Natalie Hopkinson is one of our nation’s most interesting and provocative writers. In this article, she asks the question that is the title of this post. She could have gone further to look at the strict disciplinary rules of the “no excuses” schools. Or the nearly all-white young teaching staffs in all-black schools. What is the subtext? I am sure we will more about these issues from her.
Archives for the month of: March, 2013
A question from a reader:
“Des Moines Iowa needs some advice.
“Des Moines superintendent candidates narrowed to 3″
” Carey Wright, chief academic officer of the District of Columbia Public Schools.”
When readers learned that Oprah’s OWN network was filming in New Orleans, they feared that she would repeat the inflated and fraudulent claims about charter schools that are so often repeated on television. So did I.
But according to this Louisian teacher, all of us were wrong. We owe Oprah an apology. The charter schools face the same problems as public schools.
Here is what the Louisiana teacher reported:
“By the way, if you haven’t seen Oprah channel – OWN – new series “Blackboard Wars” an unreality series filmed at a New Orleans charter, you must. After much fear and trepidation at the idea of its filming it is turning out to be an exposé of the disaster that many of these charters have brought to N.O. Several of the teachers featured are TFA, although they don’t make that clear to an unknowing public audience. The filming of these students’ lives is a travesty, even filming the actual delivery room scene of one young student. The first episode featured a “teacher(?)” yelling at her students in barely recognizable dialect, with her boobs hanging out all over the place. I am SURE the filmmakers caught on and did not attempt to cover over the truth of what is taking place there. Steve Barr and his principal are acting their parts for their own personal aggrandizement! It will ultimately result in a black eye and I hope a lawsuit for the RSD to allow this.”
Advocates of charter schools can’t understand why anyone questions the purity of their motives or the excellence of their results. When there are scandals, they brush them off as mere anecdotes. When a charter operator steals millions, that’s an anecdote too. Nothing interferes with their belief that deregulation and lack of oversight is the right formula for school success.
In Chicago, we learned recently that the second-ranking official at the UNO charter chain resigned after awarding millions of dollars in contracts to family members or politically connected individuals.
Here is another. Chicago plans to close 129 elementary schools because of “underutilization,” even as they open 60 new charter schools, some in the same neighborhoods where enrollment is allegedly low. Here is an interesting web woven around a new charter:
“Jeannie Kim is employed by the Board of Education, where she works as an instructional effectiveness specialist for the Pershing Network. Her job, like her 17 other counterparts citywide, is to work with principals to evaluate teachers from an administrative perspective, and make sure CPS’s official Teaching Framework is being enforced. In fact, according to several people from the Chicago Teachers Union we spoke to on background, people like Kim have the power to get tenured teachers terminated, or at least put on a remedial track, if not reassigned to a different school altogether.”
“Besides being a member of the Board of Education’s administration staff, Jeannie Kim is also a founding member of the design team for the proposed Be the Change Charter School. In fact, Kim’s name appears in fundraising emails obtained by Chicagoist, and on the charter school’s not for profit incorporation papers as the organization’s agent. And on the not for profit’s most recent annual report, as filed with the State of Illinois, Kim is listed as the organization’s secretary. These documents list a condo in the West Loop owned my Kim and a man named John Bang.”
To understand these relationships, it is important to ponder these words: Chicago, power, politics, money.
Tennessee is the next target for voucher advocates.
The far-right American Federation For Children has poured $800,000 into an ad campaign for vouchers. This is the same organization that honored Governor Scott Walker and Michelle Rhee in 2011, the year that Walker went after the teacher unions in Wisconsin.
The voucher campaign has the support of the governor and the state commissioner of education, Kevin Huffman, who is one of the “leaders” produced by Teach for America. And also Rhee’s ex-husband.
John Kuhn is recognized among many educators as our most eloquent spokesman, a champion of students, educators, and public school.
Here he is interviewed on “The Chalkface,” speaking as he always does, from the heart.
The Republicans in Alabama are not usually thought of as the guardians of minority children, the poor, and oppressed. Last week, they slipped through a bill that allows tax credits for private and religious schools. The cover story is that it is “for the children.” The reality is that it is intended to destroy public education and support privatization.
Here is the story of how it happened.
Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst hailed the secretive legislation.
Crack investigative journalist Stephanie Simon has done it again. In this article, she describes the $100 million plan to collect confidential student data and put it into a giant database.
Simon writes:
“In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school – even homework completion.
“Local education officials retain legal control over their students’ information. But federal law allows them to share files in their portion of the database with private companies selling educational products and services.
“Entrepreneurs can’t wait.
“This is going to be a huge win for us,” said Jeffrey Olen, a product manager at CompassLearning, which sells education software.
“CompassLearning will join two dozen technology companies at this week’s SXSWedu conference in demonstrating how they might mine the database to create custom products – educational games for students, lesson plans for teachers, progress reports for principals.”
The database was funded by the Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation and created by Wireless Generation, which is part of Joel Klein’s Amplify, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
As a grandparent of a child in the public schools, it makes me ill to know that my grandson’s personal and confidential data will be sold or given to entrepreneurs for marketing purposes. And even sicker to know that his information is in the possession of a company owned by News Corporation.
Mother Crusader, a tireless New Jersey mom, discovered a p.r. campaign against those who criticize the siting of charter schools in their community.
The campaign charges that citizens who contacted their public officials to oppose the charter in question were illegally “colluding” against the charter.
The citizens in question–members of Save Our Schools New Jersey– are being sued by the foundation that funds the charter school.
She writes:
“And then two East Brunswick women (full disclosure, I know both well as we are organizers for Save Our Schools NJ) appealed the East Brunswick Zoning Board’s decision to allow Hatikvah to relocate their charter to a warehouse in a light industrial zone. The appeal was successful, and now the Eisenreich Family Foundation, which purchased the warehouse for well over $2 million dollars, is suing not only the Township Council but Cornavaca and Rampolla as well.
It seems that the Eisenreich Foundation and Hatikvah have hired a talking head to barrage the local press with press releases. The latest, an attempted smear of Cornavaca and Rampolla, is priceless.”
I think what this means is that anyone who dares to question their charter school in a public forum should just stop. Right now.
Mother Crusader also announces that she will not permit anonymous comments on her blog, as have appeared on this one.
I understand why she wants people to sign their name.
The reason I allow anonymous comments is that I know how many teachers and principals are afraid to use their real name, for fear of being fired.
Freedom of expression is under assault these days.
So I risk the occasional mis-statement or even invective by anonymous posters to allow freedom of expression to flourish.
My house rules: No profanity; no conspiracy insanity; no insulting me, it’s my blog.
Otherwise, welcome.
Sheila Kaplan of Education New York is a tireless advocate for the privacy rights of children and families.
Those rights are now under serious threat, since the U.S. Department of Education decided to change the regulations that protect them (FERPA).
She suggests you read the following:
Software Industries NPRM to US ED about the 2011 Rule changes.
Click to access Comment_on_FR_Doc_2011_08205_11software.pdf
http://www.siia.net/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=24
Here is board of software industry association: http://www.siia.net/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=125
Diane Ravitch's blog 