NYCDOE (Intentional) Budget Chaos - Ed Deform Plot to degrade public and promote private - in Spades

The Adams administration was “pleased” that the cuts — which the mayor has said were necessary because of falling student enrollment — could be reinstated, according to Amaris Cockfield, a City Hall spokeswoman.... 

 

 “School starts in a few weeks. Our students do not need a drawn-out court fight,” said Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers. “The answer is for the mayor to restore the cuts.” - NYT Aug 8 - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/10/nyregion/school-budget-cuts-new-york-city-appeal.html

Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022

 

I explain MulgrewSpeak to my wife

When my wife read the Mulgrew comment about the mayor restoring the cuts, she, who often ignores ed stuff, called me upstairs to ask with a wtf: - Mulgrew is calling for restoring the cuts?

 

Mulgrew syntax. I had to explain what he really meant. But therein lies a major problem - the inept UFT response to the cuts in general. It's all surface and no depth. But yes, Mulgrew syntax getting my wife's attention is worth noting.

I covered the Aug. 4 rally with a tepid UFT presence -

• Mayor Adams Ed Budget Crisis - City takes multiple hit(s) in court, Successful Rally at Foley Sq, UFT Officialdom makes token showing

Imagine if they were able to bring out thousands - remember how Eva Moskowitz did it -- she's awful but we could use a leader with that sense of fight. At Thursday night's PEP meeting the mostly opposition faction in the UFT had a major presence -- my take is the leadership know what's coming and is hoping to toss roadblocks in the way and use political pull to forestall things while fighting off a more militant opposition -- which is really helping the deformers - who if given a choice will take the UFT over militancy.

 

While there is much scratching of the head out there from the liberal community, we also see some hard head critical analysis of what is really going on -- which I signed onto even before Adams' election -- lurking behind it all is privatization, pro-charter and the benefits to the corporate controlled politicians of weakening the UFT. That the union either doesn't recognize that -hard to believe -  but you tell yourself all kinds of stories when you don't have the DNA mechanisms to fight what's coming down the pike -- in fact, echo that with the general inept response of the UFT partners -- the center/right corp Democrats. 

(Oh, and before you start cheering over the big bill just signed wait for my post taking a deep dive into what's really going on -- a bigger win for corporations than working people.)

 

This is an excellent analysis by DOENUTS:

Pay careful attention. This is how a manufactured crisis is developed. This isn't how you manufacture a crisis per se (that's because the folks who are trying to manufacture this particular crisis are clumsy and clueless. They underestimated the strength of community and parent and teacher groups and, frankly, they didn't do their fiscal or demographic homework before they tried to run this play from the ol' Edreform playbook). But you and I are getting a very good look behind the curtain in real time about how to create one. This is the work of edreformers. They are running the same (boring) play as they did back in 2007-2013. It may be hard to see because the play is still in its infancy but this is how they do it. This is how they get their new charters and no bid contracts for their favorite private sector buddies and cuts to protections for educators of all backgrounds.  This is how it begins. They manufacture a crisis inside of the schools. Only "private sector" ingenuity and "workforce efficiency" will be able to save us. In the meantime, parents see the results from all the manufactured and determine to move their children to private or charter schools. ....A Manufactured Crisis, The DOENUTS Blog

DOENUTS lays out the full scenario which in a follow-up he will compare to the Post office privatization moves. What he doesn't address is the UFT role in all this which he may well yet do. Just think of this -- the current charter schools situation in NYC  has reduced potential UFT membership by big numbers. Imagine if they break the cap -- the UFT will wither away over time.

I would say if we look beyond 2007, the game plan began to be sketched out in the 80s. And our own union under the Shanker leadership initially, played handmaiden thoughout the ed deform movement - get with it DOENUTS -- there's no reform in the corp version.

It dovetails with others' analysis that this is an attack on the public school system and a move to create favorable political situation for privatization. There is so much there I could post the entire piece -- and I may do so yet -- but go read A Manufactured Crisis.

He promises in part 2 to connect the strategy to the post office privatization moves -- make it so ineffective by starving it people beg for UPS. Maybe we can see a Part 3 on the medical world privatization where Medicare is at risk -- including the actions of our own leader pushing privatized MulgrewCare. Also see the video I posted from a newly elected Ex bd member.

• Video - Ronnie Almonte - Recently elected Ex Bd member -  Speech and Article: NYC Schools Deserve Budget Boosts, Not Cuts

Let me say this once and again -- while there is a plan lurking behind the project - the implementers are inept.

James Eterno at the ICEUFT Blog also has some thoughts,

SCHOOL BUDGET CUTS ARE ON AGAIN AS CITY WINS A ROUND IN COURT (Updated with Attorney Barbieri Statement) - The basics from Twitter on the city's victory in court today: Statement from Plaintiff's attorney:

As does Leonie - Class Size Matters

Statement on the Appellate Court decision yesterday - August 10, 2022

And then look at this one -- if they are cutting because we lost kids, how about 4k new migrant kids with more to come -- keep em coming Gov Abbott - you are undermining ed deform in NYC>

 

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-scramble-to-enroll-asylum-seeking-kids-20220811-pepdihpitbc67he5ke3ibptvuu-story.html

NYC Education Dept. scrambles to enroll influx of migrant kids as school year approaches

Aug 11, 2022 at 6:04 pm

New York City’s Education Department is facing a logistical nightmare as the start of the school year approaches: registering potentially thousands of recently-arrived asylum-seeking kids for school in less than a month.

City officials estimate more than 4,000 migrants from Central and South America have sought refuge in New York and filled city homeless shelters in recent weeks — many on buses sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

For the city’s school system, that means identifying, enrolling, and securing additional services for hundreds, maybe thousands, of newcomers with no knowledge of U.S. schools, unstable housing and limited English proficiency — all by the start of classes on Sept. 8.

Education Department officials said they’re training partner agencies and shelters on how to support the migrant children’s educational needs.

Making matters more complicated, many of the kids may need specialized services that not offered in the closest school, advocates say.

All city public schools are required to provide “English as a New Language” services to students who need them. But not all schools have “dual-language” programs, where teachers alternate between English and Spanish, or bilingual social workers and counselors who can provide mental health support in another language.

If kids end up in schools without the appropriate services in September, it’s likely to cause more headaches for everyone, advocates said.

“It’s not fair to families or schools to have this rush of kids enrolling in programs where there’s not sufficient supports available to only to have kids transfer a few weeks later,” Pringle said. “No one wants that.”

Still, many educators are doing all they can to ensure the newcomers feel welcome next month.

In Manhattan’s District 2, where officials are expecting between 100 and 200 new students, schools are holding in-person registration drives, giving out backpacks and adjusting the schedules of their English as a New Language teachers in preparation, district superintendent Kelly McGuire told families.

For one migrant family, Education Department outreach has already made a big difference.

Nestor Enrique Torrealba, who arrived in New York with his wife and two daughters last month after a grueling journey from Venezuela, thought his kids weren’t eligible to attend school because of their immigration status — until DOE staffers showed up at the family’s shelter and explained their options.

And then this one - let's cut teachers and hire more safety agents.

A push to hire school safety officers awakens an old debate - Gothamist

https://gothamist.com/news/a-push-to-hire-school-safety-officers-awakens-an-old-debate

 

#NPE2022Philly - Network for Public Education - Real Ed Reformers Strike Back Against Ed Deform Empire - Building networks of resistance

The Network for Public Education is alive and well after a few years of a pandemic related hiatus. The NPE is the wall of resistance and attracted about 300 people from all over the nation. We had 4 UFC candidates there. No one from Unity was there -- as expected. I mean why join the battle to defend public education, except to make pronouncement every so often?

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

I'm just recovering from a weekend with some of the best activists in the nation fighthing back against Ed Deform and I'm inspired. The only other NPE conference I attended was in North Carolina in 2016, ironically in the midst of another UFT election campaign. I posted two reports then:

• @NPE16NC - Friday, April 15 report

• #NPE16 - Honey, I'm Back
  

This conference has been delayed for two years and I was hesitant to go to what could have been - of could be - a super spreader event. But I felt I had to go. And I'm glad I did (though I did have some aches and a few other potential symptoms yesterday - better today.) I don't have the energy today to post extensively but if you want to get the flavor check out the workshops offered. 

https://npeaction.org/conference-schedule/

What could be better than seeing Jamaal Bowman in action? And the treat of Diane Ravitch interviewing Little Steven Van Zaant on Sunday morning? There was so much more going. And Garry Rubinstein telling the Teach for America story -- his blog is known by people all over the nation: Gary Rubinstein's Blog

I got to meet and chat a bit with David Berliner, a major voice:  David Berliner - Wikipedia --  National Education Policy Center . I haven't read him yet but intend to.  Collateral Damage: How High-stakes Testing Corrupts American Education

Of course hearing the great Jamaal Bowman on high stakes testing was a treat. His co-presenter was Port Washington Supt Michael Hynes and he was dynamic and funny and I am now a big fan.

@MikeHynes5

I wrote back in 2016:

How can you go wrong getting to chat with Leonie Haimson, Carol Burris, Katie Lapham, Michael Elliot, Fred Smith and so many others I am blanking on. I hung out with Beth Dimino and through her got to hang with the amazing Long Island and Westechester NYSAPE/Opt-Out leaders like Terry Kalb, Lisa Rudley, Jeannette Deutermann.

Many of the same people were there. I had dinner with Leonie Friday night and we had a big crew hang out Saturday night at a Mexican restaurant and then the hotel bar where we witnessed Leonie's birthday at midnight. Leonie wrote on FB:

Thank you all! I had a great birthday at the annual Network for Public Education - NPE conference in Philly, getting drunk Sat. night with friends Lisa Platt-Rudley Jeanette Brunelle Deutermann Norm Scott Gary Rubinstein Jake Jacobs & others; then coming home Sunday on the train with Diane Silvers Ravitch.

Gary and Jake and Katie Lapham who was there are all candidates on the UFC slate -- fighters for public education. Need I tell you no Unity people were at the conference. 

These conferences are as much about making connections to build networks of resistance. I heard people from many states and even a guy who works for a Canadian teacher union and learned about the amazing organizing they are doing to fight back for public education. The clear message of the conference was that the deformers with right wing and Republican support are coming for the public schools and we are at the inflection point.

Here are just a few of the photos I took.

 

Michael Hynes, Lisa Rudley, Jamaal Bowman

Jeanette Deuterman

From Fred Smith who heroically drove down Saturday morning for the day.

Long Island Opt Out's Deutermann, NYSAPE's Rudley, District 16's Rep. Bowman

Jamaal Bowman

Hynes and Norm Scott sitting next to me

Jamaal Bowman connects charter movement to anti-labor, anti-union privatization - it takes an educator who suffered the negative impact of charters

One of the things that irk me about Democrats from all wings of the party and progressives to the left is how the charter schools are often avoided in so many discussions - I think that is intentional because they don't want to alienate segments of the non-white community who support charters. 

Those of us who have been involved in fighting ed deform over the past 25 years see charters as the point of the spear aimed at privatization of fundamental public services. Anti union, anti labor.

I'm watching a webinar from the Democratic Socialists with Jamaal Bowman, Naomi Klein and SARA NELSON International President, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO. (Call her the anti-Randi of the progressive labor movement). The goal of the webinar is to link green new deal to labor struggles and jobs by urging passage of the PRO-ACT. Dems who won't support the pro labor act are giving in to their corporate sponsors. The PRO Act gives unions tools to overturn the right to work laws in their states.

Bowman spoke eloquently, as usual, and made that charter school connection and how they must be fought to stop that movement. They are an occupying army. Just today see the duplicitous Eva Moskowitz once again whining about space in public school buildings to the pro-charter NY Post which always shades the stories in her favor.

The charter is pushing for the city to either renew the spot at I.S. 238 — which was never put to use due to the pandemic — or find an alternate location before documentation is required by March 12....The DOE countered Friday the existing space is reserved for special needs students.

“Everyone has been aware of this for the past twelve months—we prioritized in-person learning for our most vulnerable D75 students and we cannot and will not leave these families hanging,” said spokesperson Katie O’Hanlon.

Exactly right. Eva knew full well about the arrangement but as usual chooses to make up stories. Her goal is to occupy and take over entire real estate swaths of the NYC school system. It is time for the progressives in the legislature to rewrite the laws charter friendly Cuomo wrote -- stop the paying of rent and giving free space. Success especially has enormous resources. I would still support smaller mom and pop charters.

Ed Deform Debunked: DC's public schools go from success story to cautionary tale

Critics view the problems, particularly the attendance issue, as an indictment of the entire data-driven evaluation system instituted a more than a decade ago when then-Mayor Adrian Fenty took over the school system and appointed Michelle Rhee as the first chancellor. Rhee's ambitious plan to clear out dead wood and focus on accountability for teachers and administrators landed her on the cover of Time magazine holding a broom. But now analysts question whether Rhee's emphasis on performance metrics has created a monster.... Top News

 Another find from Fiorillo:

Good to finally see, even if you have to go al the way to the very last paragraph to see the name Michele Rhee mentioned... Still, articles like this will be the coffin nails of test-based "reform" ---- Michael Fiorillo

From day 1 of the ed deform miracles  those experienced in working in schools knew they were bullshit.


http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20180617/92fb606c-ea5e-4e9d-a1a5-c330cacf73dd

By ASHRAF KHALIL

From Associated Press

June 17, 2018 7:42 AM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — As recently as a year ago, the public school system in the nation's capital was being hailed as a shining example of successful urban education reform and a template for districts across the country.

Now the situation in the District of Columbia could not be more different. After a series of rapid-fire scandals, including one about rigged graduation rates, Washington's school system has gone from a point of pride to perhaps the largest public embarrassment of Mayor Muriel Bowser's tenure.

This stunning reversal has left school administrators and city officials scrambling for answers and pledging to regain the public's trust.

How Education Reform Ate the Democratic Party - Clintons Led the Way in Attack on Teacher Unions

This article is so good I want to print it out and eat it. Thanks to Patrick Walsh for sending this along.

Jennifer Berkshire in an in depth exposure of the Clintons' role and neo-lib Dems in leading ed deform attack on teachers and their unions, which was also chronicled as a positive by the Richard Kahlenberg book on Al Shanker (Tough Liberal), who was a Clinton partner --- instead of opposing he had the AFT/UFT work with them. [See Vera and my review in New Politics of the book where we refer to Shanker as a Ruthless Neocon].

To begin to chronicle the origin of the Democrats’ war on their own—the public school teachers and their unions that provide the troops and the dough in each new campaign cycle to elect the Democrats—is to enter murky territory. The Clintons were early adopters; tough talk against Arkansas’ teachers, then among the poorest paid in the country, was a centerpiece of Bill’s second stint as Governor of Arkansas.

.... as America ponders the mounting economic disequlibriums that gave rise to the Trump insurgency, concerned plutocrats can all agree on one key article of faith: what is holding back the poor and minority children who figure so prominently in the glossy brochures of charter school advocates is not the legacy of racist housing policy or mass incarceration or a tax system that hoovers up an ever growing share of income into the pockets of the wealthy, but schoolteachers and their unions.... Jennifer Berkshire, https://thebaffler.com/latest/ed-reform-ate-the-democrats-berkshire

This is a must read article -- for a decade we have been talking about the Clinton role in opening up the war on teachers back in Arkansas - as I said but can't say often enough, Al Shanker, head of the AFT and UFT joined them as a partner and led the way for teacher unions to walk into the world of ed deform for 30 years instead of opposing it and Randi followed along in spades -- the classic frog being boiled. Unfortunately Jennifer doesn't go the role the union played in this article. [Note to Randi haters who call her a sellout and who wish for the days of Shanker -- she was chosen by Shanker and Feldman for that very reason.]

The disappearing black teacher linked to ed deform [one third of NYC public schools have no black or Latino teachers today.]

Civil rights groups fiercely opposed the most controversial feature of the Clintons’ reform agenda—competency tests for teachers—on the grounds that Black teachers, many of whom had attended financially starved Black colleges, would disproportionately bear their brunt.

We saw the classic of ed deform was a disappearing of black teachers, many from the communities and their replacement by temp TFA white inexperienced people. In NYC alone thousands of teachers of color were fired 20 years ago over licensing issues related to the test teachers had to take. I knew some excellent teachers in my school who fell into this category.

We know ed notes readers so pissed at the Dem party role in ed deform they wouldn't vote for Hillary even though it will be proven that was also suicidal. Reason? The Dem Party centrists are being forced to back off ed deform -- witness Cuomo - even though if given a choice of him or Trump I would have a very hard time.

Here is another quote about a leading Dem:

Osborne told an interviewer that teachers unions belong in the same category with segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace. “They’re actually doing what George Wallace did, standing in the schoolhouse door, denying opportunity to poor minority kids.” To document their perfidy, Osborne cited the opposition of teachers unions in Massachusetts last year to Question Two—a ballot initiative proposing dramatic charter school expansion. Voters rejected the measure by nearly two to one—the same ratio, as it happens, by which wealthy pro-charter donors dwarfed the union spending that so upset Osborne.

Jennifer ties other leading Dems into the neoliberal deform movement

By the early 1980s, there was already a word for turning public institutions upside down: neoliberalism. Before it degenerated into a flabby insult, neoliberal referred to a self-identified brand of Democrat, ready to break with the tired of dogmas of the past. “The solutions of the thirties will not solve the problems of the eighties,” wrote Randall Rothenberg in his breathless 1984 paean to this new breed, whom he called simply The Neoliberals. His list of luminaries included the likes of Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, Gary Hart and Al Gore (for the record, Gore eschewed the neoliberal label in favor of something he liked to call “neopopulism”). In Rothenberg’s telling, the ascendancy of the neoliberals represented an economic repositioning of the Democratic Party that had begun during the economic crises of the 1970s. The era of big, affirmative government demanding action—desegregate those schools, clean up those polluted rivers, enforce those civil rights and labor laws—was over. It was time for fresh neo-ideas.

The link to the union capitulation is that Shanker endorsed the Nation at Risk in 1983 and unions stopped calling for lower class sizes and other real reforms -- that education can be reformed by getting more competent teachers and getting rid of so-called bad teachers -- and also -- using test scores to judge kids and teachers.

One more quote from Jennifer for those who don't get to the entire piece below -- something all of you should send out to everyone you work with and beyond.

Today’s Democratic school reformers—a team heavy on billionaires, pols on the move, and paid advocates for whatever stripe of fix is being sold—depict their distaste for regulation, their zeal for free market solutions as au courant thinking. They rarely acknowledge their neoliberal antecedents. The self-described radical pragmatists at the Progressive Policy Institute, for instance, got their start as Bill Clinton’s policy shop, branded as the intellectual home for New Democrats. Before its current push for charter schools, PPI flogged welfare reform. In fact, David Osborne, the man so fond of likening teacher unions to arch segregationists in the south, served as Al Gore’s point person for “reinventing government.” Today the model for Osborne’s vision for reinventing public education is post-Katrina New Orleans—where 7,500 mostly Black school employees were fired en route to creating the nation’s first nearly all-charter-school-system, wiping out a pillar of the city’s Black middle class in the process.

How Education Reform Ate the Democratic Party

The problem is that the Democrats have little to offer that’s markedly different from what DeVos is selling.

Read it all and tell me how it tastes: https://thebaffler.com/latest/ed-reform-ate-the-democrats-berkshire

Jeff Bryant: Democrat Ed Reformers BEWARE!

Although the reform campaign has long been marketed as a bipartisan cause, it's increasingly apparent that the better Democrats do at the polls, the worse the education reform agenda does.... Jeff Bryant

Jeff in a must read piece tells a story about Denver ed deform. Ahhh, I remember how our chief deformer in the UFT, one Randi Weingarten, raved about the Denver deforms when they were announced and even played a role.

For decades, Beltway education policy shops run by Democrats and Republicans have united in a "Washington Consensus" on common goals for public schools, including, closing schools based on results of standardized tests, using students' test scores to evaluate teachers, expanding competition from charter schools, and advocating for alternative pathways to the teaching profession such as Teach for America. For those Democrats who've been generally aligned with education policies promoted by Fordham and other Beltway influencers, it may be startling for them to learn that victories for their party at the ballot box could be interpreted as defeats for the very ideas they've long promoted.

Which means people like Corey Booker are dead to us - note how smart Cuomo is to pull away from this stuff a year ago though we will never let him forget it.

If you followed the humiliating defeat of the deformers, some linked to Democrats, in Massachusetts last year -- one of the few victories in that election -- there are stories about them rebranding themselves as reported by Leonie Haimson:

much confusing and/or deceptive rhetoric on that skimpy website, which appears to be a new  organization to battle the increased awareness that the corp reform movement is funded primarily by wealthy Wall St & corporate executives and ed tech billionaires:

https://www.alliesforedequity.org/

Here is Jeff Bryant's piece on deform on the run -- esp Dems.

Ed Deformer and Netflix Founder Reed Hastings is Why the Democrats Have a Problem

This morning I got a call from someone in North Carolina connected to the Democratic Party pleading for my contribution to stop the right wing/Trump agenda. I told him NO. He seemed astounded to hear that coming from someone who was clearly left leaning. I ranted about the Dems not supporting unions, their core constituency -- Clintons and Obama - and what did former Labor Secty under Obama try to do for unions? Remember Wisconsin? And how about that they did to the teaching profession and their support for ed deform?

I told him to call someone else and he was wasting his time but he wouldn't give up -- I said the Dem Party has a long way to go to win my trust, especially on ed policy. Finally, his supervisor told him to hang up.

Then I turn to the NY Times and read this article about Google firing the employee who expressed his opinions on women and tech: 
Rising Dissent From the Right In Silicon Valley: The Culture Wars Have Come to Silicon Valley
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/technology/the-culture-wars-have-come-to-silicon-valley.htm

I imagine people on the left cheering his firing. I'm not. I do believe we can't run a one way track to free expression --- the left justifies themselves by branding comments as hate speech and that gives them the right to oppose it.

The article talks about Trump tech supporter Peter Thiel, who is in many ways despicable for his views but I don't have problems in his expression of them.

But look who is acting as a cop for the left?

Mr. Thiel, a member of Facebook’s board of directors, was told by Mr. Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, that he would receive a negative evaluation of his performance on the board because of his support for Donald J. Trump.

Reed fuck'n hastings? Hastings, who supported Hillary, is a reason I won't give a dime to Democratic Party. Here are a few links to Hastings and education deform.

Thiel, Hastings

1. Reed Hastings' donations, students boo DeVos, remediation ...

   www.latimes.com/local/education/la-essential-education...

   May 11, 2017, 5:00 a.m. Reed Hastings' donations, students boo DeVos, remediation reform: What's new in education today

2. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Launches $100 Million Education ...

   fortune.com/2016/01/13/reed-hastings-100-million-education

   Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' education fund kicks off with a $1.5 ... Hastings has been interested in education reform for ... FORTUNE may receive compensation for ...

3. The battle of Hastings: What’s behind the Netflix ... - Salon

   www.salon.com/2016/10/...netflix-ceo-reed-hastings...partner

   Oct 14, 2016 · And much of Hastings’ school reform ... a former Virginia elementary school teacher who now writes and consults on education issues. “Reed Hastings ...

4. Netflix's Reed Hastings has a passion for education r

   Jan 01, 2014 · Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings may be best known for upending the entertainment industry, but he has also built a reputation as an ardent ...

Ed Deform is the NAFTA Equivalent: The Neo-Liberal Assault on Blue Collar Workers and Unions Includes Teachers

I'm writing this as a topic for discussion at tomorrow's ICE meeting. Does the analogy of NAFTA and ed deform as the same type of neo-liberal attack hold water in terms of the loss of blue collar and public school jobs as a way to lower labor costs and funnel the profits into private hands?

As we read analysis after analysis of the Democratic Party's abandonment of the working class as the reason for the Trump victory. But how many of these analysts on the left and left center delve into the Democratic Party's abandonment of public school teachers and their unions, despite the slavish worship of UFT/AFT/NEA leaders  for their almost meaningless little stool at the table?

Commentators talk about blue collar workers but neglect that the major assault has been launched by both parties on teachers and public schools. That giant sucking sound of job loss Ross Pirot warned about NAFTA in the early 90s is being echoed in the public schools by the charters and the upcoming vouchers. But no one is paying much attention to the analogy.

To me there is a similarity between a corporation going to Mexico and New Orleans and Detroit going charter - the very same idea is operating -- the same type of shift to paying lower wages. While some people are fooled by the social justice rhetoric of charters, their mostly positive response to the Trump destruction of public ed shows what they are really about. And note that some big corp just paid around $125 million for 5 charter schools in Florida.

There's charter gold in them that hills

The gold rush is on.


As long as the Democratic Party that shilled for ed deform and charters have ed deform people like Hakim Jeffries and Corey Booker and Cuomo, teachers who are being chopped will not be won over. I know my readers can't stomach what I am about to say but De Blasio was the only one who had the guts to take on Eva and he was slaughtered and backed off -- and even though so many schools are in awful shape and teachers are pissed - just see what options you have next year in the election when the choice will be DeB or an Eva Moskowitz clone -- and I bet some of the angry people who are pissed at DeB and Farina will put their head in the noose and vote for the Eva Clone because to them deB is too liberal. Good luck with that.

Trump-supporting or Jill Stein voting teachers in the UFT were so pissed at our union leaders they will never vote Democratic Party until the Republican Party screws things up so badly they have no other choice -- like imagine if non-Hillary voters find themselves with a vastly reduced pension and without a job as a giant sucking sound that makes NAFTA look like pablum decimates their jobs.

I don't see a lot of ways around this other than to think of a Bernie like party --- it would be left of any Dems and for the right wingers in the UFT out of the question but by then there may no longer be much of a UFT.

Ed Deform Coming Unhinged

Is ed deform, mistakenly labeled as a real reform movement, coming apart at the seams? The opt-out movement where 220,000 did not take the test in NY State is the most obvious sign. Also the media criticisms of Eva and Success Academy as the press becomes more skeptical of charter claims.

Look at the media coverage on charter scams, testing, the attacks on teachers as the cause of the problems there has been a turning - you can hear it in commentary as many former ed deform supporters have begin to see the light of the failures of those policies.

Now don't get me wrong -- ed deformers are loaded with dough and have bought a chunk of ed coverage -- ie - Chalkbeat and the Campbell Brown phony The 74 ed media as examples, plus the Gates, Walton, hedge funds etc. They claim the anti-ed deform movement is fueled by the teacher unions when we know full well how little the unions have done as they waffle on the fence though Randi and crew have become more bold as the worm turns - always tailing but we'll take what we can get from them.

In just the past few days here are some things to munch on.

Ravitch: Jesse Hagopian: The Black Resistance to Charters and Corporate Reform is Just Beginning

The New Yorker - wonderful piece: Stop Humiliating Teachers

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/stop-humiliating-teachers
------

The lawsuit just filed on behalf of the receivership schools

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-lawsuit-just-filed-on-behalf-of.html
-----

Fred Klonsky: In Chicago, DFER has been run out of town
https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/in-chicago-dfer-has-been-run-out-of-town/
---------

Washington State Supreme Court: Charter schools are unconstitutional

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/state-supreme-court-charter-schools-are-unconstitutional/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=article_left_1.1

-------

The Charter School Movement Is a Vehicle for Fraud and Corruption

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a48531/california-charter-schools/
--------

The Fight to Bring Transparency to California’s Charter Schools

http://www.alternet.org/education/fight-bring-transparency-californias-charter-schools

---------
E.D. Hirsch, Ed Reformer Pivots -rethinking his position on blaming teachers:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/education-reform-movements-co-founder-denounces-its-focus-on-teacher-quality/2016/09/11/79da4976-763d-11e6-be4f-3f42f2e5a49e_story.html
-------

A blistering opinion should shame Connecticut lawmakers, who have failed to address the problem of educational inequality.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/opinion/a-holistic-ruling-on-mbroken-schools.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share
------

Ed deform is racist in nature:

Ed Deform Racist Policies Attack Black Teachers - a Civil Rights Issue for Our Times

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/black-teachers-public-schools-education-system-philadelphia

-----

Charter privateers on the defensive but not giving up on their Orwellian takeover schemes 

 

Driving Down Teacher Salaries: NYC Teacher Erik Mears Unravels Ed Deform

I hope that TFA proponents will grow to regret their snobbish belief that graduating from a good college and interviewing well are better qualifications for teaching than ... actual qualifications and experience..... Public school teachers' relationship to charter teachers is thus analogous to the relationship between US auto workers and Mexican autoworkers.... Erik Mears, Truthout, Education Reformers' Core Beliefs Are Objectionable

I came across this piece on Truthout by NYC teacher Erik Mears who brings an interesting perspective to teaching. A West Point 2003 graduate, he spent five years in the army through 2008.

Education Reformers' Core Beliefs Are Objectionable

Monday, 22 August 2016 00:00 By Erik Mears, Provocations Blog | News Analysis