Congratulations Albany!The citizens of Albany, NY have pushed back against a blatantly dishonest, last minute campaign by a corporate charter school group. While the fight went to the final round, the honest people of Albany chose to support the education of children over the profits of the
Yesterday the Times Union published a story which revealed a Big Business campaign against the Albany School District's budget -- using fliers with out-right false information -- wait, I'll say it LIES about taxes. Then there was a push poll. In the event you aren't familiar with them, push polls are an inherently dishonest means to propagate lies. Well, maybe not always lies but the methodology is a deliberate way to try to obfuscate a direct message through suggestion. Someone receives a call, agrees to take a quick survey, and then is fed a series of leading questions to the ultimate conclusion the push poller wants. An example might be something like "Do you approve of Candidate X's refusal to address questions about marital infidelities?" It doesn't matter if Candidate X even has a history of cheating or even has ever been accused of cheating. The impression has been left in the voter's mind that X is of questionable morality. Push polling is nothing but emotional and psychological manipulation.
Further proof, I suppose, that, if Corporations were people, they'd be psychopaths.
Albany is a city which has seen considerable scandal and failure in the realm of education. Simply put, Albany is failing its children. However, blame can not be placed solely on the education system. Sure, it plays a major role but poverty, I believe, is the prime-mover of Albany's education problem. Chattel schools, at least in Albany, don't seem interested in the solving the problem. Instead of supporting the community with committed, Unionized teachers, these corporations seek to make a profit first. Their teachers are, I'd guess, no less committed than the Public School teachers but they aren't Unionized and that has real drawbacks. They have no job security; have no real say over their work conditions or retirement, and are paid less. Their stress must be greater in some ways than the Public School teacher's. They are expected to perform with less support and less stability.
The obvious campaign of lies and deceit by the chattel school industry was geared to destabilize the Albany Public School system. I presume this would have then been used as a lobbying wedge-issue as well as a means to try to get more chattel schools built in Albany. Despite having the Mayor in their back pocket, chattel schools recently lost in an attempt to get a new school built. Chattel school accountants must be looking at their balance sheets. No new schools = no new profits.
Wait a minute! Isn't the point of education our children? By lying about the Albany School District budget, the chattel school industry has illustrated just how much they value children. Chattel schools are supposed to be a compliment to Public Schools -- not a for-profit replacement. By trying to get Albany's Citizens to vote down the District's budget, the chattel schools were, in effect, saying "defund your schools, don't support education and teachers, harm your children, and hand them over to us."
Chattel schools do not view themselves as partners in education with Public Schools. They see themselves as competitors. The free market belief system holds that the better school will get more students. What does "better" mean anyway? Unfortunately for kids, it does not necessarily mean "education". The corporation better at misleading parents, better at cutting enriching services, or better at scaring honest citizens could also be a top performer -- without benefiting a single child. It's a despicable shame, on a National level, we value under-served children so little that we'd wash our hands of the problem and hand them over to corporations with the mentality of Ayn Rand and compassion of a cactus.
I'm certain charter schools have a place in the education landscape and I am no fan of the Albany school system. I moved out of Albany, partially, because I have a child and I do not want her in Albany's schools. While I could afford to leave, there are many people who can't. They are stuck in a cycle of poverty and, in the developing economy of the future, education may be the only way out. If we are to "win the future", people have to stop handing it over to corporations who are willing to lie in order to profit off our kids. Through grass-roots action like a Facebook page, citizens of Albany chose the future over corporate profits. They won a fight for kids who really can't speak for themselves. Way to go! While the margin was not great, I feel the Albany School District should use this affirmative vote (despite the lies and lobbying) as a mandate. In a troubled, inner-city school district, the budget passed and did so in a time of Cuomo education starvation as well as other financial hardships. This opportunity can not be wasted adn teachers, staff, and administrators must rededicate themselves to improving the education and future of the District's children.
