The company (NYSE: EPR) purchased five new charter schools from Imagine Schools Inc. of Arlington, Va., at a cost of $44 million and agreed to finance expansion of two others at a cost of $4 million.
Entertainment Properties Trust, which is based in Kansas City, will lease the five new schools back to Imagine Schools, a leading operator of public charter schools.
Entertainment Properties Trust’s portfolio now includes 27 charter schools that Imagine Schools operates in nine states and the District of Columbia.
“We are excited to add to our public charter school portfolio and enthusiastic about the prospects of Imagine and this investment category,” Entertainment Properties Trust CEO David Brain said in a release.
In an interview, Brain said the Imagine Schools transaction announced Friday fulfilled Entertainment Properties’ 2007 commitment to make at least $200 million worth of acquisitions from Imagine. It also increases Entertainment Properties’ footprint in what Brain called “a huge new category” for private real estate investment.
“Public charter schools are now a 4 or 5 percent slice of a couple trillion dollar public education real estate market,” Brain said.
Heretofore, new public schools have been financed almost exclusively through school-bond issues, he said. But Brain said the move to “decentralize and debureaucratize public education” is creating an increasing number of charter schools, which aren’t as cost-efficiently financed through bond issues.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Imagine Schools Sell Five Schools
Philanthrocapitalists Go Hollywood With Production of "Waiting for Superman"
As a not-so-subtle, though unconscious?, reference to the good ole' days that led up to the rise of national socialism, the new documentary, Waiting for Superman, features a number of Superman wannabes, including KIPP cult leaders Feinberg and Levin, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates and Eli Broad's boy, Steve Barr. And how well the film's poster inadvertently captures the venture philanthropists' self-imposed blindness to America's urban devastation in favor of a more lucrative focus on producing white-like compliant children whose psychological bubbles are bathed in a sweet incandescence from above that is worthy of a Microsoft ad. Nothing can stop you, boys and girls, if we can find the right superman to inspire you and to get your mind right. Onward, positive psychology soldiers!
The film is executive produced and financed by Participant Media, which was founded by venture philanthropist and former Ebayist, Jeffrey Skoll. Participant Media's current CEO is Jim Berk. Who is Jim Berk? Well, his recent job history, anyway:
Prior to Participant, Jim was Chairman and CEO of Gryphon Colleges Corporation, where he was responsible for the formation, platform acquisition and establishment of a private company operating for-profit post education schools.At the Waiting for Superman website, here are the ways that are bulleted for you, the wet-eyed movie watcher, to get involved to make it all better for the poor children in the penal pedagogy urban schools. The list ranges from giving pencils to the poor to book donations to joining the PTA (a favorite of Bill Gates who has given generously to PTA) to visiting Arne Duncan's propaganda site (#4):
Check out how the U.S. compares to other industrialized countries
Text POSSIBLE to 44144 for campaign updates
From PR Newswire:
Yes, the very future that is waiting for the children of the poor who make it through the testing and containment camps that the Supermen want to manage--at public expense, of course:. . . .The new film, developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, examines the crisis of public education in the United States through multiple interlocking stories – from a handful of students and their families whose futures hang in the balance, to the educators and reformers trying to find real and lasting solutions within a dysfunctional system.
The documentary features several leaders in the field of education, including philanthropist Bill Gates of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; President and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone in Harlem, New York Geoffrey Canada; Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools Michelle Rhee; Knowledge is Power Program Founders (KIPP) David Levin and Mike Feinberg; and President and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation Bill Strickland.
Six-time Grammy Award-winning recording artist, concert performer and philanthropist John Legend composed the end title song 'Shine'. Legend's own Show Me campaign uses education to break the cycle of poverty through sustainable development at the individual, family, and community levels.
Said Paramount's Goodman: "Our commitment to this movie and the issue of education is urgently important to all of us at Paramount. In collaboration with our partners, we hope to bring about a real solution."
Said Davis Guggenheim: "With these two great partners, Participant Media and Paramount Pictures, we have a chance to create public awareness around this issue, and this is the only way we can make real change in our children's schools."
Said Jim Berk, CEO, Participant Media: "The movie creates an emotional personal connection to an issue which underpins the very future of our country. . . .
SAN FRANCISCO -- Gryphon Investors announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Delta Educational Systems (Delta) through Gryphon's post-secondary education platform, Gryphon Colleges Corporation (GCC). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Delta operates 16 accredited career colleges located in Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The schools offer students courses in allied health, business, cosmetology, information technology, legal, and vocational trades through five well-established regional brands, Career Technical College, The Creative Circus, McCann School of Business & Technology, Miami-Jacobs Career College and Miller-Motte Technical College. McCann, Miami-Jacobs and Miller-Motte have each been providing students with high quality education for over ninety years.
Gryphon Colleges Corporation was formed at the end of 2004 by Gryphon Investors through the acquisition of National Career Education (NCE), a four campus school company located in Arizona and California. . . .
Even the Corporate Media Is Aghast
With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.
Congress must act immediately to limit the damage of this radical decision, which strikes at the heart of democracy.
As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.
The ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission radically reverses well-established law and erodes a wall that has stood for a century between corporations and electoral politics. (The ruling also frees up labor unions to spend, though they have far less money at their disposal.)
The founders of this nation warned about the dangers of corporate influence. The Constitution they wrote mentions many things and assigns them rights and protections — the people, militias, the press, religions. But it does not mention corporations.
In 1907, as corporations reached new heights of wealth and power, Congress made its views of the relationship between corporations and campaigning clear: It banned them from contributing to candidates. At midcentury, it enacted the broader ban on spending that was repeatedly reaffirmed over the decades until it was struck down on Thursday.
This issue should never have been before the court. The justices overreached and seized on a case involving a narrower, technical question involving the broadcast of a movie that attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 campaign. The court elevated that case to a forum for striking down the entire ban on corporate spending and then rushed the process of hearing the case at breakneck speed. It gave lawyers a month to prepare briefs on an issue of enormous complexity, and it scheduled arguments during its vacation.
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., no doubt aware of how sharply these actions clash with his confirmation-time vow to be judicially modest and simply “call balls and strikes,” wrote a separate opinion trying to excuse the shameless judicial overreaching.
The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.
The majority also makes the nonsensical claim that, unlike campaign contributions, which are still prohibited, independent expenditures by corporations “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” If Wall Street bankers told members of Congress that they would spend millions of dollars to defeat anyone who opposed their bailout, and then did so, it would certainly look corrupt.
After the court heard the case, Senator John McCain told reporters that he was troubled by the “extreme naïveté” some of the justices showed about the role of special-interest money in Congressional lawmaking.
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the ruling not only threatens democracy but “will, I fear, do damage to this institution.” History is, indeed, likely to look harshly not only on the decision but the court that delivered it. The Citizens United ruling is likely to be viewed as a shameful bookend to Bush v. Gore. With one 5-to-4 decision, the court’s conservative majority stopped valid votes from being counted to ensure the election of a conservative president. Now a similar conservative majority has distorted the political system to ensure that Republican candidates will be at an enormous advantage in future elections.
Congress and members of the public who care about fair elections and clean government need to mobilize right away, a cause President Obama has said he would join. Congress should repair the presidential public finance system and create another one for Congressional elections to help ordinary Americans contribute to campaigns. It should also enact a law requiring publicly traded corporations to get the approval of their shareholders before spending on political campaigns.
These would be important steps, but they would not be enough. The real solution lies in getting the court’s ruling overturned. The four dissenters made an eloquent case for why the decision was wrong on the law and dangerous. With one more vote, they could rescue democracy.
"Fight Now or Kiss Your Country Goodbye"
WASHINGTON -- Responding to the Supreme Court's ruling Thursday to overturn corporate spending limits in federal elections, progressive firebrand Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) immediately highlighted a series of moves to "avoid the terrible consequences of the decision.""If we do nothing then I think you can kiss your country goodbye," Grayson told Raw Story in an interview just hours after the decision was announced.
"You won't have any more senators from Kansas or Oregon, you'll have senators from Cheekies and Exxon. Maybe we'll have to wear corporate logos like Nascar drivers."
Grayson said the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling -- which removes decades of campaign spending limits on corporations -- "opens the floodgates for the purchases and sale of the law."
"It allows corporations to spend all the money they want to buy and sell elected officials through the campaign process," he said. "It allows them to reward political sellouts, and it allows them to punish elected officials who actually try to do what's right for the people."
Fearing this decision before it became official, Grayson last week filed five campaign finance bills and a sixth one on Thursday. Grayson said the bills are important to securing the people's "right to clean government."
The bills have names like the Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act and the Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act. The first slaps a 500 percent excise tax on corporate spending on elections, and the second mandates businesses to disclose their attempts to influence elections. More details are available on the congressman's Web site.
"These bills will save us from drowning in corporate money and special interest money," Grayson said. "They should have been passed a long time ago but after the Supreme Court opened those floodgates, I think it's imperative we get these things done."
Reforming campaign finance laws has been a daunting task, as senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ) have made concerted attempts and failed.
"I'm very optimistic," Grayson said. "I discussed the bills with the leadership when I filed them, which was a week ago in the case of the first five."
"The bills are short and readable, which frankly is pretty unusual these days," he said. "The longest one is four pages long and there are six of them."
Grayson has created the Web site SaveDemocracy.net to gather petitions in support of his bills. On Friday at 8:30 AM EST there were nearly 40,000 signatories.
'Worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case'
The first-term congressman from Florida had an ominous view of the consequences of embracing the decision.
"Anytime Exxon feels like it, Exxon can go and claim one of the 435 Congressional districts in this country, and drop $100 million in cash to pay for ads to knock off anybody they don't like. To them, that's an insignificant amount of money."
Grayson even likened the ruling to the 1857 pro-slavery Dred Scott case, arguing the two are "bad for pretty much the same reasons."
"We now today have a Supreme Court decision that essentially says only corporations have Constitutional rights. The rights of the rest of us to clean government is somehow overlooked by the Founders, according to this Supreme Court.
The decision supports "this bizarre conception that the Constitution is for the benefit of the powerful, and nobody else."
Grayson's critique echoes the viewpoints of many others who believed campaign finance laws were already too permissive to special interests before Thursday's ruling.
"I think few people would say that what we really need in America is more corporate interference in the political process," he said.
Reforming campaign finance laws will be a tricky process for Congress because both Republicans and Democrats receive weighty campaign contributions from wealthy corporations.
While few Democrats have acted in recent years to change campaign finance laws, Grayson predicted his party will now be more interested in the issue.
"This just happened, that's why you're not hearing enough," he said. "You're going to hear a lot. I'm pretty confident that these bills will draw a tremendous amount of Democratic support.
Inviting his opponents to support his effort, Grayson said: "I'm hopeful that in the end there are principled Republicans who will actually join the effort, because nobody really wants to become the congressman from Wal-Mart."
GOP 'smiling' at the decision
Never one to pull a punch from Republicans, Grayson questioned the intentions of the ruling's backers.
"In the same way that Republicans always do their best to suppress voter turnout in elections, the Republicans are doing their best here to increase the amount of corporate cash," Grayson said. "They are, in essence, a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America."
Make it National: Strike March 4 to Save Public Education
Posted on Facebook and MySpace:Please Invite Your Friends To This Event!
Want to receive updates? Contact us at: march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com
MySpace: http://tinyurl.com/yeugu4b
www.defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com
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March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education
On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education – Pre K-12, Adult Education, CC, CSU and UC – to "decide on a statewide action plan capable of winning this struggle, which will define the future of public education in this state, particularly for the working class and communities of color."
After hours of open collective discussion, the conference democratically voted, as its principal decision, to call for a statewide Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010. The conference decided that all schools, unions and organizations are free to choose their specific demands and tactics – such as strikes, walkouts, march to Sacramento, rallies, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. – for March 4, as well as the duration of such actions.
We refuse to let those in power continue to pit us against each other. If we unite, we have the power to shut down business-as-usual and to force those in power to grant our demands. Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services.
We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations across the state to endorse this call and massively mobilize and organize for the Strike and Day of Action on March 4.
Let's make this an historic turning point in the struggle against the cuts, layoffs, fee hikes, and educational segregation in California.
To endorse this call and to receive more information, please contact march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com and consult
www.defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com
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Endorsers:
Oct. 24th Mobilizing Conference to Defend Public Education
CUE Local 3 at UCB
Solidarity Alliance at UCB
General Assembly at UCB
CFT: CA Federation of Teachers
United Teachers Los Angeles: the largest teachers local in CA
AFSCME Local 444: East Bay Municipal Utility District
AFT 1021: part of United Teachers LA, represents over 10,000
California Labor Federation, which has over 2 million workers in unions
California Faculty Association [CFA]: CSU Faculty Union,representing the 23,000 professors, librarians, etc.
Student Senate for California Community Colleges (SSCCC) - the SSCCC endorses a march 4th day of action
Carpenters Local 713 passed AFSCME Local 444's
CDPH Inter Union Organizing Committee: SEIU 1000, Stationary Engineers 39, CAPS, PEGS, and others have joined the March 4th Strike Call
Oakland Education Association- 2,800 teachers,counselors and librarians
Thursday, January 21, 2010
How Duncan's RTTT Became Your New NCLB
For instance, states like Massachusetts have taken the Gates Foundation grantwriters' advice for getting some of the bribe money by passing a law to double the number of segregated charter school test camps, where collective bargaining will be replaced by CEO control and teacher standards will be further weakened and the curriculums will become a corporate script, all in the name of "innovation." In the meantime, the public schools will lose about $12,000 for each student who enters the new apartheid containment camps. Here is a clip from a news article on the new laws and new policies in which Governor Patrick argues that the real problem is poverty, not teachers. His solution to the problem of poverty? Change teacher work rules:
So we are supposed to believe that the teachers' union crafted this corporate welfare plan and that these new testing policies and teacher policing policies will end poverty? Apparently something happens to the executive logic functions during the process of being assimilated by the Business Roundtable.The governor also responded to criticism that the legislation places too much emphasis on test scores and chastises teachers by letting superintendents go around union contracts in some cases.
“First, I don’t think teachers are the problem, I think poverty is the problem,” Patrick stated. “And in those rare circumstances where the work rules get in the way of doing what’s necessary to reach the kids who are struggling, then the work rules get relaxed. It’s as simple as that. It’s not about a critique on the profession of teaching, or on unions for that matter. Indeed, the union leadership was responsible for shaping much of this bill. But our focus is on the children and it has to be on the children, first, last and always.”
The education package was pushed through the House and Senate swiftly, in part to meet a deadline for possible federal money. . . .
Where is Duncan on the new developments? Ed Week reports that, during a Q&A with mayors, Louisville Mayor, Jerry Abramson, had the audacity to ask a question related to Duncan's new segregation "incent" plan:
Jerry Abramson, the mayor of Louisville, Ky., asked how the Education Department plans to encourage districts to create racial diversity in their schools. He made reference to a landmark 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case in which his local school district was a defendant, Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education. In its decision, the court barred districts from using race as the primary factor in assigning individual students to schools. ("Louisville District Unveils New Student-Assignment Plan," Feb. 6, 2008.)
“You can’t put a price” on the value of ensuring that students get a chance to attend school in a diverse environment, Secretary Duncan said. He said the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights had been “to say the very least, underutilized over the last eight years,” an apparent reference to President George W. Bush’s tenure.
But he said that department officials, including Russlyn H. Ali, the assistant secretary for civil rights, and Charlie Rose, the department’s general counsel, are now considering next steps on the diversity issue. He wasn’t specific about their plans, though. . . .
Apparently, there are only hundreds of millions in grants for weakening teacher standards and collective bargaining, strengthening the stranglehold of high stakes tests, and building data surveillance systems. Not a penny in grants to encourage diversity programs or integration plans.
Diversity? Priceless. For everything else, there is a Duncan bribe.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Duncan's Chicago Failure With Corporate Charter Schools Slated to Become National Model
When you have the corporate water carriers at The Chicago Tribune going negative on your propaganda machine, you have to know that your vehicle just blew a rod before the race to the top ever got started. A prime chunk of the Sunday article:
. . . .The business community embraced the reform agenda and has ponied up $50 million to the Renaissance Schools Fund, a nonprofit created by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago. The group has awarded about $30 million to 63 new schools.If anyone needs more evidence that the corporate solution is no solution, read on.
Currently, 92 Renaissance 2010 schools enroll 34,000 children -- about 8 percent of the district total. Seven new schools will open in the fall, and the city plans to announce new school closings within the next few weeks.
The new schools mirror the district demographically, except they enroll fewer special education students and those who speak English as a second language.
Chicago school officials don't publicly track the performance of the Renaissance 2010 schools. But Ron Huberman, who took the helm of the city schools when Duncan left, said he has crunched the numbers and about one-third of the new schools are outperforming their neighborhood counterparts; one-third are identical in performance; the rest do worse.
A Tribune analysis shows that in Renaissance 2010 elementary schools, an average of 66.7 percent of students passed the 2009 Illinois Standards Achievement Test, identical to the district rate. The Ren10 high school passing rate was slightly lower on state tests than the district as a whole -- 20.5 percent compared with 22.8 percent. But it's identical at 17.6 percent when selective enrollment schools, where students test to get in, are removed from the equation.
Only a quarter of Renaissance 2010 schools had test scores high enough to meet the federal goals set by No Child Left Behind, the signature education policy of the George W. Bush administration. Chicago students as a whole still post some of the lowest test scores on national math and reading exams.
A series of studies released last year paints an unimpressive picture of Renaissance 2010.
One report, commissioned by the Renaissance Schools Fund, found that children in the fund-supported schools had low academic performance and posted test score gains identical to students in the nearby neighborhood schools.
"The Renaissance Schools Fund-supported schools will need to rapidly accelerate the academic performance of their students if they are to realize their own expectations," researchers wrote. . . . .
Libraries in trouble, as usual
Sent to the Chicago Tribune, June 20, 2009
Isaac Asimov wrote, "When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself."
The closure of branch public libraries in Evanston would be a tragedy, especially for an economically diverse city with 11% of the population below the poverty line ("Evanston to close library branches," Jan. 19).
Research shows that better public and school libraries are related to better reading achievement. The reason for this is obvious: Children become better readers by reading more, and for many children, the library is only place they have access to books.
We keep complaining about children's low reading achievement, and we keep preventing them from improving by closing libraries.
Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California
Evanston to close library branches Chicago Tribune, Jan 19, 2009 By Brian Cox
At age 14, Teddy Keenan already is a veteran of one grass-roots campaign to save Evanston's two branch libraries and is gearing up for his second battle to keep them open.
With the branches once again on the chopping block to cut costs, the Haven Middle School student is ready to spring into action.
"I'm upset that after fighting so hard two years ago we have to do all this again," Keenan said. "This time it sounds like a lot more serious of a threat, and I've been working a lot harder on it."
The City Council is struggling to close a $9.5 million budget deficit and has had to consider some hard choices, City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz said. The council is expected to vote on the budget in February.
The budget, he said, does not include a property tax increase. Instead, he has balanced the books through nearly two dozen layoffs and cutbacks, including the proposed closure of the branch libraries, which he said cost about $400,000 annually to operate.
"People are very passionate about their libraries," he said. "But at the end of the day we have a budget deficit we have to make up and we're trying to balance community resources the best we can."
Some have suggested the city raise money for the branches by creating a special city "super sticker" that would cost $50 more than the current sticker, which is $75. Others have suggested that the city create a separate library taxing district.
"That would pull the library money from the city budget and it would be funded separately," Keenan said. "I don't know if that's the way to go, but we need a year to figure it all out. Perhaps we could go with a public-private funding formula. I don't think we've explored all the possibilities."
The library's south branch is in the 3rd Ward, and Ald. Melissa Wynne favors keeping the branches open.
"Branch libraries serve a separate need than the main branch," she said. "They are a kind of gateway into the library for the community. ... I'm hopeful, but I understand this is a very large deficit we're having to deal with."
Residents, like Keenan, are mobilizing again to fight as they have in years past. They have gathered at recent budget workshops, pleading for the money to be restored.
Some have put "Save Our Libraries" signs on their lawns. More than 1,000 people signed an online petition to save the branches at branchl ove.org.
"I love our branch libraries," resident Anne Humphrey said before a recent council meeting. "They're a more important part of the fabric of Evanston than a post office or firehouse."
Humphrey said she takes her two young children to the south branch at least once a week.
"The libraries are free, they are open to everyone, so they help people connect to each other," she said. "I think that's an important part of being in Evanston."
In recent days, rallies have been held at both branches — the north at 2026 Central St. and the south at 949 Chicago Ave.
Phillip O'Rourke said he would pay a slight increase in taxes.
"I think there's a need for this," he said.
— Brian Cox
Chicago Tribune
2010-01-19
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/ct-x-n-0120-evanston-library-20100118,0,6285686.story
New Study on School to Prison Pipeline from the Advancement Project
A new, virulent form of penal pedagogy has resulted from the punitive policies of high stakes testing, NCLB, and the capitulation of common sense to "zero tolerance" policies in schools. The pressure on teachers and administrators to produce test scores and total compliance has been a corrupting influence across the board, and it has led to a new horrid phenomenon of educators blaming students for not performing to impossible expectations. Now with the Gates and Broad plan to tie teacher tenure and promotion to test scores, we can expect a further deterioration of the teacher-student relationship that was once based on trust and care--and a further transition from educator to prison guard. Competition for top performing students will be even more fierce, and the pushing out of low performers will become even more severe.
The Press Release from the Advancement Project (download Report here):
Today, Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization, released a first-of-its-kind report, “Test, Punish, and Push Out: How Zero Tolerance and High-Stakes Testing Funnel Youth into the School to Prison Pipeline.” The report shows that together, zero tolerance and high-stakes testing have turned schools into hostile and alienating environments for many youth, effectively treating them as dropouts-in-waiting.
“The educational opportunities of millions of children across this country are continuously put at risk by zero-tolerance school discipline and high-stakes testing,” said Jim Freeman, director of Advancement Project’s Ending the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track project. “The devastating end result of these intertwined punitive policies is a ‘school-to-prison pipeline,’ in which huge numbers of students throughout the country are treated as if they are disposable, and are being routinely pushed out of school and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.”
“Test, Punish, and Push Out” provides an overview of zero-tolerance school discipline and high-stakes testing, how they relate to each other, how laws and policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have made school discipline even more punitive, and the risk faced if these devastating policies are not reformed. The report explores:
- The common origins and ideological roots of zero tolerance and high-stakes testing;
- The current state of zero-tolerance school discipline across the country, including local, state, and national data;
- How high-stakes testing affects students, educators, and schools;
- How zero tolerance and high-stakes testing have become mutually reinforcing, combining to push huge numbers of students out of school; and
- Successful grassroots efforts to eliminate harmful discipline and testing practices.
Also in the report are detailed recommendations for replacing zero-tolerance and high-stakes testing policies with those that will allow all young people to receive a high-quality pre-K-12 education. Included are steps that can be taken at the local, state, and federal levels, such as through the reauthorization process of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB) and the implementation of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the “stimulus”).
“There is no easy answer to our nation’s ‘dropout crisis,’ but the one thing that absolutely must happen for this problem to be solved is for every student to be given a full and equal opportunity to receive a high-quality education,” concluded Freeman. We must eliminate the use of education policies that set students up to fail, and instead make a smart, long-term investment in our youth by creating a more just educational system for all children.”