Great Guardian Article On The Sham That Is Education Reform And The School Closure Movement

The Guardian, despite its funding from the Gates Foundation, remains one of the few major newspapers around that really gets how much of a sham education reform is.

Today's article from Micah Uetricht on the Chicago school "reforms" is a case in point.

It is so good, I wanted to repost it in full:

If you want a glimpse of what slash-and-burn free market education reform does in cities throughout the US, look no further than Chicago. Last week, Chicago Public Schools announced its plan to close 54 public elementary schools in the city by next year – about 8% of all public schools in the city. Almost all are located on the city's south and west sides in predominantly black neighborhoods.

In a city where the majority of black children live in poverty, in communities long plagued by hyper-segregation, unemployment, youth violence, and disinvestment, these neighborhoods will likely be thrown into further chaos, as students (91% of whom are students of color) are forced to cross into rival gang territories. Public schools, which served as one of the few remaining community anchors, will be shuttered.

Chicago Public Schools claims the move will save $43m annually, and is necessary to close a budget deficit of $1bn over the next three years. The district has a history of using questionable math, issuing loud proclamations of deficits to justify austerity measures like closures, then quietly discovering budget surpluses months later. Even if CPS is telling the truth about the size of its deficit, the numbers on closures don't quite add up. They would only shrink the district's deficit by a small percentage and only in the long term, at least according to the district's statements. Independent analyses also show that past closures have produced minimal or nonexistent savings for the district.

So if budget shortfalls aren't the real issue, why, in neighborhoods desperately in need of strong public institutions like neighborhood schools, would a district shutter 54 schools and "turn around" or consolidate 17 others? And if the deficit is the issue but savings wouldn't be seen for several years, why would CPS propose the largest number of school closures in American history, in one fell swoop, rather than proceed cautiously with a few each year for several years?

Perhaps because some within the district are looking to dismantle education as a public good by handing schooling over to free market forces, and they know the only way to accomplish this is through "shock doctrine"-style policies, ramming the closures down the throats of a citizenry that would never freely choose them.

Over the past two decades, a remarkable consensus has solidified among both American political parties that free market reform is the panacea for all that ills public education. And Chicago has long been what education policy scholar Pauline Lipman calls the "incubator, test case, and model for the neoliberal urban education agenda," through programs like Renaissance 2010 (pdf), a program to close and "turn around" schools deemed failing (and the basis for the Obama administration's Race to the Top program), mayoral control of schools with an unelected CEO and school board, and the 110 charter schools that have cropped up in recent years.

The rise of charters has been central to the reform plans of current Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his predecessor, Richard M. Daley, including their school closure strategy. In the past dozen years, CPS has closed 75 schools; 40% are now run by private operators, most of which are charters. Of the schools targeted for "turnaround" under Ren2010, a process that includes firing all teachers at schools deemed low-performing, nearly all are now charters.

The district insists that the current spate of closures is necessitated by declining enrollment, but plans to open new charters are continuing full-steam ahead. Charter operators like the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO), for example, a close ally of Emanuel that runs 13 schools in the city and recently caught flak for giving millions in publicly funded contracts to executives' close friends and family like a kind of 21st century patronage organization, was awarded a $98m grant from the state of Illinois in 2009 and recently applied for $35m. The network has big plans to open new schools in the near future, amassing huge amounts of debt (serviced with public money) to fund its expansion.

Maybe the district's goal isn't to fix underutilization. Maybe CPS is more interested in expanding charter schools, privatizing public education, and weakening the Chicago Teachers Union. Charters, of course, are overwhelmingly non-union, and that is a principal appeal for reformers pushing them. Charter school students may not outperform traditional public school students, in Chicago or elsewhere, but they do help weaken teachers unions – the biggest potential roadblock to the free marketeers' agenda.

Not all teachers unions have had the willingness or wherewithal to resist that agenda; many have capitulated, or at least been complicit. But the Chicago Teachers Union has fought back. In November, 10 people were arrested in a sit-in outside Mayor Emanuel's City Hall office. Today, thousands of CTU members – alongside community activists, clergy, CPS students, and members of other unions – will return to City Hall, shutting down part of downtown in the middle of rush hour before many are arrested in an act of civil disobedience. The union and the communities will demand the district halt all school closings.

The school reformers peddling neoliberal snake oil, promising the healing benefits of privatizing the country's public school system, are undoubtedly watching Chicago very closely, looking for strategies to export to other cities. But the teachers and communities sure to be devastated by such policies should pay attention, too, as free market education policies spread from New Orleans and Detroit to Philadelphia and beyond, they might glean some useful lessons for resistance.

The entire article is excellent, but the last two paragraphs speak the most to me.

Teachers unions have mostly been complicit in the neoliberal snake oil reform movement, but there are lessons here in Chicago for future resistance - and "Share My Lesson sure ain't on the blueprint.

Chicago 2013

From The Guardian:

More than 100 demonstrators taking part in mass civil disobedience were arrested in Chicago on Wednesday as several thousand people marched against the largest proposed round of school closings in recent memory.

Many carried placards proclaiming "Strong Schools, Strong Neighbourhoods" and "Protect Our Children" while chanting "Whose Schools, Our Schools" and calling for mayor Rahm Emmanuel's resignation.

"We're signalling that there is going to be a large and determined movement that will use the tactics of civil disobedience and direct action in order to keep these schools open," said Chicago Teachers Union vice-president Jesse Sharkey, who was arrested outside City Hall, one of 131 detained by police. "We see this event as kicking off an extended campaign this spring and we think it was a great success."

The city last week announced plans to close 54 schools affecting more than 30,000 students, primarily in low-income black and Latino areas. The proposals – which had already sparked huge, rowdy protests at hearings throughout the city prior to the announcement – mark Emmanuel's second major confrontation over education in less than six months following the teachers' strike in late August.

 "People have a right to the neighbourhoods in which they live," said CTU leader Karen Lewis at the rally. "Children have the right to a safe, nurturing, loving environment."

 CTU has laid down the gauntlet:

"In the same time these school closings have been taking place over the past decade, the city has opened about 100 charter schools in the very neighbourhoods where they're now closing schools through under-utilisation," said Sharkey. "Meanwhile supports of charter schools have been very open ideologically about making school competition part of the larger picture.

"We have not yet won the argument with the people of Chicago that this is a critical moment to be active. But this was a good start. Four or five thousand people and lots of different schools represented today. The argument can and will be won."

...

The CTU emerged with considerable public support after it blunted Emmanuel's attempts to tie teachers' pay to test scores last year. It has pledged to continue the campaign of non-violent disobedience. "People who work in the schools and rely on public schools will oppose the mass closings by any and all peaceful means," Sharkey has told union members. "[School closings] are not something we are prepared to accept without a fight ... We're going to take this fight as far as we have to, to defend our community schools."

Jesse Jackson was there.

Randi Weingarten was not.

She must have been paling around with her friend Bill Gates, finding new ways to use technology to evaluate teachers via test scores.

Thankfully Lewis, Sharkey, CTU and thousands of parents and concerned citizens from around Chicago did show up to fight this massive privatization of the city's school system.

It's going to be a long, hard fight. 

And as Sharkey said, they haven't gotten all the people in Chicago up in arms that this is critical moment to fight back.

But at the very least, they're trying to do just that.

Change ALEC Can Believe In

Devastating:

CHICAGO—School officials here said Thursday they plan to close 53 elementary schools and one high school, one of the largest mass school closings in the nation's history, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel seeks to fill a gaping budget hole.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, said the closings would not be easy, but the city "must make tough choices," and by consolidating schools, "we can focus on safely getting every child into a better-performing school close to their home."

The move to close about 11% of the 472 elementary schools in the nation's third-largest school district this fall sparked anger from the teachers union, some elected aldermen, parents and neighborhood groups who vowed to fight the move. The Chicago Board of Education, appointed by Mr. Emanuel, a Democrat, must approve the final plan.

They're using "consolidation" as the excuse for privatization.

Tim Furman posted the following at Diane Ravtich's blog:

Diane, this is all terrible enough on its own, but I want to point out an interesting sidebar. As you know, the states now have established charter commissions as part of Race to the Top, and Illinois has one of these appointed commissions, which can overrule school districts’ charter decisions.

The Illinois commission only a couple days ago approved a new charter for Illinois, overriding the Chicago Public Schools board’s earlier decision not to approve this particular charter.

The charter has already applied for a zoning variance right down the street from one of the public schools on this closure list! There’s a community meeting tonight about the zoning.

In the midst of an historic attack on public education, the state steps in an adds another charter into the mix.

Just for icing on the cake, the charter is a Concept school— one of the Gulen school networks that you wrote about some time ago.

Wow - opening a Gulen charter in the same zone that they close a public school for being underutilized.

How's that for gall?

And let's all remember, while the playbook for these closures comes from Milton Friedman, Wall Street and ALEC, it's Democrats carrying out the neo-liberal program - Barack "Race to the Top" Obama at the federal level, Rahm Emanuel at the municipal level.

This is the end game for education reform - create crisis, close schools, fire unionized teachers, open charter schools, hire non-unionized at-will employees, privatize the entire system.

Chicago Teacher Strike Suspended

From the Sun-Times:

The Chicago Teachers Union’s House of Delegates voted Tuesday to end its strike after seven days, meaning classes will be in session Wednesday for 350,000 Chicago Public Schools students.

“Everybody is going back to school,” said Jay Rehak, a delegate from Whitney Young High School.

Delegate Mike Bochner said “an overwhelming majority” of delegates voted to suspend the strike on a voice vote.

“I’m really excited, I’m really relieved,” said Bochner, a teacher at Cesar Chavez elementary.

At a press conference a short time after the vote, CTU President Karen Lewis said the vote was approved by a margin of “like 98 percent to 2.”

“We said that it was time, that we couldn’t solve all the problems of the world with one contract. And it was time to suspend the strike.”

She said teachers were excited to return to work.

“I am so thrilled people are going back,” she said. “... Everybody is looking forward to seeing their kids tomorrow, I can guarantee you that.”

Nevertheless, there were some “die-hard hold-outs” in favor of continuing the walk-out, Lewis said.

“We cannot get a perfect contract,” Lewis said. “There is no such thing as a contract that is going to make all of us happy.”

While the strike is over, the entire 29,000-member union still has to approve the contract.

Sad sad Rahm didn't get his injunction against CTU.

CTU members talked this contract over for two days and decided it was time to go back to work and have an up or down vote in the near future.

Democracy in action.

Sad sad Rahm hates that.

I couldn't be prouder of my fellow teachers.

They stood up to the corporate reformers, they stood up to Rahm "F---ing" Emanuel, they put the Obama education agenda on trial, they got people talking about class size and liberal arts and humanities classes and the absurdity of VAM and the damage poverty does to children.

Then they showed how democracy works by taking the extra two days to read over the contract in detail, talk about this with their colleagues and families, then call for a suspension of the strike.

The concern trolls in the corporate media hated that last part.

How dare they show how a real democratic operation works rather than operate as some top-down organization wherein the members do what the leadership wants!

But that's because the corporate media, like many of our politicians and certainly like Arne Duncan, prefer authoritarianism to democracy.

One person pushes the agenda and everybody else falls in line.

That's what corporate reform is all about.

That's what mayoral control is all about.

That's what the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation and the USDOE and the Obama administration are all about.

It's nice to see a group of people show how good old fashioned democracy can work.

Now the rest of us have a model to use.

As CTU said in a statement:

“Our brothers and sisters throughout the country have been told that corporate ‘school reform’ was unstoppable, that merit pay had to be accepted and that the public would never support us if we decided to fight. Cities everywhere have been forced to accept performance pay,” the statement said.

“Not here in Chicago. Months ago, CTU members won a strike authorization, one that our enemies thought would be impossible. Now we have stopped the board are imposing merit pay! We preserved our lanes and steps when the politicians and press predicted they were history. We held the line on healthcare costs. We have tremendous victories in this contract; however, it is by no means perfect. While we did not win on every front and will need to continue our struggle into the future, we soundly defended our profession from an aggressive and dishonest attack. We owe our victories to each and every member of this rank and rile union. Our power comes from the bottom up.”

Are you listening, Randi?

How about you, Mike?

I know you are.

Because what happened in Chicago must scare the shit out of you guys...

Bloomberg Wants To Privatize Parking Meters And Lose Money On The Deal

Parking meter privatization has been a disaster in Chicago (ever notice how so many disastrous ideas come out of Chicago? Neo-liberalism, mayoral control of schools, parking meter privatization, deep dish pizza - all from Chicago.)

So of course the Mayor of Money wants to bring that disaster here to NYC.

But John Liu writes in today's Daily News that that's a bad idea:

Despite City Hall’s disastrous track record with outsourcing contracts to large corporations, like CityTime to SAIC and the 911 emergency-call system to HP, Mayor Bloomberg apparently continues to believe in the myth that private companies always do a better job than the public workers already on the payroll.

Perhaps in an attempt to repair his bad record of farming out multibillion-dollar technology projects, the mayor is aggressively moving forward with what may prove to be the largest such project in New York’s history: privatizing the operations and maintenance of the city’s nearly 90,000 total parking spaces. If his plan proceeds, a private company would soon be servicing our Muni-Meters and collecting the money.

Preliminary proposals are due tomorrow, Tuesday, so New Yorkers need to know the facts today.

...

Over time, our parking system has consistently proven to be a hugely profitable business for the city. For this fiscal year, its operating revenues are projected to be $192 million — a 22% jump over the previous year — while operating expenses are projected to grow only 6%, to $67 million. The $125 million in net revenue the system earns for the city represents a profit of more than 65% — a profit margin that would make the CEO of any major company, even Bloomberg LP, envious.

What’s more, the 466 folks who the city has reported as operating and maintaining our parking system are good at their jobs. For this fiscal year, the average revenue generated per employee is projected to be a whopping $412,000. By comparison, in 2011, each JPMorgan Chase employee generated only $345,000 in revenue. So the city’s parking-system operation is hardly inefficient or bloated, at least compared to one of the world’s largest banks.

So why in the world does Bloomberg want to allow this tremendous public asset to be privately managed and operated? What is the evidence a corporation can squeeze more profitability out of the system? Perhaps the plan is to hike rates or shed employees. Perhaps it’s to look for a quick, one-shot cash infusion to close the $2.5 billion budget hole looming next year.


Either motive would be dangerous for taxpayers.

Maybe Bloomberg believes we need to bring more advanced technology to bear on our parking spaces. But the city hasn’t had any problem modernizing its parking system. Our Muni-Meters are state of the art and reliable, with more than 98% reported operability. We’re even exploring parking-rate innovations like using mobile phones to make it easier for drivers to feed the meter and find empty spots.

The mayor’s office says it is seeking to guarantee a minimum of $100 million in total annual parking revenue. But the parking system already generates $125 million of net revenues annually for the city. Why would we hand over our parking system to a private company in exchange for a $100 million guarantee and then let it share in the revenues above that? It doesn’t make any financial sense, not for the city or for taxpayers.

Bloomberg would know much of this if he just called Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s mayor, whose predecessor orchestrated one of the worst parking-meter privatization deals in municipal history. Chicago, home to the nation’s third-largest parking system, is now grappling with a contract that gave that city relatively small change up front, $1.15 billion, in exchange for a 75-year deal that has made for skyrocketing parking costs for residents.

Estimates are that the vendor will make almost 10 times what Chicago got for the contract. Meanwhile, the vendor is sticking Chicago taxpayers with a truckload of hidden costs, charging the city fees, for example, when meters are put out of service to accommodate parades, street fairs, construction or handicapped-parking placards.

A horrendous deal, indeed.

I hope Liu can stop Bloomberg.

But Liu has already been destroyed by Bloomberg's friends in the media and the federal government with campaign finance fraud allegations.

Bloomberg, who himself admitted he laundered $1.1 million to the Independence Party outside of the legal route, somehow remains in office with full powers while Liu, accused but never charged with finance fraud, is neutered by the press.

No wonder the corporate media and Bloomberg's friends in power went after him.

He tells the truth about corporate cronyism, corruption and privatization - like with this parking meter privatization deal Bloomberg wants to saddle the city with.

Houston Education Miracle Redux

Hey, look - Texas is funking with the education data again:

More than 22,620 Texas secondary students who stopped showing up for class in 2008 were excluded from the state's dropout statistics because administrators said they were being home-schooled, according to Texas Education Agency figures.

But that's where the scrutiny of this growing population seems to end, leaving some experts convinced that schools are disguising thousands of middle and high school dropouts in this hands-off category.

While home-schooling's popularity has increased, the rate of growth concentrated in Texas' high school population is off the chart: It's nearly tripled in the last decade, including a 24 percent jump in a single year.

"That's just ridiculous," said Brian D. Ray, founder of the National Home Education Research Institute. "It doesn't sound very believable."

No, it doesn't sound very believable.

No more so than Rod Paige's "Texas Miracle" back during the Bush days that claimed the achievement gap between white students and minority students had been narrowed by his business-style education reforms.

Those claims turned out to be bullshit too.

In point of fact, Paige and Texas just didn't count drop-outs in their stats.

That certainly helped with the graduation rate data and it helped to show the achievement gap had narrowed.

But it was fake, false, a load of horseshit.

Just like the "accountability movement" that Paige and Bush were promoting through No Child Left Behind.

Of course we have left all that behind with the current administration of President Accountability and his secretary of education, Arne Duncan, who claims his own "Chicago Turnaround" miracle for the reason why Chicago-style accountability reforms - including teacher pay tied to test scores, teacher evaluations tied to test scores, and the lowest performing schools turned over to for-profit charter operators like the non-profit started by the guy who runs diploma-mill Devry University - are being forced on states all over the country.

Oh, wait, we haven't left behind the accountability movement or No Child Left Behind-style reform at all.

Actually we're getting it in triplicate from the current regime in Washington.

And they're basing it on Duncan's Chicago Miracle data.

But of course the Chicago Miracle is bullshit too - just like the Houston Miracle was.

But it's going to be replicated all over the country by President Accountability and his little basketball buddy at the Education Department and by the time the evidence becomes clear just how horseshit all these reforms are, the total damage to public education will be complete.

And the guy from Devry University - or guys just like him in the for-profit education world - will be running entire urban school systems.

The Chicago Turnaround Strategy

Other blogs do a much better job of covering the absudrity that is the Chicago public school system (where the "CEO" of schools seems to be doing about as well as the CEO of AIG), but I have to say, after reading this article about all the schools slated for "closure," "turnaround," "consolidation," "phase out," and "re-engineering," I can't help but wonder what George Carlin would say about the euphemisms being used by the Chicago education "reformers."

I also can't help but wonder why they keep blaming the schools and the teachers that teach in them when a particular school like Phillips High School was "re-constituted" in 1997, "re-engineered" in 2000 and is slated for "academic turnaround" this year (i.e., all teachers who teach there will be fired) and it still seems to have problems.

Might the problems of the children attending that school be caused by something other than the school and the teachers teaching in it?

Not in Chicago, where the teachers are ALWAYS at fault and ALWAYS the first to get fired.

And not in Arne Duncan's and Barack Obama's vision for American public education.

Remember, they plan to take this stuff national, both through the three card monte Race to the Top competition this year and the extension to it Obama is already calling for next year.

Close schools, fire teachers, open charters, close schools, fire teachers, open charters...

Great - the strategy seems to be working so well in Chicago.

Should be even better on a national scale.