Hi Karen and Amara,
I wanted to write a post about the junk science that has driven school
privatization since No Child Left Behind/Race to the Bottom. I was part
of the junk science system that finished off behavioral health care in
the 1990's. The bull... is exactly the same!
The pretense that these "choices" have different goals is a big lie,
much like the "choices" offered through the fake democracy of Penn
Praxis. The choices are only meant to confuse you.
For ten years, the American people were distracted from the sabotage of
public schools, as funding was further withdrawn. The pseudo-science
behind testing for "bad teachers and bad schools" dominated the
messaging the entire time.
It's a lie. You can't evaluate professionals or schools by way of a
golden checklist created by a few great rich men! These arbitrary
useless evaluations do nothing good, but do drive away good teachers and
reinforce those who are burnt out.
The people behind the fraud spent 10 years quietly sabotaging public
education while the media brainwashed people about these "evaluations."
Now, they want to finish off public education, while people are
distracted by a media blitz about cheating on these useless evaluations.
I'm sorry I can't quickly expand upon the fraud and junk science before
the meeting tonight.
These people have an agenda that has nothing to do with improving public
education or they would support funding of data driven interventions,
which we know could improve schools at every grade level! Once you
understand that their agenda is based on ridiculous junk science and
neo-liberal myths, you will reject all the fake choices put before you.
I'm happy to expand a discussion of the the junk science, but I wanted
you to listen to their presentations more critically than they want you
to tonight. Even their announcement is meant to intimidate you into
believing that they have engaged in some sophisticated process to
compare these glorious "visions" which all have the same goal!
Best of luck tonight,
Glenn
PS: Don't be afraid to confront these fraudsters!
On 3/12/2012 1:48 PM, Karen Allen wrote:
*RE: Instead, SRC member Wendell Pritchett, our neighbor, said that
the Compact's focus is the district's relationship with the charter
operators and that neighborhood district schools will come into play
only when they are turned over to charters when they fail, not
expanded when they succeed.*
That sounds like the ultimate goal of all of this is to privatize the
public school system.
What does the closing of a "low performing" school accomplish? It's
not the "school" that is low performing - it's the students who attend
it, and those students have needs that are obviously not being met,
where ever it is that they may be shuffled off to.
And why is the discussion about "schools" instead of "students" in the
first place? It seems like the children are just interchangeable
commodities to be shuffled around and to spew back canned "education"
geared to raising test scores so that CEOs can keep their contracts
and bureaucrats can keep their jobs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:42:54 -0400
Subject: [UC] SRC Meeting: "Great Schools Compact" Community
Discussion at 3/12 6 p.m.
From: aroc...@gmail.com
To: westphillycoalitionforneighborhoodscho...@googlegroups.com;
ucneighb...@googlegroups.com; UnivCity@list.purple.com
Those interested in public education in our city please attend the
School Reform Commission meeting TONIGHT at 6 p.m. at 440 North Broad
Street. These Monday meetings are set up "community discussion" style
and your voices need to be heard. The topic of the discussion
<http://www.thenotebook.org/blog/124587/chorus-concern-over-great-schools-compact>
is the Great Schools Compact, which the district is undergoing to
compete for additional money from Bill Gates.
The announcement of the Compact came with a commitment to increase the
number of seats in high-performing schools whether they be district,
charter or parochial schools. HOWEVER, the committee
<http://www.thenotebook.org/blog/124438/shorr-chair-great-schools-compact-committee>
to oversee the development of the compact has not a single parent,
teacher or district principal on it (they have added an advisory
parent role but the person does not have voting powers). It does have
CEOs of charter schools, district administration with charter school
backgrounds or who work with charters, an SRC member and a
representative of the mayor.
I attended a Young Involved Philadelphians event earlier this year,
there were several Penn Alexander parents in attendance as well
representatives from other neighborhood schools, and raised the issue
to SRC members Wendell Pritchett and Feather Houstoun of the lack of
representation from the district from neighborhood schools and also
the groundswell of support many district neighborhood schools are
receiving from their communities and how the district should
capitalize on that rather than ignore it.
*Instead, SRC member Wendell Pritchett, our neighbor, said that the
Compact's focus is the district's relationship with the charter
operators and that neighborhood district schools will come into play
only when they are turned over to charters when they fail, not
expanded when they succeed.*
I felt this was a bit of a bait-and-switch given the Compact's initial
announced purpose. And now, the SRC has released the topics to be
discussed at tonight's meeting:
"The Great Schools Compact set a goal of turning 50,000 low performing
seats in District and Charter schools into high performing seats.
There a number of potential strategies that may be employed to
accomplish this goal, including 1) Creation of in District
turn-arounds (Promise Academies); 2) Renaissance Charters; 3)
Replication/expansion of high performing District schools and
programs; 4) Improving existing District and Charter schools through
principal and teacher development 5) Expansion of high performing
Charter schools; 6) Granting new Charters; 7) Closure of low
performing District and/or Charter schools. No one of these strategies
can accomplish the goal. Some are more costly than others. How do you
think we should prioritize among them? What conditions determine which
strategy should be applied to a given school? Are there other
approaches that should be employed? What are your recommendations?"
I don't quite know what to make of it but given that there are
district schools and charters under investigation for cheating on PSSAs
(http://articles.philly.com/2012-03-11/news/31145463_1_city-charter-schools-vanguard-schools-education-secretary-ronald-tomalis),
it kind of calls into question how we have determined what a failing
school is, doesn't it? Some of these schools also have suspiciously
high School Performance Index scores (based partly on PSSAs and other
manipulable factors), which may have prevented the schools from being
"Renaissanced."
Note that Stanton and Sheppard
<http://www.thenotebook.org/blog/124570/src-hears-recommendations-school-closings>,
two schools that have years of good test scores and are listed for
closure through the Facilities Master Plan, are NOT under
investigation. What does it mean when the PSD wants to close down
seemingly TRULY high-performing schools?
Anyway, this is my rather long-winded summary of why people should
come out tonight. Hope to see you there!
Amara
--
I foster with City Kitties: Rocco and Red
<http://citykitties.org/adopt/adoption-listings/?page=pet&id=4152313&PHPSESSID=c74b70a505f65d618c559709dff12a21>
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