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?

United Opt Out Partnering with AFT Vice-President

It's been a busy summer for Houston Federation of Teachers President, Zeph Capo.  He was named to Weingarten's Executive Council at the AFT Convention in July, and he was also tagged as AFT Vice-President.  

Not only that, but Capo greeted a new Superintendent in Houston, and found that they have many of the same priorities, including using multiple assessments to evaluate teachers.  

In fact, as the AFT headline says here, HFT is ready to collaborate with new Houston superintendent, Richard Caranza:

A hopeful sign, Capo and Weingarten says [sic], is that in San Francisco, Carranza signed a written agreement with the United Educators of San Francisco to not use test scores as a criteria for teacher evaluations. "We would advocate for a similar agreement so Houston's educators are evaluated and given appropriate support based on multiple measures of performance," Capo says. 

With the Power Up personalized learning initiative well underway in Houston schools, there will be plenty of other test scores to use beyond the old-school annual testing.  Testing will be as natural as breathing or constant surveillance.  

Houston ISD has committed over $100 million to build wireless networks and to buy 65,000 Windows computers for every high school student. And that's just the beginning.

It's all part of a $1.89 billion Houston bond issue that is making wealthy Houston insiders even more fabulously wealthy.

Oh yes, I almost forgot, AFT VP Capo was also able cut a deal with UOO to host a joint conference in Houston in October.  Be sure to get your advance ticket soon, before Weingarten makes sure all the seats are filled by AFT members.

AFT Affiliate Exec Among United Opt Out Admins

by Jim Horn
 
A friend sent me a link to some reactions by AFT members to the recent national conference, where it seems that everything that transpired was tightly controlled by Weingarten and TURN veteran, Mary Ricker, to advance the Clinton candidacy, rather than to advocate for students and teachers.  Surprise, right?

Take a moment to read it, and you will see why anyone who is not a hand-picked enforcer of Weingarten's corporate agenda has no chance to affect the direction of this faux union:

AFT Leadership controls the membership. This must change. We are a top down driven union. The international relations and domestic positions of the Democratic Party, and specifically Hillary Clinton (who was present and gave a very disappointing speech about supporting public charter schools) shaped the convention. It was tightly controlled.

Given this basic acknowledged fact, it is hard to imagine the resistance moving toward closer ties with AFT and its affiliates, which are tightly controlled by the AFT home office.  Yet this is what's happening, as I noted a couple of weeks back just after the United Opt Out splintered over these very issues.

Soon after I published my commentary on the shake-up inside UOO and the announced joint meeting with the Houston Federation of Teachers, Ceresta Smith posted at Facebook a message from HFT president, Zeph Capo, about Houston's big CBE model initiative, which doesn't seem to bother him all that much.  I hope you will read the comments that follow his dissembling letter (click on the "See More" just below to get the entire entry).



More recently, the "new" UOO announced a new line-up of administrators, which now includes an executive from HFT.