Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education

Peter Greene is well-known as a blogger, a teacher, a columnist for Forbes, and a humorist. He taught in the public schools of Pennsylvania for nearly 40 years. He wrote this article at my request.

He wrote:

I believe in public education.

I believe in the promise that every child should have a free quality education. And not by going out to shop for it, to hunt it down like looking for deals on a toaster or a used car, nor to travel far from home to find it, nor to have to beg and apply and hope that the school will accept them, but to have it delivered to them in their own community without exception.

Not that we’ve always hit the bullseye in this country. Our system of tying school financing to housing leaves much to be desired. The same forces of racism and economic inequity that twist and turn our society as a whole also leave their mark on our education system. Those forces CONTINUE READING: Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and must be willing to bear the expenses of it.” —John Adams | janresseger

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and must be willing to bear the expenses of it.” —John Adams | janresseger

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and must be willing to bear the expenses of it.” —John Adams

The late political theorist Benjamin Barber believed that the American system of public schools—schools located in every community, schools accessible to all, schools paid for by the public—are the heart of our U.S. democracy. And he worried that school privatization and consumerist school choice threaten to fragment our society:

“Through vouchers we are able as individuals, through private choosing, to shape institutions and policies that are useful to our own interests but corrupting to the public goods that give private choosing its meaning.  I want a school system where my kid gets the very best; you want a school system where your kid is not slowed down by those less gifted or less adequately prepared; she wants a school system where children whose ‘disadvantaged backgrounds’ (often kids of color) won’t stand in the way of her daughter’s learning; he (a person of color) wants a school system where he has the maximum choice to move his kid out of ‘failing schools’ and into successful ones.  What do we get?  The incomplete satisfaction of those private wants through a fragmented system in which individuals secede from the public realm, undermining the public system to which we can subscribe in common. Of course no one really wants a country defined by deep educational injustice and the surrender of a public and civic pedagogy whose absence will ultimately impact even our own private choices… Yet aggregating our private choices as educational consumers in fact yields an inegalitarian and highly segmented society in which the least advantaged are further disadvantaged as the wealthy retreat ever further from the public sector.  As citizens, we would never consciously select such an outcome, but in practice what is good for ‘me,’ the educational consumer, turns out to be a disaster for ‘us’ as citizens and civic educators—and thus for me the denizen of an American commons (or what’s left of it).” (Consumed, p. 132)

Tom Ultican is retired from a career teaching mathematics and physics at the public Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, California.  A prolific California teacher-blogger, Ultican recently described what he learned about the important role of public schools in the small CONTINUE READING: “The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and must be willing to bear the expenses of it.” —John Adams | janresseger

Jack Schneider: What is “Public” about Public Education? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jack Schneider: What is “Public” about Public Education? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jack Schneider: What is “Public” about Public Education?

Jack Schneider is a historian of education at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. He and Jennifer Berkshire recently published a superb book, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, which I recommend to you.

The “Public” in Public Schools

There are two stories that we tell over and over these days about our schools. The first is that schools are a mechanism for getting ahead in our society. In a competition of each against every, schools are the ostensibly meritocratic sorting mechanism that determines who gets what. The second story is that schools are the engine of the economy. Education builds human capital, which in turn promotes economic growth.

These aren’t entirely wrong. Despite the fact that the privileged work feverishly to tilt the playing field for their children, schools can and often do serve a leveling function. And it is impossible to imagine the American economy thriving in the same way without an educated populace. Yet this is a torturously narrow way of understanding the value of public education.

We don’t have public schools in this country so that CONTINUE READING: Jack Schneider: What is “Public” about Public Education? | Diane Ravitch's blog

PLEASE READ AND SHARE THIS POST: Why I Support Public Education | tultican

Why I Support Public Education | tultican

Why I Support Public Education

By Thomas Ultican 3/29/2021

The original cause for my supporting public education was that my rancher father married a school teacher. Growing up in southern Idaho, I learned many philosophical and theoretical reasons for supporting the establishment and maintenance of public schools from my mother. However, it was from watching mom and her dedicated colleagues in action that I learned to truly respect and appreciate public school.

I remember stories of my father being warned that he better not treat that women wrong. For several years in a row she won the Elmore County sharp shooting contest. She didn’t like to chop a chicken’s head off so she would pull out her rifle and shoot it off.

Mom had some old school attitudes but maintained a mind of her own. There was a period in which she had to come home at lunch time and milk the cow. One Friday, after having to chase the cow across King Hill creek again, she had had enough; didn’t discuss it just loaded that cow into a trailer and took it to market.

In my home, there was no doubt about the value of education and also an abiding belief that the American public education system was unparalleled. My father was a high school basketball referee and an ardent supporter of music study.

As was common in the community, school events were family events. Helping CONTINUE READING: Why I Support Public Education | tultican

Jersey Jazzman: Lakewood, NJ: Where Public Schools Are Left To Wither, Part II

Jersey Jazzman: Lakewood, NJ: Where Public Schools Are Left To Wither, Part II

Lakewood, NJ: Where Public Schools Are Left To Wither, Part II

Here's Part I of this series.

In this series, I'm taking a look at Lakewood, NJ, with an eye toward what might happen if more communities abandon their public schools and, instead, embrace the idea of school "choice." Lakewood, in a state by some accounts with the highest ranked public schools in the nation, is a town where the vast majority of families choose to send their children to private schools.

The Star-Ledger explained what's driving this phenomenon back in 2017:

Lakewood has more than 6,300 students registered in its public schools and another 30,000 mostly Orthodox Jewish students enrolled in the town's 130 private schools. Under state law, towns must fund buses for students attending private schools more than two miles from their houses.

In the upcoming school year, Lakewood expects to spend $27 million on busing alone, more than it spends on classroom instruction, according to the school budget.

Town leaders say Lakewood is severely underfunded by the state, which does not consider the busing of large numbers of private school students when calculating how much state aid the district receives. A permanent source of school funding for busing and special ed would ease many of the town's problems, said Rabbi Aaron Kotler, one of the leaders of the Orthodox Jewish community.

"It would also make Lakewood a place where you wouldn't have people feeling that your children's future is at risk due to a budget problem," Kotler said.

As we'll see throughout this series, the argument that Lakewood is "severely underfunded by the state" is open to debate. For now, let's do what regular readers know always comes CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: Lakewood, NJ: Where Public Schools Are Left To Wither, Part II

What Biden’s COVID-19 Rescue Plan Will Mean for American Poorest Children and for Our Public Education System | janresseger

What Biden’s COVID-19 Rescue Plan Will Mean for American Poorest Children and for Our Public Education System | janresseger

What Biden’s COVID-19 Rescue Plan Will Mean for American Poorest Children and for Our Public Education System

On February 27, the U.S House of Representatives passed President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan COVID-19 relief bill, and on Saturday, the U.S. Senate passed its version of the House bill. Nancy Pelosi says the House will promptly enact the Senate’s version, and the bill will move later this week to the President for his signature. News reports have focused on big economic elements of the relief package—unemployment relief and one-time stimulus checks, but one of the most important things about this bill has been under-reported: what the President and Congress plan to do for America’s children and their public schools.

The American Rescue Plan Supports Public Schools and the State Governments that Fund Public Schools

There has been enormous and utterly confusing guidance coming from the CDC, the White House, and mayors of big cities, all of whom want to get all children back to school in-person. But it is rarely mentioned that when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, public schools had been struggling for years with inadequate funding. Yes, schools could reopen safely if ventilation were adequate, but lots of old schools have windows that don’t open. Yes, schools could reopen safely if classes were small enough that classrooms could house all the students in desks six feet apart, but in too many classes these days, one teacher works with more than 30—sometimes even 40—students. Running school buses with social distancing would require additional buses. Because most of us don’t spend our time inside schools where we can observe the realities children and their teachers live with every day, we like to imagine that reopening schools ought to be an easy process.  But the complexities can be overwhelming and the problems expensive to address—which is why many students are still learning remotely or attending school on complicated hybrid schedules.

The new stimulus package will help school districts address the complexities. The Washington CONTINUE READING: What Biden’s COVID-19 Rescue Plan Will Mean for American Poorest Children and for Our Public Education System | janresseger

Hoping for a Stronger Focus on Public Education in 2021 and Beyond | Truth in American Education

Hoping for a Stronger Focus on Public Education in 2021 and Beyond | Truth in American Education

Hoping for a Stronger Focus on Public Education in 2021 and Beyond

We need a Secretary of Education who has classroom teaching experience beyond grade 5 and has administered a middle or high school for at least a couple of years or so.  This experience gives teaching faculty a chance to understand and tell us a little bit about a candidate’s supervisory style. No need for a particular ethnicity or race or gender.  We’ve tried using all these sociocultural criteria, especially in our major cities.  But no criterion has worked for most kids.  

Are recent nation-wide riots, looting, and arson all in large part expressions of our frustration with and rage at seemingly failed or ineffective educational institutions?  We haven’t tried yet to make other institutions or agencies for public health or safety responsible for educating the nation’s children.  We need to try, because it is clear that public educational facilities are no longer capable of educating our young or producing productive citizens.

There are several questions we should ask ourselves to try to understand the basis for the many waves of rioting in our major cities in recent years, most recently Portland, Oregon.  

1. Why haven’t our educational institutions found effective remedial strategies for low-achieving students by now—over 50 years after the first federal grants to low-income schools and communities in ESEA in 1965?
2. Do schools in undeveloped or under-developed countries produce similar or lower levels of performance on the TIMSS, PIRLS, and PISA tests given to comparable children of low-income parents in this country on these tests? These have been the chief international tests available for our states to participate in.     
3. What are the average scores for each demographic group in countries with many non-dominant population groups as in the USA, Australia, Canada, and Singapore?

Maybe education researchers have looked at the wrong things or not asked the right questions, such as:

1. How much reading or other homework have teachers assigned their students in K-12?
2. How many parents check the time their children go to bed every night and how much they read or practice every day?
3. Why have pre-schools on average, or after-school programs extending school teaching hours, failed to create equity among demographic groups in the K-12 school population? 
4. Why has the use of literary texts and curriculum-aligned textbooks whose subject matter and vocabulary have been reduced in difficulty (such as in recent Afrocentric curricula like 1619 ) failed to boost minority scores?

Who could be recommended for Secretary of Education?  Perhaps all parents would agree that such a CONTINUE READING: Hoping for a Stronger Focus on Public Education in 2021 and Beyond | Truth in American Education

Open Letter to Dr. Miguel Cardona On The Future Of Public Education And Indigenous Resurgence – Wrench in the Gears

Open Letter to Dr. Miguel Cardona On The Future Of Public Education And Indigenous Resurgence – Wrench in the Gears

Open Letter to Dr. Miguel Cardona On The Future Of Public Education And Indigenous Resurgence

Dear Dr. Cordona,

I am writing this open letter as the parent of a young adult child who spent thirteen years in an under-funded urban school district, a district targeted by consultants, corporate interests, and predatory philanthropists who sought to leverage the challenges faced by our city’s vulnerable children and families as sources of “social impact” profit under the guise of benevolence.

Being the parent of a Philadelphia Public School District student changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. It connected me with fierce, big-hearted activists across race and class who took strong stands for the rights of children to be celebrated as cherished gifts rather than packaged as perceived deficits profiled on data dashboards with assigned growth metrics attached.

The decade since the last economic crash has been about normalizing the idea of an inevitable global gig economy where work is meted by artificial intelligence. Who will get microwork? Well, it will be determined by stackable credentials in a person’s online learning locker combined with social-emotional learning behavioral compliance scores. They’ll call it “anytime, anywhere learning,” or “lifelong learning.” This competency-based education system will ultimately be detached from neighborhood schools and outsourced to community partners through public private partnerships. Navigating these “learning ecosystems” children will be programmed with playlists of “free” Open Education Resources (OER) consumed in virtual reality headsets or games built on behavior modification and persuasive computing. They will collect badges for projects tracked with wearable technologies and pay for them using digital vouchers set up to deliver performance data.

It’s a scary prospect given that the next phase of globalization involves not just platformed labor, but remote-robotic work in advanced manufacturing. Future workers are meant to don haptic suits in co-working spaces in “Zoom-towns,” or living rooms depending on health status, to complete against one another to build and secure CONTINUE READIN: Open Letter to Dr. Miguel Cardona On The Future Of Public Education And Indigenous Resurgence – Wrench in the Gears

DEREK BLACK: Old ideas, not new ones, are the key to education — and democracy - kappanonline org

Old ideas, not new ones, are the key to education — and democracy  - kappanonline.org

Old ideas, not new ones, are the key to education — and democracy 

Protecting public education requires us to return to the ideals on which our country was founded. 

Public education as we know it is in trouble and, with it, so is our democracy. Rather than seeing it as a solution to segregation, inequality, and division, many now claim that the idea of public schooling itself is the problem. “Government schools,” as some pejoratively call them, deny families freedom and ought to be abandoned for the private market.   

Fully appreciating the danger of this rhetoric and the policies it is producing requires us to look backward, and beyond schools themselves to the history of the nation’s major democratic and constitutional developments. The nation, in its infancy, built its concept of democracy around public education, and, following the Civil War, public education — alongside the right to vote — became the cornerstone of the recovery of the war-torn nation. For that reason, those who would overthrow democracy have sought to attack public education, particularly during Jim Crow segregation. The lessons found in this history, more than the heated rhetoric of the present day, should inform our current approach to strengthening our schools.  

Founding gifts 

Two hundred years ago, our founding fathers gave us two gifts, both of which were relatively unknown to the world at the time. The first was democracy — what they called a republican form of government. The second was public education. These gifts were inextricably intertwined. 

A republican form of government would allow everyday people to govern themselves through elected representatives. Our founders knew what it was like to live under a king, and they wanted something radically different for themselves, their families, and the generations that would follow. Of course, by denying African Americans, women, and many poor whites the right to vote, the founders failed to live up to their lofty ideals. But those ideals, though flawed in their initial implementation, were compelling enough to take root and bear fruit for generations to come.  

The nation, in its infancy, built its concept of democracy around public education.

CONTINUE READING: Old ideas, not new ones, are the key to education — and democracy  - kappanonline.org

Joe Biden Has a Golden Opportunity to Strengthen Public Education | Ed Politics

Joe Biden Has a Golden Opportunity to Strengthen Public Education | Ed Politics

JOE BIDEN HAS A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO STRENGTHEN PUBLIC EDUCATION

In picking Connecticut Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona to be his nominee for U.S. secretary of education, President-elect Joe Biden appears to have made a Goldilocks choice that pleases just about everyone. People who rarely agree on education policy have praised the decision, including Jeanne Allen, CEO of the Center for Education Reform, a nonprofit group that advocates for charter schools and school choice, who called Cardona “good news,” and education historian Diane Ravitch, who also called the pick “good news” because he does not seem to be aligned with advocates for charter schools and vouchers. Sara Sneed, president and CEO of the NEA Foundation, a public charity founded by educators, called Cardona an “ideal candidate,” in an email, and hailed him for “his emphasis on the need to end structural racism in education and for his push for greater educational equity and opportunity through public schools.”

But as Biden and Cardona—should he be approved, as most expect—begin to address the array of critical issues that confront the nation’s schools, there’s bound to be more of a pushback. Or maybe not?

After decades of federal legislation that emphasized mandating standardized testing and tying school and teacher evaluations to the scores; imposing financial austerity on public institutions; incentivizing various forms of privatization; and undermining teachers’ professionalism and labor rights, there is a keen appetite for a new direction for school policy.

Due to the disruption forced by the pandemic, much is being written and said about the need to “restart and reinvent” education and a newfound appreciation for schools as essential infrastructure for families and children. With an incoming CONTINUE READING: Joe Biden Has a Golden Opportunity to Strengthen Public Education | Ed Politics

Sarah Lahm: Charter Schools Movement Sees a Growth Opportunity in Public School Funding Cuts | Ed Politics - https://edpolitics.org/?p=312

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

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus: It’s Called Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus: It’s Called Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus: It’s Called Public Education

This is a beautiful article by Jennifer Raab, president of Hunter College, which is part of the City University of New York. It appeared in the New York Daily News. When Virginia O’Hanlon attended Hunter College, the City University was tuition-free. In 1976, CUNY began to charge tuition, but it remains far less than private colleges and universities, and many students can piece together aid packages from state and federal funds.

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” It may be the most famous sentence in the history of local journalism.

Virginia O’Hanlon of 115 W. 95th St. was just 8 years old when she composed a letter to the editor, writing: “Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?”

Yes, there is, the paper guaranteed her. “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.”

Those in the know must have been shocked to learn that the words came from the pen of veteran journalist Francis Pharcellus Church, brother of the Sun’s editor. Known to colleagues as a hard-boiled cynic, Church had never CONTINUE READING: Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus: It’s Called Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

JEFF BRYANT: Truthout: DeVos Is on Her Way Out, But Public Education Is Still Very Much Under Attack | National Education Policy Center

Truthout: DeVos Is on Her Way Out, But Public Education Is Still Very Much Under Attack | National Education Policy Center

Truthout: DeVos Is on Her Way Out, But Public Education Is Still Very Much Under Attack

When a Biden victory in the 2020 presidential election became certain, supporters of public education gleefully took to social media to say good riddance to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. DeVos came into office with an agenda to further the privatization of public education by expanding charter schools and by encouraging families to opt out of public schools by any means possible. During her tenure, she effectively used her bully pulpit to cheer on efforts by Republican state lawmakers to expand various forms of voucher programs that give parents public money to homeschool their children or send them to private schools. She awarded many of the nation’s largest charter school chains with millions in federal funding, and she used the pandemic as an opportunity to redirect emergency funds for public schools to private schools and internet-based instruction — all the while refusing to even visit struggling public schools.

Biden is expected to oppose voucher programs and limit the growth of the charter school industry. But despite the promising prospect of a transition from DeVos to a Biden administration, progressive public school advocates can’t afford to overlook a threat to democratically governed schools that preceded DeVos and will continue when she is long gone.

In midsized metropolitan areas like Indianapolis and Stockton, California, parents, teachers, and public school advocates warn of huge sums of money coming from outside their communities to influence local politics and bankroll school board candidates who support school privatization. In phone conversations, emails, and texts, they point to a national agenda, backed CONTINUE READING: Truthout: DeVos Is on Her Way Out, But Public Education Is Still Very Much Under Attack | National Education Policy Center

J4J Open Letter to President-Elect Biden | Schott Foundation for Public Education

J4J Open Letter to President-Elect Biden | Schott Foundation for Public Education

J4J Open Letter to President-Elect Biden

The Journey for Justice Alliance (J4J), a grassroots education justice organization with dozens of local chapters across the country, highlighted candidate Joe Biden’s pledge to be “the best friend of public education” as they urged the President-Elect to choose a Secretary of Education committed to education justice. J4J’s open letter emphasizes the importance of the moment to undo the damage caused by years of disinvestment and privatization and to enact a positive vision of equity and education justice. Like J4J, Schott has been clear that the next Department of Education should center community voices and work to undo the effects of resource inequity and structural racism on our public education system. (Click here to see Biden's education promises at the historic grassroots education forum.)

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
November 23, 2020
Contact Jitu Brown (773) 317-6343

Letter to President-elect Joe Biden

President-elect Joseph Biden
1401 Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20230
 
Dear President-elect Biden,

On behalf of the parents, students and community organizations that make up the Journey for Justice Alliance (J4J) in over 30 cities across the United States, we congratulate you on your historic election victory. Your incoming administration has an enormous opportunity to prioritize equity for Black, Brown, and Indigenous families to address deep-rooted systemic racism in housing, health care, policing, the environment, and especially public education. 

Over the past 20 years, our communities have suffered through thousands of school closures, punitive standardized testing, students funneled into the school to prison pipeline and the expansion of the for-profit and non-profit charter industry as the government ignored the harm to our students and as the inequity created an apartheid system of education in our communities. The evidence is clear; 5 out of 6 Americans want their neighborhood public schools improved and not closed and an overwhelming majority of the public want fully resourced, equitably funded public schools as opposed to the charter industry and vouchers that have drained billions from our public schools.

The next Secretary of Education should not only be an educator but firmly committed to racial justice and uniting education expertise with community wisdom to finally create education equity in the United States.  Appointing another pro-privatization Secretary of Education would cause more harm to Black, Brown, Indigenous and LGBTQIA students and would be disrespectful the struggle and sacrifices of the education justice movement. J4J co-sponsored the historic presidential forum that you attended last December in Pittsburgh, Public Education Forum 2020; Equity and Opportunity for All which was attended by over 1000 people and viewed on MSNBC. It was clear from the forum that Black, Brown, and Indigenous parents, students, and educators across the U.S. are calling for equity: not the illusion of school choice.

At that forum, you told us that if you were in the White House, we would “not ever have a better friend for education.” We are eager to see the results of that promise, beginning with the critical selection of the Secretary to lead the Department of Education.

We are recommending the following people for Education Secretary as they have the expertise and the track record that would be a beacon of light for our communities.

1. Dr. Judith Browne Dianis-Executive Director of the Advancement Project.  Dr. Browne Dianis has consistently championed the civil rights of public education students and stood with communities in the struggle for education equity.  Dr. Browne Dianis is hailed as an expert on voting rights, education equity and is a pioneer in the struggle to end the school to prison pipeline. The Title VI Civil Rights complaint that her office filed with parents from Newark, New Jersey successfully proved that school closings harmed Black students.
2. Dr. Julian Vasquez Helig, University of Kentucky College of Education Dean-Dr. Vasquez is an award winning, teacher, researcher, leader, and dynamic voice for equity in public education.  Dr. Vasquez is a leader in the NAACP as well as a board member of the Network for Public Education. 
3. Dr. John H. Jackson-President of the Schott Foundation for Public Education. Dr. Jackson has been a leader in moving philanthropy to support Black-led community organizing for education justice.  He has been a leader in the NAACP and was appointed by President Clinton to be a senior advisor for the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.  He is from Chicago, a product of Chicago Public Schools and a graduate of HBCU, Xavier University of Louisiana.
4. Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers-Representing over 1.7 million educators across the United States, Mrs. Weingarten has over 30 years in the classroom and stood side by side with Black and Brown communities to expand evidence based education strategies such as sustainable community schools and resisting harmful practices such as school closings and the expansion of the charter industry.  She has demonstrated the ability to hear our communities appeals for racial justice and education equity and responded as a friend to public education.      

President-elect Biden, Black Lives Matter must mean more than slogans, marches or the take down of confederate statues. For us, it means transforming how institutions function in Black communities and dismantling educational racism. You have an enormous opportunity to transform public education and we humbly, yet vehemently assert that any of these selections would be a courageous step in the right direction. We welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter with you and your team.

Onward!
Jitu Brown
National Director
Journey for Justice Alliance

J4J Open Letter to President-Elect Biden | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Charles Foster Johnson Is Hopeful about Biden Administration and Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Charles Foster Johnson Is Hopeful about Biden Administration and Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Charles Foster Johnson Is Hopeful about Biden Administration and Education

Our friend and ally, Dr. Charles Foster Johnson, recently gave an interview in which he expressed his optimism about the incoming Biden administration. Dr. Johnson is leader of Pastors for Texas Children, which fights privatization and supports public schools. He has opened nine state affiliates, the latest one in Alabama. He is a champion of public schools and teachers and students. He understands that public schools need resources and community support, not competition and punishments.

Among his many insightful comments is this one:

Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos pushed private school vouchers. That is unlikely from the Biden administration. What is more of a threat is continued expansion of charter schools that, basically, are publicly underwritten private schools due to their independent private ownership. Traditionally, vouchers are the privatization model of choice for Republicans (rural Republicans excepted) and charters are the privatization model of choice for Democrats.

Accordingly, the standardized testing racket so enshrined in No Child Left Behind and Race to The Top must be CONTINUE READING: Charles Foster Johnson Is Hopeful about Biden Administration and Education | Diane Ravitch's blog