Make no mistake. The privatization movement is in full cry.
There are big profits to be made in the education industry.
Rupert Murdoch’s corporation just split into two divisions, with one focused on education and publishing, headed by Joel Klein.
Says the story: Mr. Klein said being a part of the spunoff publishing company (which would include the troubled British tabloid The Sun) could help ease concerns among educators.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want any data about my grandchildren in Murdoch’s data base.
According to the story linked above, Rupert Murdoch tweeted: “Only way to restore American dream and have real meritocracy is fix terrible public K-12 education.”
And of course, Murdoch and Klein know how to fix it.
Trust them.
I wish someone would tell them that NAEP scores are at their highest point in history, in reading and in math, for grades four and eight, for whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians.
But they wouldn’t listen.
They have a business to run.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is time to recognize the presence among us of fundamentally unethical businesses (FUBs) and radically unethical corporations (RUCs). These FUB-RUCs do not play by the same rules as ethical businesses and corporations. They have no interest in the long-term gains that can be made by providing higher quality goods that serve society. They find it easier to make massive, short-term gains by deceiving the public about the very nature of the Good.
There is of course a fundamental incompatibility between the aims of education and the business that advances through misinformation, but people who dedicate their lives to education and information tend to be extremely naive about the determined existence and dogged persistence of unethical enterprises.
We really need to stop doing that …
A lot depends on it …
They also have myths to perpetuate. Like the idea that corporations can make education efficient and teachers more effective through testing, union-busting and fear-mongering. Is it an accident that within 48 hours of “stepping down” from News Corp., Murdoch and Klein are together to take part in the race to build a 21st century educational dystopia? I think not. God help us all!
Same statement Rhee made on Meet the Press with David Gregory. That’s the new mantra. The economy will never recover until public ed. is fixed by the likes of Murdoch, Klein, Rhee and I guess the rest of the billionaire boys club. The only rational conclusion I can draw from their statements is that public education, not the Wall street bankers destroyed the economy. Hope you can enjoy Rhee here:
Rhee should be an embarrassment to TFA. She should be ignored based on her lies, self-promotion and deceitful ways. Why would anyone listen to someone who failed as a teacher and a chancellor?
Our society is sick if we listen to a self promoting fraud. I can’t even stand to see her face or hear her voice.
There are no values practiced by Rupert Murdoch that I would want taught to my children. The idea of an obsessive hedonist drafting curricula for young minds when England judges him “unfit” to run his media empire only hints at the incompatabilities of American values against his lifetime of political and economic terrorism. While he may be the darling of the extremist 1%, he will first need to take over all law enforcement if he wants to collect any money to run his unaccredited Uberreichsschule to create the new generation of mindless wingnuts.
Diane, you write: “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want any data about my grandchildren in Murdoch’s data base.”
This data (350 sets or so) can and will be gathered as a result of the Common Core standards pushed by the NGA, CCSSI, Arne Duncan, Obama, Rhee, Jeb Bush, David Coleman and other ed reformers.
Now if THAT isn’t enough reason to be against Common Core, I don’t know what is. I’ve long believed Common Core was just a ruse to establish the longitudinal data systems so that states could “share” data…but more importantly, the Race to the Top and Common Core mandates require the invasive data collection on students and families that will be shared with various federal agencies, private research firms and other entities approved by the DOEd.
http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/2012/06/lean-to-right-or-left-common-core-is.html
The standards content is really quite unimportant. The value is in the data collection and that is mandated once common core is adopted by the states. The primary objective is to supply the workforce, not create a superb educational system:
http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/2012/01/coming-to-america-on-january-3-its.html
Don’t allow your child to take any tests used for data collection or teacher evals. OPT OUT!
Opting out of tests is a viable option but for how many students? How many parents know that Common Core mandates these assessments? How many parents even KNOW what Common Core standards ARE?….standards written by private companies which are held unaccountable to taxpayers, school boards and school districts.
Opting out is a start but the long term goal should be the rescinding of these standards and the data that goes along with it Most parents and taxpayers are aghast when you explain they have little to no control over what/how their children are being taught and learning, and how their tax dollars are being spent in public education.
Just an aside, these standards are being implemented for preschoolers for career tracking. Just google “P-20 pipeline”.
Look at all the agencies interested in childrens’ information:
http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/2011/03/question-is-version-of-p20-pipeline.html
This should be criminal.
I compare and contrast this with the story I just read about how Caterpillar Corporation paid its CEO $17 million dollars due to record profits while asking its unionized workers to take a 6 year salary and pension freeze in order to “remain completive.” They are being hailed as bold leaders in the fight against unionized workers in America.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/23/567201/caterpillar-pay-freeze/
It should be clear at this point that we are at war in America. The war is between the very small group of haves who have captured the government and economy and the vast majority of the rest of us. Unionized workers and an educated middle class are thorns in their sides and they will fight without mercy to rid the world of that roadblock. I would not trust the evil Joel Klein with anything under any circumstances, let alone the even more evil Rupert Murdoch.
Using a Star Wars analogy I would say that we are now under control of the Sith Lords in the form of the 1% and we need to fight like hell to defeat them before it is too late. Until we re-regulate and control the banks, Wall Street, and all the political corruption paid for by their billions and reformulate our unions and professional organizations to represent us we are doomed to watch the destruction of life as we know it and it’s not a pretty sight.
That is the goofiest ad. Takes after Rhee and StudentsFirst.
A commercial should be made about all of her failures and her self-promoting lies..wish we could tape her mouth shut.
Linda1,
I truly wish that you could debate Rhee. Actually, it wouldn’t be fair for her!!
The lucrative part of Murdoch’s News Corp. empire is the entertainment division. This new publishing/education wing is going to start with a lot of headwinds – the hacking scandal is far from done (see first link below), there are plenty more lawsuits to come in the U.K. from hacking victims, and there will be at least four suits here in the U.S. from victims allegedly hacked on American soil. All of the legal fees and costs will come solely from the publishing/education division – the entertainment division is not going to prop up the publishing/newspaper/education properties anymore. If News Corp is nailed with a fine related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for bribing overseas officials in Britain, that money will come from the publishing/education wing as well. So this new division has some very serious threats to it before it crawls out of the nest.
That’s why Murdoch has warned all the properties in the new division – be profitable or be gone. He has already warned “The Daily” that their days are numbered. Let’s remember that “The Daily” was supposed to be the cutting edge news app that would be delivered to Apple platforms and revolutionize the news. It loses $30 million a year and probably won’t survive the year. The other big Murdoch newspaper properties – the Post, the Times of London and the Wall Street Journal – lose an estimated $250 million a year (second link below.) The News of the World was the most profitable of the papers, but that’s now gone. The Sun makes money but is tarnished by the hacking scandal as well. This is a deeply troubled newspaper company, even with the education division attached to it.
Frankly I think Klein has his work cut out for him here. He’s going to have deal with further hacking fall-out, both from the financial angle but also from the political angle, as the lawsuits from victims continue. The British lawsuits will be the most damaging to the division’s finances, but the U.S. suits could really hurt the company politically if it’s found that News International employees hacked here in the U.S. In addition, the newspapers are worth less by the month, so they’re going to have shed costs quickly by either closing down properties or selling what are quickly becoming worthless newspaper assets. Maybe Klein can hold the whole thing afloat with the education division. But I’m not so sure about that.
One last thing: Rupert Murdoch is 81 years old. No one else in News Corp. other than Klein and Rupert himself, seems to care much about the education division. Can that division survive post-Rupert?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/18/phone-hacking-email-news-international
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/26/news-corp-split-rupert-murdoch-paper-tiger
Why would any school district want advice from Murdoch and Klein? He admitted to hacking into the cell phone of a missing, murdered 13 year old. Have we lost our minds?
This has got to be the breaking point. It is disgusting when you have people like this and Milliken and K12 involved in public education. They wouldn’t be able to pass the fingerprinting screen, so they have to start wireless and technology scams since we would not want them in the same room with our children. Sickening!
This is a great example of what is wrong with privatizing our schools. One can only ask “Who is next?” Is Al Capone dead?
Diane, I found different data for NAEP scores. Since shortly after the first ESEA was thrust upon the American public (1964), NAEP reading scores for 17-year-olds have increased only one point (since 1971) and NAEP math scores for 17-year-olds have increased only two points – over 41 years? Not only that, but SAT scores in the verbal category have dropped 25 points since 1972 and math scores have increased by only one.
http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2012/05/education-accountability-must-originate.html
On another note, I have to say I really think the oneness is being put on the wrong people in this discussion. Vilifying “rich people” and continually engendering class warfare over education will create zero solutions and many more problems as kids (and parents) are divided into smaller and smaller groups and pitted against each other for one reason or another in the media and literature – gosh, that’s productive.
I in no way want public education in America privatized. Frankly, today it’s one of the few things America has going for us – the fact that we don’t have to eek out a meager existence in order to afford to send our children to school for even the most basic knowledge. No one mentions this here, but privatization of public (common) government in any form is really a form of Fascism, and the central shift away from our Republican form of government in America during the last decade is very troubling to me personally.
Not only that, but to me, the real enemies here are the founders of this ‘Education Reform’ nonsense. People who are not educators at all really, but are simply just politically connected enough to get their ideas heard. People like Marc Tucker and David Coleman who keep pushing Chinese (Communist) centered education on American children. Truly? We want common standards to commonize every kid in the nation? What happened to individualism? Why are we ‘assessing’ the worth of kids to get a job in elementary school? Why do we feel the need to test kids to make them creative? This is all simply nonsense – and worse – it represents a clear movement away from what public education has stood for in this country since it’s inception – a way to INDIVIDUALLY rise above your circumstances in order to be whatever you want to be (and as rich as you desire!)
Though I feel sadly grim at the prospect, I hope most Americans still have enough ‘common’ sense to see that the ‘common’ public education identified and promulgated by these people since the early 1900’s are exactly what has KILLED American education.
I live on a clinging, yet paltry, hope that those of us who do understand the ramifications and repercussions of the new “education reform” model, are able to sabotage these efforts to create a socialized system of education designed to churn out workers and ‘thinkers’ based on COMMON (socialized) standards and COMMON (socialized) tests, relieving America of the individuality that – until the last couple decades – had made it, in every way, superior to every other country in the world since 1776.
Read several responses. I personally have called this movement to privatize not only education but all aspects of our Constitutional Republic, corporate Faschism. I think that is the Webster definition for Faschism.
It would be best if you look at NAEP data directly. The scores for every group have increased but the overall scores rise slowly in reading because of increase in numbers of blacks and Hispanics, which are lowest performing groups. The gains in math have been drastic across the board. Reading scores go up more slowly than math because reading is conditioned by home culture. Math is a school taught subject.
Diane
Let me be specific as you have misinformation about NAEP reading scores.
They are not flat.
On the long-term trend NAEP, which goes from 1971-2008
:
White students age 17 gained 4 points from 1971-2008
Black students age 17 gained 28 points from 1971-2008
Hispanic students age 17 gained 17 points from 1971-2008
2008 is last date that long-term NAEP was given.
There is also Main NAEP, which has been given since 1992.
Only given to 4th and 8th grade, not to 17-year olds.
Gains for all groups in this 20 year period, from 1992-2011.
Whites in 4th grade: % below basic dropped from 29% to 22%
Blacks in 4th grade: % below basic dropped from 68% to 51%
Hispanics: 4th grade: % below basic dropped from 621-49%.
Don’t believe everything you read. I am quoting from government documents.
As long as we continue to use the falsehoods of standardized testing to talk about public education we will continue to lose the battle.
FIRE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
i 2nd that e-motion …
I have a few ideas to share for the soon to follow Murdoch charter school…
1) Every student could wear “race-car driver like” uniforms filled with the logo’s of the school’s sponsors.
2) It will be a full online learning program. After all, teachers will be too expensive to hire. Every computer could include commercials every 10 minutes.
3) Students are charged by grade completion with no seat time or work requirements – only test requirements. This way the school can churn students through at a faster rate.
Just imagine the profit making machine the future Robert Murdoch charter school will be!
As I said yesterday, no matter how Klein and Murdoch try and put the past behind them and move forward with their education venture, they just can’t do it. Today’s announcement that eight ex-Murdoch employees, including former News of the World editor and Cameron communications aide Andy Coulson and former News International chief Rebekah Brooks, are being charged with hacking and conspiracy is just another example of that. The police announced earlier in the week that they are still investigating computer and medical records hacking by NI employees as well, so more charges may yet be filed. Today’s charges relate only to the phone hacking. In addition, News Corporation faces a slew of civil lawsuits in the U.K. by hacking victims and at least four in the U.S. by people alleging they were hacked on U.S. soil. The company also faces fines under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for their bribing of police and gov’t officials in Britain. And if the U.S. suits reveal endemic hacking here in the U.S., News Corp. faces a larger political firestorm.
Under the split announced earlier in the month, the entertainment division will no longer have to deal with the hacking stuff. The new education/newspaper division will. This means that Klein, for all his talk yesterday of moving forward to the future with the new venture, will be paying down the past karma of the hacking scandal before he gets to move forward.
Maybe he can be successful at this. I do not underestimate him in this. But Michael Corleone said in the Godfather III, “Every time I think I’m out of this, they pull me back in!”
If Klein is tapped to run the new education/newspaper division, he’s right back into the hacking mess.