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The Network for Public Education Action Fund Endorses David Garcia for Governor of Arizona

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2018 //
1

NPE Action endorses David Garcia for Governor of Arizona. The current governor is a disaster, who has done his darndest to destroy public schools.

If you live in Arizona, please vote for David Garcia and vote NO on Prop 305 to stop vouchers.

The Network for Public Education has endorsed David Garcia for Governor of Arizona. David‘s opponent is the present Governor, Doug Ducey. Ducey has systematically attacked public education through defunding public schools and public universities, expanding voucher programs, and pushing the proliferation of charter schools despite numerous scandals, frauds, nepotism, and charter closures.

Among the 50 states and Washington D.C, Arizona received the lowest grade on the Network for Public Education’s and the Schott Foundation’s Privatization Report Card. Arizona’s dismal score is the result of the state’s expansion of privatization, dilution of student civil rights, and the lack of transparency and accountability for charters and vouchers. Ducey is responsible, in great part, for Arizona’s shockingly low rating.

David Garcia, in contrast, has focused on educational improvement during his campaign. He is opposed to PROP 305, the referendum that would expand ESA vouchers, and he is a strong proponent of increased education funding.

Garcia has also made it clear that he stands for reform in the state’s charter school law to eliminate both fraud and profit. Although we would prefer that Garcia call for a charter moratorium, we believe the contrast between the two candidates is so stark that Garcia deserves the vote of every friend of public education in the state.

We also would like to remind our Arizona friends to Vote NO on Proposition 305 that would expand ESA vouchers and rob public schools of much needed funding.

Please vote for David Garcia for Governor and vote AGAINST Prop 305 on November 6.

Categories Arizona, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund

The Network for Public Education Action Fund Endorses Liz Watson for Congress in Indiana

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
0

The Network for Public Education Action Fund is pleased to endorse Liz Watson for Congress in Indiana’s 9th Congressional District.

The Network for Public Education Action has endorsed Liz Watson in the general election for Indiana’s 9th Congressional District seat in the United States House of Representatives.

One of Liz’s highest priorities and a centerpiece of her platform is fully supporting our public schools. The Indiana Coalition for Public Education—Monroe County was one of the first groups Liz met with when she began her campaign – and she has been a partner since then. Liz believes that teachers should be paid a professional, living wage that keeps up with inflation and is commensurate with their experience and education level.

According to Liz, “When taxpayer dollars are diverted to private schools through vouchers, this weakens our public schools. While vouchers have been billed as a means for students to leave so-called ‘failing schools’ for private ones, only a tiny proportion of voucher users are leaving schools that the state calls failing. More than half of vouchers are going to students who have been in private schools their entire lives. Using public funds to pay the private school tuition of students from higher-income families, while leaving children from low-income families struggling to make do with less, hurts our schools, our kids, and our future.

She continues, “Charter schools are a slippery slope into a two-tiered system of education. That’s why, as a policy matter, I oppose any further expansion of charter schools. Charter schools have been a failed experiment, because they are largely unaccountable and lack transparency. While they were intended to be hubs of innovation that would bring new ideas back to public schools, this has not happened on a consistent basis, and has not been the end result.”

Liz Watson is running against Trey Hollingsworth who is in his first term and is primarily funded through large donations from outside Indiana and who has been unresponsive on education issues. The 9th Congressional district is a gerrymandered district that runs from central Indiana to the Kentucky border.

Please do what you can this November 6 to send this committed, engaged public education advocate to Washington D.C. to fight for all of Indiana’s children.

Categories Indiana, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Supporting public schools

NPE Action Endorses Mark Pocan (Wisconsin) for Congress

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2018 //
1

The Network for Public Education Action Fund is pleased to endorse Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin for re-election to Congress.

The Network for Public Education Action is proud to announce its endorsement of Mark Pocan for Congress, representing the 2nd Congressional District of Wisconsin.

NPE Action ​Executive Director, Carol Burris, had the following to say, “Mark Pocan is a true friend of public education. He is a staunch opponent of vouchers and critic of the lack of accountability and corruption in the charter sector. During this year’s budget hearings, he pressed Betsy DeVos​ on how she would ensure accountability in the charter sector. In response to her appointment, he began the House Public Education Caucus.”

Mark Pocan understands that public education is the pillar of our democracy. He wants to “modernize our classrooms, reduce class sizes, enhance special education programs, provide students with access to affordable higher education opportunities, and ensure America has the best-trained and most qualified teachers.”

He also seeks to make Pre-K education more accessible for all children. He introduced the Student Loan Refinance Bill to help college graduates pay off their debt.

For all of these reasons and more, we give Mark Pocan our strongest endorsement.

Categories Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Supporting public schools

NPE Action Endorses Bob Peterson for Milwaukee School Board

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2018 //
0

The Network for Public Exucation Action Fund is delighted to endorse Bob Peterson for the Milwaukee School Board. Seldom has there ever been a better qualified candidate. Maybe never.

NPE Action enthusiastically endorses Bob Peterson for the at-large seat on the Board of School Directors of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).

Bob started as a Paraprofessional in MPS and later became a bilingual educator, teaching in the classroom for 30 years. Bob was active in his union for 35 years, including service on the executive board of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA). He was MTEA president for four years immediately following Gov. Walker’s ACT 10 legislation.

Bob is also a founding editor of the Rethinking Schools magazine.

Bob’s campaign message is clear. “We must come together to defend and transform Milwaukee Public Schools.”

He told NPE Action that “MPS has been ground zero for school privatization starting in 1990. The privatizers continue to increase private voucher schools and privately-run charter schools. We need to simultaneously fight privatization attempts AND improve our public schools.”

He plans to fight privatization and improve Milwaukee’s public schools by building “a social movement to secure adequate and equitable funding so that we can lower class sizes, have strong professional development on issues of restorative practices, anti-racist culturally relevant curriculum, social-emotional learning, and the replacement of mass standardized testing with forms of authentic assessment.”

Please head to the polls on November 6th and cast your vote for Bob Peterson.

Categories Milwaukee, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund

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

NPE Action Endorses Kathy Zoucha for Indiana State Senate

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2018 //
0

The Network for Public Education Action is pleased to endorse Kathy Zoucha for State Senate in Indiana. Her voice is needed to counter the anti-public school lobby. There is not a single K-12 Educator in the State Senate at present.


Kathy Zoucha has received the endorsement of the Network for Public Education Action in her bid for the District 15 seat in the Indiana State Senate.

Kathy has identified a problem that she intends to fix – there are no K12 educators in the Indiana State Senate. Kathy is a certified special education teacher with seven years of experience in the classroom, and an active member of her local union.

She lobbies for public education in Indianapolis and before the Indiana State Board of Education on issues such as graduation pathways, and attends events sponsored by the public education advocacy group, Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education (NEIFPE).

Kathy told us that Indiana public schools are not receiving enough funding to provide necessary services for Indiana’s children. She is opposed to any form of vouchers that drain money from Indiana’s public school system, and cited a University of Notre Dame study that showed children who remain in public schools outperform those who leave public schools for private schools for several years.

She believes that teachers are the most effective judges of student achievement, and that Indiana’s public schools need less testing. Kathy would invest the money spent of standardized testing back into the schools.

Please help put this special educator into the Indiana State Senate by casting your vote for her on November 6th.

Categories Indiana, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Supporting public schools

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

NPE Action Endorses Paul Theobald in Nebraska

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2018 //
0

The Network for Public Education Action Fund is delighted to endorse Paul Theobald for the Third Congressional District seat in Nebraska.

We proudly endorse Paul Theobald for the third Congressional district of Nebraska. Mr. Theobald is a former college dean and a farmer. Most important of all, he is a fearless supporter of public education.

Mr. Theobald understands the importance of the rural school and he is adamantly opposed to rural school consolidation. He believes that standardized testing should be “optional” for any district that can demonstrate that its students are learning well. He sees testing as a way of “maximizing corporate profits.”

Finally he has pledged to do all in his power to fight the proliferation of charter schools that are privatizing American public education.

We hope that you will join us and support Mr. Theobald on November 6.

Categories Nebraska, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund
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