Michelle Rhee joins clergy today in Atlanta for take-back-our schools conference
Michelle Rhee is in town today to host a screening of the new movie “Won’t Back Down,” which is a fictionalized account of a parent takeover of a failing public school via the parent trigger law. (For information on the first real-life application of a trigger law, go here.)
Michelle Rhee is in town today for daylong conference that will feature new film "Won't Back Down."
Rhee will be part of a panel after the movie that her husband, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, will moderate. Also on the panel will be state Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan of Cobb, Tony Roberts of the Georgia Charter Schools Association, and Tonya Moore, third-grade teacher at Stonewall Tell Elementary School.
Rhee is here because her group, StudentsFirst, is co-sponsoring the daylong Faith Leaders National Education Policy Summit in Atlanta, which will focus on the achievement gap, drop-out rates and public education policies. The co-sponsor is her husband’s nonprofit group, STAND UP for Great Schools. The movie screening and panel are part of the summit program, which is not open to the public.
Here is an op-ed by two participants in the summit, civil rights leader Lonnie C. King, Jr. of Atlanta, a founding member of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and Connecticut state Rep. Charlie L. Stallworth.
By Lonnie C. King, Jr., and Charlie Stallworth
Strong public schools can transform a community. They have the power to positively affect the economic well-being, public safety, and quality of life of the families who live in them. Sadly, our communities have continuously been plagued with poor-performing schools that fail to prepare our children for higher education and the workplace.
While our country as a whole is failing to compete with the rest of the world in key subjects such as math and science, the situation is even more bleak for students of color. According to a U.S. Department of Education report, there has been no significant change in the Black-White achievement gap for 4th grade mathematics and 8th grade reading since 2005. Moreover, several studies have shown that minority students are more likely to attend lower-performing schools.
We have come too far too accept these dismal results. We can and we must do better.
Today, pastors from across the country are convening in Atlanta for the Faith Leaders National Education Policy Summit. This single-day event, hosted by STAND UP and StudentsFirst, seeks to engage and mobilize faith leaders on the education crisis facing our children and how we can unify the push for change.
In this endeavor, Stand Up has partnered with Church of God in Christ, African Methodist Episcopal, Baptist and other denominations to assemble influential faith leaders for this timely discussion.
Education is the civil rights issue of this generation, especially for Black America. For such a time as this, our communities need the aligned leadership of the religious community to stand together and answer the call for our children.
The church must be the driving force of this revolution.
During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, the church was more than just a meeting place to discuss strategy – for the surrounding community, the church presented a picture of the freedom being sought. The church cultivated unity amongst members and offered encouragement to persevere in the face of opposition. Most importantly, the church provided key direction and guidance from the pulpit.
Members of the Faith community were not only among the most ardent supporters of the Civil Rights Movement, we assumed most of the leadership positions. And in doing so, faith leaders became the catalyst for eradicating discrimination and injustice in modern America. Today, our children need us more than ever. It is our duty to take on this responsibility.
With the right policies in place, we can educate every child in our communities – no matter what zip code they live in. One of those policies that would achieve this goal is Parent Trigger. Rather than being left without options, parents have the opportunity to engage directly in transforming their children’s school. Parent Trigger empowers parents to assemble, and sign a petition to turn around low-performing public schools. By granting this power to parents, low-performing schools can now be held accountable to the needs of the students, and the communities they serve.
As faith leaders, we must mobilize and employ our collective resources to their fullest potential to ensure that we’re providing all children with equality of opportunity.
We encourage faith leaders across the country to participate in this movement, and check out the STAND UP and StudentsFirst websites to learn more about how to advocate education reforms in your communities.
Parents, we urge you to contact your state legislatures and local leaders, and press them to fight for meaningful education reform measures – our children deserve better.
The future of our children is too important to continue accepting the status quo. The time is now.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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80 comments Add your comment
Just A Teacher
September 21st, 2012
3:19 pm
the only way we are ever going to equal opportunity for all students is to stop all this nonsense about race and achievement. We need to stop looking at students as members of this group or that group and focus on them as individuals. If Tommy doesn’t study, Tommy won’t pass his classes. It doesn’t matter if Tommy is black, white, brown or purple. I treat my students the same no matter what their race, and I believe all educators would be well advised to do the same. It’s not difficult. Just demand excellence from every student.
Just A Teacher
September 21st, 2012
3:19 pm
Sorry about the typos, but I think you get my point.
bootney farnsworth
September 21st, 2012
3:28 pm
like anyone else, clergy have a role and voice in public education. hence the word public ..
but the best place they can make a difference is doing their part to help parents and kids understand
their path to success comes from hard work and good citizenship, not hanging out, keepin’ it “real”,
and acting like thugs in general
Bernie
September 21st, 2012
3:28 pm
To Lonnie C. King, Jr. of Atlanta, a founding member of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and Connecticut state Rep. Charlie L. Stallworth.
The SUPPORT and ADVOCACY of a Charter School Plan is in NO way a better Plan for the millions of African American,Hispanic and Latino Students in Georgia,their families nor their communities. This is a planned SUICIDE event, that would even further decimate the meager educational achievements they currently enjoy. A Blind MAN can see that.
How much Money is ENOUGH for either of YOU, to betray your own people and community in support of such a plan?
10:10 am
September 21st, 2012
4:34 pm
One of this blog’s RARE efforts at understanding the perspective of victims—of the anti-reform, anti-choice union bloc which daily fills these columns with self-centered rhetoric.
Tony
September 21st, 2012
4:39 pm
Maureen, you and the rest of the media need to cast a more critical eye on all the gloom and doom educational statistics like the ones put forth in this blog. There is much evidence that the information is at best misleading and at worst outright lies. People like Rhee are out to profit by pushin an agenda that sounds like it is child friendly when in fact it will rob many children of the chances for a good public education. Her agenda will enrich her friends and the ones who bankroll her appearances if people continue to buy into it.
People like you need to stand up to the hype and dig for the truth. She needs to be exposed for the fraud that she really is.
Disgusted
September 21st, 2012
4:59 pm
Rhee needs to get a real job and quit creating ridiculous organizations that do nothing good for children but only serve her own interests.
bootney farnsworth
September 21st, 2012
5:21 pm
@Ernest
about GPC: for the most part the auditors discovered sand at the beach. while I’d have not been surprised to find fraud, I was pretty sure it was what it was.
a bunch of people spending like they had it to spend, and the bill came due. I doubt Tricoli thought he would be around with the Titanic hit the iceberg, which is my guess to why he just didn’t seem to care.
for all of us, the bigger question is why the USG alleges they knew nothing. that I don’t buy-not at all.
try these links for interesting reading:
http://www.collegiannews.com/2012/09/board-of-regents-gpcs-fiscal-challenges-were-preventable/
http://www.collegiannews.com/2012/08/dismissed-what-they-havent-told-you-about-tricolis-resignation/
sorta blows big holes in the nobody new nothing line
jsmith
September 21st, 2012
5:30 pm
everyday we read about studies about failing schools and why they are failng and what we need to do to fix the problem…. well , how about this for a case study: some kids are Genetically Inferior……. the fact is that some people are too stupd to learn and the fact that our teachers have to waste time trying to teach dumb kids that will never learn and are not capable of it, meanwhile the kids that are smart and capable of great things can not reach their potential because the teachers cant spend enough time on them because they are bogged down trying to reach genetically stupid kids..
bootney farnsworth
September 21st, 2012
5:47 pm
err, nobody knew nothing
too much caffeine
Pride and Joy
September 21st, 2012
5:50 pm
In APS PULL THE TRIGGER!
The Collegian
September 21st, 2012
6:11 pm
@ bootney farnsworth
Thank you for posting the links, we were curious why there was traffic coming from this conference.
We are avidly pursing the “nobody knew nothing” claim.
Stay tuned, more to come.
http://www.collegiannews.com
Ron F.
September 21st, 2012
6:14 pm
All the school reform in the world WILL NOT succeed until we reform the communities the schools serve. In 55 minutes a day, I offer all the curriculum there is to offer, I try to reach kids who society has labeled unreachable, and I can only be so much of an influence. A child is away from school many more hours than he is in it, and the societal pressures and reality of poverty are way bigger problems than any amount of school reform can fix. I can’t stop a child from joining a gang unless I adopt him and put him in a different family environment. Even then, he still has to choose. We can fire all the teachers, replace them with new, and the problems in society will not improve until community leaders and parents decide to make the change. Gut the schools, make them all charters, replace every teacher, and you’ll still have the same kids with the same needs and issues. We have to think beyond the school to the community. And the church leaders are one source of influence we have to work with in order to see substantive change.
I love my kids, flaws and all, and I love the challenge they present me each day. I, like many of my colleagues, do my best to influence their way of thinking about life and their place in the world. But then I have to send them home where that influence either grows or is cut short by the social environment that makes up their reality. What else can I do?
My2Cents
September 21st, 2012
9:17 pm
What, another gimmick that will supposedly take the place of plain, simple classes and learning. Are our educators that simple minded? Well, yes. How much will this one cost us and how far back will our children fall?
Get Educated
September 21st, 2012
10:34 pm
Vote no on amendment 1 on Nov 6. Rhee and other for profit corporations are behind it. And oh yes. No parental involvement required or wanted.
RAMZAD
September 21st, 2012
10:34 pm
All these low quality teachers are coming out to discredit Michelle Rhee.
Of course, they like the status quo, where they can drive their Mercedes and BMW to “teach” at schools where the students don’t learn and warehouse our human resources into mediocrity.
That is ok. These so called educators’ days are numbered. We are going to dismantle the public school system from around these louts- wherever they make their parasitic nests.
bootney farnsworth
September 22nd, 2012
12:01 am
we get Mercedes and BMWs?
damn-I musta been using my 8300 sick days and missed the giveaway
bootney farnsworth
September 22nd, 2012
12:02 am
@ jsmith
is your post an admission on your part?
abacus2
September 22nd, 2012
7:47 am
I have a BMW? I thought it was a Nissan Cube (bought used). Catlady vs. Rhee, YES!
Just A Teacher
September 22nd, 2012
8:04 am
@RAMZAD . . . First let me say that Michelle Rhee doesn’t need my help to be discredited; she’s done a good enough job of that, herself. Secondly, I am not a low quality teacher; my students have won numerous academic championships. Finally, would you please remind me where I parked my BMW? Is it over there behind the 10 year old Buick in the driveway?
Ron F.
September 22nd, 2012
9:14 am
Just a Teacher: I think I saw one over next to my 12 yr. old Honda…oh, wait, that’s the car Rhee rented at the airport. My bad!
Ron F.
September 22nd, 2012
9:21 am
Encouraging community activism is important to improving education. I’ve said many times that working through churches and other organizations where the base of a community is located is important. The message here is what’s wrong. Instead of focusing the energy and angst on how to fix the community (which will take lot of effort and time), they choose to focus on the schools, as if they are responsible for the sad state of the communities where failing schools are located. Do we need to change and improve? Absolutely, but we have to look at everything that needs to change in order to succeed. Make every school a charter school; you might, and I say might, see some improvement in test scores. But you won’t suddenly see gang membership disappear; you won’t see families suddenly focus on their children; you won’t see the stability and structure kids need outside of school suddenly begin. All the school reform in the world can’t fix those problems.
Mary Elizabeth
September 22nd, 2012
9:37 am
An excerpt from the article entitled, “Complaint filed in charter school fight,” which appears on the front page of today’s AJC:
—————————————————–
“An Atlanta attorney contends Georgia Superintendent John Barge and the school superintendents in Fulton County and Atlanta are illegally using taxpayer money and time to lobby aginst a proposed constitutional amendment on charter schools.
His letter to the state Board of Education is the latest sign of the deep contention over the proposed amendment. The battle has been fierce, drawing interest – and hundreds of thousands in campaign donations – from across the country. Barge angered amendment backers in August when he announced his opposition. Gov. Natthan Deal has spoken in favor of it.
The attorney, Glenn Delk, asked the state board to hold an emergency meeting on his allegations and determine if state funds should be withheld from local school boards if they have violated state law.
The board held a previously scheduled budget meeting Friday and did not publicly address Delk’s allegations. It said it would forward the letter to the state attorney general for guidance.
Barge declined, through a spokesman, to comment on the letter. ‘Because this is a potential litigation issue, it would be unwise for us to comment on it at the moment,’ said Matt Cardoza of the Georgia Department of Education.
Fulton County Superientendent Robert Avossa and Atlanta Superintendent Erroll Davis denied breadking state laws.
‘I view this as a sophomoric attempt at intimidation,’ Davis said, adding that officials in his district ‘are neither intimidated nor concerned about these baseless allegations.’ ”
—————————————————————–
This is more indication, to me, that the proposed constitutional amendment on charter schools is more about politics than about education. Thus, I will NOT be voting for this amendment in November. Intimidation (if that is what is behind this, as Davis voiced) has no place in education, in my opinion, as a retired teacher of 35 years in education.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
September 22nd, 2012
10:43 am
From Huffington Post:
Metro Nashville Public Schools Losing $3.4 Million After School Board Fails To Comply With Tennessee Charter School Law
The Tennessee Department of Education is withholding $3.4 million of non-classroom, administrative funding from Metro Nashville Public Schools due to the school board’s failure to comply with the state’s charter school law, the Jackson Sun reports.
Last week, the Metro Nashville school board disobeyed an order by the state Board of Education to approve an application from the Phoenix-based Great Hearts Academies, which it had already twice rejected.
The Associated Press reports that members of the school board raised concerns that the proposed charter school planned to draw from affluent white families, as opposed to cultivating a more diverse student body. They voted 5-4 to deny Great Hearts’ application, ignoring a unanimous order from the state school board to approve it.
The charter school has since dropped its effort to open a school in Tennessee, the Tennessean reports.
According to the Jackson Sun, Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman said the funding was withheld as a result of the board “brazenly violating the law” that enables the state panel to have supreme authority when it comes to charter school applications….”
Full story here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/state-funding-withheld-fr_n_1901174.html?utm_hp_ref=education
So a local school board raises what appears to be a legitimate concern about a Charter, and gets “punished” because the state has decided it should be approved. I hope they follow this up and find out WHY the state is so intent on over-ruling local control in this case.
I also wonder how long it will take for something like this to happen in Georgia if the Charter Amendment passes.
Pride and Joy
September 22nd, 2012
11:07 am
Based on her 10:43 post, itt looks like I love teaching thinks only poor and black children deserve good schools. TN denied a charter school because it included white affluent families to which I say….so what?
White affluent kids deserve a good school as well as poor black children.
And let’s get real here — EVERYONE benefits when affluent white children are in a school because it means they have involved, caring white parents to support the school.
To many here on these blogs, it is a crime to be white and affluent.
Ron F.
September 22nd, 2012
11:09 am
@I love teaching: if the amendment in Georgia passes, those schools approved by the commission won’t receive local funds and will be independent state schools. So if a local district denies the application and the state commission approves it, the school opens, funded solely by the state. Local parents and students get the school they want, and the state becomes the sole authority over its establishment and survival. It becomes a way for a group of parents in a district to establish a school without local approval. The downside is, of course, is that they lose eligibility for local funds and potentially set up an adverasarial relationship with local school boards that could provide much needed funds for them. This, as I see it, is one point the legislature wants to use to its advantage. Considering the financial condition of even successful districts at this point, there is very little likelihood of approving additional expenses for a charter school when the current budget is completely used up. The legislature will then have what it wants- a parallel system of schools that it funds and controls without any local board input. This is a political end-run around the constitutional emphasis on local systems establishing and maintianing schools with state funds. In places like Dekalb, it might just be a good thing. In many areas, it will end up being a way to separate certain groups with taxpayer funds (look at Pataula Charter in Baker county whose population is very disproportionate compared to the districts it serves).
What happens next is the scary part. When the state obligation to its charter schools begins stretching the budget, the state will have to find funds to keep them open. Well, unless there’s a pot of gold somewhere the state hasn’t revealed, my bet is that they’ll find more “austerity” cuts they just HAVE to make, and I’ll bet the farm they cut public education funding even more. And that’s the ultimate goal- to simply remove the state from any funding obligation to established public education as we know it.
Those who argue in favor of charter schools point out that local money gets to stay with the local public schools. In the short term, that sounds good. That’s another reason I think the legislature wants the commission schools as an excuse to further reduce state funding for education. Those systems that could manage to keep some schools open with less state funding could survive in some form, but probably not in the long haul. As the situation worsens, the state will “offer” to come in and help convert those systems to state charter schools and probably convince voters to allow locally generated tax dollars to be “managed” by charter school boards. Then they’ll have a system of state controlled schools receiving funds from local tax payers who have no idea they’ve ironically given up local control to a large extent.
Baruch
September 22nd, 2012
1:34 pm
Rhee is a right wing operative. Her agenda is privatization and dumbing down/. She is receiving support from both the dems and reps because their agenda is basically the same; turning us all into slaves for the 1%. Don’t be fooled by Rhee’s appearance or rhetoric. She’s a very skilled propagandist.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
September 22nd, 2012
3:16 pm
@Pride and Joy “Based on her 10:43 post, itt looks like I love teaching thinks only poor and black children deserve good schools. TN denied a charter school because it included white affluent families to which I say….so what?
You excell at totally twisting words and arguments around to suit your purpose. It is truly a talent. You should go into politics or become a lawyer.
The concern was that the school was not going to reflect the diverse nature of the district it seved. It was deliberately seeking to engage in practices which would encourge attendance by a majority of affluent white families in a district that had a much more diverse population. Again, if Charters are truly public school using public money, they must serve EVERYONE – not just the affluent, white families.
And before someone comes back and tells me that Charters “have to accept” everyone, check out this little tidbit:
From The Notebook
http://thenotebook.org/blog/125141/district-details-questionable-application-processes-green-woods-other-charters
Questionable application processes at Green Woods, other charter schools
“For years, parents have had to jump through astonishing hoops to apply to the popular Green Woods Charter School in Northwest Philadelphia.
Interested families couldn’t find Green Woods’ application online. They couldn’t request a copy in the mail. In fact, they couldn’t even pick up a copy at the school.
Instead, Green Woods made its application available only one day each year. Even then, the application was only given to families who attended the school’s open house – which most recently has been held at a private golf club in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Green Woods CEO Jean Wallace declined to be interviewed. In an email, she lauded her school’s “very transparent and very collaborative working relationship” with the District’s Office of Charter Schools, which oversees Philadelphia charters.
But this spring, that very office found that Green Woods and 17 other charters seeking renewal imposed “significant barriers to entry” on families. Some, like Green Woods, went to extraordinary lengths to limit access to applications. Others, like Eastern University Academy in East Falls, made onerous and sometimes illegal requests from applicants for everything from typed book reports to proof of U.S. citizenship…..
Given the resources and resourcefulness families needed just to obtain an application, it’s no surprise that Green Woods has one of the whitest, most affluent student bodies in the city. In 2010-11, almost 80 percent of Green Woods students were White. Just 17 percent were eligible for a free or reduced price lunch, the lowest poverty rate of any public school in the city.
Other schools determined by the District to have significant barriers to entry have similarly unrepresentative student bodies. According to the documents obtained by ELC, Laboratory Charter and Planet Abacus – both founded and operated by Dorothy June Brown, now under federal indictment on multimillion-dollar fraud charges – also mandated that their applications could only be completed at open houses.
The forms were not available in languages other than English, and applicants were asked to provide their race, eligibility for free lunch, birth certificate, baptismal certificate, and names of their parents’ employers, among other information.
According to its 2011 annual report, just three students at Planet Abacus received special education services. The report for Laboratory Charter said the number of special education students was “N/A,” or “not applicable.”
So, don’t tell me Charters can’t manage to cherry pick their students. They obviously can and do…not all of them, but enough that is it disingenuous to suggest they serve the same student body as a traditional public school.
I understand parents desire to remove their children from school situations in which violent or disinterest students disrupt the learning environment, but engaged students come from all SES and racial groups – not just the affluent and the white. And why not put an effort into getting the repeat offenders OUT of the traditional public schools, rather than just siphoning off those students whose parents have the means to send their children to charters and private schools?
How about opening up “alternative” schools for those children with discipline issues? Schools with small class sizes and additional counseling resources?
Cost too much I suppose. Too much money spent on the “undesirables” in our society.
Truth in Moderation
September 23rd, 2012
9:52 pm
“As the situation worsens, the state will “offer” to come in and help convert those systems to state charter schools and probably convince voters to allow locally generated tax dollars to be “managed” by charter school boards. Then they’ll have a system of state controlled schools receiving funds from local tax payers who have no idea they’ve ironically given up local control to a large extent.”
@Ron F…. You are absolutely correct. State controlled charter schools have been in the works since the ’90’s. It’s a bait and switch.
GP Youth
September 25th, 2012
1:08 pm
Glad to see Michelle in church. Has a lot of praying to do and so does Kevin.