Local Control

Entire State of Pennsylvania Held Hostage by Handful of Ideologues Refusing Budget Compromise

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Pennsylvania’s hostage crisis goes into Day 258 Saturday.

Republican lawmakers continue to block the passage of a state budget that was required by law at the end of June 2015.

In fact, Gov. Tom Wolf – a Democrat – released his spending plan this week for the fiscal year 2016-17 – yet the previous year’s budget still has not been approved!

Even after numerous difficult concessions made by Democrats, Republicans still decline approval of any spending plan but their own.

I call this a “hostage crisis” because their actions are not supported by the majority of Pennsylvanians.

The overwhelming majority of residents want a budget. The overwhelming majority of voters cast ballots for Democrats in the last election, but the GOP remains in control of the legislature purely because of gerrymandering. That’s why the majority of residents booted out the former Republican Governor and overwhelmingly approved Democrat Wolf to replace him.

Meanwhile, legislative Democrats lead by Gov. Wolf have made numerous concessions to the opposition. For instance, the Keystone state is one of the richest in the nation in shale deposits yet it is the ONLY one not to tax the industry. That’s right: Ohio, Wyoming, North Dakota, West Virginia, Colorado, Alaska, Louisiana, New Mexico, Kansas, Arkansas, California, Oklahoma, Utah and Alabama all have a severance tax. Only Pennsylvania does not.

GOP legislators receive massive donations from the energy industry and have demanded gas drilling remain untaxed. Though Wolf promised to make shale drillers pay their fair share, the Democrats have conceded the issue in the name of compromise.

Our posterity will look back at us and wonder why we let gas drillers poison our environment. But we aren’t even asking questions about the industry’s impact on our water and soil. Instead, we’re fighting over whether to tax them or not! And still there is no budget!

Additionally, Republicans demand we further dismantle our urban school districts like Philadelphia City Schools. The GOP insists on accountability from the district while making sure no one actually responsible for the schools’ hardships will ever actually be held accountable. The district has been systematically underfunded. Administrative decisions have been taken over mostly by the state. Yet somehow the solution is further privatizing the poorest buildings without any transparency from the for-profit companies that will take over.

Democrats have given in to this outrageous ultimatum. And still we have no budget!

No amount of public bloodletting has been enough for Republicans. As each demand has been met, a new one is leveled. The latest example is a GOP commandment to shortchange state workers pensions.

Republicans insist the Democrats allow them to reduce pension payments to new and current employees. Never mind that this is illegal. Pensions are bills for services rendered. You can’t sign a contract promising to pay X and then years later decide to give less. Pensions are part of a trade off state workers make when they take the job. In essence, state workers agree to lower wages than they would receive in the private sector in exchange for a safe, reliable pension when they retire. You can’t renege on that.

A tentative agreement was reached to reduce benefits for only new state employees, but it failed. Never mind that this measure would achieve no cost savings for a generation. Never mind that it would reduce the quality of employee who would even apply to work for the state. Never mind that just last year Republicans – who controlled both the executive and legislative branches – could have enacted any bill they wanted. But they are only pushing the issue this year to force Democrats to take partial responsibility for legislation they didn’t have the courage to enact alone.

This is not partisanship. These are facts.

On the local scene, there are lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that are willing to put party aside and work for the common good. But at the state level, Republicans almost exclusively are destroying the value of our government. It shouldn’t exactly be surprising that people who got into office campaigning that we don’t need government turn out to do a bad job of running it.

The national banking and investing world have made it quite clear. Standard & Poor’s cited the state’s budget impasse as the reason it withdrew an A rating from the Commonwealth’s public school system. Moody’s Investors Service likewise downgraded the state’s general obligation rating. The legislature’s actions are destroying our national reputation and ability to get things done.

The major sticking point is that Wolf and the Democrats are asking Republicans to restore the almost $1 billion in budget cuts made to education for the last 4 years and continuing through this year’s budget temper tantrum. The GOP had no problem robbing public schools of this money when they also controlled the Governor’s mansion. They are just now adamantly opposed to returning it.

Make no mistake. This has nothing to do with protecting residents’ taxes. Blocking the passage of a budget forces local municipalities and school districts to do state legislator’s dirty work for them and raise local taxes. Legislative Republicans are shirking their duties and pointing fingers elsewhere.

After even worse actions by Republicans in Michigan, it’s hard not to wonder what has become of the GOP? Poisoning the town of Flint? Systematically disinvesting in Detroit Schools? And now in Pennsylvania refusing to pass a fiscal budget!? This isn’t your father’s GOP!

Are state Republicans even a political organization anymore? With actions like these, don’t they more resemble home-grown terrorists? If ISIL took over Harrisburg and shut down the state budget, it would be an act of war. They are spreading chaos for chaos’ sake.

If it weren’t for Gov. Wolf releasing emergency funds through an executive order, many schools would already be closed. Many public services would be shut down. But this can’t last much longer. The Governor can’t govern alone indefinitely.

It is time for the hostage crisis to end. If you live in a Republican-controlled legislative district, you need to let your representative know that you want compromise. Send your legislator back to Harrisburg. Don’t let any of them return to their home districts until the impasse is over. Heck! Thousands should march outside of the capital building keeping a quorum present until the matter is resolved. None of them should get to leave until they DO. THEIR. JOBS.

Until then, all of us in Pennsylvania remain at the mercy of a handful of ideological cowards while our schools go wanting and public services rot on the vine.

Most Charter Schools are Public Schools in Name ONLY

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Charter schools are public schools.

But are they?

Really?

They don’t look like a duck. They don’t quack like a duck. Do you really want to serve them confit with a nice orange sauce?

Sure, charters are funded by tax dollars. However, that’s usually where the similarities end.

They don’t teach like public schools, they don’t spend their money like public schools, they don’t treat students or parents like public schools – in fact, that’s the very reason they exist – to be as unlike public schools as possible.

Advocates claim charters exist as laboratory schools. They are free to experiment and find new, better ways of doing things. Once they’ve proven their successes, these improved practices will eventually trickle down to our more traditional houses of learning.

At least, that’s the ideal behind them. But to my knowledge it’s never happened.

As a public school teacher, I can never recall being at a training where charter operators taught us how to do things better with these time-tested strategies. I do, however, recall watching excellent co-workers furloughed because my district had to meet the rising costs of payments to our local charters.

Moreover, if the freedom to experiment is so important, why not give that privilege to all public schools, not just a subset?

The reality is much different than the ideal. In the overwhelming majority of cases, charter schools are vastly inferior to their more traditional brethren. To understand why, we need to see the differences between these two kinds of learning institutions and why in every case the advantage goes to our much-maligned, long suffering traditional public schools:

1) Charters Don’t Accept all Students

Charter schools are choosey. They don’t take just any old students. They only accept the ones they want. And the ones they want are usually easy and less expensive to teach.

The process is called “Creaming” because they only pick the cream of the crop. Then when these students who are already doing well continue to do well at a charter, the administrators take all the credit. It’s as if they were saying – Look how well we teach. All these former A-students continue to get A’s here at our school. It’s really quite an achievement. (Not.)

However, sometimes the bait-and-switch isn’t so obvious. Occasionally, charters actually do accept special needs and/or difficult students – for a few months. Then when the big standardized test is coming up, they quietly give these kids the boot. That way they can claim they accept everyone but still get excellent standardized test scores.

Ironically, that’s what they mean by “School Choice.” It’s usually touted as a way of giving alternatives to parents and students. In reality, the choice only goes to administrators. Not “Which school do YOU want to attend?” but “Which students do WE want to accept to make our charter look good?”

Keep in mind, this situation is allowed by law. Charters are legally permitted to discriminate against whichever students they want.

By contrast, traditional public schools accept all students who live within the district. It doesn’t matter if children have special needs and therefore cost more to educate. If a child lives within district boarders, your neighborhood public school will take him or her in and provide the best experience possible.

Bean counters complain about poor test scores, but traditional public schools aren’t gaming the system. They aren’t weeding out difficult students. They take everyone. Administrators have no choice. This is dictated by law. Public schools are equal opportunity educators.

2) Charters Have No Transparency

Have you ever been to a school board meeting? Ever listened to school directors debate the merits of one course of action versus another? Ever looked over public documents detailing district finances and how money is spent? Ever read over bids vendors provide for services? Ever spoken at a public meeting to school directors about what you think is the best way to proceed in a given situation? Ever had a school director or two disappoint and then worked to vote him or her out of office?

At traditional public schools, you can do all of this – even if you don’t have any children in the school system! At a charter school, you’re out of luck.

Charters rarely have to tell you how they spend their money, rarely debate management decisions in public, rarely invite or even permit you a seat in the audience. Heck! They don’t have to!

Charters survive on public money, but once that money goes in those charter doors, the public never sees it again. If you don’t like how the charter is treating your child, you can remove the little dear from the school. But if a non-parent doesn’t like how they suspect the charter is spending his or her tax money, there is absolutely no recourse. You are taxed without any representation. Wars have been fought over such things. It’s hard to imagine how that can be Constitutional.

In sum, traditional public schools are like most other government organizations. They are required by law to be transparent to the public. Charter schools, however, are money pits and what goes down those gaping holes is lost forever from public view.

3) Charters Advertise

Have you ever seen those huge billboards by the side of the road trying to convince motorists to send their children to a charter chain? Ever hear a radio advertisement about how happy little kiddos are at Brand X Charter School?

Those advertisements cost money. Your money, to be exact. You paid for those commercials. And what’s more, every penny spent on those glossy advertisements is one less that actually goes to educate your child.

By contrast, traditional public schools are not allowed to advertise. All their budget dollars have to be spent on things broadly educational. They have to spend on books, teachers, building upkeep, etc.

Not only are charters allowed to keep quiet about how they spend their money, even if they told you, it doesn’t all have to be spent on the children in their care. What could possibly go wrong with that?

4) Charters Defraud the Public

Despite all their best efforts at secrecy, charter school operators have been caught in countless financial scandals in recent years. According to Integrity in Education, $200 million in taxpayer money was lost, misused, or wasted in just 15 of the 42 states that have charter schools.

These aren’t mere allegations. These abuses are well documented. The report states: “Charter operators have used school funds illegally to buy personal luxuries for themselves, support their other businesses, and more.”

Mountains of evidence demonstrate fraud throughout the country: Schoolchildren defrauded in Pennsylvania; “out-of-control” charters in Michigan and Florida; rampant misspending in Ohio; bribes and kickbacks, also in Ohio; revenues directed to a for-profit company in Buffalo, NY; subpoenas for mismanaged charters in Connecticut. Heck! In California alone, $100 million in fraud losses were expected just last year.

And that’s just the fraud we can see!

I’m not saying our traditional public schools are scandal free, but nothing like this level of malfeasance has been revealed. Traditional schools are under much stricter regulations. People are actually watching to make sure nothing like these charter scandals happen at our time-tested neighborhood schools. They are much better value for your money.

5) Charters Often Get Worse Results

It all comes down to teaching and learning. When we compare the results at charters versus traditional public schools, who does better?

Bottom line: the research shows that the overwhelming majority of charter schools are no better – and often much worse than traditional public schools. This is true even of studies backed by the charter school industry, itself!

For example, a recent study by charter-friendly CREDO found that in comparison to traditional public schools “students in Ohio charter schools perform worse in both reading and mathematics.”

In a study of Chicago’s public schools, the University of Minnesota Law School found that “Sadly the charter schools, which on average score lower that the Chicago public schools, have not improved the Chicago school system, but perhaps made it even weaker.”

Another report from Data First – part of the Center for Public Education – says, “the majority of charter schools do no better or worse than traditional public schools.”

However, there is plenty of evidence of charter schools producing dismal academic results for students. For instance, a Brookings report showed low performance in Arizona’s charter schools. A District of Columbia researcher for In the Public Interest group, “could not provide a single instance in which its strategy of transferring a low-performing school to a charter management organization had resulted in academic gains for the students.” The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that “Students in most Minnesota charter schools are failing to hit learning targets and are not achieving adequate academic growth.” Over 85 percent of Ohio’s charter students were in schools graded D or F in 2012–2013. In the celebrated New Orleans charter experiment, the Investigative Fund found that “eight years after Hurricane Katrina…seventy-nine percent of RSD charters are still rated D or F by the Louisiana Department of Education.”

That’s not exactly a record of success!

Meanwhile, our traditional public schools often do a much better job.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports that U.S. math and reading skills have improved for all levels of public school students since the 1970s, with the greatest gains among minority and disadvantaged students. Other results indicate that our schools achieve even greater success when properly funded.

The facts seem pretty clear. Charter schools are not like traditional public schools at all.

Most charter schools are a losing prospect for our children and our Democracy. Yet well-funded corporate lobbying interests continue to push charters as a public policy solution while instigating the closure of an increasing number of traditional public schools.

This is like closing hospitals and opening clinics on the power of crystals, snake oil and phrenology.

We need a national moratorium on new charter schools. We need to investigate every existent charter to determine if each are providing a quality service to students and not just the charter’s corporate share holders.

We know what works, and it isn’t charter schools. Support your friendly, neighborhood, traditional public school.

Top 10 Reasons School Choice is No Choice

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LittleKidThumbsDown

On the surface of it, school choice sounds like a great idea.

Parents will get to shop for schools and pick the one that best suits their children.

Oh! Look, Honey! This one has an exceptional music program! That one excels in math and science! The drama program at this one is first in the state!

But that’s not at all what school choice actually is.

In reality, it’s just a scam to make private schools cheaper for rich people, further erode the public school system and allow for-profit corporations to gobble up education dollars meant to help children succeed.

Here’s why:

1) Voucher programs almost never provide students with full tuition.

Voucher programs are all the rage especially among conservatives. Legislation has been proposed throughout the country taking a portion of tax dollars that would normally go to a public school and allowing parents to put it toward tuition at a private or parochial school. However, the cost of going to these schools is much higher than going to public schools. So even with your tax dollars in hand, you don’t have the money to go to these schools. For the majority of impoverished students attending public schools, vouchers don’t help. Parents still have to find more money somewhere to make this happen. Poor folks just can’t afford it. But rich folks can so let’s reduce their bill!? They thank you for letting them buy another Ferrari with money that should have gone to give poor and middle class kids get an education.

2) Charter and voucher schools don’t have to accept everyone

When you choose to go to one of these schools, they don’t have to choose to accept you. In fact, the choice is really all up to them. Does your child make good grades? Is he or she well-behaved, in the special education program, learning disabled, etc.? If they don’t like your answers, they won’t accept you. They have all the power. It has nothing to do with providing a good education for your child. It’s all about whether your child will make them look good. By contrast, public schools take everyone and often achieve amazing results with the resources they have.

3) Charter Schools are notorious for kicking out hard to teach students

Charter schools like to tout how well they help kids learn. But they also like to brag that they accept diverse students. So they end up accepting lots of children with special needs at the beginning of the year and then giving them the boot before standardized test season. That way, these students’ low scores won’t count against the charter school’s record. They can keep bragging about their high test scores without actually having to expend all the time and energy of actually teaching difficult students. Only public schools take everyone and give everyone their all.

4) Voucher and charter schools actually give parents less choice than traditional public schools

Public schools are governed by different rules than charter and voucher schools. Most public schools are run by a school board made up of duly-elected members from the community. The school board is accountable to that community. Residents have the right to be present at votes and debates, have a right to access public documents about how tax money is being spent, etc. None of this is true at most charter or voucher schools. They are run by executive boards or committees that are not accountable to parents. If you don’t like what your public school is doing, you can organize, vote for new leadership or even take a leadership role, yourself. If you don’t like what your charter or voucher school is doing, your only choice is to withdraw your child. See ya.

5) Charter Schools do no better and often much worse than traditional public schools

Pundits and profiteers love to spout euphoric about how well charter schools teach kids. But there is zero evidence behind it. That is nothing but a marketing ploy. It’s like when you’re in a bad neighborhood and walk past a dive that claims to have the best cup of coffee in the city. Yuck. Surely, some charter schools do exceptionally well. However, most charters and almost all cyber charters do worse than their public school counterparts. Fact.

6) Charters and voucher schools increase segregation

Since the 1950s and ’60s, we used to understand there was no such thing as separate but equal education. Before then we had Cadillac schools for white kids and broken down schools for black kids. The Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional. But today we have Cadillac schools for rich and middle class kids (most of whom are white) and broken down schools for the poor (most of whom are black or brown.) After making tremendous strides to integrate schools and provide an excellent education for everyone, our public schools have been resegregated. Charter and voucher schools only make this problem worse. They either aid in white flight or leach away minority students. This just makes it easier to give some kids a leg up while keeping others down.

7) Charter and voucher schools take away funding at traditional public schools

It costs almost the same amount of money to run a school building of a given size regardless of the number of kids in it. When students leave the public schools for charter or voucher schools, the public school loses valuable resources. It now has less revenue but the same overhead. So even if you found an excellent charter or voucher school to send your child, you would be hurting the chances of every other student in the public school of having their own excellent education. This is what happens when you make schools compete for resources. Someone ends up losing out on an education.

8) Properly funding parallel school systems would be incredibly wasteful and expensive

We could fix this problem by providing adequate funding for all levels of the school system – traditional public schools, charters, voucher schools, etc. However, this would be exorbitantly expensive. We don’t adequately fund our schools now. Adding additional layers like this would mean increasing national spending exponentially – maybe by three or four times the current level. And much of that money would go to waste. Why have three fully stocked school buildings in one community when one fully stocked building would do the job? I don’t imagine residents would relish the tax hike this would require.

9) School choice takes away attention from the real problems in our public schools – poverty and funding equity

We have real problems. More than half of public school students live below the poverty line. They are already several grade levels behind their non-impoverished peers before they even enter kindergarten. They need help – tutoring, counseling, wraparound services, nutrition, etc. The predicament is even more complicated by the way we fund our schools. Throughout the country, poor districts get less money than wealthy or middle class ones. The students who go to these schools are systematically being cheated out of resources and opportunities. And instead of helping them, we’re playing a shell game with charter and voucher schools. The problem isn’t that parents don’t have several excellent choices. If they’re poor, they often don’t have one.

10) School choice is not supported by a grass roots movement. It is supported by billionaires.

The proponents of school choice will tell you that they are only doing the will of the people. This is what parents want, they say. Baloney. While there are individuals who support school choice, the overwhelming majority of money behind this movement comes from conservative billionaires actively trying to dismantle the public education system. They want to steal the public system and replace it with a private one. They don’t care about your child. They just want to steal the hundreds of billions of tax dollars we pay to educate our children. This is not philanthropy. It is a business transaction meant to screw you and your child out of your rights.

If we really want to ensure every child in this country gets an excellent education, the answer isn’t school choice. Instead, we need to commit to supporting our public school system. We all need to be in this together. Yes, our schools should look at the needs of each child and tailor education to fit appropriately. But that shouldn’t be done in parallel school systems. It should be done under the same umbrella. That way, you can’t defund and defraud one without hurting all. It can’t just be about your child. It has to be about all children.

That’s the only choice worth making.

NOTE: This article was given a shout out on Diane Ravitch’s blog and published on the Badass Teachers Association blog.

 

Gov. Rick Snyder Should Be Forced to Drink Nothing But Contaminated Flint Water for the Rest of His Life

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As I write this, I have a fresh glass of ice cold water sitting next to me.

It is so clear I can see the wood grain of the the table through it. When I put it to my mouth, my lips almost go numb from the cold.

I gulp down way more than I should. In moments, it seems, the glass is empty.

Nothing satisfies like a crisp simple glass of water.

But in Flint, Michigan, that straightforward, easy pleasure can kill you.

And-or poison your children, cause learning disabilities, hearing loss, vomiting, high blood pressure, pain or numbness in the extremities, infertility or miscarriage. Among a host of other equally terrible maladies.

From the water.

Nine months ago the state officials who took over running Flint because the city was just too darn poor for self government, they shut off the flow of already treated Lake Huron water from Detroit. They replaced it with untreated raw water from the Flint River. The plan was to save money by treating this water, themselves, from a source that had been continually polluted for decades by the disappearing auto industry.

However, this noxious brew corroded the pipes, stripped out the lead and put it right into the water glasses Flint parents were using to hydrate their children.

More than 8,500 children. With high amounts of lead in their blood. Suffering untold injuries. For life.

Oh and the overwhelming majority of them are African American and/or impoverished. Whoops!

Gov. Rick Snyder has been defensively apologizing for this disaster. He knew all about it long before the taps were shut off. He even released a slew of inter-office emails about the situation where officials play pass-the-buck as Flint residents gulp down this filth from their faucets. As citizens complained about the water’s color and odor. As physicians protested it wasn’t safe for human consumption.

Even now Snyder STILL says people can safely bathe their children in this dirty, smelly, poisoned water. Just make sure the kiddos don’t drink it. In fact, he says he wouldn’t mind bathing his own grandchildren in this mess.

Yeah. Kinda takes away any sincerity from his “apology” and his statement that he’s responsible, doesn’t it?

Why isn’t this man in jail? Why is he still in the Governor’s mansion?

If we lived in a just country, this poor excuse for a human being would AT VERY LEAST be locked away in a dungeon somewhere never to sting our eyes at the sight of his repulsive face. A more appropriate punishment would be making him drink nothing but his own contaminated Flint tap water for the rest of his life as he suffers from the effects of lead poisoning – like all those thousands of children he helped poison to save a few bucks.

But no. In the America where we live, his only mistake was getting caught. And now he’s losing political points having to apologize without really doing much. Yeah, he’s called in the National Guard to help deliver bottled water. Yeah, he’s turned back on the Lake Huron water, but Flint’s pipes are already ruined so lead is still leaking into the water. Why are these poor people still being charged with a water bill for something they can’t use? No one except for Grandpa Rick Snyder would use this foul stuff for anything!

Meanwhile, Darnell Earley, the emergency manager appointed by Snyder who actually switched Flint’s water in the first place is at a new government job. He’s emergency manager of another Michigan public service – Detroit Public Schools! Dilapidated buildings, fungus growing on the walls, slime leaking from the ceiling, broken toilets – a state-provided learning environment overseen by this functionary who’s doing a heckuva job! Teachers trying to raise awareness of the situation have staged a series of “sickouts.” But Snyder’s administration still doesn’t have any money to waste on Detroit school kids – just like it didn’t have any money to provide potable water to Flint residents.

And the cycle continues. Crap gets flushed from one source to another – and I’m not talking about the Flint water system!

You can try to make justifications and excuses, but the lie gets awfully thin in Michigan. And if you think this is the only place where business trumps public welfare, you must be drinking from Snyder’s water cooler. Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, the entire island of Puerto Rico! Terrorists with government jobs are slowly dismantling our metropolitan areas, our public goods, everything that made America great!

And what the heck is being done about it? A lot of news stories, talking heads shaking their noggins and pointing their fingers everywhere except where the blame really lies.

It’s enough to drive one to drink.

Speaking of which, excuse me while I take another swig from my water glass.

Ah!

No, I don’t live in Flint. But this sure isn’t tap water. Are you kidding me?

In Pennsylvania we’ve had too many scares with Giardiasis and other bacteria in our municipal water occasionally making us sick.

I pay extra to bring this water to the house in huge jugs and put it on a machine that keeps it ice cold and refreshing anytime of the day or night.

Some people can’t afford it.

What are they to do?

Can anyone really feel safe drinking from the tap ever again?

What kind of a world is it where we can’t even trust the water?

What kind of world are we leaving for our children?

We are all a few months from becoming Flint.

It could already be happening.

Will we let it?

Philly Schools Sacrificed on the Altar of Pennsylvania Budget Compromise

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Pennsylvania lawmakers are ready to help all students across the Commonwealth – if only they can abuse, mistreat and trample some of them.

Which ones? The poor black and brown kids. Of course!

That seems to be the lesson of a school code bill passed with bipartisan support by the state Senate Thursday.

The legislation would require the Commonwealth to pick as many as 5 “underperforming” Philadelphia schools a year to close, charterize or just fire the principal and half the staff. It would also allow non-medically trained personnel to take an on-line course before working in the district to treat diabetic school children. And it would – of course – open the floodgates to more charter schools!

It’s a dumb provision, full of unsubstantiated facts, faulty logic and corporate education reform kickbacks. But that’s only the half of it!

The bill is part of a budget framework agreed to by Governor Tom Wolf and the Republican-controlled legislature necessary to finally pass a state-wide spending plan. The financial proposal has been held hostage for almost half a year!

The major sticking point has been school funding. Democrats like Wolf demand an increase. Republicans refuse. And the worst part is that the increase would only begin to heal the cuts the GOP made over the last four years.

Republicans just won’t clean up their own mess.

They slashed public school budgets by almost $1 billion per year for the last four years with disastrous consequences. Voters who could make little headway against a GOP legislature entrenched in office through gerrymandering rebelled by kicking the Republican Governor out of Harrisburg and voting in Wolf, a new chief executive who promised to support school children.

But for the last 5 months, the Republican-controlled legislature simply refused to spend money on – yuck – school children! Especially poor brown and black kids who rely more on state funding! Barf!

Finally a bargain was struck to put the money back, but only if it screws over more poor black and brown kids.

As usual, Philadelphia Schools is the state’s whipping boy.

For decades saddled with a host of social ills yet starved of resources, Philadelphia Schools simply couldn’t function on funding from an impoverished local tax base. The 8th largest school district in the country needed a financial investment from the state to make up the difference. However, in 2001 the Commonwealth decided it would only do this if it could assume control with a mostly unelected School Recovery Commission (SRC). Now after 14 years of failure, the state has decided annually to take a quintet of Philly schools away from the state and give them to – THE STATE! The State Department of Education, that is, which will have to enact one of the above terrible reforms to turn the schools around.

Yet each of these reforms is a bunch of baloney!

Hiring non-medical personnel with on-line training to treat diabetic kids!? Yes, two children died in Philly schools recently because budget cuts took away full-time school nurses. But this solution is an outrage! Try proposing it at a school for middle class or rich kids! Try proposing it for a school serving a mostly white population!

More charter schools!? Most new charter companies aren’t even interested in taking over Philly learning institutions. There’s no money in it! The carcass has been picked clean!

Privatizing public schools has never increased academic outcomes. Charter schools – at best – do no better than traditional public schools and – most often – do much worse.

Closing schools is a ridiculous idea, too. No school has ever been improved by being shut down. Students uprooted from their communities rarely see academic gains.

And firing staff because the legislature won’t provide resources is like kicking your car because you forgot to buy gas. You can’t get blood from a stone.

But this is what Republicans are demanding. And most of the Democrats are giving in. Every state Senator from Philadelphia voted for this plan – though reluctantly.

Is this really the only way to reach some kind of normalcy for the rest of the state? Do we really need to bleed Philadelphia some more before we can heal the self-inflicted wounds caused by our conservative legislators?

The bill includes a $100 million increase for Philadelphia Schools. But this is just healing budget cuts made to the district four years ago. Until Republicans took over the legislature, Philadelphia received this same sum from the state to help offset the vampire bite of charter schools on their shrinking budgets. Now – like all impoverished Pennsylvania schools – that charter school reimbursement is only a memory.

So this money only puts Philly back to where it was financially a handful of years ago when it was still struggling.

It’s a bad bargain for these students. Though some might argue it’s all we’ve got.

A sane government would increase funding to meet the needs of the students AND return the district to local control.

Republicans demand accountability for any increase in funding but how does this new bill do that exactly? Charter schools are not accountable to anyone but their shareholders. The School Recovery Commission has been failing for over a decade. Since most are political appointees, who are they accountable to really?

A duly elected school board would be accountable to residents. If voters didn’t like how they were leading the district, they could vote them out. THAT would be accountability. Not this sham blood sacrifice.

The state House is set to vote on this bill soon and will probably pass it, too. Maybe that’s just as well. Maybe there really is no other choice in the twisted halls of Pennsylvania politics.

However, let’s be honest about it. This is some classist, racist bullshit.

NOTE: This article also was published in full on Diane Ravitch’s blog, Commondreams.org, and the Badass Teachers Association Blog.

 

Teachers Offer to Work for Free to Save Their School

stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, Charter Schools, Chester Upland, Corbett, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Education, Local Control, Pennsylvania, Republican , , , , , , , , , ,

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Lawmakers have failed Chester Upland School District.

And now it’s up to teachers and professional staff to save the day.

For two decades, the Pennsylvania legislature hasn’t fulfilled its duty to equitably fund the public school district. Neither has the federal government. Instead, they left the impoverished school just 20 miles west of Philadelphia to survive on the drip of local property taxes from residents who, themselves, don’t have two pennies to rub together.

Moreover, our lawmakers not only permitted but encouraged three privately run charter schools to come to Delaware County and suck away whatever funds they could from the district while shortchanging student services at their privatized facilities.

And even worse, our elected officials drew up legislation allowing these charters to gobble up more funding from the district than the public school is allowed to spend on its own students.

Surprise! It didn’t work!

So the state put the school in receivership, taking away control from local tax payers so unelected bureaucrats could fix all the problems.

Surprise! That didn’t work, either!

And now state and local officials say there isn’t enough money left in the district’s piggy bank to make payroll by the time the school’s 3,300 students are scheduled to arrive on Wednesday.

In such situations, there’s only one thing to do: close the school. Bus the kids to neighboring districts and any charter or cyber schools willing to take them.

No more Chester Uplands. Another neighborhood school bites the dust.

But the district’s more than 300 employees refused to let that happen.

The dreaded teachers union held a meeting and decided to what? Hold a strike? Demand more pay?

No. The 200 members voted unanimously to work without pay as the school year begins – and the district’s secretaries, bus drivers, janitors and administrators joined them.

Sadly, this is the second time the union came to this decision. In 2012 the district was in similar straights but a federal judge forced the state to cough up a few bucks only a few days after the school year began.

To be fair, Gov. Wolf has tried to help the struggling district more than his predecessor. His administration supported a plan to eliminate the district’s $22 million spending deficit by reducing payments to charter and cyber schools so they actually reflect the cost of the services they provide.

The plan called for capping payments to cyber schools at $5,950 per student. After all, schools where students attend class on-line don’t have nearly the overhead of brick-and-mortar districts. Why pay them more than the actual cost?

The plan also would reduce reimbursements for special education students at brick-and-mortar charter schools from $40,000 to $16,000 per student. After all, if the public school only spends this much for these services, why permit charter schools to demand more than twice that amount – more than any other district in the state receives?

These proposals didn’t come out of thin air. Both changes were consistent with recommendations by two bipartisan school funding commissions.

However, County Judge Chad F. Kenney denied the measure because it would do nothing to pay back the district’s charter schools an additional $8 million it already owes.

So to sum up – teachers are willing to work pro bono for the community’s children. They’re willing to put their own lives and families at risk to ensure their neighborhood school has more time to find a solution to its financial woes.

And charter schools? They want their money! Pay up, bitch!

If nothing is done to fix the problem, Chester Uplands deficit is expected to reach $48 million by the end of the year. Wolf and other state officials are scrambling to come up with a new plan.

Meanwhile, the problem is spreading from the Chester Upland District across the entire Commonwealth. Public schools are tightening their belts because the legislature is more than 50 days late passing a state budget. The major sticking point? School funding!

Republicans refuse to heal long-standing education cuts from the previous GOP administration while Democrats support an increase.

As lawmakers bicker, schools across the state are forced to dip into their reserves to keep their doors open. Public schools were required by law to complete their spending plans months ago making educated guesses how much they’d get from the state. Without that money coming in, they’re surviving on their rainy day funds – and as usual storm clouds are pouring on our schools.

Districts serving poor communities often don’t have much left over to continue running while Harrisburg plays political games. If something isn’t done soon, Chester Upland could be the first in a series of dominoes set to topple down.

The only thing keeping these districts afloat is the hard work and good will of their teachers and staff.

A GOFundMe has been set up to help Chester Upland staff.

If you’re able to, please donate whatever you can to the 300 teachers and staff of Chester Upland School District in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Please help these heroic people make ends meet during this time they’re working pro bono.

NOTE: This article also was published on the Badass Teachers Association blog.

Black Schools Matter – Chicago Protesters Go on Hunger Strike to Save Their Last Neighborhood School

stevenmsinger Charter Schools, Chicago, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Education, Local Control, Racism, Rahm , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Somewhere in Chicago tonight, Mayor Rahm Emanuel may be sitting down to his favorite desert – warm pecan pie with vanilla ice cream.

Across the city in the South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville, 11 parents, teachers and community members aren’t eating so well. Their meal – a few sips of coconut water to keep their strength up.

These brave men and women are on the third day of a hunger strike to save their last open enrollment public school.

If the Emanuel administration has its way, this mostly black community will have to choose between sending their children to a failing charter school or a failing public school run by a private company – all while the neighborhood’s historic Walter H. Dyett High School is closed.

Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Red Fox and Bo Diddley are all alumni of Dyett.

Why close such a vibrant connection to the community’s proud past?

The unelected Board of Education voted in 2012 to phase out the school because of low standardized test scores and dropping graduation rates.

It’s the same excuse lawmakers used in 1988 to take away local control from Chicago residents throughout the city. Most Americans have the right to vote for the people who run their local public schools. But not in Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans or many other places dark complected people live. The poorer the people and the darker their skin, the more likely the state will swipe away their right to self government on the excuse that their neglected and underfunded schools are “failing.”

Chicago, the third largest district in the country, is a prime example of this kind of disaster capitalism.

While schools in wealthier neighborhoods had all the amenities, Dyett students had no honors or AP classes and no art or music. Even physical education classes had to be taken on-line.

No wonder test scores were low! These children didn’t have nearly the same resources as other richer, whiter kids.

Despite such unfair challenges, academics were actually improving prior to the board’s decision to shutter the school.

In 2008, there was a 30% increase in students graduating. The improvement was so spectacular it was even recognized by then Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan (soon to be U.S. Secretary of Education).

Likewise, in 2009, a community program helped decrease out of school suspensions by 40%.

However, by the time Emanuel took office, this wasn’t enough for the city’s Board of Education – all of whom are appointed by the mayor.

Emanuel has already shuttered 50 Chicago City Schools – 46 of which served mostly black students.

But not Dyett. At least, not yet.

The South Side community has been fighting to change the board’s decision for years. About 7 months ago, it seemed to have some success.

Eleven community members chained themselves to a statue of George Washington outside Emanuel’s office demanding the board reconsider. It did. But once the protesters removed themselves, the board decided to take bids on how to keep the school open.

Three plans were submitted – two to privatize and one to keep it an open enrollment public school.

That last plan submitted by the community, itself, would transform the facility into the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology High School. This would be a district run school for up to 600 students mostly from the Bronzeville area.

The plans to charterize the school have strengths and weaknesses, but the biggest problem with both privatization schemes is they disconnect the new school from the community and its history.

If either charter school plan is enacted, Bronzeville children may or may not be able to attend it. They could apply, but the entire student body will be selected by lottery. So it’s a roll of the dice whether they could go to their neighborhood school.

Community children not selected would be sent to Phillips Academy – a public school being run by a private management team. Phillips has a worse academic record than Dyett did in it’s darkest days. In 2012, less than 1% of Phillips students passed the state math test and just 8% passed the reading test.

Student prospects aren’t much better at a new charter school. Countless studies – even the Walton Family Foundation-funded CREDO study – have shown charter schools don’t provide better educational outcomes than traditional public schools. In many instances, they do much worse. And students uprooted from community schools rarely improve academically. However, Emanuel and other policymakers like him continue to push for the creation of more charters despite any track record of success or justification beyond increasing the corporate profits of the companies running them.

The best solution seems to be the plan created by and for the Bronzeville community to keep a public school in place. But when a public hearing was abruptly cancelled this month, they suspected the worst – the board was trying to sidestep a democratic vote.

That’s when community members started the hunger strike.

Protesters vow not to eat unless there is an emergency meeting on Dyett and a final vote taken.

The activists say they’re starting to feel tired and a bit light headed but severe hunger has not set in yet. They are getting daily checkups from a nurse to ensure they’re healthy enough to continue.

Meanwhile, where is the national media?

The Rev. Jesse Jackson visited the hunger strikers Tuesday and vowed to join them in their quest for justice.

But even this hasn’t brought national attention.

How typical! While black schools are closed and black communities gutted, White America yawns and the band plays on.

But some of us are committed to the idea that black lives matter.

Black schools matter.

Black communities matter.

Are you?

If you would like to help, you can call Mayor Rahm Emanuel at (312) 744-3307 and Alderman Will Burns at (773) 536-8103 and ask them to support the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology High School.

You can also tweet in solidarity to the hunger strikers using the hashtags #SaveDyett, #WeAreDyett and #FightForDyett. Finally, you’re invited to email the protesters at info@reclaimourschools.org and let them know you stand with them and would like updates on their progress.

NOTE: This article also was published in the LA Progressive, on CommonDreams.org and on the Badass Teachers Association blog.

Public School Takeovers – When Local Control is Marked ‘White Only’

stevenmsinger Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Holyoke Schools, Little Rock Schools, Local Control, Newark Public Schools, Philadelphia Schools , , , , , , , , , ,

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Do you like Democracy?

Then you’d better not be poor or have brown skin.

Because in America today we only allow self-government to rich white folks.

Sad but true.

American public schools serving large populations of impoverished and minority children are increasingly being taken over by their respective states.

People of color and people living in poverty are losing their right to govern their own schools. They are losing a say in how their own children are educated. They are losing elective governance.

Why? No other reason than that they are poor and brown skinned.

The most recent example is Holyoke Public Schools in Massachusetts.

Just two weeks ago, the state education board moved to place Holyoke schools in receivership.

So later this spring out goes the elected school board and in comes either an individual or non-profit organization to take over running the district.

On what grounds?

Well, Holyoke is a city of about 40,000 residents in the western part of the state. According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau figures, 31.5% of the city’s residents live below the poverty level – nearly three times the state average.

Nearly half of Holyoke students do not speak English as a first language and nearly 30 percent are English-language learners. Eighty-five percent of Holyoke students come from low-income households.

But those aren’t the reasons given for the state takeover. It’s poor test scores and high dropout rates.

The state board can’t just come out and admit it’s waging class and race warfare against its own citizens. Instead, out comes the racist dog whistle of test scores and accountability.

If those kids had just filled in the right bubbles on their standardized tests, freedom would continue to ring in Holyoke. If more kids didn’t become frustrated and drop out, the district would be a haven to rival ancient Athens.

Never mind that poor students almost always score lower on standardized tests than rich kids. Never mind that children trying to learn English don’t score as high as kids who have been speaking it since before preschool.

However, these “alarming trends” are actually improving – just not fast enough for the state.

The graduation rate climbed from 49.5 percent in 2011 to 60.2 percent in 2014. The dropout rate also has improved. However, when compared with richer, whiter districts, this “performance” still leaves much to be desired.

But Holyoke isn’t alone.

In January, the Arkansas Board of Education did the same to the Little Rock district.

The state dissolved the local school board but at first kept Superintendent Dexter Suggs in an interim capacity.

Little Rock – one of the flashpoints of desegregation in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s – is the state’s largest school district, with about 25,000 students.

Once again, African-American and Latino students are about three-fourths of the city’s student body. About 70% of students meet the federal government’s definition of poverty.

Yet the state cited low standardized test scores as the reason for the takeover.

About 45% of Little Rock high school students attend schools designated as “underperforming.” Last year, the Arkansas state board classified six of its 48 schools as being in “academic distress” after fewer than half their students scored at the “proficient” level on achievement tests.

So out with democracy and in with bureaucracy.

Does it work?

Not really.

Across the country, more than half of all states have laws allowing the dissolution of local control for districts that meet certain academic and economic parameters. However, even after decades of receivership, most districts still don’t improve their test scores.

In New Jersey, for instance, the Newark school district has been under state control since 1995 but still registers low test scores and graduation rates. Pennsylvania took over Philadelphia’s public schools in 2001, and test scores have actually dropped while the creation of new charter schools have drained state coffers. In 2013, district officials had to borrow $50 million to avoid delaying the beginning of the new school year.

Nationally, takeovers tend to improve administrative and financial practices but have less of an effect on classroom instruction, according to a 2004 report from the Education Commission of the States.

Academic performance for state-controlled districts is usually mixed, the report concluded, with increases in some areas, and decreases in others. “The bottom line is that state takeovers, for the most part, have yet to produce dramatic and consistent increases in student performance,” the report concluded.

Q: If state-takeovers don’t actually improve academic outcomes, why do we continue to allow them?

A: It’s cheaper than actually fixing the problem – poverty.

Poor students need resources they aren’t getting.

Fact: across the country, we spend more money to educate our rich children than we do our poor ones.

Fact: Poor students need MORE resources to learn than rich ones. They need access to food and nutrition, stability, tutoring and wraparound social services.

In short, we’re ignoring the needs of our impoverished children, because many of them are children of color.

And we’re selling this whole-sale neglect as the impartial product of “accountability” measures. We say that schools and teachers aren’t doing their jobs, so we’re taking over poor districts – where nothing much improves – but at least we made a show of doing something.

The people behind this sham are actually selling it as a Civil Rights issue. And it IS a Civil Rights issue – but not the one they claim. Standardization and privatization of public schools and the blatant government overreach involved in state takeovers are Civil Rights ABUSES.

We should be helping high-poverty schools meet the needs of their students. Instead we put on a show and hope no one peeks behind the curtain.

We liberally dole out blame and conservatively hide our pocketbooks. We point the finger at easy targets – poor and minority parents and children. We demonize the one group devoting their lives to actually helping improve the situation – teachers. And instead of empowering neighborhoods, we steal their vote and call it “help.”

Until we recognize these facts, our public schools will remain “separate but equal.” Ensuring an adequate education for all will remain a privilege of the elite. And the dream of racial and social equality will remain stifled under the boot of false accountability.

NOTE: This article also was published on the Badass Teachers Association Blog.

We Shall Overcome… Big Money: Rahm Wins Chicago, Loses Soul of Democratic Party

stevenmsinger Chicago, Chuy Garcia, Democrat, Election, Local Control, Politics, Rahm , , , , , ,

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It’s a sad night.

Progressive challenger Chuy Garcia lost his bid for Chicago Mayor. Neo-liberal Rahm Emanuel won re-election.

It’s a headline that shouldn’t surprise anyone – but it does.

All the polls told us this would happen. Rahm just had too much money. Emanuel raised nearly $23 million compared to Garcia’s little more than $6 million.

That buys an awful lot of television commercials, advertisements, and confidence.

Emanuel had 20 different ads that aired over 7,000 times!

Even if you aren’t paying direct attention to it, after a while that kind of repetition seeps into your bones.

Rahm’s going to win. Rahm’s going to win. Rahm’s going to win…

Even if you don’t want it to be true, even if you fight against it, there’s a part of you that can’t help but believe it.

It’s like being trapped in the coils of a monetary anaconda that looks you right in the eyes as it squeezes the life out of you and unhinges its jaw!

How else could Rahm win? His attempts to goose the city’s sluggish economy were nothing but an attack on the poor and minorities. He closed public health clinics, 50 public schools and installed red light cameras to raise fees. And none of it even worked!

You might think it’s counter-intuitive that money matters so much, but history disagrees. This is how it plays out almost every time. The candidate with the most green wins.

Look at New York.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo raised $30.5 million fending off challenger Zephyr Teachout. She raised only $600,000. And we all remember how that turned out.

Without the constant stream of campaign ads and only the bad taste of his actual policies, Cuomo’s popularity now is lower than it’s ever been. And that election was only half a year ago!

Buyers remorse? Sure! But just wait until the next campaign and a truckload of donor’s money to temporarily hypnotize people they should think otherwise and voila! Instant approval. Just add money!

But there’s good news in this nest of vipers, too.

Consider this: both races were internal. These were Democrats vs. Democrats.

But were they really? Rahm’s top donors were conservative billionaires. These are the same folks backing Scott Walker, Mike Pence and Mitt Romney!

The media is trying to spin this as the Elizabeth Warren wing of the party vs. the business wing.

Nonsense! It’s real, grassroots progressives vs. the DINOs – the Democrats In Name Only! And the DINOs keep winning!

But take heart. The future doesn’t belong to dinosaurs.

Look at how far Chuy Garcia pushed Rahm Emanuel! He got enough votes in the primary to force this runoff election. It was no cakewalk for Emanuel.

The people lost this one, but we will remember it.

Neither of these were high turnout elections. We don’t have that anymore in America.

No matter who is running, no matter what’s at stake, the public is so gripped by a sense of helpless apathy that most people don’t even show up at the polls to cast a vote.

But every time we have an election like this one, we stir people up. We fill them with passion. We make them care.

I knew Chuy Garcia had very little chance of winning, but I wanted it anyway.

I read up on him, talked to people, posted on facebook, sent out a barrage of tweets every day.

And I’ve never even been to Chicago!

But Chuy’s campaign meant something to me. It still does. Even with the election lost.

There is a growing majority of people who feel the same way. We care about closing 50 public schools for minorities. We care about local government control. It matters to us that our society is run justly, morally, progressively.

We repudiate the business model, the worship of money and profit at the expense of all else.

And there are more of us everyday.

Yes. In the short term, money still rules.

But what happens on the day when they open the polls and we all show up?

What happens when that passion spurs us – all of us – to actually get out and vote?

What happens when we drown out the drone of campaign commercials with the certainty of what is right?

I think on that day, the Rahm’s and Cuomo’s will fail. On that day the DINOs go extinct.

On that day, we take back our party and our Democracy itself.

It’s coming closer everyday.

“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”
-Mexican proverb

NOTE: This article was also published in the LA Progressive and the Badass Teachers Association blog.

When Kids Teach Adults – Lessons from the Newark Student Union Sit-in

stevenmsinger Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Local Control, Newark Public Schools, Newark Student Union, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Schools, Politics, Poverty , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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If ISIS extremists flew in from the Middle East and took over our public schools, we wouldn’t stand for it.

But if those extremists are from our own state or federal government, we just yawn and change the channel.

Though not for the last three nights.

A handful of plucky Newark school students have demanded our attention, and, Brother, do they have it!

At least six Newark students have staged a sit-in at the offices of Superintendent Cami Anderson demanding she step down and the district be returned to the voters. The district has been under state control for the last two decades.

This could have been handled easily. Anderson could have met with the students to talk about their concerns. After all, she is a public servant and even school kids are members of the public.

But instead she’s abandoned her office, sent threatening letters to the children’s parents and blocked or held up shipments of food to the young protestors.

Undeterred, the youngsters have set up a live feed on youtube to broadcast their action to the world, tweeting with the hashtags #OccupyNPS and #OurNewark. And the world has been paying attention. Local officials including Mayor Ras Baracka are calling for Anderson’s resignation. The teachers union is discussing holding an illegal strike if the students are forcibly removed.

But more importantly, people all over the country are talking about something they haven’t talked about – maybe – ever: local control.

What gives the state or federal government the right to come in and take over your public school?

Sure if there’s some kind of malfeasance going on, it makes sense to oust a particular school director. If the entire board is working in collusion against the public interest, maybe then it makes sense to get rid of all of them. A temporary acting school board might be necessary in such an unlikely case.

But why not then just hold another election and be done with it? Why would the state keep control over a public school for years or decades after a crisis?

The answer: many of our state and federal government officials don’t believe in local control.

Don’t worry. They’re not against it for everyone.

They don’t come in and take over just any school. If you live in a rich neighborhood, you can breathe easy. No state has ever taken over a posh district.

However, if you live in a poor community with a school that struggles to get by on the contributions of the impoverished local tax base, then the state may be gunning for you.

In my home state of Pennsylvania this has happened numerous times: Duquesne, Chester Upland and Philadelphia spring immediately to mind. In fact, Philly schools have been under control of the State Recovery Commission almost as long as Newark. At the same time Newark students were settling in for their second night in Anderson’s office, the Philadelphia SRC was having citizens arrested for protesting the state-appointed directors decision to expand charter schools.

What gives these people the right to take over our schools?

Poverty.

The excuse is always that the democratically-elected school board didn’t manage the district’s finances well enough. That’s why there were dwindling services for students.

However, the truth is more simple. School directors weren’t able to get blood from a stone. While rich districts rely heavily on a fat tax base that could support whatever services their children need, poor ones limp by. The state and federal government – seeing the trouble our poor districts are in – have a responsibility to come forward and provide financial assistance. After all, every child in this country has the right to a free and appropriate public school education. This doesn’t change just because your folks are poor.

But instead of facing up to their responsibilities, the state and federal government have used this monetary crisis to steal control of the poorest public schools.

And what’s worse, they haven’t improved the quality of services for students under their care! Instead they make sure any moderate increase in funding gets siphoned off to the corporate education reform movement before it ever reaches kids.

The standardized testing industry has increased 57% in the last three years alone to a $2.5 billion a year market. And that doesn’t even count the billions more being raked in by textbook companies (many of them are the same ones producing and grading the tests) with test prep materials and Common Core.

So why does the state and federal government unconstitutionally swipe away local control from people living in poor districts?

Because they can make money off of it!

This is exactly the abomination that the Newark Student Union is shinning light on.

Five years ago, Newark Schools received a $100 million gift from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to turn around the district. The project is called One Newark. The director is Anderson.

However, instead of turning the district around, it has been responsible for closing or relocating schools, opening new charter schools and displacing staff. And no improvement to district services!

Where’s the money going? Here’s a hint: Anderson has been sharply criticized for spending $37 million on consulting fees to prominent factory school reformers.

It’s time to end the practice of public school takeovers. There is no good reason for the state or federal government to snatch away our local schools. This is clearly a violation of the almost every state constitution (including New Jersey and Pennsylvania’s) and the rights of citizens and students. Public schools should remain public.

This is what our children are trying to tell us there in Cami Anderson’s office.

As they continue for a third night, I find myself with two distinct opposite emotions.

I feel an overwhelming shame for my generation. We have let greed get the better of us. How dare we trample the future of countless generations of children for financial gain! When I think of people like Anderson and ex-Mayor Cory Booker, people like my own ex-Governor Tom Corbett, I want to throw up.

However, at the same time I’m also filled with such immense hope! These children have shown us that we can be so much more than the sum of our base natures! We can overcome our menial immediate needs and put the suffering of others over that of ourselves!

I can’t express enough the joy and admiration I have for the members of the Newark Student Union! They represent the future we might attain – if only us adults will let them shine!

UPDATE: The sit-in ended after three days when Anderson met with students. They continue to call for her resignation.

This article was also published on the Badass Teachers Association blog.