{"id":1342,"date":"2011-10-26T09:45:53","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T13:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/the-local-unification-attack-on-public-schools-is-part-of-a-nationwide-assault.html"},"modified":"2011-10-26T09:45:53","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T13:45:53","slug":"the-local-unification-attack-on-public-schools-is-part-of-a-nationwide-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/the-local-unification-attack-on-public-schools-is-part-of-a-nationwide-assault.html","title":{"rendered":"The local “unification” attack on public schools is part of a nationwide assault"},"content":{"rendered":"The “unification” attack on the public schools in Valdosta and Lowndes\nCounty, Georgia is part of a nationwide assault on public schools,\nwhich has nothing to do with improving\npublic education, and everything to do with private profit and private schools: disaster capitalism right here at home.\nAnd it’s not government causing our local disaster: it’s local business interests.\nWhat should we do about that?\n

\nJeff Bryant wrote for Campaign for America’s Future 13 October 2011,\n\nStarving America\u2019s Public Schools:\nHow Budget Cuts and Policy Mandates Are Hurting Our Nation\u2019s Students<\/a>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nCritics of America\u2019s public schools always seem to start from the\npremise that the pre-kindergarten-through-12th-grade public education\nsystem in this country is failing or in crisis.\n

\nThis crisis mentality is in stark contrast to years of survey research\nshowing that Americans generally give high marks to their local\n\n<\/a>\nschools. Phi Delta Kappa International and Gallup surveys have found that\nthe populace holds their neighborhood schools in high regard; in fact,\nthis year\u2019s survey found that \u201cAmericans, and parents in particular,\nevaluate their community schools more positively than in any year since\u201d\nthe survey started.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe first factor: New austerity budgets passed by state legislatures\nare starting to have a huge influence on direct services to children,\nyouth, and families.\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, we don’t have that problem in Valdosta City and Lowndes Schools.\nFor example,\n\ngraduation rates in Valdosta schools have been improving year over year<\/a>,\nand both school systems are solvent.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nSo what happened instead?\nWhy, they made up a crisis instead!\n

\nA local business group\n\nconvinced enough registered voters to sign a petition<\/a> to get\na referendum on the November 8th<\/sup><\/small> ballot\nto decide whether to abolish the Valdosta City School System,\nwhich would force the Lowndes County School System to take it over,\nand also\n\nwould result in massively raised taxes, which still wouldn’t\nbe enough, so services would have to be cut.<\/a>\nVoila! Forced budget crisis!\nFortunately, the two school systems have seen through it, and\n\n\nthe Lowndes County school system has\n\npublished an extensive financial analysis of the situation.<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\n

\nThe second factor: As public schools are grappling with these severe\nbudget cuts to programs, they also are facing enormous pressure to\ntransfer tax dollars to targets outside traditional public education. New\npolicy mandates at the federal and state levels are forcing public\nschool systems to redirect tax dollars meant for public schools to\nvarious privately held concerns such as charter schools, private and\nreligious schools, and contractors and companies tasked with setting up\nnew systems for testing and accountability. …\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<\/a>\nIt’s not the government that’s causing our local public school problem:\n\nboth school system boards<\/a>\nand the\n\nValdosta City Council<\/a> have voted to oppose consolidation.\nAnd it’s not government that’s waiting in the wings with charter schools\nand private schools.\n

\nIt’s the local “white fathers”<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\nin CUEE and the Chamber of Commerce who are\n\npracticing disaster capitalism,<\/a>\napplying the shock doctrine with their\npaid petition recruiters,\ntheir\nfake “forums” at which they inadvertently demolish their own arguments,<\/a>\ntheir\n\nslick radio ad starring a fake Morgan Freeman falsely invoking Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/a>,\nand their most recent\n\n<\/a>\n\nmeeting called by telephone in the middle of the night when\nboth school superintendents were out of town and without inviting the\nnewspaper of record.<\/a>\n

\nThe analysis in this report compels the authors to conclude that the\ndebate and discussion about public education policy must both acknowledge\nthe new realities in American public schools and focus attention on\nthe issue of adequately funding programs that serve all of America\u2019s\npublic school students. The report also recommends that states provide\nregulatory relief to local districts in order to stanch the transfer of\npublic education funds to privately held entities.\n<\/blockquote>\nOnce again, the local problem here wasn’t caused by government.\nIt was caused by a minority of local business interests.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nFortunately, the rest of the community is not taking this lying down.\nFormer Valdosta School superintendent Sam Allen\n\nmarched with Occupy Valdosta<\/a>, 150 strong,\nspeaking at the MLK Monument,\nand stopping at the Chamber of Commerce to chant: “No Consolidation!”\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe very next weekend, consolidation opponents held their own march,\n\n300 strong that time,<\/a>\nwith Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS), 2 is better than 1, SCLC, NAACP, and Occupy Valdosta folks saying Occupy the Polls,\nstarting across from the Chamber and ending at the MLK Monument,\n\nwhere the Mayor of Valdosta said:<\/a>\n

\nBut what does Valdosta’s first black mayor say about it?\n

\n“Just Vote No,” the Mayor chants from a podium.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nMeanwhile, opponents of consolidation continue to canvass door to door\nthroughout Valdosta, helped by some of us disenfranchised folk in Lowndes County\nbut outside the city limits who don’t get to vote.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nI think that’s all great, and has a good chance of success.\nIt better succeed, because the consequences of failure resulting\nin consolidation are disastrous.\n

\nBut suppose it succeeds.\nI’m starting to ask another question, after all the time, money, and\nother expenses so many people are having to spend to fight this thing.\nI’m starting to ask:\nWhat will we do to hold accountable those who have mounted this attack\non the local public school systems?\n

\n-jsq\n

\nPS: Owed to Ron Kephart.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The “unification” attack on the public schools in Valdosta and Lowndes County, Georgia is part of a nationwide assault on public schools, which has nothing to do with improving public education, and everything to do with private profit and private schools: disaster capitalism right here at home. And it’s not government causing our local disaster: […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,40,1376,14,15,49,266,3305,3552,2,19,1105,1867,2951,3452,3400,21,22,1577,2822,3,54,1106],"tags":[3554,512,1485,1636,8829,2751,8869,7,3555,1583,3553,1188,2743,2877,2746,1635,6,8765],"class_list":["post-1342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-cuee","category-economy","category-education","category-elections","category-festivals","category-fvcs","category-fvcs-22-october-2011","category-government","category-history","category-lcboe","category-mlk","category-naacp","category-nimrod","category-occupy-valdosta","category-planning","category-politics","category-radio-2","category-sclc","category-transparency","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vboe","tag-bright-flight","tag-chamber-of-commerce","tag-charter-school","tag-consolidation","tag-cuee","tag-disaster-capitalism","tag-fvcs","tag-lowndes-county","tag-naomi-klein","tag-private-profit","tag-private-schools","tag-privatization","tag-public-education","tag-school","tag-shock-doctrine","tag-unification","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcoc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-lE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}