NYC Educator: Charter Supporters Protest Us in Pittsburgh

NYC Educator: Charter Supporters Protest Us in Pittsburgh

Charter Supporters Protest Us in Pittsburgh

I'm at the Westin, in Pittsburgh. To the left you can see a huge sinkhole that's right in front of the hotel. Up close, it looks as though the Avengers were here battling some comic-book monster set on ravaging the city. That's a pretty apt image for what's happening here. I just walked out in the rain and saw them, in a circle, chanting about choice.

Before I even mention why we're the Avengers and they're the monster, let's reflect back on years of pro-charter propaganda. Do you remember, on Oprah's show, when people like Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, and every reformy star they could pluck from the universe appeared to hype the big-budget anti-public-school stinker Waiting for Superman, who the pro-public-school reps were? Me neither, because there weren't any.

Do you remember when candidate Cory Booker, also appearing on Oprah, with Chris Christie and Mark Zuckerberg, took 100 million dollars, ostensibly to fix the public schools he called "repugnant," gave equal time to public school supporters? Me neither. Do you remember Campbell Brown giving time to public school supporters when she did her presidential thing in 2016? Me neither. Did the reformies portray public school supporters fairly in Son of Waiting for Superman, or Won't Back Down (my sincere apologies to Tom Petty), or whatever they called Hollywood stinker number two? Of course not.

MSNBC is hosting our forum and livestreaming it. I vividly recall when they were behind something called Education Nation, a bonanza of publicity for reforminess that barely paid lip service to public education. I would not be remotely surprised if they turned around and did something similar this year to placate the protestors this year, surely a goal of theirs.

Bill Gates and DFER have big pockets, and big-pocketed friends. Let's take a look at charter schools. How many of them scream about the 100% of their grads go on to four-year colleges? Then you read Diane Ravitch, Carol Burris, or Gary Rubinstein, or any number of analysts point out that they've shed 60-80% of their students before arriving at that 100% figure. Oddly, schools like mine who take everyone and keep everyone who wants to stay do far better than that. Go figure. And it's us who take on the students who charters have let down, tossed out or given up on.

Then you look at charters right here in Pennsylvania that suck public school districts dry, leaving them to wither and die for all they care. And for what? For money, of course, Though politicians shed crocodile tears over "for profit" charters, in most of the country "for profit" charters are illegal. That doesn't stop parasites like Eva Moskowitz from pulling in almost a million bucks a year in New York City as she moves on like a cancer degrading and upending public schools. Then they have million dollar fund raisers attended by CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Charter Supporters Protest Us in Pittsburgh