Los Angeles: Astroturf “Parent” Group Pressures Beutner to Rate Schools by Their Test Scores
With so much billionaire cash sloshing around California to promote charter schools and to disparage public schools, it can be difficult to know which groups are real and which are Memorex.
Here is one that definitely is not a real parents’ group. It is called Speak Up and it is populated with people who are embedded in the charter sector. It recently chastised L.A. Superintendent Austin Beutner for not moving swiftly enough to clamp ratings on every school, the better to close them with and set them up for privatization. How will parents know how to choose a school if the district doesn’t give it a grade or a rating? They say he is in danger of “breaking a promise” to the parents of Los Angeles, who are longing to have their schools rated.
Schools should be evaluated based on such issues as their class size; the experience of their teachers; the resources invested by the district, such as: does the school have a library with a librarian? Does it have a school nurse? Does it have classes in the arts for all students?
But Speak Up seems to be interested mostly in test scores. Are they going up or down? Most people these days recognize that test scores measure the CONTINUE READING: Los Angeles: Astroturf “Parent” Group Pressures Beutner to Rate Schools by Their Test Scores | Diane Ravitch's blog
