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Sunday, July 12, 2015

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Who Will Run Public Education?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Who Will Run Public Education?:

Who Will Run Public Education?

Some older articles I had on the back burner for far too long.  Compiled, they are a good picture of what is happening in our country today.  It's a two-fold problem.

1) Billionaires who decide they (and their foundations know best) and throw money for public education towards their focus and their beliefs.

2) Corporations trying to make money from public education.  Now before anyone takes me to task, I know that companies have been making money from education for decades.  There are a ton of services and products sold to schools.  What I am referencing is making money from the management of public education, from testing to charter schools.

One of the best articles comes from Ruth Conniff at the great Bill Moyerswebsite: As the School Year Ends, the Future of Public Education Is in Jeopardy.   (She mentions teacher activist, Jesse Hagopian.)  Conniff asks a fundamental question:


Where will public schools be in a year?
The real question on Common Core is not whether national educational standards are a socialist plot, as the Republican base seems to think, or whether they 
are doing wonders for kids, as the Democrats claim, with little real evidence. 
The real question is whether public education for all kids, especially poor kids,
 is adequately supported.

New reports show that most states continue to put less money into public schools than they did before the recession, and about half put less money into schools that serve low-income students than schools that serve the wealthy.

“We can point to countless success stories of districts that adopted community schools models or established practices that help meet the needs of the whole child (with wrap-around services, peer tutoring, family-focused resources, etc.) Bourenane adds.

“Many of the schools labeled as ‘failing,’ in fact, can produce evidence of enormously successful programming and gains in student growth, but 
Seattle Schools Community Forum: Who Will Run Public Education?: