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Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Opposes Charter Schools for All the Right Reasons

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2017 //
4

Kentucky is one of the few states that did not have any charter schools until the Republicans swept into power. Republicans have longed for school choice, because choice and competition are baked into free-market ideology. Besides, their neighboring state Tennessee has charter schools. They didn’t care that Kentucky’s students perform better than those of Tennessee on the National Assessment of Educational Performance. The Republicans in Kentucky want the same failed ideas as everyone else.

 

The school board of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, passed a resolution saying that they don’t want charter schools. They want to protect and improve their public schools, not destroy or privatize them. They don’t see the point of a dual school system.

 

In the resolution, the board expressed concerns about charter schools siphoning money from public schools, lacking similar transparency and accountability standards as public schools, and failing to help at-risk students.

 

“The Elizabethtown Independent Board of Education opposes any Charter School legislation that will establish a separate system of state-authorized public charter schools that are funded through a funding formula that unilaterally takes critically needed funds from the local school districts and redirects them to charter schools, thereby debilitating the significantly underfunded existing system of funding for public education for all Kentucky students,” the resolution states.

 

The board held a discussion on charter schools before unanimously passing the resolution.

 

“We know with very good confidence that charter schools will continue to defund what is already underfunded,” said Tony Kuklinski, a board member. “They will take taxpayer money, money from the people we represent, and put it into a private enterprise for personal gain with no substantial data to support a better education system than a public school system.”

 

Kuklinski added that once the charter schools fail or decide to close shop, children will return to public schools undereducated.

 

“We already have things in place where if we don’t meet certain requirements and standards that the state has implemented, there can be sanctions up to and including the state coming in and taking over a school district,” he said…

 

Kentucky is one of seven states that does not have charter school legislation. Other states without charter schools are Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia.

 

 

Hardin County Schools Board of Education Chairman Charlie Wise, who also opposes charter schools, said the district will discuss and consider writing a similar resolution next month once new board members have been sworn in.

 

Congratulations to the Elizabethtown school board, which is far wiser than the Kentucky legislature.

 

Here is hoping that your courage and resolve spreads to many other school districts across the state and that it wins bipartisan support from every citizen in every school district. Everything in your resolution is correct. Charter schools are under private management; they are NOT public schools. If you sue them for excluding your children with special needs, they will tell the judge that they are a private corporation, not a “state actor.” They will drain resources from your local public schools, because the legislature has no intention of replacing the money you lose when kids are lured away with false promises. If charters are opened in your district, your public schools will lose money, teachers, and programs. Stay the course. Don’t let the corporations or representatives from ALEC bully you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Former Congressional Staffers: How to Fight Against Trumpism

By dianeravitch
December 31, 2016 //
23

I found this on the Internet and think you will find it important to know:

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DzOz3Y6D8g_MNXHNMJYAz1b41_cn535aU5UsN7Lj8X8/mobilebasic

 

It is a practical guide to resisting the reign of Trump.

Categories Resistance, Trump

Mike Klonsky: Trump’s War on Civil Society

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2016 //
57

 

 

Mike Klonsky, a longtime political activist in Chicago, warns that the rise of Trumpism in the US and Europe signals a dangerous white nationalism that threatens the fabric of civil society.

 

The rise and seizure of political and military power by a narrowly-based clique of white supremacists and neo-fascists, in the U.S. and much of Europe, combined with an inadequate response on the part of liberal democrats, is plunging the world closer to a global conflagration than it’s been since World War 2 and Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet. The Trumpists are too weak and their base too narrow to rule primarily through diplomacy and negotiation. Their strong suit is their control of military (including nuclear capacity) and police powers (including an apparent willingness to use torture)….

 

Then there’s the Trump’s war on the press; trade war with China; Betsy DeVos’s war on public schools; Trump’s war on science; Trump/Pudzer’s declared war on labor unions; Trump/Perry/Tillerson’s war on the environment; Sessions’ war on civil rights; and so it goes….

 

As for teachers and educators, we have a significant role to play in resisting the Trumpists drive towards war and in defense of civil society. War is the enemy of education, families, children, women, and democracy. Resistance to Betsy DeVos war on public education will be a key part of the opposition movement. Defense of public space and of public decision-making, teaching students to think critically and to become shapers of their own future, are some of the essential pieces of the resistance movement based in the schools.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Privatization, Resistance, Trump

Texas: Pastors Stand Together Against Vouchers: They Join the Honor Roll!

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2016 //
7

Rev. Charles Foster Johnson has organized strong resistance to the vouchers touted by the most powerful elected official in Texas, not the governor, but the Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a former talk show host. Rev. Johnson is leader to Pastors for Texas Children, which has 2,000 members across the state. They are united in their opposition to vouchers and their support for public schools. Year after year, they have defeated vouchers in the legislature, and they are gearing up to fight them again. You can read more about his and his organization here, at “Reporting Texas.”

 

I am happy to place Rev. Johnson and Pastors for Texas Children on the blog’s honor roll for their stalwart defense of public schools, of the children of Texas, of religious liberty, and of the principle of separation of church and state.

 

 

Johnson, 59, is the Fort Worth-based executive director of Pastors for Texas Children, a network of about 2,000 church leaders around the state who work to support pubic schools.

 

Johnson and his group have emerged as chief adversaries of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Patrick champions a breed of education reform forged around vouchers — which steer money from public schools to parents to pay private school tuition.

 

“The lieutenant governor said, a couple of weeks ago, he’ll keep bringing it up until it passes,” Foster told the pastors, who were gathered for a meeting of Texas Baptists Committed in Waco. “It’s up to us to stop him.”

 

In his baritone southern drawl, Johnson told the pastors that vouchers siphon funds from schools in low-income neighborhoods and violate the separation of church and state enshrined in the First Amendment. School vouchers contradict God’s law of religious liberty, he said, by providing government support for religion.

 

The organization’s mission is twofold: To advocate for public education with state lawmakers and to mobilize individual churches to support public schools by providing services such as student mentoring and teacher appreciation events.

 

Members have linked dozens of churches with public schools, met with more than 100 lawmakers since the organization’s inception in 2013, and published dozens of anti-school voucher editorials in newspapers across Texas.

Categories Honor Roll, Religion, Resistance, Separation of church and state, Supporting public schools, Texas, Vouchers

North Carolina: What Can a Democratic Governor Do with a Tea Party Legislature?

By dianeravitch
December 8, 2016 //
6

This post is a very interesting analysis of how the newly elected Democratic Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, can use his bully pulpit to pound the legislature, which has passed dreadful laws in the past five years.

Why did McCrory lose? The author credits Reverend William Barber’s Moral Monday for standing strong, pushing hard, and never giving up.

He quotes Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling with a lesson for all of us:

“(T)he seeds of McCrory’s defeat really were planted by the Moral Monday movement in the summer of 2013, just months after McCrory took office….

“He allowed himself to be associated with a bunch of unpopular legislation, and progressives hit back HARD, in a way that really caught voters’ attention and resonated with them….

“(T)he Moral Monday movement pushed back hard. Its constant visibility forced all of these issues to stay in the headlines. Its efforts ensured that voters in the state were educated about what was going on in Raleigh, and as voters became aware of what was going on, they got mad. All those people who had seen McCrory as a moderate, as a different kind of Republican, had those views quickly changed. By July McCrory had a negative approval rating- 40% of voters approving of him to 49% who disapproved. By September it was all the way down to 35/53, and he never did fully recover from the damage the rest of his term….

“And it’s a lesson for progressives in dealing with Trump. Push back hard from day one. Be visible. Capture the public’s attention, no matter what you have to do to do it. Don’t count on the media to do it itself because the media will let you down. The protesters in North Carolina, by making news in their own right week after week after week, forced sustained coverage of what was going on in Raleigh. And even though it was certainly a long game, with plenty more frustration in between, those efforts led to change at the polls 42 months after they really started.

“Keep Pounding.”

The most important lesson on how to survive the next four years: KEEP POUNDING. NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.

Categories North Carolina, Resistance

Will California Save the Democratic Party?

By dianeravitch
December 7, 2016 //
13

Look west for hope!

 

The New York Times has a good article about the new generation of leaders in California who have the dynamism and energy to replace the aging lions, the national leaders who are now in their 70s.

 

The leaders of the party affirmed their intention to ward off the worst of Trump’s policies.

 

Previewing an adversarial relationship between California and the federal government over the next four years, legislative leaders opened a new session on Monday by vowing to preserve California’s liberal agenda and passing a resolution rejecting President-elect Donald Trump’s hardline immigration stance.
Members of both houses directly confronted Trump’s tough-on-immigration rhetoric, which has included calls to deport millions and block immigration by Muslims. Lawmakers passed a resolution that says “California stands unified in rejecting the politics of hatred and exclusion” and exhorts Trump “to not pursue mass deportation strategies that needlessly tear families apart, or target immigrants for deportation based on vague and unjustified criteria.”
“We have all heard the insults, we have all heard the lies, and we have all heard the threats,” said Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, adding of an undocumented immigrant population that is the nation’s largest, “if you want to get to them, you have to go through us.”
Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, opened his chamber’s business by accepting the election results but rebuffing Trump. He urged Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress to “treat immigrant families and children humanely, with a modicum of dignity and respect.”
“They are hard-working, upstanding members of our society who contribute billions of dollars to our economic activity and tax revenue to our state each year,” de León said.
The immediate challenge to Trump drew criticism from Republican members who said Democrats were demonizing a man who had not yet taken office. Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, said the tactic “seeks to flare up tension between communities.”
“To throw down a gauntlet and say ‘here we go’ without ever having time to discuss this” is inappropriate, said Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, R-Oceanside.
But dark warnings about the coming Trump administration set the tone, with Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, saying the president-elect had advocated “ethnic cleansing policies.”
With fiery language that broke from his usually staid public demeanor, Rendon said California faces a “major existential threat.” He spurred raucous applause for an apparent dig at Trump aide Stephen Bannon, saying that “white nationalists and anti-Semites have no business working in the White House.” Bannon’s Breitbart website has drawn admiration from nationalists and opponents of multiculturalism as well as criticism for pushing bigotry into mainstream discourse.
“It is up to us to pass policies that would firewall Californians and what we believe from the cynical, short sighted, and reactionary agenda that is rising in the wake of the election,” Rendon said, adding that “unity must be separated from complicity…Californians do not need healing. We need to fight.”

Categories Bigotry, California, Resistance, Trump

Standing Rock Sioux Win; Pipeline Route Will Change

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2016 //
17

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not run the Dakota pipeline through the tribe’s lands.

 

(CNN) The Army will not approve an easement that would allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, the Army’s assistant secretary for civil works announced Sunday.

 

Jo-Ellen Darcy said she based her decision on a need to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing. This comes three weeks after a November 14 announcement from her office that delayed the decision after protests from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their supporters.

 

“Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it’s clear that there’s more work to do,” Darcy said in her statement. “The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.”

 

 

Categories Resistance

Republican Dominance of States Put Public Education at Risk in New Era

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2016 //
23

The Education Commission of the States posted a lineup of the partisan divide among the states. Republicans have a commanding lead over Democrats.

Of 50 states, 33 have Republican governors. Republicans control 66 partisan chambers, compared to 30 held by Democrats.

Republicans pick up three legislative chambers. The Kentucky House, Iowa Senate and Minnesota Senate switched from Democratic to Republican control. Republicans made history in Kentucky when they took 17 seats from the Democrats to gain control of the chamber for the first time since 1922, and only the third time in state history. Republicans now control all 30 legislative chambers in southern states.

Democrats pick up four legislative chambers. The New Mexico House, both Nevada Assembly and Senate and Washington Senate switched from Republican to Democratic control.

Tied chamber. Republicans also made gains in Connecticut, a reliably blue state, where the Senate is tied 18R-18D.
Three states with split/tied chambers. Colorado and Maine continue to have spit legislative chamber party control. This down from seven states pre-election (Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington). The Connecticut Senate is tied with 18 Republicans and 18 Democrats.

This means that a large number of states will look favorably on school choice, which Trump has described as his highest priority. Many states already have some form of voucher program; most–thanks to Race to the Top–permit charters. School choice–charters and vouchers–means less money for public schools. As public schools lose funding, class sizes will grow, programs will be cut, and alternatives will become more attractive.

If Betsy DeVos is confirmed as Secretary of Education, be prepared for an all-out federal assault on public schools. The same could be said of almost anyone Trump might select in her place (Falwell, Rhee, Moskowitz, etc.) The model is Race to the Top. The Department of Education might bundle $20 billion and dangle it before states as a competition, with eligibility dependent on laws permitting vouchers to religious schools and for-profit charters, even home schooling.

Friends and allies of public education, a cornerstone of our democracy for nearly 200 years, will have to organize and resist.

Join the Network for Public Education as we fight to defend public schools against privatization. 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Resistance, School Choice, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

Please Give Generously to the Network for Public Education and Help Us Protect Our Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 29, 2016 //
8

Today is #GivingTuesday. Please give whatever you can to the Network for Public Education and help us as we fight efforts to privatize our public schools.

The Network has generated nearly 75,000 emails to members of the Senate, urging them not to confirm Betsy DeVos, who supports charters and vouchers, not public schools.

Please open this link and add your name. Share it with your friends. Our goal is to reach 100,000 emails. We can do it.

It is wrong to appoint a Secretary of Education who opposes public schools. Her nomination should be opposed by Republicans and Democrats alike. Republicans are supposed to be protectors of tradition and community values. Public education is a central American tradition. Republicans serve on local school boards and state school boards. They too should vote to oppose DeVos’ radical attack on public education.

“When you wage war on the public schools, you’re attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You’re not a conservative, you’re a vandal.”

― Garrison Keillor, “Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America”

Please stand up against the vandals who would destroy the mortar that holds the community together.

And please give generously so we can fight on your behalf and on behalf of America’s children.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Network for Public Education, Privatization, Resistance, Vouchers

Anthony Cody: McCarthyism, My Family, and the New Trump Era

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2016 //
42

My friend and colleague Anthony Cody tells the story of his family’s travails during the McCarthy era and links it to events of the present day.

Not long after I first met Anthony, about five years ago, he briefly summarized the story of his parents and the hardships they endured because of McCarthyism. As a historian, I urged him to write about it. The events of the past week provoked him to do so, especially when he heard a Trump surrogate speak of the World War 2 internment camps for Japanese-Americans as a precedent for dealing with suspicious Muslims. Those camps were eventually ruled unconstitutional, and those who were interned were paid reparations, which were certainly inadequate to the loss of their freedom and the humiliation of being jailed because of their origins. But obviously the Trump surrogate didn’t know the facts.

Anthony’s parents were supporters of human rights and civil rights at a time when it was dangerous to be leftists. They fled the country and moved to Mexico to avoid being forced to testify before the infamous House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1950.

When it was safe to return, in 1954, they moved to Berkeley and opened Cody’s Bookstore, which became a celebrated mecca for student activists and radicals of all stripes.

Fast forward to the present and we have a President-elect who was mentored by the infamous Roy Cohn, a protege of Joseph McCarthy. Cohn was an unscrupulous and unethical lawyer who was eventually disbarred. Trump was a close friend of Roy Cohn, who mentored him. According to profiles of the two, Cohn taught Trump to meet every challenge with “attack, counterattack, and never apologize.”

Anthony’s parents’ lives are a part of American history that we should study and learn from. One thing we can learn is that bad things don’t last forever. In the presence of injustice, we must stick to our principles and resist, as his parents did. It is resistance that eventually prevails, not passivity.

Categories Education Reform, Resistance, Trump
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