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CTU Rejects Contract Offer, Takes Action 

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2016 //
12

 

Yesterday, the Chicago Teachers Union rejected the city’s contract offer. This is the CTU explanation:

CHICAGO – After much deliberation, the Chicago Teachers Union has rejected the Board of Education’s most recent contract proposal because it does not address the difficult conditions in the schools, the lack of services to our neediest students or address the long-term fiscal crisis that threatens to gut public education in the city. Moreover, educators do not believe the Board will honor its promises because it has lacked the will to join with parents, students, community and others in identifying existing revenue solutions that can stabilize the district.

“Chicago Public Schools (CPS) challenges are a revenue-based problem because two of the three biggest cost drivers are things that have to be paid: pensions and debt service (which includes the swap termination payments),” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “The third biggest cost driver is charter school proliferation—and though they’ve promised to halt charter expansion there is a state commission that can override their decision. There are no guarantees.”

Lewis said CTU members have given more than $2 billion back to the district over the last five years, including $500 million from the 4 percent raise that was rescinded in 2011; $500 million from layoffs over this period, including from the school closings; and $1.2 billion from the three- year partial pension holiday between 2011 to 2013.

 

“Simply signing a contract with CPS will not bring them a windfall of resources from the state,” Lewis said. “We have to exhaust every option available, which includes terminating those swap deals, returning the TIFs to the schools and a financial transaction tax that could bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the city. Without some real movement on the revenue problems, we can’t trust that they will honor any words offered in a four-year contract deal.”

It should be noted that the CPS bond sale went south last week because investors are skittish about the real financial challenges the district faces. The downgrades came after investors’ concerns about the city’s inability to raise revenue. Also, the district is using short-term credit lines to manage cash flow because its cash flow is so limited. The money from property taxes is already spent – those short-term lines have to be repaid.

“CPS has been living on borrowing for too long,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey. “Now to turn around and blame teachers and staff for that debt while letting bankers off the hook is not acceptable. We think bankruptcy is a bluff, but if it isn’t, the mayor and his handpicked school board need to examine our commitments to progressive revenue.”
CPS’ uses this math to plug its budget hole:

· $200 million from the state for pensions
· $150 million from the state in a school aid formula change
· $170 million from a new local property tax levy for pensions
· $150 to $175 million from eliminating the teacher’s pension pickup and from increased healthcare costs.

“That’s about $700 million of the claimed $800 million deficit,” said Sharkey. “They want us to foot two chunks of that through property tax increases and classrooms cuts. We need a big fix to school funding at the state level through progressive taxes on wealthy people. The Board cannot continue to balance its budget on teachers and students by cutting our compensation and eliminating vital education services such as special education.”

 

Today, CTU took action to protest the city’s actions:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin
Feb. 2, 2016 312-329-6250

 

CTU to close Bank of America account and challenge City of Chicago and CPS to do the same

News conference and action at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday

 

CHICAGO – The day after the Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool declared war on public school educators by threatening another $100 million in classroom cuts and the snatching of their pension pick-up benefit, the Chicago Teachers Union will engage in a series of non-violent direct actions to call attention to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s refusal to explore every revenue option available to him to stabilize the school district. Instead of working with the CTU to return toxic swap payments, tax the wealthy and restore the TIFS to the school district, the mayor would rather have Governor Bruce Rauner send in the Illinois National Guard to take over CPS.

WHO:
CTU Officers; toxic swap experts; community allies and others
WHAT:
Will close its account with Bank of America in the amount of over $700,000 and redirect those monies to Amalgamated Bank
WHEN:
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
10:00 a.m.
WHERE:
Bank of America

35 S. LaSalle Street, Chicago
WHY:
Bank of America and other financial institutions that sold CPS toxic interest rate swaps are demanding a payout of at least $228 million, which is almost the exact same amount as the recent cuts enacted by the Board to our schools and special education at the same time. In total, the City and CPS is expecting to lose $1.2 billion on the swaps. CTU has asked the Board to be a partner in challenging these rip off, toxic swap deals for years.

 

###

 

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Chicago, Education Reform, Funding

New Jersey: Christie Administration Sets a Goal of 50,000 Charter Seats

By dianeravitch
January 31, 2016 //
25

New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie is devoted to charter schools. As he has repeatedly demonstrated, he despises the New Jersey Education Association, and charters seldom are unionized. So he gets a twofer: he can privatize and bust the union at the same time. In his state of the state speech, he said he would expand the charter sector. No surprise. But David Hespe, the state commissioner of education, made the goal concrete: 50,000 charter “seats.” 

 

Hespe’s remarks at the state’s annual School Choice Summit at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City echoed Christie’s Jan. 12 speech. The governor called charter schools a resounding success for the state and said he would “aggressively prioritize” regulatory relief for charter schools.

 

Charter schools are public schools that operate independently from traditional school districts. If a student leaves their home district to attend a charter school, that district must send a portion of it’s average per-pull funding to the charter school.

 

Christie has authorized dozens of new charter schools since taking office but the initial flood of new schools has slowed in recent years. Overall, Christie has added 39 new charter schools while closing 17 charter schools for poor academic performance or organizational and fiscal issues.

 

The state has about 41,500 students enrolled in charter schools and the number will expand to 46,000 as existing charter schools add more grade levels, according to the state Department of Education. The state has not identified a specific timeline for the 50,000 seat goal.

 

In total, New Jersey more than 1.3 million public school students, Department of Education spokesman David Saenz said.

 

Christie said his administration will explore ways to create greater flexibility in the teacher certification for charter schools and ways to make it easier for charter schools to find buildings.

 

To sum it up, the charters take money away from public schools, causing them to lose teachers, increase class size, and cut back programs. This is odd because the state has 1.3 million students, but not quite 50,000 in charters. So the vast majority of students will suffer harm so that the small number in charters can get some of the money the district schools need.

 

The state will lower standards for teachers in charter schools, thus providing greater flexibility.

 

The state will seek ways to fund the construction of charter schools or give them  public space. One way to ease that problem would be to seek contributions from the New Jersey hedge fund managers who are strong supporters of charter schools.

 

The strangest thing about this scenario is that New Jersey is one of the highest performing states on the NAEP, usually scoring either second or their behind Massachusetts. At the same time, it has some cities that contain desperately impoverished families. Charter schools will not diminish their poverty nor will it alleviate the segregation that characterizes these districts, like Newark, Camden, and Paterson.

 

What Governor Christie’s plan will do is to damage the overall condition of public education, in order to push forward his goal of more “charter seats.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, New Jersey, Poverty, Privatization, Segregation

Arizona Governor Ducey is a #Deadbeat Dad

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2016 //
3

Blogger David Safier in Arizona noted that Governor Doug Ducey wants to start a social media campaign to publicly shame “deadbeat dads” who don’t pay child support. But as Safier explains, the biggest deadbeat dad in the state is Governor Ducey, who makes false promises about funding the education of Arizona’s children.

 

Safier has started a hashtag campaign naming Ducey as a #deadbeat.

 

Safier writes:

 

“Whenever Ducey talks about his commitment to education, people in the immediate vicinity should shout, “Bullshit!” For people who don’t like swearing in public, shout, “Deadbeat!” And for those who prefer tweeting to shouting, use the #deadbeat hashtag to comment on Ducey’s anti-education, anti-children agenda on Twitter.”

 

Here Safier gives the backstory on Ducey’s elaborate hoax:

 

“A new school funding plan was passed by the legislature and signed by Doug Ducey. Emphasis on the word “plan.” There’s no guarantee schools will get any more money than they’re getting now. The plan is to let voters decide whether or not to increase school budgets. Still, Ducey and his legislative buddies are risking injury by repeatedly patting themselves on the back for their generosity. “Landmark deal!” they proclaim. “We’ll lead the nation in the amount we’re increasing school funding!” “We support our children!” “We support our teachers!” “We support our schools!”

 

“Um, no. No congratulations are due. The people who have illegally underfunded our schools all these years deserve blame and shame, not congratulations.

 

“I like to use analogies to explain things, and my favorite on the education funding issue is to compare Arizona Republicans to deadbeat dads and moms. I like it because it’s not really an analogy. It’s a statement of fact. They’ve refused to spend $330 million a year in educational child support that’s required by law. According to the judge, they’re already more than a billion dollars behind on their child support payments, and counting.

 

“Here’s what they’re congratulating themselves for. If the voters give them they go-ahead, they’re willing to pay 70 cents on the dollar of what they owe, and 60 percent of it will come out of the kids’ trust fund.”

 

Ducey=#deadbeat

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Arizona, Education Reform, Funding, Hoax

Miron: Charter Schools’ Administrative Costs More than Public Schools

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2016 //
18

Recently there was a back-and-forth among readers about whether charter schools or public schools pay more in administrative costs. One of our readers who supports charters insisted they were more efficient and spent less on administration. 

I decided to ask one of the nation’s foremost scholars of charter school organization and finance, Gary Miron of Western Michigan University. 
Here is his response:

Hi Diane,
** This has been a recurring finding in the 9 state evaluations commissioned by state ed agencies that we conducted between 1997- and 2007 as well as in a national study of charter school finance we conducted in 2010.
 See cite below
Miron, G., & Urschel, J. L. (2010, June). Equal or Fair? A Study of Revenues and Expenditures in American Charter Schools. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] at http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/EMO-RevExp.pdf
** We also write about this and document this in our 2002 book, Chapter 4, around page 58. Also, in chapter 4, we hypothesized that over time charters would increasingly be able to devote more to instructional costs but this did not happen.

 

Miron, G., & Nelson, C. (2002). What’s public about charter schools? Lessons learned about choice and accountability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.  
Hope this helps. 
 Gary
 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding

Detroit Public Schools: A National Disgrace

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2016 //
25

This post was written by Lakia Wilson, a guidance counselor at Spain Elementary School in Detroit.

She describes the horrifying physical conditions in the school, experienced daily by 500 students and the staff.

The predominant smell in the school is mold and mildew.

“The gym is closed because half of the floor is buckled and the other half suffered so much rainwater damage from the dripping ceiling that it became covered with toxic black mold. Instead of professionally addressing the problem, a black tarp simply was placed over the entire area like a Band-Aid. That area of the school has been condemned.

“The once beautiful pool sits empty because no one has come to fix it. The playground is off-limits because a geyser of searing hot steam explodes out of the ground. What do our kids do for exercise with no gym, playground or pool? They walk or run in the halls. Seriously. Our pre-K through eighth graders move like mall walkers.
Exposed wires hang from missing ceiling tiles. Watermarks from leaks abound. Kids either sit in freezing classrooms with their coats on or strip off layers because of stifling heat.”

Blame it on the kids? No. Blame it on the parents? No. Blame it on the teachers? No.

No, this falls into Governor Rick Snyder’s lap. Detroit is under state control.

Governor Snyder, tell your Emergency Manager to fix the schools so they are in tip-top shape. You will be judged by what you do–or fail to do–for the children.

Categories Detroit, Funding

Amy Moore: Why Won’t Iowa Fund Its Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2016 //
8

Amy Moore teaches fifth grade in Newton, Iowa, and writes often for the Des Moines Register. In this article, she chastises Governor Terry Branstad for promising to make education his top priority, then spending his time in office refusing to fund the schools.

 

She writes that educators will tell the Legislature how much money the schools need and legislators will lecture teachers and administrators about how greedy they are and why they need to do more with less. She says about Governor Branstad, “If this is how he handles his top priority, then I’d like to beg him to put us lower on his list.”

 

The way I see it he has reached into our pockets to steal millions of dollars set aside for our children. He put locks on our school doors until a date that he — and his business partners who care only about squeezing every last cent of profit from Iowa families — deemed appropriate. He plans to mess with school monies to try to help agricultural businesses get off the hook for water they polluted. He allowed for a push to implement Smarter Balanced assessments, which will make huge money for testing companies coming from our state, and is being dropped by other states that have found it to be problematic to say the least. The only real school improvement plan he has focused on is his teacher leadership initiative, which sends the clear and incorrect message that teachers are the main problem with our schools.

 

Aren’t Republicans supposed to believe in less government intrusion? I’d like governor to stay true to his party and trust local districts to spend the allocated state money. Districts have a strong track record of knowing what is needed to serve our local communities, and the diversity of school populations across the state makes one-size-fits-all mandates nonsensical.
With talk of next year’s budget there is inevitably the constant assertion that “just throwing money at it won’t help.” I wonder if the millions of Americans purchasing Powerball tickets this week would agree with that?

 

I have to admit there are times when having extra money cannot help. For example, if you’re being attacked by a grizzly bear, I don’t believe throwing money at him will help. Or if you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, no amount of money can take away the pain.

 

But when it comes to children, having more money can almost always improve lives. More money can mean more books to read in the home and better quality clothes. It can mean more available time from a parent who doesn’t have to work three jobs to make ends meet. It can mean superior health care, child care and healthier foods.

 

It is the same with children in a classroom. Money means smaller class sizes with more individualized instruction. It means updated materials and technology. It means well paid, high quality teachers who feel appreciated to be compensated for their professional skills. It means fully staffed art, counseling, music, preschool and health departments. It means safe and comfortable school environments. It means the ability to offer courses to reach the interests and abilities of more students. It means field trips, extracurricular clubs and non-dilapidated textbooks.

 

Amy insists that the Governor and the Legislature must appropriate the funding that the children of Iowa need and hold the lectures about austerity.

Categories Accountability, Funding, Iowa

Detroit Teachers Plan “Sick Out” to Protest Abominable Conditions

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2016 //
16

According to The Guardian, Detroit teachers plan a sick-out onMonday.

 

Detroit public schools are in horrible shape. When the state took over, the district had a surplus but now it has a huge deficit.

 

“Detroit’s public schools have been a problem for Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, a Republican who ushered the city into the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. Most observers agree the success of Detroit is contingent upon whether its schools can be fixed.

 

“Snyder has made a $715m proposal to overhaul the failing district in 2016. It has so far received little support in the Michigan legislature.

 

“Asked about the spate of sickouts, David Murray, a spokesman for Snyder, said: “Detroit children need to be in school. In addition to their education, it’s where many children get their best meals and better access to the social services they need. There are certainly problems that [need] to be addressed, quickly.”

 

“Snyder’s plan would eliminate debt in the district that is equal to $1,100 per child, Murray said. That was “money that could be better spent in the classroom, lowering class sizes, raising pay and improving benefits”.

 

“Tom Pedroni, an associate professor at Wayne State University, said the governor’s plan was commendable for “taking seriously the notion that Detroit public schools needs debt relief”.

 

“We know that with the current debt figures if the issue is not addressed soon, Detroit public schools students will be losing [nearly half of the state’s per-pupil funding total],” Pedroni said, adding: “It’s unconscionable that students lose that to debt service.”

 

“The problem with Snyder’s plan, Pedroni said, was that it relied on governing the school district with a board of appointees, not elected members. Since 2009, under a state-appointed emergency manager, the elected board has been effectively neutered.

 

“There’s currently a lot of debate over whether those appointees for the new Detroit school board [in Snyder’s proposal] would be mayoral appointees or gubernatorial appointees,” Pedroni said.

 

“But to me, really all of those are inexcusable because what I think we see happening in the district in Detroit is really an indictment of the sort of heavy-handed power from the executive branch without any checks or balances.”

 

“Pedroni said this was similar to what has taken place in the nearby city of Flint. There, a state-appointed emergency manager has been alleged to have decided to use a local river as the city’s main water source. The move has been linked to an increased level of lead in household water supply.

 

“When in 1999 the state first stepped in and overhauled the governance of Detroit schools, the district’s budget carried a $93m-surplus. According to an analysis by the Citizens Research Council, a Michigan-based policy research group, in the most recent fiscal year the district reported a budget deficit of nearly $216m.

 

“An estimated 41 cents out of every state dollar appropriated for students is spent on debt service, according to the council’s report.

 

“Despite being under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager since 2009, Detroit public schools, the state’s largest district, is failing academically and financially,” the report said.

“Despite a depleted school enrollment, class sizes have increased and teachers have repeatedly taken pay cuts. Only one-third of high school students are proficient in reading, according to Snyder’s office.

 

“Teachers say students are being judged unfairly. In an open letter to the Detroit public schools emergency manager, Darnell Earley, who blasted teachers for the sickout protests last week, fourth-grade teacher Pam Namyslowski said pupils had been “set up to fail in every way”.

 

“We ARE [the students’] voice,” Namyslowski wrote. “We are on the front line, working side by side with them every day, trying our best to overcome numerous obstacles.

 

“In the winter, we often work in freezing rooms with our coats on with them. In the summertime, we survive with them in stifling heat and humidity in temperatures that no one should have to work in. We wipe their tears and listen when they are upset.”

 

“Successes in the classroom typically go unnoticed, Namyslowski continued, as “most cannot be measured or displayed on a data wall”.

Categories Budget Cuts, Detroit, Education Reform, Funding, Teachers

How One Whistle-Blower Saved NYC Schools $727 Million

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2016 //
18

Leonie Haimson tells the story here about her discovery that the New York City Department of Education was about to award a multi-million dollar contract to a tech company that had been previously been involved in scandal. When you read this account, you will understand the importance of citizen vigilance. Who else but Leonie Haimson would lounge around on a lazy Sunday afternoon reading the list of DOE contracts due to be voted on that week? That is why you should contribute to her organization, Class Size Matters, which operates on a tiny shoestring (I am a member of the board) and allows Leonie to play an outsize, unpaid role in the city, state, and nation. That shoestring is so small, it wouldn’t be enough to close an infant’s shoe. Help Leonie continue to fight for students.

 

 

She writes:

 

Last February, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was perusing the list of DOE contracts due to be voted on that week by the Panel for Educational Policy. Among the long list of contracts, I noticed a proposed contract for equipment and internet wiring worth $1.1 billion over five years, extendable to nine years at two billion dollars. I had never seen a DOE contract that large before.

 

She googled the name of the company:

 

I was astonished to discover that this very same company had been involved in a kickback scheme, robbing DOE of millions of dollars just a few years before, according to a report from the Special Investigator’s office. This widely reported scandal subsequently sent Ross Lanham, a DOE consultant, to jail.

 

I immediately blogged about my discovery, and promptly alerted Public Advocate Tish James and Council Member Helen Rosenthal, as well as members of the media.

 

On Monday, the very next day, DoE officials started getting lots of calls from reporters. Later that day, the PEP Contract committee was due to meet at 5 pm at Tweed, the DOE headquarters. I was sitting with a bunch of reporters in a room in Tweed, waiting for the meeting to begin when the reporters began getting emails from the DoE officials, announcing that that in the last 24 hours, the contract had somehow been “re-negotiated” and reduced by nearly half a billion dollars – with no change in the terms.

 

It was still going to be a ridiculously high $635 million over five years, extendable for four more years at over $1 billion. The fact that nearly $500 million could be cut out of the contract over night was even more evidence of how inflated the contract had been. When the Contracts committee met, surprisingly few members asked any questions about it, except for Robert Powell, the Bronx appointee and head of the committee….

 

Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News provided even more details about the original scheme that had defrauded DOE of millions. He pointed out that the company being awarded the contract had been the high bidder among three companies, and that the man who was still CEO of the company, Gregory Galdi, had set up a real estate company with Ross Lanham that was dissolved only after Lanham’s arrest.

 

At the subsequent PEP meeting on Wednesday evening, Helen Rosenthal and I pleaded with Chancellor Farina and the PEP members not to allow this unconscionable contract to be approved. The Chancellor was obdurate that “due diligence” had been done and that awarding the contract would allow NYC kids to be “put in the future” while now they’re “struggling in the past.”

 

The DOE official in charge, David Ross, argued that the contract had to be rushed through in order for the city to have a chance of winning $100 million in federal E-rate funds – without mentioning that the DOE had been cut off from this program for the last five years because of the very same scandal that had sent Ross Lanham to jail.

 

I made this point when I had my two minutes to speak , and argued that by awarding a contract to this very same company, the DOE was almost sure to be barred from any reimbursement from the feds. I also said that with a fraction of the amount, the DOE could double the number of schools to be built and significantly relieve school overcrowding.

 

Laura Zingmond, the Manhattan PEP member, responded that there was “plenty of money” to go around for both building more schools and awarding this contract. Though some members expressed reservations, the PEP approved the contract 10-1, with only Robert Powell, voting no. More on this disappointing vote in my blog and in Schoolbook….

 

Then in March, a few weeks after the vote, the city cancelled the Custom Computer Specialists contract, the first time this has ever happened in the history of the DOE. Possibly officials were concerned about how the NYC Comptroller and other oversight agencies would have questions about this egregious contract….

 

 Juan Gonzalez reports that after DOE rebid the contract and broke it into several smaller parts, the same work and equipment will cost city taxpayers far less: $472 million over five years, $163 million less than the renegotiated amount and $627 million less than what Custom Computer Specialists was originally supposed to receive before Tish James, Helen Rosenthal and I protested. Assuming that the city is also now far likelier to receive $100 million in federal E-rate funds, we may have helped save the city $727 million.

 

 

Categories Education Reform, Funding, NYC, Technology, Computers

Philadelphia: Superintendent is Secure, But Teachers and Students Are Not

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2015 //
2

Matthew L. Mandel, a National Board Certified Teacher in Philadelphia, is dumbfounded that Superintendent William Hite got a new contract when the district is in disarray. Please note, when you open the article, that the newspaper/website added a photograph with a caption that contradicts what Matthew wrote. In the article, he explained why it was too soon to give a new five-year contract to the Superintendent but the caption reads: “Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. deserved to have his contract extended.” The point of Matthew’s article is: No, he doesn’t.

 

Mandel writes:

 

Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. referred to a recent education bill passed by the Pennsylvania Senate as a “recipe for disaster.” That phrase also describes the School Reform Commission’s decision to extend Hite’s contract by five years, with two years remaining on the original.

 

In a statement, SRC Chair Marjorie Neff said it was the right time to lock in Hite for the long term, lauding him for demonstrating “strong leadership through an extraordinarily difficult time.” I wonder if she feels the same about losing scores of superb classroom teachers who left to work somewhere they feel valued and respected, or the many more who retired because they couldn’t take the conditions and mistreatment in the School District of Philadelphia anymore.

 

Neff, a retired teacher and principal, nearly discarded 50 years of collective bargaining progress when she supported cancellation of the teachers’ contract last year. She called that decision one of the most difficult of her life. She doesn’t appear nearly as troubled, however, that a district on financial life-support has spent millions on bad contracts and the endless pursuit of judicial relief from its obligations.

 

One could argue that Hite has achieved everything he was hired to do and, thus, has earned another contract….

 

 

I’m puzzled by the apparent urgency to get this contract extension done now, with no state budget, stagnant test scores, unhealthy and deplorable conditions in school buildings, and taxpayers who believe they have no voice in education decisions. Could it be that the district was afraid of losing him? If so, it points to another troubling pattern that has festered under state control of Philadelphia’s schools.
In a district with the highest child poverty rate in America – and dedicated but demoralized employees that have gone four years without a raise – the unelected and unaccountable SRC continues to place its emphasis on meeting the needs of central office management and charter-school operators rather than of the children and educators who spend their lives in Philly’s public schools.

 

“This contract extension is just the latest example of how the SRC’s priorities don’t align with what’s important to the district’s educators, children, and caregivers. And the latest example of this dichotomy should serve as a rallying cry to return to local control of our schools.

 

“Our district educates some of the nation’s neediest children, but lacks even basic supplies and enough critical staff to compensate for the unfair hand dealt to many of our kids. Yet, the SRC has prioritized a contract extension that affords Hite the security that Philadelphia’s teachers, children, and caregivers can only dream of.”

 
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20151221_Hite_contract_deal_shows_SRC_s_misplaced_priorities.html#qubrOcQL8XRcy17G.99

 

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Philadelphia

Iowa: Suppose You Wanted to Kill Public Education?

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2015 //
17

Scott McLeod, a blogger in Iowa, explains how politicians are following a script that details how to kill public education. Watch what they do. The same game plan is being repeated in other states.

McLeod knows that Iowa is not the worst-hit state, but it is being targeted for privatization.

Follow the steps. See if your state is suffering the same treatment at the hands of “reformers.”

He writes:

*underfund schools so that they can’t keep up with operational costs, will struggle to meet educational mandates, and will have to reduce personnel (bonus: fewer union members!)

*maintain claims about ‘fiscal accountability’ and future revenue concerns, even when they require ignoring strong revenue generation and projections

*reduce existing revenue streams in order to bolster claims of fiscal hardship (bonus: less government!)

*employ bait-and-switch funding mechanisms that supplant rather than supplement and/or disappear at the last minute

*ignore legal requirements to timely establish school funding levels that would allow districts to adequately plan and budget

*implement new, supplemental ‘bread and circuses’ initiatives (say, STEM or financial literacy) that distract the general public from the year-to-year erosion of base school funding

*give as little policy attention as possible to the known educational needs of students who live in poverty or don’t speak English as their primary language (and thus struggle academically), even as those student and family populations increase markedly within the state

*deflect the blame for your underfunding of schools by alleging schools’ inefficiency and superintendents’ mismanagement

*frequently change state standards and assessments and/or make them more difficult so that educators and students struggle to keep up and have less chance of hitting the moving targets
use selective data (say, NAEP scores) to manufacture educational crises that feed your rhetoric of public school failure

*create school grading and ranking schemes that shame struggling schools, demoralize the educators within them, and alarm parents
implement teacher evaluation schemes that are guaranteed to be unfair, demoralize educators, and confuse the public

*pitch tax credits and private/religious school vouchers or ’scholarships’ (‘money that will follow students in their backpacks’) to the general public as natural recourses to the failures of public schools

*write legislation that expands public school alternatives such as charters or homeschooling, particularly ones that can siphon funds away from public schools

*create double-standard school and educator ‘accountability’ provisions that apply to public schools but not non-public alternatives

*accept policy proposals, money, and political influence from seemingly anyone other than actual educators
affiliate with anti-public-school organizations (say, ALEC) that will feed you ‘model’ legislation proposals, connect you with successful players and tactics from other states, and provide ongoing encouragement to stay the course

*hold yearly education summits at which educators can only listen passively to carefully-vetted speakers who feed your desired agendas

*publicly dismiss, disparage, intimidate, or try to silence educators, parents, researchers, and others who speak out against your policies

Categories Budget Cuts, Closing schools, Funding, Iowa, Privatization
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