Archives for the month of: July, 2015
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Shame

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2015 //
18

Edward Placke is Superintendent of the Greenburgh-North Castle Unified School District, which serves students from urban areas who are primarily of African, Caribbean and Spanish heritage. All students are eligible for the federal free lunch program and are identified as disabled, primarily emotionally disabled. He wants the public to know that these students have been shamefully neglected in the state budget, for years.

This is his message:

 

Shame on New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo. Shame on New York state’s legislators.
Once again the children with the most significant disabilities who live in our most impoverished communities throughout New York are totally ignored by our representatives. These are the students who their respective community school
districts have been unable to educate due to their significant academic and behavioral challenges. I use this term representatives lightly in that our elected officials only represent major contributors, special interest groups and benefactors; donors who ensure their reelection; contributors who unashamedly advocate for privatization of our public schools, contributors who advocate the dismantling of our unions; public rhetoric that demeans our public school teachers and administrators ;contributors who have little or no training in education and; representatives who support an educational reform movement that is ill conceived and will prove ineffective for students of all abilities.
The New York State assembly, senate and the Governor’s office represent all that is insensitive, corrupt and self-serving in our state and country, particularly around the students we are blessed to serve; those with significant disabilities.
Their latest demonstration of the aforementioned disturbing variables is their inability to pass a law this session that would provide alternative educational programs, which include the 853 schools and the public special act school districts (and I underscore the public nature of the public special act school districts), with a minimal annual increase in funding. Unlike other public school districts in New York, these vital educational programs as of this time will be funded at prior year rates for current year costs. The sustainability of these programs that consistently produce outstanding outcomes are in jeopardy of continuing to educate New York’s most vulnerable students. It should be noted that historically funding for these educational programs have at times been frozen which has caused enormous fiscal stress.
Shame on our so called representatives. Despite their outright disregard for our student bodies my advocacy and the advocacy of those with like minds will not rest until the education we offer is comparable to community public schools. Our mission to ensure our students successfully cross “The Bridge To Adulthood” and overcome the many societal obstacles they had no part in creating. I urge our representatives to rethink their position on this bill and join me in advocating for this highly deserving population of students.
Sincerely,
Ed Placke,Ed.D.
Superintendent
Greenburgh North Castle UFSD

Categories Poverty, Special Education

Peter Greene Reviews Bill Bennett’s Weak Defense of Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2015 //
10

Peter Greene reports that Bill Bennett went to Campbell Brown’s new site “The 74” to defend the Common Core standards and to chastise Republican governors who are withdrawing their support, especially Chris Christie. Of course, Christie pulled a fast one by dropping the standards but keeping PARCC, which is aligned with CCSS.

 

Fortunately, Jeb Bush is still aggressively standing up for CCSS.

 

But Greene shows that Bennett really doesn’t understand how the standards were developed or the conditions of their adoption. He doesn’t know that most states adopted them before they were finished. He just thinks they are awesome.

 

He doesn’t know that the standards were not internationally benchmarked, he just knows that they are supposed to be “hard,” and that is a very good thing. He says that the public wants “high standards,” but the polls he cites never mention the term “Common Core.”

 

He thinks that states can improve upon the standards but does not know that they were copyrighted and cannot be changed one bit, other than to add more to them. The CCSS came down from some mountain like stones with writing on them. And no one can revise them. But Bill Bennett doesn’t know that.

Categories Common Core, Education Industry

ALEC Meets in San Diego to Battle for Rights of 1%

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2015 //
25

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) held its annual conference in San Diego to fete its leaders and their anti-democratic agenda. ALEC is bankrolled by major corporations. Its members are about 2,000 state legislators. At its annual meetings, it drafts model legislation to advance corporate interests: to privatize public schools, to eliminate labor unions, to roll back environmental regulation, and to slash government social programs.

ALEC has model legislation for charters and vouchers, for online learning, and for anything that breaks public education and removes teacher professionalism.

Categories ALEC

Sarah Karp Investigates the “Chicago Public Education Fund”

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2015 //
5

Sarah Karp, deputy editor of Catalyst, the invaluable magazine that covers education without fear or favor in Chicago, recently took a close look at the Chicago Public Education Fund. What she discovered is alarming.

 

She begins by looking at the federal investigation of the $20.5 million no-bid contract to a for-profit organization called SUPES to train leaders in the school system. Former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett resigned because of the investigation, because she had some prior involvement with SUPES.

 

The relationship between the district and SUPES began when the Chicago Public Education Fund gave SUPES a contract for $380,000 to train network chiefs and their deputies. CPEF is not a target of the FBI investigation. Karp writes that the “larger question…isn’t about SUPES. It’s about the role of a privately financed foundation that is deeply entwined with a public school system.” As Karp writes, “No one outside The Fund’s staff and board of directors know how it decide which programs to support, what the results have been and how or whether the results are communicated to CPS.”

 

“It is worth noting that The Fund’s board is made up of some of the richest, most powerful people in Chicago—people with strong and definite opinions about the direction of CPS and including some of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s staunch supporters and campaign donors. “It would be difficult to assemble a board that screams 1 percent louder than (The Fund)—from the schools its members attended to jobs held to marriages made,” as Chicago Magazine’s Carol Felsenthal wrote in a column.

 

Gov. Bruce Rauner is a former board president. Current board members are billionaire Kenneth Griffin, Penny Pritzker and Susan Crown of the Crown family.

 

The only way to make sure that the voices of the well-connected don’t drown out the voices of parents and the general public is to have complete transparency in decision-making about public schools. The public has the right to know the costs and the results of initiatives taking place in our schools, with our children, teachers and principals.”

 

In recent years, The Fund has paid consultants to search for high-level positions in CPS. One consultant was paid $100,000 to find a Chief Financial Officer, who stayed only two years.

 

“In 2011, The Fund paid a consultant $100,000 to search for a chief financial officer; the man hired, Peter Rogers, only stayed for about two years. In 2012, The Fund paid three consulting companies — McKinsey & Company, Parthenon Group and Global Strategy Group — to do planning and marketing work for CPS.

 

The $1.5 million paid to Parthenon and McKinsey is particularly interesting. Parthenon helped CPS write the 2013 Request for Proposals for new schools.

 

McKinsey got the largest cut and was paid to provide data analytics and management support for the district’s 10-year master facilities plan—which was criticized for lacking detail—and to design the structure and duties for a new Office of Strategic Management, which analyzes trends, establishes school attendance areas and does long-term capital planning.

 

Todd Babbitz of McKinsey was hired to run the new office that McKinsey proposed; Babbitz “spearheaded the mass school closings in 2013.” Parents and community members complained bitterly about the school closings. But their voices were never heard. The CPS board, appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, listened to the consultants hired by the Chicago Public Education Fund.”

 

This is NOT democracy at work.

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform

Media Flap Over Treatment of Campbell Brown

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2015 //
60

Paul Farhi, a veteran reporter at the Washington Post, wrote an article recently about Campbell Brown’s new “news site” called “The 74,” which is a vehicle for her ongoing campaign against teachers’ unions and tenure and for charters and vouchers. Brown, who has no experience as a teacher, scholar, or researcher, who attended a private high school (her own children attend a private religious school), has become the new face of the corporate reform movement since Michelle Rhee stepped out of the limelight. Last year, Farhi wrote about Brown’s transition from TV talking head to advocate for vouchers, charters, and the elimination of teacher tenure. (You will notice in the earlier article that Brown takes great umbrage to my having described her as telegenic and pretty; well, she IS telegenic and pretty, and I would be happy if anyone said that about me! I consider it a compliment.)

Farhi reports the funding behind “The 74”:

As it happens, Brown raised the funds for the Seventy Four from some of the biggest and wealthiest advocates of the restructuring that the Seventy Four appears to be espousing. The funders include the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, all of which have opposed teachers unions and supported various school-privatization initiatives. (Her co-founder, Romy Drucker, was an education adviser to billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.)

This would be just another garden-variety profile of a controversial figure, but blogger Alexander Russo blasted Farhi as biased against Brown. Although Farhi does not quote another corporate reformer, he quotes Brown herself extensively. Russo questioned Farhi’s objectivity as a journalist. He complained that there was no outside voice supporting Brown, and that Farhi ended the article with skeptical quotes from Washington insider Jack Jennings and AFT President Randi Weingarten. Russo says that Farhi should have allowed Brown to respond to the critics, and he should have found “another outside voice — a journalist, academic, or education leader of some kind — to express support” for Brown. He also wrote that “the overview was inaccurate or misleading” by stating that Brown’s views are supported by conservative politicians and business interests.

In an earlier post, Russo candidly disclosed that he had hoped to join Campbell Brown’s “team,” but didn’t make the cut:

Disclosures: This blog is funded in part by Education Post, which shares several funders with The Seventy-Four. Last summer and Fall, I spoke with Brown and others on the team about partnering with them but nothing came of it.

The curious aspect of this particular flap is that Russo’s blog is jointly funded by the American Federation of Teachers and Education Post (which is funded by the Broad Foundation, the Bloomberg Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation).

Randi Weingarten tweeted:

Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten)
7/26/15, 1:14 PM
Russo’s criticism of Farhi is off base. Farhi’s piece is smart, effective journalism: washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/styl…

Also:

Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten)
7/26/15, 3:27 PM
@alexanderrusso do u really believe Campbell Brown is no longer ideological or are u acting this way b/c of funding washingtonmonthly.com/the-grade/2015…

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Media, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Teacher Tenure, Vouchers

“Education, Inc.”: A Stunning Documentary about the Dark Money Behind “Reform”

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2015 //
19

Brian Malone, documentary film-maker, has self-funded a film about the corporate assault on public education.

 

His film is a MUST-SEE. It is titled EDUCATION, INC.

 

Malone is a parent of two children in the public schools of Douglas County, Colorado. He documents the well-funded effort to take control of the local school board. Grassroots activists running for school board raised $40,000. Corporate reform privatizers received over $1 million in funding, which they used for a slick propaganda campaign. They won control of the school board and immediately began implementing their plans for vouchers, charters, union-busting, and salary caps for teachers. The exodus of teachers from the district more than doubled. The district paid hired guns (including former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett) to praise its “reforms.” A commissioned study by Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute hailed DougCo as “the most interesting district” in the nation.

 

Malone crisscrosses the nation, interviewing teachers, parents, and trying to interview leaders of the privatization movement (who usually refuse to be interviewed).

 

What he shows dramatically is the huge pot of money coming from organizations connected to the Koch brothers, Jeb Bush, Michael Bloomberg, and other advocates for dismantling the public school system and replacing it with a free market of unregulated private schools and charters. He takes a close look at ALEC and its national network of rightwing extremists dedicated to privatization. Extremists and billionaires are pouring large sums into state and local school board races and into state legislative races. The only way to stop them is to go to the polls and vote for candidates who support public schools. The only way to make that happen is to education the public.

 

This is an important film about the future of American education. It is a call for citizens to get involved and take back their public schools from those seeking to privatize them.

 

Malone plans a national “house party” to show the film on August 14. Please contact him and get a copy and invite your friends and neighbors. EDUCATION INC. is a great place to start informing the public about the monied elite that wants to steal their schools and divert the funds to corporations, entrepreneurs, consultants, charter schools, and vouchers.

 

Go to the website for the film to learn how to get a copy: http://www.edincmovie.com or google Education, Inc.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Reader: Advice to the Economists Who Love VAM

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2015 //
27

Recently the website Five Thirty Eight published a post declaring that VAM works. Only economists who never set foot in a school since their own high school days could reach this conclusion.

This reader disagrees with the economists:

This was my comment, as a lowly parent & taxpayer, at the 538 article comment thread:

As a taxpayer and parent I’d like to know what this article has to do with economics. I can find nothing in the article, nor in the comments thread, which speaks to (much less ‘proves’) that VAM shows any results which save the taxpayer money. As a member of a community I am well aware of the time our teachers have been spending for the last two years on the voluminous paperwork required to implement VAM. Although they seem to be doing it without extra pay, this is worrisome. These people already spend too many hours on a medium-salary job, and with the extra stress, that will push more of them out of a difficult profession.

What’s worse at least in my area (NJ), VAM seems to be a 2-pronged affair:

there’s the SLO/ Danielson or Marzano business that has them adding short autumn and EOY assessments in every subject to measure progress — which sounds like debunked & easily-gamed MBO junk I had to do in the ’80’s private sector–

and then we have the students’ PARCC scores which will soon become a weighted part of the teachers’ annual evaluation.

The SLO business adds a couple of hrs’ testing in every subject (so 10 hrs of class time per year)– minimal yet to my mind from experience a waste of time.

The latter– PARCC CCSS-aligned tests, taken on computer, disrupted the schedule horribly this year. Just to administer them required weeks during March & May to shuffle students by group in & out of gym/ library/ computer lab, where available laptops were corralled. That meant those areas were lost to normal physed, library research projects, curriculum-associated computer-lab work, for 3 – 4 wks of the 12-wk spring semester.

Much class time was spent teaching primary students how to keyboard, drag-&-drop, scroll, not hit buttons that would freeze the screen. And much more class time was spent drillimg kids on the PARCC Q&A format.

Although the PARCC tests are administered solely to collect data on school & teacher performance (meaning by the way older students recognize they have no ‘skin in the game’)– because they are or soon will be hi-stakes for school & staff, much time & attention is paid.

Did I mention my district has long been one of the highest-performing in the state? Here in NJ rich districts like ours send a large chunk of our RE taxes to poor districts; we pay 96% of the school budget ourselves. And now we must sacrifice many weeks of our precious, highly-paid-for curriculum-learning time to… VAM???

OK now I’m mad. I can read right on this board that there’s absolutely no proof that any of this supposedly economically-driven activity has anything to do with lowering my property taxes. In fact, what I can glean by reading the national news, its primary effect to date has been to drive veteran teachers into early retirement, to be replaced by substitutes, TFAs, & newbies (which is what I see is happening in Newark, where much of my RE taxes go, which is why mine are cripplingly high; as far as I can determine costs are higher than ever in fact Zuckerberg’s $100million went to consultants and state administrators).

Categories VAM (value-added modeling)

NYC Principal Commits Suicide in Midst of Common Core Test Scandal

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2015 //
64

The principal of the Teachers College Community School in West Harlem in New York City jumped in front of a subway train and died of her injuries. She was under investigation for changing test scores. The investigation has been closed.

Jeanene Worrell-Breeden, 49, of Teachers College Community School, jumped in front of a B train in the 135th Street station on St. Nicholas Avenue on April 17, police said.
She was pulled out from under the train and taken to Harlem Hospital, where she died eight days later. The city Medical Examiner’s Office ruled it a suicide.
The leap came at 9:20 a.m., less than 24 hours after her 47 third-graders wrapped up three days sweating over the high-stakes English exam — the first ever given at the fledgling school.
It was also the same day a whistleblower reported the cheating to DOE officials….

The tough Common Core exams have raised anxiety. In 2014, only 34.5 percent of city students passed the math tests, and 29.4 percent passed English tests.

Sadly, the scores on the Common Core exam seem to be more important than life itself.

Categories Cheating, Common Core, Standardized Testing

Elephants Love Music, Too!

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2015 //
17

This article contains a wonderful video of the effect of music on elephants. As the article says, this is not the first time that elephants have shown reactions to music. It seems to calm them, to make them happy. Elephants are born to live in the wild, not cooped up in tiny spaces.

 

 

I saw this video the day after seeing a CNN special about men who were incarcerated and kept in solitary confinement, sometimes for years. All of them eventually began mutilating themselves and exhibiting behaviors that were defiant, aggressive, and almost animal-like. I would not suggest that classical music is the answer for those trapped in isolation cells. But there must be a better way to deal with people who have committed terrible crimes, other than to treat them the way we treat animals. Even animals deserve better treatment. We are inhumane to both.

Categories Education Reform

Save Your Public Library!

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2015 //
21

The move is on to privatize every public service and to squeeze a profit out of its budget by cutting staff and services.

The watchdog group “In the Public Interest” reports on the library privatization efforts and pushback by communities that love their public libraries:

Earlier this month, in yet another win for local control, leaders in one central Florida county rejected a proposal from a for-profit library management company to take over their public library. The company, Library Systems & Services (or LSSI), operates at least 80 public libraries across the country, but Marion County joins a growing list of municipalities who realized that LSSI’s claim to do more with less while still making a profit was a greater fiction than even Stephen King’s best stories.

In 2010, the chief executive of LSSI admitted to the New York Times that the company saves money by cutting overhead and replacing unionized employees. “Cutting overhead” can mean fewer services and reduced hours. Privatized libraries make up for less professional staff by depending on unpaid volunteers and automation. Of course, when outsourcing relies on cutbacks in wages and benefits to realize savings, the local economy suffers and income inequality continues to grow. The company claims efficiencies from buying materials at the national level, but critics contend this sacrifices a local branch’s ability to adapt to the needs and interests of patrons.

Even LSSI’s basic sales pitch that they can operate libraries for less than the public is suspect. When the town of Dartmouth, MA, evaluated a proposal to privatize their libraries, they found there was no evidence that privatization saved communities money. San Juan, TX, remunicipalized their libraries after contracting with LSSI for five years due to frustrations with the company’s refusal to divulge its profit margin. After bringing their libraries back under local control, town leaders were able to extend branch hours, giving residents better flexibility and access. The California town of Calabasas canceled its contract with LSSI and saved $68,000 in their first year back with public library service.

Back in Marion County, residents and Friends of the Ocala Library are celebrating their win to keep a critical public good under public control. In an inspiring act of solidarity, the local firefighters union, Professional Firefighters of Marion County, criticized the privatization proposal: “Strong libraries are essential to strong communities.” When neighbors join together to protect common resources, they strengthen their communities as well as democracy. And that’s no fiction.

Sincerely,

Donald Cohen
Executive Director

InthePublicInterest.org

Categories Libraries, Privatization
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