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Ed Johnson on the Hypocrisy of School Choice Advocates

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2018 //
17

Edward Johnson is an advocate for high quality public schools for all children. He lives in Atlanta. He has studied the works of G. Edwards Deming, who understood that you don’t blame frontline workers for problems with the system. If things go wrong, fix the system.

He wrote the following letter to Rev. Diane Daugherty about the absurdity of “choice” as a fix for the system (see her letter after his). In fact, “choice” is an abdication of responsibility by those who have the power to fix the system. They turn problems over to the market and hope for the best, ignoring the well-documented fact that the market deepens pre-existing inequities.

Of course, anyone who thinks that the Walton family, the DeVos family, Trump, ALEC, and other plutocrats are committed to civil rights and equity is either hopelessly naive or on their payroll.

He writes:

 

Rev. Diane Daugherty,

Thank you for lending your voice to the matter. Interestingly, one may take your understanding as a key aspect of the law research paper Opt-Out Education: School Choice as Racial Subordination, by Osamudia R. James, currently Vice Dean, University of Miami School of Law.

Atlanta superintendent Meria Carstarphen, Atlanta school board members, and BOOK, including especially its supporters UNCF and Andrew Young Foundation, would do well to learn from Vice Dean James’ paper.

But it may be unreasonable to expect any of them would. For example, this AJC article makes clear the superintendent, arguably Atlanta school choice proponents’ leader, holds an unshakable mindset fixated on commercializing public education in Atlanta by transforming it from a systemic public good into disparate private consumer goods, à la KIPP and others. So transformed, and unlikely to have resulted in improved schools, parents as consumers may then choose a school for their child just as they would choose a McDonald’s Happy Meal for the child. So goes the superintendent’s reasoning.

The pushback that arose in response to the superintendent’s profane conflation of consumerism and public education prompted school choice advocate Robert Holland to rise in her defense, with an attempt to say what the superintendent really meant to say. Holland, at the conservative and libertarian public policy think tank The Heartland Institute, blogged “The School Choice Generation Wants a Full Educational Menu.”

The Atlanta superintendent, school board, and BOOK would also do well to take from their partner and supporter, Walton Family Foundation, a lesson about how consumerism’s choice really works. Last week, the AJC and other media reported that, “based on a number of factors, including financial performance,” the Waltons made the decision to close their Lithonia Sam’s Club at Stonecrest. Was the store’s consumer community consulted or otherwise involved beforehand? Nope. Did the store’s consumer community have a choice? Nope. Now that once consumer community fears the Waltons have put upon it more problematic, if not new, food desert they did not “choose.”

The lesson, then, is who, in consumerism’s commercialized world, truly has choice and who truly does not.

Diane Ravitch offers an excerpt from Vice Dean James’ paper that amplifies the lesson (my emphases):

“James advocates for limitations on school choice ‘to prevent the disastrous social consequences–the abandonment of the public school system, to particularly deleterious consequence for poor and minority schoolchildren and their families–that occur as the collective result of individual, albeit rational, decisions. I also advocate for limitations on school choice in an attempt to encourage individuals to consider their obligations to children not their own, but part of their community all the same….The actual impact of school choice cannot be ignored. Given the radicalized realities of the current education system, choice is not ultimately used to broaden options or agency for minority parents. Rather, school choice is used to sanitize inequality in the school system; given sufficient choices, the state and its residents are exempted from addressing the sources of unequal educational opportunities for poor and minority students. States promote agency even as the subjects supposedly exercising that agency are disabled. Experience makes clear that school choice simply should not form an integral or foundational aspect of education reform policy. Rather, the focus should be on improving public schooling for all students such that all members of society can exercise genuine agency, initially facilitated by quality primary and secondary education. Ultimately, improving public education begins with preventing its abandonment.’”

 

This is Dr. Daugherty’s letter to the Atlanta Board of Education:

 

From: Diane Dougherty [mailto:doughertyadd@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2018 8:01 PM
To: EdJohnsonAfQPE <edwjohnson@aol.com>
Cc: AfQPE@aol.com; bamos@atlantapublicschools.us; cbriscoe_brown@atlanta.k12.ga.us; epcollins@atlantapublicschools.us; jesteves@atlantapublicschools.us; lgrant@atlantapublicschools.us; nmeister@atlantapublicschools.us; pierre.gaither@atlanta.k12.ga.us; mjcarstarphen@atlanta.k12.ga.us; annwcramer@gmail.com; Erika Y. Mitchell <eymitchell@gmail.com>; Kandis Wood <kandiswood@gmail.com>; Michelle Olympiadis <michelle.olympiadis@gmail.com>; education@naacpatlanta.org; president@naacpatlanta.org; info@bookatl.org; david.mitchell@bookatl.org; Naomi.Shelton@uncf.org; sekou.biddle@uncf.org; cmeadows@morehouse.edu; mbinderman@geears.org
Subject: Re: BOOK and newly installed Atlanta Board of Education Members

BOOK seems to promote better outcomes outside any effort to make existing public education better. Their methodology seems to create parallel academic structures diminishing schools that need an infusion of structures and funds. To me their short term efforts will not evolve into a sustainable plan 30 years from now. Without any data that supports their perceived “Better Outcomes, BOOK’S emphasis on School Choice has proven a poor strategy in decimated African American schools in Tennessee, Michigan and Louisiana….in spite of billions spent…why would there be improved outcomes here if it has not worked there? Rev. Diane Dougherty

Diane Dougherty, ARCWP

Avondale Estates, GA 30002

678-918-1945

doughertyadd@gmail.com

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, School Choice, Walton Foundation

Osamudia R. James: “White Like Me”: School Choice as Racial Subordination

By dianeravitch
January 18, 2018 //
3

I posted this law review article in 2015. It remains one of my favorites. Her argument is straightforward. Abandoning the public school system is an assault on the rights of most children, especially the most vulnerable.

I wrote when I posted it nearly three years ago:

Osamudia R. James is a law professor at the University of Miami School of Law. She is a scholar of race and equity. She has written a scholarly article that was published in the Iowa Law Review titled “Opt-Out Education: School Choice as Racial Subordination.” I hope that readers of this blog will take the time to read it. It is an important legal analysis of the social inequities caused by school choice.

As more children are induced to leave the public school system, the public schools are less able to provide a decent education for those who remain behind. Many of those who leave will attend charter schools and voucher schools that are no better and possibly worse than the public school they abandoned. The harm done to children by this strategy is powerful, and the harm done to society is incalculable.

James advocates for limitations on school choice “to prevent the disastrous social consequences–the abandonment of the public school system, to particularly deleterious consequence for poor and minority schoolchildren and their families–that occur as the collective result of individual, albeit rational, decisions. I also advocate for limitations on school choice in an attempt to encourage individuals to consider their obligations to children not their own, but part of their community all the same….The actual impact of school choice cannot be ignored. Given the radicalized realities of the current education system, choice is not ultimately used to broaden options or agency for minority parents. Rather, school choice is used to sanitize inequality in the school system; given sufficient choices, the state and its residents are exempted from addressing the sources of unequal educational opportunities for poor and minority students. States promote agency even as the subjects supposedly exercising that agency are disabled. Experience makes clear that school choice simply should not form an integral or foundational aspect of education reform policy. Rather, the focus should be on improving public schooling for all students such that all members of society can exercise genuine agency, initially facilitated by quality primary and secondary education. Ultimately, improving public education begins with preventing its abandonment.

Categories Civil Rights, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Racism

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Inspires Young Children Today

By dianeravitch
January 15, 2018 //
9

 

At a time when the White House is a source of vulgarity and racism, it is inspiring to read about the young children who entered a contest to display their understanding of Dr. King’s message as it applies today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/01/13/i-may-not-look-like-dr-king-but-i-believe-like-dr-king-a-childs-stirring-homage-to-mlk/?utm_term=.144588f0f530

I have a dream. My dream is that these young people will spend an hour in the White House tutoring Mr. Trump.

Categories Civil Rights, Equity, Love

Valerie Strauss: The Most Ridiculous and Disturbing Things DeVos Said in 2017

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2018 //
19

 

Valerie Strauss has collected the most memorable, ridiculous, and disturbing things that Betsy DeVos said in her first year as Secretary of Education. She is the most unpopular member of ztrump’s cabinet, possibly because of her hostility to public schools, possibly because of her lack of qualifications, possibly because of her permanent supercilious sneer.

She made a big first impression at her confirmation hearings when she defended guns in schools to protect against possible intrusions by grizzly bears.

That was not funny.

But what was not funny was when she refused to say that she would act against schools that excluded students because they were black or LGBT.

Even worse than her words have been her actions, which gave preference to charter schools, voucher schools, and for-profit schools, which whittled or hacked away at the rights of students with disabilities, students defrauded by fake for-profit colleges, and transgender students.

DeVos is a proud reactionary, determined to destroy public schools and student rights.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Paul Krugman: The Republican War on Children

By dianeravitch
December 8, 2017 //
20

Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman asks a simple question:

“Would you be willing to take health care away from a thousand children with the bad luck to have been born into low-income families so that you could give millions of extra dollars to just one wealthy heir?

“You might think that this question is silly, hypothetical and has an obvious answer. But it’s not at all hypothetical, and the answer apparently isn’t obvious. For it’s a literal description of the choice Republicans in Congress seem to be making as you read this.

“The Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, is basically a piece of Medicaid targeted on young Americans. It was introduced in 1997, with bipartisan support. Last year it covered 8.9 million kids. But its funding expired more than two months ago. Republicans keep saying they’ll restore the money, but they keep finding reasons not to do it; state governments, which administer the program, will soon have to start cutting children off.

“What’s the problem? The other day Senator Orrin Hatch, asked about the program (which he helped create), once again insisted that it will be funded — but without saying when or how (and there don’t seem to be any signs of movement on the issue). And he further declared, “The reason CHIP’s having trouble is that we don’t have money anymore.” Then he voted for an immense tax cut.”

Maybe children’s health is “the Civil Rights issue of our time,” not school choice.

Any chance we could persuade Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump, DFER, billionaire Daniel Loeb, Ted Cruz, and the rest of the school reform gang to agree?

Categories Childhood, Civil Rights

Will Betsy DeVos Gut Civil Rights Enforcement?

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2017 //
14

David Bloomfield and Alan Aja are concerned that Betsy DeVos’s effort to reduce regulations is a barely disguised assault on civil rights protections for students.

“Since taking office last February, the U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has eliminated dozens of education directives to school officials. Now the Education Department is reconsidering a rule intended to hold states to a higher standard when determining if districts have overenrolled minority students in special education. It has also signaled an intention to pull back on considering “systemic” causes of discrimination during civil rights investigations at schools.

“The unprecedented cleansing and revisions of Department of Education guidance to states, school districts, and private schools is passed off largely as a response to President Donald Trump’s simplistic Jan. 30 executive order that agencies remove two regulatory documents for every one issued. Even if, as has been reported, large swaths of the documents the department has eliminated so far have been out-of-date or superfluous, other guidance revisions have grave implications for marginalized students. The department’s headline-making withdrawal of Obama-era policy guidance permitting transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identities is just one such example.”

As a private citizen, DeVos was not known for hpsupporting civil rights causes. She and her family were known for their support for vouchers, anti-gay organizations, creationism, and libertarian activism. She appointed a woman to run the Office for Civil Rights who is known for anti-feminism and opposition to affirmative action. Advocates for students must keep close watch over the activities of the U.S. Office for Civil Rights.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights

Arthur Camins: “Americans: At Long Last, Have You Left No Sense of Decency?”

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2017 //
19

Arthur Camins refers to the famous line of attorney Joseph Welch, challenging Senator Joseph McCarthy.

“Don’t let Republicans take away your self-respect and humanity– your claim to be a decent person. Tell them enough. Stop. Tell the Democrats to stand up and fight back for all of us or get out of the way for politicians who will.

“Self-respect, humanity and decency are what is at stake in the Republican give-to-the-rich tax plan, their effort to undo environmental and financial regulations, their unrelenting push for charter schools and vouchers instead of public schools, their efforts to undermine voting and labor rights, their endless attempts to undo the advances of the Affordable Care Act, cut back on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and support for the disabled, their drive to control access to information on the Internet, and their opposition all reasonable controls on guns.

“Republican ascendancy in federal, state, and local government marks the triumph of an immoral moral principle: Their gain comes at my expense. Historically, the identity of them (Native Americans, African Americans, the latest immigrants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, women, LGTBQs, the disabled, and always the poor) has been fluid, as suits the political exigencies of the moment, but the core principle and morality is consistent.

“In just one day, Donald Trump managed to stir more hatred by re-tweeting extremist anti-Muslim videos and defend proposed tax gifts to the already obscenely wealthy by promising to help struggling workers by curtailing government benefits to people who do not work. “Welfare reform, I see it, and I’ve talked to people,” he said. “I know people that work three jobs and they live next to somebody who doesn’t work at all. And the person who is not working at all and has no intention of working at all is making more money and doing better than the person that’s working his and her ass off.”

“The New Deal and perhaps later the Great Society, marked the American apotheosis of institutionalizing–through collective government action– the moral principle that that everyone is worthy of a decent life. Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and myriad other programs all represented the idea that people should not be left to fend for themselves in difficult times and circumstances. All manner of health, safety, environmental, and financial regulations were all enacted to protect people from unrestrained profiteers without concern for the wellbeing of others. Voting, civil and labor laws were enacted to move the nation closer to its founding principle, the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“Republicans aim to undo it all. That is indecent.”

He is appalled by what Trump and the Republican Party are doing. They are crushing the lives and rights of millions of people while sanctimoniously claiming that they are doing the opposite.

How long can we stand for their lies, hypocrisy, indecency, and malice?

Let our anger turn into resolve, into determination to reverse the damage they are inflicting.

Join the Indisibles. Support the Flippables, a group of young people who crowd-source funding to flip seats from red yo blue.

Target: 2018.

Model: Virginia.

Categories Civil Rights, Corruption, Inequity, Injustice

The Disgrace of East Ramapo, New York

By dianeravitch
November 30, 2017 //
40

The New York Civil Liberties Union recently filed a suit against East Ramapo, New York. The town school board has been almost completely captured by members of the Orthodox Jewish Community, whose children attend private religious schools. The school board uses its power to strip the budget for the students who attend public schools, who are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic.

Teacher Bianca Tanis, a member of the board of directors of New York State Allies for Public Education, here describes this shameful situation and calls on the Nee York State United Teachers to take action to protect the children of the East Ramapo District.

She writes:

“96% of public school students in the East Ramapo Central School District are Black and Latino while 98% of the students attending private schools are white with most attending private religious schools. Only one of the nine Board of Education seats is held by a public school parent. Needless to say, the Board of Education has NOT acted in the best interest of East Ramapo’s 8,500 public school students.

“The New York Civil Liberties union found that between 2009 and 2014 the East Ramapo Board of Education slashed funding to public schools and eliminated 200 teaching positions in addition to cutting numerous social workers and other key personnel.

“According the the NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman, “The East Ramapo school district has effectively disenfranchised the Black and Latino community and allowed white residents to hijack the school board in service of the lily-white private schools. The East Ramapo school board has brazenly diverted taxpayer funds to bankroll white private schools and destabilize public schools. Their policies have compromised the education and well-being of thousands of Black and Latino children. The disenfranchisement and degradation must end.”

“What is happening in East Ramapo is tragic. I have seen it with my own eyes…

“The NYCLU lawsuit demands that the board stop holding elections until a “ward” system is adopted. This would introduce voting on the basis of geographic districts; there would be nine individual districts, with one member elected to the board from each district.”

This situation did not develop overnight. The Regents and the legislature have allowed it to fester, while the children of East Ramapo are cheated.

Categories Budget Cuts, Civil Rights, New York

Politico: DeVos Slashes Staff of Office for Civil Rights with Buyouts

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2017 //
18

Betsy DeVos is not shy about revealing her priorities. She must cut positions to downsize the Department, making way for tax cuts for the 1%.

Look where the buyouts are concentrated:

CIVIL RIGHTS OFFICE COULD TAKE BIGGEST HIT IN ED BUYOUTS: The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights could lose 45 employees because of early separation offers – a big hit to an office that many argue is understaffed to handle the number of complaints it receives each year. In fiscal 2017, the office was funded to employ 569 staff members, according to the department’s budget request from earlier this year.

– It would be the most of any division within the agency, according to a document obtained by POLITICO from a congressional office. Of the 255 voluntary offers made Nov. 1 to employees to separate or retire early, 45 people work in the civil rights office, the document says. The Trump administration’s budget proposal had called for cutting 46 positions from the office, which the administration said it would do through attrition.

– The office receives 10,000 complaints of discrimination annually, but has half of the staff it had in 1980, when it received fewer than 3,500 complaints, according to Education Department figures. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the HELP Committee, said in a statement Thursday she was “appalled” that Secretary Betsy DeVos “would use a lack of staffing and resources as an excuse to roll back civil rights investigations and protections, and then turn around and attempt to shrink these critical offices … I will continue to work to give the Department the resources it needs to better aid students and families, and I strongly urge Secretary DeVos to stop putting her ideological agenda above students and work with us.”

– An Education Department spokeswoman noted in a statement that the offers are voluntary and approved by the federal Office of Personnel Management. “Keep in mind, these positions can be backfilled as the workload demands,” said the spokeswoman, Liz Hill.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education

At the NPE Conference, Dr. Charles Foster Johnson Explains How Pastors for Texas Kids Fought Against Vouchers and for Funding Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2017 //
2

I forgot to include the link on this post, so I am reposting.

This was one of the best keynote speeches from the fourth annual conference of the Network for Public Education in Oakland. They were moving, inspiring, powerful.

Please watch Dr. Charles Foster Johnson of Pastors for Texas Kids explain how he got involved in the fight for public education and why men and women of faith communities must support public schools and protect separation of church and state.

Charlie Johnson is a wonderful speaker. He is working with his peers in other states, including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona, and Indiana. When he finished talking, he was swarmed by people from the South and Midwest, seeking his help and advice.

You will enjoy and learn from his presentation.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Democracy, Funding, Justice, Religion, Separation of church and state, Supporting public schools, Texas
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