Jersey Jazzman writes that the corporate reform movement had a good thing going until Trump was elected.
The Democratic reformers were able to link arms with the far right and even to enjoy the financial largesse of anti-labor, anti-public school financiers like the Walton family.
But now the alliance is broken. But is it shattered? After all, DeVos gave Eva’s schools $500,000. DeVos funds AEI. Mike Petrilli was #neverTrump but endorsed DeVos. Very confusing.
Gary Rubinstein, critical friend of Teach for America, reviewed the school rankings recently released by Texas and made a startling discovery. Wendy Kopp’s hometown is Dallas. Wendy Kopp is a huge supporter of charter schools, which hire most of her recruits. KIPP was started by two TFA graduates. KIPP is widely considered to be a purveyor of “high-quality seats.”
The KIPP Destiny Elementary School in Dallas was rated F by the state.
But wait, aren’t these supposed to be the schools that are beacons of excellence in a sea of despair?
Rubinstein says sadly,
So this KIPP school is rated in the bottom 250 schools out of 9,000 schools in Texas which is around the bottom 3%. There’s a reformer mantra, “Zip code is not destiny.” I guess in the case of KIPP Destiny, zip code is, in fact, destiny.
Leaders of the Badass Teachers Association met in DC with the education staff of Senator Sanders (VT) and Senator Hassan NH).
They spoke for all of us who care about children and fighting back against privatization and standardization.
Please read the summary of their meeting.
Thank you, BATS!
Jonathan Pelto warns that the vote is likely to be today.
The mayor of Hartford, Connecticut, has named the founder of one of the lowest performing charter schools in Massachusetts to the public school board in Hartford. Harold Sparrow previously served as a trustee at two elite private schools. He also was instrumental in closing down a successful early literacy program at the YMCA in Hartford.
What qualifies him to serve on the Hartford Board of Education?
Jonathan Pelto’s blog is the most valuable education news in Connecticut. You can help keep his blog going by sending a contribution.
Our blog poet writes about Senator Franken’s statement that no Democrat will vote to confirm DeVos, highlighting contradictions:
“No Democrat will vote”
No Democrat would vote
For testing and for VAM
No Democrat would vote
For any other sham
No Democrat would vote
For Gates and Common Core
No Democrat would vote
For David Coleman lore
No Democrat would vote
For closing public schools
No Democrat would vote
For Arne Duncan rules
No Democrat would vote
For voucher and for charter
No Democrat would vote
To focus on the “smarter”
No Democrat will vote
For rule by billionaire
No Democrat will vote
Tautology is there
Joan Richardson of Phi Delta Kappan interviews scholar Julian Vasquez Heilig about opposition to charter schools by the NAACP and other civil rights groups.
He explains that the Trump administration will try to destroy public education:
With a Trump administration, this (NAACP) resolution has more importance than ever before because he’s said that he’s going to pump billions of dollars into charter schools and vouchers, which are really partner market-based school choice approaches.
It’s also important because DeVos’s view of what a charter school means is antithetical to what many “education reformers” support. Trump is supporting forms of parent choice and privatization that are beyond what even the Democratic education “reformers” have been supporting. So it remains to be seen if the reformers move toward Trump or if they continue with their argument that there are some good charters but that these other forms of market-based choice are not desirable.
Charters have not satiated the privatization and private-control proponents. In fact, it has become readily apparent that charter schools were just the initiation of the conversation for private control and privatization in other forms such as vouchers.
Trump’s election may turn the tide in favor of private control and privatization of public education. Donald Trump promised in the campaign that his administration would pass the School Choice and Education Opportunity Act and perhaps spend billions on school choice in the first 100 days. So while the NAACP and many in the civil rights community may be supporting community-based, democratically controlled education, the bully pulpit of the presidency may enforce a new era of private control and privatization of the public education system.
Bill Boyle notices a fact that has been obvious to everyone except corporate reformers for the past 15 years: almost every school that is labeled “failing” enrolls mostly children of color. In Michigan, the home state of Betsy DeVos, every community that is targeted for state takeover and for an emergency manager is majority people of color. Corporate reformers look at schools with low test scores, and they see dollar signs, not children with unmet needs. At present, 38 schools in Michigan have been declared “failing schools.” They are slated for closure. This was surprising to hear, because when I participated in a four-way debate last week with Matt Frendewey of DeVos’s American Federation for Children on NPR, he insisted that public schools are never closed in Detroit or Michigan, only charter schools. Twenty-four of the 38 schools slated for closure are in Detroit.
Bill Boyle writes:
“Let’s be clear and name this- Betsy DeVos is a huge proponent of institutional racism.
“How do you spot institutional racism? It’s pretty easy.
“First, here is what you don’t do. You don’t go looking for individual racists. I honestly don’t know DeVos’s personal ideas on race. I am certainly not naming her as a racist. Her intentions are beyond by my ability to determine. More so I don’t see her personal intentions as particularly relevant. (The same goes for Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions. Who cares if those who know him claim he’s a nice guy? See below.)
“What is relevant are the effects and outcomes of the policies that she supports. These are very, very easy to determine. And they clearly support institutionalized racism.
“It goes without question that DeVos has supported the narrative of “failing schools” and that she has funded it. In the state of Michigan this has led to a number of weird policies (the ability of the SRO to close schools being only one) that have become institutionalized through the financial backing and political influence of DeVos. (As an excellent example of how DeVos exerts pressure, see here.)
“So let’s dig a little deeper.
“What do these 38 schools on the SRO closing list have in common? They are in areas of high concentrations of poverty, and high populations of African American students. This is called a “disproportional outcome,” one that has a disproportionate effect on a particular group of people. In this case, we are talking about poor Black communities. Poor Black communities are having their schools taken from them. Poor Black communities are having their schools being named as failures, which allows us to avoid considering the racialized economic conditions that actually led to these communities having high concentrations of Black students who also tend to be struggling with poverty. Schools are being named as failures while hiding the fact that those in power have failed those communities.
“It is shameful.
“And it is, by definition, institutionalized racism.
“Maybe we should ask, does closing schools work?
“The answer is yes if your goal is to continue to steal resources from those most in need of them.
“The answer is no if you are hoping to support these communities.
“Hell no.
“Not even close.
“As an example, Muskegon Heights public school district was completely charterized as a result of the having been overtaken by emergency management in 2012. The whole district was given to a private company to run as a charter district. In 2014, that company left in the middle of the school year because the profit wasn’t what projections hoped for. It remains charterized.
“And it is now is on the closure list.
“Oh well.
“Muskegon Heights district is 95.6% Black with a poverty rate of 61.7%. Hmm…”
Valerie Strauss wrote an excellent article about the hypocrisy of Democrats who now loudly oppose Billionaire Betsy DeVos, but spent the last eight years bashing teachers, unions, and public schools while pouring billions of dollars into the proliferation of privately-managed charter schools. Once Democrats became cheerleaders for school choice, they abandoned the principle that public schools under democratic control are a fundamental public responsibility.
I urge you to read this article, which recounts the perfidy of Democrats who fell for privatization and betrayed public education. In many cases, support for charter schools opened the door to billionaires and hedge funder donations, to groups like Democrats for Education Reform and Education Reform Now and Families for Excellent Schools. Think Corey Booker, Andrew Cuomo, Dannell Malloy. Think of the silence of the Democrats as the U.S. Department of Education spent more than $3 billion on charter schools. How do they now express opposition to DeVos’s love for charters (and vouchers). She has exposed their hypocrisy.
Both of my last two books are about this theme–how the Democrats embraced privatization and opened the door to vouchers.
So I have to add a couple of points to her accurate summary:
In March 2011, President Obama and Secretary Duncan were in Miami with Jeb Bush to celebrate the “turnaround” of Miami Central High School. At the same time, thousands of working people were protesting the anti-labor policies of Scott Walker in Madison. Neither Obama nor Duncan ever showed up in Madison to show support for the teachers and union members who support Democrats.
The other point that needs to be added is that a month after Obama, Arne, and Jeb met to toast the turnaround of Miami Central, the state education Department in Florida listed it as a “failing” school that should be closed. I reported this in “Reign of Error.” The press never did report it. Why were Obama and Arne burnishing Jeb’s “credentials” as a “reformer?” Paving the way for Jeb’s good friend Betsy DeVos.
Let’s see if Democrats rediscover the importance of public education, where all kids are welcome, no lottery, no exclusion of kids with disabilities. In public schools, not every child can get admission to every school, but every child must be served and enrolled. Not some, but all.
have to add
Those Los Angeles billionaires are up to their old tricks, handing out astronomical sums to capture control of the public schools, in which they have never had children or taught.
Former Mayor Richard Riordan, a close ally of billionaire Eli Broad, just contributed $1 million to a fund to defeat Steve Zimmer, the president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board.
The committee to defeat Steve Zimmer is called, ironically, “LA Students for Change, Opposing Steve Zimmer 2017.” Neither Richard Riordan nor Eli Broad nor any of the other billionaires who contribute to this fund are “LA students.” It is a typical “reformer” deception, intended to mislead voters that students are putting together a multimillion dollar campaign to clear the path for Eli Broad’s desperate desire to put half the students in Los Angeles into charter schools.
This nomenclature is similar to the billionaires in New York and Conne richter who created the fake group “Families for Excellent Schools,” who raised millions to promote charters, although none of those elite families had a child in a public school or intended to send their own children to charter schools. Their own children are at Andover, Exeter, and other posh schools where tuition is about $50,000 or more.
The Washington Post has some great reporters who cover education as well as the excellent “Answer Sheet” blog of Valerie Strauss.
But its editorial board has been consistently, flagrantly wrong about education for years. During the disastrous tenure of Michelle Rhee as chancellor of the D.C. public schools, the editorial board defended Rhee vociferously. They cheered as she tried to fire her way to success, they ignored the national reports of cheating, they didn’t read the sharp reporting of their gifted staff.
And now get this: the editorial board says that one of the positive proposals from Trump is privatization of public education.
What? Send federal funding to every religious school and promote the spread of corporate for-profit schooling? Will every religious school and charter school be subject to all the mandates that accompany federal funding?
Apparently the Washington Post editorial board thinks that all public schools in the nation are just like those in DC. And incidentally, the federal evaluations of the D.C. Voucher program have shown no gains in test scores as compared to the public schools.
I am willing to bet that there is not a single public school parent on the Washington Post editorial board.
Diane Ravitch's blog 