Feeling down about corporate ownership of almost everything? So is David Greene. Gates, Walton, Bloomberg, Bezos, Murdoch, Koch. What don’t they own? Our votes.
David thinks back a century. Other oligarchs owned almost everything then. Of course, it didn’t occur to them to monetize the schools.
But we beat them back. We elected people to regulate the oligarchs. We can do it again.
Paul Tractenberg, a distinguished law professor at Rutgers University, challenges the idea that all-charter districts based on the New Orleans model are a magic bullet for Newark, Camden, and other low-performing districts in New Jersey. He notes that for the past four years, we have been bombarded with propaganda films like “Waiting for Superman” and “Won’t Back Down,” intended to convince us of the superiority of privatized charter schools over traditional public schools.
But, Tractenberg notes, the evidence is missing. Contrary to media hype, the Recovery School District in New Orleans is one of the lowest-performing districts in the state. No miracle there.
He asks questions that the propagandists for an all-charter district can’t answer:
“Do we really believe that the education of our most vulnerable students will be enhanced by constant churning of their schools and teachers? Do we really believe that we will improve education by replacing experienced and credentialed teachers with bright young college graduates — B.A. generalists as we used to call them in the early days of the Peace Corps — who are trained for six weeks before they are placed in the nation’s most difficult classrooms for their two-year commitments? Do we really believe that, despite growing evidence to the contrary, charter schools will begin to fully serve the needs of special education and LEP students? Do we really believe that balkanizing our already undersized New Jersey school districts to the charter-school level, where each charter school is technically an independent school district, will satisfy our state constitutional mandate of an “efficient system of free public schools”?
I have just finished reading Kristen Buras’ book about New Orleans. I will review it soon on the blog. It is the counter narrative to the reformer boosterism about New Orleans, “Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space.” It tells the story of the past decade from the perspective of black students, parents, teachers, and communities. It is a story of dispossession, of white supremacy, of community destruction. The publisher put a crazy price on the book, but I hear there will soon be a reasonably priced softcover. Buras shows that the destruction of public education in New Orleans is no model for other cities.
G.F. Brandenburg writes here about what then-D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee in exchange for $64.5 million. She would have the power to fire any teacher anytime, and she would get great results. Brandenburg says Rhee and Henderson didn’t meet the goals he checked. Will they give the money back?
Brandenburg is researching all the promises. Here are some more of his findings. See here and here and here and here, and here.
There were 78 goals. Brandenburg is researching all of them. This is an ongoing series and there is more to come.
In response to a post about the Common Core, contemplating whether the ship had already sailed, our resident poet “SomeDAM Poet (Devalue Added Model) wrote these lines:
from the old folk song
Oh, they built the Common Core, to sail the ocean blue.
For they thought it was a standard that Gates could ram right through.
It was on its maiden trip, that a teacherberg hit the ship.
It was sad when the Common Core went down.
Chorus
It was sad, so sad.
It was sad, so sad.
It was sad when the Common Core went down (to the bottom of the….)
Duncans and Rhees, Pearson Testing lost their fees.
It was sad when the Common Core went down.
Oh Obama smiled and winked
As the ship began to sink
And he said “The scores are surely going to stink”
So he S.O.S.ed Bill Gates
And he sealed both of their fates
It was sad when the Common Core went down
Repeat chorus
They were not far from the shore, ’bout a thousand miles or more,
When the states refused to teach the Common Core
So they canceled all their waivers, and burned up all their “savers”
It was sad when the Common Core went down.
Repeat chorus
Oh, the teachers saved the weak, as the ship began to leak.
And a band of VAMmers played their mathy hymns
With, “Nearer my God to Rhee”, they were swept into the sea.
It was sad when the Common Core went down.
Some say the ship has already sailed. Some say the train has left the station. But others say they never knew the train was in the station, and they wonder why they are passengers on a train they never booked tickets for, and how it could leave the station when no one knew it had arrived except the drivers.
Still others say that the ship is in trouble. When it sailed, the skies were clear. But uh-oh. Is the crew rebelling? Are the passengers? What about those rough seas?
Janos Martin, former counsel to the Moreland Commission, which was created by Governor Andrew Cuomo to investigate political corruption, then disbanded by Cuomo, has endorsed Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu, who are challenging Cuomo in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
In his statement, he recounted the travails of the Moreland Commission. And he said,
“When I joined the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption (“the Moreland Commission”) as special counsel during the summer of 2013, I knew Albany’s history of corruption, and relished the opportunity to investigate it and offer ideas for reform. Like many of those who participated in or followed our work, I found hotbeds of scandal, apathy and mediocrity beyond even my low expectations. The person who disappointed me most during my time on the Commission was Governor Andrew Cuomo.
“The opportunity that has been lost by the Commission’s neutering, then disbandment, is more significant than most people realize, and the level of the governor’s interference more pervasive than press accounts suggest. And while ethics may seem like a single issue in a large and complicated state, what I observed showed me what little regard Governor Cuomo and his senior staff have for the press, the public, and people with integrity who work in government. Their disdain for ethics colors the way they govern the entire state….
“For example, to most lay people, contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to a candidate through various loopholes and accounts in exchange for favorable legislation or lack of regulation, as Governor Cuomo did, is tantamount to bribery. This is how the real estate, telecommunications and gaming industries have operated for years. Legislative leaders rake in huge legal fees for unspecified work. Large corporations bankroll dozens of bi-partisan lobbying firms. Anonymous political spending by both parties continues to grow. As the Daily Newsreported, Cuomo donors have been awarded lucrative state contracts. (http://www.nydailynews.com/…) Of course, as long as no campaign finance or lobbying laws are broken, all of this is legal,and Governor Cuomo has left the worst and weakest of these laws in place year after year.
“Further feeding Albany’s corruption is that most who operate in this system don’t find it problematic or care. Few legislators defended our work, and few beat reporters investigated its substance until the Commission was long disbanded. Even good government groups withheld their fire during the budget process under the illusion that a strong reform bill was forthcoming. Sometimes it seems like the entire political class lives in perpetual fear of an Andrew Cuomo reprisal.
“Even Bill de Blasio, who spent the first half of 2014 in Cuomo’s doghouse, is now trotted out to sing the praises of right-winger Kathy Hochul on the governor’s behalf. Governor Cuomo’s general approach to governance is that fundraising nearly exclusively from mega donors, strong-arming independent entities and bullying Democrats to get in line with his moderate-conservatism is a necessary part of “œpolitics as usual,” and his strongest defense is that the other power brokers of Albany feel the same way. Weak-kneed politicians can perhaps live under this system, but primary voters ought to reject it.
“Governor Cuomo’s behavior during the Commission is emblematic of this cynical approach to governance. During the life and aftermath of the Commission, Governor Cuomo repeatedly made comments and pressured Commissioners to make comments that Commission staff knew to be blatantly untrue. The Commission staff did not realize that Governor Cuomo viewed them as chips in a misplayed poker hand, a gambit to be discarded via press conference. Only after being browbeaten for months did we acknowledge the farce of investigating any target that could even tangentially set off Cuomo or his senior staff. I learned of the Commission’s shutdown over Twitter, two days before the budget was due. By then the Commission was a shell of itself anyway.
“Without someone challenging this Albany mindset, it is no wonder most New Yorkers are completely cynical and disengaged from their state government. Indeed, if Zephyr Teachout’s campaign has achieved nothing else, it has shown that someone with political courage can stand up to any elected official, criticize him and offer a better vision, without suffering retaliation. That is what democracy is…..”
Internationally respected economist Jeffrey Sachs issued a statement endorsing Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of New York. It appeared on Huffington Post. The Democratic primary is this Tuesday.
Andrew Cuomo has raised $35 million. Teachout has raised $200,000. The New York Times declined to endorse Cuomo because of his failed promises to root out corruption in Albany. The Times endorsed Wu; his opponent is a Democrat in name only, who is opposed to gun control and who endorses other Republican positions. The Times lavishly praised Teachout but did not endorse because she opposes the Common Core, a very flimsy reason.
Here is part of Sachs’ endorsement of Teachout and Wu:
“It is hard to exaggerate the shamelessness that passes for political behavior these days. Politicians sell out our democracy to the highest bidder, and trade away our public schools, clean air and water, and economic futures. Around the world I’ve seen repeatedly how greed and corruption put societies on the path of self-destruction. Unless we use our democratic vote to bring honesty and excellence back to politics, America’s decline will become irreversible.
“That’s why I’m here today, to endorse New York Governor and Lieutenant Governor candidates Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu. We cannot afford any longer to allow our politicians to squander our future. It’s time to end the era of greed that stretches from Ronald Reagan to today. Governor Andrew Cuomo campaigned for Governor in 2010 as a progressive, but has proved himself to be far more interested in catering to rich Wall Street donors than in the serving average New Yorkers.”
Mercedes Schneider reports the latest twist in the evolving drama in New York state’s education scene, where Campbell Brown is trying to push erratic parent activist Mona Davids off the stage. Davids was quick to file a lawsuit and thought that Brown and Students Matter would support her, but they pulled the plug and told her to go away. Davids has been pro-union and anti-union. She was featured in “The inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman.” And, as we say in Texas, she has become a burr under Campbell Brown’s saddle. And Brown wants Mona to go away.
Tom Scarice, the superintendent of the Madison, Connecticut, public schools, writes that the campaign for the Common Core has been waged with fear tactics, mainly the fear that other nations have higher scores and will therefore “beat” us. But, he points out, citing the work of Yong Zhao, there is no connection between test scores and economic growth.
He concludes:
“Reducing the debate of the common core to a matter of implementation is intellectually weak. A number of other matters remain unresolved. The standards were never field tested with actual students. They have been largely influenced through massive donations via powerful philanthropic organizations such as the Gates Foundation, creating a chilling question about the consequential influence of one billionaire on our education system. Questions about whether or not the standards are appropriate for our youngest and most fragile learners have been raised by over 500 nationally recognized early childhood experts, and special education organizations. Categorically, no evidence exists to support the stance that the common core will raise the achievement of our most impoverished students, which is the most pressing challenge facing Connecticut. Education is much too complex to reduce our work to another futile silver bullet.
“Connecticut has had academic standards for decades. Academic standards, developed by education professionals, are largely embraced by educators. They serve to set clear expectations for the accountability of learning and form the basis of curriculum. However, the rigidity of the common core, mandating that each and every student achieve the same learning progressions, regardless of learning style, and individual learning profile, at the exact same rate, contribute to the epidemic of standardization and homogenization that has afflicted our schools for the past decade. This is particularly concerning when the global marketplace and the demands of citizenship in this era clearly necessitate an individual’s diversity of thought and skills.
“All that said, even within the broken testing and evaluation systems suffocating our schools, there are many individual standards within the common core that are worthy of academic pursuit. Districts would be best served to approach the common core with thoughtful analysis of the potential efficacy and appropriateness of each individual standard as they integrate them into curriculum. Plausible rejection of individual standards by local professional educators must be shared transparently with Boards of Education and the local community, backed up with appropriate justification. As always, healthy skepticism and deep analysis serve systems well. Every state and every district has multiple indicators of student success. What would local accountability look like beyond one tightly coupled measure to the common core? Is student success defined by performance on the SBAC, and if not, will local districts have the fortitude to move beyond the narrow, inadequate comparisons that are provided by standardized assessments?There is more to the story of student success beyond the implementation of the common core.”
As someone who has responded many times to Democratic Party fund-raising appeals on the Internet, I now get daily requests to give more. For the past few weeks, I have been responding that I will not give another penny until President Obama renounces Race to the Top and replaces Arne Duncan with someone who supports public schools. I thought I was the only one doing that, but then I got this letter from John Ogozalek, who teaches in upstate New York.
He wrote, in response to a similar appeal:
” Hancock, New York 13783
August 18, 2014
“Dear People Sitting in Fancy Offices In Charge of the Democratic Party,
“Why, why on Earth would I send a donation to politicians who seem intent on harming my family and our kids’ school?
“What a HUGE error the Democratic Party brass has made attacking public schools and teachers. What a bunch of dummies kissing off the support of millions of MIDDLE CLASS voters. (Does the corporate cash mean that much to you??)
“Tell Barack Obama and Arne Duncan that they have FAILED the Democratic Party….they’ve FAILED our children.
“Race to the Top? Farce to the Top!
“Governor Andrew Cuomo is a sellout, too. I’ve voting for Zephyr Teachout September 9 in the New York State Democratic Primary and will strongly encourage every Democratic I know to do the same
“When Democratic leaders are ready to stop sucking up to big corporate money….when Democratic leaders are ready to stand up for families and their schools…..let me know.
“And, no, I will not use my own first-class stamp on your pre-addressed, money grovelling campaign contribution envelope to “help us save much-needed funds”. How many times do I need to tell you that?
John Ogozalek”
Diane Ravitch's blog 