"Where there is public funding, there should be public accountability." --Byron Sigcho
Byron Sigcho was on Public Perspective recently reviewing many of the problems with charters in Illinois. Virtually all of these problems are addressed in the Charter Accountability Act (HB 6005), which is on third reading in the Illinois House of Representatives; it could be voted on in the House at any moment, and it stands a good chance.
Over in the Senate, where the bill is known as SB 3030, it's still before the Senate Education Committee. It's in this committee where it faces trouble, as does SB 2627, the bill that gets rid of the horrendously undemocratic State Charter School Commission, which recently inserted not one but two Gulen-linked charter schools into Chicago, over the objections of the Chicago Board of Education.
The Senate Education Committee is running out the clock on these two excellent public-interest bills; they both have a deadline of April 11. That's Friday.
We've been contacting school boards in Daniel Biss's district to inform them that these bills are in the hopper and that they (the board members) should get on the phones. Will they? Who knows. It's my casual observation that people think that all these phenomena are happening somewhere else and that they don't need to be concerned. However, we've gotten some favorable responses as well. Mostly people are just basically disconnected from the idea that legislation is ongoing and it affects them, in my observation.
Believe me, there is not a constituency clamoring for zero accountability over charters, and there isn't a constituency clamoring for an appointed board to overrule elected suburban boards. If someone on the Senate Education Committee is blocking these bills, it's either because of some unspoken zealotry for unchecked privatization, or it's money talking. Or possibly they're connected to someone with an interest in starting a charter. When I look through those contributions, I see the names of the people who voted against the Charter Commission bill in the House, and those who are holding up both bills in the Senate Education Committee.
These people need your calls, all the way through Friday. If you know people in the suburbs, you have contact them and get them on the horn.
When a hearing goes on the schedule, I will send out a red alert for witness slips, but the main thing is--- you've got to look through this list and figure out who's there who thinks charter schools should continue to be held to almost no standard for accountability, and that an obscure, appointed board should trump home-rule for elected suburban and downstate districts.
Are you connected to suburban or downsate PTA? Do you know anyone on these suburban or downstate boards? Reach out today. Or get me some contact information; I'll do it!
Meanwhile, the elusive and even obscure figure (Gulen) claims to combat corruption and authoritarianism, by infiltrating the government.While fighting corruption and authoritarianism is an honorable mission, how it is being carried out makes it un-democratic. The officials who have infiltrated the government are loyal to a mysterious religious leader’s community and not to the state (which is supposed to be run by a democratically elected government and not by a mysterious religious structure).
I once wrote a post called Eyes Wide Shut In Illinois, in which I speculated about why this abundantly evidenced story about the Gulen-linked charter schools in our midst remains taboo for people outside the Sun-Times. My theory was that the Movement has handed out so many junkets and awards that there are very few people left in authority in Illinois who can honestly say they haven't dipped their toes in the water and received a gift of flattery, of travel, or something else. I still maintain that to be the case.
But there must also be something more at play. Is it a type of black swan event? Is it so beyond the range of normal expectation that people have a collective blindness to it? Or is it the opposite? Are people just so jaded now that this phenomenon seems banal? Public schools connected to a mysterious international political force engaged in illegal wiretapping? Duh. Of course that's going on! What did you expect?
You tell me.
So, there was a press briefing at the State Department today, and one of the questions was about the Turkish elections, which were held yesterday. This is going to be a quickie post about how the Turkish election results are directly related to charter schools in Chicago.
QUESTION: So my question is, like, there has been so much talk that the United States and even the West in general are more in line with that – with Fethullah Gulen’s position on Turkey than Erdogan, and that’s why the United States has stepped up its criticism on Twitter, on like the corruption, and also regarding Erdogan’s handling of other (inaudible) issues.
MS. HARF: Well, that’s ridiculous. Regardless of whether this gentleman was living in Pennsylvania or not, it would still not be okay for the Government of Turkey to ban Twitter. It would still not be okay for the Government of Turkey to crack down like they have on dissent. Those things have nothing to do with the fact that one of their citizens is living in the Pennsylvania countryside.
QUESTION:Aren’t you more in position with, for example, Fethullah Gulen --
MS. HARF: No.
QUESTION: -- who is reportedly pro-Israel-Turkey relations --
MS. HARF: Turkey’s a NATO ally. Let’s be clear here. Turkey is a close NATO ally. We don’t always agree on everything, but we don’t agree on everything with anyone. So forget about the gentleman living in Pennsylvania. We have a bilateral alliance with the Government of Turkey. We will speak out when we disagree. We will speak out when we agree. And it’s really up to the people of Turkey to make decisions about their government. We – it’s not up to us, and any reports that we have any impact on that are just crazy.
The journalist was trying to make a point about the widely held belief that the US government is playing some kind of chess with Turkey's internal politics to achieve some unnamed geopolitical objective. It's an opinion I share. It's on my radar because the particular cleric at the center of intrigue also happens to be at the center of America's largest network of charter schools.
The Turkish prime minister--infamously corrupt and evidently the landslide victor in these bare-knuckle, sketchy-at-best elections-- pulls no punches when talking about the very same Pennsylvania-based cleric:
The campaign was dominated by a series of corruption allegations implicating senior government officials. The AK Party blamed supporters of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who's living in exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
Erdogan said: "We will not surrender to Pennsylvania and their offshoots in Turkey. From tomorrow, there may be some who flee, there are some who already fled. We will enter their lair. They will pay for this. They will pay the price."
So, there's that. A repressive, authoritarian figure wins ugly, but definitively, in Turkey, and his political enemy/former ally, Fethullah Gulen, sits in Pennsylvania, writing poems.
Mr. Aslandogan was one of the founders of Wisconsin Career Academy, which made ignominious headlines later in time. He also attempted to start charter schools in Oak Park, Des Plaines, and Palatine. And those are just the ones I'm aware of.
And there at the bottom of the same document is the current vice-president of Concept Schools, which runs three publicly funded charter schools in Chicago at the moment. So, I read the connection this way:
Gulen---->Aslandogan------->Concept
Incidentally, the petitioner of the Mt. Prospect zoning request, shown here (p 105),
When our first school opened in Cleveland in 1999 there were financial challenges. The State of Ohio does not provide any facilities funding for charter schools and banks as a rule will not lend to start up charter schools. After attempting to obtain funding in Cleveland, the founder of Horizon Science Academies, Taner Ertekin, reached out to businessmen in Turkey to find short-term non-interest bearing loans.
Go back and look the individual who is making this statement in Ohio. Is it some crackpot? No. It's the vice-president of Concept. In other words, the umbrella group of the Gulen Movement in Chicago has on its board, in paperwork filed with a municipality, two people directly related to Concept Schools, with a third Concept person (the founder of Concept) acting as petitioner. And yet we're supposed to stop asserting that there's a connection between the Movement and the charter schools.
So, to sum up, we have on one hand the Turkish elections. The victor of those elections-- a man who has shut down Twitter across a nation--- is now threatening to "enter the lair" of Fethullah Gulen's organization and "make them pay." And on the other hand, this very same organization, now more and more on the run, is directly linked to charter schools in the States, while pretending very hard not to be.
What could possibly go wrong?
It's my position that the conversation moving forward should be about transparency in the charter sector. In this one charter chain alone, we see obvious legal relationships between the charter operators and the leaders of an active overseas political movement. We need some sunlight on charter operations, and we need it soon.
UPDATE: Sharon Higgins has sent along a link to the actual State Department briefing; here's the clip. And after you watch the clip, just go and "forget about the gentleman living in Pennsylvania." I'm pretty sure that's what we're being asked to do, what with the press blackout on the subject.
It all has a very "ignore the man behind the curtain" feel. New to the topic? Check out some of my other posts.
Celebration to Honor and Defend ISAT Boycott Teachers & Families
Join Parents 4 Teachers on April 9th to honor the ISAT boycott teachers and families who took a courageous stand against the misuse and overuse of high-stakes standardized testing in the Chicago Public Schools. We stand with the ISAT boycott teachers and the many students and families who opted out. Please come and support them too!
Boycotting teachers should face no disciplinary action. Let teachers teach! Let our kids learn!
Ok, we're making a very strong recommendation that people do two things. The first is related to the bills that are still in the education committee in the senate.
We're hoping that you contact Senator Daniel Biss and Senator Iris Martinez to ask for support for:
1. SB 3030, the senate version of the Charter Accountability Act. It is still before the senate education committee, which Senators Biss and Martinez are members of. There are lots of other people on that committee, and you can contact them all, but we really need people to at least let Biss and Martinez know that charter accountability is not a bad thing and doesn't set charters back in any way. All you're asking for is a chance for an up or down vote in the Senate on charter accountability, and that the bill not get blocked along the way. The House version of this bill (HB 6005) is ready for a full vote of the House.
2. SB2627, the senate version of the charter school commission act, which would eliminate the appointed state charter commission. The House version of this bill (HB 3754) already passed the House.
3. SB2779, the senate bill that would would give charter petitioners an appeal-through-referendum process if the local school board turns down their petition. We have not been working on this bill; I believe it is a good compromise type of bill that I think the IEA has been working on. It deserves not to be blocked in the Senate Education Committee.
Biss's office:
Springfield Office:
Senator 9th District
M121 Capitol Building
Springfield, IL 62706
(217) 782-2119
Martinez's office:
Springfield Office:
Senator 20th District
413 Capitol Building
Springfield, IL 62706
(217) 782-8191
(217) 782-3088 FAX
Then, the second thing we're asking you is to contact your state representative and ask for Yes votes on:
1. HB 4591, Martwick's bill about about pro-rated funding going back to the neighborhood school when a charter pushes out a student mid year (it would also work vice-versa). This bill is ready to be voted on in the House. We haven't done enough to support this good, good legislation.
2. HB 4237, Chapa LaVia's bill about giving local school districts a referendum process if the state charter commission, or anyone, over-rules their decision to say no to a charter. Good bill. I've let it get away from me. This bill is on the floor of the House waiting for a vote.
3. HB 6005, Chapa LaVia's charter accountability bill, which is out of committee (tons of witness slips!) and ready for a vote on the floor of the House.
There's so much more, but this is enough to focus on. Please pass these requests along.
As for RPNPS, we're reaching out to a broad spectrum of school board members to alert them to these bills. RPNPS member Sandra Stone has lead the research team in this regard, and we're making headway. School board members in Senator Biss's district, for example, might not be aware that the state charter school commission can overrule them at any time, and they might also not be aware that all of these charters inserted into Chicago are playing by a very, very different set of rules in terms of accountability.
Tip of the hat to all the coalition groups, as well as to IEA and IFT, which I've been too critical of. People are coming together to speak out against the abuses present in the charter sector, including this bad-idea-from-the-start commission, and the sheer lack of oversight throughout the system.
We have a lot of legislators to thank, too. More later.
I am literally out in a forest tonight but I have preliminary reports of progress on our issues.
Please know that our coalitions may be calling on you for more witness slips in the coming days, and now is not the time to go wobbly, as Margaret Thatcher once told Ronald Reagan.
Did I just quote Margaret Thatcher?
The charter accountability bill and the charter commission bill appear to have been assigned to the charter subcommittee and have possibly survived that process to return soon to the full Senate Education Committee.
More details on that when I have wi-fi again.
There are many other good bills out there moving forward; I hope to read status reports on those soon. Whichever bill it is that requires LSCs for charters is possibly stll alive in the Senate. Good bill. I wish I had worked on more of them.
The Senate in Illinois is just as mysterious as the US Senate. We may at short notice have to get on the phones with a few specific senators. The truth is-- in my opinion-- that some of our Democratic senators have delegated their ed policy thinking to charter extremists. These are people who want unfettered privatization at any cost, even without basic accountability or a modicum of respect for elected school boards.
I can think of one such senator right now. I've seen it with my own eyes. We nay very shortly have to get on the phones with him.
When I look at the votes over in the House, it seems like mainly just a certain anti-government wing of the Republican Party voted against charter accountability. And Christian Mitchell and possibly Dan Burke? Did I get that right?
The corporate ed privatization movement is now most accurately described as an arch-conservative + Rahm Emanuel Democratic-wing coalition. It's that way everywhere.
I'm up in Michigan at the moment. There's a lot of hard-right radio up here. I'm hearing a lot of support for Indiana's decision to drop out of the Common Core. It seems that no matter how hard the Obama administration works against the Democratic base to aid and abet the corporate reform movement, it will never be enough. It will never produce a single vote in a general election. and it will set back public education decades.
We may need to remind a couple senators that generally speaking people like their public schools in Illinois, and they don't want the schools destroyed by wholesale, unsupervised privatization, no matter what these Rasputins for Education Reform are whispering in their ears.
But hang in there. And when the time comes to do another witness slip or get on the phones, act quickly. If we can get an up or down vote on the Senate floor, we can't ask for more than that. But we should get at least that.
No moose sightings today. The back roads are almost impassible, I broke the zipper on my parka, my husky has some invisible object stuck in her paw, and it's supposed to be nine below tomorrow morning.
