SR 287 Why OSD is wrong for Georgia schools and students What is the Opportunity School District Introduced by Gov Nathan Deal the Opportunity School District is a proposal to give the state authority to take over management of struggling schools ID: 564947
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Slide1
The Truth About the Opportunity School District Amendment
(SR 287)
Why OSD is wrong for Georgia schools and studentsSlide2
What is the Opportunity
School District?
Introduced by Gov. Nathan Deal, the Opportunity School District is a proposal to give the state authority to take over management of struggling schools.
This plan represents a major overhaul of the state’s approach to school improvement.
State legislators passed a package that includes a resolution to approve the OSD amendment to the Georgia Constitution, SR 287.Slide3
Amending the Constitution:
SR 287
Georgia citizens will vote on the
constitutional amendment
in the 2016 election.
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?”Slide4
Who are the power players behind
Gov. Deal’s plan for our schools?
BIG BUSINESS INTERESTS
The Boston Consulting Group
,
A global management consulting firm whose clients include two-thirds of the Fortune 500.
With a revenue of $4 billion in 2014, BCG is listed on the Forbes list of America’s Largest Private Companies.
It has no specific expertise in education.Slide5
Who are the power players behind
Gov. Deal’s plan for our schools?
Funders behind BCG:
The Walton Family Foundation (Walmart), the ultra-conservative, anti-union and anti-working families discount chain store owners.Slide6
Who are the power players behind
Gov. Deal’s plan for our schools?
Anti-public schools, corporate-style reformers
Students First Georgia
, the state affiliate of the national organization that has been pro-voucher. Vouchers take public dollars away from public schools to pay for private school tuition. Students First is funded by the Bradley Foundation, which has engaged in voter suppression efforts. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10/31/12.)Slide7
Who are the power players behind
Gov. Deal’s plan for our schools?
Erin
Hames
Former Nathan Deal deputy chief of staff.
Deal’s education minion and primary architect OSD plan.
Secured $96,000 annual consulting contract from Atlanta Public Schools.
Her new role as consultant for APS will be to help keep schools out of the system (OSD) she helped create.Slide8
OSD is
NOT
about school improvement!
This plan is a major overhaul of the state’s approach to improving schools, but it
offers no education interventions
to actually lift student achievement.Slide9
Gov. Deal’s education plan
is a
bad deal for kids
, especially students of color
The governor’s so-called Opportunity School District plan would place struggling schools under state control.
The areas currently targeted in the OSD proposal cover school districts that
primarily serve minority students and families
. Slide10
OSD means
less opportunity,
not more, for students
in struggling schools.
It mandates the creation of an
A-F grading system
that shifts the focus away from effective teaching and
learning to an
emphasis on standardized testing
, rote memorization and bubble testing.Slide11
OSD is a repeat
of failed education policy.
This plan will do little, if anything to improve student achievement, but will disrupt the lives of students, parents and educators.
This top-down approached
has failed
again and again, in places like
Louisiana
and
Michigan
.Slide12
How do you improve on failure?
Just do it again. . .and again. . .
The blueprint for Gov. Deal’s plan comes straight from failed policies that undermined student performance and schools in Michigan and Louisiana.
The lesson learned in both places: state takeovers don’t work.
The results have been devastating.Slide13
The perfect storm: using Katrina
to justify a state takeover
Today, 10 years after Hurricane Katrina, we know that elected officials used that catastrophic event to gut the New Orleans public school system.
All but a handful of schools were placed under state control in the Recovery School District.
The hurricane also was used as an excuse to gut organized labor thought the mass firing of 7,000 teachers and school employees.
The District Civil Court for the Parish of Orleans ruled on June 20, 2015 that those firings were illegal.Slide14
Massive
Charter School Expansion
The state takeover of public schools in New Orleans paved the way for major charter school expansion.
The RSD, created in 2005, is a network of more than 60 charter schools run by 28 independent charter management organizations.
When schools reopened after Hurricane Katrina, parents and students found it difficult and confusing to navigate the new multiple charter systems that replaced the city’s public schools.
The headlines on the next slide help tell the story.Slide15Slide16
Many families returning to New Orleans after the storm found it challenging to get children enrolled in school.Slide17
The
myth of the so-called “New Orleans Miracle”
New Orleans’ Recovery School District
failed to provide adequate special education services
for students, according to a 2011 case study.
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit involving some 4,500 students documents
violations of special education law
in more than 30 RSD schools.
Test scores in New Orleans public schools were on the rise before Katrina. After the state takeover, students actually lost ground.Slide18
The
myth of the so-called “New Orleans Miracle”
Student achievement in New Orleans continues to be near the very bottom of all Louisiana parishes.
The so-called “New Orleans Miracle” is a myth.Slide19
Following in New Orleans’ Failed Footsteps: Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority
The same brand of corporate education reformers repeated the failures of New Orleans in struggling schools in Michigan.
Established in 2012, the Education Achievement Authority administers or has chartered 15 schools since its formation.Slide20
Following in New Orleans’ Failed Footsteps: Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority
A mere 21 percent of students in the EAA who took state tests in 2012 showed improvement from previous years. Another 37 percent experienced a decline in scores.
The EAA also failed to adequately serve students with special needs.Slide21
Dismal Discipline Track Record
State-run schools in both Louisiana and Michigan had disproportionately high suspension and expulsion rates.Slide22
Dismal Discipline Track RecordSlide23
Dismal Discipline Track RecordSlide24
OSD: a plan for
market-based
,
not student-focused reform.
The OSD amendment is a thinly disguised effort to hand struggling schools (and their budgets) over to
corporate charter operators
.Slide25
The research on charter performance is unclear, at best.
A July 2013 student by the Center
for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University
found that
students in charter schools perform about the same as students in the rest of public
education.Slide26
Charters have strayed
from their original vision
Charter schools have fallen woefully short of the original vision.Slide27
Selective admissions policies
keep some students out
.
Charter schools often use formal and informal admissions processes that exclude students with learning disabilities and special needs, students who are English Language Learners, and those from poor families.Slide28
Charters often “cherry-pick” to get their desired student population.
Traditional neighborhood public schools are bound by law to educate all children.
C
harters can—and often do—use selective admissions to take only the best and brightest students.
This often leaves some of the most challenged students in under-resourced public schools.Slide29
OSD takes the
“public” out
of public education.
Under the proposed OSD amendment, there would be less opportunity for direct public accountability.
Parents, educators and other tax payers would lose their ability to have a voice in what happens in neighborhood public schools.
The authority of locally elected school boards would be over-ridden by the newly created Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, a body created and appointed by the governor.Slide30
Schools work best when everyone has a VOICE!Slide31
Georgia’s students and families deserve better.
Ensuring real opportunity for all students means giving schools the resources and supports kids need to overcome barriers to success.Slide32
A plan to provide real opportunity for Georgia’s children.
The Community Schools Model
Integrated and coordinated services to meet the needs of children and families.
An alliance between local school districts, local government agencies, community partners and educators to ensure children have access to the academic, development, health and social supports they need to succeed.
Centers of education that also are the heart of the community that help create better conditions for teaching and learning.Slide33
Our children can’t afford failed policies.
Giving the state authority to take over struggling schools only to hand them over to corporate charters is not a valid or even sensible reform strategy.
In fact, based on the track record from around the country, it’s a
prescription for failure
.Slide34
Georgia’s students are
counting on YOU!
Stand with Georgia’s students, parents, educators and the Georgia Federation of Teachers to provide real opportunity and to reclaim the promise of public education—not just for a few—but for all.