Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Stuart Egan: A Who’s Who of Privatization in North Carolina

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2018 //
5

 

Inspired by Mercedes Schneider’s monumental documentation of the “reform”  movement, A Chronicle of Echoes, Stuart Egan determined to compile a definitive guide to the privatization movement in North Carolina. 

You will find many familiar names, some of them clearly rightwing, others pretending to be “Democrats.”

You will find Michelle Rhee, giving advice to the Tea Party legislature (bet you thought she had disappeared).

You will run into DFER, pretending to be Democrats.

You will encounter TFA, the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, ALEC, the Walton Family Foundation, 50CAN, and many other familiar names.

The national “reform” movement has landed in North Carolina and found their perfect partners: the Tea Party.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

John Thompson: Oklahoma City Schools Under Siege by Reformers

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2018 //
6

John Thompson, teacher and historian, writes here about the invasion of the privatizers in Oklahoma City.

 

Every January, the start of National School Choice Week marks the beginning of The Oklahoman editorials in support of charter and private school expansion. Given the $16.5 million grant by Betsy DeVos’ Department of Education to the Walton-funded Oklahoma Public School Resource Center, and the state’s charter school conversion law, which allows the state to override school systems that turn down charter applications, this annual event marks the beginning of an increasingly dangerous school privatization season.
https://schoolchoiceweek.com/states/oklahoma/
http://newsok.com/feds-send-16.5m-to-oklahoma-for-charter-schools/article/5565941
This year’s editorials in favor of school choice expansion indicate an even more worrisome assault on public schools is likely. A former Oklahoma City Public School System (OKCPS) board member wants to break the 46,000 student system into an overwhelmingly black district, a predominantly Hispanic district, and a more affluent no-majority district. The most extreme 2018 proposal was recently made by City Councilman David Greenwell. He wants to convert the OKCPS into a city-sponsored charter district!
http://newsok.com/conversation-underway-about-improving-okc-school-district/article/5584577
The Oklahoman subsequently editorialized that the resignation of the OKCPS superintendent, Aurora Lora, illustrates the “sort of churn” that makes it “nearly impossible” to “move the needle” on school improvement for the 85% low-income district. It didn’t mention that Lora is a graduate of the Broad Residency in Urban Education. Neither does it mention the reasons why educators opposed the micromanaging she was taught by Broad, and how Broad sees the cultivation of churn as a feature, not a flaw, of its corporate governance.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/08/20/Local/Graphics/Broadmemos.pdf?tid=a_mcntx
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/broad-foundationsplan-to-expand-influence-in-school-reform/2012/08/20/c118e134-eb0a-11e1-b811-09036bcb182b_blog.html?utm_term=.e00562a71ec5
The editorial called for “truly significant change from the status quo” where “all ideas should at least be considered.” It then buried the lede, “Brent Bushey, head of the Oklahoma Public School Resource Center said his group backs ‘quality options’ for students and that he hopes Greenwell’s comments lead to more talk about more quality options.”
In the disrespected field of education, it isn’t unusual for privatizers, to say that “everything should be on the table.” But, how many Americans would want a Commander in Chief who says he won’t “rule anything in or out” in terms of nuclear confrontations?
Okay, given Donald Trump’s mindset, that’s a touchy metaphor, so let’s use a medical analogy: Would we want a medical system that is free to conduct whatever experiments it wants, or that would institutionalize risky procedures in order to treat certain conditions without a careful study of their unintended consequences? 
The corporate reform Oklahoma Public School Resource Center, and a steady stream of supporters of the so-called “portfolio model” of reform, continue to promote charter expansion. But I’ve yet to hear of a portfolio proponent who would put the inherent dangers of their plan on the table for public discussion. Whether they believe it or not, charter advocates still claim that their schools can serve the “same” kids as neighborhood schools, and that a robust accountability system can somehow prevent the mass exiting of students who make it harder to raise test scores.
I don’t expect true believers in charter portfolios to get into the weeds of school improvement and explain why they could succeed in Oklahoma City with the models that failed in Tennessee, Nevada, and elsewhere, even though our charters would have at least 50% per student less funding than those of other states. Neither do I anticipate an explanation of why Indianapolis’s well-funded “reforms,” that are being marketed for OKC, have produced student performance gains that are the same as the OKCPS “status quo.” But, shouldn’t they acknowledge the downsides of the so-called successes that our business leaders have been hearing promoted in private discussions? Denver is finally admitting that its achievement gap is one of the worst in the nation, and New Orleans and Memphis can’t deny that they are third and first, nationally, in “disconnected youth” or kids out of school, without jobs.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/upshot/a-better-way-to-compare-public-schools.html
https://co.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2015/10/07/report-denver-ranks-last-among-50-cities-on-income-based-achievement-gaps/#.VvHlzhIrK3U
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/04/18/393849058/in-new-orleans-young-lives-adrift
I hope, however, that OKC leaders will ask whether a policy, which is likely to result in thousands of school-aged kids walking the streets during the day, should be “off the table.” I would also hope they would ask why Tulsa’s Deborah Gist, and her team of Broadies, have failed so miserably. Tulsa’s poverty rate is below that of Oklahoma City, and their schools have benefited from huge investments by the Gates Foundation and other national and local edu-philanthropists, but only two urban districts have produced lower test score growth from 3rd to 8th grade. Perhaps we need a conversation about why the test-driven, choice-driven, technocratic model pushed by the Billionaires Boys Club has been such a failure. 
https://www.broadcenter.org/alumni/directory/?fwp_alumni_keyword=tulsa
The cornerstone of accountability-driven, competition-driven corporate reform was once called “earned autonomy.” Now, the basically same concept is pushed with a kinder and gentler spin. The idea is to reward schools that exhibit high test scores with the freedom to offer holistic learning. Regardless of what you call it, the plan is to impose top-down, teach-to-the-test, even scripted instruction, on lower performing schools. The approach is designed to stack the competition between choice and neighborhood schools in favor of charters.
https://www.crpe.org/sites/default/files/Portfolio_components_2.pdf
I want to stress, however, that I support a public conversation. After I wrote a rebuttal to the former OKCPS board member seeking to break up the system, he and I have had a couple of hours of discussions. He doesn’t want more segregation but he’s tired of the micromanaging. We both want more site based management. After all, most educators and stakeholders who I know are tired of the social engineering imposed by Broadies.
http://newsok.com/former-teacher-lets-not-divide-okc-schools/article/5583744
But the conversation must follow the principle of, “First, Do No Harm.” We must not treat our children like lab rats. All win-win policies should be on the table, but we shouldn’t contemplate discredited theories such as earned autonomy, which actually means earned dignity, that may benefit some while severely damaging other students. For instance, do we really want to repeat the all-charter NOLA experiment if it means that 18% of young people will be out of school and out of the workforce? Should advocates be empowered to deny autonomy to schools they are competing with? Should today’s well-funded market-driven activists be empowered to permanently privatize our future children’s public education system? 
OKCPS board spends hours on process to define goals
Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Oklahoma, Privatization

Tom Ultican: A Dummies’ Guide to the Destroy Public Education Movement

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2018 //
26

 

Retired teacher of physics and math Tom Ultican gathered together a concise summary of the efforts to destroy and privatize public education.

“America’s public education system is being deliberately destroyed. If you graduated from high school in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s or 80’s, it is such an unthinkable concept that it is difficult to even imagine. Not only is it possible, it is happening and a lot of damage has already occurred.

“Just this morning, I learned that a Republican legislator has proposed privatizing all the schools in Muncie, Indiana. Almost all the schools in New Orleans were privatized after hurricane Katrina. Half the schools in Washington DC and a quarter of the schools in Los Angeles are privatized. However, ninety percent of America’s K-12 students attend public schools. (Note: Charter schools are not public schools, they are schools run by private businesses that have government contracts.)”

The foundational lie of the Destroy Public Education Movement is that our public schools are failing. Add to the lie that unions block reform; that “bad teachers” abound in our schools; that great teachers need only five weeks of training; that money doesn’t matter; that choice solves all problems; that the best Wat to fix schools is to close them.

You know the drill.

Very Stupid.

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

North Carolina: NPE Action Endorses Educator Challenging Most Powerful Politician

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2018 //
7

 

Jennifer Mangrum is one courageous woman. She is challenging Phil Berger, the far-right leader of the North Carolina State Senate. Berger has harassed teachers and passed laws to authorize charters, for-profit charters, online charters and vouchers. It is not an overstatement to say that Senator Phil Berger hates public schools and their teachers.

The Network for Public Education Action Fund has endorsed Mangrum. Mangrum has 12 years of experience as a classroom teacher. She is currently a professor of education at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.

If every public school parent and every graduate of a public school voted for Mangrum, she would oust the worst legislator in the state.

VOTE!!!

VOTE FOR JENNIFER MANGRUM!

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, North Carolina, Privatization

Oklahoma City: Councilman Proposes to Privatize Entire City School District

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2018 //
19

This is how you can spot a corporate education reformer: They don’t like democracy. They don’t like elected school boards. They think the private sector knows best.

In Oklahoma City, a member of the City Council has proposed turning the entire school district-the state’s largest–over to the city, which can then convert it to an all-charter district. The heart of the matter is to eliminate the elected school board and turn the reins of the district over to the business leaders and entrepreneurs. The new mayor-elect is intrigued, because the proposal puts him in the driver’s seat. Yet there is zero evidence that mayoral control solves any pressing problems: See, Chicago.

Have they learned nothing from the big flop of the all-charter Achievement School District in Tennessee and Nevada? Have they swallowed the myth of New Orleans?

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

Oakland Parent: Leave Our Public Schools Alone!

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2018 //
13

 

The Broad Foundation, elected by no one, has been experimenting on the Oakland, California, public schools for a decade or more. Its goal is to get rid of all democratic governance and privatize all the schools. It has not closed the achievement gap or reached any of its goals.

Oakland public school parent Jane Nylund describes the reform plan in Oakland (whose last Superintendent Antwan Wilson bailed out after adding administrative bloat and became chancellor of the D.C. schools, then resigned in D.C. after trying to transfer his daughter into a coveted school, violating the lottery plan he authored.)

Nylund writes:

“It is with disappointment, but not surprise, to find out that our community is still being used as a mouthpiece via CRPE [Center for Reinventing Public Education] and other reform groups, to come up with a narrative that will make it more palatable to sell school closure to the public. This narrative, which is being communicated to the public via the Blueprint committee, is lockstep with the plans that CRPE and others have put in place to continue the expansion of charter schools in Oakland and elsewhere in the Bay Area. If there was any doubt as to what the grand plan is, you can read all about it in this report. CRPE makes no effort to hide it, but it’s still a major disappointment to once again find that our community is being used as “engagement” pawns in the charter expansion game.

“From Center for Reinventing Public Education:

https://www.crpe.org/publications/slowdown-bay-area-charter-school-growth-causes-solutions

[It says:] “Ultimately, the growth of charters will be fundamentally constrained as long as districts fail to consolidate or close underenrolled district schools. Serious attention needs to go into developing a strategy that requires or incentivizes these actions and provides political backing to district and board officials who are trying to make these adjustments.” [End quote]

“High level: the Bay Area is saturated with charters, there aren’t any more reasonably priced facilities, so what is a charter operator to do? The added complication in Oakland is its “toxic local politics.” Meaning, this community won’t go down the primrose path willingly, so the district has to sugarcoat it. A lot.

“Step 1-Come up with a survey that isn’t really a survey. It’s a way to steer respondents into answering questions that favor school closure/consolidation

“I read it and was amazed by the complete lack of any sort of objectivity. This “survey” needs to be called out for what it is-a method to “engage” an unsuspecting public for buy-in to justify more disruption in the district to close/consolidate schools. It is not a real survey; it’s full of biased, leading questions-who wouldn’t want safe, supported schools? But then, once the data is collected and put out in the media, the district uses that completely biased information to justify their decisions. “Well, it’s not our fault we closed your school and opened a charter in its place-it’s what you said you wanted on the survey”. If the district’s plan is to disrupt the district even more than they have in the past, then they need to own that decision and stop using the public this way. It’s unconscionable, but it seems that is the usual method.

“Slide 8 is my favorite. Respondents were asked several questions about changing school sizes/consolidation; the questions didn’t get much support. But, just to make sure that the district could turn those non-supporters into supporters, they added a survey choice “Potentially support based on the outcomes of local engagement”. To the respondent, that’s a definite maybe-or-maybe-not response, but the district captures the “potential support” as actual support, combines the two positive numbers together, and lo and behold, now everyone supports school closure/consolidation, even the non-supporters. It’s all good! And these numbers will be repeated over, and over, and over….

“Slide 16 is another good one. It concerns sizes of elementary schools. There is this random quote on the slide that has nothing to do with the data presented on the slide:

“OUSD does not perform better than the identified peers with minority students using 2017 CA School Dashboard data”

“Meaning what? The subliminal message is that OUSD doesn’t do a good job having these smaller elementary schools/classes (shown on the slide), so we don’t need them. Terrible example of overreach and causation which doesn’t exist. Don’t fall for it.

“Step 2-Use a Broad-trained employee to create an enrollment model

“I know, right? This isn’t going to end well.

“Step 3-Use data to generate a list of “peer” districts that will determine some kind of random school size target, with no thought as to whether those sizes are what works for Oakland

“Generate a benchmark? This one is so far out there in terms of random data crunching that I don’t know where to begin. For starters, the peer list did not include West Contra Costa, a local district that is nearly a perfect match to our own. The fact that West Contra Costa didn’t make the list makes me question the criteria was used to generate it. Again, keep you eyes on the target and your seat backs and tray tables in the full and upright position. So someone pulls together a peer list of schools (LA Unified? With 400,000+ students? Not our peer) and comes up with some sort of average school size that OUSD should meet. Why? If logic dictates, then it goes without saying that these peer districts must be full service districts with wraparound services. Remember, that’s what’s being sold to the community. Reach the size of the peer district, and that’s what you will have.

“Wrong. In small type, the author does concur that “The above is based only on peer benchmarking; peers may or may not have quality community schools.”

“Again, go back to the quote at the beginning of the message. Does CRPE say anything about full service community schools? No, of course not. It’s about charter expansion and getting tasty real estate by the Lake. It’s always been about that.

“Turn this entire exercise on its head. Maybe those peer districts want to have full services. Maybe they want smaller class sizes like we have in Oakland. But due to all kinds of constraints, like funding, they can’t have these things. So why would OUSD want to match these peer districts? LA Unified and San Diego Unified are both going broke. Oh, right, so is OUSD.

“Step 4-Use inappropriate districts in your peer list to make it look like Oakland doesn’t perform as well as its “peers”, and therefore it’s okay to have larger class sizes, just like their “peers”

“Don’t use districts like SF Unified as a peer. They might be our neighbor, but their FRPL is around 56%. OUSD is about 74%. Not the same. But adding wealthier districts to the peer list creates the narrative that Oakland doesn’t perform as well as their peers (with the bigger schools/class sizes). Wealth generates higher test scores.

“An analogy would be, “Well, we give all of our Oakland kids breakfast but only half the kids in a wealthier district get breakfast. Our kids don’t seem to be performing better than those other kids, so therefore we should take our kids’ breakfast away.” Seriously.

“Step 5-Come up with a breakeven enrollment model that uses teachers’ salaries as variable costs. Huh?

“I’m not an accountant, but I do have an MBA. I was taught that generally salaries are considered fixed costs, at least in the short run. Teachers don’t get paid by the hour, or by how any widgets they make. They get paid the same whether they teach ten kids or thirty. Variable costs are things like books and food. So what’s up with using a model that treats teachers like books or food?

“Well, turns out there is a model for that very concept. It comes from the Friedman Foundation, another ed reform group which espouses Milton Friedman’s dream of sending kids to private schools through vouchers. In order to justify the cost of using a voucher (and thus taking that money away from public schools), the group has espoused the idea that teachers themselves are, in fact, a short term variable cost of doing business, and not fixed. Like supplies or pizza workers. In other words, Friedman’s model assumes that we have a ready supply of teachers of all sorts, experienced, certified, that we can tap into and hire and lay off at will at any time. It also assumes that all that hiring/firing in no way will cause any kind of disruption and impact to learning. Oh, and it won’t increase class size, either. Maybe in some other parallel universe. So by treating teachers as variable costs, the Friedman group can now advocate for a larger dollar amount of the voucher by claiming that the voucher covers only the variable cost portion of educating the child. Which according to them, includes books, food, and teachers. If they left the teacher portion out of that voucher, it would be a lot smaller.

“If teachers’ salaries were treated as variable costs in the breakeven calculation, I have to question the entire validity of the model. Maybe the answer would be the same, but it’s difficult for me to accept cost assumptions pattered after a reform group that wants to take my tax dollars (and yours) and give it to a student to attend a school that teaches that man and dinosaurs lived together. That’s just not cool with me.

“Step 6-deal with community pushback by dangling a carrot, that really turns out to be a stick
What to do when you need to convince the community that a bad idea is really a good idea? Easy. Use their emotional buy-in to support full-service community schools. And then, gently explain to them that in order to provide these services, we must close schools. That’s exactly what the survey did. Then, as if by magic, millions of dollars will appear that the district will use thoughtfully and responsibly to fund these programs. That is the predetermined outcome that the survey was after, and that’s what they got. Sounds great, right?

“Right, only it’s magical thinking. See CRPE quote at the beginning of this email if you’re not convinced. Closing schools does one thing: allows another charter to move into the building (gotta have more!). The last 19 school closures resulted in 15 charters opening. OUSD enrollment drops (think charter expansion), millions of dollars leave the district, and all those purported savings go up in smoke. No money for programs. Not going to happen. But, CRPE gets what it wants, as do the local charter operators, who by their own admission, desperately want to expand. Because we don’t have enough schools as it is. Or do we? Hey, it’s the free market at its finest. What could possibly go wrong?”

 

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

Bill Phillis: Gubernatorial Candidates Pledge to Repeal Anti-Democratic Youngstown Plan

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2018 //
1

 

”The Youngstown Plan” was cooked up by corporate elites to strip democratic control from the people of the city and privatize their schools without their consent.

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy writes:

“ The “Youngstown Plan” (HB 70) catches the attention of gubernatorial candidates

“Dennis Kucinich and Joe Schiavoni agree the legislation that removes boards of education from operation of school districts (HB 70) is bad public policy. Senator Joe Schiavoni has opposed HB 70 beginning with its morally-defective process of formulation, and passage. Dennis Kucinich proposes the repeal of this legislation.

“Not even the State Board of Education members were aware of this game-changing public policy until after the Governor signed the bill. This stealthy policy proposal became law in less than 24 hours after its introduction.

“Readers may recall the current Governor and the past Superintendent of Public Instruction; along with a half dozen or so Youngstown area folks, crafted this anti-democratic policy in dark underground chambers in the Mahoning Valley-away from public view.

“Now the boards of education for Youngstown and Lorain have been stripped of their rights to operate their respective districts.”

It is up to the voters of Ohio to stop this theft of democracy.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Ohio, Privatization

The Implosion of Families for Excellent Schools, Phony from the Start

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2018 //
21

This is what you must read to understand how the richest and most powerful charter advocacy group imploded. It pretended to be the voice of powerless black and Hispanic families. It was the Waltons, the Broads, and assorted financiers. The ostensible cause for its demise was the licentious behavior of its founder and CEO, who apparently had multiple hookups with staff members and then made lewd comments to a non-staff member at the education reform Philos meeting. That was the end for him, and the organization collapsed too.

  1. Chalkbeat reports. Key in this account is that other charter leaders were disgusted by Eva’s hardball tactics. It worked for her but embarrassed the others. What the Chalkbeat story leaves out is the importance of the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars that the financiers were giving to Cuomo’s re-election campaign. So, organizing the kids, their parents and teachers by the thousands, hiring buses, staging a march, and waging a political campaign using the children as props was a speciality of FES. No real public school could do that; it would be illegal. But the money to Cuomo was even more persuasive in building the appearance of a “movement.”
  2. Mercedes Schneider reports, A deep dive into data. Her specialty.
Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Peter Greene: Center for American Progress Calls for Doubling Down on Failed Reforms

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2018 //
44

 

During the Obama years, the Center for American Progress reliably cheered on the administration’s education policies. As one after another failed, CAP never backed down. Charter schools good. Closing schools good. Common Core great. Despite the convergence of evidence that these policies did not work, that they destabilized fragile urban neighborhoods, that they demoralized teachers and created shortages, CAP never wavered.

As Peter Greene shows in this post, the CAP has learned nothing from the past 15 years of failed reforms. They are still pushing policy ideas cribbed from the GOP.

They still are pushing state takeovers and turnarounds.

He writes:

”And what example do folks who support takeovers and turnarounds like to cite? Of course, it’s New Orleans. Do we really have to get into all the ways that the privatization of the New Orleans school system is less than a resounding success? Or let’s discus the Tennessee experiment in a recovery school district, in which the state promised to turn the bottom five percent into the top schools in the state, and they utterly failed. As in, the guy charged with making it happened gave up and admitted that it was way harder than he thought it would be, failed.

“The whole premise of a state takeover is that somebody in the state capital somehow knows more about how to make a school work than the people who work there (or, in most cases, can hire some guy who knows because he graduated from an ivy league school and spent two years in a classroom once). The takeover model still holds onto a premise that many reformsters, to their credit, have moved past: that trained professional educators who have devoted their adult lives to working in schools– those people are the whole problem. It’s insulting, it’s stupid, and it’s a great way to let some folks off the hook, like, say, the policy makers who consistently underfund some schools.

“Most importantly, at this point, there isn’t a lick of evidence that it works.

“We have the results of the School Improvement Grants used by the Obama administration to “fix” schools, and the results were that SIG didn’t accomplish anything (other than, I suppose, keeping a bunch of consultants well-paid). SIG also did damage because it allowed the current administration and their ilk to say, “See? Throwing money at schools doesn’t help.” But the real lesson of SIG, which came with very specific Fix Your School instructions attached, was that when the state or federal government try to tell a local school district exactly how things should be fixed, instead of listening to the people who live and work there, nothing gets better. That same fundamental flaw is part of the DNA of the takeover/turnaround approach.

“But CAP is excited about ESSA because some states have included this model in their plan. So, yay.”

Worst of all, CAP ends it’s paean to ESSA by linking to a paper produced by a Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change.

If proof is needed of a mind meld between “centrist” Democrats and free-market, DeVos-style Republicans, This is it.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Common Core, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Education Industry, Privatization, Stupid, Turnaround

Louisville: Takeover by Secretive Group of the Elite?

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2018 //
8

 

Parents and education activists in Louisville are very upset about a quiet coup taking place behind closed door. A group of about 80 of the city’s business leaders has been meeting to decide how to solve the city’s problems, and one of them is the public schools. Needless to say, they do not trust democracy and are looking to the Republican leadership in the state to take over. The elitists are called LA SCALA, “the Steering Committee for Action on Louisville’s Agenda.” Others call them the Louminati, a reference to the Illuminati, a secretive group of power brokers.

Here is a summary:

Comedy, Tragedy at La SCALA
…behind the curtain of powerbrokers’ group

By Chris Kolb 

La Scala theater in Milan was founded by the Empress Maria Theresa and paid for by 90 wealthy Italians in exchange for luxurious boxes where they could enjoy the world’s finest artistic performances, including comic and tragic operas.

There is much about Louisville’s own SCALA that is comic. For instance, David Jones — Elder and Younger — and 70 of the most wealthy people in town have been brainstorming for months about how to solve all our problems. Here’s what they came up with: a Wal-Mart in West Louisville, more direct flights to the coasts and giving our barely functioning state government control over our schools.

In a city with over 100 homicides in 2017, more than 6,000 homeless children in public schools, and horrible air quality — to name a few bleak realities — what really makes Elder Jones see red is low-income citizens coming together to ask Wal-Mart to make a few minor changes to its proposed store design. I suspect Jones isn’t really upset about Wal-Mart but about normal people taking collective action to challenge corporate power. Imagine the hit to the pocketbook he might take if we all came together to fight for quality, affordable healthcare. Elder Jones also brought together Louisville’s self-professed powerbrokers to address the humanitarian crisis of the layovers he has to endure when flying to California wine country for the weekend. Satire really does write itself sometimes.

And then we come to education, which is where comic blends into tragic. Like Macbeth spurred on by his wife who is willing to throw all of Scotland into chaos in the naked pursuit of power, Younger Jones — spurred on by his father — is willing to throw our public schools and our children’s lives into the roiling tempest that is Kentucky state government. This is the same government that is unlikely to even pass a budget, has no current House Speaker due to a sex scandal, and has a governor so blinded by hatred of public schools that he tries to change the laws of mathematics to challenge the fiscal qualifications of the democratically-elected School Board. There’s a reason we continue to perform classics such as Macbeth: We remain plagued by a power-hungry nobility who will sacrifice the common good in seeking to rule over us plebeians.

Returning to comedy, Jones the Younger’s logic for a state takeover of JCPS is reminiscent of Sigmund Freud’s case of the man accused of damaging a kettle he borrowed from his neighbor. The man gives three reasons he is not responsible for the damage: He returned the kettle undamaged; it was already damaged when he borrowed it; and he had never borrowed the kettle at all. By completely contradicting each other the three reasons reveal the truth: It was indeed the neighbor who damaged the kettle.

Likewise, Younger Jones first says that academic achievement is largely determined by where you live, how much money your parents make and your race. I’m not optimistic that this state government is going to end segregation, poverty and institutional racism in Louisville if it takes over JCPS.

Second, Jones says that SCALA members are concerned about education from a workforce perspective. Is the real issue that corporate heads want more worker bees to generate additional wealth for them to capture (while wages remain stagnant)?

Third, Jones says the real problem is that state laws make it difficult for school boards to govern. I’ve been on the School Board for 13 months and, while there are always bureaucratic annoyances in any organization, we’ve been able to make significant progress in that short time. This includes cleaning up the many messes left by the Jones-Hargens-Hudson trio.

Like the neighbor who gave contradictory reasons for the damaged kettle, Younger Jones accidentally reveals the truth in blaming everything but himself: Jones found JCPS ungovernable because Jones himself is very bad at governing. We shouldn’t really be surprised. Many among the wealthy are used to making colossal messes, refusing to accept responsibility, and leaving the clean up to others. The ancient Greeks gave us a word for this level of arrogance so astounding it offends the gods themselves: hubris.

Thankfully, my colleagues and I have made tremendous strides to clean up the mess. Though much work remains, we will soon be able to turn our full attention to ensuring that every child has access to innovative, meaningful, challenging, and rewarding learning and professional experiences no matter their zip code, race, gender or native country. Anytime Louisville’s nobility wants to actually assist JCPS, I’d be happy to help them find ways to do so. Of course, first they’d have to invite at least one public education professional to a secret SCALA meeting, which doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon. •

Chris Kolb represents District 2 on the Jefferson County Public Schools Board of Education and is a professor of anthropology and urban studies at Spalding University. He may be reached at: chris@kolbforschoolboard.com

The article is followed by one defending LA SCALA as a perfectly appropriate exercise of civic duty.

It’s important to appreciate how SCALA began — not in some diabolical, smoke-filled vault as our critics would suggest, but with PNC Bank President Chuck Denny and Humana cofounder David Jones, Sr. seeing the need for such a group here in Louisville. They began the process of forming SCALA by hosting a group of 12 business and religious leaders in March 2017 and asking them if they believed such a group should exist in Louisville. The response was unanimous, and the 12 attendees were tasked with informally nominating other potential members who were either CEOs or the lead decision maker within their organizations.

The organizational meeting of the larger group was held in April 2017 and the committee members were charged with listing what they personally believed are the top issues facing Louisville needing to be addressed, with the top responses being education, public safety, improved and increased non-stop commercial air service, pension reform, and tax reform. Subcommittees were formed, and members were invited to participate in various subcommittees or simply participate in the broader committee by learning more about the critical issues impacting our community.

Here is the bottom line: If the purpose of LA SCALA is to eliminate democratic control of public schools, then it deserves all the opprobrium directed its way. If it instead opposes privatization and lobbies the Legislature for greater resources and stronger public schools, then it is a civic boon. The decision belongs to LA SCALA. Stand with democracy or against it. Your choice.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Kentucky, Louisville, Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »