Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation/Institute has been a strong supporter of school choice and the Common Core. On the whole, he and TBF have applauded Arne Duncan’s move to promote charter schools, to ignore the voucher proliferation, and to push Common Core on the states (as if they were “state-led,” which they were not).
However, Petrilli now has had a change of mind. (For the record, I support those who are willing to rethink their views and change their minds.) He now recognizes that Arne overreached and caused a counter-reaction. The most atrocious action by Duncan was to force test-based teacher evaluation on the states, with no evidence that it would improve education. It was a disaster. It hasn’t worked anywhere, and it has increased teaching to the test and teacher demoralization. If you are looking for the cause of the widespread teacher shortage, look to the policies of the U.S. Department of Education since 2009.
Petrilli writes, with humility, that he was wrong.
It’s not just that the Department of Education usurped power from Congress and the states; it’s that they used that power to push bad policy. Nobody today can creditably argue that mandating statewide teacher evaluations as a condition of ESEA flexibility was a good idea. Nobody can say that the teacher evaluation efforts are going well. This was an unforced error of enormous magnitude—one that has sparked a significant backlash to accountability policies writ large and also destroyed whatever credibility the feds may have had….
So yes, both the Senate and House versions of ESEA reauthorization are “looser” than No Child Left Behind, or than the Fordham proposal from 2011. If this renewal processes gets across the finish line (and I think it will), the federal government will have much less power than it does today. Folks like Chad who don’t like that will only have Arne Duncan to blame.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Too little too late. Thousands of teachers have lost their jobs. Hundreds of schools were closed. Billions of dollars wa$ted. Ten of thousands of students have been retained or forced to go to summer school. Parents are ‘ticked off’ and teachers are leaving the field and others aren’t thinking of entering. And now contrition by many of the leading sycophants and Arne accolades. ShoooootI (and I’m being polite and cordial) This policy like many of the US’s over the past dozen years was doomed to fail. Teachers saw it. Administrators saw it. But people whose jobs it was to study and analyze policy couldn’t. Perhaps they are the ones who need to return to school and test out.
Couldn’t agree more. Well-said, Mark Collins.
Now to make amends, Petrilli needs to rebuke the whole herd of Arne-loving lemmings who ran education off a cliff. I’m talking about the anti-public ed liars, bullies, grifters, swindlers, and weenies.
I mean YOU, Michelle Rhee, Tony Bennett, Hanna Skandera, Cami Anderson, Joel Klein, Kevin Huffman, John Deasy, Chris Cerf, John White, Paul Vallas…(fill in your favorite reformy villains here)
Except for putting the cart before the horse, you got it just about right. It was the “reformers” you named who are responsible for all of the bad, toxic policies that afflict us today and for Arne Dun-can’t being named Sec. of Ed. It was the “reformers” who infiltrated and completely co-opted the DOE and Petrilli is doing all in his power to distract from that reality by appealing to the anti-gov’t canard favored by so many on the right. It’s a big, fat lie.
“All in his power, to distract.”
Yes. The 130 families who run the country plot for state rights.
They’ve accomplished it in both, the red states and, in the blue states, with the co-opting of northern Democratic governors (like those N.Y. and R.I.) and Democratic senators (like those in Minnesota and Connecticut).
The plot’s success is a national shame at the doorstep of the President.
I find it fascinating that Mike Petrilli is saying this. Because what it means is that he and the pro-privatization folks are TERRIFIED of opt out because it is centered (and growing!) among the middle class and upper middle class college-educated parents that the charter school folks really want in their schools.
For the last few years Mike Petrilli and the pro-privatizers have been trying to convince exactly those types of parents that their good public schools are bad (and cutting funding to make them less appealing). That’s why these exams were designed with a cut score that insured so many students would fail. If even the “best” public schools were portrayed as mediocre, with too many average and below average students, it’s easier to move the privatization movement out to the suburbs. So Scarsdale this year had 37% of the students below standards, and only 21% exceeding them (in ELA). Even worse in Chappaqua, with only 20% of the students exceeding standards and nearly twice as many below. Just imagine how a new charter school can market to those parents by touting their much higher test scores! But if those affluent, college-educated parents don’t value test scores any more — if, in fact, those parents DISLIKE schools that seem to focus ONLY on test scores — well, that’s a problem for the charter folks who have made performance on these exams the ultimate measure of “success”.
The furious hatred directed at parents who opt out is a strange thing. After all, who cares whether a parent decides not to have their child take a test? No one cares if a high school senior foregoes the SAT to apply to a college that no longer requires them. But the pro-privatizers were outraged at public school parents! Why?
The answer is that by devaluing this new exam, those parents gave it no credibility. But the charter folks put all their eggs in the basket that test scores are everything. Now, the affluent parents of children they most want in their schools are starting to look askance at the focus on testing — especially when the test is as poorly designed as the state tests have been. I find it rather amusing to see the pro-charter folks now scrambling to try to minimize the damage their intense focus on testing, testing, testing in their charter schools has done to the way parents perceive their schools.
Or maybe I’m just cynical after so many years of reading the boasts of charter school CEOs and their supporters that the high scores mean their schools are “better”.
One lives by the test sword (score) one dies by the sword, eh!!
Duane. TAGO. That will be my new mantra as my son begins his kindergarten journey.
So true. The Reformers will survey a devastated landscape, throw up their hands, and walk away saying “well, we tried”, leaving parents and teachers the task of rebuilding a damaged school system. There should be 100% “accountability” for Reformers.
There’s a reason for Local Control. The problem is so many localities are not closely involved with their schools, teachers and children. These parents need to be helped and mandated to participate somehow.
“These parents need to be helped *and mandated* to participate somehow.” [emphasis added]
??? Could you elaborate a bit more?
Has he had a true change of heart, or is this just a partisan, suddenly remembering he’s a conservative thing? If it’s a true change of heart, the proof is in the pudding. What is he planning to do now? Is he going to write an introspective book explaining where and why he went wrong and repudiating his former thinking? Is he going to start a blog to support better education for all? If yes, I know someone he could contact to get started.
I’ll be forever skeptical of anything he says, but to see Michael Petrilli admit he was wrong about such a fundamental tenet of education reform (speaking specifically about teacher evaluations through testing) is one of the most encouraging things I have ever seen on this blog. I don’t want to get too encouraged, because I’ve been lifted before…only to be brought back to earth by more informed members of this blog…but this seems to me to be significant.
Maybe he can help others in his camp to see the errors of their ways.
Reread the article. He didn’t admit to what you claim he admitted. (see below for the text). He only is sorry about the political backlash, not about that supposed fundamental tenet of edudeform.
I should have known better, but I’ll give myself credit for maintaining my skepticism. At the very least, I can feel encouraged that he and Secretary Duncan are in conflict.
The only mea culpa I read was that he was sorry that it became such a political nightmare.
Agreed. He doesn’t renounce the use of VAM or his never-ending insistence that standards are the cure for everything educationally wrong, does he?
“Nobody can say that the teacher evaluation efforts are going well. This was an unforced error of enormous magnitude—one that has sparked a significant backlash to accountability policies writ large and also destroyed whatever credibility the feds may have had.”
Note that he simply regrets that the whole ‘accountability’ juggernaut he helped launch and that he helped cheerlead for years is now in jeopardy of being exposed as a naked emperor.
He is still a proponent of ‘performance-based pay’ despite the fact that Diane and other scholars have proven unequivocally that it doesn’t worked, has never worked, and never will work.
He still promotes charter schools, vouchers, privatization, and other far-right Friedman philosophies that destroy public education and the profession of teaching.
He still hates unions and wishes them destroyed.
Sorry, Diane, but this ‘change of mind’ is simply over the ‘how’ to destroy public schools and it is only regarding the federal government’s role in that destruction. The leopard hasn’t changed any of his stripes yet.
spots, that should be, although Petrilli may be a striped leopard, for all I know, LOL.
Expanding on the reform promoter’s explanation, “It’s difficult to serve three masters.” One boss wanted to speed up profit-making with national promotion and standardization. The second boss, wanted less visibility, for his pilfering, down at the state level. And, the third’s goal, was cost-saving.
After the initial promotion, “public schools suck”, the follow-up messages diverged. One goal was long-term profits for Silicon Valley. The second goal was get-rich quick schemes for opportunists and Wall Street. And, the third was tax avoidance.
It’s tough for a multinational marketer to craft a sincere, “It’s for the children and country”, out of that mélange of competing interests.
But, giving credit where credit is do. Reformer marketers are still on newspaper speed dials, as if they were legitimate.
And denying credit where do, they don’t have the juice to mask the poor performance of the their product (Ohio).
Having read the article, I have to agree with Duane and Chris. The only thing he regrets is that Duncan botched the implementation so badly.
You’re right…it’s a “non-apology” apology…not too far off from Tony Bennett’s concession speech in 2012…he would not/could not admit he was irredeemably wrong on his issues. He simply said he didn’t get his message out. Petrilli needs to go deeper and get rid of VAMs and overtesting root, stem, branch, and leaf.
Petrilli is more than welcome to change his views. It is unlikely to be useful to me in trying to pay for health insurance as my career comes to a screeching halt.
Mike Petrilli might be upset because Arne Duncan was a bad manager of the RheeForm agenda and that he should have been more cautious and takeen more time to achieve the total elimination of the public schools. If that’s true, then we should thank Arne Duncan for being such a heavy booted authoritarian with the persona of a total psychopath. Duncan was more of a Russian Mafia boss than the Secretary of Education.
May Arne & Co rot in the same he** he put our children, teachers and parents through.
Couple of years in the same Atlanta prison with the sentenced APS educators who erased wrong answers on IMPOSSIBLE TESTS, under an Eli Broad paid National Super of the Year.
He’ll just reinvent himself and join ranks with Emanuel/Obama/Gates & Co. to sell every $M inch of Chicago and ship off every poor person of color to another universe.
No end to these evil-doers.
Arne/Obama/Gates & Co + ALL BOTTOM-FEEDERS scooping up the $M along the path of broken children, teachers and parents…soon, a broken country — Yes, a little too late!
I don’t believe there is a change of heart.
What heart?
Nothing but a public schools scorched earth program and a stressed-out Nation.
Do we kid ourselves that all this pressure and chaos witnessed on our nightly news, killings, crime, shootings and jails busting at the seams is just a coincidence?
We as a society work HARD to refuse support to families, hours and hours of homework, Rigor my a**!, stress our workers, allow & maintain high poverty, endless guns, AND KILLING PUBLIC EDUCATION, etc.
For years we have added Public Schools, Public School teachers and millions of children to this evil twisted torchure. The Deformsters relished the pain they caused! They boasted about the harm THEY inflicted. They counted their $M every time they harmed another child, another teacher and jumping for joy knowing that white subburban moms were told their kids were ‘Failures’.
Jailing teachers for trying to stay alive in the VICE of Deformers and saving low performing kids from days, weeks and months of futile test-prep, knowing the results would have similar results for all. Dr. Beverly Hall in APS did not fall on the sword of the truth. Took the easy way out.
When will this nightmare end?
Sick! Sick! Sick!
BTW, not buying Michael Petrilli’s Schtick!
Need tons more data on that one.
I don’t think he’s repudiated anything.
He’s blaming Arne Duncan for the unpopularity and backlash to ed reform “movement” policy.
Duncan gave each faction in the “movement” everything they wanted and dumped the whole mess on public schools.
Petrilli got charters and vouchers, the VAM supporters got their chosen policy, the anti-labor faction got theirs, the “standards” people got their piece…he’s angry that some other members of the movement were also given everything they demanded? He thought the Obama Administration would enthusiastically support his agenda without also handing out goodies to the rest of the “movement”? THAT seems a little naive for such a seasoned DC hand.
I was reading an interview with Arne Duncan last week where he (now) says the single biggest issue is preschool. I don’t know- was he not in charge and handing out billions in federal funding the last 7 years? Why didn’t they just fund preschool?
Because the NEXT big thing is going to be data driven charter school TFA “teachers” ditto pushing computer testing preschool. Not necessary any longer to get your Highly Qualified Pre-3 credential–TFA can do it. And as to those “spacial” kids in pre-k? Nothing special about them; if they can’t cut it, they can drop out or go to private pre-k. Pre-K, the next frontier for the Rheeformers. After that, the womb.
Donna, I am sure that Gates is collecting the Apgar scores from every US delivery room, the babies’ demographic info & the parents’ Master Race status. Wonder if Coleman is working on the Close Reading portions of the non-fiction version of The Cat In The Hat? No context or background knowledge needed.
No stopping the GrinchGatesGobile from invading our wombs and bassinets.
We are funding Pre-K with new & innovative bonds. Instead of the Federal Govt. directly funding & expanding Head Start, states are financing Pre-K with new & improved (ha) social impact bonds. Investors are reaping bonuses for every year a child doesn’t need SPED or remedial interventions.
Goldman Sachs and JB Pritzker, the vampire squid & Obama’s crony bankster family concocted this financial product. Our Galtian overlords have kids organized into payment groups. Here are the details:
http://socialventures.com.au/case-studies/utah-high-quality-preschool-sib/
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/08/07/37preschool_ep.h32.html?tkn=PZNF%2Fyi60RsoRgtRpL%2B2b5ASuLpkqFuFzg6n&print=1
The winners & losers are getting younger & younger.
They are funding Pre-K with ‘new & innovative’ bonds. Instead of the Federal Govt. directly funding & expanding Head Start, states are financing Pre-K with new & improved (ha) social impact bonds. Investors are reaping bonuses for every year a child doesn’t need SPED or remedial interventions.
Goldman Sachs and JB Pritzker, the vampire squid & Obama’s crony bankster family concocted this financial product. Our Galtian overlords have kids organized into payment groups. Here are the details:
http://socialventures.com.au/case-studies/utah-high-quality-preschool-sib/
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/08/07/37preschool_ep.h32.html?tkn=PZNF%2Fyi60RsoRgtRpL%2B2b5ASuLpkqFuFzg6n&print=1
The winners & losers are getting younger & younger.
Here’s his mea culpa:
“We were naïve to think that we could thread the federalism needle—that because the standards had been developed by the governors and state superintendents, and because there was no federal mandate to adopt them, and because there was an escape valve (states could develop their own college- and career-ready standards), we would avoid the political problems that sunk previous attempts at “national standards.” We were wrong. Mea culpa. (Or is it “wea culpa”?)
Leaving behind the lie about how the standards were developed what has he confessed to?
It is the current effort to escape blame for their actions and to put it all on Obama and arne. The push for VAM and teacher evaluation was already happening before arne came along but jeb! and mitch and tony in Indiana and others embraced the race to the top as excuses to further implement it.
The big lie Petrilli is hiding in plain sight here is that the overreach and bad policy had anything to do with the Feds. I find this to be an entirely disingenuous, preposterous argument since the DOE has been infiltrated and completely taken over by the reformers. Don’t forget that it was Rahm who opened the door to Obama on behalf of DFER who successfully lobbied Obama to choose anyone but Linda Darling-Hammond for the Sec. of Ed. post even though she was the most qualified person on his education transition team and, as I seem to recall, was under serious consideration for the job. This error, of viewing he problems of the “reformers” bad education policy as having their origins in the Federal gov’t is most common among conservatives but hardly unknown among their counterparts on the left. Again, it is a big lie that allows the true perpetrators to escape responsibility and accountability.
Here’s what Peter Greene wrote just 5 months ago about Petrilli:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/03/mike-petrilli-goes-to-war.html
“Petrilli uses the new fave talking point for reformsters in which he characterizes the pro-public-education folks (and name checks Diane Ravitch) as those who have given up, think that education is hopeless in the face of poverty, believe that schools cannot do any better. This is the new improved straw man version of dismissing reform critics because they “use poverty as an excuse.” It’s a snappy rhetorical point, but it’s a lie, a deliberate misreading of what folks in the pro-public-ed camp are saying.
It’s a particularly galling point coming from the man who has explained on more than one platform that the proper role of charters is to rescue those students who are deserving, snatching them from the midst of the undeserving mob. It’s galling from charter fans in general, as their whole point is that public schools are hopeless and we should not waste another cent trying to help them do better.
But it’s also insulting to the millions of teachers who are in the classroom day after day, doing the best they can with the resources they have. Hey, teachers– if you’re not succeeding with all of your students, it has nothing to do with obstacles and challenges in your path. You just don’t believe enough.”
I don’t see any changes from these viewpoints; he’s just shifting the PR strategies and using more euphemisms to peddle the same-old rightwing, free market nonsense.
I would think we could hire people who support a public school system to work in government. That doesn’t seem like an outrageous demand. If they say they want to “improve public schools” one would think a minimum qualification would be “I value public schools”.
Can we get that, or is that too high a bar?
They might change their minds anyway—dedicated public school advocates are going with the tide. https://www.ednc.org/2015/08/17/14076/
Chris in Florida~ Agree!
Diane, I do fully respect that anyone of us can and do change our minds on many things. I respect thoughtful people.
Petrilli is another matter.
As Maya Angelou so often stated: When a person shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Petrilli is not just sharing ideas in his job, he parades his character, or lack thereof, so proudly…in skits, podcasts, Twitter and publications. His character is all over the Internet and squeezed through every corporate financial opening.
He is not an educator, not even close.
He should just get a job in his field.
Oh, wait, what does one do with a BS in PoliSci?
His SCHTICK has served him well. He will not skip a beat.
Wait for the Halloween Teacher Bashing skit at Fordham.
He thinks it’s hellacious. Anyone laughing?
It’s so easy to make Arne Duncan the scapegoat. The real culprit for this disaster is Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Waltons. Obama and Duncan are just following their agenda. Its politically convenient him to blame Arne Duncan, but he wouldn’t dare mention the billions corporate reformers have poured into corporate education reform and the manipulation of the media that went along with it. What Petrilli proposes in its place is a reactionary states which will deepen inequality.
I have to agree that the only thing Petrilli is “apologizing” for is Duncan’s botched implementation of the reform agenda. He isn’t admitting to a change of heart about high stakes testing. He isn’t changing his mind about teacher evaluation–just acknowledging that Duncan was so heavy-handed in forcing the states to adopt these policies–that Petrilli favors–that it hasn’t gone over very well with teachers or communities.
Petrol doesn’t know how to apologize–he’s far too arrogant for that–he’s just doing what the reformers do best when their plans collapse: throwing the closest easy target under the nearest bus.
The implementation was not a reasoned adoption; it was like a fascist invasion. It was all punishment for teachers and students.
TAGO!
Does the Obama Administration support this? A Chicago charter school firing 16 teachers because they wanted to join a labor union?
I mean, my God. Aren’t they ashamed to run around calling themselves supporters of the right to collectively bargain? Are they “agnostics” on this too? Is there NOTHING in ed reform they object to?
http://edushyster.com/youre-fired/?utm_content=buffere015b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Obama is explicitly not in favor of collective bargaining for public employees. He’s not really in favor of it for private employees either, but he had to pretend in order to get elected. But he has been quite open that collective bargaining in the public sector is “a problem”.
Did the Obomber put his walking shoes on for the working union folk in Wisconsin, joining them in protesting Walker’s destruction of public sector unions?
I didn’t think so!
He saving those shoes for nice walks on the beaches in Hawaii in a year and a half.
Wow. I understand that the scholars at Thomas B. Fordham, ideologically, aren’t exactly hippies. It’s always nice to see reason prevail over politics.
To what type of “reason over politics” are you referring?
It could also be the case that by throwing Duncan under the bus Petrilli is pre-positioning a right wing rebranded version of the exact same policies he repudiates Duncan for the botched implementation of, even though the designs and ideas for that implementation came almost entirely from the reformers themselves. It fits that this is just part of an effort to regroup, especially since the reformers efforts must now proceed state by state, hence the pseudo anti-federal messaging. Look for republican POTUS candidates to champion the rights of he states to “make their own” policy in rejection of “Federal” authority. It’s all one giant sock puppet show put on by reformers operating behind the curtain.
Great point. He may just be preparing to change horses.
Yes. Good point. Will we see from Fordham now “model state policy” created during posh retreats ala ALEC?
In the comments, I commended him for admitting he was wrong. It’s important to re-inforce good behavior. Sometimes, you have to identify the behavior for the guilty party so they can work on it.
But he isn’t really admitting that. All he’s admitting is that “we” (he and the reformsters) were wrong about how rephorm could be implemented, not that he’s wrong about rephorm itself. And even then, to the extent that “we” were wrong, it was mostly because Duncan botched the implementation.
I’m very suspicious of Mike Petrilli. He has been gung-ho for too long.
Wow, I’m shocked, where are teachingeconomist, virginiagsp and the other pro-reformers? No comments?
They did a similar flip on NCLB. http://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?cid=25920011&item=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.edweek.org%2Fv1%2Fblog%2F34%2F%3Fuuid%3D1590
Changing positions isn’t bad but they should offer some apologies to those they fought with (remember Kozol on NCLB?).
M. Petrillli here! Apologies?! I don’t need to offer no stinkin apologies!
To Mike Petrilli
If I ever flip and become a cheerleader for “free market” capitalism, I will offer you my most humble apologies for all those nasty descriptors I’ve sent your way.
I’m with Diane on this. I strongly encourage all people, especially leaders, to have the mental and emotional agility “to rethink their views and change their minds.” Perhaps those who unreasonably don’t will Feel the Bern one day in the not too distant future! As a matter of fact, regarding the huge backlash against Wall Street today, I’m beginning to experience something I haven’t felt since Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009:
Hope.
Not hope for Arne Duncan, though.
Most individuals, who hold positions at the top in organizations, assume people understand that they are saying what their role requires them to say. They have no shortage of agility and the audience has no idea about what their actual beliefs are.
If they craft an emotional message that appears to come from a place of character, it’s more convincing to the target. Hence, the derivation of term, buyer beware.
Education Reform is a business product. Even the Koch “ideology” can be reduced to a simple business concept, cost-saving.
There is a difference between someone who has a genuine change of heart and someone whose “heart” follows the “popular winds”. Petrilli senses the “writing on the wall”. He is low on the hierarchy of reasoning.
Let him read the writing on the wall. Let’s keep writing on the wall.
He’s knot sorry for committing crimes; he’s sorry he got caught.
Mike may have changed his mind but he doesn’t really care either ….not buying it .
Being conscientious educators or scholars, people MUST distinctively understand the difference between perspective and principle.
People will NOT EVER change their PRINCIPLE in humanity, civility, and being considerate for the unfortunate if people are truthfully conscientious.
People can be welcome to change their PERSPECTIVE in order to adapt with a living conditions, such as hairdo, dress attire, taste of foods/drinks, and social/cultural expectation in showing gratitude or respect for others.
In the movie ”Saints and Soldiers”, the American Sergeant has shown his PRINCIPLE in humanity in which he did not kill a Germany Officer, whereas French resistant mercilessly killed the Germany captive due to his ware-fare PERSPECTIVE of enemy.
In short, Mr. M. Petrilli did not show me that he is truthfully conscientious scholar who live with PRINCIPLE in humanity = respect for the welfare of teachers, of younger generations’ joy of learning, and of civilization for America. Back2basic
Petrilli wasn’t complaining about the Feds being “too light on loose” when he made his dance video celebrating the Common Core in 2014, where he reiterated his “Tight-Loose” meme
Sorry, meant to say “too tight on tight” instead.
When corporate reformers’ ideas don’t pan out, they have a pattern of claiming it was due to lack of fidelity to the plan. Now there’s a lot of backlash and I think this move is just CYA in preparation for the 2016 election.
Thanks for posting the video. Confirms the business nature of education reform/ it’s not about children nor the country’s future prosperity.
Petrilli slapped a lot of labels on people in that video. I’d say he deserves the label of “media whore:”
Other spaces,
Enjoyed the video.
Lots of morons making decisions about education . Things would be a lot better if teachers, school districts, and administrators were working together to make the best decisions for their own schools!
To Prof. W:
Thank you for the video. I could not open yesterday to watch it.
In video re: National at risk 1983, I really admire Dr. Ravitch whose heartfelt expression is very touching = Dr. Ravitch commits her life to fight for Democracy = quality of Public Education.
The rest of all politicians, including Senator Alexander Lamar, all promote FREE CHOICE at the EXTRA cost of tax payers as in private school for privileges VERSUS public School for all.
Most of all, political incorrectness beats around the bushes with their games of doubling meaning of words, such as character, content and choice for Public Education.
Would they take our exemplary Teacher Rafe Esquith and many thousand unsung teaching Heros in LAUSD’s teacher jail in order to be example for character, content and choice? Back2basic