School Choice is a Bamboozle a Hornswoggle a Flimflam | tultican

School Choice is a Bamboozle a Hornswoggle a Flimflam | tultican

School Choice is a Bamboozle a Hornswoggle a Flimflam

ACSA endorsed a candidate for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction who actively works to privatize public schools. As a participant in the Destroy Public Education (DPE) movement, he supports initiatives undermining the teaching profession and good pedagogy.

Established in 1971 to advance the cause of public education, the ACSA has joined ranks with groups working to end taxpayer supported universal public education. The endorsement of Marshall Tuck over Tony Thurmond for Superintendent makes this clear.

Tuck and Thurmond are both Democrats. Thurmond is a progressive and Tuck is a neoliberal. The California Teachers Association (CTA) endorses Thurmond as do a long list of elected officials and organizations including Senator Kamala Harris.

Jenifer Berkshire’s article “How Education Reform Ate the Democratic Party,” describes neoliberals:

“‘The solutions of the thirties will not solve the problems of the eighties,’ wrote Randall Rothenberg in his breathless 1984 paean to this new breed [of Democrats], whom he called simply ‘The Neoliberals.’ His list of luminaries included the likes of Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, Gary Hart and Al Gore …. …, the ascendancy of the neoliberals represented an economic repositioning of the Democratic Party…. The era of big, affirmative government demanding action—desegregate those schools, clean up those polluted rivers, enforce those civil rights and labor laws—was over.”

Pictures snipped from campaign cyber sites and reformatted by Ultican.

Tony Thurmond spoke at the CTA delegates meeting in October 2017. He won their endorsement. The CTA news release said:

“We won’t stand for vouchers and we will not allow the privatization of public schools in the great state of California,” Thurmond told cheering delegates. He declared that resolving the teacher shortage is key to closing student achievement gaps. “I don’t know how we close the achievement Continue reading: School Choice is a Bamboozle a Hornswoggle a Flimflam | tultican

Tony Thurmond for State Superintendent of Public Instruction - https://www.tonythurmond.com/

LeBron’s Education Promise Needs to Become This Country’s Promise | The Nation

LeBron’s Education Promise Needs to Become This Country’s Promise | The Nation

LeBron’s Education Promise Needs to Become This Country’s Promise

A school funded by LeBron James in Akron, Ohio, is a beautiful example of what all our public education should look like.

“We don’t deserve LeBron James.” This has been the drumbeat, steadily repeated on social media, ever since the greatest basketball player on earth opened a new public school in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, called I Promise. The school, which serves 240 at-risk third- and fourth-graders, is a sight to behold. It stands as a breathtaking piece of architecture, sending an immediate message to the children about their worth from the moment they step through the doors. In addition to meals, job training for parents, and even a bicycle and helmet for every student, the school offers guaranteed college tuition for everyone who goes on to graduate high school.

All credit to LeBron James, who just adds to his résumé as someone—much to the chagrin of Laura Ingraham and her Fox News acolytes—who will never just “shut up and dribble.” As James said to ESPN about his school, “We want to create an environment of family and not like a workplace. Sometimes you can get tired if you look at it like work—you kind of get tired of it. We want to create an environment of family where you want to always be around your family. No matter the good and the bad, you always want to be around that support system.”

The praise he is receiving is more than deserved. That the school is public and not a charter is also special and demands particular attention. I spoke to Jesse Hagopian, activist Seattle public-school teacher and co-author of the book Teaching for Black Lives. He said, “Corporate education reformers have claimed that charter schools—taking public funds for privately run schools—are the only way to bring innovation to education. With his ‘I Promise’ public school, LeBron has shook that idea like so many opponents on his way to the rack. By partnering with the Akron Public Schools—not trying to subvert them or profit off of them with an unaccountable charter—LeBron has demonstrated to the world the power of truly investing in public education.”

While going on a media tour to promote the school, James has taken the opportunity to challenge Trump’s racism, telling CNN, “He’s kinda used sport to kinda divide us. And that’s something that I can’t relate to because I know that sport was the first time I was ever around someone white.”

He also said that Trump has emboldened racists. “The president in charge now has given people… they don’t care now―they throw it in your face now.” When asked what he would say to Trump if he was sitting across the table from him, James just said, “I would never sit across from him.”

It’s true, we maybe don’t deserve LeBron James in our cultural life. At the same time, it is vital that we don’t fall in love with the idea that the wealthy philanthropist, no matter how exemplary, is going to fix the crisis of public education in this country. James, one of the the most powerful and wealthy athletes on earth, just put his heart and soul into building this school, and its reach is still 240 children in Akron. In Baltimore, thousands of young people freeze in their schools’ dilapidated buildings during the winter and face unbearable heat over the summer. As Aaron Maybin, former NFL player and current Baltimore art teacher, said last winter, “How would your kids concentrate if you sent them to school in a refrigerator for eight hours? With failing lighting. Two classes in one room? We tried our best as Continue reading: LeBron’s Education Promise Needs to Become This Country’s Promise | The Nation

Destroying Public Education With Vouchers and Charters in Wisconsin + The Privatization of Puerto Rico’s Public Schools Has Begun – Betsy DeVos Is On the Job | Video Worth Watching

Destroying Public Education With Vouchers and Charters in Wisconsin

Destroying Public Education With Vouchers and Charters in Wisconsin

This past school year, Wisconsin taxpayers sent $250,000,000 to religious schools. Catholics received the largest slice, but Protestants, evangelicals, and Jews got their cuts. Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) reveals that private Islamic schools took in $6,350,000. Of the 212 schools collecting voucher money, 197 were religious schools.

The Wisconsin voucher program was expanded before the 2014-2015 school year. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, “Seventy-five percent of eligible students who applied for taxpayer-funded subsidies to attend private and religious schools this fall in the statewide voucher program already attend private schools ….”

Money taken from the public schools attended by the vast majority of Milwaukee’s students is sent to private religious schools. Public schools must adjust for stranded costs while paying to serve a higher percentage of special education students because private schools won’t take them. Forcing public schools to increase class sizes, reduce offerings such as music and lay off staff.

A mounting social division like those faced after the civil war is developing. Katherine Stewart shared that history in her stunning book, The Good News Club:

By the latter half of the nineteenth century, Lutherans as well as Catholics had developed extensive systems of parochial education. For many Protestants, however, the loss of students from those denominations was not a welcome development. It was feared that the combined force of the Lutheran and Catholic electorate would endanger the existence of public education altogether. The tensions between those who wanted universal public education and those who wanted their schools to look like their churches continued to grow. In 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant declared that if a new civil war were to erupt, it would be fought not across the Mason-Dixon Line but at the door of the common schoolhouse. In an 1876 speech in Des Moines, Iowa, he articulated the conclusion many people had already drawn concerning the continuing struggles over religion in the public schools: “Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions,” he said. “Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards I believe the battles which created the Army of Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.” (pages 73-74) (emphasis added)

Privatizing Public Schools Not Achieving Predictions

John E. Chubb was a co-founder of the for-profit Edison Schools and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. Terry M. Moe was a professor of political science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Chubb and Moe co-authored Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools which was published by Continue reading: Destroying Public Education With Vouchers and Charters in Wisconsin

The Privatization of Puerto Rico’s Public Schools Has Begun – Betsy DeVos Is On the Job | Video Worth Watching

Since our platform is about expressing ideas and ideals instead of cash flow, clicks, or fundraising, we have the freedom to include a wide range of topics and formats that might not work elsewhere. We don’t need or want paid content, promotional materials, or story lines designed to please donors.

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The Privatization of Puerto Rico’s Public Schools Has Begun – Betsy DeVos Is On the Job | Video Worth Watching - https://sandiegofreepress.org/2018/08/the-privatization-of-puerto-ricos-public-schools-has-begun-betsy-devos-is-on-the-job-video-worth-watching/ on @SDFreePressorg

DeVos Family Money Is All Over The News Right Now | 89.3 KPCC

DeVos Family Money Is All Over The News Right Now | 89.3 KPCC

DeVos Family Money Is All Over The News Right Now

From the policy of separating immigrant families, to limiting the power of labor unions, to naming the next justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, this summer the DeVos family name has been all over the news.

Over the years, the parents, in-laws and husband of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have given hundreds of millions of dollars to conservative causes. And many of those causes are front and center of policy initiatives and goals of the Trump administration right now.

Those foundations include: the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation (founded by the education secretary and her husband); the DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative (formerly the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation), founded by Betsy DeVos' in-laws; and the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, founded by her parents.

Betsy and Dick DeVos support free-market conservative organizations "because of their mainstream, common commitment to freedom, the most universal civil liberty," said Greg McNeilly of the Windquest investment group, one of the family's for-profit financial holdings, in response to inquiries about Betsy DeVos' giving. "This commitment to protecting and promoting freedom is an animating core of their worldview."

And, he added, the family supports humanitarian organizations, because "helping the poor and disadvantaged is a driving principle of their worldview and it's reflected in the history of their foundation."

Betsy DeVos oversaw some of this giving personally, as a member of the board of directors of the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation since 1989. In a disclosure form prior to her confirmation as education secretary, DeVos reported resigning her position at the foundation as of December 2016.

During her confirmation hearing, DeVos denied making decisions for the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, which is on record giving to many anti-LGBT groups, despite being listed as a board member for 17 years; she said this was a clerical error.

Lonnie Scott, who tracks the family's philanthropic giving as head of the progressive Continue reading: DeVos Family Money Is All Over The News Right Now | 89.3 KPCC

New report uncovers systemic failure by California charter schools to meet basic obligations of transparency and accountability - Public Advocates

New report uncovers systemic failure by California charter schools to meet basic obligations of transparency and accountability - Public Advocates

New Report Uncovers Systemic Failure by California Charter Schools to Meet Local Control Obligations

A new report by Public Advocates Inc. uncovers a massive failure on the part of California charter schools to be transparent about how they spend millions of taxpayer dollars to benefit high need students, as required by state law.

The report, which is the first systematic analysis of charter school Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs) found critical financial and engagement information missing, unavailable, or incomplete at a shocking number of charter schools.

Not a single school analyzed for this report properly documented how it was increasing or improving services for high need students, services for which those charter schools received $48.6 million this past year. Even more concerning, two-thirds of that amount was completely unaccounted for. Statewide, charters receive over $900 million annually to increase or improve services for high need students.

The report, “Keeping the Promise of LCFF in Charter Schools,” included an investigation 43 schools in Oakland, Sacramento, Richmond, Los Angeles, and San Jose and found that:

• One-third of all charter schools examined had no LCAP online. These public documents were still missing after email requests to the school, its authorizer, and the County Office of Education
• More than two-thirds of the state funds generated by high need students—over $30 million—were unaccounted for; of the $48.6 million these schools received specifically for high need students in 2017-2018, there was only documentation for $15.8 million in planned spending
• Only 21% clearly measured how they engaged parents in school decision-making, and only 37% described how community engagement impacted their planning process
• 91% of charter schools examined serving 15% or more English learners did not post their LCAPs in a language other than English
• Of the 12 Charter Management Organizations examined in the report and that manage 123 charter schools in multiple cities, 100% adopt LCAPs at a single meeting in a single location, with minimal public comment

The report calls for expert oversight and improved support over charter school LCAPs, especially when it comes to transparency for funds designated to improve services for high need students. The report also recommends legislation that would holds charter schools to similar standards of transparency and engagement as public schools.

Click here for a copy of the report
Click here for a list of the charter schools investigated for this report
Click here for a copy of the press release in English
Click here for a copy of the press release in Spanish

Read More: New report uncovers systemic failure by California charter schools to meet basic obligations of transparency and accountability - Public Advocates

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Privatization and Segregation of U.S. Public Education Endangers Democracy - BTL

Privatization and Segregation of U.S. Public Education Endangers Democracy - BTL

Privatization and Segregation of U.S. Public Education Endangers Democracy
Interview with Noliwe Rooks, author and director of American studies at Cornell University, conducted by Scott Harris

Randi Weingarten, who leads the 1.6 million-member American Federation of Teachers union declared in August that President Trump’s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, “is the most ideological anti-public education person to ever be nominated or confirmed to that position.” DeVos, who never attended public school or worked in one, has devoted her life to allowing parents to choose the schools their children attend, either charter or private schools using public funds – and decreasing the federal government’s role in education.

DeVos bankrolled a ballot measure in Michigan to create a private school voucher system that was defeated by a two-to-one margin. She then spent millions of dollars of her own money to elect legislators who then made deep cuts to public school budgets and promoted unaccountable for-profit charter schools in the state. Now almost half of Michigan’s charter schools rank near the bottom of U.S. schools, and Michigan dropped from 28th to 41st in reading, and from 27th to 42nd in math compared with other states.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Noliwe Rooks, director of American studies at Cornell University, who talks about her new book “Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation and the End of Public Education.” She is an associate professor in Africana Studies and Feminist, Gender, Sexuality Studies.

Here, Rooks condemns school privatization efforts and contends that publicly-funded schools are essential to quality, equal education for all – and an indispensable element to build a democratic society.

NOLIWE ROOKS: Taxpayer-supported public education starts for the entire country. It had been in certain parts of the East Coast, in Massachusetts in particular, from the 1600s. But it’s really post-Reconstruction that the rest of the country gets with the idea of you know, we should use taxpayer dollars to educate all of our citizens regardless of wealth. Before 1890 to 1920, that period, education was really something only for the very wealthy. It was mostly private, you know, people were sent to Europe. They were sent to private boarding school. In the U.S., the idea of educating the masses of Americans really is a kind of quintessentially American intervention – that no matter who you are, no matter your social status, there’s something about education that would be valuable for you. And this is a way that we can start to educate all Americans around what citizenship means. That we can define a particular kind of civic imagination and a goal of democracy of what kinds of citizens we want to participate in this experiment in democracy where you know, voters, where everyone, where citizens of the country are engaging in setting the policy and setting the direction. That was the ideal.

BETWEEN THE LINES: When we see the drive toward privatizing our education system in this country through charter schools, the movement toward school vouchers, the whole notion of school choice which underlines those in a system called “virtual education” – tell us about how that affects the quality of education. These companies obviously are in it to make a buck. They’re making profit here, by getting into privatizing the education system. But what’s the effect on the students?

NOLIWE ROOKS: So, one of the terms that I came up with to talk about this moment, where we really do have an unprecedented move towards dismantling what we consider traditional public education. What that’s being replaced by – with high concentrations of poor people and high concentrations of people of color – are charter schools, which are Continue reading: Privatization and Segregation of U.S. Public Education Endangers Democracy - BTL

Noliwe Rooks at the Schomburg Center | The New Press - https://thenewpress.com/node/12217

Noliwe Rooks

Noliwe Rooks is the director of American studies at Cornell University and was for ten years the associate director of African American studies at Princeton University. She is the author of White Money/Black Power, Hair Raising, and Cutting School (The New Press). She lives in Ithaca, New York.

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