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Jan Resseger: Reporting on the State of Privatization of Our Public Schools, Part 3

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
8

This is Jan Resseger’s third report on her experience at the Network for Public Education annual conference in Indianapolis last weekend. In this post, she reports on what she learned by attending a panel about the NPE-Schott Foundation study of state support for public schools vs. privatization of public schools.

One of the most fascinating workshops at the conference explored the complexity of researching the groundbreaking, June 2018 report, Grading the States: A Report Card on Our Nation’s Commitment to Public Schools, and the importance of the report, the first comprehensive effort to track and compare the growth of privatization and the characteristics of state vouchers and charters. The report, a collaboration of the Network for Public Education and the Schott Foundation for Public Education, defines its purpose: “States are rated on the extent to which they have instituted policies and practices that lead toward fewer democratic opportunities and more privatization, as well as the guardrails they have (or have not) put into place to protect the rights of students, communities and taxpayers. This is not an assessment of the overall quality of the public education system in the state—rather it is an analysis of the laws that support privatized alternatives to public schools.” (emphasis in the original)

The primary assumption of a report about the privatization of education but whose title incorporates these words, “a report card on our nation’s commitment to public schools,” is that the growth of several privatized education sectors at public expense—charter schools, vouchers, tuition tax credits and education savings accounts—reflects diminishing commitment to the inclusive mission of public education. Sure enough, the report confirms that assumption, most clearly in the diversion of tax funds away from public schools: “Vouchers and charters do not decrease education costs, but instead divert tax dollars ordinarily directed to public schools thus limiting the capacity of public schools to educate the remaining students.”

Last weekend’s workshop featured three speakers: the Executive Director of the Network for Public Education (NPE), Dr. Carol Burris, who was one of the report’s researchers; Tanya Clay House, the report’s primary author and researcher—also an attorney and consultant who has previously served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Education, the Director of Public Policy for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Public Policy Director at People for the American Way; and Derek Black, an attorney and professor of school finance law at the University of South Carolina…

As a participant in last weekend’s workshop, I was fascinated, as Burris and Clay House described the difficulties they faced as they tried to collect the most basic data about what is now nearly 20 years of expanding school privatization. The two women told of one data set they had assumed the report would cover only to be forced to omit that issue from the report because the the records had not been kept by enough states to make it possible to draw any comprehensive or meaningful conclusion. What became clear to me as I listened is that the promoters of school privatization trusted their own ideological belief that the marketplace would provide its own accountability. They assumed that as parents voted with their feet, parents themselves would identify high quality schools and seek them out; then schools of poor quality would not be marketable. Of course we know from research in Chicago and New Orleans and elsewhere that parents choose schools for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with school quality—a site near home or work, the presence of a childcare or after-school program, the reputation of the football team, the advertising on the side of the bus, the incentive of the gift of a computer upon enrollment. Several years ago, Margaret Raymond, a fellow at the pro-market Hoover Institution and director of the Stanford Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), shocked listeners at the Cleveland City Club by announcing that it has become pretty clear that markets don’t work in what she calls the education sector: “This is one of the big insights for me because I actually am a kind of pro-market kind of girl, but the marketplace doesn’t seem to work in a choice environment for education… I’ve studied competitive markets for much of my career… Education is the only industry/sector where the market mechanism just doesn’t work… I think it’s not helpful to expect parents to be the agents of quality assurance throughout the state.”

The third presenter in the NPE workshop was Derek Black, a civil rights attorney and school finance professor who explored what he believes is the overall significance of the Grading the States report. I was unable to capture verbatim Derek Black’s comments at the workshop, but in a blog post when the Grading the States report was published in June, Black made the same points in eloquent detail: “The report is, in many respects, the one I have been waiting for. It fills in key facts that have been missing from the public debate and will help move it in a more positive direction. In my forthcoming article, Preferencing Educational Choice: The Constitutional Limits, I also attempt to reframe the analysis of charter schools and vouchers, arguing that there are a handful of categorical ways in which states have actually created statutory preferences for charters and vouchers in relation to traditional public schools. I explain why a statutory preference for these choice programs contradicts states’ constitutional obligations in regard to education… My research, however, analyzes the issues from a relatively high level of abstraction, highlighting problematic examples in particular states and districts and synthesizing constitutional principles from various states. This new report drills down into the facts in a way I have never seen before. It systematically examines charter and voucher laws in each state with a standardized methodology aimed at identifying the extent to which each state’s laws represent a de-commitment to public education.”

Black continues: “Each year, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) releases a report detailing charter school laws, with the frame of reference being the extent to which states have laws that promote the expansion of charters. The report normatively assumes that charter schools are good and state laws that overly restrict them are bad… Because there hasn’t been any systemic response to NAPCS’s reports, it has been able to skew the conversation. This new report brings balance.”

When the Grading the States report was released in June, this blog summarized its conclusions. Needless to say, I came home from last weekend’s conference in Indianapolis and explored the report in more depth. Here is what jumps out at me as an Ohio citizen this fall, after I’ve been watching the fallout across Ohio all year since the state’s final closure of the giant online charter school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, after it ripped off Ohio taxpayers and students for 17 years. The report examines charter schools. Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have passed laws to permit charter schools. Of those 38, including my state, earned F grades. The report explains they are “states that embrace for-profit charter management, weak accountability and other factors that make their charter schools less accountable to the public.” “Twenty-eight of these states and the District of Columbia fail to require the same teacher certification as traditional public schools… Thirty-eight of the states and the District of Columbia have no required transparency provisions regulating the spending and funding by the charter school’s educational service providers… Of the 44 states and the District of Columbia with charter school laws, students with disabilities are particularly disadvantaged in 39 states and the District of Columbia, which do not clearly establish the provision of services. Twenty-two states do not require that the charter school return its taxpayer purchased assets and/or property back to the public if the charter school shuts down or fails.” The details on the various voucher programs are equally alarming.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Network for Public Education, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

My Reflections on the Fifth Annual Conference of the Network for Public Education in Indianapolis

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2018 //
15

I have waited a few days to digest the exciting events of last weekend.

My first thought is: I wish you had been there.

You would have seen teachers, parents, school board members, superintendents, researchers, college students, and lots of others who want to save their schools from privatization and save their students from endless over-testing. They came not to defend the status quo, but to fight the status quo.

At every NPE conference–in Austin, Chicago, Raleigh, Oakland, and Indianapolis–the spirit and goodwill were infectious. The same was true in Indianapolis.

Many people saw friends that they met at last year’s conference, or met their favorite blogger or researcher.

Every year, I hear the same statement: “This was the best conference yet.” And I believe it.

This was the first year that NPE awarded the Phyllis Bush Award for Grassroots Activism. The winners were the teacher-activists in Arizona who won the right to put a referendum on the ballot about vouchers. This was a high point of the first day. The award will be given out every year for teachers, parents, and other activists who display courage, tenacity, and heroism on behalf of public education and the common good.

I won’t report on all the keynotes but want to be sure that you watch Pasi Sahlberg.

Pasi Sahlberg was amazing. He talked about the “Global Education Reform Movement” (GERM) and accompanied his talk with slides and even a video (all of which were posted by him on Twitter @pasi_sahlberg. Pasi wrote the wonderful book Finnish Lessons and Finnish Lessons 2.0. His new book, with William Doyle, is Let the Children Play. Pasi talked about the birth of GERM as a reflection of the exuberant belief in the 1980s that markets and standardization solved all problems. Pasi showed the spread of GERM, especially in English-speaking countries. He is now based in Australia, and he told us that the government of New Zealand has dropped national standards and will soon eliminate national testing. He predicted that Australia would drop its NAPLAN tests and standards in the not-distant future. You can watch him on this video; his presentation begins at 27:00.

I attended several panels. One was exhilarating, another was very sad.

The exhilarating one was a presentation by teachers from Arizona who are active in #RedForEd and in the effort to stop a legislative plan for universal vouchers. The teachers pointed out that 95% of the children in Arizona attend public schools, which are underfunded. They described their fight against the Koch brothers, whom they beat in court when the brothers tried to get their referendum knocked off the ballot. The vote on the referendum takes place November 6. VOTE NO on PROP 305! Congratulations to these wonderful teachers, who have done all this work on their own dime and stood up to the most powerful rightwing machine in the nation!

The other panel was a presentation by four Puerto Rican activists, who described the effort to close and privatize the Island’s public schools. The Governor is working with the hedge fund managers who are salivating over the chance to close down public education. Nothing seems to stand in their way, although it was clear that the Island’s teachers are adamantly opposed to the takeover. A woman named Julie Keleher was imported to do the dirty work for Wall Street.

I also sat in on a panel led by Mercedes Schneider, Darcie Cimarusti, and Andrea Gabor, in which they explained in detail how to “follow the money.” They gave specific directions about sources that tell you who is funding what, how to unearth “Dark Money.” The session was packed, and attendees took notes. Darcie is our communications director and half-time staff at NPE, she is a school board member in her community, and she is an expert on following the money.

The closing speaker was the national chairman of the NAACP, Derrick Johnson. I will post his remarks as soon as the video is available. He was eloquent and spoke without a note. He talked about the systemic racism that has harmed African American children and teachers for many generations; about promises made and broken; and about the importance of making the child the center of all education. He was brilliant in recounting the history of legal efforts to establish rights for black children and about efforts to sabotage those rights. He gave us all a lesson in legal history. He stayed to answer every question. The leaders of the NAACP in Indiana and Indianapolis expressed their great concern about the Mind Trust and its plans to privatize the public schools of Indianapolis. The session–and conference–ended with yet another standing ovation.

It was a wonderful conference, well organized, well attended, filled with energy. As soon as videos are prepared for the sessions that were live-streamed, I will post them here.

I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am to be a part of this inspiring organization, how happy I am that Carol Burris is the executive director, how grateful I am to the other members of the board, and to the many volunteers that made it work. NPE can’t match the dollars of the billionaires, but we far exceed them in numbers, passion, dedication, and conviction. NPE expects to support grassroots organizations in every state for many years to come. We expect to work with them in making our schools better and more responsive to the needs of our children.

The next conference will be better still!

Categories Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund

The Progressive: Will the “Save Our Schools” Movement Determine the Election Results?

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2018 //
41

Ruth Conniff, editor of “The Progressive,” suggests that the Save Our Schools Movement could be the determining factor in the midterm elections.

She writes:

The “education spring” protests, in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina, won increases in teacher pay and education budgets, launched hundreds of teachers into campaigns for political office, and showed massive support for public schools this year. In Wisconsin and other states, education is a key issue in the 2018 governor’s race. Public opinion has turned against budget cuts, school vouchers, and the whole “test and punish” regime.

“The corporate education reform movement is dying,” Diane Ravitch, the Network’s founder declared. “We are the resistance, and we are winning!”

As the Save Our Schools movement swept the nation this year, blaming “bad teachers” for struggling schools also appears to have gone out of style.

A Time Magazine cover story on teachers who are underpaid, overworked, and have to donate their plasma to pay the bills painted a sympathetic portrait.

“As states tightened the reins on teacher benefits, many also enacted new benchmarks for student achievement, with corresponding standardized tests, curricula changes and evaluations of teacher performance,” Time reported. “The loss of control over their classrooms combined with the direct hit to their pocketbooks was too much for many teachers to bear.”

That’s a very different message from Time’s December 2008 cover featuring Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, standing in a classroom and holding a broom: “her battle against bad teachers has earned her admirers and enemies—and could transform public education,” Time declared.

The idea that bad teachers were ruining schools, and that their pay, benefits, and job security should be reduced or revoked, spread across the country over the last decade. Doing away with teachers’ collective bargaining rights propelled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to political prominence in 2011. In October 2014, Time’s “Rotten Apples,” cover declared “It’s nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. Some tech millionaires have found a way to change that.”

But today, demoralized teachers, overtested students, and the lack of improvement from these draconian policies have pushed public opinion in the opposite direction.

Charter schools, it turns out, perform no better than regular public schools. School-voucher schemes that drain money from public education to cover private-school students tuition yield even worse results—and are unpopular with voters. And testing kids a lot has not made them any smarter.

The bold walkouts and strikes of teachers and the determined resistance of parents and students are making a difference.

The public is getting “woke.”

Billionaires have poured many millions into demonizing teachers, attacking their rights, and privatizing public schools, but they have spent not a penny to increase the funding of our nation’s public schools, not even in the most distressed districts. All they have to offer are tests, charter schools, and vouchers.

It’s a hoax, intended to cut taxes, not to help children or to improve education.

We are no longer fooled.

Categories Charter Schools, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Parents, Privatization, Resistance, Students, Supporting public schools, Teachers

Jan Resseger: The Power of Grassroots Organizing, Part 2

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2018 //
1

Jan Resseger writes here about the grassroots organizers she met at the Network for Public Education conference in Indianapolis. Her first report appeared yesterday.

This is part of her report:

One of the highlights at NPE’s Conference were presentations on excellent community organizing that is finally making a difference. Yesterday’s post and today’s describe two very different and encouraging initiatives.

What if parents, teachers and community united across an entire state to insist that the state fund its schools adequately? Well, advocates in Wisconsin are doing just that. As a bit of context, remember that Wisconsin has the nation’s oldest and one of the largest voucher programs and that the Bradley Foundation, located in Wisconsin, has historically been among the most lavish funders of the school privatization movement that drains tax dollars out of the public education budget.

Today, however, the Wisconsin Public Education Network has been mobilizing citizens and pulling together a mass of local parent and advocacy groups around a unified, pro-public school agenda across Wisconsin. Executive Director Heather DuBois Bourenane explains: “The Wisconsin Education Coalition is the hub for education advocacy in Wisconsin. We are a project of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit. Our work is supported by voluntary contributions of our partners around the state… Our partners don’t always agree on every issue or policy, but our common ground is always rooted in our deep commitment to the success of every student in every school.” The organization’s website displays a map of the Coalition’s partner organizations—at least 39 of them across Wisconsin.

Launched last summer at the Wisconsin Public Education Network’s 4th Annual Summer Summit, the #VotePublic Campaign has invited, “all supporters of public schools to make public education a focus of all elections—local, state and national. Knowing where candidates stand on issues impacting our public schools is essential to electing strong supporters of our students. #VotePublic is also a challenge to hold our elected officials accountable for making votes that benefit our students and public schools once elected.”

The #VotePublic platform demands fixing the school funding formula “to prioritize student needs over property values”; working for funding fairness; restoring funding including the state’s obligation to meet mandated costs for special education; raising standards for licensure of educators and providing hiring incentives; making private and privately-operated schools receiving tax dollars fully accountable; and forcing the state to pledge not to expand the state’s already large private school tuition voucher program.

In Wisconsin, advocates have set out to reframe the political conversation. Besides spreading thousands of yard signs and postcards across Wisconsin announcing the campaign’s theme: “I Love My Public School & I Vote,” the coalition has packed its website with accessible information to educate the state’s supporters of public education. Posted there is toolkit with easily reproduced materials There are also facts and figures and copies of public speeches and legislative testimony from the organization’s leaders.

And there are explanations and graphs including one that is particularly applicable for the Wisconsin gubernatorial election in two weeks. Governor Scott Walker has been trying to brand himself “the education governor” because the legislature raised school funding this year—a budget he signed. But the urgency of the need for more funding this year also reflects on his leadership, “In 2011-12, lawmakers reduced district budget limits by 5.5%, which resulted in an average decrease of $529 per student to districts’ budgets.” Even this year’s budget increase won’t bring the state back up to its educational expenditure level before Walker’s cuts. The 2011 spending reduction was unprecedented, as was another Scott Walker priority—Act 10—the 2011 law to destroy public sector collective bargaining in Wisconsin.

Categories Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Resistance, Wisconsin

Jan Resseger: The Power of Grassroots Mobilization, Part 1

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2018 //
2

Jan Resseger attended the annual conference of the Network for Public Educatuon and was impressed by the panels featuring grassroots organizations.

Here is part of her excellent report:

One of the highlights of the Conference were presentations on excellent community organizing that is finally making a difference. Today’s post and tomorrow’s will describe two very different and encouraging initiatives.

What if city parents were supported in ignoring the glitzy brochures, radio ads, and even incentive gifts encouraging them to escape public schools and experiment with charter schools? What if, instead. parents were encouraged and supported to demand public schools designed to meet the needs of their families and children? I found hope this past weekend in a workshop where the Journey4Justice Alliance (J4J) told the story of mobilizing Black and Brown parents to demand the kind of stable, quality public schools middle class children take for granted: no more experiments with state takeover, privatization, and school closure at the expense of their children. The #WeChoose Campaign is national—connecting and organizing parents across America’s big cities. For years, there has been a sense of confusion and despair as corporate reformers with big money swept in to seize governance and policy in big city school districts. Finally a moment of clarity and empowerment is being created.

At last weekend’s NPE Conference we listened as national organizers from the Journey4Justice Alliance and local leaders of their multi-city partners—Chicago’s Kenwood Oakland Community Organization; New York City’s Alliance for Quality Education and Coalition for Educational Justice; Camden Parents Union and Camden Student Union; Newark’s Parents Unified for Local School Education; Pittsburgh’s Education Rights Network and One Pennsylvania; and the Detroit L.I.F.E. Coalition—explained how their communities are proclaiming #We Choose Public Schools: “We choose educational equity in public schools, not the illusion of school choice.”

The Journey4Justice Alliance (J4J) launched its #WeChoose campaign in February, 2017 with plans in at least 25 cities for press events, policy forums, meetings with elected officials, and direct actions along with a coordinated social media campaign. Jitu Brown, executive director of J4J describes the campaign’s message which organized parents are proclaiming to policymakers: “There is no such thing as ‘school choice’ in Black and Brown communities in this country. We want the choice of a world class neighborhood school within safe walking distance of our homes. We want an end to school closings, turnarounds, phase-outs, and charter expansion. We have an evidence-based solution for America’s struggling, neglected schools.”

At NPE”s Conference, Brown presented a tight, pro-public education #We Choose agenda, developed from the bottom up through a series of over 30 local Town Hall meetings plus two national Town Halls which together reached over 200,000 people in cities across the country:

1. We choose a moratorium on school privatization. “The evidence is clear and aligns with the lived experience of parents, students, and community residents in America’s cities: school privatization has failed in improving the education outcomes for young people.”

2. We choose the creation of 10,000 sustainable Community Schools. “Schools that are successful… are grounded in 5 pillars: relevant rigorous and engaging curriculum; supports for quality teaching and not punitive standardized tests; appropriate wrap-around supports for every child; student-centered school climate; and transformative parent and community engagement…. These are the interventions we recommend for struggling, underserved schools….”

3. We choose the end of zero tolerance discipline policies. “We want an immediate end to zero tolerance policies expressed by out-of-control suspensions and expulsions and the over-policing of our schools. We want resources dedicated to the expansion of full restorative justice initiatives….”

4. We choose a national equity assessment to move toward erasing the effects of poverty. “America does everything but equity. Closes schools. Online charter schools. Zero tolerance policies to push out students. Creates a charter industry. Puts a positive media spin on mediocre corporate education interventions. Anything but equity. Equitable schools are spaces where inspiration happens.”

5. We choose to stop the attack on black teachers whose numbers have declined rapidly. “A study in 9 American cities, Boston, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., all noted a decline in the number of black teachers. All of these cities curiously are places where school privatization has taken root.”

6. We choose to end state takeovers, appointed school boards and mayoral control. “We have a crisis in school governance. The overwhelming majority of state takeovers, mayoral control and appointed school boards exists in cities that serve primarily Black and Brown families… We need the elimination of these oppressive structures that ignore the voices of concerned constituents and grease the rails for politically connected charter and contract school operators.”

7. We choose to eliminate the over-reliance on standardized tests in public schools. “Multiple studies have confirmed that standardized tests are an excellent indicator of one’s zip code, not their aptitude.”

Categories Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Resistance

Law Professor: The Days of Charters and Vouchers Are Numbered

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2018 //
30

Derek Black, a Law professor at the University of South Carolina, attended the Network for Public Education conference in Indianapolis and left convinced that the privatization movement is not going to survive.

Read it all. It is an uplifting take on the future.

He writes:

Why am I suddenly confident, rather than nervous, about charters and vouchers? I got the chance to meet and listen to teachers from across the country at the Network for Public Education’s annual conference in Indianapolis this past weekend. For the first time in my professional career, I had a firm sense of public education’s future. I have litigated and participated in several civil rights and school funding cases, dealt with lots of different advocates, and watched closely as the teacher protests unfolded this spring. In Indianapolis, I saw something special—something I had never seen before.

I saw a broad based education movement led not by elites, scholars, or politicians, but everyday people. Those everyday people were teachers who were not just from big cities, small cities, suburbs, or the countryside, but from all of those places and as diverse as America’s fifty states and ten thousand school districts. The teachers weren’t just young or old, white, black or brown, men or women, straight or gay. They were all of the above.

So what then binds them together? Their opponents would say they are radicals or self-interested. But these teachers weren’t that either. As I sat down across the table and listened, I was struck by just how “every day” many of these teachers were. They had hopped on planes and come from across the country, but they were not any different from my kids’ teachers back in South Carolina–who had not even hinted at the possibility of a strike.

These movement “leaders” in Indianapolis were reluctant leaders. Like my kids’ teachers, these teachers struck me as the type who put their heads down, follow the rules, teach what the state asks, and care most of all about their students. And while these teachers were obviously disappointed in their states and concerned about the future of public education, I wouldn’t even call them mad. They stepped out on a ledge because they felt they had to.

One teacher, whom I recognized from this past spring’s newspapers but won’t name, actually had a lot of good things to say about her teaching experience and school. She said her principal lets her teach how and what she wants and that her school is good place. If I did not know who she was, you could not have convinced me that she led thousands of teachers this past spring.

There is one stereotype, however, that fits these teachers well: studiousness. They read—a lot. They research—a lot. As a result, they know and keep track of stuff that normally only policy wonks and professors know. Details matter in education policy and these teachers were on top of them. If I were governor and starting a new watchdog agency—whether in education or some other area—these teachers are some of the first people I would hire.

Over time, I have come to realize that clients matter more than attorneys. Groups of committed individuals standing behind movement leaders are, as often as not, more important than leaders. Attorneys and leaders tend to be just vessels for something larger than themselves.

What makes this teacher movement special is that the leaders are also the followers. The leaders come from within the ranks, not urged on by outsiders, elites, or money. They are urged on by their own sense of right and wrong, by their heartfelt care for public education and the kids its serves. For those reasons, they won’t be going away, bought off, or fatigued any time soon.

Categories Charter Schools, Courage, Education Industry, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Privatization, School Choice, Teachers, Vouchers

The First Session of NPE: “I Bring Hope!”

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2018 //
3

Here is the video of the first session of the just-concluded annual conference of the Network for Public Education in Indianapolis.

You will hear opening remarks by our executive director Carol Burris. She introduces Phyllis Bush, who gives a witty summary of what has happened to Indiana and how she and her friends built one of the nation’s first activist organizations to oppose destructive “reforms.”

Phyllis introduces me, and I describe my new book, which is about the slow but sure collapse of corporate reform. I bring hope.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Parent Groups, Privatization, Real Education, Research, Resistance

Watch NPE Conference Live from Indianapolis! #NPE18INDY

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2018 //
9

The Network for Public Education is live-streaming events from Indianapolis. Watch here.

If you weren’t able to make it to Indianapolis to join us this year, don’t fret – we’ve got you covered! Just hop on to the NPE Action Facebook page to catch all of the keynote speeches and select workshops both Saturday and Sunday.

Here’s a schedule of everything that will be live-streamed. Click the “read more” links below for more information about workshops and speakers.

And make sure to use the hashtag #NPE18INDY on social media to interact with conference attendees all weekend!

Saturday:

8:00-9:20 – Diane Ravitch & Pasi Sahlberg (read more)

9:30-10:40 – The People of Arizona vs. The Koch Brothers: Fighting Privatization and Dark Money with Beth Lewis and Sharon Kirsch (read more)

10:50-12:00 – Outsourcing the Classroom to Ed Tech & Machine-learning: Why Parents & Teachers Should Resist with Peter Greene, Leonie Haimson and Audrey Watters (read more)

12:30-1:20 – Teachers in Action: A Conversation with Teacher Leaders with Michelle Gunderson, Petia Edison, Rebecca Garelli and Alex Orozco (read more)

2:40-3:50 – Fighting Privatization in Puerto Rico with Edwin Morales Laboy, Mercedes Martinez, Aixa Rodriguez and Kaliris Salas (read <a href="https://events.bizzabo.com/NPE18INDY/agenda/session/273315?link_id=5&can_id=012f354d90b87664b362dda6a4b2980d&source=email-npe18indy-livestream-starts-tomorrow-morning&email_referrer=email_439078&email_subject=npe18indy-livestream-starts-tomorrow-morning”>more)

4:00-5:10 – Grading the States: The NPE/Schott School Privatization Report Card with Derek Black, Carol Burris and Tanya Clay House (read more)

5:20-6:00 – Helen Gym: Victories for Public Education in Philadelphia (read more)

Sunday:

8:15-9:25 – #WeChoose Campaign; Building a Multi-Racial Visionary National Campaign Rooted in Racial Justice and Local Realities with Jitu Brown, Elzora Cleveland, Ronsha Dickerson, Angel Gober, Kamua Kepheru and Maulana Tolbert (read more)

10:00-10:45 – Jesse Hagopian: Black Lives Matter at School (read more)

10:55-12:05 – The Racist Origins of Standardized Testing and the Racist Idea of Black/Brown Inferiority with Erika Strauss Chavarria, Denisha Jones and Marla Kilfoyle (read more)

12:15-12:35 – Call to Action

12:45-2:00 – NAACP President, Derrick Johnson (read more)

We hope you’ll “join” us this weekend on Facebook live!

Categories Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund

NPE: The Marriott is NOT on Strike in Indianapolis!

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2018 //
11

If you plan to come to the Network for Public Education annual conference in Indianapolis, please be assured that the Marriott is not on strike there.

Several people have written to ask about this.

None of us want to cross a picket line.

I asked Randi Weingarten and this was her advice:

“Good news, they aren’t on strike at the one in Indianapolis so there is no picket line. That’s good.

“There are several things the NPE folks can do, however. The first is to not accept Marriott’s so called “Green Choice” program. Marriott asks guests if they want to be “green” by not having housekeeping attend to a guest’s room – meaning no cleaning and no clean towels. This is a huge issue for UNITE HERE. It makes doing the laundry more difficult and unsafe, reduces steady work and makes cleaning at the end of a guest’s stay much more difficult. So NPE can either tell the hotel not to offer it to their conference participants or tell those coming to the conference not to accept the Green Choice option.”

We will make clear to the hotel that we support striking workers. As a guest, please make sure that you do not accept the offer to “go green” for the reasons stated above.

I will be in Louisville Thursday night for a rally against state takeover of the schools.

See you in Indianapolis for the best conference ever!

2018 National Conference

Categories Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Unions

NPE Followers Write to IRS to Oppose Voucher Scam

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2018 //
4

Politico’s Morning Education reports on the Network for Public Education campaign against tax deductions for vouchers:

VOUCHER ADVERSARIES SHOWER IRS WITH THANKS: Public education and anti-voucher advocates are inundating the IRS with thank yous for a proposed rule seeking to limit the federal deductibility of contributions to charitable organizations. The rare and profuse gratitude for the usually choice-friendly Trump administration comes as the public comment period on the rule is set to close Thursday.

— Many of the comments use language promoted by organizations like the Network for Public Education, thanking the IRS for proposing the end of a “tax shelter that allows taxpayers to turn a profit when they fund private schools through state tuition tax credit programs. … Please stay the course and make sure that tax accountants, private schools, and others can no longer exploit the federal charitable deduction to promote voucher tax credits.” Read the comments here.

— The background: Eighteen states have tax credit scholarship programs that award individuals or businesses a full or partial tax credit when they donate to organizations that grant private school scholarships. About a dozen of them issue full tax credits to donors and when combined with the federal deduction, the tax benefits can exceed the size of the donation. The proposed rule, aimed at preventing efforts by some blue states to get around a new limit on state and local tax deductions, would prevent donors who contribute to state tax credit scholarship programs from reaping such a benefit.

— School choice advocates have also flooded the IRS with comments, concerned the rule would make taxpayers less likely to donate to organizations that award private school scholarships because of the reduced tax benefit. Advocates say that would ultimately hurt students, many of whom come from low-income families.

— In the effort to counter those voices, the National Coalition for Public Education is urging its supporters to speak out, noting “the IRS is already facing extreme pressure by pro-privatization entities and members of Congress.”

Categories Network for Public Education, Vouchers
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