Monthly Archives: March 2016

This is a must-read article. Share it with your friends who don’t understand the corporate assault on American public schools.

Jeff Bryant writes here about the Walton family’s effort to impose the Walmart business philosophy on public education. I have called it the Walmartization  of public education. The he family collectively is worth about $150 billion.

When Walmart enters a community, the local businesses can’t compete with its low prices and vast inventory. The local businesses close down. Main Streets across America are filled with empty stores and a dying commercial core, thanks to Walmart’s cutthroat competition. Walmart doesn’t care about community. It has only one purpose: profits for Walmart.

Central to to its business philosophy is cost-cutting. It wants the lowest-paid employees. It wants the lowest price products, so it buys wherever labor costs are lowest. I would be surprised if anything sold by Walmart is American-made.

To to…

Who do you think is really powerful? I will tell you: students and parents. When either group gets organized, they have real power. Consider the parents who opted out in New York: they made Governor Cuomo beat a fast retreat. No one knows how to stop them. No one can stop them.

And now there are the high school students in Boston. They organized a protest against massive budget cuts. They planned meticulously. And thousands of students walked out, ready with signs of protest. The students are fighting for what they need and deserve: a well-resourced education. This should be their right. They should have to fight for it. But they are fighting, and their voices are powerful.

Hours before more than 3,500 of their peers would march out of their classrooms toward Boston Common, a small group of high schoolers was glued to a group chat on their phones…

I watched the replay of the Ohio Town Hall specifically to understand what Bernie said about charter schools.

The teacher who posed the question was a TFA charter teacher. She asked a leading question. She asserted that in Ohio, charter schools led the state in helping poor black and Hispanic children, then she asked whether they should play a role in solving the problems of these children.

To begin with, her assertion was inaccurate. It was propaganda for charters, which in Ohio have experienced numerous financial and academic scandals. In addition, she failed to mention that charters are far more likely to be low-performing than public schools. (See: here and here). Ohio has charter operators who give large campaign contributions and evade accountability. Some Ohio charter owners have made millions.

Bernie Sanders responded that he supports public education, and he supports public charter schools. He then talked about the…

“Cashing in On Kids” reports that ALEC education legislation is quietly spreading across the nation. ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a secretive far-right organization that is funded by major corporations and whose members are state legislators. Its goal is privatization and deregulation. It writes model laws, then its members introduce them into their state legislature as their own. To learn all about ALEC, go to Alec Exposed.

Despite widespread public opposition to the corporate-driven education privatization agenda, at least 172 measures reflecting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model bills were introduced in 42 states in 2015, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of ALECexposed.org and PRWatch.org. (A PDF version of this report may be downloaded here.)

One of ALEC’s biggest funders is Koch Industries and the Koch brothers’ fortune. The Kochs have had a seat at the table – where the private…

Jeff Bryant writes that charter schools have enjoyed an elevated status as a “sure cure” for low-performing students because most Americans know so little about them.

He cites a number of polls showing that the appeal of charter schools wears thin when people realize that they draw resources away from the local public schools. As one person quoted in the article says, charters have a “negative fiscal impact” on local public schools.

Furthermore, the local press in many cities–especially in Florida and Ohio–has reported frequently on charter frauds and scandals, on money flowing to politically connected charter operators, on legislators with conflicts of interest, on charters that push out unwanted children and avoid students with disabilities, and on charters whose “CEO” is paid over half a million. As more such articles appear, the public begins to see that the absence of regulation leads to systemic abuse, not just a one-time…

I accidentally posted this when I meant to edit it and add the links. The links are now inserted.

Press release *** For immediate release

Parents and educators stand together against growing test stress in children

March 8, 2016

Contacts: Julie Woestehoff, Interim Executive Director, Parents Across America, 773-175-3989

Laura Bowman, leader of PAA-Roanoke Valley (VA), 540-819-6385

Danielle Arnold-Schwartz, leader of PAA- Suburban Philadelphia (PA), 215-498-2549

Today, Parents Across America announces the endorsement of its position paper, “Parents Stand up Against Test Stress,” by such prominent educators as Alfie Kohn, Jonathan Kozol, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige (list follows).

PAA has also contacted the National Institutes of Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics asking that they investigate our concerns that high-stakes standardized testing has become a health hazard for our nation’s public school children.

According to Dr. Isabel Nuñez, Associate Professor in the Center for Policy and Social Justice, Concordia University…

Jonathan Pelto, a former legislator in Connecticut, warns about proposed legislation that would allow the state to take control of local schools, without regard to wishes of local school board.

He writes:

“A new piece of legislation before the Connecticut General Assembly (H.B. 5551) would be the most far-reaching power grab in state history – a direct attack local control of schools, our democracy and Connecticut’s students, parents, teachers, local school officials and public school.

“The legislation would enable Malloy’s political appointees on the State Board of Education to takeover individual schools in a district, remove the control of the elected board of education, “suspend laws” and eliminate the role of school governance councils which are the parent’s voice in school “turnaround plans.

“The bill is nothing short of an authoritarian maneuver by grossly expanding the Commissioner of Education’s powers under the Commissioner’s Network. The bill destroys the fundamental role of…

I received an email from a daily reader of the blog who asked me how she could explain the downside of corporate reform to friends at a dinner party in the suburbs who know nothing at all about the issues. She said that her friends were liberal Democrats, but their own children are grown, and they don’t read the blogs. What could she say that was direct, accurate, and informative?

We exchanged emails and began creating a list of snappy explanatory comments. Our combined list is below. Would you be good enough to send me your suggestions?

Your friend says, “So what do you think of the education reform movement?” Or, “How could anyone be opposed to education reform?”

And you answer, “What you call education “reform” is not reform at all. It is a way of making public schools look bad so they can be turned over to private…

After a showing of Shannon Puckett’s powerful documentary “Defies Measurement,” the opt out movement in Pennsylvania got a large boost. Shannon, an experienced teacher, made the film with the help of Kickstarter, and has made it available for free online.

After they saw the film, parents asked for yard signs declaring their opposition to the state tests, and organizers ran out of them.

The more people see this documentary and others showing the punitive nature of these tests (why should little children take standardized tests that last for several hours? Why can’t their reading and math skills be divined in a 45- minute test?), the more they want to withhold consent.

The more parents understand that these tests provide no useful information about their child (how does it help to know what percentile rank your child is in compared to children of the same age in other districts and…