Well-financed charter schools plan lobbying blitz–where are public schools’ champions?
Two of the largest national charter school chains–KIPP and Uncommon Schools–will be using their students and their students’ parents Monday in a massive lobbying effort aimed at ensuring the expansion of their businesses in Newark. The drive comes just as resistance to school privatization in the state’s largest school district has collapsed because of a deal between Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Republican Gov.–and presidential hopeful–Chris Christie.
The lobbying effort–dubbed “Hands Off Our Future–Parent Lobby Day”–is not aimed at any effort to reduce the number of charter schools in Newark and other New Jersey cities, but rather to block a legislative effort to create a moratorium on new charter schools to study their impact on traditional public schools.
In other words, KIPP and Uncommon Schools, both chains run by boards with close ties to the financial industry, are exploiting parents and students to help grow their businesses–not to protect the education current students are receiving.
They are being used to advance the financial interests of charter chains, which want to expand.
Diane Ravitch, the former federal education official and now a nationally known critic of the corporatization of American pubic schools, pointed out the cynicism inherent in such efforts:
“Your taxpayer dollars have been used to open schools that drain resources from your public schools while selecting the students they want. If your state has charters, you can expect that they will lobby the legislature for more charters. They will close their schools, hire buses, and send students, teachers, and parents to the State Capitol, all dressed in matching T-shirts, to demand more charters.
“Since the children are already enrolled in a charter and can’t attend more than one, they are being used to advance the financial interests of charter chains, which want to expand.”
That’s worth repeating: These children and their parents are not fighting to keep their own schools open, but they are conscripts in a war waged by corporate interests against traditional public schools–a war in which the prize is the $700 billion a year spent annually on public education, a war that can be only be won by the privatizers by expanding their chains and driving out public schools.
What makes the actions of the charter school operators even more cynical is that the moratorium bill is going nowhere–they are using the dead-in-the-water Well-financed charter schools plan lobbying blitz–where are public schools’ champions? | Bob Braun's Ledger: