Jonathan Pelto reports that Debra Kurshan, the state’s “Chief Turnaround Officer” is leaving for another position after eight months on the job.
What a close and cozy world these corporate reformers inhabit!
As Pelto writes:
“Commissioner Pryor has announced that Kurshan, who previously served as the head of School Portfolio Development for Mayor Bloomberg’s school privatization efforts and also worked as a consultant to the superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District in New Orleans, is leaving the state to join an unnamed education consulting firm.
“Before her short stints with the Bloomberg Administration and Paul Vallas’ old Louisiana Recovery School District, Kurshan was with the education reform group, Education Pioneers, where she worked at Village Academies Network, a charter school management organization operating two schools in Harlem, New York.”
“In New York City, Kurshan worked on closing public schools to make room for charter schools and co-locating charter schools in public school spaces.”
Have you noticed that “turnaround” is a synonym for privatizing?
These reformers feel no association with public education. They see their mission as helping kids move to privately managed schools.
Do they ever reflect on the end game?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
ALEC’s turnaround model legislation (out of California). See page 81 of 133 from this ALEC mailout (the remainder of which is a buffet of model reform legislation):
Click to access ed_35daymailing-dc.pdf
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Have Carpetbag ♘ Will Travel
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Hey, it’s like Administer For America! Stick around at a job for a short time and move on to something else to pad your resume!
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How do we lock the privateers out of education and return the field back to professionals? At what point will having these things on your resume be a detriment to your future in our profession?
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Rbaker4artsed, the clock is ticking for reform. The countdown has begun. They can’t win because nothing they espouse works. Their failures doom them.
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The problem is that destruction – that is, the destruction of the neighborhood public school – is relatively easy to bring about, and that is one metric of their “success.”
These people couldn’t care less about educating children in high needs districts. While the kids make for excellent props during photo shoots and marketing campaigns, beyond that it’s all about money and control.
From that perspective, they are all too successful.
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dianerav: you are not exaggerating.
Yesterday I finished reading Sarah Carr’s HOPE AGAINST HOPE: THREE SCHOOLS, ONE CITY, AND THE STRUGGLE TO EDUCATE AMERICAN’S CHILDREN (2013). Even with the author mightily striving to be ‘fair’ to ‘all sides’ this book strongly supports your assessment.
Michael Fiorillo: IMHO, the book also supports your assertions as well.
Imagine what we can expect from a Dr. Mercedes Schneider who has the integrity and expertise to effectively speak truth to the education establishment—
And plans to do it in a book she hopes to bring out in 2014!
Why is this worthy of note? Just like this blog, her book will be another light cast on the leading charterites/privatizers. And a fundamental precondition of the success of the edufrauds is keeping us all in the dark—which is exactly why they don’t trumpet the aftermath of their singular “success” in Adelanto, CA, or celebrate Sarah Carr’s new book, or engage the owner of this blog in open discussion and debate. The edubullies know that “There is no darkness but ignorance.” [William Shakespeare]
They count on our ignorance breeding compliance, silence and even acceptance.
Don’t be deceived: the whooping and hollering of the edubullies only looks formidable:
“Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.” [Thucydides]
And the more people know, the more ground the edubullies and their allies lose.
It is painfully slow but the tide is slowly turning.
And ArneRhee&Co. aren’t on the winning side.
🙂
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Serial, drive-by school killers…
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Obviously, a reference to the California Parent Empowerment (Trigger) Law, rules and regulations. The Parent Empowerment Act as it is known in California is a good law for school districts like LAUSD, and around the U.S., who do not care. This is a real tool in the parents toolbox if properly used. Most, including all from what I can tell, on this blog and in the public have never read the law. The make definitive statements and they do not know what they are talking about. Contained in the law is the ability for the parents to take over the school without charters or any other organization other than their own. Did any of you know that? Parents are the only ones with a vote. But to be successful they need the help of the students, teachers and community. We have talked with parents, teachers and students about this plan and they like it. The proposed governing board includes two parents chosen by the parents, in high school a student with a vote, two staff picked by school staff and two community members and/or organizations chosen by the parents as those they trust not the administration. This is legal under the present law. All the Parent Triggers so far are illegal due to the illegal gathering of the signatures. The L.A. Times Op Ed which forced the hand of Zimmer on the resolution to educated parents on the law and on the checking of signatures is not an accident. We sent to the board of education and to the L.A. Times the law, rules and regulations and pointed out to them that these signatures are illegal and they know it as parents and teachers testified in front of the board and is in the papers how they were illegally obtained by a person with a psy ops background working for Parent Revolution. We have already begun the training before the resolution. Snooze you lose.
In this specific situation they are just moving that person to a more important place on the chessboard. Just like Marshall Tuck of PLAS they will find another place with more income for them. they have to as they know too much and what if they went rogue and told all they know?
If you want to beat them first you must really know the facts for real. Read the Parent Trigger Law. Only three responded when I put in my email. That is how uninterested in the truth it seems to be. With that attitude and lack of concern for facts is it any wonder they are kicking the educators $%*&^(#? With that attitude you are sheep to be eaten by the wolves.
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There are at least a dozen Facebook groups and communities just that I know of that track our Fiendly Naborhood Shadow Government, alias ALEC, at work.
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“Do they ever reflect on the end game?”
Only when they read their bank statements!
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Their end-game? For now, they take the money and run, take the closed pub schl for their pvt charter, or take and 8-month 6-figure career-padding job beforem oving on to the next one. For Gates, Murdoch, Pearson, Bloomberg—lots of fees and sales for info processing and digitized testing. A gold rush is underway for the corporate rampage, so the damage done to the terrain of pub schls is of no concern to them. Perhaps at the end, we will see which pvt charters survive making how much money for which sponsors while most kids will still be relegated to a debased, underfunded, over-regulated pub schl as the dumping ground for whoever pvt charters don’t want. In addition, while public advocates, democratic activists, labor supporters, and progressive folks of all kinds are ted up defending pub schls here or there, the right-wing in coalition with the corporate right will pass even more draconian anti-abortion laws state by state and dismantle affirm action too, while the corporate wing will push more toxic fracking and anti-labor restrictions through SCOTUS. There are collateral benefits to compelling the public side to fight in one arena so that it cannot defend pub sector and democ rights in other areas. We have to look on our flanks to see what else the corporate right is doing besides rampaging through our pub schls.
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I don’t think that we should call them “reformer”– a better descriptor would be public school “destroyer”
Sent from my iPad
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Edudeformers!
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“School Portfolio Development”
As if a school was just another stock or bond that you can buy or sell from your laptop. There, in a nutshell, is the problem…
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Education Week has an article by Dean of Lesley U. (Greater Boston area) and he starts out trying to be a mediator : ” A pox on both their houses.” Then he proceeds to take advantage for his Yale background and his excellent Lesley programs. We have this constant barrage from Harvard Rogoff, Richwine, Education Next, in efforts to attack public education and bash teachers. I wrote to Lesley Dean and reminded him why I voted for Elizabeth Warren. As with hospitals that make obscene profits built on the backs of nurses, the private sector would like to remove teachers and they constantly bash teachers ; during the Bush presidency I remember reacting strongly when they said from the platform “teacher unions are terrorists” and “we should bomb the teacher colleges” spoken by the titans of the Bush education industry…. Jeb is in NH this week raising funds for his next run for office. If anyone wants a copy of my email to Dean at Lesley I will forward it. jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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