Thoughts on the Washington State PTA Convention
I had watched the charter resolution develop over the last several months from the time that the original plank was developed by Chad Mangendanz and Alison Meryweather through until the convention when Chad got up and talked about his visit to KIPP in San Diego as a school board member and how wonderful the school was and how there was a graduation rate of 95% and on and on.
Chad called charter schools another “tool in the tool kit” during his impassioned plea for the vote on the resolution. The tool reference has become a worn out phrase used by the corporate privatizers when describing everything from TFA, Inc. to merit pay and now charter schools. But from my vantage point, I believe that the WSPTA was used as a tool by corporate reformers and it was an effective tool indeed.
All it took were a few people with an agenda to turn the voting process in their direction. Kelly Munn with the League of Education Voters, Chad Magendanz, and Alison Meryweather hail from the well to do suburbs of the Issaquah/Bellevue region, Region 2, the area with the greatest number of memberships and involvement. That region had the largest presence at the convention also. Whether the membership was there before and was
Chad called charter schools another “tool in the tool kit” during his impassioned plea for the vote on the resolution. The tool reference has become a worn out phrase used by the corporate privatizers when describing everything from TFA, Inc. to merit pay and now charter schools. But from my vantage point, I believe that the WSPTA was used as a tool by corporate reformers and it was an effective tool indeed.
All it took were a few people with an agenda to turn the voting process in their direction. Kelly Munn with the League of Education Voters, Chad Magendanz, and Alison Meryweather hail from the well to do suburbs of the Issaquah/Bellevue region, Region 2, the area with the greatest number of memberships and involvement. That region had the largest presence at the convention also. Whether the membership was there before and was