Brian Jones, elementary teacher and doctoral student in New York City, here presents what he would do if he were Secretary of Education.
Please read it. After you do, if you are so inclined, please explain what you would do if you were asked by President Obama to take the job.
This opinion piece appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
It was titled “Defend Public Schools, Our Children, Our Democracy”
This op-ed was submitted by 11 leaders of community and education organizations in Milwaukee.
We need communitywide discussion and action to protect the future of the Milwaukee Public Schools.
We welcome input from all who believe in and support quality public education for all children.
We represent thousands of parents, community members and educators who have been working – and will continue to work – to ensure that all children receive a first-class education comparable to anywhere else in the state.
A Jan. 20 Crossroads op-ed by the executive board of Milwaukee Succeeds highlights the need to secure a sound financial future for MPS and to develop guiding principles for educating all the children in this city.
The initiative, however, was noticeably and disturbingly top-down, developed behind closed doors.
Does Milwaukee need yet another policy mandate with vague and arbitrary “guiding principles” that ignore Milwaukee’s hypersegregation, poverty and joblessness? That ignore the fundamental and inherent differences between public, voucher and charter schools?
Any discussion of the future of public education in this city requires input from all key stakeholders, in particular people who live in Milwaukee and people who are part of the MPS community, from staff to parents to students.
We believe that any set of guiding principles also must include the following:
All schools in Milwaukee that receive public funds must adhere to Wisconsin’s open meetings/open records laws to ensure full transparency and accountability. The public must have access to information such as the percentage of students in poverty, English language learners, special education students, suspensions, expulsions, teacher certification, content of curricula and so forth.
All schools in Milwaukee that receive public funds must respect the constitutional rights of students and staff (for example, rights of due process and freedom of speech). They also must adhere to state anti-discrimination laws in areas such as sexual orientation or pregnancy.
All schools in Milwaukee that receive public funds must respect the language needs of students and must adhere to federal and state protections for English language learners. In particular, we must maintain and develop strong bilingual programs for the city’s growing Latino community.
All schools in Milwaukee that receive public funds should serve all children, including children with disabilities. This also means they should accommodate the needs of all children with disabilities and not exclude, expel or counsel such children out of the school.
All children in Milwaukee deserve a rich curriculum, including a comprehensive academic program and art, music, physical education and access to school libraries.
We should establish a moratorium on new charter schools that are part of national franchises. Our precious educational dollars should be kept in the community, not sent out of state.
We must develop a regional discussion on hypersegregation in Milwaukee and how such hypersegregation negatively affects not only education but jobs, transportation, housing and health care.
For the past two decades, education reform in Milwaukee has been dominated by consumer-based, privatization initiatives. They have not worked. The Milwaukee Succeeds op-ed repackages school privatization as a call for a “unified education agenda.” But, at its heart, school privatization is a disservice to our children and our democracy.
We must improve our public schools. But we also must defend the constitutional right to a free, public education for all children. A truly public education means more than funneling tax dollars to private voucher schools and semiprivate charter schools that operate outside of expected norms of public oversight and accountability – and that undermine the very survival of MPS.
MPS is the only educational institution in this city that has the capacity, commitment and legal obligation to serve all of Milwaukee’s children.
We look forward to conversations that include all the stakeholders in this community, that protect the rights of all and that recognize the inherent bond between strong public schools and a strong democracy.
This was submitted by Christopher Ahmuty, ACLU of Wisconsin executive director; Jasmine Alinder, board president of Parents for Public Schools of Milwaukee; Tony Baez, Centro Hispano Milwaukee executive director; the Rev. Willie Brisco, Milwaukee Inner-city Congregations Allied for Hope president; James Hall, NAACP Milwaukee Branch president; Marva Herndon, chair of Women Committed to an Informed Community; Robert Kraig, Citizen Action of Wisconsin executive director; Larry Miller, Milwaukee School Board vice president; Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Voces de la Frontera executive director; Bob Peterson, Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association president; and Milwaukee School Board member Annie Woodward.
This comment from a Puget Sound parent hits the nail on the head about both the strategy and goal of corporate reform. First, create dissatisfaction, then turn us into shoppers, choosing a school while destroying our attachment to our community schools. In time, we discover that it is the school that chooses, not the shopper.
One of the objectives of the privatizers is to reinforce the “Mall Mentality” that so many of us just act on, unconsciously. The entire goal is to get us to see education as a “product” to “choose”—like we would with a new pair of sandals at a giant retailer.
What’s MY “return on investment” for MY kid? How come I’m paying for YOU, “teacher”, and I can’t just “can you, like my boss can can ME, anytime, for any reason?”. What am I getting for MY money?”
And the reason that the privatizers are trying to drill this into us with words like “choice” and “investment” and “accountability” is that they realize that community, cooperation and mutual support are CRITICAL if a public school is to survive, let alone thrive.
Privatizers WANT people to be suspicious of the people running their schools and ultra-competitive with each other. They want people looking for advantage and focused exclusively on self-interest, resulting in an obsession with “MY KID!”—and implicitly “NOT YOUR KID!”
Privatizers live for the image of parents bickering, breaking into factions, and running for the exits after they maliciously pay someone to yell “FIRE!” in the equivalent of a very crowded theatre.
Like the crowd during the bank run in “It’s A Wonderful Life”, will we panic and sell out to Potter, “for at least HALF of MY MONEY” or will we stick together, realizing that our strength comes from standing WITH one another, united for ALL of “OUR KIDS”?
Wendy Lecker here describes how public schools and charters are judged by different standards in Connecticut.
Part of the hype and spin comes from Connecticut’s State Commissioner of Education, who founded a charter school that is now a “failing” school. (New York State also has a state commissioner who was a co-founder of a “no excuses” charter school, which should be known not for its high test scores but for its high suspension rate.)
At some point, the public will get wise to the games that charter advocates play. Hopefully, that will happen before the charter promoters have managed to wreck public education.
D.C. Chancellor Kaya Henderson is determined to close more public schools, which will create larger enrollments for charter schools. As more public schools close, more charter schools open. As more D.C. public schools lose enrollment, the chancellor has more reason to close them.
Henderson claims she will save money by closing underutilized schools, but somehow the savings never materialize. Net-net-net: privatization of the public schools of D.C.
It is a shame that D.C. does not have a chancellor who actually wants to compete with the charter sector, who will fight to improve the public schools and show that they serve their students well.
Competition implies two teams, each promoting their own wares.
In D.C., in New York City, in Chicago, and in other cities and towns controlled by corporate-style reformers, the leaders of the public school system are working on behalf of the competition.
State Senator Barry Finegold has thrown in his lot with the powerful charter school industry.
Some charters get high test scores; some get low test scores.
Some skim off the best students in the poorest communities. Some have few or no disabled students, and few or no ELLs.
What is Senator Finegold doing to support public education, where 90% of the children are enrolled? Does he know that the public schools in Massachusetts will have a disproportionate number of the children with the greatest needs as charters proliferate?
Knowing that Massachusetts is the #1 state in the nation on NAEP, why mess with success?
Please, Senator Finegold, explain your logic. Are you following the ALEC playbook and you don’t know it?
Anyone who attended public schools knows there was plenty that was wrong with them.
I grew up in Texas and attended segregated schools. That was wrong then, and it is wrong now, even though it is no longer mandated by law.
I had some great teachers and some awful teachers.
Over the years, in my studies of American education, I have documented the rise and fall of reform movements. Some were more successful than others, but one thing is certain: Public schools must constantly get better, and they should today.
In this article, Marion Brady explains what he thinks was better about the era before today’s test-driven, data-driven, privatization-friendly reforms. He thinks the drive for standardization is a big mistake.
What do you think?
The U.S. Department of Education recently released data on the high school graduation rate.
The most conservative way to estimate the rate is to count only those students who get a diploma in four years, and to exclude those who graduate in August or take a fifth year or get a GED.
By the most conservative estimate (called the Average Freshman Graduation Rate), the graduation rate is up to 78.2 percent, a jump of nearly 5 percentage points in only four years. (If you were to add in those who get a diploma in the fifth year, the high school graduation rate is 90%.)
A reader noticed that Vermont has the highest graduation rate in the nation. If you check the data, you will see that Michelle Rhee’s highest rated states–Louisiana and Florida–have among the lowest high school graduation rates in the nation.
The reader points this out:
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/01/high-school-graduation-rate-at-highest-level-in-three-decades/
The U.S. Department of Education released a study of high school
graduation rates on Wednesday, January 23rd. Which state has the
highest graduation rate in the entire nation at 91.4%? Vermont.
That’s right, Vermont.
Besides the highest graduation rate in the country, what else does
Vermont have? We have an “F” from Michelle Rhee. We have NO waiver
from NCLB. We have NO charter schools. We have NO Race-to-the-Top
funds. Since we are at the top, I guess we don’t need to run a race
to get there.
Vermont has what really matters: strong communities, informed
citizens, generous taxpayers who support their children, and committed
professionals in the classroom.
Well, that’s the question raised by Michael Powell, a political reporter for the New York Times.
There are bigger problems than this that will mar the mayor’s legacy.
He has closed dozens of schools, opened hundreds of schools, destabilized communities, handed out hundreds of millions in no-bid contracts, had a huge technology scandal (Citytime, which cost the city $600 million or so), and public support for mayoral control is about 18%.
In the last few years, there has been an all-out attack on local control. Most of the attack comes from the privatization movement, which thinks that school boards debate too much, listen too much, move too slowly. The privatizers prefer mayoral control in cities to get fast action. And they push laws and constitutional amendments allowing the governor to create a commission to override local school boards that reject charters. This is the ALEC agenda.
Happily, leading members of the National School Boards Association will have a chance to ask Arne Duncan why he pushes mayoral control, which has done so little for Cleveland and Chicago–and is now approved in NYC by only 18% of the public.
And they can ask Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia what he thinks about that state’s recent drive to strip local school boards of control of their districts. They might also ask him what he thinks of the re segregation that charters are promoting.
Media Advisory
Contact: Linda Embrey
Communications Office, National School Boards Association
Office: 703-838-6737; Cell: 571-437-7425
Onsite Press Room as of January 27: 202-797-4820; lembrey@nsba.org
Secretary of Education, Key Congressional Leader to Address National School Boards Association’s Advocacy Conference
Alexandria, Va. (Jan. 25, 2013) – U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee & Member, Senate Finance Committee will speak at the National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) 40th annual Federal Relations Network Conference on Monday, Jan. 28. The conference is taking place January 27 to 29 at the Washington Hilton, 1919 Connecticut Ave., Washington, D.C., and will be attended by more than 700 school board leaders from across the country. Attendees will participate in sessions on major public education issues and meet with their members of Congress and Capitol Hill staff to discuss key education policy issues.
The following events are open to the press and are being provided to the media for planning purposes. Items are subject to change.
Monday, Jan. 28:
3 p.m. – Remarks by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. He will speak about progress in K-12 education and the Obama administration’s goals for education reform going forward. A question-and-answer session will follow.
3:30 p.m. – Remarks by Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee & Member, Senate Finance Committee.
Media are welcome to cover these conference sessions. Valid credentials must be shown before obtaining a NSBA press pass. The press room and press registration will be located in the Embassy Room, Terrace Level. Please contact Linda Embrey at 703-838-6737 (office), 571-437-7425 (cell/onsite), 202-797-4820 (onsite press room on Jan. 27), or at lembrey@nsba.org .
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Founded in 1940, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is a not-for-profit organization representing state associations of school boards and their more than 90,000 local school board members throughout the U.S. Working with and through our state associations, NSBA advocates for equity and excellence in public education through school board leadership. http://www.nsba.org
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