Mother Crusader noticed that the New Jersey office of charter schools has a list of important partners.
One of them is the Center for Education Reform.
Mother Crusader does her customary research and finds that Jeanne Allen, who founded CER, claimed credit for writing the ALEC proposal for the parent trigger.
She should not have been surprised. CER is one of the leading voices on the right that supports charters and vouchers and online schools, anything but public schools.
Mother Crusader notes that the schools that get a high rating from CER are those that have the most choice, not the ones that perform best on NAEP.
CER works closely with any other organization that opposes public education and supports privatization.
Jeanne Allen has been very successful in promoting the idea that “reform=school choice,” which has been a staple on the right for decades.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
School rating measures have switched from being based on quality (educational programs and student outcomes) to “compliance” ratings-based on schools’ progress in succumbing to unproven (at best) and possibly damaging curriculum reforms and misplaced and invalid (at best) educator evaluation systems.
It is ironic that education reform commissions often suggest that reforms they wish to make include things like more collaboration between teachers (especially experienced master teachers and developing ones), while the reform practice seems to be quantify and divide. While teachers tend to build the village, reformers and policy makers look to isolate, separate and suppress it. The official reformer wish list for improvements they want to make include many things we had before the de-funding and privatizing began. That means the UN-official wish list is the one we need to be watching.
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Wowzer! Guess the DEFORMERS…oops reformers = GREED at the expense of our young and society. Seems everything is up for grab…even our young. This is sick. How can these DEFORMERS sleep at night. Oops…they count their money and how much destructions in education they made.
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Save More, Live Better, Eradicate Public Education…..
As part of their “Shape Public Policy” giving, in 2011 the Walton Family Foundation gave the Center for Education Reform $930,662.
http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2012/03/follow-money-walmart-save-more-live.html
In 2010 the Walton Family Foundation gave the Center for Education Reform $518,273.
http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2011/07/walmart-save-more-live-better-eradicate.html
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Hi Diane,
Thank you, as always, for your attention to my work. One small correction however. I didn’t write anything about Jeanne Allen taking credit for the parent trigger legislation. (Quite frankly, I didn’t know!) What I wrote was that she advised the filmakers behind Won’t Back Down.
But you are completely correct! CER was on the ALEC Education Task Force that approved the Parent Trigger, and Phillip Anschutz not only funded the movie Won’t Back Down, but three of the organizations that approved the Parent Trigger Proposal as well…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/wont-back-down-film-pushe_b_1897278.html
“Won’t Back Down, is a production of Walden Media, owned by billionaire investor and right-wing extremist Philip Anschutz. Anschutz participates in the Koch brothers’ secretive political strategy summits and funds David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity group, which backed Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s union busting proposal and is working to defeat Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates across the country.
Anschutz bankrolls ALEC and ALEC member groups. In 2010, The Anschutz Foundation, gave ALEC $10,000 and his Union Pacific firm was an ALEC sponsor the following year. The Foundation funded three ALEC members who sat on the ALEC Education Task Force which approved the Parent Trigger Proposal: The Independence Institute, Center for Education Reform, and Pacific Research Institute.”
And now CER uses whether or not a state has adopted a Parent Trigger Law to “grade” their “Parent Power Index.” Sick.
Darcie
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Therefore, as Dan noted above ratings are based on compliance and capitulating to their standards/ideas for “reform”. So their “grade”
is meaningless to those who are up on this chicanery.
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Yup. Total horse hockey.
That is why I included the interactive map of NAEP scores. The highest ranking states according to CER rank lower than New Jersey in terms of achievement.
These people are myopically focused on what they want, and what they need to do to get it.
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Darcie,
I read elsewhere that Jeanne Allen and CER took credit for advising ALEC on its parent trigger model law.
Diane
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Wait so where/when, who took credit for the ALEC advising?
Also charters are public schools; so are many online programs; to say “…supports charters and vouchers and online schools, anything but public schools.,” doesn’t make any sense.
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I suggest you look at the recent post about the NLRB decision, which declared that charters are “private entities,” not public. Also a federal appeals court ruled that charters are akin to private contractors, not public. Both decisions were sought by charter operators who wanted exemption from state laws. Charter schools are privately managed schools that receive public dollars. That does not make them public schools.
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Either way, I am still trying to locate an instance of any sort of crediting for that ALEC advising.
The NLRB’s overturning of a law making it possible for charter school teachers to unionize; thus requiring them to organize under federal labor laws, does not suddenly make all charters “private.” The word “private,” when used in an educational or political context, gives the impression that the focus of such an entity is to gain, and most likely, financially. While charters are privately managed and operated at the level of a school, they are still held accountable to standards that the government (state, federal, etc.) have set forth in their particular region; <this makes charters, though by this act these not-for-profit institutions must file as 'private entities,' public.
The overturned NLRB decision was sought by the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff. Even the formation of teacher's unions required the proposal for exemption from state and federal law. If organizations did not propose to make change to law, in any field, there would be no change in the way the nation chooses to be governed.
The NLRB's decision does not "[declare] that charters are 'private entities.'" (http://www.nlrb.gov/case/13-RM-001768) I'm not sure where you're finding that in the 'ruling.'
The decision does state, however, that while charters (in this case, Chicago Math and Science Academy), are not in themselves public schools, they ARE in the public school system, and thus cannot be labeled as private schools; it's why they have their own name.
The NLRB's decision to overturn was warranted in that only wholly government owned institutions can claim exemption/benefits as employers. <That's what the decision was about; it was not about what a charter is and what it isn't.
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From the Huffington post piece:
“Anschutz bankrolls ALEC and ALEC member groups. In 2010, The Anschutz Foundation, gave ALEC $10,000 and his Union Pacific firm was an ALEC sponsor the following year. The Foundation funded three ALEC members who sat on the ALEC Education Task Force which approved the Parent Trigger Proposal: The Independence Institute, Center for Education Reform, and Pacific Research Institute.”
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Charters are public when it is time to get the money, but they are “private entities” when it is time to recognize state laws that relate to audits, transparency, the rights of teachers to form a union, or student discipline.
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Jack,
Here is the reference for CER’s involvement in the Parent Trigger proposal. Diane may have others.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/wont-back-down-film-pushe_b_1897278.html
Darcie
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Thanks, Darcie!
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my pleasure…
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