A reader sends a simple recipe that city officials in places like Chicago and Philadelphia use when they want to close a public school and open a charter school:
“They create the demand by killing the public school BEFORE they close it. They underfund it, cut all the specials, close school libraries, let guidance counselors go, get rid of attendance officers, class sizes become huge. What is a parent to do? There would be LITTLE demand if the neighborhood PUBLIC schools were funded properly.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
C’est vrais.
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Sure sounds like what is happening here in Pittsburgh Public Schools. I’m actually starting to believe the district is in CAHOOTS with the charter schools.
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It probably is . I am not positive but your district would be the sort Broad chooses to install his Academy grads. You may want to google the SUPE and his or her next in commands to see. If this is the case , brace yourself . You may be in the early stages so you can prepare by watching your union very closely. They are selling teachers out .AFT has facilitated the demise of our profession. Maybe your union will be different. But in LA, NY, SF and elsewhere it is ugly thanks to a decade of Randi Weingarten’s betrayals.
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We are absuloutely infected by a Broads virus. Central office, including the superintendent and many other employees. They have replaced all veteran principals with PELAS, who are inexperienced Broads type robots.
The central office keeps getting fatter with consultants and deputy supers, while teachers are laid off. What is even more frightening is the PPS central office seems to somehow control the local media and has completely turned the public against the teachers.
Our district sells or rents OUR closed schools to charter schools for peanuts!
We need so much help here in Pittsburgh and our union is failing us. The Gates money and Broads have caused nothing but destruction and heartache for the children and teachers of Pittsburgh. Teachers are afraid to speak out because our new evaluation system, RISE, makes it very easy to fire anyone. We have to at least pretend to drink the Kool Aid.
We need need help, maybe in the form of a good investigative reporter. It would make an incredible story. It is a tragedy.
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Diane:
Your efforts are making a “BIG” difference–Keep fighting!
In regards to this post I might add a single dimension to your analysis. “They” hire incompetent … professional development coordinators which perpetuate … While promoting my professional development initiatives to facilitate educational reforms; you cannot imagine the level of … I am encountering! Perhaps you may address the perpetuation of a cycle of incompetence. See the fact that these individuals are … their salary (regardless of their performance) is a real problem. Accordingly, after a year or two in a failing district with no results; the … transfers to another district where … (on and on) it continues! Best wishes, ken
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Forgot about the part where whatever little money is allocated to schools is largely spent on testing, test prep and the technology necessary to implement the testing and test prep.
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And “21st Century Skills.”
I did make a breakthrough on getting NC education leadership to quit using that term.
It situates us. That’s about it. My kids were all born in the 21st Century. What other kind of skills would they have?
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That is the Obama administration’s goals in a nut shell.
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SO simple–nothing to it! And–keep changing the words/reasons behind exactly WHY these schools deserve to be shuttered–you can make it multiple choice!
1. The ABC School needs to be shut because
a. It is a “failing” school (didn’t make standardized test AYP for # of years).
b. It is “underutilized” (not enough students enrolled as reflecting capacity {never
mind that numerous charter schools are “underutilized”–they’re SPECIAL!!!})
c. The school facility/building is aging & dangerous–too much $$$ to repair (even
though repairs are made &–voila!–a charter school moves in!
d. The year before, the school was doing fine & not on an “endangered” list, but–
this past year–the budget was slashed, programs cut, class sizes increased &
–voila!–the school “failed” (or the enrollment dropped, or the needed repairs were
not made or…add your own reason–any one is valid!)
Readers, let us count thy ways to effectively shut public schools!
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“Chartering the Course”
Destroy the shools to save ’em
That’s the only way
Make the public crave ’em
Charters that will prey
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Also, make that
“Charters that will prAy.” (Many of them have some religious connections, teachings, yet STILL take public, taxpayer $$$.)
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I know it is somewhat off topic but be sure to read Rachel Aviv’s article in this week’s New Yorker about the Atlanta standardized test cheating fiasco. What an example of the dangers of high stakes tests.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/07/21/140721fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=all
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In “The Teacher Wars, A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession”, Dana Goldstein mentions this is what happens—that what the New Yorker story reveals is what happens when a high stakes “rank and yank” system is put in place to judge performance.
People cheat.
Bill Gates rigid “rank and yank” system sets impossible goals making it a corrupt system leading to corruption. How else can anyone survive with the Gates Machiavellian management system in place?
One corrupt system that sets impossible standards, causes this sort of thing. The person going to prison should be Bill Gates for at least ten lifetimes. He can share a cell with Bernie Madoff. They can be best buddies.
“Rank and yank” is designed to fail and then punish people. There is no way to win. In the end, no one wins. Because each year requires, for instance, a 25 percent failure rate and then yank those who failed.
The only way to survive is to cheat.
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Lloyd Lofthouse: stack ranking/rank-and-yank/forced ranking/burn-and-churn.
The conjoined twins of VAM and high-stakes standardized testing does the same labeling, sorting and ranking with its attendant rewards [few] and punishments [many].
And just how did that work out at Microsoft?
[start quote]
By 2002 the by-product of bureaucracy—brutal corporate politics—had reared its head at Microsoft. And, current and former executives said, each year the intensity and destructiveness of the game playing grew worse as employees struggled to beat out their co-workers for promotions, bonuses, or just survival.
Microsoft’s managers, intentionally or not, pumped up the volume on the viciousness. What emerged—when combined with the bitterness about financial disparities among employees, the slow pace of development, and the power of the Windows and Office divisions to kill innovation—was a toxic stew of internal antagonism and warfare.
“If you don’t play the politics, it’s management by character assassination,” said Turkel.
At the center of the cultural problems was a management system called “stack ranking.” Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. The system—also referred to as “the performance model,” “the bell curve,” or just “the employee review”—has, with certain variations over the years, worked like this: every unit was forced to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor.
“If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, two people were going to get a great review, seven were going to get mediocre reviews, and one was going to get a terrible review,” said a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”
[end quote]
Link: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer
Interesting factoid: Bill Gates and upper management/ownership didn’t apply their own system to themselves.
Inquiring minds want to know: why not?
😏
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Actually, Gates wanted to cut out Paul Allen when the latter got cancer. Now, if I can just figure out how to sabatoge the overhead projectors of all my fellow math teachers (cue evil laugh)…..
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I think that the reason the “stack ranking” doesn’t apply to Bill Gates and his immediate managers is because Gates sees himself as a God and his immediate corporate managers as the trusted angels who carry out his commands to torment the peasants who work below them.
But in reality, Gates is a false prophet and a devil with demons as his corporate hatchet team. The team sold their souls to Gates long ago for $$$$$.
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Thanks. Be sure to read the New Yorker story. Aviv untangles the whole mess and how good teachers got sucked into cheating to save the schools they loved. Ironically the school featured in the article did improve by many qualitative measures but not according to the tests.
The New Yorker has another recent article revealing how twisted “school reform” can be,
Dan Russakoff’s story about how most of Andy Samberg’s millions donated to Newark were wasted on managers and consultants.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/05/19/140519fa_fact_russakoff?currentPage=all
Maybe the New Yorker can be encouraged to write an article on charters schools next.
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Charter Schools in Chicago receive roughly 25% less funding per pupil than Chicago Public Schools receives for its non-charter public schools.
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Several reasons for that, Bill…and nothing to do with the hoax that “charter schools can do better with less”…charter schools tend not to have to pay for their space (district pays for it, charter keeps the savings and who knows how they spend their savings because they do not have to show where they spend the taxpayers’ money)…charter schools tend not to enroll many special needs students or English language learners (the more expensive kids to educate)…charter schools do not hire many veteran teachers (so much for equal access to highly qualified teachers)…charter schools tend to hire TFAers (5 weeks of training to work with our neediest kids…but not the really challenging ones – see above)…charter schools tend to be able to raise funds through their corporate donors (too bad those donors couldn’t invest in public schools, but no financial returns in that…not to mention the tax breaks they receive for investing in poor areas under the stimulus plans)…
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Ok, maybe that is true about the funding. I will take your word for it. The real thing to calculate is the cost bore by the traditional school of losing the funding of the students going to the charter school (even if only 75% as in the case of Chicago). Charter schools were never supposed to become so numerous. At their current number, they make entire school districts very inefficient and worsen under-funding in traditional schools. Charters are also very good at marketing themselves and winning grants and donations. A good part of the grants and donations would otherwise go to the traditional schools. All that has to go into the calculation.
I have a hard time imagining how in these times of tight budgets yet another charter school opening up near my son’s public school is efficient and will not result in the lose of yet more teachers and resources for the school. The charter school will have another building to maintain, another set of teachers and administrators. That’s the true cost of so many charter schools to public school systems.
On top of it, the charter movement in general has a major corruption problem due to lack of oversight and some real bad apples. Are you familiar with the UNO charter scandal in Chicago? Here’s the link. Also search Google for the Gulen Charter schools. They may be the biggest thieves of all.
http://www.suntimes.com/opinions/23219833-474/lessons-from-uno-schools-scandal.html#.U8mNCrER_Rc
Here is a podcast to an NPR show on all the corruption in Philadelphia.
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/27/137444337/what-happens-when-charter-schools-fail
Not all charters are bad. Some play important roles. But there are too many of them and they are too poorly regulated. You don’t have to agree with the people on this blog but why not read up and be better informed.
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And, Scott, it’s funny, but one of the only charter schools that applied for an app last year from CPS turned down was one that was STARTED BY TEACHERS & would have been TEACHER RUN CURRICULUM. Certainly, this most likely would have been the one in Chicago worthy of the title “Not all charters are bad…some play important roles.”
Of course, they had no connections to Concept (Gulen–currently under investigation throughout the country, as we all know) or UNO (which, despite uncovered corruption, has been allowed to operate…on public funds).
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How sad. That would have been a great school. Things are so mad that the teachers may really have had better chances if they were affiliated with Gulen.
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Lower performing public schools have to fail. They can’t afford to buy Pearson textbooks!
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/07/why-poor-schools-cant-win-at-standardized-testing/374287/
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Thanks for sharing The Atlantic piece. Everyone in the country should read or hear this. I think it’s time to offer audio versions in English and Spanish for parents living in poverty, who may be illiterate or who do not speak or read English.
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