Rhode Island Senate Democrats Pass Three-Year Moratorium on New Charters | Diane Ravitch's blog

Rhode Island Senate Democrats Pass Three-Year Moratorium on New Charters | Diane Ravitch's blog

Rhode Island Senate Democrats Pass Three-Year Moratorium on New Charters

The Rhode Island State Senate overwhelmingly passed a three-year moratorium on the opening of new charter schools. The vote was 30-6, with only one Democrat in opposition. Under the leadership of Governor Gina Raimondo, who is about to become President Biden’s Commerce Secretary, the state has welcomed charter operators (Raimondo was a hedge fund executive before she became Governor).

This delay offers state officials time to stabilize public schools in Providence and elsewhere, where charters have flocked and removed students and funding.

Linda Borg of the Providence Journal reports:

Sen. Ryan Pearson has seen Cumberland, one of his districts, lose a significant number of traditional public school students to charter schools. 

He argued that the latest charter expansion would have a CONTINUE READING: Rhode Island Senate Democrats Pass Three-Year Moratorium on New Charters | Diane Ravitch's blog

Republicans look to "Q" UP Democrats on school reopenings | TheHill

Republicans look to pummel Democrats on school reopenings | TheHill

Republicans look to pummel Democrats on school reopenings

Republicans are pummeling Democrats on school reopenings, believing it will be a potent wedge issue in the midterm elections and offer the GOP a path back to winning suburban voters.

Explosive battles are playing out in Democratic-led cities and states over how quickly public schools should reopen and Republicans are picking at divisions between elected officials and teachers unions.

The GOP’s House and Senate campaign arms are tracking union donations to Democratic members and accusing them of putting special interests ahead of student education.

In a floor speech this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) railed against what he described as Democratic “goalpoast-moving,” pointing to districts that refuse to return to in-person learning until all teachers have been vaccinated. 

GOP members of the House and Senate have introduced resolutions to restrict government funds for public schools that have not reopened.

“There could not be a more potent issue out there right now and it fits a perfect need for the Republican Party,” said a GOP Senate aide. “A lot of CONTINUE READING: Republicans look to pummel Democrats on school reopenings | TheHill

Montana’s Senator Jon Tester Says Democrats Can Win in Red States By Prioritizing Public Education | janresseger

Montana’s Senator Jon Tester Says Democrats Can Win in Red States By Prioritizing Public Education | janresseger

Montana’s Senator Jon Tester Says Democrats Can Win in Red States By Prioritizing Public Education

In mid-December, the NY Times‘ Jonathan Martin interviewed Montana Senator Jon Tester about his new book, Grounded: A Senator’s Lessons on Winning Back Rural America. Tester, a Democrat and U.S. Senator in his third term, represents a deep red state.

Tester tells Martin: “Democrats can really do some positive things in rural America just by talking about infrastructure and what they’re doing for infrastructure, particularly in the area of broadband. And then I would say one other policy issue is how some Republicans want to basically privatize public education. That is very dangerous, and I think it’s a point that people don’t want to see their public schools close down in Montana.”

Although I now live in an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, I grew up in in Havre, Montana, 35 miles up the road from Tester’s farm just outside of Big Sandy.  As I read that NY Times interview, I was particularly interested in Tester’s statement about the threat school privatization poses in rural communities, which is why I was surprised and delighted to find a copy of Tester’s book wrapped up for me under the Christmas tree.

Many hope President Joe Biden’s administration will significantly reshape federal education policy. During last year’s campaign for President, Biden, the candidate, declared a public education agenda that contrasts sharply with what happened to federal policy in public education beginning in the 1990s and culminating in the 2002 No Child Left Behind and later in 2009 in Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top.  Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire describe the past couple of decades: “Together, led by federal policy elites, Republicans and Democrats espoused the logic of markets in the public sphere, expanding school choice through publicly CONTINUE READING: Montana’s Senator Jon Tester Says Democrats Can Win in Red States By Prioritizing Public Education | janresseger

CURMUDGUCATION: Democrats Need A New Theory Of Action

CURMUDGUCATION: Democrats Need A New Theory Of Action

Democrats Need A New Theory Of Action

For four years, Democrats have had a fairly simple theory of action when it came to education. Something along the lines of "Good lord, a crazy lady just came into our china shop riding a bull, waving around a flamethrower, and dragging a shark with a head-mounted laser beam; we have to stop her from destroying the place (while pretending that we have a bull and a shark in the back just like hers)." 

Now, of course, that will, thank heavens, no longer fit the circumstances. The Democrats will need a new plan.

Trouble is, the old plan, the one spanning both the Clinton and Obama years, is not a winner. It went, roughly, like this:

The way to fix poverty, racism, injustice, inequity and economic strife is to get a bunch of children to make higher scores on a single narrow standardized test; the best shot at getting this done is to give education amateurs the opportunity to make money doing it.

This was never, ever a good plan. Ever. Let me count the ways.

For one thing, education's ability to fix social injustice is limited. Having a better education will not raise the minimum wage. It will not eradicate poverty. And as we've just spent four years having hammered into us, it will not even be sure to make people better thinkers or cleanse them of racism. It will help some people escape the tar pit, but it will not cleanse the pit itself.

And that, of course, is simply talking about education, and that's not what the Dems theory was about anyway--it was about a mediocre computer-scorable once-a-year test of math and reading. And that was never going to fix a thing. Nobody was going to get a better job because she got a high score on the PARCC. Nobody was ever going to achieve a happier, healthier life just because they'd raised their Big Standardized Test scores by CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Democrats Need A New Theory Of Action