Rating The 2020 Presidential Candidates On Their Education Stands

We wrote a post on Saturday-- published Sunday-- Are Democrats Going To Finally Get Behind Public Education For Real-- And Leave Charter Schools To The Republicans? that needs some updating. The education forum in Pittsburgh that the Democratic presidential candidates took part in has led to a valuable evaluation published by ElectraBlog. Mitchell Robinson wrote that "In the spirit of our country’s current rather draconian approach to 'accountability' in public education," he would describe each of the candidates’ performances "by rating them on the Danielson teacher evaluation rubric, a common teacher evaluation system used by many school districts across the nation." Each candidate was "graded on a simplistic, reductionist, atomistic, 4-point scale of the sort loved by corporate education reformers, as though it makes sense to distill the entirety of an individual’s performance on a complicated set of tasks to a single number between 1 and 4:

Highly Effective = 4
Effective = 3
Developing = 2
Ineffective = 1

The short version: the two progressives in the room, Bernie and Elizabeth, scored best. Charter school shill Michael Bennet did worst, although another charter school shill, Cory Booker, backed out of the forum at the last minute. Steyer was also rated "ineffective." Here are the scores, from best to worst:

• Bernie- 4
• Elizabeth- 4
• Klobuchar- 3
• Status Quo Joe- 3
• Mayo Pete- 3 (with a terrible caveat)
• Bennet- 1

Robinson wrote that Bernie was "an obvious favorite with the teachers in the house, Sanders entered the stage to a hero’s welcome. He was his usual garrulous self, alternately grousing and charming. Rumpled and tousled, Sanders is in many ways the anti-politician, and is unique in American politics. And teachers love him... As expected, Sanders’ best moments have to do with economic and labor issues: canceling college debt, making public colleges tuition-free, eliminating right-to-work laws, and strengthening unions. His best education response was on his opposition to No Child Left Behind because of its reliance on standardized testing. Sanders may be the most consistent political leader in the field, if not our nation’s history, and nothing he said at the Public Education Forum changed that record. The teachers in the hall loved Bernie, and his support among the members of the profession remains strong... HIGHLY EFFECTIVE."

Elizabeth Warren did just as well and "received one of the two strongest and most enthusiastic receptions from the crowd of public school teachers, students, and union officials in the hall. She used her two-minute opening spiel to describe how she would pay for the ambitious agenda outlined in her education plan (a 2 cent tax on high wealth individuals; 3 cents for billionaires), promised to get rid of high stakes testing (loud applause), and a lot more very specific policy ideas... HIGHLY EFFECTIVE."

Robinson was taken by Klobuchar and called her "the surprise star of the forum." He wrote that he "knew going in that Sanders and Warren were good on education, but Klobuchar was every bit as well prepared, thorough in her understanding of the issues, and communicated with skill, clarity, and grace. Klobuchar’s first words to the audience were about making the firing of Betsy DeVos her first act as president-- an idea that the crowd embraced with obvious enthusiasm... EFFECTIVE."

Status Quo Joe did better than I would have imagined he could. Robinson: "In the span of about 5 minutes, Biden reversed course on two of the major planks of the Obama era’s education policy platform: support for charter schools and standardized testing. If true, and not merely another instance of Biden-esque verbal imprecision, these are major reversals that signal a return to traditional Democratic policy positions." Yes, if true indeed. Biden is a compulsive liar on a near Trumpian scale and, like Trump, says whatever he needs to say depending on the audience's speaking to. I'd love to see him speak on the same topic to a bunch of charter school donors. Biden is full of shit and his words are worthless. Robinson generously gave him a 3 (EFFECTIVE) and added "Joe is an old-school politician, and knows how to work a room-- his support and respect for the profession of education is clear and honest-- he says that if he is president, teachers will have a friend in the White House, and I think teachers believe him; the concern is whether his apparent reversals of course on charters and testing are lasting, or fleeting." ( I would have rated him a 2 (DEVELOPING) by the standard being used.

Mayo Pete, as usual, was a sweet-talking consultant-schooled bullshitter. He's another one whose words are meaningless and says whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear. Robinson seemed surprised about something anyone who follows Mayo could have predicted: "Buttigieg’s time on the stage was curiously devoid of much in the way of, well…policy... Buttigieg finished his session by recycling the worn-out reformster argument from Raj Chetty, that 'a good kindergarten teacher is worth $300,000 to a kindergarten student’s earnings over time,' an idea that’s just…well…silly. What it does do is align with Buttigieg’s technocratic world view: that things are only valuable when they can be measured, preferably in dollars and cents. It’s the way that a McKinsey consultant whose number crunching results in firing nearly a thousand employees at a Michigan health insurance company might think about making education seem 'valuable,' by reducing the quality of one’s educational experience to a simple cost-benefit analysis–but it’s not how students, teachers, or parents value the education offered in their community’s schools." Robinson gave him a 3 (EFFECTIVE) but then reduced it a 1 (INEFFECTIVE)... "backdoor TFA?"





Also predictable was that Colorado Senator Michael Bennet would be the worst of the candidates who showed up. "Bennet began by claiming to be the 'first superintendent ever to run for president,' a boast that might have gone over better with this crowd if Bennet had ever studied education (he did not), or taught (he did not) before beginning his career in education as superintendent of Denver’s schools. Bennet then moved on to one his favorite talking points-- setting up the false choice that free preschool would be a better use of tax dollars than free public college and university tuition. As if this was an episode of Highlander instead of a serious policy discussion, and 'there can be only one.' He then pivoted to what would become a common theme among the candidates, the need for better teacher pay…but Bennet’s suggestion to pay teachers more came with some pretty shocking strings attached: a call for a 6 day school week, and year-round schools-- especially for urban schools. Neither of these ideas gained much traction with a room full of students and teachers–none of whom, it should be pointed out, would have been able to attend this Saturday forum if Bennet’s ideas were put into policy... For Bennet, equity is a beard for charters and privatization... Bennet followed up his performance at the Public Education Forum with a visit to a group of charter school activists who were protesting outside of the venue... INEFFECTIVE... Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Presidential Candidate."

And of course, never expect to see Michael Buy-The-Election Bloomberg at any kind of a free-wheeling policy forum like this.

Are Democrats Going To Finally Get Behind Public Education For Real-- And Leave Charter Schools To The Republicans?

This week I left my house for something that isn't part of my normal routine. While I braved rush-hour freeway traffic-- something I have avoided for at least a decade-- my friend drove straight from work to meet me at the Broad in downtown Los Angeles (DTLA), where it costs $8 to park-- every 15 minutes. My friend had to drive from Compton where he teaches elementary school. When we got to the imposing building that multi-billionaire Eli Broad built to house his contemporary art collection, my friend stopped for a moment. He's a teacher's union activist and he wanted to remind me that Broad has given nearly $700 million to fund the anti-union charter school movement. "Im only going to this because it's free," he said. I wouldn't give that asshole a dime." Yeah, me neither, but he's 86 and sick and soon God will be asking him why he spent so much time and effort trying to destroy public education. That photo up top is me at the Broad. So is this:

Yesterday, Moriah Balingit, writing for the Washington Post, reported that the Democrats are finally on the verge of leaving support for charter schools to the GOP, where it belongs. Yesterday, seven Democratic presidential candidates attended an education forum in Pittsburgh organized by teachers unions and civil rights groups, where they were asked about charter schools. "Teachers unions,"wrote Balingit, "have led the opposition to charter schools because they say the privately run but publicly funded campuses lack accountability and take critical resources away from traditional public schools."

Charter schools long enjoyed bipartisan support. They were championed by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who picked Arne Duncan, a reliable charter school ally, as his education secretary.

That era has ended. Near the end of Obama’s term, the NAACP called for a moratorium on charters. And President Trump’s appointment of Betsy DeVos, a Michigan billionaire who poured her fortune into expanding charter schools and school voucher programs, has galvanized public education advocates fighting charter school expansion.

Last year, three Democratic governors campaigning on pledges to halt the expansion of charter schools won elections. Among the original eight candidates who were to speak Saturday, only Sen. Cory Booker (NJ) is an outspoken supporter of charters. Booker canceled late Friday because of the flu, his campaign manager said.

There are few places where school districts have felt the growing pains of charters more acutely than in Pennsylvania, a state that is among the most inequitable when it comes to funding among districts. Critics say charters, which often set up shop in low-income districts, exacerbate the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

...Under state law, school districts are required to pay tuition for children who decamp to charter schools, cutting monthly checks. The tuition is based on a rough calculation of what districts spend on their own students, but public schools say the amount is exorbitant, and beyond what charter schools need to operate. Cyber charter schools, with little in the way of facility costs, are paid just like bricks-and-mortar campuses.

Clairton, where more than 90 percent of students are economically disadvantaged, sends nearly 15 percent of its budget-- about $2.2 million-- to charter schools. That does not include transportation costs the district is required to cover for charter students-- even though the district cannot afford buses for its own students. Poor districts such as Clairton bear the brunt of charter school expenses, because students from wealthier districts have little incentive to leave their schools.

“What’s going to happen? We’ll be out of money in a year or so,” said Superintendent Ginny Hunt. “I’ve been able to keep us solvent by cutting everything. There’s nothing left to cut.”

The district has attempted to merge with neighboring systems, including West Jefferson Hills, where the median household income is more than double that in Clairton. The difference in school spending between the districts is so vast that it caught the attention of researchers, who concluded that the funding gap was the fourth largest among contiguous school districts in the country.

West Jefferson Hills said no. This year, when students in Clairton returned to a century-old building not renovated since the 1980s, high school students in the neighboring district began classes in a $95 million building. The new Thomas Jefferson High was designed to evoke Monticello, Jefferson’s mansion.

Across the river, in Mc­Keesport, schools Superintendent Mark P. Holtzman Jr. has viewed the two charter schools in his city with increasing trepidation, including Young Scholars, which attempted to buy an abandoned school building from the district. Officials rejected the offer, even though Young Scholars promised far above the asking price.

“If, in fact, they got their hands on this property, it would really sink us financially,” Holtzman said.

Holtzman, a McKeesport graduate, said rising charter expenses have forced the school board to repeatedly raise taxes on residents and businesses. His district educates some of the county’s neediest students, including those from a residential center that houses foster children and students in trouble with the law.

But rising charter school expenses have meant the delay of important maintenance projects, like repairing the middle school’s foundation or upgrading the stadium, which sprouts worrisome leaks when it rains. The high school has had to cut so many electives that many seniors leave school early because there are no classes for them.

Students at McKeesport Area High are keenly aware of what school would be like if the city were wealthier-- they see what it looks like when they pass through affluent schools for activities. Their school does not have enough laptops, and existing computers are outdated, making it difficult to access online class materials.

Even so, they struggle to understand why people would not want to attend their school, which they describe as welcoming, warm and close-knit. For students grappling with difficult upbringings, it’s a refuge.

“School is more a safe haven for some people,” said Aundre Robinson, a junior and the highest-ranked member of the school’s ROTC program. “It’s the only place where some kids eat throughout the day. It’s the only place where they don’t get yelled at and screamed at for something.”

One of the most important planks in Bernie's platform is about re-investing in public education. Recently, he wrote, "Every human being has the fundamental right to a good education. On this 65th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, we are committed to creating an education system that works for all people, not just the wealthy and powerful." There are 8 main goals he wants to achieve:

• Combat racial discrimination and school segregation
• End the unaccountable profit-motive of charter schools
• Provide equitable funding for public schools
• Give teachers a much-deserved raise by setting a starting salary for teachers at no less than $60,000, expanding collective bargaining rights and teacher tenure, and funding out-of-pocket expenses for classroom materials.
• Strengthens the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by ensuring that the federal government provides at least 50 percent of the funding for special education and giving special education teachers the support they need.
• Provide year-round, free universal school meals, and incentivizes locally sourced food.
• Make schools safe and inclusive by protecting the rights of all students from harassment, discrimination, and violence and enacting comprehensive gun violence prevention laws.
• Rebuild, modernize, and green our nation’s schools.

Bernie: "The United States, as the wealthiest country in history, should have the best education system in the world. Today, in a highly competitive global economy, if we are going to have the kind of standard of living that the people of this country deserve, we need to have the best educated workforce. But let me be very honest with you, and tell you that, sadly, that is not the case today. Our nation used to lead the world in the percentage of young Americans with college degrees. We were number one. Today, we are number 11, behind countries like South Korea, Japan, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Australia-- and that is not acceptable. And here is the simple truth: 40 or 50 years ago, in California and Vermont, virtually any place in America, if you received a high school degree, the odds were pretty good that you would be able to get a decent paying job, raise a family, buy a house, buy a car, all on one income. That was the world 40 or 50 years ago. But that is not the world we live in today. The world has changed, the global economy has changed, technology has changed, and education has changed. Over the past decade, states all over America have made savage cuts to education, while, at the same time, providing massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people and largest corporations in America. Our kids and our students are too important to cut back on education, especially when those cuts reduce educational opportunities for underserved students, students of color, low income students, LGBTQ students and students with disabilities... In the twenty-first century, a free public education system that goes from kindergarten through high school is no longer good enough. If we are to succeed as a nation, public colleges and universities must be tuition free. Higher education should be a right for all, not a privilege for the few. That means we have got to make public colleges and universities tuition free and we must substantially reduce student debt. Each and every year, hundreds of thousands of bright and qualified young people do not get a higher education for one reason and one reason alone: their family lacks the income. That is unfair to those families; and it is it is unfair to the future of this country."

Bernie’s education plan addresses the serious crisis in our education system by reducing racial and economic segregation in our public school system, attracting the best and the brightest educational professionals to teach in our classrooms, and reestablishing a positive learning environment for students in our K-12 schools. This plan calls for a transformative investment in our children, our teachers and our schools and a fundamental re-thinking of the unjust and inequitable funding of our public education system.

...Recognizing the problems in a one-size-fits-all model of education, teachers’ unions and parent activists established alternative, experimental “charter” schools to better serve kids struggling within the traditional system. But few charter schools have lived up to their promise. Instead, billionaires like DeVos and the Waltons, together with private equity and hedge fund executives, have bankrolled their expansion and poured tens of millions into school board and other local elections with the hope of privatizing public schools. Charter schools are led by unaccountable, private bodies, and their growth has drained funding from the public school system.

Moreover, the proliferation of charter schools has disproportionately affected communities of color-- 17 percent of charter schools are 99 percent minority, compared to 4 percent of traditional public schools. This has led the NAACP, the NEA, AFT and others to criticize the charter movement for intensifying racial segregation.

The damage to communities caused by unregulated charter school growth must be stopped and reversed.

As president, Bernie Sanders will fight to:

• Ban for-profit charter schools and support the NAACP’s moratorium on public funds for charter school expansion until a national audit has been completed to determine the impact of charter growth in each state. That means halting the use of public funds to underwrite new charter schools.
• We do not need two schools systems; we need to invest in our public schools system. That said, existing charter schools must be made accountable by:

◦ Mandating that charter schools comply with the same oversight requirements as public schools.
◦ Mandating that at least half of all charter school boards are teachers and parents.
◦ Disclosing student attrition rates, non-public funding sources, financial interests and other relevant data.
◦ Matching employment practices at charters with neighboring district schools, including standards set by collective bargaining agreements and restrictions on exorbitant CEO pay.
◦ Supporting the efforts of charter school teachers to unionize and bringing charter schools to the negotiating table.

...As president, Bernie Sanders will fight to equitably fund our schools. He will:

• Rethink the link between property taxes and education funding.
• Establish a national per-pupil spending floor.
• Eliminate barriers to college-readiness exams by ensuring states cover fees for the ACT, SAT and other college preparatory exams for all students.
• Triple Title I funding to ensure at-risk schools get the funding they need and end funding penalties for schools that attempt to desegregate.
• Provide schools with the resources needed to shrink class sizes.
• Provide $5 billion annually for career and technical education to give our students the skills they need to thrive once they graduate.
• Ensure schools in rural communities, indigenous communities, Puerto Rico and other U.S. Territories receive equitable funding.
• Give schools the funding needed to support arts, foreign language and music education to provide all students with important learning opportunities.

Bernie: "The historic teacher strikes of the past few years has brought national attention to the fact that teachers are paid totally inadequate wages. As a result of low pay and other inequities, 20 percent of teachers now leave the profession within five years-- a 40 percent increase from the historical average. This high rate of turnover is more pronounced in low-income communities of color." He promises, among other things, to fight to "significantly increase teacher pay by working with states to set a starting salary for teachers at no less than $60,000 tied to cost of living, years of service, and other qualifications; and allowing states to go beyond that floor based on geographic cost of living; to protect and expand collective bargaining rights and teacher tenure; and to triple the above-the-line tax deduction for educator expenses and index it to inflation to reimburse teachers for the nearly $500 on average they spend on out of pocket classroom expenses each year."

UPDATE

A friend of mine, uncredentialed, works at a charter school near my home. I asked him what it's like working there. He told me that "Like most workers these days, the oppression of the staff manifests itself in job precarity, inadequate compensation and poor working conditions. Despite its non-profit status the charter school functions like any business; there is even a multimillion dollar property building equity with each mortgage payment. And like any business, there is a bottom line placing downward pressure on the wage and benefits of its employees. Every employee hired by the administration, from the teachers to the custodial staff, is an 'at will employee', meaning their contract can be terminated at any point for any reason. This system of employment leaves us little room to bargain individually for better pay and was recently weaponized against us in our attempts to unionize. This past year teachers organizing with UTLA were met with a series of reactionary tactics by the administration including intimidation and spying. In one of the most disturbing cases a particularly outspoken teacher organizer had her hours cut in half once her yearly 'at will' contract ended."

 

Bernie Calls For Banning For-Profit Charter Schools-- Strengthening Public Schools

Lara Trump isn't supposed to be the brightest of the Trump menagerie and she's certainly always welcome at Fox. Yesterday she was babbling some incoherent nonsense about how sad it is that Democrats want to beat her father-in-law, almost universally recognized as the worst"president"-- if history will even remember him as a president-- on history. "Shouldn’t you want someone that you think can run the country well, that’s gonna do the best job at being president, not just beat Donald Trump? But I think it actually speaks to the fact that there are still a lot of people who out there that are very upset that Hillary Clinton did not win in 2016." There may be, but the only people I know who pine for Hillary are people who recognize how much better she would have been than Trump. Anyone-- even Status Quo Joe, the worst of the Democratic alternatives, would be better than Trump.

Author and Princeton history professor Julian Zelizer reported how Trump is trying to be king. He singled out 4 precedents:

• Delegitimating oversight
• Using the bully pulpit for disinformation
• Legitimating conflict of interest
• Using national emergency power to replace legislating

The Worst. Ever. So... according to Newton's third law of physics, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." That suggests that following Trump-- the worst-- the U.S. is ready for-- not some mediocrity like Status Quo Joe Biden-- for someone as good as Trump is bad-- a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or-- better yet-- the two of them on a unity ticket.

Today, Bernie, basically ignoring the ugly and demeaning Trumpism that almost defines everything in our world, delivered an important education policy speech in Orangeburg, South Carolina-- as if Trump didn't exist. He called for a ban on all for-profit charter schools-- pretty much the opposite of what both corporate Democrats and the Republican Party have been working for-- and a moratorium on the funding of all public charter school expansion until after a national audit, a policy suggestion that comes from the NAACP.

California already has a new ban on for-profit charter schools. This will immediately put Bernie at odds with more corporate Democrats-- particularly Beto, Cory Booker, Tim Ryan and McKinsey Pete all of whom have admitted to being for charter schools, No other Democratic candidate has called for a ban on for-profit charter schools yet, but probably will now that Bernie has. These are the positions he laid out today:

• Mandating that charter schools comply with the same oversight requirements as public schools
• Mandating that at least half of all charter school boards are teachers and parents
• Disclosing student attrition rates, non-public funding sources, financial interests and other relevant data
• Matching employment practices at charters with neighboring district schools, including standards set by collective bargaining agreements and restrictions on exorbitant CEO pay
• Supporting the efforts of charter school teachers to unionize and bringing charter schools to the negotiating table

Watch who lauds Bernie's position and who unmasks themselves as the corporate whores being paid off to go on the warpath against him. I wonder how long Biden can keep quiet on the subject and not take a stand one way or the other. See if you can identify the corporate whore below (hint: she's completely in sync with both Betsy DeVos and that wretched Trumpanzee daughter-in-law).

Sanders will concede that the initial goal of charter schools-- to help kids with unique learning needs-- was admirable. But he will argue the system has been corrupted by wealthy activists who spent millions to privatize these schools, leaving them unaccountable and draining funds from the public school system.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, lauded the Sanders plan. In a statement to CNN, she called the proposal "vitally important" and said that it would provide real checks and balances for the charter school system.

"For the last several decades, the unregulated growth of private charter schools has siphoned off money from public schools, with little protection against fraud, and little attention paid to equity or quality when it comes to educating kids," Weingarten said. "The senator's plan takes tangible steps toward making the charter school industry accountable to parents and the public."

Those who operate these schools feel differently. Amy Wilkins, senior vice president of advocacy at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, points out that three California branches of the NAACP broke with the national organization's call for a moratorium on funding. She noted that there was evidence that charter schools have helped thousands of children in at-risk situations.

"Sanders' call is out of touch-- as usual-- with what African Americans want," Wilkins said in a statement to CNN. "More disturbing, the senator-- for personal political gain-- would literally lock African American students into schools that have failed them for generations."

Really? Out of touch? Here's Bernie's plan; please read it and decide if he's out of touch, the way the charter school shills-- like Jonathan Chait-- are saying he is. "Our nation," he wrote, "used to lead the world in the percentage of young Americans with college degrees. We were number one. Today, we are number 11, behind countries like South Korea, Japan, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Australia-- and that is not acceptable. And here is the simple truth: 40 or 50 years ago, in California and Vermont, virtually any place in America, if you received a high school degree, the odds were pretty good that you would be able to get a decent paying job, raise a family, buy a house, buy a car, all on one income. That was the world 40 or 50 years ago. But that is not the world we live in today. The world has changed, the global economy has changed, technology has changed, and education has changed. Over the past decade, states all over America have made savage cuts to education, while, at the same time, providing massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people and largest corporations in America. Our kids and our students are too important to cut back on education, especially when those cuts reduce educational opportunities for underserved students, students of color, low income students, LGBTQ students and students with disabilities."

In the twenty-first century, a free public education system that goes from kindergarten through high school is no longer good enough. If we are to succeed as a nation, public colleges and universities must be tuition free. Higher education should be a right for all, not a privilege for the few. That means we have got to make public colleges and universities tuition free and we must substantially reduce student debt. Each and every year, hundreds of thousands of bright and qualified young people do not get a higher education for one reason and one reason alone: their family lacks the income. That is unfair to those families; and it is it is unfair to the future of this country.

Instead of pursuing their dreams of being an environmentalist, a teacher, a social worker, or an artist, too many Americans end up taking higher-paying jobs on Wall Street or as accountants or as corporate managers simply to pay back their student loans. We need environmentalists. We need people to take care of the poor. We need health care providers to choose to work in community health centers. We need good teachers. Each and every American must be able to get the education they need to match their skills and fulfill their dreams.

In fulfilling those dreams, we must make teaching a highly attractive profession again. Teachers have one of the toughest and most demanding jobs in America. Teachers have been the leaders in the fight to improve public schools, reduce class sizes, and provide every student with books, computers and safe, high quality schools. What encourages me and gives me so much hope about the future is that teachers across the country are standing up and saying enough is enough! The wealthiest people in America cannot have it all, while public schools all over America are falling apart.

Over the past year, tens of thousands of teachers across the country have gone on strike to demand greater investment in public education. The wave of teacher strikes throughout the country provides an historic opportunity to make the investments we desperately need to make our public education system the best in the industrialized world, not one of the poorest.

Bernie’s education plan addresses the serious crisis in our education system by reducing racial and economic segregation in our public school system, attracting the best and the brightest educational professionals to teach in our classrooms, and reestablishing a positive learning environment for students in our K-12 schools. This plan calls for a transformative investment in our children, our teachers and our schools and a fundamental re-thinking of the unjust and inequitable funding of our public education system.

Universal school lunches and a $60,000 floor on teachers salaries, which Bernie proposed in his South Carolina speech today-- seem like a pretty good straight-forward idea too. Right? Where do you think the opposition to those two proposals will come from? Come on, take a guess. It's not a trick question. On a macro-level, it hasn't changed since the debate in the colonies on whether or not we should declare our independence. A third of the population opposed that. Many fought on the side of the colonial occupiers. Don't remember? Starts with con...

Today Is Another Election Day In Los Angeles

I can only imagine how low the turnout has been so far. It's the runoff between progressive former teacher Jackie Goldberg and the slick downtown establishment candidate, Heather Repenning. The primary was an overwhelming success for Goldberg who bested 9 other candidates with 48.45%, almost enough to avoid a run-off. The big-money candidate, Repenning, had 13.17%. It should be an easy win for Jackie Goldberg but... is anyone voting today? A charter school-backed superPAC spent $750,000 on advertising for Repenning. People were so annoyed that the unbearable barrage of ads did more damage than good. Polls close at 8pm.

The district, whose 81,000 students in 177 schools are almost 90% Latino, includes Los Feliz, Silverlake, Highland Park, Echo Park, Eagle Rock, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate, Vernon and Bell. Goldberg, 74, served on the school board in the 1980s and then went on to serve on both the City Council and in the State Assembly. She is strongly allied with the teachers unions and opposes the further spread of charter schools which, she says, need to be seriously reformed. I don't know if Elizabeth Warren, a former public school teacher herself, is aware of this race or not, but yesterday she sent an e-mail entitled: "In my administration, the Secretary of Education will be a former public school teacher who is committed to public education."

She made the point that "we need to make sure the Department of Education actually works for our students and our educators. I’ll just be blunt: Betsy DeVos is the worst Secretary of Education we’ve seen. She and her team are up to their eyeballs in conflicts of interest. Instead of championing our students, they protect for-profit colleges that break the law and cheat them."

So I’m making this pledge to you: In my administration, the Secretary of Education will be a former public school teacher who is committed to public education.

Let’s get a person with real teaching experience. A person who understands how low pay, tattered textbooks, and crumbling classrooms hurt students and educators. A person who understands the crushing burden of student debt on students and young professionals and who is committed to actually doing something about it.

And our teachers are being crushed right now. Too many have to work another job to make ends meet, are weighed down by student debt, and struggle to teach on shoestring budgets and insulting salaries.

When we fail our teachers, we fail our students-- and we fail our future.

Now, this problem is bigger than Betsy DeVos-- she’s the symptom of a badly broken system. We’re up against powerful forces, and to win, we need big, structural change.

I’ve got a plan for exactly that.

Let’s pass my Ultra-Millionaire Tax and use the money to invest in Universal Child Care and pre-K for all kids.

Let’s use some of that new revenue to raise salaries for all our pre-school teachers to professional level wages-- make them a part of the K-12 teaching corp.

Let’s use more of it to cancel student loan debt for 95 percent of people who have it.

Let’s make it easier to join a union. Unions give teachers-- and firefighters, sheet-metal workers, steelworkers, working people across this country-- more power over the long run. That's good for teachers, good for students, and good for making sure we put the resources we need directly into our schools.

It’s that straightforward: Get the right leadership, invest in our kids, and invest in our teachers.

Oh, and one last thing: Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a former public school teacher in the White House?

We get what we fight for.

Jeff Bryant is also fighting, though not for political office. Yesterday he wrote a piece for Our School, "Why Charter School Proponents Have Lost Many of the Democrats Who Once Supported Them," that is important reading for people interested in the public schools and the attack on them from the right. "The politics of charter schools have changed, and bipartisan support for these publicly funded, privately controlled schools has reached a turning point," he wrote. "A sure sign of the change came from Democrats in the House Appropriations Committee who have proposed a deep cut in federal charter school grants that would lower funding to $400 million, $40 million below current levels and $100 million less than what the Trump administration has proposed. Democrats are also calling for better oversight of charter schools that got federal funding and then closed. This is a startling turn of events, as for years, Democrats have enthusiastically joined Republicans in providing federal grants to create new charter schools and expand existing ones. In explaining this change in the politics of charter schools, pundits and reporters will likely point to two factors: the unpopularity of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, an ardent charter school proponent, and teachers’ unions that can exert influence in the Democratic Party. But if the tide is truly turning on bipartisan support for charter schools, it is the charter industry itself that is most to blame."

Dems Divide on Charters

For years, support for charter schools has been the norm in the Democratic Party. The Obama administration dramatically expanded federal support for charter schools with the avid support of Democrats in Congress. A slew of Democratic governors, from Andrew Cuomo in New York to former Governor of California Jerry Brown, have been charter champions.

Candidates in the Democratic Party presidential primary who’ve been highly supportive of charter schools include Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado and former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. Other Democratic presidential contenders who are newer on the scene such as Julian Castro and Beto O’Rourke have connections to charter schools or their supporters. [And then there's Biden's brother, Frank Biden, the top lobbyist for the Charter School alliance. Photo of the two on the right.]

Even in the first year of the Trump administration, as Democrats rejected the education budget put forth by U.S. Secretary Betsy DeVos, they voted with Republicans for the Trump administration’s increase in funding for the charter school grant program.

But the divergence in charter school politics was certainly visible in 2018 elections when Democrats flipped seven governor seats and brought into office new leaders who expressed strong skepticism of these schools. In races for seats in the U.S. House and in state legislatures, the largely uncontested playing field charter school proponents have enjoyed in nearly two decades of elections was thick with formidable opponents who campaigned against an open-wallet policy for charters.

The growing divide over charter schools in the Democratic Party is a reflection of what’s happening among voters. A recent Gallup survey showed support for charters among Democrats eroding from 61 percent in 2012 to 48 percent, while Republican support remained steady at 62 percent over the same five years.

Now candidates in the Democratic presidential primary are taking cautious approaches to talking about charters. When CNN correspondent Jake Tapper recently asked Booker whether he was “part of the charter school movement,” Booker declined to answer the question directly, responding instead that he is for “solutions.” Tapper replied, “It seems you’re reluctant to say you’re part of the public charter school movement.”

What Happened?

Serious analysts of charter school politics can point to multiple factors that are changing alignments.

The drumbeat of reports revealing corruption, fraud, and blatant profiteering in the charter school industry has certainly penetrated the conversation.

News outlets report the legislation proposed by House Democrats was influenced by a recent analysis which found that as much as $1 billion in federal money was wasted on charter schools that never opened or that closed because of fraud, mismanagement, other issues. That analysis, which I coauthored with Carol Burris of the Network for Public Education, urged the department of education to follow through with recommendations from a 2018 federal audit of charters, a recommendation House Democrats have also taken up.

Concerns over widespread charter school corruption have mushroomed as news of scandals have become near-daily occurrences across the country, including from Arizona, Florida, California, Georgia, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Also, teachers who recently walked off the job to protest unchecked charter expansion in Los Angeles, Oakland, West Virginia, and Jefferson County, Kentucky, have helped to shift the politics of charter schools by pointing out that charters, as they are currently conceived and operated in most places, now pose an existential threat to public school systems.

The politics of charter schools have also changed in the African American community. Urban communities of color that were supposed to be the intended beneficiaries of charter schools have now become intense battlegrounds where expansions of these schools are increasingly strongly contested. When prominent civil rights groups including the national NAACP, the Movement for Black Lives, the Journey for Justice Alliance, and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools called for a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools and for stronger oversight of these schools, it signaled to Democrats that two of the party’s strongest factions, labor and civil rights groups, have come together on resistance to school privatization.

Charter Schools’ Pogo Moment

But the charter school industry’s worst enemy is undoubtedly itself.

When the whole idea of creating a charter school to serve as a laboratory of innovation for educating special needs students transformed into a movement, and then an industry, the goal changed from a collective effort of local citizens to educate children to become a scourge of low-quality institutions devouring the common good for the sake of its own growth.

While stories of corrupt and low-quality charter schools have become routine in local and national news, the charter industry has continued to argue that government regulation and the ineptness of charter authorizers are the only problems and that there could not possibly be anything wrong with charters themselves.

As numerous research reports continue to reveal charter schools increase segregationof students on the basis of race, income, and ability, the charter industry responded by denying and then ignoring the problem.

“What was once billed as a model for the improvement of traditionally governed public schools,” writes the Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss, “has become a troubled parallel system of privately managed schools with, in many places, patterns of waste, fraud, and segregation.”

In that piece, Strauss includes a lengthy analysis by Burris asking whether charter schools can be rehabilitated and reconnected to their original mission. Her conclusion-- after weighing the frequency and seriousness of scandals, the persistent evidence of discrimination and segregation, and the depletion of public school funding-- is “a resounding no.”

The fact there are numerous charter schools that do wonderful work will continue to provide fodder for charter fans to refute Burris’ argument. But charter schools will be an increasingly contentious political issue-- and deservedly so. In her piece, Strauss points to an observation I made in 2013, that charter school enthusiasts who had concerns about creating good schools had come to a Pogo moment when their search for an enemy had led “to a mirror.” Clearly, six years ago they liked what they saw. Now they’re paying the political consequences for that.

UPDATE: Huge Win For Berniecrats, For The Unions, The Public Schools And For Jackie Goldberg

It wasn't even close. The downtown establishment and charter school shills had their asses handed to them last night when Jackie Goldberg swept to a massive 72-28% win over Heather Repenning.

Angelenos Go Overwhelmingly For The Progressive Over The Establishment-Backed Big Money Candidate

Exactly a week ago, there was an election in Los Angeles to replace a crooked School Board member, Ref Rodriguez, a charter school shill who was forced to resign after a many-faceted financial scandal. (Rodriguez pleaded guilty in July to 5 separate charges involving election fraud, exactly the kind of stuff you would imagine from a charter school lowlife selling out his community.) In last week's 10-person race, voters overwhelmingly chose the most progressive candidate, Jackie Goldberg, who got close to the 50% mark that would have precluded a run-off. Despite the airwaves clogged with $750,000 worth of garbage ads from a PAC supporting Heather Repening, the establishment candidate and the probable run-off contender, Goldberg finished with 15,241 votes (48.45%)-- 489 votes shy of what she needs to avoid a run-off-- to Repenning's 4,144 (13.17%). Graciela Ortiz is right behind Repenning and votes are still being tabulated and it is actually possible that Goldberg could win outright or that she will face Ortiz instead of Repinning. The run-off is May 14.

The district, whose 81,000 students in 177 schools are almost 90% Latino, includes Los Feliz, Silverlake, Highland Park, Echo Park, Eagle Rock, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate, Vernon and Bell.

Goldberg, 74, served on the school board in the 1980s and then went on to serve on both the City Council and in the State Assembly. She is strongly allied with the teachers unions and opposes the further spread of charter schools.

According to Los Angeles Magazine, "The seven-member school board is deeply divided ideologically. There are a number of sticking points, chief among them the spread of independent charter schools. There are currently two board members who are fairly sympathetic to the teachers union and skeptical of the charter movement, and three members who are the reverse. In somewhere approximating the middle is the idiosyncratic Richard Vladovic. A Jackie Goldberg victory in May would leave the board balanced on a knife’s edge. She would press for more oversight and more regulations on existing charter schools, and would likely work to stop their spread, although that’s tricky one, since their right to exist (and their right to be located on school district-owned campuses) is mandated by state law.

“I think the biggest battles will probably be in Sacramento,” said Goldberg. “I’m sorry, but there needs to be some reform to charter legislation.”

No matter who wins the special election, the board will be pressing for more money, both from the State Legislature and from voters. One month after the runoff, in June, the district will ask voters to increase their own property taxes by 16 cents-a-square-foot, in order to raise half a billion dollars or so a year and save L.A. Unified from insolvency. The measure will need a 67-percent supermajority to pass, so it’s far from a sure thing. Should that vote fail, then the board’s business would become dominated by the money crunch. Should it succeed, then they may find themselves supervising fights over the spoils, between different unions and factions.

Neighborhood Schools And The Public Charter Scam

by Dorothy Reik
President, Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains

It should be a given that all schools must be created equal and that they must provide the same great education to all of our children. That is why I am opposed to "public" charters-- and "magnet" schools. Let's remember the genesis of these schools-- they were created in response to forced busing. If minority children were going to be bused in, these white parents were going to be sure the "right" children were going to com-- those whose parents could navigate the system-- find the schools, fill out the applications, follow through and then drive their kids to school-- and maybe even contribute money to fund the librarians, music teachers, etc. that these schools needed to fill the gaps left by our fatally underfunded schools. These children were effectively removed from their neighborhood schools.

Meanwhile, left behind were the latchkey kids, the ones whose parents couldn't play the game, parents who worked multiple jobs and had other challenges. Their kids stayed in their neglected neighborhood schools with no parents who could raise funds to fill the gaps in their education, sparse supplies, old textbooks and, too often, failed administrators. Their teachers were and are new, inexperienced, many from Teach for America-- two years, a line on their resumes, and they were out, making way for another round of political wannabes looking to benefit from saying they were teachers. There would be no libraries, music teachers or other perks for these children-- children who were and are the most in need of special care-- music and art to bring them out of their shells, paper and pencils, and most of all experienced teachers with a history at their school-- teachers who taught their older siblings, who understood the neighborhood, who had met the parents. And without the friendship of those children who had moved on to greener pastures.

Patrice Cullors writes movingly of her experience when she transferred out of her neighborhood school to one in an upscale San Fernando Valley neighborhood. Her mother did not fill out her form but her friend's mother did and Patrice moved from a prison-like school with metal detectors to one with green lawns and shade trees as well as experienced teachers. What would become of her had her friend's mother not filled out those forms? Would she have been a co-founder of Black Lives Matter? Would she have written a great book-- When They Call You a Terrorist? And what became of the friends she left behind who needed her to inspire them?

Segregated schools are still with us but even in the inner city some families are better off than others and their children have moved out of the neighborhood schools leaving the other, less advantaged students behind to fend for themselves and try to avoid the school-to-prison pipeline. What are their chances without friends whose achievements can inspire them, committed teachers, successful administrators who have not been transferred from other schools whose activist parents won't have them, without music and art to help them express themselves when they cannot verbalize their experiences? I taught in a neighborhood public school before busing and I can tell you today which children would have left for "public charters" and "magnets" which ones would have been left behind. Almost forty years after leaving teaching their faces are still with me-- especially the ones who would have been left behind.

Trump May "Love" The Poorly Educated, Most Republicans Want To Create Lots And Lots Of Them

The Koch network, wrote Annie Linskey for the Boston Globe a few months ago, "has pledged to devote around $400 million toward politics and policy in the midterms to hold the GOP majorities in both chambers. That’s 60 percent more than the network spent in 2014, when Republicans picked up nine seats in the Senate and 13 seats in the House of Representatives."

A major focus for the Koch network-- known formally as the Seminar Network-- is state legislation, with an aim to remake the nation’s education system via referendums and new state laws. The Kochs are particularly enthusiastic about education savings accounts: a mechanism that upends traditional K-12 education by, in some cases, giving parents lump sums they can use to pay private schools or even online institutions to educate their children.

A top priority for 2018 is in Arizona, where a measure allowing education savings accounts for all students goes on the ballot in November. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey pushed the idea and attended the weekend seminar to chat with donors about it.

Success in Arizona would have “a ripple effect” felt across the country, explained Jorge Lima, executive director of the LIBRE Initiative, the Kochs’ Hispanic outreach arm that has been playing an increasing role with the network’s education measures in states.

A similar bill is moving through the New Hampshire Legislature and is supported by Americans for Prosperity.

These efforts are the latest in a roiling education debate and face headwinds. Last month a school board in Colorado voted, 6 to 0, to end a private voucher program, which teachers unions hope is a sign that voters are showing skepticism for such policies.

“If you rip off the branding and the spin, this is all about destabilizing public schools and defunding them,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation for Teachers, which is the country’s second-largest teachers union. “You’re seeing more radical ideas here.”

Weingarten has clashed with the Kochs before. “They will do anything they can and spend any amount of money they and their allies have to maintain their power and their wealth,” she said.

But it isn't just the Koch network and Betsy DeVos who are out to replace public education with charter schools. There are plenty of Democrats on that bus as well, even so-called "liberals" like Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Andrew Cuomo (D-NY). Lobbyist and ex-Governor Howard Dean, still an icon to some on the left: "I do believe charter schools are the future, especially for the inner cities...Charter schools in this country are being started by young kids who probably voted for Barack Obama...The charter school movement is transforming inner-city education. It is getting kids through high school with diplomas that never would have had a chance even five years ago."

Diane Ravitch is a historian of American education at NYU who wrote an OpEd for the Washington Post a few days ago, Charter schools damage public education. I'd trust her more than the Koch brothers... or Howard Dean-- unless you want to make the GOP's dream come true of a population of "the uneducated." Ravitch is not a fan... and she explains why.

In 1988, teachers union leader Albert Shanker had an idea: What if teachers were allowed to create a school within a school, where they could develop innovative ways to teach dropouts and unmotivated students? The teachers would get the permission of their colleagues and the local school board to open their school, which would be an R&D lab for the regular public school. These experimental schools, he said, would be called “charter schools.”

Five years later, in 1993, Shanker publicly renounced his proposal. The idea had been adopted by businesses seeking profits, he said, and would be used, like vouchers, to privatize public schools and destroy teachers unions. He wrote that “vouchers, charter schools, for-profit management schemes are all quick fixes that won’t fix anything.”

Shanker died in 1997, too soon to see his dire prediction come true. Today, there are more than 7,000 charter schools with about 3 million students (total enrollment in public schools is 50 million). About 90 percent  of charter schools are nonunion. Charters are more segregated than public schools, prompting the Civil Rights Project at UCLA in 2010 to call charter schools “a major political success” but “a civil rights failure.” They compete with public schools instead of collaborating. Charter proponents claim that the schools are progressive, but schools that are segregated and nonunion do not deserve that mantle.

The charter universe includes corporate chains that operate hundreds of schools in different states. The largest is KIPP, with 209 schools. The-second-largest has 167 schools and is affiliated with Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen. About one of every six charters operates for profit; in Michigan, 80 percent are run by for-profit corporations. Nationally, nearly 40 percent of charter schools are run by for-profit businesses known as Educational Management Organizations.

The largest online charter chain, K12 Inc., was founded with the help of former junk-bond king Michael Milken and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The biggest single virtual charter was the Ohio-based Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, which collected $1 billion from Ohio taxpayers from 2000 until its bankruptcy earlier this year. The charter’s 20 percent graduation rate was the lowest in the nation.

Charter schools pave the way for vouchers. More than half of states now have some form of public subsidy for religious and private schools. Voucher schools are not bound by civil rights laws and may exclude students based on religion, disabilities and LGBT status.

Charters are publicly funded but privately managed. They call themselves public schools, but a federal court ruling in 2010 declared they are “not state actors.” The National Labor Relations Board ruled in 2016 that charters are private corporations, not public schools. As private corporations, they are not subject to the same laws as public schools.

The anti-union Walton Family Foundation  is the biggest private financier of charters. The foundation in 2016 unveiled a plan to spend $200 million annually over five years for charter schools, and the organization claims credit for opening one of every four charters in the nation.

by Chip Proser

The Waltons and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, using both public and private funds, are pouring hundreds of millions annually into what amounts to a joint effort to privatize public education. The federal government spends $400 million annually on charter schools; a congressional budget proposal seeks to increase that amount for fiscal 2019.

On average, charters do not get better academic results than public schools, according to the National Education Policy Center, except for those that have high attrition rates and that control their demographics to favor high-scoring groups. The lowest-scoring urban district in the nation is Detroit, where more than half the children are enrolled in charters. The highest-ranked charters in the nation are the BASIS charters in Arizona, where 83 percent of students are either Asian or white, double the proportion of these students in the state.

Charter schools drain resources and the students they want from public schools. When students leave for charters, the public schools must fire teachers, reduce offerings and increase class sizes. Some districts, such as Oakland’s, teeter on the edge of financial ruin because public funds have been diverted to charters.

In 2016, the NAACP called for a moratorium on new charter schools until charters are held to the same accountability standards as public schools, until “public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system” and until charter schools “cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate.”

American education seems to be evolving into a dual school system, one operated under democratic control (overseen by a board that was either elected by the people or appointed by an elected official) , the other under private control. One is required to find a place for every student who shows up, no matter that student’s academic skills, language or disability. The privately managed charter sector can limit its enrollment, exclude students it doesn’t want and accept no new students after a certain grade level. Charters can even close school for the day to take students to a political rally for the school management’s financial benefit. That is not fair competition, and it is not healthy for democracy.

Uneducated, unschooled people aren't capable-- aren't meant to be capable-- of understanding someone like, say, philosopher, historian and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky. I doubt someone who still backs Trump, after all we've seen since 2015, could possibly understand what "existential" means and how Chomsky is using it below. But it's important, very important, that they do, that every American does... and fast.

Climate change and nuclear war. These are really existential threats. And what’s happening now is just astonishing. If media were functioning seriously, every day the lead headline would be this amazing fact-- that in the entire world, every country is trying or committed to doing at least something. One country-- one!-- the most powerful country in history-- is committed to trying to destroy the climate. Not just pulling out of the efforts of others, but maximizing the use of the most destructive means.

There’s been nothing like this in history. It’s kind of an outrageous statement, but it happens to be true, that the Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in human history. Nobody, not even the Nazis, was dedicated to destroying the possibility of organized human life. It’s just missing from the media. In fact, if you read, say, the sensible business press, the Financial Times, BusinessWeek, any of them, when they talk about fossil fuel production, the articles are all just about the prospect for profit. Is the U.S. moving to number one and what are the gains? Not that it’s going to wipe out organized human life. Maybe that’s a footnote somewhere. It’s pretty astonishing.