 |
| Credit: Center for Media and Democracy |
Over the next few weeks, we will be running pieces describing real-life
“Won’t Back Down” stories from parents and teachers. If you’d like to share yours, please email us
at info@classsizematters.org
Last night I attended a screening of the controversial new
film, “Won’t Back Down” about a parent and a teacher who take over their
“failing” public school.
I have written
a FAQ about the movie which is
posted
here.
The film was produced by
Walden Media, owned by right-wing billionaire Phillip Anschutz, who also co-produced
“Waiting for ‘Superman.’”
Advance screenings have been held around the country,
organized by Michelle Rhee’s Students First and other pro-charter lobbying
organizations, to promote the “Parent Trigger,” which allows a school to be
turned over to a charter operator if 51% of the parents sign a petition calling for this.
Here is a
good analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy.
The movie itself is badly written, poorly acted, and full of
exaggerated characterizations and unconvincing plot twists. Its message,
transmitted with sledgehammer subtlety, is that the only reason that schools in
poor communities are failing is because of incompetent lazy teachers who are protected
by the union. The film also implies that
in turning around a school, all that needs to happen in addition to getting rid
of the union is to change the school “culture” which is done by scheduling more
field trips and telling students that they can learn and go to college.
The two main characters, played by Viola Davis and Maggie
Gyllenhall, both have children who are struggling in school; one with dyslexia
and the other [spoiler alert!] who towards the end of the film is revealed to be possibly brain damaged. Somehow getting rid of the union and
converting to a charter school will magically help these kids learn; though in
reality, many charters discourage parents from enrolling their children if they
have disabilities, or are quick to push them out after they enroll.
The main villain in the film is the teacher of Gyllenhall’s
daughter. This teacher spends time playing
with her cellphone during class, and prevents the little girl from going to the
bathroom and then locks her in a closet when she wets herself. The evil parents and teachers who oppose the takeover
of the school carry signs saying “Public school advocate” and “Taking over
neighborhood schools destroys neighborhoods."
If I hadn’t been on a
panel to discuss the movie afterwards, I would probably have walked out.
The panel also included
Christina Grant,
formerly
the deputy Director for the DOE Office of Charter Schools and now head
of NYCAN, a charter lobbying organization, and Kate Hayes, a parent with a
Kindergarten child who has been shut out from attending her neighborhood public
school because of overcrowding.
Hayes is
also on the founding board of a prospective charter school called Great Oaks, which
has applied to the state to open in the fall of 2013.
I pointed out that though the movie claims repeatedly
that the union prohibits public school teachers from staying after 3 PM to help
struggling students, this is factually untrue.
Many teachers do indeed stay late helping students, and according to the
recent Gates-funded
Scholastic
survey,
they work an average of 10
hours and 40 minutes a day
-- a 53-hour
work week.
Also, according to
international comparisons, our teachers
spend
more time actually teaching than in any other developed nation.
When Christina said that when she was a charter school
teacher at KIPP she made herself available nights and weekends, I pointed out
that most charter schools like KIPP have extremely
high levels of teacher and principal attrition; this is not sustainable model nor one we should want to
replicate if we want experienced teachers and school leaders in our schools.
I also pointed out that every year in NYC, the
top priority of parents is reducing class size, and the union is the only thing standing in the
way of Bloomberg doubling the class size, as
he
has said he would like to do.
Michelle Rhee, on the other hand, as well as other members of the
corporate reform crowd, would like to eliminate all limits on class size, as
well as to bar teachers from being able to negotiate on this issue, and would limit
them to arguing over wages and benefits.
I also provided some historical background. Here in New York State, we already have a
form of the parent trigger. With the
assent of the district, a school can convert to a charter if 51% of the parents
at the school vote to do so. Despite the
fact that under Bloomberg , the DOE has been extremely charter-friendly, they have
never tried to put conversion to a vote of parents, probably because they know
it would be roundly rejected.
The last time such a conversion was attempted was in
2001, when then-Chancellor Harold Levy allowed Chris Whittle, the CEO of the
chain of Edison for-profit chain of charters to try to convince parents at five
public schools to let him operate their schools. Despite promises to parents of more
funding, computers, etc., this attempt sparked big protests and opposition in communities all over the city,
and
Edison lost the vote at all five schools.
Now Edison operates only one charter school in New York City, the
Harriet Tubman school, which gets very poor results, and Whittle has moved on to
greener pastures by starting the much hyped
private school Avenues, charging $40K per year in tuition.
Christina Grant countered that the Parent
Trigger legislation they are now lobbying for, which in its current form would just pertain to the
city of Buffalo, is better than the existing charter conversion law, because it gives
parents more options, such as closing the school, restructuring it, etc.
I don’t think most parents want to close their neighborhood
school – or to fire 50% of the teachers, another negative option that the bill
provides. Why a rigid
quota that would require that half of all teachers at any school should be fired could be seen as a way to empower parents or to improve a school is beyond me, though it is one that the DOE and the Wall
St. hedgefunders seem to favor.
And
these sorts of high-stakes decisions should never be made through the mere signing of
a petition, without holding a real vote with proper oversight; this is an open
invitation to manipulation and abuse.
In
fact, the two times the Parent Trigger has been tried in California,
hundreds of parents asked to have
their
signatures rescinded.
A PTA election
would never be allowed to occur in such a slipshod fashion, no less turning a
public school over to a private corporation to run.
Now, I have spent over a decade as a parent activist in
NYC, and I have yet to see any parents rise up on their own in an effort to privatize or close their neighborhood public schools. I have seen thousands of parents – along with
teachers – working together to protest school closings, fight budget cuts and rising
class sizes, and/or to obtain the right to opt their children out of high
stakes testing, and yet these efforts are usually met with scorn from the same people who are pushing this movie. Don’t be fooled: the
movie “Won’t Back Down” is not really about parent empowerment; it is instead a
massively financed PR campaign, engineered by billionaires and hedgefunders
who couldn’t care less about what parents actually want, but want to take down
the teachers union and take over our public schools.
Over
the next few weeks, we will be running pieces describing real-life “Won’t Back
Down” stories from parents and teachers.
If you’d like to share yours, please email us as info@classsizematters.org
