It's Alive!
The Monster
Two years ago the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) created the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools and were officially approved by the state to be a sponsor of charter schools. This effort was financed by two Innovation Grants from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The Innovation Grants were funded in part by the Gates Foundation and the Eli Broad Foundation.
This is yet another attempt to do what Pasi Sahlberg called, "trying to do the wrong thing, righter."
Creators
Like our AFT and NEA presidents (Weingarten and Van Roekel), many of our local leaders in Minneapolis believe it is possible to work with those who are trying to privatize our public schools, or in this case, to beat them at their own game. Both our current MFT President, Lynn Nordgren, and a former president, Louise Sundin, are behind this effort. In fact both of them are board members of the Guild, along with Sandra Peterson, a former President of the Robbinsdale Federation of Teachers, former President of the Minnesota Federation of Teachers and former Co-President of Education Minnesota.
They claim we can "show the reformers how to run a school." While teachers should be an integral part of shared school leadership, the charter school system is a tool of the neo-liberal reformers. Even if the Guild creates a "great" charter school, it will only empower the corporate reformer agenda. You can't defeat the master, using the master's tools.
The Guild's Director is Brad Blue, a long-time educational entrepreneur, and a classic salesperson. He sees no contradiction or irony in having the Guild sponsor a talk by Pasi Sahlberg, an opponent of the corporate reforms. Mr. Blue has simultaneously worked as the Director of the Guild, while opening another charter school called Upper Mississippi Academy (UMA). His UMA charter school was launched with the help of Charter School Partners and possibly the Walton Foundation, as noted on the Charter School Partners' blog:
Charter School Partners has a goal of opening 20 more charter schools in Minneapolis in the next five years. Minneapolis is already one of the most charter-school-saturated cites in the country. One of the leaders of Charter School Partners is Katie Barrett Kramer of the local "reformer" dynasty - the Kramers. The CSP board includes Chris Stewart, a former Minneapolis School Board member and vocal defender of the corporate reform movement, and Daniel Sellers, former President of Teach for America - Twin Cities and current president of MinnCAN.Finally, since 2010, CSP has also assisted in the launch of eight other quality schools either through our Charter Start efforts or Walton Family Foundation support including Cornerstone Montessori (2010), Minneapolis College Prep (2011), Hennepin Elementary School (2012), Mastery School (2012), Adelante Prep (2012), Upper Mississippi Academy (2013), Prodeo Academy (2013), and Venture Academy (2013)).
This Saturday, the Minnesota Guild will hold an open house at the office of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. Charters are not real public schools, and the measures of success (standardized tests) use to determine which schools work "best" are destructive. In reality, the Guild is our Frankenstein's monster, and it will help to destroy the true system of public schools we, not only hold dear, but recognize as essential to a socially-just democracy.
It's time to gather the torches and pitchforks. This monster must be stopped!
2 comments:
Very well put, Rob. A vote the MFT59 membership should be required before its leaders are permitted to go to work for the movement that is destroying public education. If the MFT59 wants to get involved in charter schools, they should start by organizing the teachers at existing charters.
The 'leaders' you mentioned appear to be hedging their bets. Does the full membership really support this activity?
Former MFT local 59 president Louise Sundin was noted by the Broad Foundation as a leader of its Trade Union Reform Network, which promotes charter-zation of the public school system and the stripping away of rights won by teachers through unionization and political action, such as teacher tenure rights, collective bargaining, seniority rights, and due process rights. This reform movement claims to represent the civil rights movement of the 21st century, the solution to racial discrimination within the school system. But this reform movement as well as most of the anti-reformers in the teachers unions fail to make any demands to eliminate the systemic racial discrimination within the public school system, e.g., such as the overexposure of students of color to inexperienced teachers by firing and replacing a high percentage of teachers in schools where students of color are heavily concentrated during the teachers multi-year probationary period, and perpetuation and intensification of the curriculum tracking system. Teachers unions generally do not oppose these racist practices, nor do the advocates of corporate-style reforms (charter schools and stripping away teachers rights on the job).
-Doug Mann, Green Party candidate for Mpls school board in 2012
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