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Sept/Oct 2000 issue (#47)
In November, you will be asked to vote on I-729, a statewide initiative bankrolled by the Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and currently being handled by the public relations firm Gogerty Stark Marriott.
This is clearly not a grassroots, all volunteer effort. You are not alone if you have scarcely heard of this initiative. So far, it's been kept largely under wraps. You can see the full text of the initiative on the internet at: www.secstate.wa.gov. I-729 would introduce charter schools into the state of Washington.
The initiative defines a charter school as:
Charter schools would:
Would this initiative help to create innovative public schools, which would be free to undertake bold experiments in education? Possibly, but it might also open the door to increased corporate meddling in public education, via large gifts with strings attached.
A darker possibility is that new corporate schools may arise, run by dummy non-profits in cahoots with university or school district officials. It is known that Paul Allen has a plan afoot to open a magnet school in Seattle, which would focus on biotechnology, in close association with nearby biotech companies. Will students at this proposed school really be encouraged to think freely, and to question the role of profit-driven corporations in exploiting and patenting public knowledge?
This initiative could also lead to the erosion of democracy as elected school boards lose power. Flawed as they often are, local school boards do have the potential to reflect the will of an educated, informed public. Charter schools would be free to disregard school boards, while accepting local school levy and state funds.
It is not clear if there will be organized opposition to this initiative. The teachers' union (Seattle Education Association) has taken a neutral stance on the issue. The initiative allows charter school employees to unionize under defined terms.
If enacted, I-729 will lead to new class of schools in Washington, which are protected from the influence of powerful religious groups, but certainly not from the influence of powerful corporations.
This fall, Seattle students return to the classroom to face a barrage of banner ads every time they use the internet at school, thanks to a new contract signed by the Seattle School District over the summer without public input. The contract with N2H2, Inc. provides a couple of servers for the district as well as filtering software.
In exchange, the district has agreed to let N2H2 put banner ads on every Web page the kids see while at school, including teacher- and student-made pages. The contract also includes quick links to advertising sites so that kids who are ostensibly doing assignments at school can easily click on commercial sites.
The contract potentially allows N2H2 to continually gather data on the kids at all 81 schools as the kids use the net. Critics argue that the monetary value of this data, if it could be calculated, is probably worth far more to N2H2 than the material goods the district receives in exchange.
"The data-gathering feature makes the N2H2 contract a more aggressive form of exploiting children for commercial purposes than what we've seen so far," says David Wall, President of the local grassroots organization, the Citizens' Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools.
In 1996, the district approved a policy of selling advertising space in buildings to generate funds. The policy was revoked after a six-month storm of protest from parents, students, teachers and citizens. The initiator of that policy, Joseph Olchefske, has since become Superintendent of the Seattle Schools, and continues to believe in an "entrepreneurial" approach to school funding.
The district has now developed numerous 'partnerships' with profit-making companies such as the Seattle Mariners and Washington Mutual Bank. In exchange for financial and in-kind support, the district lends its name to the "partnership," providing an institutional, academic blessing of commercial enterprises.
Last year, the district signed a five-year 'exclusive' pouring rights contract with Coca-Cola. That contract gives principals a cash bonus and commission on each can of pop sold. Parents lambasted the district for selling caffeinated sugar water to kids in direct contradiction to what health teachers are trying to teach about nutrition. Other critics pointed out the shortsightedness of selling pop instead of expecting the state to fully fund education. Still others argued that the large, lighted vending machines themselves constituted advertising within schools.
Seattle Schools opened the door for corporations to reach a captive audience of kids in the early 90's, when they signed contracts with 'Channel One'. Channel One is a 12-minute infotainment program, which includes 2 minutes of commercials aimed at teens. Actual use of Channel One is down over 50 percent since 1997, according to a CCCS survey taken in June. Still, this fall, over 4,000 Seattle middle- and high school students will be required to view commercial TV daily, adding up to an hour a week of school-time.
Critics believe that the district should provide instructional equipment without subjecting the entire student body to a daily dose of TV commercials. "If the equipment is important for meeting learning goals, then the district should provide it; if not, then it is unnecessary and we should get rid of it," says parent Matt King.
CCCS wants Seattle Schools to be 'commercial-free zones', and has asked the district to adopt a no-ads policy. For more information, see www.scn.org/cccs. The author of this article, Brita Butler-Wall, is married to CCCS president David Wall.
At a national convention in the nation's capital, teens gathered last year to discuss violence prevention. One of the root causes of youth violence they identified was students who harass other students. Race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, and insider-outsider treatment of geeks or jocks are used as excuses for harassment on playgrounds and in school hallways. While not all incidents are as horrific as Columbine, the damage can be equally serious.
Student harassment takes different, unrelenting forms: teasing, taunting, bullying, exclusion, discrimination, physical or verbal abuse. To those on the receiving end, it can lead to anger, withdrawal, lowered self-esteem, aggression, suicide. Harassers and victims alike become caught in a downward spiral of negative behavior. Without some form of intervention, these behaviors can lead to tragic consequences for both sides.
A research project by the state's Safe Schools Coalition, examining only the issue of gay harassment and violence in K-12 schools in Washington, reported 111 incidents over five years. They took place in urban, suburban, small town and rural districts, at elementary, middle and high schools, and involved on-going verbal harassment, physical assault, and gang rape. The incidents resulted in 12 students changing schools, ten dropping out of school, ten attempted suicides, and two suicides.
Of the nearly 1 million young people returning to Washington schools this fall, how many will be subjected to some form of harassment or discrimination and its links to hate and violence? And what should districts and schools do to combat it?
The typical response to acts of harassment in the past was silence: the failure of both victim and authority to respond, the shame and embarrassment, shrugs and dismissal. No longer. Today's response is a roll-of-the-dice. Harassers, who once easily passed "go" on their behavior can only guess at the outcome now. Victims are restless. Whether through settlement by law or gun, many harassed students have issued a "No more!" ultimatum. The message is out. Are harassers listening?
School personnel have a moral and legal obligation to protect students from harassment and violent behavior. There are nine U.S. anti-discrimination laws and one Presidential executive order requiring redress if violations are proven. They cover race, color, national origin, gender, religion, disability and age. Harassers and harassed alike are in need of such information.
Here are some broad guidelines on which to gauge the schools in your community. Does your school provide the following?
At the start of the new school year, as pecking orders become established, harassment issues and concerns become a key focus. Information is available on how to establish a harassment-free zone at your school and curb the violence that results from this behavior. Several workshops on harassment will be held this fall throughout the state: Ellensburg (October 8), Olympia (September 26), Spokane (September 28), Ellensburg (October 18) and Yakima (November 9). For registration information, call the Washington State Association for Multicultural Education (WSAME) at (206) 522-5438.
The author, Dr. Cynthia Rekdal, is executive director of WSAME.
1) As government cuts funding, students are revenue sources, not citizens to be trained. Tuition leaps as government pulls out of the business of government and privatizes the University.
2) UW has an Allen Library, a Gates Hall, a Boeing Auditorium, a BankAmerica Arena, and a BankAmerica Executive Education Center.
3) UW Engineering grad Ben Linder, killed by CIA-backed Contras while building small rural water projects in Nicaragua, has no memorial on campus.
4) UW is auctioning a campus monopoly to the soft-drink company that pays most for access to students.
5) The ASUW raised money for ten years to build the HUB. The HUB is now run as a business, not a student resource.
6) Huskywear with the UW logo is made in sweatshops. A cap or shirt typically pays less than 1 percent of its price in wages: 15 or 20 cents goes to the worker who makes a $22 item.
7) Regent William H. Gates Sr. says students are "customers" buying "education" in the marketplace, and the price is too low. He says tuition should jump substantially right away.
8) Commercial advertising is banned from UW billboards, but commercial advertisers dominate the spaces that are designated for campus communication.
9) Most universities provide space for student organizations to hang banners promoting student events. UW provides no place for this basic communication.
10) Research at UW is influenced by corporate interests and the drive to prioritize profits, not the public interest.
11) The WTO wants to privatize all public institutions through the General Agreement on Trade in Services and the Government Procurement Agreement.
12) Bill Gates Jr. bought an academic chair in Genetic Engineering at the UW to promote his vision of the future.
13) In the 1950s, corporate taxes were high. The burden shifts to workers as corporate taxes plummet. A progressive tax structure, invested in higher education, will democratize research and curriculum and not distort the purpose of public institutions through reliance on corporate philanthropy.
14) The University is not for sale! Fight corporate colonization of UW. Get involved in these organizations: Students for Economic Democracy (nowto@u.washington.edu), Washington Students Against Sweatshops (nosweats@hotmail.com), Campus Voice Coalition (cvc@u.washington.edu), Ruckus (ruckus@u.washington.edu).
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