Steve Matthews, superintendent of the Novi school district, here explains how the education profession has been attacked and demonized, with premeditation.
He begins:
So you want to kill a profession.
It’s easy.
First you demonize the profession. To do this you will need a well-organized, broad-based public relations campaign that casts everyone associated with the profession as incompetent and doing harm. As an example, a well-orchestrated public relations campaign could get the front cover of a historically influential magazine to invoke an image that those associated with the profession are “rotten apples.”
Then you remove revenue control from the budget responsibilities of those at the local level. Then you tell the organization to run like a business which they clearly cannot do because they no longer have control of the revenue. As an example, you could create a system that places the control for revenue in the hands of the state legislature instead of with the local school board or local community.
Then you provide revenue that gives a local agency two choices: Give raises and go into deficit or don’t give raises so that you can maintain a fund balance but in the process demoralize employees. As an example, in Michigan there are school districts that have little to no fund balance who have continued to give raises to employees and you have school districts that have relatively healthy fund balances that have not given employees raises for several years.
Then have the state tell the local agency that it must tighten its belt to balance revenue and expenses. The underlying, unspoken assumption being that the employees will take up the slack and pay for needed supplies out of their own pockets.
Additionally , introduce “independent” charters so that “competition” and “market-forces” will “drive” the industry. However, many of these charters, when examined, give the illusion of a better environment but when examined show no improvement in service. The charters also offer no comprehensive benefits or significantly fewer benefits for employees. So the charters offer no better quality for “customers” and no security for employees but they ravage the local environment.
Then create a state-mandated evaluation system in an effort to improve quality…..
That is how it begins.
For his willingness to speak out honestly and courageously, I add Steve Matthews to the blog’s honor roll as a hero of public education.
Well put.
I simply await the [almost] inevitable response on this thread that “he’s just a district flack, a fat cat bureaucrat lining his own pockets at the expense of the kids, a thug in service to the all-powerful teachers union, spewing out unsupported anecdotes in order to halt and turn back needed reforms like accountability and merit pay and charters.” *I didn’t say it would make sense, concord with facts, or have any logic or consistency to it.*
A good posting.
😎
Diane, I will respectfully disagree with you on your perspective on Dr. Matthews. As an advocate assisting families across MI, I have a number of families in the Novi Community Schools. Students with IEPs are treated like third class citizens. This district continues to deny student evidence-based reading, math and writing instruction, and then wonders why a 9th grader with a learning disability has a 4th grade reading level. Just last week I had to push like a steamroller just to get a student access to Bookshare with internet access. Further, this district uses and abuses the Oakland ISD “Alternate Special Ed” Plan that has created what are referred to as “1832e” warehouses. Novi uses these 1832e programs in buildings across the entire district. Students are being denied access to specialized instruction and preparation for post-secondary and the work force. I am sick and tired of superintendents spouting off about public education while neglecting students with disabilities and hiding them in classrooms far to reminiscent of the late 1960;s and early 70’s.
There is a great irony in what you say Marcie. I am completing a special education degree after 23 years in regular education. The reformers in Nevada just think that disabilities will magically disappear if they use the magic wand of rigor. My administration has no resource room for the middle school (we are K-12). They assumed they would mainstream the kids by then and not need a special educator. They also planned on using computer instruction to take care of their needs. Reality intruded on their plans. They had to load up our overworked elementary resource teacher when their magic wand didn’t work. The irony is that the so called reforms were supposed to highlight all children so that districts and schools could not ignore them. Now we treat them like an object, a test score, and we try to get rid of them. A warehouse by any other name….is reprehensible just the same.
You are painfully spot on and I thank you for posting. You might check out my Facebook Special Education Wall of Shame.
Perhaps you need to look at the bigger picture Marcie. The parents and teachers of children with disabilities in my district here in NY are also angry at leaders at the top of the district level. The funds required to provide the programs and services that would help more children are not being allocated by the district. Special education teacher hours and programs are not keeping pace with the need.
The truth is, the Chambers of Commerce, at both the state and the federal level, no longer want to pay to educate all children. Investing in children with disabilities does not provide a good return on investment. Not only do they not want to invest in children, their intent is to open ‘markets’ and use our children as profit points. They do not keep their goals secret.
When local school budgets are starved, purposely by those at the state level who are working for the business chambers, the parents within a community begin to squabble about where the meager resources should be spent. Teaching children with disabilities and children from disadvantaged backgrounds is expensive. Many people in the community will agree to cuts in programs for children who are more expensive to educate.
When parents and teachers agree to join forces to fight back against the bigger threat of corporate driven deregulation and privatization, instead of trying to protect their own small interests within the local system, then we will begin to win this war being waged on public education, our children and the teaching profession.
Betsy, respectfully, I always look at the big picture. In my perfect world we would have one federal education law with teacher preparation programs that educate or teachers on how to educate all kinds of learners. The point of my original comment is strictly in response to Diane’s post on Dr. Matthews. He is not treating all students equally and is treating students with IEPs like 3rd class citizens and that is egregiously wrong.
“The point of my original comment is strictly in response to Diane’s post on Dr. Matthews. He is not treating all students equally and is treating students with IEPs like 3rd class citizens and that is egregiously wrong.”
I agree with your point.
My point is that the community will go along with the plan to treat students with IEPs like 3rd class citizens quicker than they will go along with cutting high school sports, or other programs that the public takes pride in. Every Superintendent, in every district will work to pass a budget that the community’s tax payers will vote for.
When budgets are lean the easiest place to cut is special education. The parents and teachers of the students most effected will complain, and rightly so, but the public will not notice because most are not aware of the bigger picture. The fact that your Superintendent is willing to speak publicly about the bigger picture is note worthy.
Betsy- The qualitative difference here is that money is not the source of all evil respective to special education in MI. In 1996 former gov John Engler stripped our State Board of Ed of all of their elected authority outside of the hirng/firing of the state superintendent. The first state superintendent with this unhealthy amount of authority pushed through a special education rule that has permitted our ISDs to override our rules pursuant to special ed programs and services. In addition the ISDs can create what are called “1832e programs.” Novi has used and abused these 1832e programs. If you threw money at public ed in MI you would not fix these 1832e programs because they are driven by a rule that is used to balance the budgets on the backs of students with IEPs.
…One last thought. I do not live in this district. I am an advocate assisting parents in Novi and have for almost ten years. I cannot condone Dr. Matthews or any superintendent talking about the global issues plaguing public education and ignoring special education. I see this happen all too often.
Thank you for trying to explaining the Michigan system. It is very much different from how money is allocated for special education here in NYS.
I respect your advocacy and the work that you are doing.
It is difficult to figure out how to build a strategy for combating the assault on local democratic control when an international corporate structure wields so much power.
I read over what I wrote several times before posting. Why can’t I see such glaring errors until I hit post?
…thank you for trying to explain the Michigan system…
Betsy- I have appreciated and enjoyed the exchange.
Marcie, I’m a parent of two teenage sons. One was graduated from Novi High School last year and one is currently a junior at NHS. We’ve been in this district for 15 years. I am not an educator or in the field of education. Dr. Matthews’ commentary and Diane’s posting it has nothing to do with you or the kids in Novi on IEP’s. I believe Dr. Matthews’s point was that as a society, we are witnessing the intentional destruction of a profession (teaching) by a well funded and well organized group of billionaires — whose end-game is the dismantling of public education. Betsy Marshall is spot on. It’s all about and always has been about the money. Your fight regarding the use of IEP’s in Novi is a distraction — go fight it and good luck, but don’t dismiss the message that Dr. Matthews gives because you have a separate grievance.
My post is not a distraction. It is the brutal truth and reality. I respect that your children had a good educational experience in the district. That is not the case for many children with IEPs. I advocate for children across MI and the U.S. I fight for public education every day. I will not be silent when I read about a topic or person that is not the whole truth. Neither Superintendent Matthews nor any Suoerintendent has the right to preach, spout off and suggest that he or she is committed to public education while treating one population like third class citizens.
I had the pleasure of meeting Joe Klein, editor of the “rotten to the core” aka “not-with-the-times,” the same man who lied (while swearing on his journalistic integrity) as he hid behind anonymity when he wrote Primary Colors. He told me he thinks teachers should have a free marketplace to make as much money as they can and unions should be busted up. He dismissed everything I said without hearing me. He appeared to me to be a bitter, out of touch man who had no idea what was happening outside his ivory tower. It never occurred to him he should listen to a mom who begged him to stop promoting the idea that her children should be a commodity in a free marketplace.
Joel Kelin was a travesty in NYC and led to this
Combine these points on the how-tos of de grading a profession with the previous post about the sales pitches created to valorize charter schools in Bridgeport and “vaporize” the idea that public schools have any merit.
The campaign is sophisticated, well funded, and widespread. ALEC and billionaires are funding much of this PR and deliberate destruction of public education, along with other social services. The new frontier for investment is any tax-subsidized social service from which profits can be made with a minimum of public accountability and transparency for the contracts to take over these services.
“The new frontier for investment is any tax-subsidized social service from which profits can be made with a minimum of public accountability and transparency for the contracts to take over these services.”
And didn’t the public-private partnership, tax heist scheme start in earnest during the Clinton/Gore presidency?
Exactly. They stick to the plan. Paint a false picture of failing schools. Put laws on the books that chip away at education. Reduce funding and resources. Demonize the teachers. Raise the rigor and implement nationalized curriculum via CCSS. Test, test, test. Do everything you can to cause schools to fail. Now send in the for-profit privatizers to save the failing schools. Hide the actual data and fix the cut scores to show great results. Pretend the privatization has miraculous results. Now, problem solved!
It worked here in Louisiana where our governor, Bobbly Jindal, has privatized education, prisons, health care system, etc. Now our state is in crisis and Jindal is using his self created crisis as his presidential platform. Huh?
The media fails to tell the truth, that the New Orleans RSD miracle is producing a whole generation of students who are college and career ready, but whose ACT scores are so low they can’t get in to our community colleges or universities.
Bridget, There’s also the Cami Anderson tactic of hiring TFA/New Leaders/Harvard MPP/Broad Academy contacts at $100K salaries.
Yeah. We have Boy Blunder John White, as State Superintendent of Education, to fit that bill. No credentials, no experience needed. Thank you very much!
Bridget: and just when do you expect we’ll hear the self-styled “education reformers” take public responsibility for what you describe in your last paragraph?
Let’s use some rheephorm metrics. When pigs fly. When a certain very very very hot spot freezes over. When magic feathers enable elephants to fly.
And the possibility of self-correction based on reflection and taking responsibility for the egregious harm done to others?
“I’m a very unusual person in that, in my entire life, I don’t have any regrets. I’m a person without regret.” [Michelle Rhee]
From a piece by John Merrow, note#6. Read the entire piece.
Link: http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6232
She is not unusual in the slightest. She is literally, not figuratively, speaking the heart and soul of those leading the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement. She’s just another cookie cutter, dime-a-dozen, rheephormista in mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$. Each one indistinguishible, in almost all essentials, from the next.
So do not—I repeat, DO NOT—hold your breath.
Eternity is a long time to go without oxygen.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Add a paragraph about attacking teacher pensions as the sole reason for State budget problems as yet one more way to demoralize those who gave their all to the profession.
Then use such evaluation to rate the rotten apples, making sure to using test data for oranges (math and English Language Arts even if you teach social studies, art, PE, science and in the case of the students in Hawaii, aren’t even in your classes this year). I pray that I get the job I applied for yesterday! 18 years of developing my craft daily and deep commitment to my students-flush!
Jack, Here is more than a paragraph… here is exactly how it was done in LA:
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
Posted the article directly at: http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-Superintendent-s-Chair-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Business_Community_Control_Education-150328-54.html#comment539003
at oped links are embedded:
Yes yes yes… Have been talking about this plan they genius stategy for a decade. See my series commentary here.
The plan for th legislatures to usurp local control and give taxpayer money to corporate entities is speeding up.
The state-appointed superintendent of the Camden, New Jersey, public schools
http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/local/south-jersey/2015/03/25/camden-school-to-close-at-end-of-year/70439550/
announced that five public schools would be handed over to private charter chains. These schools will receive “significant” renovations to prepare them for the takeover by private managers. Three private organizations–KIPP, Mastery, and Uncommon Schools–have been designated to take over the schools and students.
If you are really interested in the latest news please get the feed at the Ravitch blog …such brilliant and often humorous conversations, these are the kind of smart folks who we remember as great teachers– and they talk all about education as it is unfolding. The media is silent.
THIS IS HAPPENING UNDER OUT NOSES.
Also, go often to the NPE site. N is for Network, get the real facts about what is ongoing among the genuine academics, educators , teachers and parents, in the NPE News Briefs.
I often wonder how history will judge us. Will our children look back on this time and ask how this was allowed? Just as we now look back on the injustices of the civil rights era and ask how was this allowed.. Will anyone read these posts years from now and wonder how this insanity was allowed to be perpetuated? I can not imagine how these injustices will be ever be justified. Where are the civil rights leaders of today? They seem to be no where to be found. Where is the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of our time? Our children need heroes to speak for their plight. Not the greedy profiteers, but those who truly care about the future of our nation. These children who have no voice will one day become adults who will hopefully find the power of their own voices. I hope I am around to see that day.
I am dyslexic. When I was in the public schools in the 1950’s and 1960’s there did not seem to be much awareness of this (so my parents tell me, I was a bit young at the time and did not understand). The public schools I attended were convinced I could not learn and was un-educable. When I was to enter Junior High School (I think we call it Middle School now) the public school I attended wanted to put me in a special school for un-educable kids like me. It was in a very bucolic setting that was beautiful to the eye, trees, spacious lawns, and flowers, but it was very like the 1832e facilities described above. It was a warehouse, a beautiful warehouse but a warehouse non-the-less. My parents refused to send me there and insisted I be placed in the regular public school, which I was. However, convinced I could not learn I was not placed in academic courses, I was put on what was called a “vocational” track (or so I believe, I do not really know what they called it) that put me in mainly shop type classes. I have nothing against shop classes they have an important place, but as someone with poor eye-hand coordination they are in fact not the kind of courses I could succeed at, just a convenient place to put me, to “warehouse me so to speak. Fortunately my parents were both professionals, my mother was a teacher. They could afford to put me in private schools, which they did. The private schools did not know any more about dyslexia than the public schools did, but they required me to meet a rigorous standard. Fortunately, again, I in fact did possess some ability and had parents at home that supported me and helped me as I needed it. I was a “C” and “D” student until the second semester of my junior year. In the second semester of my junior year I figured out how to compensate (or so I suppose because I began meeting with success) and I was an honor roll student for the rest of my high school career. When I applied to college the college that accepted me called my guidance counselor and asked about my ability as a student, he said he is a risk but who isn’t these days (that was 1968). Fortunately again my parents knew the college president and I got into the college, where I did pretty well, went on to Syracuse University where I graduated with a Bachelors and on to get a Masters Degree in English Literature at a small California university, California State University Dominguez Hills.
My point in all this is to highlight a few points that helped me to succed:
1. I had parents who were involved in my education
2. I had parents who could afford to send me to a private school when the public schools would not educate me.
3. I had parents that knew people (I do not think this can be underestimated).
4. The private schools demanded that I succeed in a rigorous program that prepared me for college.
5. I had help at home with my school work which enabled me to have more success than I might otherwise have.
These experiences have helped shape who I am as a teacher. I try to hold all my students to a rigorous standard, but because of my experience I try to provide “back doors” that will enable students to have the success of which they are capable while working to bring them further along. It’s not a panacea but I have had some success with it. But one thing I have learned is thst students often do not believe in themselves until someone else, usually an adult believes in them first. Common Core, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and standardized tests treat student like widgets whose development can be benchmarked; product materials like a block of wood, paint or wall paper that can be molded, shaped, and decorated like any other inanimate object. We are taking the humanity out of public education, something the ed-reformers would never allow to happen to their children that attend private schools, as I did. I sympathize with what Marcie has written and do not doubt that it is true, but I also agree with the gist of the article, even if the good doctor does not consistently follow his own advise We have been here before and hopefully we will step back from the brink before it is too late.
Cordially,
J. D. Wilson, Jr.
I taught in the same district as Steve Matthews when he was a Curriculum Director some years ago so I am familiar with who he is. He was well liked during his time there.
Something that is missing from Steve’s well spoken article and most of the subsequent comments is the fact that not only is the de-funding of public education deliberate and premeditated but it has a purpose in addition to demoralizing school employees. Two major factors are at play.
One is by keeping school districts cash strapped, it puts less money into the paychecks of teachers. Therefore less money will be going to Democratic candidates running for elected office. Starving the Democrats of donations by teacher union members, who are often the largest union in any particular state, makes it easier to outspend the Democrats by rich Republican donors. No less than Karl Rove, has stated that is a major goal of his political machine.
Another key ingredient of this premeditation for breaking down public schools is public schools are one of the last great untapped sources for the greatest stack of dollars in the country, taxpayer money. By making the school systems appear incompetent, even if it means actually ruining the education of millions of students, Republicans can create large inroads for privatization of school operations. That means Republican’s Corporate Masters will be getting those easy taxpayer monies with long-term contracts for “services.” Republicans/Corporate America have made big strides in taking over school transportation, food and custodial services to date, in addition to creating charter schools with shockingly little accountability for how taxpayer money is used and for actual student achievement. Legislative bills are being introduced in many states that will allow districts to hire non-certified teachers for the classrooms. Those “teachers” will be woefully underpaid and have little skills to deliver any kind of quality education.
The saying of “follow the money” is a real cue to see what those who seek to demonize public education are up to.
I must have published this link scores of times here…
This is why>>>>>
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
If you follow the money, the trail takes you to starved budgets, (demolished by the legislators who take all that dark $$$). They know, the first thing that will be trimmed is the education budget and that for every teacher who is fired before vesting they save over $45k a year and more, in benefits, salary and pensions.
They make us ’employees at will’ (i.e just like Walmart employees) temporary workers who can be fired at will, because the COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT that we call a contract, only applies to tenured teachers…and no one will reach tenure.
Go tot he link. It is enshrined in LAUSD, but it is the formula everywhere.