Archives for the month of: May, 2016
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Florida: Teachers Are Leaving in Droves Due to Low Salaries, Testing, Mandates

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2016 //
53

Wake up, Florida!

 

Years of so-called “reform” are driving out teachers and principals. Can you have good education of you can’t hold on to successful teachers?

 

The Orlando Sentinel reports on the crisis level exodus from teaching:

 

Noah David Lein has always loved teaching.

 

And if you believe the state of Florida, the honors English teacher at Winter Springs High School is precisely the kind of instructor we want in our classrooms.

 

He sparks kids’ curiosity and was among only 4 percent of the region’s teachers to receive the “Best and Brightest” bonus for “highly effective” teachers last year.

 

Lein still loves opening students’ minds and introducing them to complex thoughts.
But not in Florida.

 

Not in a state that continually beats teachers down.

 

So next week, when the school year ends, Lein plans to walk out of the classroom for the last time … and in to a career in sales.

 

It wasn’t an easy decision. To put it bluntly, Lein said: “I kind of threw up in my mouth at the thought of abandoning the profession I always wanted.”

 

But Florida politicians keep pushing good teachers away.

 

With a lack of respect. With obsessing about standardized testing over learning. And with cruddy salaries.

 

Lein, 32, said he started working in 2007 with a salary of $37,000. Nine years later, he makes $40,300 for his family of three — and started working weekends at a catering company to make ends meet.

 

“I’ve spent my last ounce of energy to make a difference to my students, but it isn’t making a difference to me and my family,”he said. “I’m exhausted, I’m bitter, and I’m grasping for something to be hopeful and positive about.”

 

If you care about public education, Lein’s loss should depress you.

 

But it should disturb you even more to know that he’s not alone. Rather, he’s part of a trend — of Florida teachers leaving the profession they once loved.

 

The exodus is so intense that state records show that 40 percent of new teachers leave within five years after they start.

 

Florida’s attrition rate for new teachers is 15-20 percent higher than the national average, depending on the year….

 

Scott Maxwell has an idea for the Florida legislature: Instead of talking to one another, instead of convening work groups and task forces, they should start listening to teachers, “the people who actually teach for a living.” Ask teachers why they are leaving in droves. Ask them what it would take to get them to stay or to return.

 

Good advice. Common sense. Will the Florida legislators listen?

Categories Education Reform, Florida, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers, Testing

Stuart Egan Writes a Letter to the Libertarian Who Praises Teachers While Undermining Their Profession and Their Pay

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2016 //
8

I previously wrote a post about the powerful multimillionaire Art Pope, who controls Tea Party politics in North Carolina. The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer profiled him and showed how he cannily used his fortune to defeat moderate Republicans so Pope’s ideological allies could gain control of the party and push it to the far right. Pope funds the John Locke Foundation, which espouses his views. When Pope ran for office, he was defeated, but he was appointed state budget director by Governor Pat McCrory and set the priorities for the state, which reflected his own views.

 

One of his many allies is John Hood, who is former president (and current chairman) of Art Pope’s John Locke Foundation. Hood has been placing articles in the North Carolina press, boasting of North Carolina’s progress in reforming its school system. As is by now well known, the Pope battalion in the legislature has cut education funding and launched charters, vouchers, and online charters. Not many would view these “reforms” as a boost to the state’s students and teachers. But John Hood does. Indeed, his last article was titled “How to Pay Teachers More.”

 

Stuart Egan has been writing open letters to John Hood on his blog. Egan does not have the access to the media that is granted to the powerful Mr. Hood. In Egan’s latest open letter, he takes apart Hood’s false claims, one by one, to show how the public has been hoodwinked by the John Locke Foundation and the state government.

 

Hood claims that the state enjoys a budget surplus because  taxes were cut, and the economy boomed (the old supply-side mantra of the Reagan administration).

 

Egan writes:

 

Interestingly enough, that budget surplus was created by a tax revenue overhaul crafted by none other than Art Pope, who not only serves your mentor and boss, but also served as Gov. McCrory’s first budget director. You may claim that we have had lower tax rates than we did before McCrory took office, but there’s more to it.

 

While tax cuts did come for many, standard deductions were greatly affected. Many of the standard deductions and exemptions that were once available to citizens like teachers no longer exist. In fact, most people who make the salaries commensurate of teachers ended up paying out more of their money to the state, even when “taxes” went down. Why? Because we could not declare tax breaks any longer. Who designed that? The budget director.

 

Furthermore, there is now a rise in sales tax revenue because many services like auto repairs are now taxed. So to say that the surplus just appeared because of spending limitations is a little bit of a spun claim. In fact, most of those spending limitations in public schools came when we saw increased enrollment and costs of resources rise.

 

Hood goes on to boast that the state had eliminated salary increases for teachers who acquire additional degrees. Of course, North Carolina wants to have teachers who do not invest in continuing their education.

 

He also boasts that the state is embracing merit pay. As Egan points out, no merit pay program has ever produced better education.

 

So eliminating pay increases for more education and introducing merit pay is supposed to translate into higher pay for teachers? Scuttling North Carolina’s successful North Carolina Teaching Fellows program, which produced career educators, and replacing it with TFA is supposed to improve the workforce?

 

Egan points out that Hood is engaging in election year rhetoric:

 

McCrory’s claim to want to raise teacher pay looks more like pure electioneering. It is synonymous to a deadbeat dad who shows up at Christmas with extravagant gifts so that he can buy the love (or votes) of his children.

Categories North Carolina, Teach for America, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers

Bertis Downs: A Prayer for Us All

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2016 //
14

Bertis Downs, a member of the board of the Network for Public Education, is a lawyer who lives in Athens, Georgia. His daughters attended public schools in Athens, where they thrived. Bertis spent his professional life representing the rock group REM. He now devotes most of his time to what he values, as a board member of NPE and People for the American Way. He is a wonderful person! On a trip to London, he visited the historic Church of St. Martin in the Fields. He thought about the famous quote from John Dewey about the best and wisest parent and did a mash-up with the prayer of St. Martin.

 
And we got this prayer from Bertis:

 
“It seems that John Dewey was Episcopalian, so I like to imagine him re-writing the St Martin’s Prayer for the World for school purposes:

 
“God, give us a vision of our public schools, where what the best and wisest parents want for their own children, the whole community and its leaders want for all of its children, leading to a world as your love would make it: a world where the weak are protected and none go hungry, uneducated or poor; a world where the benefits of civilized life are shared, and everyone can enjoy them; a world where different races, nations and cultures study and thrive and live in tolerance and mutual respect; a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love; and give us the courage to build it.
Amen”

Categories Personal

Reader aka “Democracy”: This is NOT the “Golden Age of Education Reporting”

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2016 //
21

A reader who identifies as Democracy challenges John Merrow’s claim that this is the Golden Age of education journalism. He challenges the Education Writers Association’s “public editor,” who wrote about a STEM crisis caused by the low test scores of American students. I would add another point. A nation can be globally competitive and can lead the world without having every person proficient in STEM subjects. I don’t know whether the percentage of scientists, engineers, technicians, and technologists should be 20%, 30% or 40%, but it certainly need not be a majority. Athletes, musicians, philosophers, historians, and artists are probably not expert in STEM subjects. Nor are truck drivers, legislators, governors, and officials of the U.S. Department of Education. Professor Hal Salzman of Rutgers, an expert on labor markets and public policy, has already debunked the idea that there is a shortage of STEM graduates. In fact, he has written, there is a shortage of jobs in the STEM fields, not a shortage of skilled people. Also, Sharon Higgins, an Oakland blogger, wrote a post arguing that there is no STEM crisis, citing credible sources. Journalists should be aware at the very least that not everyone agrees with the reformers’ claim that the sky is falling. There are indeed two sides.

 

 

Democracy writes:

 

 

John Merrow says that “Education reporting has never been better…”

 

 

He’s wrong.

 

 

To take but one example, here’s a piece by Emily Richmond, “the public editor of the Education Writers Association.”

 

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/05/data-girls-stem/483255/#article-comments

 

 

This was my comment about that article:

 
_____________________________________________

 

According to Emily Richmond of the Education Writers Association, “just 43 percent of U.S. eighth graders tested met or exceeded the benchmark for proficiency” on the newest NAEP test, the Technology and Engineering Literacy assessment. This is important, Richmond asserts, because “it’s one of the few means of comparing student achievement among states.”

 

 

Then Richmond poses this question, answer, and explanation:

 

 

“Why does this matter? These are skills that experts say Americans must have if they are to compete in a global marketplace. U.S. students typically have middling performance on international assessments gauging math and science ability.”

 

 

The implications are far-ranging. Emily Richmond, a national education reporter, is telling, or at the very least, strongly suggesting to readers that Americans students just can’t cut it – they aren’t “proficient” – and American economic competitiveness in the “global marketplace” is threatened.

 

 

This claim is the very same as that made for the necessity of the Common Core State Standards, which were funded by Bill Gates. Interestingly, the Education Writers Association is also funded by Bill Gates, along with conservative groups like the Kern, Dell and Walton Foundations.

 

 

But the claim is demonstrably false. America is already competitive in the global marketplace (it’s #3 in the World Economic Forum’s latest competitiveness rankings), and when it loses its competitive edge it’s not because of student test scores but because of stupid economic policies and decisions.

 

 

But Emily Richmond says nary a word about this.

 

 

Nor does she make any mention at all that there’s a glut of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) jobs in the U.S.

 

 

A 2004 RAND study “found no consistent and convincing evidence that the federal government faces current or impending shortages of STEM workers…there is little evidence of such shortages in the past decade or on the horizon.”

 

A 2007 study by Lowell and Salzman found no STEM shortage (see: http://www.urban.org/publications/411562.html ). Indeed, Lowell and Salzman found that “the supply of S&E-qualified graduates is large and ranks among the best internationally. Further, the number of undergraduates completing S&E studies has grown, and the number of S&E graduates remains high by historical standards.” The “education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand.”

 

 

Beryl Lieff Benderly wrote this stunning statement recently in the Columbia Journalism Review (see: http://www.cjr.org/reports/what_scientist_shortage.php?page=all ):
“Leading experts on the STEM workforce, have said for years that the US produces ample numbers of excellent science students. In fact, according to the National Science Board’s authoritative publication Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, the country turns out three times as many STEM degrees as the economy can absorb into jobs related to their majors.”

 

 

So why the STEM emphasis?

 

Benderly continues:

 

 

“Simply put, a desire for cheap, skilled labor, within the business world and academia, has fueled assertions—based on flimsy and distorted evidence—that American students lack the interest and ability to pursue careers in science and engineering, and has spurred policies that have flooded the market with foreign STEM workers. This has created a grim reality for the scientific and technical labor force: glutted job markets; few career jobs; low pay, long hours, and dismal job prospects for postdoctoral researchers in university labs; near indentured servitude for holders of temporary work visas.”

 

 

As Michael Teitelbaum writes in The Atlantic, “The truth is that there is little credible evidence of the claimed widespread shortages in the U.S. science and engineering workforce.” (http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/)

 

 

Teitelbaum adds this: “A compelling body of research is now available, from many leading academic researchers and from respected research organizations such as the National Bureau of Economic Research, the RAND Corporation, and the Urban Institute. No one has been able to find any evidence indicating current widespread labor market shortages or hiring difficulties in science and engineering occupations that require bachelors degrees or higher…All have concluded that U.S. higher education produces far more science and engineering graduates annually than there are S&E job openings—the only disagreement is whether it is 100 percent or 200 percent more.”

 

 

But Emily Richmond says nothing at all about any of this.

 

 

Richmond suggests that we should we should worried that “just 43 percent“ of 8th graders met NAEP proficiency levels, as if 8th graders hold the key – somehow – to American economic competitiveness. That supposition alone is pretty baseless. But what about those NAEP proficiency benchmarks?

 

 

Here’s how Gerald Bracey described the NAEP proficiency levels in Nov. 2009 in Ed Leadership:

 

 

“the NAEP reports the percentage of students reaching various achievement levels—Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. The achievement levels have been roundly criticized by the U.S. Government Accounting Office (1993), the National Academy of Sciences (Pellegrino, Jones, & Mitchell, 1999); and the National Academy of Education (Shepard, 1993). These critiques point out that the methods for constructing the levels are flawed, that the levels demand unreasonably high performance, and that they yield results that are not corroborated by other measures.”

 

 

Bracey added this:

 

 

“In spite of the criticisms, the U.S. Department of Education permitted the flawed levels to be used until something better was developed. Unfortunately, no one has ever worked on developing anything better—perhaps because the apparently low student performance indicated by the small percentage of test-takers reaching Proficient has proven too politically useful to school critics.”

 

 

And then this:

 

 

“education reformers and politicians have lamented that only about one-third of 8th graders read at the Proficient level. On the surface, this does seem awful. Yet, if students in other nations took the NAEP, only about one-third of them would also score Proficient—even in the nations scoring highest on international reading comparisons (Rothstein, Jacobsen, & Wilder, 2006).”

 
The National Academy of Sciences called the NAEP proficiency standards “fundamentally flawed.” NAEP’s original technical evaluation team reported that “these standards and the results obtained from them should under no circumstances be used as a baseline or benchmark.”

 

 

NAEP’s governing board fired the team.

 

 

The General Accounting Office study of NAEP assumptions and procedures and proficiency levels found them to be “invalid for the purpose of drawing inferences about content mastery.”

 

 

Yet, Emily Richmond tells readers that “These are skills that…Americans must have if they are to compete in a global marketplace. “

 

 

Richmond makes no effort whatsoever to educate the public – her readers – on how badly flawed NAEP is. Does she just not know?

 

 

One thing NAEP seems to measure fairly well is income inequality. Or, to put it a bit more precisely, research has found that between half and two-thirds of the variance in student academic performance on NAEP is explained by a cumulative family risk factor, which includes family income, the educational attainment of parents, family and neighborhood housing conditions, and the ability to speak and read English. Richmond says only that there are “gaps…between students from low-income families and their more affluent peers.”

 

 

It’s reasonable to expect that a person leading an Education Writers Association would do a better – more accurate – job of presenting testing information to the general public.

 

 

One can hope….

Categories STEM

Our Blog Poet on Corporate Reform (with Apologies to Robert Frost)

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2016 //
6

Thanks to Some DAMpoet:

“The Path Not Taken” (apologies to Robert Frost)

Two paths diverged in a public school,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, help and tool
I looked down one, like a teaching fool
To how it lent to the student growth

Then took the other, as much more fair,
And having for taps the better claim
Because it was psycho and wanted power,
And as for empathy and care,
Had torn the students apart for game,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this for the Fates
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two paths diverged in a school, and for Gates,
I took the one of Norman Bates,
And that has made all the difference.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reform

Former Charter Employee: Sue These People!

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2016 //
6

I posted recently about the indictment in Florida of leaders of an Ohio-based charter management company.

 

This reader reacted:

 

 

“As a previous employee of Newpoint, I hope North Carolina school district opens their eyes and stops allowing NEP to open schools there. Look what has happened in Florida. In Pensacola the Director of Newpoint Academy and Newpoint Pensacola High School Mr. John Graham told us our bank account was swiped clean at the end of every month which left us with nothing to work with financially. We had terrible internet service for our technology based middle school and high school. This left our high school students unable to do class work since their whole curriculum was on line. We had no money, a dirty school, high teacher turnover, and were fed stories of how things were going to get better for four long years. From reading the newspapers from south Florida, this story of no money, high teacher turnover… repeated itself in their counties where Newpoint had schools.

 

 

 

“Now we find out, NEP is charged with grand theft, money laundering, and white collar crime in our county. NEP should have to pay Escambia County that money back. Why does the owner get away with such theft ? If you steal a blouse from a store, you get arrested and thrown in jail for it, but if you steal hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax payers Federal funds, you pay a fine and get away with it? All of these counties should tie that owner up in court with law suits for the next ten years!”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Fraud

Does Donald Trump Pay Any Taxes?

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2016 //
25

A friend in the construction industry told me recently that the reason Donald Trump won’t release his tax returns is because he doesn’t pay taxes.

 

 

 

Eclectablog reports, quoting a story in the Washington Post:

 
“The last time Donald Trump released his personal income taxes, they revealed that he paid zero, nothing, nada.

 

 

“The disclosure, in a 1981 report by New Jersey gambling regulators, revealed that the wealthy Manhattan investor had for at least two years in the late 1970s taken advantage of a tax-code provision popular with developers that allowed him to report negative income,” the Washington Post reports.

 

 

“And since then, tax laws have been made far more favorable to real estate “developers,” chances are that he hasn’t paid any taxes — possibly in decades. And his foundation’s returns show that he’s not only avoiding taxes, he may be using the front of charity as a veil for corruption.”

 

Trump says repeatedly that he tries to pay as little as possible in taxes. Little nay mean none at all. If a billionaire pays no taxes, he is not pulling his weight. He is not paying for the services that everyone else pays for. He is a tax-dodger. What a terrible example.

Categories Accountability

A Superintendent’s Platform for the Presidential Campaign

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2016 //
20

Martha Bruckner is the President of the National Superintendents’ Roundtable, and she is also the superintendent of schools in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She noted that the presidential candidates were ignoring education but offering many campaign promises. She decided to write an educator’s platform for presidential candidates.

 

A Superintendent’s Presidential Campaign Platform
Inspired by the campaign promises of some of our 2016 Presidential candidates, Roundtable superintendent Martha Bruckner of Council Bluffs, Iowa, writes,

 

 

“Listening to some presidential candidates makes me wonder if school superintendents could do similar things. Just announce what you will do. No plan or work needed!”

 

 

In that spirit, here’s Martha’s campaign platform:
All children will be loved.
No families will live in poverty.
All children will start school on an equal basis, economically and socially, and will be ready (eager) to learn.
All children will read by third grade, and will love reading.
Every child will love middle school and will use those adolescent years to discover his or her best future self.
No students will ever purposefully bully others, and if a student unintentionally hurts another student, classmates will help minimize the hurt and inform the misguided bully.
All students will graduate from high school after a successful 3, 4, or 5 years…whatever is most appropriate for their learning needs and styles.
Student assessment will be fair, multi-faceted, timely, informative, and will help educators discover how to best help each individual child.
Funding for schools will be sufficient.
Every teacher and school leader will be caring, talented, successful, and appropriately rewarded.
Every child will be safe, healthy, engaged, supported, and challenged.

 

 

Jim Harvey, executive director of the National Superintendents’ Roundtable responded to Martha’s platform:
Martha has our endorsement! Make America great again – Bruckner 2016!

 

The National Superintendents’ Roundtable is an association composed of experienced educators who rose through the ranks to become superintendents. They tend to represent small to mid-size districts. They are not Broadies. If your district is conducting a search for a new superintendent, contact James Harvey, National Superintendents’ Roundtable, harvey324@earthlink.net

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Education Reform, Real Education

Laura Chapman on the Gospel of Milton Friedman

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2016 //
37

Lara Chapman has written a valuable analysis of the religious, libertarian case for school vouchers. Thank you, Laura, for doing this prodigious research for the benefit of everyone else.

 

Laura writes:

 

 

“Long post. The author of the Friedman Foundations for Educational Choice “research,” Dr. Greg Forster ends his report–titled “A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence On School Choice, Fourth Edition–with the following:
.
“Ultimately, the only way to make school reform work on a large scale is to break the government monopoly on schooling. The monopoly is not just one powerful obstacle to reform among many; it is what makes all the many obstacles as powerful as they are. The monopoly ensures that no meaningful accountability for performance can occur, except in rare cases as a result of Herculean efforts. The monopoly empowers a dense cluster of rapacious special interests resisting efforts to improve schools.

 

“Worst of all, the monopoly pushes out educational entrepreneurs who can reinvent schools from the ground up. Only a thriving marketplace that allows entrepreneurs to get the support they need by serving their clients better can produce sustainable innovation.
In any field of human endeavor—whether education, medicine, politics, art, religion, manufacturing, or anything else—entrepreneurs who want to strike out in new directions and do things radically differently need a client base.
….
“School choice has the potential to solve this problem by providing enough families (size) with enough dollars (strength) and enough choice (suffrage) to support educational entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, existing school choice programs fall short on all three dimensions. Only universal choice can open the door to the full-fledged revolution in schooling America needs in the new century. “ p. 36

 

 

“The author is preaching the gospel of the Friedman Foundation, but also a bit more. The author is a devoted believer in “universal choice,” evidently so religious schools can flourish and be tax-subsidized.

 

“I reach this conclusion from Forster’s discussion linking charters school programs to civic virtues and to religious values (pp. 30-31), and to his faculty position at Trinity International University a regionally accredited school operated by the Evangelical Free Church of America, headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. His main job there seems to be serving as the director of the Oikonomia Network at the Center for Transformational Churches.

 

“The Oikonomia Network includes over 100 “theological educators theological educators and 18 evangelical seminaries” initially funded by the Kern Family Foundation. The network operations include a newsletter, website, network-wide events and “content creation.” The content creation includes “Theology that Works,” a paper written by Greg Forster that explains “how theology as a discipline can be in fruitful dialogue with the world of economic disciplines and activities.” More here. http://oikonomianetwork.org/economic-wisdom-project/

 

“Forster also has a faculty post at Acton University, where his bio says that he “has a Ph.D. with distinction in political philosophy from Yale University. He is the author of six books, most recently Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost Its Cultural Influence and Can Begin Rebuilding It.” http://university.acton.org/faculty/dr-greg-forsterhttp://oikonomianetwork.org/about/

 

“Acton University’s website opens with a display of one reason to sign up:

 

“Faith & Free Market Economics.”
“Acton University is an opportunity to deepen your knowledge and integrate philosophy, theology, business, development – with sound, market based, economics. “

 

“Acton University seems to be a holding company for lecturers who offer on-line courses and also appear in scheduled face-to-face sessions for people who pay fees to participate in four days of lecture-filled conferencing. A full list of “course lectures ” is here. http://university.acton.org/2016courses The lectures are available for purchase at http://shop.acton.org/acton-university-2010-to-2013-lecture-bundle.html

 

“The Win-Win report from political philosopher Greg Forster is written as if it is a comprehensive meta-analysis of credible empirical studies that offer irrefutable conclusions. The report is not that, but the casual reader looking for all of the charter school positives will be drawn to the pretense of scholarship and miss all of the wobbles and switcheroo’s between Forster’s criteria for the inclusion/exclusion of studies and his inferences based on these studies.

 

“The author’s identification of charters with religious values reminded me that Education Next surveys, conducted since 2007, have questions designed to provide marketing insights about the connections between a preference for charters and race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, political alliance, and much else.

 

“Here are the questions in the EdNext 2008 questions under the category of Religion, which mapped responses for people who said they were “born again” offering comparisons with responses from Public School Teachers, African Americans, Hispanics, and Whites. (I found no copyright on any of the Surveys)

 

“24. Do you think the public schools in your community generally promote the values that you think are most important, or do you think that the values emphasized at school often come into conflict with your own?

 

“25. In some public school districts, parents have requested that some time in each day be set aside for silent prayer and reflection. What do you think about this proposal?

 

“26. (Each respondent was randomly assigned to one of the following five questions):
“26A. How would you feel about a group of religious students organizing an after-school club at your local public school?
“26B. How would you feel about a group of Mormon students organizing an after-school club at your local public school?
“26C. How would you feel about a group of Muslim students organizing an after-school club at your local public school?
26D. How would you feel about a group of atheist students organizing an after-school club at your local public school?
“26E. How would you feel about a group of Evangelical students organizing an after-school club at your local public school?

 

 

“The 2014 and 2015 surveys had three (and ONLY three) questions about the respondents’ background.

 

“32. Apart from weddings and funerals, how often would you say that you attend religious services?

 

“33. Would you say that you have been born again or have had a born-again experience — that is, a turning point in your life when you committed yourself to Jesus Christ?

 

“34. Are you a member of a union or an employee association similar to a union? http://educationnext.org/files/2014ednextpoll.pdf

 

“The Education Next surveys are produced by Knowledge Networks, which specializes in “market research services, including survey design, information analysis, and data collection to produce syndicated reports and custom market research for a variety of FORTUNE 500 companies. Specializing in consumer research, it offers clients insight in such areas as advertising effectiveness, product development, segmentation, and media planning. Founded by Stanford researchers Douglas Rivers and Norman Nie in 1998, Knowledge Networks was acquired by global market research firm GfK in January 2012. “http://www.google.com/finance?cid=11462635

 

“About a week ago, (May 13, 2016) Peter Cunningham, whose Education Post has a partnership with the 74Million propaganda machine, cited an Education Next poll in a rant about needing to protect students from a bloated educational bureaucracy in Los Angeles.

Cunningham: Does LAUSD Want to Protect Children or a Bloated Bureaucracy?

 

“The Education Next surveys, like Greg Forster’s work parading as research, are designed and hyped to deliver propaganda and with a clear intent to tap veins of race-based and religious and ethnic prejudices. These are enlisted to rant against public schools, teachers, their unions, their salaries, the curriculum, and more. It is no accident that the Forster “study” has 14 reference citations from Education Next, and 50 others recycled from the Friedman Foundation.”

Categories Education Reform, Privatization, Religion, Vouchers

Trying to Educate the Education Reformers, Without Success

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2016 //
52

This article is a slightly revised version of the one I posted yesterday afternoon. I wrote the original on my cell phone (as I wrote most posts) while sitting outside a fisher let on Southold, New York. You can always tell the difference between a post written on the cellphone and one written on the computer. The latter has quotes in italics. The former has quotes inside quote marks, “like this.”

I posted it today on Huffington Post because that is where Peter Cunningham posted his lame defense of Campbell Brown.

Read and leave comments, if you are so inclined.

Categories Corporate Reform
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