We who are concerned about the galloping trend towards privatization of public education often complain about the lack of public officials who pay attention or care about what happens to one of our essential public institutions.
I just found one.
He is running for office in Washington State. He is campaigning against the billionaire-funded charter initiative.
He demonstrates not only that the initiative is bad public policy but it is unconstitutional.
His name is David Spring.
I just got this post on Twitter by a student who wants no part of the DFER-like “Students for Education Reform,” created at Princeton to advance the corporate reform agenda. This student is amazing! Impressive research, real understanding about how words can be used to deceive, and a grasp of the issues.
There is a bottom-line question that no one ever answers: If DFER and SFER and SFC and TFA and StudentsFirst and other corporate reformers already know how to close the achievement gap, as they repeatedly claim, why are there no examples of it anywhere? It hasn’t happened in New York City, after ten long years of corporate-style reform; it hasn’t happened in New Orleans since Katrina even though 80% of the children are in charter schools; it didn’t happen in D.C., under Michelle Rhee (which still has the biggest gaps in the nation). Why do they keep saying they know how to do it when they haven’t done it? At some point, the dance ends. And the bill comes due for all those promises and claims.
It turns out that Stand for Children is not only the guiding organization behind the plan to transfer large numbers of public school students to charter schools, along with $212 million of taxpayers dollars, in Memphis/Shelby County, but it was previously active in promoting the pro-privatization propaganda film “Waiting for ‘Superman'” to parents and the public in Memphis.
As you will see in the link below, John Legend, the singer who is on the board of the Wall Street hedge fund manager group Democrats for Education Reform, funded the showing of this mockumentary to low-income communities. The purpose of the film was to show the failure of public education and the superiority of private management.
A reader sent this link. It shows how Stand on Children set the stage for privatization on a large scale in Memphis.
Back when I was on the right side of the political fence, I was on the editorial board at Education Next. It is supported by the Hoover Institution and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, both conservative think tanks with which I was affiliated. The journal, which is based at Harvard and edited mainly by Paul Peterson, was created to counter what was seen as the liberal bias of the mainstream education media.
Education Next is a well-edited journal (I used to write a monthly book review there), but it does have a strong bias in favor of charter schools, vouchers, and testing. It is the journal of the corporate reform movement.
The current issue of Education Next has a fascinating article about the “reformers’ fight club.” I have been writing and speaking about the interconnections among these organizations (and there are many more), and it is good to see confirmation of what I have been saying.
For some reason, these incredibly rich and powerful organizations like to portray themselves as underdogs in contrast to the teachers’ unions.
So, get this picture: On one side are the 3.2 million teachers who belong to the NEA and the AFT. On the other side are the Gates Foundation ($60 billion), the Broad Foundation (billions), the Walton Foundation (billions, and spent $159 million this past year alone on education grants), the Dell Foundation, big corporations, Democrats for Education Reform (Wall Street hedge fund managers who can pump millions into political campaigns at will), and 50CAN (more hedge fund managers). And there are supposedly “liberal” advocacy groups like Education Trust and Ed Sector.
Gosh, that is surely an unequal lineup. No wonder the “fight club” feels like underdogs. Those teachers’ unions are just so doggone powerful and rich. Why, they have the big foundations and Wall Street trembling. Who knew that teachers had so much power?
Diane
It’s no surprise to discover that the organization representing Wall Street hedge fund managers is putting big money into Rahm Emanuel’s war against the Chicago Teachers Union. The group, which calls itself Democrats for Education Reform, is a major contributor to political advocacy for charter schools. It raises money for influential candidates in local, state and national political races. Money talks.
DFER, as it is known, does not like public schools. It loves privatization. Privatization works for Wall Street. So does deregulation.
DFER and Stand for Children are working together against the interests of public school teachers in Chicago, 90% of whom voted to authorize a strike (actually 98% of all those who cast a vote).
You can bet that DFER and Stand will flood the airwaves with slick commercials to promote Mayor Emanuel’s vision of education for OPC (other people’s children): crowded classrooms; schools with no teachers of the arts; schools with no libraries; endless testing and test-prepping; big contracts for consultants and experts; longer school days with no compensation for teachers; and lots more privatization.
Here’s a thought for DFER, Stand and Mayor Emanuel: Why not support the same quality of education for the children of Chicago public schools that you want for your own?
Diane
After I blogged about Change.org dropping Michelle Rhee and Jonah Edelman, I got an email from a representative of Change.org asking me to explain its policy on my blog. I told him my concern was not with its policy, but with the deception involved in signing people up as members of an organization they did not wish to join. On our third exchange of emails, he informed me that I was a member of Students First. He said his records showed that I had signed one of its petitions a year ago. He gave me a website where I could view my member profile, but I was unwilling to click on the link for fear that doing so would reconfirm my “membership.” Maybe the second click would put me in a category of “active” membership.
This is horrifying. I never knowingly signed to join Michelle Rhee’s Students First.
When Rhee boasts of her huge membership, she is counting people like me who were snared without their knowledge. She is using my name to inflate her numbers.
This is deceptive practice. It is fraudulent. There ought to be a way to bring a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission or some other watchdog agency to protest the deceptive capture and misuse of my name and that of many others.
I choose the organizations I join with care and forethought. I didn’t choose to belong to Students First.
Michelle Rhee, take my name off your membership list!
How can I do it without clicking the website of the organization that entrapped me? Is there a place to click that says “remove my name?”
On a happier note, a reader informed me that a Chicago teacher named Jen Johnson started the ball rolling with a campaign called “Change.org: Stop Supporting Union-Busters” Petition.”
We must celebrate every small victory. We must remember that lone individuals can make a difference.
Change begins with one person.
Sometimes change begins with one writer, like Thomas Paine, or one speaker, like Martin Luther King Jr.
Change begins with one and then multiplies. Many people signed the petition, others wrote. I mentioned Aaron Krager in the earlier post. Another post may have played a part in changing Change.org.
Diane
In an earlier post, I described how Michelle Rhee’s Students First collects “members” whenever anyone unwittingly signs a petition at change.org for a “kittens and puppies” cause or when they agree that they respect teachers. This is deceptive advertising. It turns out that Jonah Edelman’s Stand for Children also benefited by misleading people who signed heart-warming petitions at change.org.
Never doubt that citizens can make a difference. In response to protests and petitions, change.org will no longer be collecting signatures for Rhee or Edelman because their organizations are anti-union. Change.org claims to be a progressive website, not just a free-market platform for anything. As a progressive website, it was subject to growing criticism for enabling groups like Students First and Stand for Children to promote their agenda of privatization and union-busting.
And don’t doubt for a minute that one person can make a difference. Aaron Krager communicated directly with change.org and wrote a blistering critique of their actions. Krager wrote:
Change.org can hide behind Stand for Children’s focus group tested mission statement all it wants. It doesn’t stop the truth from existing. Stand for Children wants to privatize education, pick and choose the students who receive it, take away the rights of the people working in the schools, and allow corporate funders to dictate education policy. It simply does not fall in line with Change.org’s own policies. Saying so denies the truth and merely aligns Change with the one percent that already benefit at our expense.
Just because a group claims to be working for “the civil rights issue of our era” does not mean it’s true. Now, even Mitt Romney says that his agenda of vouchers, charters and privatization is a civil rights agenda. It is not. Stand for Children claims on its website to be working on behalf of better education by promoting its anti-union, privatization campaign. That is not a civil rights agenda. Michelle Rhee is promoting charters, vouchers, and privatization while encouraging rightwing governors to strip teachers of any right to due process and collective bargaining. These are not progressive groups. They work hand-in-glove with those who want to roll back the New Deal. They work not for children but for the powerful elites who like privatization.
Diane
A READER SENDS THIS WARNING:
| Change.org is still collecting sigs for the group. Their petitions remain. The only thing they have agreed to is to stop offering them paid promotion of their petitions. Please read the HufPo article more closely and you’ll see this is so. They have already gained over a million sigs through these automatic ads.
Bottom line: Don’t sign any petitions on Change.org until you feel certain that you are not automatically registered as a “member” of Students First or Stand for Children without your knowledge. |
During these stressful times, teachers sometimes think they are alone in their struggle to maintain the dignity of their profession. They may get the impression by listening to politicians and the media that no one cares about them or about public education. This is wrong. The American public does not want to turn its schools over to inept amateurs or Wall Street financiers. And the overwhelming majority remembers its teachers warmly and respects their work.
I recently wrote a blog about the Chicago Teachers Union’s overwhelming decision to authorize a strike. This decision received the affirmative vote of 90% of the members (actually it was 98%, because non-votes were counted as negative). Less than 2% opposed the strike resolution. This is quite a stunning rebuke to the bully tactics of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. And it is a stunning rebuke as well to Jonah Edelman, the civil-rights-activist turned corporate-reformer, who predicted (and boasted) that the teachers would never get 75% of its members to agree to strike and spent millions of dollars lobbying to change the law to make sure that CTU had to meet what he thought was an impossible threshold. Edelman, head of Stand for Children, went to the Aspen Ideas Festival to advise the nation’s elites how to cripple their teachers’ unions by adopting his hardball tactics.
In response to my blog, I received the following comment from a parent. I post it here to let teachers know that they are not alone. Count on your parents. Enlist them as allies. I would go even farther and say appeal to your local business and civic leaders. They are not pawns of the financial elites. They are your potential allies. They do not want to see your community torn apart. They will stand with you as you fight to defend your students, your school, your profession, and your community.
This is what the parent wrote:
I’m not a teacher. Neither is anyone in my family. The way in which you beat bullies and well-funded propaganda campaigns is to ENLIST THE PARENTS. Get us on your side. It’s not an “easy” thing to do. But it’s not nearly as difficult as it might first appear.
For every irate, blustering, nasty parent you’ve encountered, I guarantee you there are 2 or 3 or even 9 who feel differently. And a lot of them will have your back, stand with you, speak out for you, support you fully: but you have to approach them, one on one. You have to make the first move, reach out, and ASK their help.
Most parents know it’s all about a partnership with your child’s teacher and school. We WANT to work with you. Please don’t be afraid to, quite literally, ring our doorbell and initiate the conversation.
Stand strong, teachers. And don’t let a handful of elitists—whose own children are always in fancy private schools—intimidate you and destroy our American system of free public education for all.
Diane
Stand for Children has moved its campaign for privatization and against experienced teachers to Massachusetts. Stand’s politically savvy, well-connected, and well-funded leader Jonah Edelman threatened an anti-teacher ballot initiative unless the unions negotiated away their seniority and tenure.
Governor Deval Patrick agreed with Stand for Children that teacher evaluation (based to some extent on standardized test scores of students, which is a wholly unproven measure of teacher quality) will outweigh experience.
Stand for Children believes that experience is unnecessary in teaching. Like Michelle Rhee’s Students First, Stand for Children holds that inexperienced teachers are just as good if not better than experienced teachers. Stand threatened a ballot initiative, backed by millions of dollars in spending, to destroy teachers’ seniority and tenure. The Massachusetts Teachers Association could not match the spending of the hedge fund managers who want to destroy teacher unionism and it capitulated.
Let’s be clear: Stand for Children and its kind want to put an end not only to teachers’ unions but to the teaching profession. They want teachers to be evaluated by test scores, despite the overwhelming evidence that doing so will promote teaching to standardized tests and narrowing the curriculum, as well as cheating and gaming the system.
An underfunded group called Citizens for Public Schools tried to rally support for teachers and opposition to Edelman’s scheme. Former members of Stand for Children signed a petition against its campaign.
Since Massachusetts leads the nation on the no-stakes federal tests called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, it seems difficult to understand how Stand for Children was able to mount a campaign against the state’s teachers. But the national atmosphere is so poisonous towards teachers, that Stand must have latched onto the sentiment generated by the odious movie “Waiting for ‘Superman'” and the public relations machine of those out to belittle teachers while pretending to care about teacher quality.
This Massachusetts teacher blogger will give you some idea of what teachers think about Stand’s campaign.
At some point in the hopefully not distant future, the “reformers” who are working so hard to remove all job protections from teachers will be held accountable for their actions. When that day arrives, they will be ashamed of what they have done to rob our children and our schools of the experienced teachers they need.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 