I posted earlier about a web attack on the integrity of the distinguished scholar Gene Glass. Dr. Glass had the nerve to write a critical review of virtual charter schools, based on research and evidence. Observant readers discovered who created the domain name of the attack website. First, Sherman Dorn tracked down the domain owner. Then another reader added this comment:
Here’s the link to the information Sherman Dorn identified:
http://whois.domaintools.com/geneglass.org
Domain Name:GENEGLASS.ORG
Created On:22-Jan-2013
Registrant Name:Steve Grubbs
Registrant Organization:Victory Enterprises, Inc.
The ‘About’ page of Victory Enterprises:
http://www.victoryenterprises.com/about_us.htm
On its website: “GeneGlass.org is a project of the Center for School Options.”
Only two individuals are named on the website for the Center for School Options.
http://centerforschooloptions.org/about/leadership/
1. Jim Horne (Chairman) who was appointed by Governor Jeb Bush as the first appointed Commissioner of Education for the state of Florida.
2. Rose Fernandez, “Executive Director for the National Parent Network for Online Learning… the founding President of the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families, and has served on the Board of the National Coalition for Public School Options and School Choice Wisconsin.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Beautiful sleuthing!
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It is great that we have this info, but now what do we do with it. Should we leave a message at one of these websites on how we feel about there lies or should we just leave it alone?
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Hilarious how people who pride themselves on their educational know how are so simple that they don’t even realize internet anonymity is an urban myth. Did they really think nobody would track them down or is this more of their hubris? Truthfully, I think it speaks volumes about their lack of innate intelligence. Would you want anyone this ignorant anywhere near your kid’s education?
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I would assume they knew they could be tracked down, since they have a link to their web site on the page.
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Like all demagogues, they are relying on the idea that most people will accept what they say at face value without doing much critical thinking or investigation.
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And, sadly, they’re all too often right.
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Have to love how thin-skinned and defensive these folks are.
Launch an attack on anyone who questions the reform program?
I don’t think this is the thought process and behavior of people who are interested in “excellence” and “innovation”.
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Jim Horne and now leading the Florida Charter Alliance. He is continually speaking before the legislature on all things “privatization” and still very connected to Jeb and his foundation.
http://www.flcharteralliance.org/AboutTheAlliance/BoardOfDirectors.html
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I am reminded of this quote…:I think we absolutely have to realize that if we were to educate everyone, the country would fall apart…
We absolutely positively have to have a group of undereducated, unskilled people to do all these dirty jobs that ‘the comfortable clases,’ as John Kenneth Galbraith calls them, will not do.”
“…until everyone owns a humanoid robot, as well as a car and a color television, some person will have to do the ‘dirty jobs.” Until then, however, loath as we are to admit it, we must continue to produce an uneducated social class…”-Gerald Bracey, Stanford-educated research psychologist, policy analyst, author and former NEA-analyst.
This does have that “Let them eat cake.” ring to it.
“The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian , who lived y his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the graitfication of a thirst vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted nothing.”-Theordore Roosevelt.
This feels all too familiar witih our times.
Hope lies in the Diane Ravitch belief that we can still make a difference. Direction, action, and passion just might curtail the plans
with unintended consequences of those that strive for ownership over this Republic, it’s citizens, and the minds of the children.
Just sayin!
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Nothing new for Jim Horne. He will intimidate any way he can….
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/071700/met_3558140.html
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How sadly unsurprising that this bogus site was created by someone closely connected to Jeb Bush. Even more sad is that it once again highlights how crooked the politics around FL’s education system has become.
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And having a child currently enrolled on FLVS per requirement for all high school students, I can tell you there is no teaching going on. A student has to be self reliant to do the work as it is read the lesson on the computer, wathcing an embedded video, do an assignment, take a test. I am fairly confident one could get someone to do your class for you given there is no face to face interaction…how would they know? I can’t even tell you how absurd it is.
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This evening I listened to a passionate talk given by Danny Weil who regularly writes for Daily Censored on education “reform” and privatization. Well worth the listen! Heard it on KPFA (Berkeley, CA) on the show Hard Knock radio. Here’s a link:
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/89721
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OMG, the interview preceding Danny Weil was even more alarming! There’s an effort to privatize public colleges, too, and faculty at City College of San Francisco believe that’s what’s happening to them right now. Wow. Did you know about this, Diane?
Thanks for sharing, Monica!
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BTW, I did not mean to downplay Danny Weil. He does an excellent job of describing privatization across the board, as well as ringing the alarm bell to wake Americans up to what corporations and politicians have in store for our country by destroying the commons.
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Our non-profit laws are completely broken. FEE engages in lobbying, straight up, yet they are not required to have any transparency. It’s ridiculous.
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“Our non-profit laws are completely broken.”
Never use more words than needed. You could just say: “Our laws are completely broken.”
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Federal mandates and state laws for the protections (health, welfare, safety and education) of the learning disabled are, in my opinion,
not even worth the paper they are written on. The great majority of
students are not identified and receiving little to nothing in services.
The poor, working poor, underfunded middle-class, and even those with money but not informed, have slipped back before the laws for
the protections of their children. Ignorance is not bliss but a formula for misery, uninspired and hopeless futures, generations squashed
before the ‘law’…..what a disgrace by the stewards of education.
Value added? Worthy of the dollar? Burdens on society? Taking
opportunity from the ‘normal’ student? I have listened to all of
these questions and judgements from the mouths of educators and parents alike when it comes to the education of the disabled of any severity. Disabled were the last to get their civil rights and have always been horribly underfunded. Was it only meant to be feel good legislation for the PR of the country with no real intent to fulfill the
promise? I wonder? I weep!
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I don’t know a lot of details about the laws regarding slander and defamation of character, so I really hope that Gene is consulting a lawyer on these matters.
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Apparently only 10 percent of Americans hold advanced degrees. At my job, all but maybe two had Masters degrees and several more were engaged in some form of yet more advanced learning. Take or leave the online learning, but teachers are using them to earn degrees.
Why don’t they think that we are smart enough to figure this out?
I love the thinking that goes on on this website. It makes me proud to be a teacher!
Thanks for the blog and the comments.
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Fight fire with exposure…
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