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Trustees of Houston Independent School District Protest State’s Hostile Privatization Plan

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2019 //
3

Two trustees of the Houston Independent School District strenuously object to the state’s plan to disrupt and takeover the district. It is no accident, they say, that such takeovers target predominantly black-and-brown districts. The state’s goal is to resegregate the district, while enriching charter chains that will swoop in to grab public schools.

The article was written by Board President Rhonda Skillern-Jones and Elizabeth Santos.


“Last month the Houston Independent School District Board of Trustees made a difficult decision. At risk of losing the elected positions for which we all campaigned passionately, we rejected an ultimatum created by state law: Privatize four historically black and brown schools or face a hostile state takeover of the entire district. We were elected to see to it that our public schools thrive, not facilitate their transfer to charter managers who can make money off our students.

Now the state is in a position to remove us from office because four schools have been on the “improvement required” list for at least five years.

Some of us reasonably felt that turning these four schools — Wheatley High School, Kashmere High School, Henry Middle School and Highland Heights Elementary — into charter schools would prevent even worse sanctions from the state. While that may have been true for this year, there was no guarantee that we would not face the same dilemma next year and each year after that for different campuses until our district became segregated into two different communities — those that have direct electoral control over their school leaders and those that do not. Such a system of haves and have-nots is simply unacceptable.

The charter vultures are circling.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Houston, Inequity, Injustice, Privatization, Resistance, Texas

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Can We Get Her Involved in the Struggle to Save Public Schools from Plutocrats?

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2019 //
57

The New York Timeswrote that the first-year memberof Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was tending bar in the Bronx a year ago, is pushing the Democratic Party to the left.

Alexandria (@AOC) is a remarkable figure in our politics today. By sheer force of personality, she has emerged as a dominant voice. She terrifies moderate Democrats and the entire Republican Party. She has proposed a Green New Deal. She has proposed that people who have an annual income of more than $10 million pay a tax of 70% of everything above $10 million (the marginal tax rate was 90% during the Eisenhower years).

She has two million followers on Twitter.

If anyone knows how to reach her, I would love to get her aid in fighting the privatization of public schools. She would be a powerful ally.

This is part of what the Times wrote about her today:

“Not so long ago, left-wing activists were dismissed as fringe or even kooky when they pressed for proposals to tax the super rich at 70 percent, to produce all of America’s power through renewable resources or to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Then along came Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and her social-media megaphone.

“In the two months since her election, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has had the uncanny ability for a first-term member of Congress to push the debate inside the Democratic Party sharply to the left, forcing party leaders and 2020 presidential candidates to grapple with issues that some might otherwise prefer to avoid.

“The potential Democratic field in 2020 is already being quizzed about her (Senator Kamala Harris praised her on “The View”), emulating her digital tactics (Senator Elizabeth Warren held an Instagram chat in her kitchen that looked much like one of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s sessions) and embracing some of her causes.

“Ms. Warren and Senator Cory Booker, among others, have recently endorsed the idea of a “Green New Deal,” a call to reimagine an environment-first economy that would phase out fossil fuels. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez thrust that issue into the national dialogue after she joined a sit-in protest in the office of then-incoming House speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi, in one of her first, rebellious acts in Washington.

“Her rise has stirred a backlash among some Congressional Democrats, who are seeking to constrain her anti-establishment streak and fear her more radical ideas could tar the party as socialist.

“Back home in New York, she has stoked opposition to a deal with Amazon to set up offices in Queens, putting pressure on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, to justify corporate incentives.

“Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Bronx-born 29-year-old of Puerto Rican descent, is the youngest congresswoman ever, and Washington veterans say they cannot recall a similar congressional debut.

“A bartender from the Bronx has been able to create a litmus test around climate and economic policy for every 2020 Democrat,” said Waleed Shahid, who was one of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s early campaign advisers and is now the communications director for Justice Democrats, a liberal activist group.

“Far beyond policy, she has emerged as a potent symbol for a diversifying Democratic Party: a young woman of color who is giving as good as she gets in a political system that has rarely rewarded people who look like her. Her mastery of social media has allowed her to connect with audiences who might otherwise be alienated from Washington.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Resistance

New York: State May Punish Districts with High Opt Out Rates as “Low Performers”

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2019 //
26

The desperation of the New York State Education Department to stop the Opt Out movement is boundless.

Newsday reports that the state may lower the rankings of schools with high numbers of opt out students, even though it knows that the schools are high performing schools.

There is nothing that State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia won’t do to force parents to sit their children down and make them take the state tests.

Shameless!

The state believes it must “deal with” these recalcitrant parents. It has never crossed Commissioner Elia’s mind that she should listen to the parents and find out why they won’t let their children take these pointless tests, that provide no diagnostic information to teachers or parents or students.

A statewide effort to deal with massive student test boycotts has sparked debate in the Island Park school district, where officials contend that one of their schools could face academic sanctions because of opt-outs there.

Island Park’s school superintendent, Rosmarie Bovino, recently posted a letter on the district’s website advising residents that Lincoln Orens Middle School was in danger of being placed on an upcoming state list of schools regarded as low academic performers.

Under a new state rating system that is based largely on test performance, such schools will be designated as requiring comprehensive support and improvement, or CSI. The state Education Department is expected to release names of the first group of schools as early as next week.

A note to the parents who opt out their children. Please remember that Commissioner Elia works for YOU. You do not work for her. Please remember that you pay her salary. She is not your boss. Please remember that the Pierce Decision of 1925 by the Supreme Court declared that your children belong to you, not the State, and the State has no power to standardize them.

Categories New York, Opt Out, Parents, Resistance

Chicago: Major Rally On Friday!

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2019 //
6

Contact:

Wendy Katten

773-704-0336

MEDIA ADVISORY: FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 9:45 AM – CITY HALL, 10TH FLOOR

Community Organizations call on CPS, Other Agencies to Reject Two Massive New TIFs

Deliver Open Letter to Taxing Bodies at Friday’s TIF Joint Review Board meeting

What: Parents and community leaders will rally and deliver letters to the leaders of local government agencies, urging them to hold off on approving two massive new TIF Districts that would divert $2.4 billion in future revenue from the Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Park District, the City Colleges of Chicago and other agencies that depend on local property taxes.

Where: City Hall, 10th floor

When: Friday, January 11, 2019, at 9:45 AM

Why: In an open letter to the Joint Review Board, 15 prominent community organizations are calling for city agencies to keep their signatures off a $2.4B dollar plan that would create tax increment financing (TIF) districts in some of the wealthiest and most congested areas of the city — and, in the process, divert funds from the operating budgets of key local agencies. The organizations say these TIFs can only be legitimately vetted by the new Mayor and City Council taking office in May. Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has fast-tracked both TIFs for approval by April, before Emanuel steps down.

Representatives of several of the organizations will gather Friday at 9:45 AM Friday on the 10th floor of City Hall for a brief press conference and to deliver the letter to the Joint Review Board, which meets at 10 AM in Room 1003A.

“I’ve been attending school with my son since September 2017 to ensure his medical needs are met — because CPS has not been able to provide a nurse since then,” parent Guiller Bosqued of Wildwood Elementary said. “Why is CPS foregoing millions in tax dollars when they can’t fund the schools?”

The proposed Roosevelt/Clark TIF would fund $700 in infrastructure envisioned by developers of The 78 along the south branch of the Chicago River. Meanwhile, the Cortland/Chicago River TIF would encompass the proposed Lincoln Yards development along the river’s north branch.

On Tuesday, Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) announced several major changes in the plans for Lincoln Yards, but Hopkins did call for any pause in the creation of the TIF that developer Sterling Bay wants. Ultimately, community leaders noted, families across Chicago will have to pay higher property taxes to offset the funds held in these TIF accounts over the next 23 years.

“My neighborhood public school has experienced significant budget cuts over the past few years,” said parent Estela Diaz of Davis Elementary. “I can’t believe that CPS leadership and the Mayor can give away hundreds of millions of dollars to help develop luxury housing for the wealthy. We need more counselors, case managers and sped teachers in my school. We need afterschool programs to keep our kids learning and safe. Those should be the priorities for our property tax dollars.”

“Massive corruption is being unearthed in the City Council Finance Committee,” noted Cassie Creswell of Raise Your Hand Action. “What other shoe is waiting to drop from eight months of wiretaps? This is the very worst time to fast-track these deals.”

The full letter can be read here. It has been emailed to all the taxing bodies, and will be delivered in person on Friday.

To Local Taxing Bodies, Members of the Joint Review Board

This Friday at the Joint Review Board meeting, the Chicago Board of Education will be asked to sign off on two TIF districts at the cost of $2.4 billion to the taxpayers of Chicago. That’s based on figures included in the Redevelopment Area Project and Plan for each TIF, which were made public on December 12th, 2018.

Chicago is at a critical juncture. The long-standing chair of the finance committee has just been charged with extortion, and there’s a municipal election in less than 50 days. The citizens of Chicago deserve the opportunity for transparent and accountable government. This is not the time to fast-track massive projects that would include major subsidies for private corporations with huge implications for our schools, housing and transit equity, local business, etc. The creation of a TIF district impacts the revenue stream of our city and county and school district for twenty-three years; this is not something to be rushed through.

As a leader of one of the taxing bodies which are also impacted by the implementation of any new TIF districts, you have a fiduciary responsibility to your constituents to put this on hold until a newly elected city council and mayor can take the time needed to vet — via public scrutiny, deliberation and debate — both of these proposed districts and ensure that they represent balanced and equitable development.

Thank you for your consideration,

Jackee Pruitt, Action Now

Caroline Gaete, Blocks Together

Patrick Brosnan, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council

Patricia Fron, Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance

Robert Gomez and Katie Tuten, Chicago Independent Venue League

Angela Hurlock, Claretian Associates

Rocio Garcia, Enlace Chicago

Amisha Patel, Grassroots Collaborative

Juan Carlos Linares, Latin United Community Housing Association (LUCHA)

Nancy Aardema, Logan Square Neighborhood Association

Juanita Irizarry, Friends of the Parks

Rev. Liala Beukema, LakeView Lutheran Church

Marc Kaplan, Northside Action for Justice

James Rudyk, Northwest Side Housing Center

Jennifer Ritter, Organizing Neighbors for Equality Northside (ONE Northside)

Joy Clendenning, Raise Your Hand for IL Public Education

Cassie Creswell and Wendy Katten, Raise Your Hand Action

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance

Miracle in Maine: New Governor Picks Critic of Government MicroManagement as State Commissioner!

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2019 //
23

This is a great story. For eight years, Maine had a hot-headed Tea Party zealot as Governor. Paul LePage appointed a homeschooling parent as Commissioner of Education. He made racist remarks. He followed Jeb Bush as his idol.

In November, Democrat Janet Mills was elected. Competence, intelligence, sanity. Wow!

The educator she chose as Commissioner of education was stunned. She is amazing!

https://legacy.sunjournal.com/education-nominee-pender-makin-government-should-stay-out-of-the-classroom/

BRUNSWICK — The Saturday morning after Janet Mills won the gubernatorial election in November, Pender Makin sat in bed with her computer, sipping some coffee and preparing to compose a letter to whoever would be the next commissioner of the state Department of Education.

“I was on the one hand so filled with hope for a much better future for Maine, and also filled with exasperation due to some significant issues that I was concerned about at the department,” she recalled Dec. 28.

“‘Dear new commissioner,’” the Scarborough resident’s letter began.

Then, she said, “I basically laid out what I thought should be the most immediate strategic goals for that post.”

Makin, Brunswick’s assistant superintendent of schools since 2015, had no idea she was writing a letter to herself.

Even though she never planned to send the letter, deeming it just a way to organize her thoughts and feelings, Makin had started to establish a platform of issues and priorities that would serve her well in the weeks ahead.
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The state Senate and Education and Cultural Affairs Committee are due this month to confirm Mills’ nomination of Makin as Education Department commissioner. She would replace Robert Hasson of South Portland, who former Gov. Paul LePage tapped for the role in March 2017…

Makin said she was asked out of the blue in early December to attend an interview in Augusta with a cabinet screening committee.

“I said, ‘of course I will,’” she recalled. “How would I ever not? … I wake up with a sense of urgency; I consider it a complete mission, public education across the board.”

Makin saw the interview as a chance to share her beliefs about education with “a bunch of smart, powerful people,” but didn’t imagine herself much of a contender for the post…

Taking the reins of the department at the dawn of a new administration, “I see Maine as being in a prime position to be influencing national education policy, rather than reactively responding to every little whim that’s happening (at the federal level),” Makin said.

“We have the most unique demographics, we have innovative people in our classrooms all across the state,” she added, plus “a lot of passion and determination, hard work, and all the things that make Maine a real leader educationally. I feel that we maybe have squandered every opportunity to highlight that at the national level.”

Makin also said she sees Maine striving to achieve a world-class education for its students and pushing back against federal policies with which it doesn’t agree, instead of “absorbing blindly whatever gets handed down to us.”

She recalled implementation of the “No Child Left Behind” initiative in 2001, which launched a period of externally driven policies that created a culture of fear-driven accountability. Non-educators were telling educators how to teach, she said, and using sometimes punitive methods to try to bring about success.

But educators “don’t respond to carrots or sticks,” Makin noted, pointing out that the new teachers she meets each year come with a passion and idealistic desire to do the best for their students.
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“They arrive pre-motivated,” she said. “… They don’t need to have their professionalism stripped away and replaced with something to implement.”

“Government’s role should pull back, and focus on bills and initiatives that provide infrastructure,” Makin said. “Let’s look at innovative ways to provide … universal (pre-kindergarten). How can we raise up teacher bottom pay so that they’re recognized for the amount of education and work that they do to become teachers? How do we create equity across the state?”

“These are great, big things,” she continued. “I think government should stay out of the classroom; I think government should stay out of the transcripts,” and retreat from “micromanaging the actual operations of our schools.”

“When you take leaders, and you strip from them their leadership and you replace it with stuff to manage, you’re not fostering leadership,” Makin said. “So I think we need to just have a different lens.”

Categories Education Reform, Maine, Real Education, Resistance

GREAT NEWS from New Jersey SOS: State Court Strikes Down PARCC as Graduation Requirement!

By dianeravitch
December 31, 2018 //
19

This just in from Save Our Schools New Jersey, from its Facebook page:

BREAKING!!! BREAKING!!! BREAKING!!! BREAKING!!!

NJ Appeals Court strikes down NJ’s PARCC-based high school graduation rules!!!

From Education Law Center and ACLUNJ

NJ Appeals Court: “We hold, therefore, that to the extent the [NJDOE] regulations required testing of non-eleventh-grade students, they are contrary to the Act and are invalid.”

NJ Appeals Court: “However, the [NJDOE] regulations violate the Act to the extent they specifically authorize multiple tests administered in grades other than the eleventh grade.”

“the Act compels DOE to provide for alternative methods of assessing proficiency other than through PARCC testing or any other standardized testing process.”

“We hold N.J.A.C. 6A:8-5.1(a)(6),-5.1(f) and -5.1(g) are contrary to the express provisions of the Act because they require administration of more than one graduate proficiency test to students other than those in the eleventh grade, and because the regulations on their face do not permit retesting with the same standardized test to students through the 2020 graduating class. As a result, the regulations as enacted are stricken. To avoid disruption in
any ongoing statewide administration of proficiency examinations, we stay our judgment for thirty days to permit DOE to seek further review in the Supreme Court.”

Full opinion available here: https://www.njcourts.gov/attorneys/assets/opinions/appellate/unpublished/a0768-16.pdf?cacheID=tmUepTY&fbclid=IwAR1ifXkDTOAOuplr8lI6cnVQNncJ9xdkNoER9LkXHjEYPHPwD-pLS7KF9bU

We will post additional information as it becomes available.
Happy New Year!!

THANKS TO THE EDUCATION LAW CENTER FOR FIGHTING AND WINNING THIS CASE.

Standardized tests should never be used as a graduation requirement as they are based on a bell curve and those at the bottom of the bell curve will always fail, and they will always be the most disadvantaged students.

New Jersey is one of only six states that still uses PARCC. This test has standards more rigorous than NAEP. It is designed to fail most students. DUMP PARCC!

Categories Accountability, New Jersey, Resistance, Testing

A Test: Who Is Goliath? Who Is David?

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2018 //
34

I recently had an email exchange with Mike Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. I’ve known Mike for many years, since he was a young raspcallion at TBF and I was a founding member of the board of directors.

Mike and I disagree about choice, high-stakes testing, Common Core, and other canonical features of the Reformer agenda. In a post, I referred to my side (the side supporting public schools) as David, and his side (the long list of billionaires) as Goliath. Mike said it was the other way around, because “my side” includes the unions, administrators, elected school boards, and anyone else with direct involvement in schools. Bill Bennett used to call these groups who were devoted to public education “The Blob.”

Of course, I pointed out to Mike that the Waltons now have a net worth of $160 billion or more, then there is a long list of other multibillionaires (Gates, Hastings, the Koch brothers, Bloomberg, Anschutz, DeVos, Arnold, Broad, etc.). I forgot to mention the U.S. Department of Education, which has been funding charters with billions of dollars since 1994.

I probably didn’t convince him.

But I have the clincher.

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving is called #GivingTuesday. The Network for Public Education started the day on Twitter urging friends and allies to go to a website (#Benevity) that offered $10 for every retweet to the charity of your choice. We urged our friends to tweet to provide gifts of $10.

On #GivingTuesday, I didn’t see a single Reformer group putting out requests for $10. Not one. Not TFA. Not Educators4Excellence. Not Stand for Children. Certainly not the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which is sitting on tens of millions of dollars and gets huge grants from a long list of foundations.

No, they get gifts of hundreds of thousands and millions from foundations like Walton, Gates, Arnold, Broad, and about 50 other foundations who like to do whatever the big boys and girls do.

Ahem. We proudly claim the title of David to your Goliath. We know how that turned out.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Resistance

New Orleans: The Last Public School Closes, Despite Objections of Parents and Students and Alumni

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2018 //
13

The Orleans Parish School Board closed the last public school in New Orleans, in a meeting room filled with protesting parents, students and alumni of McDonough 35. New Orleans is now the first city in the United States without a public school. The board disregarded the protesters.

Why do parents and students fight for schools that have been labeled “failing” by authorities? To find out, read Eve Ewing’s book “Ghosts in the Schoolyard,” about Rahm Emanuel’s brutal closure of 50 public schools in a single day. There too, parents, students, and teachers were disregarded. They were fighting for values that Reformers don’t understand: tradition, community, history, relations between families and schools, a spirit of connectedness that binds past to present. These are values that Reformers are determined to stamp out.

New Orleans is the Crown Jewel of “Reform,” even though 40 percent of its charter schools have been labeled either D or F by the state, and every one of these schools is segregated. On the much treasured measure of test scores, New Orleans ranks below the state average, in a state that is one of the lowest performing in the nation (and whose ranking on NAEP dropped in 2017). For more than a decade, Louisiana has been controlled by Reformers. Its leader currently is John White. The only jurisdiction in the nation that has worse test scores than Louisiana is Puerto Rico. And New Orleans is below the state average. What a triumph for Reform (not)!

Here is the story of another Reform takeover:

The Orleans Parish School Board has chosen InspireNOLA Charter Schools as the future operator of McDonogh 35 Senior High School, positioning New Orleans to be the nation’s first major city with an all-charter school district.

At the board’s November meeting Thursday, Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. recommended and received approval for InspireNOLA’s application to start a new high school starting in August 2019. It was unclear last month if the operator’s application was designed for McDonogh 35, but on Thursday (Dec. 20) the new school was added to the OneApp school selection system as McDonogh 35 College Preparatory High School.

The school board’s charter agreement with InspireNOLA requires the school to keep its name, school colors and mascot, the Roneagle.

McDonogh 35 was founded in 1917 as the first public high school in Louisiana for black children. Although the former magnet school was once considered a “School of Academic Achievement” by the Louisiana Department of Education, its academic ranking has declined since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The “D”-rated school now teaches 451 students in the St. Bernard area, according to state data.

The Orleans Parish School Board is trying to revive struggling schools such as McDonogh 35 by either closing them or turning their operations over to charters. The school district currently manages McDonogh 35 directly, but the board voted Thursday night to award a “short-term operator” contract to InspireNOLA to teach the school’s remaining 10th, 11th and 12th graders starting in August 2019.

A copy of the new contract wasn’t immediately available Thursday, but the district’s plan is to have InspireNOLA phase out the direct-run school until all current students have either graduated or transferred elsewhere within the next two school years.

The short-term contract, district sources say, essentially creates two schools on the McDonogh 35 campus: one for current students and a new school for freshmen who enroll in August. This implies McDonogh 35 will receive two individual school performance scores from the Louisiana Department of Education when its 2019 freshmen are graded in November 2020…

More than 100 parents, students and advocates weighed in on the district’s actions for more than two hours during the public comment period at Thursday’s meeting. Dozens of attendees had to stand.

A representative from New Schools for New Orleans, an InspireNOLA administrator, and an Edna Karr High sophomore were among the handful of residents who struggled to speak in favor of InspireNOLA as opponents shouted over them. Those who were against chartering every school in the city included state Rep. Joseph Bouie, D-New Orleans, McDonogh 35 alumni and dozens of education advocates from Louisiana and out of state…

Gertrude Ivory, president of McDonogh 35’s alumni group, told the school board its “experiment” with charters is “failing” the city’s families. McDonogh 35 alumna Yvette Alexis said the school’s performance scores have dropped because the district “pulled resources” and “didn’t fill vacancies.” Alexis’s claims came after district employees told board members Tuesday the school is projected to have a $145,000 deficit in fiscal year 2019.

Tomme Denney, a McDonogh 35 senior and student ambassador, asked the school board to continue running his school. He has witnessed “a vast amount of growth” among students in this year alone, he said.

“Stop the decline of the school, which has been used to justify giving the school a private operator,” Denney said.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, New Orleans, Privatization, Resistance

Bill Raden from Los Angeles: Buckle Your Seat Belts, Strike Ahead!

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2018 //
3

Bill Raden, education writer for Capital & Main in California, writes about the looming teachers’ strike in Los Angeles.

Fasten your seatbelts Los Angeles, it’s going to be a bumpy strike. That was the subtext to a tumultuous week that saw over 50,000 L.A. teachers, students and families take to the streets Saturday to support a union faced with budgetary saber-rattling by Los Angeles Unified, and that climaxed on Wednesday with United Teachers Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl setting a January 10 walkout date — unless Los Angeles Unified negotiators meet key union demands for investments in the district’s highest-poverty students.

Caputo-Pearl’s announcement came a day after L.A. Unified superintendent Austin Beutner erroneously claimed that the union had accepted the district’s six percent pay raise offer, as recommended in Tuesday’s report by state-appointed fact-finders who also urged LAUSD to kick in the modest equivalent of a one to three percent salary increase for new hires to reduce class sizes, and for both sides to work together to lobby Sacramento for more state funding.

Fact-finding panel chairman David A. Weinberg mostly punted on 19 of 21 unresolved equity demands that form the heart of what UTLA has framed as a fight to save L.A.’s “civic institution of public education.” The union won some minor points, like the allowing of teacher input on charter co-locations, and on scrapping a district privilege to unilaterally lift class size caps during fiscal crunches. But by accepting at face value LAUSD’s latest claims of imminent bankruptcy, Weinberg left unanswered a critical question: How could LAUSD annually project catastrophic, three-year deficits and still have its unrestricted cash reserves balloon from $500 million to nearly $2 billion during the same five-year period?

“We have watched underfunding and actions of privatizers undermine our students and our schools for too long. No more,” Caputo-Pearl warned on Wednesday.

Categories Accountability, Class size, Funding, Los Angeles, Resistance, Teachers, Union

A Progress Report from the Network for Public Education

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2018 //
4

Please read this year-end report from the Network for Public Education. You will learn about an important addition to our staff and plans for the future.

2018 was a great year for Public Education, despite the fact that the U.S. Secretary of Education—for the first time in history—is a foe of public schools and a religious zealot.

Teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, and North Carolina heroically stood together and demanded fair funding for their schools and their students. They said “Enough is enough!” They changed the national narrative, restoring to public view the fact that 85-90% of American students attend public schools, not charter or religious schools. Most of our public schools are underfunded, and most of our teachers are underpaid. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 29 states were spending less in 2018 than they spent in 2008. “Choice” is NOT a substitute for funding. Choice takes money away from schools that are already underfunded and diverts it to privately managed schools that are unregulated and unaccountable.

In state after state, teachers and parents led the blue wave that elected new governors, broke Republican supermajorities, and flipped the House of Representatives.

In one of the biggest electoral victories for education of 2018, parents and teachers in Arizona beat the Koch brothers and squashed a vast expansion of vouchers. Another was the ouster of Scott Walker in Wisconsin by Tony Evers; the sour grapes Republican legislature just rushed through legislation to strip powers from the new governor, in a blatant rebuff of the voters’ choice.

In California, Tony Thurmond beat Marshall Tuck for State Superintendent of Instruction, even though the charter billionaires gave Tuck twice as much money as Thurmond, saturating airwaves across the state. Duncan, of course, endorsed Tuck. The charter billionaires placed their money on the wrong horse in the governor’s race, betting on former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who came in third.

Friends, everyone senses it. Despite their vast resources, the privatizers are losing. They know it. Some say “Don’t call me a Reformer.” Others, like Arne Duncan, insist loudly that “Reform is not dead,” a sure sign that he knows it’s dying. All they can do now is lash out, double down, and destroy whatever has escaped their grasp.

It’s not about the kids. It never was. It’s about their egos and/or their bank accounts.

We now know that “Reform” means Privatization, and maybe it’s time to call them what they are: Privatizers.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Joy, Justice, Network for Public Education, Privatization, Resistance
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