Archives for the month of: February, 2013
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When “Reality” Shows Lie

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
7

A reader commented on Oprah’s television mockumentary about the “miracle” of charter schools in New Orleans. By the state’s own data, New Orleans ranks 70th of 70 districts. By the admission of the pro-charter Cowen Institute at Tulane, two-thirds of the charters are “failing” schools. But the myth lives on. Another zombie idea.

Now we have the reality TV circuit manufacturing an image (note the overlapping soundtrack) to reinforce the charter school myth. What reality TV constructs is research-lite. It proposes to give insight, yet in this case, the proposal is cloaked with the intent to forward the privatization of education –research bias at its finest. What is consistently apparent in charter schools is the pick and choose basis of its student population while siphoning monies intended for public education –education as commodity while the neo-liberal train rolls on.

A disturbing actuality about the reality-genre, is that TV shows in the past (from Leave it to Beaver to Family Ties and onward) constructed a wall between the viewer and the constructed image plastered on the screen. Viewers for the most part had an understanding that “life is not like that.”

Now the wall has become permeable, luring the viewer to “believe” that the actuality exists and the marketing agents are absent from the narrative. What we witness today is an illusion that the marionette’s strings have been severed. Furthermore, the critical lens to examine, find limitations, and query further is never proposed or suggested. The proof is in the pudding and celebrities like Ms. Winfrey are the peer-review validation to such pseudo-research. Why have a discourse about education when the bottom line dictates the propagating narrative of choice?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Orleans

How Tony Bennett Won While Losing

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
0

Dan Carpenter explains here how defeated superintendent Tony Bennett plans to keep control of Indiana even though he is now state superintendent in Florida.

Those corporate reformers love to mess up schools and communities with their big ideas.

They don’t like democracy.

Categories Florida, Indiana

How Charter Schools Exclude the Kids They Don’t Want

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
28

Stephanie B. Simon, investigative reporter for Reuters, has written a stunning exposé of the many ways that charter exclude kids who might drag down their test scores.

Getting admitted to a charter school, she writes, can be a “grueling experience.”

Examples: “Students may be asked to submit a 15-page typed research paper, an original short story, or a handwritten essay on the historical figure they would most like to meet. There are interviews. Exams. And pages of questions for parents to answer, including: How do you intend to help this school if we admit your son or daughter?”

And this:

“Thousands of charter schools don’t provide subsidized lunches, putting them out of reach for families in poverty. Hundreds mandate that parents spend hours doing “volunteer” work for the school or risk losing their child’s seat. In one extreme example the Cambridge Lakes Charter School in Pingree Grove, Illinois, mandates that each student’s family invest in the company that built the school – a practice the state said it would investigate after inquiries from Reuters.”

And there is much more. Read it. Then ask, are these public schools or private schools subsidized with public money?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry

How Mayor Vincent Gray Is Failing DC Students

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
4

During Michelle Rhee’s book tour, the nation will hear a lot of claims about the dramatic changes she imposed on the D.C. schools, which qualifies her to export her ideas to the rest of the nation.

What should other states and cities seek to copy? D.C. Schools continue to be among the lowest performing in the nation, with the lowest graduation rate.

Michael Shank faults Mayor Vincent Gray for continuing to follow Rhee’s formula of thinking that firing teachers and closing schools is a substitute for addressing socioeconomic problems. The low education levels of D.C. high school students, he says, show how little Rhee’s reforms changed the quality of education in the schools she ran for nearly four years (and continues to influence through her successor and deputy Kaya Henderson).

Shank writes: “A neighbor of mine in Anacostia, who was interviewed for this article, is a teacher in a Ward 8 school. He notes that kids are dropping out of high school because they don’t have the basic skills that should’ve been acquired in elementary school. His high school students can barely “decode” (that’s teacher speak for sounding out words), and most of his students, with the exception of one, needed a calculator to tell him the answer to this math problem: What’s half of three? Remember, these are high school students.”

Mayor Gray won in large part because of dissatisfaction in the black community against Rhee. Yet he has maintained her people and policies. He even boasted, writes Shank, that D.C, will soon be a district in which half the students are in privately managed schools. “There is nothing radical about closing schools. It fails to address the problem, shifts the burden elsewhere and moves this city closer to a privatized all-charter system, out of accountability’s reach and away from public oversight.”

Shank concludes:

“This is where Gray’s fixes fall short. They’re looking at what ultimately is a socioeconomic problem, albeit manifested in the classroom, with educational lenses and educational tools. The adage is true: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

“A more effective mayoral blueprint would operate across all sectors of D.C. jurisdiction, including housing, health and human services, public safety, environment, business, and education. This should be an all-cabinet and all-council conversation.

“The architectural integrity of this city is a stake if we don’t wake up to what is happening in our classrooms. Amid decorated State of the District speeches and ceremonious book signings, our kids’ minds are closing at a faster rate than D.C. can close its schools. Time to wake up and smell the mental decay, Mayor Gray, before it’s too late.”

Categories Poverty, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle

Inside the Interlocking Directorate of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
5

In this installment of her investigative analysis of the National Council on Teacher Quality, Mercedes Schneider reviews the career of Deborah McGriff.

This provides a fascinating insight into the tangled web of the corporate reform movement.

Categories ALEC, Broad Foundation, Bush, Jeb, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ)

Bedford School District Votes to Oppose Overuse of Testing

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
7

The school board of the Bedford Central School District in Westchester County, New York, voted a resolution against the over-use and misuse of standardized testing.

Will the Bedford resolution incite other districts to reject the heavy-handed mandates from Albany and Washington?

The board’s resolution criticized both the state and federal governments for its mandates and specifically opposed the use of test scores to evaluate teachers, a main feature of Race to the Top that is much admired by state commissioner John King.

According to the linked article, the district’s statement said, “Not to be confused with routine authentic assessments of student projects and work, grades, and routine quizzes and teacher developed tests; the resolution notes the over-emphasis on standardized testing has caused collateral damage in schools by narrowing curriculum, teaching driven by testing, reducing a love of learning, and undermining school climate.”

“The resolution, the statement continued, criticizes the testing system for diverting time and energy, and serving to curtail critical thinking and problem solving skills.

“For school board members, the reliance of tests feels less like an attempt to better the lives of kids and more like an intrusion from outsiders who are detatched from what goes on locally.

Board member Suzanne Grant called it “yet another mandate,” and noted that it has come from policy makers at the state and federal levels…….

“A survey of district residents done last fall for the district shows numbers that align with the board’s concerns, with support measured by how many people deemed an assessment to be very or moderately valuable. In the survey, 92 percent rated student essays, projects and experiments as such; 89 percent for teacher-designed tests; 76 percent for homework that was graded; just 64 percent felt the same way for standardized tests.”

.

Categories New York, Testing

Indianapolis: Farewell to Public Education

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
33

I received a desperate message on Facebook from Tarrey Banks, the founder of The Project School in Indianapolis. TPS is a charter school started with a grant from the Walton Foundation. Greg Ballard, the mayor of Indianapolis, is the authorizer. TPS has low test scores, after four years, and the mayor has decided to close it. Banks and TPS parents are outraged. They went to court, blocked the mayor in a lower court, but then lost when a federal judge upheld the closure. TPS is losing the battle.

To get the big picture of what is happening in Indianapolis, read here. You will encounter a familiar cast of characters, including, of course, Bill Gates and Stand for Children.

What is happening in Indianapolis is terrifying if you believe that public education belongs to the public, not to private corporations. .

Here comes a scary future. First, the “blueprint” for Indianapolis, confidently predicting a future of perfection and excellence, but without any meaningful road map. Just promises. And here come the charters, opening with high hopes and closing when judged by scores.

Open, close. Open, close. Open, close.

Below is Banks’ letter. Read it. Read Mayor Ballard’s Blueprint for Utopia. But if you read nothing else today, read this article about the grand plan to privatize the schools of Indianapolis.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5_NQFzJRhSGZ2ZEaWZFYmhwNU0/edit?usp=sharing

This is the Mind Trust / Mayor Ballard (TFA Deputy Mayor Jason Kloth) take-over blueprint. This will literally be the end of public education in the urban core of Indianapolis.

We need help. It’s all but over. The 10th most populated city in the country is about to be one of the biggest systems of educational apartheid in the nation.

My name is Tarrey Banks and I’m the founding school leader of the Indianapolis Project School. I am a lifelong public school educator who made the decision to start a charter school with a group of passionate educators. We are the only truly progressive public school in our city. We take and teach all kids…we don’t push out, kick out, expel, etc. My daughter is a 7 year old student at our school…I made it for her because I know that all kids deserve what she deserves. We are four years old and this week we were the victim of a conservative political strategic attack. Just 3 weeks our mayor has decided to close our doors. The process was corrupt and the information they used was false and/or inaccurate. We are fighting the good fight, but I firmly believe our school will be shut down by the close of business on Monday. I truly believe this is the death of progressive public education in our city if we do not use this as a catalyst to attack the corporate reform agenda.

I know you are busy…you must be. I intend to use the closing of our school as the beginning of a rebellion. Will you help? How can I get you to Indianapolis to push this force back and make folks wake up and see what is happening? Our city is doomed if I can’t move this conversation in a different direction. We have 100’s of families, students, community members, educators ready to protest…to really blow it up…but I need more…I need a national presence…

Will you? What can I do?

Tarrey Banks

Categories ALEC, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Indiana, On-Line Education, Privatization, Stand for Children, U.S. education

Chicago Will Close Many, Many Schools

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
10

Chicago Public Schools announced a list of 129 schools that may be closed. This is what reform looks like. You cure the disease by killing the patient. You bomb the village and reduce it to rubble to “save” it.

Shame on Rahm Emanuel.

This is a message from a CPS parent group:

Raise Your Hand is deeply disappointed that the city and Chicago Public Schools has ignored important feedback from the Commission on school utilization by placing 129 schools on the list for potential closure.

As pointed out in previous statements, the CPS utilization figures are based on a flawed mathematical formula that allows for large class sizes, doesn’t include enough space for ancillary rooms and doesn’t properly account for special education classrooms. In recent visits to so-called underutilized schools, which have been placed on this closure list, Raise Your Hand observed the following examples:

A school with a 37% special education population requires many more special education rooms with smaller class size than the average school.

A school with 3 autism rooms of 8 students and not one empty room.

A school with a thriving art program – dance, drumming, visual art, theater, with beautiful mosaics and other art projects around a thriving building ….and gang lines surrounding many streets around the school.

Schools that use a large portion of their title 1 money for reduced class size – something that CPS does not recognize in their standard utilization formula.

A school that uses one floor for a community partnership with the YMCA which allows students to be in the building from 7am-6:30pm

Based on their past handling of school closures, we do not believe that CPS has demonstrated the capacity or institutional knowledge to conduct closings in a fair and justified manner.

This is the same conclusion made by the task force formed to assess utilization.

We are deeply concerned for how the most vulnerable children in Chicago will be impacted by these closings, and how those schools that will receive displaced students will be impacted.

Receiving schools will likely have to contend with overcrowded classrooms and a loss of ancillary space for music, art, special education, etc.

It is unclear how CPS can find high-performing schools with enough space to allow for the addition of so many more students.

It is deeply disconcerting that CPS is willing to displace such a high number of special education, homeless, and students who are benefitting from reduced class.

If the schools on this list are closed, 1,938 homeless students will be displaced from their school. We believe closing this number of schools will not scratch the surface of the projected deficit for next year and will cause significantly more harm than good.

Here is the list of 129 schools:

Click to access SchoolUtilizationList_02122013.pdf

If you are a parent at one of these schools and want to connect with other parents, especially regarding the issue of special education, please email us: info@ilraiseyourhand.org

Support our Cause:

Help us combat special interest groups and bureaucracy that stand in the way of progress, and help ensure long-term, sustainable education funding.

Opt Out
Raise Your Hand Coalition
Chicago, IL 60622
United States

Categories Education Reform

Ken Previti: Brevard County Schools Did Not Have to Close

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2013 //
5

Ken Previti writes this comment about the three public schools closed in Brevard County over the objections of the parents. The best solution: Elect a new school board. Run for school board. Organize and mobilize.

One harsh fact needs to be remembered about school closings, teacher evaluations and school ranking by student test scores. The total amount that “needed” to be cut from the budget by closing three Brevard schools was identical to the amount “needed” to build the new charter school demanded by the appointed Florida State Board of Education.

Brevard County IS the Space Coast, home of brilliant Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral engineers and large military installations and military/industrial corporations.. (I live there.) It is also overwhelmingly republican at-all-costs, and that includes Tea Party candidates.

Tea Party Republican Billionaire Gov. Rick Scott was the CEO of the corporation convicted of the biggest fraud against Medicare in history. When questioned personally he replied that he repeatedly refused to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate him, yet his money paid for TV messages that got him elected.

Past Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of W. and son of H.W., has organizations and investments in huge corporate education reform interests – including testing and test prep materials.
The school closings are a scam.

“Public-private partnerships” is the euphemism meaning “public tax money for private profit.” The school closings and the charter school building (scheduled to be built blocks from where I live) are part of the financial scam of the selling of America – one school at a time.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization, Support for public schools

What a Good Public School District Looks Like

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2013 //
7

Jere Hochman, superintendent of the Bedford, New York, public schools wrote the following for his colleagues among NewYork superintendents:

“If you want to see Superman solve the problem of the day with the fix of the day, go to
the movies or buy a comic book. If you want to see a student motivated intrinsically with
drill-skill learning and a standardized test, go the DMV. If you want to make money off the
backs of kids, open a small business that sells video games, not tests.

If you want to see authentic learning, go to a public school where you will find a proud
principal who will gladly engage you in dialogue with professional teachers and introduce
you to remarkably dedicated staff members.

And then proceed to the entire school district where you will find a humble superintendent observing in schools, meeting with our citizens committee or civic partners, and planning with an elected board or district leaders; a superintendent who revels in the connections, the learning, and the organizational capacity to sustain success.”

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Principals, Students, Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching
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