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Tuesday, January 6, 2015

My Public School Sales Pitch

In an America stuffed with charter schools, how would I make a pitch for a public school?

I don't mean how would I argue the ins and outs and dollars and cents of policy decisions. I don't mean how would I, for instance, try to talk the GOP out of turning ESEA into the Charter and Privatization Act of 2015. I'm not talking the big idea macro-scale argument about the place of modern charters in education.

How would I look a parent in the eye and make my pitch for them to choose public school over a charter? Well, I haven't polished this up into a slick video or fileted it down to billboard-ready copy yet, but here's the basic outline of what I would say.

Here's why you should send your child to your public school.

Stability.

I will promise you that at the end of this year, at the end of next year, at the end of your child's educational career, even if that's thirteen years from now, this school system will still be here. You will never arrive at our doors and find them suddenly locked. You will never spend a single part of your year scrambling to find a new school to take your child in. As long as your child is school age, we will be here for her. You will never have to discover that we have decided to stop teaching your child because we can't make enough money doing it.

Shared expertise.

Our teaching staff has over a thousand years of collective teaching experience. You may think that those thousand years don't matter if your child is in a classroom with a second-year teacher, but they do, because that second-year teacher will be able to share in the other 998 years' worth of experience any time she needs to.

Our staff will also share the experience of teaching your child. Your child's classroom teacher will be able to consult with every other teacher who works with, or has ever worked with, your child. We do not routinely turn over large portions of our staff, nor do we depend on a stable of green young teachers.

Commitment.

We are committed to educating your child. Only in the most extraordinary circumstances will we expel him, and we will never "counsel him out." We will never require a minimum performance from him just to stay in our school.

Ownership.

Our public school is owned and operated by the voters and taxpayers of this community, your friends, neighbors, and co-workers. The charter school is not. This public school is overseen by an elected board of individuals who live here and who must answer to voters. The charter school is not. When you have a complaint, a concern, an issue that you want to direct attention to, the people who run this school must have regular public meetings at which you must be able to air your concerns. The charter is a business, run by people who don't ever have to let you into their board room.


How we spend your money.

We have no expenses that are not related to educating your child. We will never spend less on your child so that we can pay our CEO more. We will never cut programs for your child so that we can buy a nicer summer home or a bigger boat. And we buy in bulk, so we can buy more resources, more programs, more variety, more choices under one roof. Nobody here is trying to make money from your child's education; we are simply trying to provide the best education we can, as directed by the elected representatives of the voters and taxpayers of this district.

And if you don't believe us, you are free to examine our financial records any time you wish. We will never hide them from you.

The public school difference.

I know that you must consider the best interests of your child. I also know that not every public school system does a perfect job of delivering on each of these promises. But as you are considering that charter school alternative, ask the charter school folks these questions:

Will you promise me that this school will still be here the day my child graduates?
Will you promise me that my child will be taught by the same group of highly experienced teachers throughout my child's school career?
Will you allow me to see your financial statements any time I wish?
Will you commit to holding all meetings of your leaders and operators in public, with ample opportunity for members of the public to speak out?
Will you promise me that no matter what, you will never turn my child away from this school?

My suggestion to you? Find a place that will say yes to all of those, because without a foundation of stability, transparency, and commitment to your child, any other promises mean nothing. They are like getting a marriage proposal from a man who says, "I will be the greatest husband ever, but I do reserve the right to skip town any time that I feel like it." The charter school promise is not really a promise at all. If our pubic school promises seem smaller and less grand, it's because we know that whatever we promise, we'll have to stick around to deliver.



That would be my pitch. I know there are public schools that would have to step up their game to live up to that pitch, and they should start stepping today. I know that state and federal government have put obstacles in the way of living up to those promises, and that in some urban areas, much has been done to take the "public" out of public education. I know that the sales pitch would have to be tweaked by locality.

Most of all, I know that this sales pitch doesn't address the actual quality of education. But we have to start with the foundation, and the foundation (which we have previously taken for granted) is an institution dedicated to being a permanent provider, operated by and responsive to the community, and committed to meeting the needs of every student within its community. That foundation must be in place in order for a structure of quality education must be built.

5 comments:

  1. "This public school is overseen by an elected board of individuals who live here and who must answer to voters."

    Wish this were universally true. However, I live too close to Chicago, so I know it's not.

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  2. Thanks a lot for sharing this information dear!! Well guys my son is now 3 years old and I think it’s the right time to select a preschool for him. We live in Phoenix so we would prefer the best Phoenix pre-k for him. If you have some recommendations then please share with me!!

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  3. If it even is possible to return to the foundational principles of the public school system, I believe the federal Department of Education as well as state departments/boards need to be abolished. I'd also turn a big spotlight on just how much power the private ed lobbying groups wield in states. As it is today, the children are at the very bottom of their considerations. Only then can we dream of re-instituting true local control.

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  4. "Will you promise me that this school will still be here the day my child graduates?
    Will you promise me that my child will be taught by the same group of highly experienced teachers throughout my child's school career?
    Will you allow me to see your financial statements any time I wish?
    Will you commit to holding all meetings of your leaders and operators in public, with ample opportunity for members of the public to speak out?
    Will you promise me that no matter what, you will never turn my child away from this school?

    "My suggestion to you? Find a place that will say yes to all of those, because without a foundation of stability, transparency, and commitment to your child, any other promises mean nothing. They are like getting a marriage proposal from a man who says, 'I will be the greatest husband ever, but I do reserve the right to skip town any time that I feel like it.' "
    ------------------------------

    The problem with this multi-question test is that---like the hypothetical husband in the analogy---when asked the above questions, the charter folks will lie, lie, lie... and, in the past, repeatedly have lied, lied, lied... all the way to the bank.

    During the parent trigger drives out here in Los Angeles (Weigand, 24th St. , etc) and also in Adelanto , parents asked the paid shills, "I really like the teachers here at our school. With the new charter management, will our children still have the same teachers?"

    Well the sociopathic signature gatherers had marching orders to get those parents to sign, sign, sign... so the charter folks could seize the land and the multi-million dollar budget ... and tell the parents whatever lie you want to tell, whenever you want to tell it... to get them to sign. And lie they did.

    "Why yes. It will be all the same teachers." In reality, by signing this, the parents actually fired all of those teachers.

    When the parents found out otherwise in Adelanto and asked to have their signatures rescinded, the Parent Revolution---the purported "voice of parents"... yet funded by pro-privatization billionaires---used high-powered lawyers to go to court to bar any parent from then rescinding the signatures... these were poor minority, some immigrant parents who lacked the resources to fight this.

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  5. COTINUED FROM ABOVE

    Parent Revolution's Ben Austin replied that people get misled in elections, and the election still stands.

    from an earlier post on this fiasco:

    - - - - - - - - - -

    A hastily-organized and penniless group of parents
    in Adelanto tried to have their signatures rescinded,
    claiming that they had been lied to and misled into
    signing the petition by Parent Revolution operatives.

    They even testified to that in court.

    This testimony from Ben Austin responding to their claims says it all:

    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

    BEN AUSTIN: “There are certainly voters who are going to vote
    on ballot initiatives this November that do not understand
    everything they’re voting on… That doesn’t illegitimize
    an election.”

    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

    Wow!

    That is some Classic Ben Austin! You can find it here:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/03/wont-back-down-inspiratio_n_1935876.html

    Ben is tacitly admitting that—in the course of Parent Revolution’s
    signature gathering—there were and are indeed petition signers
    who were misled and confused when signing on
    (and presumably would not have signed otherwise)…
    with Austin conceding that it was AT LEAST SOME OF
    HIS OWN SIGNATURE GATHERERS WERE DELIBERATELY
    MISLEADING AND CONFUSING PEOPLE.

    There were almost 100 parents who wanted to rescind
    their signatures after finding out they had been “duped”.

    ANATOMY OF THE “DUPING”:

    the Parent Revolution organizers rented a house
    across the street from the school, and elicited what
    the parents by saying, “This is to make the school better… ”

    Well, duh! Who’s not going to sign that?

    In an argument that inexplicably prevailed with
    an appeals court judge, Ben tries to draw an equivalency…

    between petitions and elections…

    in that both usually have signers / voters
    who may be misled or confused when they
    vote for / sign something… and so what if they do?

    Once again…

    – – – – – – – – – – – –
    BEN AUSTIN: “There are certainly voters who are going to vote
    on ballot initiatives this November that do not understand
    everything they’re voting on… That doesn’t illegitimize
    an election.”
    – – – – – – – – – – – – –

    WTF???!!!

    This idiotic argument—attempting to equate elections
    and signature-gathering for a petition—essentially legitimizes
    wholesale fraud in signature-gathering.

    It essentially gives license to any and
    every kind of dishonest tactic:

    — lying,

    —phony promises

    —threats

    and on and on…

    Because later, you can just claim… “well, they do this in elections,
    and you’re not allowed to take your vote back… so you shouldn’t
    be allowed to take your signature back.”

    Unlike an election, petition-gatherer engages in a one-on-one communication
    and relationships with the prospective signer… one in which the prospective signer
    is at the mercy of the signature-gatherer as to what he or she is
    saying—promises, representations, threats, etc.—are actually
    truthful.

    If the signer of the petition—once he discovers that has “been had”—
    is not then allowed to rescind the signature… then the whole fraud
    will then run rampant.

    An election is nothing of the kind.

    The only reason this was not appealed to the Supreme Court was that the School Board in Adelanto had been financially drained by Parent Revolution’s high-powered lawyers. This cash-poor school district was broke, so they had to basically surrender at this point.
    -----------------------------

    And what happened once the charter folks took over? Did a thousand flowers bloom?

    Not exactly:

    http://capitalandmain.com/features/california-expose/adelanto-report-card-year-zero-of-the-parent-trigger-revolution/

    From the article:

    "“Not only was (the new charter management) dysfunctional and unprofessional,” says second grade teacher Renee Salazar, a five-year veteran of Los Angeles’ inner-city public schools, “it was law-breakingly unprofessional.”

    and on it goes...

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