Archives for category: Democrats
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Mike Klonsky: Voucher Deal Shows Democrats Stand for Nothing

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2017 //
68

Mike Klonsky assesses the Illinois funding bill, which set aside for $75 million for vouchers, and declares it is a total sell–out by Democrats.

http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2017/08/il-voucher-vote-reversal-shows-dems.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+mikeklonsky+(SmallTalk)&m=1

“The passage of the IL school funding bill, which included $75M for private school vouchers, is being hailed as a “model of bi-partisanship” and “compromise” by both Gov. Rauner and Speaker Madigan. It was neither. It was instead, an exercise in duplicity on the part of state Democrats and a lifeline for a Republican governor who had become totally isolated and ripe for a 2018 election defeat after his initial veto of the same school funding bill.

“Democrats demonstrated once again that they’re a party that stands for nothing and that their campaign slogan of a “Better Deal” as opposed to resistance, is little more than a call for more opportunism. It’s a recipe for disaster in the upcoming elections where Republicans shouldn’t have a leg to stand on.”

The die was cast, writes Mike, after Rahm met with the local Cardinal and with DeVos.

“There was no “compromise” to be made since the voucher deal between Chicago’s mayor and Cardinal Cupich, had been in the works for months, specifically since Rahm’s closed door meeting with Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos back in April. Monday’s two House votes were mere Madigan-choreographed theater.”

Categories Democrats, Education Reform, Funding, Illinois

Jeff Bryant Interviews Becky Pringle of NEA on the Disillusionment of Progressives Re Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2017 //
22

Those of you who read this blog regularly have often read insightful articles by Jeff Bryant of the Education Opportunity Network.

In this post, Jeff interviews Becky Pringle of the NEA about charters, vouchers, and other efforts to withdraw support from public schools. They were both at Netroots, a gathering of politically active progressives.

Are progressives waking up to the dangers of privatization?

In the Democratic primary in Georgia, a candidate who supported the creation of an “opportunity district” was scorned by fellow Democrats. In Virginia, a Democratic candidate who had been pals with prominent charter supporters lost the primary for governor.

Read the article and listen to the podcast.

Jeff begins like this:

Every year Netroots Nation is arguably the most important annual event in the progressive community and a barometer of what’s on the minds of “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.” At this year’s event in Atlanta, the headline-making happening was Democratic primary candidate for Georgia governor Rep. Stacey Evans being shouted down by protestors holding signs saying, “Stacey Evans = Betsy DeVos,” “School Vouchers ≠ Progressive,” and “Trust Black Women” (Evans’ opponent in the primary is Georgia Rep. Stacey Abrams, who is African American.)

Protesters circulated leaflets comparing Evan’s past votes on education-related bills to positions DeVos espouses. This included her support for a constitutional amendment in 2015 that would allow the state to convert public schools to charter school management, her support for a “Parent Trigger” that would allow petition drives to convert public schools to charters, and her support of a school voucher program.

Message: Progressives support public schools, not charters or vouchers. If ALEC supports it, it is not progressive.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Democrats, Education Industry, Privatization

A Message to the Democratic National Committee

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2017 //
49

I support individual candidates I believe in. I do not send money to the DNC. I often get emails asking which topic concerns me most, listing a dozen topics but not K-12 education (free college is usually on the list). I write back and say, “Not a dime until you support public schools and oppose privatization.”

A reader posted this comment:

“In the year running up to the POTUS election I received a call almost daily from the DNC about Dems taking back the Senate, or winning NC for Hillary, or the evil republicans (a point I have been well aware of for 50 yrs). I told them I was not sending one dime to the DNC for 1 reason: Arne Duncan. Several volunteers said they’d heard the same from other people.

“You would think the DNC would have listened to their most loyal voters as they lost state house after state house to Republicans (the count is now 32 states in Republican control).

“Instead the DNC abandoned us.They thought they could helicopter in at the last min & win the election. After all, in their mind we had “nowhere else to go” (from Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal!).

“After Devos was appointed, Arne Duncan tweeted “Miss me now?” That tells me all I need to know about the DNC.”

Categories Charter Schools, Democrats, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Privatization

Jeff Bryant: The Democrats’ Growing Divide and Confusion Over “Reform”

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2017 //
53

Jeff Bryant assesses the confusion within the Democratic party over “education reform.”

Some Democrats (too few) have realized that preservation of public schools are part of the party’s fundamental agenda. Others (like New York Governor Cuomo, Colorado’s Congressman Jared Polis, and Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy have embraced charter schools and other parts of the rightwing agenda).

The bottom line, however, is that teachers in public schools and union members can’t be expected to turn out to vote for politicians, regardless of their party, who share the agenda of Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump.

So, no matter how uncomfortable it may be for elected officials like Cuomo to acknowledge, their advocacy for charter schools mirrors the views of ALEC, the anti-union Walton family, the Koch brothers, and DeVos.

Trump said that there are “many sides” to the events in Charlottesville. Charter advocates would have us believe that privately managed schools should be embraced by Democrats; they would have us forget that more than 90% of charters are non-union.

The reality is that public school teachers and their unions are a core element of the Democratic party base. If the Democrats abandon their base, they can’t win elections. The hedge fund managers may fund their campaigns, but they can’t turn out the vote.

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

The New Republic: DeVos Is Making “School Choice” Toxic for Democrats

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2017 //
48

Graham Vyse, an editor at The New Republic, shows how Betsy DeVos has created a fissure within the Democratic party over school choice.

By her passionate advocacy for charters, vouchers, and every other alternative to public schools, she has put pro-school choice Democrats like Cory Booker into a bind. Booker has vociferously supported both charters and vouchers, yet as a Democrat with hopes for the future, felt compelled to vote against DeVos. It is somewhat amusing to watch him and others try to put distance between themselves and DeVos when she is carrying out the same ideas they have publicly espoused. Any Democrat who is aligned with DeVos on any part of her repugnant agenda should change parties.

“The ground definitely is more fertile,” said Preston Green, an education professor at the University of Connecticut. “I think President Trump’s support of choice does make it difficult. It might make people think twice about it, and especially DeVos’s selling of it…. You’re definitely starting to see a shift.” Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s education agenda and criticism from civil rights groups “might have made it easier for those who oppose charters to oppose them more vociferously.”

Brookings Institution fellow Jon Valant made a similar case in February, writing that “the Trump administration’s support of charters and choice may be distracting from—and contributing to—an emerging political threat to school choice programs, especially charter schools: renewed skepticism from Democrats.” In other words, with her extremist position on school choice, DeVos may be harming the very movement she helped build.

The recent report by the NAACP calling for regulation of charter schools is another straw in the wind, a very large straw, suggesting that the Democrats’ embrace of school choice is politically hazardous.

DeVos is a gift to those of us who have warned for years that privately managed charters is a decisive victory for privatization and a significant step away from democratically controlled public education.

The message of her tenure in office is that school choice is a radical rightwing strategy that defunds public schools.

She gives Democrats a new opportunity to separate themselves from the favorite cause of the Walton family, the Koch brothers, and the Republican party.

As the recent Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia showed, candidates who support public schools without qualification can energize their base of teachers and parents. Democrats who favor any form of privatization will be unable to call upon that base.

If Democrats hope to win back a significant share of House seats in the 2018 election, they must put support for public schools at the top of their agenda. That’s where the voters are.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Democrats, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Jeff Bryant: Why Democrats Should Unite For a Charter Moratorium

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2017 //
75

Jeff Bryant argues cogently in this article that Democrats should unite on behalf of a charter school moratorium.

If the Democratic party wants to revive its base–labor and civil rights–it should heed Jeff’s sound advice.

Charters and school choice were never a natural fit with the public philosophy of the Denocratic party, which recognized the power of government to advance the common good, because charters are typically non-union, typically more segregated than the district they are in, and are aligned with the privatizing philosophy of the Republican Party.

It is passing strange to see any Democrat lending support to a policy championed by Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, the Walton family, the Koch brothers, and every Republican governor.

Read the entire article. Here is an excerpt:

“Democrats know that success for their party relies on bringing labor and civil rights advocates together on key issues.

“Faced with disastrous Donald Trump, labor and civil rights advocates are rallying in common cause behind health care for all, a living wage for every worker, a tax system where the wealthy pay their fair share, tuition-free college, and an end to senseless, never-ending wars.

“Here’s another rallying point labor and civil rights agree on: A moratorium on charter schools.

“This week, the nation’s largest labor union, the National Education Association, broke from its cautious regard of charter schools to pass a new policy statement that declares charter schools are a “failed experiment” that has led to a “separate and unequal” sector of schools that are not subject to the same “safeguards and standards” of public schools.

“To limit the further expansion of these schools, the NEA wants a moratorium on new charters that aren’t subject to democratic governance and aren’t supportive of the common good in local communities.

“The NEA’s action echoes a resolution passed earlier this year by the national NAACP calling for a moratorium on the expansion of charters and for stronger oversight of these schools. These declarations also align with a policy statement issued last year by the Movement for Black Lives, a network Black Lives Matter organizers, calling for a moratorium on charter schools.

“Now that labor and civil rights groups have come together in a unified call for a moratorium on these unregulated, privately-operated schools, prominent leaders in the Democratic party can champion this issue knowing they have a grassroots constituency that supports them.

“Democrats in states where charters have been the most controversial – such as Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California – should be especially interested in leading on this issue for a number of reasons.

“A Shared Concern For Basic Rights

“First, in most communities, unregulated charters are segregating students and undermining democratically governed public institutions.

“In their calls for a charter school moratorium, NEA, NAACP, and the Movement for Black Lives express a basic concern that these privately-operated schools are not subject to the same legal constraints as other public institutions, including federal and state laws and protections for students with disabilities, minorities, and school employees.

“The statements share a belief that charter schools have become counter-productive to a school system intent on serving the needs and interests of all students, and they argue that charters are reversing the progress achieved by civil rights milestones like the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.

“All three organizations maintain that charter schools, as currently conceived, undermine local public schools, particularly those that are in communities that are already marginalized by racial prejudice and economic inequities. These organizations insist that charters must not be financially supported at the expense of local schools.

“Each statement shares the concern that charter schools are not subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools, and they argue that making charters subject to a democratically elected local authority is the way to bring these schools back in line with responsible governance.

“Charters: An Idea Gone Awry

“In a press release announcing its new charter school policy, the NEA declares that charter schools have evolved far from their original intent to serve local communities as “incubators of innovation” and have instead become a force undermining local schools “without producing any overall increase in student learning and growth.”

“NEA’s contention that charter schools are an idea gone awry has widely held support.”

“The original vision of charter schools as laboratory schools, where teachers would have a stronger voice, has evolved to a more politically conservative vision that views charters as competitors of public schools in a market where only the schools with greater advantages can survive.”

Categories Charter Schools, Democrats, Education Industry, Privatization

Lesson from Virginia: Real Democrats Support Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2017 //
50

Rachel Levy, a mother and public school activist in Virginia, explains here the lesson of the recent Democratic campaign for governor: Real Democrats support public schools.

http://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/as-democrats-struggle-to-find-their-footing-in-the-trump-era/

Dr. Ralph Northam, Lt. Governor, was a strong supporter of public schools. He won the support of the Virginia Education Association and public school allies across the state.

Tom Perriello had the support of veterans of the Obama administration, Elizabeth Earren, and Bernie Sanders. He also had ties in the past with DFER.

Northam won handily.

Will the national Democratic Party get the message?

Real Democrats support public schools, teachers, and unions. Real Democrats do not support charter schools, high-stakes testing, VAM, or privatization of public schools by charter.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, DFER, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Mark Naison: How the Democratic Party Fatally Damaged Itself by Attacking Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2017 //
81

Mark Naison and I agree. When the Democratic Party joined the campaign to impose high-stakes testing, accountability, and privatization, it attacked a key element of its own base. He says it began with Bill Clinton’s advocacy for standards, testing, and accountability. Then, the Democrats threw their support behind George W. Bush’s disastrous No Child Left Behind. Then Obama brought in Arne Duncan to bribe the states with $5 billion for the disastrous Race to the Top program, which demoralized teachers, made them scapegoats, and closed thousands of schools in impoverished communities while favoring privately managed charter schools. I argued in The New Republic that the Democratic Party paved the way for Betsy DeVos and her crusade to replace public schools with anything other than public schools. Charters under private management are the gateway drug leading to vouchers to replace public schools.

Mark wrote that Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

He writes:

Ever since the Clinton Presidency, the Democratic Party has been an advocate of top-down school reforms whose goal has been to make the nation more economically competitive and reduce inequality. Not only have these policies failed to achieve their stated objectives, they have destabilized communities where Democrats have traditionally found support, created widespread distress among teachers and parents, and given credence to the conservative critique of the DP as the province of technocratic elites who impose policies on people without really listening to them

Every Democratic politician who has promoted the following education policies, I would argue, has been complicit in the Party’s decline

1. Promotion of national testing and test based accountability standards for public schools.

2. Closing of schools which are deemed “failing” and removal of their teachers and administrators.

3. Preference for charter schools over public schools, especially in high poverty areas.

4. Support for programs like Teach for America which de-professionalize the teaching profession.
These four principles have been pillars of the Democratic Party’s education policies on a national level, pushed by President Obama and supported by virtually every major Democratic politician in the nation including figures on the left of the Democratic Party such as Elizabeth Warren, Patti Murray and Al Franken.

What have been the results of these policies?:

1. They have inspired a national parents revolt against excessive testing

2. They have produced a sharp decline in teacher morale and inspired the creation of teacher activist groups like Save Our Schools, BATS, and the Network for Public Education

3. They have promoted an mass exodus of the most talented veteran teachers and led to a sharp decline in the percentage of Black teachers in cities like Chicago, New Orleans, Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where teacher temps from programs like Teach for America have become the predominant labor force in the newly created charter schools.

4. They have accelerated the gentrification of the nation’s major cities and diluted the political power of working class people, immigrants and people of color.

5, The have accelerated the shrinking of the Black and Latino middle class, and the weakening of the nation’s unions.

If you are looking for an explanation of why the power of the Democratic Party has declined sharply in a state and local level during the past eight years, the promotion of these disastrous education policies has to be part of the explanation.

No better example can be found of the Party’s adherence to the voice of billionaire contributors and technocrats over its traditional constituency into working class and middle class Americans than its disastrous foray into School Reform.

And unfortunately, the current leadership of the Democratic Party shows no willingness or ability to change course on these issues

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing

Scott Sargrad: Invest in Public Schools, Not Vouchers

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2017 //
14

Scott Sargrad is in charge of K-12 education policy at the Center for American Policy. CAP has been one of the leading advocates for privately managed charters. This article explains in lucid prose why vouchers are a terrible strategy and how they actually harm most children who use them. He could have written the same article about charters, which suck money and top students away from public schools and weaken the very schools we should be helping.

He writes that no matter how many anecdotes you hear about vouchers, the bottom line is they they are a bad bet:

“But if our goal as a country is to provide an excellent education for every child, private school voucher schemes that send taxpayer dollars away from public schools and into private schools are too risky a gamble…

“It’s worth pausing for a moment to examine just how stunning the results of these studies are. In Indiana and the District of Columbia, students receiving vouchers actually moved backward in math, and made no progress in reading. In both Ohio and Louisiana, the students did significantly worse in both reading and math compared to their peers who remained in public schools – with students in Louisiana moving from the 50th percentile to the 34th percentile in math after just one year.

“And despite frequent claims that parents are happier after using a voucher, the evaluation of the District of Columbia program found no impact on parent or student satisfaction or parent involvement. (To be fair, the study found that parents perceived their private schools as safer – although the students did not.)

“It might be tempting to consider allowing for small, limited voucher programs that are carefully targeted to the neediest students and include important civil rights, antidiscrimination and transparency protections. Unfortunately, history shows clearly that this is never the case. Some of the biggest supporters of vouchers – including Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos – are explicitly against these kinds of protections, casting them as over-regulation that limits choice.

“In fact, voucher programs often start small – such as targeting students with disabilities or families with lower incomes. Then proponents slowly but surely expand eligibility to all students and raise or eliminate income caps. Eventually, students using vouchers are those who have never enrolled in a public school, and increased spending on voucher programs leads to budget crunches that could harm public schools.

“Of course, public schools are not perfect – not even close. That’s why instead of directing taxpayer dollars to private school voucher schemes, states and the federal government should be investing public money in improving public schools.”

He goes on to encourage choice within public schools, including charters, but surely he knows that charters are as discriminatory as voucher schools and just as likely to be corrupt because of the typical absence of oversight or accountability. The “effective” charters are those that cherrypick their students, avoid those with disabilities, and push out students who can’t get high scores.

Charter Schools, by definition, are privately managed. They are not public schools. No matter what their allies call them, no matter what they call themselves, they are private schools that are bankrolled by public money.

Sorry, CAP, you can’t reject half of the Betsy DeVos agenda and embrace the other half.

The charter industry does not collaborate with public schools. It seeks to weaken them, not help them.

CAP, either support public schools or school choice. There is no middle ground. One is public, the other is not. Which side are you on?

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Politico: Betsy DeVos is the Political Lightning Rod for Democrats

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2017 //
35

This is great news for those who have been calling attention to the corporate reform assault on public schools. We couldn’t gain attention when Obama and Duncan were promoting privatization and bashing teachers. But Betsy DeVos stripped away the pretense of “the civil rights issue of our time.” All you have to do is look at the patented billionaire smirk, listen to her prattle about public schools as a “dead end,” and look at the fringe right groups she hangs out with, like ALEC. At last, the Democrats are beginning to get it. The privatization pushers in the Democratic Party will have to explain why they are in step with DeVos’s policy agenda.

Before DeVos, the Network for Public Education had 22,000 members. Now it has more than 350,000 and is growing.

Politico writes:

DEVOS BECOMES DIGITAL LIGHTNING ROD FOR DEMOCRATS: First it was Karl Rove. Then it was the Koch brothers. Now, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has taken over as Senate Democrats’ top online bogeyman. POLITICO’s Maggie Severns reports that anti-DeVos statements, petitions and especially fundraising emails have become a staple of Democratic digital campaigns in 2017. Emails citing DeVos are raising money at a faster clip than others and driving engagement from supporters.

– Some examples: Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly’s Facebook post announcing opposition to DeVos’ nomination as Education secretary was the first sign for some Democratic observers that DeVos had political traction. Donnelly and his fellow Democratic senators up for reelection in 2018 have seized on that energy with a salvo of emails soliciting small-dollar online donations.

– DeVos played foil for Montana Sen. Jon Tester when he solicited donations in May for himself and Rob Quist, the Democrat who was defeated in a special election for Montana’s at-large House seat. DeVos’ family “is spending big to influence tomorrow’s election,” Tester wrote in one email after the DeVoses donated to Greg Gianforte’s campaign.

-“For a lot of people, Betsy DeVos has really come to be a symbol of everything that’s wrong with Trump’s approach to government,” said Stephanie Grasmick, a partner at the Democratic digital consulting firm Rising Tide Interactive. DeVos is a prime example of Rising Tide’s new use of “social listening tools,” adopted for this election cycle, that monitor the web for trends. The technology is used by corporations but has yet to be fully embraced by political campaigns.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Obama, School Choice
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »