This reader responds to the findings
of the PDK/Gallup poll, which showed a shift in public
opinion against testing, against using test scores to evaluate
teachers, and against public release of teacher personnel files and
ratings. “We said last year that we had a lot of hard work to do,
to inform and educate the parents we work with, to organize
communities and form effective coalitions of resistance…We said
it was going to be a herculean task. For the past year we each have
been busy doing just that. (I held a series of advocatcy workshps
for parents at my school, with my principal’s blessing) We have
been relentless promoting our cause in the media and on the
internet…constant unrelenting communicating and informing, always
learning. Knowledge is power. “Now we discover that since last
year, the percentages have shifted in favor of teachers, teacher
concerns and Public Education. I ask you, “Who said American public
educators are not effective teachers?” Just look at what we have
accomplished in a year! “We are AMAZING educators and incredible
motivators…Congratulations everyone (((cheers)))
(((applause)))… “Now we need to keep at it until every classroom
in our great nation is FREE of the corporate influence. Keep active
educating other teachers and supporting parents and encouraging
students to organize…the battle is shifting in our favor and it
is a battle, but the war is far from over. We can do
this!”
This petition was written by supporters of public education in New York State called the Coalition for Justice in Education.
They object to King’s insistence on high-stakes standardized testing, especially the Common Core testing that recently led to a collapse of student scores across the state.
They seek a commissioner who cares about public education, cares about the quality of education–not just test scores, and cares about children.
I agree, which is why I wrote a post calling on John King to resign.
He may have the confidence of the Board of Regents, but he has lost the confidence of the parents and educators of New York State.
If you agree with their petition, sign it.
The public schools of Philadelphia are being slowly, surely strangled by Governor Tom Corbett and the Legislature of Pennsylvania.
Or, maybe, not so slowly.
The state has a constitutional responsibility to maintain a public school system in every district but the state leaders don’t believe in what the state constitution says.
Let it not be forgotten that the state has been in charge of the public schools of Philadelphia since 2001. Along the way, Paul Vallas was superintendent and tried the nation’s most sweeping privatization plan; it failed.
And now the governor has decided to let the district die.
Aaron Kase, writing in Salon, asks:
Want to see a public school system in its death throes? Look no further than Philadelphia. There, the school district is facing end times, with teachers, parents and students staring into the abyss created by a state intent on destroying public education.
On Thursday the city of Philadelphia announced that it would be borrowing $50 million to give the district, just so it can open schools as planned on Sept. 9, after Superintendent William Hite threatened to keep the doors closed without a cash infusion. The schools may open without counselors, administrative staff, noon aids, nurses, librarians or even pens and paper, but hey, kids will have a place to go and sit.
The $50 million fix is just the latest band-aid for a district that is beginning to resemble a rotting bike tube, covered in old patches applied to keep it functioning just a little while longer. At some point, the entire system fails.
Things have gotten so bad that at least one school has asked parents to chip in $613 per student just so they can open with adequate services, which, if it becomes the norm, effectively defeats the purpose of equitable public education, and is entirely unreasonable to expect from the city’s poorer neighborhoods.
The needs of children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it.
To be clear, the schools are in crisis because the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania refuses to fund them adequately. The state Constitution mandates that the Legislature “provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education,” but that language appears to be considered some kind of sick joke at the state capital in Harrisburg.
What is happening is outrageous.
Where is President Obama? Why hasn’t he spoken out?
Where is Secretary Arne Duncan?
Why is the federal government standing by in silence as the children of one of the nation’s premier cities are deprived of the education they need?
Oh, wait, they will get the Common Core!
Amy Prime teaches second grade in Iowa. She has some excellent ideas for billionaires, millionaires, heads of corporations, and politicians who want to reform schools.
If you really want to help, listen to Amy
This is an event you should try to attend if you are in the DC area on September 23.
It is the Bammy awards, and it celebrates the contributions of educators, not corporate reformers.
Last year, Linda Darling-Hammond, John Merrow, and I received Bammies for “lifetime achievement.”
None of us is finished. We continue to fight for better days in American education.
Congratulations to Errol St. Clair Smith for initiating and hosting the Bammies.
Contact him for more information about them and about how to attend.
Errol St. Clair Smith, 818-539-5971
Here, Arthur Goldstein explains why Matt is a hero of public education, and why those who send their kids to tony elite schools while they close public schools are not.
The corporate reform PR machine has trained its big guns on him because he put his kids in a private school. First, they wreck public schools by turning them into testing factories, then they ridicule those who don’t like what they have done to the public schools. They say, yah, yah, yah, you have no credibility to support public schools. They send their own kids to private schools, but they say he should not because he supports public schools.
They are wrong, because everyone should support public schools, even if they send their children to private schools and EVEN IF THEY HAVE NO CHILDREN AT ALL. Public schools are a public responsibility, like public parks, public roads, public libraries, fire protection, and police protection. Even if you never call the police, you pay for them. Even if you never go to a public library, you should pay to support it. It is a community asset. Even if you never have a fire in your own house, you pay to provide fire protection for the community. Even if you don’t send your children to public schools, you should support them because they are a necessary institution in a democratic society.
Matt Damon is a true American hero because he supports the commonweal.
When he spoke to the SOS rally in 2011, Matt was harassed by a TV crew who insisted that he only works because he gets bonuses. He told them off, and this video went viral.
And for that reason, and because he is willing to stand up for all of those who are voiceless, I am adding him to the honor roll. He is not only a hero on the big screen, he is a hero to millions of parents and teachers who need him.
A comment from a reader in Arizona:
“I live in Arizona, am freshly retired from the US military, and have no children. Even from this vantage point, it doesn’t take much effort to see that Arizona’s under paid, hard working (at multiple jobs), parents are too busy trying to survive to notice that their legislators are feeding their tax dollars to private school corporations, by the buckets! We can write-off on our state taxes more than twice the level of donations to privates chools than public schools. We have until tax day the next year to do it for private schools, and only until Dec 31st of the tax year for public schools. And, we can only designate “extra curricular” activities for public schools, but can give it to the O&M, general educational fund for private schools. This state needs a giant court audit to declare its whole education funding system unconstitutional!”
In this post that appeared on Valerie Strauss’ “Answer Sheet” at the Washington Post, David Lee Finkle takes on what passes for education “reform” these days.
Finkle is a cartoonist and middle school teacher in Florida.
Finkle takes on the myth that American schools are failing and points out that they are far more rigorous than ever.
The federal government’s obsession with test scores is not improving education. To the contrary, it is ruining real education and demoralizing teachers.
He concludes:
“We have a choice in this country. Keep listening to the story told by the “reformers” and end up with test-score mills even worse than the ones we have now, or listen to teachers who want a public education system that isn’t an industrial factory spitting out test takers but that offers schools that are places for deep thinking, learning, creativity, play, wonder, engagement, hard work, and intense fun.”
Which will it be?
You decide.
In this essay, Peter Dreier contrasts the films of the corporate reformers with a new film that shows the struggles, challenges, and successes of an American public school.
Dreier usefully follows the money behind the corporate-funded films “Waiting for Superman” and “Won’t Back Down.” The common link between them is Walden Media, owned by arch-reactionary Philip Anschutz.
Dreier writes:
“It is no accident that both films promote similar themes. Both were produced by Walden Media, which is owned by Phil Anschutz, a right-wing businessman who owns two of the nation’s premier conservative publications (the Weekly Standard and the Washington Examiner) and whose foundation has donated $210,000 to the antiunion National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund. Anschutz is also a backer of Americans for Prosperity, the political war chest founded by the right-wing Koch brothers and has donated to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has made dismantling labor unions a key part of his policy agenda. Anschutz also spent $10,000 in 1992 to promote Colorado’s Proposition 2, which let private property owners discriminate against gays and lesbians, $150,000 to the Mission America Foundation, which condemns homosexuality as “deviance,” and $70,000 to the Discovery Institute, which attacks the idea of evolution and proclaims that “Darwinism is false.”
Bill Gates was featured in the “Superman” film, donated at least $2 million to promote it.
But now comes a response to these efforts to destroy a basic democratic institution. As Dreier writes:
“Go Public: A Day in the Life of an American School District, by veteran documentary filmmakers Jim and Dawn O’Keeffe, is a welcome antidote to the bleak and misleading message of Waiting for Superman and Won’t Back Down. Go Public celebrates public schools without ignoring their troubles. It follows 50 people in 28 schools – teachers, students, parents, a school board member, principals, a baseball coach, librarians, a school psychologist, volunteers, and the district superintendent – during one day (May 8, 2012), from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed.”
And more:
“The result of the O’Keeffes’ effort is a remarkable 90-minute film that examines the daily realities of an urban public school system – the Pasadena (California) Unified School District (PUSD), where two-thirds of the 18,000 students come from low-income families, where many parents are jobless, where many students live in homes where Spanish is the first (and in some cases only) language, and in a state where per-student funding ranks 47th in the country.
“Go Public celebrates the small and large miracles that happen in PUSD classrooms every day. We see overcrowded classrooms, but we also see an elementary teacher who greets each student with a special word of support as he or she arrives in her classroom.
“The film shows us students participating in a pioneering middle-school robotics program. An elementary school teacher gets students excited about science by explaining how blood flows through arteries that keep their hearts beating. A music teacher instructs a jazz band at a high school where parents have to hold fund-raisers to pay for instruments. An elementary school teacher instructs students to play part of the Brandenburg concerto on their violins.
“We see a teacher patiently, persistently and lovingly instruct students with autism and Down’s syndrome. Special needs students, who require smaller classrooms and specially-trained teachers, but whose cost is not fully reimbursed by the state government, comprise a significant portion of PUSD’s student body.”
“Go Public” will be screened on Friday July 26 at All Saint’s Church in Pasadena.
Wouldn’t it be a miracle if Bill Gates put $2 million into promoting this film?
The counter-revolution has begun. Truth will defeat lies and propaganda, even billionaires.
Diane Ravitch's blog 