Archives for category: Network for Public Education
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An All-Purpose Guide for a New Era of Direct Action and Resistance

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2017 //
12

It is no secret that everything in the public sector is under assault by the forces of privatization and greed. Public schools, public infrastructure, public libraries, public airport, everything that is funded and controlled by public authorities is up for grabs. Given that all three branches are controlled by the same party and that the Supreme Court will increasingly lean to the right, it is important that citizens take action.

Here is a manual for direct and nonviolent action written by a veteran of the struggles of the 1960s.

One thing is easier now: to create virtually instant mass protests, as was done by the admirable Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration. If one-off protests could produce major changes in society we would simply focus on that, but I know of no country that has undergone major change (including ours) through one-off protests. Contesting with opponents to win major demands requires more staying power than protests provide. One-off protests do not comprise a strategy, they are simply a repetitive tactic.

Fortunately, we can learn something about strategy from the U.S. civil rights movement. What did work for them in facing an almost overwhelming array of forces was a particular technique known as the escalating nonviolent direct action campaign. Some might call the technique an art form instead, because effective campaigning is more than mechanical.

Since that 1955-65 decade we’ve learned much more about how powerful campaigns build powerful movements leading to major change. Some of those lessons are here.

The manual is short. It offers valuable lessons about how to organize a resistance movement.

There are many fronts on which this current struggle will be and is being waged. For readers of this blog, the central issue is the survival of public schools, democratically controlled and governed.

The privatization movement is well organized and well funded. The entering wedge for privatization is the misuse of testing to defame teachers and schools. The entry point for privatization is charter schools. Then cyber charters, then vouchers. It is a continuum. The goal is to take tax money away from public schools and direct it to privately managed schools, private schools, religious schools, and tax dodges for the wealthy whose money is then used to support vouchers.

The Network for Public Education is dedicated to preserving and improving public schools. We are not satisfied with them as they are today. For one thing, they are burdened by the detritus of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act. We must fight for them or lose them. The time is now.

Join NPE at its annual conference in Oakland, California, in mid-October. Meet your allies. We will join together to support our schools and our democracy.

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

Do You Think Every Child Deserves a Qualified Teacher?

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2017 //
34

The charter school committee of the State University of New York will soon decide whether charter schools will be allowed to hire uncertified teachers. This is a bad idea because teachers must be prepared for a wide variety of children, including children with disabilities and English language learners. Of course, if charter schools are private schools, then it doesn’t matter whether their teachers are well prepared because they are unlikely to encounter the same students as in public schools.

If you think that every child deserves a well-qualified teacher, please send an email to the members of the SUNY charter committee, all of whom were appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The linked message from the Network for Public Education makes it easy to send an email.

Categories Charter Schools, Network for Public Education, New York, Teachers and Teaching

Carol Burris Will Receive Well-Deserved Honor for Her Tireless Work on Behalf of Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2017 //
13

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, has been selected by the board of the Horace Mann League as its 2018 Outstanding Friend of Public Education.

The presentation will be made at the HML Annual Meeting in February in Nashville (AASA Convention).

The HML made an excellent choice. Carol has been a peerless leader in the fight against privatization and high-stakes testing and in the ongoing struggle to transform public education so that it meets the needs of every child.

In recent years, she has published frequently on Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog at the Washington Post.

She is former principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre on Long Island in New York. She has received numerous awards. In 2010, she was named Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and in 2013, she was named SAANYS New York State High School Principal of the Year. She received her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University.

I am proud to be her friend, colleague, and ally. I humbly name her to the honor roll of the blog for her energy, leadership, thoughtfulness, kindness, compassion, scholarship, respect for the teaching profession, love of children, and intellect.

She is an educator, and a great one.

Categories Honor Roll, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund

Phyllis Bush: Facing Cancer Head On, with Humor and Determination

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2017 //
4

My dear friend and ally, Phyllis Bush, started a blog to write about her experience with cancer, which she insists on calling cancer schmanzer.

She is feeling better. She is cleaning closets. She is ready for the fight for her life.

Phyllis keeps me informed about the corporate and billionaire funded effort to destroy public education in Indiana. She is a fighter. She is a founding board member of the Network for Public Education. We are all rooting for her.

Categories Indiana, Network for Public Education

Write and Call Your Local PBS Affiliate: Demand Equal Time for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2017 //
10

All over the country, PBS stations are showing anti-public school propaganda in a three-hour series called “School Inc.” This series was paid for by libertarian foundations who want for-profit schools, vouchers, charters, and for-profit teachers, competing for students. The lead funder is the Rose-Mary and Jack Anderson Foundation, which supports radical libertarian causes and acts as a funnel for Donors Trust, which bundles money from the Koch brothers and DeVos family for their favorite causes.

PBS emendation accepting money for the series, which has no opposing views and which was never fact-checked, because it likes to show divergent views.

Really?

Would PBS accept funding to run a three-hour program that was opposed to abortion rights? That argued that homosexuality was a sin? That attempted to prove that climate change was a hoax? That insisted that the Sandy Hook massacre of children and staff never happened? That defended Confederate flags and monuments in public space?

The Network for Public Education encourages you to write an email or call your PBS station. Apparently, some local stations watched the series and decided not to show it. Most, however, are running it without any rebuttal.

Here is my rebuttal, which was seen only in New York City.

Here is my written commentary.

The irony is that these foundations do not believe in public education or public television.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Hoax, Network for Public Education, Propaganda, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Contact Your PBS Station to Demand Equal Time for Pro-Public Education Message

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2017 //
61

The Network for Public Education invites you to contact your local PBS station to protest the one-sided three-hour special “School Inc.” The letter in the link tells you how to contact your PBS affiliate.

We urge two courses of action, for the sake of balance. Please request that they air my 10-minute response which was filmed by the NYC affiliate of PBS. Please urge them to show “Backpack Full of Cash,” made by award-winning Stone Lantern Productions; it tells the story of the corporate assault on public schools.

That is 70 minutes of time, certainly not equal time. PBS, in the interests of fairness, should identify and run three hours of documentaries that show an accurate picture of the accomplishments and challenges of public schools.

PBS is running a three-hour special that attacks public schools and celebrates privatization. “School Inc” claims that public schools are not “innovative,” but not one of its free-market examples are innovative in any way, other than that they are run by private corporations, many for profit. The narrator and creator of this series is the late Andrew Coulson, a libertarian who believed in free-market education.

I watched all three hours of the program twice, preparing for a 10-minute interview at WNET, the New York City affiliate of PBS. I learned that the three foundations that funded the program are libertarian supporters of vouchers. The program is pro-privatization propaganda. At no point does Coulson interview anyone who disagrees with him. He lauds the free-market reforms in Chile and Sweden, which reputable scholars have found wanting. Chile is one of the most segregated school systems in the world, and Sweden’s scores on international tests have fallen since the introduction of Choice and for-profit schooling.

This program leads the way in promoting the DeVos agenda of free-market education.

Please send your email. Be heard.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Network for Public Education, Privatization, Resistance

The Network for Public Education: Our View on Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2017 //
30

NPE Statement on Charter Schools

https://wp.me/p3bR9v-2st

The Network for Public Education believes that public education is the pillar of our democracy. We believe in the common school envisioned by Horace Mann. A common school is a public institution, which nurtures and teaches all who live within its boundaries, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, sexual preference or learning ability. All may enroll–regardless of when they seek to enter the school or where they were educated before.

We believe that taxpayers bear the responsibility for funding those schools and that funding should be ample and equitable to address the needs of the served community. We also believe that taxpayers have the right to examine how schools use tax dollars to educate children.

Most importantly, we believe that such schools should be accountable to the community they serve, and that community residents have the right and responsibility to elect those who govern the school. Citizens also have the right to insist that schooling be done in a manner that best serves the needs of all children.

By definition, a charter school is not a public school. Charter schools are formed when a private organization contracts with a government authorizer to open and run a school. Charters are managed by private boards, often with no connection to the community they serve. The boards of many leading charter chains are populated by billionaires who often live far away from the schools they govern.

Through lotteries, recruitment and restrictive entrance policies, charters do not serve all children. The public cannot review income and expenditures in detail. Many are for profit entities or non-profits that farm out management to for-profit corporations that operate behind a wall of secrecy. This results in scandal, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer funds. The news is replete with stories of self-dealing, conflicts of interest, and theft occurring in charter schools [1].

We have learned during the 25 years in which charters have been in existence that the overall academic performance of students in charter schools is no better, and often worse, than the performance of students in public schools. And yet charter schools are seen as the remedy when public schools are closed based on unfair letter-based grading schemes.

By means of school closures and failed takeover practices like the Achievement School District, disadvantaged communities lose their public schools to charter schools. Not only do such communities lose the school, but they also lose their voice in school governance.

There is little that is innovative or new that charter schools offer. Because of their “freedom” from regulations, allegedly to promote innovation, scandals involving the finances and governance of charter schools occur on a weekly basis. Charter schools can and have closed at will, leaving families stranded. Profiteers with no educational expertise have seized the opportunity to open charter schools and use those schools for self-enrichment. States with weak charter laws encourage nepotism, profiteering by politicians, and worse.

For all of the reasons above and more, the Network for Public Education regard charter schools as a failed experiment that our organization cannot support. If the strength of charter schools is the freedom to innovate, then that same freedom can be offered to public schools by the district of the state.

At the same time, we recognize that many families have come to depend on charter schools and that many charter school teachers are dedicated professionals who serve their students well. It is also true that some charter schools are successful. We do not, therefore, call for the immediate closure of all charter schools, but rather we advocate for their eventual absorption into the public school system. We look forward to the day when charter schools are governed not by private boards, but by those elected by the community, at the district, city or county level.

Until that time, we support all legislation and regulation that will make charters better learning environments for students and more accountable to the taxpayers who fund them. Such legislation would include the following:

• An immediate moratorium on the creation of new charter schools, including no replication or expansion of existing charter schools

• The transformation of for-profit charters to non-profit charters

• The transformation of for-profit management organizations to non-profit management organizations

• All due process rights for charter students that are afforded public school students, in all matters of discipline

• Required certification of all school teaching and administrative staff

• Complete transparency in all expenditures and income

• Requirements that student bodies reflect the demographics of the served community

• Open meetings of the board of directors, posted at least 2 weeks prior on the charter’s website

• Annual audits available to the public

• Requirements to following bidding laws and regulations

• Requirements that all properties owned by the charter school become the property of the local public school if the charter closes

• Requirements that all charter facilities meet building codes

• Requirements that charters offer free or reduced priced lunch programs for students

• Full compensation from the state for all expenditures incurred when a student leaves the public school to attend a charter

• Authorization, oversight and renewal of charters transferred to the local district in which they are located

• A rejection of all ALEC legislation regarding charter schools that advocates for less transparency, less accountability, and the removal of requirements for teacher certification.

Until charter schools become true public schools, the Network for Public Education will continue to consider them to be private schools that take public funding.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Privatization

Alternet: What You Need to Know about School Privatization in YOUR State

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2017 //
16

Do you want to know where YOUR state stands in the race to privatize public money for private schools?

Alternet has an excellent summary of the Network for Public Education report on school privatization.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Network for Public Education, Privatization

Anthony Cody: Activists Fight Corporate Media with Short Videos and Powerful Message

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2017 //
13

Anthony Cody, co-founder of the Network for Public Education and retired teacher, describes the day nearly three weeks ago when education activists from across the nation met in a grimy warehouse in Brooklyn to tape videos about the fight for better schools and against privatization.

I posted a request on the blog inviting people to join the audience. Several readers asked if the day would be live-streamed. The documentarian Michael Elliott told me it was a filming, not an event, so live-streaming was impossible. Some speakers did retakes. There were long pauses while the cameras were readjusted. No, it was not right for live-streaming. The end result will be a number of short videos, featuring some terrific speakers.

By the way, the audience was full of teachers, BATs, parents, and other educators. They were very patient and very enthusiastic.

The filming was a project of the Network for Public Education. It is part of our ongoing efforts to inform the public about the fight against privatization and the importance of improving our public schools.

Categories Network for Public Education, Resistance, Supporting public schools

Trump’s First Education Budget: Deep Cuts for Public Schools, Good News for Charters, School Choice

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2017 //
22

Trump unveiled his first education budget, and it contains many cuts to popular programs in public schools. But it has a bonanza for private alternatives to public schools.

The Washington Post obtained a draft copy of the new budget, which has not yet been submitted to Congress.

Funding for college work-study programs would be cut in half, public-service loan forgiveness would end and hundreds of millions of dollars that public schools could use for mental health, advanced coursework and other services would vanish under a Trump administration plan to cut $10.6 billion from federal education initiatives, according to budget documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The administration would channel part of the savings into its top priority: school choice. It seeks to spend about $400 million to expand charter schools and vouchers for private and religious schools, and another $1 billion to push public schools to adopt choice-friendly policies.

President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have repeatedly said they want to shrink the federal role in education and give parents more opportunity to choose their children’s schools.

Trump and DeVos are following the Obama formula for Race to the Top: Offer financial incentives for states to adopt the policies that the federal government wants. If they want the money they must volunteer, and that allegedly proves that participation was “voluntary.”

The budget proposal calls for a net $9.2 billion cut to the department, or 13.6 percent of the spending level Congress approved last month. It is likely to meet resistance on Capitol Hill because of strong constituencies seeking to protect current funding, ideological opposition to vouchers and fierce criticism of DeVos, a longtime Republican donor who became a household name during a bruising Senate confirmation battle…

Under the administration’s budget, two of the department’s largest expenditures in K-12 education, special education and Title I funds to help poor children, would remain unchanged compared to federal funding levels in the first half of fiscal 2017. However, high-poverty schools are likely to receive fewer dollars than in the past because of a new law that allows states to use up to 7 percent of Title I money for school improvement before distributing it to districts.

The cuts would come from eliminating at least 22 programs, some of which Trump outlined in March. Gone, for example, would be $1.2 billion for after-school programs that serve 1.6 million children, most of whom are poor, and $2.1 billion for teacher training and class-size reduction.

[Trump budget casualty: After-school programs for 1.6 million kids. Most are poor.]

The documents obtained by The Post — dated May 23, the day the president’s budget is expected to be released — outline the rest of the cuts, including a $15 million program that provides child care for low-income parents in college; a $27 million arts education program; two programs targeting Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian students, totaling $65 million; two international education and foreign language programs, $72 million; a $12 million program for gifted students; and $12 million for Special Olympics education programs.

Other programs would not be eliminated entirely, but would be cut significantly. Those include grants to states for career and technical education, which would lose $168 million, down 15 percent compared to current funding; adult basic literacy instruction, which would lose $96 million (down 16 percent); and Promise Neighborhoods, an Obama-era initiative meant to build networks of support for children in needy communities, which would lose $13 million (down 18 percent).

The Trump administration would dedicate no money to a fund for student support and academic enrichment that is meant to help schools pay for, among other things, mental-health services, anti-bullying initiatives, physical education, Advanced Placement courses and science and engineering instruction. Congress created the fund, which totals $400 million this fiscal year, by rolling together several smaller programs. Lawmakers authorized as much as $1.65 billion, but the administration’s budget for it in the next fiscal year is zero.

The cuts would make space for investments in choice, including $500 million for charter schools, up 50 percent over current funding. The administration also wants to spend $250 million on “Education Innovation and Research Grants,” which would pay for expanding and studying the impacts of vouchers for private and religious schools. It’s not clear how much would be spent on research versus on the vouchers themselves.

The new budget would also have a large impact of student aid programs for higher education.

It is clear that parents and educators must organize to fight for the funding of programs that benefit students in public schools.

Ninety percent of American children attend public schools, yet they are being neglected in the budgetary planning because Trump and DeVos favor charters, vouchers, and other kinds of school choice.

Don’t agonize. Organize.

Join the Network for Public Education. Be active in the fight against these cuts. Be active in the resistance to privatization and the Trump administration’s indifference/hostility to public schools.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Funding, Network for Public Education, School Choice, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt, Supporting public schools, Trump, U.S. Department of Education, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers
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