Archives for the month of: October, 2013
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Albert Shanker on Charters: 1988

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2013 //
9

In the hagiography of the charter school movement, we often hear that Albert Shanker was one of the original proponents of the idea. Shanker was president of the American Federation of Teachers, and his imprimatur is supposed to persuade people that charters have a progressive patina.

This is ironic, because 90% of the nation’s 6,000 charters are non-union and oppose collective bargaining. Some charters have even insisted in federal court and to the National Labor Relations Board that they are private schools to avoid complying with state labor laws that would allow teachers to join a union.

Shanker never intended that charters would be non-union, nor that they would compete with public schools. He thought they would be formed by teachers to create a “school within a school,” and eventually autonomous schools whose purpose was to enroll the students who were bored or disengaged in regular school. He thought that charter teachers would belong to the union and would collaborate–not compete–with public schools.

Here is his 1988 speech describing his new idea at the National Press Club.

By 1993, he had reached the conclusion that he was terribly wrong. He wrote column after column describing charters as a new form of privatization, no different from vouchers.

Corporate reformers should not take his name in vain. He would never have approved of non-union schools and for-profit schools. He denounced privatization in all its forms. As early as1993, he recognized that charters were a back door way to turn public dollars over to entrepreneurs and to attack the foundations of public education.

Categories Charter Schools, Privatization, Unions, Vouchers

Bill Gates Explains Why His High School Experience Was So Great

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2013 //
34

All students should have the high school experience that Bill Gates had.

A wonderful campus with a rich curriculum, experienced teachers (79% with advanced degrees), small classes, excellent arts programs, great sports activities, up-to-date science laboratories. Everything that makes for success.

So why does he say that, for other people’s children, class size doesn’t matter?

Why does he support TFA, which sends temps without advanced degrees to the schools of the neediest?

Why does he not fight for the right of every child to have the experience that he had, rather than the dime-store model?

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Third Grader Prepares for the Global Economy

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2013 //
176

A mother sent this comment:

“Here is a problem my third-grader brought home (I had to read it 3 times, and it took ME forever to work this–forget an 8 year old):

“Easton has been raising vegetables in his garden all summer. He plans to sell some of his vegetables at a local farmer’s market.

“He has selected 24 radishes, 30 onions, 16 heads of lettuce and 25 tomatoes to sell. He wants to display the radishes together, the onions together, the lettuce together, and the tomatoes together, and to place them in sets with equal rows for each kind of vegetable.

“He plans to put each kind of vegetable in at least 2 rows. Show ALL the different ways that he can display equal rows for each kind of the vegetables at the market. Write an equation for each way you find.”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core

An L.A. Teacher on Deasy’s Enactment of Hamlet: To Be or Not to Be

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2013 //
14

A teacher in Los Angeles who calls himself Geronimo left the following comment on hearing that Superintendent Deasy planned to resign, then declared that he was only thinking about resigning and might not resign after all:

“If the saga of LAUSD wasn’t soap opera-y enough, the Number One Diva of LA–no, not Kim Kardashian, but Superintendent John Deasy–is forcing the entire city this weekend to witness his woeful performance of “Hamlet.” Early reports on Thursday night had the melancholy prince resigning thus creating premature joy with teachers (or his subjects as we’re known under his regime) in the hopes that our city’s long national nightmare was finally over. Alas, the sigh of relief was short-lived.

“Although there probably has never been a more self-aggrandizing, yet endlessly self-pitying superintendent than John Deasy, we will now have the spectacle of observing who is going to beg this prima donna to stay. Some of the city’s most powerful denizens are already lining up to kiss his ring, weeping and imploring this man to continue to grace us with his wisdom and infantile temper.

“The cry has already gone up among the Establishment, “Don’t leave us now, John!”

“So our city now goes into high-wire drama until Tuesday when the beleaguered, intimidated and castrated School Board meets for Deasy’s contractual “performance review”. It is only afterwards that Deasy will inform the world on his plans. The “leak” of his resignation was clearly designed to put pressure on the School Board to “listen” to the will of the “people” (um, note WHICH people) and do the right thing and say, “We can’t live without you, John. Please come back and forgive the savages who have said such mean things about you.”

“The truth about the California Educational Reform movement is that it is different than almost anywhere else in the country. In other parts it’s the Republicans who are running Education Reform. If you look at the map, they control all the state legislatures in the south where the weakest teacher unions exist and most of the legislatures throughout the Midwest. Those cuckoo birds would never fly in California.

“What has happened in progressive California is that there is a clear split on the Left. Here, it’s the Moneyed/Connected/Privileged Neo-Liberal Left vs. the Working Class/In-the-Trenches Left. Sure Michelle Rhee and John Deasy can each out-boast other who is more pro-gay or pro-immigration and who has the most Democratic Party merit badges on their scout uniform. But when it comes to Education Reform, they are as Far Right Wing as Scott Walker, Rick Perry or Bobby Jindal.

“And they are just as dangerous, disingenuous and damaging.

“The biggest modus operendi that this Moneyed Class Left does is to appropriate the “Civil Rights” mantra while courting big name Democrat Party millionaires who have vested interests in their type of top-down CEO managed school reform. In the future, when I think of who will be on those monuments in Washington for their tireless crusade to protect the rights and opportunities of poor children of color, I definitely picture Eli Broad and John Deasy and the Pearson Corporation.

“Eli Broad knows fine art and music. He’s a philanthropist in that area. In education, he’s a vulture as he buys power and influence in LA supporting HIS style of Reform. With Broad’s money that is hard to turn down, he gets to steer the bus on his terms–Not the kids’ interests or benefits. The Mayors of LA know that and acquiesce to the quid pro quo.

“Meanwhile, back high atop LAUSD headquarters, Deasy constantly denigrates people who disagree with his educational priorities and methodologies. As he primps himself as Deasy X, I would love to hear what Brother Malcolm would say to his grotesque appropriation of “The Movement”. Deasy self-righteously believes an iPad is what our kids need the most. How about giving them what HIS KIDS and all of his rich patrons give their kids? Great class selection, minimal testing, field trips, cool opportunities, enrichment of all kinds, small classes…? It’s abhorrent and insulting what he offers our neediest kids and orders the teachers to follow suit in implementing his noxious brand of instruction.

“So we are all left with the billion dollar iPad as Deasy’s “I have a dream” legacy.

“Pathetic.

“In almost every single interview Deasy has done extolling the virtues of the iPad, he always brings up the example that kids can now go look up “The Arab Spring” to see what textbooks don’t include. I don’t know why he’s latched onto the Arab Spring as his perpetual fall back mantra–His lack of imagination for anything else the kids could look up, perhaps. The Arab Spring is what the kids did when they hacked into the computers! Good for them! They revolted on their own and how does Deasy respond?

“Clamped down on them like any authoritarian figure.

“And more nauseating, each thousand dollar iPad (when everything is finally totaled up) all include those really inspiring Pearson-designed lessons that are supposed to make the kids wildly enthusiastic about learning. No wonder they wander to Youtube or Tumblr or anything else that is remotely interesting to them.

“How do you know the difference between the two worlds on Education Reform on California’s Left Wing? Easy. What they want and have given THEIR kids and what they believe is acceptable for OTHERS’ children. All of them are identical: Arne Duncan. Bill Gates. Mayor Eric Garcetti. Eli Broad. Barack Obama. They would never for a second tolerate the conditions they offer LA’s kids if their own kids were placed in a typical LA classroom.

“Yet we have to listen to them endlessly pontificate on what’s BEST for other people’s kids.

“Deasy, has always been about secrecy and I-Know-Best bullying. His obvious disdain for teacher input has been made clear. Like Michelle Rhee, he is very quick with the “I LOVE teacher” rhetoric–but they have to be HIS kind of obedient teacher who kowtows to his genius. In 2011, Deasy was installed undemocratically by former Mayor Villaraigosa to “shake things up” and yes, he did–but it was more like Fukushima. Teachers despise him not because they are against some mythological status quo–it’s just that HIS status quo is antithetical to smart, creative, thoughtful teaching. The kids know it too and wither under his brand of instruction.

“In Michelle Rhee’s book RADICAL, she specifically singles out California as the big enchilada for her designs on the rest of the country. She has based her operation in Sacramento and believes that if she can transform California, the rest of the country will follow. Not a bad bet.

“When I first heard the news about Deasy leaving, I hadn’t been that relieved since Nixon resigned.

“And now it may be a cruel hoax. I actually don’t know what it will take to really be rid of Deasy, short of a farmhouse caught in a tornado landing on top of him. With this piece of “will he/won’t he” go melodramatics to inflame as much public sympathy for his plight, Deasy is giving everyone a preview of what life will be like if he can be “persuaded” to stay and endure the slings and arrows of his outrageous fortunes.

“Can we PLEASE pull this really bad Laurence Olivier off the stage of LA once and for all?

“Please, inform Mayor Eric Garcetti how you feel:

“mayor.garcetti@lacity.org

“Something is rotten in the city of LA. This show needs to close immediately.”

Categories Los Angeles

NY Principal: These “Reforms” Destroy Love of Learning

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2013 //
51

Tim Farley is a principal. His wife Jessica is a veteran teacher. They are also parents. In the letter here that Tim wrote, he speaks as an educator and a parent of the damage done by today’s ill-conceived policy changes, mistakenly called “reform.”

Tim Farley writes:

My wife and I are the proud parents of four school aged children. They are in grades K, 3, 5, and 7. I happen to be a building Principal in the district my children attend. I have been in education for 22 years. My wife was a teacher for 12.

The transformational changes to public education over the past few years has been quite alarming, not only from an educator’s perspective, but from a parent’s perspective as well.

We have observed a change in how our children are perceiving their educational experience. A couple of years ago, all of them were excited about school and all the wonderful things they would learn. My wife and I no longer observe this. Our children have lost their love of school.

Every week, at least two of our children have meltdowns over the developmentally inappropriate homework assignments, the poorly worded questions, the amount of homework that comes home, repetitive and inane assignments, etc.

We cast no blame on our children’s teachers. They are the kind of teachers every parent would want for their children. They are doing their jobs to the best of their abilities even though the great majority of teachers knows that the reforms they are implementing are truly harmful to children. However, they have no choice because their jobs are literally at stake. Administrators are terrified to speak out publicly because SED is quick to intimidate those who do not comply with their dictates.

My wife and I cast the blame exactly where it belongs: John King, Merryl Tisch, Andrew Cuomo, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, the Board of Regents, et al.

These corporate reformers did an excellent job in denigrating teachers and the profession. They systematically manufactured a crisis that US schools are not competitive internationally (e.g. – the PISA study that Dr. Tricozzi wrote that corrects the fallacy that our schools are failing). Our educational system isn’t perfect, but it is far from being in a crisis. Actually, we should be proud of our achievements. But accolades do not sell expensive data systems that deprive our students of their privacy. Accolades do not sell software that “fixes” the students who do not achieve at the same rate as their peers.

My wife and I are quite frankly disgusted. We can no longer tolerate the abuse of our children. We will likely pull our children out of a school district that we hold most dear; a district in which we have made our home for the past nine years. We will likely homeschool our children unless drastic changes to these reforms take place.

My feeling is that we will not be the only parents making a decision of this magnitude. Fortunately, my wife has many years experience as a teacher, so our children will do well. But I feel badly for the parents who would like to do the same thing but due to their individual circumstances cannot.

I’m tired. My wife is tired. My kids are tired. My teachers are tired. When will this insanity end? When will the parents rise up and take back their schools from the billionaires?

Signed,
Tired dad, educator, administrator

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, New York, Students, Teachers

Bombshell: Eli Broad Secretly Funded Anti-Public School, Anti-Union Initiatives

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2013 //
21

A state investigation revealed the identities of donors to a secret fund to oppose an initiative that would increase funding to public schools and to support an initiative to weaken the unions’ political influence.

Among the donors to the $11 million secret fund was billionaire Eli Broad. He publicly supported Governor Jerry Brown’s measure to raise taxes to help the state’s struggling public schools at the same time that he put $1 million into the fund to defeat the new tax.

Broad similarly has pretended to be a friend to unions, but was a contributor to the fund–organized in part by the far-right Koch brothers–that would have limited the ability of unions to raise political cash.

The billionaires failed. The tax increase passed, and the effort to curb union spending was defeated.

If the bill limiting union spending had passed, only the super-rich would be able to give large campaign contributions but those who represent working people would be stripped of any opportunity to fund candidates or issues they cared about.

Other donors to the secret fund were investor Charles Schwab and the Fisher family, owners of the Gap and a major funder of KIPP.

Eli Broad and other donors to this fund went to great lengths to hide their antipathy to public schools and unions.

When I spoke in Sacramento two years ago, I spent two hours with Governor Brown and he told me he had to be diplomatic and nice to Michelle Rhee to keep Eli Broad’s support for his tax increase. He was fooled.

The tax increase was needed because former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had cut the public schools’ budget by about $15 billion while setting aside capital funds for charter schools and giving charter advocates a majority of seats on the state board of education. At that time, charters enrolled about 4% of the students in California.

Categories Broad Foundation, California, Supporting public schools, Unions

John Thompson Picks Apart Petrilli’s Attack on “Reign of Error”

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2013 //
15

John Thompson, historian and teacher, devoted several articles to reviewing “Reign of Error” with care.

Then he read Mike Petrilli’s critique, in which he accuses me of being “a double agent,” having learned the secrets of the rightwing, and turning their research against them.

Thompson did what a good historian typically does: He followed the evidence.

“Another way of putting Petrilli’s criticism is that Ravitch has studied both sides of the evidence. I wondered if the same could be said for him. So, I followed his links and allusions to “research.”

Again and again, he found that Petrilli was quoting himself or Russ Whitehurst (who headed George W. Bush’s research unit at the U.S. Department of Education).

After offering source-free criticism of Ravitch’s proposals for cutting class size, Petrilli links to an expert on socio-economic desegregation to attack her recommendation that we “devise actionable strategies and specific goals to reduce racial segregation and poverty.”

Petrilli’s source, once again, was Mike Petrilli.

Thomas writes:

Most of Petrilli’s fact-related arguments against Ravitch are aimed at her “solutions” (which he puts in quotes.) They include good prenatal care for all pregnant woman, high-quality early-childhood education available to all children, and medical and social services to the poor.

Petrilli wrote that “evaluations of newer, large-scale programs (like those in New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Texas) suffer from “selection-bias” problems.” Again, why does that sound familiar?

Sure enough, Petrilli’s sources for challenging the effectiveness of early education programs in New Jersey, and Texas and Oklahoma, seem to be Russ Whitehurst and Russ Whitehurst. His other source for challenging early education and wraparound services was – you guessed it – Russ Whitehurst.

Russ Whitehurst is a solid scholar. Also, Petrilli and his colleagues are busy traveling around the country promoting their agenda. But, surely, they could find time to read other perspectives.

When rightwingers quote only themselves, it shows a certain narrow-gauged approach to issues. As Thompson points out, there are other highly credible studies of early childhood education and wraparound services than those conducted by Russ Whitehurst (who, coincidentally, fired me from my unpaid senior fellowship at the Brookings Institution in the midst of the presidential campaign of 2012, on the same day that I took apart Romney’s education agenda, whom Whitehurst was advising).

Thompson concludes:

I’d be glad to meet in the center with Petrilli, and I would propose a modest first step. Could we not agree to read research on both sides of educational issues? Petrilli could be free to continue to criticize Ravitch for knowing too much about the conservatives’ logic and evidence. He could continue to demonstrate his solidarity with the anti-science wing school of reform. Petrilli should follow Ravitch’s footnotes and links to the social science research, however, and then ask whether her historical perspective makes sense when viewed through the prism of actual evidence.

Categories Reign of Error

My Life as a Double Agent

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2013 //
16

Fred Klonsky has an excellent summary and hilarious critique of Mike Petrilli’s review of “Reign of Error.”

Mike suggests that I was “a double agent,” hiding in plain sight in rightwing think tanks for thirty years, so I could one day exposé them.

This is funny.

Checker Finn and I founded the Educational Excellence Network in 1981. We published screeds about declining standards for years. Note: That is when my work as a double agent began. When Checker joined the Reagan administration, I took over his role as leader of the Network. Aha, I had to double down on our criticism of the schools to hide my secret identity.

Checker recommended me to Lamar Alexander, who invited me to take Checker’s old job as Assistant Secretary in charge of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement and Counselor to the Secretary. Wow, I was really embedded in the belly of the beast.

After leaving government, I spent nearly two years at Brookings (warning sign of double agent!), turned down the offer to hold the Brown Chair in education (now held by Grover “Russ” Whitehurst, head of education for George W. Bush, who fired me from my unpaid fellowship at Brookings in 2012), and returned to Brooklyn in 1994 and a research professorship at New York University. For a time, it appeared that my days as a double agent were over.

But opportunity soon knocked, and I was paid to be a fellow at the rightwing Manhattan Institute, on whose behalf I went to Albany to testify on behalf of charter schools. The legislation passed, demonstrating that my bona fides as a double agent were in good standing.

Also, after I left government service, all the while pretending to believe in testing, accountability, competition, and choice, I wrote several articles advocating these policies to maintain the pretense. More important, I was a founding member of Checker Finn’s Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (now called Institute, for tax purposes).

I was also a founding member of the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution, which consisted of the creme de la creme of the conservative intelligentsia. Now firmly established as a genuine rightwing critic of our failing public schools, I learned all the inside secrets. Nirvana for a double agent! I learned that most of my colleagues hated unions (I already knew that); I learned that testing was the sine qua non of education policy (I knew that too); I learned that the answer to educational malaise was unregulated choice. (No surprise.) I loved the lavish parties, the great wines, I actually liked and enjoyed my colleagues.

But, finally, after thirty years as a double agent, the burden of duplicity became too great.

I had to confess that I preferred children to plutocrats.

I had to confess that I had no faith in the transformative power of unregulated choice (especially after the economic meltdown of 2008).

I realized I could not betray my origins as a graduate of the Houston public schools.

I lost my faith, if faith it was. I blew my cover with the publication of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” Author Steve Brill said I sold out for the speaking fees that unions would surely shower on me. How clever of me to plan so far in advance. After many years as a double agent, I laughed at Brill’s theory. I knew where the real money was–and when I blew my cover, so well hidden for thirty years, I knew I was leaving behind the Hoover Institution, the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and so many others willing to pay handsome fees to those they trust.

After my cover as a double agent was gone, I made a series of recommendations that Mike Petrilli ridiculed as pie in the sky:

Klonsky writes:

“Petrilli sneers:

“The skeptical, hard-nosed (if biased and data-slanting) Ravitch of the first half of her book turns into a pie-in-the-sky dreamer in the second half.

“Consider her “solutions”:

“1. Provide good prenatal care for every pregnant woman.

“2. Make high-quality early-childhood education available to all children.

“3. Make sure every school has a “full, balanced, and rich curriculum.”

“4. Reduce class sizes.

“5. Provide medical and social services to the poor.

“6. Devise actionable strategies and specific goals to reduce racial segregation and poverty.

“(She lists five other “solutions” that simply amount to rolling back reforms: Ban for-profit charters and charter chains; eliminate high-stakes standardized testing; don’t allow “non-educators” to be teachers, principals, or superintendents; don’t allow mayoral control of the schools; don’t view education as a “consumer good.”)”

Klonsky comments:

“That’s what Petrilli considers pie-in-the-sky.

“To me it sounds like a recipe for quality schools.”

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization, Vouchers

Students Leaving New Charter School in Florida in “Droves”

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2013 //
35

University Preparatory Academy in Pinellas County claimed it would outperform all the local public schools.

But 69 students have left the school in the early weeks of school, complaining of bullying and other problems.

They are returning to their local public schools.

The Tampa Bay Times writes:

Children are leaving University Preparatory Academy, the charter school that promised to do better than their struggling neighborhood schools.

They are leaving in droves.

Since the school year began, 69 children have withdrawn from University Prep. They are returning to Maximo Elementary, Woodlawn Elementary, Bay Point Middle and other under-performing traditional public schools.

Earlier this month, 20 children left in one week. Eight have left in the past three school days.

Four teachers have quit, along with the school’s curriculum director.

A Pinellas County Schools administrator interviewed parents last month, when 23 children had left, to determine whether University Prep was telling families to leave. But parents said they were pulling their children voluntarily. They were concerned about bullying, missing textbooks and other issues.

University Prep has received initial approval to open a school in Tampa next fall, and has explored campuses in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Cheri Shannon, the school’s founder and principal, says the St. Petersburg school with just under 500 students is experiencing “growing pains” typical of a charter’s first few months.

Egged on by Jeb Bush and his powerful political machine, Florida has been eager to hand out charters and slow to enforce any quality control.

The end game is to marginalize traditional public schools and eventually to turn over the lion’s share of public education to for-profit charter operators and chain schools.

That way, education will be just another consumer good, not a civic obligation.

And the motto of education will be: caveat emptor.

Take your chances with fly-by-night operators, schools run by ex-cons, schools run by fast-buck entrepreneurs, schools run out of church basements.

That’s the vision.

Florida wants to be first in making it happen.

Categories Charter Schools, Florida

Paul Karrer Writes an Open Letter to Hillary, Apologizing

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2013 //
37

Paul Karrer teaches fifth-grade students in an impoverished community in California. Here, he apologizes to Hillary because he voted for Obama in 2008. He realizes now that he made a terrible mistake. His students gained nothing from NCLB or Race to the Top.

He wishes the president would understand the stress in his students’ lives. Testing is not helping them. It diminishes their lives.

He writes:

“I have four special education kids in my class. The pull of gangs is all-powerful here. A few years ago, a former student’s mother was gunned down in a gangland slaying in nearby Salinas. The same child’s grandmother was shot in the face in another gang incident.

“I boil over and fester when I hear any mention of “failing schools.” I teach in a desperate community of abject poverty. Poverty is the failure, not the bricks of my building nor the many noble and heroic teachers who have chosen to work in my school. Making teachers accountable for testing results with the abominable life conditions here is a disconnect so large the country is lucky teachers are not engaged in open rebellion. And the money lost to testing, test preparation, test result trainings, test motivation and test-improvement- consultant-magic-dances is repugnant.

“All is focused on language arts and math. Nothing else matters, as it is not tested. Result — a diminished curriculum, no music, art, band, restricted field trips, if any. But unctuous consultants show up with paycheck regularity, drive-by checklists in hand.”

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind)
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