- The “Foundation for Education Excellence,” created by Jeb Bush to promote choice and digital learning (many of its big donors are tech corporations), recently released a poll of Georgians. The objective was apparently to show that the people of Georgia were eager for school choice.
But it if you look at the graphs, Georgians told the pollsters something they didn’t want to hear and did not remark on.
When asked what did they think was the best way to improve the leading answer was reduce class size; number two was increase teachers’ salaries. The two combined were 67%. Then came school safety, then technology. In fifth place, school choice was chosen by only 17%. Solid majorities were in favor of spending more on the schools.
The pollsters concluded that Georgia was ripe for reform. “Our recent survey of Georgia voters on behalf of the Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd) indicates that the landscape in Georgia is fertile for education reform. Voters are concerned about their local schools and most believe they do not have enough flexibility to spend their funding.” But not so much for school choice.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No surprise there. The Public Education Demolition Derby Reformers will take any data they collect or invent as fiction and claim its fact and twist it to their advantage. After all, its all about the money and has nothing to do with education, teaching, learning, teachers, parents or children, who are just obstacle between them and the cash.
I know this is not the place but does anyone know if the Network for Public Education site has been hacked? Trying to share the Gates Infographic and I can’t.
http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/2015/11/newsletter-15-years-of-bill-gatess-experimentation/wp-admin/install.php
Maybe it isn’t possible to share an image in a comment on that site. You might want to try sharing that info-graphic with the Education Bloggers Network that is part of the resistance. I think we can do that there. Diane Ravitch is a member, and she’s listed on the membership roster page.
“The Education Bloggers Network is an informal confederation of more than 200 education reporters, advocacy journalists, investigative bloggers, and commentators. Members of the Education Bloggers Network are dedicated to providing parents, teachers, public education advocates and the public with the truth about public education in the United States and the efforts of the corporate education reform industry.”
http://edubloggers.org/about/
thanks!
Polling in political lobbying organizations like that one has nothing to with surveying the public. They use the polls to push politicians to support their agenda. It’s a closed circle- lobbyists speaking to their politicians.
It’s the same reason Michelle Rhee’s group collected all those email addresses thru various misleading pitches. She needs to show that there is wide public support for her agenda, because then she can pitch it to politicians as something their constituents want. Her “list” is proof of that.
The part that is amusing to me is this- why do our elected leaders rely so much on polling? To me it indicates a real disconnect. Maybe they could get in their car and visit some of these public schools and ask people what they want? Look around, see if they can figure out what public schools need instead of telling public schools what public schools need based on what Jeb Bush and his team of high-priced hires think?
I know they are head over heels with collecting data, but how are they good representatives if they need a national lobbying group to tell them what people in their districts or states want? 100% of the elected representatives in Georgia represent real, live public schools. Maybe they should enter one to find out what’s going on there.
When did pushing online learning migrate from Jeb Bush’s lobbying group to the mainstream ed reform “movement” members in government, BTW?
Both the Obama people and the Kasich people are pushing it now. Is this another fake debate in ed reform had where they reached some conclusion about what the masses need without any public support or demand and it’s now accepted we all need online learning in public schools? Will there be a chance to object or is this an upcoming mandate? These huge public/private marketing efforts make me nervous.
All of these ideas circle around improving the environment of the schools for students. Salon has an article this week about a student constantly harassed by other students because she is different. If you talk to families leaving public schools, it is the demeaning, abusive, and violent behavior of other students that often surfaces as a major reason. It is no longer “kids being kids” but a widespread, almost pathological, antisocial, and pervasive epidemic eroding our public schools. Families that value education have little recourse but to leave. Teachers and schools are hampered by ideologically driven groups with a lawyer and a constant focus on testing over learning. If public schools want to survive, they need to put aside the rhetoric and recognize some students need isolated, focused attention to correct aberrant behavior before it ruins the educational opportunities of others. Preserve the opportunities of those that want to learn, while helping those that struggle. Opposing “no excuses” does not mean allowing “all excuses”.
For us, we tried. But after our own kids endured assaults, constant sexual and racial slurs, rampant homophobia, fear of fights and personal safety – we are gone and moving our student to a public school within a school. At least we have that option.
This is the reason I hear most from parents at the independent charter at which I assist.
But because an advisor evaluating the campus thought she witnessed a physical assault (which the advisor did not report to anyone on campus–or to anyone else as far as can be told–even though she is a mandated reporter) it has been decided this one isolated incident (that one only has the advisor’s word for) and the, to the advisor, low test scores, the school should be closed. Of course, the advisor has not made this recommendation for the big-name charters that are known to have drug, sex, score and assault issues.
The school’s scores are higher than any of the feeding public schools, which, in addition, are all considered very dangerous. In addition, this independent charter is one of the few charters that takes special-day class students as well as resource students. It also has placed two students in the past year in non-public schools for behavior issues, students inherited from big-name charters who simple kicked the kids out hoping they would go to their home school.
This school is actually practicing what was Shanker’s idea. Methods have been developed and implemented to increase background knowledge, content reading skills, and vocabulary. And even scores have increased.
This is of course just an anecdotal example. However, it seems to be what will happen to any but the politically connected, wealth- supported charters.
The top two from the survey line up with top two requests from teachers – lower class sizes and increased pay. Let’s start with those two then think about everything else.