Latest missive from Loome:
Dear _________
The legislative session starts in five days, and the sad truth is that you should be worried about what's coming. Throughout the holidays, I've received calls, texts, and emails from folks who are livid about the plans they're hearing from their own legislators and from state leaders.
Likely to be first on the legislative agenda is an attempt to push through a broad charter school bill that would allow charter schools in all districts, despite the clear message from constituents that charters should be limited to areas with low-performing schools.
Some in leadership positions are bending to pressure from lobbyists and corporations that are pushing to privatize our public schools. Virtual charter schools have made their way back into the new Senate charter bill, and neo-vouchers, also called tax credit scholarships, are being proposed.
It appears that what some are framing as "school reform" is really an effort to push through a for-profit agenda rather than enact what has been proven to advance student achievement.
Worse, the word is that some in our legislature don't like the fact that we are telling you what they're up to, and they are seeking ways to diminish our effort to keep you informed.
It is more critical than ever that you develop relationships with your legislators and get them to help us keep the legislative process an open one that encourages public input.
Please call your legislators this week, before they return to Jackson, and ask for their commitment to keeping you in the loop.
Tell your legislators that you want to stay informed about the bills that will affect our children's education. Let them know that you will be checking in with them often throughout the session.
And take a moment to share with them your concerns about education issues. (Click here to see some of the education reform ideas being floated and to read about The Parents' Campaign's support for serious school reform.)
Your legislators are:
xxxx xxxxxxx
xxxx xxxxxxx
If your legislators are not listed above it is because we do not have your street address and zip code in our database. Click here to find your legislator. Click here to send us your street address and zip code.
I promise to continue to be your eyes and ears at the Capitol and to notify you of legislation that will have an impact on our children's schools. Lobbyists representing for-profit charters and those pushing to privatize our public schools are hard at work in Mississippi. Their top goal is to maximize profits for their corporate clients, not to educate kids, and if we don't speak up, they will get their way. (Click here to see an article on this subject that I authored and that has run in several newspapers.)
Your legislators need to know where you stand, and they need to know that you are paying attention.
Please tell your friends and family about The Parents' Campaign, and ask them to get involved. If we stand together, we can get good, effective legislation passed this session.
We've done it before, and we can do it again. After all, we've got over 62,000 Mississippi moms and dads, grandmothers and grandfathers, community leaders, educators, and business leaders - tens of thousands of folks who care about our kids and are standing with us to fight for serious education reform that will protect our good schools and fix our bad ones. What a blessing!
With a grateful heart,
Nancy
Cottonchicken freaks out too with no less than three anti-charter schools posts. No original thinking as he just parrots the usual talking points and signs his name to them: Charter schools are bad, Charter schools are REALLY, really, bad, and RUN FOR THE HILLS, CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE COMING.
By the way, I've yet to see these public school "advocates" do ANYTHING to hold JPS or other bad school districts accountable for anything as well.
By the way Nancy, when are you going to start disclosing in your columns that YOU are a well-paid registered lobbyist?
Friday, January 4, 2013
Nancy issues another Fatwah
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
If the underlying premise of Charters is to give voice to parents and hope to children, how will educators (and their surrogates) restricting where they can be located result in that?
The whole notion of Charters is to wrestle control and dominance from the education bureacracy/hierarchy if it's deemed they're not producing desired results.
Along comes Miz Loome, asking that folks rally against the very thing that would give them a voice.
Maybe she should just say, "Hey, trust us!"
While I don't agree with her, I'll have to say that Nancy Loome is very good at her job. I don't understand why advocates for charter schools haven't hired someone comparable to her to act as their voice.
Believe me, I have almost screamed at them for not doing so.
The reason that charter advocates have not hired an effective person/lobbyist/PR expert on their behalf is because they are all just so confident that because they control ALL of the "buttons of power" legislatively and administratively here in Mississippi, they feel that they can not lose the battle. They also know that some seriously wealthy, heavyweight business and philanthropist types support and fund Loome's organization.
Word is Kuykendall is retiring soon and will become a Loome Clone. Kuykendall and the anti-chater lobby cost Senator Davis his job. Maybe he's interested. How long can he remain relevant as a Gallo Stand-In?
@7:55 The only way you could replicate Nancy's voice is to stick a mangy cat in a burlap sack, throw it into an overflowing Fondren sewer main, and poke it with a big stick.
Education is a business. The education industry does have a social function which is to keep young adults out of the labor markets while giving them specialized and useful skills. The former has been the emphasis in recent years as jobs became scarce. The skill set was mismatched and deteriorating. Our industries are importing talent now. A crunch on the education industry is coming and the charter biz is a half measure to the reform necessary.
"They also know that some seriously wealthy, heavyweight business and philanthropist types support and fund Loome's organization."
Why would "wealthy, heavyweight business...types" support the current system? Are they happy with the qaulity of the job applicants they get from the public school system?
I think he means Jim Barksdale.
And Dick Molpus, and William Winter
12:25, 12:40, bingo!
Barksdale alone could play Sheldon Adelson in the next Mississippi election cycle and take-out some folks.
11:15; What evidence can you specify to support your claim that "Our industries are importing talent now"? Are you eluding to H1B or transferring talent from sister facilities in other states or what?
Mississippi has never been known for providing training that parallels current industrial needs; however, the junior college system always has (limited) funding available for training specific to individual firms. It doesn't take a village, just a phone call.
Also; what evidence can you specify that backs up your rather nutty suggestion that "The education industry does have a social function which is to keep young adults out of the labor markets while giving them specialized and useful skills"? On face value that has got to be one helluva nutty comment. And it gets more bizarre each time I read it.
Shadow, the labor market entry delay was part of the great shift from ag to industrial societies where family formations were delayed in the masses. Mississippi is still making the historic transition with a very high rate of teen pregnancies and welfare dependency. The German schools are half day institutions with limited emphasis on sports. Ours are daycare for teens where parents re-live their younger years thru their children.
Education leadership in our state translates as political chieftain instead of a headmaster. If you want lower taxes you have smaller neighborhood schools without the massive lunchrooms, auditoriums, gyms, bus fleets, vendors, political operators, attorneys, police, nurses, etc. Capable teachers plus attractive classrooms are the necessity not massive campuses.
Good try 6:43; but, I asked for evidence, not hyperbolic theory pulled from a breakout roundtable.
Shadowfox, you want proof?? Just attempt to engage any 12 - 30 year product of Mississippi public schools in a conversation. You'll find very few who can compose an intelligible sentence and even fewer who know how to conduct themselves in a job interview. I also challenge YOU to list for us the public schools that have active programs to teach basic computer skills and/or any of the specific skills required by employers in the Mississippi marketplace (ie: warehousing, marketing/sales, data entry). In other words, instead of demanding proof of the obvious, why don't you offer some evidence to disprove his opinion??
Post a Comment