Listen to This #1: Don't be a Malfoy!

Random quotes...

DON'T BE A MALFOY

From a sign at the Women's March, January 20, 2018, in Oklahoma City. Published in The Oklahoma Observer, February 2018.

In a world full of Malfoys, be a Hermoine.

PRIVATIZATION: PUERTO RICO

Crippled Puerto Rico Offered School Privatization as Quick Fix for Woes

America's inadequate response to the hurricane damage done to Puerto Rico has opened the door to the vulture capitalists who have decided that the solution should include school privatization – because it worked so well in Chile and New Orleans.

It's time to reread The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

Whose interest is being served by privatizing the schools of Puerto Rico? I guarantee, it's not the students.

From Steven Singer

Corporate school reform is not about making better schools. If it was, you would see plans like this being proposed in Beverly Hills and rich white neighborhoods across the country.

But somehow that never happens.

These schemes only show up in poor communities populated predominantly by people of color.

How the Shock Doctrine works.

PRIVATIZATION: CHOICES

Oklahoma pastor: Standing in the gap for our school children

"reformers" don't mention that the "choice" of attending a school on a voucher belongs to the school, not the student; the "choice" in the management of a charter school belongs to the corporate board of directors, not the voters through an elected school board.

From Rev. Clark Frailey

...children in public schools deserve the choice not to be marketed and sold as investments in profiteering schemes.

PRIVATIZATION: SEGREGATION

Charter Schools Are Driving Segregation in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

The nation has reneged on the promise of Brown vs. Board of Education, and has stopped trying to integrate public schools. Corporate school "reform" has brought on more segregation. I'd say it was an unintended consequence, but...

From Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, UNC Charlotte’s Chancellor’s Professor and professor of Sociology, Public Policy and Women’s and Gender Studies at UNC Charlotte, quoted by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA

...Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools were once the nation's bellwether for successful desegregation. Today, the district exemplifies how charter schools can impede districts' efforts to resist re-segregation...This research has important implications not only for schools and communities in the Charlotte Mecklenburg region, but for the national debate over the growth and role of charter schools in our nation’s education system.

PRIVATIZATION: VOUCHERS

ALEC and Indiana’s Voucher Program

Millions of Indiana's tax dollars are going to subsidize parents who wish to send their children to a religious school. Vouchers are no longer directed towards the poor. Voucher recipients no longer have to "try" the public schools or have come from a "failing" public school. And voucher schools can choose their students. These tax dollars are spent with no public oversight.

From Sheila Kennedy

Indiana’s voucher program has “become increasingly affluent and white,” which shouldn’t surprise us, since these schools “set their own admission standards and can reject students for any reason.”

FOCUS ON LEARNING, NOT TESTING

No school until age seven: Finland's education lessons for the future

We can't duplicate Finland's educational system in the U.S. for a variety of reasons, but we can learn from them...

From Kristiina Volmari from the Finnish National Agency for Education

We want our teachers to focus on learning, not testing. We do not, at all, believe in ranking students and ranking schools...

DEMORALIZATION, NOT BURNOUT

Teacher Burnout or Demoralization? What’s the Difference and Why it Matters

The teacher shortage; this is why.

From Doris Santoro in NEA Today

This teacher was not burned out. This woman was saying ‘I can’t teach the way I know I’m supposed to be teaching.’ The profession had changed. This isn’t burnout. This is demoralization.

NO QUICK FIX

New Jersey Orders Closure of Trenton Charter School

This!

Instead of trying to "fix" education by privatizing public schools and throwing money to private and privately run schools that don't do any better than neighborhood public schools, we should be doing a better job of supporting local public schools.

Privatization of public education is an example of policy makers refusing to accept their share of  responsibility for supporting the children of our nation. Improving the lives of our young people is not the sole responsibility of public schools...nor should it be.

From Russ Walsh

...Learning happens best in consistent, predictable environments. The disruption that often accompanies the charter sector is antithetical to learning. Adults in charge need to stop looking for quick fixes like charter schools and vouchers and get down to the serious work of addressing income inequity, segregation, and the wise investment of funds and educational expertise in the public schools.

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