Category Archives: Education

Louisiana, the poster child for private school privatization

The poster child for charter school privatization is Louisiana. It started in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, but the man-made education disaster has spread to the whole state.

Mattreichel wrote for FireDogLake 5 April 2012, Jindal Puts Louisiana’s Schools Up for Sale: ALEC’s Education Reforms Rammed Through

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has wasted no time this legislative session in pushing wide-reaching education reforms designed to expand the charter school footprint, while opening the door to vouchers and tying teacher tenure to student test results. In the early hours of the morning on March 23rd, after a marathon session, the Louisiana State House passed two bills that form the core of a wide-reaching education reform agenda designed to expand the charter school footprint, while opening the door to vouchers and tying teacher tenure to student test results. Governor Bobby Jindal wasted no time in pushing these reforms through in the first weeks of the legislative session, and the urgency with which he has advanced this agenda has infuriated teachers and left even some charter-school advocates alarmed. “The governor’s expression of urgency for these bills is specious at best. [They] did not have to be passed under cover of darkness,” says Louisiana Federation of Teachers (LFT) president Steve Monaghan. Even Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat who has been an avid charter school advocate, criticized the Governor’s haste: “I am by no means naïve, and know full well the Administration’s political advantage of pushing legislation through with as little debate as possible.” With these bills, Louisiana is set to join Florida, Ohio and Minnesota amongst the states that have enacted the most far-reaching of these school reforms. This marks the latest wave in a concerted nation-wide effort by right-wing advocacy organizations and their corporate supporters to ravage the public sector.

While “reform” usually has connotations of “making better”, in this case, “better” means more profit for private school companies, not better education for students.

Why would Louisiana’s legislators vote for something so counterproductive for education?

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JC Cunningham against the charter school amendment and for HD 175

JC Cunningham, running for Georgia House District 175 against incumbent Amy Carter, spells out his opposition to the charter school amendment. -jsq

Video by George Boston Rhynes for bostongbr on YouTube.

Actually, it's even worse than JC indicates, because because HB 797 specifies more money per pupil for charter than for public schools, and the difference has to be made up out of local sales or property taxes.

-jsq

Charter school referendum in New Jersey?

Here’s another potential charter school referendum that BallotPedia doesn’t seem to have caught yet, in New Jersey.

John Mooney wrote for NJ Spotlight 3 February 2012, Assembly Committee Votes to Put Charters Under Local Control: Bill calls for local referendum on any school that wants to be granted a charter in a NJ district,

The Assembly education committee yesterday moved a bill that would give local voters the right to approve new charters in their home districts. If passed by both houses, the law would make New Jersey only the third state to require charter schools to face a local referendum.

First proposed last year, the new bill has been toughened for the new session. Amendments filed with the bill would make those referendums retroactive for as many as 30 urban and suburban schools awaiting their final charters.

The votes would come after the state’s preliminary approval, but often as much as a year can lapse before the final charter is granted and a school can open.

NJ bill A1877 seems to have gotten stuck in the NJ state Senate Education Committee back in May. It has 21 sponsors, starting with Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex), shown in the picture above.

Related bill A2147 got as far as a second reading in the Assembly in February.

Charter schools in Georgia already have to be approved by local school boards. Let’s not give up that local control. Vote No on the charter school referendum in November.

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What other states have had charter school referendums?

Thanks to Jim Galloway, we learned that charter school proponents say “No other state has had a positive outcome for a charter-positive ballot initiative.” OK, what other states have had any sort of charter school referendums? Such ballot initiatives have at least been tried in Massachusetts, Michigan, and Washington.

BallotPedia records some state charter school referendums.

Massachusetts

In Massachusetts, charter school proponents couldn’t even get enough signatures to put a pro-charter school referendum on the ballot this year.

The measure would have removed limits on number of charter schools, their funding, and enrollment. Other changes would have been made in laws that governed charter schools, including requiring approval of qualified applications for charter schools to be in districts where there was low student performance.

Michigan

In Michigan, a referendum to ban for-profit charter schools may be on the ballot in November:

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Support for charter school referendum falling?

A recent poll shows markedly lower support Georgia Charter School Polls for the November charter school referendum than polls in March and July, which were already down from January. At this rate, the charter school referendum can lose as badly in November as T-SPLOST did in July. Maybe people are catching on that diverting local taxes to control by a state appointed body is a bad idea, especially this time when the money would end up going to private profit.

Georgia Family Council wrote, presumably in January, Poll Shows Support for Charter School Changes,

On January 24, the Georgia Charter School Association and My School, My Choice Georgia held a news conference on Capitol Hill to release the results of a new study regarding public school choice….

The new numbers showed that 52 percent of voters are dissatisfied with the public system as it currently stands. A whopping 72 percent feel that a group other than local school boards should be able to authorize charter schools, the basis for HB 881. Moreover, Georgia voters tend to support a “money follows the child” approach to charter school funding.

So there’s a baseline for January for what proponents of charter schools claimed: 72% support for something very like the charter school referendum that ended up on the November ballot.

Or not. That writeup includes a link to georgiaschoolchoice.com, but that domain is no longer registered. This is probably it over on the snazzy new gacharters.org website. The gacharters.org writeup doesn’t mention 72%, and does say:

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Charter school preamble biased like T-SPLOST?

T-SPLOST proponents are up to their old tricks again, starting with the preamble to the charter school referendum. And Bert “Little Goose” Brantley, formerly of Lowndes County, defends that wording.

Paul Crawley wrote for 11alive.com September 12 2012, Is Charter Schools Amendment wording biased?

Here we go again, apparently another ballot issue with questions about whether it’s worded fairly.

First, it was the July 31st transportation sales tax issue, known as T-SPLOST, which Georgia voters rejected overwhelmingly.

Opponents howled when they found out the ballot preamble wording promised to “create jobs” and “relieve traffic congestion”.

Now, opponents of a November ballot question are also crying foul.

They’re upset over the preamble wording for the Charter School Commission Amendment.

It reads, “Provides for improving student achievement and parental involvement through more public charter school options.”

How can the preamble say that?

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“No other state has had a positive outcome for a charter-positive ballot initiative” —former T-SPLOST proponents now pushing charter schools

The same people who pushed the failed T-SPLOST tax referendum on the July primary ballot are now pushing the charter school referendum on the November general election ballot. Four of their leaders are the same specific individuals, including one from right here in Lowndes County. They’re pushing something they admit has failed in every other state. Let’s not be the first to fall for it.

According to the Georgia Charter Schools Association (GCSA),

No other state has had a positive outcome for a charter-positive ballot initiative

So even one of the major proponents of charter schools admits no other state’s voters have thought they were a good idea. Their slides lay out a pair of statewide major money campaigns to push the referendum anyway.

We know about this because these slides fell into the hands of the AJC, and Jim Galloway published them today, saying:

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Want knowledge-based jobs? Welcome gays and lesbians

The Chamber, the Industrial Authority, and various other local leaders say they want knowledge-based jobs, or creative jobs. We won’t get those just by teaching students to show up on time and do what they’re told: that’s how you train factory workers, not knowledge-based employees. For creative jobs we also need Technology, Talent, and Tolerance. How do you measure Tolerance? One key component is the concentration of gays and lesbians. So today’s South Georgia Pride Festival is a good sign for creative jobs in south Georgia!

Richard Florida wrote 16 July 2012 for The Atlantic, The Geography of Tolerance,

The map above shows how metros across the U.S. score on the Tolerance Index, as updated for The Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited. The chart below shows the top 20 metros. Developed by my Martin Prosperity Institute colleague Kevin Stolarick, it ranks U.S. metros according to three key variables—the share of immigrants or foreign-born residents, the Gay Index (the concentration of gays and lesbians), and the Integration Index, which tracks the level of segregation between ethnic and racial groups.

Do you recognize that shape in the middle of south Georgia? That’s the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area, consisting of Lowndes, Echols, Lanier, and Brooks Counties. Looks like about 0.4 on the Tolerance Index. So sure, we’re no Austin, Texas, but we’re in the same range as oh, Charlotte, NC.

If you want to help promote creative jobs in south Georgia, there’s a festival going on today:

South Georgia Pride Festival
noon until 6PM
John W Saunders Park
1151 River Street
Valdosta, Georgia
food and music all day

Who knows, the Mayor of Valdosta might even be there; what do you think? He certainly gave the festival plenty of earned media.

-jsq

Valdosta Street Railway 1899-1924

 

What’s that little shelter by the front gate of VSU? It’s the last physical remnant of the Valdosta Street Railway, an early 20th century streetcar system, when Valdosta was the smallest city in the country to have one. Valdosta had 5,613 people in 1900, about twice as many as present-day Hahira.

Dean Poling described the origins of Valdosta’s streetcars in Valdosta Scene 26 February 2010:

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Streetcars and bicycles: upcoming movies at VSU

You do know that Valdosta was the smallest city in the U.S. that had a streetcar system, right? Here’s a movie about what probably happened to it, like all the others, followed by a movie about another mode of transportation: bicycles.

“Taken for a Ride” and “Pedal Power!” screening

Public Event · By Valdosta State University Social Issues in Film Series
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
7:00pm
VSU University Center room 1171
DOUBLE-HEADER!

“Taken for a Ride” focuses on the Great American Streetcar Scandal (or Conspiracy), in which major US companies deliberately bought-up and dismantled the public light-rail streetcar lines in dozens of American cities. The guilty companies? General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum, and Mack Trucks—all companies that wanted to replace the public streetcars with buses and then private cars.

“Pedal Power!” is an inside look at the world’s growing cycling movement and how bikes are pushing-up against a dominant car culture in North America. From Critical Mass bike rides and “bike-to-work” programs, to increasingly popular “public bike” programs, bicycles are becoming an ever-important component of cities.

Co-sponsored with the Valdosta Community Cycling Center.

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