John Thompson: Coming to Your Neighborhood Soon: Privatization
John Thompson is a historian and teacher in Oklahoma.
He writes:
“Something’s happening here; What it is ain’t exactly clear …”
But, what is it?
A secret plan was presented to the Oklahoma City Public School Board of Education to turn neighborhood schools in the gentrifying areas around the downtown into charters. Given the prominent role of two presenters, principals of “No Excuses” charters, it seems likely that their pedagogy would be mandated for many of the poorest children of color who remain in the upscaling area. Word of the plan leaked out and, as the Daily Oklahoman reported, “tempers flared … and a standing room-only crowd cheered and jeered.”
Singing from the standard corporate reform hymnal, several charter advocates challenged the integrity of the plan’s opponents and the teachers union. The most poignant testimony, however, came from an African-American elementary student, dressed in a smart suit and tie, who personalized the pain felt by kids in the neighborhood school which is apparently targeted for a charter co-location. Even the young child knew what the “No Excuses” structure would do to his classmates who, he says, don’t always do everything right the first time they are told, as mandated by “No Excuses.”
But, what is it?
A secret plan was presented to the Oklahoma City Public School Board of Education to turn neighborhood schools in the gentrifying areas around the downtown into charters. Given the prominent role of two presenters, principals of “No Excuses” charters, it seems likely that their pedagogy would be mandated for many of the poorest children of color who remain in the upscaling area. Word of the plan leaked out and, as the Daily Oklahoman reported, “tempers flared … and a standing room-only crowd cheered and jeered.”
Singing from the standard corporate reform hymnal, several charter advocates challenged the integrity of the plan’s opponents and the teachers union. The most poignant testimony, however, came from an African-American elementary student, dressed in a smart suit and tie, who personalized the pain felt by kids in the neighborhood school which is apparently targeted for a charter co-location. Even the young child knew what the “No Excuses” structure would do to his classmates who, he says, don’t always do everything right the first time they are told, as mandated by “No Excuses.”
It is no secret why an Oklahoma City elementary student would reveal the same feelings that my students have long expressed to me. The anguish expressed by inner city Oklahoma City students prompted by the “rigor” known as “No Excuses” echoes the cries of humiliated children across the nation. This raises two questions: what is happening here when teachers are commonly taught to speak in a robotic voice, to not say “please” to students, and to demand total compliance in folding their hands properly and tracking the speaker? Second, what is happening here when the nation’s most famous “No Excuses” charter chain, Success Academy, strikes out with such venom after it is caught maintaining a secret “Got to Go” list of students to be pushed out, and this brutal video is released?
Before school systems – from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles – even entertain the mass charterization plans choreographed in the “Billionaires Boys Club’s” public relations departments, they need to “Stop!” and “Look what’s going down.” All stakeholders should discuss the video, as well as the counterattack, led by the academy’s founder, Eva Moskowitz, against the New York Times. The Times reports that the 1st grader in the video “said she did not complain to her mother,because ‘I was scared of Ms. Dial’ (the charter teacher),” and that “asking Ms. Dial to explain something a second time would lead to a punishment. She said Ms. Dial had on other occasions ripped up children’s papers when she thought they were copying others’ work.” The child says, “She used to tell me: ‘I’m never going to get it. I just don’t know. I’m not as smart as the other kids.’”
Before school systems – from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles – even entertain the mass charterization plans choreographed in the “Billionaires Boys Club’s” public relations departments, they need to “Stop!” and “Look what’s going down.” All stakeholders should discuss the video, as well as the counterattack, led by the academy’s founder, Eva Moskowitz, against the New York Times. The Times reports that the 1st grader in the video “said she did not complain to her mother,because ‘I was scared of Ms. Dial’ (the charter teacher),” and that “asking Ms. Dial to explain something a second time would lead to a punishment. She said Ms. Dial had on other occasions ripped up children’s papers when she thought they were copying others’ work.” The child says, “She used to tell me: ‘I’m never going to get it. I just don’t know. I’m not as smart as the other kids.’”
That leads to the question of what is happening there in New York City when the student’s mother reports that “a public relations specialist for Success drafted an email for her, asking The Times not to publish the video.” According to the mom, “What most distressed her … was that the network and even many of the parents united behind Ms. Dial and did not seem to care about how her behavior affected children.”
The Times reports:
“The teacher had never apologized to her daughter. She said that a public relations specialist for Success drafted an email for her, asking The Times not to publish the video, and that at a meeting Ms. Moskowitz held at the school on Jan. 20, Ms. Moskowitz asked the parents to John Thompson: Coming to Your Neighborhood Soon: Privatization | Diane Ravitch's blog: