ASD Councils Call ASD Process a "Scam"

Last week Shelby County Schools called for a halt to Achievement School District takeovers in and around Memphis.

This week it seems the ASD hostile school takeover scheme has hit another snag, when a group set up by ASD to rubber stamp its plans called the process a "sham."  From the Commercial Appeal:

The group of people the state-run Achievement School District picked to add transparency to the school takeover process turned against the ASD on Monday, claiming the matching process was "a scam" meant to give the illusion of community input.

The group held a news conference in front of the Shelby County Schools administration building, although a statement from SCS said the district was not directly involved in the event. No one from the SCS administration was present, but board member Stephanie Love attended and spoke.

She, along with members of the neighborhood advisory councils that evaluated charter operators, called for families in the four schools slated for ASD takeover not to attend those schools next year.

"I am asking every parent whose school was taken over: Do not send your children to that school," Love said. "You begin to call the board and you tell us that you want us to put your children in a Shelby County school." . . . .

ASD's Continuing Failure Confirmed by Vandy

Posted at Schools Matter earlier today.

 "The effects in the ASD schools were mainly statistically insignificant . . ."

--> Vanderbilt Peabody has just released a research paper that examines the awful performance of ASD schools in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga. Tennessee's Achievement School District was modeled after the Recovery School District of New Orleans, which was part of the disaster capitalist response to Katrina.
The ASD's stated goal from 2010 was "to move the academic performance of schools taken over from the bottom five percent of schools to the top quartile of schools in Tennessee within five years." 

The ASD started taking over "priority" schools in 2011, and given the results of the Vandy analysis, it is reasonable to ask if ASD could ever come close to meeting its ridiculous goal.    

Below are some of the data from the Report.  Note from the last chart below, the worst of the worst ASD schools are those run by the charter management organizations (CMOs).

The largest effects of these hostile takeovers are not measured in these meager test results, however.  The real significance is the accumulated weight borne in the disrupted lives of parents, children, and teachers, all of whom have suffered and continue to suffer for the benefit of corporate know-nothing paternalists, whose primary aim to build a business model based on the cultural sterilization of poor children.