Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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“Education Drained of Its Humanity”

By dianerav
May 3, 2013 //
6

This thoughtful and provocative essay by Shawn Gude situates present-day corporate reform in its historical context. Gude shows the connections between early 20th century social efficiency and the present-day demand for testing, standardizing, and data-based decision-making.

Here is an excerpt:

“There’s a special resemblance between the struggles against scientific management, or Taylorism, and today’s teacher resistance to corporate reform schemes. Just as factory workers fought top-down dictates, deskilling, and the installation of anemic work processes, so too are teachers trying to prevent the undemocratic implementation of high-stakes testing and merit pay, assaults on professionalism, and the dumbing down and narrowing of curricula.

“There are more obvious parallels: Proponents of scientific management counted some prominent progressives in their ranks, just like the contemporary left-neoliberals hawking education reform. The nostrums of both Taylorism and the education accountability movement paper over foundational conflicts and root causes. Many of those who espouse education reform cast their solutions as unimpeachably “scientific” and “data-driven,” yet as with scientific management partisans, the empirical grounding of their prescriptions is highly dubious. And proponents of scientific management and corporate school reform share an antipathy toward unions, often casting them as self-interested inhibitors of progress.”

And here is another excerpt:

“When education is reduced to test prep, rich curricula and the craft of teaching are imperiled. The vapid classroom of neoliberal school reform mirrors the vapid workplace of Taylorism. Teach for America, which implicitly advances the idea that the sparsely trained can out-teach veteran educators, engenders deskilling and deprofessionalization. Non-practitioners dictating to practitioners how they should do their work mirrors management’s disciplining of workers; both militate against work as a creative activity. The appropriation of business language — the head of the Chicago Public Schools is the “CEO” — reinforces the idea that schools should be run like corporations. Merit pay individualizes and severs educators’ ties to one another, forcing them to compete instead of cooperate. So too with the anti-union animus that neoliberal reformers and scientific management proponents display.”

Read the essay. You will understand the roots of the corporate reforms of our day.

Categories Accountability, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, U.S. education

Hey, Kids! Let’s Open a Charter School

By dianerav
May 3, 2013 //
19

What do you do if you head the Connecticut chapter of Teach for America and you long for bigger worlds to conquer?

Simple.

You open a charter school!

The state commissioner is a charter school guy, so he is no problem.

You decide to open your new charter in Bridgeport, where the superintendent won his reputation by privatizing public schools in New Orleans.

All the right connections and the public’s money. No brainer.

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

As Reforms Fail, Will Duncan Make Mid-course Correction?

By dianerav
May 2, 2013 //
18

Norm Scott, retired New York City teacher and inveterate blogger, notes the mid-course corrections of some of the corporate reform cheerleaders. He is especially impressed by John Merrow’s change of views about Rhee. He wonders whether Duncan too will change course, though he doubts that he can do so.

Scott, by the way, refers to the present misguided education movement not as corporate reform but as education deform. Scott was the film-maker for the film made by teachers and parents called “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Rhee, Michelle

LA Daily News Endorses Monica Ratliff

By dianerav
May 1, 2013 //
3

The Los Angeles Daily News just endorsed Monica Ratliff for the open seat on the school board.

The newspaper said that it was not right to let very wealthy people buy a school board seat for their inexperienced and uninformed candidate.

Monica now has the support of the Los Angeles Times and the LA Daily News.

It is time for her union, the UTLA, to withdraw its dual endorsement and support her.

She is a working classroom teacher. She cannot campaign between 7:30 am and 2:45 pm because she teaches every day.

I sent Monica a donation of $100. She now has collected nearly $10,000.

Her opponent has nearly $1 million.

Please support Monica. Send her $5, $10, whatever you can afford.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Los Angeles

Boston Teacher: Why I Quit, Why I Fight

By dianerav
April 30, 2013 //
32

This comment was posted by a teacher in Boston who couldn’t tolerate what was happening to her school, her students, her profession.

She writes:

“Dear Dr. Ravitch,

I am a newly-resigned, 15-year veteran in the Boston Public Schools.

I had to get out; I spent years obsessing over the internet trying to make sense of what was happening & why I was continuing to let it. All my research did was leave me feeling more confused, & thinking I could spend forever trying to make sense of nonsense.

On 4/1 I resigned.

On 4/5 I was testifying before the Joint Committee on Education in support of some MCAS bills. I hope my testimony was powerful.

On 5/7 I plan to do the same; this time it’ll be on charter schools.

I plan to testify at as many hearings as possible until it makes a difference.

I’ve reached out to the directors at Citizens for Public Schools (Massachusetts’s advocacy group) & am very much looking forward to working with them in any capacity that they need.

I’ve already grown impatient with how time-consuming the whole legislative process is; what’s happening within our schools is a CRISIS, & each passing day brings new evidence supporting that claim. There’s NO QUESTION high-stakes tests are BAD; teaching to the test is BAD; businessmen making decisions about non-business related matters, especially when children are involved, are BAD. & we hope someday legislation makes things GOOD again, but the legislative process isn’t exactly efficient, so in the meantime…what? We just continue along as expected, regardless of the damage?

I resigned from the BPS because I couldn’t justify doing what I was doing each day by complying with malevolent mandates and stupid sanctions while knowing the harm it would cause. This was NOT what I was put on this earth to be doing; this was HARMING children, including my OWN!

I could never explain to myself WHY I was continuing to do it; all I knew was that as long as i was in the BPS, I’d be doing it. Refusing to comply all by myself wouldn’t be effective, & I longed to sleep at night again, so I left. I am the single mother to a 6, 7, & 8 year old boy, & I left my only source of income behind when I did. THAT’S how bad things are.

Today my priority is doing whatever i can to help undo this corporate takeover and get the schools back on track. But again, the legislative process is a slow one, & the harm’s been already overwhelming & substantial enough. I believe drastic measures are in order, at this point. & I believe it has to come from within the schools…the teachers are the only real ones who have any say in what is going on in the classrooms, so why aren’t they uniting to do something about it? In MA, at least, it’s starting to already feel too late…

There is not a teacher in America who SUPPORTS this corporate reform. Individually, we all vehemently oppose it; our blood boils because of it; we know it’s toxic. Collectively, however, we DO support it. We support it each & every day, no matter how it contradicts our entire pedagogy. No matter how much it sucks to live life like that…going against the core of who we are, we obey the rules. WHY? WHY ARE WE CONTINUING TO BE EVER-SO-OBEDIENT?

I spent over 2 years desperately seeking that answer to that very question; only to become more & more unable to – & that’s why i resigned.

& one of the many intense emotions that came with making that decision was Anger. Anger towards the teachers for making this happen. Anger towards myself as a teacher for making it happen.
I believe if the teachers come together & have some conversation, change will happen. The faster we do that, & the more teachers we reach out to include, the faster the change will come.

Someone just needs to gather up all the teachers now. I would; I feel like I’ve been only thinking about doing so all month. I just don’t know how. So I decided to reach out here, thinking you could help.

I may live in fantasyland to some degree, & I’ve realized this past month how shamefully little I knew of the policy & procedure & logistics of “this” side of Ed Reform – the external side. & I don’t know realistically what the teachers could even do or how it’d work, but I feel like a conversation needs to happen. & I also think the best way to start the conversation would be to ask every teacher to answer the following question:

“Why do you continue to comply with malevolent mandates & stupid sanctions that you KNOW only serve to HARM your students, your schools, your VOCATIONS?”

& for those who, like me on 4/1, respond with, “I don’t know”, the follow-up question is, then,
“Why do you continue to do it, then?”

It was asking that of myself that made me realize, I can’t.
& the only way I knew how to stop was to walk away.

But what happens when each teacher refuses to comply anymore IN SOLIDARITY with one another?

The answer, it seems, is obvious.

So why haven’t we done that yet?

How bad does it really have to get before we do???

At the beginning of March, I came across this quote from Rethinking Schools,

“At the most basic level, national corporate school reform
agenda REQUIRES teacher’s compliance. Regardless of
individual motives, when a group of teachers COLLECTIVELY
& publicly says NO, that represents a fundamental challenge
to those pursuing that elite agenda.”

The logic behind that assertion is indisputable. That statement is obvious.

So what are we waiting for??”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

DFER, EdTrust, et al Insist on High-Stakes Testing for California

By dianerav
April 29, 2013 //
9

I don’t understand this story.

It says that “civil rights groups” demand that Arne Duncan turn down a request for a waiver from a group of districts in California.

Since high-stakes testing invariably ends up with poor and minority kids at the bottom of the bell curve, it is hard for me to understand why civil rights groups would demand more of it.

Since accountability typically means that schools enrolling the neediest kids get closed, why would civil rights groups want more of it?

Since high stakes accountability invariably means that those who teach the most vulnerable children are likely to be fired, why would civil rights groups want more of it?

One possible answer to the puzzle is that Democrats for Education Reform is listed as a “civil rights group.” DFER is an organization created by Wall Street hedge fund managers to promote more charter schools and more testing (but not necessarily for those who teach in charter schools). Just recently, the California Democratic Party singled out DFER and StudentsFirst as fronts for Republicans and corporations.

Maybe this letter to Duncan is DFER’s revenge on California. (DFER recommended Duncan to Obama for his job as Secretary of Education.)

Categories Accountability, California, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Federal Waiver, Poverty, Privatization

Florida Charters Score $91 Million from Public School Construction Funds

By dianerav
April 29, 2013 //
27

Remember when charter advocates said they could do a better job of educating kids with less money? You probably don’t remember, it was years ago.

The charters have forgotten it too. In Florida, the charter lobby just got $91 million from the Legislature. This is money taken from the public schools’ facilities fund. Now, instead of the facilities belonging to the public, they will belong to the private sector organizations, for-profit and nonprofit, that own the charters. The entrepreneurs keep the public money. It is theirs.

Florida is well on its way to establishing a dual school system, one public, the other charter, both paid for with public funds. Florida has some of the nation’s most aggressive for-profit charter chains, which lobby, give money to candidates, and produce poor results for kids. One of those for-profit charter chains is Mavericks, run by Frank Biden, brother of our Vice President Joe Biden. It has a spotty record. But it will now get facilities funding, thanks to adroit lobbyists and a sympathetic governor and legislature. And public schools will get less.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit

Jason Stanford: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Rhee

By dianerav
April 29, 2013 //
19

Jason Stanford, a first-rate journalist in a texas, looks for the lessons in the meteoric rise and astonishing descent of Michelle Rhee.

The major lesson, he says, is not so much about her as about the deep flaws in the test-and-punish philosophy she embodied. Putting the squeeze on subordinates to raise test scores leads to all sorts of negative consequences, but not to good education.

The flaw is inherent in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

Until we get a better vision of education, there will be more Beverly Halls and Michelle Rhees.

Categories Corporate Reformers, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Rhee, Michelle, Testing

Jeff Bryant: Why There Is No Middle Ground

By dianerav
April 28, 2013 //
21

Earlier today there was a good exchange on the idea of finding common ground. Robert Shepherd explained why it should happen, and Ira Shor said it would not happen in light of the unreasonable attacks on teachers and public schools.

As it happens, Jeff Bryant addressed the same issues two years ago..

He commented today:

“Why there is not a middle ground in the education debate:

http://bit.ly/ZusXoT

key graph:

“Before our country can even attempt to work toward a middle ground in the education debate, we have to establish where that middle ground is. First, with over 85 percent of our nation’s school-aged children attending public schools, public schools will not go away. And insisting on getting rid of them is pure nihilism. Second, public schools cannot be run like businesses, our children are not widgets, and profit cannot be the driving motive for institutions whose mission is to provide all children access to quality education. And third, creating and administering public schools is a democratic process, and no actor in this process can be allowed to control it, no matter how much money they have.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform

Ira Shor: Why Common Ground Is Not Possible

By dianerav
April 28, 2013 //
36

In response to an earlier post by Robert Shepherd, asking whether it might be possible to find common ground on contentious issues, Ira Shor, a professor at the City University of New York, answers:

“Dr. Shepherd sounds like a person of good will who is extremely uncomfortable with the rash, untested, arrogant impositions of high-stakes testing so profitable to corps. like Pearson, and through which govt. officials like Jindal, Emanuel, Cuomo, Christie, etc., make whimsical decisions to disrupt communities, families, kids, and teachers, none of whom send their own kids to pub schls. The opposition consolidated by the brilliant work of Dr. Ravitch has not done any damage to pub schls, kids, teachers, or families, so to represent the issue as good will on both sides is unfortunately to define a moral equivalence of power and action which simply does not exist. The unholy alliance of govt, big biz, and billionaires has been on a warpath to seize the vast assets of pub schls and segregate them so that one huge chunk of under-regulated and overfunded pvt charter schls operates with a free hand to score profits while the other chunk of over-regulated and under-funded “regular” pub schls operates with 2 hands tied behind its back. The sides are nakedly drawn here, leaving no middle ground to play in a phantom middle.”

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization
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