-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 10, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------Vouchers and privatization
Battle over control of schools widens
By Lyn Neeley
New York
Public education, the oldest and largest government entitlement program in the U.S., is under attack. In this city, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has threatened to abolish the Board of Education, take control of the schools and privatize them, and institute merit pay for principals and teachers.
Another blow to city schools was a ruling by State Education Commissioner Richard P. Mills that 40 of New York City's alternative schools must now administer standardized tests, essentially putting an end to alternative curriculums and forms of assessment.
On Jan. 24, Giuliani told the state legislature in Albany that he wants to "do away with the Board of Education" and turn over control of the city schools to the mayor. He said he wants to "make the next election for mayor about who can do the best job running the school system."
In his State of the City speech on Jan. 13, Giuliani proclaimed "I am softening," referring to his statement that "I want to blow up" the New York City Board of Education. Instead, hizzoner said, "So now we won't blow it up; we'll sell it." Giuliani was talking about the board's headquarters in Brooklyn.
In his speech, Giuliani reintroduced his proposal for private corporations to run city schools so they could "compete with the board and see who does a better job. Privatize it," he said.
To each according
to their performanceGiuliani's major achievement this year--according to Giuliani--was the introduction of merit pay and the loss of tenure for New York City school principals. These were the terms of a new contract he helped broker between the Board of Education and the union representing principals.
At his year-end press conference, Giuliani proclaimed the contract was a historic change in the way schools can be run and "made the first crack in the job protection system." He called it a good model for all city employees with "the best earning the most."
This is an old trick by bosses to divide workers and weaken the solidarity needed to demand higher pay and better work conditions for all.
Principals will now be held up for review, their salaries and jobs dependent on how well they "perform." What this really means is that they are now exposed to the whims of superintendents and school boards, and how well the students do on standardized tests.
Giuliani has already instituted merit pay programs in two school districts in Brooklyn for teachers and principals in schools that score well on standardized tests.
Nationally, Republicans like George W. Bush are advocating programs of "rewards and consequences" with an emphasis on consequences for teachers, students and schools based on standardized test scores. Bush promises a $100 million Achievement in Education fund for states showing progress on test scores. States that do not would lose 5 percent of their federal grants.
This month the New York City teachers' contract comes up for renewal. Giuliani said teachers don't deserve across-the-board raises--only increases based on merit.
Teachers in the city already make 25 percent less than teachers in suburban areas. Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said, "The Board of Education says it needs 54,000 new teachers in New York City. How are we going to find them under these circumstances?"
And the rich get richer
On Jan. 26, Commissioner Mills ruled that 40 alternative schools in New York City will be forced to administer Regents exams and promote students based on their scores. He rejected the renewal of a five-year waiver that allows 40 alternative schools to assess students' work on a variety of criteria, including individualized projects and portfolios.
The Regents test "does not really evaluate literacy. It's very formulaic," said Jane R. Hirschmann, chair of a consortium of parents with students at the alternative schools. "It's a test that all children will have to get prepared for. Teachers will have to teach to the test."
Raising scores is completely different from helping students to learn. Barbara Minor wrote in Rethinking Schools, Winter 1999/2000: "Governors and corporate leaders, aided by conservative think tanks, took over the standards movement and transformed it into a top-down process that establishes an official version of knowledge and sets back efforts to forge a multicultural vision, in the process valuing discrete facts, memorization, and 'basics' over critical thinking and in-depth understanding."
A single standard test for graduation makes it harder for students to get a high school diploma and increases the number of failures among students. This is especially true in urban areas where 40 percent of the children are already at risk of school failure. Giuliani has also made it harder for students to succeed in college by cutting out remediation programs at City University of New York schools.
Standardized tests drive the wedge deeper between students from wealthier, educated families and those from low-income families, a disproportionate number of whom are Black or Latino living in urban areas. The fewer people eligible to attend college, the larger the pool of uneducated, low-skilled workers forced to accept the low-paid jobs now proliferating in the U.S.
Voucher threat
Giuliani sees the principals' contract as the beginning of the transformation of the public school system, a process which he says must be furthered by introducing vouchers to provide parents with public tax money to pay for private schools. Progressive teachers are opposed to vouchers because they divert attention from much-needed reforms in public schools like smaller class size, improved teacher training and more innovative curriculum.
An editorial in the Fall 1998 issue of Rethinking Schools says that "Vouchers are beholden to the rules of the marketplace. As is clear in all other social arenas, housing, health care, employment, the marketplace always favors the individual choices of those with power, money and privilege. The true powers behind the voucher movement--the leaders of the religious right and the Republican party, the titans of corporate America such as John Walton of Wal-Mart and the free market ideologues of the right-wing think tanks [like the Bradley Foundation, which funded the racist book "The Bell Curve"--L.N.], have been adept at selling the myth that vouchers are merely an attempt to provide low-income kids, especially African Americans, the same chance as affluent whites to attend private schools."
Last month Giuliani forced Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew to resign after Crew refused to support Giuliani's plan to implement vouchers in New York. Giuliani lobbied for Robert R. Kiley of New York City Partnership to be interim chancellor. Kiley shares Giuliani's philosophy of merit pay for teachers, vouchers and a market-based education system.
Kiley said he would work with prominent business leaders to begin writing curriculum for proposed mandatory summer school and serve as consultants to audit standardized tests.
When the Board of Education chose Harold O. Levy over Kiley as interim Chancellor of New York City, Kiley asked exasperatedly, "Why are people objecting to this? They don't like capitalism? They don't like profits?"
Kiley is on an advisory committee to the board of Edison Schools Inc., the largest private company managing public schools in the U.S.
Private schools don't
have to be accountableWhile public schools are being heavily scrutinized and forced to give standardized tests, voucher schools don't have to be accountable to hire certified teachers, give state tests, disclose racial breakdown of students, provide financial records, have open meetings or release any information on academic performance.
Milwaukee voucher schools have not been forced to comply with anti-discrimination policies such as providing services for disabled students or agreeing not to discriminate on the basis of race, sexual orientation, pregnancy or marital status.
Although lack of accountability makes it hard to evaluate the success of private schools, evidence is surfacing that shows voucher schools around the country range from dismal failures to getting results no better than those of local public schools.
Responding to a well-known fact in Milwaukee that "in some cases, Catholic schools have been used by some white parents to avoid desegregation efforts in the public schools," Rethinking Schools conducted a survey of private schools. Although only two of the schools were willing to open their files, they found that one of the schools had only one African American among its 200 students. At the other school, located in a multiracial neighborhood on the city's west side, there were 26 African Americans among its 446 students--only 6 percent. At a nearby public school, 76 percent of the students were African American.
A federal judge was forced to throw out a voucher program in Cleveland because conditions in the schools were so bad. The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper originally exposed one school which taught almost exclusively with videos produced by a private Christian school in Florida. Another hired unlicensed teachers. Among them was a known convicted murderer. It was housed in a 110-year-old city elementary school building that had to be closed because of hazards such as broken windows, peeling lead paint and discarded junk, including nail-studded boards.
After conflicting findings in the success of voucher programs, Wisconsin's legislature cut all funding to evaluate the voucher program in 1995. Studies in Tennessee, Wisconsin and nationwide show that while reducing class size increases student achievement, distributing vouchers does not.
Money spent on New York City students is $4,000 less per pupil than what is spent on students living in more affluent suburban neighborhoods. Private schools eliminate government responsibility to provide equitable, quality education for all children. They drive the wedge further between students from educated, high-income families and those from low-income neighborhoods.
Instead of handing public money over to private firms and corporations, tax dollars need to be invested in proven programs that will help all children succeed: lowering class size, providing up-to-date material, improving resources, constructing and maintaining school buildings, providing a safe learning environment, increasing the number of teachers of color, educating and preparing qualified teachers, and paying teachers the higher salaries they deserve.
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