Journey for Justice and "School choice" week; just whose choices are being respected??

Last week was “School choice” week.  The entire concept of “school choice week” was invented by Jeb Bush  to promote the expansion of charter and vouchers,  supposedly to allow for more parental choice in selecting their children's schools.  Meanwhile, it was just revealed that Bush's organization, Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), promotes the business of for-profit companies, including several that donate to the organization and at least one corporation in which Bush has stock.

The reality is that the corporate reformers pushing “school choice,” including Arne Duncan, Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Michelle Rhee, are not interested in the real-life choices of parents;  but instead in privatization.

When thousands of parents repeatedly turn out across the country to oppose the closing of their neighborhood schools, are their choices listened to?  No, they are ignored, or else the people in charge, like Bloomberg, say that parents are too uneducated to understand the value of a good education.

When parents say that their first priority for their children’s schools is reducing class size, are their choices listened to?  No, instead, the same people who say they believe in parent choice vehemently oppose  lowering class size: Bill Gates insists that class size doesn’t matter, Michelle Rhee pushes for eliminating any caps on class sizes, and Bloomberg say he would double class sizes if he could.

When parents say their children are over-tested and they should be allowed to opt out, do the authorities listen?  No, instead they plan to subject them to even more frequent and longer tests.

Let’s all admit it; “school choice” is a myth,  meant not to give public school parents the choices they want for their children, but instead represent the choices of corporate raiders who want to give our public schools to private interests, like hostile takeover artists who took over companies in the 1970’s and 1980’s, in order to dismantle them and sell them off piece by piece.

Coincidentally during “School Choice” week, on Tuesday, as part of the "Journey for Justice" campaign, parents, students and activists from 18 districts all over the country traveled to DC, testified at the US Department of Education, and demanded a moratorium on the mass school closings that are occurring with the encouragement of the federal government, on the grounds that  their children’s civil rights were being violated.  See videos below by Jaisal Noor of The Real News of Tuesday's events. See also this week’s Village Voice, about the invasion of charter schools in Williamsburg, Brooklyn run by Eva Moskowitz and her husband, despite the vehement opposition of parents in that community.

Journey for Justice: Parents and Students from 18 Cities Demand Nationwide Moratorium on Schools Closings and demand US DOE investigate Civil rights violations

Part 2: Chicago Parent and Activist Jitu Brown at "Journey for Justice" Hearings in DC 

Part 3: New Orleans Parent and Activist Karran Harper Royal at "Journey for Justice" Hearing in DC 

Victory at last!!!!

Late last night, we won our battle to ensure that NYC must use part of the additional state education aid to reduce class size in all grades.

I haven’t seen the exact language yet, but this represents a great victory for our children -- and we owe the Chair of the Assembly Education Committee, Cathy Nolan, Assemblymember Lancman, and Governor Spitzer tremendous thanks for their leadership on this issue.

It will be up to Commissioner Mills to write the rules and what the class size goals should be, so this remains a work in progress.

Nevertheless, we can all be proud of the campaign we waged together to convince the Governor and our legislators to do the right thing for our kids – despite the fact that the Mayor, Chancellor and their minions were trying to block this every way they could. Indeed, the administration's lobbyists even told legislators that they already had plans to reduce class size so there was no need for a state mandate -- even though it is clear to us here in NYC that they have no such intention.

Now, we will all have to watch them like hawks -- to see that the plan they submit is realistic and will lead to significant progress -- and that they adhere to it. If past experience is any guide, they will try to dissimulate, manipulate, and evade their obligations to reduce class size in any way they can.

The Mayor and Chancellor should instead look to Florida for an example. When that state's voters passed a constitutional amendment to require smaller classes in all grades in 2002, then-governor Jeb Bush was caught on tape saying that he had "devious plans" to subvert the will of the people.

Bush tried not once, but three times to overturn the amendment, and each time was foiled by the Florida State legislature, which while dominated by members of his own party, resisted his efforts because the class size amendment proved even more popular when it was put into place than when it originally passed, and turned out to be considerably less expensive to fund than expected. The last time Bush tried and failed to overturn the class size amendment, this was widely hailed as the most humiliating political defeat of his career.

Over the last three years, class sizes have been dramatically reduced in all grades, by about six students per class in Kindergarten through third grade, five students in fourth through eighth grades, and two students in ninth through 12th grades. For the 2006-07 school year, 94% of Florida's public schools met the class size requirements. (see chart at right)

Now Florida has a new Governor, also a Republican, Charlie Crist, who wholeheartedly supports the class size law, even as the state moves towards actual caps in all schools of no more than 18 students per class in grades K-3, no more than 22 in 4th -8th grade, and no more than 25 in high school.

Here is the latest statement from Gov. Crist on this issue: "the will of the people was to do what was passed, and I think we should respect it."

Listen to that Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein, and beware!!!