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NYSAPE Speaks Out on the Election and Our Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2016 //
4

NYSAPE (New York State Allies for Public Education) is the coalition of 50 organizations of parents and educators who have twice led successful opt outs from state testing, with more than 200,000 students refusing the tests for the past two years. They have become a powerhouse in state politics, not with money, but with people power.

NYSAPE issued the following statement:

For Immediate Release: November 17, 2016
More Information Contact:
Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – What Does It Mean for NYS Public Education and Our Country?

Considering last week’s historic election and ensuing reports of bullying, harassment, and intimidation, NYSAPE reaffirms its commitment to public schools where all children feel safe, no matter their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, socio-economic status, disability, or immigration status. We remain committed to child-centered and equitable public education for all students and maintain that children thrive best in inclusive communities and schools where they feel that they and their families are not only safe, but valued and respected. This vision for inclusive and equitable public schools requires that each of us call out intolerance and injustice and stand with those most affected by the various forms of oppression.

The clear losers in this year’s election were the children. Both presidential candidates failed to make education a focus of their campaigns. As we learn more about the new administration’s agenda for public education, plans to invest heavily in voucher programs and expand charter schools will further defund public schools and lead to further segregation and inequitable educational opportunities. In New York State, private money won out as Republicans heavily backed by the charter industry swept many races. Harmful education laws enacted as part of Governor Cuomo’s Education Transformation Act remain in effect and the threat of digital, “personalized learning”, computerized testing and the ever-increasing amount of personal data being collected loom large.

New York’s historic opt out movement is a clear example of how ordinary citizens can organize and push back against a system which harms children. Now, more than ever, we must continue to push back against harmful education policies and remain vigilant as ESSA, the federal education law that replaced No Child Left Behind, continues to be formalized. We must also stand in solidarity against all policies and laws that undermine basic human dignity and diminish us all.

Jamaal Bowman, Bronx principal and parent said, “To fulfill the ideals of our democracy, we need an inclusive, holistic, and vibrant public school system. Privatization is an act of segregation and continues America’s ugly legacy of separate and unequal. I call on New York State to be a leader in whole mind, whole child, whole community education reform that is human centered, and to greatly reduce our reliance on computer-based pedagogy. Innovation is about nurturing the genius of ALL children by placing great teachers in every school and implementing a dynamic curriculum.”

“The entrenched Republican Senators from Long Island were sent a very clear message. Senate Democrat Todd Kaminsky beat charter reformer backed Chris McGrath by a comfortable margin, while other long held Senate seats that were bought and paid for by corporate reformers won out only by slim margins against virtual unknown Democrats who campaigned through grassroots coalitions with parents, educators, and community members. Two more Senate seats are still too close to call as recounts are being conducted. Parents fighting for public education are all that stand between democracy and those who seek to profit off the backs of our children,” said Jeanette Deutermann, Founder of Long Island Opt Out, NYSAPE and Long Island public school parent.

Eileen Graham, Rochester City public school parent and founder of Black Student Leadership said, “It is extremely important we focus on enhancing student learning in effective ways, not inaccurately judging them through useless exams. As a parent, I’m angry that our “leaders” continue to make decisions that negatively impact our schools and districts. It is an injustice that Rochester is labeled as one of lowest performing districts in New York State based on a flawed testing system; because there are many parents, teachers, staff and community partners working diligently to educate and empower students. I believe the only way we will show our true success is to opt-out!”

“Multi-racial coalitions, made up of unions, elected school boards, and parent groups beat back privatization efforts in the states of Massachusetts and Georgia, proving that big money doesn’t always win. At the same time, the campaign to pack courts with pro-charter judges in the state Washington lost. We will need to replicate these grassroots efforts throughout the country to keep our public schools safe and secure from the hostile takeover by the Trump administration, Wall St. and Ed-tech interests. At the same time, we must work together to ensure that our public schools provide all children with a real opportunity to learn,” said Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters.

Marla Kilfoyle, BATs Executive Director, Long Island Educator and public school parent, “As an educator and mother the only options I have is to dig in and continue the fight for public education and social justice. Our children are relying on us and watching what we do.”

Bianca Tanis, Ulster County parent and public school teacher said, “The role of educators and public schools is more important than ever. We will double down on our efforts to create safe and inclusive learning spaces for our students and their families while continuing the fight for equitable and child-centered public education. Until the state and our nation gets it right, this fight is here to stay.”

We will continue to encourage and empower community members to advocate for their children, by opting out of the state tests and focusing on the local level as the expansion of standardized computer learning and testing threatens the whole-child education our children deserve. Parents need to ask their school districts why money and resources are being spent on computerized learning and testing and what research these practices are based in.

​ NYSAPE is a grassroots coalition with over 50 parent and educator groups across the state.

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– See more at: http://www.nysape.org/nysape-post-election.html#sthash.F4MpWWgD.dpuf

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Privatization, Resistance

Arthur Goldstein: Chancellor Farina, Put a Letter in My File, Please

By dianeravitch
November 15, 2016 //
17

Arthur Goldstein teaches English language learners in a high school in Queens. He is active in his union and more often than not, a thorn in its side. He writes a blog where he speaks his mind, protected by tenure.

He addresses the question that most educators will have to face in the days ahead. What do you tell the students? What do you say to Hispanic students? to Black students? to gay students? Do you still teach an anti-bias curriculum? an anti-bullying program? If you do, are you criticizing the President-elect?

Goldstein writes:

In this post, he calls on the Chancellor of the New York City public schools to put a letter in his file. He also offers a graphic/meme that he hopes will appear in every classroom in the city (or state or nation).

Chancellor Fariña declared there would be no overt political talk in class. To a degree, I understand that. It’s not my place to tell kids who I voted for. It’s not my place to tell them who to vote for either. I would never do such a thing. But I knew they would ask me anyway.

Nonetheless, on Monday, I wore a tie a little bit like the one on the right. You wouldn’t notice what was on it unless you looked closely. When the kids asked me who I was voting for, I showed them the tie. I told them that a donkey represented Democrats, and an elephant represented Republicans. They didn’t know that. They looked at my tie and said, “Oh, you’re voting for Hillary.” I was glad they asked, because I needed them to know I would not vote for someone who hated them and everything they stood for, to wit, the American dream.

I also needed them to know that I stood against all the bigoted and xenophobic statements our President-elect made. I’m sorry, Chancellor Fariña, but I’m a teacher, and unlike Donald Trump, I stand for basic decency. My classroom rule, really my only one, is, “We will treat one another with respect.”

Donald Trump failed to treat a wide swath of people with respect. He’s a hateful, vicious bully. There are all sorts of anti-bullying campaigns that go in in city schools, and I fail to see why Donald Trump should get a pass simply for having lied his way to the Presidency. So I specifically repudiated a whole group of his insidious statements. I also added LGBT to my group, and told my kids that we would not tolerate slurs to gay people in my classroom. Even my kids seem to expect a pass on that. They won’t get one.

Categories Freedom of Speech, New York City, Resistance, Students, Teachers and Teaching

EduShyster: How Citizens Defeated the Charter Movement in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2016 //
31

EduShyster (aka Jennifer Berkshire, a resident of Massachusetts) explains here how a coalition of parents, teachers, students, and civil rights activists defeated Question 2.

Question 2 was a measure on the ballot to expand the number of charter schools in the state by 12 every year, indefinitely. Opponents of the measure said it would drain money from the existing public schools, which enroll 96% of the children in the state. Advocates said it would not. Advocates claimed that they were fighting for opportunity for poor kids to escape failing public schools. Opponents didn’t buy it.

Support for Question 2 came mostly from out-of-state people of great wealth. These people, such as the Waltons and Michael Bloomberg, put up at least $26 million to advocate for more charters. I thought the charter advocates had put up $22 million, but Jonathan Pelto reported yesterday that they had actually spent $26 million. The opposition raised about $12 million, mostly from teachers’ unions and individual small contributions by teachers and parents.

For a billionaire to drop $2 million into a ballot issue in Massachusetts or anywhere else would be akin to one of us sending a dollar to the March of Dimes. They won’t miss it. At some point, however, if they keep losing, they might get bored and find a different hobby.

The election was a battle royal over the future of public education in Massachusetts, and large numbers of people mobilized to save their public schools. Support among black voters was the same as among white voters.

Question 2 was defeated by a vote of 62% to 38%. It was a knock-out punch for the billionaires and the many financiers whose names were hidden from public view because of arcane campaign finance laws that enable “dark money” to be spent without identifying its source.

Berkshire writes:

I could give you a long list of reasons why Question 2 went down in flames. It was a complicated policy question that should never have made it onto the ballot. Yes on 2, despite outspending the ‘no’ camp 2-1 couldn’t find a message that worked, and was never able to counter the single argument that most resonated with voters against charter schools: they take money away from public schools and the kids who attend them. #NoOn2 also tapped into genuinely viral energy. The coalition extended well beyond the teachers unions that funded it, growing to include members of all kinds of unions, as well as social justice and civil rights groups, who fanned out across the state every weekend. By election day, the sprawling network of mostly volunteer canvassers had made contact with more than 1.5 million voters.

Question 2 had not only unprecedented funding, it had the support of the Governor and the state’s Secretary of Education, James Peyser, who is a longtime advocate for charters and a member of the board of Families for Excellent Schools, the same organization that bundled money in New York and elsewhere to push for charters.

Berkshire writes that when people who had no particular interest in charters or public schools began to see who was behind Question 2, she realized that Question 2 was in big trouble:

Do you know why hating on the Yankees is such a popular pastime in Massachusetts? Because they’re regarded as rich, entitled assholes from New York. Which is why the decision to rely so heavily on well, rich, entitled assholes from New York to fund the Yes on 2 campaign puzzles one so. By the final tally before the election, Families for Excellent Schools, reduced to serving as a conduit for the offerings of rich Wall Street-ers, had gifted more than $17 million to the cause. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, meanwhile, kicked in an additional $250,000 on top of the $240,000 he contributed back in August. To average voters, unfamiliar with the reform trope of the billionaire changemaker, the outsized role being played by rich New Yorkers was utterly incomprehensible. It’s not enough to field the richest baseball team money can buy, now they want our schools too?

The Yes on 2 team insisted that the public schools would not lose any money if there were more charters, but school committees called out their lie:

By October it was clear that the Question 2 ship was beginning to list. The original claim, debuted in a massive ad buy during the Olympics, that expanding charter schools would actually increase funding for public education, had failed to resonate with voters, and so it was off to the next argument. It turned out that charter schools didn’t *drain* or *siphon* money away from district schools as team #NoOn2 kept insisting—and here was a press release about a study to prove it. But once again, Question 2’s proponents, including editorial page editors at the Boston Globe, which ran a prominent *no draining, no siphoning* editorial, ran into the buzzsaw of a whole bunch of people all over the state who actually knew stuff.

Those school committees, which just would not stop passing resolutions against the ballot question, could tell you exactly how much money their city or town was spending on charter schools. The Mayor of Northampton, which is about as far from Boston as you can get, pointed out that his town spends more to send kids to the specialized charter schools favored by affluent parents—a subspecies never mentioned during the campaign—than on an entire elementary school. Meanwhile, cities that are already home to the largest number of charters and would be most affected by the passage of Question 2, began tallying how much charters were already costing them. Lowell, for example, has seen a drastic spike in its charter school bill and now spends more than $16 million on a parallel school system, money that’s being diverted away from *extras,* like paving the roads in Mill City. The charter waitlist in Lowell, by the way, is dwarfed by the number of kids waiting to get into district schools.

The privatization movement lost in both Massachusetts and Georgia, where Governor Deal wanted to change the state constitution to allow the state to take over low-performing schools and give them to charter organizations. The lesson is that it is cheaper and easier to make campaign contributions to elect pro-charter candidates to state boards and state legislatures than to take a risk on a popular vote. In the case of Georgia, Governor Deal could not eliminate local control without changing the state constitution. And the voters said no, by a vote of 60-40.

Read the article. The defeat of Question 2 proves that big money can be beaten when citizens are informed, organized, and prepared to defend their public schools against privatization.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Georgia, Massachusetts, Parents, Privatization, Resistance, Unions

Yay! Deans for Justice and Equity Organize to Counter Reformer-Funded “Deans for Impact”

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2016 //
11

Last year, a small group of education school deans organized as “Deans for Impact,” signing on to the corporate reform agenda and agreeing to comply with the data-driven approach to education. Paul Thomas and Mercedes Schneider wrote about this new group and its corporate reform funder.

Now a group of 20 education deans formed their own group, “Education Deans for Justice and Equity.”

The new group was initiated by Dean Kevin Kumashiro of the University of San Francisco School of Education. Note here the letter that he wrote to the New York Times opposing John King’s terrible regulations for ed schools.

It is heartening to see education leaders fighting back against the bad ideas of corporate reform, which would destroy the teaching profession if left to its own agenda.

Categories Resistance, Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching

Los Angeles: Educators at 4 Public Schools Reject Broad-Walton Money

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2016 //
19

This just happened in Los Angeles: Educators at four LAUSD public schools turned away money from the two billionaire backers of privatization. Broad and Walton are offering funding to these schools at the same time that their charters are diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from the district’s public schools.


For immediate release
Media Contact:
Anna Bakalis
UTLA Communications Director
213-305-9654

UTLA Educators Overwhelmingly Vote Against Broad-Walmart Grant Funding

Los Angeles, CA – This week, educators at four LAUSD schools voted to reject grant money from “Great Public Schools Now,” the public face of a group backed by the California Charter School Association and bankrolled by billionaires Eli Broad and the Waltons of Walmart.

Educators say that this is a PR stunt, not a genuine effort to fund schools in need and are calling on the District to uphold the vote by not accepting the grant money from GPSN, in any way. These four schools are within the targeted 10 areas for Broad-Walmart funding.

The vote was 98% in favor of rejecting the money; ballot counts at Drew Middle School, Pacoima Middle School, San Fernando High School, and Gompers Middle School were, respectively, 35 to 1, 58 to 0, 72 to 0, and 22 to 3.

Jared Dozal, who voted against his school receiving Broad-Walmart money, is a math and computer science teacher at San Fernando High School. He says this is a distraction from real, lasting efforts for sustainable funding for all public schools.

“We know that some will see this as an opportunity missed for funding, but the amount offered is peanuts for the billionaires behind this effort,” Dozal said. “We won’t let this distract us from saving our schools from a corporate takeover, paid for by the people who only want to destroy public education.”

Dozal said the grant’s offer of “up to” $250,000 per year for three years is insulting, considering the amount of money siphoned from public schools to subsidize rampant charter school growth.

For example, according to LAUSD’s own numbers, Gompers Middle School has $1.4 million less in its budget than 2013. Since school budgets are in large part determined by enrollment, the rapid expansion of charter school growth has clearly impacted the middle school.

In the zip code that Gompers is in, and in the nearby zip codes, there are 21 charter schools. Thirteen of these are the largest corporate charters, including Green Dot, Alliance, Aspire and Kipp. The Waltons of Walmart have contributed generously to these four corporate charters, and Eli Broad alone has contributed more than $75 million over the last few years. In fact, in the June 2015 GPSN plan, Broad and Walton say they will be raising $135 million more for these charter school operators.

Getting the funding and resources our students need requires meaningful and sustainable initiatives. To that end, members of United Teachers Los Angeles join with parents and community members to address issues like school site improvements and student safety, enriched curriculum that includes funding for arts, music and ethnic studies as well as fully staffed schools with full-time nurses, librarians and counselors.

UTLA is also working to pass Prop. 55 on next week’s ballot, pursuing long-term funding solutions in Sacramento, and supporting efforts such as the Make It Fair campaign to close corporate property tax loopholes.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization, Resistance, Teachers, Unions, Walton Foundation

New York: Parent Opt-Out Leaders Target Legislators Who Oppose Public Education in their Own Districts

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2016 //
10

The parent leaders of New York state’s powerful Opt Out movement are taking the next step in their campaign to protect their children and their schools: they are supporting challengers to their own state legislators.

The stronghold of the Opt Out movement is Long Island, the counties of Nassau and Suffolk, where about 50% of all children in grades 3-8 refused to take the state tests. As it happens, Long Island is represented by Republicans who strongly support charter schools (but not in their own districts!), high-stakes testing, Common Core, and test-based teacher evaluations.

The parents have had enough!

Test refusal forces have taken an interest in the race for the state’s 5th Senate District, and they’re using the organizing tools that have been effective in driving New York’s test opt-out movement to try to oust longtime incumbent Republican Sen. Carl Marcellino.

“We’re using all of our skills that we’ve learned over the last four years and we’re applying that to helping candidates who are going to advocate for us,” Jeanette Deutermann, administrator of Long Island Opt Out and co-founder of New York State Allies for Public Education, told POLITICO New York.

With the help of NYSAPE, an anti-Common Core coalition of parent groups from across the state, last spring more than 21 percent of the state’s approximately 1.1 million eligible third- through eighth-grade students refused to take the state standardized, Common Core-aligned math and English language arts exams.

The 5th Senate District, which includes portions of Nassau and Suffolk County, falls in the heart of the test refusal movement.

About 55 percent of public school students in Suffolk County opted out of exams in spring 2016, making the state’s eastern most corner a test refusal hot spot. About 43 percent of students opted out in Nassau County during that period.

Marcellino, who first won his seat in 1995, is the current head of the Senate Education Committee. His opponent, Democrat Jim Gaughran, has turned that position against Marcellino, running a campaign largely focused on education, setting it apart from most other races in the state.

Gaughran, the Suffolk County Water Authority chairman, has hosted listening tours on community education concerns throughout the district. Gaughran is announcing the end of his tour Wednesday, which included 25 events, at least one in each of the 17 public school districts in the Senate district, according to a news release provided to POLITICO New York.

Parents have no money to give, but they are supporting Gaughran with door-to-door campaigning and a social media campaign. They understand now after four years of organizing that they must fight for better leadership in Albany, where decisions affecting their children and their schools are made with no parent input, no evidence, no expertise, no knowledge. Petitions and rallies can be easily ignored. Real change requires better representation.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2016/11/opt-out-leaders-home-in-on-marcellino-senate-district-106975#ixzz4OrtQlovN

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Politics, Privatization, Resistance, Testing

Backpack Full of Cash in Philadelphia: Tonight!

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2016 //
1

Dear BACKPACK Friends and Supporters,

Did you miss our BACKPACK FULL OF CASH premiere this past Saturday?

No need to fret–you still have ONE MORE CHANCE to join us at our
PHILADELPHIA FILM FESTIVAL PREMIERE!

Plus, we have BIG KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN NEWS!

We hope your week has been as great as ours since we messaged you last week. We’ve certainly been busy! First, we launched our BACKPACK Kickstarter fundraising campaign last Wednesday, then we premiered our film to the world at the Philadelphia Film Festival on Saturday—and so far, thanks to all of you, the film has been well-received.

If you haven’t heard of BACKPACK FULL OF CASH yet, it’s a documentary about the real cost of privatizing America’s public schools (see here for more details). We were thrilled to have a nice turnout at the premiere, where many of the key Philadelphia leaders and educators featured in the film were able to watch the film on the big screen surrounded by friends, family, and the public. We had interesting discussion and excitement both during and after the Q&A and we’ve gotten some good press since our first screening.

AND after just one week, we’ve already raised over 25% OF OUR KICKSTARTER GOAL! That’s $7,946. How incredible is that? We couldn’t be happier with the results so far.

All that said, we’d like to request your help this week in two ways.

1. We would love to pack the house in Philly this coming Saturday, 10/29! Help us show the people of Philadelphia and the nation that education matters. If you know any local individuals or organizations passionate about education and the well-being of children in general, please consider coming and sharing news about our screening this Saturday, October 29, 4:10pm, at the Prince Theater. We’d be immensely grateful!

2. If you haven’t already done so, please take a few minutes of your day to check out our BACKPACK Kickstarter and if you’re inspired, please back our project and share with your friends, contacts—anyone you think might enjoy, be supportive of, or learn something from the film.

We really appreciate every contribution you’ve made so far. Whether it is monetary, word-of-mouth sharing, or forwarding our emails, you help raise awareness about this extremely important issue—the education of our children. We are incredibly proud of this project and especially excited to share it with you and the world!

Gratefully yours,

Sarah Mondale, Vera Aronow, and the rest of The BACKPACK Team

“One of the ways a society shows its love of children is by the institutions it builds around them.”
– Helen Gym, co-founder of Parents United for Public Education –

Categories Education Reform, Resistance

Good News! HB530 Dies in Legislature in Pennsylvania!

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2016 //
7

A few days ago, I posted warnings about the stealth effort to expand charter schools in Pennsylvania, embedded in a bill called HB530. Exposed to daylight and to the righteous wrath of parents and school boards, the bill failed.

Good work by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA), teachers, and people who understand the importance of public schools managed to kill HB530, which was a sugarplum for the rapacious charter industry.

Here is a report from the PSBA:

Thanks to a tremendous effort made by current and retired school directors and many other public school advocates, charter school expansion legislation under House Bill 530 (Rep. Reese, R-Westmoreland) was stopped in its tracks. As the 2015-16 session winds to a close, the bill will die.

This accomplishment could not have been possible without your efforts. Over the past two weeks advocates responded to our call to action and generated more than 2,000 email messages, 300 calls and texts, and multiple Twitter and Facebook posts all in an effort to oppose the legislation. With multiple indications that the bill was geared up to be considered by the House of Representatives, PSBA was a leader in pointing out the serious flaws in the legislation.

House Bill 530 purported to be charter school “reform” that actually did little to provide real change in the way charter schools are operated, funded or held accountable. Instead, it enabled the expansion of charter schools with less accountability and oversight, and actually diluted existing powers of oversight by local school boards while costing them millions of dollars.

PSBA agrees that the need for genuine reform to the state’s outdated Charter School Law is long overdue. In fact, throughout this legislative session, PSBA was working with members in the Senate and House of Representatives in hopes of clarifying and addressing many of our concerns.

It’s been suggested that PSBA has made inaccurate and misleading claims about House Bill 530. PSBA would like to set the record straight. Make no mistake – school boards are very serious about charter school accountability. House Bill 530 does not strengthen accountability and does not contain significant, reasonable reform or relief from increasing charter school costs.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Resistance

A Busy Day in the Life of a Fighter for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2016 //
9

You will enjoy reading about Leonie Haimson’s busy and productive day. Leonie is a fighter for smaller class size, better funding for schools, and student privacy. She is founder of Class Size Matters and Student Privacy Matters. She is tireless (and unpaid). She is the most frightening antagonist for education reformers because they can’t understand people who are motivated by principle, not profit.

She started the day at the Harvard Club, outside the doors, protesting with other activists against the billionaires and dark money behind Question 2 in Massachusetts. Inside, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker had come to talk to the conservative Manhattan Institute about his efforts to lift the charter cap, thus expanding privatization of public education.

That afternoon, she learned that she and other allies had come a judicial decision to open the meetings of School Leadership Teams to the public.

She wrote:

“The Appellate court heard arguments from both sides on January 21, 2016 — and took nearly a year to rule. But finally, in another slam-dunk, unanimous decision, they reaffirmed the lower Court ruling that SLT’s are public bodies in state governance law, and thus their meetings must be open to the public. Much thanks goes to Michael Thomas, Tish James and the attorneys from NY Lawyers for Public Interest and Advocates for Justice who represented the Public Advocate and Class Size Matters in court.”

Leonie is on many boards, including the Network for Public Education and New York State Allies for Public Education, which organized the successful statewide parent opt out. She is already a hero of this blog. She is the right person to take on the billionaires. They can’t buy her or beat her.

Go, Leonie, go!

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Parents, Privatization, Resistance

How Do You Reach the Public? Fly a Banner over the Big Football Game!

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2016 //
8

It is always hard to explain complicated issues to voters, especially when you don’t have much money.

Take Georgia, for example. Governor Nathan Deal wants to change the State Constitution to allow the state to take over low-scoring public schools and hand them over to charter operators. It hasn’t worked anywhere else, but no matter. The amendment is being sold as a way to help kids and improve schools, when it is a transfer of public schools to private management. It is privatization of public schools and squelching of democracy.

How do you reach voters?

Here is one way: Someone hired an airplane to fly over a University of Georgia football game flying a banner that said:

“No School Takeover. Vote NO on Amendment 1.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Georgia, Privatization, Resistance
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