Archives for category: Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

A Nashville School Board Member Warns Kentucky and Mississippi about the Charter Scams

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2017 //
8

Amy Frogge ran for the Metro Nashville School Board in 2012 as a concerned mom who was also a lawyer. She was unaware of the pitched battle about charters and privatization. She had the simple goal of improving public schools, which made her an enemy of the privatizers. She ran again last year and was re-elected. Both times, she faced candidates who outspent her by vast sums with out-of-state reformer cash. She was previously named to the Blog’s Honor Roll for her fortitude in standing up to the vilification by reformers and sticking to her promise to fight for public schools.

In this post, she writes that it is a new day in Nashville. High-profile charter operators arrived with big promises, then crashed and burned. The Nashville community sees them for the frauds they are.

She hopes to alert parents in Kentucky and Mississippi to beware, now that rightwing legislators have opened their state’s to the same scammers.

She writes:

“While my personal views and political positions have not changed at all since my first run for school board, the atmosphere surrounding education policy has changed drastically, both in Nashville and at a national level. Locals have finally become aware of the driving forces behind the school privatization movement, and alliances have shifted. After a newspaper editor was fired last fall, all of the politically-motivated, factually inaccurate “hit pieces” about me in the local paper (accompanied by comically bad photos) ceased. Many of the bad actors have either been fired or fled town- headed off to other less suspecting places that have not yet caught onto the privatization movement.

“At our last board meeting, we discussed LEAD Academy, often touted as a Miracle Charter School. LEAD likes to promote its 100% graduation rate, but as we learned at our last board meeting, this statistic is at the very least misleading, if not entirely untrue. In reality, LEAD high school has a 40% attrition rate, meaning that nearly half of students who start high school at LEAD don’t make it through to graduation. (So much for that 100% graduation rate!) It’s also clear that LEAD does not serve all students. Only one English Learner at LEAD has reached graduation in four graduating classes, and only three students with special needs are on track to graduate this year. Furthermore, student performance is decreasing in all tested areas for grades 3-8 at LEAD. Over a one-year period at LEAD, 13.5% more students scored basic or below in math, 17% more students scored basic or below in English Language Arts, and 42.6% more students scored basic or below in science.

“Ravi Gupta, head of RePublic Schools, left Nashville last year after a number of disturbing events occurred at his “no excuses” schools: First, several parents accused the RePublic of “abuse and neglect” of students, and Teach for America (which supplied most of its teachers) also expressed concerns about RePublic. Then, a parent accused RePublic of copyright violation for photocopying book passages (a common practice in charter schools to save money) containing inappropriate reading materials for middle school students. And most recently, parents filed a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit against RePublic for violation of federal law. Gupta is now trying to recreate himself as a political consultant of sorts with a new group called “The Arena,” standing in opposition to the new President. Ironically, though, Gupta’s own work in schools has been very much aligned with Betsy DeVos’s education agenda.

“Shaka Mitchell, former head of Rocketship, also left his post. Rocketship came into Nashville amidst great fanfare, thanks in large part to former Mayor Karl Dean (and his education liaison Wendy Tucker, mentioned in the attached article). However, only a few years later, Rocketship is now performing in the bottom 3% of schools statewide. Recently, Rocketship was also found in violation of state and federal laws for failing to provide services for students with disabilities and for English learners. Furthermore, Rocketship was censured for requiring homeless students to buy uniforms. Despite all this, the state has expressed its intent to force Nashville to open another Rocketship school this fall. This should tell you ALL you need to know about the charter school movement. (Hint: It’s not “about the children”)…

“The PR wall has begun to crumble, the veil is pulled back, and the truth emerges. Evidence has emerged that charter schools are contributing to the re-segregation of school systems, that they have a negative fiscal impact on school systems, and that they do not improve educational outcomes for students.

“In response, what do these folks do? Do they try to address these problems or worry that perhaps they are increasing inequity within MNPS? No, they work on the “spin.” They go after the reporter who wrote the attached story, demanding a retraction. They manipulate, harass, bully, race-bait, and attack. They tell charter parents that board members “hate charter parents and their kids,” hoping to whip these parents into a frenzy. This is the toxicity we have experienced in Nashville for years.

“Watch out Mississippi and Kentucky. These problems are headed your way. Steel your spine, and buckle your seatbelt. It doesn’t matter how professional or evidence-based you remain; if you don’t toe the line for charter schools, you will be attacked. You will be demeaned, bullied, and belittled. Get ready for the smear campaigns and character assassinations. But pay them no mind. Stay on the right side of history, and keep standing up for the students. Keep standing up for justice and equity. Keep standing up for public education. There’s important work to be done.”

Open the link to read the attached article.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Koch Brothers Target Colorado for ESA Vouchers

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2017 //
20

Wherever there is a bipartisan consensus for charter schools, the Koch brothers see the state as ripe for expanding vouchers. Now they are targeting Colorado, where they have developed a strategic plan for the state.

Leading Democrats, such as wealthy Congressman Jared Polis and former State Senator Michael Johnston, have led the charge for charters and schiool choice (both have announced they are running for the Democratic nomination for governor.) Polis has opened two charter schools and fiercely supports them as a member of the House Education Committee. Johnston, former TFA, introduced legislation in 2011 to make student test scores count for 50% of teachers’ evaluation. The law has been an abject failure, although Johnston claimed it would guarantee that Colorado had great teachers, great principals, great schools.

DFER and Stand for Children have been active in Colorado, laying the groundwork for the Koch brothers.

And now they arrive with a plan to defund public schools and call it “opportunity.”

“COLORADO SPRINGS — In a nondescript office building on the north side of this conservative enclave, more than a dozen volunteers spent hours making calls to educate voters about a new initiative that will allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to send children to private schools.

“At the same time, just miles down the road, the political network behind the effort gathered hundreds of its wealthiest donors at a posh mountainside resort to raise money to support the campaign to remake the education system.

“The confluence of policy and politics epitomized how the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch flex their organization’s muscle and spread an ideological agenda in states across the nation.

“The value of this network cannot be overstated,” said Stacy Hock, a Koch donor and conservative education advocate in Texas. “The ability to stand on the shoulders of the giant that is this network to make yourself more impactful and strategic changes the game.”

The Koch brothers plot a conservative resistance movement in Colorado Springs strategy session
Koch network to Trump administration: “You are never going to win the war on drugs. Drugs won.”
The phone calls to middle-of-the-road voters and presentation to donors in Colorado last week were part of the Koch network’s six-figure campaign to promote school choice and education savings accounts, or ESAs.

“The effort in Colorado involves the Americans for Prosperity Foundation and the Libre Initiative, a group focused on Hispanic community outreach. Together the organizations are making calls and sending flyers to voters this summer, two of which promote ESAs as a way to “give families the freedom to select schools, classes and services that fit the unique needs of their kids….

“The Koch network considers Colorado an attractive state for its message because public charter schools are a bipartisan cause. In the 2017 session, lawmakers equalized funding for charter schools with district schools.

“EdChoice, a conservative education advocacy organization aligned with the Kochs, commissioned a survey in 2015 to introduce Colorado to the ESA issue, finding strong support when cast in favorable terms.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Privatization, Vouchers

Kentucky: CBS News Reports that the DeVos Agenda Would Destroy Rural Public Schools

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2017 //
42

CBS News aired a great segment on the importance of rural public schools. They are the heart of the community. CBS News went to an impoverished community in Appalachia and interviewed students and the principal, who is also the school bus driver. The small rural public school in Letcher County doesn’t need competition. Most of its students live below the poverty line, yet the school is one of the best in the state.

Nine million children across the nation attend rural schools.

Why does Betsy DeVos want to destroy them?

Hello, Senator Mitch McConnell. These are your constituents!

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Competition, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Rural Schools, School Choice, Vouchers

Ed Berger: The Stealth Coup to Destroy the American Dream

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2017 //
8

Ed Berger, a retired teacher who lives in Arizona and is active in the struggle to save public schools, has written a powerful post about the billionaire-funded movement to destroy our democracy.

It begins like this. I urge you to read it all:

“Within the core of our freedoms, lie the avenues powerful individuals use to take away the rights of citizens and the controls of government designed and evolved to serve all. Americans are now aware of the reality that subversive forces have made excessive headway in destroying our rights.

“What has been allowed is the incursion of an Oligarchy: The few exploiting the many. We are witnessing the theft of human rights through the infiltration of what were meant to be representative systems within a constitutionally defined government.

“My first introduction to those who want absolute power was through studies of The Robber Barons in America in the 19th Century, and then in the 20th Century, the way Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin took total control of their countries. I learned of an American, Fred Koch, who became wealthy via Russian and German contracts and worked with Stalin and then Hitler as WWII began. He was convinced that absolute dictators were necessary to create strong nations. He came home to change the U.S government into a mechanism which would allow him to acquire power and wealth by any means. His tenets were: Destroy public education. Destroy any kind of worker representation. Control the prison system. Destroy the democratic process by distancing or removing undesirable citizen involvement in decision-making. End government interference in the rights of individuals like himself to create his own empire.

“Koch’s ideology was embedded in the goals of the John Birch Society, founded in the late 50s by Fred and ten others. It was one of many organizations spawned or infiltrated by Koch. Be aware of subversive groups founded by Koch and his sons and other powerful billionaires. Groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which writes legislation supporting Koch’s political and economic agendas. Know the goals of think tank groups established and funded to carry out Fred’s vision, these include: The Freedom School, the CATO Institute, and Americans For Prosperity among others. Be aware of how Foundations and not-for-profit tax avoidance mechanisms allowed the billionaires to finance their think thanks and other subversive organizations.

“The Koch machine gained the support of other libertarian arch conservatives. Richard Mellon Scaife, Harry and Lynda Bradley, John M. Olin, the Coors brewing family, and the DeVos family, to name some of the big supporters recruited by the Fred Koch and his sons David and Charles. All had acquired vast fortunes from activities that exploited citizens and nature. All were against any type of government that limited their rip, rape, and run business philosophies.

“In the last few years, add the names Bezos, Broad, Cohen, Singer, Schwarzman, Adelson, Hendricks, Mercer, and perhaps the worst of the lot, the Waltons. The Koch ideology also appeals to radical splinter groups of the Christian conservative right which is obsessed with the takeover of the US Government and the dismantling of the government. Understanding this unholy marriage explains why so many Tea Party extremists support Koch and the coup.”

Categories ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Dark Money, Democracy, Inequality, Injustice, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Laura Chapman Exposes the Billionaires Behind GreatSchools, Inc. and Redlining

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2017 //
21

Laura Chapman posted this comment, which I hope you will read:

Readers should know that GreatSchools.org website supports redlining. This is a non-profit website and organization in name only. Zillow, for example, pays a fee to lease all of the data and the ratings of schools. Specific schools can pay a fee to steer users to their websites.

The following supporters of redlining via the great schools website are not friends of public schools. They want to preserve schools and communities that are segregated by income, race, ethnicity, ownership of major assets (e.g., homes, automobiles), access to public services and amenities (e.g., public parks, libraries).

These supporters of segregation hide their agenda under a lot of rhetoric about saving children from failing schools. Wrong. These are the billionaires who are determined to misrepresent and undermine schools and neighborhoods through the irresponsible use of school “performance data,” especially scores on state standardized tests and more recently spurious surveys about school climate, the physical appearance of the school, and usually anonymous “customer” satisfaction ratings.

Major supporters of this redlining website are (logo displayed): Walton Family Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Einhorn Family Charitable Trust; The Leona M and Harry B Helmsley Charitable Trust,
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Other supporters: The Charles Hayden Foundation; Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation; Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation; David and Lucile Packard Foundation; Heising-Simons Foundation; The Joyce Foundation; Excellent Schools Detroit; The Kern Family Foundation; The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation;

Four other supporters of this website that forwards redlining sould be noted

America Achieves now calls itself “a non-profit accelerator” of large-scale system-wide change in public education. Achieve was and is the major promoter of the Common Core, college and career agenda, and associated tests. Achieve is funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Charles Butt, the Heckscher Foundation For Children, the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the Kern Family Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (among others).
EdChoice is the updated name for the Milton Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. EdChoice wants market-based education, unlimited choice, but subsidized by tax dollars–The DeVos/Trump policy.
Innovate Public Schools is a California-based national organization that uses GreatSchools reports to promote “new” school formation, especially charter schools, through extensive parent “fellowships” and training.
Startup:Education is a grantmaking project of the Chan/Zuckerberg Initiative founded by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. Everything promoted by Start;Up Education and the larger Chan/Zuckerberg initiative is tech-based and mislabeled personalized learning.

There are other commercial supporters of the website. They pay fees for advertising space and market a range of products called “educational.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, Segregation, Shame

Why Do National Democrats Forget About the Threat to K-12 Schools?

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2017 //
87

Every day I get fund-raising appeals from Democratic and progressive national organizations. They usually include a list of critical issues and ask me which one I care most about. They never include K-12 schooling, which is now being battered and assaulted by DeVos and the Red state governors.

Here is a list I got today from the DCCC (I think that’s the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee). Here is its list:

WHAT ISSUES MATTER THE MOST TO YOU? (CHECK ALL THAT APPLY)
Fully funding climate change research

A health care plan that takes the burden off families

Continued funding for Medicare and Social Security

Student loan forgiveness

Making tuition affordable for all

A $15 minimum wage

Protecting immigrants and immigration reform

Fully funding women’s health centers

Fighting economic inequality

Creating new jobs

Preserving President Obama’s Medicaid expansion

Gun violence prevention

Protecting voting rights

The form had a box for other. I wrote: STOP PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

And made no contribution.

No money until they acknowledge the threat posed by charters and vouchers.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Florida Charter Scandal: You May Think You Have Heard It All!

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2017 //
27

This is unbelievable but true. A convicted felon who had served four years in prison for grand theft and arson was chosen as president of the board of a small Florida charter school, where she was convicted of stealing from the school. She is heading back to prison.

You can’t make this stuff up.

“Despite spending four years in prison for arson and grand theft, and having multiple arrests for writing bad checks, Lori Bergeron became president of the board at the Manatee School of Arts and Sciences, a small charter school in Bradenton.

“On Friday, she was sentenced to eight months in jail for stealing more than $27,000 from the school she was overseeing.

“Bergeron pleaded no contest to charges of a scheme to defraud, and in addition to jail time, she will have to pay back the $27,591 she admitted to stealing from the school.

“School principal Richard Ramsay said before the plea hearing that he hoped Bergeron was punished to the fullest extent of the law.

“Honestly in cases like this, I would want the harshest punishment available,” said Rich Ramsay, MSAS principal. “When you’re stealing from children, it’s a betrayal.”

“Bergeron is a convicted felon with multiple arrests in her history. She spent close to four years in prison from 2003 to 2007 after pleading no contest to charges of grand theft and arson, according to the state department of corrections. She was ordered to pay $100,171 restitution in the grand theft case.

“Ramsay, who became principal at the school after Bergeron had joined the board, said the school district provided a background check on Bergeron to previous school administrators, but she was allowed to serve on the board anyway.

“A 2016 audit of the school’s practices by the accounting firm Shinn & Co. conducted after the fraud came to light confirmed Ramsay’s assertion.

“Manatee School of Arts and Sciences’ previous principal and School Board chose to allow a board member to join and become president who failed the background process through the (Manatee County) School Board,” Shinn’s report reads. “This same board member was then added as signatory on all bank accounts.”

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/news/local/education/article160181454.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Privatization

Indianapolis: As School Board Plans to Close Public Schools, Interlopers Arrive to Open New Charters

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2017 //
19

I wrote a few posts last week (see here and here) about the devastation of public schools in Indianapolis by corporate reformers. Their short term goal is to close public schools and replace them with privately managed charters. In the meanwhile, they are eliminating the neighborhood high school concept and requiring students to choose a high school based on its programs, not its proximity to home. They are preparing young people to be consumers and busting up any sense of community. The long term goal is the death of public education in Indianapolis.

The major movers of corporate reform in Indianapolis are the Mind Trust, which leads the privatization movement, abetted by Stand for Children, which brings in big bucks to buy elections for the corporate reform plan.

Remember, this is Mike Pence’s state, where rightwing extremists run the state.

Now comes another addition to the reform firmament of community disruption.

“A pair of Chicagoans are moving to Indianapolis in the next few weeks, and they are bringing with them a sense of urgency that defines the best of what you can find in many schools and classrooms. It’s an urgency that is critical for so many children who face immense challenges and the risk of lost potential.

“Deeply concerned about children locked in poverty, Jacob Allen and Marie Dandie founded a nonprofit after-school program in Chicago four years ago. They built pilotED around the concepts of civic engagement and a belief in the broader benefits of helping students develop a pride and belief in themselves. They peppered the curriculum with lessons centered on the lives and neighborhoods of the students they served.”

Allen and Dandie say their hallmark is “urgency.” Apparently no teachers or principals in Indianapolis public schools have that sense of urgency that this pair will bring with them to Indianapolis.

Not surprisingly, the two are TFA alums. They were recently recognized by a Forbes on its “30 Under 30” list in education. If they are under 30, how long have they been educators? How long did they stick with the school they started in Chicago?

Disruption is the hallmark of the Mind ztrust. It just got a gift of $7 million from the Lily Endowment to keep on with its plans for more disruption and innovation. Its goal is privatization of public education in Indianapolis. The Mind Trust is an affront to democracy.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Indianapolis, Privatization

Jeff Bryant: Why Democrats Should Unite For a Charter Moratorium

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2017 //
75

Jeff Bryant argues cogently in this article that Democrats should unite on behalf of a charter school moratorium.

If the Democratic party wants to revive its base–labor and civil rights–it should heed Jeff’s sound advice.

Charters and school choice were never a natural fit with the public philosophy of the Denocratic party, which recognized the power of government to advance the common good, because charters are typically non-union, typically more segregated than the district they are in, and are aligned with the privatizing philosophy of the Republican Party.

It is passing strange to see any Democrat lending support to a policy championed by Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, the Walton family, the Koch brothers, and every Republican governor.

Read the entire article. Here is an excerpt:

“Democrats know that success for their party relies on bringing labor and civil rights advocates together on key issues.

“Faced with disastrous Donald Trump, labor and civil rights advocates are rallying in common cause behind health care for all, a living wage for every worker, a tax system where the wealthy pay their fair share, tuition-free college, and an end to senseless, never-ending wars.

“Here’s another rallying point labor and civil rights agree on: A moratorium on charter schools.

“This week, the nation’s largest labor union, the National Education Association, broke from its cautious regard of charter schools to pass a new policy statement that declares charter schools are a “failed experiment” that has led to a “separate and unequal” sector of schools that are not subject to the same “safeguards and standards” of public schools.

“To limit the further expansion of these schools, the NEA wants a moratorium on new charters that aren’t subject to democratic governance and aren’t supportive of the common good in local communities.

“The NEA’s action echoes a resolution passed earlier this year by the national NAACP calling for a moratorium on the expansion of charters and for stronger oversight of these schools. These declarations also align with a policy statement issued last year by the Movement for Black Lives, a network Black Lives Matter organizers, calling for a moratorium on charter schools.

“Now that labor and civil rights groups have come together in a unified call for a moratorium on these unregulated, privately-operated schools, prominent leaders in the Democratic party can champion this issue knowing they have a grassroots constituency that supports them.

“Democrats in states where charters have been the most controversial – such as Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California – should be especially interested in leading on this issue for a number of reasons.

“A Shared Concern For Basic Rights

“First, in most communities, unregulated charters are segregating students and undermining democratically governed public institutions.

“In their calls for a charter school moratorium, NEA, NAACP, and the Movement for Black Lives express a basic concern that these privately-operated schools are not subject to the same legal constraints as other public institutions, including federal and state laws and protections for students with disabilities, minorities, and school employees.

“The statements share a belief that charter schools have become counter-productive to a school system intent on serving the needs and interests of all students, and they argue that charters are reversing the progress achieved by civil rights milestones like the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.

“All three organizations maintain that charter schools, as currently conceived, undermine local public schools, particularly those that are in communities that are already marginalized by racial prejudice and economic inequities. These organizations insist that charters must not be financially supported at the expense of local schools.

“Each statement shares the concern that charter schools are not subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools, and they argue that making charters subject to a democratically elected local authority is the way to bring these schools back in line with responsible governance.

“Charters: An Idea Gone Awry

“In a press release announcing its new charter school policy, the NEA declares that charter schools have evolved far from their original intent to serve local communities as “incubators of innovation” and have instead become a force undermining local schools “without producing any overall increase in student learning and growth.”

“NEA’s contention that charter schools are an idea gone awry has widely held support.”

“The original vision of charter schools as laboratory schools, where teachers would have a stronger voice, has evolved to a more politically conservative vision that views charters as competitors of public schools in a market where only the schools with greater advantages can survive.”

Categories Charter Schools, Democrats, Education Industry, Privatization

Jersey Jazzman: Chris Christie Show His True Colors, on the Jersey Shore

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2017 //
13

Jersey Jazzman notes that Chris Christie will soon leave office as the most unpopular governor in the nation. He loved to ridicule those who disagreed with him, and one of his favorite targets was the state’s public schools and teachers, most especially their union. He never acknowled that the state is one of the three top-performing states on national tests (NAEP), the other two being Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Christie has cemented his rotten reputation as a greedy, crude bully with his latest escapade. The state was in a budget impasse, and many state beaches were closed on this past weekend. But Christie and his family went to the governor’s beach house and enjoyed the sun and an empty beach, while the public was excluded.

What really bothers JJ about Christie is his callow hypocrisy. He sends his own kids to private schools that are well funded while underfunding the state’s public schools.

His idea of “reform” does not translate into reduced class sizes or other necessities. A true “reformer,” he offers charters and vouchers instead of funding.

JJ writes:

“To be clear: I really don’t have a problem with Christie, or anyone else, sending their children to elite private schools, or to wealthy suburban public schools. What I find so disturbing is when some of those same people then turn around and declare how important education is for purposes of social equity, but refuse to support policies that adequately and equitably fund schools.

“Even worse is when these people substitute funding reform for “reforminess.” They claim that things like charter schools, gutting teacher workplace rights, expanded testing, test-based teacher evaluation, curricular changes, “personalized learning,” and school vouchers can serve as substitutes for adequately and equitably funding schools.

“But they then turn around and put their own children in elite private schools that spend far more per pupil than public schools — especially urban public schools. And again: these schools enroll very few children with special needs, keeping their costs relatively low.

“You will often hear these reformsters acknowledge that factors such as economic inequality and segregation negatively impact educational outcomes; however, in the same breath, they will gravely intone, “We can’t wait to fix poverty!”

“And so, their thinking goes, we have to expand charter schools no matter the negative consequences, or expand testing and its unvalidated uses no matter the negative consequences, or put more unproven digital stuff into schools no matter the possible negative consequences, and so on. And we have to do all this right now.

“It seems to me, however, that we now have more than enough evidence that school funding matters. It matters a lot. I mean, funding really matters. It does.

“Maybe we can’t solve poverty and segregation quickly; we could, however start getting more resources into schools that need it today. But getting adequate funding to schools — a necessary pre-condition for educational success — isn’t so much a problem of a lack of resources as it is a matter of political will.

“We’ve got plenty of money in this country (even if it is distributed extraordinarily unequally). There’s very little evidence we’re overspending on schooling relative to the rest of the world. We could drive more resources into the schools that enroll our least advantaged students much more quickly than we could expand private schools using vouchers or expand properly regulated charter schools.

“But we don’t. Instead, our leaders keep pushing reformy schemes based on outlier “successes” rather than funding reform, a policy that would quickly provide improvements across the K-12 education system. Worse, many of these same leaders then refuse to subject their own children to their designs, opting instead to enroll them in highly resourced schools.

“Chris Christie will be gone in a few months, and New Jersey might then begin to have a serious conversation about education funding. Sadly, many of our nation’s leaders, Republican and Democrat alike, are following Christie’s example. They refuse to address the issue of inadequate and inequitable school funding head on.

“Fortunately, even conservatives are starting to realize that effective schools and other government services come at a price. Let’s hope the era of Chris Christie and his ilk — and era where unproven reformy nonsense has replaced a commitment to getting schools the resources they need — will soon come to an end.

“If I had to pick one…

“ADDING: In the very earliest days of this blog — April, 2010 — I said that where Chris Christie sent his own kids to school was no one’s business.

“I was wrong.

“Of course, this was before Christie repeatedly underfunded the public schools, even after the Great Recession. This was before the lies of Chapter 78. This was before Christie tried to slash funding to the urban districts with his cruel “Fairness Formula.” This was before Christie showed repeatedly he never took education policy seriously. This was even before Christie unloaded some of his worst invective at the NJEA and teachers around the state.

“But I still should have known better. Anyone who is against the adequate and equitable funding of public schools yet sends their own children to a well-resourced private or public school is a massive hypocrite.

“They should be called so in no uncertain terms.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Equity, Funding, New Jersey, Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »