Big $

The way some of them throw around the green stuff, you’d think corporate-style education reformers were made of money. Oh wait. Some of them are. As Big Money plays a bigger and bigger role in shaping public education, it can be hard to keep all the players straight – from wealthy individuals, to foundations, superPACs, astroturf groups and corporations. Here’s a handy reference guide.

1.  Individuals
Some of the wealthiest people on the planet are pouring their money into corporate-style education reform. Some are doing this through foundations (see below) and others are happy to invest their millions in politics to shape policy or directly into charter schools as money-making investments. Some have a profit motive and others seem more ideologically driven (to privatize public goods, oppose union rights, etc.) One thing all of these folks have in common? Not one is an educator or education researcher. And none of their ideas is based on evidence of what actually works for kids.

• Start here in Pennsylvania with charter school operators like Van Gureghian, Governor Corbett’s largest campaign donor. He makes so much money that he and his wife bought beach front property in Florida worth $28.9million, while he’s been fighting for years to keep his salary a secret. [See “Soaking the Public”]
• Recall that 4 of the top contributors to all political races last fall in our state had ties to charter school operators. Wealth advisors are on record recommending that people add charter schools to their investment portfolios, especially in places like Pennsylvania. [See “Charters are Cash Cows”] Cyber charter schools are particularly lucrative investments, as the public taxpayers are currently over-paying them by $1million every single day. [See “One Million Per Day”]
• How about folks like Philip Anschutz? He’s the oil billionaire with ultra-right politics who owns Walden Media, which made the anti-public school films, “Waiting for Superman” and “Won’t Back Down.” He funds groups that teach creationism in our schools and oppose gay rights, environmental regulations, and union rights. [See “We Won’t Back Down Either”]
• Then there’s New York Mayor Bloomberg, who likes the idea of privatizing schools so much that he put $1million into the Los Angeles school board races last month to try to maintain a corporate-reform minded majority there. Too bad his horse didn’t win. [See “School Boards Matter”]

2.  Foundations
The “big three” foundation are Gates, Broad, and Walton. Education historian Diane Ravitch calls them the “billionaire boys club,” though each has a slightly different emphasis. And there are others.

• The Gates Foundation is currently funding teacher evaluation systems throughout the country. As I have argued before, not only does this focus on the wrong thing, by avoiding the issue of poverty (or even early childhood education where many agree we might most effectively concentrate our resources), it starts with the faulty assumption that we have a plague of bad teachers. Though the foundation itself has warned that teacher evaluation should not be based solely on high-stakes-testing, this is exactly what is happening all over the country (or in many places, student testing is being used for a large portion of teacher evaluation). The Gates Foundation is so large and distributes so much money that it can essentially set policy through its grant making. And combined with the Great Recession, school districts and other beneficiaries have not been able to say no to the money nor been willing to point out that the emperor is not wearing any clothes (i.e. that his “reforms” don’t work). Gates has also launched a clever campaign to shift public opinion, by strategically targeting grants to community organizations (for example, over a half-million to A+Schools this year) and astroturf groups (see below) in communities where they are working.
• The Eli and Edythe Broad (rhymes with “road”) Foundation runs a non-accredited superintendents training program premised on the idea that business executives with no education experience will improve urban school districts. Both the current and former Pittsburgh superintendents are Broad Academy graduates (though Dr. Linda Lane is an educator). The Foundation promotes teacher effectiveness and competition (i.e. charter schools), and drafted President Obama’s current reform strategy. They also literally wrote the book on how to close schools, using Pittsburgh as an example. Eli Broad also continues to spend his personal millions on corporate-reform, putting a half-million into the LA school board races this spring alone. [Los Angeles Times, 4-24-13]
• The Walton Family Foundation derives its money from Wal-Mart and gave $158 million in K-12 education grants last year to promote charter schools and voucher programs. Its current top grantees include Teach for America, which has come under increased scrutiny for its method of placing young college graduates with only a few weeks of training in urban schools with the neediest students, where they stay only two years. (Teach for America, by the way, is looking to set up shop in Pittsburgh and has been making inquiries about hiring a local executive director. Stay tuned.) Here in our state the Walton Family Foundation is also funding the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools. And they fund Bellwether Education Partners, the group hired by Pittsburgh Public Schools (through subcontract with FSG) to craft its education plan. [Walton Family Foundation 2012 Grant Report]
• Let’s not overlook the role that other foundations play in education reform. Remember a decade ago when the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, and Grable Foundation (the big three education philanthropies in Pittsburgh) yanked their funding from the school district, forcing them to introduce new reforms? [Post-Gazette, 7-10-02] The history books have yet to finish writing that episode – and there were no doubt both positive and negative long-term outcomes – but it illustrates the power that foundations can wield over a school district.
• What about when a venerable old foundation starts behaving badly? Our big sister grassroots group in Philadelphia, Parents United, recently filed a legal complaint against the William Penn Foundation “based on the fact that they had solicited millions of dollars in donations for an exclusive contract” with a consulting group, with an agreed “set of ‘deliverables’ such as identifying 60 schools for closure, mass charter expansion, and unprecedented input into labor and contract negotiations – without the School District of Philadelphia being a party to the contract.” After a legal analysis by the Public Interest Law Center that concluded the foundation was essentially engaging in illegal lobbying and funneling private donations for the purpose, Parents United joined the Philadelphia Home & School Council, and the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP in bringing the complaint. [Parents United, 2-14-13]

3.  SuperPACS
The Citizens United ruling opened the door to massive spending by corporations in politics and ushered in the era of superPACS. Without spending limits, now we are seeing just how much influence money can buy in politics (where education policy is set).

• Students First PA PAC (not to be confused with Michelle Rhee’s national organization, see below), started in 2010 by three Philadelphia investment brokers to funnel millions into the state races of pro-voucher candidates. Co-founder Joel Greenberg is on the board of the American Federation for Children, a national group run by Betsy DeVos with mega-wealthy (and ultra-right) backers including the Koch brothers, who have used the super PAC to channel their out of state dollars into Pennsylvania politics. [See “It’s All About the Money, Money, Money”] And Gov. Corbett tapped Joe Watkins, the chairman of Students First PA, to be the Chief Recovery Officer for the struggling Chester Uplands school district last year – a bit like putting the fox in charge of the hen house, since he now has the power to hand those public schools over to charter operators. [See “Taking the Public out of Public Education”]
• Fighting Chance PA PAC shares a name with a campaign launched by the “Pennsylvania Catholic Coalition” last spring, an effort associated with the Philadelphia Archdiocese, which has been lobbying hard for voucher legislation to fund its struggling schools. The new PAC was entirely financed by three wealthy Philadelphia hedge-fund founders who started the Students First PA PAC, because apparently one super PAC on your resume is just not enough. And their largest contribution? To Rep. Jim Christiana, a Republican from Beaver County (site of the proposed Dutch Royal Shell cracker plant) who introduced last year’s voucher-in-disguise EITC tax credit bill. Rep. Christiana also received money from the Walmart PAC. [See “2-4-6-8 Who Do We Appreciate?”]

4.  Astroturf groups
Astroturf groups are fake grassroots organizations. They are funded by deep pockets, manipulated to look like local efforts to give the impression that they represent real community opinion. But they are as authentic as a field of plastic grass.

• Operating at the national level are groups such as Michelle Rhee’s Students First. Rhee is best known as the former Chancellor of the D.C. school district where she publicly fired a principal on film as part of her massive school closure effort there. She became well known for supposedly increasing student test scores, but there are now serious questions of large-scale cheating (by adults). Students First promotes her privatization agenda of charters and vouchers as well as merit pay and teacher evaluation systems based on high-stakes-testing. The Walton Family Foundation just gave the organization $8 million. [Washington Post, 5-1-13] At the same time, Rhee has been caught inflating the number of members in her organization to make it appear that it has a much broader base of support by using deceptive petitions (for un-objectionable issues such as anti-bullying) on the progressive change.org site to capture the names of unsuspecting new “members.” [DianeRavitch, 8-3-12]
• Parent Revolution practically wrote the book on how to create an astroturf organization. Founded in California by a charter school operator – with major backing from Gates, Broad, and Walton – the group got a “parent trigger law” passed and then hired agents to convince two towns to turn their schools over to the them. But many parents later said they had been purposefully misled and filed lawsuits to try to stop the conversion of their schools to charters. [See “Won’t Be Silent”]
• Closer to home, we learned just last week that the Gates Foundation is backing a new astroturf group here in Pittsburgh. Called Shepherding the Next Generation, the Washington D.C. based organization has been trying to recruit churches – especially in our African American communities – to preach the Gates agenda of teacher evaluation. [See “Astroturf”] Having one of the wealthiest people on the planet funding outside organizations like this to come into a community and shift the public conversation seriously erodes democracy. This is not about promoting an authentic community dialogue, but about promoting a specific ideology of school reform.

5.  Corporations
Perhaps not surprising, corporations control some of the big money at stake in corporate-style education reform. Here are a few to keep your eye on.

• Testing companies have significantly benefitted from the dramatic expansion of testing under No Child Left Behind. Nationally, we are spending $1.7 BILLION a year testing our kids. [Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, report Nov. 2012] And corporations like Pearson Education, Inc. and McGraw Hill spend millions lobbying state legislatures to keep their products in favor. [Republic Report, 5-4-12] The new national Common Core Standards are also creating a bonanza for companies that make textbooks and assessment materials.
• Pennsylvania has a contract with Data Recognition Corporation. Taxpayers in the Keystone state are footing the bill for average spending of $32.2 million a year on testing students. [Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, report Nov. 2012] That’s a lot of money that is not getting spent on actually educating children.
• Struggling school districts are increasingly turning to hybrid or “blended” learning models to deliver content at least partially on-line as a cost-savings measure. A major 2010 Department of Education review of the literature found that blended-learning does not offer better learning outcomes for students, but it will surely be good for corporate bottom lines. Pearson is promoting its Connections Learning as the solution to schools looking to close their achievement gap and reduce the cost of teachers.
• Finally, don’t forget about ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council where corporate members write business-friendly laws and have them introduced word-for-word into state legislatures. In education reform, ALEC promotes the unregulated expansion of charters and vouchers, keeping both unaccountable to the public while taking away control from local democratically elected school board officials. In Pennsylvania, ALEC issued a guide helpfully pointing out how legislators could get around our troublesome constitution, which prevents public money from being spent on religious schools. The Gates Foundation granted $375,000 to ALEC from 2010-2013, before cutting all ties with the organization last spring after becoming the target of an online petition that gathered over 23,000 signatures in just a few hours. [See “There’s Nothing Smart About ALEC”]

Now that’s a lot of money coming from a lot of sources. It’s helpful to think about the “big tent” metaphor here: there are many Big Money players in this tent, with multiple motivations. Clearly some are driven by profit motive and stand to make a lot of money. Some share ultra-right interests in de-unionization and de-regulation and are happy to push those interests in the field of education. Many others are driven by an ideological agenda of corporate-style education reform. One thing is for sure: all that Big Money under one big tent is having an enormous impact on our public schools.

It’s Raining – Money

It’s still raining in Pennsylvania – campaign money, that it. As the elections have heated up, candidates pushing school privatization efforts such as vouchers have received a windfall from some well-organized and extremely wealthy out-of-state pockets. While we’re mopping up and rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy, we better take a look at what else has blown into our state, and the consequences we could be dealing with for years to come.

Remember Betsy DeVos and her American Federation for Children (AFC)? The former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and married to the heir of the Amway fortune, DeVos is the founder and board chair of the AFC, which works across the country to promote her “school choice” agenda. In the run-up to this spring’s primaries, the AFC funneled over $1million into Pennsylvania politics through the Students First PAC. (Last year AFC contributed $120,000 and in 2010 it paid $1.2 Million into Students First PAC.) [PA state campaign finance reports] In the past few weeks alone, the AFC has dumped another $400,000 into the superPAC. [Keystone State Education Coalition, 10-29-12]

A few years ago, Ohio fined DeVos’s group a record $5.2 million for illegally shifting money into that state to support “school choice” candidates. [Associated Press, April 5, 2008] Wisconsin also fined her group for political misconduct. Following these incidents, DeVos simple rebranded her organization as the current American Federation for Children. The AFC also accepts donations from the likes of Charles and David Koch, the ultra-wealthy and ultra-conservative brothers who are well known for their anti-union politics. [The Nation, May 2011; for more on the AFC, see “It’s All About the Money, Money, Money”]

Joel Greenberg, who just made the list of Pennsylvania’s top political campaign donors, is on the board of the AFC. He and two of his financial investment partners, Arthur Dantchik and Jeff Yass, founded Students First PAC back in 2010 with $5.2 million they happened to have lying around. [Public Source, PA top political donors report] Now Students First PAC operates as the conduit for AFC campaign contributions. Since September 28^th, the superPAC has spent $534,000 on Pennsylvania elections. Where is all that money going?

Far and away the top beneficiary these past few weeks has been Representative Jim Christiana, from right here in Southwest PA. The Republican from Beaver County received a deluge of $100,000 from Students First PAC – twice as much as any other single candidate. The superPAC gave a handful of candidates two donations, but Christiana received no less than five separate checks, totaling about a fifth of all their giving. Why?

It’s certainly not because Rep. Christiana faces any serious political challenge. His opponent hasn’t had a campaign event since August and has just 40 “likes” on his Facebook page. (Honestly, this is the best the Democratic Party could do in what should be an extremely important race? Even the word “Endorsements” is spelled wrong on his website.) [Elect Bob Williams site] So why shower Rep. Christiana with cash?

The answer is pretty obvious. Christiana has become the go-to guy for Governor Corbett’s school privatization legislation. Back in June, he introduced our shiny new Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program, a voucher-in-disguise that will divert $200 million in public money to private and religious schools. (See “2-4-6-8 Who Do We Appreciate?”) Christiana hails from Monaca in Beaver County, site of the proposed Dutch Royal Shell cracker plant, which Gov. Corbett intends to hand $1.675 BILLION to do business in Pennsylvania. (See “Can Shell Educate Our Kids?”) Just a few weeks before Christiana brought the EITC bill forward, he received a nice fat check for $25,000 from “Fighting Chance PA,” another new superPAC started by – you guessed it – Joel Greenberg, Arthur Dantchik and Jeff Yass, founders of the Students First PAC.

These guys have also taken notice of a more tightly contested race in our neck of the woods, funding Republican senate candidate Raja who is running against Democrat Matt Smith, currently a representative in the state house. [Keystone State Education Coalition, 10-29-12] Fortunately for public education advocates in the South Hills area, Rep. Smith offers the clear choice: he has met with Yinzercation parents and stands solidly behind adequate and equitable public funding for our public goods.

But we better be asking ourselves just what Philadelphia hedge fund operators are doing, dumping their spare cash in political races over here on the other side of the state. And we have to pay attention to the millions flooding into Pennsylvania from Betsy DeVos and her American Federation for Children. It’s still raining campaign money, and there will be a lot of storm damage if public-education advocates don’t get out to the polls next week – come hell or high water.

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We Won’t Back Down, Either

Have you heard the buzz around “Won’t Back Down,” a major new Hollywood movie opening here in three weeks? It’s time for that buzz to start sounding like a swarm of angry bees coming from anyone who cares about our public schools. Here’s why.

The film, which was shot here in Pittsburgh and also set in our fair city, claims to be “inspired by real events.” Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, and Holly Hunter, it tells a stirring tale of parents fighting for their kids against downright cruel teachers and uncaring school administrators while also vilifying teachers’ unions. But there is absolutely no evidence that anything like the events depicted in the movie ever occurred in Pittsburgh. In fact, “Won’t Back Down” is very clearly an attempt to promote school privatization and ALEC-backed parent trigger laws, which have not even been on the radar screen here in Southwest Pennsylvania. [For more on ALEC, see “There’s Nothing Smart About ALEC.”]

The movie was produced by Rupert Murdoch’s 20^th Century Fox and Walden Media, which is owned by Philip Anschutz. Anschutz co-produced that last anti-teacher and anti-public school film, “Waiting for Superman.” He’s an oil billionaire with ultra-right politics, making contributions to groups that teach creationism in our schools and oppose gay rights. Parents Across America, a grassroots organization like ours fighting for public education on the national level, notes that, “Anschutz has also donated to Americans for Prosperity, founded by the Koch brothers, which opposes environmental regulations and union rights, and to the political career of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.” [Parents Across America alert, 8-12]

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (whom I had the honor of marching with when she was in town for Monday’s Labor Day Parade), points out that, “Anschutz’s business partner is on record saying that he intends to use Walden Media … as way for him to promote their values.” In a piece last week in the Washington Post, Weingarten explains those values are “crystal clear”: Anschutz funds ALEC and a host of organizations that “operate against the public interest in favor of corporate interests, and all of them actively oppose collective bargaining rights and other benefits for workers. Anschutz has also invested millions in anti-gay and extreme religious-right organizations such as the Promise Keepers, whose founder declared that ‘homosexuality is an abomination against almighty God,’ and organizations affiliated with Focus on the Family.” [Washington Post, 8-28-12]

These guys didn’t just go into filmmaking for the fun of it. They have a clear agenda. And this time they are pushing parent-trigger laws. These laws allow parents to vote – by a simple 51% majority by signing a petition – to essentially shut down a public school. School districts are then forced to either fire all the teaching staff at that school, close the school altogether, or privatize it and turn it over to a charter school operator. The idea for parent-trigger laws was hatched by a California organization called Parent Revolution, which was founded by – surprise, surprise – a charter school operator.

Parent Revolution got major funding from the Gates and Broad Foundations as well as the Waltons (of Walmart fame and huge supporters of school privatization) to push the law in California. The group sent agents into Compton to get parents to sign a petition to charterize their elementary school, but some of those parents later said they had been purposefully misled. Parent Revolution then sent its operatives into Adelanto, CA and tried to get parents to sign two different petitions: one calling for smaller class sizes and other reforms, and the other calling to hand the school over to a charter operator. But after the group only submitted the charter petition, nearly 100 parents asked to have their names removed and a judge refused, insisting that the conversion to a charter school would proceed. [For more on the film and parent trigger laws, see Save Our Schools, another national grassroots organization like ours.]

These “Parent-Tricker” laws are fundamentally anti-democratic. They permit a small group of parents to essentially hand over a public asset to private owners. Public schools do not exist just for the parents and families who happen to currently be using them. That’s what we mean when we say public education is a public good: public schools serve the broader public interest by educating future citizens. They also exist for tomorrow’s students who have yet to step foot in the door. Parents have every right to fight to make education the best it can be for their children, but they cannot do it by converting public goods into private assets.

Ironically, I have to point out that these anti-public good school privatizers got public tax-payer dollars to make their film. Yes, that’s right: we here in Pennsylvania extend a nice fat tax-credit to film companies to induce them to make their films in places like Pittsburgh. [See Pittsburgh Film Office, tax credit information.] Those are tax dollars we don’t see in state revenue and can’t use to support our public schools. Perhaps we need (some) tax credit programs, but it’s all about priorities: maybe we shouldn’t be giving our money to film makers who turn around and tell blatant lies about Pittsburgh, our schools, and our teachers while undermining public confidence in a crucial public resource.

But that’s just what this film is doing. And the filmmakers have had plenty of help spreading their message. Three weeks ago, CBS aired a concert called Teachers Rock, funded by Walmart, as a promotion for “Won’t Back Down,” with stars including Carrie Underwood, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Garner, Matthew Morrison, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Usher, and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine. [Business Wire, 7-24-12] And as I lamented yesterday in my open letter to President Obama’s senior education policy advisor, the Democrats stepped right in line with Republicans, both showing the film at their national conventions these past two weeks. [See “Dear Mr. Rodriguez…”]

You can be sure we’ll be hearing lots more about parent-trigger laws here in Pennsylvania, too. Proponents have already popped up in Harrisburg: back in June during the budget debates, House Bill 2352 wound up defeated, but it would have created a parent trigger law. [Keystone State Education Coalition, 6-27-12] Remember, this is where grassroots activism will make the difference: this past spring, Florida parent groups fought back against proposed parent trigger legislation and won after an intense battle. [Miami Herald, 3-9-12]

When the film opens across the country on September 28^th, we will have an opportunity to weigh in on the conversation and many eyes will be on Pittsburgh. Let’s be ready! We will need to write letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, and engage our social networks to expose the real agenda behind “Won’t Back Down.” We’ll need to attend showings and discussions (stay tuned for more on those). We’ll need to let the country know what authentic parent engagement looks like, why we are fighting for public schools as a public good, and that we won’t back down.

Dear Mr. Rodriguez …

An Open Letter to Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to the President for Education Policy

Dear Mr. Rodriguez:

As you will no doubt recall, last week when I was invited to the White House as one of 40 education leaders from Pennsylvania I stood before you and pleaded for an end to the national narrative of “failing public schools.” I am writing to let you know about the national conversation that that meeting has sparked – and the overwhelming sense of disappointment, despair and frustration it has evoked. You asked for a dialogue and feedback, so please allow me to tell you what people are saying.

First, many people want to know how it is that the White House, the Department of Education, Democratic leaders, and many on the political left have bought hook, line and sinker into this rhetoric about public education – once a pillar of our democracy – overlooking the actual experience of education professionals and despite mountains of educational research. (This is exactly what “At the Chalkface,” a national talk radio program, spoke with me about this past weekend.) The toxic failing-public-schools narrative is not only based on a false notion that American students are falling farther and farther behind our international peers, but it blames supposedly overpaid, uncaring teachers and bureaucratic school administrators for the very real problems that do exist in our country.

Yet we know that middle class students from well-funded schools perform at the top on international tests. We know that student achievement has actually gone up, not down over the past thirty-five years. And we know that the trenchant problem of racial disparity in our schools has far more to do with poverty and inequitable funding at the local and state level than with bad teaching or unions.

People want to know why, then, this administration seems blind to the consequences of adopting President Bush’s signature No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy, which set schools up to fail, stigmatized them, and then undermined public confidence in public education. They ask why our national leaders ignore the clear evidence that NCLB has wrecked havoc on our schools, creating a culture of high-stakes testing, teaching to the test, cheating scandals, drastically narrowed focus to just reading and math, all the while preventing desperately needed debate about real issues such as meaningful curriculum reform.

The piece I wrote about our conversation last week, “The Elephant at the White House,” was picked up and re-published nationally by AlterNet.org, the Horace Mann League, and Diane Ravitch, among others. Ravitch wrote a response piece, “About that Meeting at the White House,” in which she asked pointedly, “will they do anything differently? What signal, if any, will the White House give to show that they understand that Race to the Top is an extension of NCLB? It is NCLB on steroids.” Here are some comments from people across the country:

• “Empty chair for PRESIDENT! Because no other choice measures up”
• “…the Dems [are] hellbent on pushing [Race to the Top] during Obama’s re-election. From a purely political perspective, it has got to be the worst strategy the Dems have ever had. The race is very close and it is possible Obama will lose. I wonder why he has abandoned teachers and parents.”
• “I guess [the election] wouldn’t be so close right now if he hadn’t forgotten all of us. I am disgusted, completely and totally disgusted with Obama, Duncan and the whole lot of them. Obama should spend a morning at Sidwell Friends and then follow up with an unannounced visit to a test prep charter. Then he should hang his head in shame.”
• “…[throw] the profiteers and consultants out of the meeting; [abandon] Race to the Top; [say] that Mr. Duncan would not be part of the next administration; [promise] to phase out testing and to remove test scores from teachers evaluations. When they do the above, I will trust them.”
• “USDoE spokespeople seemed to be brave in this meeting — and then what? And now how is the Obama administration going to respond to the brave teacher/parent/community alliance in Chicago, where teachers are being forced to strike…to defend and protect their students and schools?”
• “Alas, the [NCLB] waiver is not a waiver, just a commitment to do other harmful things!”
• “…of the 40+ educators who attended, only 2 were teachers. Teachers have professional expertise that needs to be acknowledged, cultivated, and sustained.”
• “Race to the Top is more of the same un-researched, unreliable, and feckless education policy that further demeans the profession and those of us who are steeped in the research of effective practice.”

Last week we talked about the new Hollywood movie, “Won’t Back Down,” which blames coldhearted teachers, unions, and school districts and was made by the same people who released “Waiting for Superman” two years ago. I practically begged you not to use the movie as a promotion for market-based corporate “reformers” and their agenda of school privatization. This piece of fiction claims to be “inspired by real events” and is set right here in Pittsburgh, though there is absolutely no evidence that anything like it ever happened here. What is clear, however, is that the film was bankrolled by the ultra-right and attempts to introduce the notion of parent-trigger laws, another policy darling of those supposed reformers. I was appalled to learn that the Democratic National Convention chose to show the movie this week (following in the footsteps of the Republicans who showed it at their convention last week).

I’ve been invited by President Obama’s campaign here in Pittsburgh to speak tonight at a party celebrating his acceptance speech. I’ve been asked to speak about my trip to the White House. What am I supposed to tell them? On this issue, Mr. Rodriguez – your issue of education – President Obama is no different from his opposition. To say we are disappointed is an understatement.

I hope you and all of the President’s advisors will give serious attention to Diane Ravitch’s most excellent advice in, “How President Obama Could Win the Election.” She has proposed an amazing, short speech that could win back educators, parents, and public school advocates.

I plead with you once again from here on the ground in the grassroots of a key state in this election: let’s talk equity, let’s talk about poverty, let’s talk about real education reform, and let’s talk about public education as a public good.

Respectfully yours,

Jessie Ramey
——————
Jessie B. Ramey, Ph.D.
ACLS New Faculty Fellow, Women’s Studies and History
University of Pittsburgh
Yinzer Nation + Education = Yinzercation

We Have $200 Million?

Problem solved! Apparently, Rep. Jim Christiana, a Republican from our neck of the woods over in Beaver County, believes we have an extra $200 million lying around for schools. That’s perfect, since the Post-Gazette is reporting today that the governor’s office and Republican leaders in the Senate and House have negotiated their different budgets down to just about that figure: “the two sides appear to be about $233 million apart in how much money they believe the state should have left over at the end of next fiscal year.” [Post-Gazette, 6-12-12]

Ah, but wait – Rep. Christiana wants to give those public tax-dollars to private schools under a new scheme that he may introduce today in the House. Seriously? We can’t find enough money for the block grant program that lets school districts all across Pennsylvania fund Kindergarten, but he wants to talk about taking more money out of our state coffers for private and parochial schools?

We already have this ill-advised program in place with the poorly named Educational Improvement Tax Credit, or EITC. (See why we say “EITC: No Credit to PA” when we let $75 million walk out the front door every year.) Now Rep. Christiana and his colleagues propose adding a similar program, so that we give away an additional $100 million next year, rising to $200 million by its third year. [You can read the full text of his co-sponsorship memo at the Morning Call, 6-11-12.]

If we have $200 million available to hand out to businesses, why aren’t we spending that money up front on critical educational needs, rather than cutting Kindergarten, librarians, and tutoring? Pennsylvania school districts were forced to lay off over 14,000 teachers last year with many more furloughs coming this year. [“No More Teachers, No More Books”] These aren’t just good jobs – these are the people in the classrooms with our children every day, shaping our very future.

Kudos to House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, a representative from northern Allegheny County, whose office warned “the details of this latest try for a voucher program must be reviewed carefully.” He summed it up nicely: “The core problem in Pennsylvania schools is inadequate funding made worse by Gov. Corbett’s historic and tragic education cuts. No taxpayer-funded voucher experiment will help that, even one like this that’s limited to only a few schools. It will just make things worse for the great majority of students who get no help.” [Morning Call, 6-11-12]

We can’t allow the Governor and his allies to continue labeling our entire public education system as a failure, and then decimate it by cutting over $1 BILLION in funding to make sure that it really does fail so we can take our public dollars and send them to private institutions. Make no mistake, this is exactly the strategy now in play. As we reported last week, the ultra-conservative Koch brother funded superPAC FreedomWorks has rolled back into Pennsylvania using the language of “failure” in nasty radio ads aimed at pressuring the governor to get a voucher bill passed in the next three weeks. (See “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”)

That superPAC has two out-of-state lobbyists, Ana Puig and Anastasia Przbylski, sitting in Harrisburg right now turning up the heat on our legislators. About Rep. Christiana’s proposed voucher bill, Puig said, “It’s a start. We have to do something before this [budget] cycle is over to give opportunities to kids in the failing schools.” She made it clear that they are looking to expand vouchers well beyond these EITC type programs, and said, “We have a small window of opportunity.” [Morning Call, 6-11-12]

That might be the best news we get: these billionaire backers of school privatization see the next couple of weeks as their window of opportunity to ram more vouchers through the Pennsylvania legislature. We need to keep that window shut tight. Take a minute to call Rep. Christiana’s office and tell him that we need public funding for public schools:
(724) 728-7655 or (717) 260-6144
And if you know anyone in his district, please ask them to do the same. Christiana represents the following areas of Beaver County, which has lost over $13.5 MILLION in education cuts to its schools these past two years:
Beaver
Brighton Township
Center Township
Greene Township
Georgetown
Hookstown
Hopewell Township
Independence Township
Monaca
Patterson Heights
Patterson Township
Potter Township
Raccoon Township
Vanport Township
Shippingport
South Heights

If Rep. Christiana really thinks Pennsylvania taxpayers can afford an extra $200 million for this plan, let’s insist that we use those public dollars to address the real funding crisis in our schools caused by Governor Corbett’s historic education cuts. Then we can open real windows of opportunity for all our children.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

It’s like an old spaghetti Western movie in Harrisburg these days. Lots of targets, lots of shooting, just not as many horses. So here’s the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in our state budget negotiations.

The Good.
Top Republicans met with Governor Corbett Tuesday evening in a closed door session and word is they talked about “restoring” the $100 million in block grants. [Post-Gazette, 6-6-12] That’s the money that most school districts use for Kindergarten programs and that the governor had proposed eliminating in his February budget. However, calling it a “restoration” of those funds is a bit unfair – it’s more like blocking Gov. Corbett’s proposed cuts – especially since districts are still reeling from the $1 billion he succeeded in slashing last year. But saving that $100 million from the chopping block would indeed be a good thing. A great thing!

The Bad.
However, the current proposal to rescue the $100 million did not ride in on a white horse. This one arrived in an amendment from Appropriations Chairman Bill Adolph, a Republican from Delaware County, and passed with a mostly party-line vote. [Post-Gazette, 6-6-12] The problem? The plan shifts money from basic education to cover the block grants. Representative Mike Gerber said it was “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and called it a “shell game,” urging his colleagues not to support the proposal. [Rep. Gerber House testimony, 6-5-12]

The Ugly.
And while our legislators ride around shooting at each other, the biggest bad guy of all just snuck into town. Funded by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers, the PAC FreedomWorks is launching an ad campaign designed to get a new voucher bill passed this month. [Philly.com, news blog, 6-6-12] The radio spots actually take aim at Governor Corbett, accusing him of not moving swiftly enough to reintroduce his voucher legislation, which passed in the Senate but failed in the House late last year.

Residents in six key PA House districts will hear the ads that repeat the national conservative narrative of “failing public schools” from which families must be rescued by “school choice.” The spot claims that Gov. Corbett promised “to reform the failing education system in Pennsylvania,” and that, “Despite spending over $13,000 per student per year, Pennsylvania’s schools continue to fail.” The ad continues, “Children across the state remain trapped in failing schools,” and warns that this is a “growing problem” and that “time is running out.” [Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-6-12]

This is truly an ugly attempt to portray all our schools as failures and our students as captive victims. (See “What I Told the White House.”) The reality is that most of our public schools are doing a good job educating students. Where there are problems, we should obviously fix them; but this gripping tale of supposed failure has captured the popular imagination contrary to the actual evidence. For example, Pennsylvania’s reading and math scores have both been going up and rank among the nation’s best (see comparative state school data on Save Pennsylvania’s Schools):

• Our students rank 5^th (out of 50 states) in fourth grade reading and 8^th in eighth grade reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
• Our students rank 4^th in fourth grade math and 12^th in eighth grade math on the NAEP.
• Pennsylvania has among the best Advanced Placement (AP) scores in the nation, ranking 15^th in the percentage of public high school students who score high enough on AP exams to qualify for college credit.
• Pennsylvania is a national leader in “AP Honor Roll” school districts, with 28 districts receiving this distinguished designation.

Right now, this movie needs Clint Eastwood to shoot a few holes in the flawed logic of “public school failure,” touted by the deep pockets of conservative super-PACS. Meanwhile, our legislators have the chance to be real heroes: they can save public education without playing political shell games, and then ride off into the sunset while the credits roll.