Most of them seem to work in and around the headquarters of Jeb Bush.
His executive director signed twice.
Ex-governor Bush promoted the parent trigger last spring and every Florida parent organization opposed it.
He’s back for round two.
71 signatures!
Is this what is known as a “groundswell” of public opinion in Florida?
Corporate reforms fare best when there are big campaign contributions to friendly legislators.
It is dangerous to rely on public opinion for corporate reforms.
As you may recall, there is a bitter battle under way in Adelanto, California.
Parent Revolution, an organization funded by Gates, Walton, and Broad, has been in search of a school that could be used to fire the “parent trigger.” The parent trigger law was passed in January 2010, and in the past 2 and 1/2 years, no school has been converted to a charter.
Parent Revolution was behind the petition drive at the Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, California, where they helped to organize a parent union.
The school board has resisted Parent Revolution’s demand to turn the school into a charter school.
This letter was written to the blog by the president of the Adelanto School Board:
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Many young college graduates in the U.S. are either unemployed or underemployed, working at jobs that don’t call upon the skills or knowledge they acquired while getting a bachelor’s degree. And many are burdened with student loans they can’t repay.
President Obama has set a goal to raise our college graduation rates to become first in the world by 2020, but there are some hard economic realities. Technological change and outsourcing are shipping many jobs overseas to low-wage countries or eliminating them altogether.
Higher education once was seen as a way to polish a person’s social and cultural skills and capital, a necessity for the leisured class. But now it is pitched as a necessity to get a high-paying job and enter a professional or technical career.
What happens when those promises are unfulfilled? Will young people still be willing to pile on the student debt?
A reader sent this article from the Wall Street Journal. It made me wonder how many college graduates in the U.S. are unemployed or underemployed. I have met recent college graduates who work in fast-food restaurants or who are waiting on tables or in other jobs that don’t require a college degree. How unusual is that? Anyone have anything other than anecdotes about friends and family?
BEIJING—China’s labor market has so far proved resilient despite a slowing economy, but that means little to recent college graduate Wu Xiuyan.
“My classmates and I want to find jobs in banks or foreign-trade companies, but the reality is that we can’t find positions that match our education,” said Ms. Wu, 24 years old, who graduated in June from Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics. She has spent the time since then living at home and trawling recruitment websites.
“I just want a stable, maybe administrative, job,” she said, “but why is it so hard?”
Entry-level salaries for the majority of China’s college graduates are lower than those of migrant workers in factories. The WSJ’s Carlos Tejada says there is a gap between available jobs and the skills of new graduates.
China has shown little evidence of rising unemployment despite the slowest growth rate since the global financial crisis—and is nowhere near the jobless rates seen in some of the countries hardest hit by the euro-zone debt crisis. But slowing growth underscores a fundamental challenge to China’s economic development: the underemployment of huge numbers of graduates that Chinese colleges are churning out.
Experts say that many of the graduates lack skills such as critical thinking, foreign languages and basic office communications that businesses are looking for. Even small private enterprises that offer humble salaries find many graduates unsatisfactory. “Those small sales companies that desperately need people also reject us graduates,” said Ms. Wu. “They say we don’t have social resources or work experience that they need.”
At the same time, China has made only limited gains in remaking its economy so it relies more on services and innovation and less on construction and assembly-line manufacturing. That limits the markets for the lawyers, engineers and accountants that Chinese universities are producing.
As a result, many graduates find they can get only low-skill jobs that pay far less than they imagined they would make and see a future of limited prospects. A survey of more than 6,000 new graduates conducted last year by Tsinghua University in Beijing said that entry-level salaries of 69% of college graduates are lower than those of the migrant workers who come from the countryside to man Chinese factories, a figure that government statistics currently put at about 2,200 yuan ($345) a month. Graduates from lower-level universities make an average of only 1,903 yuan a month, it said.
Li Junjie graduated in June from Communication University of China, majoring in broadcast journalism. “It is getting even harder for us to get a job than the previous graduates of my major because fewer positions are left for me and my classmates,” said the 23-year-old native of southern Guangdong province, who is staying with friends in Beijing as he looks for work.
“Media outlets here look for professionals or native English speakers, not fresh Chinese graduates with only a diploma.”
While worker dissatisfaction hasn’t manifested itself politically, such as in public protests, it is bound to be a worry for China’s top leaders who regularly stress the need to avoid social instability, particularly ahead of this fall’s leadership change. Economically, China’s productivity gains could slow if it can’t better match the demand of its current job market and the skills of its graduates.
China’s universities have churned out more than 39 million graduates with undergraduate or specialized degrees over the past decade, according to the Ministry of Education. People with some college education now account for about 8.9% of China’s population, according to 2010 government data. While that’s a much smaller proportion than the 36.7% of the adult population in the U.S, it’s a sharp rise from China’s 3.6% in 2000.
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WO-AK839_CGRAD_NS_20120821160908.jpg)
The employment rate of China’s college graduates last year was 90%, according to a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and MyCOS Research Institute, a Beijing-based education consulting firm. But only 47% of the 256,000 Chinese graduates surveyed said they feel satisfied in their current job.
“To solve the underemployment problem, you need to adjust the economy for the workforce that China has now,” said Chetan Ahya, an economist and managing director at Morgan Stanley. “A comprehensive approach is needed to create jobs with high value.”
“High-end jobs that should have been produced by industrialization, including research, marketing and accounting etc., have been left in the West,” said Chen Yuyu, associate professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. Referencing the trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., 2317.TW +0.23% the Taiwan-based company that makes gadgets for Apple Inc. AAPL +0.85% and others in Chinese factories, he said, “We only have assembly lines in Foxconns.”
Solving the problem is complex, involving a gradual overhaul of China’s education system as well as efforts to add more service-sector jobs. China’s Ministry of Education in 2010 unveiled new guidelines pressing universities to shift away from their traditional focus on increasing enrollment. It is also experimenting with giving faculty greater say over curriculum and school operations, though universities remain tightly controlled by the Communist Party.
A large population of college-educated workers with ambitions for better jobs could have long-term advantages, economists say. Educated labor could make China more appealing to both foreign and domestic companies hoping to add service-oriented jobs in China. The group so far also seems less likely to stir unrest than migrant workers, who in recent years have staged protests in some areas over low pay and other issues.
“The underemployment is more a short-term problem,” says Albert Park, professor of Economics at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “The demand will be there for China’s graduates.”
—Lilian LinA version of this article appeared August 22, 2012, on page A12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: China’s Graduates Face Glut.
This teacher (from the west) agrees with a previous post that the real goal of the reform movement is to do away with unions. That would leave them clear sailing to cut budgets even more, lay off teachers, increase class size, encourage for-profit ventures, and privatize at will, with no one powerful enough to stop them. What is sometimes called the “neoliberal” agenda is actually the old rightwing agenda, and it starts with union-busting and concludes with privatization.
| I’ve often thought this mess boils down to busting the unions. Once that’s done, it’s smooth sailing for the “reformers.”From where I stand, the union appears to be silent. What gives? I thumbed through a recent national magazine from the NEA. Nothing on what’s currently transpiring. Our local representation is always “looking into that,” yet provides no answers when asked about the union’s stance on privatization. I thought the front page of the NEA website would be bursting with anti-privatization articles. Instead I found all kinds of back-to-school tips for teachers.Anyone here a union rep? In the know? What is going on? |
Many readers have contacted me to ask why CNN has not posted Randi Kaye’s interview with me, rebutting Michelle Rhee’s assertions.
This reader, Michael Brocoum, made a copy of the interview and posted it on Youtube. Here it is.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the interview began with a question about the National Assessment of Educational Progress (you will note that it is misspelled by CNN as the National Assessment of Educational Process). I don’t recall the precise wording, but the question went like this:
“You claim that test scores on NAEP are at their highest point in history, but how do you explain that the scale score for fourth grade reading is only 221? That’s 221 out of 500. That’s less than 50%. Isn’t 50% a failing grade?”
I then tried to explain that scale scores don’t work like that, that the question itself was a completely erroneous interpretation of scale scores. NAEP has a vertical scale, and scale scores in the 4th grade are lower than in the 8th grade. They can’t be converted into a grade in the way that Randi Kaye asserted, although they are useful as measures of progress.
Consider this: the average scale score for 4th grade is 221, but students scoring at the 90th percentile–our top students–have a scale score of 264. By Randi Kaye’s fallacious reasoning, they are failing too! In 8th grade reading, the students at the 90th percentile had a scale score of 307 (on a scale of 500). She would convert that to a grade of 61, which is borderline failing.
Wouldn’t you think that the editor or research staff at CNN would have prevented Randi Kaye from making such absurd assertions?
But it was of a piece with all the questions that followed. I felt as if I were being interrogated by someone who worked for StudentsFirst, not by a reporter seeking to ascertain either my views or the basic facts.
Rhee said at the outset of my interview that the answer to what she thinks is the terrible performance of our schools is merit pay. So Randi Kaye drilled in on that with two questions (one of them was dropped from the show before it aired). She ended up with a quote from someone named Lucas who said he wanted merit pay. That wasn’t exactly definitive, since I was able point out that merit pay has been tried again and again and has always failed to make a difference.
I have often been struck by the uneven playing field that policymakers and legislators establish for charter schools and public schools. The public schools are increasingly strangled by regulations and by high-stakes testing and punitive evaluations, at the same time that the charter schools are exempt from most of the strangulation. I have heard many times from principals who say that they want to turn their public school into a charter so they can escape the tentacles of regulation that are wrapped tight around their school. And I have wondered whether the purpose of “reform” was to make public schools fail while the deregulated charter schools increase and thrive.
Here is another take on the current corporate reform movement, inspired by an earlier post about stagnant ACT scores:
The more conversations I have about the entire “reform” movement, the more convinced I am that it’s really about disbanding teacher unions so that the majority of education programs will eventually be part of a private industry thus paving the way for the privatizing of all public systems.
The evidence just keeps mounting to show that standardized testing is a flawed way to judge the efficacy of the public schools, and the mere fact that charters and private/parochial schools do not have the same “rigorous” standards as public schools points to the idea that “standards” are not really important at all to the reformers who push for these kinds of alternate schools.
Utilizing standardized tests that the reformers know are flawed is a tactic to devalue the people who teach in public schools so that they can be fired and a private interest can take over.
It’s as if these policy-makers have found a way to rig the game: Create new rules that make for impossible goals and then watch a good system that serves the public fail under these new rules. They have set up the game so that the players will fail no matter what–IF you believe the rules are sound.
It’s pretty evident that the main goal is to disband two of the largest public unions in the country using children as pawns. Once the AFT and the NEA are toppled, so they must think, the rest will follow, and the privatization of public systems in America will ensue.
I would not put it past our policy-makers to be trying to sell the public a bill of goods by pretending they care about the children at all, when in reality, they care about getting rid of union teachers and privatizing education so their buddies can “invest” and continually get rich.
This isn’t about parent choice (unless legal segregation is what they’re after), this isn’t about success, and this isn’t about getting rid of “bad” teachers. It’s about getting rid of unions and privatizing. To me, the evidence points to these intentions no matter how anyone else wants to spin it.
Kipp Dawson invites others to answer her question:
A question for each of you, and anyone else. In its Winter 2011 issue, the American Federation of Teachers magazine, “American Educator” carried several articles and an editorial touting the benefits of Common Core. One argument in particular grabbed my attention and made sense, at least on the surface. The point was, if we are concerned about children in underfunded schools and in isolated (rural) settings, should we not embrace Common Core national standards and curriculum (by whatever name) to ensure that these children’s education gets taken as seriously as those in more well endowed schools? Without Common Core, won’t some children necessarily be faced with lower expectations from teachers and communities? How would you answer this? (although I think you’ve already shed some light on the implementation side of things)
The “American Educator” editorial in this issue (http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/winter1011/Editors.pdf) is so glowing re Common Core. Would any of you be willing to take it on in its specifics?
A small group of public high schools in New York City managed to get exempted from the testing regime of the New York Regents many years ago.
And they have proven themselves.
These schools use performance assessments rather than the standardized tests of the Regents (although they do take the Regents exam in English language arts). The performance assessments are demanding. They are judged by teachers, parents, and others.
The students in these schools are succeeding at far higher levels than the students in other public high schools in the city. They have a higher graduation rate, a lower dropout rate, and a higher rate of persistence in college than students from other public high schools in the city. They have higher graduation rates for black students, Hispanic students, Asian students, white students, and students with disabilities than the New York City public schools in general.
Now they want to increase their number from 28 (26 in the city) by adding another 19.
But city and state officials are reluctant. What if they let other schools escape the testing regime? Who knows how many would seek to be exempt next year and the year after. What if no one were left to be tested? What do results matter, as compared to the sense of control and power that high-level officials thrive on?
The annual Phi Delta Kappa-Gallup poll on education was released today.
The sponsors characterize public opinion as split, which is true for many issues.
We must see this poll in the context of an unprecedented, well-funded campaign to demonize public schools and their teachers over at least the past two years, and by some reckoning, even longer.
The media has parroted endlessly the assertion that our public schools are failures, they are (as Bill Gates memorably said to the nation’s governors in 2005) “obsolete,” and “the system is broken.” How many times have you heard those phrases? How many television specials have you seen claiming that our education system is disastrous? And along comes “Waiting for ‘Superman'” with its propagandistic attack on public education in cities and suburbs alike and its appeal for privatization. Add to that Arne Duncan’s faithful parroting of the claims of the critics.
That is the context, and it is remarkable that Americans continue to believe in the schools they know best and to understand what their most critical need is.
Here are the salient findings:
1. Americans have a low opinion of American education (how could they not, given the bombardment of criticism?): only 18% give it an A or B. And here is the real accomplishment of the corporate reformers: Those who judge American education as a D or F have increased from 22% to 30% in the past 20 years. Actually, their success in smearing U.S. education is even greater, because in 2002, before the implementation of NCLB, only 16% judged the nation’s schools so harshly. So the reform campaign has doubled the proportion of Americans who think the nation’s schools deserve a D or F.
2. When asked to evaluate the schools in their own community, 48% give them an A or B, which is the highest rating in 20 years.
3. When asked to evaluate the school their oldest child attends, an astonishing 77% give it an A or B. This is the highest rating in 20 years. Only 6% give it a D or F. This question elicits the views of informed consumers, the people who refer to a real school, not the hypothetical school system that is lambasted every other day in the national press or condemned as “obsolete” by Bill Gates.
4. When asked whether they have trust and confidence in teachers, 71% said yes. Americans continue to respect and admire teachers, despite the nonstop public bashing of them in the media.
5. When asked whether standardized test scores should be used to evaluate teachers, opinion split 52-47 in favor. Considering that the public has heard nonstop endorsements of this bad idea from President Obama, Secretary Duncan, and most other political figures–and very limited dissent–it is surprising that opinion is almost equally divided. How did so many Americans manage to figure out that this idea is problematic at best?
6. When people were asked to describe the teachers who had the greatest influence in their lives, they used words like caring, compassionate, motivating, and inspiring. Interesting that few remembered the teachers who raised their test scores.
7. There has been a big change in what the public sees as the biggest problems facing the schools today. Ten years ago, the biggest concerns were about discipline (fighting, gangs, drugs, lack of discipline, overcrowding). Today, the biggest problem that the public sees, by far, is lack of financial support. 35% chose that option. Among public school parents, it was 43%. Concerns about discipline almost faded away in comparison to concerns about the lack of financial support for the schools.
8. On the subject of vouchers, there was a surprising increase in the proportion who would support “allowing students to choose a private school at public expense.” It increased from 34% to 44%, which is a big jump. I recommend that future questioning ask about support to allow students “to choose a private or religious school at public expense.” That would be closer to the reality of voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, D.C., Louisiana, Ohio, and Indiana.
9. On the subject of charters, public opinion dipped, from an approval rating of 70% in 2011 to 66% in 2012. It will be interesting to see where this number goes as the public begins to understand more about charters in their own communities.
10. A question about the parent trigger was so vacuous as to be misleading. The question was “Some states are considering laws that allow parents to petition to remove the leadership and staff at failing schools. Do you favor or oppose such laws?” 70% favor, 76% of public school parents favor. This is a misleading question, however, as the parent trigger is not a matter of simply allowing parents to sign a petition, but of allowing parents to take control of a public school and hand it over to private management. My guess is that the public doesn’t know much about the parent trigger concept and hasn’t heard a discussion about the pros and cons. So, I don’t put much stock in the response–after all, why shouldn’t parents have the right to sign a petition to change the staff at their school? It does show how clever the corporate reformers are in framing issues that advance privatization and doing it in ways that are deceptive and alluring.
11. In a series of questions about the Common Core standards, most people believe they are a good thing and that they will make the nation more competitive globally; about half think they will improve the quality of education while 40% think they will have no effect. These answers exemplify why polls of this kind must be viewed with caution. I am willing to bet that the majority of respondents has no idea what the Common Core standards are; and willing to bet that 98% have never read them.
In future versions of the poll, I hope that questions will be asked about for-profit schools, privatization, and vouchers for religious schools. These are big issues today, and the poll should ask about them.
My takeaway from the 2012 poll is that the corporate reform movement has succeeded in increasing support for vouchers, but that the American public continues to have a remarkably high opinion of the schools and teachers they know best despite the concerted efforts of the reformers to undermine those beliefs. This is an instance where evidence trumps ideology. The reformers have not yet been able to destroy the bonds between the American people and their community’s schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 