Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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William Mathis: NCLB Reauthorization is a Bipartisan Disaster

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
10

William Mathis, a former school superintendent in Vermont, now associated with the National Education Policy Center, analyzed the proposed legislation of both Democrats and Republicans and finds that both parties have no understanding of the damage wrought by No Child Left Behind.

Washington insiders continue their hapless crusade to “reform” the schools by high-stakes testing and privatization. The Democrats want the federal government to do more of it, and the Republicans want the states to do it. Neither has a vision for the future.

Neither shows the slightest indication that they understand the real problems of American education, many of which have been inflicted by NCLB and Race to the Top.

So instead of ditching the failed policies of the past dozen years, both parties cling tenaciously to them.

He concludes:

“When Abraham Lincoln called on the mystic chords of memory, he drew upon those principles that bind us together. He drew upon the common good. At that time, equality was so embraced that it found Constitutional power and protection in the thirteenth amendment. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a wave of state Constitutional amendments enshrined public education because a functioning democracy demanded education and equality for all. In 1965, when we dreamed of a great society, we furthered our reach with the supportive help of the ESEA.

“Today, both Democrat and Republican versions of the reauthorization give vacant, distracted nods to these principles. They fail to ring with great purpose. They do not stir the soul. They are unlovely and parrot our social and economic strategies. In both they punish the poor, loudly proclaim liberty and
equality, and provide only the rhetoric of opportunities.”

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democrats, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

Connecticut’s Privatization Manager Moves On

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2013 //
16

Jonathan Pelto reports that Debra Kurshan, the state’s “Chief Turnaround Officer” is leaving for another position after eight months on the job.

What a close and cozy world these corporate reformers inhabit!

As Pelto writes:

“Commissioner Pryor has announced that Kurshan, who previously served as the head of School Portfolio Development for Mayor Bloomberg’s school privatization efforts and also worked as a consultant to the superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District in New Orleans, is leaving the state to join an unnamed education consulting firm.

“Before her short stints with the Bloomberg Administration and Paul Vallas’ old Louisiana Recovery School District, Kurshan was with the education reform group, Education Pioneers, where she worked at Village Academies Network, a charter school management organization operating two schools in Harlem, New York.”

“In New York City, Kurshan worked on closing public schools to make room for charter schools and co-locating charter schools in public school spaces.”

Have you noticed that “turnaround” is a synonym for privatizing?

These reformers feel no association with public education. They see their mission as helping kids move to privately managed schools.

Do they ever reflect on the end game?

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Is Time Running Out for the Reformers?

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2013 //
16

The public is beginning to awaken to the realities of what is deceptively called “school reform.”

Read David Sirota’s terrific piece on how they are unraveling, here.

First, what is happening in state after state, in direct response to federal policy, is school destruction, not reform.

Second, the end game for the so-called “reformers” is privatization, not reform.

Everything the “reformers” advocate fails to produce better education.

Charters and vouchers are not only privatization, but they promote greater segregation and social stratification.

The endless testing regime has generated a backlash that reaches into every district in the nation.

The recent release of the NAEP Long-Term Trend data for 2008-2012 showed virtually no improvements in test scores for that period of time, just as NCLB and Race to the Top converged.

The “reformers” are the status quo.

It is a status quo that is bad for students, bad for teachers, and bad for the quality of education.

At some point, the public will demand change, and the reformers will be finished.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

How Charter Entrepreneurs Make Millions with Taxpayer Dollars

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2013 //
15

This is a stunning research job by Jersey Jazzman about the money tree that is turning canny businessmen into multimillionaires by investing in charter schools.

They package financing from the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. Department of Education, the Walton Family Foundation, and they spin it into gold–for themselves.

The family charter group he describes controls over $100 million in real estate. They have gotten very, very rich.

Here is his conclusion. Please read the whole post. It is jaw-dropping.

“…while we can debate the relative merits of charter schools, one thing is quite certain: any notion that the charter industry is “all about the kids” needs to be dismissed, because there are adults who are clearly making a lot of money off of charter expansion. And it’s not just people like the Zuluetas: Bruno himself, according to Building Hope’s 2011 tax return, earned $388,709 in compensation and another $56,865 in benefits for a year’s work. In contrast, the average Florida teacher salary is $45,723.”

These are the same people who claim that teachers don’t put children first. What do they put first? It is not the children.

– See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/make-big-money-building-charter-schools.html#sthash.9D3ptFh6.dpuf

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit

Minneapolis Public Schools: Will They Survive?

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2013 //
27

It is not news to readers of this blog that public education is under attack in cities across the nation by a politically powerful and heavily funded privatization movement. In some states, this movement has moved into the suburbs as well.

This video pulls away the mask of reform and explains in clear detail the nexus of connections behind the privatization movement in Minneapolis. This district was once the largest in the state. Due to the proliferation of privately managed charters, it is now the third largest in Minnesota.

The video has no production values. It is a simple narration of a complex graphic that displays the web of relationships among powerful foundations, one very powerful family, national organizations, and corporate interests.

All the big players have converged on Minneapolis: 50CAN, DFER, TFA, and many more, abetted by one powerful local family that owned the city’s biggest newspaper, sold it, and now owns the online newspaper Minnpost.

Charters in Minneapolis are more segregated than the public schools and get lower scores.

These inconvenient facts do not slow the advance of the privatization movement. They present themselves as idealists, and some are fooled by the rhetoric about “saving minority children from failing schools” and “closing the achievement gap.” They are flush with cash and federal tax credits, and fueled by ambition, a love of power, media adulation, and–for some–tidy profits.

Left to their own devices, they will restore a dual school system, both publicly funded, one free to kick out students, the other a dumping ground for the kids unwanted by the charters.

Left to their own devices, they will destroy public education in America.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Minnesota, Privatization

Sorry, You Missed Today’s Symposium about Cashing in on the Charter Sector

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2013 //
16

If only I had known sooner, I would have posted the announcement of today’s symposium.

Yes! There is money to be made by investing in charter schools! It’s all about the children! It’s the civil rights issue of our time! And a great investment too!!

“Bonds and Blackboards: Investing in Charter Schools (New York, NY)
Symposium – July 10, 2013; 9:30 – 6:30 PM

WHAT: A one-day symposium to help Wall Street – especially the tax-exempt bond market – understand the value of investing in charter schools and best practices for assessing their bond credit.

WHEN: Wed., July 10 – 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (Registration and breakfast begin at 8:30 a.m.)

WHERE: The Harvard Club of New York City, 35 West 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

WHO: Confirmed speakers include Noah Wepman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; LISC CEO Michael Rubinger; charter school investors Alliance Bernstein, Hamlin Capital and Nuveen; commercial bankers; bond underwriter RBC Capital Markets; and rating agency Standard & Poor’s. The charter school sector will be represented by SUNY, a charter school authorizer; charter support organizations; and charter school operators.

The keynote speaker is Brett Peiser, CEO of Uncommon Schools, a charter school network of 32 schools in the Northeast that has successfully reversed the achievement gap between low-income students and their higher-income counterparts.

Registration for this event is now closed.
If you are interested in attending, please email effc@lisc.org to see if we can accommodate you.

Location: Harvard Club
35 West 44th Street
City: New York
State: New York”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit

A Shocking Display of Common Sense in Syracuse

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2013 //
22

Michael Gilbert, a school psychologist at Meachem Elementary School in Syracuse, New York, offers words of wisdom to his fellow citizens.

Please read and share them.

He writes:

….Much of what is happening in public education “reform” is not about what is in the best interest of students and schools. It is about politics, power, special interests and money.

All children in public schools are riding in the back of this proverbial bus in some way or another. Parents have a right to be outraged, but I doubt that most of them fully understand the current state of affairs. When it comes to public education, we can no longer assume that our children’s best interests are being served. This will continue to be the case so long as state and federal mandates are issued by individuals lacking basic knowledge of child development and education.

Lately there have been a lot of attacks directed against teachers for the failure of our schools as measured by standardized test scores, and against parents for behavioral issues in their children. While teachers and parents certainly own some of the accountability, these issues are much more complicated than they seem. Due to recent education reform policies, the passion and creativity for teaching is being destroyed, and I fear the best and brightest teachers are either leaving the field or will never enter it in the first place.

There is an over-fixation on testing, the results of which are being used — unfairly, according to researchers at the Economic Policy Institute and National Research Council — to evaluate teachers. While class size continues to increase, there has been a decrease in time allotted for movement (recess, physical education) and for the arts and humanities….

Data clearly show that children in low-achieving districts experience a great deal of stress related to factors such as trauma, poverty and violence. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated how stress interferes with the skills required for school success — for example, with the ability to attend to and concentrate on instruction; with flexibility and perseverance in problem-solving; and with the maintenance of self-control.

Instead of addressing this in a meaningful way, we simply assume that students will be able to leave their struggles at the entrance to the school. To make matters worse, we have increased the level of stress on these children by implementing policies that are getting us nowhere and are leaving a large number of students behind.

Parents and concerned citizens need to lead the charge in taking back the schools which ultimately belong to them.

There are no quick fixes for meaningful education reform and it will require a great deal of hard work and commitment. However, the “reorganization” of “failing” schools is another process void of logic. Why do we wait for schools to consistently not make yearly adequate progress before we decide to do something new and creative? Should all schools not be given this opportunity? Or is this school transformation process really just an illusion of change?

Schools are not a “business” and students are not products to be measured through high-stakes testing. There needs to be a fundamental shift in the underlying framework of public education. Here are a few things that we could perhaps start with.

Teachers need to be truly valued in our communities. Let’s not minimize the dedication and heart teachers put into their profession or the role they play in the development of the whole child.

Teachers also need to be given the opportunity to teach a meaningful and enriched curriculum. There needs to be a return to unstructured play opportunities in kindergarten to cultivate necessary social-emotional skills.

Learning is about quality of instruction, not quantity. It is dependent on teachers and students developing meaningful relationships, not the administration of what State Education has termed “instructional dosages.” Students need to learn how to think, not what to think.

We need to put resources back into classrooms and school buildings, even if that means eliminating staff from central offices. There needs to be a reduction in unnecessary meetings and an elimination of ineffective programs. Otherwise, a great deal of valuable time will continue to be wasted throughout each school year.

Building administrators need to spend more time in their buildings working as instructional leaders to teachers and supports to children. Currently, they have much less time for what really matters, due to all that is required with state-mandated testing and teacher evaluation protocols.

Leaders in education need to inspire and unite – not dictate, demoralize, and divide. It is not about image, photos ops, rhetoric and catch phrases. It is about leading by example, with actions, not just words. With the current mantra of no bullying, why is it OK for our leaders to engage in exactly that type of behavior?

“College and career ready” makes a great sound bite, but in reality the concerns are much more complex and urgent. Can we agree to first make a commitment to equip children with skills for life, such as being responsible, persistent, cooperative, empathic and resourceful? Our children must be, above all else, effective communicators able to manage strong emotions. Once we are successful with that goal, then “college and career ready” will take care of itself.

Districts need a strong and well-informed school board — one that serves the students and families in their community. Many school boards across the state have passed clear resolutions against high-stakes testing and teacher evaluation systems. Unfortunately, a local school board recently passed a resolution that was, while well-intended, weak and off target. They should not only be more aggressively defending the teachers they employ, but also the children that their district serves.

A school board works for the public that elects them. The superintendent works for the board that hires them. Some districts seem to have this hierarchy upside down. Of course, the accountability doesn’t stop here. The commissioner of education, state Education Department, state Legislature, and governor all need to answer to parents specifically and taxpayers in general.

Ultimately, control of public schools should be returned to the local level. But until then we all need to be defending what is right and in the best interest of our children. Parents and concerned citizens need to lead the charge in taking back the schools which ultimately belong to them. A grassroots education revolution may be our only hope.

 
 The article is right on. It would not surprise you that some of the letters that followed attack the writer, question why there is a school psychologist, and raise other attack-dog questions.
Thanks for stating simple truths clearly and succinctly, Michael Gilbert!
Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

Katie Osgood: CPS Is Hurting Children

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2013 //
11

Katie Osgood spoke at a rally on July 4 outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home.

This is part of what she said:

“My name is Katie Osgood and I am a teacher. I teach at a psychiatric hospital here in the city, working with students from all over the Chicagoland area and of all ages including hundreds of CPS students. And in my hospital, I have seen directly the impact of Rahm Emanuel’s terrible school policies. We are seeing higher rates of depression, suicide attempts, school refusal, family conflict, anxiety, and aggressive behaviors all directly related to current school policies in this city.

“To put it bluntly, CPS’s policies are hurting children. When you viciously close schools, slash budgets-including taking money for social workers, smaller classes, arts, music, and gym, when you fire trusted teachers and staff, all these things hurt kids. And in the middle of all this, our mayor has the gall to cut mental health services and close mental health facilities. But you see, the chaos of our system is intentional. The people in charge call it “creative disruption,” a business term…..

“This is madness. Children need stability, they need connection, they need strong ties to their neighborhoods and communities. They need schools that are funded to work and be successful. They need fully certified, experienced teachers! ”

Read it all.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Students

Stop Knocking Indiana’s Great Public Schools

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2013 //
27

A.central feature of the corporate reform narrative is the oft-repeated claim that our public schools are failing. They elite think that if they say it often enough, the media will repeat their narrative. And the media fall for the narrative of failure.

But it is not true.

Read this commentary from Indiana, where the privatization movement has slandered the public schools repeatedly, as a prelude to their takeover. The privatized schools get worse results, but no one cares about that. The important goal for the reformers is to disrupt, destroy, and take control of public schools and their funding.

The reality is that Indiana’s public schools are excellent. Where there is low performance, the root causes are segregation and poverty, about which the “reformers” have nothing to say.

Here is Vic reporting from Indiana, where “reformers” have done their best to destroy public education:

Vic’s Statehouse Notes #146 – June 28, 2013

Dear Friends,

A review of 23 consecutive years of data for Indiana’s public schools show that they are currently performing at or near their historic high on eight of ten key indicators. While there remains plenty of room for further improvement, claims that Indiana’s public schools have declined or failed are clearly not based on facts, as a review of the attached data will show. The legislative push to dismantle public education and use state tax dollars for vouchers to send students to private schools is clearly based on beliefs and ideology and not on performance data.

A 23 Year Review: Improvement in Indiana’s Public Schools

To rebut charges that Indiana’s public schools were failing, I issued the first data report data for the decade of the 1990’s in May of 2000, showing year by year ups and downs on ten common measures. After adding additional data each year, the ten tables have now grown to 23 years.

Once again, I updated this report for presentation at the annual IUPUI/ IUSA Summer Conference on Urban Education, held this year on June 12, 2013. The full 16-page report is attached.

Here are a few findings from data for the most recent year, showing changes from the 2012 report to the 2013 report:

1) Indiana’s graduation rate shows that 88.4% graduated in four years or less in the Class of 2012, up from 85.7% in the Class of 2011 and up from 76.1% in the Class of 2006 when the new 4-years-or-less cohort definition was initiated.

2) Hoosier public schools successfully raised the daily attendance rate to in 2011-12 to 96.1%, tied with the highest level ever recorded in 2008-09.

3) Performance on the SAT, both quantitative and verbal measures, taken by 69% of Indiana’s students, lagged behind the past performance of Indiana’s students and comprise the two key indicators out of ten in which Indiana students are not at their historic high.

4) Performance on the ACT, taken by 32% of Indiana’s students, continues to exceed the national average and to stand at the high point in Indiana’s longitudinal record with a composite score of 22.3, well above the national average of 21.1.

5) No additional National Assessment scores were released during the past year. Indiana has outperformed the national average on the basic standard on all 41 NAEP assessments since 1990.

6) Hoosier public school students improved their passing percentages on ISTEP+ English/Language Arts in Grades 3, 5 and 6 compared to the previous year. Grades 4 and 8 remained the same, and Grade 7 went down.

7) On ISTEP+ Math, Hoosier public school students improved their passing percentages in Grades 3, 6, 7 and 8 compared to the previous year. Grades 4 and 5 remained the same. No grade went down.

8) Academic Honors Diplomas reached a record high of 32.3% of all diplomas in the Class of 2012, and Core 40 diplomas tied the record set the previous year at 49.6% of all diplomas. Added together, a record total of 81.9% earned either the Academic Honors diploma or the Core 40 diploma.

Significance

This is not a failing record. While great improvement is still needed and tremendous needs still exist in many locations, the steady improvement seen in these statewide data undercut arguments made by some that public education needs to be dismantled and privatized through vouchers and for-profit ventures.

Check out the data for yourself on the ten tables in the attached report. The tables are designed for transparency, showing year-by-year data and whether each year went up, went down or stayed the same.

The last page summarizes 23 years in a glance. If you have limited tolerance for numbers, just look at this page, which is also reprinted below. It summarizes the 23-year range on each indicator, gives the current mark and then answers the question of whether Indiana is near the historic high.

The conclusion is that on eight of the ten measures, Indiana’s public school students are performing at or near the historic high for that indicator.

This improvement is unrelated to the two years that Indiana has given out vouchers, undercutting the argument that voucher proponents are fond of making that vouchers improve public schools. The longitudinal charts show that steady improvement has occurred throughout the 23 year span.

This record of improvement is the result of the hard work of thousands, even millions, of educators, students, parents and community members. Public schools need the broad support of the entire community to maintain this record of improvement.

Thanks for your continuing support of public education in Indiana!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith vic790@aol.com

SUMMARY OF TEN IMPROVEMENT INDICATORS

23-YEAR CURRENT AT OR NEAR
RANGE MARK HISTORIC HIGH?
1. ATTENDANCE RATE 94.7 – 96.1 96.1 YES

2. GRADUATION RATE 76.1 – 88.4 88.4 YES
(new method since 2006)

3. SAT VERBAL SCORES 485 – 504
(1988-89 – 2004-05)
SAT CRITICAL READING 493 – 498 493 NO
(revised test 2005-06 – 2010-11)
SAT WRITING 475 – 486 476 NO
(revised test 2005-06 – 2010-11)

4. SAT MATH SCORES 485- 508
(1988-89 – 2004-05)
SAT MATH –REVISED 501 – 509 501 NO
(revised test 2005-06 – 2010-11)

5. ACT COMPOSITE SCORES 20.9 – 22.3 22.3 YES

6. NATIONAL ASSESSMENT (NAEP) YES
(percent passing basic standard)
4TH GRADE MATH 60% – 89% 87% YES
8TH GRADE MATH 56% – 78% 77% YES
4TH GRADE READING 64% – 70% 68% YES
8TH GRADE READING 73% – 79% 78% YES
4TH GRADE SCIENCE 70% – 74% 70% NO
8TH GRADE SCIENCE 62% – 67% 67% YES
8TH GRADE WRITING 85% – 89% 89% YES

7. ISTEP ENGLISH/LANGUAGE ARTS SCORES YES
(67 year-to-year comparisons) 33 (49%) went up Gr. 3, 5 & 6 went up
18 (27%) went down Gr. 7 went down
16 (24%) same Gr. 4 & 8 same
8. ISTEP MATH SCORES YES
(67 year-to-year comparisons) 42 (63%) went up Gr. 3, 6, 7 & 8 went up
11 (16%) went down No grade went down
14 (21%) same Gr. 4 & 5 same

9. ASPIRING TO COLLEGE 48.9% – 77.0% 77.0% YES

10. HONORS/CORE 40 DIPLOMAS 42.8% – 81.9% 81.9% YES

CONCLUSION: EIGHT OF THE TEN INDICATORS ARE AT OR NEAR THEIR HISTORIC HIGH.

ICPE is working to promote public education and oppose privatization of schools in the Statehouse. I keep hearing reports that some public school supporters read these “Notes” with great interest but don’t translate that interest into joining ICPE. We had an outstanding lobbyist Joel Hand working hard to support public education throughout the session. We need additional members and additional donations to pay off our expenses for the General Assembly session. We need your help! Please join us! Thanks to all who have joined or sent extra donations recently!

Go to http://www.icpe2011.com for membership and renewal information.

Some readers have asked about my background in Indiana public schools. Thanks for asking! Here is a brief bio:

I am a lifelong Hoosier and began teaching in 1969. I served as a social studies teacher, curriculum developer, state research and evaluation consultant, state social studies consultant, district social studies supervisor, assistant principal, principal, educational association staff member, and adjunct university professor. I worked for Garrett-Keyser-Butler Schools, the Indiana University Social Studies Development Center, the Indiana Department of Education, the Indianapolis Public Schools, IUPUI, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, from which I retired as Associate Director in 2009. I hold three degrees: B.A. in Ed., Ball State University, 1969; M.S. in Ed., Indiana University, 1972; and Ed.D., Indiana University, 1977, along with a Teacher’s Life License and a Superintendent’s License, 1998.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Indiana

“Declaration of Independence” by United Opt Out

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2013 //
24

United Opt Out has consistently spoken against the abuses of testing and high stakes for students and teachers.

Here is a link to their Declaration of Independence and to other important information about them.

And here is their Declaration of Independence from corporate education reform.

 

United Opt Out National http://unitedoptout.com

page1image1104

IN OPPOSITION, July 4, 2013
The unanimous Declaration of the national United Opt Out,
When in the course of educating a nation, it becomes necessary for its people to restrain the political and private powers which have obfuscated the fundamental mission of a public system of education to, among other points, compensate for the proclivities of the Laws of Nature to separate and exclude swaths of humankind into those that have and those without.

That to secure this broad mission of a public education, Governments are commissioned by its people to serve unequivocally the explicit needs of those to be educated. It is not to relinquish control of the purposes of education to incorporated powers which deign the will of a free People to determine the means and ends of their cultural developments.

Whenever any Government or Agent of the State abrogates the responsibility to defend the general preparations of its future citizens from untoward profit-making, it is the Right of the Educated to alter or to refuse impositions, and to institute a new Education, laying its foundation on principles and powers to most likely effect their Autonomy, Freedom, and Happiness.

Love, indeed, will resolve that a public system of Education long established should not be upended for fickle and makeshift designs, and accordingly all experience has shown, that an aspirational People are disposed to trust, as certain evils are trustworthy, when impossible oaths are expressed as guarantees of accomplishment. That such promises are made by representatives of the Education State, to whom its People have become accustomed, is the most perverse injury of all.

But when a long record of exploitations and failures, in pursuit of objectives that evince a design to reduce the Educated to absolute Quantification, in effect leading to total economic Exploitation, it is their right, it is their obligation, to refuse such Education, and to provide new Custodians for their future achievement. Such has been the persistent sufferance of the Educated, particular to Inhabitants of the most meager of circumstances; and such is now the requisition which prohibits them from amending their rightful System of Education.

The history of the present Secretary of Education, of his maids of State, and sycophants in unelected offices, is a history of recurring ignorance and ineptitude, all having in ultimate purpose the reduction of the Educated to singularly objective values that are inherently valueless. It is with this Ignorance and Ineptitude that the current Government wields an inseparable Autocratic alliance between Incorporated and State interests against the wishes of the People.

To prove this, let United Opt Out submit these Facts to a candid world:

• He has refused to reduce inequality and segregation, the most unwholesome and unnecessary for a public Education.

United Opt Out National http://unitedoptout.com

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  • He has constrained the role of professional Educators and contributed to their egregious humiliation in the face of unreasonable scrutiny from the State.
  • He has ignored significant corrective actions necessary to diminish disparities in opportunities, resources, and human capital in Education as sanctioned by the Fiscal Fairness Act.
  • For refusal to recommend other Laws or Regulations for the Rightful accommodation of large groups of students, principally second language, impoverished, and students of color, unless Schools relinquish the autonomy of Educators and control of their Curriculum, needs inestimable to them and formidable to ideologues only.
  • He condones through inadequate and narrow investigations a professional culture of Lying, Cheating, and Exploitation within School communities.
  • He has endeavored to prevent School populations from selecting refusal of specific Federal impositions that hinder local needs from an erroneous Competition for funds, such that these limited monies could not possibly repair previous and egregious breaches in support, that otherwise bind Schools and Districts to compliance.
  • For taking away our traditional public Schools in favor of Charters, altering our most valuable laws to hasten dissolutions, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Local Boards to enact control of Mayors as opposed to the People expressly.
  • For Accommodating large bodies of untrained Educators among us:
    • For protecting them, by granting certain exceptions, from qualification for any

      Educator position which they hold in the most challenging Schools;

    • For imposing Subsidies on public School systems to sponsor amateurs;
    • For shielding open Educator positions, that should otherwise be available to

      qualified candidates, for provisional Recruits.

  • He has excited insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the

    inhabitants of our cities against each other, setting as rivals the poor against the poor, to become executioners of their own friends and Brethren, to fall themselves by their Hands, to enable the affluent in escaping responsibility.

  • He has affected to render Corporations independent of and superior to the Civil power.
  • He has exacerbated the conditions dissolving elected Boards repeatedly, for opposing with effete vacillation his encroachment on the rights of the people.
  • He has denied sufficient protections to confidential information gathered by private entities in the process of public Education; ignored the apprehensions expressed by the caregivers of the students of our public Schools therein; and perseveres in implementation of diffuse collection methods in defiance of personal Privacy.
  • For conscripting the publicly Educated into labour on behalf of Private entities to refine the instruments of our own Oppression; not for the re-investment of knowledge and resources acquired, but to enrich the remunerative coffers of speculators.
  • He has abdicated Government in the defense of public Education by declaring Accountability greater to Preservation, and waging Wars of Attrition against us.

United Opt Out National http://unitedoptout.com

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In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Secretary of Education whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Profiteer, is unfit to be the warden of a Public lavatory let alone a free system of Public Education.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Private brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their Board members to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of our Allegiance to the public in Education. We have appealed to their assumed senses of innate justice and fairness, and we have summoned them by the ties of our common citizenship to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our cooperation and camaraderie. They too have been deaf to the voices of equality and solidarity. We must, therefore, submit to this necessity, which denounces our Disobedience, and hold them, as we hold us all, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Administrators of the national United Opt Out, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the free people of this Nation for the integrity of our intentions, do, in the Name and our Authority, defiantly publish and declare, That our public systems of Education are, and of Right ought to be, Absolved from any and all Obligations, Oppressions, and Exploitations set forth only by Private and Unelected Associations; that we assert the abilities to Choose and Refuse certain Acts and Things that violate the interminable conscientiousness of professional Educators; and that as Discerning and Intellectual personnel, charged with labors few are wont or capable to do, we have full Power to secure our own professional identities, determine to Whom and under what conditions for which we are Accountable, and succeed with significant voice to govern the Laws of our work.

And for support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Good Sense and a Common Destiny, we mutually pledge each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor. 

 

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching
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