This is the third segment of the debate between me and Whitney Tilson about education reform. Tilson is a key figure in the reform movement–which I usually call the corporate reform movement because it tries to adapt bottom-line, carrot-and-stick, measure-and-punish/reward approaches into education. Tilson was a founder of Democrats for Education Reform, which underwrites political candidates who support charters and high-stakes testing. DFER is a partner of the advocacy group Education Reform Now, which has the same goals. My position is that this movement is not about reform but about privatization by charters and vouchers. Whitney Tilson reached out and proposed an exchange, and I readily agreed. The way it works is like this: He sends me a statement of his views and questions, and I respond. We send our comments back and forth a few times. His comments begin with WT, mine begin with DR. If you want to see his post, where my comments are in blue, go here. Readers have asked why I am engaging in this exchange. First of all, I think it is always valuable to listen to people who disagree with your views. Second, this is a wonderful opportunity for me to correct some of Whitney’s ideas about testing and teaching that I think are misinformed. Third, it is a good opportunity to post my views on a blog where people normally would never see them.
Here is round 3.
Whitney Tilson writes:
WT: STOP THE PRESSES AGAIN!!! (continuing yesterday’s email)
My new BFF, Diane Ravitch, and I have continued our conversation and it’s gotten even more interesting, as we’ve moved past the high-level principles we mostly agreed on in our first exchange of emails (sent a couple of weeks ago and posted on her blog here and my blog here) and started engaging on the many issues on which we disagree.
Round 2 of our discussion, which I posted on my blog here and she posted here, covered many topics:
1) Whether reformers are now the status quo
2) Charter schools
3) Tests and how they should (and shouldn’t) be used
Today we continue with Round 3, which covers:
1) Who is the underdog in this battle
2) The tone of the debate and our shared desire to focus more on the issues and less on personal attacks
3) The details of the Vergara case – namely, a) the amount of time it takes teachers to earn tenure; b) how difficult it is for administrators to fire a tenured teacher; and c) whether layoffs should be done strictly by seniority
My original email is in italics, Diane’s comments are in blue (beginning with “DR:”), and my responses are in black (beginning with “WT:”).
Enjoy!
Whitney
DR: Whitney, let’s go back to the question with which this exchange began. You suggested that I was being insulting by referring to a “billionaire boys’ club.” Yes, there actually is a “billionaire boys’ club.” What else would you call the collaboration among the Walton Family Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with another dozen or two dozen billionaires, such as the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Emerson Collective (Laurene Powell Jobs), the Dell Foundation, the Helmsley Foundation, the Bloomberg Foundation, the Fisher Foundation, etc. In addition to these billionaires, the U.S. Department of Education can usually be counted on to throw in hundreds of millions to fund whatever the billionaires fund.
WT: I think you’re being sexist in using the word “boys” because, for example, Melinda Gates plays as large (if not larger) role than her husband at the Gates Foundation, and Alice Walton, Carrie Walton Penner, and other younger, less known Walton women are deeply engaged in this area. If you want to call it the “billionaires club”, fine.
DR: It really is irrelevant whether I call it the “Billionaire Boys’ Club” or the “Billionaires’ Club.” It is a distinction without a difference. The point is that these very rich people have decided that they should control public education, even though none of them was ever a teacher, and few ever attended a public school or sent their own children to public schools. The reality is that this small group of people has a lock on almost all funding for education.
I am president of a national organization of educators and parents called the Network for Public Education. We support public education, and we oppose high-stakes testing and privatization. The doors of all these foundations are closed to us. So is the U.S. Department of Education. When I try to think of foundations that support our goals–which are widely shared by millions of parents and educators–I can’t use up the five fingers on one hand.
WT: I find it so interesting how both sides see themselves as the outmanned, outgunned, outspent underdog. I agree with you that a number of major foundations have provided major funding over many years to support the “reform” agenda. But: a) I think the vast majority of mainstream/family/community foundations tend to support the existing system without really trying to change it: funding after-school programs, scholarships, trips and other special programs, paying for teaching aides in classrooms, etc.); and b) The resources the two teachers unions’ bring to bear dwarfs the efforts of the handful of foundations you cite.
They are among the most powerful interest groups in the country. The NEA is the largest labor union in the country with just under 3 million members and the AFT has 1.6 million more, meaning that 2.0% of U.S. adults (above age 20) are members. Their combined revenues at all levels probably exceed $1.3 billion a year, not including their PAC funds, foundations, and a host of special funds under their control. But their political power isn’t just in their money, it’s their grassroots organization to get out the vote, etc. They can provide a candidate a turnkey campaign operation with filings, yard signs, mailings, telephone calls, volunteers, fundraising and crucial foot soldiers. I haven’t seen the latest statistics, but at one point teacher union representatives accounted for approximately 10% of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention, more than any state except California. They are very influential in electing school board members, which means that in many cases they are, in effect, negotiating with themselves. As one Southern governor said: “There’s only one thing you have to know about politics in my state. Every teacher has every summer before every election off.”
I don’t think I’m going to persuade you, but I hope you better understand why I feel like our side is the underdog here.
DR: The combined wealth of the Walton family, the Gates family, the Broad family, Michael Bloomberg, and the many other billionaires who fund the testing and charter movement—certainly more than $300 billion– dwarfs the assets and income of the two teachers’ unions. The puzzle to me is why these billionaires think they should run the nation’s public education system. They have no special knowledge of education. Knowing how to make money or inheriting money from your parents does not mean that you know more than professional educators. Aside from the question of their competence to take control of what they do not understand, there is the question of democracy. Public education belongs to the public, not to the highest bidder. Michael Bloomberg, who was a very good mayor in many respects, had total control of the New York City public schools for a dozen years, and no one today would say that they are a model for the nation. They struggle with the same problems as other cities that have large numbers of poor and minority students. How many years does it take for your idea of “reform” to take hold and benefit all children, not just a few?
WT: Specifically, I want to apologize to you for some of the things I’ve written about you in the past, in which I’ve made personal attacks and impugned your motives.
DR: I appreciate that. I didn’t realize until you told me that you had created a website called http://www.rebuttingravitch.com, and I don’t know the ad hominem things you have written about me. I would apologize for anything negative I wrote about you, but I don’t think I ever have. Sometimes, in the depths of frustration over the money and power arrayed against public schools and their teachers, I may have adopted a snarky tone, but I try to avoid ad hominem rhetoric. I can think of only one occasion (there might be more, but I can’t recall) in which I called out someone personally, and that was Ben Austin, who had arranged to get a Latina principal fired in Los Angeles, someone he never met, someone whose entire staff (excepting one person) resigned in sympathy with her. That made my blood boil, because he had an organization (Parent Revolution) funded with millions from Walton, Broad, Gates, and Wasserman, and the principal was on her own, with no funds to defend herself. I get very vexed by billionaires and their surrogates attacking hard-working educators who are doing their best under difficult circumstances. I know that those billionaires and their well-paid public relations spokespersons wouldn’t last five minutes in a classroom, but….I am human and sometimes my anger gets in the way of my efforts to remain civil.
WT: Thank you for accepting my apology. (By the way, I’ve made major changes to my web site at http://www.rebuttingravitch.org that reflect my attempt to engage solely on the issues.)
I cannot accept, however, your denials and rationalizations for the rhetoric you regularly use. Perhaps after all these years it’s become so deeply ingrained as to be instinctive and you’re not even aware of what you’re doing.
For example, in the paragraph above, in which you write about “billionaires attacking hard-working educators,” I don’t doubt the sincerity of your beliefs and I admire your passion, but it is inflammatory and insulting language.
DR: Hmm. I consider it a statement of fact. If billionaires feel insulted, they should think how teachers feel when they are fired based on flawed data, because Bill Gates thinks it is a good idea or Eli Broad believes in closing their schools. I have met some of those teachers. Losing your job and your reputation hurts worse than insults, and I still don’t consider my comments insulting.
WT: Can you not see the difference between the following statements:
1) “Members of the billionaire boys’ club, who wouldn’t last five minutes in a classroom, are attacking hard-working educators, using their well-paid public relations spokespersons, as part of their efforts to privatize public education for their own profit.”
DR: I don’t believe the billionaires are working for their own profit. They are already super rich. But they clearly don’t respect teachers, who work much harder than they do; they do have well-paid public relations spokespersons; and they do want to privatize public education with charters and vouchers. (And, by the way, there are for-profit corporations opening bad charter schools, whose goal is indeed profit. Eighty percent of the charter schools in the state of Michigan operate for profit without any accountability.) I certainly don’t think that Bill Gates and the Walton family want to make a profit. But they don’t discourage those who do use charters to make profits. I didn’t realize that billionaires had such thin skins. Or that they felt themselves to be outmanned, outgunned, and outspent (!) by those who support public education under democratic control. They are surely outnumbered, but I don’t believe they are outmanned or outgunned. They certainly are not outspent. They paid millions to underwrite blogs like Education Post and The 74. No one pays me to blog (nor does anyone pay the scores of teacher-bloggers who dominate social media). I have no public relations staff. All I have is a computer and the knowledge I have accumulated while studying and writing about the history and politics of American education over the past half century of my life.
WT: And:
2) “I disagree with the agenda being pursued by the so-called “reform movement” and its wealthy backers. I think that their ideas in most areas – for example, favoring more charter schools, vouchers and testing – end up doing more harm than good because they demoralize teachers, weaken unions, and rattle the foundations of education without improving it.”
The former is name-calling, demonizing, bullying and impugning motives, which is unlikely to lead to anything productive, while the latter is a well-articulated point of view that might lead to fruitful discussions and compromises.
I have met Bill and Melinda Gates, John Walton, Eli and Edythe Broad, Laurene Powell Jobs, John and Laura Arnold, Michael Bloomberg, Dan Loeb, Paul Tudor Jones and many of the other billionaires you cite, and I can assure you that they are just as passionate about helping kids get a better education as you are. In addition, every one of them understands, as do you and I, that having high-quality, motivated teachers in every classroom is by far the most important way to achieve our shared goal. While some right-wing dingbats and Fox “News” have indeed been guilty of unfortunate anti-teacher rhetoric (similar in many ways to your anti-billionaire rhetoric), they do not represent reformers, any more than the worst union bosses and their sometimes thuggish tactics represent teachers. Every reformer I know celebrates, not demonizes, teachers.
So while you (and the unions and some teachers) may view the policies we reformers support as “attacking hard-working educators,” they are certainly not intended as such – and, in reality, I don’t think they are. For example, in the Vergara case (discussed at length below), I don’t think it’s an “attack on hard-working educators” to file a lawsuit challenging statutes governing: a) the short period of time before a tenure decision must be made, b) the long and expensive process to remove even the most ineffective teacher, and c) the strictly-by-seniority layoff policy.
Feel free to disagree with us regarding our policy ideas – and how you think they’re doing harm, not helping. Feel free to say that we lack experience that you feel is relevant (you point out that many of us haven’t been teachers or worked in the system, which is true, but I’d argue that, on the topic of fixing a big, broken bureaucracy, a business background is highly relevant).
But you diminish yourself and the debate when you stoop (as you frequently do) to hurling schoolyard insults like “billionaire boys’ club” and impugning reformers’ motives saying that their goal is to destroy public education, driven by their own greed (exactly how the Gates, Broad, Walton, Arnold, etc. families are profiting from giving away hundreds of millions of dollars a year has never been clear to me).
And it’s not just billionaires you attack. Of John King, you once said: “He is acting like a petty dictator, threatening to hurt the children to retaliate against the adults who did not do his bidding.”
And as for my friend Ben Austin, your attack on him was beyond the pale (“loathsome” “useful idiot” “you ruined the life of a good person for filthy lucre”), yet you continue to defend the indefensible and have left what you wrote about him on your blog. Unlike you, I know Ben and I can assure you that he has an enormous heart who cares passionately about giving every kid a fair shot in life via a good education. You would see this for yourself if you’d accept his offer to meet (or even have a discussion) about your differences (his email address is baustin@studentsmatter.org and I know he’d be pleased to hear from you). (As for what happened at Weigand Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles three years ago, I believe your narrative is contrary to the facts, as Ben detailed in his open letter to you dated 8/7/13.)
I asked Ben for his thoughts about our recent discussion and he replied:
“When Ravitch sentenced me to hell it was really one of the lowest moments on this whole journey for me.
I have never really understood her – she’s obviously a good person who cares about kids, is very smart, and has the very unique perspective of having fought passionately on both sides of this debate. But she is probably the most anti-intellectual voice in the whole national echo chamber. Her default is personal attacks and conspiracy theories.
As you note, I reached out to her multiple times to talk after she wrote all those terrible things about me (much of it incomplete or factually, provably incorrect), but she apparently wasn’t interested in meeting or even taking.
My observation and personal experience is that she often reaches hasty conclusions, based on incomplete or biased information, then, convinced in her righteousness, closes her eyes, ears and mind and attacks any opponent as a tool of the Koch Brothers and a “vile” human being. That’s often her shtick. You’d think it’d get old after a while.
It seems like we should all be able to adhere to the simple rule that no adult in the debate about the future of American public education should be allowed to use language they wouldn’t be allowed to use in my kids’ elementary school yard. Ravitch wouldn’t survive five minutes in the school yard without being called into the principal’s office for foul language and bullying.”
In summary, how would you feel if someone said “Diane Ravitch is a thinly disguised shill for the teachers unions because she’s friends with Randi, has accepted speaking fees from them, and has a personal vendetta against Joel Klein”?
I used to believe – and write – that, and I was wrong, which is why I apologized.
I hope that you might one day see that your rhetoric is sometimes similarly over-the-top and destructive and stop it.
DR: Whitney, I have met Michael Bloomberg, but I don’t know any of the other billionaires or their functionaries that you mention. I assume that they have good intentions, but they need to understand that the consequences of their actions and investments have created turmoil in American education and have not improved education at all. They are hurting children by their demands for testing, which consumes an inordinate amount of the school year. They are literally driving teachers out of their profession with their unsound ideas. They are damaging our nation’s public education system. If no one wants to teach, how does that improve the schools?
What do I want? I want all children to have the same kind of education that the billionaires want for their children and that I wanted for my children when they were young. I want to see all kids going to beautiful schools that have excellent facilities, experienced teachers, small classes, superb playing fields and gymnasia, the latest technology, and many opportunities to learn and grow. I want the equivalent of Sidwell Friends or Lakeside Academy or Dalton or Nightingale or the University of Chicago Lab School for all children. (By the way, the Lab School has a teachers’ union.)
I want the billionaires to become outraged about child poverty. I want to hear them say that it is a crying shame that half the kids in this country live in low-income families and nearly a quarter live in poverty. I want them to fight for major investments in infrastructure that create good jobs for the parents of these children. I want the Waltons to pay their one million employees $15 an hour so their children have a better life. I want the billionaires to use their enormous resources to fight against poverty and racial segregation, instead of complaining that teachers are uniquely responsible for overcoming poverty and inequality.
I guess I am thick-headed, but I don’t see my rhetoric as insulting or over-the-top or destructive. I have always strived to have a civil tone; four-letter words are not permitted on my blog. I sincerely believe that a small group of very wealthy people have spent money to weaken public education, by promoting high-stakes testing, constantly complaining about teachers, and investing in privately managed schools that enroll the students they choose. It is my considered judgment that these investments have made schooling worse for students and teachers. I am not a hot-head. I have a Ph.D. in the history of American education. There has never been a time in our history when the very existence of public education was at risk. It is at risk now. The billionaires’ antagonism towards public education and the people who teach in public schools has been destructive and demoralizing. I am in contact with a great many teachers and parents. I reflect what they complain about. Nothing I have written has caused any billionaire to change his (or her) course of action or to look at the consequences of their actions. My pen must be mightier than I know. I don’t think I have destroyed any billionaires, but the billionaires have been responsible for closing beloved schools, driving teachers out of their profession, and dividing communities. The billionaires have spent large sums buying elections in districts and states where they do not live, to make sure that people who agree with them win crucial seats. That undermines democracy. Why should they buy control of school boards when their children don’t attend public schools? Why should they buy state boards in states where they don’t live?
As for Ben Austin, I responded to his open letter here (I added this to our exchange after Whitney posted it; I forgot that I had written a reply to his open letter). I apologized for calling him “loathsome” but said that what he did to principal Irma Cobain was loathsome. I have never been invited to meet with him. I see by his email address that he now works for Silicon Valley billionaire David Welch, carrying the flame for the fight against tenure and seniority. If Ben wants to see me, he can come to Brooklyn anytime.
WT: The Vergara Case
This case was back in the news recently (when an appeals court overturned the trial’s judge’s initial ruling in favor of the plaintiffs), so let’s talk about it.
You wrote (long ago) that this case is about “a rich and powerful coalition of corporate reformers are trying to eliminate due process rights for teachers… My view: the trial continues the blame game favored by the Obama administration and the billionaire boys’ club, in which they blame “bad” teachers as the main culprit in low academic performance.”
Let’s put the rhetoric aside and see if we can agree on the facts: that the lawsuit challenges three specific things that the plaintiffs claim have disparate impact on poor and minority students (like the named plaintiff, Beatriz Vergara):
1) The amount of time it takes teachers to earn tenure (currently two years or 16 months in the classroom);
2) How difficult it is for administrators to fire a tenured teacher; and
3) How layoffs are done (current law mandates strictly by seniority).
(I posted a 54-slide presentation the plaintiffs prepared here and also attached it to this email.)
Can we agree that the lawsuit challenges these three things? (It’s have to have a debate on something without first starting by agreeing on the facts.)
Let’s go through each of these three:
1) How long do you think it should take for a teach to earn tenure? Note that the lawsuit doesn’t bash teachers (in fact it celebrates them – see pages 7-15 of the plaintiffs’ presentation), nor challenge tenure itself – it simply says 16 months in the classroom isn’t enough time to know if a teacher deserves to be tenured. Note also page 22, which shows that California is an outlier, one of only five states in which teachers can earn tenure so quickly. The majority of states, 32, require three years. That may not seem like much, but that’s 50% more time to make a very critical judgment. Do you really oppose extending the probationary period to three years???
DR: I don’t know what the right amount of time is to decide whether a teacher has earned due process rights. If there are good principals in place, they will not award tenure to anyone who is incompetent. In some cases, it might be as little as two years, in others, three or four. I don’t think that an administrator should be required to make that decision immediately. If they need more time, they should be able to take it. I have no objection to extending the probationary period to three years. This is a decision that should be made in the process of collective bargaining. Both sides must agree to set a timetable for a decision.
WT: My overall view on your comments related to the Vergara case is that I’m pleased at how much we agree on. We agree (as does the appellate court and pretty much every newspaper in the state) that change is needed, that our policies need to better support and retain great teachers and exit ineffective ones, and that the legislature needs to take the lead to fix this.
Regarding the first of the three challenged statues, that a tenure decision must be made within two years, I’m glad we agree that this is misguided. Where we disagree is whether a lawsuit is the right way to fix this this.
You argue that this “is a decision that should be made in the process of collective bargaining.” That sounds reasonable enough – except one must remember the context: this is the state of California, a very liberal state in which: a) Democrats control nearly all branches of government (something I’m generally very happy about, by the way); and b) the California Teachers Association controls the Democratic party in the state to such a degree that I question how much “bargaining” is really going on in the “process of collective bargaining” you talk about.
Additionally, the constitution of the state says that education is “essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people” and courts have held that CA schoolchildren have a constitutional right to “substantially equal opportunities for learning” and that “the State itself has broad responsibility to ensure basic educational equality.” (slides 4-5)
The CA state constitution supersedes any labor contract (no matter how fairly collectively bargained it might be), so a lawsuit is an appropriate tool if provisions of any labor contract violate the constitution and the legislature fails to remedy this.
2) Your main concern about the Vergara lawsuit appears to be that it challenges the process that must be followed to dismiss a tenured teacher, which you say is an attempt “to eliminate due process rights for teachers.” But this statement is factually incorrect. There is nothing in the lawsuit that calls for teachers to be stripped of their due process rights – in fact, it specifically say the opposite, that “teachers will always have due process rights” (slide 37).
Rather, the lawsuit says that the current 17-step process (see slide 28) is so “lengthy, costly and burdensome” – costing LAUSD, for example, $238,000 and 4+ years to remove a single teacher (slide 30) – that it is effectively impossible to remove any teacher for poor performance.
Teachers agree that this is a huge problem: in one survey , 65% agreed with this statement: “Based on my experiences and observations, ineffective teachers with permanent status/tenure in my school are unlikely to be dismissed for unsatisfactory performance.” And 62% agreed that “Students’ interests would be better served if it were easier to dismiss ineffective teachers.” (See slides 33-34)
So the real question here isn’t due process vs. no due process – of course teachers should have due process to protect them. Rather, it’s whether the pendulum has swung too far. As slide 37 shows, all CA state employees have substantial due process protections in eight areas – which teachers also have – plus a dozen more! I think it’s clear that the pendulum has swung too far.
I assume you disagree. I’d be interested to hear why, and whether you’d make any changes to the current dismissal process in place in CA today.
DR: These are complicated issues. As the Appeals Court ruled, they are not matters of equal protection of the law; they are issues to be resolved through collective bargaining and through the legislative process. I oppose a process so burdensome that ineffective or abusive teachers are left in place and/or that it takes years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove them. If the process is so costly and so time-consuming that “bad” teachers remain in the schools, then that process should be reviewed, changed, and streamlined, without compromising the teacher’s right to a fair hearing, requiring evidence and an independent arbitrator. Bad teachers should be promptly fired. If they don’t have tenure, they can be fired without any reason. If they have tenure, they should get a hearing, to be sure that they are bad teachers, not just someone the principal doesn’t like. If the evidence is genuine, they should be removed.
WT: Other than the second sentence (“they are issues to be resolved through collective bargaining and through the legislative process”), we are in 100% agreement!
These are indeed complicated issues and I agree that there are, unfortunately, many, many cases of teachers being wrongly terminated (or threatened with termination). So I have no quarrel with tenure, due process and a “teacher’s right to a fair hearing, with evidence and an independent arbitrator.” I completely agree with you agree that teachers should be protected from arbitrary, capricious and unfair behavior by administrators/districts, whether in the context of termination or anything else.
But the devil is in the details – and it is here that we likely disagree. The key issue – and it’s a tough one – is how to develop a system that adequately protects good teachers, yet also allows principals/districts to remove ineffective ones.
DR: In California, principals can remove ineffective teachers within the first two years of hiring. Maybe it should be three years. Whether it is two years or three years, a good principal should be able to make the termination decision promptly. No one should give due process rights to an incompetent person.
WT: As I wrote in our previous discussion, I think in some states (like CA), the pendulum has swung far out of whack to the point that there’s an insane system in which it’s a four-year, quarter-million-dollar process to remove even the very worst teacher. That has to change – and since the legislature hasn’t acted, some reformers (rightly in my opinion) turned to the Vergara lawsuit.
You believe that those who disagree with the three statutes should seek remedy through the collective bargaining and the legislative process, not via court challenges. Allow me to explain why I disagree.
Let’s imagine for a moment that, as part of a collective bargaining process, a statute was passed that allowed every parent to pick their child’s teacher at school, until each teacher’s class was full – and white parents got to pick first, then black and Latino parents.
Obviously the courts would immediately overturn this statue because it’s plainly discriminatory toward minority parents and their children, resulting in the children getting far fewer great teachers (and, of course, far more ineffective ones).
You see where I’m going with this, right? The Vergara lawsuit is claiming that the three statutes at issue harm students, especially poor and minority ones, and are therefore unconstitutional.
Critically, the relief the Vergara lawsuit seeks is not for a judge to impose a new system (for instance, mandating three years rather than two to earn tenure) – rather, for a ruling that forces the legislature and the CTA, via the collective bargaining process, to revise these three statutes such that they comply with the state constitution.
I understand that we no doubt disagree on whether the three statutes do, in fact, harm any students, but I hope you better appreciate the argument for why a lawsuit is a valid remedy and the intent behind it: to help all schoolchildren, especially the most disadvantaged ones, get a better education by changing statutes that, the plaintiffs claim (and I believe), make it nearly impossible to effectively manage the system in the best interests of children.
DR: The Appellate Court rejected your arguments here. Tenure and seniority do not violate constitutional rights. Students in high-performing districts have teachers who have tenure and seniority. I think you have to overcome your obsession with the idea that bad teachers are to blame for poor academic performance. Look at the research. Test scores all over the world show achievement gaps between the haves and the have-nots. The gaps are usually not as large as they are in the U.S., because income inequality and poverty are so much greater here. But since “your side” doesn’t like to talk about income inequality and poverty, it is easier to talk about getting rid of bad teachers. In the meanwhile, plenty of good teachers are exiting because of the poisonous atmosphere that Vergara and teacher-bashing have created.
The reason the Vergara case attracted national attention was not because the Silicon Valley billionaire who funded it wanted to change the probationary period to three years and to streamline the process of hearing claims against tenured teachers, but because he wanted to get rid of tenure and seniority. The claim made by the plaintiffs was that poor and minority children were denied equal protection of the law because of the laws protecting their teachers’ tenure and seniority. Of the nine plaintiffs, as I recall, two attended charter schools, where teachers have no tenure or seniority. One had a teacher who had been recognized as Pasadena’s “teacher of the year.” And at least one had a teacher who did not have tenure or seniority. No harm was ever established to these nine plaintiffs.
WT: Yet again, instead of engaging on the issues of the case, you choose to attack the person funding it. What is your evidence for your statement that Dave Welch “funded it [not because he] wanted to change the probationary period to three years and to streamline the process of hearing claims against tenured teachers, but because he wanted to get rid of tenure and seniority”?
Yet again, unlike you, I know David Welch and I believe that he is motivated solely by what he believes is best for kids. As a highly successful businessman and serial entrepreneur, he is quickly able to grasp how the challenged statutes put principals and superintendents in a straightjacket that makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to put the best teacher possible in every classroom and, in particular, to make sure that poor and minority kids get their fair share of the teacher talent.
DR: It is true that I never met David Welch. But I know that behind the lawsuit lay the belief that children with low test scores would have high test scores if only the schools could get rid of tenure and fire teachers sooner, rather than later. As I argued in one of our other exchanges, teachers leave at an alarming rate now, with or without tenure. Many districts across the nation have teacher shortages because veteran teachers are leaving, and the number of new teachers coming into the profession has plummeted. The teacher-bashing has gotten out of control and is creating terrible consequences. It is certainly not improving the teaching profession; it seems to be ruining it. Our greatest need is not to get rid of teachers, but to develop ways of supporting people who want to teach, helping them improve, and retaining them for a satisfying career.
WT: Again, I agree with everything you write in this paragraph except for one sentence, the first one. Yet again, where is your evidence for your assertion that: “Behind the lawsuit lay the belief that children with low test scores would have high test scores if only the schools could get rid of tenure and fire teachers sooner, rather than later.”? This is as silly as saying, “Diane Ravitch believes that all teachers are identically effective and not one should ever be fired.” While rooted in a tiny shred of truth, it’s obviously a farcical pile of nonsense.
Similarly, having reviewed the lawsuit and spoken to the people behind it, the true underlying beliefs of the lawsuit, I believe, are that:
a) There’s a big range of abilities among teachers;
b) Having a great teacher – and especially a string of great teachers – can make a massive difference in life outcomes for a student;
c) The most disadvantaged students most need the best teachers and best schools to have any chance in life and escape the powerful (as you rightly point out) demography-is-destiny trap;
d) Teacher talent, both within schools and among schools, is NOT evenly and fairly distributed: by far, wealthy students get more than their share of the best teachers, and poor and minority students get more than their share of the least effective ones; and, lastly:
e) While there are many, many factors that lead to this gross injustice, one important one are the laws/regulations/understandings built into collective bargaining agreements.
I hope we agree on the first four, and suspect we’ll have to agree to disagree on e). But stop making false characterizations about the lawsuit and impugning the motives of those behind it.
DR: I agree that there is a wide range of abilities among teachers, as there is in every other line of work.
I would love to see every child have a great teacher every year, but you should know that the claim that a string of great teachers closes the achievement gap has never happened. Some teachers are “great” one year, not great the next year, probably because of the composition of their class. In any event, I don’t know how you identify a great teacher in advance. Do you mean a teacher who raises test scores every year? Is that a great teacher? How about one who inspires a love of music or history or science? Expecting that every teacher in a school will be a “great” teacher, however he or she is defined, is like hoping that a baseball team will have a bullpen of pitchers who can pitch no-hitters every week, or nine starting players who hit over .300. It is theoretically possible but hasn’t ever happened.
I agree that the neediest students should have the best teachers, as well as the best resources and smallest class sizes. And I agree that they don’t. Many teachers flee to the suburbs, where salaries are higher, schools are beautifully equipped, students come to school well-fed and healthy, and their parents can hire tutors if they have a problem.
Our society is unwilling to close the income gaps and inequality gaps that cause the opportunity gaps and score gaps. Now, that would be a worthy project for the billionaires! Work on root causes and stop castigating teachers.
WT: 3) The last thing the Vergara lawsuit challenges is the current CA law that when layoffs occur, districts must layoff last-hired teachers regardless of effectiveness.
I understand your concern that, in the absence of this law, senior teachers would be laid off to save money because they’re more expensive. Fair enough – but surely you don’t think the best answer is a crude and obviously flawed policy of strict seniority-based layoffs?
I’ve seen compromise proposals that include developing a comprehensive and fair teacher evaluation system and then limiting seniority-based dismissals only to those teachers who have consistently been rated ineffective.
Perhaps you feel that such an evaluation system doesn’t exist right now in CA, so in its absence the best policy is the current one, but can we at least agree on the principle that, if layoffs are necessary, we should strive to keep the best teachers and lay off the least effective?
DR: If I knew how to identify which teachers are the most effective, I would agree with you. Some teachers are highly effective with students with disabilities; some are highly effective with English language learners; some with gifted students; some with a very diverse mix of students. I am not saying that every teacher is equally effective, but that we do not now have any method of fairly evaluating who is most effective and who is least effective. The best system of which I am aware is Montgomery County’s Peer Assistance and Review program. New teachers get mentors; tenured teachers whose effectiveness is in doubt get mentors. Excellent teachers serve as mentors. Their progress is judged by peers and supervisors. If they can’t improve and won’t improve, they are asked to leave. This is a far more effective system that judging teachers by their students’ test scores. That is the worst way to evaluate teachers, because it favors those who teach in affluent districts, and it disadvantages those who teach English language learners, students with disabilities, gifted students, and others who are not likely to see big score gains year after year. The American Statistical Association said in 2014 that test scores should not be used to judge individual teachers because the teachers do not control most of the factors that affect test scores (like home and family income, the curriculum, the school’s leadership, the school’s resources, the effect of teachers from prior years, the student’s own motivation, etc.). According to ASA, individual teachers influence from 1-14% of test score variation.
I think that evaluation must be based on human judgment, not a pseudo-scientific system. Administrators should have a background as teachers, so they can fairly evaluate and help teachers. As for seniority, it is best to keep the best teachers, but those are not likely to be the young teachers in their first or second year; those are years when new teachers are developing their craft. I hate to see anyone laid off for any reason other than incompetence, laziness, hostile treatment of students, or moral turpitude, but if there must be layoffs due to budget cuts, then seniority may be the fairest way to make the decisions about who must be laid off. If you can think of a fairer way, let me know.
WT: I’m glad that we agree on the principle that, if layoffs are necessary, we should strive to keep the best teachers and lay off the least effective.
I also agree that the best teachers aren’t likely to be those in the first or second years – though some will be. And finally, I agree that, in most districts, there isn’t a foolproof (or even a very good system) for evaluating teachers. I understand and appreciate the concern about teachers being victimized by an imperfect system, and agree that our school systems need to make a lot more progress in this area.
The question is: what do we do in the meantime? Do we hold our noses and continue with a system, layoffs strictly be seniority, that we both know is unfair and hurts kids because the alternative might be more unfair and hurt more kids?
Apparently, your answer is yes. My answer is no.
In the absence of a perfect evaluation system (of which there is no such thing), I think we should simply let principals decide (subject to discrimination laws of course). It’s their job to know who’s making the greatest contribution to the school and student learning. They make the hiring decisions – why shouldn’t they also make layoff decisions? That’s what they do at the private schools my daughters and your grandchildren attend. What’s so different about public schools?
DR: My school-age grandson has attended a public elementary school in Brooklyn for four years. This year, he is attending a progressive independent school in Los Angeles (No testing! Very limited homework! Creativity!). He is thriving. At his Brooklyn public school, the principal was free to hire and fire teachers in their probationary period. She has some new teachers and some veteran teachers. It is a good school, despite the testing.
WT: You will no doubt raise the concern that principals will lay off senior (more expensive) teachers, to which I have two responses: a) it would be foolish to fire a great teacher making $55,000 and keep an ineffective one making $50,000; and b) if one teacher costs $50,000 and another $75,000 and they’re both equally effective, then I certainly hope the principal lays off the more expensive one – and then uses the $25,000 savings to, say, hire a part-time reading specialist or whatever he/she judges is most needed by the students.
You will also no doubt raise the concern that principals will just lay off teachers who they don’t like, even if they’re outstanding, and keep their good-for-nothing cousins, friends, sycophants, etc., to the detriment of students. No doubt there will be some of this, but principals displaying such unfairness and poor leadership will likely lose the confidence of their teachers, see their school’s performance decline, and (hopefully) soon be out of a job.
DR: Whitney, my reflection on this dialogue is that you want to do things to help kids, but you are focused on the wrong problems. You think that unions and contracts mean bad schools, but many (not all) of the world’s best school systems have teachers’ unions. In Finland, 100% of teachers and principals belong to the same union, and their schools are wonderful, no matter where they are located. You think that tenure and seniority are hurting poor and minority kids, but there is no evidence that this is the case. The best public schools in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have teachers who belong to unions and have tenure and seniority. There is already too much teacher churn in low-income schools. Kids in poor schools need skilled, experienced teachers, but instead they get Teach for America, idealistic young kids who are not well prepared to help the students.
Pasi Sahlberg, the great Finnish educator, once wrote an article in which he proposed switching the teachers in a high-performing Finnish school with the teachers in a low-income, low-performing American school. He concluded that it would not have much impact, if any. The American teachers would discover that they were free to teach; the Finnish teachers would be overwhelmed by the poverty of the children in the American school and would not know how to help them.
So much of the reform agenda focuses on the teacher as the great problem of American education. This is wrong. By treating teachers as the problem, teachers feel demoralized and beaten down. They have no autonomy. They have a steady stream of outside consultants who arrive to lecture them. Mandates flow from the legislature, whose members couldn’t pass the eighth grade math tests. The teaching profession is in deep trouble. Good teachers are quitting. The pipeline of new teachers is drying up. Every teacher preparation program reports a sharp drop in enrollments.
I encourage you, in the spirit of this dialogue, to think hard about these issues. Stop blaming teachers. Stop believing that a supply of great teachers is waiting to get into the classrooms. The doors are open, and they are not there.
Please, think about the conditions in which children and families live. Think about the root causes of academic failure. Think about ways that schools might become wonderful places for children and teachers alike.
Imagine schools for all children that are like the schools you chose for your own children.
Think about what you can do—along with your colleagues in the philanthropic and financial communities—to change what matters most: The shameful fact that nearly a quarter of our children live in poverty.
I look forward to our next exchange.
Diane
WT: I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Best regards,
Whitney
“The resources the two teachers unions’ bring to bear dwarfs the efforts of the handful of foundations you cite.”
Oh good lord, lies right off the bat. Zuckerberg alone gave $100 million just to Newark. You tell me a time when a teachers union ponied up that kind of cash just for one city.
“For example, in the paragraph above, in which you write about “billionaires attacking hard-working educators,” I don’t doubt the sincerity of your beliefs and I admire your passion, but it is inflammatory and insulting language.”
Just one paragraph above that she gave you a very specific example of billionaires doing just that, yet you can’t even condescend to answer that.
“In addition, every one of them understands, as do you and I, that having high-quality, motivated teachers in every classroom is by far the most important way to achieve our shared goal.”
I don’t think Diane “understands” that at all. What I think Diane understands, which you fail to have a clue about, is that getting child poverty under control is by far the most important way to achieve our (allegedly) shared goal. Children who are hungry, can’t see because they don’t have glasses, can’t think straight because of an untreated tooth infection, are worried about getting home safely through gang territory, etc. aren’t going to learn too much no matter how “high-quality” or “motivated” their teachers are. Incidentally, I assume you can define “high-quality”? Or do you just mean “whose students get high test scores”?
“And as for my friend Ben Austin, your attack on him was beyond the pale (“loathsome” “useful idiot” “you ruined the life of a good person for filthy lucre”)….”
He *did* ruin the life of a good person for filthy lucre, which makes him loathsome. That he did it in service of you and your fellow billionaire boys’ club makes him a useful idiot. I’m sorry he’s your friend. Further evidence of your character.
Dienne,
I did not take the time to respond to every single point. The one about Ben Austin is laughable. In what respect did I ‘ruin his life.’? He continued to collect millions from his funders and now works for David Welch, who funded Vergara. I never apologized for being outraged at what Ben Austin did to a good person who devoted her life to children.
Dienne: your point is well taken.
Since when does personal friendship take precedence over doing the right thing?
Maybe he needs to get new friends.
Just sayin’…
😎
Diane, I think you do need to respond to every single point that people like Whitney Tilson make. They can’t stand it. I am very curious to see what Mr. Tilson says when you challenge him on the actions that Mr. Austin took. Would he say “yes, they were reprehensible actions, but you still shouldn’t have called him names for doing so because he took those reprehensible actions for the right reasons.” And what were those reasons, Mr. Tilson? “His paycheck depended on it and you can’t expect a friend of mine to care about how much you hurt another human being when money is at stake.” And then most certainly Mr. Tilson would say “How dare you insult my friend for his actions that he did in order to please the people who underwrite his nice lifestyle! I take that very personally since that’s how I rationalize my own actions.”
I take your point, but if I responded to every point, the exchange would be so long that no one would read it. I gloss over most of it and get it the points I feel are important.
I know you are correct. But it is so aggravating to see these people spouting non sequiturs and never being challenged. They always resort to whining that you are being “mean” instead of answering the question and I find it amusing to call them out on it and watch them sputtering and sputtering. Or desperately trying to change the subject. Or calling you names.
These reformers aren’t used to having anyone challenge their nonsense with follow-up questions after years of a compliant press corp who simply acted as stenographers and not journalists. I think I have never witnessed anything as incriminating as Eva Moskowitz’ sputtering when John Merrow actually followed up one of her nonsensical pronouncements with some real facts — on camera, no less! Whitney Tilson’s rhetoric is very similar — it is nonsense and doesn’t stand up to any follow-up questioning and he wouldn’t know what hit him if someone pressed him on the facts.
“What? I am defending my wonderful friend because no one is allowed to criticize him for intentionally ruining the life of a dedicated principal? And you think that is because I believe that ruining the life of dedicated educators should be encouraged? That’s….that’s crazy talk……that principal was violent — violent I tell you and she needed to be punished by my friend.”
Or more likely he’d just call you a meanie for letting the public see that when it comes to his “friends”, he believes they should be able to destroy the lives of any person who disagrees with them, no matter how upright they are, and that’s that. (Even if that person is 6 years old, or a dedicated educator).
“But she is probably the most anti-intellectual voice in the whole national echo chamber.”
LOL. And you complain about insults? Sheesh.
Agree. It is clear that he has not read Diane’s books.
“WT: The Vergara Case”
Translated, with due credit to Mr. Swacker yesterday: I once again got caught with my intellectual pants down and lacking intellectual underwear, so I’m going to change the topic. Again.
“Like”
It did cross my mind at that point in reading the exchange but I’m pretty much fed up with the likes of folks like Tilson trying to come across as Mr. Nice Guy.
Standardized testing laws ruin education
http://www.dailycamera.com/guest-opinions/ci_29884864/noelle-green-penny-hodges-and-laura-creager-standardized
WT’s web site, http://www.arightdenied.org/must-read/, is worth a quick look. One question, Does WT ever list his and his family’s profit making investments in the ed marketplace? Other than his shorting of K-12 Inc.?
So, he shorted K-12, Inc.? Good point to ask him about.
If Tilson and his posse are intelligent, what’s the explanation for the financial market failing to contribute to U.S. productivity and, dragging down GDP?
If the bloated financial sector is intentionally unproductive, let “investors” learn grit, from enforced poverty. Prof. Duckworth, of the University of Pennsylvania, (consortium member of the Gates/Pearson/Goldman Sachs-funded CPRE) could swing by Wall Street on her book tour.
Diane does a wonderful job of responding to Tilson (and Tilson does a wonderful job of dodging and weaving), so I won’t respond to specific points any further. But I will ask Mr. Tilson, so when are you going to become a teacher and show us all how it’s done? There is a national shortage of teachers right now (can’t imagine why…) and you can’t be any worse than a TfA temp. The meager salary shouldn’t concern you too much. So what grade/subject would you like?
Tilson like many reformers has a distorted view of unions, their power and influence. Based on comments from teachers working today, teachers are disillusioned with their unions and those that represent them
Tilson gets hung up on semantics rather than big issues. Let’s rename the Billionaire Boys’ Club, The Billionaire Club to remain gender neutral. I disagree that all billionaires’ motives are equal. Both Gates and Zukerberg establish LLCs, companies that sell products to upend public education. Gates’ alone has been pulling the strings of the DOE since Obama took office. His unproven, experimental technology is accepted as gospel. Public school students should not be guinea pigs for technology as they have a right to a fair, meaningful education that is evidence based.
I do not think Mr. Tilson understands the impact of all the waste, fraud and disruption from bad charters, and I do not think he understands that most Americans want strong neighborhood public schools. Public schools are a cornerstone of democracy in action, and this is what people overwhelmingly want.
Mr. Tilson is prejudiced against veteran teachers. As someone that taught for a long time, I find this insulting. I know for a fact I never lost my enthusiasm, increased efficiency, and I gained a lot of skill from my years of experience. In my first couple of years, I was mimicking what I thought a good teacher should do, and later I became one. Do Mr. Tilson’s billionaire friends look for a novice lawyer or doctor when they have a problem, or do they seek someone with experience, wisdom and judgment? Don’t answer! I already know the answer to that one!
Tilson keeps harping on the (self-professed) “good intentions” of the billionaires funding so-called reform.
Perhaps, but when you consider that 1) their proposals strikingly overlap with their financial interests as individuals and as a class, and 2) everything they’ve done has failed, and failed badly, then whatever they think or say transacts at an extremely high discount.
Personally, I hold on to my wallet when someone starts telling me about their altruism and all the wonderful things they’re going to do for me, especially when they are attacking me out of the other side of their mouths.
Like all so-called reformers, Tilson is an arrogant know-nothing who confuses his luck and privilege with merit. If he and his ilk want a civil discussion, let them for once try civil, honest and above-board behavior.
From a prior Tilson thread-
Diane is not thin skinned b/c she has reason to know that her legacy to America is respected.
Tilson is thin skinned b/c he knows his legacy will leave Americans and the country worse off. If I was playing angles, to take local public money from school kids, I’d be protective of my skin, too.
Wall Street makes 10-18% off of charter school debt. That’s taxpayer money intended for kids.
I love how Whitney Tilson says he has met all the billionaires! They are his pals and he knows they only want the best for kids — even if “the best” happens to be very different than the kind of education they would ever allow for their own kids.
Whitney Tilson knows exactly who he wants to please. And it isn’t the parents who send their kids to public schools. It’s the people who make sure his own pockets are well-lined.
I am actually embarrassed for him. But I have no doubt that he does not have a clue as to what kind of snob he comes off as being.
Reading this particular exchange, I suddenly realized that Mr. Tilson’s entire exposition should be regarded as a reworking of, and/or tribute to, that classic of the 1960s, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” (first recorded by Nina Simone and shortly thereafter made even more famous by The Animals).
First verse of the version by The Animals:
[start]
Baby, do you understand me now
Sometimes I feel a little mad
But don’t you know that no one alive
Can always be an angel
When things go wrong I seem to be bad
But I’m just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood
[end]
I have no trouble allowing that Mr. Tilson may have fine sentiments, good intentions, and sincere motives.
That is not what is under discussion here. Among other things: words and deeds; mandates and results; and best & worst pedagogical and management practices.
Mr. Tilson seems unable to detach himself from his personal predilections and friendships and look long and hard at what he and the other heavyweights and enforcers of self-styled “education reform” have wrought. On the ground. In reality. Where the rubber meets the road.
If I may—and begging the indulgence of the owner of this blog—if a certain Diane Ravitch had taken the same approach not so many years ago there would be no “Diane Ravitch’s blog A site to discuss better education for all.” There would be no THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM, no REIGN OF ERROR. There might not be such a vigorous Network For Public Education.
I cannot begin to understand the cost to her personal predilections and friendships when she took a long hard look at much of what she used to support, and in which she was so involved, and changed course.
With a little help from Mark Twain:
“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
Why will it “astonish the rest”?
Because many times there is a deeply off-putting price to be paid when you “do the right thing.”
Diane Ravitch paid her dues.
Mr. Tilson, time for you to consider ponying up.
😎
Thank you, KrazyTA. This is so true.
There is no shame in being wrong about something — we have all been wrong. What is sad is when your self-worth is so tied into always being right that you can never admit to being wrong, regardless of how much evidence is presented to you. You see children doing this sometimes — they are absolutely caught out in a lie and yet they keep insisting what they say it the truth. They are too young to realize that not only are they not fooling anyone, but that holding onto that lie only makes them look weak, not strong.
Although I have more sympathy for those people — sad as they are — than I do for people who keep insisting they are right because they find it very lucrative to do so. That is truly shameful.
I wish Diane Ravich would force Mr. Tilson to answer this question:
If you think so highly of the state tests, why aren’t the billionaires demanding that their own children’s private school opt in to those tests?
It isn’t enough to say “they have their own tests” instead. If so, then the obvious answer is why are they afraid to have their own kids take the SAME test as public school kids take?
To hear Mr. Tilson talking about how the billionaires “really believe” in this reform. Actions speak louder than words. When their kids’ private schools force their children to take the same state tests and publish their results for all to see, then we will know Mr. Tilson is not as dishonest as almost all his words seem to be. Nothing is stopping them from opting in. In fact, a very few private schools do, with pretty mediocre results.
Very interesting exchange; it helps humanize both sides, although none is shocked to hear a businessman suggest that, given two equally good teachers, he would fire the one paid $75K and keep the one paid $50K. That might make some business sense in a profit-driven organization, but little to no sense in a public school where (one assumes) the higher paid teacher has more experience, more history with parents, children, and learning. Do we just bump out good teachers based on $$ alone, or do we see good teachers working along a continuum of age, experience, and knowledge. That statement alone suggests that profit-driven models are foolishly one-dimensional, and that public education must value a range of motives for hiring and firing good teachers. JVK
“The best system of which I am aware is Montgomery County’s Peer Assistance and Review program. New teachers get mentors; tenured teachers whose effectiveness is in doubt get mentors. Excellent teachers serve as mentors. Their progress is judged by peers and supervisors. If they can’t improve and won’t improve, they are asked to leave.”
Montgomery County Public Schools should receive a royalty for every time MCPS PAR is referenced and praised in a discussion about how to remove ineffective teachers.
Unions and advocacy groups like to point to MCPS PAR to say, look, we’re reasonable and are not opposed to streamlining the removal of ineffective teachers, but then when they sit down at the bargaining table, crickets. (I’m not privy to the inner workings of what occurred during the last contract negotiation between the UFT and DOE, but in reading news coverage it does not appear as if either peer review or class size limits were ever seriously pushed by the UFT.)
Also, PAR removes an average of 20 teachers a year in a 12,000+ teacher system. Even in a well-resourced, high-performing district, that doesn’t pass the laugh test. Having a separate team of teachers and administrators work with struggling teachers is an excellent idea; granting the same peers so much say in whether or not the struggling teacher is retained might not be.
Assuming there is a percentage of “bad” teachers does not pass the laugh test either ;(
Tim, aside from the class size limits already in the contract – the only thing limiting class size, btw, which those “it’s all about the kids” so-called reformers conveniently ignore – the current UFT leadership has not pursued lower class size in many years, and is unlikely to do so any time soon.
If you promised MCPS teachers complete anonymity and asked them to identify whether any of their colleagues was not fit to run a classroom, do you think only 1/600 teachers would be named?
I am not proposing that there should be a Jack Welch-minimum, but 1/600 is a joke.
Tim,
Do you have reason to believe that Montgomery County should remove more than 12 teachers a year? What is the source of your insight. Like Tilson, you are engaging in teacher bashing.
Tim, without a union, a school is free to fire expensive experienced teachers. A school is free to hire teachers who are scarily unprepared to deal with any but the most compliant children and make them “model” teachers. And a non-union school can continue to keep those teachers by cowing any critics by threatening their jobs.
Unless of course the teacher threatened with her job for daring to question why a “model” teacher was treating children like criminals had the ability to secretly videotape them.
Tim seems to be saying there might be a few mediocre union teachers who keep their job, but that’s so much worse than 100% “model” teachers who get to keep their job because they get rid of the problem kids and that’s what makes them “model” teachers.
Astonishing, Tim. Truly astonishing.
Having worked public sector, non-profit and private for-profit sector jobs for nearly 30 years, I would say that actual firings are pretty rare. There are ways to convince someone that it’s time to move on of their own volition – it’s easier on everyone. I don’t think those kinds of “removals” show up as removals.
I am enjoying the dialogue between you two. Dianne is truly a champion for teachers. Removing collective bargaining from teachers reminds me of going back to the “black-lung” days of coal mining: no regard for the health of the worker at the expense of the individual and not the corporation that is reaping profits from the worker who dies working. Giving administration carte blanch to remove higher paid teachers in favor of lower paid ones gives me chills!!! This is certainly the corporate balance sheet and does not consider the damage it does to an “older, experienced” worker. It is also reminiscent of the time the Papa John’s founder/owner said he would make all his workers part-time if Obamacare passed. I still won’t purchase Papa John’s from that statement. Employers used to have THE duty to supply insurance for their employees.
Teachers are people. People with families and close ties to their communities. There are really easy ways to identify the “villainous bad teacher.” Ask the other teachers at that school. Ask students. They KNOW what’s going on in their buildings! And don’t just randomly fire them….seek to remediate them. Put them in “teacher rehab” and watch closely. Smart corporations do this very thing. They try to help their workers be more productive instead of firing them.
I feel teachers need an advocate like Dianne!!! And her “inflammatory rhetoric” is certainly less inflammatory than a current presidential candidate!!!!
“The oldest exercise in moral philosophy is the search for the justification for greed.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
Great quote.
Sad to see this 3rd installment seems of an entirely different tone. What strikes me is that Whitney Tilson stops engaging the discussion and starts trying to avoid discussion with accusations of name calling… It’s a manipulative form of persuasive argument. But violates the idea that he’s discussing the issues.
For example, in the discussion about Ben Austin, he writes extensively about Mr. Austin’s feelings but not the substance of what happened.
As to the thin skin of billionaires… That’s a well established truth. Most people who accumulate money are partially motivated by an extraordinary insecurity (as we see with Mr. Trump). In fact, I heard about an acting class working out acting like a captain of industry. The students said “how can we? we’re insecure.”. To which the acting instructor responded “exactly. So are they. Incredibly so.”.
This also means the highly rich tend to be one-dimensional. Which is part of the reason they’re so bad at education policy which requires the insight of the well rounded.
Fascinating discussions, though. Thanks for publishing them!
As Thomas Frank wrote, “Pity the Billionaires!”
Oh… I do. But not for the reasons the billionaires want. 🙂
I agree with this. He never addresses whether the criticism was valid, or in fact, whether the actions of the friend he admires so much could have done something worthy of criticism. He simply said the criticism was “too mean” so I guess that allows him to give his friend a pass.
So many times these people get away with this kind of “debate” because people are too tired to call them out on it. I hope someday that someone does.
Mr. Tilson: “I find it so interesting how both sides see themselves as the outmanned, outgunned, outspent underdog.”
I don’t find it interesting. I find it sadly delusional. Mr. Tilson can call up the federal DOE and not only get listened to, his ideas are frequently then made into federal policy. DFER and the Waltons can make Andrew Cuomo jump on command. In what possible universe are people who get immediate access to and influence with the most powerful officer holders in the country “outmanned, outgunned, outspent underdog(s)”?
Actually I think his comment is right on the money for many older voters on ‘his side’.
“Divine Right Rules”
The right of Kings
To do their things
Divinely was inspired
The wildest hairs
Of billionaires
Are also thus acquired
The right of folks
To have their votes
Is simply not desired
So Mr. Tilson; Now that there are no more schools of education, teacher certification requirements, collective bargaining rights, or public schools, and virtually no one wants to teach because they can not afford to get an education and be fired at whim due to student test scores, how do you hope to improve education for all students now? You are clearly detached from reality, those of us without vast sums of money must worry about such mundane things as paying our bills and providing opportunities for children that preserves their dignity and encourages their growth.
“Poor Poor Pitiful me” (after the song by the late great Warren Zevon)
Well, I gave my bucks to the charter schools
Countin’ on the rent for free
But the town don’t give ’em that no more
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Teacher unions won’t let me be
Lord, have mercy on me
Woe, woe is me
Well, I met a gal in the blogosphere
Now I ain’t naming names
Well she really jerked me over there
Just like Hunger Games
Yes, she really irked me over here
She was a credit to the teachers
Cost me PARCC and Common Common Core
And a lot a charter leeches
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Diane R. won’t let me be
Lord, have mercy on me
Woe woe is me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Teacher unions won’t let me be
Lord, have mercy on me
Woe woe is me
Poor, poor, poor me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor, poor me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor, poor me
Poor, poor pitiful me
Mr. Tilson, you are highly ineffective at education policy and I think you should be denied tenure.
As with most Reformers, there is no accountability for the damage done through the policies they promote.
Diane, did I miss it or did Tilson completely ignore poverty and inequality? Please call him out on that if there is a round 4 or here in the comments if there is no round 4.
will do.
Will there be a part four?
Not sure. We have to have a debate about charters. He is gung-ho.
From “The Best and the Brightest,” David Halberstam’s description of Walt Rostow, possibly the most enthusiastic and steadfast supporter for intervention in Vietnam in the Kennedy Administration, reminds me (rightly? wrongly?) of Mr. Tilson:
“Rostow was always eager, hard-working, and in contrast to Bundy, extremely considerate of others. Even during the heights of the great struggles of 1968 in the attempt to turn around the war policy, when he was one of the last total defenders of the policy, many of his critics found it hard to dislike him personally. He seemed ingenuously open and friendly, almost angelic, ‘a sheep in wolf’s clothing,’ Townsend Hoopes would write. The reason was simple: he was a true believer, so sure of himself, so sure of the rectitude of his ideas that he could afford to be generous to his enemies. What others mistook for magnanimity in defeat was actually, in his own mind, magnanimity in victory; he had triumphed, his policies had come out as he alone had prophesied.”
beautiful, Ohio algebra II teacher.
As far as “good intentions” go, someone should ask Mr. Tilson if good intentions matter in the businesses he’s been in charge of. If some well-meaning, good intentioned employee implements some program that’s New Coke bad, costs his company a lot of money, causes a good deal of embarrassment, hurt feelings, loss of good employees, etc., is Mr. Tilson going to say, “well, that’s okay, he had good intentions. Let’s let him try again. I’m sure it will work out the next time”? I’m guessing, rather, that said employee best have his personal possessions in a box within the hour, amiright?
Incidentally, a lot of “ineffective” teachers also have good intentions (in fact, I suspect, in most cases, honest good intentions). Yet you have no problem removing them from education. So why don’t you apply that to yourself, since you’ve proven your ineffectiveness?
How about Mr. Tilson being evenhanded and fair and balanced and defend John Deasy’s role in taking away Ms. Patrena Shankling’s job? *Google “John Deasy” and “LAUSD” and “Patrena Shankling.”*
You can’t get any more rheephorm than Mr. Deasy—doesn’t he need a BFF just as much as Mr. Austin?
😎
Why doesn’t Mr. Tilson allow comments on his blog?
I don’t know. He has sent me comments, so they must have come to him personally. You can ask him at WTilson@kasecapital.com
Dear Dr. Ravitch:
Thank you for your patience and compassion. I profoundly admire and respect you for your kindness and generosity to spend your precious time in order to cultivate “useful idiot” about the importance of Public Education, the due process rights for educators, and most of all, the whole child education for all children in K-12 period.
Since Mr. whitney admits that Ben Austin is his friend, readers in this forum agree that Ben is “loathsome” “useful idiot” because he ruined the life of a good person/principal for “filthy lucre”. Therefore, Mr. Tilson inadvertently admits who he is in one way or another.
Your conclusion in the part 3 serves as a reminder to all “billionaire club and their useful idiots friends” who claim to be misunderstood for their good intention in DESTROYING TEACHING PROFESSION, in causing AMERICAN “middle class” CHILDREN IN BECOMING MODERN SLAVES with meager wage.
[start part 3 conclusion]
I encourage you, in the spirit of this dialogue, to think hard about these issues.
Stop blaming teachers. Stop believing that a supply of great teachers is waiting to get into the classrooms. The doors are open, and they are not there.
Please, think about the conditions in which children and families live.
Think about the root causes of academic failure.
Think about ways that schools might become wonderful places for children and teachers alike.
Imagine schools for all children that are like the schools you chose for your own children.
Think about what you can do—along with your colleagues in the philanthropic and financial communities—to change what matters most: The shameful fact that nearly a quarter of our children live in poverty.
[end part 3 conclusion]
All sentient human beings understand that action always speaks louder than words. Love and care are shown through action that alleviates the unfortunate’s sufferance whereas greed uses “double meaning” words to MANIPULATE its intentional profit gain.
I hope that Mr. Wilson will help billionaire club and its useful idiot friends to think and to take an action as per Dr. Ravitch’s advice in her conclusion in this part 3.
Very respectfully yours,
May King.
PS: I had pink eyes in the past 3 weeks. I would love to pledge to be a member or ally to your Network for Public Education (NPE).
I am sorry for a typo. it is not Wilson, but Whitney Tilson.
I could write for a while but I’ll just focus on two items. First, narrowly, Tilson states that given “equally effective teachers” the more expensive one should be laid off in the event of staff reductions. Talk about discouraging people from staying in the profession! The more experience one gets the more expendable he/she becomes? This would drive down wages so much that teaching would only be a career or job of last resort.
Second, and more broadly, I just don’t understand why smart people (like Tilson) don’t generally understand what all of this has done to the teaching profession. Aside from the intrinsic feeling of helping others, there is no real benefit to teaching in a profession with the conditions that he desires. And feeling good about one’s job doesn’t pay the bills. The disposable conditions that Tilson outlines do not logically correspond to attracting the best college graduates. Most teachers in my school are making alternative plans. We keep losing teachers (lost another one today) to non-teaching careers because they have zero job satisfaction and are tired of the endless limitations and stress. I’m talking about people who have taught for 10-20 years and used to love their jobs. Now they want out.
And people like Tilson believe there is an army of awesome teachers left to replace them? That’s insane. Almost none of what he prescribes is good for the profession. They magically want “a string of great teachers” but how do you attract these people to a job where making too much above the average wage of the profession puts a layoff target on one’s back? When the wages and working conditions are weakening constantly? When wealthy people who sincerely want to to do what’s best for kids opt for policies that crucify the profession? When newspapers routinely have op-eds that slam the profession?
This is the point that Tilson and his companions just don’t seem to understand. In their efforts to get the system they desire, they are actively discouraging college graduates from wanting to do this as a career. They are also creating an environment where the current teachers no longer want to do this. It makes no sense to create the conditions that lead to a weakening of the profession as a whole.
(Lastly, my state does not have any of the things he mentioned regarding the Vergara case. Seniority doesn’t matter. Tenure is there but useless. Principals have plenty of power in staff reductions. And my state has a drove of teachers fleeing the profession. Instability and uncertainty are bad for a profession that requires such deep commitment. As teachers we are increasingly powerless and the Vergara case won’t improve education one bit.)
Gates is indeed working for his own profit. Common core and standardized assessments is a business decision funded to “unleash powerful market forces”. At the National Conference of State Legislators (2009), he revealed his objective. Gates: “When [next generation assessments] are aligned to tie common standards, the curriculum will line up as well and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of teaching”. He later announces “For the first time, there will be a large uniform base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better”. Funding the corporate reformer movement has forced children and teachers to become an enormous base of customers for their products.
It’s just bizarre that people like Tilson actually seem to believe that they deserve to be listened to on education (or any other subject on which they are ignorant) simply because of how much money they have.
That’s just stupid.
This fellow does not even realize how foolish he looks when he “debates” someone like Diane who, unlike Tilson, actually knows what they are talking about.
I am seriously thinking about this: why debate these guys, why talk to them? Doesn’t it just accept them as players in education, people whom are worth listening to?
The main problem with these guys is that they don’t have any expertise, but they still think, their ideas are important—so important that they want to implement them as policy.
Well, they need to be told to mind the business they know about.
Who cares whether they agree 100% or 28.5% with Diane on this or that? How does Tilson’s opinion matter one bit?
Maybe Diane thinks, it’s important to educate these guys about education. I think the first thing they need to hear is that they have no business in education, because this is the very root of our problems.
Mate – whether or not they should be in education (they shouldn’t), the fact is that they *are* in education. I too have qualms about giving them a platform like this, but on the other hand, no one here is persuaded by Tilson, yet Diane gets the opportunity to get her views to a crowd that doesn’t normally hear them. This debate makes painfully clear who understands education and who doesn’t. Maybe Tilson and his ilk can be embarrassed into backing off (probably not, but worth a try).
I understand what you are saying, Dienne, and I understand why it may be important for Diane to talk to these kind of people. My feeling is, though, that the rest of us need to make it clear, we respect the teacher profession enough not to listen to charlatans ideas and opinions about it.
Teachers are attacked, kids are experimented on, and while leaders need to negotiate, argue, privates have a much simpler job in this battle.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the judge in the original California Vergara trial based his ruling on the testimony of two witnesses for the prosecution that both guessed (I recall they even said it was a guess) from observations that 1% to 3% of the teachers were incompetent. The ruling to strip teachers of due process rights doesn’t go after 1% to 3% of the teachers. It goes after all of them. Why punish 100% of the teachers for an alleged 1% to 3% that might be incompetent or just burned out from the pressure teachers are under on a daily basis.
And WT was wrong that seniority was the only method used to let teachers go — at least in California where I taught for thirty years. If a school has to cut staff, seniority is one method used in addition to the credential a teacher holds that says they can teach French, or Art, or English, or math, etc.
If a school cuts 10 teaching positions due to reduced enrollment or an increase in class sizes someone with more sonority that is only credentialed to teach English and not other subjects will be let go. For instance, an English teacher with 20 years of seniority can be let go while the school keeps a math teacher that has only taught one year. I saw it happen more than once to good teachers I knew during the years I was in the classroom.
It’s common knowledge that there’s not a single reform promoted by Tilson and his billionaire roundtable of reformers that has worked. It’s a fact that the reformers have caused irreparable harm to countless families in their quest for profits by monetizing children and their teachers.
Let’s expose charter fraud by naming the charter schools funded by all taxpayers based on what DFER, TFA, the US Department of Corporate Education, Duncan, Klein, Rhee, Bloomberg, Gates, Broad, Walton, etc. have promoted by the endless bashing of neighborhood schools, unions, and teachers.
Name one billionaire who has enrolled their child in one of the following charter schools or any charter school –
The 20 schools below have wasted millions of tax dollars. In my view, WT needs to focus beyond K-12 Inc. fraud.
Varnett Public Charter School
East New York Prep Academy
Dorothy I. Height “Public” Charter School
Grand Traverse Academy
Arise! Academy
Agora Cyber Charter School
Right Step Academy
Philadelphia Academy Charter School
Raising Horizons Quest Chart School
Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School
Capital Preparatory Charter School
Cincinnati College Prep Academy
WEB DuBois Academy
Imani Institute Charter School
Greater Heights Academy Charter School
Theodore Roosevelt “Public” Charter School
Hawaii Technology Academy Charter School
California Charter Academy
Ivy Academy Charter School
LA Academy
Why are Tilson and the reformers NOT for improving neighborhood public schools?
Pretty clear Tilson just doesn’t get it. For all his claims of good intentions, his arguments all boil down to teachers as part of the problem, not the solution. Letting principals decide layoffs is a joke – most cannot even understand what I teach. And due process is a very American idea that should be granted from day one of all employment, public and private. Why is it considered abnormal that employers must have a valid reason to fire someone? They certainly had a valid reason to hire them. Tilson and his non-teacher, self-proclaimed experts are a big reason many educators are leaving or just do not care anymore. Tilton is destroying education when he thinks he is saving it. I doubt he will ever see that.
There seems to be a “debate” fad. Jennifer Berkshire and Peter Cunningham at NPE, Peter Greene and Dmitri Melhorne at Curmudgucation, and Diane and WT here. I’m reminded of what KrazyTA is fond of quoting:
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”
Next phase: we win!
Christine Langhoff: thank you for the nod to Mahatma Gandhi—
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
😎
I think it is part of some new strategy on there part. I don’t think the Engagement based on genuine good will but to find our weakness.
“Next phase: we win!”
Indeed, the most encouraging thing Tilson said was in part 2, where he said that there is a danger the pushback on testing will roll us back to the pre NCLB years.
“First they standardize you, then they test you, then they VAM you, then you win.” — Mahatma Lederman
DAM – I don’t know what we’d do without your talent!
But the corporate deformers that are debated will never admit they lost. Only the audience that watches or reads the debate will know who won. The deformers will continue to crow they are right so those who never saw or read the debate will not know they lost.
“…In addition, every one of them (the billionaires he knows personally) understands, as do you and I, that having high-quality, motivated teachers in every classroom is by far the most important way to achieve our shared goal.”
I disagree. A more equitable economy and society where families are gainfully employed at reasonable wages with realistic hours; provide a stable solid foundation in character, morality, emotional security
Teachers occasionally can be miracle workers, but that doesn’t mean miracles are their responsibility. Those with all the wealth and power (largely because they have been involved in doing the harm) should consider an option other than reforming the victims.
What of the erosion of employment opportunities, property values, community, wages/purchasing power in relation to inflation…the lionization of celebrity, consumption, immorality…We have a situation where our three branches are now. 1) a consumer-based economy, 2) a political/legal system serving to first protect immense wealth and 3) media/”press” that misleads and entrances. These branches thrive on, demand, and work together to maintain inequity. Disenfranchised poor who have for too long work (if they can) merely to survive, and now a middle class that must be disenfranchised (abolish their unions, test/stack/rank…) to protect the true power status quo.
To suggest unions can outspend is silly. That they can outvote is a problem we see controlled by the electoral process that keeps the bought politicians in positions of power. I have been disappointed at my union leaders’ weakness and complacency in state and national elections, but they know better than I how tightly wealth drives policy to it’s benefit, not the people’s. My biggest complaint with unions is that too much money is spent on the place and accommodations of our gatherings-not enough on buses and baseball bats.
I’m a sports fan, you know.
1. How ironic that Mr. Tilson calls Diane sexist when all of his exchanges with her have dripped with sexism. How dare Diane, as a woman use “harsh” language. Her words are called “hurtful” but would simply be “assertive” if she was a man.
2. Blaming the big bad teacher’s union. What about all the states without unions? Here in NC, we have no collective bargaining rights, striking is illegal, and now a majority of teachers don’t have due process protections (which for those us who earned them took 4 years and which consist solely of the right to a school board hearing). What is his explanation for the educational problems in states like NC then?
3. Where are the rock for Mr. Tilson to chuck at principals and district officials instead of teachers? When a bad teacher gets career status, it is because a principal did not do their job. And when districts shuffle principals around every 2 years or so, it is easy for a weaker teacher to skate through. Just when a principal has a case built, they may leave or are transferred. You don’t really need to worry so much about bad teachers due to nepotism or politics, that is where most of our principals come from. Bad principals simply get moved and moved again or rewarded with a cushy central office job. Mr. Tilson is aiming at the wrong target when he blames “bad teachers”
4. This is exactly why people like Tilson have no business butting into education policy: “I also agree that the best teachers aren’t likely to be those in the first or second years – though some will be.” Nope, even those that will go on to be excellent teachers are pretty lousy in year 1 and 2. “if one teacher costs $50,000 and another $75,000 and they’re both equally effective, then I certainly hope the principal lays off the more expensive one – and then uses the $25,000 savings to, say, hire a part-time reading specialist or whatever he/she judges is most needed by the students.” Equal effective measured how? What if one teaches an tested subject and the other does not? What if the $75,000 teacher is an excellent mentor to other teachers? MARKET FORCES DO NOT WORK IN EDUCATION. Period end of story.
Sexism is rampant in “reform.” When you attack and try to bully a profession which is about 75% women is a sexist act, not just semantics. TFA is largely well educated females that are exploited to enrich corporations.
RE Sexism
That was the reaction I had too.
He’s just another sexist, spoiled, elitist Hawvid blowhard who thinks he is an expert on everything.
The biggest irony of all is that he is not even good in his own field (finances). His hedge fund has actually performed dismally (see wikipedia) in comparison to S&P 500
Here’s what wikipedia says:
“When Google went public in 2004, Tilson stated in a 2004 Motley Fool article, “Google with the same market cap of McDonald’s (a stock I own)?! HA! I believe that it is virtually certain that Google’s stock will be highly disappointing to investors foolish enough to participate in its overhyped offering — you can hold me to that.”[7] Note: Since then (as of 10/18/13) Google has gone on to give its investors a return of over 1050%.”
“In 2004, Tilson created the Value Investing Congress with John Schwartz. In October 2010, David Einhorn presented St. Joe Corporation as a short idea. Following this presentation the stock declined in value by 10% on the day.”
//end quotes
Apparently, other investors think he is a loser.
“there’s an insane system in which it’s a four-year, quarter-million-dollar process to remove even the very worst teacher. ”
I think this debate is similar to the death sentence debate, and to the general crime and punishment debate. Yes, people need to be punished. But punishing an innocent is far worse than the necessity of punishing the guilty.
In New Orleans thousands of innocent teachers were fired during the RSD takeover. In Memphis hundreds of teachers were fired as the result of ASD takeovers. That’s Biblical proportions, and nobody has been held responsible. For example, in New Orleans, all they do is quietly they are quietly rolling back the RSD, and the schools will be managed by the public school board again, and nobody will be held liable for the massive firings and RSD’s failure.
Critics of the tenure system usually propose a system where teachers can be fired as easily as in any other job. But a teacher’s firing affects many people—potentially dozens of kids—hence it requires unusually careful considerations, and the tenure system guarantees that.
I would like to add that the one characteristic of good schools is that there is stability in the staff. the best schools, the ones where teachers meet students who are already interested in learning, and both groups try exciting things in the process, are characterized by stability in the faculty and a long line of applicants waiting to join up. Introducing instability to a system ruins the system. Think political revolutions: a moderate group wants immediate and drastic change, a regime is pushed out, instability leads to a reaction, a new dictatorship emerges, often more dysfunctional than the last.
Yes, Roy. At universities, the tenure system was created to protect academic freedom, that is, the protection of independent research and teaching. I believe the same applies in K-12: teachers who are afraid for their jobs are more willing to cause grade inflation and would just teach straight from the book (and to the test).
Huffpo has an important investigative report, “The Vultures; How a New Hedge fund Strategy is Corrupting Washington”. Where else, but Harvard trained?
“The billionaire hedge fund managers are working the halls of Congress with civil rights groups…DCI, a political dark arts master that advocates on behalf of a group of powerful hedge funds that are changing how D.C. works…the fight’s on a different bet each time.”
If Tilson shorted K-12 Inc., it illustrates the concept of a different bet each time.
The losers are schools, healthcare, working people…. The 60 Plus Association is part of this agenda against the American people.
While the Gen Next Foundation isn’t mentioned in the article, I couple it with the whole movement. The Gen Next website features, former Obama appointee Napolitano, current President of the University of California and, Bush appointee, Rumsfeld.
Regarding tenure and due process, since the run-away wealthy believe that test scores can be used to evaluate teachers, since they believe in VAM, everything they say about removing “bad” teachers is based on a false premise. But if you inform the of the flaws in their reasoning, of the sham in the VAM, they complain that you’re attacking them as individuals. They ignore facts and defend themselves instead of their ideas.
I appreciate this blog even more for having this conversation. I imagine the folks on Mr. Tilson’s blog all agree with him. It’s great seeing the ideas on both sides, side by side. G0 DIANE!
I’m late to the game on this… but thought you’d be interested in this post from Naked Capitalism: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/democrat-hedge-fund-investors-underwrite-political-networks-to-privatize-k-12-public-education.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
As always, Yves Smith offers a concise and insightful analysis… in this case of the privatization movement. The thought that Tilson’s “reformers” have limitless funds to throw at school board races is scary… especially given this tidbit:
The flood of outside money that’s become a new normal in many school board elections is troubling for several reasons. And the stakes of 2016 couldn’t be higher. This year alone, 640 of the country’s largest school districts by enrollment are holding elections, with nearly 2,000 seats up for grabs, according to Ballotpedia. All together, these districts educate around 17 million students—about 34 percent of all the K–12 students in the nation.
While the media is consumed with Trump’s tax returns and HRC’s emails the hedge funders will quietly orchestrate the take over of public education school boards and the subsequent privatization of schools.