Common Sense in Philadelphia

 

This sacrifice of common sense is the certain badge which distinguishes slavery from freedom; for when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.

              Thomas Paine

On Tuesday, May 19^th voters in Philadelphia sent a message to billionaire venture philanthropists who were trying to buy the office of mayor of Philadelphia to promote their privatization of public schools agenda. By the day of the primary election for mayor and other offices  they had invested $7 million in advertising for the candidate they thought would carry out their agenda, State Senator Anthony Williams.

Former Councilman Jim Kenney defeated Williams by a 2-to-1 margin winning a plurality in all wards in the city. Kenney ran on a progressive platform, including the ending ‘stop and frisk’ by police, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and establishing universal pre-Kindergarten. Even before he decided to run for mayor, Kenney was praised for championing the erecting of a statue in City Hall for forgotten civil rights pioneer Octavius Catto. Kenney has also been a supporter of immigrant rights.

At the beginning of the campaign, Anthony Williams was considered the frontrunner. As the campaign progressed, despite flooding the airwaves with campaign commercials beyond what any other candidate could do, Williams began to drop in the polls. Williams attempted to give the appearance of distancing himself from what had been his signature role in the Pennsylvania state legislature for ten years, the promotion of charters and vouchers. As it was clear his campaign was in trouble, Philadelphia Inquirer editorial page editor (the Inquirer endorsed Williams) Harold Jackson appealed to Williams to “run on his beliefs”. Williams duplicity only made voters question what he was hiding about his plans for public education.

In the days before the end of the campaign Williams appealed to ethnic solidarity to get votes in the African-American community. This too backfired as Kenney won a plurality of the votes in the 30 predominantly black wards. In the days before the primary, the fractured Democratic Party coalesced around Kenney with endorsements from Mayor Nutter, City Council President Darrell Clark, and some Black clergy switching from supporting Williams to Kenney. 

There was speculation in the press that School Reform Commission member Bill Green will run as an independent in the November election to promote his privatization of education agenda. Green had been outspoken in his support of Williams despite being a member of the School Reform Commission since his appointment by Governor Corbett. He contributed the legal limit of $2900 to his campaign. Green said the election of Kenney “was no coronation” as evidenced by the low voter turnout.

The voter turnout was the lowest in modern Philadelphia history with more registered voters abstaining than those voting. Only 30% of registered voters voted.

Also elected as a Democratic nominee to a City Council-at-Large seat was Helen Gym. Gym is a founder of Parents United for Public Education and has been one of the leaders of those campaigning for defense of Philadelphia’s public schools. On the day of the election, the head of Boys’ Latin charter sent out an email urging people not to vote for Helen Gym because “she hates us.”

A non-binding resolution was passed by voters calling for the abolition of the School Reform Commission, the administrators of the Philadelphia School District since the state takeover in 2001, and a return to local control of Philadelphia schools.

While the election is a victory for democracy over the attempt of wealthy hedge fund managers to buy an election, we can have no illusions that public education in Philadelphia is now safe. Far from it!

The Philadelphia public schools have been under relentless attack by corporate education reformers for many years. The starved schools have been taken off of life support. In the last few years, teachers have been forced to buy basic supplies just to teach their students even as their salaries, including step increases, are frozen.

Most libraries in public schools have been closed. Counselors have been cut so most schools have part time or no counselor. School nursing is now provided part time in most schools. This can now be seen as the beginning of the attempted dismantling of the Philadelphia public schools.

On April 10^th the SRC announced substitute teacher services would be bid out to private contractors.

On May 13^th, the SRC announced that they want to outsource public school nurses to private companies. Listen to this interview with school nurse Eileen Duffey talking about what this will mean for medical services in Philadelphia public schools.

On May 17th, the School District announced a contract had been reached with the union of the lowest paid employees in the District, noontime aides and cafeteria workers. While these low paid workers received a modest wage increase, it came at the cost of the District stopping payments into the union’s health and welfare fund and the lose of seniority protections for layoffs and rehires. Superintendent William Hite, a graduate of the Broad Superintendent's Academy, took the opportunity to lecture the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers to follow this example of “shared sacrifice” to make up for the underfunding of the public schools.

The SRC has announced their first “turnaround of a turnaround”, (a term invented so they didn't have to have community meetings) the turning over of a “failed” independent charter school to charter management company Mastery.

Can Kenney be counted on to fight this onslaught on public education? Jim Kenney is a centrist when it comes to privatization of public schools. In other words he has said different things at different times regarding the expansion of charters depending on the audience and his ratings in the polls.

Early in the campaign he was for expansion of charters as long as the state reimburses their cost. Late in the campaign he ended his commercials with “I support all public schools in Philadelphia”. The qualifier “all” indicates he thinks, despite their classification by the U. S. Census Bureau, that charter schools are public schools. This raises concerns of how much resistance he will make to ALEC legislators in Harrisburg who want to expand charters. The Pennsylvania School Boards Association has recently questioned why the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools is advising its members not to follow Pennsylvania Right-to-Know which traditional public schools must follow by law. 

In the past Kenney has supported vouchers.  One of Kenney’s early backers, Senator Dwight Evans, not only is a strong proponent of charters, but for more than ten years he has been a proponent of vouchers, which are presently in the form of Educational Improvement Tax Credits, a back-door voucher program. The EITC diverts business tax money for public schools to student scholarships for private and religious schools of the business’s choosing. The EITC and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program pose a grave, and largely unrecognized, danger to public education. In addition, this legislation is a clear violation of separation of church and state.

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York is promoting similar legislation. Jeb Bush, as Governor of Florida, pioneered this method of getting around the massive opposition to vouchers that existed a decade ago.

On Friday, May 15th, four days before the election, a rally for Helen Gym was held at the School District headquarters. It is apparent that there was not much interest in getting parents and teachers out to the rally since it was held at 10:30 a.m. Joining this photo op of politicians and labor leaders who had endorsed Helen Gym was American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. Reporters were told she had flown in from Los Angeles, after international travel, just to be at the rally.

Weingarten gave her usual stump speech with much fist pumping and effusive praise for Helen Gym as the Superwoman we have been waiting for. As usual, it was much “sound and fury signifying nothing.” There is no way that one Councilwoman, no matter how gifted, can stop the privatization onslaught. While a seat in City Council will give Helen Gym a powerful platform to fight for public schools, it will be within a Democratic Party which places priority on the interests of real estate developers, corporate interests such as Comcast, the Chamber of Commerce , and the banking community, not the common good.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan has not proposed any trade union fight against the attacks. His response to both the privatization of substitute teaching and nursing is that the PFT would be "pursuing every option available to stop the privatization of our public schools." This is hisweak-kneed response to the balkanization of the Philadelphia School District despite his acknowledgement that privatization has been prepared by the Boston Consulting Group for several years. For details see “Who is killing Philly schools?” 5/2/12 and “Who’s Still Killing Philly Schools?” 5/22/2013 by Daniel Denvir in the Philadelphia City Paper.

For all her bluster, Weingarten does not want a mobilization of the Philadelphia labor movement as those seen in 1973 and again in 1981 when teacher strikes were ended after the threat of a general strike by the city labor movement.

Glaringly missing from her bombast was any mention of the Opt Out movement against standardized testing being led by parents across the country. Weingarten is a supporter of the Gates Foundation promotion of annual standardized testing and the Common Core.

Immediately after the rally, Ms. Weingarten rushed off to New York City where she joined Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, officials from the Gates Foundation and other educational technology enthusiasts at the Oppi Learning Festival 2015. The program says “Oppi Festival is a unique learning event which allows all education key stakeholder groups from around the world to come together, share ideas and experiences, tackle challenges and form new partnerships.

Ms. Weingarten was part of the welcoming ceremony where she had a conversation about Global Kids. Missing from the speakers were American K-12 teachers or educators from the academic world of higher education who have decades of experience with American education. NYC teachers were invited to be in the audience to learn how they to could collaborate with corporate education.

Weingarten returned to Philadelphia Tuesday to campaign for Kenney and Gym and to join the victory celebration at Helen Gym’s campaign headquarters.

On May 9^th, Ms. Weingarten appeared on HuffPost Live. Using the standardized testing crisis as a smoke screen, she attempted to rescue the Common Core, heavily funded by the Gates Foundation, from parent and teacher opposition to it.

To bolster her credentials for promoting the Common Core, she made much of her teaching experience as the basis for supporting Common Core. This has been her practice of late: to deflect questions about why she continues to promote Common Core and take attention from her alliance with the Gates Foundation. At an appearance at a forum of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute on June 28, 2014, Ms. Weingarten went on for several minutes about her teaching experience.

Norm Scott of Ed Notes Online, who was in the NYC United Federation of Teachers when Weingarten became its President, said of her credentials recently: 

Randi has distorted the reality of her teaching experience, often by parsing the language to give an impression that she taught for 6 years when in fact she taught full time for only 6 months at Clara Barton HS in Brooklyn. The rest of the time she taught a few classes a day before going off to her other job at the union - a unique arrangement not exactly available to the average teacher. (My guess is that once Shanker came down with life-threatening cancer around 1989 or 90, he and Sandra Feldman, then UFT president, had to decide on succession and Randi, a fairly recent arrival at the UFT, was chosen over people who had worked for the UFT since its inception, leading to some resentment.) Since Randi was a lawyer - she was the UFT counsel - with no teaching credentials, they had to scramble to get her certified and find her a "teaching" part-time gig before she could claim the mantle of UFT president. They found her a "safe" school near her home. Clara Barton, across the street from Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, was a vocational school focused on nurse and health care worker training, a school that attracted a number of girls. Unity Caucus member Leo Casey was the chapter leader and would cover Randi's back when needed. Everyone in the school knew they were getting a "celebrity" staff member who would one day be the president of the union. By never having taught in real conditions like her constituents, Randi never had a sense of what it was really like.

As is the case many times in history, young people who have their whole lives in front of them and want a say in what kind of world they will live in, are unencumbered by past practices and political connections. On May 12th, hundreds of Philadelphia his school students did not report to school and Opted Out at the beginning of the Pennsylvania Keystone standardized tests. (Video of a student walkout.) Some administrators threatened the students with being denied the right to participate in the Prom or walk in their graduation.

A Philadelphia teacher was suspended for four days without pay for informing parents about Opting Out when asked.

Philadelphia high school student Giancarlos Rodriquez on The Rick Smith Show on why students opted out of the PA Keystone test.

A parent from Kensington High School talks on The Rick Smith Show about the suspension of her daughter for a week for Opting Out of PA Keystone Exams.

A Philadelphia teacher shares what it’s like to subject students to hours of standardized testing and what it is doing to his students.

On May 19^th, Election Day, the Caucus of Working Educators in the PFT held workshops at Central High School about various issues in education today. This video has excerpts from the Opt Out session which shows the testing crisis that is deepening in Pennsylvania.

The young people Opting Out are showing what must be done to stop the privatization onslaught. Only such acts of civil disobedience, combined with a mass mobilization against corporate education reform, can change the trajectory of events. Out of this mass mobilization a political movement must be developed which declares independence from the two-party system and develops a program for the needs of the 99%.

Also see:

Thousands of Newark students march against state control of schools
Bob Braun's Ledger - May 23, 2015

Mayor Ras Baraka, citing "chaos, graft, miseducation," demands people take back Newark schools
Bob Braun's Ledger - May 28, 2015

Who got the first meeting with Kenney after the win? S. Jersey political boss Norcross
Philadelphia Inquirer - May 22, 2015

PA: Another Charter Boosting Plan | Curmudgucation - May 21, 2015

How Big Money Lost in Philadelphia's Mayoral Race | The American Prospect - May 20, 2015 

Turning “Collaboration” Into a Bad Word | Defend Public Education

Divide and Conquer: The Philadelphia Story | Defend Public Education - May 4, 2015 

More on questions about Randi Weingarten’s teaching experience:

Public Lives; Hoping to Continue Education as Union Head | New York Times – January 20, 1998

How long did Weingarten teach? | Linking and thinking on education – July 14, 2011

Did AFT's Randi Weingarten last much more than “10 minutes in a classroom?” | Whitney Tilson’s School Reform Blog – July 21, 2011

An Open Exchange with AFT President Randi Weingarten | Mercedes Schneider @ The Chalk Face – November 4, 2013

Also see:
Kathy Hochul: Best Way to Support Public Schools Is By Taking Money From Them, Giving It To Private Schools and Charters | Perdido Street School - May 22, 2015
Randi Weingarten made robocalls for Governor Cuomo's running mate Hochul in the Democratic primary. 

Jay Saper on TFA and Subsequent KIPP Recruiting Experience

I talked with an amazing young man the other day about his getting booted out of TFA during the early fall of 2013. His name is Jay Saper, and, despite his recent experiences, he remains articulate, confident, and eager to become a real teacher with real teacher preparation and credentials. From our long conversation, it became apparent to me that he is much too empathetic to be successful in an organization like Teach for America, which values achievement scores and its corporate branding over the welfare of children and parents.

This is not to deny that there are many well-intentioned young privileged idealists from Ivy League schools who come in to Teach for America with the same goals with which Jay started. Few of them I would guess carry the fire that Jay possesses, with a commitment to democratic principles and social justice that he embodies and that he lives.

You see, Jay was assigned to Philadelphia at a time when thousands of experienced teachers were being let go, only to be replaced in many instances by the young corporate missionaries from TFA. When Jay went into a school for an interview with the principal, one of the first things he asked was why the school would hire teachers with five weeks of training, when mature experienced teachers were begging for jobs. Needless to say, Jay had a hard time getting placed and the TFA hierarchy cut him loose.

I was impressed with Jay's insights into the psychology of TFA. As a pedagogical sweatshop for  privileged college grads who have never known failure, but only the success that their advantages have enabled, TFA is able to manipulate that fear of failure that lies just beneath the surface of the over-tested, though never-tested, and to focus that fear through TFA's ideological lens that shrinks the effects of poverty and magnifies the potential contribution of would-be teachers to accomplish what schools and teachers will never accomplish alone. That is why, Jay said, that TFA Corps members are willing to work to the point of nervous breakdowns, lost relationships, hair falling out, etc.  

What is out of reach is made to appear close up by TFA trainers, as in one instance in particular that Jay related to me.  One of the many videos used during Jay's training showed a young TFA teacher doing amazing lessons in an elementary classroom. What the trainers did not tell the young initiates was that the teacher, who Jay actually recognized as someone from his hometown, was one of those rare TFA teachers who had spent four years in an elementary education program prior to coming to TFA. 

Jay had written to me following an interview that I posted at Schools Matter with a former KIPP teacher. He told me in his email that soon after he was cut from TFA that he was invited, via email, to attend a KIPP recruiting session for TFA teachers and alums at a restaurant in Philadelphia with free food and drinks. The way Jay described the session sounded like a cross between college mixer and a corporate sales meeting. Plenty of alcohol and hobnobbing, with an abundance of counterfeit $5000 bills all around the room. Recruiters explained that those attending could exchange those bills for real ones signing with KIPP or by providing leads to KIPP for new prospects who were signed as KIPP teachers.

As Jay said in his email, one of the recruiters confidently proclaimed that within seven years KIPP would have 10 schools in Newark and five in Camden.  It was tons of fun, Jay said, "and by that I mean fascinating (at least for someone who wrote an undergraduate thesis on Wall Street recruitment and resistance). As I do not drink or eat meat, was not enthralled, but this was certainly the reason why most folks came."  He added that it was a bit odd being wined and dined as teachers, at a time when most Philadelphia teachers did not have copy paper.

With the current public relations nightmare that KIPP's most recent abuses have generated, one may wonder if such plans are, perhaps, a bit grandiose. Recent news reports out of New Jersey indicate a slowing down of the steamroller in Camden. From New Jersey Spotlight:

. . . .The new KIPP-Cooper-Norcross Academy in Lanning Square, one of up to five schools that the project would lead to, was slated to open in a new building in September. But the head of the KIPP team in New Jersey yesterday said that was all but certain not to happen, with design and construction bids still out.

Questions about how the project would be financed and how its space allotted slowed the construction process, said Ryan Hill, president of the TEAM charter school network, KIPP’s New Jersey organization that would lead the new school.

He said instead there would likely be temporary space erected on the site for next fall, as construction is completed. His organization will start information sessions for prospective students in the next month or two. . . .

Billionaires' Jersey Boys, Starring Cory Booker

With Cory Booker oblivious to the outcome for another ostensibly African-American mayor who tried to run roughshod over the parents and teachers of Washington, DC, it looks as though Newark Schools will be the next site for a popular uprising to bring down the Oligarchs' corporate school containment plan for the poor.  Compilation by Stan Karp:

Braun: School reform effort between Christie, Booker is against the law
Star Ledger 3/7/11
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bob_braun/2011/03/working_partnership_between_go.html
Newark residents want reform but they also want a say — all parents do. When decisions about their children are made behind closed doors by billionaires who believe they know what’s best for them, they have a right to be concerned. They also have a right to rely on the law.

Meeting about Newark superintendent search turns into shouting match over charter schools
Star Ledger, 3/5/11
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/community_forum_to_update_pare.html
A community forum to update parents on the search for Newark’s next superintendent devolved into a screaming match over the efficacy of charter schools and a leaked proposal to consolidate some of the city’s failing schools.

Acting state Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf called the unintended release of the planning document a "highly regrettable" mistake. A consulting firm incorporated by Cerf was paid $500,000 to audit the district and draft the plan. Cerf, who is no longer associated with the firm, has said repeatedly he played no part in writing the proposal

In Newark, Cerf apologizes for leak - and meets skepticism
NJ Politicker 3/7/11
http://www.politickernj.com/45564/newark-cerf-apologizes-leak-and-meets-skepticism
Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf received an early earful of jeers this morning at Louise Spencer Elementary School when he attempted a mea culpa over the leak of but didn't publicly address the fact that a company that hatched ideas for Newark schools reform formerly belonged to him.

Newark's Angry Parents
NJ Spotlight 3/7/11
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/11/0306/2237/
And for all the rancor, one common thread prevailed: the city’s continued resentments over the state’s ongoing control – and the community’s lack of it -- in New Jersey’s largest school system, now 16 years old.
A parent leader in the back of the auditorium summed up the sentiment that pervaded the room.“Through all these distractions, the real problem is what is going on with the schools, what is going on with the budget, and why weren’t we involved from the very beginning," said Sharon Smith, a parent of five children in both traditional and charter schools. Wilhemina Holder, a long-time activist, put it more bluntly: “The secrecy is why we are in this room today.”

The  leaked Newark School Consolidation report prepared by Global Education Advisors
http://www.njspotlight.com/assets/11/0306/2157