Tea Party Group Admits It Wants to "Shut Down Public Schools" - Unions Must Educate, Organize and Mobilize to Fight Back Instead of Compromising With Ed Deformers

“We think public schools should go away,’’ says Teri Adams, the head of the Independence Hall Tea Party and a leading advocate — both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania — of passage of school voucher bills...Our ultimate goal is to shut down public schools and have private schools only, eventually returning responsibility for payment to parents and private charities. It’s going to happen piecemeal and not overnight. It took us years to get into this mess and it’s going to take years to get out of it.”

Also read WSJ where Bill Gates admits he prefers vouchers but the political climate isn't right.  WSJ.com: http://on.wsj.com/nKjGSO

Where to start on this one when you are talking to the choir? People have to start ignoring the rhetoric from the ed deformers. Above is the intent of the privatizers ala Milton Friedman economics and the small government movement, with teacher unions being the major target. The idea that the way to fight back in this war is by focusing on organizing charter school teachers and trying to legislate limits on charters (pretty much the UFT approach) is farcical. Sure, organize charter school teachers (into thousands of separate contracts that can at most close down one school and easily be broken) but also educate them about the charter school ultimate threat and intent. The reason our movie is getting such a response is because so many people are seeing it as one of the most effective pieces in the fight back. And it is effective because it comes from the rank and file and didn't push the official union half-measure response line.

Charter schools are the trojan horse. And we in GEM take them head on in the movie and in our pamphlet "The Truth About Charters." Thus, let's start challenging those who say they favor choice and charters but no co-locos because that battle is ultimately a sham to cover up what is really going on. While I was not opposed to the NAACP-UFT law suit the loss was expected (last year they settled before they could lose - a loser of a settlement anyway.) But, hey, it gave slime bucket Marc Sternberg a chance to have a party.

So I'm a hard ass on UFT/AFT/NEA compromises by mouthing support for so many aspects of ed deform. And charters are the cutting edge of the assault. The idea of charter schools may be noble but we can't separate the theoretical intent of charter schools from the reality of the outcomes.
The "I believe in choice" argument has been misused. I believe in choice - when it comes to cars or corn flakes. But not when it comes to public institutions like a neighborhood school. The choice offer is being rejected by wealthy suburbs for a good reason. "Choice" becomes a dangerous concept when the result is a form of apartheid.

MUST READ at Seattle Education:   

Danny Weil on the Neo Liberal Language of Ed Reform
Weil links to this ed deform double speak video with the following description:

The idea of working to close the so-called "achievement gap" in education is very similar to the concept of "greenwash" in environmentalism.

Greenwash is the term used to refer to propaganda deliberately used by polluters to cover up what they are really doing. A typical example would be the plant-a-tree days that are funded by big oil and auto companies. Obviously, no amount of tree planting will ever undo their damage, yet the public relations people know that greenwash is a great way to protect their profits from costly calls for more government regulation: it distracts people from real causes. It encourages people to "take personal responsibility" rather than blame corporations who are made to look like leaders of environmentalism.

Similarly, when we look at education, we find that its new mission around the globe has, ever since NCLB, become "closing the achievement gap," that is, leaving no child left behind. I call this "gapwash" because it covers up the real problem of the ever-widening gap between the rich and poor, a gap which was caused by globalization and technology which together have dealt a death blow to the "decent jobs" of yesteryear's working class and given rise a new super-class of billionaires. "Closing the gap" gives educators a feel- good mission of raising test scores and graduation rates as it preserves the illusion that they are actually doing something to raise children out of poverty.
~ continued at http://forpublicschool.wikispaces.com/Achievement+Gap

See it directly on you tube: http://youtu.be/4FOmnG721qo



Below, read the truth instead of the eduwashers.

Tea Party Group Admits It Wants to "Shut Down Public Schools"

http://www.truth-out.org/tea-party-group-admits-it-wants-shut-down-public-schools/1310493891

Tuesday 12 July 2011

by: Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress | Report

As ThinkProgress has documented, a tightly-knit group of right-wing Political Action Committees (PACs) and corporate foundations have unleashed an assault on public education, pushing school voucher schemes nationwide that would funnel taxpayer dollars away from public schools and toward private schools instead. In doing so, many of these voucher advocates claim they simply want to expand school choice and improve the quality of education for all.

Yet one group that has been influential in the school voucher push — the Independence Hall Tea Party, which has run a major PAC that operates in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — is finally admitting that its true goal is to abolish public education.

In a series of e-mails and interviews, Teri Adams, the president of the Independence Hall Tea Party Association, explains that her organization is involved in its voucher advocacy because it believes “public schools should go away.” Adams said that their ultimate goal is to “shut down public schools and have private schools only“:

“We think public schools should go away,’’ says Teri Adams, the head of the Independence Hall Tea Party and a leading advocate — both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania — of passage of school voucher bills. The tea party operates in those two states and Delaware. They should “go away,” she says, because “they are hurting our children.’’ [...] Adams says the current voucher program “discriminates” against wealthier students by providing public subsidies only to inner-city children in allegedly failing schools. Her group’s e-mails pushing vouchers caught the attention of James Kovalcin of South Brunswick, a retired public school teacher who asked Adams for clarification. She responded via email: “Our ultimate goal is to shut down public schools and have private schools only, eventually returning responsibility for payment to parents and private charities. It’s going to happen piecemeal and not overnight. It took us years to get into this mess and it’s going to take years to get out of it.”

“It’s refreshing to see a vouchers promoter who is honest about her real intent — to destroy public education,” responded Julia Rubin, a spokeswoman for Save Our Schools, a New Jersey organization that is opposing the voucher push in the state. “Fortunately, most New Jersey residents understand how devastating vouchers would be for our excellent public schools.” (HT: @DianeRavitch)

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