This article suggests that Rocketship charter schools is preparing a new generation that has mastered the art of learning online and interacting with computers.
Students spend two hours daily at the computer, supervised by aides, not teachers.
This saves money.
These instructors monitor up to 130 kids at a time in cubicles in the schools’ computer labs. Rocketeers, as students are called, sit looking at computer screens up to two hours per day, supposedly learning by solving puzzles.
Business leaders such as Bill Gates often stress the need to train kids for the jobs of the future—digital animators, nanotech engineers? But it looks more like the Rocketeers are being prepared for online “microtasks” at Crowdflower, which contracts out data categorization and de-duplication.
According to a recent wage and hour lawsuit, these microtaskers are often paid as little as $2 an hour.
Overall, the growth these days is not in skilled, middle-class jobs like public school teaching—which is shrinking, thanks to charter chains like Rocketship—but in low-wage jobs.
It’s no coincidence that Rocketship employs the same kind of de-professionalized, non-union workforce it seems to be training. Half its teachers have less than two years’ experience; 75 percent come from Teach for America.
Rocketship charters will open next fall in many cities.
Is this the wave of the future?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dang, that Schneider gal sure can put together an argument.
(Glad I’m not married to her-ha ha!!)
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That’s supposed to be for the prior post!
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THIS IS GROSS.
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What is the THIS?
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“These instructors monitor up to 130 kids at a time in cubicles in the schools’ computer labs. Rocketeers, as students are called, sit looking at computer screens up to two hours per day, supposedly learning by solving puzzles.”
So let’s just take computers out of it and see how how attractive this would be as a school.
Let’s say the gadgets are removed, and the teacher chooses, say, 40 worksheet puzzles for each child (geared to ability level, for that secret sauce of “personalized learning”) and we told parents “the kids sit in cubicles and do these 40 worksheets for two hours a day, led by monitors who are not teachers but are contractors who are paid 15 dollars an hour”.
Would any parent in the world choose this school over another school that doesn’t have kids sitting for 2 hours a day alone in front of a screen?
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Great comparison.
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That these corporate people stress this makes sense. BUT we train animals, we educate people – at least that is what educators do. When people are regarded, classified as widgets then we can expect this kind of promotion.
Preparation for democracy? Preparation for “slavery” or indentured servitude? Sadly, once again stated, when 5 corporations control 80% of the “news” on which people rely one probably must expect that an uninformed public will be considerably less likely to understand what is really going on. In listening and watching, even to the better news programs one can see, hear from call ins just how ignorant, not necessarily stupid, just ignorant people are and susceptible to the propaganda machines which pass as “news”. I certainly do not know what the answer is. I believe that if people are given the facts that democracy can work. Without them – well Germany paid a severe price. Already the misinformation machine is in some very significant ways affecting us in terms of what is already happening to our world and society.
My hope is that oftentimes a single person can make a difference and when many people band together and there are still excellent reporters and if one searches quality news items to be found, eventually democracy works As has been said many times, democracy is messy. Eventually let us hope that these overcome the massive assault on all that we hold dear.
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Another money quote from the article:
“Rocketship leaders brag that they think outside the box. Teachers, for instance—who needs them? The company says it saves half a million dollars a year by using fewer teachers, replacing them with non-certified instructors at $15 per hour.”
So the $tudent $ucce$$ is not flowing DOWN to the teachers and the students.
Gosh, I wonder where it ends UP?
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” [Ionesco]
😎
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Anyone who uses the cliche of “thinking outside the box,” is by definition not doing so.
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Not to mention that they put kids IN a box! Irony, thy name is Rocketship!
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Diane posted a piece with a link to their corporate expansion plan yesterday. It’s not like they hide this. A specific goal is to cut the number of teachers to enhance revenue.
When Rocketship parachutes into a community and starts the hard sell, I’d love to see someone replace the charter marketing materials with the business plan that parents DON’T see.
Just put THAT powerpoint up. As an ed reformer might say “knowledge is power!”
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“According to a recent wage and hour lawsuit, these microtaskers are often paid as little as $2 an hour.”
I would love to see this complaint. Most court records are public records, if anyone knows where it was filed, I would appreciate that.
Ohio cybercharters are completely opaque, because, as they themselves assert when they are sued, they are “private contractors” and I have long been curious about the actual process, payment, profit, etc.
Ed reformers are pushing “blended learning” hard in working class and middle class districts (like mine) so I imagine whatever cheap garbage they ship will be forced on my public school soon by their lobbyists.
I saw that this happened in both Philadelphia and Chicago when ed reformers there gutted funding for public schools. They replaced live classes with online versions in )lower income) public schools. HUGE money-saver, I imagine.
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There was a video clip of a Rocketship school on a PBS show a while back. It was horrible. Young kids sitting in a row of computer cubicles, bored and antsy. Most of the children were from low-income Latino families. Their parents thought they were getting a wonderful education, having the opportunity to use computers. This setup is the worst I’ve seen or read about. Training other people’s children to work in computer sweat shops. Where is Michael Moore to do an expose?
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In Dallas, charters lie to Latino parents. They speak to the parents in Spanish, they put nothing in writing and they tell the parents the school is a “private” school. It’s despicable.
The orthodontists/dental clinics do the same thing. They prowl parking lots and apartment complexes looking for kids they can enroll in the Medicaid dental programs. Magically, all of those poor kids need braces, too! The operators of the clinics skim millions off the top (just like charters) and live in lavish mansions.
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Education for the children of the elite. Standards-and-testing-based training for the children of the proles.
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Indeed, the tests are the curriculum, intended to foster obedience and passivity.
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Exactly, Michael. Well said.
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I wonder sometimes where the “choice” argument ends, or whether it ends at all.
If the ed reformer cry of “great schools!” fails, they simply pick another which is “choice”, but is there a limit to that?
I haven’t seen any boundary or line in the ed reform state of Louisiana. They know some of the schools that are publicly-funded are terrible. They know this. They also know this in Ohio.
Can parents “choose” ANY school under ed reform and their choice will be publicly-funded? I don’t see any limits to this.
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oh crap I just got it. you mean this is being supported by taxpayer dollars as an alternative to public school? wow. makes me wonder about just how bad certain schools are, that parents would choose this instead…
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