a district where an overwhelming number of children are low-income and depend on free or reduced-price meals during school. The OEA Membership Assistance Fund has raised more than $20,000 through a Go Fund Me drive. In addition, over 25 Bay Area CTA teachers’ union chapters have donated more than $20,000 to the Membership Assistance Fund as well.
The OEA is affiliated with the California Teachers Association, which coordinated a statewide#RedForEd day of action at public schools on Friday, Feb. 15, to show support for Oakland educators in their fight for the quality schools all students deserve – see more information here. The Oakland showdown comes after many recent teacher strikes around the nation about protecting public schools and students, including the successful January strike in Los Angeles Unified School District by more than 30,000 members of the United Teachers Los Angeles union.
Oakland educators have been working without a contract since July 2017 and are the lowest-paid in Alameda County.
The news conference today was broadcast live on the Oakland Education Association Facebook page and is archived there:https://www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/
“We will strike with our parents, whose overwhelming support in the last few weeks has been felt by every single teacher in Oakland,” said OEA President Brown, who is a teacher at Bret Harte Middle School. “We will strike for our students, we will strike for educational justice, we will strike for racial justice, and we will strike for the future of public education in Oakland. Our students, families, and community are the center of everything Oakland educators do, and we are all in the fight for the schools Oakland students deserve together.”
###
The Oakland Education Association represents 3,000 OUSD educators, including teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, therapists, substitutes, and early childhood and adult teachers. OEA is affiliated with the 325,000-member California Teachers Association and the 3 million-member National Education Association.
Ohio has one of the worst charter sectors in the country.
In 2015, The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post agreed that Ohio’s Charters had become a national joke. Margaret Raymond, leader of CREDO, which conducts studies of state charter sectors, said to Ohioans, “Be glad that you have Nevada, so you are not the worst,” referring to Ohio’s charters.
Two-thirds of Ohio’s charters are rated failing by the state. Enrollment in charters is falling. The number of charters is declining. Ohio’s failing charter schools drain $1 billion a year from Ohio’s public schools.
Why is Ohio taking $1 Billion a year from public schools to sustain failing charter schools?
In short, Ohio’s charter sector is a disaster.
So now is exactly the time when Aaron Churchill of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute attacks Bill Phillis, the retired assistant superintendent of education, a courtly gentleman who has warned about the fiscal dangers of charters for Ohio public schools for years and whose warnings have been prophetic.
Bill Phillis is a hero of education in Ohio and in the nation. He is paid by no one to tell the truth.
Aaron Churchill works for a rightwing think tank that is funded by Gates, and a long list of foundations, whose purpose is to advance the cause of privatization. (I was a founding member of that organization at a time when its endowment of $40 million was considered adequate, and I opposed the pursuit of outside funding, then turned against TBF’s goal of privatization.) TBF sponsors charter schools in Ohio (another decision I opposed because I don’t believe think tanks should sponsor charter schools).
Other than his employment at TBF, I have no idea who Churchill is. I think he owes Mr. Phillis a personal apology.
As you will see from this link, Stephen Dyer, former legislator, came to Bill Phillis’s defense.
As did Denis Smith, who worked in the Ohio Department of Education charter office.
As do I.
Stephen Dyer wrote in defense of Bill Phillis,
“I guess what I’m most disappointed by though is Churchill’s utter lack of deference and respect for Phillis, who more than any single person in the history of the state has held politicians’ feet to the fire on equal and adequate funding for all students.
”Frankly, Phillis has forgotten more education funding and policy than either I or Churchill will ever know. Churchill’s cheap, ad hominem attacks on this man who has spent his life fighting for all kids to receive a world-class education is truly distressing.”
This is a time when decent people echo the words of attorney Joseph Welch to Senator Joseph McCarthy at the celebrated Army-McCarthy hearings, “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
