Live Long and Prosper...

What do public schools, airports, prisons, hospitals, parking services, state parks, and municipal water supplies have in common?

They're all being considered for privatization in one state or another.

Apparently privatization is the cure-all for society's ills. The movement to privatize all public sector institutions and jobs is based on the assumption that government is always inefficient and bad...the private sector (free market) is always more efficient and good.

In The History of the School Privatization Movement Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall writes

Neoliberal Republicans and Tea Partiers (and now Barack Obama and Department of Education director Arne Duncan) give lip service to improving achievement levels for students in inner city schools. However instead of improving funding to these struggling schools, the one intervention supported by statistical research, they continue to aggressively shift education funding from public schools to private charter schools – despite the Stanford study showing that charter programs don’t improve achievement levels (see previous blog). In my mind, this is totally consistent with what I believe is their real agenda – namely privatizing public education.

Neoliberalism seeks to privatize all public services (education, social security, water, prisons, public transportation, welfare services) – leaving a bare bones government with a strictly security and military role. Neoliberals argue that public provision of these services is inefficient and wasteful – problems that can only be corrected by subjecting them to free market competition. But as we have seen in the case of prison, water, and welfare privatization, there are always windfall profits for businesses and corporations when billions of public, taxpayer dollars are transferred to private hands.

In other words, privatization isn't just for education...it's for everything.

That's wrong. Instead of destroying public institutions we should support them and improve them where necessary. Public oversight is essential in a democratic society.

The privatization efforts discussed in the articles below are from Privatization Watch, a web site which tracks privatization efforts throughout the country. Several times a week it lists articles from newspapers, blogs, web sites and other media outlets covering attempts to privatize America. The articles below specifically refer to public education.


Bill opens up funding for private virtual schools

There is so much money spent on public education...edupreneurs are chomping at the bit to get some of it. The "product" is education...and they'll jump in without any previous experience using "business" methods (think: Enron) to run their "schools." The result has not helped children learn. The motive is profit...not the education of our youngest citizens.

May 13, 2013

Private online learning companies will get a better shot at Florida public school funding under a bill that won approval on the final day of the legislative session.

Though the vote garnered little attention from outside observers, Republicans hailed it as among the year's most important victories for school choice.

..."If you want to get at the largest portion of the state budget that has not been privatized, it is education," said Jeff Wright, who oversees public policy advocacy for the Florida Education Association, the state teachers union. "That's what this is all about. This is about allowing outside vendors to get a piece of the action."

How School Privatizers Buy Elections

It takes money to win an election. This is true at local levels as well as national. More and more state legislators are taking money from wealthy donors to win their local elections, thereby aligning themselves with the policies of the donors. The citizen legislators envisioned by the founding fathers has given way to professional politicians.

“Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.” – James Madison

May 8, 2013

A fundamental struggle for democracy is going on behind the scenes in statehouses around the country, as a handful of wealthy individuals and foundations pour money into efforts to privatize the public schools.

...So it was fascinating when investigative reporter Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ripped the veil off a secretive organization and its hidden political activities by publishing a copy of the American Federation for Children's "2012 Election Impact Report."

The report, which was clearly meant only for members and donors, outlines how the American Federation of Children pours millions of dollars into state races around the country to back candidates who support school vouchers and other measures that siphon public money into private schools.

Evidence doesn't support choice program expansion

Supporters of public education must understand that the goal of "reformers" isn't improved education. It's privatization. The "reformers" will use the promise of improved education to get their policies adopted, then, when the education doesn't improve (and privatization schemes haven't improved the education of our children), they'll abandon that reason and switch to another...usually choice. The argument is that parents deserve "choice" in where they send their children to school, just like they do when they buy groceries or shoes. The choice, however, ends up belonging to the corporate bottom line of the school...to profit, not to parents. Children who are hard to educate or who don't toe the line will often be asked to go elsewhere.

Charter* schools, vouchers, firing teachers and administrators, closing neighborhood schools, misuse and overuse of testing, removing teachers' job securities, decreased funding...none of the privatization schemes have resulted in improved student achievement.

Fact: Public. Schools. Accept. All. Children.

April 30, 2013

Legislators should be skeptical of a proposal by Gov. Scott Walker to sharply expand the school voucher program. There isn't much evidence that students in voucher schools are better educated; in fact, they seem to perform at about the same level as their peers in mainline public schools.

Louisiana’s Great Education Giveaway

No Child Left Behind, when adopted, was touted as a plan which would help those children whose needs were being systematically ignored. The rationale for the law was laudable, however, in actual practice NCLB, along with it's successor, Race to the Top, has done the opposite. More and more children are left behind as schools are closed and resources are eliminated.

April 26, 2013

A writer recently hailed federal and state education reform as a new civil rights movement. But the word reform, which means “the improvement . . . of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory,” can hardly be applied to the recent changes in educational law. Most of these changes are not for the better. Instead, they create a separate and wholly unequal educational system masquerading as choice, which serves to destabilize and discredit public schools in the name of improvement and to make state funds accessible to a wide range of individuals and corporations with little or no oversight.

This article examines recent legislation that dramatically expanded state takeover of schools after Hurricane Katrina, shows how the changes are contrary to educational research on effective schools, and points to some examples of schools and programs gone awry under this new regime.

The Parent Trigger Bill: A shot at privatization

Parent trigger bills provide for a small number of people, who happen to be parents of current students in a school, to give away a public institution paid for through years of taxpayer investment. Millions of public dollars go into building, maintaining and staffing public schools. Fifty-one percent of this year's parents shouldn't have the right to give that away. We need to support and improve public education...not destroy it.

April 19, 2013

Careful analysis of this legislation reveals its clear but unstated goal, public dollars for private companies and a diversion of resources from the public education system. Since 1991 the Legislature has reduced state funding for our schools from 62 percent to 49 percent. They have created charter schools that take money out of the public school system and are currently considering allowing charter schools to receive capital outlay dollars. These taxpayer dollars are designated to be used for maintenance and repair of public school buildings. Now, we are considering giving taxpayer dollars and buildings to private corporations.

This is all a strategy implemented and promoted by charter companies and conservative think-tank groups. If you think public education cannot be taken over by the private sector, remember there was a time when we had a Department of Labor and a Department of Commerce. Those two agencies no longer exist, and their responsibilities have been taken over by private organizations. In the process, Florida has lost millions of federal dollars that once flowed through the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.

Editorial - Legislators’ ‘fixes’ for public education may inflict irreparable damage

The goal is weaker public schools. The goal is the elimination of public education. The goal is privatization.

April 18, 2013

For a group of politicians who claim they want to strengthen our public schools, the Honorables have a strange way of going about it. In their world, better public schools can be had only by siphoning off students and money into charter and private schools, and by eliminating the cap on class sizes in the lower grades, a factor that has been shown to improve academic achievement. At the same time, the same group of lawmakers is working to put tight caps on preschool education, another success story in education.

No, the way the Honorables in the General Assembly are going, the result can only be weaker public schools left with fewer resources to teach the very students the so-called educational improvements were designed to help. Is that their actual intent?

*References to charters generally imply corporate, for-profit charter schools. Quotes from other writers reflect their opinions only. See It's Important to Look in a Mirror Now and Then.

THE ROLE OF TEACHERS

Gerald Gerald Conti’s retirement letter and here.

Veteran teachers are leaving the profession in high numbers. The average years of experience of the American teacher has dropped precipitously in the last few years. One of the stated goals of the "reform" movement is to do away with seniority. Driving out veteran teachers by making the profession unpalatable is a way to make that goal a reality.

My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic “assessments”) or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject. This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom.

Yet Another Education Reform Scam

Silent teachers...

And one of the most remarkable things is that the campaign for education "reform" — which must needs include the ongoing political and social villainization of public school teachers, without which the "reform" movement cannot succeed — has managed to bully teachers into silence about obvious ethical catastrophes like the one that allegedly occurred in Atlanta. The "reformers," and the avaricious politicians who have their own reasons for breaking the political power of the public school unions, have convinced the world that any criticisms of their methods is merely the caterwauling of overpaid featherbedders in the Music departments.

Cheating

Standardized Exam Cheating In 37 States And D.C.; New Report Shows Widespread Test Score Corruption

When the test becomes the goal then cheating is the result.

The solution to the school test cheating problem is not simply stepped up enforcement. Instead, testing misuses must end because they cheat the public out of accurate data about public school quality at the same time they cheat many students out of a high-quality education.

The cheating explosion is one of the many reasons resistance to high-stakes testing is sweeping the nation...

VOUCHERS

Dear Indiana Politician

One of the founders of the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education has written a personal and heart-felt letter in support of public funds for public schools and against using tax money for vouchers. Will the Indiana General Assembly listen or have they already made up their minds?

...the educational reform (and all that it encompasses) rages across our country out of control without many, if any, educational experts weighing in. Those educational experts valued by teachers are dismissed by those making legislation in favor of individuals with business savvy and big bucks but no expertise—no experience—in the classroom. Why would educators be left out of the decision-making process?

FWCS Resolution Against Voucher Expansion

Kudos to the Fort Wayne Community Schools School Board for passing this resolution against the state's voucher expansion plans.

• students can receive vouchers upon leaving schools with high achievement
• current system diverts funds necessary to support the public schools
• expanded to include students who have never been in the public schools
• increases taxpayer funding for parochial and private schools by an estimated $21 million while FWCS continues to suffer the effects from a $10 million cut

Fighting school voucher program

Another Indiana school board resolves that vouchers would hurt the students of the state...

“For a student who enters the Lake Central system in seventh grade, we would receive $4,700 per year. If that student enrolls in a private or parochial school, that school receives $5,500,” [Superintendent] Veracco said.

The School Board's resolution cites...a $21 million economic impact in the area. It asks the Indiana General Assembly to put HB 1003 on hold and to establish a study committee to evaluate the impact before any further changes are made to the voucher program.

Wait, Vouchers Can Fund Muslim Schools?

In some places legislators are having trouble with their own voucher plans since they can't pick and choose which religious organization's schools get the vouchers.

Notice that there was no complaint at all from these same legislators over diverting money to private Christian schools. They’re perfectly find [sic] with tax money going to support Christian schools. But Muslim schools? That’s an outrage! Who could possibly support such a thing? More importantly, how can they pass a law that prevents that from happening while ensuring the flow of funds to Christian schools? They can’t. And you know what prevents it? That damn constitution they claim so loudly to revere.

PARENT TRIGGER

Public Schools, Private Agendas: Parent Revolution

The parent trigger laws do not give parents more choice. The group Parent Revolution is not a broad based parent support or advocacy group. It was founded by a charter school operator in order to improve his business.

“My kids are not going to go there,” she says. “They’re taking away all the teachers my kids have been around for years. They took over our school, and I don’t think it’s fair. They’re not for the kids.”

CHARTERS*

Ohio

Charters Don't Deserve State Windfall

For two decades, the money has been following Ohio’s children out of the doors of our public schoolhouses and through the doors of charter schools. Despite losing over $6 billion to charters during the past 15 years, traditional public schools continue to vastly outperform their charter-school counterparts.

ECOT Charter School continues siphoning money from Ohio’s top-rated school districts

Charters like ECOT (Ohio’s largest by a mile) are not the saving grace of education in Ohio — they are siphoning students and money away from the best school districts in the state, causing unnecessary strife and lowering statewide student achievement.

California

Charter school operators guilty of misusing funds

"You can't spend the charter school funds for anything you want. It has to be money spent on the kids and the schools."

PUBLIC EDUCATION

School Segregation Leads To More Violent Crime, Study Finds

The privatization movement is leading to a re-segregating of America's schools. In 2007 the Supreme Court essentially took down the landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

In a 5-4 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday, the Supreme Court told local school districts that they cannot take even modest steps to overcome residential segregation and ensure that schools within their diverse cities themselves remain racially mixed unless they can prove that such classifications are narrowly tailored to achieve specific educational benefits.

With the re-segregation of schools comes this report...

Modern inner-city schools are often underfunded, while dropout rates are high and violence is common. Police officers routinely intervene to discipline students for minor infractions, exposing minority kids early to the criminal justice system. Greater allocation of resources may not be enough to halt the cycle of racially-skewed poverty and crime as long as racial and class segregation continues, according to an analysis by Columbia Business School professor Ray Fisman.

The Public Purpose of Public Education

As the U.S. Department of Education has introduced competitive grant programs, it has frozen formula programs from the civil rights era that awarded funds according to the specific needs of the children to be served. Title I is an important example of a formula program frozen in recent federal budgets and being slowly transformed into competitive programs. Title I was created in 1965 in the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act to provide federal aid for schools serving children in poverty. Although the Title I formula program is small relative to state and local funding, it has been one of the federal government’s primary tools for equalizing educational opportunity as a civil right for every child. “There are those who would make the case for a Race to the Top for those who can run,” declares the Rev. Jesse Jackson. “Instead ‘lift from the bottom’ is the moral imperative because it includes everybody. We should be fighting for one set of rules—a common foundation beneath which no child falls.”

The Service of Democratic Education

Not much has changed since Linda Darling-Hammond wrote this in 2011. We're still blaming the teachers and the schools, closing schools instead of supporting them, ignoring poverty, and shuffling poor children around so the privatizers can take our tax money as profits.

And the new scientific managers cleverly construct systems that solve the problem of the poor by blaming the teachers and schools that seek to serve them, calling the deepening levels of severe poverty an “excuse,” rewarding schools that keep out and push out the highest-need students, and threatening those who work with new immigrant students still learning English and the growing number of those who are homeless, without healthcare or food security. Are there lower scores in under-resourced schools with high-need students? Fire the teachers and the principals. Close the schools. Don’t look for supports for their families and communities, equitable funding for public schools or investments in professional learning. Don’t worry about the fact that the next schools are—as researchers have documented—likely to do no better. This is the equivalent of deciding that if the banks are failing, we should fire the tellers. (And whatever you do, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)

PRIORITIES

The U.S. Collects Less In Taxes Than All But Two Industrialized Countries

We're a selfish lot. We, as a nation, don't really care about each other or our children very much...other than the lip service we pay during elections. The "common wisdom" is that we're over-taxed. Unfortunately that's just a lie. We're among the least taxed people on earth...and we have the lack of social safety nets to show it. Poor medical care and our incredibly high child poverty rate lead to a crisis in learning for our most vulnerable children...and we, as a nation, are unwilling to pay more. The "community" of America doesn't exist. The attitude has become "what's mine is mine and you can't have it."

The premise of the argument from Republicans is that Americans already face an extraordinarily heavy tax burden. Citizens for Tax Justice, however, compared levels of taxation in 2010 in the other industrialized countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and found that the U.S. not only collects far less in tax revenues than the average OECD country, but that it also collects less in taxes as a share of its economy than all but two other OECD nations...

Lead poisoning toll revised to 1 in 38 young kids

An estimated 535,000 young children in the United States have harmful levels of lead in their bodies, putting them at risk of lost intelligence, attention disorders and other life-long health problems, according to a new estimate released Thursday by federal health officials.

The new number shows lead poisoning affects 1 in 38 children ages 1 to 5, according to the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"To the extent that Americans think this is a problem of the past, clearly this is evidence there is still a problem," said Rebecca Morley, executive director of the National Center for Healthy Housing, a non-profit lead-poisoning-prevention advocacy group.

The warping of public education

The well-being of our young people is just not a high priority in the United States. The social safety-net is inadequate, poverty is rampant, economic segregation via private and so-called "choice" is growing.

We have to undo the damage that has turned public education into a crisis. That means dumping the pretend science of high-stakes testing and valuing rather than criminalizing students of color; it also means moving from punishment- to healing-based systems of maintaining order, taking police and armed security guards out of the hallways and learning to value and respect young people more than we value metal detectors and surveillance cameras.

*References to charters generally imply corporate, for-profit charter schools. Quotes from other writers reflect their opinions only. See It's Important to Look in a Mirror Now and Then.

THE PROFESSION OF EDUCATION

Teachers are getting tired of battling the corporate takeover of education. What goes on in classrooms around the country is being controlled more and more from the corporate offices of places like Pearson and McGraw-Hill. Teaching to the test is the norm, instead of the exception...and the big publishing companies are responsible for not only the tests, but supplementary materials which prep students for the tests.

School systems are being forced by state departments of education (who are being forced in turn, by the US DOE) to focus on test scores above all else. In the trenches, students and teachers spend ridiculous amounts of time testing. Less time is spent teaching...and much of the teaching time is devoted to test prep. The joy of learning is being replaced by a painful and damaging system of brain-stuffing that I can't bring myself to call education or reform.

Teachers are pilloried in the press by politicians, pundits and policy makers who know nothing about education (see Argue with Some of the Logic?: The Expertise Gap, below). The myth of America's failing public schools still persists (see PISA: It's Poverty Not Stupid, below) despite the facts to the contrary. Charters* and vouchers are taking the public out of public education, despite the fact that they don't improve the education of our children. Meanwhile 1/4 of America's children live in poverty, the single most important out-of-school factor in academic achievement.

Here is yet another letter of resignation from a tired teacher printed recently in Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet Blog. In ‘I have had enough’ – veteran teacher tells school board, Abby Breaux writes,

If you think getting rid of experienced classroom teachers is the answer, then shame on you! It takes experienced teachers to help new, inexperienced teachers with the overwhelming burdens of classroom management, helping with background knowledge of the information being taught, and learning how to build relationships with the students and the community that these students come from. There is SO much more to teaching then getting in front of a class and giving a lesson!

Personally, I was hoping to teach for at least 30 years, but because of all these new evaluation policies, fear of retirement issues, and feeling constantly threatened that if I don’t do “this or that” I will lose my job, I and many others have had enough and feel the need to leave. I LOVE TEACHING and never thought this day would come. I love working with kids. You have basically pushed me and many excellent, effective teachers out of the education field or into the private sector with all of your useless paperwork and lack of follow through. I know I may get some “recoil” for what I am saying today, but what I am saying is the truth, and it is something that most teachers say and think every day. Many are afraid to speak up and this is something that I too have been holding in for years because of the same reason. Please, sit down with the CLASSROOM teachers and work with them. But above all, GO TO A CLASSROOM! Don’t choose a “favored, high scoring” school. Go to a struggling school and observe a classroom. Better yet, since you are supposed to be people of “service”, substitute in a classroom. Your eyes will be opened to how difficult it is to do this job on a daily basis.

THOSE WHO CAN, TEACH...

Would you trust your grocer to mend your clothes...your attorney to straighten your teeth...your doctor to write your will...or your insurance agent to remove your appendix? Why do we allow politicians with no educational expertise or experience to set education policy? Why isn't the Secretary of Education an educator?

Argue with Some of the Logic?: The Expertise Gap

The education debate, specifically the education reform debate, currently confirms Gladwell’s concern because politicians with little or no educational expertise or experience control education policy and journalists with little or no educational expertise or experience report on both the claims made by those politicians and the education reports coming from think tanks and advocacy groups posing as scholars.

The list could be almost endless, but recent education reports on charter schools, for example, have all been represented inaccurately by the media—essentially since journalists tend to report on the think tank press release instead of analyzing the claims or quality of the study itself. (See Baker on the misrepresented KIPP study, Baker on the misrepresented NYC CREDO study, and Di Carlo on the garbled charter school debate as just a few examples.) [Emphasis in original]

PARENT TRIGGER

Public schools belong to the entire community, not just 51% of the parents whose children currently attend them. Public schools were paid for and maintained using public dollars. A small group of parents shouldn't be given the right to sell the school to a private corporation. Schools need to be improved...not closed.

School ‘parent trigger’ bill supporters peddle divisive, unproven reform

UCLA’s Rogers is not entirely convinced that parent trigger backers are motivated solely by the desire to make profits at taxpayer expense. Nevertheless, he said, there exists “certain substantial financial backers” and legislators who are driven by their zeal against educator-led unions and a “broader political agenda.”

Most problematic about parent trigger, said Rogers, is the “lack of accountability” on the part of outside groups who parachute into communities. “It undermines trust between schools and communities,” he said, “and it sucks up the energy and attention from addressing [the lack of] school resources and other critical issues.”

Parent Trigger - False Promises, Divided Communities and Disrupted Young Lives

The video tells the story of Adelanto, California where a well-funded, outside group "Parent Revolution" came to town and instead of working to improve the schools tricked parents with false promises, bitterly divided the community, and disrupted the education of young children.

"The video makes clear that parent trigger laws, pending in 14 states, are not a magic wand that improves education -- there is no magic wand," said Roger Hickey of the Education Opportunity Network. "Schools need better resources, engaged parents, good teachers and a supportive community. What schools do not need is divisive campaigns that mislead parents and disappoints parents," he said.

RETENTION IN GRADE

Retaining students because they can't read isn't "tough love." It's educational malpractice. More than a hundred years of research has shown that retention in grade does not help children "catch up" and it's time for us to try something else. Retaining students in a grade is not supported by research. Often it's done because "we have to do something" and the other options cost too much money or are too difficult -- or even worse, because we don't know what else to do (see Research on Retention in Grade).

All over the country legislators have decided they know more about education than educators and have passed laws which deny years of academic research and damage children.

States draw a hard line on third-graders, holding some back over reading

Advocates of the new tough-love policies say social promotion — advancing students based on age and not academic achievement — results in high-schoolers who can barely read, let alone land a job or attend college. Literacy problems are best addressed at an early age, they say.

Critics say the policies reflect an accountability movement that has gone haywire, creating high-stakes tests for 8-year-olds. The child, not the school, bears the brunt of the problem, they say, pointing to research that shows that the academic benefits of repeating a grade fade with time while the stigma can haunt children into adulthood.

Testing and Grade Retention

Research has consistently shown that retention can result in long-term negative consequences to student achievement. At the same time, other approaches to ensuring student achievement work better than either "social promotion" or retention".

POVERTY

The myth of America's failing public schools is false...what has failed is America's economy. We allow a huge percentage of our children to live in poverty and then blame educators when they can't overcome it. The plan is to blame the victims and then sell off the public schools to the highest bidder. Charters don't do better than public schools with children in poverty. Vouchers don't help. Firing teachers and administrators doesn't help. We need to work together to support struggling schools, not close them.

PISA: It's Poverty Not Stupid

Truthfully, you and I know all too well that Secretary Duncan, who led schools in Chicago, is aware of the relationship between poverty and student achievement, but he doesn't trust us enough to tell us the truth. He is afraid that we will use poverty as an excuse and that we will forget about our disadvantaged students. Ironically, by not acknowledging poverty as a challenge to be overcome, Duncan is forgetting about our disadvantaged students. Duncan needs to deliver the message that all our students deserve not only access to an education, but access to an excellent education. He needs to repeatedly remind us that, when it comes to school improvement, it's poverty not stupid.

Posted by Mel Riddile on December 15, 2010 12:13 PM

*References to charters generally imply corporate, for-profit charter schools. Quotes from other writers reflect their opinions only. See It's Important to Look in a Mirror Now and Then.

BENNETT'S LEGACY CONTINUES IN THE INDIANA LEGISLATURE...

Even though Glenda Ritz, supported by 1.3 million voters, took over the reins of the State Department of Education, Tony Bennett and his allies are running the show. They couldn't win the office with the votes of the people, so they're doing their work using the supermajority (which, I must admit, they did win handily) in the state General Assembly.

Bennett's former chief of staff, Todd Huston, a freshman Representative from Fishers, is contributing to the dirty work by pushing the so-called Parent Trigger bill through the legislature. The bill allows 51% of parents of a public school to give away the school to a private corporation...overruling the democratically elected school board and any public oversight. In August, I wrote,

The parent trigger bills don't give parents more control. They give parents less control. They allow 51% of current school parents to give away the public school to a charter operator. What happens in two years if 51% of the parents want to take the school back for the public schools? The parent trigger bills don't allow for that. Once the schools have been converted they're stuck with what they get. No parental rights. No public oversight.

Diane Ravitch put it this way in an entry of Bridging Differences from 2011. She wrote

To me, a public school is a public trust. It doesn't belong to the students who are currently enrolled in it or their parents or to the teachers who currently teach in it. All of them are part of the school community, and that community needs to collaborate to make the school better for everyone. Together, they should be able to redesign or create or discontinue programs and services. But collaboration is not the same as ownership. The school belongs to the public, to the commonwealth. It belongs to everyone who ever attended it (and their parents) and to future generations. It is part of the public patrimony, not an asset that can be closed or privatized by its current constituents.

The idea of a public trust means nothing to the elitist Huston...no more than it did to his handler, Bennett. And it's not just Huston who's doing Bennett's work in his absence. The legislature has mounted an all out attack on the public schools (and their teachers) in Indiana.

A SPATE OF LEGISLATION

Writing about Huston and his ties to Bennett (and to the College Board, the "the nonprofit but still immensely lucrative standardized testing empire"), Dan Carpenter at Indystar.com wrote

The aptly named "parent trigger" bill is of a piece with a spate of "reform" legislation -- expansion of vouchers for private schools, dropping licensing requirements for local school superintendents, diminishing the role of the state superintendent on state panels -- aimed at two basic prizes: consolidation of GOP control over the multibillion-dollar public education system, and diversion of those dollars to private entities unencumbered by professional credentialing and collective bargaining.

I would also add, reducing the influence of the Superintendent of Public Instruction...since she's a member of the opposition party.

Carpenter calls the parent trigger "aptly named", since it allows 51% of parents to kill a school. Trouble is...it's rarely parents who start the parent trigger. More often it's the charter edupreneurs who want the money who get it going.

Take a look at that list from Carpenter again...not one of the items being pushed by the supermajority in the state legislature has a proven record of helping students. Why are they doing what they're doing then?

Do they really believe that vouchers improve the public as well as the private schools? Have they taken a look at the research from Milwaukee? Apparently not.

Do they actually believe that reducing the qualifications for professionals (in essence "de-professionalizing the profession") will improve student learning? Apparently so.

Or maybe they JUST DON'T CARE...

...AND CORPORATE CHARTERS*

Another Bennett legacy, the state Charter School Board, makes it easier for charters to get start ups -- or as the "reformers" call them, "Turnarounds." In Fort Wayne, for example, Ball State University decided to pull the charters on three schools...since their results were worse than the public schools from which they were intended to rescue children [sarcasm intended]. The state Charter School Board, in answer to absolutely no request from the citizens of Fort Wayne, finds it necessary to hold a hearing for a new charter to come to the city...with ties to...you guessed it...Tony Bennett.

Carpe Diem: Seize the tax dollars by Karen Francisco, Ft Wayne Journal Gazette

Carpe Diem's [an Arizona-based charter company] ties to Indiana are through former state Superintendent Tony Bennett. He traveled to Arizona to visit the charter schools and apparently invited them to come to Indiana. Rather than seek a charter through Ball State or the Indianapolis Mayor's Office, Carpe Diem won its charter from the newly established Indiana Charter School Board, created as an easier path for charter expansion.

Another name on the Fort Wayne Carpe Diem application is Robert Sommers, identified as the company's CEO. But Sommers' name surfaced Tuesday in this Education Week article, about the intriguing web of foundation and corporate interests linking Oklahoma, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education and Oklahoma State Superintendent Janet Barresi. Sommers apparently has been hired by Barresi as director of the state's new CareerTech board.

Barresi's a member of Chiefs for Change, which is headed by – wait for it, wait for it – Tony Bennett. A watchdog group, In the Public Interest, recently released public records detailing communications among education officials in six states, Bush's foundation and corporate backers. The records, obtained through freedom of information requests, did not include Indiana, but numerous email records among the documents were addressed to Bennett and other top Indiana DOE officials.

It's a fascinating tangle of past and present GOP officials, corporate CEOs, education reform foundations and more. Now, it appears to be seeking a toehold in a south Fort Wayne neighborhood. Imagine that, if you'll pardon the pun.

[Re: "pardon the pun" -- Imagine Schools are the charter holders for two of the Fort Wayne charters being revoked by Ball State U. See Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette article, Both Imagine schools plan to appeal loss of charters.]

CYNICISM

So what's the purpose here? Is this just politics?

My cynical response is...yes. Politics and money.

The politicians of the supermajority (legislators and the governor) are doing everything they can to build more private and privately run schools using public dollars, and destroy the public schools because

• they are still angry at Glenda Ritz (read: 1.3 million voters) for defeating Tony and are too small to let it go.
• they are continuing the work of destroying the teachers unions in the state since unions are a) supportive of public school supporting politicians and b) the unions are made up of the people who actually work with students.
• they are in the pockets of the people making money off privatization (or, alternatively, they are those people).
• they are pandering to those who just want to simply do away with "gummint schools" because it's "socialism."
• they are pandering to those religious groups who think that all public schools teach secular humanism, devil worship, and (gasp) sex education.

There's a sixth reason...for those members of the supermajority in the legislature who are aware of what's going on and would even like to help public schools.

• they are scared of their party's leadership in the legislature so they blindly do whatever they're told.

Cynical? Yes. True? You can be the judge of that.

Before anyone accuses me of political party bashing...it's not just Republicans. It might be that way in Indiana, but 1) in Illinois, for example, the Chicago Democrats have made it a point to abandon the struggling students in their city for privatization (see blogs of The Brothers Klonsky, Mike and Fred) and 2) the US Department of Education (and the executive branch of the US government) are among the strongest allies of the Gates/Broad/Rhee method of privatization (see HERE -- all my posts about the damage done by Arne Duncan et al).

Below are a couple of things to look at...the first, another editorial comment about the bipartisan nature of privatization...and the second, the real crisis in the public schools in America.

Mr. Fitz comments on the election...



Melissa Harris-Perry makes it clear where the difficulties in America's education really is. Let's hold politicians, pundits and policy makers accountable for their failure to reduce the nation's child poverty rate.

*References to charters generally imply corporate, for-profit charter schools. Quotes from other writers reflect their opinions only. See It's Important to Look in a Mirror Now and Then.

Reposted from Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education

Vic’s Statehouse Notes #113– February 13, 2013

Dear Friends,

The all-out attack on public schools continues unabated in the House Education Committee. Since last week:

1. House Bill 1003, the enormous voucher expansion bill costing at least $47 million dollars and paying for vouchers for thousands of students currently in private schools, passed committee on a party line vote on Feb. 7th.
2. House Bill 1004, described by the House leadership as the “Pre-Kindergarten voucher pilot program”, which funds preschool scholarships with state money for the first time but then entwines the bill with the voucher controversy by making these students eligible for K-12 vouchers without first trying out public schools, passed the committee 10-2 on Feb. 7th.
3. House Bill 1358, the parent trigger bill which takes authority away from school boards over low performing schools and hands them over to an unelected cohort of parents if they petition to make them charter schools, passed the committee on Feb. 12th on a party line vote, 8-4.
4. Now tomorrow’s meeting (Feb. 14th) will hear House Bill 1337, which would give the state new authority to dissolve the governing board of local school corporations as part of a gigantic rewrite of the famous Public Law 221. Such takeovers would be based on school letter grades, despite the consensus that has emerged in the Statehouse that the A-F system is flawed.
5. Also scheduled for hearings tomorrow (Feb. 14th) are three bills I would dub the “Sour Grapes Election Bills” which cut the powers of Glenda Ritz to lead the state board (House Bill 1309), to co-chair the Education Roundtable (House Bill 1360) and to administer the voucher program (House Bill 1342). Senator Kruse said he would not cut the powers of Glenda Ritz, but no one in the House ever said that.
6. As if that is not enough, a House Bill 1339 will be heard as well, postponed from Tuesday and the subject of great consternation by many over evaluation and labor issues.

It looks like “Cut Glenda’s Powers Day” in Rep. Behning’s committee, starting at 8:30 Thursday morning in Room 156-C.

Here are some details:

House Bill 1003 – Voucher Expansion (Click here for my testimony on HB 1003)

This is the worst bill for public school advocates, expanding payments for vouchers to $5500 each, when many public school administrators I talked to today only get $5200 to $5300 per child for their students. In the following year, minimum payments go up to $6500. This all adds up to over $47 million in new money for private schools, as I detailed in Vic’s Statehouse Notes #112.

HB 1003 is not scheduled for second reading amendments tomorrow, but it could be as early as Monday, Feb. 18th. If you keep pouring on your objections to House members, they will perhaps have to deal with many amendments and slow down the progress on this bill. Pour it on!

House Bill 1004 – Preschool Grants (Click here for my testimony on HB 1004)

HB 1004 is scheduled for second reading amendments tomorrow. It is likely an effort will be made to delete the final section of the bill which makes students getting preschool scholarships eligible for K-12 vouchers. Without this final “poison pill” feature, the bill provides new support for preschool education in Indiana, a reform that Gov. Daniels and Dr. Bennett completely ignored in their agenda. Rep. Behning explained that the final section linking the concept to vouchers was a direct request of Speaker Bosma.

House Bill 1358 – Parent Trigger (Click here for my testimony on HB 1358)

Rep. Huston, former Chief of Staff for Dr. Bennett, who sponsored HB 1357 to give local school boards more power in picking whoever they want for superintendent, also sponsored the parent trigger to take power away from local school boards when schools get a D or an F. If parents get 51% of parent signatures on a petition, they can turn the school over to a charter school operator. A fierce battle over this concept came in 2011, and the matter was settled in the charter school bill when the Senate gave the local school board the final say over the parent petition. Now Rep. Huston is bringing the battle back to give parents final authority based on a petition. Two speakers led off supportive testimony representing a California group called Parent Revolution. No one explained who paid their way to come to Indiana to testify. After lengthy testimony, the bill passed 8-4 on a party line vote.

House Bill 1337 – School Accountability and Turnaround Academies

I started reading this bill today thinking it was mostly the Turnaround Academy bill that never made it through the General Assembly last year. I totally underestimated the scope. This massive bill rewrites Public Law 221, the law passed in 1999 with bipartisan support which has been the guidepost for accountability in Indiana. After 14 years, Rep. Behning brings a radical new plan. Among other features:

1. It gives the state authority to dissolve or merge local school corporations.
2. It creates independent schools, a new creation for when turnaround academies have turned around.
3. It removes “improvement” as the stated goal of PL 221, replacing it with “performance.”
4. It requires science assessments to be included in high stakes school letter grade decisions by 2014-15.
5. It allows students to be assessed in relation to peers (norm-referenced) by removing the well known language from PL 221: “Compare each school and each school corporation with its own prior performance and not to the performance of other schools or other corporations.”
6. It focuses these vast new powers on school corporations and schools getting a D or an F, even though the current A-F system is clearly broken.

All those with a strong stomach should read the entire bill and prepare to defend local school boards from state takeover using a flawed A-F system.

The “Sour Grapes Election Bills”

More than 1.3 million Hoosiers voted for Glenda Ritz, more than for Gov. Pence. In December, over 10,000 signed a petition to honor her victory after Gov. Pence said at a press conference that her election would not change his education agenda. All of those voters and petition signers should go to work on House Bills 1309, 1360 and 1342. They all cut major powers of the State Superintendent in three different arenas. They are blatantly political efforts to change the powers she won in the election. All those who are outraged by these three bills should contact members of the House with your thoughts.

Contact House Education Committee Members

It is time to act, preferably before tomorrow morning’s hearing, but any time in the next few days. Please contact members of the House Education Committee:

Chairman: Representative Behning

Republican Members: Representatives Rhoads, Arnold, Burton, Clere, DeVon, Huston, Lucas, and Thompson

Democrat Members: Representatives Vernon Smith, Battles, Errington and VanDenburgh

Then contact your own Representative to express your thoughts about these crucial bills. Taken together, the bills in the House Education Committee since February 5th constitute a bigger attack on public education than the monumental 2011 agenda: vouchers that don’t just save money but pay for thousands already in private schools, state powers to dissolve local school boards, and dismantling the powers of the State Superintendent.

If you’ve had enough, you need to tell the members of the House, promptly and decisively.

Thanks for your efforts on behalf of public education!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith

ICPE is working to promote public education and oppose privatization of schools in the Statehouse. I keep hearing reports that some public school supporters read these “Notes” with great interest but don’t translate that interest into joining ICPE. To keep our outstanding lobbyist Joel Hand in place, who testified this week in Ways and Means about the enormous fiscal cost of the voucher bill, we need all members from last year to renew and we need new members who support public education. Please join us!

Go to www.icpe2011.com for membership and renewal information.

Some readers have asked about my background in Indiana public schools. Thanks for asking! Here is a brief bio:

I am a lifelong Hoosier and began teaching in 1969. I served as a social studies teacher, curriculum developer, state research and evaluation consultant, state social studies consultant, district social studies supervisor, assistant principal, principal, educational association staff member, and adjunct university professor. I worked for Garrett-Keyser-Butler Schools, the Indiana University Social Studies Development Center, the Indiana Department of Education, the Indianapolis Public Schools, IUPUI, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, from which I retired as Associate Director in 2009. I hold three degrees: B.A. in Ed., Ball State University, 1969; M.S. in Ed., Indiana University, 1972; and Ed.D., Indiana University, 1977, along with a Teacher’s Life License and a Superintendent’s License, 1998.

Yesterday I noted some of the areas where Indiana lawmakers are doing their best to damage public schools.

Here are two more...at the very end I have included an email I got from a teacher suggesting responses when we write letters to our lawmakers (addresses available here).

AN ATTACK ON PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS

In a clear preference for private schools, the state legislature gives preferential treatment -- using tax dollars -- to parents who send their children to private schools or who home school their children. Public School parents take note. These are the people we elected. Let them know that this is unacceptable!

Codifying an education injustice - from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Indiana House Republicans are making no pretense this session of their preference for private schools and home-schooling. On Monday, GOP lawmakers voted 62-36 to defeat an amendment that would have given parents of public school students a tax break available to private, parochial and home-schooling families.

Lawmakers two years ago approved a tax deduction for families who home-school or send their children to private or parochial school – with or without a voucher. It amounted to a sort of consolation prize for parents who already were sending their children to private schools and would not benefit from voucher entitlements.

In 2011, the Indiana Department of Revenue said the tax break cost the state about $2.6 million in just its first year. It apparently was not enough – the House has voted to triple the amount of the tax deduction for 2013.

Indiana is one of just eight states where public-school parents must pay for textbooks. For some families, the cost amounts to hundreds of dollars a year. But when Rep. Clyde Kersey, D-Terre Haute, offered an amendment to House Bill 1427 to allow parents of students enrolled in public schools to receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for textbooks, House Republicans cried foul. The tax break is “a dangerous path to go down,” said Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton.

But it’s a path the GOP-controlled legislature chose to take two years ago. Now it is simply picking winners and losers along the path. Among northeast Indiana lawmakers, Rep. Martin Carbaugh of Fort Wayne was the only Republican to support extending a tax break to parents of public school students.

AN ATTACK ON SILENT TEACHERS

The following review of a proposed bill was posted by a teacher from Indiana. The complete, current version of the bill (as of Feb 13, 2013) is available at http://www.in.gov/legislative/bills/2013/IN/IN1339.1.html

Indiana teachers...are you going to just close the door to your classrooms and let the legislature destroy your profession, damage the public schools and hurt the children to whom you have devoted your careers?

Justin Oakley 2012

Today I read proposed House Bill 1339 and frankly if teachers in this state aren't furious, fired up, and fed up, I don't know what it is going to take to get your attention.

Hoosier Teachers:

HB 1339 takes away any due process for you. Simply put, you can be fired for anything regardless of your contract (this bill will super cede all contracts and renege on all 2011 promises that bargaining certain items would remain)

You will lose status quo status of any and all un-bargained contracts (er, Indiana history here: The reason teachers have association rights is because in 1970's Republican Governor made a deal - but implemented status quo law as to make striking in Indiana illegal -) and basically have ZERO bargaining power (which point blank is what these guys want and are making sure it happens NOW)

They have even added a provision to basically start the course of elimination of sick bank - that should get your attention - and again, if it doesn't, I'm not sure what will?

Here's some more:

Suspension with no pay (without due process) - and a forced submission of RISE (the four pieces regardless of contract) and all kinds of new reporting items to multiple boards.

And, they have also introduced parent trigger laws (which allows for parents to "take over" a school), virtual charters (with no oversight) and on and on and on and on......

Did I miss something here? Didn't Tony Bennett get defeated by a staggering number in Indiana? Didn't the State Supt. seat get 1.3 million votes? MORE THAN THE GOVERNOR ELECT?

I'm hearing that emails are not being answered. Phone calls are not being returned or ignored.

I'm hearing CRICKETS from the Indiana media!!!!!! (minus one very vocal reporter out of Fort Wayne)

I'm asking YOU right now, what is it going to take? How much more do you have to take before you completely snap?

I love teaching. I had the BEST teachers in the world. I wanted to spend my life giving back to MY community - - - - - now it is all be taken away and NO ONE is listening, fighting, or participating at the level we need to be.

How about this? How about 10,000 of you join my next Saturday in Mooresville, IN? I'm working on setting up a conference call for us to communicate off line.

It is TIME we say enough is enough. This is the time.

More to come.......

TAKE ACTION

Indiana parents and teachers...contact your legislators and let them know that you are against the attacks on public education in Indiana.

Indiana Senate Members
Indiana House Members
Indiana House and Indiana Senate Education Committees

From Julian Smith

Long but seemingly productive day at the statehouse. Here's a couple points that appeared to register with legislators today that you might share in your correspondence.

Parent trigger- not fair that only parents of students get to vote. Taxpayers (stakeholders) without children have a vested interest in their schools too. And it's not fair that a parent would get to vote for every child they have in the school. The way it is written 1 child, one vote and 10 kids, 10 votes.

Vouchers- Governor Daniels said in a speech at Harvard that public schools should have the first chance. It is not fair that private school parents get all the help and tax advantages while public school parents are still paying text book rental fees.

Accelerated reform- Many legislators are starting to question the wisdom of accelerating reforms that were already passed and implemented very quickly without giving them adequate time to take root. They are starting to recognize some of the unintended consequences we warned them about two years ago and are somewhat willing to acknowledge that macro modifications may result in a whole new set of unintended consequences.

Remediation-We currently spend about $3 mil on remediation and something like $41 mil on testing. What good is a test if you have no resources to cure the problem?

Is this what we want, Indiana? Did we elect Glenda Ritz as Superintendent of Public Instruction because we wanted to

• increase the state voucher program?
• reduce funding for public schools?
• find ways to increase the number of charter schools* in the state?
• lower qualifications for teachers, principals and superintendents?
• reduce the responsibilities of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction?

Apparently the Indiana General Assembly along with Governor Pence thinks so.

Why? Because we elected the same people to the General Assembly who carried out Tony Bennett and Mitch Daniel's plan to privatize education in Indiana. Have a look...

Your General Assembly, 2013.

VOUCHERS

Vic Smith: Voucher Bill

There are over 1 million public school students in Indiana. There are around 115,000 private school students in Indiana. Private schools or corporate-run charter schools don't do a better job of educating students than regular public schools. Yet public schools are being punished by the Indiana General Assembly for 1) accepting everyone who enters their doors and 2) being staffed (at least many of them) by members of teachers unions.

Public funds should go to public schools. The state has a vested interest in maintaining the education of its citizens. All citizens of the state should support public schools with taxes, just like they support police and fire departments, roads and libraries. It's good for the state. Private schools play an important role in the education of children, but private schools are not accountable in the same way that public schools are. They should be supported by private donations, not public funds.

House Education Committee voted 9-3 to pass House Bill 1003, the enormous $47 million voucher expansion bill...This is new, additional state money, mostly going to private school parents. The concept of “vouchers as a savings to the state” has been abandoned with the support of Gov. Pence. When Gov. Pence announced a 1% increase for education in his budget, the actual figure came to about $70 million. It looks now that Gov. Pence may have intended about two-thirds of that increase to go to private schools rather than to public schools.

EDUCATORS

Vic Smith: Qualifications for Educators

Before he left for Florida, former state superintendent Tony Bennett led the State Board of Education through the process of reducing qualifications for becoming a teacher in Indiana. The General Assembly is following his (absentee) lead, apparently, as they open the door to non-educator superintendents.

At Tuesday’s House Education Committee meeting, the bill saying that a superintendent of schools should not be required to hold a teacher’s license or a superintendent’s license, House Bill 1357, passed the committee on a party line vote.

Bad education policy, continued

Another link in the chain of de-professionalizing the teaching profession.

The single most influential factor in school achievement is economics. When poor children fail because of a host of poverty related issues the state can blame teachers...and with this bill, teacher training institutions.

Then, when the teachers are fired because of low test scores new, cheaper, untrained teachers can be hired.

In Senate bill 409, he wants to shift the responsibility for teacher licensing from the state to teacher preparation programs.

Why? Banks, a Columbia City Republican, didn't offer an explanation in a meeting with our editorial board, but it's not hard to guess. So-called education reformers are all about accountability. They would like nothing better than to tie particular teacher education programs to struggling schools. It would harm any efforts to place the best teacher candidates in classrooms with the greatest needs, but improving Indiana schools is not their intent.

WHO OWNS THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves." -- John Adams

Parent trigger: Taking aim at Indiana schools

Parent Trigger laws are anti-parent laws. The public creates and supports public schools. One group of parents during one particular year are not the only ones who should have a say in the control of the school. The schools belong to the community and school boards, elected by the community, have the obligation to keep the school in operation for future generations.

What happens if next year's parents don't like the results of the "parent trigger?" Is there provision in the law to return the school to school board control?

I didn't think so.

Once the community gives up control of their schools it's very difficult to get it back.

The bill is not parent-driven, of course. Parent trigger laws are a tool of corporate reformers, generously supported by the Wal-mart heirs and other anti-union forces.

Last year's "Won't Back Down" was the Hollywood version of a parent-trigger story. Conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz bankrolled the production through his Walden Media enterprise. The same outfit is responsible for "Waiting for Superman." In reality, parent trigger laws haven't improved any schools.

The laws are built on a terribly flawed premise: That a school belongs to the parents whose children currently attend there.

Public schools belong to the public – the taxpayers who created them, built them, maintain them and provide for their operation. It's a dangerous precedent to confer control of a school to parents currently involved. Imagine the tumultuous effect on education if key decisions were left to the whims of an ever-changing group of parents.

OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS

Indiana officials to Ritz voters: Drop dead

They think we don't care. They think since we elected them with a supermajority we want them to continue what they were doing to the public schools under Daniels and Bennett. Is that true? Is that what we want?

We need to tell them. We need Republican voters to tell them that, "yes, we elected you because we agree with your positions on other issues -- whatever they may be -- but we don't want you to dismantle the public schools in Indiana."

The real thumb-in-the-eye to voters is the voucher expansion bill, which has the backing of Pence and House leadership. Karen Francisco of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette runs down its effects in this post. It would transfer an estimated $47 million from public to private schools, boost the minimum voucher amount by 44 percent and triple the tax deduction allowed for private-school expenses.

“Any lawmaker who supported the voucher bill two years ago as a limited effort to increase school choice was duped,” Francisco writes. “The legislation was a first, small step in privatizing education and tearing down public education.”

Ritz got over 1.3 million votes – nearly 53 percent of those cast, despite running as a Democrat in a Republican year in a heavily Republican state. You’d think Pence and the legislative leaders might have noticed. But when you’ve got a super-majority in both the House and Senate, you can do whatever you want, the voters be damned.

*References to charters generally imply corporate, for-profit charter schools. Quotes from other writers reflect their opinions only. See It's Important to Look in a Mirror Now and Then.

More Privatization

Privatization isn't going fast enough for Indiana State Senator Dennis Kruse (R-Auburn). He wants to get help in privatizing Indiana's public schools from parents, teachers and school boards. State Impact (NPR) reported...

The legislation he filed Tuesday empowers [parents, teachers, or local school boards] to petition to either close a struggling school, transfer its students to schools with higher test scores or reorganize it as a charter school.

What is a "parent trigger?" In What Really Happens When Parents Pull the "Parent Trigger?", Will Dooling at PRWatch.org wrote,

Parent Trigger laws allow parents at any persistently failing school to gather a majority and either fire the principal, fire half of the teachers, or turn it into a private charter school. The laws -- which have been proposed in dozens of states and become law in California, Texas, and Connecticut -- have been embraced by some Democrats and groups that claim to support progressive values, despite claims by some that the laws have the impact of privatizing education.

Diane Ravitch has strong opinions regarding them. Writing in Bridging Differences in 2011, she wrote

To me, a public school is a public trust. It doesn't belong to the students who are currently enrolled in it or their parents or to the teachers who currently teach in it. All of them are part of the school community, and that community needs to collaborate to make the school better for everyone. Together, they should be able to redesign or create or discontinue programs and services. But collaboration is not the same as ownership. The school belongs to the public, to the commonwealth. It belongs to everyone who ever attended it (and their parents) and to future generations. It is part of the public patrimony, not an asset that can be closed or privatized by its current constituents.

Should we privatize a public park because 51% of the people who sit in it want to? Should we privatize the public library because 51% of the patrons choose to? The fire department? The police department? The National Guard?

[My fear is that, to these and most other questions about privatizing public sector arenas, Senator Kruse and his privatizing friends would answer yes...because they believe that nothing the government does is as good as what the private sector can do (I don't supposed they'll want to mention the "burst" housing bubble or the bank bail-out).]

Public Schools Belong to Everyone - Not Just 51% of the Current Parents

The parent trigger bills don't give parents more control. They give parents less control. They allow 51% of current school parents to give away the public school to a charter operator. What happens in two years if 51% of the parents want to take the school back for the public schools? Does Kruse's bill allow for that? Don't count on it. Once the schools have been converted they're stuck with what they get. No parental rights. No public oversight.

What about other tax payers? Public Schools don't belong to just those who attend. I'm still paying for the public schools in my district even though my children have graduated.

Does a school board have the right to give up their control of one (or more) of their schools to a private contractor? What happens if they want it back next year? What happens if they don't like the way it's being run? Can they change their minds? What if next year's school board decides that it was a mistake?

Public schools are public entities. They should be run with public money, by publicly elected school boards. The public must be accountable...not some board of directors of a private corporation.

When are we going to start holding legislatures and politicians accountable? Instead of wasting time with useless, pro-corporate, ALEC inspired, parent trigger bills and the like, Senator Kruse ought to propose legislation which might actually help children attending the so-called failing schools. Why aren't he and his fellow legislators being held accountable for state conditions which contribute to low achievement? Why aren't they proposing bills to

• reduce the rate of low birth weight children among African Americans,
• reduce drug and alcohol abuse,
• reduce pollutants in our cites and move people away from toxic sites,
• provide universal and free medical care for all citizens,
• insure that no one suffers from food insecurity,
• reduce the rates of family violence in low-income households,
• improve mental health services among the poor,
• more equitably distribute low-income housing throughout communities,
• reduce both the mobility and absenteeism rates of children,
• provide high-quality preschools for all children, and
• provide summer programs for the poor to reduce summer losses in their academic achievement.

It's time to pull the "voter trigger."

LETTERS TO THE PRESIDENT

Diane Ravitch and readers of her blog have come up with a plan to flood the White House email with letters in support of, and against privatization of, public education. While President Obama's reelection is in no way guaranteed, he is, of the two main party candidates, the one who is most likely to listen. Sample letters and suggestions are on Diane Ravitch's blog.

There is no guarantee that the President will listen, but it can't hurt to let him know that there are many people who are unhappy with the corporate privatization of America's public education system.

For more information about participating, see Instructions for the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools.


PRIVATIZATION

The Milton Friedman style corporate privatization of America is not restricted to Education. Privatization Watch has frequent updates about how Corporate America is moving against the public sector. Here are two Indiana examples.

IN: Indiana panel approves lottery outsourcing deal

The commission voted 3-0, with two members absent, to approve a 15-year contract with Rhode Island-based GTECH that is expected to make $1.7 billion in profit over five years — a $500 million increase over state projections. GTECH already provides and maintains vending machines for the Hoosier Lottery. In exchange for running the lottery’s marketing and other services, GTECH will be paid a management fee that hasn’t yet been determined as well as a share of the lottery profits. The state received $188 million in lottery proceeds last year….Illinois Lottery Superintendent Michael Jones criticized Indiana’s search for a private lottery manager in August, saying Indiana officials didn’t seem to have learned from Illinois’ problem-plagued lottery outsourcing effort. New Jersey and Pennsylvania also are researching whether to outsource their lotteries. 

IN: IU Employees Fear Losing Jobs Over Privatized Parking

Some unionized workers at Indiana University say they are worried about losing their jobs if the school decides to privatize its parking operations. In a short period of time, Indiana University officials could issue a request for proposals which would seek a trade: a private firm gives a large lump sum of money to the school in exchange for running IU’s parking operations for years to come… But that worries Communication Workers of America Local 4730 President Ed Vasquez. “The burden is that once you start doing all these privatizations I think there will be an impetus to start privatizing other services throughout the campus,” he says. “This provides a lot of anxiety for a lot of staff.” 

WON'T BACK DOWN

Working America: 10 Reasons Not to See ‘Won’t Back Down’.

Won't Back Down was produced with the objective of demonizing teachers unions and promoting Parent Triggers. This article was written before the movie opened...so it's failure at the box office isn't included. Nevertheless, here's are reasons to pass on this film from the AFL-CIO.

The Walden Media film “Won’t Back Down,” starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis, opens in theaters today. The film dramatizes a parent fighting to improve her child’s school, but it’s actually a dishonest Hollywood portrayal of the problems in our educational system—funded by the very people who want to privatize and profit from our schools. Here are 10 reasons to skip it.

CORPORATE CHARTERS*

The Great Charter Charade

"Reformers" insist on using standardized test scores as the one true measure of student achievement, teacher competency, and school success. However, corporate charters do no better than neighborhood public schools on standardized tests when similar populations are studied. The success of charters using the "reformer's" methods are no better than regular public schools. P. L. Thomas, at Schools Matter, has a summary.

• Charter schools, public schools, and private schools all have essentially indistinguishable ranges of student outcomes. Research shows there is nothing about the way school is packaged among the three that produces uniquely superior outcomes.
• Charter schools do, however, appear to have a powerful segregating effect that is detrimental to the goals of universal public education.
• Charter schools are allowed autonomy simultaneously with public schools losing autonomy; and the outcomes remain about the same.
• Charter school advocacy exposes the failure of promoting solutions without identifying problems.
• No compelling or substantial evidence exists showing that any form of competition creates better educational outcomes for the choices offered (such as charter schools) or the traditional schools. Isolated positive and negative data exist regarding the impact of competition.
• Charter school outliers receive disproportionate media coverage, almost no media scrutiny, and nearly no follow up that confirms we simply do not have evidence of "miracle" schools. Comparisons of apples to apples, scalability, and long-term data are almost never included in media support of charter schools.

WARNING: More Corporate Charter School Profits on the Way

The advance of corporate charters continues. Tony Bennett, Indiana's Superintendent of Public Destruction has given corporate charters full access to Indiana's school children. It's all about the money.

Here is the latest corporate charter school application looking to expand in Indiana and tap into our taxpayer education fund.

Nexus Academy of Indianapolis by Better Blended Learning for Indiana - looking to open up 3 campuses in Downtown Indy, Southern Indy, and in the Carmel Clay School district. This is a blended learning/college prep charter school serving students in grades 9-12 with expected enrollment to be 300 students at each campus. Blending learning is a combination of face-to-face learning in a building and virtual/online learning.

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATORS

Why don't educators speak out against the destruction of public education? One reason is that the "reformers" have so overwhelmed public education with unreasonable goals that the average teacher hasn't got time to think about anything other than keeping their heads above water. Still, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of teacher blogs on the net, where teachers reflect, vent and cry out against the damage being done to their students and their profession. Valerie Strauss at the Answer Sheet, hosts a guest blogger who lists...

Things educators could say but don’t

1. To Parents: “If you effectively raise your children before you send them to school, we can teach most of them. If you do not, we cannot.”
2. To Legislators: “Do not order us to repair the developmental damage that is done to children before they reach school age. We cannot do so and pretending otherwise wastes resources, damages K-12 education and does nothing to help those utterly innocent children who need it (and deserve it) most.”
3. To Reformers: “Academic achievement gaps, robust and intractable, are well-established long before the first day of kindergarten. Those gaps are not caused by teachers and cannot be fixed by teachers. What you like to call ‘reforming’ schools does nothing to help children who spend their first five years living in inadequate, often chaotic, households. If you want to help those children, you must do something to change those households. Any other approach is foolish, wasteful and destined to fail.”

The so-called failure of America's public education system is a failure of America's promise. "Reformers" blame teachers and public schools for not solving the problems which politicians and governments have failed to solve. One fourth of our children live in poverty. Schools with high levels of poverty have lower achievement (see #3 above), while schools with low poverty levels achieve at the highest levels in the world. Social safety nets are unable to provide everything children in poverty need...and neither can schools.  "Reformers" claim, without any basis, that improved schools (defined as closing "failing" schools, firing "bad" teachers, breaking teachers unions, turning public education over to private corporations, and redistributing public funds to private and parochial schools) will help children rise out of poverty. We, who are educators, know that we can't do it alone. We need to fix our public schools...not privatize them.


Should a Teacher's Past Be the Basis for Firing?

What if you did something perfectly legal, but a bit off the mainstream before you started teaching? Many young people make poor decisions and generally they leave the past behind as they mature. Bill Clinton smoked pot, Mitt Romney participated in a high school bullying incident, and others behaved in equally foolish and immature ways. A guidance counselor in New York City was a model before she started teaching. Should she have been fired because she modeled underwear? Is modeling what some might consider suggestive clothing as bad as breaking the law by using an illegal drug, or assaulting a classmate because of his presumed sexual orientation?

I was reminded of this by the case of Tiffany Webb, a 37-year-old high school guidance counselor in the New York City system who was fired after 12 years of exemplary service because she seductively posed in her undergarments several years before she became a teacher in 1999. These photos are not pornographic any more than Victoria's Secrets are. Nevertheless, she was axed, even though she disclosed her former career when she was first hired.

*References to charters generally imply corporate, for-profit charter schools. Quotes from other writers reflect their opinions only. See It's Important to Look in a Mirror Now and Then