This is the most important article you will read this week, this month, maybe this year. Lee Fang, a brilliant investigative reporter at the Nation Institute, documents the rise and growth of the new for-profit education industry. They seek out ways to make money by selling products to the schools, developing new technologies for the Common Core, writing lucrative leasing deals for charter school properties, mining students’ personal data and selling it, and investing in lucrative charter schools.
Their basic strategy: disrupt public education by selling a propaganda narrative of failure, which then generates consumer demand for new, privately managed forms of schooling (charters and vouchers), for new products (a laptop for every child), and for new standards (the Common Core) that require the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars for new technology, consultants, and other new teaching products. The Common Core has the subsidiary effect of reducing test scores dramatically, thus reinforcing the failure narrative and the need for new schools and new products. Meanwhile, absent any evidence, the boosters of the Common Core promise dramatic results (“bigger better cleaner than clean, the best ever, everything you ever dreamed of, success for all, no more achievement gap, everyone a winner”), while reaping the rewards.
The end goal is the reaping of billions in profits for entrepreneurs and investors.
The crucial enabler of the entrepreneurial takeover of American public education has been the Obama administration. From the beginning, its Race to the Top was intended to close schools with low scores, require more charter schools, all to create a larger market for charter organizations. Its requirement to adopt “college-and-career-ready standards” established the Common Core standards in 45 states, thus creating a national market for products. Its funding of two national tests guaranteed that all future testing would be done online, thus generating a multi-billion dollar market for technology companies that produce software and hardware. At the same time, the Obama administration was curiously silent as state after state eliminated collective bargaining and silenced the one force that might impede its plans. Neither President Obama nor Arne Duncan made an appearance in Wisconsin when tens of thousands of working people protested Scott Walker’s anti-union program.
Lee Fang has connected the dots that show the connection between entrepreneurs, the Obama administration, ALEC, and Wall Street. We now know that their promises and their profit-driven schemes do not benefit students or teachers or education. Students will be taught by computers in large classes. Experienced and respected teachers do not like the new paradigm; they will leave and be replaced by young teachers willing to follow a script, work with few or no benefits, then leave for another career choice. Turnover of teachers will become the norm, as it is in charter schools. “Success” will be defined as test scores, which will be generated by computer drills.
This is the future the entrepreneurs are planning. Their own children will be in private schools not subject to the Common Core, or large computer-based classes, or inexperienced teachers. The public’s children will be victims of policies promoted by Arne Duncan to benefit the entrepreneurs.
We see the future unfolding in communities across the nation. It can be stopped by vigilant and informed citizens. If we organize and act, we can push back and defeat this terrible plan to monetize our children and our public schools.
Interesting. It’s everything I’ve been thinking but never took the time to formally connect the dots. When you say, “organize”, what does that mean? I’m both a parent of public school children and a public school administrator. Where do I start and how do I make a real impact? I’m a little embarrassed that I have to ask these questions, but I do. I work in Massachusetts where our MCAS tests are rated among some of the nation’s best. I don’t want the PARCC but I don’t know how to get involved and stop it. On the career front, I’m trying to focus on the positive and make the most of things with teachers – I don’t want to create a negative environment and I do have some control over the roll out of Ed. Eval., CC and everything else. As a parent, I’m now seeing how two different districts approach the testing environment. I want to protect my children from anxiety and feeling like failures, but how do I make an impact on their district?
Ellen,
“. . . our MCAS tests are rated among some of the nation’s best.”
And that kind of thinking is part of the problem. Those MCAS are no better nor worse than any standardized “achievement” test. But your state department of ed very much wants you to think so. WE’RE #1. HOORAY FOR THE HOME TEAM!! So subtly brilliant this American propaganda to be #1, especially if it is “for the children” (sic).
Most don’t even know they are succumbing to indoctrination of that type and hype. Look at what you say “I want to protect my children from anxiety and feeling like failures” for not being #1. You’ve been hoodwinked and perhaps even believe it is a good thing for your children to “do good” on those tests. That the hook as been set so deep into one’s gullet one doesn’t even know why they are being pulled along to one’s demise.
Opt your children out of the testing and all the test prep. Refuse to let them ABUSE your children in this fashion. That is what one parent can do.
Ellen, you say as a Massachusetts public school administrator you “do have some control over the roll out of Ed. Eval., CC and everything else”. That’s a big problem, if you’re rolling out something that hurts the kids and teachers you’re rolling it over.
On the career front, you’re “trying to focus on the positive” and make the most of things with teachers. I’m glad you’re rethinking that, because I assure you, the teachers are recoiling in horror from Orwellian efforts to put a smiley face on administrators’ self-interest and careerism. I’ll try to explain why.
Last week in my school, some of us science teachers were having lunch with some English teachers. They were reeling over a PLG confrontation in which they were ordered to reflect on their students’ scores on the “district determined measures” of teacher effectiveness, and show how that “data” was going to drive their teaching. They were reprimanded for pointing out that the questions failed to capture their students’ actual strengths and needs. One of them who got too “negative” was later called in and written up, and threatened with a corrective action plan. They are called upon to align their grading of their students with this bogus instrument.
Among ourselves, we agreed that our real responsibility is to the kids we teach and serve. If somebody tries to hold us “accountable” for something that hurts them, we must risk our jobs and oppose that.
Now Imagine your own children’s teachers standing between them and an administrator like yourself. Whose side are you on?
Even as a pro-MCAS nebbish, you can organize with this group:
http://www.commoncoreforum.org/
“One of them who got too “negative” was later called in and written up, and threatened with a corrective action plan.”
Is “too negative” a label for a teacher who is actually engaged in critical thinking about the issue? We claim we want to teach the kids critical thinking, but if we use critical thinking in the real world, we are labeled as “too negative.”
Thankfully, this hasn’t happened out our school yet. I’m the lead union rep and I speak out continually at our school and at our school board meetings (Palm Beach County, FL). Critical thinking should address real world issues, not a “correct” bubble on a test so that a testing company can make its profit.
What currently irks me (among many things) is the “Common Core” position that students should not include their own position in their writing, that there writing should strictly address the text, because, as David Coleman says, nobody cares what you think. This seems to me a self-defeating thing to teach our kids, and not consistent with our school district’s goal of empowering our students to be citizens.
As I keep saying chemtcher, and as you document here, one of the great obstacles to meaningful reform in public education is its so-called “leadership.” It is – overall -pretty pathetic.
Think about it. Randi Weingarten and Dennis Van Roekel both singed onto Common Core. So did the National PTA, the American Association of School Superintendents, ASCD, and the principals associations. Consultants like Grant Wiggins have called the Common Core “common sense,” said that the motives of Bill Gates (Microsoft) and David Coleman (College Board) are “pure,” and asserted that the need “for common core was ‘college and workplace readiness’.” College and work place “readiness” are assessed most often with measures developed by the ACT and the College Board.
Unsurprisingly, the ACT and the College Board were instrumental players in the creation of the Common Core. They say all of their products are “aligned” with it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, ExxonMobil, the Broad, Gates, and Walton Foundations (among others), Pearson, State Farm, Boeing, McKinsey, Lockheed Martin, Intel, K12 Inc., Cisco, McGraw Kill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and others are avid supporters.
Lots of these people and groups emphasize “data.” Many of the companies pay relatively little in taxes and support economic policies that fatten their wallets while draining public treasuries and diminishing “the general welfare.”
All of it is a gigantic hoax. Can American public education be improved? Well, of course, But not with the programs and practices that the corporate “reformers” advocate.
And the corporate “reformers” wouldn’t have achieved what they have without the aid and support – explicit or implicit – of school and central office administrators.
Great word, nebbish that describes the vast majority of teachers and almost all administrators.
Nebbish-TAGO!
For those still waiting for the “power elite” [google C. Wright Mills]—
Or “power elites” if you prefer plural over singular—
To straighten up and fly right on education, think again. *Hint: best read by abandoning all political labels.*
From HuffPostEd, 9-24-14, Joy Resmovits, “Bill Clinton: Charter Schools Must Be Held To ‘The Original Bargain’”:
[start quote]
Charter schools have great potential, but they aren’t living up to their promise, former President Bill Clinton said late Tuesday night at a gathering of about 100 international philanthropists and businesspeople.
“If you’re going to get into education, I think it’s really important that you invest in what works,” Clinton said. “For example, New Orleans has better schools than it had before Hurricane Katrina, and it’s the only public school [district] in America where 100 percent of the schools are charter schools.”
But the reforms shouldn’t stop there, he added. “They still haven’t done what no state has really done adequately, which is to set up a review system to keep the original bargain of charter schools, which was if they weren’t outperforming the public model, they weren’t supposed to get their charter renewed,” he said.
[end quote]
Studied self-delusion does not lead to serious self-reflection and self-correction. *Hint: old wine in new bottles aka rebranding doesn’t count.*
And the two-tiered education system that the owner of this blog has pointed to, time and again, as a present and growing reality?
From this blog, 3-23-2014, “Common Core for Commoners, Not My Schools!”
The entire blog posting: “This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.”
And those schools for the leaders of the self-styled “education reform” movement that proclaims itself the “new civil rights movement of our time”? Just what kind of schools will THEIR OWN CHILDREN attend?
Where Bill Gates went to school and where his own children go to school, Lakeside School, a piece from 2012:
The student/teacher ratio was 9:1 and average class size was 16 and in Bill’s own inimitable style—
“Bill says Lakeside was great because of relationships: Finally, I had great relationships with my teachers here at Lakeside. Classes were small. You got to know the teachers. They got to know you. And the relationships that come from that really make a difference…”
Link: http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/bill-gates-tells-us-why-his-high-school-was-a-great-learning-environment/
So remember, one and all, class size doesn’t matter. Caveat: for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
For those going to Lakeside School [Bill Gates] and Sidwell Friends [Barack Obama] and Harpeth Hall [Michelle Rhee-Johnson] and Delbarton School [Chris Christie] and U of Chicago Lab Schools [Rahm Emanuel] and the like, refer to the 3/23/14 blog posting mentioned above. Some students, it seems, are more equal than others…
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” [Frederick Douglass]
Let’s all get unfit.
😎
“In 1970, healthcare spending comprised 8 percent of GDP, yet market capitalization in healthcare stood at less than 3 percent. That shifted quickly not only as the boomer generation aged, but as a wave of privatization hit hospitals, insurers, and other segments of the healthcare system. More than thirty years later, Moe wrote, healthcare companies are among the largest in the world, and represent more than 16 percent of US capital markets. “We see the education industry today as the healthcare industry of 30 years ago,” Moe predicted.”
I’m so pleased he raised this point, because the comparison should be made. We have a really expensive health care system that is inequitable and doesn’t return enough value for what we spend on it. Why would we ever, ever want to take our universal public K-12 system and turn it into the health care system, complete with online markets and “portable per pupil subsidies” where we shop for schools just like we’re supposed to be shopping for health insurance?
Unlike with healthcare, we already HAVE a universal public K-12 system. Losing that and replacing it with a privatized system akin to the cobbled together and fragmented health care system plus the health insurance law would be a huge loss of what is an existing publicly-owned asset, and we will regret it.
If we lose public education, we WILL regret it.
But think about it. More Americans can name judges on American Idol or Dancing with the Stars than on the Supreme Court. People think the ACT and SAT actually measure something important.
As I’ve mentioned before, Condaleezza Rice is being touted – seriously, mind you – as a possible replacement for Roger Goodell as commissioner of the NFL. Did you read the “report” by Condi and Joel Klein on the state of the public schools?
Why would we want to turn public education over to the market? The advocates laud the market’s benefits. Those “benefits” are mirrored in the development and consequences of the financial and mortgage crises. Guess who won, and who lost in those debacles……
Ellen, seems to me that “organizing” means a few things. Like opting-out our kids from all PARCC and standardized state tests, and linking up with other parents in our schools and districts to encourage them to do the same. It also means attending local school board mtgs and voicing opposition to all tech buys associated with CCSS/PARCC, using Open Public Records Act to get documents related to testing purchases, consultant fees, and any capital outlays required to be PARCC-ready, a very costly undertaking which will be financed by local property taxes. Organizing also means calling parents to house meetings to discuss the impact of so much testing on our kids, and writing letters to local media outlets expressing opposition to the policies of our school boards, superintendents, and state commissioners. Document exactly how much class time is being taken up to prep for upcoming tests and to administer the tests. Find out what is being lost to testing, like physical ed, arts, field trips, projects, etc. Publicize the wasted time and time lost to learning, and how class size could be reduced if the costs of testing were put into hiring new staff. Call community forums to engage more parents. Approach the local teachers union to work together. These are a few ways to organize opposition.
“It also means attending local school board mtgs and voicing opposition…”
Yep. It means putting lost of pressure on school boards and school administrators to stop with the nonsense. It means putting lots of pressure on state political leaders, and this is not easy.
It also means that people have to inform themselves. They have to do their homework. The Common Corers have boatloads of money, and they are using it to royally roto-rooter public schools.
I think we all knew the Obama administration was and still is complicit in this evil plan.
I think people can push back against sinking a ton into ed tech locally. Public schools haven’t fared so hot as far as funding under the “reform movement”. A lot of them are strapped. It’s crazy to pour limited funds into ed tech or devices with the unexamined promise that it will be “better!” and “cheaper!” That’s a sales pitch, not a responsible plan for a public entity with limited funds and a duty to serve ALL students, which means resisting overblown claims and hype from the private sector.
Tell local government they don’t want to be next Deasy, who now looks likes he’s absolutely reckless with public funds and is going to meet a lot of skepticism and justifiable anger when he next goes back to the public for funding. As he should.
Yes, Chiara..and speaking of pushing back against ed tech….
Today, in the LA Times, in the article about tech rejection by the Construction Bond Oversight Committee of LAUSD, Howard Blume gets to the operant info in his final paragraph where he states that “there is no inventory of the devices the district already owns.” This statement comes due to the request of the Deasy-employees for yet another $42 million to spend on soon to be obsolete tech….used for testing of course.
Deasy still tries to find ways to enrich his puppet masters, in his waning days as superintendent, by throwing more good money after bad with his infamous failed decisions on iPads and MiSiS….now in the neighborhood of $500 million wasted this year. Can ed tech get any worse?
How easy it is for these ill-trained inept Broad administrators to spend the taxpayers money.
As a side note…Deasy’s contract for the next year will be up for discussion at the BoE meeting in closed session next week. The public outcry is to FIRE HIM for all the mismanagement during his term as Superintendent at LAUSD.
The public does not want any more Broad Academy CEOs, since many feel that Deasy has milked LAUSD to the point that it might go bankrupt. His $1,3 billion fiasco is one for the history books.
There is a growing public voice being raised to appoint educator/legislator Jackie Goldberg in the role of interim Superintendent while a national search is made.
Jackie Goldberg, whose excellent academic creds were earned at UC Berkeley and grad school at U. of Chicago, taught public school in the inner city for many years. She was elected to the LAUSD BoE and served as President of the Board. Thereafter, she was elected to serve on the LA City Council. Her lifetime of education experience, and legislative administrative management of her vast LA City Council district, are proven successes for the role of LAUSD Superintendent.
Jackie is a far cry from job shopper Deasy with his 4 month, 9 unit, PhD awarded him by an old pal who ended up in the Federal penitentiary for defrauding millions in grant money from his university.
I urge all teachers and parents to make your voices heard RIGHT NOW by contacting all 7 members of the LAUSD BoE. Time is of the essence!
It’s crazy but that’s exactly what our school districts are doing. It’s amazing how many cash strapped districts across this nation are somehow finding the money for iPads while their class sizes balloon and teachers receive no raises or even paid professional development as to how to use the devices in the classroom. The federal government is pushing this as evident by “The Future Ready” pledge they have on the USDOE website which orders districts to equip schools with wi-fi and mobile devices but provides zero funding. The Alliance for Excellent Education (a Jeb Bush baby) had the gall to send teachers a district email encouraging us to sign the pledge and get our superintendents to sign it (it’s obvious mine already has). You can read more about this on my blog http://kafkateach.wordpress.com/2014/09/27/technology-in-the-classroom-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
“S
chooul Sale”Their product is disruption
Their pitch is “failing schools”
With lots of rank corruption
And loads of testing tools
Their goal is liquidation
And everything must go
The essence of the nation
The public schools we know
TAGO!
😎
Fits quite well into the “Office Krupke” melody. Keep working and create a snappy refrain. It really could go far!
…one of your best…
Yes, this is good, and it goes far beyond fighting their propaganda campaign.
It is very important here to focus on the role of ALEC, and the corporate legislative muscle that imposed actual mandates on on American public school children. We are being “held accountable” to this disruption, not by drummed-up market demand, but by force of law! The people hate it, actually.
A command market for these useless, toxic products has been clamped down on public schools, against the will of local taxpayers. That disruptive and extraneous agenda was legislated by the states in response to the Race to the Top, or in exchange for an NCLB waiver.
Rather than fight or delay their provisions piecemeal, let each of us repeal those “reform” laws in our own states. Two fronts need to be united to put down the state-imposed enabling legislation: the mobilization of teachers and our unions, and the populist uprising (in both parties) against the federal and state testing and data mandates.
Push away from your keyboards for a while, colleagues, and step on out to your town meetings and state legislative campaigns.
The New York Bonds for School Technology Act, Proposal 3 is on the November 4, 2014 ballot in New York as a legislatively-referred bond question. The measure, upon voter approval, would authorize the state comptroller to issue and sell bonds up to the amount of $2 billion. The revenue received from the sale of such bonds would be used for projects related to the following:
Purchasing educational technology equipment and facilities, such as interactive whiteboards, computer servers, desktop and laptop computers, tablets and high-speed broadband or wireless internet.
Constructing and modernizing facilities to accommodate pre-kindergarten programs and replacing classroom trailers with permanent instructional space.
Installing high-tech security features in school buildings.
Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) proposed the measure in his 2014 State of the State Address.
A $2,000,000,000.00 bond act in a state with a $6,000,000,000.00 surplus.
And make no mistake about it.
Cuomo can tout all the bells an whistles he wants.
There is one major goal for this money:
Updating school computers no NY can resume its committment to PARCC testing.
“so” NY
In fairness, the surplus didn’t exist when Cuomo proposed the bond. And thank God for the French and criminal money-laundering: the BNP Paribas settlement is responsible for about half of the $6 billion.
But it’s a terrible idea. You’re probably right about PARCC. And De Blasio has baked this money into NYC’s capital plans, so we’ll probably see him and Cuomo together urging voters to approve the bond.
Cuomo does not deserve any fairness.
But thanks for the correction.
Jefferson’s comments on bankers selling the country for a profit are fitting, as are Wilosn’ (sorry Duane, Woodrow this time) comments on government “We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world….a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” We have a long fight, but we have numbers and can persevere.
And Woodrow was quite astute with that comment. History may not repeat itself but it sure seems to come back to haunt us with the same spectres from time to time.
Wilson, caution my friends, don’t type before waking up and having your first cup of coffee (for my fellow addicts)
What you talkin’ ’bout Wilosn?
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
An investigative reporter reveals the agenda of the corporate, fake-education reformers—-to disrupt public education by selling a propaganda narrative of failure, and the end goal is the reaping of billions in profits for entrepreneurs and investors—-they don’t care about the children.
Over a decade ago, I remember saying to my administrators “What will happen in 2014 when none of the schools have 100% passing rate”? The reply was a simple shrug of the shoulders. NCLB was pretty much of a nuisance, we had classes that just taught for the test, Math and English classes were to design problems similar to Test items, electives where cut back and students were pulled from Music and Art classes. As a CREDO study confirmed, Students improved slightly in English and Math but their knowledge of History declined! Students lost valuable Education in “other” areas! Over a decade ago, teachers should have been irate over this idiotic process but as good little public servants we did as we were told, hoping that with new leaders this would simply fade away as so many pass “reforms” have done and we could get back to reality.
The one thing no one saw coming was the attempted takeover of the Public Schools by the “corporate powers” and a “privatization” of Schools. This led us to a vicious attack on Teachers, their pensions and health benefits, their Unions, and even their ability to Teach in their classrooms. So now we have the RTTT programs. They are not the “evil twin” of NCLB but the “evil offspring” of NCLB! There are many evil offspring including Merit pay, Teacher evaluations (VAM, SGP, SGO), CCSS, Charters, Student Teacher evaluation, Vouchers and increased (NCLB) standardized testing! One offspring is just as destructive as the other. Each of these was born to destroy Public Education and each of these will reduce Students knowledge in “other” areas! For the profiteers this is just another takeover. They are willing to destroy anything that stands in their way of increased profits including the base of our Democracy, Public Education!
More than two decades ago, I can remember our beginning of year meeting starting with the message that “the union is no longer going fight the charter school movement. We will all be working together to bring excellence to our students” I remember getting a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Even I in my cynicism could not have imagined a scenario in which corporate interests try to assassinate public education and put dedicated, trained teachers out to pasture.
Actually, Tim, there were a number of people who saw this coming, going as far back as A Nation at Risk – which warned that a “rising tide of mediocrity” threatened America national security – and the Sandia Report, which laid bare all of the inaccuracies in that Reagan-era screed, and which the Bush1 administration tried to quash.
For quite some time the facts have made clear that, overall, public schools do a pretty darned good job. But we got No Child Left Behind (the Texas “miracle” nationalized) anyway. There is no need for Common Core, especially for purposes of “economic competitiveness.” It’s a ruse. There is no STEM “shortage” or “crisis.”
It’s a myth. And the ACT and the SAT simply do not predict college success.
And yet, here we are. To be fair, we haven’t helped ourselves. Teachers and guidance counselors and parents have gone along with it all. School administrators and central office “leaders” have failed to lead. The teachers unions – AFT and NEA – have abdicated their responsibilities to teachers and to public education.
Everybody should have seen this coming.
And everybody should have tried to stop it.
“Teachers and guidance counselors and parents have gone along with it all. School administrators and central office “leaders” have failed to lead. The teachers unions – AFT and NEA – have abdicated their responsibilities to teachers and to public education.”
YEP! GAGAers one and all!
Going Along to Get Along (GAGA): Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution upon their passing from this realm.
Karmic Gods of Retribution: Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along (see GAGA). The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers and GAGAers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
DIane,
Lighten up.
Don’t you and others know that monetizing the school system is what makes American exceptionalism exeptional? Money trumps intellectualism, privatization crushes the public commons, and individual will and determination thumb their noses at hte collective good.
This is America 2014.
Why not join it instead of beating it.
I personally was thinking of a chain of jewlery stores and bridal shops installed in half the nation’s high schools. . . . . . . Charter management companies and I will split the profits. Back to school night can be an evening of Vera Wang gowns and David Yurman accessories.
Whaddya say?
Anyone want to be a backer? Are you in?
Robert Rendo,
I am too old to sell out. There is nothing they could offer that would persuade me that monetizing our schools is right. Yell it from the rooftops.
I wanted to make you et al laugh . . . . . .
Great idea.
How about a ball ‘n’ chain store?
“Chain is Good” (especially with a ball)
A ball ‘n’ chain store in our schools
For graduates, in lieu of jewels
To hang from tasseled mortar board
For price that any can afford
dianeravitch: what you said!
😎
You’re too old to sell out????????
I tell my students I can be bought but first I need to get my passport in order and then have an offshore bank account set up and then if they have a spare 5 million laying around to put in that account we could work something out!! Hey, A’s shouldn’t come cheap & easy these days.
Krazy, you have no entrepreneurial spirit . . . . .
🙂
Robert Rendo: you wrote—
“Krazy, you have no entrepreneurial spirit . . . . .”
That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about me on this blog!
😃
With all due apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford and his classic SIXTEEN TONS, a most krazy mangled version of one of the verses:
I refuse sixteen tons of rheephormer BS and what do I get
Another day older with a bit more self-respect
Saint Peter, you can call me I’m really [not Rheeally!] ready to go
I don’t owe my soul to the Rheephorm store.
😏
Nope, not even the smallest IOU to the edubullies, even in the most Johnsonally of interpretations…
😎
Suggested title for the store “Chain you can believe in”
I didn’t know they were also pitching Catholic schools:
“A Washington, D.C., organization funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—which has invested millions of dollars to develop and promote the controversial Common Core school standards—is contacting Catholic school leaders in an effort to reverse declining support for the Common Core and to oppose The Cardinal Newman Society’s “Catholic Is our Core” initiative.
Sara Pruzin, a state operations associate for the Council for a Strong America (CSA) and former communications intern for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, unwittingly contacted a Cardinal Newman Society leader to rally Catholic support for the Common Core. She sent an email on August 28 to Dr. Daniel Guernsey, director of the Newman Society’s K-12 Education Programs, at his office at Ave Maria University in Florida, asking him to consider writing op-eds and letters to the editor in support of the Common Core.”
The lobbyists mistakenly sent a plea for the Common Core to the Catholic school group that opposes the Common Core. So why do they want all Catholic schools to adopt the Common Core? So they can be seamlessly merged into the “portfolio” systems with your handy “backpack voucher”?
By 2017, Democrats will be telling us they invented vouchers and it was ALWAYS a very, very progressive idea – in a way MORE progressive than those icky “factory” schools 🙂
http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CatholicEducationDaily/DetailsPage/tabid/102/ArticleID/3551/Gates-Funded-Lobby-Pushes-Common-Core-in-Catholic-Schools-Targets-Newman-Society.aspx
Chiara…”pitching Catholic schools”has been a long time goal.
Our former LA mayor, billionaire Richard Riordan, despite his multiple marriages and divorces, is still a strict son of the Catholic church and has for some decades dedicated large sums of cash for essentially Catholic, parochial, schools. Our current mayor’s wife worked with and for Riordan some years back to raise funds for this project.
They evidently did not believe in separation of church and state.
Stop the War Metaphors when Talking About Education Policy: Have You no Shame?
I read Michael Moe/GSV Advisors’ manifesto (American Revolution 2.0) more closely and was alarmed at the violent war metaphors invoked by these venture capitalists. Children, for example, are not referred to merely as students, but as “knowledge troops.” Sections of the document bear titles such as “Shock and Awe” and “Modern Weaponry.” Who protects children from the ravages of the war on education?
Thanks so much. That is an amazing screed. Now I know where Arne Duncan gets 99% of his material.
I wasn’t aware that it was the fault of the working and middle classes that the top 10% took 90% of the gains in the 2009 recovery and the bottom 90% actually lost ground. It’s their fault! Of course it is.
I like how they’ve discarded the “but we’re nonprofits!” distinction. It was mostly meaningless anyway. It’s easy to get around. Better they drop it completely.
Michael Moe must be a real tool……
Democracy, I wonder if anti-union Michael Moe and anti-union Terry Moe are brothers.
Diane, don’t know if the two Moes are related. If they are, then perhaps this is their papa or uncle:
The article certainly supports the big picture theories that many of us here discuss:
The example of K12 as a winner is harrowing. Investors win and students lose.
And that serves as the ultimate reason why privatization isn’t good for education. Education is a public good. Investors like it because it is a built in market. EVERYONE must receive an opportunity for education. With the exception of necessities, like food, what else can fit this model. Everyone must be a customer at some point in their lives.
Companies are interested in capitalization not education. They don’t need these schools to be good. Even if every school was awful, if the system were totally privatized then everyone must attend school somewhere. It’s a guaranteed customer base.
Don’t like your online school? Here’s another one that promises amazing results through its slick marketing campaign.
There’s very little talk of educational quality, but rather, how they can take advantage of a previously unavailable market.
And like any market, there will be differentiation markets over time based on economic possibility. The rich will be able to afford the “top of the line” models and the poor will get whatever will be profitable for the company that provides it. (Did anyone get the impression that these edupreneurs were even remotely concerned with education? Seems that they just wanted the profits.)
This is a very dangerous model that threatens many things in our society and goes against many basic human values. But it sure aligns with our economic values.
Thank you for summarizing the “war on public education” in a nutshell. While we may have lost ground in many urban districts, I predict that the privateers will have a much harder time trying to sell their wares in successful suburban districts. The parents are educated and savvy, and they will resist privatization. They know their public school will deliver a student that can successfully enter and complete college. They want their child to attend the public school, play on school teams, put on plays, and sing in the chorus. They want a well rounded public education, and they will not “go gentle into that good night.” Urban parents aren’t stupid either. At the beginning they were hopeful they were being given access to excellence. Now they see the children are being sold out and shifted all over the place with little communication or choice. they are starting to rebel as well.
Beautifully stated. I wholeheartedly agree. There are many of us who will not “go gentle into that good night.”
“Kibuki Theater”
The parents of our public schools
Can save us from reformin’ fools
They may well be our last best chance
To save us from Kibuki dance
I first examined the for-profit education industry around 1990 when it was known as the Association of Education Practitioners and Providers (AEPP) and identified itself as “an education industry trade group devoted to promoting education reform through entrepreneurship.” AAEP was also an emerging lobby on behalf of on vouchers. Not a surprise: The Milton and Rosa Friedman Foundation was an early financial supporter of AEPP.
By 2001, AEPP has morphed into the Education Industry Association, formally sponsored by the Education Industry Leadership Board. The conference program for 2001 listed members of the Board: Nobel Learning Communities; Inc.; eduventures.com; KIDS1, Inc.; Options for Youth Charter Schools; Edison Schools, and J. L. Hammett Co. Other sponsors included Charter Friends National Network, National Independent Private Schools Association, Reason Public Policy Institute and Pacific Research Institute, Educators in Private Practice, The Educators in Private Practice Foundation and The Education Industry Advisory Board.
Among the for-profit management groups and franchises were Mosaica Education, Knowledge Quest Ventures, National Heritage Academies, Sabis Education Systems, Advantage Schools, the TesseacT Group, Sylvan Learning Systems and Success Lab, Inc. Several academic institutions were included–the Center for Policy Studies (St. Paul, MN), The University of Minnesota Center for School Change, Central Michigan University Charter Schools Office, and Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University (Wisconsin).
The 2001 conference featured eight themes: Growing Your Education Business (starting up and managing growth); Measuring Success (using outcomes to improve instruction and promote your business); Contracting with Charter Schools (management, support services); Exploring Technology (cyber marketplace; on-line learning); Forging a Partnership (government agencies and corporate clients); Forming Strategic Alliances (joining with other education business partners); Assessing the Education Industry (markets, political climate trends in reforms); and Networking with Industry Leaders (succeeding in the marketplace).
Other issues and topics were: financing, especially of facilities; dealing with “restricted and outmoded preparation and certification of teachers;” tapping federal funds by offering private alternatives for profitable markets, especially “at risk” students; and the implications for test-prep companies of mandated assessments and a possible backlash against them. Other sessions focused on the use of technology, especially for streamlined assessments of students and teachers, staff development programs, and virtual schools.
Here are a few examples of session topics: “Education Doesn’t Need a Band-Aid, It Needs a New Heart,” “Sell the Sizzle and Not the Steak,” “The War on Charter Schools,” “The Emergence of National Schooling Companies,” “Strategies for Charter School Facility Financing,“ “To Outsource or Not to Outsource,” “Growing Your Education Business,” “Certified or Qualified? Current Trends in Teacher Preparation and Certification,” “Recruiting Executives and Principals for For-Profit Education Companies,” “Finding Them, Hiring Them and Holding Them,” “Would You Like to Hang Out a Shingle?” “Federal and State Trends in Educational Reform and Assessment,” “Title One and Special Education Reform,” “Community Learning Centers” and “Educational Research.”
Several newsletters described public schools as “broken“ because they were “political.” In contrast, for-profit education was routinely portrayed as non-political. One article first described reforms in “government-run” public schools as “politically inspired,” then envisioned public schools as potential clients for profit.
Assertions that for-profit education is “non-political” are disingenuou. The Education Industry Association lobbyists want legislators and the courts to ensure that private for-profit enterprises own everything purchased with public funds and operate under “proprietary” rules that stymie public oversight.
Insofar as funds earmarked for public education are shifted to private for-profit ventures, there is always a net loss of funding for public schools and powerful incentives for profits to be made by screening students, narrowing the curriculum, reducing personnel costs, and teaching to those tests and rating schemes that satisfy parents and students as customers.
Because marketing the sizzle becomes important, funds that might flow directly to the education of students are directed to advertising and perks that please parents, students, stockholders, and so on. Sales and profits determine the enduring values, practices, and products in schooling.
By 2001, the for-profit industry had many specialists. Some offered insider news, research, and strategic consulting services. EdNET was (and is) the industry’s leading technology conference. The industry had set up eduventures.com, a major on-line seller of research and services for raising capital, developing strategies for profit, conducting market research, and acquiring talent for the industry.
Concurrently, commercialism in schools increased dramatically and created a new profession of brokers who help districts negotiate the best deals for ad placements, co-sponsorships, “partnerships,” and exclusive agreements, sometimes appropriating space and curriculum time for marketing research, free corporate-friendly educational materials, electronic marketing, and so on. See http://nepc.colorado.edu/ceru-home
Thanks for this insightful response, Laura. You’ve documented the growth of governmental and corporate mutualism — a process that has been taking place for quite some time, but in particular since, as Diane Ravitch pointed out, the Clinton administration ushered in the “third way of governance.” I’ve been in education for long enough now to understand that it doesn’t matter which party is in office. The bonds between the corporate world and governmental policy makers have become so intertwined that the only thing predictable is additional layers of regulations designed to promote free market venture capitalist “tools” to exploit America’s public schools and the children they serve. And, of course, I’ve come to expect the further erosion of the democratic process in education policy.
Education is prime habitat for snake oil salesmen because the product is invisible. It’s hard to judge whether the services really worked as promised.
Thank you for alerting us to this article. It reminds me why I decided to engage in education satyagraha:
http://ludwig-richter.blogspot.com/2014/08/non-cooperation-with-corporate.html
“Satyagraha is a weapon of the strong; it admits of no violence under any circumstance whatsoever; and it ever insists upon truth.” M. Gandhi
The “Dear Hillary” letter, written on Nov. 11, 1992 by Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), lays out a plan “to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone,” coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing the integrated computer-based program.”
Tucker’s plan was implemented in three laws passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1994: the Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Act, and the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act. These laws establish the following mechanisms to restructure the public schools:
Bypass all elected officials on school boards and in state legislatures by making federal funds flow to the Governor and his appointees on workforce development boards.
Use a computer database, a.k.a. “a labor market information system,” into which school personnel would scan all information about every schoolchild and his family, identified by the child’s social security number: academic, medical, mental, psychological, behavioral, and interrogations by counselors. The computerized data would be available to the school, the government, and future employers.
Use “national standards” and “national testing” to cement national control of tests, assessments, school honors and rewards, financial aid, and the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM), which is designed to replace the high school diploma.
Full text: http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/
SO THEY TRIED MANY OF THE MEASURES AND…
Earlier this year, Marc Tucker, the author of this letter called for the abandonment of test-based accountability due to “10 years of failure”.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/top_performers/2014/02/the_failure_of_test-based_accountability.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
Wrote this editorial in June of 1992:
Try to picture this. A large national corporation, until recently grazing contentedly on federal military contracts, finds its annual earnings reflecting a shocking drop. It is decided that new access to federal dollars must be found, or the corporation may go out of business. Someone suggests a product which could tap into ever increasing federal education dollars. Another suggestion leads to looking into the possibility of crafting that product so that state and local education dollars can also be tapped.
The marketing department points out that the product will not sell, unless the buyers, the American public, can be convinced that the current product is substandard. Marketing is assigned the task of creating the need for these new products by convincing the American public that its public education institutions are utter failures. Once that had been accomplished, a program will be undertaken to separate public education dollars from public education institution. Those dollars would become the mainstay of corporation earnings. The product is privatized education.