Archives for the month of: October, 2012
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

How Rhee Demonstrates Her Love for Teachers: UPDATE

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
9

Michelle Rhee, through her organization StudentsFirst, dropped $500,000 into a ballot initiative in Michigan, where there is an effort to establish the right to collective bargaining in the state constitution. Rhee thinks this is a terrible idea, because she loves teachers, but only “effective” teachers, the kind that get high test scores very year. If teachers join unions, the teachers won’t be effective any more or they might protect teachers who don’t get high scores every year.

Turns out that the right to join a union is contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Canadian Constitution. But corporations don’t like that idea. It restrains them from cutting costs. In a globalized and competitive world, the winners produce the most at the lowest cost. That means teachers must be low-wage and cheaper, or as Jeb Bush recommends, replaced by computers.

Thus the battle in Michigan.

Categories Michigan, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Romney Says Disaster Relief Is Immoral

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
15

A year ago, Mitt Romney said that the federal government should not provide en
Emergency relief to victims of tornadoes and floods. He recommended that FEMA be privatized. Remember that when he talks about his concern for victims of the hurricane,

Categories Romney, Mitt

Vouchers in Chile: Greater Inequality

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
0

Valerie Strauss has a good post by Michael Pons about vouchers in Chile. The main effect seems to have widened the divide between rich and poor.

One correction I would offer to Pons. The testing and accountability framework for federal policy (No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top)  is no better than the voucher approach (Romney). In fact, the testing and accountability framework sets the stage for vouchers by the following scenario:

1) set an impossible goal of 100% proficiency or every child must raise his/her scores every year to the extent that the computer predicts

2) grade every school A-F based on test scores

3) convince the public that American education is failing because it can’t meet unreasonable targets

4) privatize the schools that are graded C, D or F

This is actually a process, not a choice of one policy or the other.

Choosing between NCLB/RTTT or vouchers is like choosing whether you prefer to be hung or shot.

The testing regime is part of the privatization plan.

Categories Accountability, International, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, Vouchers

Charter Sponsor Is Very Successful

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
6

Vavan Gureghian runs a successful charter school called the Chester Community Charter School. The school is nonprofit, but Mr. Gureghian supplies its good and services through his for-profit company and collects millions of dollars as a management fee. Meanwhile the local Chester Upland public schools–whose funds pay for the students in the charter school–is in bankruptcy and under the control of a Governor-appointed “chief recovery officer.” Poor Chester Upland has been controlled by the state for most of the past decade,  yet gets blamed for the fiscal insolvency that the state has deepened and may now use as an excuse to eliminate its public schools.

The following is copied from the newsletter of the Keystone State Education Coalition, which sends out a daily newsletter with news from Pennsylvania:

“Vahan Gureghian was Governor Corbett’s largest individual campaign donor at $384,000.  His Charter School Management Company runs the Chester Community Charter School, Pennsylvania’s largest brick and mortar charter.  Chester is one of Pennsylvania’s poorest urban school districts. 

Does the $28.9 million noted below represent taxpayer funds that were NOT spent in the classrooms of Chester Upland?  We don’t know, because Mr. Gureghian has been fighting a Right-to-Know request for the past several years.  A controversial provision that would have exempted him from the Right-to-Know law was removed from SB1115, the charter school bill that was defeated last Wednesday.

http://homesoftherich.net/2012/01/pennsylvania-couple-building-20000-square-foot-palm-beach-mansion/”

Please open the link, here too.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Poverty, Privatization

Are Georgia Public Schools for Sale?

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
5

Billionaires are dumping campaign cash into Georgia referendum on charters.

Georgia already has nearly 200 charters, but the governor of Georgia wants to enact an ALEC law that gives him the power to override local control and open charters wherever he (and his hand-picked commission) choose.

Nearly 80% of the funding for the ballot initiative has come from out of state sources.

Alice Walton of Arkansas has dropped $600,000 to increase the number of charters in Georgia.

Doris Fisher of San Francisco has added $250,000.

Plenty of money from the billionaires to increase privatization.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Georgia

Waiting for the Hurricane

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
50

I live in New York City, which is now on almost complete lockdown waiting for the hurricane to arrive.

All traffic has come to a halt. The only people on the street are those walking their dogs.

The mayor and governor halted all mass transit Sunday night at 7 pm. Most stores and restaurants closed by 5 or 6 pm to allow their employees time to get home. Most people don’t work near their place of residence. Last night, supermarkets had been swept clean of water, milk and all essentials. There won’t be any more deliveries until mass transit is restored. Most restaurants and stores will remain closed because their employees can’t get to work.

The storm was predicted to arrive by 4:30 am. When I woke just before 6, it was not yet here. No wind, no rain. By 7, there was some of both.

We were told there would be no garbage pickup all week and advised not to put our garbage bins out. So I dutifully taped the garbage cans shut, so the lids and cans would not blow away. But much to my surprise, the city trucks began collecting and I had to hurry out into the rain to untape the cans and put them onto the street.

Will the newscasters be proven right? Is this the storm of the century? Will it be the worst in our lifetime? That is what they are saying. They say that often. They should say it sparingly. Remember “the boy who cried wolf”?

We shall see. We are prepared for the next few days. Like one of the three little pigs, I am glad to be living in a brick house, in my case, a brick house that is attached on two sides to other brick houses.

 

Categories Personal, Ravitch, Diane

Ann Romney’s Shocking, Extremist View of American Education

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
106

In a recent interview, Ann Romney was asked which issue she cared most about. This was her answer.

“AR: I’ve been a First Lady of the State. I have seen what happens to people’s lives if they don’t get a proper education. And we know the answers to that. The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers’ unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system.”

We may safely assume that Mrs. Romney is expressing the views of her husband, the candidate.

This is the line of thought:

1. Charter schools–privately managed, deregulated schools–are the answer to the problems of American education.

2. Teachers’ unions are an obstacle to the privatization that the Romneys favor.

3. “We need to throw out” the American system of public education, the system that has evolved since the 1820s and is embedded in every state constitution.

Make no mistake: this is not a conservative policy, it is radical and extremist.

Will any major journalist notice the far-right extremism of the Romney campaign? If Michelle Obama had said anything so outrageous, it would be reported on front pages across America.

Has any member of the large Romney family ever attended an American public school?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Romney, Mitt, Unions, US Education

How to Make Kindergarten a Terrible Experience

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
34

Here is a good way to ruin the lives of very small children.

Give them lots of tests. Start when they are very young, say, five, in kindergarten.

Instead of letting them play or giving them age -appropriate instruction, test them.

In Chicago, the little ones will be tested again and again. By the reckoning in this article, as much as one-third of the year will be devoted to tests.

This will encourage their parents to find a charter school or leave for the suburbs.

It will dishearten their teachers, who might leave before her salary gets too high.

And it will teach the little ones to sit silently, training them for…sitting silently.

Categories Chicago, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Testing

Stop Disclosing Confidential Student Data

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
16

Please consider signing this petition.

Several states plan to share confidential student data with a corporation funded by the Gates Foundation. This information may be shared with other entities, for purposes that are not clear.

As parents, grandparents and educators, we must protect our children’s rights to privacy.

We expect schools to understand the needs of children. We do not expect them to share this information with corporations, marketers, or other government agencies, except in the aggregate–not with individual identification– for informational purposes only.

It is understandable that government needs to collect data about enrollment and attendance and special education and trends.

There is no reason to release the names of individual students to outside entities.

Please protect our children and our students against commercial and governmental intrusion into their lives.

The petition begins as follows:

“New York State, along with Colorado, Illinois and Massachusetts, intends to provide confidential student information to a private corporation called the Shared Learning Collaborative, funded by the Gates Foundation, which in turn will make this data available to for-profit companies to develop and market their commercial learning products. 

This confidential data will include student names, addresses, test scores, grades, attendance, economic and special education status, IEPs, and disciplinary records. All this is being done without parents’ knowledge or consent, and represents a shocking violation of our children’s right to privacy.

Four more states have said they will soon follow in phase II: Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana, and the Gates Foundation is soliciting even more states to join in.” 

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Parents, Students

Stand for Children Failed in Chicago

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2012 //
7

Jersey Jazzman points out in an illuminating post that Jonah Edelman was hired by the plutocrats to make sure teachers would never be able to strike again.

So Jonah Edelman and his deceptively-named group Stand for Children drafted legislation, bought up most of the high-priced lobbyists, and pushed through a bill to make the hedge fund managers happy. Now, said Jonah, the teachers will never be able to get enough member votes to strike again. This is what it means today to bear the mantle of “civil rights leader.” A civil rights leader in these days wants to crush unions and promote privatization.

But it didn’t work! Only months after the passage of Edelman’s historic anti-union legislation, the Chicago Teachers Union authorized a strike. Jonah had predicted it would never get the support of 75% of its members. It got the support of 90% (and 98% of all who cast a ballot).

And now strikes have broken out in other districts in Illinois. Some may have been inspired by the CTU strike.

Those Chicago equity investors picked a losing cause. They seem to have energized the teachers unions.

 

Categories Chicago, Unions
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »