Archives for category: Equity
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Beware the Elites Who Want to Change the World.

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2018 //
30

This is an unusually good opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times a few days ago.

Think Gates, Zuckerberg, Walton, Hastings, Koch, and many more who use their wealth to impose their ideas on what they consider lesser lives.

The author is Anand Giridharadas.

Please note the mention of charter schools, a bone used by the elites to distract us from wealth inequality and the necessity of providing a better education for all.

It begins:

“Change the world” has long been the cry of the oppressed. But in recent years world-changing has been co-opted by the rich and the powerful.

“Change the world. Improve lives. Invent something new,” McKinsey & Company’s recruiting materials say. “Sit back, relax, and change the world,” tweets the World Economic Forum, host of the Davos conference. “Let’s raise the capital that builds the things that change the world,” a Morgan Stanley ad says. Walmart, recruiting a software engineer, seeks an “eagerness to change the world.” Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says, “The best thing to do now, if you want to change the world, is to start a company.”

“At first, you think: Rich people making a difference — so generous! Until you consider that America might not be in the fix it’s in had we not fallen for the kind of change these winners have been selling: fake change.

“Fake change isn’t evil; it’s milquetoast. It is change the powerful can tolerate. It’s the shoes or socks or tote bag you bought which promised to change the world. It’s that one awesome charter school — not equally funded public schools for all. It is Lean In Circles to empower women — not universal preschool. It is impact investing — not the closing of the carried-interest loophole.

“Of course, world-changing initiatives funded by the winners of market capitalism do heal the sick, enrich the poor and save lives. But even as they give back, American elites generally seek to maintain the system that causes many of the problems they try to fix — and their helpfulness is part of how they pull it off. Thus their do-gooding is an accomplice to greater, if more invisible, harm.

“What their “change” leaves undisturbed is our winners-take-all economy, which siphons the gains from progress upward. The average pretax income of America’s top 1 percent has more than tripled since 1980, and that of the top 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold, even as the average income of the bottom half of Americans stagnated around $16,000, adjusted for inflation, according to a paper by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

“American elites are monopolizing progress, and monopolies can be broken. Aggressive policies to protect workers, redistribute income, and make education and health affordable would bring real change. But such measures could also prove expensive for the winners. Which gives them a strong interest in convincing the public that they can help out within the system that so benefits the winners.”

There is more, if it is not behind a paywall.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Equity, Fake, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Hypocrisy, Inequality, Koch Brothers, Philanthropy, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Randi Weingarten: The Right-Wing Assault on Unions Won’t Win: It Just Makes Us Angrier

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2018 //
38

Randi Weingarten wrote this commentary in Education Week about the Supreme Court’s Janus decision, which ruled that people do not have to pay agency fees to unions, thus allowing them to collect benefits negotiated by the union without paying dues.

The final day of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 term may have been overshadowed by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement, but in one of two important cases decided that day, the court overturned four decades of precedent to bar public-sector unions from charging fees to nonmembers who enjoy the benefits of a union contract.

On its face, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31 claimed to be about free speech. But the right-wing forces behind it admitted a detailed plan to “defund and defang” unions and dismantle their political power. That’s according to documents obtained by The Guardian from the State Policy Network—a national alliance that includes the primary Janus-backer, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, as an associate member.

As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, the precedent established by the court’s 1977 Abood v. Detroit Board of Education ruling was embedded in the nation’s law and its economic life. It ensured the labor peace that gave teachers, firefighters, nurses, police, and other public-sector employees a path to a better life. It made communities more resilient and kept public services strong.

In Janus, the plaintiffs weaponized the First Amendment from its original purpose of securing the political freedom necessary for democracy by arguing compulsory union fees violated free speech. By a 5-4 majority, the court put the interests of billionaires over established law and basic principle—just as Justice Kennedy did with his deciding vote in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010. The right wing’s thirst for power again trumped the aspirations of communities and the people who serve them.

Janus will, of course, hurt unions, but most importantly—and by design—it will hurt workers. Nevertheless, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.

Unions are still the best vehicle working people have to get ahead. Workers covered by a union contract earn 13.2 percent more than comparable workers in nonunionized workplaces, and they are far more likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance, paid leave, and retirement benefits, according to a 2017 report from the Economic Policy Institute. Unions negotiate everything from manageable class sizes to safety equipment for emergency personnel.
Unions help make possible what would be impossible for individuals acting alone.

For the American Federation of Teachers’ 1.75 million members (our largest membership ever, and growing—we’ve added a quarter million in the last decade), Janus poses opportunities as well as threats. In the face of right-wing attacks on public education and labor, we have come to understand that when we walk the walk with the community, we become exponentially more powerful.

Years before Janus, the AFT embarked on a plan to talk with every one of our members on issues that matter—supporting public education, creating good jobs that support a middle-class life, securing high-quality and affordable health care, pursuing affordable higher education, fighting discrimination and bigotry, and defending democracy and pluralism. Whether you lean conservative or liberal, higher wages, a voice at work, safe schools, and a functioning democracy are American values.

Since January, all over the country, more than half a million of our members signed new cards recommitting to the union, and that number is growing. Many of the AFT’s 3,500 local affiliates are reporting that 90 percent or more of their members have recommitted.

After the Janus decision hit, groups funded by the Koch brothers and the DeVos family launched their own campaigns, urging Los Angeles Unified School District teachers to “give themselves a raise” by dropping the union. Think about it—not only did U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos attend the Janus oral arguments at the Supreme Court (while not bothering to put it on her public schedule), her fortune is funding the post-Janus assault on unions.
When our members at AFT discover the special interests behind these “opt out” campaigns, they get extra mad. You only need to look at Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia to show that when salaries and benefits are stripped away, the response can be intense—and righteous. In Los Angeles, 34,000 members of the local union affiliate were contacted by those Koch- and DeVos-linked groups trying to get them to opt out. So far, only one member has….

We are in a race for the soul of our country. But if we really double down, if we fight not only for what’s right but for what the vast majority of Americans believe, working people—not Janus’ wealthy funders—will emerge as the real winners.

Categories Billionaires, Equity, Justice, Unions

Andrea Gabor: An Education Reform That Worked–and That Needs to Be Revived

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2018 //
65

Andrea Gabor writes in the Boston Globe about the remarkable success of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, which involved a bipartisan agreement: more funding, equalization of funding, in exchange for standards and assessments. Gabor’s new book, After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Reform, is officially published today. It is a smart book that deeply understands the futility of the corporate reform movement, which substitutes competition for collaboration and guarantees repeated failures.

She writes:

Twenty-five years after Massachusetts passed a historic education reform law that helped make it the gold-standard for American schooling, the Bay State reforms are coming under scrutiny again — and for good reason.

What happened in Massachusetts is actually a tale of two reforms. The first, signed into law on June 18, 1993, was a bipartisan achievement hammered out by a Republican governor and Democratic state legislators, and informed by a vigorous local debate among educators, parents, and business people who agreed on a “grand bargain”: substantially more state spending for schools in exchange for higher standards and increased accountability.

The law worked initially as intended. It infused over $1 billion in extra education funding — mostly to poor communities. Massachusetts achieved top scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nation’s report card. By 2000, the gap between NAEP scores of black and white students had actually narrowed.

But tax cuts, the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the mandates of Race to the Top eroded the state’s gains:

A new 2010 education law only made matters worse. While providing a one-time $250 million cash infusion from the Federal government, the law failed to make up for school-funding inequities, yet imposed dire consequences on schools, districts, and teachers who failed to make test-score gains. It also gutted the much-lauded curriculum standards.

It is time to revisit how the original 1993 legislation worked — and why it remains a model worth building on. The law was a response to a decade of property tax cuts that hit poor communities hardest. A successful class-action lawsuit, led by Brockton students, and decided just days before the Education Reform Act was passed, sought to remedy that inequality, arguing that Massachusetts was not meeting its constitutional obligation to “cherish” education for all students — language written into the state constitution by John Adams.

Support for the plan in 1993 was not only bipartisan but had the support of the business leaders.

They were willing to pay more for better schools, and they wanted strong foundation aid for the poorest schools. In a time of charter-mania, charters were capped at only 25 for the entire state.

Erosion of that support in recent years hit Brockton High School, where the rebellion began, extra hard. What was once a miracle story–the failing school that became one of the best in the state–was upended as funding became unequal again.

In recent years, Brockton has struggled to navigate new state and federal mandates, including new teacher evaluations and a common core-aligned MCAS. In 2016, Governor Charlie Baker and his top education officials imposed a charter school on the community against overwhelming local opposition. During the last school year, Brockton ran a $16 million deficit; the town is now exploring a new funding lawsuit.

It is time to restore equitable funding for schools — the aim of an education-funding bill that just passed the state Senate — and to fully realize the vision of the 1993 reforms. This encompassed not just a rich curriculum, but also a robust role for local school-based decision-making and a wide array of accountability measures, and, as the MBAE pointed out in 1993, “not simply results of standardized tests.” All these measures are needed to return schools like Brockton High to their former levels of fiscal and educational sustainability.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Equity, Funding, Massachusetts

Jitu Brown: “We Call for a Moratorium on School Privatization Now!”

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2018 //
8

Watch this powerful 2-minute video, in which civil rights leader Jitu Brown tells the dramatic story of the Dyett hunger strike in Chicago, which lasted 34 days and compelled the city to keep Dyett open and invest $16 Million in the new Dyett.

Jitu Brown leads the Journey for Justice, which is leading a national campaign to stop school closings, privatization, and charter schools. They are fighting to create thousands of community schools.

This video was created by videographers Michael Elliot and Kemala Karmen. It was funded by the Network for Public Education.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Civil Rights, Closing schools, Courage, Education Industry, Equity, Justice, Privatization

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dissents Ferociously from 5-4 Decision Curbing Workers’ Rights

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2018 //
54

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented in strong terms from today’s Supreme Court Decision curtailing workers’ Rights.

As the oldest Justice, age 85, she has many admirers who count on her to fight for the average person, not the powerful. She is now affectionately called The Notorious RBG.

Trump’s appointee Neil Gorsuch provided the decisive vote in the 5-4 Decision. He may be the most conservative Justice on the Court.

“In Monday’s case, decided by a bitter 5-4 vote, the conservative majority ruled that employers may forbid employees from banding together to fight wage and other workplace issues covered by arbitration agreements. The court said a federal arbitration statute overrides federal labor law intended to protect workers’ bargaining power.

“Speaking for the four liberal dissenters, Ginsburg said the decision threatens to return the country to a time in the late 19th century and early 20th when workers were forced to take jobs strictly on the boss’s terms and “yellow dog” contracts, forbidding employees from joining labor unions, were common.

“The employees who had brought Monday’s case claimed they had been underpaid in violation of the Fair Labor Standards and wanted to join in a class-action lawsuit in federal court. The Supreme Court majority agreed with their employers that the arbitration contracts they had signed prohibited any collective proceedings.

“Ginsburg declared the agreements “arm-twisted, take-it-or-leave-it contracts.” She noted that the cost of a lawsuit dissuades most workers from seeking to redress a grievance on their own and emphasized the “strength in numbers.”

“She said federal laws dating to the 1930s protect workers’ rights to band together to confront employers about working conditions. “Federal labor law does not countenance such isolation of employees,” she insisted.”

We can pray that Trump does not get a second pick, or that the Democrats control the Senate after 2018 and can block him from picking someone else who wants to set the clock back 100 years and restore the Age of Robber Barons.

Categories Democracy, Equity, Justice

Journey for Justice Reports on Racial Inequities in Education Policy Today

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2018 //
11

Today, Jitu Brown and the Journey for Justice will release a report on the steps of the Supreme Court about the continuing failure to enforce the Brown vs. Board decision of 1954.

Journey for Justice Alliance Releases Myth-Shattering Report “Failing Brown v. Board” that Exposes Deep Inequities in Public Education Across Race and Class

The Report examines course offerings in 12 cities revealing inequities that have remained since the civil rights movement, inspiring call from national organizations for a “new Brown v. Board” decision.

The Journey for Justice Alliance, a national network of community-based organizations in 31 cities, released its report “Failing Brown v. Board” which illuminates just how inequitable public education remains today, largely across racial lines. Through examining course offerings at high schools in 12 cities (and one elementary in Chicago), this report, which is backed by substantial research, shows how black and brown students are denied “access to inspiration” in comparison with their white, more affluent peers. “Failing Brown v. Board” was released on the first day of the “Poor People’s Campaign.”

“In America, inequity is ignored as children in the same city have two completely different educational experiences and the dividing line in many cases is race. Every American child and their family have the right to a high-quality neighborhood public school from grades pre-k through 12. We aren’t asking for a handout in this report, we are demanding a fair return on our tax investment,” said Jitu Brown, National Director of the Journey for Justice Alliance. “Without access to great equitable public schools, we are failing an entire generation of students and their families solely based on the color of their skin and their socioeconomic status.”

This shattering myth report, its findings, and multiple statewide educator walkouts have pushed national and local organizers to call for a “new Brown v. Board” initiative for educational equity. On Monday morning at the steps of the Supreme Courts, the Journey for Justice Alliance, in partnership with the #WeChooseCampaign and the Alliance to Reclaim our Schools (AROS), will release the report and outline planks of the nationwide campaign.

“As parents this report is true to our lived experience. We must have zero tolerance for inequity and demand justice for every child now,” Zakiyah Ansari, a New York public school parent and advocacy director of the Alliance for Quality Education. “We choose equity, not the illusion of school choice”

For members of the press who can’t attend the press conference in person, please email Richard Fowler (Richard@richardmediacompany.com) to schedule a one-on-one interview with one of the participants.

WHAT: Press Conference

WHERE: U.S. Supreme Court, 1 First Avenue NE, Washington DC

WHEN: Monday, May 14th at 9am

WHO: Jitu Brown, National Director, Journey for Justice Alliance,
Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers
Judith Browne Dianis, Executive Director, Advancement Project,
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, President, National Education Association
And the following organizations: NAACP, Alliance for Quality Education NY, Alliance for Education Justice, American Federation of Teachers, Camden Parent’s Union, Dignity in Schools Coalition, Badass Teacher’s Association, Save our Schools

Read the report here.

Categories Education Reform, Equity, Justice, Race

FairTest: Eliminating Admissions Tests for College Promotes Equity and Quality

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2018 //
40

A new study reports that the ACT and SAT are useless and unnecessary:

Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773
mobile (239) 699-0468

for release with “Defining Access” report Thurs. April 26, 2018

TEST-OPTIONAL ADMISSIONS LEADER APPLAUDS NEW STUDY:

“DEFINING ACCESS” SHOWS ELIMINATING ACT/SAT SCORE REQUIREMENTS
PROMOTES EQUITY AND ACADEMIC QUALITY

A major study released today provides strong evidence that ACT/SAT-optional schools increase campus diversity without harming classroom performance. Defining Access: How Test-Optional Works analyzes records from nearly one million students at 28 undergraduate institutions.

The data show that test-optional policies promote both academic quality and equity,” said Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). “This report should encourage even more colleges and universities to drop their ACT/SAT requirements.”

FairTest has led the movement to de-emphasize admissions test scores for three decades. The group’s website currently lists more than 1,000 test-optional four-year colleges and universities (http://fairtest.org/university/optional). The database includes more than 300 institutions ranked in the top tiers of their respective categories. There are now test-optional schools in 49 states, the District of Columbia, and most U.S. possessions

Among the key findings of today’s report, according to FairTest:

– Test-optional policies perform well at a wide range of undergraduate institutions..

– Larger percentages of African American, Latino, first-generation, Pell recipient, and female students choose not to submit scores than whites and male applicants.

– Eliminating ACT/SAT requirements Increases the enrollment of historically underrepresented groups in almost all case

– Applicants admitted without consideration of test scores graduated at equal or higher rates than those who submitted ACT/SAT results.

The new study is available online at https://www.nacacnet.org/HowTest-OptionalWorks

– – 3 0 – –

– A timeline of schools de-emphasizing ACT/SAT scores over the fifteen years and the list of 300+ top-tier, test-optional institutions are available on request.

Categories Equity, Higher Education

The Teachers’ Strikes Are Just the Beginning

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2018 //
31

 

The spring of 2018 may well be remembered as the beginning of a mass movement by working people against the domination of corporations and the 1%.

The leadership in red states and the federal government have tilted the tax system to favor the very wealthy, while demanding sacrifices from the powerless majority.

The teachers in West Virginia were first to say “Enough!”

But they are far from last.

The ALEC-inspired Republican legislatures killed collective bargaining, and the Supreme Court in expected to hobble labor unions with the Janus decision.

But that’s not going to stop working people from organizing and demanding a fair share of the bounty that they produced.

For all of Facebook’s sins and transgressions, it has nonetheless created a way for voiceless people to organize and act. Teachers and others created collectives on Facebook and used them to mobilize for mass actions.

The teachers’ strikes were organized by grassroots efforts that began on Facebook. Powerless teachers discovered that by acting in concert, they became powerful. They have used their numbers to demand fair pay and benefits and have stood up courageously to legislatures known to be in the pockets of the oil and gas industries and other malefactors of vast wealth.

Piece by piece, day by day, as they lead us, we will recover our democracy. We will rebuild the institutions now under assault by Trumpism and its variants. The names of the leaders are not well-known. They won’t be on the covers of magazines or interviewed by late night TV hosts. They are ordinary citizens who have stepped forward to demand justice, equity, and fairness and to revive our democracy.

 

Categories Courage, Democracy, Equity, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Resistance, Teachers, West Virginia

Journey For Justice and Its Fight Against Destructive Education “Reform”

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
7

 

The Schott Foundation is one of the few philanthropies that unabashedly supports public education and recognizes its importance in a democracy. Schott has supported the civil rights group, Journey for Justice, whose leader Jitu Brown has a powerful voice. (Jitu is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education.)

Schott underwrote the production of a video about the work of J4J. 

“Schott grantee partner Journey for Justice Alliance released a compelling short documentary chronicling the fight against education reform in the age of Trump and DeVos. Beyond the rhetoric coming from DC, for years Journey for Justice has been raising the voices of those most impacted by budget cuts and privatization. Following J4J’s cross-country trip from Detroit to Washington, D.C. to oppose Betsy DeVos’ appointment as Education Secretary in early 2017, this film not only shows the profound hurt that these policy changes cause, but the inspiring organizing done to resist them.

“As J4J National Director Jitu Brown is led away from the Senate hearing room, he says “it’s an act of cowardice to run toward privatization and away from equity. We are as far away from Brown v. Board as we were in 1957.”

“Film Description:

“Many are voicing concerns that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is unqualified, motivated by profit, and advancing a harmful agenda.

“Over a year ago, we organized a group of parents, educators, and students to travel from Detroit to Washington to raise their voices at DeVos’ confirmation hearing. We came to advocate for a public education system based on equity and democracy. We came because we had already lived with the consequences of policies that undermine those values, policies that DeVos had advocated for in Michigan. We came to speak truth to power and we were silenced—shut out.

“Please watch and share this 30 minute documentary made by 180.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, Equity, Justice, Privatization

The Schott Foundation Proposes A New Way to Measure Cities and Their Support for Good Schools and Healthy Children

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2018 //
6

 

The Schott Foundation for Public Education is one of the small number of foundations that unabashedly supports public educations and understands its importance in a democratic society. Under the leadership of its dynamic president, John Jackson, it seeks not to privatize schools but to make them much, much better places for children to learn and grow to their full potential.

Schott recently developed a new measurement, which it calls “the loving cities index.” 

The brilliance of this measure is that it quantifies not test scores or other measures that can be corrupted and gamed, but measures the environment and those who hold the levers of power.

“As racism and hate continue to dominate the national dialogue, the Schott Foundation for Public Education released the Loving Cities Index, a multi-state report that aims to reverse historical local policies and practices rooted in racism and bias and replace them with policies that create local loving systems from birth and promote an opportunity to learn and thrive.

“By providing this new framework, the Loving Cities Index helps cities evaluate how well they are doing at providing all children – regardless of race, gender or zip code – with the supports and opportunities they need to learn and succeed. Noting that after decades of education reform, parental income remains the top predictor of student outcomes, the report challenges the notion that school-based reforms alone can provide students a fair and substantive opportunity to learn.

“The report also highlights a large and growing body of research showing a clear connection between economic and racial inequality and opportunity gaps in areas like housing, health care and community involvement. These issues lie outside of the traditional education realm, but are intimately linked to high school and college attainment.”

Categories Data, Education Reform, Equity, Health, Love
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