Archives for the year of: 2013
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Florida Newspaper: What Miracle?

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
8

Former Governor Jeb Bush traverses the nation, especially the red states, bringing news of the Florida miracle. After the debacle of the “Texas miracle,” which thrust NCLB on the nation, Mr. Bush would be well-advised to pick another issue.

The Palm Beach Post wrote a scathing editorial taking down the myth of the Florida miracle (which Bush’s former deputy Hannah Skandera is now selling in New Mexico).

The editorial says:

“Former Gov. Jeb Bush has an undeserved reputation as an education reformer. Florida’s recent education progress has come not from implementing Mr. Bush’s policies but from cleaning up after them.

“Mr. Bush has been visiting legislators in Tallahassee to talk about education policy. Get out the mops and buckets. Taxpayers also should reach for their wallets, since the former governor’s new big ideas involve transferring more public dollars to the for-profit companies behind him.”

And the editorial goes into detail on the disaster of Florida’s testing and accountability system.

It concludes:

“Now Mr. Bush heads several foundations pushing for a rapid expansion of charter schools and virtual schools. His Foundation for Excellence in Education accepts donations from private companies that would profit from lax new laws that Florida and other states are rushing to enact. The sort of careless “reform” Jeb Bush advocates will end up with taxpayers fleeced and students and parents cheated. He has a reputation for reform. He has a record of making messes.”

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Vouchers

The Smear Tactics of Corporate Reformers

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
11

Jersey Jazzman has pulled together an impressive collection of smears, wherein the corporate reformers’ attack machine tried to silence and/ or intimidate their critics.

JJ’s recitation brought to mind some of the many brushes I have had with the smear machine.

The first occurred in 2007, when I realized that someone in the NYC Department of Education was following me to my lectures and taping them. I saw this on four occasions and was curious but shrugged it off.

Then I realized what was going on when I read a sharp attack on me in the Néw York Post, calling me a “hypocritical critic.”

I later learned from journalists that the DOE was taping my lectures so they could compile a dossier called “Diane Ravitch, Then and Now.” They made the shocking discovery that I had changed my mind! First they showed the dossier to reporters, but none thought it was a story.

So someone at the DOE wrote the article, found someone else to sign it (the leader of the NYC Partnership, a business group that backs Bloomberg), sent it to the mayor’s public relations firm, which placed it in the Post. A journalist friend shared the email thread with me.

I promptly responded. The Post graciously gave me the opportunity to do so.

Since then, there have been so many smears and accusations that I have learned to deal with them.

Here are the general rules of engagement:

Assess the situation and do one of two things: Ignore them or refute them.

Either will be very frustrating for the smear machine, because they want to get to you. They want you to get angry; they want you to respond. If you ignore them, it reveals their insignificance and impotence.

However, if the smear machine is spreading outright lies that you must refute, take them on. Never be afraid. Confront them fearlessly. Do not be defensive. Do not be angry. Be civil even if they are not. Don’t raise your voice or lose your cool. The cardinal rule about bullies is that they are cowards.

Make the decision about which strategy to use, depending on the situation.

Categories Corporate Reformers

Breaking News! More $$$$ into Los Angeles Race

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
7

The Los Angeles Times reports two late donations to the campaign to elect a board that supports privatization.

The California Charter Schools Association put up $300,000.

Rupert Murdoch’s News America Corporation added $250,000.

The charter association anticipates increased numbers of privately managed charters with no supervision.

The Murdoch corporation has financial involvement through its subsidiary run by Joel Klein, who previously gave $25,000.

Los Angeles already has more charters than any other city in the nation. School board member Steve Zimmer had the temerity to propose that the board develop a policy for oversight of charters before creating new ones. Zimmer enraged the charter lobby, which wants no oversight and no moratorium.

Zimmer, who started his career in Teach for America and remained in the public schools as a career teacher, is in his first term. He is known as a moderate who is independent, belonging to no bloc.

The billionaires don’t want independents on the L.A. School board. They want people who will support more charters, more onerous teacher evaluations, more high-stakes testing, more closing of public schools.

With Mayor Bloomberg’s time in office coming to an end, and the possibility that his reforms will be tossed out by the next mayor, the corporate reformers don’t want to risk losing control of Los Angeles.

Crain’s NY ran an unscientific poll asking “which of Mayor Bloomberg’s policies should the next mayor abandon first?” There were five choices. More than 60% of respondents picked “education” as the first Bloomberg policy to be eliminated by the next mayor. Quinniapiac University ran a scientific poll asking New Yorkers what they thought of mayoral control. Only 18% want to see the mayor in charge of the public schools.

So now the next battle to take over the public schools shifts to Los Angeles.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Los Angeles, Privatization

What George Orwell Teaches Us About Corporate School Reform

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
9

An incisive essay posted on Valerie Strauss’s blog explains how we can use George Orwell’s classic 1984 to understand corporate-style school reform today.

The essay, written by North Carolina teacher Chris Gilbert, demonstrates that Orwell perfectly understood how lies, repeated often, tend to be accepted as truthful. Corporate reformers say the same things over and over again, expecting that in time their echo chamber will win out. Or, as Orwell puts it, “Myths which are believed in tend to become true.”

Gilbert gives as an example the familiar reformer claim that poverty doesn’t cause poor school performance, but “failing” schools and “bad” teachers do. We have heard this in one form or another from Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee, and Arne Duncan. He offers this example:

“In a recent interview with TIME, Bush was asked, “What’s the role of poverty in education?” He responded, “I would reverse the question: education impacts poverty, not the other way around.”

Implicit in Gilbert’s essay is another point: Fiction can teach us as much about the present as non-fiction, sometimes even more. It is always amazing to young people–and to readers of all ages–to discover how a work written 65 years ago speaks loud and clear to us today. One could make the same points in “informational text,” but not with the same power as in a novel like 1984. That is the definition of a classic. It speaks to us across ages and continents, across time and space. It is as alive today as when it was written.

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Poverty, Privatization, Testing

Activist Groups Call on States to Drop Common Core Testing

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
11

This just in from organizers of protest demonstration in D.C. from April 4-7:

Campaign to Withdraw from Assessment Consortia

The Common Core was a clever plan hatched by the corporate sponsors of ACHIEVE to ensure that national standards based tests, now being completed by the federally financed PARCC and SBAC consortia, would be cemented in place for years to come. States were pressured to sign on with one of the consortia before the tests were even developed. State education officials still don’t know exactly what the PARCC or SBAC assessments will look like, though plans call for computer based testing 4 times a year with results tied to teacher evaluation. The PARCC and SBACC tests will be rolled out in full-force in 2014-2015 with millions of dollars being earmarked for schools to comply with specified technology requirements. This enormous investment in testing will be a windfall for Pearson, Wireless Generation and other profit seeking corporations. Meanwhile, kindergarten and first grade teachers in Baltimore and elsewhere report class sizes of 32+ and city schools across the nation continue to be slated for closing.

We have a very small window of opportunity to convince states to withdraw their affiliations with PARCC or SBAC. Alabama has already done so, with other states considering the same. Once the money is invested and the tests are in place it will be extremely difficult to free our nation’s schools from the testing regime. Thousands more schools will be proclaimed failures, closed and replaced with charters staffed by temporary TFA style non-union “teachers”. Furthermore, there are currently no safeguards in place to protect the privacy of student test data resulting from the PARCC and SBACC assessments.

Join a coalition of activists from Save Our Schools, United Opt Out and other groups to plan a national campaign to urge states to withdraw from the assessment consortia. Please “like” the facebook page, “Campaign to Withdraw from Assessment Consortia” (CWAC) and declare your interest in joining this coalition. Together, we will plan a range of strategies that will hopefully be effective in a very short period of time. An in-person planning meeting will be scheduled at Occupy DOE 2.0: The Struggle for Public Schools in D.C. on April 4-7. Check the Occupy DOE schedule for time and place. Also, check the campaign facebook page for news, actions and upcoming meetings.

Thank you all for your activism and solidarity,
Bess Altwerger
Save Our Schools National Action Co-coordinator

Categories Common Core

Why Louisiana Judge Struck Down Tenure Law

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
10

Mercedes Schneider explains the significance of the Jindal legislation–Act 1–that was declared unconstitutional by a Louisiana judge yesterday.

The state constitution says that each piece of legislation shall deal with only one subject. It was on this procedural ground that the law was declared unconstitutional.

As Schneider shows, Act 1 covered numerous subjects. Its primary purposes were: first, to destroy the teaching profession; second, to remove the powers of local school boards; third, to make the state superintendent the most powerful figure in the state; fourth, to make test scores the singular purpose of education.

Under this legislation, tenure would become hard to get and easy to lose. A teacher’s survival or termination would be tied tightly to the rise or fall of test scores. Test scores are the heart and soul of the law and are used punitively against teachers.

Not surpringly, the legislation closely tracks ALEC model laws for getting rid of tenure, making certification optional, and gutting local control.

Categories ALEC, Louisiana, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

If You Really, Really Want to Improve Schools, Close Them (Not Really)

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
12

Here is EduShyster, with her usual irreverence, telling us how to achieve true excellence:

Close public schools.

Close so many public schools that the public gives up and gets used to it.

Make grand promises.

As they sing in Chicago (not only the Broadway musical and the movie, but the actual city): “Give ’em the old razzle-dazzle, razzle-dazzle ’em.”

Learn the tricks of the school-closing trade.

Fool the public.

It works every time.

Categories Closing schools, Humor

Walmart Foundation vs. Walton Foundation

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2013 //
7

Earlier today when I posted about President Obama’s decision to name Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the CEO of the Walmart Foundation, to become the head of the Office of Management and Budget, I made the error of identifying her as CEO of the Walton Family Foundation. It was obviously a mistake, and readers quickly called my attention to it. I made the change at once. I didn’t realize that the Walton billionaires have two different foundations. In addition, members of the family give a lot of money to political campaigns for candidates and issues, always on the same side of the political spectrum.

The Walton Family Foundation has given $158 million for each of the last two years (see here and here) to support vouchers and choice and to influence public opinion on behalf of privatization.

The Walmart Foundation seems to have the mission of winning good public and community relations for Walmart. Since Walmart has a bad habit of driving small stores out of business and disrupting communities, it is important to the corporation to buy goodwill. When Walmart comes to a town or region, mom-and-pop stores die, and sometimes Main Street itself dies, emptied out of tenants who could not compete with Walmart.

This is the Nation’s description of the Walmart Foundation.

Categories Obama, Walton Foundation

Whose Side Are Duncan and Obama On?

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2013 //
83

Earlier today, I posted about the battle in New Mexico over the confirmation of Hanna Skandera. Skandera wants to import Jeb Bush’s “Florida Model” of testing, school grading, charters, vouchers, and online corporations to New Mexico. She worked for Bush, Spellings, and Schwarzenegger. Her views are identical to those of Romney. Yet as the linked article points out, Skandera was invited to the White House and warmly praised by Duncan. What gives?

I am reminded that Duncan hailed Bobby Jindal’s choice of John White as state superintendent and lavishly praised him as a “visionary leader.” I am reminded that he was a featured speaker at Jeb Bush’s “summit” last year for entrepreneurs. I am reminded of March 2011, when demonstrators encircled the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, and President Obama was in Miami, describing Jeb Bush as a “champion of education reform.” (The school they both saluted as a successful “turnaround,” Miami Central High, narrowly escaped closure by the state for poor performance only three months later.)

I don’t understand why Obama and Duncan have not taken a strong stand against the opening of for-profit charter schools–or for that matter, any stand at all. I don’t understand why they have not campaigned against the spread of vouchers. They may be against them, but only in a soft voice.

I truly don’t understand the loyalty that Duncan (and Obama) have to the policies of rightwing Republicans, those most eager to close public schools and privatize them.

I don’t understand why Obama and Duncan embrace the destructive anti-teacher, anti-community, anti-student policies of the corporate reformers. Why aren’t they fighting those who blame teachers for the ills of society, who make testing the goal of education, who shatter communities by closing their public schools, who see public schools as profit centers and children as commodities?

A reader from New Mexico sent the following, with a link to Duncan’s warm words about Skandera.

“Ms. Skandera, NM’s Secretary of Education, Designate brought several reforms from Flordia. Governor Martinez’ education platform was the Florida Model. During her campaign AFT-NM fought long and hard to inform their members on what this model looked like. However, a large number of teachers voted for her regardless her promise to make New Mexico’s education system the same as Florida’s.

It is difficult to comprehend why teachers voted against their profession.

However, even more difficult is to accept is the “love fest” between Skandera, Arne Duncan and President Obama. Duncan and Obama cannot praise Skandera enough. I am including one of many links to show this admiration: http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2011/09/24/news/nm-school-reform-efforts-get-boost.html.

Many New Mexico educators, myself included, find this admiration “club” extremely insulting.”

Categories Bush, Jeb, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Jindal, Bobby, Obama

New York: Educators Have “Initiative Fatigue”

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2013 //
22

Please read this article that appears in the latest issue of the journal of the New York State School Board Association.

It describes how many teachers, principals, and superintendents are feeling overwhelmed by the changes raining down on them.

Then comes these paragraphs:

“John King is on the wrong side of history,” author and blogger Diane Ravitch told On Board. “He is acting like a petty dictator, threatening to hurt the children to retaliate against the adults who did not do his bidding.”

“On the other hand, “If you don’t put teeth into the system, no change is going to happen,” said Allison Armour-Garb, who served as chief of staff to former Education Commissioner David Steiner and is one of the architects of New York’s accountability system.

“Although the Obama administration’s approach is research-based, the RTTT states are the first to take it to scale, Armour-Garb noted. “I’m confident that the Common Core, data-driven instruction, and teacher and principal evaluation are going to lead to improvement in student outcomes – over time.”

“Armour-Garb has a personal interest in school accountability because she is the mother of two children, 10 and 12, who attend public schools.

“In her school community, Armour-Garb tends not to bring up her professional background, which includes working on New York’s RTTT application and being a point person in developing regulations that defined New York’s APPR system. “Change is hard,” she said. “And testing and accountability are provocative topics that don’t lend themselves to a quick conversation.”

Notice that Armour-Garb is careful not to let anyone in her school community know her role in developing the onerous regulations for the state’s educator evaluator system. A wise decision. More than a third of the principals have signed a petition opposing that system, and if people were not afraid for their jobs, the petition may well have been signed by more than 90% of the state’s principals.

She is right to hide her role in this tightening of the testing noose around the necks of the state’s teachers and principals. She is a lawyer and public-policy consultant, not an educator.

While she asserts that Race to the Top is “research-based,” she fails to mention what part of it is research based. Certainly not the educator evaluation system, which has never been applied successfully anywhere. John King described it as “building a plane in mid-air.” That is not research-based.

Categories Common Core, New York, Race to the Top, Testing
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