Stephen Bowen, state commissioner of education in Maine,
announced
that he was resigning his post to take a job as “director
of innovation” for the DC Council on Chief State School Officers.
He is the second member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change to resign
in the past few weeks. Tony Bennett of Florida w the other; he
resigned when news broke about rigging the A-F grading system to
raise the grade of a school run by a political donor. Last year,
Bowen was at the center of a scandal
revealed by journalist Colin Woodard. Bowen was taking
instruction and even model legislation to promote digital learning
from Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. FEE gets
subsidies from the tech corporations that stand to profit as
digital learning expands. Bowen previously worked for a
conservative think tank in Maine. The interesting aspect of this is
the apparent transformation of the CCSSO, which was for many years
a staunch defender of public education. Bowen clearly was a charter member of the privatization movement, of which his mentor Jeb Bush is a prominent leader.
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Cheats for Change.
Love it!
I still would like to know:
WHY ISN’T TONY BENNETT BEING OFFICIALLY INVESTIGATED BY THE FBI, POLICE, A COURT ORDER, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, ETC.???????
A government under the law has the right and responsibility to investigate formally such a situation.
If no investigation occurs – and I don’t mean by some chintzy auditing firm, like the one that “investigated” Michelle Rhee – then citizens must band together and sue Tony Bennett big time . . . . .
Matt Farmer, do you have any willing colleagues down in Florida?
“He who has the gold, makes the rules.”
I’m not talking about Bennett specifically.
For reasons we don’t entirely understand — maybe psychologists and psychiatrists will explain it someday — corporate racketeers and corporate-owned politicians have set about creating systems of child abuse and child exploitation to supplant our systems of public education.
If parents and teachers cannot do anything else at this point they must unite to protect their charges — everything else is secondary.
Primum non nocere
Above all, do no harm!
What’s going on is CHILD ABUSE!
But they are part of the problem. The psychologists and psychiatrists who have not pointed out that many many children are not developmentally ready to do the work that is demanded of them is causing them harm. Taking away recess and play time is stealing imaginations and creative thought. Instead we are medicating children to stay in their seats and pay attention. We are using whole word curriculum, which is not working for children, so they receive a label also from a school psychologist. It is a cardinal sin that someone in the hierarchy of education has not called all of them on it.
I hope this trend continues. TN schools & teachers can’t sustain many more assaults from Chiefs for Change member, Kevin Huffman. Yesterday, 8/16/13, the TN school board approved Huffman’s scheme of tying teacher licensing to test scores.
http://knoxblogs.com/humphreyhill/2013/08/17/board-of-ed-approves-new-teacher-licensing-rules/
Oh, how I’d love to see Deborah Gist step down from her post in Rhode Island due to some embarrassing scandal.
It is probably a great thing for Maine that Stephen Bowen is stepping down from his position of commissioner of education but what does it mean for the entire nation that he is going to be the director of innovation for the DC council on Chief State School Officers? Isn’t CCSSO a big part of the development o Common Core? Do we really want more innovation coming from this group? Do we really want this type of person involved with this type of group?
So how many does that leave actually in power?
Now that Bennett of Florida and Bowen of Maine resigned, that leaves these members of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change: Barresi of Oklahoma, White of Louisiana, Skandera of New Mexico, Gist of Rhode Island, Cerf of New Jersey, Huffman of Tennessee. Bennett remains as a member emeritus.
If I’m not mistaken, the two that have been unseated so far have been unseated due to people using the FOIA to examine their work e-mails. That suggests a plan for the remaining six.