So, what should business leaders and think tanks do when their state’s public schools are first in the nation? Disrupt them, of course. Demand more privately managed charters, more competition. Just make sure there is no praise for accomplishments. Complain, complain, complain, so the public thinks ill of the best schools in the nation.
Jean Haverhill writes about what is happening:
“http://www.endcommoncorema.com I need to offer more time to this group. The MA Business Alliance brings in Sir Michael Barber with a phony study on “PARCC” superiority to MCAS. Measured Progress in NH (formerly a research firm) conveys the Sir Michael Barber infiltrating through MA Business Alliance directly to the Board of Ed. Fordham Institute is actively pursuing this avenue. David Driscoll, of NAEP, is going to be testing our kids on “grit”. The MA Business Alliance is tying up the grass roots effort of parents (in the courts) who have diligently gathered signatures to put common core/testing onto the November ballot. People in Worcester County, Essex County, Hampshire County may not be aware of all of the intricacies/ circumstances of groups in Boston but in particular, I prefer to spend my time on calling out (a) Fordham Institute and Education Next (Michael Petrilli, Andy Smarick, Education Next) for their constant pushing on vouchers/charters and tests (b) NAEP measurement of “grit” (thanks, David Driscoll) © Measured Progress ( a “research” firm tied up with West Ed and Pearson) and the (d) MA Business Alliance trying to defeat the grass roots efforts of parents. These are some pretty powerful foes or public education as I know it. If we fight amongst ourselves, these major elements will proceed with their own agenda and their own special interests.”
Warning: wherever Michael Barber goes, testing, ranking, and privatization follows.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sir Michael Barber is the Chief Education Officer for Pearson. He was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, a major player in corporate education reform. https://goo.gl/Oc2k0N Last year he coauthored “Deliverology 101: A Field Guide for Education Leaders” http://goo.gl/8nhjpp
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We need to stay on top of this situation since MA has the Common Core standards on the ballot coming up–in November?–and wants to return to their own superior standards.
If MA prevails, and they know this, then like dominoes other states will follow.
MA is the test case to me.
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No, we don’t necessarily “want to return to our our own superior standards”. The MTA has introduced legislation calling for a three year moratorium on all high-stakes tests while the people decide what, and whether, to impose any kind of corporate accountability at all on our children by force of law. We don’t need to negotiate foer the lesser of numerous evils while our children and schools are held hostage to any corporate test.
We have an active legislative agenda, developed in response to numerous member action forums, and backed by a mobilized member driven union. Please support it.
http://www.massteacher.org/issues_and_action/legislation/take_action.aspx
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I’ve heard that the signatures for the Common Core Repeal ballot question are done and submitted. That means it is indeed heading for the November ballot. On another note- David Driscoll- isn’t he the former Ed Commissioner in MA?
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One and the same: David Driscoll.
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This is great information but pretty dense.
The MA end common core ballot initiative was approved by the AG and as recently as yesterday someone filed a challenge to take it off the ballot.
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http://m.telegram.com/article/20160122/NEWS/160129621/13406/NEWS
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Mitchell Chester is the MA Commissioner of Education AND, until recently, the Chair of the PARCC Governing Board. Read about Chester’s conflict of interest at these links:
* http://edushyster.com/parcc-place/
* https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/north/2014/04/12/peabody-questions-education-commissioner-ties-parcc/GPRa2TrDvo5CmFfVq2akIL/story.html
* http://pioneerinstitute.org/education/education-commissioner-mitchell-chester-should-recuse-himself-from-upcoming-decision-on-parcc-mcas/
* MCAS is 2.0 mostly PARCC: http://learninglab.wbur.org/2015/11/17/education-board-approves-mcas-2-0-for-state-test/
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Michael Braber needs tombe punched in the face.
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Edit: to be
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Massachusetts governor Jim Peyser, a charter school executive in the pocket of the school privatization industry, incredibly wants LESS funding for public schools.
What’s WRONG with this guy Jim Peyser?
Oh, yeah, Massachusetts’ Ed. Secretary — the man
supposedly in charge of all schools, public and charter—
is also a corporate reformer, and former
(& current ?!) charter school executive. The game
plan is to block any funding for public schools so
as to starve them in to failing, then use that “failure”
to justify charter conversion & privatization.
If it helps facilitate school privatization, DO IT.
If it helps improve PUBLIC schools, DON’T DO IT.
Got it!
He gives the rationale: the problem isn’t a lack of
money, or not enough money. It’s that we’re not
doing a good enough job of spending the money
we have now.
If I were a public school parent in Massachusetts,
I’d be going ballistic right now.
http://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/peyser-opposes-millionares-tax-amendment/
You know that if that millionaires’ tax funneled hudreds of millions, or billions into privately managed charter schools, he’d be singing a different tune. “Wait, so it’s going not charters, not public schools? Well that’s different.”
Dr. Ravitch covered this guy before here:
EduShyster was alerted by a confidential tip to the possibility that Jim Peyser, the State Secretary of Education, remains a director of an organization that lobbies for more charter schools.
She checked public records and learned that Peyser is still listed as a director of “Families for Excellent Schools.” This is an organization of hedge fund managers, millionaires, and billionaires who lobby for privately managed charter schools.
http://edushyster.com/all-in-the-family/
“The Secretary of Education, Jim Peyser sets education policy for the state and also votes on said policy. And as a director for the charter school advocacy group Families for Excellent Schools, and its 501 (c) (4) lobbying arm, Peyser is seeking to influence the very state policy that he is then voting upon. In other words, he is lobbying himself.
As the Secretary of Education, Jim Peyser sets education policy for the state and also votes on said policy. And as a director for the charter school advocacy group Families for Excellent Schools, and its 501 (c) (4) lobbying arm, Peyser is seeking to influence the very state policy that he is then voting upon. In other words, he is lobbying himself….
“But wait, there’s more.
“If it sounds like our Secretary of Education has his hands full, both lobbying and being lobbied, consider that Father Peyser wears yet another cap these days. He is also the defendant in a class-action lawsuit vs. the state’s charter cap, defending the very cap that he is working feverishly, whilst wearing one of his other caps, to lift. T
he obvious question: how does he do it all?
Followed by: what size hat does Peyser wear?
Followed by: doesn’t Massachusetts have some kind, ANY kind of, conflict of interest law?
Alas, I’m informed that its nearly as toothless as our public records law.”
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MA does have conflict of interest laws. If a student gives me a Starbucks gift card, I must claim it. But for the big boys like Peyser and Mitchell Chester, large and blatant conflicts are ignored.
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Jack –
Massachusetts’ governor is Charlie Baker, not Jim Peyser. Baker did, however, name Peyser to be his Secretary of Education.
And just Thursday, Peyser spoke against a ballot question which would increase taxes on anyone earning more than a million dollars – because more revenue would harm schools.
“A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT raising taxes on millionaires to generate $1.9 billion for education and transportation would hurt the economy and damage the state’s ability to support school services, Education Secretary James Peyser said Thursday.
‘Definitely not,’ Peyser said following an event at the Omni-Parker House Hotel, which featured state education officials and educators. ‘I think it will weaken our economy and that will damage our ability as a Commonwealth to support the schools and the other services that we desperately need.’ ”
http://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/peyser-opposes-millionares-tax-amendment/
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There is a whole education action plan by the MTA in Massachusetts, which includes calling for a 3 year suspension of the entire high-stakes circus. From the comments above on Chester, you know how important it is to stop the merry-go-round that’s holding our children hostage.
The Schools Our Children Deserve
Moratorium on High-Stakes Testing and PARCC
H340 – An Act relative to a moratorium on high-stakes testing and PARCC
Three-year moratorium on the use of PARCC.
Three-year moratorium on the use of standardized testing to determine:
High school graduation
Evaluation of teachers
Assessing performance of schools or districts
Establishes a task force of stakeholders to meet during the first 18 months to measure the use of standardized tests as a high school graduation requirement, in evaluating educators and in assessing schools and districts against the paramount goal laid out in the Education Reform Act of 1993. Six statewide hearings will be held, with a report issued at the end of this period.
Sponsor: Rep. Marjorie Decker (D-Cambridge)
Hearing occurred on 6/11/15.
http://www.massteacher.org/issues_and_action/legislation/take_action/legislation.aspx
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We need to get Barbara Madeloni re-elected this year. We don’t want to end up with another Paul Toner. He sold all of us teachers out.
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When John Fallon, CEO of Pearson, gets shown the door, and it might be soon, IMO he will have Sir Michael Barber to thank for it. Sir Michael Barber loves testing and Common Core. Forgot Common Core, Barber wants Global Core. One size fits all, with his Deliverology methods applied. Barber subscribes to the dictum that anything can be measured. The man is a snake oil salesman who plays at the highest levels.
I suspect the Pearson plan to move away from focusing on the US market, and to focus on “emerging markets” was a Barber agenda. And it has failed spectacularly. And it will cost 8000 to 10000 good people their jobs.
I wonder if anyone ever asked these McKinsey Consultants, if they are so smart, why don’ they ruin their own businesses? That’s a loaded question. We know the answer. If Pearson Leadership, that’s an oxymoron isn’t it. It they hire McKinsey for serveral million dollars, and the plan goes awry, they can always blame McKinsey. So McKinsey becomes a highly overpaid defacto patsy for “Pearson Management”. It’s a role McKinsey plays over and over. Who can blame them, big money in it.
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“I wonder how your reforms are going to help the middle class when so many middle-class teachers have been laid off ? And, tons of middle-class teachers are spending tons of money out of their pockets to supplement the budgets that were cut so that they can buy supplies… And I’d also like to say that New Jersey has some of the best schools in the country and this administration [Governor Christie] has done nothing but lambaste us, and tell us what horrible schools we have. We have some failing schools, but the majority of our schools are wonderful and fantastic….And, I feel like you have alienated so many people with your rhetoric and about how we are biking the state of all this money, when i am a taxpayer.” Marie Corfield confronts Governor Christie. My library has this “American Governor” by Matt Katz and it gives the names of the players (pp 145-164).
pp.143 “He [Governor Christie] told the public that if the unions didn’t agree, voters should oppose the school budget in the upcoming April elections. One of the more unusual things that New Jerseyans vote for are local school board budgets. They usually pass. Now , a governor was suggesting the citizens vote those budgets down. Unprecedented… Christie called his political adviser, Bill Palatucci “We have to mount a campaign…We have to defeat all the school budgets. ” [In the end the majority of the districts’ budgets, 58 percent, were voted down — 2011]
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Math Man… David Driscoll heads up the NAEP; he takes his cues from Martin West at Education Next/Fordham Institute and Martin has told him to measure “grit” this next time around on NAEP.
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a well written article by Amy B.
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http://www.lowellsun.com/opinion/ci_29499047/ensure-impartial-mcas-2-0-test-developer-process Jamie Gass works for the Pioneer Institute…. sometimes Pioneer gets the diagnosis correct but then they push for charters… Jim Stergios says that our cap on charters is “anti-catholic” but I don’t see that at all…
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http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/columnists/ci_29499007/ensure-impartial-mcas-2-0-test-developer-process Pioneer Institute has staff so they get their articles blasted out to the press… I try to comment in the Fitchburg Sentinel, the Lowell Sun but I have had less success getting any comments into the Worcester Telegram (one person who is a great asset in Worcester, Tracy O’Connell Novick, is often quoted in the Worcester newspapers and the Boston Globe so I try to follow her and read everything she writes; she is on top of budgets (like the Governor’s current budget) and she is doing work with the MA Association of School Committees.
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http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/20160209/guest-opinion-impartiality-needed-for-decision-on-mcas-20-vendor
they treat these articles like press releases… and their staff will “blast ” them out… they are frequently in the Boston Herald (under the name of Stergios, Gass or Sullivan) but wherever you see one try to get a comment in… the Fitchburg Sentinel only quoted me once when I remarked that the Niki Tsongas regional Town Hall had people with cartoons of Obama with a Hitler mustache… (Niki is a strong democrat rep in my area — her husband was Paul Tsongas). Fitchbug Sentinel likes the “sensational” or “funny” comments but they don’t take comments from anyone who disagrees with the commissioner’s forcing PARCC experimental tests .
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http://newbostonpost.com/2016/02/12/gates-foundation-tied-to-lawsuit-seeking-to-block-citizen-vote-on-common-core/ I’ve been busy doing phone bank and door to door canvassing for Bernie…. it was about 10 below to my skin yesterday but we managed to get in two hours in the sun… I’m signing off these days as JeanSandersHaverhill
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