Seattle Schools Community Forum: On Privitization of Public Schools

Seattle Schools Community Forum: On Privitization of Public Schools:

On Privitization of Public Schools

The Network for Public Education, started by the great Diane Ravitch and now lead by Carol Burris, also a noted public education advocate, have put together a great Toolkit on school privatization all over the U.S.  This work was generated by the push by new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

Unfortunately the general public is often confused by the misleading terms that privatizers use to mask their agenda. Terms like "choice", "portability" and Empowerment Scholarship Accounts are an attempt to make religious school vouchers and other unpopular policies acceptable. 


In response, The Network for Public Education has prepared a toolkit called School Privatization Explained. Each one page fact sheet is designed to correct  the misinformation that De Vos and others have used to push school privatization. From charter myths to ESAs, we pull off the masks.


You will find our 13 facts sheets here and an interactive map here that will let you see where your state lies on the road to school privatization.

The thirteen fact sheets cover the two main issues to privatization -  charter schools and vouchers.

There's also a "report card" for each state via an interactive map. Washington State received a "C".

Here's a great article from The Conversation blog about vouchers (and "neo-vouchers").

Let your state legislators know about this useful information.Seattle Schools Community Forum: On Privitization of Public Schools:

 

Mike Antonucci, Peter Cunningham and the petty attacks on the Mass Teachers union following MTA’s win at the polls. | Fred Klonsky

Mike Antonucci, Peter Cunningham and the petty attacks on the Mass Teachers union following MTA’s win at the polls. | Fred Klonsky:

Mike Antonucci, Peter Cunningham and the petty attacks on the Mass Teachers union following MTA’s win at the polls.

Last November’s election had few wins for progressives.

But in Massachusetts, against all odds, the grassroots organizing of the rank and file members of the state teachers union, led by a reform union leadership, did get a win.

They beat back a corporate reform ballot issue that would have lifted the cap on charter schools.

The pro-charter folks spent $24 million, including $2 million from the Walton family, $500,000 from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and $15 million from the pro-charter group Families for Excellent Schools.

Massachusetts banks and other corporations donated $500,000 for the cause.

A few hedge fund managers and corporation CEOs wrote checks for a $1 million.

The NEA, the AFT and the MTA spent about $15 million, making it the most expensive Massachusetts ballot measure ever.

So, count on the union-haters like Mike Antonucci and the charter-lovers like Peter Cunningham to hold a grudge.

They are still licking their wounds.

When a Boston charter school teacher was chosen the National Teacher of the Year, some rank and file members of the MTA were suspicious of the motives behind a New Business Item congratulating her. The NBI was defeated and within 24 hours the news Mike Antonucci, Peter Cunningham and the petty attacks on the Mass Teachers union following MTA’s win at the polls. | Fred Klonsky:

This is what Betsy DeVos thinks about people who oppose her school-choice vision - The Washington Post

This is what Betsy DeVos thinks about people who oppose her school-choice vision - The Washington Post:

This is what Betsy DeVos thinks about people who oppose her school-choice vision

During the Obama administration, Education Secretary Arne Duncan got pretty steamed at people who opposed his school reform efforts, especially his support for the Common Core State Standards. In 2013, for example, he went after Core critics, telling a group of state schools superintendents:

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary.”

That same year, he said the Core “has become a rallying cry for fringe groups” — without noting that critics had come from all across the political spectrum. He frequently denounced the “status quo” as indefensible and criticized opponents as wanting to maintain that status quo.

Now we have a new education secretary, Republican Betsy DeVos, and she is taking attacks on people who disagree with her to a whole new level. She, too, has denounced the status quo as unacceptable and has suggested that those who oppose her want to maintain it. Shesaid at the Brookings Institution in March:

The reflexive question asked, often politely, by critics of choice is why should we not simply fix the broken schools first? If only schools received more funding, they say, the schools could provide a better learning environment for those being left behind.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we should not pretend that the status quo is acceptable.

[Five startling things Betsy DeVos just told Congress]

Actually, most critics of school choice don’t say that more money is the sole answer to improving troubled public schools. They are certainly concerned that many districts are actually starved for funds — just look at Oklahoma, where some schools are operating only four days a week because of financial woes — but they have long said that the standardized This is what Betsy DeVos thinks about people who oppose her school-choice vision - The Washington Post:

May Grassroots Education Network Reports - Network For Public Education

May Grassroots Education Network Reports - Network For Public Education:

May Grassroots Education Network Reports



read this month's reports from Texas, Florida, and from our national partner, The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

The Parent Toolkit for Student Privacy

The Parent Toolkit for Student Privacy: A Guide to Protecting Your Child’s Sensitive School Data from Snoops, Hackers, and Marketers is a vital resource.

Florida Legislature’s miserly K-12 budget & corporate Charter welfare bill spark veto battle

At the close of the 2017 session this May, Florida legislators passed the worst package of public education policy in Florida history by a single vote.

Texas House repudiates vouchers, Senate kills school funding bill

It is crystal clear to us that Texans love their public schools and do not wish to see them privatized through vouchers.

May Grassroots Education Network Reports - Network For Public Education:

Marie Corfield: The Star Ledger's #FakeNews On NJ Charters

Marie Corfield: The Star Ledger's #FakeNews On NJ Charters:

The Star Ledger's #FakeNews On NJ Charters

I swore I wasn't going to do this anymore. I wasn't going to respond to irresponsible editorial boards that make grossly inaccurate claims about public and charter schools because they will never change their minds anyway. But then, this little tidbit dropped front and center on the Star Ledger's Sunday editorial page yesterday, and...




So, let's give this a go...

First, if you want the real facts and figures, read Jersey Jazzman's piece that blows the roof off every single cockamamie claim made by the Ledger by presenting facts and figures:

• Students in Newark and Camden charter schools are less expensive to educate because they haveMarie Corfield: The Star Ledger's #FakeNews On NJ Charters:

 

Want To See How School Choice Leads To Segregation? Visit Betsy DeVos’ Hometown | PopularResistance.Org

Want To See How School Choice Leads To Segregation? Visit Betsy DeVos’ Hometown | PopularResistance.Org:

Want To See How School Choice Leads To Segregation? Visit Betsy DeVos’ Hometown

Don’t believe me? Take a look.

To see for yourself how school choice leads to segregation, I recommend a visit to Betsy DeVos’ hometown of Holland, Michigan.

Here, two decades of the policies that the Trump/DeVos education budget now wants to take national, have resulted in white flight and school closures, leaving Holland’s poor and minority students segregated in the few schools that remain open. I traveled to Holland last week for the annual Tulip Time festival, a celebration of the city’s Dutch heritage. But along with Dutch shoes and swagger, the legacy of Michigan’s now two-decade experiment with school choice was on vivid display as well, and it wasn’t pretty.

First, some background. During the endless runup to DeVos’ confirmation hearing last year, it was the Wild West-style school choice she’d pushed in Detroit that garnered most of the attention. But DeVos was also behind Michigan’s inter-district choice policies that, starting in 2000, disrupted neighborhood attendance zones, just as the Trump administration’s proposed budget seeks to do. In Michigan, school choice has become the new white flight as white families have fled their resident districts for schools that are less diverse. The most dramatic example of this may be in DeVos’ own hometown of Holland.

The choice to segregate

Since Michigan adopted the school choice policies DeVos is now pushing across the country, Holland’s white enrollment has dropped by more than 60%, as students decamped for public schools or charters in whiter communities nearby. The students who remain in the Holland Public Schools are now majority Hispanic and overwhelmingly poor—twice the schools’ poverty rate when Michigan’s school choice experiment began. Many of these Want To See How School Choice Leads To Segregation? Visit Betsy DeVos’ Hometown | PopularResistance.Org:

JFK: Take a look at a surprising report card and his application to Harvard - The Washington Post

JFK: Take a look at a surprising report card and his application to Harvard - The Washington Post:

JFK: Take a look at a surprising report card and his application to Harvard

Just as the 50th anniversary in 2013 of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy prompted a wave of coverage about his life, so, too, will the marking on Monday, which is Memorial Day, of what would have been his 100th birthday.

As I published in 2013, here are some interesting documents related to Kennedy’s education that reveal some surprising things about him. They come from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which digitized records relating to his educational experience.

Here’s his Harvard University application — in his own handwriting — as well as his grades from the Choate School and a letter from his father, Joseph Kennedy, to the Harvard admissions dean explaining that JFK was “brilliant” but “careless” and “lacks ambition” for things that didn’t interest him.

JFK went to these schools: through fourth grade, the Edward Devotion School, Noble and Greenough Lower School and the Dexter School in Massachusetts; Riverdale Country Day School in New York from fifth through seventh grades; the Canterbury School in Connecticut for eighth grade; the Choate School in Connecticut for high school. He attended Princeton University for no more than two months in 1935, and later enrolled at and graduated from Harvard.

Take a look at his grades and his university application. You may be surprised.

 See the rest: JFK: Take a look at a surprising report card and his application to Harvard - The Washington Post:

Richard Nixon was not impeached, despite what Hillary Clinton and others say - The Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/29/richard-nixon-was-not-impeached-despite-what-hillary-clinton-and-others-say/?utm_term=.fa1f1a966a6f

Philly Teachers Call Off Work In Bottom-Up Campaign | PopularResistance.Org

Philly Teachers Call Off Work In Bottom-Up Campaign | PopularResistance.Org:

Philly Teachers Call Off Work In Bottom-Up Campaign

Above Photo: Philly teachers organized their co-workers to participate in a mass call-off day this May Day. Photo: Caucus of Working Educators

Teachers and their unions turned out for May Day this year in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Oakland, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Seattle. They held teach-ins at schools and pickets outside, and joined citywide demonstrations in solidarity with immigrant communities.

Philadelphia teachers wanted to show solidarity with the day’s themes—but also make a statement to the city about their own contract struggle. They’ve gone four years without a contract and five years without a raise. They’ve suffered school closings, freezes on steps and lanes in the pay scale, layoffs of school nurses and counselors, and the privatization of substitute teachers. The state-appointed school board even tried to cancel their contract, though it was rebuffed by the courts.

So, to create pressure on the district, a group of teachers organized their own protest. “We are finally taking some action, after five years of not doing much,” said Tom Quinn, a teacher at the city’s largest high school, where more than half of teachers took a “personal day” on May Day.

The 11,000-member Philadelphia Federation of Teachers didn’t authorize the action. Instead it was a rank-and-file group, the three-year-old Caucus of Working Educators, that enlisted 400 teachers from 24 schools to call off from work and join a series of May Day activities. These included a 10 a.m. grade-in and rally at the school headquarters, joining the Day without an Immigrant march, and heading over to the official PFT union action at an elementary school.

The move certainly got the district’s attention. It reported a high alert for absences and had to offer additional bonuses for substitutes on that day.

YOU JUST HAVE TO ASK

How did teachers organize so many of their co-workers to skip work for Philly Teachers Call Off Work In Bottom-Up Campaign | PopularResistance.Org:

BustED Pencils Trending News: DeVos is Keeping the "Last" Last. | BustED Pencils

BustED Pencils Trending News: DeVos is Keeping the "Last" Last. | BustED Pencils:

BustED Pencils Trending News: DeVos is Keeping the “Last” Last.

So Ms. DeVos is a devout Christian who believes that if a parent wants their child to bask in the glory of God then damn it the government should pay for it.  And let’s be honest she is referring to the God of Christians—only!

Ok.  I’ll work with her.  What does Jesus—the son of God— have to say?

1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
2. Blessed are they who mourn,  for they shall be comforted.
3. Blessed are the meek,  for they shall inherit the earth.
4. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,  for they shall be satisfied.
5. Blessed are the merciful,  for they shall obtain mercy.
6. Blessed are the pure of heart,  for they shall see God.
7. Blessed are the peacemakers,  for they shall be called children of God.
8. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,  for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Hum? Let’s see how Betsy puts BustED Pencils Trending News: DeVos is Keeping the "Last" Last. | BustED Pencils:

Memorial Day 2017 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Memorial Day 2017 Diane Ravitch's blog 

A site to discuss better education for all

Edgar A. Guest: How the Race and the Battles Are Won

3by dianeravitch / 1h

Retired teacher Frank Breslin shared with me this poem by Edgar A. Guest. It seems appropriate from this time, when the people at the top seem to be intent on obliterating all progress made in the past 60 years towards a more just 

Oklahoma: Budget Cuts Devastate Schools

3by dianeravitch / 21min

The Republican legislators in Oklahoma have decided that cutting taxes is more important than education. They are sacrificing their children and the future of the state. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/with-state-budget-

A Writer Checks Out Betsy DeVos’ Quack Brain Training Center

3by dianeravitch / 7min

When Betsy DeVos became Secretary, she left the board of Neurocore but did not give up her multimillion dollar financial investment. Ulrich Boseris, a journalist, signed up for Neurocore services in Palm Beach, Florida. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/26/betsy-devos-neurocore/?wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1 He describes what happened to him, then concludes: SO WHAT DOES IT SAY

Americans Pay $38 to Collect $1 of Student Debt

3by dianeravitch / 7min

Bloomberg News reported the astronomical amount spent to collect student debt for higher education. This is nuts. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-19/americans-are-paying-

Nancy E. Bailey: How Florida Developed Its Voucher Plan for Students with Disabilities

3by dianeravitch / 49min

Nancy E. Bailey was there at the beginning, when Florida first embarked on a voucher program for students with disabilities. Now that program is recognized as the Official Camel’s Nose Under the Tent, the entry program that in many other states is followed by vouchers for foster children, vouchers for military children, vouchers for low-income children, then vouchers for everyone. Florida has not

History Lesson: Public Education Was Created by a Unique Collaboration Among Federal, State, and Local Governments

8by dianeravitch / 1h

I earned my Ph.D. in the history of American education from Columbia University in 1975. It is a fascinating field of study, because the early history continues to be relevant to contemporary debates. At present, the nation is led by people who disparage public schools. They know nothing of the struggles to establish public schools that are open to all, supported by taxes, and tuition-free. I was

Bruce Baker: The Charter School Company Store

6by dianeravitch / 2h

Bruce Baker writes here about the ingenious ways that charter schools extract money from their staff. The Gulen schools do it directly; Baker discovered that certain “no excuses” schools do it by requiring their teachers to enroll in the Relay “Graduate School of Education.” https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2016/12/12/the-charter-school-company-store/

YESTERDAY

Poet on “The Stories Data Never Tell”

15by dianeravitch / 21h

Responding to a post of the same name by Larry Lee of Alabama, SomeDam Poet writes: “The stories that data never tell” The stories that data never tell Are known to the teachers very well The pride in art The joy of song A brand new start In something long The growth that’s gauged By smiles and laughs And not encaged By tests and graphs

California: Deal Struck in Legislature to Reform Charters’ Enrollment and Discipline Policies

17by dianeravitch / 22h

Kyle Stokes of public radio station KPCC reports that a deal has been struck between the California Teachers Association and the California Charter Schools Association to allow rights for charter school students. http://www.scpr.org/news/2017/05/25/72181/kicked-out-of-a-charter-school-deal-struck-in-sacr/ “Parents who believe their child is being “counseled out” of a charter school in California

Tom Ultican’s Sharp Critique of What Went Wrong and How to Make Things Right

3by dianeravitch / 23h

Tom Ultican became a teacher of math and physics in San Diego after a career in Silicon Valley. He is retiring. He loves teaching. He describes with precision the people who imposed bad ideas on the schools and messed them up. Maybe they meant well but their lack of knowledge or experience in the classroom led to naive and foolish and failed interventions, like Common Core and “turnaround,” with

How the Richest County in California Got Its New Charter School

39by dianeravitch / 1d

Marin County in California is the wealthiest in the state. The seemingly idyllic Ross Vallley is now torn between two factions of parents: one supporting the traditional public schools (organized as STAND with Ross Valley schools), the other determined to break away and have their own charter school, RVC, or Ross Valley charter school. Bill Raden, writing at Capitol & Main, writes: “California’s

DeVos Hires Top Official at For-Profit University to Help “Right-Size” Department of Education

67by dianeravitch / 1d

Jennifer Berkshire reports that Secretary Betsy DeVos has turned to a top official from the scandal-plagued for-profit higher education industry to “right-size” the Department of Education. As the New York Times said when his appointment was announced: “As chief compliance officer for a corporate owner of for-profit colleges, Robert S. Eitel spent the past 18 months as a top lawyer for a company

Paterson, New Jersey: A City of Forgotten Children and Abused Techers

21by dianeravitch / 1d

Bruce Lowry, an editorial writer for The Record in New Jersey, writes here about the neglected public schools of Paterson, which have been under state control for more than 25 years. 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: