Monday, May 21, 2018

Striking teachers burst neoliberals' fantasy in one amazing moment | Thomas Frank | Opinion | The Guardian

Striking teachers burst neoliberals' fantasy in one amazing moment | Thomas Frank | Opinion | The Guardian:

Striking teachers show that cutting education to fix it is a neoliberal myth
For decades we have been told that the way to fix education is to fire people but red-shirted marchers across the country have shown the power of solidarity


What I like best about the wave of teachers’ strikes that have swept America these last few months is how they punch so brutally and so directly in the face of the number one neoliberal educational fantasy of the last decade: that all we need to do to fix public education is fire people.

Fire teachers, specifically. They need to learn fear and discipline. That’s what education “reformers” have told us for years. If only, the fantasy goes, we could slay the foot-dragging unions and the red-tape rules that keep mediocre teachers in their jobs, then things would be different. If only some nice “tech millionaires” would step in and help us fire people! If only we could get a thousand clones of Michelle Rhee, the former DC schools chancellor who fired so many people she even once fired someone on TV!
Now just look at what’s happened. We’ve seen enormous teacher protests in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona, with more on the way. Actions that look very much like strikes by people who, in some of these states, are legally forbidden to strike. It was the perfect opportunity for education “reformers” to fire people, and fire them en masse. It was the politicians’ chance to show us what a tough-minded boss could do.

And in most cases, it was state governments that capitulated. It was hard-hearted believers in tax cuts and austerity and discipline who caved, lest they themselves get fired by voters at the next opportunity.
That, folks, is the power of solidarity, and the wave of teacher walkouts is starting to look like our generation’s chance to learn the lesson our grandparents absorbed during the strike wave of the late 1930s: that given the right conditions and the right amount of organization, working people can rally the public and make social change all by themselves. Irresistibly. Organically. From the bottom up.
There are unique circumstances that have made this amazing moment Continue reading: Striking teachers burst neoliberals' fantasy in one amazing moment | Thomas Frank | Opinion | The Guardian:



97.81% of Charter Schools not “Diverse By Design” | Cloaking Inequity

97.81% of Charter Schools not “Diverse By Design” | Cloaking Inequity:

97.81% OF CHARTER SCHOOLS NOT “DIVERSE BY DESIGN”

Charter schools are diverse by design? Holy sampling on the dependent variable Batman! All Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Football League (NFL) teams are good because look at the top of the standings! All music is great because look at the Top 40 songs! All college professors are great (or could be) because of the top 2.19% on ratemyprofessor.com
The Century Foundation recently release a report about “Diverse-by-Design Charter Schools.” by Halley Potter and Kimberly Quick

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I first met Halley Potter (far right) on MSNBC’s MHP Show
They found,
  • Intentionally diverse charter schools represent a small slice of the charter sector (about 2 percent of the charter schools examined for this report)
  • The inventory identifies broader trends related to diversity in the charter sector. One in five charter schools (1,026 schools) showed any consideration of diversity in their school model.
  • School integration has not been a priority for the charter school sector at large. At the same time, the schools highlighted in the report show how the flexibility of the charter school model can be leveraged for diversity if designed to do so.
So, all NFL, NBA and MLB teams can be great, but they are not. All professors could be fantastic, but only 2% are? Despite all this bad news, they still conclude,
The schools highlighted in the report show how the flexibility of the charter school model can be leveraged to Continue reading: 
97.81% of Charter Schools not “Diverse By Design” | Cloaking Inequity: