REALM charter school approved in 'secret parliament' by the Berkeley School Board

Yvette Felarca is running for the presidency of the American Federation of Teachers and she better win!  For the stinking politics of Randi Weingarten, current AFT president, mirror the rancid policies of Arne Duncan in the battle to privatize education. 

The REALM charter schools (the subject of much reporting here on Daily Censored) were approved in a ‘secret session” without public input by the Berkeley community and without a public meeting.

This is how they work, the coin operated surrogates and courtesans for the corporate privatization of education.  They plan behind closed doors, make decisions outside the public ‘realm’ and court moneyed interests in an attempt to represent the corporitazation of education which is moving forward without any corporate media coverage and at alarming speeds.

Here is an update from Yvette and please, support her candidacy and BAMN in their efforts to unseat Weingarten and maintain public education.  For if we do not change the direction of politics in regards to public education we will awake with new privatized ‘gulags’ for education that will assure no critical thinking skills are taught to students.  We will have closed the coffin on any hopes for an educated citizenry.  See more on Yvette’s candidacy by going to ‘Author Posts’, finding my name, Danny Weil, and then clicking.  You will find a position paper from Yvette.

From Yvette Felarca, BAMN, on the issue of the Berkeley charter schools — June 13, 2010:

Hi Danny,

Both charters were approved by the Berkeley School Board. It was ridiculous. After the last vote to reject, the administration met with the REALM people and coached them on how to ammend their application in order to be approved. REALM did that, applying to use district space for their school and county services for special ed.

The School Board held the vote without even holding a public hearing. But if the charter was different enough to get approved, then it was different enough to give the public a chance to weigh in on the new application, too. I’m trying to see if we have any legal recourse to try to reverse or get an injunction against opening the school because of this, but I’m not sure if we do. They’re not scheduled to open it until 2011.

There was only one vote against the charter, John Selawsky. The other ones were completely politically opportunistic–they are up for re-election and want support from BOCA (Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action)–the main sponsor of the school. Even though BOCA can’t officially endorse candidates, they’re essentially the same organization as United in Action, a community group that BOCA is a part of.

In addition, the current educational climate being fostered by Arne Duncan and Obama is a big hammer for the charter schools against our public schools, and the ideology of Booker T. Washington education as the “new innovative” policy to address the inequalities that black and brown students experience in the public schools is being cynically exploited by politicians and churches out to use public school money for their own private ventures.

I’m proud to report that, thanks to BAMN’s leadership through the fights I’ve made in my local, the BFT does not officially support the charters. However, our local president is a big proponent of Weingarten’s policies of conceding to the right wing, so she’s been having behind the scenes discussions with the REALM people apologizing for the union vote and communicating with them that she want to cooperate with them and will not be their opponent in their experiment.

That’s why what we do now is so crucial, because it’s imperative that we get new leadership in the AFT and get our potentially mighty train to shift tracks, lest we drive right off the cliff and take public education long with us. Thank you so much for your support for BAMN and for my election to lead the AFT. I’ve heard from members whom I’ve never met before who have expressed their support and made contributions to support my campaign so we can get the AFT at the front of building the new civil rights movement in defense of public education.

The fight is on–let’s win it!

In Unity and Struggle,

Yvette