Archives for category: Injustice
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Mississippi: The Amicus Briefs in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Lawsuit Against Diverting Local Funds to Charters

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2018 //
3

Is your school district losing funds to charter schools that it did not authorize? If so, you might find this information useful.

A few months ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit in Mississippi to block the state from removing tax revenues from local school districts to pay for charter schools. The district in question is Jackson, Mississippi. SPLC argued that the state constitution requires that the funds of each district are to be spent solely for its own public schools, under local control.

The SPLC brief is linked in the original post.

SPLC shared with me the amicus briefs, which are excellent. If your state or district is being drained by charters, you may find these legal briefs to be useful.

The three briefs can be found here, here, and here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Inequity, Injustice, Mississippi, Privatization

Sherrilyn Ifill: Racism is a National Security Concern

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2018 //
7

Racism and segregation are our nation’s greatest sin, written into our founding and our history. We live with their consequences every day in the misery and blighted lives that stand in sharp contrast to the ideals of our founding documents. We think of ourselves as a just people, but we tolerate injustice. We think of our nation as one that is dedicated to equality, yet we live with inequality and ignore it. Now, as Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, writes in the Washington Post.


Two newly released reports from the Senate Intelligence Committee about Russian interference in the 2016 election have been nothing short of revelatory. Both studies — one produced by researchers at Oxford University, the other by the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge — describe in granular detail how the Russian government tried to sow discord and confusion among American voters. And both conclude that Russia’s campaign included a massive effort to deceive and co-opt African Americans. We now have unassailable confirmation that a foreign power sought to exploit racial tensions in the United States for its own gain.

Ever since U.S. intelligence agencies reported that the Russian government worked to sway the 2016 election, foreign election meddling has been one of our nation’s top national security concerns. But our discussions about Russian interference rarely touch on the other major threat to our elections: the resurgence of state-sponsored voter suppression in the United States. In light of these disturbing new reports, it is clear we can no longer think of foreign election meddling as a phenomenon separate from attempts to disenfranchise Americans of color. Racial injustice remains a real vulnerability in our democracy, one that foreign powers are only too willing to attack.

How should we respond? First, we have to make it easier, not harder, for Americans to vote. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision, which severely weakened the Voting Rights Act, we’ve seen a resurgence of voter-suppression efforts across the nation. Congress has the power to fix the Voting Rights Act, but so far it has declined to do so. The revelations of Russia’s racial targeting should serve as a wake-up call that domestic voter suppression, in addition to being unconstitutional, effectively aids foreign attacks on our democracy. Indeed, we should take seriously the danger that domestic and foreign groups may coordinate to suppress turnout in future elections, a possibility we can begin to forestall, first and foremost, by protecting the franchise here at home. Rep. Terri A. Sewell (D-Ala.) has already introduced a comprehensive new voting rights bill, and Congress should swiftly act upon it in the new year.

Second, these revelations only deepen the urgency of demanding more accountability from technology companies. The New Knowledge report criticizes social media companies such as Facebook for misleading Congress about the nature of Russian interference, noting that one even denied that specific groups were targeted. This is just more evidence that Silicon Valley has yet to come to grips with the enormous influence it wields in our democracy, and the ways that foreign powers can use that influence to manipulate Americans. Congress should require greater transparency and responsibility from these corporations before the 2020 elections.

Finally, we have to accept that foreign powers seize upon these divisions because they are real — because racism remains the United States’ Achilles’ heel. Indeed, it is, and always has been, a national security vulnerability — a fundamental and easily exploitable reality of American life that belies the image and narrative of equality and justice we project and export around the world. It may be especially difficult in our era of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” but we must recognize that our failure to acknowledge hard truths, especially when it comes to race, makes it easier for foreign powers to turn us against one another. Russia did not conjure out of thin air the black community’s legitimate grievances about racist policing. Nor did it invent racist and hateful conspiracy theories. Rather, Russian trolls seized upon these real problems as ready-made sources of discord. Moving forward, we need to recognize that our failure to honestly address issues of civil rights and racial justice makes all of us more susceptible to foreign interference.

This is hardly the first time our adversaries have identified race and racism as America’s great vulnerability. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union frequently pointed to segregation and civil unrest as proof of American hypocrisy. This propaganda was sufficiently widespread, and contained enough truth, that leaders of both parties began arguing that segregation undermined the United States’ position in the Cold War, helping to ease the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s.

Today, we need a similar understanding that our failure to ensure equal justice for all has grave implications for U.S. national security. The upcoming House oversight committee hearings on Russian interference and voter suppression will be critical opportunities to educate the public on the threats to our democracy, and they deserve our close attention.

But we must be careful not to reduce the struggle for racial equality into a bloodless question of national interest. Civil rights are essential to our national security, but national security cannot be the chief rationale for pursuing civil rights. After all, racial injustice is not just another chink in our armor. It is the great flaw in our character. Our adversaries know that race makes us our own worst enemy. It is past time we learn this hard truth ourselves.

Categories Inequality, Injustice, Racism

Peter Greene: Society Is Failing Our Children and Their Schools

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2018 //
12

Recently, a commenter on this blog wrote that he finally understood why some schools are succeeding and others are failing. He said he realized that children in affluent communities have well-resourced and successful schools, while children in impoverished communities have terrible schools. I tried for the umpteenth time to explain to him that he was reaching the wrong conclusion. The only measure he was using was test scores, which reflect family income. I suggested he consider that the schools in poor communities did not get the same resources as those in affluent communities. The schools he called “failing” very likely have dedicated teachers who are working hard despite large classes and inadequate support. The problem is not the schools, but society’s refusal to pay the cost of making every school a good school.

Peter Greene explains the point in more detail in this post about the Journey for Justice Alliance.

He begins:

“If you’re not regularly exposed to the problem, you might think that finding the ways in which non-white non-wealthy students are shortchanged would require deep and nuanced research. As it turns out, finding the ways in which education fails to serve those students requires no more careful research than finding the nose on the front of your face.

“The Journey For Justice Alliance is based in Chicago, but it’s an alliance of grassroots community, youth, and parent-led organizations in 24 cities across the country. They are working and organizing for community-driven alternatives to the privatization of and dismantling of public school systems. They’re the folks behind the #WeChoose movement (as in “we choose education equity, not the illusion of school choice.” Look at their member groups and you’ll find honest-to-goodness community grass roots organizations, not just one more astroturf group funded by Gates, Walton, et al. Their director, Jitu Brown, is one of the most powerful speakers for education and equity it has ever been my pleasure to hear.

“Last spring they issued a report– “Failing Brown v. Board”– that looks at the gap between the schools that serve primarily wealthy white families and those that serve non-wealthy families of color. Their findings are not encouraging.

“The report says: The fact is, public schools in Black and Latino communities are not “failing.” They have been failed. More accurately, these schools have been sabotaged for years by policy-makers who fail to fully fund them, by ideologues who choose to experiment with them, by “entrepreneurs” who choose to extract public taxpayer dollars from education systems for their own pockets.

“The report also rejects the notion that money doesn’t matter, or that somehow the children and their families are responsible. And they know what successful, fully-resourced schools look like

They offer a culturally relevant, engaging and challenging curriculum, smaller class sizes, more experienced teachers, wrap-around emotional and academic supports, a student-centered school climate and meaningful parent and community engagement. These are the hallmarks of what Journey for Justice calls sustainable community schools.

“J4J performed a fairly simple piece of research– looking at course offerings in various schools across twelve cities. They acknowledge that such a comparison isn’t perfect, that schools may offer courses that are never actually taught, that the course offering list doesn’t tell you about the quality of those courses. But the findings are still pretty stark.”

In every pairing of black and white schools, “majority white schools offered both more academic subjects and more “enrichment” subjects in the arts than majority Black and/or Brown schools. Majority white schools offered more foreign languages, more high-level math options, more AP courses. The range of offerings in arts, music, dance and theater was far greater in majority white schools…

“Charter fans are going to say, “See? That’s why we need to build more charters, so we can get some of those children of color out of there,” but why should those children have to sacrifice the other big benefit that majority white schools enjoy– a school in their own community that they can attend with their neighbors? And why do we need a complicated web of privatized schools to fix the problem. We know how to fix the problem, as witnessed by the fact that politicians and leaders have fixed the problem for each of the affluent majority white schools.

“It’s like you have twenty kids in a cafeteria, and ten sit down with a steak dinner and the other ten get bowls of cold oatmeal, and when someone complains about it, a bunch of folks pop up to propose some complex system by which one of the oatmeal kids will be sent out to a restaurant across town. No! Just get back out in the kitchen and use the same tools and supplies that you demonstrably already have to make steak dinners for the rest of the kids.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Equity, Funding, Inequality, Injustice, Racism

While You Were Not Watching, the EPA Science Advisor Will Be Eliminated

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2018 //
20

While most of us were transfixed by the drama surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court, the Trump Administration was busy eliminating the role of science in the federal Environmental Protection Administration. In the Trump administration, the work of dismantling environmental protection, public education, civil rights, and every progressive policy of the past century goes on daily, without delay, even as the far-right evangelicals secure the fifth seat on the Supreme Court to assure that their actions will never lose in court.

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to dissolve its Office of the Science Advisor, a senior post that was created to counsel the E.P.A. administrator on the scientific research underpinning health and environmental regulations, according to a person familiar with the agency’s plans. The person spoke anonymously because the decision had not yet been made public.

The science adviser works across the agency to ensure that the highest quality science is integrated into the agency’s policies and decisions, according to the E.P.A.’s website. The move is the latest among several steps taken by the Trump administration that appear to have diminished the role of scientific research in policymaking while the administration pursues an agenda of rolling back regulations.

Asked about the E.P.A.’s plans, John Konkus, a spokesman for the agency, emailed a prepared statement from the science adviser, Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, in which she described the decision to dissolve the office as one that would “combine offices with similar functions” and “eliminate redundancies.”

In an email, Dr. Orme-Zavaleta referred questions to the E.P.A.’s public affairs office.

Dr. Orme-Zavaleta is an expert on the risks of chemicals to human health who has worked at the E.P.A. since 1981, according to the agency’s website. It was unclear whether she would remain at the E.P.A. once the decision takes effect.

Separately, on Tuesday, in an unusual move, the E.P.A. placed the head of its Office of Children’s Health, Dr. Ruth Etzel, on administrative leave, while declining to give a reason for the move. Agency officials told Dr. Etzel, a respected pediatric epidemiologist, that the move was not disciplinary. As the head of an office that regularly pushed to tighten regulations on pollution, which can affect children more powerfully than adults, Dr. Etzel had clashed multiple times with Trump administration appointees who sought to loosen pollution rules.

Michael Mikulka, who heads a union representing about 900 E.P.A. employees, said, “Clearly, this is an attempt to silence voices whether it’s in the agency’s Office of Children’s Health or the Office of the Science Advisor to kill career civil servants’ input and scientific perspectives on rule-making.”

The changes at the two offices, which both report directly to the head of the E.P.A., come as the agency’s acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, is overseeing a reorganization of the agency.

After dissolving the office of the scientific adviser, Mr. Wheeler plans to merge the position into an office that reports to the E.P.A.’s Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science, a demotion that would put at least two more managerial layers between the E.P.A.’s chief scientist and its top decision maker.

“It’s certainly a pretty big demotion, a pretty big burying of this office,” said Michael Halpern, the deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. “Everything from research on chemicals and health, to peer-review testing to data analysis would inevitably suffer,” he said.

The move comes after several months in which the leaders of the E.P.A. have systematically changed how the E.P.A. treats science. The agency’s previous administrator, Scott Pruitt, who resigned in July amid allegations of ethical violations, in April proposed a regulation that would limit the types of scientific research that E.P.A. officials could take into account when writing new public health policies, a change that could weaken the agency’s ability to protect public health.

Last year, Mr. Pruitt significantly altered two major scientific panels that advise the E.P.A. on writing public health rules, restricting academic researchers from joining the boards while appointing several scientists who work for industries regulated by the E.P.A.

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Education Reform, Environment, Fraud, Injustice, Science, Trump

Angie Sullivan: We Want Magnets, Not Charters!

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2018 //
17

Angie Sullivan teaches first grade in a Title 1 school in Clark County (Las Vegas) with large numbers of English learners.

She sends her missives to legislators and journalists in Nevada.

ASD is the all-charter district modeled on Tennessee’s failed Achievement School District. A complete and total failure that Nevada copies.

Angie writes:


We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

__________________

ASD Rebecca holds her annual school grab.

She does not know what she is doing. Do not allow her or Jana to take your school.

Parents may have say in future of Clark County’s failing schools

Parents in Vegas can convert their neighborhood public school into a charter? And that has worked where?

Every successful white person Vegas charter – is sitting next to a successful white person public school. All in white neighborhoods full of five star “choices”. Successful Nevada charters are white. They support segregation and white flight.

The place folks need a real choice – charters do not work.

Get ready Vegas Parents to fight for your school. Our community will not be served by white folks in a white charters. Nor they will be served by young white folks imported into Nevada to do the takeover job.

For profit charters and corporate takeover is a scam.

Non-profit ASD is defunct. Futuro stinks. Agassi stinks. Do not go into that crap. ASD is now the worst district in Nevada. It used to be Nevada Charters were the lowest performers but now it is this new piece of garbage with 100% failure.

Where is the ASD data?

Is the ASD built to hide data?

Everyone involved needs to demand accountability for this new disfunction NVDOE is using to grab schools.

_______________________________

We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

_______________________________

Look at the list closely attached to the bottom of this file.

Keep in mind that Vegas has 349 schools. 39 are struggling – they seem to all be in minority impoverished areas of town. Most serve language learners who research has shown need several years to learn academic English. Not difficult to figure out how to fix a money and support problem. Those schools need money and support. Lower class sizes and supplies.

NVDOE and the ASD will try to grab CCSD schools.

They do not know our students.

They do not love our students.

They will not serve our students.

They will grab schools listed because parents will not be informed.

Spread the word – no to ASD charters.

If they want to give a school money to improve – with research based best practice – great.

Turning any Vegas school into a charter is a scam.

If ASD Rebecca wants to come into your school and show a crappy charter video – tell her to hit the road.

We already know how to read a science book to kids or plug students into the computer. That is not teaching or effective.

Privatization is not education.

___________

We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

__________________

Every year I get angry that our community is targeted while the rest of the state flounders. NVDOE – do your job. You have plenty to grab. Go to these white areas and get it done.

Look at Elko. 100% of its schools are in severe failure. What is happening there? Those schools are along the Carlin Trend and heavily susidized by mining proceeds in a primarily white English speaking area. What is going on?

Look at Washoe which has pages on that list. A heavy heavy percentage of those schools are struggling – with more per pupil than Vegas. And again largely English speaking and middle class areas. What is going on?

Rural Nevada is sinking. When a school fails in a small town – it may be the only school in town. Better address those first. Charter “competition” kills the public schools and does not help small towns. It leaves expensive and hard to educate special education students in public schools and allows “choice” to everyone else.

Again the NV Charter schools are sinking. These schools serve white flight families. They are failing. Severely. That data which at least includes more of their 80+ campuses – is bad – extremely bad considering there are 24 charters and a large chunk are the lowest performers – again. Every year. Again.

It is not Vegas that is the high priority problem.

Folks who are brown do not want to be a target.

This has to stop.

Did not work in New Orleans.

Did not work in Tennessee.

Is not working in Nevada.

How many students have to be hurt to stop this ASD madness?

________________

We want MAGNETS – not disfunctional white flight charters.

Get away ASD.

The Teacher,

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Inequity, Injustice, Nevada, Privatization

Jeff Bryant: How the Rich Get Richer by Destroying Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 18, 2018 //
26

I think we are beginning to understand the real purpose of Corporate Reform. The 1% and their minions repeat ad nauseum that school choice will fix all education problems, lift the poor out of poverty, and no new taxes are needed. Indeed, they have pushed for tax cuts and cheered on deep cuts to public education. We are watching a generation of defunding public schools, refusing to invest in teachers’ salaries, and a massive transfer of resources from the public sector to private institutions.

Jeff Bryant explains it here.

“Recent news stories about wealthy folks giving multi-million donations to education efforts have drawn both praise and criticism, but two new reports by public education advocacy groups this week are particularly revealing about the real impact rich people have on schools and how they’ve chosen to leverage their money to influence the system.

‘The Education Debt’

“The first report, “Confronting the Education Debt” from the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools examines the nation’s “education debt” – the historic funding shortfall for school systems that educate black and brown children. The authors find that through a combination of multiple factors – including funding rollbacks, tax cuts, and diversions of public money to private entities – the schools educating the nation’s poorest children have been shorted billions in funding.

“One funding source alone, the federal dollars owed to states for educating low-income children and children with disabilities, shorted schools $580 billion, between 2005 and 2017, in what the government is lawfully required to fund schools through the provisions of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

“The impact of not fully funding Title I is startling, the report contends, calculating that at full funding, the nation’s highest-poverty schools could provide health and mental health services for every student including dental and vision services, and these schools would have the money to hire a full-time nurse, a full-time librarian, and either an additional full-time counselor or a full-time teaching assistant for every classroom.

“State and local governments contribute to underfunding too by keeping in place tax systems that chronically short schools, particularly those that educate low-income students, mostly of color. Two school districts in Illinois are highlighted – one where 80 percent of students are low-income and gets about $7,808 per pupil in total expenditures, while another, where 3 percent of students are low-income, spends $26,074 per student…

“In the meantime, while the nation’s education debt expands, the accumulated wealth of the richest Americans continues to grow. During that time period the federal government was shorting schools billions, the personal net worth of the nation’s 400 wealthiest individuals grew by $1.57 trillion, the report notes.

“There is a direct correlation between dwindling resources for public schools and the ongoing political proclivity for transferring public dollars to the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations,” the report declares. “The rich are getting richer. Our schools are broke on purpose.”

This is the context for Bryant’s discussion of the NPE Action Report, “Hijacked by Billionaires.” The 1% buy control of state and local races so they can advance their tax-cutting, budget-cutting ideas and promote school choice.

“What motivates these wealthy people from exerting their will in the electoral process varies. They are bipartisan politically. Some are directly connected to the charter school industry. Others have expressed disdain for democratically controlled schools and argue, instead, for school governance to transfer to unelected boards. Some are motivated by their hatred of teachers’ unions. While others believe strongly that public education needs to be opened up to market competition from charters.

“But what billionaire donors all have in common, the report authors write, is their devotion to blaming schools and educators for problems posed by educating low-income children. Instead of using their political donations to advocate for more direct aid to schools serving low-income kids, wealthy donors “distract us from policy changes that would really help children,” the report argues, “such as increasing the equity and adequacy of school funding, reducing class sizes, providing medical care and nutrition for students, and other specific efforts to meet the needs of children and families.”

Their one unifying idea is lower taxes.

His third example is a new book about how predatory elites subvert democracy.

“Rich people are playing a double game,” writes Anand Giridharadas in his new book ‘Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.’ “On one hand, there’s no question they’re giving away more money than has ever been given away in history … But I also argue that we have one of the more predatory elites in history, despite that philanthropy.”

Categories Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Funding, Inequality, Inequity, Injustice, Philanthropy, Privatization

Peter Greene: None Dare Call It “Philanthropy”

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2018 //
26

In this post, Peter Greene spells out the difference between philanthropy and the desire to control the lives of others.

One is generous, the other is a blunt use of power to gratify one’s own ego.

One helps people achieve the goals they have set for themselves, the other imposes the donor’s will on unwilling and resistant recipients, whose voice is silenced.

“Modern fauxlanthropy is not about helping people; it’s about buying control, about hiring people to promote your own program and ideas. It’s about doing an end run around the entire democratic process, even creating positions that never existed, like Curriculum Director of the United States, and then using sheer force of money to appoint yourself to that position. It’s about buying compliance.

“It is privatization. It is about taking a section of the public sector and buying control of it so that you can run it as if it was your own personal possession.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Injustice, Koch Brothers, Philanthropy, Shame, Walton Foundation

North Carolina: Church Leaders Join the Struggle to Save Public Education

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2018 //
30

The North Carolina Council of Churches has joined with parents and other supporters of public education to push back against the privatization movement in North Carolina.

“NC Faith Leaders for Public Education Training in Salisbury
9:30-11:30 a.m. Sept. 12
The Council has committed anew to support public schools in our communities and to advocate on behalf of public education in our state. In this two-hour session, learn to engage in both support and advocacy by joining NC Faith Leaders for Public Education, a network of faith leaders and community members committed to supporting public schools.
https://www.ncchurches.org/priorities/public-education/ to learn more about NC Faith Leaders for Public Education.”

Their help is desperately needed.

The barbarians are inside the gates.

Radical extremists gained control of the legislature in 2010 and enacted an agenda that will intensify inequality, restrict voting rights, and crush public education. The courts have repeatedly struck down their gerrymandered districts. The Tea Party legislature enacted charter schools, including for-profit charters; vouchers; online charter schools; replaced the highly successful North Carolina Teaching Fellows program (which prepared career educators) with Teach for America; and waged war on the teaching profession.

North Carolina was once the most progressive state in the South. No more.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ignorance, Injustice, North Carolina, Privatization, Resistance, Teachers, Vouchers

Lewis Hine, the Man Whose Photographs Ended Child Labor, and Reflections on Labor and Our Moment

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2018 //
34

Lewis Hine was the photographer whose work led to the passage of child labor laws.

Here are some of the photographs that touched the conscience of the nation and its leaders.

There was a time when our nation’s leaders had a conscience.

There was a time when Labor Day parades were a major event.

There was a time when labor unions provided a path to a secure, middle-class life for millions of people.

Now the parades have ended.

Now we have a new economic approach.

The rich get richer. Full employment. Stagnant wages.

The purpose of labor unions was to ensure that working people received a fair share for their contribution to their employer’s success.

Labor unions ensured that prosperity lifted up working people, not just shareholders, Wall Street speculators, and corporate owners.

We need them again. Working people need and deserve a collective voice. Now, more than ever it is time to spread the wealth, open new paths to the middle class, restore the dignity of work, and rebuild the hope for and the reality of a better life for all. To do that means to move away from the current emphasis on consumerism and libertarianism to a public philosophy that embraces the importance of the common good. That means a revival of the nearly forgotten concept of “We the People.” E pluribus unum. A shared destiny in which every life counts, in which we recognize our common humanity and our mutual obligations for one another, our brotherhood and sisterhood.

That won’t happen by wishing and hoping but by political action. It begins by voting out the agents of the current status quo. It must start now.

Categories Billionaires, Childhood, Economy, Inequity, Injustice

Little Rock: Please Do Not Steal Our Public Schools and Our Democracy!

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2018 //
14

Reverend Anika Whitfield wrote an open letter to Arkansas’s State Commisioner of Education, its Governor, and the City Superintendent, complaining about the state takeover of the Little Rock School District. This has long been a goal of the Walton family, the richest, most powerful family in the state and in the nation.

She writes:


Superintendent Poore and Commissioner Key (with a copy to Governor Hutchinson),

How are you able to live with what appears to be placing a hit on the lives of over 17,000 innocent students in the LRSD?

What appears to be your willful cooperation with political and philanthropic interest groups to violate the most vulnerable children in our city by closing their schools; selling (without our permission) their community schools to private charter businesses and to governmental programs that are run by officials who have benefited from a prison industrial system that profits off of incarcerating the lives of many of these same students, is unfathomable.

What does it profit you to watch innocent children suffer at your own hands?

What do you gain by taking away resources from children, families, and educators?

How many families and communities must destroyed before you have seen enough?

Are there any valid examples of affluent neighborhoods and communities that you have imposed your power to take over their children and absolve their patriotic rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

What wealthy communities have you tried to force, without the will of the people, to accept a subservient educational business model for educators and students while imposing legalized disenfranchisement of their wealthy parents?

What truthful evidence can you provide that school closures, increasing class sizes, creating job losses by merging schools, and re-segregating communities, has proven to be a successful model in strengthening those same communities?

The plans that were laid out today for the LRSD showed ample evidence that your jobs have been, as has been suspected and predicted since your unorthodox appointments, a political and economic bidding to make wealthy investors like the Walton Family Foundation, Stephen’s, Inc. and others, to gain more wealt by privatizatizing public institutions and disenfranchising persons primarily impacted by poverty and systemic racism.

We have attended your previous school forums in large numbers. We have participated with consistent and persistent voices our opinions and desires to regain locally, elected, representation by our peers.

We have made clear our desires to keep all of our schools open, to raise community economic support for all of the schools and, particularly students, in the LRSD so that all students are attending classes and schools that are excellent.

We have provided plans, options and opportunities to work with you to keep schools open, and to improve the overall moral in schools by creating more community support and developing public accountability.

Yet, despite our active participation in your created system of governance, you have repeatedly denied all of our requests.

What will it will take for you to stop disrespecting and disregarding the voices and presence of our LRSD children, their parents, community?

What is the ransom you require to return our district back into the hands of the LRSD community?

Sincerely,
Rev. Anika T. Whitfield

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Cruelty, Democracy, Education Industry, Injustice, Privatization
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