Archives for the month of: January, 2017
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Best SNL Skit: Kellyanne Conway as Roxie Hart

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2017 //
12

Last night, Saturday Night Live had a very funny skit about Kellyanne Conway.

 

The amazingly talented Kate McKinnon played Kellyanne as Roxie Hart, the ambitious, unscrupulous performer in “Chicago.”

 

If if you saw the Broadway show or the movie “Chicago,” you will find the skit hilarious. If you have not seen it, rent the movie. It is a great show.

 

Kate McKinnon is pitch perfect. This actress can do anything: sing, dance, play musical instruments. I adore her. By the way, she went to a public high school in Long Island, New York. I don’t know what her test scores were.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform

Laura Chapman on the Mysterious Non-Evaluation of ED Department Charter Funding

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2017 //
12

Laura Chapman, retired educator and crack researcher, comments on the strange case of the millions (billions?) of dollars awarded to charter schools that have never been evaluated as to their use, misuse, or effectiveness:

 

 

I doubt if you will ever find an evaluation report for our charter school investments, from USDE or IES.
USDE shoved money out the door for anything charter–startup, replication (franchising), and facilities and facilities financing.

 
Negative reviews of the grant applications were ignored. I read some of these reviews. Even the questions for the reviewers were rigged to minimize “accountability.”

 
We paid federal dollars for absurdities, including advertising for charter students; cross-country junkets to recruit teachers and leaders; uniforms for the students including backpacks with logos, various goodies for “awards.”

 
I have yet to find any reports from states back to USDE on what happened to the money channeled to states. No federal reports on schools opened, closed, etc. No credible peer-reviewed independent studies on student outcomes.

 
USDE let the charter authorizers and franchisers call the shots. Some of the grant applications had redacted information–unreadable chunks of text blacked out because this information was “proprietary” and might “leak,” offering a competitive advantage to other charters. USDE rolled over on that request from the grant applicants. What was redacted? Test scores and enrollments were redacted.

 
I just checked the 2016 active contracts of USDE bearing on charters. Only two are there, and both have been granted extensions from the original contracts.

 
WESTAT, INC. The purpose of this procurement is to obtain technical services for the U.S. Department of Education Charter Schools Program to support the Credit Enhancement Program with grantee monitoring. Monitoring grant projects means examining policies, systems, and procedures to ensure compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, Guidance, grant applications, and performance agreements.

Dates: 9/25/15 to 9/24/17 extended to 9/24/19
Amount: $514,554. This is a very small contract for WESTAT: It is a major subcontractor for many federal agencies.

 
SAFAL PARTNERS, INC. The purpose of this contract is to obtain technical assistance for the U.S. Department of Education Charter Schools Program for a range of activities, including online assistance, meetings, reports, studies, and assistance in a variety of focus areas, that COULD include human capital resources, facilities, authorizing, accountability, students with disabilities, English learners, military-connected children, and others.
Dates: from 9/27/13 to 9/26/17 extended to 9/26/18-
Amount: $12,872,533.
SAFAL Partners leads the National Charter School Resource Center, which hosts other USDE subcontractors. SAFAL Partners appears to be the go-to outfit for charter-friendly research. Clients include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Education Pioneers, George W. Bush Institute, Teach for America Houston among others.

 
A 2016 report from SAFAL Partners titled “Student Achievement in Charter Schools: What the Research Shows” is a very limited and dubious “comparison” of five studies, with caveats dismissed (e.g., fewer ELL and special education students in charter schools, only math and reading scores, test scores not from the same tests, and more). This report is more PR more than credible research.

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, Research, U.S. Department of Education

Peter Dreier: Katherine Lee Bates Must Be Rolling Over in Her Grave

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2017 //
12

Peter Dreier is a professor of politics at Occidental College in California. In this post, he writes about Katherine Lee Bates, who was the writer of “America the Beautiful.” I first learned the song when I was in public school in Houston. It was a standard at every school celebration or songfest. Later, when I was a student at Wellesley College, I learned that one of the dormitories–Bates Hall–was named for this very illustrious woman.

 

Dreier writes:

 

Listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing “America the Beautiful” at Donald Trump’s inauguration, I couldn’t help thinking about Katharine Lee Bates, the song’s author, who would have been appalled by the sight of Trump taking the oath of office to her most famous creation.

 

Bates, you see, was a Christian socialist, an ally of labor unions, an advocate for immigrants, a feminist, an ardent foe of imperialism, and a lesbian. A well-respected poet and professor of English at Wellesley College, Bates (1859-1929) was part of progressive reform circles in the Boston area, concerned about labor rights, urban slums and women’s suffrage.

 

For decades Bates lived with and loved her Wellesley colleague Katharine Coman, founder of the college’s economics department, who authored The History of Contract Labor in the Hawaiian Islands and The Economic History of the Far West. Coman was also a poet. She and Bates jointly wrote English History as Taught by English Poets.

 

Although they lived together for 25 years in what was then called a “Boston Marriage,” they could not publicly acknowledge their intimate relationship. When Coman died, however, Bates published Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance that celebrated their love and their involvement in the radical and social reform movements of their day.

 

Were Bates and Coman alive today, they would probably have taken advantage of our current laws allowing same-sex couples to marry — a law that many Trump supporters hope that the Supreme Court will overturn.

 

 

Categories Education Reform

Juan Cole: Translating Trump’s Speech from the Original German

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2017 //
52

Juan Cole, professor at the University of Michigan, explains the underlying theme of Trump’s inaugural speech. It echoes the use of language used by German leaders in the 1930s.

 

What a great example of close reading, combined with deep historical knowledge. Cole pins down what others sensed.

 

When Trump spoke of returning power back to “the people,” Cole writes, it means “Das Volk.”

 

He writes:

 

“You may be confused, as an English speaker. Trump, a billionaire real estate developer and serial grifter who founded a phony university that defrauded thousands, has appointed a cabinet of billionaires and multi-millionaires, the wealthiest and most elite cabinet in American history, which even includes the CEO of petroleum giant Exxon-Mobil.

 

“How, you might ask, can he represent this coup by the super-rich as ‘giving’ power ‘back to’ ‘the people’? The people wouldn’t even be allowed on the grounds of the gated communities where Trump’s officials live.

 

“The confusion arises from thinking in English instead of 1930s German. “Das Volk” or the people was a mystical conception for the German far right. It comprised the German people as an organic whole, uniting great landlord and lowly peasant. The great German corporations, too, were said to be expressions of “the people” (Hence the German automobile company Volkswagen, now led by perfectly nice people but not so much in the 1930s). The phrase comes into focus if you understand “the people” as “white Protestants and some lately admitted ethnic Catholics” who are united across social class (though of course led by their billionaire betters), and who stand in contrast to the cosmopolitans, the mixed-race people, infiltrating minorities, the socialists and others bent on diluting “the people” and subverting its prosperity and power by kowtowing to foreigners.

Categories Trump

Betsy DeVos Refuses to Divest From “Brain Enhancement” Corporation

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2017 //
43

 

The New York Times reports that billionaire Betsy DeVos refuses to sell her interest in Neurocore, a company that uses biofeedback to enhance brain functioning. She has a direct conflict of interest. Will that stop her nomination? I wouldn’t bet on it. It didn’t faze Republicans that she knows nothing about federal law regarding children with disabilities. Why should they care that she will use her position to enrich herself? When is enough enough?

 

The committee vote on DeVos will take place on January 31. Call your Senators’ offices. Speak to his or her aides. Urge them to vote NO on this unqualified, uninformed party debutante. She is not entitled to be Secretary of Education as payback for hundreds of millions of donations to the Republican Party.

 

 

“Betsy DeVos, the billionaire school choice advocate selected by President Donald J. Trump to serve as education secretary, is a strong supporter of using biofeedback technology to help children and teenagers enhance their performance in school.

 
“Ms. DeVos and her husband, Richard DeVos Jr., are major financial backers of Neurocore, a Michigan company that operates drug-free “brain performance centers” that claim to have worked with 10,000 children and adults to overcome problems with attention deficit disorder, autism, sleeplessness and stress.

 
“In an agreement with the Office of Government Ethics made public Friday, Ms. DeVos said that she had stepped down from the Neurocore board but that she would retain her financial interest in the company. She valued that stake at $5 million to $25 million in her financial disclosure statement.

 
“On Friday evening, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he would delay the initial vote on Ms. DeVos’s nomination by a week, until Jan. 31, as Democrats argued that the process had been rushed through, without enough time to answer remaining questions about her financial disclosures.

 
“Ms. DeVos and her husband promote Neurocore heavily on the website for Windquest Group, a family office the couple use to manage some of their many investments. The website, for instance, includes a link to a Washington Post article about Kirk Cousins, a Washington Redskins quarterback who describes how he “retrained” his brain to better perform on the field by going to a Neurocore center.

 
“But the claims that Neurocore’s methods can help children improve their performance in school could present a conflict for Ms. DeVos if she is confirmed as education secretary — especially given that the company is moving to expand its national reach.

 
“Neurocore, founded about a decade ago, operates seven of the brain performance centers in Michigan and recently opened two in Florida. It has said it has plans to open as many as seven other centers across the country this year. Ms. DeVos’s financial disclosure shows that she and her husband have an indirect interest in the company through a family partnership.

 
“Richard W. Painter, a White House ethics adviser under President George W. Bush, said he was familiar with Neurocore and applauded the business and education concepts behind it — but he said the DeVoses would be better off selling their interests in the company.”

 

California teacher Jack Covey sent the following comment on this news story:

 

“I am very sensitive to the needs of students
with disabilities.”
— Betsy Devos, at her confirmation hearing,
in response to a question from Senator Murray.

 

I think we now may have a little clarity as to what
she meant by that remark … as in when such needs
benefit her investment portfolio.

 

QUICK BACKGROUND:

 

Neurocore — a totally unscientific, quack medical
“bio-feedback” company that claims to cure autism, ADHD, etc.
where it operates nine “brain performance centers,” where
the controversial “drug free” cures offered there are not recognized by
any entity or anyone in the mainstream medical establishment.
Despite its grandiose claims of success, Neurocore has never consented
to have these practices tested or investigated in peer-reviewed
studies.

 

… “snake oil” is how Jennifer “Edushyster” Berkshire
referred to it in a recent tweet:
https://twitter.com/EduShyster/status/822793877614710788

 

 

Indeed, the Michigan Dept. of Insurance has upheld
insurance company denials of coverage for any Neurocore
“cures” on the grounds that there is zero evidence supporting
the efficacy of any of their treatments. These repeated
denials and upholding of these denials contradict
Neurocore’s website, which claims that their treatments
are covered by insurance carriers.

 

Betsy and her husband are two of Neurocore’s main investors
via their umbrella company Windcrest, which also is the
main backer of that Boxed Water being peddled to
the struggling citizens of Flint, Michigan. (a photo
of Betsy at a school site, included a product placement
for this “Boxed Water.”)

 

Her stock ownership and membership on Neurocore board of directors
was discovered two days ago — alas, after her confirmation
hearings.”

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Education Industry, Ethics, For-Profit, U.S. Department of Education

What a Day! Women’s March, Trump’s Ego

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2017 //
66

On January 20, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president. Photographs of the parade route show a sparse crowd.

 

On January 21, millions of people demonstrated in peaceful protest against Donald Trump and his many promises to curtail well-established rights and liberties, to ignore climate change, and to privatize large parts of American education. The protests were called the Women’s March but many men participated in cities across the nation and around the world.

 

The streets of Washington, D.C., Chicago, and other cities were crammed with protestors.

 

CNN and other media said that the protestors on January 21 outnumbered the attendees at the inaugural ceremonies on January 21.

 

Trump ignored the millions of protestors and paid a visit to the headquarters of the CIA. He used the occasion to lambaste the media for minimizing the size of the crowd at the inauguration. He also thanked the members of the CIA for voting for him. In short, he maintained his reputation for pettiness and inappropriate remarks, always focused on his insatiable ego.

 

John Brennan, retired Director of the CIA, blasted Trump for the inappropriateness of his political and egotistical remarks, delivered in front of a wall honoring agents who died in the line of duty.

 

“(CNN) Former CIA Director John Brennan is “deeply saddened and angered” at President Donald Trump after the commander in chief addressed CIA employees at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on Saturday, Brennan’s former deputy chief of staff says.

 

“Trump spent much of his speech — which he gave in front of a memorial wall that honors the 117 CIA officers who have fallen in the line of duty — focusing on the size of the crowd size at his inauguration, his appearance on magazine covers and saying he “has a running war with the media.”

 

“Former CIA Director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump’s despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes,” Nick Shapiro said in a statement. “Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself.”

 

 

Categories Trump

Dana Milbank: My Favorite Signs at the Women’s March on Washington

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2017 //
43

Dana Milbank covers politics for the Washington Post. Here are his favorite signs observed at the Women’s March on Washington. By the way, more people –women and men–showed up for the March than for the presidential inauguration the previous day. There were marches all over the nation and in cities around the world, all protesting Trump’s hateful words about women and others.

 

Milbank wrote:

 

“Some were vulgar, others were angry. Most were earnest. These were my favorite signs at Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington:

 

#FreeMelania
No Country for Dirty Old Men
Sad!
Resistance is Fertile
Too Worried to be Funny
If Mom’s Not Happy, Nobody’s Happy
I Have a Vagenda
Manchurine Candidate
Orange Is the New Fascism
There Is So Much Wrong It Cannot Fit on This Sign
Super Callous Fragile Ego, Trump You Are Atrocious
Super Callous Fascist Racist Extra Braggadocious
Actuaries Against Repeal and Delay
Leave it to the Beavers
Viva la Vulva
(Older woman’s sign:) I Can’t Believe I’m Still Protesting This S—
J Edgar Comey
(On image of President Trump as a scarecrow:) If He Only Had a Brain
(On a drawing of ovaries:) Grow a Pair
This P—- Grabs Back
Donald You Ignorant Slut
Melania, Blink Twice if You Need Help
Impeach Trump, Convert Pence
#emoluments
Sorry World, We’ll Fix This
(On needlepoint:) I Made This So I Could Stab Something 35,000 Times
Patriarchy is for D—-
There Will Be Hell Toupée”

 

Meanwhile, Trump went to visit the CIA and blamed “the media” for falsely portraying a dispute between him and the intelligence community. Lucky we have a short memory and a vast tolerance for lies.

 

Categories Education Reform, Resistance, Trump

Valerie Strauss: Democrats Paved the Way for Betsy DeVos

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2017 //
41

 

 

Valerie Strauss wrote an excellent article about the hypocrisy of Democrats who now loudly oppose Billionaire Betsy DeVos, but spent the last eight years bashing teachers, unions, and public schools while pouring billions of dollars into the proliferation of privately-managed charter schools. Once Democrats became cheerleaders for school choice, they abandoned the principle that public schools under democratic control are a fundamental public responsibility.

 

I urge you to read this article, which recounts the perfidy of Democrats who fell for privatization and betrayed public education. In many cases, support for charter schools opened the door to billionaires and hedge funder donations, to groups like Democrats for Education Reform and Education Reform Now and Families for Excellent Schools. Think Corey Booker, Andrew Cuomo, Dannell Malloy. Think of the silence of the Democrats as the U.S. Department of Education spent more than $3 billion on charter schools. How do they now express opposition to DeVos’s love for charters (and vouchers). She has exposed their hypocrisy.

 

Both of my last two books are about this theme–how the Democrats embraced privatization and opened the door to vouchers.

 

So I have to add a couple of points to her accurate summary:

 

In March 2011, President Obama and Secretary Duncan were in Miami with Jeb Bush to celebrate the “turnaround” of Miami Central High School. At the same time, thousands of working people were protesting the anti-labor policies of Scott Walker in Madison. Neither Obama nor Duncan ever showed up in Madison to show support for the teachers and union members who support Democrats.

 

The other point that needs to be added is that a month after Obama, Arne, and Jeb met to toast the turnaround of Miami Central, the state education Department in Florida listed it as a “failing” school that should be closed. I reported this in “Reign of Error.” The press never did report it. Why were Obama and Arne burnishing Jeb’s “credentials” as a “reformer?” Paving the way for Jeb’s good friend Betsy DeVos.

 

Let’s see if Democrats rediscover the importance of public education, where all kids are welcome, no lottery, no exclusion of kids with disabilities. In public schools, not every child can get admission to every school, but every child must be served and enrolled. Not some, but all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

have to add

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing, Vouchers, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Steven Singer: Donald Trump Lies: Our Schools Are Not “Flush with Cash”

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2017 //
14

Steven Singer says it straight: “Donald Trump lies.”

 

In a throwaway line in his inaugural speech, Trump said that the nation’s schools are “flush with cash” but failing to teach anything to their students.

 

To put it bluntly, Donald Trump knows nothing about American education. And he has chosen a Secretary of Education who knows even less than he does.

 

Steven describes the severe lack of funds that afflict many school districts, especially those in urban areas. School budgets have not grown since the 2008 economic collapse, yet they are expected to subtract funds to pay for charters, vouchers, and cybercharters (most of which perform worse than public schools).

 

I recommend that Trump and DeVos read my book “Reign of Error,” which shows that test scores are the highest they have been since the early 1970s, when NAEP testing began; that graduation rates are the highest they have ever been in our history; and that dropout rates are the lowest ever, for every racial group. But I have no hope that they will. Trump doesn’t read books, and DeVos is an ideologue whose mind cannot be changed by facts or evidence.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization

Turn on Your TV: Protests Against Trump in D.C. and around the Nation and the World

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2017 //
48

Watch TV news, if you can.

 

It appears that there are more people in D.C. protesting against Trump than there were in attendance at the inauguration yesterday. Add to that the protests across the nation and the world.

 

 

Categories Education Reform
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