Fred Klonsky sheds new light on the UNO scandal in Chicago.
How did Juan Rangel get $98 million to build new charter schools?
If Chicago schools are overcrowded, why is CPS planning to close 129 schools?
Archives for category: Closing schools
Mark Naison received a letter from a first-year teacher who is working in a school that the New York City Department of Education is closing because of low test scores. How would you advise this teacher?
This is the letter Naison received:
“I wanted to touch base with you about the chaotic and seemingly fatal
status of my school. Tonight, I attended a Joint Public Hearing between
the DOE and the School Leadership Team, along with an opportunity for
public comment. All 3 proposals that were introduced [all including
charter schools] seem to lead nowhere fast. Sheepshead Bay HS has taken
in the lowest performing students from across Brooklyn; students who
are no longer able to go to their local community high school because
the large high schools [Tilden, Canarsie, South Shore] were broken down
into smaller schools that screen their students before admission and do
not accept these low performers. SBHS has a huge population of ELL
students, students with multiple and profound disabilities, and those
who live within the traumatic world of poverty. If these students are
not going to be admitted into the charter schools that are housed
within the corpse-like building of former public community schools,
where are they to go?
“I know that you feel as passionately about this issue as I do [we are
facebook friends], so I’m sure you can accept and witness the
pain of a first year teacher who is struggling to hold on to her
idealism”
Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/
United Way of Los Angeles strongly supports the demolition of public education. (A reader pointed out that this stance is not typical of other United Way organizations. This post is about the United Way of Los Angeles.)
In 2011, United Way-L.A. partnered with the National Council on Teacher Quality (see Mercedes Schneider’s series about NCTQ, whose board includes reform luminaries such as Michelle Rhee and Wendy Kopp) to produce a report calling for tougher teacher evaluations based on test scores. Who knew that United Way was expert on the subject of education? Wonder how they reacted to the suicide of Rigoberto Ruelas?
Here is a conference the United Way is sponsoring, right before the Los Angeles school board election, featuring mayors best known for closing public schools, battling the teachers’ union, and giving public money to private entrepreneurs without accountability. You will hear no complaints at this event about how billionaires corrupt democracy by buying state and local school boards.
If you want to know how to reform the nation’s schools, why not ask the mayors of some of the lowest performing districts in the nation? Newark has been under state control since 1995. Chicago has had mayoral control since 1995. Los Angeles is not likely to learn much from either of them.
Mayors Cory Booker, Rahm Emanuel and Antonio Villaraigosa Headline United
Way of Greater Los Angeles’ Education Summit Market Watch
2/19/13
LOS ANGELES, PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Three of the country’s leading
“Education Mayors,” Cory Booker (Newark), Rahm Emanuel (Chicago), and
Antonio Villaraigosa (L.A.), will gather for the first time to discuss the
challenges of urban education reform at the United Way of Greater Los
Angeles 2013 Education Summit on February 27th from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the
Los Angeles Convention Center. Through frank conversation among some of
education’s most progressive, if controversial figures, the Summit will
address the greatest obstacles to improving our schools, particularly those
that have chronically struggled. All 1,200 seats are sold out.
The Summit will honor Mayor Villaraigosa for championing education reform.
Looking ahead to the future of L.A. education, the event will feature a
panel discussion with the five top mayoral candidates to share their visions
for improving our schools. Eric Garcetti (invited), Wendy Greuel, Kevin
James, Jan Perry and Emanuel Pleitez will debate pressing education issues,
including teacher evaluations, school choice, budget cuts, the relationship
between the District and UTLA, and parents’ roles in schools.
“Given that we’re heading into a local election March 5th, it’s important to
hear from our potential leaders about their plans for addressing the immense
challenges facing our schools,” says Elise Buik, President and CEO of United
Way of Greater Los Angeles.
“This Summit is an opportunity for everyone who cares deeply about education
in L.A. to learn from one another, and to confront the complex issues that
demand our attention,” says LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, one of the
event’s featured speakers. Other speakers include philanthropist Eli Broad
and school board president Monica Garcia.
The Summit will also include two breakout sessions with key education,
business and community leaders about improving education in high-poverty
areas. One session will focus on how businesses can impact struggling
schools. The other session, whose panelists include UTLA President Warren
Fletcher, will investigate how innovative practices can strengthen teaching.
This is the second Education Summit that United Way of Greater Los Angeles
has held at the Convention Center. The first was in 2011 and featured
keynote speaker U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. United Way has positioned itself as a
leader in the fight to improve education for all of L.A. County students.
Abetted by the example of Race to the Top, as well as encouragement from the Gates Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, and the rightwing Corbett administration in Harrisburg, the state-appointed School Reform Commission in Philadelphia is poised to close an unprecedented number of Philadelphia public schools. The schools are under enrolled, says the commission, but the commission created the under-enrollment by opening charter schools. now Philadelphia will run a dual system, like many other cities, even though the charters are no better than the public schools.
Cui bono?
Ken Previti writes this comment about the three public schools closed in Brevard County over the objections of the parents. The best solution: Elect a new school board. Run for school board. Organize and mobilize.
One harsh fact needs to be remembered about school closings, teacher evaluations and school ranking by student test scores. The total amount that “needed” to be cut from the budget by closing three Brevard schools was identical to the amount “needed” to build the new charter school demanded by the appointed Florida State Board of Education.
Brevard County IS the Space Coast, home of brilliant Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral engineers and large military installations and military/industrial corporations.. (I live there.) It is also overwhelmingly republican at-all-costs, and that includes Tea Party candidates.
Tea Party Republican Billionaire Gov. Rick Scott was the CEO of the corporation convicted of the biggest fraud against Medicare in history. When questioned personally he replied that he repeatedly refused to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate him, yet his money paid for TV messages that got him elected.
Past Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of W. and son of H.W., has organizations and investments in huge corporate education reform interests – including testing and test prep materials.
The school closings are a scam.
“Public-private partnerships” is the euphemism meaning “public tax money for private profit.” The school closings and the charter school building (scheduled to be built blocks from where I live) are part of the financial scam of the selling of America – one school at a time.
The school board in Brevard County, Florida, voted to close three popular schools, to save money.
Parents protested, along with local elected officials, but the board spared only one school. The chair of the board acknowledged that they were compelled to close good schools.
“Tears streaming down her face, Gardendale Elementary Parent Karen Proctor said she didn’t know what to say to her 7-year-old son.
“And then her tone changed – and she promised to shift her passion from working to keep the school open to kicking out the board members who voted in favor of the closures.
“It’s disgusting,” she said. “It’s not OK.”
It’s puzzling that the richest, most powerful nation in the world can’t afford to keep its public schools open.
I have written on many occasions that merit pay is an idea that never works and never dies. It has been tried for over a century, and failed again and again. Yet it comes back. I didn’t realize it, but merit pay is a zombie idea.
There are many more zombie ideas, like the well-known adage that “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”
Today, the federal government mandates zombie policies in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. These programs might be called High Zombie. They rank and rate children, teachers, and schools. They fire people and cause their schools to close. They do not improve education. They suck the life out of it. Maybe they are Vampire policies. Flip a coin.
Arthur Camins, who has written brilliantly on the failure of current policies, here offers his list of zombie ideas in education.
“Zombies appear to be popular today. Paul Krugman talked about Marco Rubio’s zombie economics in today’s NY Times. Among the zombie education ideas (ideas that were dead or should have been) that keep coming back to life) are:
• People are motivated to do their best by rewards, threats and punishments.
• You can fatten the pig by weighing it. Frequent measurement will improve educational outcomes.
• When students aren’t performing well on current (low) standards, setting higher standards will cause improvement.
• People who are poor have lower levels of educational attainment and get lower paying jobs. Therefore, if they all have higher levels of educational attainment they will all get higher paying jobs and won’t be poor.
• People who are successful should be given more autonomy. People who are not as successful need rules and regulations (except charter schools that should have autonomy whether or not they perform well).
• Market place competition always improves quality.
• If one school even in unique controlled circumstances can “beat the odds,” so can all schools at scale.”
Dear Readers,
Please feel free to add your own zombie ideas.
Diane
Here is a chance to make your voice heard.
Crain’s New York is running an opinion poll, asking which of Bloomberg’s policies the next mayor should get rid of. Bloomberg has promoted high-stakes testing, charter schools, school closings, co-locations of charters, and evaluation of teachers by test scores. Class sizes are at their highest in fourteen years.
EduShyster wants to help promote Rick Hess’ new book, Cage Busters….or does she?
It is a ritual. Every author of a public policy book must launch it with a panel discussion at a think tank in DC. It’s a way of showcasing the book and branding it
Hess runs the education program at the American Enterprise Institute so he chose his panel. Hess branded his book by offering the views of people he sees as cage busters: Michelle Rhee, Kaya Henderson, Deborah Gist, Chris Barbic, and a little known principal from New York.
EduShyster deconstructs the cage busting concept. In the end, we are left to wonder who is in the cage, why it needs busting, and where these cage busters are taking the children and teachers of this nation.
A reader from Sacramento warns that privatization is moving rapidly in his city:
Here in Sacramento we are facing an all out assault by the privatisation armies. Sacramento City Unified School District has slated eleven elementary schools for closure under their “Children First” and “Right Sizing” plan. Instead of following the six month plan our state dept of ed suggests for closing a school they are pushing it to a vote in one month. We have about a week and a half until eleven of our communities are decemated. Our superintendent – Jonathan Raymond – is a big player in the republican hierarchy with no educational experience. He hired a local charter school bigwig as his chief of staff. To make matters worse our mayor – Kevin Johnson – is married to Michelle Rhee. We are doomed. Here’s a good synopsis from one of our effetced neighborhoods.
Diane Ravitch's blog 