Archives for category: Closing schools
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Arkansas: Please Help the Resistance Fight the Corporate Takeover!

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2019 //
6

 

I have recently been in touch with residents of Arkansas who are fighting the Waltons effort to destroy public schools in poor black communities. It is an uphill battle, to be sure, and they need our help.

Minister Anika Whitfield has been working with parents, teachers, and fellow clergy to forge grassroots opposition to resist the onslaught of the Wal-Mart empire.

Pastors are forming their own Pastors for Arkansas Children to defend the principle of public education.

Jitu Brown of the Journey for Justice Alliance will soon be in Little Rock to offer strategic advice. Jitu and J4J led the successful Dyett hunger strike, which blocked theclosing of the last open admission high school in Chicago’s historic Bronzeville neighborhood. As a result of a 34-day hunger strike, Mayor Rahm Emanuel reversed his decision to close the school and instead invested $15 millioninrenovating it into the Walter Dyett School of the Arts.

Please join me in helping the Resistance fight the Waltons and the Corporate Takeover of the state’s public schools by sending a check to:

Grassroots Arkansas

Arkansas Community Organizations

2101 South Main Street, LR,  AR 72206.

It is registered as a charitable organization by the IRS and is tax deductible.

 

Categories Arkansas, Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Privatization, Resistance, Walton Foundation

Oakland: OEA Members Vote to End Strike

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
8

It seems as if the only way for teachers and students to win gains from the boards that allegedly protect and serve them is to strike.

 

BREAKING BAY AREA NEWS: Oakland Education Association members have voted to ratify their new contract and end their seven-day strike, the union announced tonight. Educators will return to their classrooms Monday. See the news release below….

 

Mike Myslinski

Headquarters Communications

California Teachers Association

1705 Murchison Drive

Burlingame, CA 94010

650-552-5324

408-921-5769 (cell)

www.cta.org

 

NEWS RELEASE

March 3, 2019

 

Oakland Education Association

272 East 12th Street

Oakland, CA 94606

510-763-4020

www.oaklandea.org

 

Contact:

–Mike Myslinski with CTA on cell at 408-921-5769, mmyslinski@cta.org

 

On Twitter: @oaklandea, #Unite4OaklandKids, #WeAreOEA, #RedForEd, #WeAreCTA

OEA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTRACT APPROVED BY OEA MEMBERS

Strike Ends, But Fight for Public Schools Will Continue

  

OAKLAND – Members of the Oakland Education Association voted today to approve a new contract and end their seven-day strike. Educators will be back in their classrooms Monday, knowing that students will benefit from the gains won in smaller class sizes, more student supports, and living wages that will help halt the teacher retention crisis in Oakland.

 

While applauding the gains made with the agreement, educators vowed to continue their fight for fully-funded classrooms, an end to school closures in Oakland’s Black and Latinx communities, and a moratorium on charter schools that are draining the school district of resources.

 

“We look forward to being in our classrooms again after having to strike to bring our Oakland students some of the resources and supports they should have had in the first place,” said Oakland Education Association (OEA) President Keith Brown. “This victory, accomplished through our collective strength on the picket lines with Oakland parents and students, sends the message that educators will no longer let this school district starve our neighborhood schools of resources. Our fight is not over, though. Oakland educators spoke clearly today at our ratification vote that this agreement will not be the end of our struggle, and we will continue to fight in Oakland and Sacramento for the schools our students deserve.”

 

A summary of the significant gains made by striking, and the full agreement, are on the OEA website: www.oaklandea.org. The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) school board must now ratify the agreement.

 

OEA members met at the Paramount Theater downtown today and voted to approve the two tentative agreements that comprise the new contract. The first tentative agreement, which deals mostly with the 3 percent retroactive bonus for 2017-18, was approved by a vote of 64 percent yes, 36 percent no, or 1,269 to 701. There were five abstentions.

 

The second tentative agreement was for the rest of the contract, including salary increases, for the  2018-19 and 2020-21 school years. It was approved by 58 percent yes votes to 42 percent no, or 1,141 to 832. There were four abstentions. Only a simple majority vote was needed to approve each of the two sections of the overall contract agreement.

 

The strike brought gains on every one of OEA’s demands:

 

LIVING WAGES: Already among the lowest-paid educators in the Bay Area, and facing an exodus of more than 500 educators per year, Oakland members made salary a key battleground to stabilize classrooms for students. It took a strike to force the district to invest in teachers. For the four-year contract, the 11 percent salary increase the union won, plus a 3 percent bonus, is considerably more than what the school district was offering pre-strike — only 7 percent over four years, and a 1.5 percent bonus – and leaps and bounds more than a take-away offer of no raise and one furlough day made by the district one year ago.

 

LOWER CLASS SIZE: The OUSD had pushed back against lowering class sizes, but OEA won a reduction in class size next school year by 1 in the district’s highest-needs schools, followed by a reduction in class size by 1 in 2021 at all schools. Educators know that lower class sizes improve student learning conditions and improve teacher retention.

 

MORE STUDENT SUPPORTS: The OEA strike won a phased-in reduction in caseloads for counselors from a ratio of 600 students to one counselor to down to 500:1 by 2020-21 school year. Caseloads for speech therapists, psychologists and resource specialists will also be reduced. A new nurse salary schedule in 2021 to help recruit and retain nurses will include the contract’s negotiated salary increase plus 9 percent. In addition, nurses will receive a $10,000 bonus twice, in May of 2020 and 2021.

 

SCHOOL CLOSURE PAUSE: During the strike and well before, Oakland teachers blasted the district and school board for proceeding with a plan to close up to 24 of the 86 schools, mostly in African American and Latinx neighborhoods. After refusing to bargain over this issue for months, the strike forced Board of Education President Aimee Eng to commit to introduce a resolution calling for a five-month pause on school closures and consolidations, and more community input into the process.

 

This pause against closures is far from enough, said OEA President Brown. “This resolution is a direct result of the strike and OEA members lifting up the issue of school closures in Oakland and putting pressure on the school board. However, the OEA will continue to oppose any closures of neighborhood schools in our Black and Latinx communities. Oakland educators will continue to fight against school closures that hurt working-class neighborhoods in Oakland.”

 

CHARTER MORATORIUM: The proliferation of unregulated charters – many housed at neighborhood schools that were shut down by the school board over the last two decades – continues to disrupt Oakland. Because of the strike, the school board will vote on a resolution calling on the state to stop charter growth in OUSD. Charter schools drain the district of about $57 million a year, one key study found.

 

The strike drew national media attention for how billionaires and outside interests influenced the Oakland school board members who supported more privately-managed, publicly-funded charters, and for how educators are being priced out of gentrifying Oakland by its soaring housing costs.

 

Teacher and community solidarity grew each day of the seven-day strike. Tens of thousands of parents and allies walked picket lines and attended rallies and marches at City Hall. About 95 percent of OEA members remained on strike each day of the showdown, and student attendance plummeted to about 2 percent by the union’s estimate as parents kept their children home.

 

The strike erupted after two years of frustrating negotiations – the teachers’ contract expired in July 2017. The extraordinary documentation of the strike is on the OEA Facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/

 

President Brown thanked the community, all educators and allies for their strong support. “We built power. We united the community during the seven days of the strike and we have won because of the power of parents, students uniting with the community and labor,” Brown said. “Through this powerful strike, the people of Oakland have spoken.”

 

Brown also thanked State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and Assembly Member Rob Bonta for their support and participation during negotiations.

 

OEA co-sponsored the Bread For Ed campaign that raised more than $171,000 to feed Oakland students in solidarity schools held at churches and city recreation centers during the strike 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 raised more than $85,000 through a Go Fund Me drive.

###

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.

 

 

Categories California, Charter Schools, Class size, Closing schools

Chicago: The Election Was “a Complete Repudiation” of Rahm Emanuel

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
8

 

 

Thanks to Fred Klonsky for alerting me to this analysis of the mayoral election in Chicago, in which two African American women are in a run-off, the establishment candidate William Daley came in third, and privatizer Paul Vallas got about 5% of the vote. Voters voted no to Rahm’s school closings and charter favoritism.

Curtis Black writes:

“The election that advanced two black women to the runoff for Chicago mayor is certainly historic. And voters who backed Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle were certainly demanding change.

“But the election was also a complete repudiation of Rahm Emanuel’s record as mayor of Chicago. All the candidates ran against Emanuel’s program. All of them rejected complete mayoral control over the school board, which has enabled wholesale school closings and charter expansion. All of them called for more investment in neighborhoods. The candidate closest to Emanuel ideologically, Bill Daley, even ran against the mayor with a slogan of “no more excuses.””

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Emanuel, Rahm

Oakland Strike: Teachers and District at Odds About Privatization

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2019 //
4

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Statement by Keith Brown

President, Oakland Education Association,

on

Status of Contract Talks

 

I do not believe that it is helpful to bargain contracts through the media. Up until now I have refrained from discussing details to give the negotiating team on both sides room to bargain. However, after seeing a series of misleading reports come out of the administration today, I think it’s time to set the record straight.

 

The district says they have moved closer to OEA’s position on salary. Implied in their statement is that significant movement has happened since the strike began. This is untrue. The fact is they have yet to make an offer that will keep experienced teachers in Oakland.

 

The administration would lead you to believe this is only about salary. The state trustee has now joined this disinformation campaign.

 

Let me be clear, the union believes our students should have access to school nurses, counselors, school psychologists, librarians and other specialists. Class sizes are just too big and hinder the ability of our educators to give students the attention they deserve. These were also the issues on the table in the recent teachers’ strike in Los Angeles. In that strike, labor and management, with the help of outside mediators, crafted solutions that brought in dollars from the county and state to fund more nurses and counselors and lower class size. We should find similar creative solutions here.

 

We also join Los Angeles in their fight for a cap on the rapid expansion of charter schools that comes at the expense of much needed resources at our neighborhood public schools – to the tune of $57 million a year.

 

School closings are a critical issue in Oakland. It should be discussed at the bargaining table – they refuse.

 

The district’s bargaining team either lacks the creativity or the authority to craft solutions to our students’ needs and our educators’ demands.

 

We appreciate the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s dedication to finding a solution that puts our teachers and students front and center in this fight.

 

It is clear that the district does not have the support of parents and the community and are resorting to lies and misinformation to try to bring the public to their side. We ask that people be mindful of these tactics. We should expect more from our district officials. When 19 out of every 20 teachers is walking the picket line joined by parents, when our rallies attract thousands, when 97 percent of our students stay home – it’s clear that this community wants what OEA demands.

###

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.

 

Categories Accountability, Closing schools, Privatization

“Backpack Full of Cash” Showing in Philadelphia on January 27

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2019 //
1

“Backpack Full of Cash” is coming to Philadelphia, where most of it was filmed.

Narrated by Matt Damon, this feature-length documentary explores the growing privatization of public schools and the resulting impact on America’s most vulnerable children. Filmed in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Nashville and other cities, BACKPACK FULL OF CASH takes viewers through the tumultuous 2013-14 school year, exposing the world of corporate-driven education “reform” where public education — starved of resources — hangs in the balance.

2:00 PM – Sunday, January 27, 2019
Unitarian Society of Germantown
6511 Lincoln Drive, Phila., PA 19119
(parking lot is located BEHIND the building at GPS address 359 W. Johnson St, between Greene and Wayne Sts.)

Discussion following the film

Categories Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Philadelphia

New York: Is This the Worst Government Statement of Intent Ever?

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2019 //
38

Having worked for nearly two years in the federal bureaucracy, I have learned to decipher government documents (most of the time).

But this one, written under the name of New York Commissioner of Education MaryEllen Elia, is the worst tripe I have ever encountered.

I don’t understand it but it doesn’t sound good.

It sounds threatening and ominous. I hear the sound of punishment. Missing is any sign of hope or support.

Please let me know if you know what the plan is here.

Categories Accountability, Closing schools, New York

Leonie Haimson: Warning! The New York City Department of Education Is Infested with Broadies, TFA!

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2019 //
15

After hearing from a parent in Brooklyn that decisions at the New York City Department of Education were being made by Broadies and TFA, Leonie Haimson did some digging. The parent was right. The same people appointed by Joel Klein more than a decade ago are still closing schools, imposing the portfolio model, and opening charters. De Blasio appointed Carmen Farina to run the DOE. Farina was Deputy Chancellor to Klein and left in a a dispute. But apparently she saw no reason to clean house.

Leonie shows that it is not only Broadies and TFA, but the nefarious Education Pioneers, another billionaire-funded outfit the is running the show in New York City.

Wake up, Bill de Blasio! You inherited the status quo! When if ever will you clean house?

Categories Accountability, Bill de Blasio, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York City, Portfolio District, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Eve L. Ewing Explains the Racist Purpose of School Closings

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2018 //
8

Eve Ewing has a fabulous bio, as author, academic, playwright, poet, and comic book hero.

She is also the author of the recent book about Rahm Emanuel’s historic closing of 50 schools in a single day, called “Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side.” I reviewed it here. It was the first book to my knowledge that tells the story of school closings from the perspective of the students, families, teachers, and communities.

Here she appears on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

Speaking of ghosts, she will haunt Rahm Emanuel forever. Her book will be remembered long after he is forgotten.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Racism

Little Rock: African-American Minister Protests Plan for More School Closures

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2018 //
7

Dr. Anika T. Whitfield is a minister in Little Rock who speaks out against the steady encroachment of privatization. She recently wrote this letter to the State Commissioner of Education Johnny Key and Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore. The district was taken over by the state because six of its 48 schools had low test scores. The State Commissioner Johnny Key is an engineer and a former legislator; among his notable positions: he voted to reduce unemployment compensation benefits, he opposed abortion, he voted to allow handguns on church property and to allow university staff to carry concealed weapons and to forbid the release of information about the holders of concealed weapons permits. He was appointed Commissioner of Education in 2015.

Dr. Whitfield writes:


Mr. Poore and Mr. Key,

There is great community concern about your recent announcement about more plans for school closures within our beloved LRSD.

No genuine, earnest efforts have been made on your behalf to engage the largest and most invested stakeholders in the LRSD: students, parents/guardians, in developing plans together before you have already developed plans and made impactful decisions of your own. And, to add insult to injury, you continue to deny students, parents and guardians the a viable opportunity to provide their wisdom and insight with you, and other LRSD administrators. Their wisdom and insight should be considered invaluable to you as the Little Rock School District Superintendent and appointed LRSD Board member and chair.

Your latest press conference, Mr. Poore, was another indication of your lack of respect for the true value of building healthy community relationships through direct open lines of communications, frequent meaningful experiences, and transparency. Your approaches lack all and most importantly, trust.

Mr. Poore, it is not acceptable that you, someone who has shown a personal lack of commitment to the well being and welfare of our city and county by choosing to not become a registered voter in the over two years with which you have resided in our community, continue to make decisions without making sincere efforts to work with the LRSD community that was unwillfully disenfranchised. Willfully exercising absolute power and authority over persons who have been wrongfully denied their rights to voice their vote is not mark of excellence in leadership, nor a sign of strength. It is an indication of fear and weakness.

Mr. Key, both you and Mr. Poore have continued to deny students, parents, guardians and the greater LRSD community the opportunity to make decisions about our children, our schools, and our community without just cause. We understand that the AR State Legislators empowered the State Board of Education to assume control over public school systems based on criteria that have become lawful. And, we are clear that the State Board of Education, prior to your appointment, decided to take over our entire district (48 schools), rather than voting to assist the six schools that were designated as being in academic distress instead.

We know that Governor Asa Hutchinson has been following the playbook of the charter school funders who have used similar tactics to take over public school systems by appointing persons who like you, Mr. Key, who have no certification nor experience as an educator nor as an academic administrator, to become Commissioner of Education.

What remains unclear is why you both have chosen this fate?

Why are you both willing to evoke violence against the most vulnerable children and families in our city? Why have you chosen to come to the largest city in our state with the largest population of students in a public school system who are African American and work to destroy their hopes, dreams, and aspirations along with their families by going along with a slow, but steady plan to destroy the Little Rock School District.

Where is your moral consciousness? Where is your moral character? Why are you choosing to aid in assassinating the hopes, dreams, and potentials of innocent children and their families?

It is beyond understanding how you could/would endeavor to work so diligently to destroy the LRSD community, one of the cornerstones of the city of Little Rock.

We are not unaware nor are we complacent. Systemic racism and poverty are alive and unwell in America, and right here in the city of Little Rock. We are working on both the cure and the sustainability plan of wellness to prevent the recurrence of these man-made epidemics.

This letter is an appeal to whatever remaining hope of justice lies within you. We ask that you release the LRSD community from bondage and free yourselves from bloodying your hands anymore.

Rev./Dr. Anika T. Whitfield

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Little Rock, Privatization

In the Public Interest: Betsy DeVos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates Want Your Child’s School to Close

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2018 //
29

Jeremy Mohler, of the nonpartisan “In the Public Interest” wrote this post:


The phone rings and a cold, automated voice says your kid’s school is closed tomorrow. A sign hangs on the school’s door saying there are “repair issues.”

That’s all parents of students at Florida’s Unity Charter School received. No word of the K-8 school closing for good. No mention that its building was just foreclosed on and will be auctioned off by the end of the year.

Luckily, the local public school district is ready to help. “If Unity Charter School is foreclosed, we’re happy to welcome students into our classrooms,” says its superintendent.

Turns out, it’s a common story. Students at charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated, are two and a half times more likely to have their school close than those at traditional, neighborhood schools.

Between 2001 and 2013, nearly 2,500 charter schools closed nationwide, many because of low academic performance or because the private group in charge committed fraud or wasted public money.

Like Unity Charter School, they often have closed abruptly. A charter school in Sacramento, California, handed out letters at the end of the school day informing students that their school was shuttering that night. A Delaware charter school folded with a notice posted on its website, leaving parents and students confused. “Right now, I have no idea where my future is and that’s really heartbreaking to say for myself,” a student said in the aftermath.

Oh, and you guessed it, schools — neighborhood and charter — serving a larger share of students of color and students from low-income families are more likely to be shut down than schools with fewer students of color and similar education achievement.

But charter school closures aren’t just shockingly routine. They’re also a selling point for the deep-pocketed voices aiming to privatize public education.

Like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who once compared choosing a school to choosing which food truck you want to go to for lunch. “We must open up the education industry — and let’s not kid ourselves that it isn’t an industry,” she said.

And Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, whose infamous $100 million donation to Newark, New Jersey, in 2010 went to $1,000-a-day consultants who did little to improve education for the city’s students but closed neighborhood schools, replacing many with charter schools, some of which are now closing themselves.

And Bill Gates, who has spent millions pushing charter schools. The founder of Microsoft once said, “The freedom to perform in new ways means that if [charter schools] don’t perform, things are shut down after you are given a chance.”

It goes without saying that closing a school is disruptive to students. When charter schools close, many students return to their neighborhood schools and struggle to catch up. Dislocated students are less likely to graduate. A 2013 study found that school closures have contributed to Chicago’s high rate of youth incarceration.

But disruption is exactly what the likes of DeVos, Zuckerberg, and Gates want. They want public education to be like a marketplace, where private boards can decide whether they listen to parents or not, large corporate-like chains like KIPP and Rocketship dominate, and schools open and close overnight in a constant churn of “innovation.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Privatization
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