- Report to the Trinational, in Montreal, May 6, 2010

Six days after he took office, 17 months ago in January, 2009, President Obama made his first public appearance as president when he visited the Capital City Charter School in Washington, DC. This was a deliberate and symbolic act. It launched an ever-escalating wild-ride towards the corporatizing and privatizing the system of public education in the United States.

The United States was the first country to guarantee free, universal public education. It is now moving rapidly to becoming the first country to end it. The well-orchestrated effort to turn over public schools to private corporations is a part of a much larger joint corporate-government campaign to privatize everything that is public in the United States. This process has escalated drastically since the US bank collapse in September of 2009, and the bank Bailout with $13 trillion of taxpayer money. continue...

For several years, parents, teachers and students have been promised that their problems can be solved by turning over public school money to charter school companies like Green Dot, Kipp, etc. Here are some news articles showing how the truth is starting to come out.

One is about a student who earned the top grades at Accelerated School, but when she questioned problems there was told she could no longer speak at her graduation. The community organized protests, and just minutes before the graduation she was told she could speak. Another article is about the closure of Justice Animo charter, which got poor results and which needing more funding. Students held a sit-in, and teachers who had been promised input into decisions were not included in the decision to close. continue...

Parents and students would be well advised to consider some of the dangers and abuses that may come under a privatized school system. Public schools are subject to regulation by federal and state governments. The teachers go through stringent credentialing programs and have their backgrounds vetted by the FBI. You cannot be assured this from a private school. Private schools will make promises about their teachers' backgrounds and their teachers' qualifications, but without strong federal oversight there are no guarantees. The teacher could very well be a child predator being protected by powerful friends within company (think along the lines of the Catholic church child abuse scandals). When a school is a for-profit run business, lies and nepotism will rule when it leads to greater profits. continue...

Obama's Back-to-School speech deserves commentary on many points. Here I am going to simply mention some telling assumptions that are laced through the presentation.

The President, of course, gets some points for talking about how students must accept responsibility for their own achievement. Though fundamental, this is hardly new. The elephant in the room is - achievement... for what? What is the real purpose of an education - a public education - in America 2009? continue...

Arne Duncan announces that Obama will make the first-ever speech of a President to k12 kids on Tuesday, September 8. We should mobilize and exploit every facet of this "teacheable moment" For every public school teacher who is tired of massive California cutbacks, for every education provider who is tired of Privatization, to every classroom teacher who recongnizes that our status, as En Loco Parentis, makes us obligated to speak out in the children's best interest; to all of you who are sick and tired of what passes for public education in Oakland,

This is your chance!

Let's take advantage of this event and let the truth ring out! Let us use this (dare I say?) Teacheable Moment to let parents, students and the whole Oakland community what is REALLY going on: downsizing counselors, eliminating librarians in Flatlands schools, fewer and fewer psychologists, humdrum drill-and-kill teaching to the test for bogus reasons, cutbacks everywhere, Apartheid schools in America.

Oh yes, we classroom teachers are the ones who really know. We must not remain silent!!

The Los Angeles County Office of Education
is proud to announce
President Obama's Back-to-School
Address to Students Across America
LIVE BROADCAST: Tuesday, September 8, 2009
10:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time
www.whitehouse.gov

With the adoption of the Public School Choice Motion by LAUSD last week, the door is open for "other internal and external stakeholders" to "create more schools of choice." This clearly opens the way for the Pentagon to set up military academies as they have in Chicago (along with other places around the country). A resolution will be introduced by those of us in CAMS to insure that there is public input into any military academies or new JROTC programs in LAUSD that are initiated. In Chicago these military programs were initiated without any parent, community and teacher input.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/08/fast-times-recruitment-high

Jinny Sims is the Director of the Professional and Social Justice Division of the British Columbia Teachers Federation. She was in Los Angeles for the annual conference of the Human Rights Committee of United Teachers of Los Angeles.

She agreed to talk with us about her work in Canada.

Q: What brings you to Los Angeles?

I'm here for the UTLA Human rights conference and to give a workshop on understanding the importance of the privatization agenda on the future of public education both in Canada and the U.S and other nations also.continue...

On Tuesday, March 10, President Barak Obama finally told us his ideas for the future of public education. This launched four days of surprisingly honest and open statements about corporate intent towards the public schools. The privatization of the public education is now an open campaign. Things are moving quite rapidly.

1). The President was quite explicit. Excerpts from his speech at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce are at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/us/politics/10text-obama.html.

"But right now, there are many caps on how many charter schools are allowed in some states.... I call on states to reform their charter rules, and lift caps on the number of allowable charter schools, wherever such caps are in place".

"Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibilities for lifting up their schools." continue...