Starting today, the nation’s leading entrepreneurs will gather for their annual conference at the Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, to exchange ideas about the ongoing monetization, privatization, innovation, and profits in the education “industry.” This summit was originally organized by Michael Moe, who has for years predicted that the education sector could be monetized. He was right. His company—GSV stands for Global Silicon Valley–says on its website: “Our founders have spent the past two decades focused on the Megatrends that are disrupting the $4 trillion global education market along with the innovators who are transforming the industry.”
Some of the sponsors: Pearson, the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, McGraw-Hill, Cengage, amazon, Scholastic, etc.
The speakers’ list reads like a who’s who of the privatization movement, which it is.
Penny Pritzker, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, billionaire heiress to the Hyatt fortune, former member of the board of Chicago public schools; Jeb Bush, Chris Cerf, Cami Anderson, Reed Hastings, Margaret Spellings, Tom Vander Ark, Kaya Henderson, James Shelton, Jonathan Hage, and many more in the business of education reform.
Stephanie Simon wrote about this GSV annual conference here for politico.com:
“ED TECH’S ‘DAVOS’ STARTS TODAY: Hundreds of ed tech investors and entrepreneurs will rendezvous in Scottsdale, Ariz., this week for the Education Innovation Summit. The massive meet-and-greet will surely be lively, as business is booming. The ed tech market has been on a sustained boom the past several years, with no signs of a slowdown: Capital flows into companies serving the K-12 and higher education markets jumped to $650 million last year – nearly double the $331 million invested in those spheres in 2009.
–“You’re seeing people who can invest money anywhere” turn to ed tech, said Michael Moe, co-founder of GSV Capital, a sister company to GSV Advisors. The rapid growth of companies such as Coursera, Edmodo and Knewton “attracts the big players,” Moe said, who see an opportunity for big profit. And the Common Core is helping the cause: The standards are making ed tech more attractive because entrepreneurs can now tailor their product to a single set of academic guidelines. Several notable investment deals have closed in the past month alone.
More for Pros, from Stephanie Simon: http://politico.pro/1pmsymu
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Rape of the innocents continues. Pray for us all…
Never thought I’d support drone use, but….
This is one of the reasons why Deform will be so difficult to defeat:
Deform is INTIMATELY TIED IN WITH a bunch of plutocrats’ treasured vision of an educational system revolutionized by technology.
This saddens me to no end, because I am a great believer in the potential of technology in education, but I am horrified by the Orwellian uses to which many of these people are putting it. To make things worse, the reasons for my horror are not explainable in soundbites, and so it will be very, very difficult to counter the hype, all the doublespeak about rigor and personalization and and data-driven decision making that turns out to be sloppy, impersonal, and numerology-based decision making. The reasons why, in each case, this is so are not explainable in a headline or a sound bite and so will whiz right by most people.
Totalitarianism can come about because of violent revolution, or it can come about because no one is paying attention. While the United States is busy watching American Idol, a very nasty, very rough beast is being born, one that abuses children and subverts humane teaching and learning, scholarship and research, and democracy.
And the opportunity costs–by the gods those are enormous. Technology could be a great force for liberation. It could be the realization of the dreams of universal access and of true personalization allowing individuals to pursue their unique tracks toward developing their unique potentials and proclivities.
I weep for my country and for the kids.
What a horror.
Plutocrats are not, by and large, the most reasonable of people in any circumstances, but when they are feeling all Messianic, well, they are not going to hear anything outside their echo chambers, like the one this post describes.
Stop with the “messianic plutocrats” spin, Bob, and this isn’t even about technology. You’re building their brand image for them, and it’s a lie.
Technology could be deployed much more efficiently and productively without the proprietary marketing battles we’re suffering through. Their only vision is of market control through domination of political policy.
This is about profit, duh, and the diversion of public resources from the many to the few.
Robert…I am sitting here with tears in my eyes.
Chemteacher…it is not only about vast profit, generally from worthless overpriced products, but it is also about creating generations of workers who are interchangeable in the plutocratic marketplace.
As much as I hate (and fear, LOL) to disagree with you chemtchr, I’m gong to have to there. I’ve paid close attention to these people for the past few years, and there are a number of them who are downright Jimmy Swaggertish about all this. Few people make entirely unemotional financial decisions. Humans are great rationalizers, and people often convince themselves that what is best for their personal financial gain is also the gospel.
I’ve encountered enough people of this ilk “up close and personal” to recognize, I think, when they’ve become true-believing, fire breathing, revival-tent-packing evangelists.
It is because of this religious fervor–the commitment to what is, after all–their idea–that one can’t get through to them. It’s like trying to talk sense to someone in the Westboro cult. Many have had a vision, and in that vision, all is beautiful and green and nothing, nothing can go wrong.
Wrong. It’s simpler than that. This is an attempted bank heist of public resources for private gain. Technology is just a tool for that end.
I guess you simply don’t understand the destruction of public education is only one part of the movement to sell off ALL public resources for private gain. These same crooks are trying to steal public pensions and Social Security. This has nothing to do with your silly theory about book publishers that you wrote about in a different post.
I have been following this a LOT longer than you have. The neoliberal ideology has been around long before Gates got on the scene.
chemtchr, you are absolutely correct. All this is is yet another transfer of wealth upward. If the technology weren’t there, it would still be attempted because thirty years of tax cuts for the rich, gutting of trade policies, and various other economic policies designed to shaft the many to profit the few have guaranteed it. Bob acts like this is something new. It isn’t. Crackpot economics pushed by the likes of Milton Friedman and his Chicago School nutjobs is what has gotten us to this point.
What’s going on in education cannot be divorced from what is happening to the public sector as a whole.
This has been the ALEC united plan for decades…the transfer of all wealth and power upward. It has caused the punishing inequality that now haunts America, and has decimated the middle class, and murdered democracy.
Bob. I agree. I also weep. And yes…as you wrote: “What a horror.”
Jeb Bush is now being exposed as a major plutocrat. Here is the article today in the NY Times. He is the main organizer and supporter of ALEC.
Jeb Bush’s Rush to Make Money May Be Hurdle
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Mr. Bush’s efforts to capitalize on his résumé and reputation have thrust him into situations that may prove challenging to explain should he mount a campaign for the presidency
My prediction: Any connection with Education Deform or the Common Core will be political suicide very soon.
It was amusing to see what happened on TestingTalk.org. A bunch of edupundits who have been cashing in on the Common Core and making nice nice with deform put up this site and where shocked by the overwhelming negative reaction to the testing and to the Common Core generally. Very funny that they should have been so clueless about this, but I think that a lot of these people live in an echo chamber. Well, the walls of that chamber are about to burst. People are not happy. They have had more than their fill of the abusive, invalid testing and the amateurish standards. There is a great groundswell of resentment of these just about to burst. A lot of these people need to start running for cover. Look for that: a lot of disavowals, a lot of CC$$ these folks suddenly developing amnesia about all their books and speeches and articles and op-eds in support of this attack on our schools, kids, and teachers. It’s funny to watch them squirm and equivocate.
Thank you Ellen, Susan, (and Dienne 🙂 )
I’ve actually gotten my hands on a copy of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, and recommend that everybody do that ASAP.
His argument is that we’ve passed the structural turning point at which wealth concentrates inexorably upward into a few dynastic superfortunes. Krugman summarizes it quickly in this Moyers interview: profits on the capital accumulated already by the super rich are so much greater than underlying economic growth, that general economic wealth HAS to continue to drain from the workers to the hereditary plutocrats.
There are many implications we need to follow through. Maybe raising the minimum wage is so essential to the survival of the generation we’re teaching that it trumps a politician’s collusion with the eduvultures. Maybe Elizabeth Warren will get my support, anyway.
I think we just need to educate her. Education policy is really outside of her expertize. The only logical lens she has through which to look at education policy is a business/management lens. We have to show her how to look at it from a teacher’s perspective. I know she has taught at the college+ level. That is no preparation for understanding the mechanics of K-12 teaching.
“Our founders have spent the past two decades focused on the Megatrends that are disrupting the $4 trillion global education market along with the innovators who are transforming the industry.”
Transforming? Disrupting?… Yes.
Improving? … NO.
InBloom Student Data Repository to Close
Breaking news from the NY Times- InBloom announced this afternoon that it is winding down operations, and shutting down.
“This month, after New York state legislators passed legislation prohibiting the state department of education from giving student information to data aggregators like inBloom, education officials also reversed their plans to use the service.”
“The idea of using data-mining to tailor learning for students may be promising. But the story of inBloom suggests that many parents remain leery.”
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/inbloom-student-data-repository-to-close/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
How did they spend all that money? Or, did they? Are they freeing up capital to go shopping for another disruptive start-up at Scottsdale?
Did they get their disruptions-worth?
Good point, chemtchr.
When is the level of “disruption” enough?
Can there be too much “disruption”?
“Public school teachers and students, we were only disrupting your authentic learning/teaching experiences to line our own pocket$. No harm done.”
This is encouraging. We see that a massive protest by parents and others can bring down even the richest of plutocrats, Murdoch abnd Gates. This news certainly brightening my outlook.
As Michael has said many times on this blog,
“Beware of geeks bearing grifts.”
Norman Atkins is a college friend of mine; should I ask him to comp me in?
If he comps you, please take me along.
Moe is there; how about Larry and Curly?
As for outfits like EdModo, one thing which is exceedingly frustrating about it and its ilk is the lack of accessibility for the blind, visually impaired, and other print-disabled students. If one uses a Braille display or speech-based screen reader, images, icons, and graphics-based navigation, cluttered layout, etc., make it all but impossible for such students to use the software. I have pointed out to my school district that it should not be purchasing such for use in the district if accommodations cannot be made. The district has contacted the company in the case of EdModo, and guess what? NOt a thing has been done. If the district uses EdModo in a more universal manner in the near future, necessitating that my son must jump through dozens of alternative hoops in order to have equal access to his materials, instruction, and collaboration with peers, I assure you EdModo and my district will be facing a lawsuit.
as they should
NOTE TO TEACHERS’ UNIONS:
The Common Core was driven by the desire on the part of these folks to have a single bullet list to tag their software to.
That’s why they paid to create it.
That’s why they were in such a hurry and did such a sloppy job.
And–please pay very close attention to this–one of the major goals of this Ed Tech revolution–is to reduce, dramatically, the size of the teaching force.
Imagine, 200 students in a room, all working at tablets, and one low-level aide walking around to assist.
The model is being run in laboratory schools at all levels around the country. And it has been hinted at again and again and again in talks and memos by the primary players in all this.
WHEN, UNION LEADERS, ARE YOU GOING TO AWAKEN TO THIS????
Seriously, wake the —– up!
The goal is to create materials that are, to the extent possible, “teacher proof” and “teacher optional.” And the people pushing this stuff are clueless enough about teaching that they think that that’s very doable. After all, any of them can go online and learn how to use the tags in the new release of HTML.
And can’t anything worth knowing be put into a Powerpoint? (I hope that makes you shudder as it does me.)
The religious faith of the Rheeformation is Technocratic Philistinism.
And it’s a religion, no doubt about it. A cult.
Wrong. This is just one way the privatizers have to loot the public treasury. It isn’t the ultimate goal.
You need to read Lois Weiner and her work on neoliberalism and education. This is simply an attempted bank heist.
So, union leaders, you can either wake up to the driver behind the CC$$, or you can continue assisting in the destruction of your members’ profession.
Wow, that’s something to be really proud of.
Bob’s postings capture my disgust and anger at the deranged conquest of the public sector by the privatizing billionaires. Bob’s earlier postings about the threat to publishers from digital texts was on point, helping explain the new war on public schools via the CCSS-PARCC axis. The corporate sector has always been the leading factor in public education, selling goods and services, dominating ed policy and job prep, standardized tests and under-financed k-12 and community colleges. The latest private plan for the schools via vouchers, privatization, charters, VAM is a super-monetizing of public ed, a corporate demand for a super revenue stream from the public sector. Let’s turn the tables on them. Let’s defend public education and the public sector by attacking their corporate consumer sector(70% of the economy). This means consumer boycotts of industries of the funding billionaires, a concerted effort to steer consumer purchases away. Of course this is a raw plan we need to refine but remember how good it feels to fight back, how effective the boycotts of grapes and lettuce were 50 years ago in winning Farm Worker Rights, in bringing apartheid South Africa to the table, etc. We also can do strike support for labor organizing at sites owned by the billionaire boys club. Keep in mind that education networks like NPE and others have a national membership. Lastly, let’s consider an concerted turn away from the traitor Dems like Cuomo and Obama who undermine public education. Hilary must come out strongly against charters and privatization or else she’s added to the boycott list for ’16. The corporate invaders have exposed flanks elsewhere waiting for our counter-offensive.
You keep talking about this, and you make no sense at all. I guess you don’t truly understand education is just one part of the overall movement to destroy the public sector for private gain.
Wish folks would not assume that it is a foregone conclusion that Hillary will be Dem candidate.
If she does not run, Biden is making a big play for the nomination, ugh, but I still believe Elizabeth Warren could win…and more easily than Hillary who is disliked by many Dems who supported Obama rather than give the Clintons another whack at the country. Remember NAFTA and GATT, ruining American jobs, and Welfare to Work which put thousand of families on Skid Row, and the unkindest cut of all…the collusion of Bill with Phil Gramm to do away with Glass Steagall and instead hamper the middle class with Gramm Leach Bliley Act which led directly to the downfall of the American and the world’s economies.
Hillary was part of all these horrible Right leaning decisions. She and Bill both have made millions as consultants to Middle Eastern sheiks.
Bill and Hillary are both incredibly bright and capable, but again, they were founders of the current deform movement, and I am not sure that they have moved, at all, from their position in favor of the various deforms (e.g., conceiving education as mastery of a bullet list that is ensured by extrinsic punishment and reward via standardized testing).
And the whole plan was laid out in Arne Dunkin Ducan’s technology blueprint at the very beginning of his tenure, for any with eyes to see what was there.
When I first read that blueprint, half a decade ago now, a chill ran through me. All this was entirely foreseeable, and the real horror has yet to be unleashed. But it’s very, very much in the works.
Standardized, fully automated “training” for the children of the proles.
Training to ensure that they are appropriately gritful and are not having ideas of their own.
Milling of products for the 21st-century workforce. Obedient, gritful do-bees. Will you be taking that latte on the veranda, Mr. Gates? Yes sir. Coming right up sir.
Look, we have a USDE that issued a report paid for by the Gates Foundation that LAMENTED that FMRI machines were too large and expensive to put into classrooms for monitoring, in real time, the emotional states of children and then went on to say that fortunately, there were alternatives–galvanic skin response wristbands and retinal scanners and other devices–that were being tested under a grant from–guess who?–
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Your USDE at work.
Constructing the training for the children of the proles.
Wrong. “A Nation at Risk” was the blueprint. It’s aim was to create distrust in public institutions. The goal is the destruction of the middle class because neoliberals think people in industrialized countries should “compete” with workers from China or Vietnam. You haven’t been following the privatization movement for very long.
This is nothing new. You want to pretend that it is. Gates was very late on the scene.
I tell you what, Susan. I will just save you the trouble and start adding,
“This is wrong. Everything Bob Shepherd says is idiotic.” –Susannunes
To the end of all my posts. That should save you a lot of time. You’re welcome.
Bingo Bob…fewer real trained teachers mean greater profits.
Alex Caputo-Pearl, Bob asks an operant question. As the potential new leader of UTLA, hope you have a massive pushback plan.
It’s one part, but not the whole story. Bob pretends that it is.
Susan…we can’t fight on all fronts all of the time. But we can unite to pushback on the education front. ALEC is like a many headed hydra, or more like the locks of snakes of the gorgon. Kill them off, as with inBloom, one at a time…but never falter and think the war is over when we win one battle….like the phony Karin Klein report in the LA Times. She did not change with that one silly post. And neither will Murdoch and Gates who know how to roll a loss over into the next avalanche of misused wealth.
Ellen (and Alex Caputo-Pearl), please stop for a minute and actually consider susannunnes point, the Chicago Teachers Union’s point, and mine.
The union movement of the teaching profession HAS to be aligned with the economic struggle of ordinary people for democratic control. It isn’t such a big or preposterous deal.
You say, “Susan…we can’t fight on all fronts all of the time. But we can unite to pushback on the education front. ”
I, with many others, am currently engaged in trying to wrest control of my own union form the collaborators who currently hold office. The actual way for a union to do that is to build a united front, and the candidate I’ll be supporting will say all the things you’re trying to shut down. In a few weeks, I’ll be tweeting about it from the floor of our convention.
So, Bob, who do you think you are to demand control of this discussion, and then snark down at Susan?
chem, I never demanded any control. I simply find it amusing that Ms. Nunes feels the need to respond with
YOU’RE WRONG!
to every post I make. Amusing in a sad sort of way.
Wrong. I guess you don’t understand that what it’s all about. I’ve been following this stuff a LOT longer than you have. Also, you need to read Lois Weiner.
LOL
Susan has been trying to orient the defense of public education with the economic onslaught against all working people by the 1% and their agents. She’s said you’re wrong every time you orient our response to the subjective mindset of the agents, because there is more to it. Your response to her has been dismissive and disrespectful at a level you don’t generally show toward the blowhards you often engage. Why is that?
We’re not going to be able to talk Elizabeth Warren, Paul Krugman, or Michael Moore over with a lot of handwringing about the poor educrats’ messianic addiction to technology. We all understand there’s more to it, and this isn’t a fundamental disagreement.
I know what. Let’s all hold hands and sing.
It is we who plowed the prairies,
build the cities where they trade
Dug the mines and build the workshops,
endless miles of RR laid
Now we stand outcast and starving
‘mid the wonders we have made
but
The union makes us strong
I look forward to that kumbaya moment, chemtchr. I apologize for any hint of incivility, and I will take the company of those here over the company of ed deformers any day. I also, generally, very much appreciate your posts and those by Ms. Nunnes. Not that my appreciation is required. I was just a bit shocked by the virulence. I was asking myself, “My god, where is this coming from?” It seemed a bit over the top.
I have been hearing Union Maid in my head ever since Pete Seeger died. But my favorite of the union songs has long been Coal Tattoo, by Billy Ed Wheeler:
I’ve stood for the union; I’ve walked in the line.
I’ve fought against the company.
I’ve stood for the U M W of A.
Now who’s going to stand by me?
’cause I got no job and I got no pay.
Just got a weary soul
And this blue tattoo on the back of my head
Left by the number 9 coal.
That song sends a chill through me every time it runs through my mind for it captures so clearly the individual struggle that is part of the greater one.
We need a real union movement in this country again. Throughout this deform era, I have come back again and again to that. If only we had real unions. They would be standing up to this. There has to be a force that big, that strong. It’s hard to fight this stuff piecemeal, purely through the grass roots. We need leaders and a movement and organization. That is why I am grateful to Diane. But I am disgusted by the union collaborators. Thoroughly, utterly disgusted. What they are doing in their collaboration with the Core completely undermines what should be the central mission of the unions, to protect the rights and livelihoods of their workers. A key component of the business plan being implemented is to dramatically reduce the number of teaching jobs and the autonomy of teachers. And the unions are HELPING to bring that about. It’s horrifying. I can’t figure out whether the leaders are deluded or venal. I think it may be the former. But in either case, the damage is being done, and it’s serious.
I will think we have real unions again when, in every state, the unions stand up for, demand, and fight for, until they receive it, the right to strike. Son of NCLB should have been enough to move them there. But instead we got Vichy collaborators.
When the Taylor Law in NYS was passed (1969 I think) banning strikes by public workers there were two strikes by UFT members despite the 2-for-1 penalty in pay for each day on strike. Then in 1977 the Taylor Law was amended permitting the state to deduct union dues from teachers who did NOT join the UFT (Agency Fee). Since the state now guarantees the union its member and non-member dues the union has never called for a strike because part of the 1977 amendment was termination of the check-off in the event of a strike. The primary goal of the UFT leadership is to protect its revenue stream while giving the appearance of fighting for its members. Lately the UFT doesn’t even appear to be giving the appearance of protecting its members. Furthermore union dues in the UFT are the same for teachers despite salary level. An argument could be made that the UFT supports replacing veteran teachers with new hires at half the pay since the UFT could increase its dues with two beginners replacing one veteran.
Union leaders are complicit in education reform.
Bob,
This is absolutely correct.
Hang in there, susannunnes. I remember when we got the same response to the very idea of a corporate plan to take control of public resources through “education reform” . We were met with the same determined dismissal, with the same arguments that we should be addressing the ideological and psychological misunderstandings promulgated by the “reformers”, rather than unite against the underlying drive for control of public sector resources.
As Krugman says, there’s a level of ugliness and harshness in our national discourse, coming mostly from billionaires who attack working people for trying to stem the tide by building a progressive movement to take on inequality.
We define our movement to defend public education is absolutely and fundamentally an essential part of that overall progressive movement.
chemtchr, I entirely agree that there is a corporate plan to take control of public resources; I think that there is no doubt whatsoever about this. For well over a year now I have posted to this blog about how the inBloom database was an attempt to establish a single national gateway that electronic curricula would have to connect to if it was to make use of student responses and be competitive. I have believed for a long, long time that this was a concerted plan to establish monopolistic control over an educational materials market that has made the transition to digital. I believe that the standards were paid and inBloom created to make that happen. Gates and Pearson are partners in this. Pearson was an early financial backer of the CCSSO. Gates wrote the check that paid for the standards. They are partners in a new suite of Common Core-related educational products designed to work with Microsoft Office. Gates wrote about his vision for a computer-adaptive revolution in education well over a decade ago, and he has given talk after talk about this, hinting, always, at the vast amount of money that could be saved (by reducing the teaching force), and as I argued in an earlier post, Pearson and the other big publishers see the transition to digital as a way to stave off the threat from open source and to cut, dramatically, their production costs. So, it’s a nice little corporate marriage, with a couple of key players, and as I have written about ten thousand times on this blog, a business plan from day 1. Common Core was a business plan. It had NOTHING to do with education. That was simply the PR.
So, I’m not sure who’s arguing here against your thesis. I agree. This is a business plan. It is an attempt by corporate interests to create monopolistic command and control over a formerly public resource and formerly competitive markets.
No kidding, Union Leaders…WAKE UP!
The National Council of Teachers of English also needs to wake up. I’m appalled that there has not been a concerted attack from this organization on these amateurish, invariant standards, which seem, to me, like something written by a committee of owners of chains of car dealerships and hair salons who vaguely remember what they studied in English class back in the day. It’s time for a full-scale scholarly critique of these egregious “standards,” which so distort and narrow the teaching of English.
“Starting today, the nation’s leading entrepreneurs will gather for their annual conference at the Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, to exchange ideas about the ongoing monetization, privatization, innovation, and profits in the education “industry.”
Let me pull out those ideas: monetization, privatization, innovation and profits,
and let’s rearrange them:
Privatization, innovation, monetization, profits
And the acronym is:
PIMP
Perhaps a new acronym for “the movement” . . .
According to the Wikipedia definition:
“A procurer, colloquially called a pimp (if male) or a madam (if female), is an agent for prostitutes who collects part of their earnings. The procurer may receive this money in return for advertising services, physical protection, or for providing, and possibly monopolizing, a location where the prostitute may engage clients. Like prostitution, the legality of certain actions of a madam or a pimp vary from one region to the next.”
That might make “the nation’s leading entrepreneurs” pimps or madams, as the case may be. Might the the companies and the operators of some of the charter schools be the “procurers”?
And “the legality of certain actions of a madam or a pimp vary from one region to the next.” States, cities, school districts and schools.
But in this case too there are victims: public schools, teachers unions, teachers for both their experience and expertise, parents but most of all our children – the students.
Seems to fit!
LOL. Pimps one and all.
We should all read Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty First Century. Causing a real firestorm among the elite. Bill Moyers had Paul Krugman on as a guest to discuss this book. I suggest all watch this segment and read the book.
Excellent…from now on these oligarchs are now and forever, The PIMPS.
Thanks for the suggestion, Michael. As you see, i’ve spent the past 24 hours following it. Everybody, let us read Capital in the 21st century. call the college bookstores, because Amazon and Barnes and Noble are sold out.
OK. I put Pimps on the scale somewhere below wasp larvae, but this logo is an affront to pimps.
I think the scale is of moral concern runs something like this:
parasitic wasp larvae
pimps
flesh-eating bacteria
education deformers
http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-1-new-learning/the-fun-they-had/
But his version was a lot less chilling than what is being conceived.
I’ve stated many times here that the real problem of public education is inequality of income and wealth. There is a new book out by Thomas Piketty; Capital in the Twenty First Century. This book is creating a firestorm among the elite. Bill Moyers just had Paul Krugman on his PBS show to discuss this book. I watched the show and hope many here do so as well, and read the book too as I will. Again, what is happening to public education is merely a symptom resulting from the vast inequality of wealth and income in our society.
The people driving this belong to a different, hermetically sealed world. Welcome to the new feudalism.
Michael…I too saw the interview and just ordered the book. Amazon is on back order since it is so popular. Also, a bit older book, two years ago, it the one by Nobelist economist, Joseph Stiglitz (professor at Columbia), on Inequality. Stiglitz wrote about the lead up to the crash of 2007 in his book Freefall, and he has been foremost in writing about the massive inequality in America starting around the time Reagan was elected.
Thanks. I’ll check it out. Piketty’s book is available at Barnes & Noble and on its Nook ereader.
I wish, very much, that the picture I paint here, in this series of definitions, were over-the-top parody instead of REPORTING:
http://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/from-the-reformish-lexicon/
The Rheeformish Lexicon. It’s all there. The plan.
And it all hinged on having the master national bullet list that YOUR UNIONS have so embraced.
For that bullet list is the engine that drives the machine that is being built.
“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!” –Mario Salvio, 1964
It’s quite appropriate that this Black Mass of edu-privateers should be held at the Phoenician Resort, since it was developed in the 1980’s by the notorious Savings and Loan crook (and morality blowhard), Charles Keating, who died at the end of March.
Keating was convicted of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy for looting the banks he controlled, and served four years in a federal penitentiary. While incarcerated, he pled guilty to additional charges of wire and bankruptcy fraud. People may recall that Senator John McCain was one of the Keating Five, senators closely linked to him, and came within a hair of having his political career ended by the scandal.
It’s also fitting that, in the 1980’s, Keating’s companies were involved with fellow convicted felon Michael Milken, who is a founder of cyber-charter chain K-12.
To bring all the pixels into greater resolution, add the uncanny resemblance between many charter schools, especially in Edu-Gold Rush states like Florida, Ohio and Michigan, and what Savings and Loan prosecutor William Black calls “control fraud,” whereby management uses the company as a vehicle for fraud and embezzlement.
That’s quite a pedigree, there: fraud, racketeering and so-called education reform. Needless to say, Wall Street is also there to lubricate the transactions and get its cut.
It was estimated that Keating’s fraud and racketeering crimes cost taxpayers $3 Billion dollars in the late ’80’s. Of course, that’s chump change when compared to the potential take of $600 billion per year that this current bunch has its eyes on.
Unlike the Obama administration, which has refused to indict anyone for the trillions of dollars looted in the lead-up and aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the administration of George H. W. Bush actively pursued S & L criminals, obtaining over 1,000 felony convictions. How quaint.
Given the character of today’s Democratic Party, perhaps we’ll have to wait for a future Republican administration to pursue the crimes of todays’s Malefactor’s of Wealth and Education.
Anyway, we can safely imagine that the ghost of Charles Keating will be present at the Phoenician, anointing this colony of edu-privateers – and, hopefully, fellow future racketeering convicts – with his malign blessing.
Read Thomas Piketty’s new book: Capitalism in the Twenty First Century. Paul Krugman discussed it on Bill Moyers PBS show. It is causing a firestorm among the elite.
Yes, how impolite for Piketty to use the word “Capital” in the title of his book.
Why, that might lead people to think about the behavior of “Capital” in relation to “Labor” and “Political Economy,” rather than confining discussion to “Business” and “Consumers.”
Michael F….thanks for the precise history reminder. One addition is that Rupert Murdoch has boasted that the current $600B ed industry will burgeon as a free market investment opportunity into trillions of dollars.
As an aside, my son as a brand new attorney, prosecuted the first
S & L in California, North America Savings, under the RICCO statutes. It is now a family, true, detective story. I hope my aging memory is correct as to the name of the S & L.
My tho
The iPad and WordPress are not always friends….weird stuff happening today. Sat in eternal “posting comment” mode and it finally posts 6 characters (including the space).
“since it was developed in the 1980′s by the notorious Savings and Loan crook (and morality blowhard), Charles Keating, who died at the end of March.”
That is great.
Reading the sponsors, the for-profit college sector is well-represented; Apollo Group, Devry, and Kaplan.
I thought we were ‘getting tough” on regulating for-profit colleges? Now the for-profit college sector is sponsoring a conference with America’s foremost education experts (like the guy who founded Netflix) and former and current administration officials?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/new-obama-administration-proposal-to-regulate-for-profit-colleges/2014/03/13/40ad4768-aafa-11e3-98f6-8e3c562f9996_story.html
My thoughts just came out in your first paragraph. I was going to remark in the irony – both of the Phoenician and that this is being held in Arizona, which has become one of several ground zero locations for private profit off public ed. Glad I escaped when I did. I note Tom Vander Ark’s presence once more. The original flim-flam man who flits from spot to spot, selling his latest “product”, whether it be a failed charter school idea or another ed tech startup. Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to rid ourselves of him in Washington after he was imported from Colorado for a disastrous run as a non-traditional superintendent. Gates Foundation latched on to him, and since then he’s had his fingers in many pies, incuding many of the non-research based ideas the Gates Foundation has funded over the last decade. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/nyregion/tom-vander-arks-new-york-area-charter-schools-falter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
I see that Susan Patrick is listed there too – a little lesser known, but has played a major role in some ed tech profiteering in AZ in the past. Speaking of her, I have to admit, I did not know one could refer to themselves as “Dr.” when they were granted an honorary degree – I thought it was simply an honor given, not an official title. And the fun continues. Profiteers – check. Ideologues – check. Politicians – check. Billionaires – check, People who actually give a rat’s patoot about educating kids – not welcome.
Michael Fiorillo:
Nice connection. Don’t forget Neil Bush. He was enmeshed in the S&L crisis via the Silverado collapse:
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/22/business/fdic-sues-neil-bush-and-others-at-silverado.html
From what I heard from Denver residents at the time, his name was anathema. Restaurant marquees carried messages like “Neil Bush, don’t even think about eating here!”
That destroyed his political chances, but he landed on his feet. Democracy Now did a feature in 2004 titled “No Bush Left Behind: When You’re Barred From Banking, Why Not Bank on Education?” This was during the early years of NCLB and Neil Bush was involved with an educational software company called ignite.
And of course there’s Jeb Bush and his network. Talk about a tangled web.
Good report Randall. Chris Hayes just did a report on Jeb Bush and listed all the failed and crooked companies where he was a member of the Board. But making big bucks for being on “twice as many Boards” as most, seemingly for the cash.
Hayes seems to think the Repubs will not want him as their candidate for his run with Tenet which supported the Affordable Care Act, and for his stance on immigrants.
This nation does not need one more Bush. But in my opinion neither does it need Hillary who is the ultimate insider and maker of millions through her connections.
I support Elizabeth Warren who, so far, seems not to have major skeletons in her closet.
Thanks, Randal, I’d forgotten about Neal.
There;s much nepotism to be found in these rackets: just as there was a Bush connection to the S & L crisis, we have Jeb at the head of the march for so-called education reform, and Joe Biden’s brother running for-profit charters.
Plus ca change…
Great post, Michael. Many, many examples of this control fraud.
From the Rheeformish Lexicon:
education. n. The 21st-century investment opportunity
Malcolm Gladwell described Gates, as sneaking into the University of Washington to use their computers. In today’s climate of security, the punishment for that action would be severe. If Gladwell’s claim is not libelous, why wasn’t Gates taught to ask permission before using property owned by others?
John Arnold made millions from a company, where the founder, CEO and financial officer were all convicted of crimes between 2004-2006. Other employees exposed the transgressions, where was Arnold?
Michael Milken is a former convict, barred from securities, for life. He lacked the restraint required, to obey the law.
Have the three, shown an aptitude for developing the ethical standards that are at the foundation of education?
Neither their “wisdom” nor hypocrisy is welcome in our communities. Tell them to put their hands back in their pockets. Taxpayers loathe their slick promises based on thin air.
I believe John Arnold pleaded the 5th in response to question about his financial dealings at Enron.
Gates has no ethics/morals…. he stole the code that made Microsoft a product he could sell and he’s been convicted in Euro courts for monopoly practices… he came into the world with a silver spoon in his mouth and has lived his entire life surrounded by powerful people who have never had to ask real permission for anything….
So the only school administrators who were invited to speak are Newark, DC and Chicago?
Three ed reformers? Wow! So glad they’re soliciting a wide range of opinions! What a lively debate we’re having! It’s three free market portfolio promoters. They’re hearing only from people they already agree with.
There isn’t a single other public school administrator in this country who has has any success? Just those three people?
Do you think the invited any of the public school administrators who are working like crazy to test millions of kids for the Common Core experiment, or is it “rock stars only” at this luxe event?
One approach could be public school districts just not buying product. If the CC-related materials aren’t free for download they could just pass on future purchases.
The standards weren’t setup to require additional purchases, right? They’d be pretty poor standards if they couldn’t be used by a struggling and under-funded public school district without a huge investment in add-ons.
Alternately, they could demand funding to cover the cost.
One year after buying Pearson Envision math, my district had to repurchase the Common Core version of the student books. They did not repurchase the updated teacher materials – teachers were expected to look online (but were not allowed to print) at the CC version to match up with the student print materials – and it’s been a time-consuming mess. We got played, kids and teachers are paying for it.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/04/23/29cc-business.h33.html
It should be noted that all of this Common Core spending is in the context of 32 states cutting public ed funding since 2008 under ed reformer state and national leadership:
“While debates over the merits of the Common Core State Standards rage on, many states and districts are immersed in the business at hand: buying curricular materials, professional development, assessment tools, and technology meant to help them meet the demands of the new academic guidelines and the forthcoming tests aligned to them.
As contracts worth thousands or even millions of dollars are awarded, it’s clear that the sweeping standards and assessments are influencing how states and districts spend their money. What is less clear, even among those who have attempted to study the overall costs of standards and tests, is how much of that spending they would have incurred anyway as part of the normal process of making costly updates or replacing resources.”
Are we cutting anything to fund the Common Core spending boom? If so, what are we cutting?
These would seem to me to be ordinary questions a responsible person might ask, but apparently any questioning at all means I’m “hysterical” or “paranoid” or a card-carrying union member or something 🙂
Chiara…In LA, our district Supt. Deasy has already commited to spending over $1 Billion to buy the notorius iPads. That expenditure does not factor in installing WiFi in all schools, and for all children at home (about 650,000 students), plus other needed accoutrements.
You ask what is being cut?
In California we have lost over 40,000 teachers and support staff including nurses, librarians, janitors, psychologists, and other very necessary adjuncts to running our schools. Clearly our unmanageable classrooms containing over 50 students each in rooms built to hold 30 are not going to produce much in the way of a prepared work force, especially since many of these are now being ‘taught’ by the TFA kids sponsered in large part by the Waltons and Broad.
Oh yes, name calling and labeling the dissenters such as you and I, we are called in public BoE meetings “NOISE” by the Asst. Supt who took a powder when the charges against him started piling up. Aquino and Deasy are Eli Broads boys and trained at his
Academy to be CEOs. Wonder if Broad and Gates would keep such scummy decision makers on their payroll in private industry?
Let me predict that any revision of CCSS that might be planned in the future will be initiated around the need to pump up corporate profits of the edupreneurs. I’m sure we can count on Microsoft to come out with some new version of their windows operating system that requires the purchase of compatible software for “old and out-dated” applications.
In Utah, what is being cut is new teachers. When teachers retire, they’re not being replaced. My classes are even larger than the used to be–an average of about 32 per class. Next year, I expect they’ll go to about 35 per class on average.
http://articles.philly.com/2014-04-18/news/49217494_1_teachers-pennsylvania-khepera-charter-school-five-year-operating-charter
There seems to be a rash of union organizing breaking out in charter schools in Pennsylvania!
Someone may want to alert Reed Hastings! 🙂
MOUNT AIRY After 18 months of frustration over their inability to obtain a new contract, teachers at Khepera Charter School in Mount Airy have unanimously voted to authorize negotiators to call a strike if necessary.
Teachers said they hope they won’t go on strike. If they do, it would be a first. None of the handful of charter schools that are unionized in Pennsylvania has had one.
The 26 teachers and counselors at Khepera represented by the Alliance of Charter School Employees, Local 6056, voted April 2 to give negotiators the power to call a strike.
In a statement released by the union, teachers at the K-8 charter alleged that foot-dragging by the board had prompted many staffers to leave, undermining students’ learning.
“Teachers want to provide the best education possible, but without a contract, many of our teachers are looking for jobs elsewhere so they can support their own families, pay their student loans, and apply for mortgages,” added Johnson, whose children graduated from Khepera. “It’s taking its toll on the close relationships that have been established between the teachers, the children and the parents.”
The association has filed two charges of unfair labor practices against Khepera that are pending before the National Labor Relations Board, union sources said.
Khepera opened in 2004. Its five-year operating charter is up for renewal, and the district’s charter office is reviewing the school’s operations.
Teachers at the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, the largest cyber charter in the state, recently voted to form a bargaining unit with the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2014/0420/Blended-learning-revolution-Tech-meets-tradition-in-the-classroom
The Obama Administration is promoting this piece on blended learning and yet another charter school.
It’s the New Thing! Now that’s a great example of a public-private partnership, don’t ya think?
They’re promoting product right from the Dept Of Ed now!
Here’s a blended learning product promoter:
“Most American kids are going to be in an environment that is predominantly digital before the end of the decade,” says Tom Vander Ark, chief executive officer of Getting Smart, an education firm that focuses on innovation and technology. “Most learning resources are digital instead of print…. I think we’ll be able to call most of those environments ‘blended’ in terms of combining online experience with face-to-face instruction.”
By the way, “face to face instruction” means an actual teacher instead of a screen. Obviously, screens are cheaper, thereby allowing us to further gut public school budgets in low and middle income schools!
Where is Michael Moore when you need him?????
I saw a reference to Michael Moore in Pando’s coverage of the breaking NJ pension corruption scandal, but can’t track it down.
This Googled up,
Continue Reading – Welcome to MichaelMoore.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mike-faq/answer/79418/
Michael Moore
George W. Bush Debuts New Paintings Of Dogs, Friends, Ghost Of Iraqi … and appearance of corruption at New Jersey’s pension fund: REVEALED: Gov. … it was awarded huge contract pando.com As schools are closed and pensions cut,.
And it takes us to a twitter page. I would suggest we all tweet a desperate chorus to get down there, STAT, except that I see in his last tweet that his Dad died yesterday.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mike-faq/answer/79418/
Moderator, I apologise. This is a double posting because I accidentally included the link twice. Can you delete the extra one?
Diane, I was also doing research on this. My direct quotes come from press releases and one extended interview with Michael Moe.
The sell-out crowd of about 2000 ed tech promoters meeting in Scottsdale, AZ have been promised this event is their “Davos” for understanding how big profits be made in the education business— K-12 and higher education—where investors put $650 million last year. This market is expected to grow rapidly around the CCSS, and with spillover effects from the federal “college and career” mantra. The pace of innovation in tech tools for some profitable “educational use” is said to be breathtaking.
Over 230 “disruptive education companies” will present their wares to “industry leaders and visionaries – educators, investors, philanthropists… with “some of the world’s most passionate and energetic players in the education innovation space…” The purpose is “to stimulate opinions, debate, fundraising, strategic alliances and overall community activism toward global enrichment.” (We know what counts as “enrichment” and who wants to gets rich).
The summit theme is the “American Dream” — “a global aspiration rooted in the conviction that opportunity is limitless and that education makes possible social mobility and prosperity.” For the participants, limitless prosperity means scaling ”education innovation globally” thereby driving “a higher return on education.”
The annual Summit is the brainchild of two people: Michael Moe, serial investor in ed-tech startups and Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University since 2002. Moe is a champion of charter and for-profit schools and CEO of a big pot of money for tech industry projects. Michael M. Crow is known as a ”transformational” leader in higher education eager to have the university be a model of savvy (and cash-producing) liaisons with business.
President Crow’s view of the Summit is clear: “Universities must become effective partners for global development. Only through the proliferation of networks —such as those the Summit helps to build—can transformation occur at the scale that is immediately needed in order to advance our global knowledge economy.”
Both Michaels, Moe and Crow, think that “immediate scaling up” means disrupting public education. According to one press release, the most “disruptive organizations” in education will be presenting at the Summit, including DonorsChoose, edX, Code.org, Minerva, Inkling along with five of Moe’s investments: Coursera, Curious.com, DreamBox Learning, General Assembly, and Knewton
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2014-asugsv-summit-to-feature-gov-jeb-bush-earvin-magic-johnson-netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-and-more-than-225-game-changing-education-companies-250681841.html
The event is part of Arizona State University’s Education Innovation Network described as an “open innovation platform where entrepreneurs can find the resources to validate concepts, accelerate growth, and reach transformative scale” working with “the intellectual assets of ASU, the greater Phoenix public and private educational K-20 systems and investors of all types….”
In a 2011 interview, Moe (who seems to be connected at the hip to ASU’s president Crow) said that he hopes ASU will serve as a model for other universities, and as a hub of innovative activity. Moe heaps praise on Crow’s “bold leadership” of ASU and its “unique initiatives such as its partnership with Teach For America, which aspires to have a scale impact.” Not mentioned by Moe, and apparently ignored by ASU’s president, are the frauds perpetuated by Teach for America. See http://www.google.com/#q=teach+for+america+%2B+Fraud
Moe praises ASU’s president as a skilled and visionary manager of intellectual talent working in and on behalf of education. Crow’s bio shows that he lauded by free-marketers who want to see many more public universities function as service-providers for full-spectrum entrepreneurial activity and economic development. This agenda is not entirely new, but the trend is clearly against a tradition of academic freedom in scholarship, with the university nurturing a mental environment for basic research and many studies not tied to economic values.
Moe was also impressed with Crow’s recent success in recruiting faculty in education, specifically “a highly regarded head of research from Vanderbilt.” I have not been able to determine who that person is, but since 2006 Vanderbilt’s research in education has been devoted to teacher pay-for-performance, aided by a $10 million USDE grant in addition to a relationship with Mathematica on a five-year, $7.9 million study on the same topic. Well-designed experimental studies, including some by Vanderbilt researchers, have shown that such schemes have no significant and uniform influence on student test scores, even if the bonus is up to $15,000 !! USDE poured $600 million into similar grants to market this idea through “research.”
see https://my.vanderbilt.edu/performanceincentives/about-us/ also http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/education/tif.asp
The study with the $15,000 bonus is at http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED518378.pdf
In addition, Moe sees the state of Arizona leading the way, not only as an early adopter of charter schools but as home state of the University of Phoenix, the world’s largest for-profit, along with Grand Canyon University, and Universal Technical Institute. All three are widely known centers of fraud in recruiting and “educating” students. Moe ignores that inconvenient truth. See:
http://www.google.com/#q=fraud+university+of+phoenix http://www.google.com/#q=fraud+%2BGrand+Canyon http://www.google.com/#q=fraud+%2B+Universal+Technical+Institute.
Finally, in praising ASU, Arizona, and the Phoenix area as the milieu for the Summit, Moe notes the presence of corporate giants such as INTEL and Honeywell and innovators such as First Solar. Again, no mention of the multi-year class action lawsuit filed by investors in First Solar. See http://www.google.com/#q=First+Solar+%3D+Lawsuits
Here are some hints from Moe on where education innovations will go in the near term. 1. Investors will be drawn to the iphone, apps, and related networks as a learning platform for K-12 with adaptive technology for individualized learning similar to recommendation systems of Amazon and Netflix. 2. Teacher training and tools for the CCSS are “a sweet spot.” 3. In higher education, more “partnerships” of universities with online corporations offering courseware and social learning. More at http://higheredmanagement.net/2011/01/13/asus-education-innovation-network-an-interview-with-michael-moe/
Reblogged this on jonathan lovell's blog and commented:
Lest any get too sanguine about where the current national standards and assessment movement is taking us, here is the latest “report” from Diane Ravitch’s blog.
tangentially related:
we are so F**ked…. anyone with two brain cells could/would have seen this coming… have laughing/crying fighting to get out at the same time; couldnt make up this degree of stupidity/farce if I tried …
this wouldn’t be happening if we had stopped TFA in it’s tracks years ago – thank you Randi and Dennis for nothing….
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203440104574403123021361680 …
This Wednesday, April 23, Wendy Kopp is being lauded and introduced at a Los Angeles World Affairs Council meeting by the King of Los Angeles, multi billionaire, Eli Broad, who so loves charters and Rheeform that he arranged for his darling protege, Michelle Rhee, to speak at LAWAC last year and announced her to be the leading voice of American education. Thereafter, he put the kabosh on letting Diane Ravitch speak in rebuttal some months later when Diane volunteered to not charge for her talk. It was ugly and the memory lingers on with me.
What a great guy Broad is…what a great American!! Eli Broad, who has his name on so many buildings at my university, and the art museum LACMA, and wherever he can twist arms with his vast wealth to expand his self aggrandizement. Los Angeles will soon get a name change a be known as Eli Broad city and county.
Wish we could get a group to welcome Wendy and Eli at the Softel Hotel at noon. If you are interested in letting them know how you feel about their intrusion into our public school system, please let me know.
joiningforces4ed@aol.com
Education even more tied to the what the ‘economy’ (ie the plutocrats) need…
watch this idea filter down into K-12: Just-In-Time education:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/04/just_in_time_education_is_a_technological_reality_economic_necessity.html
I heard that after the edupreneurs pow-wow in lovely Scottsdale they are heading over to Camelback Mountain for a unique one-time bonding experience in which all the EduParticipants seek outdoor connexions to DeTox from their violent profiteering.
I live in an EduCentric capital of the bEast Coast and BIG TIME cuts for teachers is all over the news. So have a laugh at the following mock-up of the corporate seminarians and then get angry and get organized.
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