“Evidently the current Supreme Court of the state of South Carolina has no trouble decimating our schools for the sake of some political purpose. The Abbeville equity case has gone on since 1992. It was finally decided in 2014 by a 3-2 vote affirming the plaintiff’s contention that the funding system is unfair and inequitable.
“Now, in the last few months of 2017, having replaced two judges, the Supremes now say, by a 3-2 vote that they are relinquishing control of the case and giving it back to the legislature to attend to. The court also praised the legislature for what they have already done. No one here can figure out what large things have been done to ameliorate the lack of resources and the lack of qualified teachers in rural school districts.
“South Carolina educators have not been aggressive in their lobbying efforts. The Abbeville case was their greatest hope for a reversal of policies that always disadvantaged poor and rural schools. As a simple example: whenever funds are dispersed in some sort of novel way, the condition of dispersal is the number of children in the district. Therefore, a small rural district might get an increase of $100 per student and in the same distribution a wealthy district would get the same amount per person.”
The politicians never wanted to spend money on black and poor children. Even the judiciary says it’s time to stop throwing money at schools, which has never happened.
“SC public schools (and public universities, in fact) exist in 2017 as a bold middle finger to everything promised by a democratic nation. But despite the political rhetoric, SC has failed its public schools; public schools have not failed our state, whose political leaders care none at all about poor, black, or brown children being currently (and historically) mis-served by K-12 education….
“Political and judicial negligence in SC—a microcosm of the same negligence nationally—remains entrenched in commitments to ideology over evidence, hard truths neither political leadership nor judicial pronouncements will admit.
“First, and foremost, one hard truth is that public schools in SC are mostly labeled failures or successes based on the coincidence of what communities and students those schools serve. Schools serving affluent (and mostly white) communities and students are framed as “good” schools while schools serving poor (and often black and brown while also over-serving English language learners and students with special needs) communities and students are framed as “bad” or “failing.”
“This political lie is grounded in the three-decades political charade called education reform—a bureaucratic nightmare committed to accountability, standards, and testing as well as a false promise that in-school only reform could somehow overcome the negative consequences of social inequity driven by systemic racism, classism, and sexism.
“The ironic and cruel lesson of education reform has been that education is not the great equalizer.
“Education reform is nothing more than a conservative political fetish, a gross good-ol’-boy system of lies and deception.
“Second, and in most ways secondary, another hard truth is that while education is not the great equalizer, public schooling tends to reflect and then perpetuate the inequities that burden the lives of vulnerable children.
“In-school only reform driven by accountability, standards, and testing fails by being both in-school only (no education reform will rise about an absence of social/policy reform that addresses racism and poverty) and mechanisms of inequity themselves.
“Affluent and white students are apt to experience a higher quality of formal schooling than black, brown, and poor students, who tend to be tracked early and often into reduced conditions that include test-prep, “basic” courses, and teachers who are early career and often un-/under-certified.
“Nested in this hard truth is that much of accountability-based education reform depends on high-stakes standardized testing, which is itself a deeply flawed and biased instrument. Tests allow political negligence since data appear to be objective and scientific; in fact, standardized testing remains race, class, and gender biased.
“Like school quality, test scores are mostly a reflection of non-academic factors.”
Today is Thanksgiving Day, and some will sit down to bounteous meals while others will line up at soup kitchens or go hungry. That’s America 2017.
It is a day for giving and a day for thanks. One way to Give is to volunteer at a soup kitchen at a local church. You will be glad you did. You will truly understand that it is better to give than to receive. You will learn to count your blessings.
The 1% can give thanks to the Republican Congress. Its tax plan will make them much, much richer, while shutting down deductions and tax credits that help students, teachers, and the middle class.
How will the rich benefit?
Here is one analysis, written by Ulrich Boser and Abel McDaniels of the Center for American Progress.
“Under the tax plan currently before Congress, billionaires like U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos would save hundreds of millions of dollars. A new analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund suggests that the money used to give DeVos and her family just one of these tax breaks would be enough to pay more than 6,000 teachers. Similarly, the money used to give President Donald Trump and his family an enormous tax break would be enough to pay more than 20,000 teachers.
“CAPAF’s analysis underscores how the House GOP plan will drain federal revenues. Yet, Betsy DeVos is one of several cabinet members who would reap millions as a result of the House Republican plan to eliminate taxes on multimillion-dollar estates. The plan also caps the tax rate on the income of wealthy owners of businesses like Amway, which the DeVos family owns.
“While many have examined how the plan will hurt ordinary working families and concentrate economic power in the largest corporations and the ultrawealthy, the magnitude of the tax cuts for the wealthy is difficult to understand. To put the effects of these cuts in perspective, CAPAF calculated the tax breaks that Betsy Devos and Donald Trump and their families would gain from just one provision of this plan and compared the value of those tax breaks to the cost of providing teachers for the nation’s students.
“For the analysis in this column, the authors relied on the previously mentioned CAPAF column, as well as the U.S. Department of Education’s 2016 allocations for selected programs and the Michigan Department of Education’s 2017 allocations to determine the amount of the state’s 21st Century Learning Centers grant and Title II grant awards, and divided the estate tax gain DeVos’s heirs would see by these numbers. The authors also used the average public school teacher salary determined by the National Center for Education Statistics, and the median bus driver salary determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and divided the estate tax gain the Trump family would see by those numbers.
“To be clear: The federal estate tax does not fund state teacher and bus driver salaries; however, the comparison provides a concrete way of understanding the magnitude of just one of the many tax breaks for the wealthy contained in the House and Senate tax plans.
“DeVos’ family would gain $351 million from the estate tax repeal, according to the CAPAF analysis. The DeVos’ tax break amounts to more than five times the amount of federal money her home state of Michigan received for teacher professional development. Alternatively, the amount of the DeVos’ estate tax break alone could fund afterschool programs in Michigan for about 10 years. Or, that amount could pay the salaries of more than 6,000 badly needed public school teachers.
“Repealing the estate tax will give Trump’s heirs a $1.15 billion tax break, according to CAPAF’s calculations. That revenue would be enough to pay the salaries of more than 20,000 public school teachers, or more than 36,000 bus drivers, of which there is a shortage. Again, federal estate tax revenues do not fund state public employee salaries, but the comparison is useful for understanding how large the proposed tax cuts for the wealthy are.
“The Trump-McConnell-Ryan plan contains other provisions that do directly impact public schools. For example, the proposed expansion of college savings accounts will siphon money away from public schools. Wealthy families would be able to avoid paying taxes on thousands of dollars used for private school tuition. EdChoice, a conservative-leaning advocacy organization which actually supports the provision, admits the proposal is “not a solution for every family” and this is especially true “for families with limited means.””
It is a Reverse Robin Hood Tax Plan. Take from hard-working middle-income families and give to the undeserving rich.
For those white working class people who voted for Trump, please notice that you will get crumbs from his bounteous table at Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by friends who paid $200,000 to join his club.
This is a valuable review to share with friends who are not familiar with Eva’s strategies: cherrypicking students, high attrition rates, high teacher turnover, disciplining and suspending those she wants to get rid of, cultivating billionaires, boasting that her methods are scalable when they are not, and so on.
The great lie that Erickson fastens on is that Eva, like others in the charter industry, like to pretend that going to a charter school is an escalator to the middle class, but what they refuse to confront is the social and economic inequality that keeps a few at the top, and a great many at the bottom. Schools can’t fix that, no matter how hard they push “no excuses.”
Jennifer Berkshire says that critics of Betsy DeVos and her family were wrong to write her off as a dummy. She has a long-term plan and is steadily moving towards it. Privatization of public schools is on her check list. Destruction of unions is on the list. Elimination of any restrictions on campaign cash is there. The long-term target is democracy. Not more of it. Elimination of it. Oligarchy.
Berkshire writes:
“If Betsy DeVos enjoys the occasional quaff of champagne on her private jet, the recent news that the Supreme Court is poised to deliver a knock-out blow to public sector unions presented a reason to celebrate. The announcement was made just hours before DeVos alit in Harvard Square last week, where she was the star attraction at a school choice conference. At Harvard’s Kennedy School, DeVos was met by one of the largest protests she has encountered to date: an all-ages demonstration vs just about everything Trump’s Secretary of Education has said and done during the past seven months. Inside, the event was tense, even hostile—another rocky outing in a tenure replete with them. Or at least that is the conventional wisdom.
“Turning red
“The latest Supreme Court case to take aim at the unions, Janus vs AFSCME Council 31, began two years ago with a suit filed by yet another right-wing billionaire: Illinois’ Bruce Rauner. While it is framed by conservatives as a case about individual rights and freedom, the aptly named “Janus” is about politics and power. Public sector unions, virtually the only ones left, provide the bank and the foot soldiers that get Democrats elected. At their best, they’ve spearheaded progressive causes that go far beyond the interests of their members. In Massachusetts, the teachers unions have been the driving force behind successful campaigns for a minimum wage hike, paid sick time for all workers, and are now pushing a tax on millionaires. The unions are also virtually the last organized defense of what’s left of our safety net—Social Security and Medicare; the right wants those next.
“Just days before DeVos appeared at Harvard, she was back in Michigan, taking what was essentially a victory lap. She exhorted the crowd at a conservative gathering on Mackinac Island to pat themselves on the back for the Mitten State’s having gone Republican in the 2016 Presidential election—the first time since 1988. “We in Michigan have a lot to be proud of, but nothing more than that,” DeVos said. The story of just how the DeVos’ pulled off the feat of turning Michigan red is long and ugly, involving mountains of cash, the steady erosion of representative democracy, and a decades-long effort to dismember the state’s once powerful teachers union: the Michigan Education Association.
“Michigan went right-to-work in 2012, ushered into the former cradle of industrial unionism via the DeVos’ trademark combo of political arm twisting and largesse. Another DeVos-inspired law made it illegal for employers, including school districts, to process union dues, while simultaneously making it easier for corporations to deduct PAC money from employee paychecks. This summer the DeVos’ succeeded in driving a final nail into the MEA’s coffin: the GOP-controlled legislature essentially eliminating pensions, among the last tangible benefits that teachers in Michigan receive from their unions. The union leaders I spoke to when I traveled through the state reporting on DeVos’ legacy were candid about the increasingly precarious state of their organizations. But far worse lies ahead. The demise of retirement benefits means that new teachers have little incentive to join the unions; the shrinking terrain of collective bargaining gives veteran teachers little reason to remain in them.”
Dark Money is winning. Betsy is its face. That’s why she always smiles, no matter how many protestors complain. She is pinning their wings in her scrapbook.
Eli Broad will go down in history–if at all–as a selfish billionaire who used his money to destroy public education wherever and whenever he could. He graduated from public schools in Michigan, but instead of gratitude, he wants to ruin the public schools that helped him succeed. He promotes privatization. He has an Academy for superintendents where they are taught top-down, undemocratic methods; most are failures. He should be ashamed of himself. But billionaires know no shame.
Rally and Protest to support STEM schools, defeat ‘boutique’ school bill AB 1217
LOS ANGELES – Educators, students, parents and graduates of district STEM schools will rally TODAY at 4 PM on the front steps of Helen Bernstein High School, home of a successful STEM program, to protest AB 1217, which is co-sponsored by Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra and State Senator Anthony Portantino. The proposed bill would give away local authority to a boutique, privately-run STEM school in downtown LA.
Assembly Bill 1217 is a secretive, last-minute bill to create a publicly funded but privately operated STEM school, bypassing the local School Board, parents, and educators. If approved, it would take about 800 students from LAUSD but would not operate under the district’s purview. Citing accountability and funding concerns, the California Department of Finance opposes AB 1217 (see attached report). The bill would take away essential per-pupil funding and resources from the 142 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs already run in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The backers of the bill include Billionaire Eli Broad, who for years has bankrolled various “some kids, not all kids” schemes to kill the public education system that serves all students in favor of unregulated, unaccountable charter school operators. Ironically, Broad and his cohorts, like the California Charter Schools Association, just spent millions of dollars to buy the LA School Board election — and now he is driving a heavy-handed attempt to circumvent the same board just a few months later. Read LA Times story.
“This bill is an insult to the STEM programs that are in existence at LAUSD schools,” said Ben Kim, who teaches AP Calculus and AP Statistics at the STEM Academy @Bernstein. “Our STEM schools are doing amazing work, despite operating on shoestring budgets. Why don’t they fund these programs before allowing a billionaire-backed school to open up, without proper oversight and accountability?”
TODAY’s protest follows a recent campus visit from newly elected board member Nick Melvoin, who praised the STEM @ Bernstein. The visit was then followed by a board vote to undercut funding at the same school, which is in his district. On Tuesday, Aug. 22, the LAUSD School Board voted 4-3 against George McKenna’s resolution opposing AB 1217. Divisive politics is what Nick Melvoin claimed to be avoiding as he voted along party lines, upholding the ‘billionaire bloc’ vote to deny local opposition to the state bill.
“The 4-3 school board vote shows that they are still beholden to their donors,” Kim said. “In their visit to our school, they tell us they support us. When it comes down to it, nice gestures mean nothing if they won’t fight for our public schools.”
Read Capital and Main story.
Speakers will include: UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, Dr. Ruth Montes (STEM graduate), current STEM students and educators, community members and parents who will call on Portantino, Bocanegra and Melvoin to save LAUSD’s STEM programs and kill AB 1217.
PRESS AVAILABILITY (English and Spanish interviews available)
What: Rally against AB 1217
When: Monday, Aug. 28, 4 p.m. To 5 p.m.
Where: STEM Academy @ Helen Bernstein High School
1309 N. Wilton Place
Los Angeles CA 90028
UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals who work in the Los Angeles Unified School District and in charter schools.
“Within the core of our freedoms, lie the avenues powerful individuals use to take away the rights of citizens and the controls of government designed and evolved to serve all. Americans are now aware of the reality that subversive forces have made excessive headway in destroying our rights.
“What has been allowed is the incursion of an Oligarchy: The few exploiting the many. We are witnessing the theft of human rights through the infiltration of what were meant to be representative systems within a constitutionally defined government.
“My first introduction to those who want absolute power was through studies of The Robber Barons in America in the 19th Century, and then in the 20th Century, the way Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin took total control of their countries. I learned of an American, Fred Koch, who became wealthy via Russian and German contracts and worked with Stalin and then Hitler as WWII began. He was convinced that absolute dictators were necessary to create strong nations. He came home to change the U.S government into a mechanism which would allow him to acquire power and wealth by any means. His tenets were: Destroy public education. Destroy any kind of worker representation. Control the prison system. Destroy the democratic process by distancing or removing undesirable citizen involvement in decision-making. End government interference in the rights of individuals like himself to create his own empire.
“Koch’s ideology was embedded in the goals of the John Birch Society, founded in the late 50s by Fred and ten others. It was one of many organizations spawned or infiltrated by Koch. Be aware of subversive groups founded by Koch and his sons and other powerful billionaires. Groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which writes legislation supporting Koch’s political and economic agendas. Know the goals of think tank groups established and funded to carry out Fred’s vision, these include: The Freedom School, the CATO Institute, and Americans For Prosperity among others. Be aware of how Foundations and not-for-profit tax avoidance mechanisms allowed the billionaires to finance their think thanks and other subversive organizations.
“The Koch machine gained the support of other libertarian arch conservatives. Richard Mellon Scaife, Harry and Lynda Bradley, John M. Olin, the Coors brewing family, and the DeVos family, to name some of the big supporters recruited by the Fred Koch and his sons David and Charles. All had acquired vast fortunes from activities that exploited citizens and nature. All were against any type of government that limited their rip, rape, and run business philosophies.
“In the last few years, add the names Bezos, Broad, Cohen, Singer, Schwarzman, Adelson, Hendricks, Mercer, and perhaps the worst of the lot, the Waltons. The Koch ideology also appeals to radical splinter groups of the Christian conservative right which is obsessed with the takeover of the US Government and the dismantling of the government. Understanding this unholy marriage explains why so many Tea Party extremists support Koch and the coup.”
Doesn’t social justice mean that you listen to the voices of those who feel in need of protection and let them make their own decisions? Haven’t unions been part of the movement for social justice since the late nineteenth century? Don’t the powerful seek to crush collective bargaining so that each worker is on his or her own?
The abrupt dismissals forced the United Federation of Teachers, which represents educators at the Charter High School for Law and Social Justice in the Bronx, to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.
“By discharging approximately 73% of the 15 bargaining unit members, CHSLSJ sent a clear message … support the UFT and you will be fired,” the complaint said.
“CHSLSJ’s actions demonstrate a clear attempt to derail the UFT’s status and support … and will irreparably chill bargaining unit members’ rights,” the union said.
The dismissals came after a year of attempts from the charter school teachers to negotiate a contract with CHSLSJ, which was approved as a charter school in 2013 and opened its doors in 2015.
Bruce Lowry, an editorial writer for The Record in New Jersey, writes here about the neglected public schools of Paterson, which have been under state control for more than 25 years.
Reader Jack Covey watched Betsy DeVos testify at a Congressional hearing and was startled by what he saw and heard:
“What’s scary is Secretary Devos’ tacit claim that, when it comes to schools that receive government funding — charter schools, voucher-funded private schools, etc. — the U.S. Department of Ed.:
“— HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT STUDENTS FROM DISCRIMINATION — based on race, ethnicity, religion sexual preference, gender identity, etc. — AT THE HANDS OF THOSE RUNNING THOSE GOVERNMENT-FUNDED SCHOOLS.
“— WILL DO NOTHING — provide NO protections, NO assistance in filing a grievance, or any help seeking a remedy (i.e. and amicus brief in any lawsuit) … NO NOTHING, brother — FOR ANY STUDENTS WHO ARE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST BY THOSE IN CHARGE OF CHARTER OR VOUCHER-FUNDED PRIVATE SCHOOLS THAT RECEIVE GOVERNMENT FUNDING. (again, this is discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, special ed disability, sexual preference, gender identity, etc.)
“Watch this exchange here between Secretary Devos and Congresswoman Katherine Clark (MA-05):.
Secretary Devos is essentially sending a message to those in charge of those government-funded schools — charter schools, voucher-funded private schools, etc.
“Discriminate against any and all students, based on whatever criteria tbat you see fit, and do so to your heart’s content, and we at the U.S. Department of Ed. will back you all the way.
“What’s that? You say don’t want any blacks at your school? Just feel free to tell any who try to get in, ‘We don’t accept blacks here,’ and if and when those against whom you are discriminating try to fight back, the U.S. Department of Ed. and the Federal Government will just sit back, stay out of it, and do nothing to assist those against whom you are discriminating. We at the U.S. Department of Ed. are givin’ you The Green Light to go ahead with all this.”
“That same Green Light goes DITTO for any other group. race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, gender identity, etc.”
“Question: why isn’t this on the cover of every newspaper in the country, the lead story in the network news, etc?
“I mean, Sweet Jesus, the nation’s top Education official has — when it comes to schools getting government funding, such as charter schools and voucher-funded private schools — just announced the de facto reversal of Brown vs. Board of Education, and a century-and-a-half of anti-discrimination civil rights laws and activism.
“Watch it again:
“The Congresswoman is asking Devos if there’s any instance of discrimination that would merit the U..S Department stepping in to assist students who are victims of discrimination, and Devos, in effect, replies, “No, never. We ain’t doin’ jack for them.”
“Secretary Devos’ logic is basically that “Choice trumps everything”, and by that, she means that a black-free school, or a LGBT-free school should be a “choice” that all parents should have, and that taxpayers’ money should be provided to those parents and to those schools to assist in exercising that choice.
“Furthermore, Devos argues that anything that prevents such schools from having free reign to discriminate against certain students — i.e. a government compulsion to accept blacks, or Hispanics, or gays, or Special Ed. kids,or whomever, through, for example, a threatened loss of funding or vouchers — would also simultaneously deprive parents of that no-blacks-allowed, no-whomever-allowed school “choice” and again, “Choice trumps all.”
“This confirms people’s worst fears about Trump — that yes, he is indeed working hand-in-hand with racist elements in the population, or with people who wish to discriminate against anyone for any reason whatsoever — and get taxpayers’ money to fund and carry out such discrimination.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 