Re: The Economist: The Bloomberg-Klein "grand plan to charterise the entire city school system"

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Schmidt is, of course, wrong.  The "Left Behind" report does not say 
that all CPS schools are failures and should be replaced by charters.  
It acknowledges the challenges of educating children of poverty, but 
says that the system simply does not work on their behalf:

"The problem lies in the system, which lacks competitive
pressures pushing it to achieve desired results. It responds
more to politics and pressures from the school unions than
to community or parental demands for quality. Schools, principals
and teachers are largely insulated from accountability or
responsibility for results. The system is largely decentralized,
with limited ability or willingness on the part of the central
administration to intervene in failing schools..".  (p. 3)

Pretty grim.  And consistent with the first finding in the diagnosis, 
it calls for more choice for parents and children, in the form of 
vouchers and charter schools, as a way of introducing the competition 
that would presumably lead to better educational experiences for them.  
It says that vouchers are politically unworkable and calls for more 
charter schools, not turning all schools into charter schools.  But 
increasing choice for parents and kids is only one change it calls for 
-- it also calls for better reporting of children's educational 
progress, early childhood education, initiatives to improve teaching, 
and increased funding for public education.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Csubstance@aol.com
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Sun, 11 Nov 2007 5:11 pm
Subject: Re: [arn-l] The Economist: The Bloomberg-Klein "grand plan to 
charterise the entire city school system"

11/11/07

The same kind of plan has been in place in Chicago for the past five 
years.
It's called "Renaissance 2010 -- 100 new schools for Chicago" and is 
based on
the same drives (privatize and charterize as much as possible).

Renaissance 2010, as we reported in Substance, was inaugurated in a 
speech by
Mayor Richard Daley here in July 2004. It was scripted, though, in a 
report
by a group called the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, which has 
been
Chicago's local version of the Business Roundtable for the past 100 
years or so.

The Civic Committee published a report entitled "Left Behind" in 2003 
which
claimed (based on twisting data sets) that all Chicago public schools 
had
failed and should be replaced by charters.

That meant that by the time, one year later, Renaissance 2010 was 
announced
by Mayor Daley people could say "Whew, they're only going to charterize 
100
schools (out of 600) so most of us are safe."

The central committee of the ruling class at this point is sharing
information about how to bring this stuff about. One of their main 
claims is
that all
they are doing is offering "choice" to poor and "underserved" 
communities. Of
course, the ruling class has made those communities poor and 
underserved, but
unless our side puts that loudly into the debate, it's ignored.

They have also raised a lot of private money (Gates; Walton; Ford; 
others)
for direct assistance to charters. Additionally, they are continually 
getting
additional funds from the federal government. Margaret Spellings came 
to Chicago

(as we reported in February) for what I called a charter school 
infomercial
three days after President Bush pushed charters in the State of the 
Union
address.

With the amount of money they have, they are buying a lot of activists 
to
shill for them, including many erstwhile "progressives." While they are 
starving

the remaining public schools of capital and operational funds, there 
are
millions of extra dollars provided you push charterization.

Finally, for now, there is a very strange religious side to this stuff. 
One
Chicago charter schools (Chicago International Charter Schools) now has 
ten
"campuses" and is the largest charter school in Illinois. Every one of 
its
"campuses" is in what was once a Catholic Schools, and they have 
generally
refused
to remove the religious iconography from the building. Two weeks ago 
(as I'll
be reporting in the November Substance this week) I was surrounded by 
security
guys when I went out to the newest CICS charter school which was just 
opened
in the old Immaculate Heart of Mary school building on Chicago's 
northwest
side. I wanted to get my usual shots (a statue of the Blessed Virgin 
outside a
"public schools", the crucifixes all over the place) and wasn't taking 
my
photographs five minutes when first one, then two, then three private 
security
people
(for a school of 200!) rushed around trying to block my camera. They 
really
wanted to protect that eight foot high statue of the virgin from my 
camera
lens.

A reason I mention this is that it seems that the powerful Archdiosis 
of
Chicago is very much in the middle of the charter school push, and that 
in some
cases they are simply flipping Catholic schools, with the same kids and 
staffs,
and calling them public charter schools.

On all levels, if you can challenge these programs every step of the 
way, you
will be much better off.

Oh, and watch how they pick the people to run things. Here in Chicago, 
the
"Office of New Schools Development" is staffed by people who've never 
worked in
public schools, all paid more than teachers. Their current chief 
officer (at
$135,000 per year) is a guy named Josh Edelman, a former charter school 
head
from California. You might recognize the name of this young visionary. 
His
mother is Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund.

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> 
See
what's new at http://www.aol.com</HTML>






________________________________________________________________________
Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - 
http://mail.aol.com