Riding the 'Turnaround' Merry-Go-Round in the Continuing Assault on Philadelphia Public Schools - Part III

by Ken Derstine @ Defend Public Education!
April 14, 2016

On April 7, 2016, at a Hillary Clinton campaign rally in Philadelphia, Bill Clinton got into an argument with demonstrators from Black Lives Matter over his legacy. He later said he “almost want[s] to apologize” for his remarks in defending his “welfare reform” and Violent Crime Control and Enforcement Act of 1994. It is these policies that led to a drastic increase in homelessness and explosion of the prison population in the U.S. in the 1990’s and after.

No matter how contrite Bill Clinton may be for the purposes of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, however, nothing he said at the rally was true. The fundamental premise of Bill Clinton’s neoliberal policies was that the working class needed “welfare reform” even as the industrial base of the U.S. economy was eroding because of globalization. This right-wing position was based on free market myth that the workers as individuals are responsible for their deteriorating conditions. At the same time, his deregulation of the corporate and financial sectors led to historically unprecedented accumulation of wealth by the top 1% of the American population and the near collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008. This was only averted by the $700 billion bailout of banks and various financial institutions with taxpayer money. No such relief has ever been contemplated for the workers and the unemployed.

The neoliberal agenda for privatization that became corporate education reform began as part of Clinton’s neoliberal reforms. The Clintons’ relationships with billionaires Eli Broad, the Walton Foundation (Walmart) and the Gates Foundation were to play a fundamental role in its development. The 'no excuses' philosophy would become a fundamental premise of charter schools in the subsequent administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The 'No Excuses' Education Philosophy 

The 'no excuses' philosophy of school management was first implemented in 1994 in the original KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) schools in Houston. Created by Mike Feinberg and David Levin (who is also a co-founder of Relay Graduate School of Education), the philosophy basically says that students from low-income families should be taught to overcome the problems brought on by poverty through a rigid pedagogy that accepts no excuses for failure. Any consideration of social factors in student achievement is considered “low expectations”.

  

In his recently released book, Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys through “No Excuses” Teaching, Jim Horn, Professor of Educational Leadership at Cambridge College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says of the 'no excuses' model:

The “no excuses” school model that KIPP charter schools popularized owes significantly to an assumption made two decades ago by paternalistic school reformers (Finn, 1997), who argued that schools and teachers could “reduce inequality in educational achievement if disadvantaged students were held to the same high standards as everybody else” (Cohen, 1996, p. 101).  This belief remains widespread today, and it has contributed to at least four bad outcomes for children, teachers, and public schools:  1) it leads us away from altering the corrosive socioeconomic realities that affect children’s lives outside school, while pushing our attention toward fixing children and their teachers’ belief systems, 2) it requires educators and children to subscribe to an ideology that demands toxic levels of anxiety and stress to attain some modicum of success, even temporarily, 3) it has led to widespread failure to live up to expectations that prove more fanciful than real, which creates self-loathing or self-blame for failing to achieve what students and teachers, alike, are told is achievable, 4) it has contributed to a totalizing compliance regimen for students and teachers that is more penal than pedagogical.

The heart of Horn’s book comes from twenty-five interviews with former KIPP teachers about their experience at KIPP. He summarizes what these teachers say in the interviews in his book (page 141, 142):

  

Click here to read the entire article.

Also see:

Riding the ‘turnaround’ merry-go-round in the continuing assault on Philadelphia public schools ­– Part I
The Battle for Wister; The SRC’s Projected Five-year Plan

Riding the ‘turnaround’ merry-go-round in the continuing assault on Philadelphia public schools ­– Part II
Mastery Charter Schools; The Unequal Funding of Public vs. Charter Schools

A Cog in the Wheel of Charters in Connecticut

Finally, a modicum of sanity in the insane asylum of education deform has emerged in Connecticut  over turnaround schools. It appears  Senate Democrats did their homework and stopped drinking the ALEC Kool-Aid. Instead, they are proposing charter schools should not be a solution for any school turnaround plan because they only lead to further privatization and are no better than public schools.

Charter school advocates in Connecticut are "stunned and angry." They can barely hold back their rage over the Democrats refusal to provide an "excellent" education for these poor, underprivileged children who could benefit from a for-profit charter or KIPP chain gang school. Instead, the Democrats argue charters are not the solution and have suggested people read Kenneth Saltman's upcoming book on the failure of corporate school reform.
Could these Democrats be onto something?  Let's hope this book is the one that finally breaks the camel's back and ignites the fire on the dry grass of corporate education reform  so that this wasteland of test prep and chain gang schooling might blossom into something beautiful.

Just imagine if the discussion over school reform in statehouses all across the country actually turned to reality-based solutions like equal funding, respect and professional autonomy for teachers, well-rounded curriculums,  strong health and social services in the school, field trips, libraries, music and art.  These Democrats in Connecticut are onto something - others need to pay attention.

 Kathleen Megan at Currant.com:

Charter schools advocates were stunned, at first, to learn that the latest proposal for education reform does not include charter schools as an acceptable model to turn around low-performing schools, but now they are angry.

Michael Sharpe, chief executive officer of Jumoke Academy in Hartford and president of the Connecticut Charter School Network, said: "We all, as a community representing kids of color and poor kids, should be enraged by this… Why would you tie your hands legislatively from any possible solution to the achievement gap and to the failures of urban schools in Connecticut? It doesn't make any sense."

Sharpe said he has written a letter to legislators who are members of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus to alert them to the situation. "I would think the members would be enraged by a provision that denies the families they represent, the opportunity to have options in terms of an excellent education."

However, a staff member for the Senate Democrats suggested contacting Kenneth Saltman, a professor in education policy and research at DePaul University in Chicago, who is writing a book to be published in June called "The Failure of Corporate School Reform."

In an interview Tuesday, Saltman had many criticisms of charter schools, whether profit or non-profit, saying they are not as accountable as public schools; have high teacher turnover; can be used as a tool to get rid of teachers unions; and that nationally, they are about the same as or worse than traditional public schools.

He also said there are concerns that charter schools are one step along the path to far more widespread privatization of public schools.