Newswire - April 23, 2019 - The Center for Education Reform

Newswire – April 23, 2019

PURPLE FOR PARENTS. Parents are tired of getting beaten up for wanting choice in their child's education. And are also tired seeing the teachers they love being intimidated into walking out on the students they serve. Don’t believe us? Check out this video of this Arizona union boss demanding that any teacher that doesn’t follow him on command be coerced to do so.

THE NEA PLAYBOOK. It’s right out of the playbook and it’s official. This behavior - and that from DC, to NC to CA - is part of NEA’s very own book of plays designed to “help” the union and its members attack the charter school movement. This is nothing new of course. For years the teachers' unions have worked hard to message against transformational change. The difference today is that they are actually using the language of Edreformers - like Opportunity, Quality and Student Success - terminology that the charter movement created. No matter; as their intentions are vastly different.

Here are just a smattering of NEA campaign recommendations to undermine charter opportunities for kids:

“Charter school scandals make headlines and color the enterprise...Uncovering such scandal is worth the effort.”
“Critical for campaign purposes is whether the authorizer is elected or appointed. Authorizers who are local and elected are likely to be more responsive to community input.” (Because school boards are so accountable??)
“Our job is to build the case and deliver it to responsible public authorities, and demand that they do their job.” (Hmmm… where is that attitude about the 70% of students below basic on reading and math?)
“Find an interested journalist and present them with a storyline, background and supporting documentation. Studies that ferret out bad actors can get a day’s press. Themes need to be identified and repeated again and again with diverse audiences and opportunities.”
“Sometimes the future is hard to see. In the case of charter schools, it is often a few clicks away. States that apply for federal charter school funding are required to describe their strategies and plans for growth. The grant application can be expected to project how many new charter schools the state intends to create, and perhaps even the intended locations or operators. They can be gold mines of forward-looking information.”
“The effort to site the building provides an opportunity to stake opposition or make demands.”
Understand the Opposition

“Above all else, we need to use the right messenger. Our goal is the best interest of the children. The best messengers are students, parents and teachers.”

Yes, they are.

THE CASE FOR ALTERNATIVE TEACHER PREP. A bombshell of a report in Tennessee finds that traditional, university-based teacher training programs have been preparing more highly-ineffective than highly-effective new teachers since at least 2012. The report by the Office of Educational Research and Accountability - the “watchdog” arm of the Tennessee Comptroller of the Currency - has now been analyzed in depth by TN Professor J. E. Stone of the Education Consumers Foundation, who says “the implications are profound. The teacher prep programs are holding down disadvantaged children and undermining Tennessee's educational improvement efforts," whereas Teach for America and various other of Tennessee's alternative teacher preparation programs have been producing the opposite - about a third more highly-effective than highly-ineffective new teachers. As Prof Stone suggests, this data makes the case for applying budgetary incentives to the universities.

CAPONE WOULD BE PROUD. The Chicago public school system is withholding millions of dollars from charters that were guaranteed to them under a law enacted under former Governor Bruce Rauner, until the charters agree to support a new funding formula that would mean less money for charter public school students, as if that makes any sense. The establishment expects that the charters may have to accede to their outrageous demands because the new anti-charter Mayor Lori Lightfoot plans to replace charter friendly school board members with not so friendly. Charters should hold the line, demand what is rightfully theirs and let the legislature intervene if they want to change the law back to when charters received 70 cents on the dollar.

AUSTIN CHARTER SENDS 100% OF GRADUATING CLASS ONTO COLLEGE. More bad news for the anti-charter mob comes from Austin, Texas and this news item that all 83 seniors in the IDEA Montropolis graduating class are heading to colleges and universities. This is the 13th graduating class from IDEA Public Schools which enrolls 45,000 students in 79 schools and has an unbroken 100% success record of its graduates being accepted to colleges and universities. We’d love to hear the Teachers Union pitch to these students telling them they would have been better off in a school mandated by the zip code.

HELP US HELP YOU. We really would prefer to be bringing you a bed of roses instead a thornbush, but when kids lives are stake, you need to know what’s really going on. Teachers and parents deserve better than being a political football for labor politics.

If you agree, join our cause now. Every dollar can help us counteract the inaccurate and harmful narrative.

Founded in 1993, the Center for Education Reform aims to expand educational opportunities that lead to improved economic outcomes for all Americans — particularly our youth — ensuring that conditions are ripe for innovation, freedom and flexibility throughout U.S. education.

Newswire – April 23, 2019

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