Archives for category: Privatization
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Privatizers Make Bold Move to Take Over Dallas

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2014 //
24

Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas is working hard to convince the public that the Dallas Independent School District should be turned into a “home rule” district. What this means is that Mayor Rawlings and his rich pals called (ironically) Supporters of Public Schools want to eliminate public education and turn the whole district into an all-charter district.

The shadowy group behind the “home rule” idea is led by ex-Enron billionaire John Arnold, who advocates for privately managed charters, not public schools. Arnold, no friend of public schools, leads the Support Our Public Schools group.

Thus far, Mayor Rawlings is having a hard time convincing black and Hispanic citizens that he and his billionaire buddies can be trusted.

Wouldn’t it be great if reformers would call themselves what they are, instead of using names that disguise their goal of privatization?

The most impressive member of the Dallas school board, outgoing member Carla Ranger, described what is really going on. She wrote:

“This is all about politics, power and money — not education.

“With Mayor Mike Rawlings’ constant unethical meddling into Dallas ISD affairs and Superintendent Mike Miles doing more harm than good, the result is a Dallas ISD teaching staff that appears to be more broken in spirit than I have seen in the 8 years I have served as a Trustee.

“Authoritarians always want all power.

“They never want to share it.”

The blog that reported Carla Ranger’s prescient comments proceeded to mock her, but what she said fits the national pattern. Destroying public education in Dallas fits with the movement’s plans in many other cities. The billionaires will say whatever they must and do whatever they can and spend whatever they need to, just so long as they can put an end to public education.

Carla Ranger is right. The people of Dallas should listen to her.

Categories Charter Schools, Dallas, Privatization

Burris and Aja: The Myth of “Equity” and Common Core

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2014 //
6

Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center, New York, and Alan A. Aja, assistant professor of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College (City University of New York) here explore and explode the claims that the Common Core Standards will promote equity for the most disadvantaged students. The assertion is often made that these standards, because they are common and because they are rigorous, will lead to higher performance by all students. The theory is that students will learn more and try harder if the standards are made “harder.”

What Burris and Aja show is that the Common Core testing to date has widened the achievement gap between haves and have nots.

They write:

In New York for example, one of the first states to roll out the new curriculum, scores from Common Core tests dropped like a stone—and the achievement gaps dramatically widened. In 2012, prior to the Core’s implementation, the state reported a 12-point black/white achievement gap between average third-grade English Language Arts scores, and a 14-point gap in eighth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) scores. A year later enter the Common Core-aligned tests: the respective gaps grew to 19 and 25 points respectively (for Latino students the eighth grade ELA gap grew from 3 to 22 points). The same expansion of the gap occurred in math as well. In 2012, there was an 8-point gap between black/white third-grade math scores and a 13-point gap between eighth-grade math scores. In 2013, the respective gaps from the Common Core tests expanded to 14 and 18 points.

Despite these dismal results, the New York State Education Department and the Board of Regents decided to go full steam ahead:

Rather than heeding the warning that something is very wrong, New York’s Board of Regents adds the highest of stakes for students—their very ability to graduate high school. In February, the New York State Board of Regents established the college-ready scores that students will need for graduation, beginning with the class that enters high school in four years. These scores, which up until now have been known as “aspirational” measures, have been reported by the state in the aggregate and by sub-group for the past several years. If these scores were used last year, the New York four-year graduation rate would have plummeted to 35 percent. This low rate masks even worse outcomes for students with disabilities (5 percent), as well as black (12 percent), Latino (16 percent) and English Language learners (7 percent). New York Education Commissioner John King even told reporters that he was disappointed that the scores were not phased in sooner because the delay means more students would leave high school “unprepared.” He need not worry. With his preferred cut scores, most students—especially students of color, poverty and disability–will not leave high school at all.

The current path that is mistakenly called “reform” but might as well be called “destruction” will have terrible consequences for students, educators, schools, and communities, they warn:

In the meantime, the Common Core aligned-tests will be used to justify the continuance of market-based education reforms. This means firing teachers and principals based on test scores, closing urban schools with higher low-income populations and the proliferation of charters as punishment (which ironically scored worse in language arts and the same in math as New York City public schools in the latest round of Common Core-aligned tests). These strategies, straight from what economist Naomi Klein calls the “shock doctrine” school of economics, lead to further gutting and pseudo-privatization of the most necessary of our public goods, while continuing the false narratives that teachers and their unions are the problem or that racism, poverty and inequitable resource distribution are merely excuses.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Privatization, Students, Testing

Jersey Jazzman: Star-Ledger in NJ Compliments Charter with Very Few Poor Kids

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2014 //
8

Jersey Jazzman calls out New Jersey’s leading newspaper for making really surprising comments about a charter school in Hoboken.

The Hola charter school is innovative, and parents are lining up to get their kids in. It gets high test scores, and only 11% of its students are poor in a district where 72% of the kids are poor.

JJ writes:

Let’s recap: there’s a charter school that takes far fewer kids in poverty than the neighboring public schools. It does a “terrific job,” but — and this isn’t me saying this, but the Star-Ledger itself — that’s only because the charter serves so few kids in poverty. So it’s not fair to compare Hola to the public schools — again, even the S-L admits this — because they don’t serve the same children. And every dollar Hola takes away from the Hoboken school district is a dollar that doesn’t go to children who live in poverty — the children who are more expensive to educate than the children who, the S-L acknowledges, go to Hola. Everyone clear on this? OK…

Now, let’s get something straight about what is happening in Hoboken.

It is a tiny district. It has three charter schools. The charter schools serve the white and black middle-class residents of the city, while the public schools are for the poor and non-white.

I think this used to be called racial segregation.

Whatever happened to the Brown vs. Board of Education decision?

Yeah, that was sixty years ago, but is it a dead letter?

Categories Charter Schools, New Jersey, Privatization, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

NYC Protest Today at Noon Against “Protect Eva Act” and Gubernatorial Control

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2014 //
5

Parents and other supporters of public schools will rally today against Governor Cuomo’s attempt to wrest control of the New York City public schools for the benefit of his campaign contributors.

Dan Morris. 917.952.8920.

Julian Vinocur. 212.328.9268.

Media Advisory for Fri. March 14, Noon, Cuomo’s Midtown Office

Rally Against Quid Pro Cuomo State Budget Deal and Gubernatorial Control of NYC Schools

*Parents condemn Cuomo’s pay-to-play budget deal with charter school lobbyists who are bankrolling his re-election campaign and want to undermine New York City’s power over its schools.*

WHAT: Public school parents, community leaders, and elected officials will rally against the budget deal Cuomo clearly orchestrated with the Senate Majority to advance the extremist, anti-de Blasio agenda of charter school lobbyists who are heavily funding the Governor’s re-election campaign. This disturbing Quid pro Cuomo opens the door to gubernatorial control of New York City schools.

WHO: Outraged public school parents, community leaders, and elected officials who won’t stand for Cuomo and the Senate Majority cutting a pay-to-play budget deal with charter school lobbyists.

WHERE: Governor Cuomo’s Midtown office: 633 Third Avenue, between E40th and E41st Streets.

WHEN: Friday, March 14, Noon.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, New York City, Parents, Privatization, Students, Supporting public schools

Charter School Magnate Wants to End Local School Boards: Democracy is the Problem

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2014 //
92

Reed Hastings, the founder and CEO of Netflix, is a major player in the corporate reform movement.

He is on the board of various charter schools and charter chains, including Rocketship and KIPP.

The organization fighting the proliferation of Rocketship charters forwarded his address to the California Charter School Association:

Watch the 2 minute synopsis video.

Get the story and the full keynote.

The long-term goal is to replace most locally elected school boards with charters, all operated by independent boards, all competing for higher test scores.

And the longer term goal is to replace our present system of democratically-controlled schools by a system of privately-managed charters.

Underlying this plan is the assumption that the main problem in American education is democracy, since school boards are elected.

Other corporate reformers prefer mayoral control or governor control, whereby a single chief executive can override objections to open charters at will.

ALEC has pushed the idea of a state charter panel, appointed by the governor (and sometimes the legislature), whose decisions override local control.

The problem with school boards is that the local populace can replace them by vote.

In other words, as Chubb and Moe argued 25 years ago in their book advocating for vouchers, Politics, Markets, and Schools, markets are better than democracy.

No high-performing nation in the world has handed its schools over to private management; instead, they have a strong and equitable public school system, with a respected teaching profession and a well-prepared staff.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization, Resistance

Money Rules: Cuomo Seeks Gubernatorial Control of Charter Funding and Co-Locations

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2014 //
24

Governor Cuomo has received about $800,000 from charter supporters in the financial and real estate sectors. To protect their favorite hobby, the governor now proposes to take control of funding charter construction and co-locations. This would effectively nullify mayoral control in New York City and assure that Cuomo’s sponsors in the charter sector can expand at will into other people’s public schools. With the governor’s help, they can insert their privately managed schools into public school buildings, kicking out kids with special needs and kids from the neighborhood. The governor will also make sure that his political patrons never will be asked to pay rent for their use (or usurpation) of public space.

Governor Cuomo is ably representing the interests of the hedge fund managers and the real estate moguls who contributed to his campaign, as well as the 3% of students in New York State and the 6% in New York City enrolled in charter schools.

Money rules!

Media Contacts:

Julian Vinocur, Julian@aqeny.org, 212.328.9268

Dan Morris, dlmcommunications@gmail.com, 917.952.8920

Firestorm Over Governor Cuomo’s & Senate Majority’s “Pay-to-Play” School Politics

Political Donations from Wealthy Charter Investors Fuel “Gubernatorial Control” over NYC School Issues

New York, NY— Currently, the State Senate Majority is considering a budget proposal that reportedly would invest state funds in capital construction for privately-run charter schools and would undermine the power of NYC to make its own determinations on charter school co-locations and charter school rent.

Governor Cuomo immediately reinforced the Senate proposal by saying today on the Capitol Press Room radio show that charter schools are “the big issue in the budget.” As reported by ChalkbeatNY, the Governor and the Senate Majority have been the beneficiaries of huge campaign contributions from the financiers and ideological backers of privately-run charter schools. New York’s lead education & civil rights advocates released the following statement:

“The ‘pay-to-play’ school politics we are witnessing today between the Governor and Senate Majority is an outrage. The real civil rights issue of our time is that Governor Cuomo has completely abandoned his constitutional responsibility to provide adequate funding for the 97% of students in public schools across the state. Unfortunately, the majority of public school students do not have rich Wall Street honchos to make the Governor pay attention to them,” said Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP’s NYS Conference.

“Governor Cuomo is the master puppeteer of this ‘pay-to-play’ fiasco, pulling strings in the Senate to get ‘Gubernatorial Control’ over New York City school issues. It’s a power play to satisfy the big-money political donors that want corporate charter school chains to thrive at the expense of public school students. The Governor is the biggest beneficiary in Albany of shady ‘pay-to-play’ interests who want to privatize education, and he is taking it out on the 97% of parents, students and teachers that want him to stop his assault on public schools,” said Jonathan Westin, Executive Director of New York Communities for Change.

“Governor Cuomo has not toured a single public school since he took office, and yet he wants ‘Gubernatorial Control’ of New York City schools. Give me a break—Governor Cuomo has turned his back on the 97% of students across the state attending public schools, but now he says charter schools are his top priority in this budget. Meanwhile the Senate Majority has school districts crying for relief from underfunding, yet they want money for charter schools. It looks like Governor Cuomo and the Senate Majority are bending over backwards for the charter school lobbyists who are big campaign donors,” said Zakiyah Ansari, public school parent and Advocacy Director for the Alliance for Quality Education.

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Categories Charter Schools, Cuomo, Andrew, Education Industry, Privatization

Philly Schools Offer Parents a Choice: Go Charter or Stay in Schools with No Resources

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2014 //
28

The Philadelphia public school district is being aggressively starved of resources by Governor Corbett and the Legislature, and its Broad-trained superintendent now proposes to shrink the district still farther to save money. He is offering parents a choice of converting to charter status or remaining in the district, where they cannot count on having a library, a school nurse, reasonable class sizes, the arts, basic supplies, or anything else. Thousands of teachers, school aides, nurses, social workers, and nurses have been laid off. This is reform-by-attrition. Last fall, a 12-year-old child died of an asthma attack in her public school in Philadelphia because there was no school nurse on duty that day, due to Corbett’s budget cuts.

Before Superintendent William Hite offers to turn more students over to charters, he should conduct an investigation of the charters and their records. Philadelphia was the first city to try a massive experiment in privatization in the early part of this century, an experiment that failed because the district schools outperformed the privately managed ones. Nearly a score of Philadelphia charters have been investigated by federal authorities for various kinds of misdeeds. What is their record? Who do they accept? Who do they refuse?

This is another sorry chapter in the ongoing privatization of American public education. A superintendent selected by an unelected board–a board appointed by the state–turning over more schools to private management.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Philadelphia, Privatization

Big Money Pushing for Vouchers in Florida

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2014 //
19

Once upon a time there was a sturdy American tradition known as separation of church and state. Most Americans thought it was a bad idea to send public dollars to religious schools, because doing so would mean the death of the common school, the public schools that have been a foundation stone of our democracy. Once we begin subsidizing schools run by religious denominations, the very idea of public education as a meeting ground for all is at risk.

But many states are now taking that road, because there is so much big money behind the idea of “school choice.” School choice used to be the battle cry of segregationists in the 1960s, and school choice does indeed promote segregation–by race, religion, and class. But backers of vouchers don’t care about segregation, nor do they care about education quality. They want choice. Period.

Florida voters decisively defeated a constitutional amendment in 2012 that would have permitted vouchers, but voucher advocates are pressing ahead through the legislature, as in other states where vouchers can’t win on the ballot.

In Florida, big money is subsidizing a major campaign for school vouchers, so that children may choose to attend fundamentalist schools, Catholic schools, Jewish schools, Muslim schools, and schools run by any other denomination. Deep pockets and powerful political forces are pressing for vouchers:

“Those forces include the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity and influential think tanks like the conservative James Madison Institute and former Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future. All have thrown their considerable weight behind the expansion.

And then there is the money. The voucher program’s top supporter, Tampa venture capitalist John Kirtley, controls a political committee in Florida that spent nearly $2.4 million to influence races in 2010 and 2012. He plans to spend at least $1.5 million in 2014, he said.

The efforts have made expanding the voucher program a top priority of this year’s legislative session.”

Due to the influence of Jeb Bush, the state’s Republicans are supportive of vouchers. So the outside funders have been targeting contributions to Democrats to assure passage of their voucher legislation:

“Kirtley’s political committee, the Florida Federation for Children, has channeled more than $2.3 million into political advertisements and direct mail to help favored candidates since 2010.

The Florida Federation for Children has been “heavily involved in Democratic primaries, where there are legislators who have supported their constituents’ desires for parental choice in education,” Kirtley said.

“We also have been involved in Republican primaries, but fewer, since there is usually a consensus among those candidates about educational choice,” he said. “If there is a contrast either way in a general election, we will be involved there as well.”

The Florida Chamber of Commerce has been another strong advocate for the proposed expansion, said David Hart, the organization’s executive vice president. “Many of our member companies around the state support this program and have made pretty generous contributions toward supporting scholarships,” he said.

The chamber spends thousands of dollars on political advertisements and direct mail pieces. But because the organization advocates for a variety of issues, it is virtually impossible to track how much of that spending is related to tax credit scholarships.

Other influential groups that have lined up in support include Americans for Prosperity, the Foundation for Florida’s Future, the James Madison Institute and StudentsFirst.

Categories Florida, Privatization, Vouchers

Who is the #1 Enemy of Public Education?

By dianeravitch
March 11, 2014 //
29

Bill Phillis, the leader of the Ohio Coalition for Education & Adequacy is a tireless crusader for equitable funding of public schools. He is a retired after serving as assistant state superintendent of schools.

He writes:

Public education enemy #1

The Gates, Walton Family and Broad Foundations have federated with the U. S. Department of Education to eliminate the public common school system. The Obama administration’s point man, Arne Duncan, is spearheading an assault on public education that is unprecedented in American history. He is attempting to override the education provisions of every state Constitution. All states have one or more constitutional provisions that establish and maintain a public common school system.

It is mindboggling and unconscionable that this federal administration is deferring to the corporate, for-profit agenda to destroy the premier promoter of the public good-the public common school system.

Policies coming out of Washington D.C., and in many state capitols, are demoralizing teachers, undermining the traditional role and governance of boards of education, de-professionalizing the teaching profession, re-segregating American communities and reducing the traditional dynamic of learning to a testing obsession.

Many chief state school officers in recent years are moles of the privatizers or lack the conviction to fight for the public common school system. Hence, state legislatures and governors, in many cases, receive no resistance to their privatization agenda.

Often local public school personnel, including boards of education, feel helpless to stem the tide of public school bashing and the privatization movement.

Enough is enough. It is past time to hold all state officials accountable for their support of policies that lead to the privatization of public education.

Ohioans and the citizens of the nation, when mobilized, can uproot the anti-public education agenda of America’s oligarchs and their plutocratic political allies.

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Obama, Ohio, Privatization, Race to the Top

What Voucher Schools Are Teaching

By dianeravitch
March 9, 2014 //
45

The spread of vouchers in recent years is alarming. Anywhere from 15-20 states have passed legislation to allow children to use public funds to attend religious schools. In two states that passed voucher laws–North Carolina and Louisiana–the state courts have blocked the diversion of public funds to religious schools (in North Carolina, at least temporarily).

Note that vouchers have never been approved by popular vote.

But what happens in those voucher schools? This article reviews what is taught in the fundamentalist church schools that use the most popular brand of Christian textbooks.

Of course, they learn that God created the world, just as the Bible says. They learn traditional math, which apparently has Biblical sanction. They teach children that gun control is intolerable. They teach that God approves of capital punishment and abhors homosexuality.

Well, you get the drift. Modern science, modern math, anything that tolerates the modern world is not acceptable.

And that’s what you call preparing our children for the 21st century these days.

STEM, in that world, is part of a flower, nothing more.

Categories Privatization, Separation of church and state, Vouchers
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