An entire school district may elect to convert to charter status by establishing a home‐rule charter

  Just Say, "NO."

Texas Association of School Boards (TASB)

• "Home Rule Charter Schools (Texas Education Code §§12.014‐12.023):  An entire school district may elect to convert to charter status by establishing a home‐rule charter. This conversion requires multiple steps including: the board of trustees establishing a commission  to frame the charter, obtaining preclearance of the charter by the U.S. Department of Justice (if it would  change the governance of the district), obtaining approval of the charter by the commissioner of education, adoption of the charter by a majority of the qualified voters in an election in  which at least 25 percent of the district’s registered voters participate, and certification of the adopted charter to the secretary of state.  At this time, no Texas school district has sought home‐rule conversion."                                                                                         
• Texas Association of School Boards (TASB)
• Click Here http://www.tasb.org/legislative/resources/documents/charters.pdf

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Adopting a home rule school district will convert a Texas Education Code Chapter 11 Independent School District to a Texas Education Code Chapter 12 Home Rule School District Charter status. 

Dallas ISD will no longer be an Independent District.
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Louisiana's Recovery School District, a special state-run district that focuses on remedying the damage Hurricane Katrina wrought on the schools in its path. (a Charter School District)

"One of those who saw opportunity in the floodwaters of New Orleans was the late Milton Friedman, grand guru of unfettered capitalism and credited with writing the rulebook for the contemporary, hyper-mobile global economy. Ninety-three years old and in failing health, "Uncle Miltie", as he was known to his followers, found the strength to write an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal three months after the levees broke. "Most New Orleans schools are in ruins," Friedman observed, "as are the homes of the children who have attended them. The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is also an opportunity." (Milton Friedman, Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2005)

Friedman's radical idea was that instead of spending a portion of the billions of dollars in reconstruction money on rebuilding and improving New Orleans' existing public school system, the government should provide families with vouchers, which they could spend at private institutions.

In sharp contrast to the glacial pace with which the levees were repaired and the electricity grid brought back online, the auctioning-off of New Orleans' school system took place with military speed and precision. Within 19 months, with most of the city's poor residents still in exile, New Orleans' public school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter schools." (The Shock Doctrine - Naoimi Klein - Click Here)

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Arnie Duncan the U.S. Secretary of Education openly advocates mayoral control of urban school districts.

"Speaking at a forum with mayors and superintendents, Duncan promised to help more mayors take over.

"At the end of my tenue, if only seven mayors are in control, I think I will have failed, Duncan said.

 He offered to do whatever he can to make the case. "I'll come to your cities," Duncan said. "I'll meet with your editorial boards. I'll talk with your business communities. I will be there."

(Arne Duncan: Mayors Should Run Schools - NBC Chicago - 3-31-09) - Click Here

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Texas Education Code - Chapter 12 - Charters

Section 12.002: Classes Of Charter

The classes of charter under this chapter are:

(1) a home-rule school district charter as provided by Subchapter B;

(2) a campus or campus program charter as provided by Subchapter C; or

(3) an open-enrollment charter as provided by Subchapter D.

Added by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 260, Sec. 1, eff. May 30, 1995.

'3 Blind Mikes' Song Lyrics - Mayor Mike Rawlings - Trustee Mike Morath - Superintendent Mike Miles and Home-Rule School District Charter

"3 Blind Mikes"

(Mayor Mike Rawlings - Trustee Mike Morath - Supt. Mike Miles)

Lyrics by Carla Ranger

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Set to the tune of

"3 Blind Mice"

a popular children's rhyme

written by John Thompson

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------

Lyrics by Carla Ranger

3 Blind Mikes

3 Blind Mikes

Watch what they say.

They change what they say.

It's one word by day

But another by night.

They're trying to take away

Voting rights.

Now we must fight it 

With all our might.

3 Blind Mikes
3 Blind Mikes
3 ...     Blind ...     Mikes ...

Click Here

3 Blind Mikes - Mayor Mike Rawlings - Trustee Mike Morath - Superintendent Mike Miles support the radical takeover of Dallas ISD 
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"3 sources say home rule was pitched with Dallas mayor running schools" - Matthew Haag - Dallas Morning News

This following information is a reprint of the full article written by Dallas Morning News staff writer Matthew Haag. The article was published on Saturday, March 8, 2014.

The article shows the real agenda of the backers of Support Our Public Schools, Mayor Mike Rawlings and Trustee Mike Morath.

The agenda is to get voters to give up their right to elect school Trustees in order to create a system giving Mayor Mike Rawlings the right to appoint and control all Dallas ISD school Trustees. 

This will be trading democratic election of school Trustees for undemocratic appointment by a Mayor. 

Just say, "No."

Click Here to see the original article.
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3 sources say home rule was pitched with Dallas mayor running schools

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Nathan Hunsinger/Staff Photographer

Volunteer Jim Olson gets Lorena Villanueva to sign a petition seeking home-rule of the Dallas Independent School District at Robert E. Lee Elementary School in Dallas.

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By MATTHEW HAAG

Staff Writer

mhaag@dallasnews.com

Published: 07 March 2014 11:14 PM

Updated: 08 March 2014 03:01 AM

Related

• Q&A: Mike Morath on home rule for DISD

Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas ISD trustee Mike Morath have denied they’re seeking any specific results in supporting an effort to overhaul the school system.

Yet three people who have been briefed on the initiative said they were told the goals include establishing a different system of governing the district, perhaps under the mayor’s oversight.

Rawlings said in a written statement Friday that he has decided that “proposing a specific change in governance was not the right way to go.”

“I spoke with several leaders about this issue before I endorsed Support Our Public Schools, and a lot of potential changes to the charter were discussed,” he said.

If approved by voters after a successful petition drive, Dallas ISD would move to a home-rule charter that would possibly change how it is governed and operates.

A state law grants home-rule districts more freedom to make decisions, such as modifying the state-mandated curriculum, ignoring teacher labor laws and increasing local control of the district.

The initiative became public a week ago. But in the preceding months, Morath and Rawlings worked privately to build political support for it.

The three people, who agreed to speak to The Dallas Morning News on the condition of anonymity, said that in recent conversations, Morath and Rawlings mentioned replacing the district’s publicly elected board with appointed members.

“It is orchestrated. I hate to see stuff that’s not grass roots being portrayed as it is,” said a former city official whom the mayor recruited unsuccessfully to endorse the effort. “They should be straightforward that they are coming after the trustees.”

The five board members of Support Our Public Schools haven’t publicly criticized the district’s trustees or suggested they be replaced. Those members have instead talked about other possibilities with home rule.

But the former city official said the mayor’s spokesman, Sam Merten, called several weeks ago and spoke bluntly about the effort.

“He said that the mayor would run DISD or oversee it. You wouldn’t have trustees. If you did, they wouldn’t be making decisions,” the former official said.

Merten said Friday that he doesn’t recall telling anyone that the mayor would oversee DISD and has only mentioned it as a possibility.

In an interview Friday, Morath said he has “nothing to do with Support Our Public Schools.” But he also called DISD’s board “broken” and said all options for change should be considered.

“We have a system of governance that doesn’t focus its energy or attention or goals on improving outcomes for kids,” he said. “When was the last time the board talked about the achievement gap?”

Meeting with the News editorial board Thursday, an impassioned Rawlings spoke about his dissatisfaction with voter apathy in DISD board elections and the community’s complacency with student achievement.

“An average of a thousand votes per board of trustee? No wonder we are this bad,” the mayor said. “This is a disaster, and for us to sit around and try to argue kind of politics about this is naive and is not going to change things.”

The school charter has never been used in Texas. But if 5 percent of DISD’s registered voters sign a Support Our Public Schools petition, the school board would be required to name 15 people to a commission to write the district’s charter.

The charter then would need approval of local voters and the state education commissioner. The group declined Friday to say how many of the required 24,459 signatures it had collected.

Because district trustees would appoint the commissioners, the process suggests that outside forces couldn’t control the outcome. However, according to the former city official, Merten said the group’s backers had recruited people to be on the commission and believed a majority of DISD trustees would vote them in.

“He said he would propose a slate of people for the charter that they knew would put in place the charter they would want. They would have enough votes on the DISD board to get that passed,” the person said. “You’d have the folks in place already who are committed no matter the public outpouring or opposition.”

Merten denied telling anyone that and said there is not a list of suggested commissioners. “That’s completely inaccurate. There has not been one conversation about who would serve on this potential commission,” he said.

While Rawlings has no current oversight of Dallas ISD, he has long been interested in the district. When he ran for mayor, he made education a top priority. And his biography on the city’s website says he has taken a “hands-on approach” to the schools. Rawlings also suggested Miles’ name to the school board’s superintendent search firm.

A former DISD board member said Rawlings told him that if just two Miles’ supporters left, the majority could swing against the superintendent.

“The mayor pushed back on me and said, ‘What if [trustee] Dan Micciche or [board president] Eric Cowan leaves and suddenly we lose this momentum?’” the former DISD board member said. “That is a valid concern.”

A current city official who spoke to Morath said he mentioned mayoral control of DISD along with a hybrid system of five elected trustees and four appointed. He said Morath wants a system that would grade trustees and allow for their removal, but the trustee didn’t provide specifics.

Support Our Public Schools’ financial supporters include John Arnold, a Hillcrest High School graduate and billionaire Houston philanthropist. Allyn Media, a Dallas public relations firm that assisted Rawlings’ mayoral campaign, is directing Support Our Public Schools’ communication plan.

The former city official said the mayor wanted to recruit 10 influential people who would make the case to the news media and public.

Follow Matthew Haag on Twitter at @matthewhaag.

Mayor Mike Rawlings hostile takeover of Dallas ISD is now confirmed by citizens

3 sources say home rule was pitched with Dallas mayor running schools-Matthew Haag-DMN-3-8-14

"The three people, who agreed to speak to The Dallas Morning News on the condition of anonymity, said that in recent conversations, Morath and Rawlings mentioned replacing the district’s publicly elected board with appointed members.

“It is orchestrated. I hate to see stuff that’s not grass roots being portrayed as it is,” said a former city official whom the mayor recruited unsuccessfully to endorse the effort. “They should be straightforward that they are coming after the trustees.”

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This is the way it always works.  Things planned in secret cannot stand the light of day. Sunshine has a way of revealing the truth.

Take a look an article the morning newspaper by education reporter Matthew Haag. 

It clearly shows the intention to promote a takeover of Dallas ISD by Mayor Mike Rawlings. That was always the agenda and it remains the agenda.

Listen to the double talk: "The Mayor has decided that “proposing a specific change in governance was not the right way to go.”

Yet, citizens are being pre-sold on the Mayoral takeover of public schools. 

Citizens would give up their right to vote and the Mayor becomes dictator of Dallas ISD. Trustee would be appointed. Voters would no longer elect Trustees.

That was the agenda all along. 

You will have decades of Mayoral control.

Mayoral control of public education is the worst idea in public education. Where it exists, it has been proven that it solves nothing.

So this is certainly not about having a conversation. 

It is about control of the school system by the Mayor.

Citizens are simply pawns in a game that has already been decided.

Don't let anybody fool you. 

The Mayor wants to get total control of Dallas ISD for his political agenda.

Do not sign this petition.

The whole truth is not being told.

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3 sources say home rule was pitched with Dallas mayor running schools-Matthew Haag-DMN-3-8-14

"Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas ISD trustee Mike Morath have denied they’re seeking any specific results in supporting an effort to overhaul the school system.

Yet three people who have been briefed on the initiative said they were told the goals include establishing a different system of governing the district, perhaps under the mayor’s oversight.

Rawlings said in a written statement Friday that he has decided that “proposing a specific change in governance was not the right way to go.”

“I spoke with several leaders about this issue before I endorsed Support Our Public Schools, and a lot of potential changes to the charter were discussed,” he said." (Dallas Morning News)

Save our schools from a mean-spirited corporate reform model and Mayor Mike Rawlings hostile takeover

“Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.” Frederick Douglass

Mayor Mike Rawlings blamed the economic problems of the city on Dallas ISD at a press conference yesterday.

This was selling fear to the citizens of Dallas - fear mongering.

This is all about politics, power and money - not education.

With Mayor Mike Rawlings' constant unethical meddling into Dallas ISD affairs and Superintendent Mike Miles doing more harm than good, the result is a Dallas ISD teaching staff that appears to be more broken in spirit than I have seen in the 8 years I have served as a Trustee.

Authoritarians always want all power. 

They never want to share it. 

If they cannot get their way democratically, they change the rules and the game or take power by force.

Physician, first do no harm.

They laughed in city hall Wednesday. 

A city councilman asked Todd Williams of Committ what he thought of Dallas ISD governance. He refused to answer the question. They laughed. I guess it was funny. It felt belittling. 

Todd Williams (Mayor Rawlings' education advisor) did support the current SOPS (Support Our Public Schools) deceptive takeover petition that gives unlimited power to an unelected Charter Commission. 

The right of citizens and taxpayers to vote for school Trustees will likely be removed. That is the purpose - to get rid of those pesky voters.

Will Dallas ISD be turned into one big charter district like Louisiana state politicians imposed on the poor and powerless after the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans following the hurricane Katrina disaster?

See Rawlings, Support Our Public Schools unveil home-rule goals for Dallas ISD

This is turning into the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans-Naomi Klein

New Orleans is the example Mayor Rawlings used yesterday as the desirable model.

We might now be in for one of the most divisive times in Dallas ISD history if this group succeeds with the next ruthless takeover by those who will take away your right to vote and call it 'a civil rights issue.'

Civil rights should be protected - not taken away. 

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From "Save Our Schools" 

"Over the last 30 years, succeeding administrations have employed conservative solutions to social problems, significantly reducing federal programs to provide equal opportunities for the poor and minorities. Federal officials have redefined and curtailed assistance to combat hunger, insufficient income, poor housing, unemployment, and poor health care, leaving teachers as the only public workers charged with the responsibility to help Americans (regardless of their backgrounds) prepare themselves morally and mentally to compete in the world."  Save Our Schools - The Case For Public Education.

"Remember public schools were once expected to fashion a common national culture and prepare young people to be reflective and critical citizens in our Republic. The result of NCLB is that education will become a private matter in which individuals choose their futures, rather than a public responsibility of all citizens to each citizen. Save Our Schools -The Case For Public Education .

 "Advocates of NCLB will shout that because each individual is afforded this private educational choice, all American children enjoy equal opportunity to pursue the American Dream. Yet, as the hoax of the "Texas Miracle" clearly demonstrated, NCLB sacrifices our dreams to achieve lower taxes, political advantage, and business profits. Unless significant changes are made in the tenets and system of NCLB, the next decade will be a sad end to the most ambitious American experiment - universal free public education." Save Our Schools - The Case For Public Education.