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Thom Hartmann’s Debate Prep: Biden’s Accomplishments in Three Years

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2023 //
44

The Republican debates, starting tonight, will attack President Biden relentlessly. Thom Hartmann has compiled a list of Biden’s accomplishments to counter the lies and exaggerations of Republican contenders for the nomination.

He writes:

The first Republican debate of the 2024 election cycle is tonight, and while all the drama seems focused on whether or not anybody beyond Chris Christie will take a serious swing at Trump, odds are most of the evening’s time will be devoted to trashing President Joe Biden.

So, to help keep you sane through all the lies and BS — and the fog you may be in by the end of the debate if your drinking game involved the word “woke” — here’s a quick summary* of the things that Biden has accomplished (with a little help from Democrats in Congress) in his first two-and-a-half years in office.

First of all, Joe Biden has restored trust, confidence, and faith in the honesty, credibility, and integrity of America. He doesn’t suck up to dictators like Trump did, and doesn’t lie to Americans or our allies. He’s restored independence to the Department of Justice and funding and support to regulatory agencies like the EPA.

Over united Republican opposition, the Biden administration has succeeded in lowering most Americans’ cost of living. The Inflation Reduction Act has reduced inflation to a full point lower than it was when Reagan was running his “Morning in America” ads in 1984 (unemployment is several points lower, too!).

Because of that law, for the first time, Medicare is able to negotiate the price of certain high-cost drugs: a month’s supply of insulin for seniors is capped at $35, Medicare beneficiaries pay $0 out of pocket for recommended adult vaccines, and seniors’ out of pocket expenses at the pharmacy will be capped at $2,000 a year.

America has just completed the strongest two years of job growth in the history of our country. Nearly 11 million jobs have been created since President Biden took office — including 750,000 manufacturing jobs. The unemployment rate is at a 50-year low, and a record number of small businesses have started since Biden took office. Black Americans and Hispanic Americans have near record low unemployment rates and people with disabilities are experiencing record low unemployment.

We’re experiencing a boom in manufacturing and the construction of manufacturing facilities like we haven’t seen since before the Reagan Revolution began offshoring American factories and jobs. Companies have invested more than $300 billion in good jobs, many of them unionized, as America’s technical capabilities sharpen along with this job growth.

Biden has expanded services available to our veterans (after Trump cut them), including 31 new clinical sites and a comprehensive program to help the estimated 5 million veterans who, like President Biden’s son Beau, have been exposed to toxic chemicals as a result of their service to our country.

President Biden brought together Democrats and Republicans to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major piece of gun safety legislation in three decades. The law will save lives by:

— requiring young people ages 18 to 21 to undergo enhanced background checks; 
—narrowing the “boyfriend loophole” to keep guns out of the hands of convicted dating partners;
— funding crisis interventions, including extreme risk protection orders (“red flag”) laws; 
— making significant investments to address the mental health crisis in America, including in our schools; 
— clarifying who needs to register as a federally licensed gun dealer and run background checks before selling a single weapon; 
— and making gun trafficking and straw purchases distinct federal crimes.

Over ten years ago, President Biden announced his support for marriage equality, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. government official to do so. Building on his longstanding support and generations of civil rights advocacy, President Biden signed historic bipartisan legislation protecting marriage for same-sex and interracial couples.

And the President took historic steps to advance full equality for LGBTQI+ Americans, including reversing the discriminatory ban on transgender servicemembers in the military, strengthening non-discrimination protections in health care, housing, education, and employment, and ensuring that transgender Americans can access government support and services.

Biden has put a more diverse group of people on the federal judiciary than any president in history. Sixty-six percent of his nominees have been women and 65 percent were people of color, including the Supreme Court’s first Black woman justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

After Putin declared war on democracy and launched a terrorist invasion of Ukraine, targeting civilians and using rape as a weapon of war, President Biden has brought the world together to stand up to a fascist autocracy and defend Europe’s largest democracy.

Following Trump’s humiliating groveling before Putin and attacks on NATO, the European Union, and our democratic allies around the world, President Biden has rebuilt the American alliances that have, in some cases, stood for over two centuries. Sweden and Finland have joined NATO, and China appears to be re-thinking their belligerent attitude toward Taiwan after last week’s meeting and agreements between the leaders of the US, South Korea, and Japan.

After Trump unilaterally closed all but one of our air bases in Afghanistan to maliciously make his successor’s job more difficult, the Biden administration ended the war in Afghanistan that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had lied us into. He’s also decapitated the leadership of ISIS and El Qaeda.

Ever since six Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted American women’s right to abortion (and multiple Republicans are now trying to ban birth control), President Biden has stood up for women’s healthcare rights. He’s signed several Executive Orders to protect access to reproductive healthcare (including for our military). When 19 Republican state attorneys general demanded the healthcare records of women who’ve sought abortions in more than thirty states, Biden signed an Executive Order strengthening patient privacy.

The Biden administration rolled out a plan to cut as much as $20,000 from the debt carried by America’s student borrowers (student debt of these proportions, the direct result of the Reagan Revolution, does not exist in any other nation on Earth). When a Republican lawsuit before the Supreme Court blocked his efforts, he announced a plan to provide millions of borrowers with more affordable monthly student loan payments through changes to income-driven repayment plans.

While Red states still put people in prison for years for possessing a single marijuana cigarette, President Biden pardoned allAmericans who’ve ever been convicted of a federal pot offense. He’s more recently initiated a multi-agency review of the drug’s Schedule 1 status, with an eye to decriminalizing it nationwide.

After centuries of police violence against Black people and other minorities, Biden signed a landmark executive order on safe, effective, and accountable policing that mandated federal reforms such as banning chokeholds, restricting no-knock entries, creating a national police accountability database, and restricting the transfer of military equipment to local police departments.

Through over a hundred executive actions and the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden has finally put America on course to cut our emissions in half by 2030 and to get to net-zero by 2050. He also protected more lands and waters in his first year than any President since John F. Kennedy.

While Republicans continue to strip people off Red state Medicaid rolls in their pursuit of cruelty, Biden expanded the Affordable Care Act. Millions can now find healthcare for $10 a month or less, and most Americans will see an Obamacare saving of an average of $800 a year.

Since he took office, there has been a combined 50 percent increase in enrollment in states that use HealthCare.gov and the nation’s uninsured rate is historically low at 8 percent. Over 16 million Americans signed up for quality, affordable health coverage, the highest number ever produced in an Obamacare open enrollment period.

Perhaps the most important accomplishment of President Biden has been re-aligning the Democratic Party with its progressive base. Biden worked hand-in-hand with Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders to put forward a sweeping progressive agenda involving an investment of over $5 trillion in America and American working people.

Although united opposition from Republicans and a handful of sellout Democrats (including Manchin, Sinema, and the “corporate problem solvers”) forced him to cut the program back, it is still revolutionary given the past 40 years of bipartisan embrace of neoliberalism. 

Reversing the anti-organized-labor trend started by Reagan that continued through the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, President Biden has aggressively promoted unions and unionization as essential to the future of working people in America.

President Biden also worked with and helped Nancy Pelosi pass through the House the For The People Act, which would have rolled back much of Citizens United and ended most Republican voter suppression by asserting Americans’ absolute right to vote. Had he not been betrayed by Manchin and Sinema, it would now be law.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (founded by Bernie) has gone from the handful of members (fewer than 10) it was when I did fundraisers for them more than a decade ago to being one of the strongest and largest in Congress (104 members right now). While this isn’t Biden’s doing and much credit goes to its members, Biden is the first Democratic president since LBJ to fully embrace progressives in Congress and fast-track their legislation. 

Biden has also:

— Set new policies to reduce super pollutants like HFCs and methane to protect communities and reduce emissions fueling climate change
— Advanced cutting-edge research on cancer and other diseases through the ARPA-H initiative
— Signed legislation to put more cops on the beat and invest in community policing
— Signed the Electoral Count Act, which takes long overdue steps to protect the integrity of our elections
— Lowered the cost of hearing aids by making them available over the counter
— Created more manufacturing jobs in 2022 than in any single year in nearly 30 years
— Signed an Executive Order to encourage competition across industries
— Took action to lower energy costs for families
— Lowered seniors’ health care expenses, including by capping out of pocket expenses on prescription drugs for seniors at $2,000 per year, ensuring that people enrolled in Medicare will not pay more than $35 for a month’s supply of insulin, and recipients will receive free vaccines
— Accelerated adoption of electric vehicles by reducing costs for families, jumpstarted the first national EV charging network, and made historic investments into EV batteries and materials
— Rejoined the Paris Agreement on day one to reassert the United States’ global leadership to combat the climate crisis
— Jumpstarted the American offshore wind industry and convened the nation’s first federal-state offshore wind partnership
— Set new policies to reduce super pollutants like HFCs and methane to protect communities and reduce emissions fueling climate change
— Lowered the deficit with the single largest annual reduction in American history
— Secured commitments from 20 leading internet providers to increase speeds and cut prices
— Signed legislation to reauthorize and strengthen the Violence Against Women Act
— Awarded the most ever federal contracting dollars to small businesses and disadvantaged small businesses
— Reignited the Cancer Moonshot with the goal of cutting the cancer death rate by at least half over the next 25 years
— Appointed a record number of women and people of color to serve in his Administration
— Hosted the first White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in over 50 years and released a National Strategy to end hunger and reduce diet-related diseases and disparities by 2030
— Awarded more than $1 billion to initiate cleanup and clear the backlog of 49 previously unfunded Superfund sites, over $250 million to clean up hundreds of contaminated brownfield sites, and $725 million for abandoned mine lands
— Restored protections for Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments and designated Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument to conserve our lands and waters, honor our nation’s veterans, protect Tribal cultural resources, and support jobs and America’s outdoor recreation economy
— Signed an Executive Order on Improving Public Safety and Criminal Justice for Native Americans and Addressing the Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People
— Invested historic funding for Tribal governments and Native communities, and
— Mailed over 740 million free COVID-19 tests directly to tens of millions of Americans

Below are a set of handy memes you can copy and paste into social media if any of these accomplishments resonate with you or you want to back up claims you’re making online. Just right-click and choose to save, copy, or download them: they’re copyright free. 

Here’s to a fascinating (and, no doubt, infuriating) debate!

OPEN THE LINK TO SEE HARTMANN’S MEMES.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Disruption, Elections, Environment, Funding, Health, Lies, Republicans, Trump

Dan Rather and Elliott Kirschner: The War to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2023 //
12

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner wrote in their blog Steady about the importance of saving public education from the forces trying to destroy and privatize it. They remind us and the general public that public schools unite us; privatization is inherently divisive. It is ironic that the red states are implementing voucher plans as the evidence about the failure of vouchers and the null effects of charter schools grows stronger. (The boldfacing of passages in their essay was added by me).

It is back to school. Students of all ages flock to campuses and classrooms. Fleeting memories of summer are quickly replaced by tests and textbooks.


Getting into the swing of a new semester has always included an adjustment period, but this is a particularly difficult time for many of our nation’s students and their parents, guardians, teachers, and others entrusted with the education of young minds.


The pandemic wreaked havoc with the emotional, intellectual, and social development of America’s youth. Dismal test scores provide depressing data of yawning learning deficits. Talk to anyone in or around schools and you hear stories of setbacks and struggle — heaps of qualitative data suggesting a staggering scale of generational loss.
As usual, those who were already the most marginalized have paid the heaviest price. The pandemic exacerbated existing disruptions and placed greater strain on finances and time, particularly in large urban districts and small rural ones tasked with educating children from families struggling economically.


We like to tell ourselves that the United States is a great meritocracy, but wealth and levels of family education continue to play outsized roles in dictating a child’s likelihood of academic success long before she learns her ABCs. The simple truth is that kids come to school from widely different circumstances, and these influence their ability to thrive, independent of whatever innate intelligence or drive they may possess. The pandemic made these differences more acute.


The United States does possess a system (or more accurately, a collection of thousands of systems) that, if nurtured and respected, could foster greater equality of opportunity. And it is exactly the institution that is now struggling the most: public education. America’s public schools were once the envy of the world as engines of opportunity and upward mobility. If the nation had the will, they could return to that status once again.


Our public schools certainly weren’t perfect in the past, especially during legal racial segregation, when the lie of “separate but equal” (separate is never equal) helped enshrine white supremacy. The segregated schools of the Jim Crow Deep South were a shameful injustice and a stain on our national identity. They were inconsistent with our founding documents, which spoke eloquently about equality among people. Of course there was (and remains, to some extent) de facto segregation throughout America based on who lives in what neighborhoods. Well-financed suburban schools were often part of the draw of “white flight” from urban districts.


The very ethos of public education should be one of inclusion for America’s diverse population. It should be a place where children of different backgrounds come together to learn both from teachers and from each other. Our schools should be places that allow students to wrestle with what it means to be part of this great country, including understanding America’s uneven and often bloody road to greater equality.


Sadly, in recent years, we have seen a grave regression from these noble goals. Our schools and school districts have become fiercely contested frontlines in an era of stepped-up culture wars. As reactionary political forces target what we teach our children, it is no accident that truth, empathy, and our democratic values have become casualties.

A chief concern is how and what we teach about our history, particularly the Black experience, and race and ethnicity more generally. We have written here before about the shameful whitewashing of racial violence and injustice, including slavery, by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. But this effort is not limited to him or that state. There is a national movement to not tell the full — and unfortunately tragic — reality of race in American history and how it continues to shape the nation.


Another serious concern is the othering of LGBTQ+ students and teachers. After years of progress, we see a wave of intolerance spread across America, including in our schools.


Few institutions in American life are as essential to the continuation of our democracy as the public schools. In a time of ascendent autocracy, attacks on our schools — how they are run, what they teach, what books they have in their libraries — are among the most pernicious, pathetic, and painful assaults on the health of our nation.

Several months back, Texas Monthly ran a striking piece of journalism with the headline, “The Campaign to Sabotage Texas’s Public Schools.” It tells a story that extends beyond the raucous school board meetings and book banning campaigns that have gotten the most attention. There is a movement afoot, and not just in Texas, to destroy public schools more generally, to privatize education through vouchers and other means.


In this context, the various culture fights become battles in a larger war over the very future and viability of public education:

Taken individually, any of these incidents may seem like a grassroots skirmish. But they are, more often than not, part of a well-organized and well-funded campaign executed by out-of-town political operatives and funded by billionaires in Texas and elsewhere. “In various parts of Texas right now, there are meetings taking place in small and large communities led by individuals who are literally providing tutorials—here’s what you say, here’s what you do,” said H. D. Chambers, the recently retired superintendent of Alief ISD, in southwest Harris County. “This divisiveness has been created that is basically telling parents they can’t trust public schools. It’s a systematic erosion of the confidence that people have in their schools.

The ideal of quality, integrated public schools for all children in the United States epitomizes the promise of our country’s founding as a place of equality and opportunity for all. It thus makes sense that would-be autocrats and protectors of privilege would seek to undermine our public schools by whatever means necessary. We must see this as what it is: as much a threat to the nation as was the violent storming of our Capitol.

The future of the United States depends on an educated and empathetic citizenry. It requires us to share a sense of common purpose and recognize our common humanity. It requires an environment that allows every child to thrive and see themselves included in the American story. It requires quality public education. Full stop.

A historic battle to save this institution and the very idea of good public schools has been underway for some time. It is now intensifying. Attention must be paid.

Categories Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Dark Money, Democracy, DeSantis, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Gender, History, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Privatization, Providence, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Florida: Huge Increase in Voucher Applications, Available Now to Rich and Poor

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2023 //
5

At the urging of Governor DeSantis, Florida’s legislature rubber stamped his proposal to expand vouchers to all students in the state without income restrictions. As Leslie Postal reported in The Orlando Sentinel, demand for vouchers in the state surged by 44%. Many of the applicants are already enrolled in private and religious schools. In other states where vouchers were made universal, most of the vouchers were claimed by students who never attended public schools. Thus, instead of “saving poor kids from failing public schools,” vouchers have become a subsidy for affluent families.

Postal writes:

The number of Florida students awarded school vouchers jumped by more than 117,500 this year, mostly due to a new state law that made all students eligible for scholarship programs once targeted to low-income children.

By Aug. 11, more than 382,000 students had received vouchers for the 2023-24 school year, giving them access to money for private school tuition, homeschooling services or therapies for children with disabilities, according to Step Up For Students, the private group that administers most of Florida’s scholarship programs.

That represents a 44% increase from a year ago when about 264,400 scholarships were awarded by the same date….

The scholarships are worth an average of about $7,800 a year, though actual amounts vary by student’s grade level and by county. The voucher programs are still required to prioritize giving awards to children whose families earn no more than 185% of the federal poverty limit, or a family of four earning $55,000 a year or less. But everyone, whether middle class or very rich, is now eligible to apply….

The hike in scholarships was expected after Gov. Ron DeSantis in March signed the new law, which he called a “major game changer” that would boost educational options for families. The law was celebrated by GOP leaders, school choice advocates and parents already paying for private school who are now eligible for state assistance.

They argued families who never opted for free public schools still pay school taxes and so it makes sense to provide them school vouchers to help offset private school costs.

This week, the Archdiocese of Miami credited the new law with boosting enrollment at its Catholic schools and creating waitlists at some campuses. “Step Up Blew Up,” it wrote on its website, like many, using Step Up as shorthand for Florida’s school scholarship programs.

The archdiocese noted that at one Catholic school in Coral Gables, with about 900 students, the number of families receiving state scholarships leapt from 160 last year to more than 560 this year.

But the new law also faces fierce critics. They worry its price tag — one estimate says it will cost the state $4 billion in its first years — will devastate public school budgets and dislike that private schools that take vouchers face little regulation from the state.

“The public dollars that they have given to private schools, those are our public school dollars that they are now giving to people to go to a private school,” Castor Dentel said. “Those are public school dollars they are now handling over to unaccountable private schools where you don’t have to have a qualified teacher.”

Private schools that take state vouchers are mostly religious schools, and they make their own decisions as far as teacher qualifications, curriculum and facilities. Some have hired teachers without college degrees and employees with criminal convictions, set up in rundown buildings and offered curriculum outside mainstream academics, the Orlando Sentinel has reported.

Providing scholarships to families whose children already were in private school or were being homeschooled “is absolutely taking away from public school dollars,” said Norin Dollard, a senior policy analyst with the Florida Policy Institute, a progressive think tank that warned back in February that the new law would cost the state billions of dollars.

Dollard said the state earmarked about $3.3 billion for all its scholarship programs this school year and likely will run through that by the end of October, given the number of awards announced so far.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, DeSantis, Education Industry, Extremism, Florida, Funding, Privatization, Vouchers

Big Donors to DeSantis Are Waiting to Give Money Until He Stops His Extremism

By dianeravitch
August 14, 2023 //
35

Some of the billionaires who have funded Ron DeSantis in the past are now withholding their millions because they think he is too extreme. Some don’t like his six-week abortion ban. Others are not pleased that he’s demonizing gays and drag queens. Haven’t they been paying attention? Mean is his brand. Also he looks like a loser.

The Orlando Sentinel reported:

TALLAHASSEE — GOP megadonors who invested in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as an alternative to Donald Trump for president are having serious second thoughts about continuing to back a candidate who political analysts say is looking like a bad bet.

Among them are: A Las Vegas aerospace business and hotel owner who has spent part of his fortune looking for proof of extraterrestrials. An NFL team owner and mall developer whose bribery conviction was pardoned by President Trump. An investment broker whose firm suffered fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank failure.

Those donors and others, including hedge fund managers, real estate developers and insurance executives, helped fuel the Never Back Down PAC that is providing the bulk of resources for the DeSantis campaign.

Six months ago, DeSantis’ fortunes looked bright. But since he announced his candidacy he has sunk in the polls, as Donald Trump’s numbers rise despite three federal indictments against him.

The moral of the story is that you can’t succeed by running to the right of Trump.

Gallup’s Mohamed Younis on Favorability of Presidential Candidates

Government and politics |

Categories Accountability, DeSantis, Education Industry, Elections, Funding

North Carolina: Voucher Schools Get Tax Dollars with No Rules or Accountability

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2023 //
3

Public Schools First North Carolina posted the following critique of the state’s newly expanded voucher program. Before it passed, the parent-led group projected that costs would soar to $550,000,000 annually, as a result of removing income limits. Instead of “saving poor kids from failing schools,” vouchers have become a way to subsidize the tuition of students from middle-income and upper-income families who never attended any public school.

Should teachers have some type of educational background or teaching license?

Should schools that receive public dollars provide transparency for how those dollars are spent?

Should North Carolinians expect to know how well students in schools funded by tax dollars are learning?

Should we have some assurance that our tax dollars are not being used to discriminate against groups of students and/or parents?

Should the governing body (i.e. school board) of each district be elected to represent the community it serves and held accountable by voters/taxpayers?

Whether your answer to these questions is yes or no, the degree to which schools actually have policies in place or are regulated in a way to address these questions depends entirely on whether they are traditional public schools, charter schools or private schools, even though all of them may be funded by our tax dollars.

With a massive NC private school voucher program expansion in the proposed House and Senate budgets, it is worth examining which policies apply to which schools and how much the public knows about the schools they’re funding. Although more than 70% of the U.S. population lives in households without a school-aged child, having a well-educated citizenry affects everyone, so accounting for how tax dollars are spent is important.

The NC Department of Administration Division of Non-Public Education registers and monitors both conventional private schools and homeschools. Each year, the division publishes a report containing the publicly available information on private schools. It’s a thin, three page report with minimal information: number of students by school, county, and year, number and percentage of school by type (i.e. independent or religious), and number and percentage of students by sex (i.e. male or female). Taxpayers funding school vouchers see no budget on how their money is being spent and there are no public meetings or ways to the public to give input on schools procedures or policies.

No information is provided by these private schools about student achievement or population subgroups such as special education, English learner, race, ethnicity, or family income status. Lacking any such data, it’s difficult for the public to know whether students are learning or if schools are discriminating against students or families.

In fact, although voucher-accepting private schools are required to administer an achievement test each year, they are allowed to select the test, be in charge of how it is administered and the results are not made publicly available. So the public is left with no objective measure of whether students are learning anything at all.

Traditional public schools and charter schools are required to follow the state standard course of study and show the assessment results, but voucher-receiving private schools have no curriculum guidelines at all. In fact, they could even operate under an “unschooling” philosophy while accepting public tax dollars.

In traditional public schools, 100% of the teaching staff must have a license or be working toward one to provide instruction to our children. In charter schools, the requirement if that just 50% of the teacher must be certified, and in private schools the requirement drops to 0%. Teachers do not to be certified nor do they have to even have a college degree.

Traditional public schools and charter schools must also provide a minimum of 185 days (or 1,025 hours) of instruction across at least nine months. Private schools have no minimum days or hours of instruction. They are simply required to provide some instruction across nine months in a given year. Private schools are also allowed to determine their own policies and procedures for handling excessive student absences, including the maximum number of days a student may be absent and remain enrolled. Compare this to the requirement we place on public schools for students attendance and related retention policies.

Although state law does prohibit private schools from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin, with no tracking mechanism in place to show that they comply or not making it a toothless requirement. And to date, state law does not require voucher-receiving private schools to follow other federal non-discrimination laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act or Title IX. (See our report for more information), yet they would receive public tax dollars.

In contrast to the absence of private school data, the NC Department of Public Instruction makes extensive and detailed data available about student achievement, demographics, and school finances for traditional public schools and some data about charter schools. The public can find out how many students achieved a passing score on state tests, what a school or district’s demographic make-up looks like and how it has changed over time, whether students fall into special needs categories, how many disciplinary actions occurred in a given year, how much money was spent on teachers and textbooks versus facilities, and answers to just about any other question one can ask about schools. There is full transparency for tax dollars at work with public schools. Annual public audits of the financial books is required by state law and available to the public.

Traditional public school leadership is also open to public scrutiny, as the past few years have highlighted. Traditional school boards must conduct some public meetings and provide an opportunity for public comment. Not so for charter and private schools – there is no public input required or allowed.

In addition, all traditional public school board members must live within their school district and have to be elected by registered voters. These elected board members represent the communities they serve where all citizens, whether parents or not, can vote in school board elections. However, only 50% of charter school board members must reside in North Carolina and elections are not required. There are no residency or election requirements for private school board members along with no requirement that their governing boards even be shown publicly.

All North Carolinians deserve to know whether their tax dollars are being spent responsibly to create a better community for everyone. Comparing requirements between traditional public schools and private schools reveals stark differences. When tax dollars are being spent to support private schools, the public needs accountability to prevent financial fraud and poor student outcomes.

More transparency for how voucher-receiving private schools use their public funds would also help legislators make more-informed budget and policy decisions and evaluate the value of the money spent. Transparency and meaningful data are important requirements when hard-earned public tax dollars are funneled to unaccountable private schools, the same information we expect from publicly funded public schools.

Isn’t it curious that many of the same people who demanded strict accountability for public schools insist on no accountability for voucher schools?

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, North Carolina, Religion, Separation of church and state

Harold Meyerson: Bidenenomics Is Working Faster Than Expected

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2023 //
13

Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect writes that many people think that government works slowly and is outpaced by business efficiency. But, he writes, Biden’s infrastructure plans are starting at a fast clip.

America’s industrial renaissance is happening faster than almost anyone anticipated.

Meyerson writes:

It is a lie universally acknowledged as truth that the government is slow, that if you want something done quickly, you turn to the private sector.

Of course, there are a plethora of instances in which government is slow. Consider, for instance, the efforts of the National Labor Relations Board to compel companies to pay workers whom they’ve illegally fired for trying to unionize. Lawbreaking companies can drag this out for years. Of course, that’s because, beginning with the Taft-Hartley Act 75 years ago, companies and their handmaidens in Congress and the courts have stripped the NLRB of the power to enforce this law expeditiously. When the government is slow, that’s often because powerful private-sector actors have slowed it down to their own advantage.

But sometimes, government can be more swift and effective than its critics can even imagine, as the implementation of the three signature pieces of Biden administration/Democratic Congress legislation is now demonstrating. The Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act have spurred the economy, which grew by 2.4 percent in the last quarter, well beyond anything the private sector could have accomplished by itself, and in less time than establishment economists thought possible. America is building factories again: The spending on factory construction is up by 76 percentfrom last year. Business spending on all forms of infrastructure—not just factories but also transportation equipment, software, and the like—is up by 56 percent. Through the magic of Keynes’s multiplier effect, government subsidies and outlays of roughly $300 billion on such projects have led to an increase in business investment of an additional $500 billion. And bolstering all this investment is the consumer purchasing power that has resulted from Biden’s initial stimulus legislation, which ended the COVID recession much more quickly than any recession in American history and yielded near record-low unemployment and levels of labor force participation not seen in many years.

Biden has sometimes been compared to Franklin Roosevelt for his efforts to renew and expand the kind of social insurance and worker empowerment initiatives that FDR undertook. I’d argue that it’s the scope, speed, and success of his public investments that most resemble Roosevelt’s. Facing the actual prospect of mass starvation in the winter of 1933-1934, FDR’s public-works program managed to employ three million Americans—in a nation of 130 million—in just 60 days. The defense spending that began in 1940 in response to the very real threat of the fascist control of all Eurasia built an army that then ranked 39th in the world in size into one that was the world’s largest by 1944, at which time the nation’s production of planes, ships, and tanks exceeded the combined total of all other nations’.

Learning not just from Roosevelt’s successes but also from the failure of the Obama administration to highlight the projects that its stimulus spending had created, Biden and Democrats are now volubly touting the projects that their own stimulus programs have engendered, many of which are already springing up. Given the public’s skepticism about the effects and durability of this economic revival, and the Republicans’ insistence that no such revival exists, Biden & Company know they will have to keep making this case straight through November of next year.

That said, can we acknowledge that Bidenomics is not only successful but speedy? Yes, we can.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Categories Accountability, Biden, Creativity, Democracy, Economy, Elections, Environment, Funding

Jersey City: The Secret to Retaining Teachers!

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2023 //
16

Something exciting is happening in Jersey City, New Jersey. As schools adopt the community schools model, teachers are teaching, enjoying it, and not jumping ship. Pay attention!

Joshua Rosario wrote in the Jersey Journal:

We swear on Dumbledore’s Elder wand, no spells were cast to keep teachers from walking out the door of this Jersey City school.

At a time when schools nationwide are struggling to keep and recruit educators, the preK-through-8 Mahatma Gandhi School has retained its staff by using a community-based model that allows them to focus solely on teaching; as well as a Harry Potter-type friendly competition in which students and teachers are split into four teams to accumulate points throughout the year.

Teachers Michelle Duarte and Lindsay Boland said before the school, located at 143 Romaine Ave., transitioned to the community-based model, teachers had to be attendance officers, guidance counselors, therapists, nurses and even act as another parent for students.

“It just comes down to you can teach, you can interact with students and not worry about all the extra stuff that used to get thrown at you in the past,” Duarte, a teacher for 23 years at the school said.

At least 55% of teachers, many of whom take on multiple roles beyond educating their students, are considering leaving the profession earlier than they planned, according to a survey by the National Education Association, one of the largest teacher unions in the country.

“I am not saying that I don’t think about work when I get home … but when I get home I can shut my computer down and not have to type up lesson plans,” said Boland, who has taught at three schools. “I had one of my students tell me he missed school for a week because he had no shoes.”

Superintendent Norma Fernandez and Mahatma Gandhi Principal Peter Mattaliano credit the community-based school model for a 95% retention rate. The community-based model allows the school to give its 1,000 students, of which 62% are considered economically disadvantaged, and their families access to more services than traditional schools can provide.

Out of the 85 teachers at the school, also known as School 23, only five teachers had filed for retirement this past year, Mattaliano said.

While many teachers would pay out of their own pocket to provide a student with shoes, teachers at Mahatma Gandhi can reach out to the school’s community coordinator. The children and their families are not only connected to needed financial help, but the school provides a food pantry, clothing shop and even a full medical clinic that includes visits from a pediatrician and dentist.

“They didn’t even know what a dentist was or owned a toothbrush, which was really alarming and depressing,” said Boland, who teaches first grade. “A lot of times kids tell you there is no food at home, so a few times a week we take some of our students down there and go food shopping.”

School 23 is one of five community-based schools in the district, along with schools 15, 34, 22, 29 (which opens in September) and Snyder High School.

Open the link and read on.

Categories Community Schools, Education Reform, Funding, New Jersey, Teachers and Teaching

Houston: Miles Wants Power to Spend Up to $2 Million Without Board Approval

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2023 //
23

Mike Miles is a source of unending chutzpah. Not only did he win approval to hire uncertified teachers and principals, not only is he turning libraries into detention centers, but now he wants the HISD board to allow him to spend up to $2 million without prior approval by the board. This is outrageous. The current limit is $100,000.

Megan Menchacha of The Houston Chronicle reports:

The Houston ISD administration is seeking to increase the minimum purchasing threshold that requires board approval by twentyfold.

Under current policy, any district purchase of at least $100,000 requires approval from the school board. Superintendent Mike Miles asked during the board’s work session meeting Thursday to increase the limit to $2 million so the district can be faster and more efficient with its purchases.

The board will vote on whether to adopt the changes to the policy during its regular meeting Thursday….

Mindy Wilson, a parent of two HISD students, urged the board not to adopt the item, calling the request “unheard of and obscene.” She cited larger school districts with lower limits that require board approval, including the Los Angeles Unified School District and Chicago Public Schools.

“Do you see how egregious this is for HISD stakeholders and taxpayers?” Wilson said. “How is this even allowed to happen? This is even shameful on a national level. Just think about how it’s gonna hurt HISD as years go on and other superintendents and people have this kind of power over our tax dollars. … We demand transparency for every policy and dollar spent in HISD.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District has about 420,000 students, and the board must approve purchases over $250,000. In Chicago, the school district has around 322,100 students, and the board must approve purchases above $500,000.

Miles said those two districts were too slow, bureaucratic and failing to achieve student achievement results. He said he proposed a $2 million threshold for HISD after a meeting with his finance team

“They’re less effective and less efficient. Chicago and L.A., they’re not getting it done,” Miles said. “They have a very bureaucratic, cumbersome process to do anything because it’s very political there, and politics run all these vendor contracts.”

We will soon learn whether the HISD board is a puppet board.

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Houston

Darcie Cimarusti: Beware of the So-Called Parental Rights Groups

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2023 //
1

Darcie Cimarusti died a few days ago after a valiant fight against ovarian cancer. She was the communications director for the Network for Public Education and a treasured friend to all who worked with her. Having served many years on her local school board in Highland Park, New Jersey, she was passionately committed to supporting public schools against baseless attacks on the schools and their teachers.

Last December, despite her illness, Darcie wrote an article about hyper partisan groups like Moms for Liberty that were besieging local school boards with baseless complaints and driving wedges among parents.

Her article was printed in newspapers across the nation. This one appeared in the Bedford Gazette. She never stopped speaking up for what she believed in. Hers was the voice of reason, calm, common sense, and responsibility.

She wrote:

I have been a local school board member since my daughters, now 11th-graders, were in second grade. In that time, I have been involved in education policy discussions at the local, state and national levels on issues such as the rights of LGBTQ students, standardized testing and the privatization of public education.

The rise of the so-called “parental rights” movement in public education has been one of the thorniest, most perplexing issues I have encountered.

Parents certainly play a crucial role in the education of their children. Who would dare argue that they don’t? But heavily funded, right-leaning parents groups such as Moms for Liberty have unleashed a juggernaut of opposition to “critical race theory,” LGBTQ rights, social emotional learning, diversity equity and inclusion. So it has become imperative that we have an honest discussion about how much say parents should have in what is (or is not) taught in our public schools.

My district, unlike many, is racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse, with 31 languages spoken in the homes of our students. Educating such a diverse student body presents many challenges and requires a nuanced approach to policy and practice to ensure all students have equal opportunities to learn, thrive and grow. While it is easy for school leaders to say they embrace diversity, equity and inclusion, it’s far too challenging to implement policies promoting those principles.

I have spent my time on the school board helping to develop systems that ensure decisions are made collaboratively and with as many voices involved as possible. This means making space not only for administrators, teachers, parents and students but also ensuring that historically marginalized groups are represented.

Decisions that affect students should never be based on the whims of the most privileged or powerful, and not on whose voice is loudest.

But the latter has become the hallmark of parental rights activists. They attend meeting after meeting, berating, shouting down and even making death threats against school board members. During the pandemic, battles over masks erupted at podiums at far too many school board meetings across the country and quickly morphed into demands to ban books, censor curriculum and muzzle “woke” teachers that parents accused of “grooming” their children.

In the 2022 midterm elections, parental rights activists were on the ballot in many states. With the support and endorsement of Moms for Liberty, they ran campaigns to become school board members in districts in red, blue and purple states. Moms for Liberty operates county chapters that aim to serve as watchdogs “over all 13,000 school districts.” Chapters empower parents to “defend their parental rights” and “identify, recruit and train liberty-minded parents to run for school boards.”

The “anti-woke” agenda espoused by Moms for Liberty and endorsed by school board candidates had the greatest successes in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis proudly declared the state was “where woke goes to die.” But in many other parts of the country, parental rights candidates lost their elections, with even conservative political operatives acknowledging that many of their campaigns were “too hyperbolic.”

Chaos has already erupted in several districts where they succeeded and won board majorities, with newly formed, inexperienced boards firing superintendents or forcing them to resign. One board voted to ban the teaching of critical race theory just hours after being sworn in.

After a decade of experience as a school board member, one thing I can say for sure is that the majority of parents, teachers and community members do not respond well to instability and disruption in their local public schools. When school boards run amok and rash decisions make headlines, communities work quickly to restore calm. If parental-rights school boards continue to govern recklessly, they will undoubtedly face a backlash from voters.

Creating and implementing sound school policies and practices that respect and affirm all students requires collaboration. It does not allow for the divisive, polarizing rhetoric and impetuous, rash decision-making that have become the calling cards of the so-called parental rights movement.

+1 

Categories Bigotry, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Failure, Funding, Gender, Privatization, Propaganda, Racism

Perry Bacon Jr: Is “Education Reform” Dead?

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2023 //
32

In 2020, when I published my last book, Slaying Goliath, I opined that education “reform” as defined by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top (standardized testing, school closings, school grades, charter schools, evaluating teachers by student scores, merit pay, Common Core, etc.) was a massive failure. The test-and-punish and standardization mandates had turned schooling into a joyless, test-obsessed experience that demoralized teachers and students alike. None of the promises of “reform” came to pass, but privatization via charter inevitably led to vouchers and the defunding of public schools.

The failure of federally-mandated reforms seemed obvious to me but Congress continues to use standardized tests as the ultimate gauge of students, teachers, and schools, despite the destruction that was obvious to anyone with eyes to see. And the reviewer in The New York Times slammed my book for daring to doubt the virtue of the “Ed reform” movement.

Perry Bacon Jr. wrote an article recently for the Washington Post titled “‘Education Reform’ Is Dying. Now We Can Actually Reform Education.” It was amazing to see this article in The Washington Post because for years its editorial writer was a cheerleader for the worst aspects of that destructive movement (Rhee could do no wrong, charters are wonderful, firing teachers and principal is fine). But the education editorial writer retired, hallelujah, and we get to hear from Perry Bacon Jr., in addition to the always wonderful Valerie Strauss (whose excellent “Answer Sheet” blog does not appear in the printed paper but online).

Earlier today, John Thompson earlier today responded on this blog to Bacon’s brilliant article. I meant to post the article by Bacon but forgot. Here it is. What do you think?

Perry Bacon Jr. wrote:

America’s decades-long, bipartisan “education reform” movement, defined by an obsession with test scores and by viewing education largely as a tool for getting people higher-paying jobs, is finally in decline. What should replace it is an education system that values learning, creativity, integration and citizenship.

Joe Biden is the first president in decades not aggressively pushing an education agenda that casts American schools and students as struggling and in desperate need of fixing. He has not stated that “education is the civil rights issue of our time,” a sentence said by presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. His administration has backed policies, such as an expanded child tax credit, that view giving people more money, not more education, as the main way to reduce poverty.

There is a push from experts and politicians across partisan lines, including from Biden, to get employers to stop requiring college degrees for so many jobs. There is also a growing defense of college students who study English, literature and other subjects that don’t obviously lead to jobs in the way that, say, engineering does.

An education gospel is being dismantled, one that was 40 years in the making. In 1983, the Reagan administration released a report called “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.” It warned that America’s status as an economic powerhouse was under threat because its students were doing so much worse than those from other industrialized nations on standardized tests. That report put education reform on the national agenda and explicitly tied it to economic growth.

But this education fixation wasn’t just about the economy. The two parties couldn’t agree on racial policy. Democrats wanted more funding and explicit policies to help Black people and heavily Black areas to make up for past discrimination, and the Republicans largely opposed them.

What Democrats and Republicans could agree on was making education a priority. So Republican politicians, particularly Bush, pumped more money into schools, as Democrats wanted. And Democrats broadly adopted the view that education was the main way for Black people to make up for the effects of racism, thereby shifting responsibility for Black advancement from the government to individual African Americans, as Republicans wanted.

Eventually education, particularly getting a college degree, became viewed as the primary way for economic advancement for not just Black people but people of all races who weren’t born into the middle class.

The result was a bipartisan education fixation for much of the period between 1990 and 2016. It included the expansion of charter and magnet schools as an alternative to traditional public schools; an obsession with improving student test scores; accountability systems that punished schools and teachers if their kids didn’t score well; increased government spending on college loans and grants as part of a movement to make college essentially universal; and a push for Black students in particular not to just get college degrees but ones in “STEM” fields (science, technology, engineering and math) that would help them get higher-paying jobs.

This agenda was racial, economic and education policy all wrapped into one.

The problem is that this education push didn’t work. While the number of Americans who have graduated from high school and college have skyrocketed in the past three decades, wages and wealth haven’t grown nearly as much. Black people in particular haven’t seen economic gains matching these huge increases in education levels.

Instead of increased education benefiting Americans broadly, this education dogma created a two-tiered system. White-collar, secure, higher-paying jobs with good benefits went disproportionately to college graduates, while those in the worst jobs tended to not have degrees. And to get those degrees, Americans often had to borrow tens of thousands of dollars.

So Americans started revolting. The Black Lives Matter Movement emerged in 2013 and expressed frustration not only with police brutality but also with the continued economic struggles of Black Americans. In the 2016 presidential campaign, both Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Trump appealed to voters who felt abandoned by a bipartisan political establishment that appeared unbothered by the disappearance of manufacturing and other jobs that didn’t require higher education. Sanders called for free college, appealing to young people frustrated that their best path to a good job was accruing tens of thousands of dollars in education debt.

After Trump’s election, both parties embraced the idea that they must try to help Americans, particularly those without college degrees, who feel stuck in today’s economy. So politicians are no longer casting education as the ideal solution to economic or racial inequality. Biden and the Democrats are specifically trying to create jobs that would go to non-college graduates, and they are pushing policies, such as expanding Medicaid, that would disproportionately help Black Americans even if they don’t have much advanced education.

But if the real aim of education policy is no longer really economic and racial policy, what should its goals be? Neither party seems to have a clear answer. Most Democrats defend teachers, a core party constituency, and extol public schools and community colleges, trying to shed the Democrats’ reputation as the party for graduates of Ivy League schools. But they don’t have a broader theory of education policy.

The Republicans are doing something much worse. At the state level, they are largely abandoning public schools and instead aggressively pushing universal voucherlike programs for K-12 education to help as many families as possible to enroll their kids in private and/or religious schools. They are also casting K-12 public school teachers and in particular college professors as propagandists who impose liberal values on students. At the college level, Republicans are trying to force out left-leaning faculty and push campuses to the right.


I certainly prefer the “teachers, professors and public schools are good” perspective (the Democratic one) over “teachers, professors and public schools are bad” (the Republican one). But neither is a real vision for American education.

Here’s one: Our education system should be about learning, not job credentialing. Schools and universities should teach Americans to be critical thinkers, not automatically believing whatever they heard from a friend or favorite news source. They should make sure Americans have enough understanding of economics, history and science to be good citizens, able to discern which candidate in an election has a better plan to, say, deal with a deadly pandemic. They should foster interest and appreciation of music, arts and literature.

They should be places where people meet and learn from others who might not share their race, class, religion or ideology. Our schools and universities should of course also provide people the core skills for jobs that actually require higher education. They should provide a path to becoming a doctor, lawyer, professor or any profession that requires specialized training without going into debt.
What our education system should not be is 16 years of required drudgery to make sure that you can get a job with stable hours and decent benefits — or a punching bag for politicians who have failed to do their jobs in reducing racial and economic inequality.

“What I think colleges and universities should do right now is to stop selling this myth that education is going to be the great equalizer,” University of Wisconsin at Green Bay professor Jon Shelton said in a recent interview with Inside Higher Ed.

Shelton, author of a new book called “The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy,” added, “I think what we need to do is focus on being the institutions that are going to help society solve these bigger problems, to be the place where people can encounter controversial ideas on campus, where we can have far-reaching conversations about what needs to change in our economy, and how we’re going to create the kind of world in which climate change doesn’t destroy our entire way of life.”

Blessedly, education reform is dying. Now we can reform our schools and colleges in a way that actually improves teaching and learning.

If you can open the article, you will see two graphs displayed: one shows that Black educational attainment has risen substantially (the percent who have graduated high school and college) but Black income and wealth has stalled. Those who were counting on education alone to eliminate poverty were wrong.

Note to reader: a version of this post was published at 1:30 p.m. This was WordPress’s error. This is the finished version. Too complicated to explain.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Cruelty, Disruption, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Funding, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Real Education, Standardized Testing, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching
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