WOW.
This is a remarkable and candid story of Jorge Cabrera, who joined the reform movement as a believer. He wanted to help the children of Bridgeport, where he grew up. He wanted better schools. He was a community organizer for Excel Schools.
And then he learned the truth.
“As I began my work in the “education reform movement” in Bridgeport, I noticed a plethora of ivy league educated “consultants” and “transformational leaders” that littered the often loose coalition of funders, new organizations and executive directors. From the beginning, it was clear that many of these new “leaders” that were emerging were well credentialed. They had graduated from prestigious universities and, it was presumed (though not by me), that alone qualified them to lead. Many were very young (recent graduates), energetic, unmarried with no children and little life experience. They often exhibited a cultish commitment to “the movement.” Their zeal for “education reform” and “saving the children” often resulted in a bizarre abdication of critical thinking that made a mockery of their high priced “education.” For instance, in many meetings I attended, many of these acolytes extolled the virtues of charter schools as the only solution to closing the achievement gap in Bridgeport but never once did anyone bother to discuss the ample research (i.e. “Teaching with Poverty in Mind” ) available regarding the negative impact of poverty on academic achievement or that Bridgeport had several public magnet schools that outperformed (as measured by standardized test scores) many charter schools. These magnet schools had long track records (20 plus years) of success and I assumed we should advocate for what we know, firmly, works. Despite this evidence, there was never any serious discussion regarding expanding magnet school options or advocating for high quality, universal preschool programs (research shows the achievement gap begins at this level). The entire approach to “education reform” lacked any serious understanding of the many variables (i.e., social-emotional issues, poverty, funding, English language learners) that clearly effect a child’s ability to learn. Anytime a more dynamic and multifaceted approach to closing the achievement gap was raised it was quickly dismissed as “making excuses.” The atmosphere vacillated between a callous indifference to the real challenges Bridgeport children faced and arrogant dismissiveness. Permeated throughout these various organizations that formed a loose network of power was a culture that prized blind dedication to the “mission” and socially affirmed and promoted those who obeyed and exhibited “urgency” in “reforming” the “failing schools.” The people in “the movement” made it clear that it was up to the “best and brightest” of minds to “transform” the “system” as “outside influencers.” By “best and brightest” they almost exclusively meant people who would do their bidding without question and certainly not anyone that would exhibit any degree of independent or critical thought. On more than one occasion, when the argument was made that the solutions to the multilayered challenge of public education needed to come from the people and required an authentic, engaging process with the Bridgeport community the response was often glib at best. I recall in one strategic planning meeting when I advocated for authentic engagement and patience to allow parents the time to become informed on the various issues and was told to, “just use language to convince” the parents and impress upon them a sense of “urgency.” Another person told me, “It’s all about how you say it…..”
“I began to sense that someone or something I was not fully aware of was calling the shots behind the scenes and many of these young ivy leaguers were the mercenaries on the front lines tasked with implementing the agenda. This whole enterprise was quickly becoming astroturfing and I was in the middle of it. Worse, I was starting to feel like I was hired to put lipstick on a pig and it was beginning to burn me on the inside. Nevertheless, through it all, I never gave up hope and tried to create spaces for honest, authentic and fact based discussions inside “the movement” with limited success.”
The reformers decided that Bridgeport needed mayoral control, so the mayor could open more charters faster. In the run-up to the election, high-priced media consultants arrived to take charge.
“Immediately, the focus was on marketing and sloganeering. Worse, we were trying to build the plane while it was in the air! The whole thing was rushed and disorganized. We were told to make sure we communicated to the public that voting in favor of the city charter change was good for parents, students and would lead to better academic outcomes. The insinuation was that anyone who was against the charter revision changes was anti-child or anti-education. When parents or community leaders asked questions that required more substantive, fact based responses we were coached to respond to everything in soundbites and with shallow arguments that lacked any grounding in reality. It was the worse kind of insult to the community’s intelligence and pandered to the worse aspects of human nature and—it almost worked.”
” My nearly three years in the “movement” in Bridgeport revealed to me the incredible lengths that private, often unseen and unaccountable power will go to in order to create and capitalize on a crisis. In Bridgeport, that crisis in our public education system was created by powerful forces at the local and state level who systematically starved the school system by withholding necessary school funding (Shock #1) which then created a crisis that set the stage for a takeover (Shock #2) of the Bridgeport board of education on the eve of the fourth of July in 2011. Essentially, these forces were engaged in a form of social engineering under the guise of “urgency” and “reform.” To be clear, in this “movement” there are people who have good intentions and sincerly want to improve the conditions of Bridgeport’s public schools but they do not sit at the tables of power when strategic decisions are made and their voices are often silenced. Their talents, skills and knowledge are often used to serve a larger, opaque agenda that is dictated by a radical ideology of deregulation and privatization. Shot throughout most, if not all, of the education reform “movement” you will find the radical ideology of economist Milton Friedman. Looking back, there were moments when this mindset (disaster capitalism) was revealed to me in meetings. On one occassion, a very influential operator in the “education reform” community was discussing the “amazing opportunity” that revealed itself after hurricane Katrina in New Orleans desimated the population and led to the “charterization” of the public school system. He expounded that sometimes you have to, “…burn the village to save it…” and that what we (the “reform community”) are essentially involved in is, “creative destruction.” Worse, he argued that we needed a “clean slate” in order for real “change” to happen in the school system in Bridgeport. But this was my home. This was the city I grew up in and where most of my family lived and worked. You want to burn down their city!? You want to destroy it so you can be creative!? For whom? It was all surreal. I was done.”
It’s an incredible story that confirms your darkest suspicions.
Great write-up on the ed-reform cult from the inside. Chillingly familiar. One needn’t reach as far afield as the rise of Nazism. Anyone who was brushed by the most radical elements of the anti-war movement of the sixties, or by the religious communes that enticed runaway youth in the seventies will recognize the methods.
See the commentary on Vallas, the serial deformer:
The Knight in Shining Armor
My first meeting with Paul Vallas was like a whirlwind. He barely came up for air! He spoke in a rapid fire cadence and despite my best efforts I could not engage him in any substantive conversations. He rode into the city as the new superintendent of schools like a knight in shining armor. Immediately and repeatedly, I was told by many in the “reform community” that Vallas was a “godsend,” a “transformational leader” with an international reputation of turning school systems around, increasing academic outcomes and changing the lives of, literally, thousands of students. The praise heaped on him was ubiquitous. He often spoke in soundbites and we were told that we were to be a “critical friend” to the new superintendent. We would support him when he was right and criticize him when he was wrong. Our main constituents, I was told, were the families and students. Good enough, I thought at the time. In reality, we were dispatched to drum up support in the community for virtually every policy change or initiative proposed by Vallas. Any thoughtful questioning of the efficacy of his proposals was met with stone silence or the injection of the “urgency” argument which was intended to and had the effect of silencing any meaningful discussion. If one pushed too hard to open up an authentic discussion regarding Vallas’s proposals “the movement” would send strong signals that the questioner was being disloyal and that such questioning was deemed heresy. It was as if a “bunker mentality” had descended on many in “the movement.” You were either with them or against them. Despite this hostile environment, on one occasion, I was able to engage Vallas in a rare moment of reflection and candor. We were discussing different school models and supports for students and I casually asked Vallas if he thought traditional neighborhood public schools could succeed if they were given adequate funding and supports for students, teachers and families. His response was very revealing. He stated, “Yes! Of course they can, but my charter (school) friends don’t like it when I say that.” It was a rare, candid moment that spoke volumes and provided a rare glimpse into the mindset of the “reformers.” The veil was starting to be lifted. As I continued to have extensive conversations with many community leaders I began to appreciate the deceitful and manipulative manner in which Vallas was hired to lead the Bridgeport school system. It was all unfolding before me and the truth was emerging.
Sounds like “Dr.” John Deasy.
“I could not engage him in any substantive discussions.” This is how I feel with many “leaders”. They are so bent on Getting Sh** Done that they recoil from real conversation. It’s the opposite of Socrates’ idea of dialectical conversation as the best means of reaching the truth. I wonder if Vallas ever learned about Socrates.
“A racket is a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such as for a problem that does not actually exist, that will not be put into effect, or that would not otherwise exist if the racket did not exist.”6
This is racketeering plain and simple. US and State Attorney Generals should be investigating Daniel Loeb, Julian H. Robertson Jr, Joel Greenblatt, Paul Tudor Jones II, Louis Bacon, Carl Celian, Seth Klarman, Larry Robbins, Paul Elliott Singer, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and their educational institutions/affiliations, along with their lobbying apparatus for racketeering in arena of public education:
2. Billions Behind, New York State Continues to Violate Students’ Constitutional Rights, Alliance for Quality Education, http://www.aqeny.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/REPORT-NY-Billions-Behind.pdf
3. The Nation, How Online Learning Companies Bought America’s Schools, http://www.thenation.com/article/164651/how-online-learning-companies-bought-americas-schools#
4. The Nation, Nine Billionaires Who Want to Control Public Education, http://m.thenation.com/article/201881-9-billionaires-are-about-remake-new-yorks-public-schools-heres-their-story
5. Diane Ravitch, https://dianeravitch.net/category/charter-schools/
6. Wikipedia, Racket, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_%28crime%29
You are absolutely correct — Milton Friedman, Reagan’s economic guru, and his free market, competition based ideas about education reform is the wellspring of our current failed education policies.
How can we accomplish this goal of reclaiming the sacred ground of public education? First of all, acknowledge that there are differing ideological views about education in the U.S. Very importantly, we must acknowledge that many are militantly against the CCSS for various reasons; most are against high-stakes testing and the data mining that has resulted from the testing movement; and others are equally opposed to charter schools. But what unites us? Underlying all these is the reality that corporations are dominating education policy decisions in a new environment of corporate and governmental mutualism that is out to usurp locally controlled public schools and that envisions children merely as a source of profit. We must unite to stop this corporate assault. Do you want to defeat the Common Core? Stop the profit machine associated with these national standards. Do you want to put an end to Draconian high stakes tests that are sucking the life out of education? Stop the profit machine associated with high-stakes tests. Do you want to reclaim public schools and end the incursion of the charter school movement? Stop the profit machine associated with charter schools. If we are able to accomplish this, we will reclaim the sacred ground of public education for all children, for all families, and for all communities. Holding teachers accountable for the test scores of their children will become history. We will realize that true societal transformation begins with the communities in which children and families live and that the schools within those communities are a part of a larger societal system. Make it known to every federal, state, and locally elected official that they will lose their elected offices if they do not listen to the UNITED pro-public school forces.
Join the conversation Sunday afternoon on the War Report on Public Education:
http://thewarreportonpubliced.com/
It is interesting to see more and more realization of the destructive impact of Milton Friedman’s Disaster Capitalism as it is applied to education.
From Mr. Cabrera:
” My nearly three years in the “movement” in Bridgeport revealed to me the incredible lengths that private, often unseen and unaccountable power will go to in order to create and capitalize on a crisis. In Bridgeport, that crisis in our public education system was created by powerful forces at the local and state level who systematically starved the school system by withholding necessary school funding (Shock #1) which then created a crisis that set the stage for a takeover (Shock #2) of the Bridgeport board of education on the eve of the fourth of July in 2011.”
And from Ms. Owens:
“You are absolutely correct — Milton Friedman, Reagan’s economic guru, and his free market, competition based ideas about education reform is the wellspring of our current failed education policies.”
And back to Mr. Carera:
“Their talents, skills and knowledge are often used to serve a larger, opaque agenda that is dictated by a radical ideology of deregulation and privatization. Shot throughout most, if not all, of the education reform “movement” you will find the radical ideology of economist Milton Friedman. Looking back, there were moments when this mindset (disaster capitalism) was revealed to me in meetings. On one occassion, a very influential operator in the “education reform” community was discussing the “amazing opportunity” that revealed itself after hurricane Katrina in New Orleans desimated the population and led to the “charterization” of the public school system.”
The bottom line (I’m not sure if the double entendre is intended or not) is that if a real crisis does not exist, create one! It is not just the data-mining that is worrisome, but the soul-sucking money-mining is even more problematic.
With apologies to Country Joe MacDonald and his “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixing-To-Die Rag:
“Yeah, come on Wall Street, don’t be slow,
Why man, this is education au-go-go
There’s plenty good money to be made
By supplying education with the tools of its trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Public Schools.”
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
Rahm Emanuel
And, yes, if a crisis doesn’t exist — make one up — even it requires distortion, phony statistics, and lies.
Dr. Duncan Owens,
I have tried to equip myself with a deeper understanding of what’s at stake when we talk about Common Core State Standards.
The thing I try to bring into discussions on this topic is the need to acknowledge what and who influenced the implementation of this massive public/private effort. I’m grateful for works like this:
The Origins of the Common Core – Deborah Duncan Owens – Palgrave Macmillan
9781137482679
Publication Date January 2015
Formats Hardcover Ebook (EPUB) Ebook (PDF)
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan
“How did a movement so contentious as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) become public education policy throughout the United States? Deborah Duncan Owens provides an insightful historical analysis of the CCSS, beginning with conservative criticism of public schools in the 1930s and culminating in a convergence of the interests of the right, the left, and corporate America in systemically reforming education based on free market principles. Through an in-depth tour of education policies and movements over thirty-five years, Owens clearly identifies the advocates, politicians, authors, and thinkers who paved the way for the dominant way of thinking about public education in the United States today.”
Deborah Duncan Owens is Associate Professor of Literacy Education at Elmira College, USA. A former public school teacher, Owens focuses her research on education policy and, in particular, on the impact of poverty and other social factors on public schools.
http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-origins-of-the-common-core-deborah-duncan-owens/?K=9781137482679
Mr. Cabrera was fortunate to have discovered that Emperor Reform had no clothes before he drank the Kool-Aid.
Another thing that I find offensive about these reformers is the notion that only graduates from the Ivy League can solve problems. This is patronizing nonsense. Poor children don’t need to be saved by the “charity” of Ivy League graduates. These children need to be given the resources to succeed. Free summer reading and math programs for all children who need them would do more for education in this country than any of these crazy reform plans of the Ivy League graduates.
As someone who went to a public Ivy I find it also irritating that TFA get stipends for loans, but if someone were to go the same level schools for a full teaching credential, or a graduate degree such as I have, they would get nothing. I wish TFA would stop stealing money from my tax dollars in Dallas so that I could pay my own student loans, instead of theirs, for the same educational background.
I also think that the idea of elite colleges as better than others is nonsensical: many elites lack critical thinking and in depth understanding of complex social issues, due to being coddled.
Having worked with ivy leaguers and low life state university rabble like myself, I have found across the board, you get out of college what you put in it. One difference is the more privileged are ALLOWED to fail as part of the learning experience. A more middle class education means a razor thin margin of error where you learn how to be self sufficient. The elite have the benefit of tutors, no-fail grading, time to focus on studies without working a job, and many second chances. Would George W. or Mitt be so presidential if they lacked the cushion of wealth? Unlikely.
I was the first in my extended family to graduate college. My parents worked dirty, difficult jobs long hours. My grandfather worked triple shifts breathing chromium in the mills so we could go to college – it eventually killed him. My other grandfather had an arm crushed off from an engine on the job so my dad could go to a decent school. My first job at fifteen was cleaning toilets and grease traps. I worked all through school in tough jobs, sometimes dangerous. I get so sick of these elite, pampered “experts” looking down on my profession and telling me how to do my job. They need a dose of reality.
Jorge Cabrera only had his epiphany AFTER Ex$ell Bridgeport fired him.
The name of the organization is Excel Bridgeport, not “Excel Schools.” This organization is primarily funded by Steve Mandel, one of the seven wealthiest men in CT.
I must tell all of you reading here that Maria Pereira has been fighting this for a very long time and she is a former BPS board member, a Bridgeport resident and a public school parent. She has been educating the community for many years and she never never never gives up. She is watched closely by the charter loving mayor, Bill Finch and his posse. If you want the truth, ask Maria.
What is being described here is a movement with all the trappings of an, intolerant, dogmatic religion run by robber barons.
Ha. Education reform meets Scientology.
“The Cult of Deform”
The proselytes
Of Sun Myung Gates
Have set their sights
On fifty states
The Cult of Bill
Deforming schools
Is like a pill
For silly fools
WOW-OMG-finally an insider spills! This could easily be here in Denver. The DFER crowd plus Americans for Prosperity helped by hedge fund politicians are going crazy with all the backlash against their destructive reforms & it’s pretty wonderful but the fight is a long way from over to save real teaching & learning and dignity to American public schools! Yeah Jorge.
Years ago I was a part of the ‘reform’ movement, when I signed on with a group called ‘New Leaders for New Schools,’ a Harvard reform movement with Cami Anderson as one of it’s superstar leaders.
And???
Linda: please provide the source for the piece you provided.
Thank you.
Below another example of what seems to be a feature, not a bug, in the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement.
I include two paragraphs [near the end] from a guest posting on the blog of ex-TFAer Gary Rubinstein. As he puts it: “Recently, several people have contacted me with interesting stories they wanted to share with the people who read this blog. In the coming weeks there will be more guest posts like this one from Bryn Mawr College senior Emma Gulley.”
I urge interested viewers of this blog to read the entire piece.
[start excerpt]
Leaving TFA was like leaving a cult. Even after my manager received my resignation email I would get occasional emails asking me to do something for their initiative on campus “as a favor.” TFA does not like you to leave their inner circle. You can unsubscribe from their general newsletters, but it’s harder to unsubscribe from someone you once exchanged holiday presents with. I was shaken for weeks after resigning from TFA. I was relieved and better-rested and happier, but I was also afraid–of what, exactly, I am still not sure. I felt that I just barely escaped Teach for America’s dream cycle–indeed, TFA’s indoctrination. I was introduced to TFA as a college freshman, I interned for them for two years, and, had they had it “their way,” I would have interned for them for another year before teaching for two years and then being hired as a recruitment manager. The cycle from recruited to recruiter would be complete. I do feel that I was briefly inducted into a cult, and escaped to tell the tale, which is more than I can say for any other CCC I have ever met.
It is now my senior year of college. The woman who had been my manager has moved to another department within TFA, and on August 1st I got my first recruiting email from my Bryn Mawr’s new lead recruiter. She has sent me some of the most worrisome and disturbing emails I have ever received. TFA has responded to the valid, well-articulated articles by former corps members critiquing TFA that went viral several months ago by telling me their words aren’t valid because they weren’t in the right “corps member mindset.” TFA has tried to convince me to support their efforts by buying a shirt from J. Crew. TFA has tried to convince me to apply to the program by bribing me with a holiday gift. I have not responded to these emails.
[end excerpt]
Link: http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2014/02/22/guest-post-series-part-one-how-interning-for-tfa-convinced-me-of-its-injustice/
Focus on these four words from the above: right corps member mindset. Then ponder for a moment what, IMHO, is the implication: for the “new civil rights movement of our time” drinking the Kool-Aid is considered good, not bad.
Just sayin’…
😎
From Gary Rubinstein’s description of his TFA experience, it sounds like Wikipedia’s definition of a pyramid scheme:
“A pyramid scheme is an unsustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment.”
Do you mean the Vallas excerpt? It was within the blog Diane linked at the very beginning of this post. See “remarkable and candid story”.
Linda: my bad.
😱
¿? Email coming in from the Gates Foundation…
I have just been informed that the above has disqualified me from ever getting a grant check from them because I admitted I screwed up.
Funny thing, though, I don’t feel bad at all. Even worse, perhaps, is I feel good that I can still look at myself in the mirror and know that I am not like Michelle Rhee:
“I’m a very unusual person in that, in my entire life, I don’t have any regrets. I’m a person without regret.” [see John Merrow blog, 4-11-2013, note#6]
I regret I didn’t get it right the first time and I don’t regret apologizing to you.
Maybe they could make a movie about that called WON’T BACK DOWN?
They already have? And it was about….
Ok, just accept my apology and let’s move to a a more fruitful discussion of what it will take to ensure a “better education for all.”
Thank you, as always, for joining in and enriching the discussion on this blog.
😎
The writer’s experience was moving. A real look inside “the movement”. Yes, PROFIT !
As for Paul Vallas, he is unethical. When he came to Chicago, he was implementing Direct Instruction, a teaching method.in which children repeated what the teacher said, a behaviorist approach.. From the High Scope Foundation in Michigan information on their recent research comparing types of preschools became available. (High Scope did the research on the cost effectiveness of preschool education which is quoted all the time.) One of the preschool models was Direct Instruction. The result of the research was that the students in DI by their mid-twenties had three times the number of felony arrests as the other students. The felony arrests were for assault with a deadly weapon. The information on the research was sent to Mr. Vallas. He had the head of Early Childhood send us a wishy washy letter,. At the budget hearings the following summer a colleague and I spoke of the research. Vallas’s Chief Education Officer and his Chief Accountability Officer turned and stared at us when we said this. Mr. Vallas had not shared the information with them. No more was there public mention of DI. Instead I heard from principals I knew that they were being told to implement DI on the QT. Mr. Vallas is unethical ! ! ! What does teaching method have to do with crime? If children in PreK are spending half an hour in play activities and an hour sitting and repeating, they are not learning the social skills that are crucial at this age.. I wonder if the high crime we have in Chicago today is from the children who were in DI in the 1990s. They would be in their twenties today. And I was shocked when Governor Quinn announced he was having Mr. Vallas as his running mate.! They lost.
Well written and hits the nail on the head. Unfortunately, this has filtered down to the school level where teachers are never consulted about the initiatives they must enact. We are supposed to be the automatons who do what we are told. Time to speak up.
Whoa! Sounds all to familiar. “Charterization” sounds good to a lot of parents but it isn’t going to fix the problem for everyone. As Jorge Cabrera mentioned at the beginning, the research about the model schools that are working is often ignored. “Teaching with Poverty in Mind” and what happens at the magnet schools. Consultants with little or no classroom experience or success are given far too much power and say. They don’t understand “our world” and have never dealt with the challenges nor have never fought in the trenches. The best and the brightest should come with experience in the field of education not straight out of graduate school.
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware.
Wait a minute! Has anyone writing here read Milton Friedman? “Free To Choose” by Mr. and Mrs. Friedman is a very accessible (ezy to read doh!) book espousing Liberty as the only moral means of conduct. How his good name is dragged into this struggle between various hyenas and jackals fighting over the corpse of America is hard to guess!
Brian Sand, Milton Friedman gets involved because he proposed vouchers in 1955, and the institute named for him lobbies state legislatures for vouchers.
Brian, see what his ideas and guidance did for Chile….it may give you a map of what people are trying to do here.
Hmmm…
[start excerpt]
One of those who saw opportunity in the floodwaters of New Orleans was Milton Friedman, grand guru of the movement for unfettered capitalism and the man credited with writing the rulebook for the contemporary, hypermobile global economy. Ninety-three years old and in failing health, “Uncle Miltie,” as he was known to his followers, nonetheless 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 that attended them. The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is also an opportunity to radically reform the educational system.”
[end excerpt]
(Naomi Klein, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM, 2007, p. 5)
Anybody on this blog know how Uncle Miltie’s prescription for New Orleans schools worked out?
Although elsewhere, a one-blog answer would be—
Link: https://deutsch29.wordpress.com
😎
We are importing the hurricane to Newark.
“Liberty as the only moral means of conduct”. What exactly does that mean? It sounds like more of the pseudo religion of “free markets”.
Milton Friedman has a good name?
When did he change it and what to?
“Liberty” for whom? To do what? For instance, an awful lot of Bridgeport parents (and parents in other “reform” cities) would like the liberty to choose a well-resourced local public school with a broad curriculum for their children. Should they have that liberty?
Speaking of resources, Dienne, my school is getting ready to close down the library. Another school in the district dumped all the library books in the dumpster.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Discover from an insider the house of FRAUD being built by corporate education reformers. A MUST READ for anyone interested in the facts and the truth of what is happening to our children and our teachers.
This can only happen with our government’s compliance. Our kids are products, and I do not understand why parents are still so brainwashed into thinking without testing their child will fail.
There is a cult-like mentality going on in these “no excuses” charter chains. It’s Orwellian and disturbing, especially when it comes to discipline. At the charter chain I briefly worked for in New Haven, CT., the administration spent at least twenty minutes at a faculty meeting discussing what type of “sigh” is just a sigh, and what type is disrespect deserving of a “level two deduction” (in-school detention).
Crs-Posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/MUST-READ-Revelations-of-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Agenda_Control_Diane-Ravitch_Marketing-150328-500.html#comment539008
with this commentEmbedd links at the site0
Thank YOU Diane for offering us this look into Michigan. I saw it in NYC as the largest school system in America was dismantled. This Grassroots film was made years ago, but finally the reality of the ‘deform’ movement is out there, because it is the strategy across the nation..
Time to take back control of our schools! grassroots
Find out more
I end every post with this, because this is where I go:
Become informed. Tell others!
Do get the feed at the Ravitch blog …such brilliant and often humorous conversations, these are the kind of smart folks who we remember as great teachers– and they talk all about education as it is unfolding.
Also, go often to the NPE site. N is for Network, get the real facts about what is ongoing among the genuine academics, educators , teachers and parents, in the NPE News Briefs.
What a thoughtful, well written and valuable statement about the reality of “education reform”. Thank you Jorge Cabrera. I hope my children are as articulate and full of integrity as you when they are your age.
What EXACTLY are these “reformers” trying to achieve?
In the case of the corporate reformers, it appears that they basically are trying to turn education into a profit making enterprise that benefits only those that open and operate for profit schools.
In the case of some of those politicians and citizens that believe we need reform in order to turn out educated citizens ( those that can read, write and think critically), they have attacked the teachers, supposedly for “failing” in their mission.
In my opinion, what we need in this country is a true dialogue about exactly what “education” is supposed to achieve for students, whether or not they attend public or private schools. That includes all populations of students, whether they be special education ( some that are severely disabled), to the most highly gifted, and everyone in between.
In my twelve years of teaching, all that I have seen coming from those that are reform minded is a “one size fits al” mentality. I haven’t seen any REAL solutions to whatever the problem is supposed to be coming from these reformers other than to blame teachers.
Do any of these “reformers” truly have a plan, other than to benefit themselves, rather than the upcoming generations through education?
It seems to be not.
Sorry for my sarcasm but- You think???
The media has been silent for 2 decades and now, after the teachers are gone,and schools in chaos, they are finishing the take-over in the legislatures and EVEN NOW, YOU HEAR NOTHING ABOUT IT.
I wrote this years ago
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html
and this
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
In fact go to my author’s page and read my essays http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
And I am not alone… THE MEDIA serves the billionaires, which owns it, and the only narrative you will ever hear is of failing schools, bad teachers and magic elixirs which enrich them!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Ms. Schwartz: I read every single one of the articles that you gave links for, and I agree wholeheartedly with the points that you make, particularly on the “whole language approach” method.
I, too, teach in the Bronx in a District 75 school where many of the students are considered to be extremely developmentally delayed. Many of these students are, at best, a cognitive level of pre-k, the highest at a 2nd grade level in reading and math skills.
Many are non-verbal, physically handicapped, and very sick. Most are also coming from conditions of extreme poverty. Many cannot read or write, nor have the ability to do so.
Yet, we are expected to be teaching these students by Common Core and Danielson standards, as well as NCLB. Our students are expected to know algebra, history, science, as if they were at a general education high school level. Very unrealistic expectations for most of these students.
If reform were needed anywhere, it’s at schools like mine. Not reform in the sense of what’s been written about regarding general education populations, but to provide some kind of practical education for the students that we serve.
From my standpoint, this entire population of students in our schools is being severely underserved, and as a result, teachers in these schools, as well as the paras, are being reduced to nothing more than respite workers and babysitters.
I’d love to see the “reformers” try to solve the problems of the most neediest students in our schools, those that are severely handicapped and extremely developmentally delayed.
It’s not a conversation I’ve seen much discussed anywhere.
Thank you for your intelligent comment. it is so true.
Here is one man who has blown the whistle on the morass that is education in LA
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/between-dishonest-social-promotion-of.html
as a reward they did this
http://www.perdaily.com/2010/02/yesterday-i-was-removed-from-class-in-handcuffs.html
Teachers need the law on their side…heis suing the uNION, by the way, for not representing him!
This sounds more like that Scientology documentary than anything that should be going on in public education.
I don’t think too many wealthy people would want their kids’ private schools run with this attitude either.