Obstruct And Delay: Ohio Legislature – Be Careful What You Wish For

Obstruct And Delay: Ohio Legislature – Be Careful What You Wish For:

Obstruct And Delay: Ohio Legislature – Be Careful What You Wish For

Readers might want to label this tale of Statehouse antics as just more of the same. On second thought, maybe it could be a reminder for being careful about what you wish for in life.

A state senator known for his aggressive style in questioning individuals at hearings acted as the “hired gun” for Republicans in a meeting on August 22 to review new charter school administrative rules prepared by the Ohio Department of Education.  He was not shy in flexing his muscles in the fight between Republicans and ODE over reforming the state’s scandal-ridden and poorly performing charters.

“I’m a trial lawyer. Don’t do that to me,”  said Sen. Bill Coley to Diane Lease, ODE’s chief legal counsel, who was representing the department in the hearing.

“At one point, Coley scolded the department for showing the “height of arrogance.” Yet, in a feat of irony, he left his charter friends off the hook, arguing: “I don’t see in there where the school sponsor has to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’ on every school they sponsor.”

Before his admonition to the other counsel, Coley saw fit to transfer blame for some of the charter school administrative rule mess to the state education agency. Here is how the Akron Beacon Journal, in an editorial aptly calledScandalous at the Statehouse, described the low drama:

Is it arrogance when an attempt is made to develop some rules for the Wild Wild West, trying to clean up the hazardous but fabled Long Branch Saloonwhich is synonymous with the Ohio charter school system? We’re all not trial lawyers like the self-assured Coley, but a lot of us feel that charter authorizers, as they are called in the 43 other states that have legal provisions for these privately operated and publicly funded schools, should be held responsible for the schools they authorize. You can’t have it both ways.

Since authorizers collect 3% of the school’s gross state revenue, they need to be held accountable for every charter school under their purview. In fact, when public money is involved, the public needs to demand that every “i” and every “t” is dotted. If a sponsor doesn’t want to be held responsible, they need to get out of the authorizer business. In a world of no-excuses operations, trial lawyers of all people don’t need to make excuses for those who otherwise might want to soft-pedal the importance of accountability in the education of young people.

Here is one example. When I worked in the Ohio Department of Education’s charter school office, I was shocked, shocked by the poor quality of many of the contracts submitted for approval by the charter school sponsors. In my nearly four years there, I reviewed more than 100 charter contracts – a number probably higher than most trial lawyers in the legislature. After reading the first few pages, I found that many charter contracts were mere templates, cut and pasted together, and dumped in our offices by sponsors days or even hours before the annual deadline for new school agreements.

Incredibly, dozens were submitted devoid of page numbers and even footers at the bottom of the page to denote the authorizer, school, and date of submission.

The _______ School will offer a program that contains…… It will be the purpose of the ________ School to …

Several contracts, bearing evidence of being the archetype of template production by national charter school chains, contained page after page with Obstruct And Delay: Ohio Legislature – Be Careful What You Wish For:

Bill Gates endorses charter school where kids guide their own studies - Business Insider

Bill Gates endorses charter school where kids guide their own studies - Business Insider:

See inside the school Bill Gates thinks could be the future of learning

Bill Gates is one of the most successful people in history, but even he admits his education could've been better.

"I was good at math, but when it came to writing, I felt less sure of myself," Gates wrote in a recent Gates Notes blog post. "I'd be working on an essay and start wondering, 'Am I going to get an A or a C on this thing? What skills do I need to improve?'"

That's why Gates says it was so heartening to take a trip to Summit Sierra, a Seattle-based charter school where kids get heaps of feedback as they guide their own learning.

The model is known as personalized learning.

Under the personalized learning framework, teachers don't lecture so much as supervise. With the help of personal laptops and tablets, they give kids individual work and group-based projects to learn as flexibly (and in as many contexts) as possible.

Not all schools can afford to employ the personalized learning model — cutting-edge technology is expensive — but the model has shown success when districts make the investment.

A study published last year, for example, found that among 62 schools using personalized education, many of the kids scored higher in math and reading compared to kids learning normally. Many who were below-average scorers ended up above-average.

"To be fair," Gates says, "we don't know yet how much of this improvement is due to personalized learning, versus other good things these schools are doing." But at least at Summit Sierra, and many schools like it, the dynamic between students and teachers seems to be a productive one.

Not only do kids get to learn at their own pace, which gives them more confidence, but teachers at Summit get matched with students who they'll mentor for all four years. Instructors can use in-house software to see which of their dozen or so students has completed certain assignments and exams.

The end result is that kids don't have many opportunities to slip through the cracks. And by taking an active role in their education, they learn responsibility and self-reliance.

"I love that approach," Gates says. "When students get out in the world, they have to organize their own time, have goals, and realize what they’re behind on. It's fantastic to see them getting a head start on those skills in school."

Check out the rest of Gates' experiences below:

Bill Gates endorses charter school where kids guide their own studies - Business Insider:

California's new standardized tests are flawed, but still important - LA Times

California's new standardized tests are flawed, but still important - LA Times:

California's new standardized tests are flawed, but still important

The modest rise in California’s standardized test scores this year was mildly gratifying but not surprising. Each time a new test is introduced, results look terrible at first. Then, as schools grow more familiar with its expectations and quirks, scores rise for several years. This was only the second year the state has released results for the revamped test, known as the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.

It’s too early to cheer or moan the state’s progress. But whether you think it’s been good or bad, this much is clear: The tests remain an important part of holding schools accountable and shouldn’t be minimized or dismissed as just a bunch of data. (Are you listening, Gov. Jerry Brown?) The concrete results from the tests force us to see truths we could otherwise avoid — especially now, as other mechanisms of accountability fall by the wayside.

For instance, California has stopped administering its high-school exit exam, which for years set at least some kind of standard for graduation, though a low one. The State Board of Education is at work on what is so far an utterly confusing new way of measuring school performance, color coded and with no clear message for parents or the public about how a school is doing. More than half the elements on the chart reflect a school’s efforts to improve learning rather than its accomplishments. Meanwhile, L.A.’s schools — and those elsewhere — have been boasting about improved graduation rates while relying heavily on often less-than-rigorous online courses and other shortcuts to make their diploma numbers look good.

Yet look at the new test scores for L.A. Unified: Only 29% of students met the standard in math and 39% in English. (Students are tested in grades 3 through 8 and again in 11^thgrade.) That’s a small improvement over last year, but nowhere near good. What’s more, African American students are both scoring the worst, and improving the least.

The annual testing that obsessed public education for a decade and a half under the Obama and George W. Bush administrations went too far. Standardized tests, which are imperfect measures of learning, somehow became the be-all of a school’s worth. The federal government, and many state ones, punished schools if they failed to improve within narrow parameters and insisted that individual teachers be judged by their California's new standardized tests are flawed, but still important - LA Times:

Economic divide between schools shortchanges our kids | The Sacramento Bee

Economic divide between schools shortchanges our kids | The Sacramento Bee:

Economic divide between schools shortchanges our kids

As California’s children go back to school, we can all learn something from a lesson, however depressing, on how much the economic gap between school districts can shortchange students.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/foon-rhee/article98128352.html#storylink=cpy

A new study points out that nearly half of America’s school kids live in high-poverty districts that are often right next to much richer ones that offer far greater educational opportunities. The EdBuild analysis highlights the 50 most economically segregated pairs of school districts, where the average difference in poverty rate is 37 percentage points, more than five times the national average.

These districts are in 14 states, mostly in the Rust Belt, but California isn’t immune. The list includes Perris Elementary School District in Riverside County, which has a poverty rate among school-age children of 50 percent and which is adjacent to two wealthier districts.

No. 49 on the list is the Fresno Unified School District, which has a 46 percent student poverty rate and borders the Golden Valley Unified School District, where the poverty rate is 12 percent. The state’s fourth-largest school district, Fresno has about 74,000 students, while Golden Valley has 1,900 pupils.

Michael Hanson, Fresno Unified’s superintendent, says the study is another reminder of the challenges facing a public school system in a high-poverty city. But he makes clear that it’s not an excuse for mediocrity.

“The way to fight concentrated poverty is with concentrated education,” he says.

That means adding 30 minutes of classroom time at Economic divide between schools shortchanges our kids | The Sacramento Bee:

School reform: Ga. PTA says ballot wording deceptive | www.myajc.com

School reform: Ga. PTA says ballot wording deceptive | www.myajc.com:
Georgia PTA slams state over new wording for constitutional amendment

Gov. Nathan Deal signed legislation last year that asks voters to amend the state constitution to allow a takeover of low-performing schools and the local tax dollars that support them. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM

A group that represents a quarter million Georgia parents says Gov. Nathan Deal and state lawmakers are being “deceptive” and even “intentionally misleading” with wording they have chosen for November’s constitutional amendment affecting schools.

Amendment 1 on the Nov. 8 ballot would create a statewide school district with a superintendent answering only to the governor. That superintendent would have the power to requisition local tax dollars and to take control of schools that perform poorly on a state report card based on measures such as test results, attendance and graduation rates.

Critics slammed the ballot measure itself as misleading when lawmakers and the governor authorized its two dozen words last year. Now, opponents of the proposed “Opportunity School District,” or OSD, are critical of 14 new words published this week, and are demanding what they feel would be clearer language.

The state leaders responsible, however, appear unwilling to change their wording.

This week, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp publicized the “preamble” that will introduce voters to the ballot item. Since many will not have done their research, the language could be influential. It was written by Deal and the two leaders of the state House and Senate, who by law write ballot preambles. The words the three men approved at a meeting in Deal’s office on Aug. 2 introduce the measure this way: “Provides greater flexibility and state accountability to fix failing schools through increasing community involvement.”

That, says the Georgia PTA, is simply untrue.

“This deceptive language must not be allowed on the November ballot. … The preamble, and indeed, the entire amendment question, is intentionally misleading and disguises the true intentions of the OSD legislation,” the group said in a statement Friday. “Parental and community involvement is not increased by or required by the OSD enabling legislation.”

PTA delegates voted 633-0 in June against the ballot item itself because, theorganization says, the resulting constitutional amendment would take funding from local districts and place their schools in the hands of a political appointee.

Lisa-Marie Haygood, president of the Georgia PTA, said in an interview that both the preamble and the ballot question mislead with “flowery language” that does not reveal what the legislation would actually do. The ballot question asks if the state should be able to “intervene” to improve failing schools, when the state would actually take them over.

Haygood fears the OSD will become a “profit hub” for charter school corporations, since the OSD superintendent would be able to convert OSD School reform: Ga. PTA says ballot wording deceptive | www.myajc.com:

The New United Opt Out and Neoliberalsim Part 6 The War Report on Public Education with Dr James Miller

The War Report on Public Education with Dr James Miller:

The New United Opt Out and Neoliberalsim Part 6

Pleas e join Internet radio host Dr. James Avington Miller Jr. for a special two hour radio show. The first hour will be devoted to the new United Opt Out and the second hour will continue Dr. Miller's series on Neoliberalism.


Our special guests for the first hour will be Gus Morales , Ruth Rodriguez, and Zak Rodriguez - all administrators of United Opt Out. The discussion will focus on the NEW UOO - what is is now and what it will be in the future.


For the second hour Dr. Miller will continue his series on Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is destroying almost everyone and everything on the planet. Public education, schools, teachers, students, families, and whole communities are being dismantled and abused because of neoliberals, thier programs, and their plans to control the world.


Please tune in and call in this Sunday.


Knowledge is power !

RESISTANCE MATTERS
RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE
RESISTANCE IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF EXPRESSION OF DEMOCRACY
RESISTANCE IS SURVIVAL
Please click on the website below to listen live:
http://bbsradio.com/thewarreport
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Station 1 888-627-6008 toll free

 The War Report on Public Education with Dr James Miller:

SUNDAY THE WAR REPORT ON PUBLIC EDUCATION WITH DR JAMES AVINGTON MILLER JR

On Sunday, please click on the website below to listen to the rebroadcast.

http://bbsradio.com/thewarreport

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The War Report on Public Education with Dr James Avington Miller Jr

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A WIN for Education in Florida Today! | THE OPT OUT FLORIDA NETWORK

A WIN for Education in Florida Today! | THE OPT OUT FLORIDA NETWORK:

A WIN for Education in Florida Today!

The Opt Out Florida Network is celebrating substantial victories today with theOrder issued by Judge Karen Gievers.  Mandatory Third Grade Retention is a cornerstone of Florida’s failed Accountability System that tests and punishes our students.  Today was a good day for Florida’s students, but this fight is not over.  Our work to support children being assessed on their 180 days of classroom work, to include the professional teacher as a primary expert in these decisions, continues.

As of today, a Judge rules Florida third grader can be promoted based on a portfolio or a report card, unless their parents have been notified that there is a reading deficiency.

Judge Gievers also confirmed that minimally participating (Opting Out) does indeed satisfy the requirement of the law.

In the coming days, Florida school districts, and the Florida Department of Education, will attempt to appeal and to ask for stays of this order. It could be heard by the Florida Supreme Court shortly.

On behalf of the families who have stood up in this lawsuit, we would like to express our gratitude for the support and generosity of all who have contributed, many repeatedly, to the legal fund. It is worth noting that many, many donations have come from educators all across the country.

While this challenge has the potential to cause statewide change, and offer support to other states looking to do the same, it will come at great expense.

Support the plaintiffs by donating to gofundme.com/StopGr3Retention
The Opt Out Florida Network
_______________________

For the complete ruling:
Judge Gievers’ Order 082616
______________________

From Plaintiffs’ attorney, Andrea Mogensen:
Third Grade Retention Press Release Aug26

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrea Mogensen
Tel: (941) 955-1066E-Mail: AMogensen@sunshinelitigation.com

August 26, 2016

Judge rules report cards do matter for third grade students

Education officials ordered to accept student portfolios or report cards for kids who opt out of standardized tests

Tallahassee – A Tallahassee judge delivered a decisive blow to Florida’s standardized testing scheme, telling state and local school officials that report cards and classroom participation can be used as an alternative when parents opt out of testing. In a watershed moment for students who were not promoted to the third grade due of their minimal participation in the Florida Standards Assessment test, Judge Gievers granted a temporary injunction allowing some third graders to be promoted where school A WIN for Education in Florida Today! | THE OPT OUT FLORIDA NETWORK:

Personalized learning: corporate reform hijacks another perfectly good idea | Parents Across America

Personalized learning: corporate reform hijacks another perfectly good idea | Parents Across America:

Personalized learning: corporate reform hijacks another perfectly good idea 

Everyone loves choice — it’s so all-American. And we cheer the idea of student-centered learning because it’s so clearly all about the children. And, of course, ALL parents want personalized learning because every parent knows that their child is unique and has special academic needs and interests.

At our parent leadership conference in July, we asked participants what they think of when they hear “personalized learning.” Here’s what they said:

“It’s personal to your child.”

“It is tailored to your child’s needs and interests, like you tailor a garment.”

“It involves one-on-one work with a teacher.”

“IEPs – an individualized learning program required under special education laws to be written and followed for every child identified as having special needs.”

“Relates to every child’s needs and strengths.”

“For the teacher, what does he or she know about the child that can help in teaching that child?”

Well, bad news. That is not what the corporate reformers mean when they say personalized learning. Yes, when the opt out movement checked the reformers’ high-stakes testing strategy, they made a strategic turn toward what their taxpayer-funded* five-star PR firms told them to call “personalized learning,” but which is only personalized like the ads for stuff you just bought that start to pop up on your Facebook or Google search page.

Our “EdTech buzzwords” piece unpacks more of this corporate reform-speak. For example:

Blended learning: Your child will no longer spend his or her day with a caring adult. They will be tied to a digital screen which will replace large chunks of human interaction with prepackaged programming. It’s blended in the same way as Star Trek’s Data was blended – you know, he cried that one time.

Competency-based learning: Competent means efficient and capable but not outstanding, and in this context Personalized learning: corporate reform hijacks another perfectly good idea | Parents Across America:

Will the thing that charter schools love so much be their undoing? - The Washington Post

Will the thing that charter schools love so much be their undoing? - The Washington Post:

Will the thing that charter schools love so much be their undoing?

John Oliver, on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight” did a funny, biting segment on the charter schools, which educate a fraction of American school children — somewhere around 5 percent — but get a great deal more attention from policymakers then the numbers would predict.

Here’s a new look at charter schools from Carol Burris, a former New York high school principal who is now executive director of the nonprofit Network for Public Education. Burris was named the 2010 Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and the same organization named her the New York State High School Principal of the Year in 2013. She has been chronicling botched school reform efforts in her state for years.

In a recent post, she explained why putting the word “public” in front of “charter school” — which are funded with tax dollars but sometimes considered private by courts — is “an affront” to people for whom public education is a mission. In this post, Burris looks at whether charter schools can properly be compared with district public schools — as they often are.

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[Why charter schools get public education advocates so angry]

By Carol Burris

The New York Post, the charter school cheerleading paper of record, was giddy with delight when New York test scores came out.  Describing charter test scores as “sparkling,” the Postaccused New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio of “dissing” charters when he questioned their tactics. Jeremiah Kittredge, the chief executive officer of Families for Excellent Schools, went so far as to accuse the mayor of kicking little children “in the shins.”

When the mayor refused to back down and said charters have a history of excluding some kids,the Post editorial board jumped into the fray and said his claim was false.

Is the Post or the mayor correct? Are there differences between the kids who go to charters, and those who attend public schools in New York? Are charter scores that much better when you take those differences into account? And perhaps most important of all, are any score bumps worth the scams and scandals that have become a daily feature of charter school news?

New York City charter schools make up 81 percent of the charter schools in the state. Only 4 percent of New York’s charter students are English Language Learners, as compared with over three times as many — 13 percent — of the 3-8 students in New York City public schools. Fifteen percent of charter students in Grades 3-8 are students with disabilities, as compared with 22 percent of the students in New York City traditional public schools.  These differences Will the thing that charter schools love so much be their undoing? - The Washington Post:

 

10 Things to Know about the Charter School Debate – Cloaking Inequity

10 Things to Know about the Charter School Debate – Cloaking Inequity:

10 Things to Know about the Charter School Debate

At separate conventions this summer, the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter Movement—the nation’s oldest and the youngest civil rights organizations—passed resolutions critical of charter schools and the privatization of education. We may have reached a watershed moment for market-based school choice.

This article appeared here first at the Progressive Magazine.

Here are 10 things to consider about the market-based charter schools debate:

• Where did market-based school choice come from? Writing in the 1950s, the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, followed by John Chubb and Terry Moe in the 1990s, argued for a profit-based education system where resources are controlled by private entities rather than by democratically elected governments. They recommended a system of public education built around parent-student choice, school competition, and school autonomy as a solution to what they saw as the problem of direct democratic control of public schools.
• School “choice” does not cure the inequality created by markets. Not surprisingly, the academics neglected to mention that market-based mechanisms are the very system that created the inequities in American public schools today. Along with other public policies, including redlining, market forces created racial and economic segregation. Instead of making this situation better, school choice made this situation worse. A group of Chilean economists mentored by Friedman, the Chicago Boys, took Friedman’s theories about education back to their home country and to push an education system with universal choice and relaxed regulation and oversight. Over the past several decades, Chile simultaneously became one of the richest countries in South America and the most unequal developed country in the world.
• The position of the NAACP and Black Lives Matter on privatization is consistent with the views of past civil rights leaders. NAACP co-founder W.E.B. Du Bois, in his essay Negroes and the Crisis of Capitalism in the U.S., extolled the virtues of collaborative social and government action. He railed against the role of businesses and capitalistic control that “usurp government” and made the “throttling of democracy and distortion of education and failure of justice widespread.” Malcolm X characterized market-based public policy  as “vulturistic” and “bloodsucking.” He advocated for collaborative social systems to solve problems. Martin Luther King Jr. argued that we often have socialism in public policy for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor. King and Malcolm X would have recognized the current patterns we see of charters located primarily in urban and poor areas rather than wealthy suburban enclaves. White academics pressing for market-based school choice in the name of “civil rights” ignore this history of African American civil rights leaders advocating for collaborative systems of social support and distrusting “free market” policies.
• Is the NAACP and Black Lives Matter position on schools out of touch with civil rights? A barrage of criticism has come from market-based school choice proponents and charter operators about the NAACP and Black Lives Matter resolutions. However, the NAACP has for years been consistent in its critique of charters schools. At the 2010 convention, the NAACP national board and members supported an anti-charter resolution saying that state charter schools create “separate and unequal conditions.” A review of ten years of research supports their statement. More recently, in 2014, the NAACP connected school choice with the private control of public education. While the recent 2016 resolution has not yet been ratified as policy by the NAACP National Board, more than 2,000 NAACP delegates from across the nation did vote for a charter school moratorium based on a variety of civil rights-based critiques such as a lack of accountability, increased segregation, and disparate punitive and exclusionary discipline for African Americans.
• Do families actually choose charter schools? Probably the most prominent argument heard from market-based education proponents is that school choice means that families can choose their own schools. Proponents of market-based school choicehave argued that charter schools were designed to have both more freedom and more accountability. Critics of privately-managed schools point out that 10 Things to Know about the Charter School Debate – Cloaking Inequity:

2016 Delaware Charter School Inspection Shows Severe Lack Of Transparency – Exceptional Delaware

2016 Delaware Charter School Inspection Shows Severe Lack Of Transparency – Exceptional Delaware:

2016 Delaware Charter School Inspection Shows Severe Lack Of Transparency

Many Delaware charter schools failed a recent inspection on financial, organizational, and governance transparency.  No charter school received a perfect score on this inspection.  The ones who failed did so miserably.

Delaware law is very clear about what charter schools are required to do.  Other public meeting laws in Delaware, which have been supported through legal opinions on FOIA complaints, are very clear as well.  Last night, I went through every single charter school website to look for eight things: Their monthly financial information was up to date (July 2016), they posted their last annual audit (2015), they posted their IRS 990 Tax Form (as a non-profit), they posted their board agenda for their most recent meeting, they posted their board minutes (based on when they had their last meeting and were able to approve those minutes), they put an agenda up for their Citizens Budget Oversight Committee, they put up the minutes for their CBOC meetings, and a Delaware Department of Education representative was present at those CBOC meetings.

Most of the Delaware charter schools failed this inspection.  One of them (considered to be a very successful charter school) didn’t pass any category.  Some charter schools feel as though they don’t have to meet during the summer and prepare for the new school year.  There was no charter school that received a perfect score.  I understand things slow down in the summer, but not meeting is inexcusable in my book.  Some charters need to do a lot of work on their websites.  Hunting and pecking to find information is not in the vein of transparency.

The most disturbing aspect is the apparent lack of oversight coming from the Delaware Department of Education.  More specifically, the Charter School Office.  They may monitor the charters, and I’m glad a DOE representative is attending most of their CBOC meetings, but where is the public transparency of that monitoring?  Jennifer Nagourney worked very hard to get this aspect turned around with charters.  I would hate to see her hard work disappear.

The way CBOC laws are written, quarterly meetings are okay.  But some charters meet monthly.  I’m not going to dink you if you don’t meet every single month.  I think districts and charters should have monthly CBOC 2016 Delaware Charter School Inspection Shows Severe Lack Of Transparency – Exceptional Delaware:

How the charter school lobby is changing the Democratic Party - LA Times

How the charter school lobby is changing the Democratic Party - LA Times:

How the charter school lobby is changing the Democratic Party

 At a time when Democrats and their party are, by virtually every index, moving left, a powerful center-right pressure group within the liberal universe has nonetheless sprung up. Funded by billionaires and arrayed against unions, it is increasingly contesting for power in city halls and statehouses where Democrats already govern.

That’s not how the charter school lobby is customarily described, I’ll allow, but it’s most certainly what it’s become.

Next year, the progressive mayors of America’s two largest and overwhelmingly Democratic cities – New York’s Bill de Blasio and Los Angeles’ Eric Garcetti – will each stand for reelection. So far, the only visible challenger to Garcetti’s bid is Steve Barr, founder of the Green Dot charter schools. In New York, de Blasio’s critics have suggested that Success Academy Charter Chief Executive Eva Moskowitz would be the candidate most likely to depose the mayor, though Moskowitz has denied any interest in running.

This abrupt elevation (or self-elevation) of today’s charter school entrepreneurs into tomorrow’s civic leaders may seem surprising, but it’s part of a larger pattern.

In California, political action committees funded by charter school backers have become among the largest donors to centrist Democratic state legislators who not only favor expanding charters at the expense of school districts, but also have blocked some of Gov. Jerry Brown’s more liberal initiatives.

In New York’s upcoming primary, such longtime charter supporters as Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to a PAC seeking to unseat several Democratic legislators who’ve defended the role and budget of traditional public schools.

In future decades, historians will have to grapple with how charter schools became the cause celebre of centrist billionaires – from Walton to Bloomberg to Broad – in an age of plutocracy. The historians shouldn’t dismiss the good intentions behind the billionaires’ impulse: the desire to provide students growing up in poverty with the best education possible. But neither should they dismiss their self-exculpation in singling out the deficiencies, both real and exaggerated, of public education as the central reason for the evisceration of the middle class. 

In their mix of good intentions and self-serving blindness, the billionaire education reformers have much in common with ... their Gilded Age predecessors.

If Wal-Mart, the corporation from which Walton derives her wealth, hadn’t compelled its suppliers to make their products abroad to reduce the price of their goods, more public school students’ parents might have the kind of stable employment and adequate incomes that foster learning-friendly upbringings. Despite the fact that our traditional ladders of mobility – decent blue-collar and service sector jobs, unions, cross-class marriages – have largely collapsed, seemingly sentient billionaires insist that teachers and their unions are the main obstacles blocking young people’s escape from poverty.

The poor, or their tribunes, don’t necessarily agree. In the past couple of weeks, both the Movement for Black Lives (50 organizations active in the Black Lives Matter movement) and the NAACP passed resolutions declaring that charter schools increase segregation and leave school districts with both fewer resources and a more challenging student body. While many in minority communities dispute these views, there’s clearly some real skepticism about the merits of charterizing education among the very people it purports to How the charter school lobby is changing the Democratic Party - LA Times: