Macron, Trump, class size vs. charter schools, and my letter to the NY TImes

Today the big news is that Emmanuel Macron was elected as President of France by a huge margin - 65% to 35% - over Marine Le Pen.  This was a terrific win for many reasons, including one not often mentioned in the US media.

Macron has proposed radically reducing class size -- with a plan to hire 5,000 teachers to cut class size to 12 in the early grades in high-need communities.  

His platform is aligned with the findings of renowned economist Thomas Piketty, who after analyzing the gains of students in an earlier governmental class size reduction program, concluded that capping class size at 15 in high-poverty schools would eliminate the achievement gap between racial and economic groups.

Meanwhile, last week the US Congress voted to approve a continuing resolution that funds the federal budget through September.  But the budget they approved cuts Title IIA funds by 12.5%, a reduction of $300 million.  About one third of Title IIA funds are used to lower class size, especially in high-poverty districts where classes already are too high.  In NYC, the entire allocation of Title IIA funds of more than $100 million is used to keep teachers on staff and prevent further increases in class size, which have already risen sharply since 2008.  More on this here.

This is what the NEA had to say about the Congress vote:

Randi Weingarten sent this statement to Education Week, which she shared with me: 

The amount is better than the zero that President Trump initially proposed, but a cut will have consequences. In this case the consequences are larger class sizes for students and the loss of high quality professional development for teachers. We will watch what comes out in the President’s budget in May and continue to resist Trump administration’s push to defund public education and fight to regain and add Title II funding in the next budget cycle.

President Trump, of course,  has proposed slashing the education budget for next year by over $9 billion, and totally eliminating the $2.4 billion Title IIA program for next school year-- which would decimate efforts to keep class sizes under control throughout the country, especially in large urban districts.   

Instead Trump wants to divert as many federal dollars as possible to charter schools, vouchers, and tuition tax credits for private schools.  On Wednesday, he appeared at a White House event along with Vice President Pence and Education Secretary DeVos, promoting school "choice" and the DC voucher program, even though the results of that program have had negative effects.

I wrote a letter published in today's NY Times, along with several others critiquing an earlier column by David Leonhardt that argued that expanding charter schools would be a good solution to improve our education system.  The letters are all worth reading, and make good points.  

The problem is that few if any charter school studies undertaken by researchers have examined their impact on the entire ecosystem of public schools.In my letter I point out how diverting more funds from NYC public schools to charters will not help and will instead likely hurt our neediest students and undermine the public school system as a whole.

In this country, we have a clear choice to make.  If we truly care about equity we will focus our efforts on keeping class sizes small enough for all students to be able to receive the attention they deserve -- especially those students who need the help the most. Instead, putting more public dollars into privately-run schools will merely create even more winners and losers, and leave more children behind. My letter is below:

To the Editor:

David Leonhardt ignores the fact that very few charters enroll and retain equal numbers of at-risk students as traditional public schools in the communities in which they are situated — children with serious disabilities, those who receive free lunch, and/or recent immigrants and English-language learners.

The result is that our traditional public schools are increasingly concentrated with the highest need students with fewer resources to educate them. In New York City alone, charter schools are diverting more than $1.7 billion from the public schools, as well as taking up more space in a system where more than 550,000 students attend overcrowded schools and more than 300,000 students are crammed into classes of 30 or more.

For the sake of equity, we need to implement solutions that will work for all public students, especially those with the highest needs. By focusing our efforts on expanding charter schools, society is leaving out those students who need our help the most.

LEONIE HAIMSON, NEW YORK

The writer is executive director of Class Size Matters.

So what happened? And how we need to be ready for the fight to save our public schools

I've been hesitant about writing about the Presidential election for many reasons.  I am as shocked and appalled as many others, and have no special insights or expertise to explain what happened.  But one of the smartest guys I know, Tad Devine, a top adviser to Bernie Sanders, was on NPR and explained Trump's election this way: "most voters in the states that decided the election wanted change. He represented that change. She did not. And I think that was enough for him to win the election."

Clearly, many people, especially the Rust Belt voters who decided the election, wanted change desperately.  There was no way to argue that Hillary represents change.  The more that Obama tried to point to what a great job she did in his administration and her years of experience probably just underscored how she had been part of the system for 20 years or more. 

I remember that Bill Clinton’s convention speech was focused on the claim that Hillary represents change.  He was  smart to focus on that issue as he had correctly diagnosed the temperature of the electorate, but in the end his argument was unconvincing.

Does that mean Bernie Sanders would have won?  Who knows.  No matter how anti-establishment Sanders is, Trump could have argued that he’s been in Congress for 27 years.  On the other hand, Bernie beat Hillary in some of the primaries in the same states that went for Trump. Whether Trump will deliver the sort of change these voters yearn for or bring their factory jobs back seems unlikely, and how much damage he will do to marginalized groups of immigrants, Latinos, blacks and others in the process we will have to see.

The other reality is this: Because Hillary has been part of the system for so long, a lot of negative feelings and even hatred has accumulated towards her personally over the years.  This attitude is largely irrational and unfair, but it was not easy to dispel – especially when the email scandal erupted twice via FBI director Comey’s letters during the last two weeks of the campaign.   To witness just how intense the hatred is for Hillary among many women and men, you should watch this excellent CNN series with Van Jones interviewing Trump supporters in Gettysburg PA.  

The real tragedy is that Obama could have probably brought more real change into these communities if the GOP in Congress hadn’t blocked nearly everything he tried to do, whether it was increasing the minimum wage, infrastructure spending, tax reform etc.  The GOP in the House and the Senate had a highly partisan strategy to stand in the way of Obama accomplishing nearly anything since they took control -- including reforms that could have helped a lot of those people in the Rust belt  and throughout the country -- and their strategy won.

I also think we need to remember the stunning data that came out last year showing that for the first time in this nation’s history white death rates are increasing sharply – which seems to be the result of increased rates of addiction, alcoholism and suicide. Meanwhile, black and Latino mortality rates are falling significantly. I hope that some economists/political scientists analyze whether the addiction/mortality data correlate in specific communities with the Trump vote.

What’s also tragic is that if Obamacare is repealed or cut back this may cause mortality rates to grow – in most all communities and among all races.

I do want to point out some bright spots in the election results.   In Georgia and Massachusetts, multi-racial coalitions of unions, parents and school board members overwhelmingly defeated privatization efforts, proving that big money doesn’t always win.  Here is a must read by Jennifer Berkshire (Edushyster) about how this was accomplished in Massachusetts.

At the same time, the campaign by Bill Gates and other billionaires in the state of Washington to pack courts with pro-charter judges lost. 

We will need to replicate these grassroots campaigns throughout the country to keep our public schools safe and secure from being defunded and privatized by the Trump administration, Wall St. financiers and ed-tech interests.  At the same time, we'll have to form the same sort of coalitions to ensure that our public schools are sufficiently and equitably funded and provide all children with a real opportunity to learn.

In New York state, sadly, this didn't happen.  The state teachers union, NYSUT, gave most of their money to long-shot upstate candidates who lost.  Only 3 percent of the $3.9 million NYSUT spent was in support of candidates who won. Democratic challengers in the extremely close State Senate races on Long Island were left largely without state union funding and support -- according to the parents and rank and file teachers who worked hard as volunteers on these campaigns.  At the same time, millions in pro-charter PAC money was spent to defeat these same Long Island Democratic candidates, and to keep the State Senate in Republican hands, which paid for stealth attack ads that never mentioned the words "charter school" -- dirty words for most Long Island voters.

We will have a battle on our hands for sure to withstand the destructive impulses of a pro-privatization President, State Senate and Governor.  Public school parents, teachers, school boards, community activists and yes, unions, will need to band together, organize, be smart and ready for the fight.  

YOU'RE FIRED!

April 23, 2007 (GBN News): A controversial new rule allowing principals to expel parents from PTA’s and PA’s may have a more benign intent than critics had feared. GBN News has learned that this rule was instituted in order to enable production of a spinoff to Donald Trump’s successful reality series, “The Apprentice”. According to sources, Mr. Trump has engaged Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to host next year’s version of the show, which will reportedly star the Chancellor as himself. Contestants on the show will be co-opted PTA and PA members throughout the city, who will compete to be hired for a paying job.

Each episode will feature a new and challenging set of tasks, which will test the contestants’ creativity, deviousness and willingness to suck up to the Chancellor. Each contestant will operate within his or her own school, and the goal will be twofold: to convince a majority of that school’s PA or PTA to accept whatever new policy or regulation is being promoted that week, and to undermine opposition to the Chancellor’s plans. Possible tasks will include generating support for the cell phone ban, choosing the Chancellor’s favored Learning Support Organization, and organizing a “spontaneous” parent rally opposing the UFT. Each week, the Chancellor will direct a principal to fire one contestant (hence the new rule), until only the winner remains.

The winner will be given a lucrative consulting job with either Alvarez and Marsal, Edison Schools or New Visions. The losers will become Deputy Chancellors at the DOE.