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Jersey Jazzman: What the Teacher-Bashing Press Does Not Understand about PARCC and Other Standardized Tests

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2018 //
37

This is a thoughtful and important article by Mark Weber (aka Jersey Jazzman), who teaches in public school in New Jersey and is earning his doctorate in statistics at Rutgers.

He notes that both the New Jersey Star-Ledger and the New York Post were outraged–outraged!–that NJ Governor Phil Murphy plans to abandon the PARCC exam, which is aligned with the Common Core. They accuse Murphy of kowtowing to the lousy teachers’ unions and trying to dumb down the test.

But he points out that PARCC and NJ’s previous standardized test (NJASK) produced the same results.

This is worth your while to read as you will learn a lot about standardized testing and its limitations.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, Privatization, Standardized Testing

Ed Johnson on Atlanta’s New “Chief Education Officer”

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2018 //
2

Ed Johnson is an Atlanta community activist who is deeply concerned about the corporate reform takeover of the school board.

He wrote this open letter to the school board:

10 July 2018

Atlanta Mayor’s first-ever Chief Education Officer, an alum of TFA and BCG

Yesterday The Atlanta Voice reported that Atlanta’s new Mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, has hired Aliya Bhatia to be the city’s first-ever Chief Education Officer.

Unsurprisingly, Bhatia comes into the job by way of Teach for America (TFA), Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Harvard University. BCG is known to charge exuberant fees for cookie-cutter-like recommendations to downsize and privatize public services and for being a danger to public education.

According to The Atlanta Voice (my emphasis):

“As Chief Education Officer, Bhatia will work with community stakeholders to improve collaboration and identify and advocate for policies and resources that will improve access to high-quality education for all Atlantans.”

“Bhatia will also be tasked with creating a citywide Children’s Savings Account program for every child entering kindergarten and with working across city government to ensure that public schools are a priority for infrastructure investment and public safety.

“‘Quality education can transform lives. Aliya Bhatia’s experience, passion, and commitment to creating high-quality, accessible educational opportunities will allow her to effectively partner with APS [Atlanta Public Schools] and other education and industry leaders from throughout the community as we work to improve access to education and training for all of our children and residents,’ Bottoms said.

“A native of metro Atlanta, Bhatia started her career as a teacher with Teach for America and later joined the Boston Consulting Group as an associate and consultant. She recently completed her master’s degree in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University[.]

“The search for this position was led by two members of Mayor Bottom’s transition team: Bill Rogers, Chairman & CEO of SunTrust Banks and Virginia Hepner, former CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center.”

So now we have Mayor Bottoms leading Atlantans to believe it is necessary to “improve access to high-quality education.” Such messaging typically exemplifies the language school choice and school reform proponents so often use to bamboozle and sucker especially Black parents and others into selfishly demanding charter schools on the pretense charter schools are public schools.

Charter schools are not public schools; they are private entities that suckle public school funds for profit and thereby necessarily help destroy public schools and public education. Top priority for charter schools requires making money off children; no profit, no school. Thus saying “high-quality education” is very different from saying “high-quality public education.” Besides, what does “high-quality” mean, anyway? Or even low-quality?

Mayor Bottoms’ messaging implicitly argues that charter schools naturally provide “high-quality education” because, after all, they are like private schools and private schools always provide “high-quality education,” unlike public schools. Therefore, it is never necessary to improve charter schools; it is only necessary to “improve access” to them, which generally means having more of them. In contrast, access to public schools is a given, and public schools have always stood to be improved, continually. Disturbingly, however, charter schools are about replacement of public schools, not about improvement of public schools.

Atlanta City Council President and Members advised what was coming

On 20 April 2018, in a separate email to Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore, Post 1 At Large Council Member Michael Julian Bond, Post 3 At Large Council Member Andre Dickens, and District 4 Council Member Cleta Winslow, my district representative, I wrote:

Today I became aware of the [Mayor’s] “confidential” search for a City of Atlanta Chief Education Officer per the attachment, enclosed by linked reference.

The search bespeaks entangling City of Atlanta in Atlanta Public Schools Leadership’s continuing actions to expand school choice as a consumer good, to include inciting profit-making opportunities for private investors, rather than work on improving public education as a common good. Consequences for Black children, as a category attending Atlanta Public Schools, is education made worse for them and their learning resilience virtually destroyed. These consequences have become quite apparent during just the past three years.

Therefore, I wish to meet with you in your role [on Atlanta City Council]. I wish to share and discuss perspectives and understandings about the matter that otherwise may go unconsidered.

I can be available to meet at a time and a place convenient for you. Kindly let me know, won’t you?

Only Councilman Andre Dickens bothered to respond, explaining he had not “seen the application. The new mayor has stated during her campaign that she plans to hire an education liaison role that reports to her under her office. She has the discretion to hire staff that she sees fit as long as it fits in the budget.”

Given his explanation, Councilman Dickens then intimated disinterest in meeting.

Nonetheless, on 22 April 2018, I followed up to Councilman Dickens, with copy to various others that included all council members:

Yes, I know it is Atlanta Mayor’s personal decision to add to the staff of the Office of the Mayor various positions by whatever title, including the position titled “Chief Education Officer.” And that is the concern. The Mayor’s “Position Description for the Position of Chief Education Officer, City of Atlanta” reads as if the Atlanta superintendent [Meria Carstarphen, Ed.D.], or a devotee of hers, such as the one elected last year to Atlanta City Council from having served one term on the Atlanta school board [that being TFA alum Matt Westmoreland], may have written it or controlled the hand that wrote it.

Atlanta Mayor’s position description for Chief Education Officer, City of Atlanta, is, without question, pregnant with school choice and school reform language the superintendent and her devotee are known to speak and work to make happen. Consequently, the position description strongly intimates the Mayor seeks a person of low moral and ethical integrity who, if hired, will further normalize and expand the superintendent’s school choice ideology and machinations that target especially Black parents to become willing, selfish participants in destroying public education in Atlanta for all children and in destroying Atlanta Public Schools as a public good.

Surely you will agree “education liaison” connotes a very different expectation than does “Chief Education Officer.” The former connotes assisting communications and cooperation and such; arguably, involvement. The latter connotes command and control, as by “governance and outcome targets,” as you say; arguably, entanglement.

Besides, the title “Chief Education Officer” is generally understood to mean, in corporate-speak, the top administrator of a local education agency; for example, Chief Education Officer of Chicago Public Schools. However, City of Atlanta is not a local education agency.

Moreover, alarmingly, Atlanta Mayor’s position description for Chief Education Officer, City of Atlanta, allows a “camel’s nose in the tent” to institute quasi-mayoral control of Atlanta Public Schools in a way that can effectively skirt City Council’s lawmaking authority and responsibility. City of Atlanta quasi-mayoral control of APS will have a structure like that of, for example, DC Public Schools, but without the necessity of being codified, thus allowing for democratic ideals and proceedings to be undermined to benefit private interests at the expense of public interests. Not surprisingly, the politics of mayoral control of DCPS are known to precipitate fraud and ethical and moral lapses as normal behavior, as the recently fired DCPS Chancellor, Antwan Wilson, demonstrates.

Expect City of Atlanta quasi-mayoral control of Atlanta Public Schools to be, at least, a first step for the superintendent to begin doing away with the publicly elected Atlanta Board of Education. After all, the superintendent once brassily intimated to Atlanta school board members during a public board meeting that the school board is in her way.

Finally, it is interesting to note Atlanta, the so-called Black Mecca, will eventually find itself on the trailing edge of the nation’s emerging rejection of bipartisan Bush-Obama-DeVos school choice and school reform ideology. Witness, for example, recent teacher strikes and walk-outs in several cities and states. This should not come as a surprise. People beaten down will take only so much. Atlanta, especially, should know this, and should have learned the lessons by now.

Why must being on the trailing edge be the case for Atlanta, the so-called Black Mecca? Why did Atlanta, the so-called Black Mecca, even allow the “camel’s nose in the tent” that is Atlanta Public Schools in the first place by hiring a pro-school choice superintendent [Meria Carstarphen]? Why now allow that camel’s nose into the tent that is the Office of the Mayor? What has Atlanta, the so-called Black Mecca, yet to learn about lack of authentic education that sustains intergenerational cycles of servitude, hence poverty?

Should you change your mind and wish to meet to discuss more about the Mayor’s “Position Description for the Position of Chief Education Officer, City of Atlanta,” I can be available; it’s up to you. In the meantime, I, as a reasonable person, believe the public has a need to know about this, hence my Bcc (which is a way to avoid displaying a very long list of cluttering email addresses and is not meant to imply secrecy; people Bcc’ed may reply or not as they wish).

Perhaps one now knows why one would have been wise to put aside ones Black racialist ideology during last year’s mayoral runoff election in order to cast a rational, well-informed vote for Mary Norwood.

Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality in Public Education
Atlanta GA| edwjohnson@aol.com

Bcc: List 2

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

More About Cory Booker

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2018 //
16

Cory Booker has long been an ally of the corporate reformers.

Booker was hooked up with BAEO and the Bradley Foundation around Milwaukee vouchers as far back as 2001. Has he changed his mind? Does he still support vouchers? If so, he will give Trump a run for his money among the evangelicals who are the primary beneficiaries of vouchers.

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/black-alliance-educational-options-baeo-congratulates-senator-cory-booker-on-his-win-1842122.htm

https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/fruit-poisoned-tree-hard-rights-plan-capture-newark-nj

https://blackagendareport.com/content/corey-booker-and-hard-rights-colonization-black-american-politics

And here is a contemporary defense of Booker in “The Atlantic,” where we learn more about his deep ties to DFER and education “reform.” Why do liberals hate Booker? So what if Wall Street loves him and he loves them back? So what if he and Chris Christie are best buddies? So what if he loves Privatizing public schools?

If you should ever have the chance, please ask Senator Booker if he still supports vouchers. Ask him if he has any ideas to help the 85% of America’s kids who attend public schools, not charters or voucher schools.

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

Nancy Bailey: Betsy DeVos is an Agent of GERM and She is UnAmerican

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2018 //
11

Nancy Bailey reports on Betsy DeVos’ trip to Europe and what she learned: Nothing. She returned convinced that American education sucks, which is what she thought before she left for Europe.

She returned convinced that education is workplace preparation, that public schools must be destroyed along with the teaching profession.

Can this GERM be quarantined?

Categories Betsy DeVos, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Privatization

G.F. Brandenburg: Why Are Charter School Operatives Picking the D.C. Chancellor?

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2018 //
6

Yesterday I posted G.F. Brandenburg on the same question. He posted a letter by a parent activist, who thinks the charter industry wants a chancellor on their side. She wrote: “the D.C. Public School Chancellor has absolutely no authority over any charter school in this city. The Chancellor cannot make any determinations on the siting of a school, the board composition of a school, the curriculum, staff or any other matter related to a charter.” Furthermore, charters can locate wherever they choose, even across the street from a public school.

If charters are competing with public schools, why do they get a large say in picking the chancellor who leads the other team?

Here is another post by Brandenburg, with the names of those on the search committee. He cites a post written by Valerie Jablow.

He adds:

“All told, of the 14 people on the selection panel, half have ties to charter and ed reform interests. And several were the source of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for the mayor.

“[Confidential note to Mayor Bowser: Does this mean that if I and two of my DCPS BFFs donate $5000 to your current campaign, one of us will be named by you to serve on the charter board? I mean, this is the selection panel for the DCPS chancellor we’re talking about here! Why have any charter reps at all, as there have been zero purely DCPS reps. EVER on the charter board? Or is this all OK here because, um, well, because cross sector something something?]

“Then, too, of those 14 people on the selection panel, there are a total of 1 teacher; 1 student; and 4 parents, half of whom have ties to ed. reform and charter interests.

“The law regarding chancellor selection states (boldface mine) that “the Mayor shall establish a review panel of teachers, including representatives of the WTU, parentS, and studentS to aid the Mayor . . . in the selection of the Chancellor.” The law also says nothing about principals or officials from organizations unrelated to DCPS serving on the selection panel.

“Notwithstanding the (remote) possibility that the singular student and teacher selected for this panel have multiple personalities, the math here simply doesn’t add up: there are more than a hundred THOUSAND parents and students in DCPS and several THOUSAND teachers.

“And yet we have a rep from Friendship charter school on this panel and not even TWO DCPS teachers or students??

“Gees, Mayor Bowser: it’s nice that you’re soliciting limited feedback on the next chancellor from us unwashed masses, but can’t you dial back the public dissing?

“Amazingly, all of this is downright familiar in DC public education:

“For instance, several years ago the process to change school boundaries showed that people wanted, overwhelmingly, a strong system of by right public schools in every neighborhood.

“Since then, our city leaders have enacted policies and taken actions that ensure that remains a pipe dream:

“–Thousands of new seats have been created in the charter sector, with little public notification. (One–Statesman–will start this fall without any public notification or input whatsoever beforehand. Yeah: check out these public comments.) Without commensurate growth in the population of school-age children, the result is a declining share of DCPS enrollment–all without any public agreement whatsoever.

“–A closed DCPS school (Kenilworth) was offered to a charter school in violation of several DC laws, including public notification; RFO to other charter schools; and approval of the council. (I am still waiting for my FOIA request to DCPS about this to be answered, since no one on the council, at the deputy mayor for education’s office, or at DCPS ever answered my questions as to how this offer actually came about.)

“–A test-heavy school rating system was approved, which tracks closely with what our charter board uses, without any consideration for what the public actually said it wanted. (And with a private ed. reform lobbying organization phonebanking to ensure it got what it–not the public–wanted.)

“–Ours is a public education landscape in which wealthy donors set the conversation (watch the linked video starting at 1:21:25); determine the way in which schools are judged; and profit from it all, while the public is left far, far behind.

“–Despite clear data showing problems in both sectors for graduation accountability and absences, there has been little movement in city leadership to ensure both sectors are equally analyzed.

“In the same manner, in our new chancellor selection panel the public is disenfranchised and the law not followed, while personnel from private groups are heavily involved and stand to profit in a variety of ways.

“Hmm: Familiar indeed.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Inequity, Injustice

Greg Windle: How Reformers in Philadelphia Rig Bids to Take Care of Their Own

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2018 //
13

Greg Windle, writing for The Notebook in Philadelphia, writes here about polite corruption in bidding for public contracts on the Philadelphia School System, which is run by a Broadie, William Hite.

“In a dispute over a lucrative contract for principal coaching, a bidder [Joseph Merlino] has accused the District of ignoring its procurement procedures, as well as state and local bidding requirements.

“The company has filed a complaint in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas demanding the District and school board agree to follow their own contracting procedure in the future to avoid undermining public confidence in the integrity of the process…the District is preparing to argue that it has no obligation to follow state law or enter into competitive bidding when it awards contracts for professional services, despite promising to do so in its procedures sent to bidders.”

The contract was for training principals. The bidder who lost co,planned that his organization had a more experienced team and a lower bid than the bidder who won, which was The New Teacher Project. The decision was made by someone with informal ties to The New Teacher Project.

“Underlying this dispute is a concern over long-term outsourcing of this type of work, as well as a clash of philosophies over the best way to train teachers and principals in leadership. This clash pits those favoring more traditional means against others promoting a more “disruptive” approach that has been advocated by major national education players, including the Gates and Walton foundations, and the groups they fund, such as the New Teacher Project, which was awarded the contract….

“In a complaint sent to the District as a prelude to his court action, Merlino noted that the District’s deputy in the department that selected the New Teacher Project, out of nine who submitted bids, was on a two-year fellowship with School Systems Leaders, part of an informal network of organizations that grew out of Teach for America and includes the New Teacher Project. School Systems Leaders seeks to place Teach for America alumni in high-level administrative positions within public school districts….

“In his complaint, Merlino noted that the contract was awarded when Katie Schlesinger was a deputy in the office of Leadership Development & Evaluation, which managed the bidding process. At the time, she also had a fellowship through School Systems Leaders.

“School Systems Leaders and the New Teachers Project are both spinoffs of TFA, and both function by staffing rank-and-file positions with TFA corps members or alumni. And they both receive funding from the same venture capitalist firm – the NewSchools Venture Fund.”

One hand scratches the other.

This deal stinks.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Corruption, Disruption, Education Reform, Fraud, Philadelphia

LAUSD Chief Picks TFA-Broadie from Nation’s Lowest Performing State as Chief of Staff

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2018 //
21

Los Angeles Superintendent Austin Beutner, new to the education world, has defined himself by his first big hire. He selected Rebecca Kockler, the Louisiana Department of Education’s assistant superintendent for academic content to be his chief of staff. Like her boss, John White, Kockler is both TFA and Broadie. (For the initiated, that means they both got a little bit of teaching experience as recruits for Teach for America and are “graduates” of Eli Broad’s unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, whose “graduates” are taught top-down management, the value of closing schools and replacing them with private management, and other reformer tricks of the trade. John Thompson recently wrote a series of posts here about the dismal record of Broadies.)

Mercedes Schneider, researcher and high school teacher in Louisiana, reviews Kockler’s TFA career in TFA here, which was mysteriously absent from the LAUSD press release. Also unmentioned in the press release was her Broadie history. Mercedes knows more about the Louisiana Department of Education and its new chief of staff than LAUSD. To be fair to the person who wrote the press release, Mercedes notes that Kockler deleted her Linked In bio that describes her TFA history. But Mercedes has it.

Both the LAUSD press release and the Broad Center agree that Louisiana is one of the “fastest improving” states in the nation.

But is that true? Nope. Its NAEP scores declined significantly from 2015 to 2017.

What is especially irksome about the LAUSD press release linked above is that it refers to Louisiana’s academic standards as “a national model.” Who would look to a state that scrapes the very bottom of NAEP rankings as “a national model”? Maybe it is a model of how to fail while boasting of success. Maybe it is a model of Trumpian rhetoric that turns lemons into lemonade.

Consider this report in the New Orleans Advocate on 2017 NAEP.:

“In the latest snapshot of education achievement, scores for Louisiana public school fourth-graders plunged to or near the bottom of the nation in reading and math.

“In addition, eighth-graders finished 50th among the states and the District of Columbia in math and 48th in reading…

In 2015, fourth-graders finished 43rd in the U. S. in reading and 45th in math….

“But both scores dropped five points – to 212 and 229 out of 500 respectively – during tests administered to 2,700 students last year.

“That means fourth-grade math scores finished 51st while fourth-grade reading scores are 49th.

“The group that oversees the exams, the National Center for Education Statistics, said both drops are statistically significant.”

Why not tell the truth? Beutner hired the academic director of one of the lowest performing states in the nation, where NAEP scores fell in the latest assessment. He was impressed by her credentials in TFA, and she came highly recommended by his friend Eli Broad.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Curriculum, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fake, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Teach for America

Linda Lyon: Can Arizona Reclaim Its Schools?

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2018 //
6

Linda Lyon, president of the Arizona Schools Boards Association, knows that the privatizers have had unfettered control of the state for years. On the NPE-Schott state scorecard, Arizona was one of the worst states in terms of its leaders’ policies. Now the parents and educators are fighting back against the Koch brothers’ machine in a referendum this fall. The time to fight for public control of public schools is now.

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

NBC: How Some Elite Charter Schools Promote Segregation

By dianeravitch
June 20, 2018 //
3

NBC took a close look at a charter school in Georgia that recruits white students and promises them an elite education. And it is free to students who are accepted! The tuition for this elite private school is paid by the taxes of poor and middle-income blacks and whites who would never qualify for admission. How sad to see that charter schools in the South are the new segregation academies, but paid for by taxpayers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/it-s-black-white-thing-how-some-elite-charter-schools-n878656

The video is based on a story about how charter schools exacerbate segregation by Emmanuel Felton, published by the HECHINGER Report.

Congratulations to Emmanuel Felton for a great story!

Kudos to NBC for once again performing as a nonpartisan news operation rather than a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gates Foundation, as it was in the days of the annual propaganda fest called “Education Nation,” which lionized Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Davis Guggenheim, Wendy Kopp, and other stars of the privatization movement.

The article:

“Parents of prospective students converged on Lake Oconee Academy for an open house on a bright but unseasonably cold March afternoon for northern Georgia. A driveway circling a landscaped pond led them to the school’s main hall. The tan building had the same luxury-lodge feel as the nearby Ritz-Carlton resort. Parents oohed and aahed as Jody Worth, the upper school director, ushered them through the campus. Nestled among gated communities, golf courses and country clubs, the school felt like an oasis of opportunity in a county of haves and have-nots, where nearly half of all children live in poverty while others live in multimillion-dollar lakeside houses.

“The school’s halls and classrooms are bright and airy, with high ceilings and oversize windows looking out across the lush landscape. There is even a terrace on which students can work on warm days. After a guide pointed out several science labs, the tour paused at the “piano lab.” The room holds 25 pianos, 10 of them donated by residents of the nearby exclusive communities. The guide also noted that starting in elementary school, all students take Spanish, art and music classes. The high school, which enrolls less than 200 students, has been able to offer as many as 17 Advanced Placement courses.

“Stunned, one mother, who was considering moving her family from suburban Atlanta to the area, asked how the school could afford it all. Lake Oconee’s amenities are virtually unheard of in rural Georgia; and because it is a public school, they are all available at the unbeatable price of free.

“It’s where districts and schools decide to spend their money,” Worth, a veteran educator who has also taught in Greene County’s traditional public schools, explained. “Some schools spend their money on overhead. We spend it on students.”

“Conspicuously absent from the open house were African-American parents. Of the dozen or so prospective families in attendance, all were white except for one South Asian couple.
At Lake Oconee Academy, 73 percent of students are white. Down the road at Greene County’s other public schools, 12 percent of students are white and 68 percent are black; there isn’t a piano lab and there are far fewer AP courses.”

It’s a charter school!

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Jane Nylund: Who is the Wolf at the Door?

By dianeravitch
June 20, 2018 //
2

Jane Nylund is a parent activist in Oakland, California, trying to stave off a charter takeover of the school district.

The charter wolf that’s supposed to guard and hunt with us in lean times? That wolf? He’s flipped you on your back and is now tearing at your throat. And who is the dominant one now?

I admit, I still use the privacy-sucking, venom-spreading, kitty-loving social media platform that is Facebook. It makes it easy to stay connected with friends and issues that I care about. Imagine to my surprise when one recent morning, this video pops up on my Facebook feed. Let’s see what behind Door #1?

Ok, a flattering piece of advertising from the newly-created OaklandCharters.org (it was sponsored content) on Kimi Kean, from Aspire. Given the recent controversy regarding Aspire, is the timely appearance of this ad just a happy coincidence? Don’t think so. Maybe just a well-timed piece of Aspire marketing/branding? Probably.

Around the same time, this article came out from the East Bay Express. Now, let’s see what’s behind Door #2?

https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/ousd-backs-down-after-charter-school-threatens-lawsuit/Content?oid=17013863

In the Door #1 video, it poses this question, “How can Oakland Charters help all our public schools, district and charter?” Um, by threatening a lawsuit? If that’s their idea of what collaboration means for OUSD, then please, no more help necessary, thanks very much.

So which example honestly portrays the true nature of whether Oakland charters and district schools can collaborate together? Think hard before you answer. Door #1 or Door #2? My vote goes to Door #2. But that’s just me.

The worst thing about this latest episode is that it goes beyond emotional arguments and and name-calling. It is the subversion of the democratic process. That the collective “we” would allow Aspire/CCSA to intimidate any elected board into postponing needed legislation is unacceptable, but not entirely unpredictable in the Age of the Orange One Who Shall Not Be Named. The board has a right (don’t they?) to draft any piece of legislation that it wants, and it is scary when the charter schools are given so much power that they can bully and threaten a democratically-elected board into backing down from doing their job. I’m sure there’s more going on behind the scenes, but this incident makes it even more critical that both the OUSD board and the Oakland City Council know exactly what they are dealing with and who is behind it. That would be Door #2. Even more enlightening is that Reed Hastings, the founder of Aspire and hater of school boards everywhere, is probably cheering the loudest at this point. The idea that CCSA/Aspire made the school board blink is, in his mind, a small but significant step towards eliminating the school board entirely. He’s loving this stuff. I, for one, did not participate in the democratic process only to have it dismantled by a guy like Reed Hastings. He is simply one of many in a long line of corporate billionaire ed-reformers who has made it clear that he’s no friend to public education. This is an article from 2016, but you get the idea…

The Battle of Hastings: What’s Behind the Netflix CEO’s Fight to Charterize Public Schools?

I hope that going forward, both the OUSD board and the Oakland City Council understand the degree of propaganda put forth by those who will stop at nothing to get what they want, including trampling on the rights of the citizens who elected them, regardless of what kind of school their children attend (or not). I will also reiterate that this discussion has nothing to do with Ms. Kean’s clear passion and dedication to Aspire. But everyone who has voted for members of either the OUSD board or the Oakland City Council has a reasonable expectation for democratic representation and should resist any effort to interfere with that representation. Don’t allow CCSA and its backers to erode that responsibility. We have too much of that nonsense going on in the rest of the country already.

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