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    SarsAttacksJE Reich
    6/28/16 10:59pm

    As of March of this year he was still in favor of Zuckerberg-style backing of charter schools under the banner of “reform,” and it sounds like that’s part and parcel of the new position. Yikes.

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      SarsAttacksSarsAttacks
      6/28/16 11:02pm

      Santileses’s other appointment, though—Alison Perkins-Cohen—sounds like she’s on the moderate end of the charter-spectrum.

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      ROONEYSHOBBITFEETSarsAttacks
      6/28/16 11:25pm

      Yes, and he is an alum and big proponent of Teach For America. I like his activism in other areas, but I don’t think his positions on education are good for students.

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    yilichiyaoJE Reich
    6/29/16 7:25am

    (Not at you JE) Fuck Charter schools. Fuck TFA. Get involved in your local public schools and stop calling public school advocates racists. I’ve been in my neighborhood 30 years. My elementary school is was and will continue to be predominately black and hispanic. And poor. The best thing my dad ever did was be the school treasurer, get to know every single kid in my grade and be involved in our education. We had great teachers. There are great teachers there now. Public schools are not failing, charters are. The whole mess makes me so angry and now I have to get ready for work. God dammit America. Not everything is about money. There are real kids with real futures involved.

    ok have a great day everybody! xo

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      Nina Lemoneyilichiyao
      6/29/16 8:19am

      ...stop calling public school advocates racists.

      What?

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      foldableyilichiyao
      6/29/16 9:20am

      And fuck the cynics who co-opted BLM to push charters. The brocialists claiming anti-racism is a neoliberal plot are full of shit, but stuff like this is working really hard to prove otherwise.

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    jkredwineJE Reich
    6/28/16 10:53pm

    DeRay is an almost singularly powerful voice in this fight. I’m glad he’s found a position that will utilize his skill base for the short term. I know he’ll keep enacting change in a meaningful way. It’s a great moment for the Baltimore school system.

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      Mr. Know It Alljkredwine
      6/28/16 11:14pm

      Yeah, if you like neoliberal educational policies like charter schools.

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      Cocopop!jkredwine
      6/29/16 12:05am

      I support BLM, and he has done great work on that front, but I do not agree with Mckesson on education policy.

      The following is from an open letter to DeRay McKesson when he was scheduled to speak in Philadelphia. It’s long, but you may find it is worth a read.

      As the social justice caucus within the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, we were surprised to see that you are coming to Philadelphia to speak alongside leaders of Teach For America (TFA). The Caucus of Working Educators is committed to racial justice in our schools and society, and we stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

      We see Teach For America as working in opposition to the goals of publicly funded education for all students in Philadelphia and to the goal of increasing the number of teachers of color and teachers who are committed to building relationships with communities over the long term, which we see as an integral component of culturally responsive teaching.

      We view the hiring of cadres of racial, cultural, and geographical outsiders with very little teaching preparation as part of a larger neoliberal effort to privatize education and replace unionized teachers (many of whom are teachers of color) with young, inexperienced teachers (most of whom are white and do not intend to stay in the teaching profession and commit to the long-term improvement of their teaching practice).

      This practice of displacing African-American teachers, in particular, is already underway. While Philadelphia’s teaching force increased by 13 percent from 2001–2011, the percentage of black teachers dropped by 19 percent. This has contributed to Philadelphia having the greatest disparity between the race and ethnicity of the student body and those who teach them. Only 31 percent of Philadelphia teachers are of color compared to 86 percent of the student body they are teaching. This is unacceptable.

      TFA has ties and parallels with the charter school movement, which we see as undercutting public education. The mass charterization of public neighborhood schools has led to the outsourcing of public school management to private operators. Just weeks ago Philadelphia Public Schools announced yet another wave of school closures and conversions of public schools into charter schools affecting upwards of five thousand students. This is in addition to the twenty-three public schools that were closed in Philadelphia in 2013.

      The decision to turn a district school into a charter is often made by the highest levels of administration without consulting with the school community, including parents, teachers, students, and leaders. Your support of Teach For America represents a support of these same kinds of outsourced and contracted paradigms for educating our children.

      Rather than hiring experienced professionals that will stay in the profession for a long period of time, Teach For America hires individuals with little or no experience in classroom settings via external channels such as private universities and corporately sponsored recruitment. Teach For America and charter schools both represent a failure of public leadership to lead and create change in our public schools, and prioritize outsourcing teaching and school governance over public responsibility to realize every student’s right to a fully funded, culturally relevant education in their neighborhood.

      Instead, TFA contributes to the dangerous and misleading discourse that claims poverty and structural inequality have little to no impact on educational outcomes. This irresponsible explanation provides Democrats and Republicans alike with a pretext to continue vicious budget cuts to public services and institutions under the guise that “personal responsibility” and “grit” are the main factors in determining a child’s success or failure.

      We live and work in a state that has the largest funding disparity between wealthy and poor districts and in a city whose externally appointed school governance commission is proposing to continue to close down schools that primarily serve low-income African-American families. In Philadelphia, where 79 percent of the city’s students are black and Latino, $9,299 is spent per pupil compared to the $17, 261 spent just across the city line in Lower Merion, where 91 percent of the students are white. This is the civil rights crisis of our generation.

      In this context, we believe that it is essential that those who are committed to racial justice take a critical stance against organizations that aim to further privatize education and/or replace fully prepared unionized teachers with underprepared novices who are likely to leave teaching in two to three years.

      The Black Lives Matter movement has served as an inspiration and instruction on how to confront racism and inequality throughout our country. Part of that inspiration is the way that the movement has looked at the connections between police violence and racism and other inequalities faced by African Americans.

      We consider the attacks on public education to be a part of the “state-sanctioned violence” that the movement has done so much to highlight over the last year. We do not believe that the white billionaires that bankroll Teach For America and the corporate education reform movement are any more interested in the education of poor and working-class black and Latino children than we believe they are interested in ending police violence in black and brown communities. If they were, these crises would no longer exist.

      We are glad that you are visiting Philadelphia, and we hope that you will use your platform to engage in a critical dialogue about whether TFA supports — or as we believe undercuts — the goals of a fully funded education for every student in Philadelphia with teachers who know their community and are committed to staying for the long haul.

      Sincerely,

      Members of the Caucus of Working Educators Racial Justice Committee

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    desgraciasJE Reich
    6/28/16 11:02pm

    this is probably a better use of his time instead of getting in twitter fights with Azealia Banks

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      foldabledesgracias
      6/29/16 9:21am

      Doubtful! Twitter fights aren’t destroying public education.

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    lissargh: still grey on the slotJE Reich
    6/28/16 11:21pm

    I love Deray and his blue vests.

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      Connie MilliganJE Reich
      6/28/16 11:00pm

      “Human capitol?” That just sounds like some creepy soylent green shit.

      Christ, can we bring back “Personel Officer?”

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        foolyooConnie Milligan
        6/29/16 12:12am

        It's Teach for America alums pushing charter school agendas, so you are spot on.

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        Stig-a-saw-us wrecks sez Bernie is wrong on nuclear power.Connie Milligan
        6/29/16 8:19am

        Sounds made up on the spot.

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      DarklighterJE Reich
      6/29/16 3:04am

      I’ll join in on the chorus saying Deray and his charter schools are not good for Baltimore (or anywhere).

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        YiiihaaJE Reich
        6/29/16 4:44am

        So I see that the good ol’ recipe from the 70ies on how to co-opt and disrupt social movements is still effective...

        Take the most effective 10% of the leadership, give them some cushy positions and an upper middle class salary, and presto! Problem solved.

        In five years nobody will remember who McKeson is, and BLM will be the million man march of the 2010's.

        It’s a lot cheaper than rubber bullets and teargas too!

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          EileenOnSundayNightsAfterAllInTheFamilyOnCBSJE Reich
          6/29/16 11:23am

          His self-promotion is paying off.

          Take a lesson, ambitious Internet-social media saavy woke baes.

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            bobettyJE Reich
            6/29/16 7:24am

            Let’s cut to the chase. Fuck TFA.

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