Tuesday, October 04, 2016

UOO, AFT, and NPE Convergence on Charter Schools

In a recent advertisement by United Opt Out for their Houston conference with the AFT affiliate there, the UOO's rhetorical shaping along AFT party lines was obvious.  

Part of the reason that you should give money to UOO, it would seem, would be to halt "the proliferation of for profit charters" that occurs when public schools are shuttered due to low test scores.  

Now compare that language to NPE's positions, which does not mention charter schools at all but, rather, states Ravitch's opposition to "for-profit management of schools."  

And, of course, we see the same the same language against "for-profit charter schools" in the Dem platform, which Weingarten raved about this past summer.

Now we know that between two-thirds and three-quarters of U. S. charter schools are of the non-profit variety, which is the type that the Clintons, the Broads, and the Gates are most fond of.  The non-profit variety, too, are among the no excuses high flyers like KIPP and Uncommon Schools and IDEA that ESSA is pledged to expand.  

In fact, these non-profit chains received all the $67 million in charter chain federal awards last week that were guaranteed by ESSA.  And the vast majority of the $177 million that went to states last week for charter expansion will NOT GO TO "for profit" charter schools but, rather, the charter chains that UOO says nothing about in their appeal for money to fund their Houston meeting.

With Hillary and Bill riding high in the club car of this non-profit charter train, is this the kind of rhetorical parsing that is necessary these days to both support the small "d" democratic exercise of opting out AND the capital "D" Democratic exercise of encouraging the proliferation of inhumane and undemocratic charter schools?

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous11:18 AM

    The prix fixe menu includes standardized testing, school closings, teacher dispalcements and charter schools. The distinction between for profit and not for profit charter schools is largely semantic. Both varieties rob the existing public schools. Opting out is an a la carte choice proving increasingly irrelevant in the onslaught of "personalized" computer based instruction. Anyone who thinks Clinton and Weingarten will advance the public school agenda is woefully misinformed.

    Abigail Shure

    ReplyDelete