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Carol Burris: An Important Legal Victory for Public Schools in California!

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2016 //
11

Carol Burris, a veteran high school principal in New York state, recently retired and became executive director of the Network for Public Education. She is currently completing a four-part series on charter schools in California and will write additional reports about privatization in other states.

She writes here about an important court decision in California that was released yesterday.

Just how important was this decision? It was a Court of Appeal decision that overturned the Superior Court decision in Shasta County. So, it is binding law throughout California and overturns the trial court’s incorrect decision (essentially that out of district in county resource center are allowed since not specifically prohibited by the charter schools act).

Carol Burris writes:

Readers who have been following our NPE series on charters in California are familiar with the storefront charters and not-for profit shells of K12 that are multiplying across the Golden State. Many of these charters have terrible graduation rates–some as low as 0%. Students rarely check in–some have the requirement of going to a center only once every 20 days.

Their explosive growth was a result of small elementary districts colluding with charter chains that operate charter “learning centers” in order to get revenue, even though the charters are not in their district, and sometimes not even in the same county. The charters promise these districts that they will not open in their district but rather in other districts which, in turn, lose both revenues and students.

Although the legislature tried to rein in this predatory practice, the bill they passed was recently vetoed by Jerry Brown who opened two charter schools himself [when he was mayor of Oakland] and has an “anything goes” attitude towards charters–including for profits. Luckily, the court had more sense.

Yesterday The Court of Appeal called the practice a violation of the law. It is a stunning victory against these charters, which had the full support of the California Charter School Association (CCSA). CCSA, which is funded by billionaires such as Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, the Waltons and Doris Fisher, is now the most powerful lobby in the state. The Court of Appeal reversed a lower court decision and its decision covers the entire state.

You can read more about the decision and its implications here.

Congratulations to the Anderson Union High School District who had the guts to stand up for its taxpayers and students. Congratulations also to the San Diego law firm of Dannis, Woliver and Kelley that carefully argued a complicated law and to the California School Boards Association who lent their support.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Salon: The New York Times and the Washington Post Should Do Their Homework about Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2016 //
81

Steven Rosenfeld, writing at Salon, notes that both the Washington Post and the New York Times warned the NAACP not to pass the resolution to halt the expansion of charter schools. Both editorials were condescending and misinformed. Fortunately, the NAACP ignored them and did what was best was kids and American education.

Their editorials were wrong, writes Rosenfeld.

He writes:

The New York Times called the NAACP’s proposal “misguided,” while The Washington Post snidely declared, “Maybe it should do its homework.”

But both newspapers are misguided and uninformed about what the charter school industry is doing to America’s public schools. Their attempt to influence the NAACP board’s vote this weekend reveals that they don’t understand or care to understand how the industry is dominated by corporate franchises with interstate ambitions to privatize K-12 schools.

What do the drafters of the NAACP resolution understand that these editorial boards do not? They know that the charter industry was the creation of some of the wealthiest billionaires in America, from the Walton family heirs of the Walmart fortune, to Microsoft’s Bill Gates, to Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings, Mark Zuckerberg and others, including hedge fund investors. These billionaires have pumped billions into creating a new privatized school system where those running schools can profit and evade government oversight. These very rich Americans aren’t trying to fix traditional public schools, but create a parallel, privately run system that’s operating in a separate and unequal world inside local school districts.

He adds:

How separate and unequal is the charter world? Their most antidemocratic accomplishment may be destroying the tradition of local control over schools by allowing private charter school boards to replace locally elected and appointed officials. These boards do not have to be composed of district residents, don’t have to hold open meetings, don’t have to bid or disclose contracts, and do not have to publicly reveal much of anything about their operations. As a result, privatizers have been able to tap into more than $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies in recent years, of which at least $200 million has been misspent or vanished in a spectrum of self-dealing scandals documented by public interest groups and investigative reporters in every state where charter schools exist.

The Times, at least, admits that there have been problems with poorly functioning charters. Trying to sound reasonable, the editorial cites a respected Stanford University study saying better charters have had good academic results, even though the opposite has happened in cities like Detroit, where half the students attend “significantly worse” charters. They cite demand from parents as evidence that the schools must be working, not mentioning the industry’s marketing routinely trashes traditional K-12 schools. And they say it’s disingenuous for the NAACP to claim charters have reintroduced segregation, because many inner cities are predominately non-white….

The Times and The Post fail to see the charter school industry for what it is — a privatization juggernaut. It receives massive funding from the richest Americans, who incorrectly blame traditional schools for not solving poverty. It benefits from seductive marketing that goes unquestioned, with major media often acting as its propaganda wing. In too many communities, charters present a false hope, as many local activists and parent groups have found. Scarce funds are redirected from traditional schools, students are cherry-picked as communities are roiled and divided, and better educational outcomes are not guaranteed.

Why are the Times and the Post both indifferent to the dangers of privatizing our nation’s public schools? Why do they think it is naive and unreasonable to insist on charter school accountability?

I was in the U.S. Department of Education when the idea of charter schools was first floated. The idea, at the time, was that they would gain autonomy in exchange for accountability. Now they get autonomy with no accountability. The NAACP thinks that is wrong. Public money should be accompanied by public accountability, not by freedom from any accountability at all.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Privatization, Segregation

Pennsylvania: Federal Report Reveals Malfeasance on Part of Charter Management Organizations

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2016 //
8

Kevin McCorry read the report from the federal Office of the Inspector General and learned that the major malefactors of the charter industry are the big corporate management chains.

He writes:


Some charter schools operate like islands — day-to-day they run independently of any higher or centralized power.

Others contract with a management organization — sometimes part of a big network, sometimes not. Sometimes for-profit, sometimes not.

It’s these charter management organizations, or CMOs, that have been criticized recently by the Office of the Inspector General inside the U.S. Department of Education.

In a September report, the OIG warned that CMOs pose a “significant risk” to both taxpayer dollars and performance expectations.

The report studied 33 CMOs in six states and found that two-thirds were cause for concern, with internal weaknesses that put federal tax dollars at risk.

Pennsylvania was one of the states investigated, and the report echoed much of what Pa. Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has already flagged about CMOs in the state.

He testified on the issue at a hearing in Allegheny County last week.

“When you have the larger management companies running a broad chunk of schools, we view that as a major issue,” he said. “If you were not allowed to find out the salary of your school district superintendent, what would be the outcry in your district?…There would be pitchforks at that meeting. In many of the management companies, we don’t even get to see the salaries let alone the costs.”

In the federal report, five Pa. CMOs were studied — four in Philadelphia and one in Chester. Two in Philadelphia checked out, but the other three rang alarm bells.

The report did not call out organizations by name.

There’s only one charter school in Chester, though, Chester Community Charter. It’s run by CSMI Education Management, a for-profit entity headed by Vahan Gureghian, a wealthy, politically influential player in state politics.

The report says he wrote checks to himself for $11 million dollars without seeking board approval in 2008-09.

This isn’t illegal in and of itself, but like the rest of the red flags in the report, the Inspector General says this raises concerns about the potential for waste, fraud and abuse.

The NAACP is right. It is time for accountability and transparency.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Jersey Jazzman Gives a Lesson to DFER About W.E.B. DuBois and the Talented Tenth

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2016 //
13

The NAACP’s decision to call for a moratorium of charter school expansion until laws can be revised to provide accountability and transparency. This decision sent shock waves inside the corporate reform echo chamber. Would they still be able to call themselves leaders of the civil rights ipissue of our time if the NAACP disagreed with their aggressive efforts to privatize public schools?

The right wing reform headquarters called the Center for Education Reform in D.C. put out a press release accusing the NAACP of caving in to pressure from teachers’ unions. Of course, that implies that the corporate-funded conservatives at CER care more about black children than the NAACP and its national convention. Hard to believe.

Then Shavar Jeffries of the Democrats for Education Reform (the hedge fund managers’ pro-charter advocacy group) issued a statement saying that the great African-American scholar W.E.B. DuBois would be shocked to see the NAACP turn against charter schools and privatization.

Jersey Jazzman calls out Jeffries for apparently never having read DuBois. JJ points out that DuBois was clear about his commitment to an elite education for “the talented tenth.” Maybe Jeffries was acknowledging that charters are only for a small elite (which Mike Petrilli called “the strivers”). If so, that case should be stated openly and clearly, instead of pretending that charters could save “poor kids in failing schools.”

JJ also notes that DuBois was a Marxist and it was unlikely that he would support the privatization of public education. Or that he would be able to tolerate an alliance with Wall Street and hedge fund managers.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Equity, Privatization

Peter Greene: Charter Advocates Treat the NAACP as Ignorant Dupes

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2016 //
58

The national board of the NAACP decided last Saturday to endorse the resolution passed at its general convention, calling for a halt to charter expansion until charters meet the same standards of accountability and transparency as public schools. This was a reasonable decision. It was not anti-charter, it was pro-accountability. It was a responsible decision, made with great courage; after all, both the New York Times and the Washington Post had written editorials urging the board to reject the resolution passed by its general convention last summer and to protect the freedom of charters to ignore accountability, cherrypick students, kick out students with low scores, and live by different standards from those imposed on public schools that accept all students.

Some in the charter advocacy sector responded with rage and attacked the NAACP, even though it is the nation’s most important civil rights organization. It is absurd for charter advocates to say they are fighting for civil rights, then to trash the organization that has been fighting for civil rights for over a century.

Peter Greene writes here about the response of some leaders of the charter industry. They belittled the NAACP for its decision, instead of listening and paying attention to what it actually said. This is the same disrespect that whites have shown to blacks for centuries in this country. At least, read their resolution and think about it before denouncing the NAACP or charging that it was bought by the teachers’ unions. At least, give the board and the members the respect of assuming they acted from experience and conviction, not from nefarious motives.

Greene writes:

If I had to guess (and, of course, I do), I’d say the freak-outery is that this is a PR set-back. The charter movement depends a lot on the ability of the rich white guys pushing charters to be able to gesture at some Actual Black Persons who support charters and agree that charters are the best thing that white folks have ever done for them. This whole holleration is not about policy or politics, but instead centers on their bastard child, PR optics.

It may be simpler than that. Many of the charter backers are in it to make money. A moratorium on launching new charters would hurt their bottom line, and they are simply businessmen who have hit an obstacle to expanding their business revenue. It’s PR perhaps with a side of money-grubbing.

But charter fans do have options here. They could, instead of arguing that the NAACP can be dismissed because they are now ignorant dupes, actually listen to what they’re saying.

I say this as someone on the Support Public Ed side of the debate, where many of us really blew it in the early stages by suggesting that support for charters among parents of color was only happening because they had been misinformed and duped. But they weren’t. They were responding to what looked like the best available solution to the problem of underfunded, under-resourced, just generally crappy poor schools.

The lesson for some of us? It’s a mistake to dismiss someone’s concerns just because you disagree with their method of addressing those concerns. If someone comes running out of a building wearing a tin hat and shouting, “I’m wearing this tin hat because the building is on fire,” discussing the anti-fire efficacy of tin hats is useful, but denying the flames shooting out of windows is not.

So if charter fans were smart, they would look at things like the NAACP resolution and say, “Well, we clearly have some problems that need to be addressed, because these folks are certainly responding to something that they see going on.” They could look at this as something more than a lost skirmish in a PR battle, but an opportunity to gather some actual information.

Or Allen and her posse can keep trying to write off the NAACP as a group of ignorant dupes, blame it all on the teachers’ union, and keep wondering why, even though they’ve thrown away their tin hats, everything feels so very warm.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

John Merrow: Why John King and the NY Times Are Wrong About Teacher Education

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2016 //
25

Perhaps you read the editorial in the New York Times a few days ago, blasting teacher education programs and approving John King’s new regulations to judge them by the test scores of the students who graduate from them. The editorial cites the Gates-funded National Council on Teacher Quality’s claim that 90% of teacher education institutions stink. NCTQ, you may recall, publishes rankings of teacher education programs without ever actually visiting any of them. It just reads the catalogues and decides which are the best and which are the worst, based in part on their adherence to the Common Core and scripted reading programs.

I agree that the entry standards for teacher education programs must be higher, and I would love to see online teaching degree programs shut down. But King’s new rules don’t address entry standards or crummy online programs. Their main goal is to judge teacher education programs by the test scores of the students who studied under the graduates of the programs. They will discourage teachers from teaching in high-needs districts. They will allow the U.S. Department of Education to extend its test-crazed control into yet another sector of American education. This is federal overreach at its dumbest.

John Merrow, who knows much more than the Times’ editorial writer on education (the same person for the past 20 years or more), has a different and better informed perspective.

He writes that the problem is not teacher education but the underpaid, under-respected profession.

The federal government thinks that tighter regulation of these institutions is the answer. After all, cars that come out of an automobile plant can be monitored for quality and dependability, thus allowing judgments about the plant. Why not monitor the teachers who graduate from particular schools of education and draw conclusions about the quality of their training programs?

That’s the heart of the new regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Education this week: monitor the standardized test scores of students and analyze the institutions their teachers graduated from. Over time, the logic goes, we’ll discover that teachers from Teacher Tech or Acme State Teachers College generally don’t move the needle on test scores. Eventually, those institutions will lose access to federal money and be forced out of business. Problem solved!

Education Secretary John B. King, Jr., announced the new regulations in Los Angeles. “As a nation, there is so much more we can do to help prepare our teachers and create a diverse educator workforce. Prospective teachers need good information to select the right program; school districts need access to the best trained professionals for every opening in every school; and preparation programs need feedback about their graduates’ experiences in schools to refine their programs (emphasis added). These regulations will help strengthen teacher preparation so that prospective teachers get off to the best start they can, and preparation programs can meet the needs of students and schools for great educators.”

Work on the regulations began five years ago and reflect former Secretary Arne Duncan’s views.

John Merrow says that the Department is trying to solve a problem by issuing regulations that will make the problem worse. Teacher churn and attrition are at extraordinary high levels. The regulations will not encourage anyone to improve teaching.

He writes:

Strengthen training, increase starting pay and improve working conditions, and teaching might attract more of the so-called ‘best and brightest,’ whereas right now it’s having trouble attracting anyone, according to the Learning Policy Institute, which reported that

“Between 2009 and 2014, the most recent years of data available, teacher education enrollments dropped from 691,000 to 451,000, a 35% reduction. This amounts to a decrease of almost 240,000 professionals on their way to the classroom in the year 2014, as compared to 2009.”

Merrow writes, in the voice of wisdom, a voice that has been non-existent in Washington, D.C., for the past 15 years:

I am a firm believer in the adage, “Harder to Become, Easier to Be.” We need to raise the bar for entry into the field and at the same time make it easier for teachers to succeed. This approach will do the opposite; it will make teaching more test-centric and less rewarding.

This latest attempt to influence teaching and learning is classic School Reform stuff. It worships at the altar of test scores and grows out of an unwillingness to face the real issues in education (and in society). While it may be well-meaning, it’s misguided and, at the end of the day, harmful.

Listen up, New York Times editorial writer!

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Mercedes Schneider: The New York Times Rebukes the NAACP for Demanding Charter Accountability

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2016 //
23

Mercedes Schneider dissects the decision by the national board of the NAACP to call for a moratorium on new charter schools until charter schools agree to transparency and accountability. As she points out, the New York Times education editorial writer chastised the NAACP in advance for expecting charter schools to be accountable.

The Times acknowledges that some charters are disasters, and that more than half the students in Detroit are in charters, with no discernible benefit.

It is worth noting that the same person has been writing the Times editorials on education for the past 20 years. He loved No Child Left Behind, he loved Race to the Top, he loves charters. He loves tests and the Common Core. Once when he was on vacation, the Times ran a reasonable education editorial.

Who is out of touch?

Mercedes writes:

“It is not good enough to note that when charters excel, they’re great, or tossing off the charters “are far from universally perfect” line (which the NYT does in its op-ed) and that failing charter schools “should be shut down”–another pro-charter, clichéd non-solution that only leads to unnecessary community disruption– disruption that could be curbed if there were stronger controls in place to begin with.

“As is proven by its “misguided” editorial, the NYT editorial board is ‘reinforcing an out of touch impression,’ not the NAACP.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Discipline and Suspensions, Education Industry, Equity, Failure, Media, Privatization

GREAT NEWS! NAACP Board Opposes Charter Expansion!

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
30

The national board of the NAACP endorsed the resolution passed by its 2016 annual convention calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion!

So-called reformers, who falsely claim to be in alliance with the civil rights movement, should read the resolution with care. They should stop closing schools, they should abandon privatization, they should turn their efforts and money to helping improve public schools. They should help to foster desegregated schools and communities. They should insist on health care facilities and fully funded services at every school. They should support social justice for all children and families, not privatization of public services, which generates segregation and inequity.

Here is the statement of the national board of the NAACP:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 15, 2016

CINCINNATI – Members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Board of Directors ratified a resolution Saturday adopted by delegates at its 2016 107th National Convention calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion and for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice.

“The NAACP has been in the forefront of the struggle for and a staunch advocate of free, high-quality, fully and equitably-funded public education for all children,” said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the National NAACP Board of Directors. “We are dedicated to eliminating the severe racial inequities that continue to plague the education system.”

The National Board’s decision to ratify this resolution reaffirms prior resolutions regarding charter schools and the importance of public education, and is one of 47 resolutions adopted today by the Board of Directors. The National Board’s decision to ratify supports its 2014 Resolution, ‘School Privatization Threat to Public Education’, in which the NAACP opposes privatization of public schools and public subsidizing or funding of for-profit or charter schools. Additionally, in 1998 the Association adopted a resolution which unequivocally opposed the establishment and granting of charter schools which are not subject to the same accountability and standardization of qualifications/certification of teachers as public schools and divert already-limited funds from public schools.

We are calling for a moratorium on the expansion of the charter schools at least until such time as:
(1) Charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools

(2) Public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system

(3) Charter schools cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate and

(4) Cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.

Historically the NAACP has been in strong support of public education and has denounced movements toward privatization that divert public funds to support non-public school choices.

“We are moving forward to require that charter schools receive the same level of oversight, civil rights protections and provide the same level of transparency, and we require the same of traditional public schools,” Chairman Brock said. “Our decision today is driven by a long held principle and policy of the NAACP that high quality, free, public education should be afforded to all children.”

While we have reservations about charter schools, we recognize that many children attend traditional public schools that are inadequately and inequitably equipped to prepare them for the innovative and competitive environment they will face as adults. Underfunded and under-supported, these traditional public schools have much work to do to transform curriculum, prepare teachers, and give students the resources they need to have thriving careers in a technologically advanced society that is changing every year. There is no time to wait. Our children immediately deserve the best education we can provide.

“Our ultimate goal is that all children receive a quality public education that prepares them to be a contributing and productive citizen,” said Adora Obi Nweze, Chair of the National NAACP Education Committee, President of the Florida State Conference of the NAACP and a former educator whose committee guides educational policy for the Association.

“The NAACP’s resolution is not inspired by ideological opposition to charter schools but by our historical support of public schools – as well as today’s data and the present experience of NAACP branches in nearly every school district in the nation,” said Cornell William Brooks, President and CEO of the NAACP. “Our NAACP members, who as citizen advocates, not professional lobbyists, are those who attend school board meetings, engage with state legislatures and support both parents and teachers.”

“The vote taken by the NAACP is a declaratory statement by this Association that the proliferation of charter schools should be halted as we address the concerns raised in our resolution,” said Chairman Brock.

###

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Inequality, Privatization, Race, Segregation

Carol Burris on the Charter Mess in California: Part 3

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
19

Carol Burris is writing a four-part series about charter schools in California. She recently traveled to California to visit charter schools. She found it difficult to get information on certain charter schools, because some are not located in the district that authorized them. Transparency and accountability appear to be non-existent. A recent newspaper series about the online charter K12, Inc., demonstrated that it makes a handsome profit while delivering poor education. But the state has taken no action.

Public money meant for public schools is freely handed out to charters with no supervision or oversight.

She learned about a charter school called WISE, and it sounded good on paper:

The Wise Academy is tucked away on a Girl Scout camp on the Bothin Youth Center in Fairfax, Calif. Its students attend classes in yurts and barns. Wise, which stands for Waldorf-Inspired School of Excellence, follows the curriculum taught in Waldorf private schools — its students garden, enjoy a games class, and celebrate All Souls Day and Michaelmas.

Students must apply to attend, and its preliminary application makes it clear that parents are supposed to pony up cash. The full application demands that families provide all sources of income. The school’s donate button has a default donation of $2,000. A cash-strapped parent would quickly infer that their family “need not apply.”

How many students attend Wise Academy and how well do they achieve? For the taxpaying public, that is a mystery.

You cannot find this K-6 charter school, which has been in operation for three years, on the state’s Education Department website. Rick Bagley, the superintendent of the Ross Valley School District in which Wise is located, was never informed of its presence as required by law.

The state has thus far refused to monitor charter schools or hold them accountable.

A bill that would have banned for-profit charters in California was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2015. An additional bill, which would have prevented financially troubled districts from authorizing charters in other districts, was vetoed by Brown last month. The president of the California State Board of Education, Michael Kirst, worked as a K12 consultant, before his appointment by Brown.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

A Brief Report from Massachusetts, Ground Zero of the Charter Fraud

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2016 //
17

I am on the train returning from Wellesley to New York City, after Pasi Sahlberg’s brilliant performance last night. I say “performance” because he didn’t give a conventional lecture. He used a multi-media platform to entertain, interact, and inform the audience. He began his talk by posing a mathematical question, which appeared on the screen behind him. He urged the audience to add the numbers, out loud, simple whole numbers, as they appeared on the screen. Many of us showed how easily we were fooled by what we thought we saw. How easily we draw false conclusions. That was his introduction to a performance that included film clips, music, data, and exposition. If you have a chance to invite him to your state or organization, I urge you to do so. He is amazing. As soon as I have the video link, I will post it.

In talking to parents and teachers during my visit, I learned that all those millions from hedge fund managers, billionaires, and union-busters are now showing up as television commercials blanketing the state with lies. Earnest “parents” explain in the commercials that they are voting for Question 2–the approval of more privately run charter schools–because they “support” public schools, they want to “help” public schools. They do not explain that passage of Question 2 means that neighborhood public schools will be closed and replaced by corporate-controlled charter schools. They do not explain that more money for charter schools means less money for public schools. They do not explain that those who vote for Question 2 are voting to cut the budgets of their own public schools.

It is a low, misleading, dishonest campaign. Why are the “reformers” dishonest? Simple. If they told the truth, the public would overwhelmingly reject their goal of privatizing public schools and turning over control to out-of-state corporations. This is the billionaire-funded propaganda campaign that dare not speak its name.

Corporate reform refuses to be truthful. It wraps itself in self-righteous lies about promoting civil rights and closing the achievement gap. Destroying a democratic institution is not promoting civil rights. Creating colonialist “no excuses” charter schools that exclude or kick out low-scoring students does not promote civil rights or reduce the achievement gap. Making a fetish of standardized testing guarantees that the “achievement gap” will never close because the standardized tests are designed to produce achievement gaps that never close.

Where do the “reformers” find the white teachers willing to enforce the harsh discipline of no-excuses schools and impose unquestioning compliance on nonwhite children? Very likely, these teachers attended progressive private or public schools. Did they learn the value of conformity and obedience in TFA training or at the Relay “Graduate School of Education”?

As Alan Singer wrote on Huffington Post, Massachusetts is now ground zero in the battle for public education. It may be the most liberal state in the nation. It is far and away the most successful state school system, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. If the billionaires can persuade the people of Massachusetts to turn over a dozen schools a year from here to eternity, they can do it anywhere. After all, what’s a couple of million dollars to the Waltons, whose family wealth exceeds $130 billion? If the billionaires can hoax the people of Massachusetts for only $15 million, what state will be outside their reach? You can be sure that the charter industry won’t stop in Boston and the small cities of the state. They have their eyes on the suburbs, too.

What happens on November 8 will matter to the future of public education in America.

Will the corporate reformers pull the wool over the eyes of the public? Will their deceptions and lies cover up their goal of undermining one of our most important democratic institutions?

Or will the grassroots actions of parents and teachers strip away their evasions, lies, and propaganda and demonstrate that the public schools of the Bay State are not for sale? Not at any price.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Fraud, Hoax, Massachusetts, Privatization
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