This is not a new article but it remains timely and worthy of your attention.
Jeb Bush runs an organization called the Foundation for Educational Excellence. Betsy DeVos was a member of his board. FEE receives corporate contributions. It works closely with ALEC, the rightwing corporate-sponsored organization that lobbies for charters, vouchers, and against teachers’ unions and tenure.
In the Public Interest was able to obtain a trove of emails that revealed the influence of FEE in several states, including Florida, New Mexico, Maine, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Rhode Island.
The e-mails are between the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) and a group Bush set up called Chiefs for Change, whose members are current and former state education commissioners who support Bush’s agenda of school reform, which includes school choice, online education, retention of third-graders who can’t read and school accountability systems based on standardized tests. That includes evaluating teachers based on student test scores and grading schools A-F based on test scores. John White of Louisiana is a current member, as is Tony Bennett, the new commissioner of Florida who got the job after Indiana voters rejected his Bush-style reforms last November and tossed him out of office.
Donald Cohen, chair of the nonprofit In the Public Interest, a resource center on privatization and responsible for contracting in the public sector, said the e-mails show how education companies that have been known to contribute to the foundation are using the organization “to move an education agenda that may or not be in our interests but are in theirs.”
He said companies ask the foundation to help state officials pass laws and regulations that make it easier to expand charter schools, require students to take online education courses, and do other things that could result in business and profits for them. The e-mails show, Cohen said, that Bush’s foundation would often do this with the help of Chiefs for Change and other affiliated groups.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This post reveals just what has happened to the political consciousness of those who govern and/or hold power in this country (and out of it). The oligarchic/capitalist-only mindset (anything you cannot turn a profit on is worthless, even dangerous, which turns children into pawns) has probably been encroaching on the consciousness of the nation for a long time–but it becomes fully obvious when such people as the Bushes build and become SYSTEMATICALLY involved with associations (like ALEC) that actively seek to dis-empower teachers and, in fact, over-control the people and institutions to whom the political “class” in a democracy owe their allegiance.
The only question remains: do they really know the full implications of what they are doing to the country, and probably, in the long run, to history itself?
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Tony Bennett resigned as State Superintendent in Florida only 8 months after he was hired in 2013. The Foundation, however, continues to impact policy. The latest attributed to them is a drive to increase passing standards even though achievement is flat.
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They are changing the passing mark so that more kids fail, more schools are branded D or F, more schools are available for takeover and privatization.
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Utah had more schools “pass” in the grading system last year, so the state school board “redefined” the system and pushed the rate for “passing” much higher. This spring, teachers are reporting that the Big Standardized Tests are MUCH harder, and that few students are scoring well. The district averages have gone down, too.
Coincidence?
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To Threatened Out West. they are acting like Cinderella’s stepmother–you can go to the ball if you finish your chores. You’ve finished your chores? Then here’s some more–finish these too. Only then can you go the ball.
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Jeb Bush is the tip of the privatization iceberg. The cabal to privatize public education is everywhere, and it is financed by those on the left and the right. Billionaires and corporations have been pulling the strings for many years, and our so-called representatives have been dancing to their beat in both the states and the federal governments. While these groups may disagree on some plans on how to accomplish privatization, their objectives are the same. They want to transfer public money to private groups, and take democratic power away from citizens. The goal is to make money for a few at the expense of many. The most calculating and insidious of these groups is ALEC. The are well organized and funded, and they have a vision on how to accomplish this. They have been throwing money at all levels of elections, and they have been frequently winning. The fact that the Republican have 33 governors in office should be of great concern to anyone that supports public education.
This link is worth reading. It outlines ALEC’s plan to prevail over public education and democratic governance. If we do not mobilize parents, teachers, young voters, and social justice groups, ALEC’s vision is becoming a closer reality for everyone. http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13054/cashing-kids-172-alec-education-bills-2015
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Access via this link is blocked because I do not subscribe to the Washington Post. Even so, I found this link with the emails. http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/emails-from-jebs-chiefs-for-change-and-foundation-for-excellence-in-ed-show-nonprofits-and-government-working-hand-in-hand-to-lead-states-to-common-core-and-online-learning/
I am also familiar enough with FEE, ALEC and what I call baby ALEC–the American City County Exchange—to know that FEE and corporate interests have become ubiquitous. Mercedes Schneider has a number of posts treating the evolution of FEE, but these emails are filled with details worth noting.
FEE is among a bunch of non-profits that have organized campaigns to replace teachers with on-line learning and calling that kind of instructional delivery “personalized.” It should be called de-personalized. Unseen designers of algorithms design software that takes students to pre-determined right answers. Bingo on the right answer and that is called “mastery.” So-called personalized learning is nothing more than non-stop testing of students’ ability to get correct answers to questions posed by others. Fans of “artificial” intelligence think this is great education, cheap and efficient, outsourced to computer programmers and instructional designers. The prototypes for this kind of delivery system go back to military training, especially for WW II.
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The bourgeois parasite saga continues.
Michael Hudson:
“It’s the basic intellectual dynamic of parasitism. In nature, parasites don’t simply attach themselves to a host and suck out blood, or take the surplus in an economy. In order to do that, they have to numb the host. They need an anesthetic so that the host doesn’t realize it’s being bitten. Then, biological parasites in nature have an enzyme that they use to take over the brain. The brain of the host is tricked into thinking that the parasite is a part of its body, to be protected.”
All these bourgeois parasites “feel our pain”… We got your back!
Taste the pudding, smell the coffee…
“It’s not about reality. It’s about the internal consistency of assumptions. It’s to build a beautiful system that, if it really worked, would be so appealing that students will be willing to suspend disbelief. That is what a good science fiction writer would do. The trick is to make readers willing to accept the assumptions that they’re given at the outset.”
(Hudson)
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NoBrick. Another classic text to draw from is “The Colonized and the Colonizer” by Albert Memmi. He’s talking about the English and their colonies; but the use of psychological power by the colonizer is the same:
Keep the colonized “in their place” by keeping them just on the edge: between (a) being so distraught that they have nothing to lose by outright revolution; and (b) hoodwinked and ignorant, feeling helpless, where at least they can be distracted and can have SOME control over their individual happiness by “working harder” and by remaining unaware of how they are being manipulated by the political powers who are getting away with political murder–sort of like the horses in Animal Farm.
I think, perhaps, the oligarchs who developed our technology so well may suffer the historical irony and blow-back of their own devices as, for instance, social conscience and twitter find their right relationship.
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“I think, perhaps, the oligarchs who developed our technology . . . ”
I’m not so sure, actually I am sure that I wouldn’t give the oligarchs credit for “developing our technology”. Have a couple of oligarchs capitalized on their monopolistic practices in producing technological devices? Yes, no doubt. But it takes a lot of minions or should I say peeons to make that oligarch’s fortune. We know that those oligarchs speak with a gilded forked tongue. Unfortunately so many Americans are in awe of and respond to the shine of that glittering tongue.
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When will this CRAZINESS STOP? It is just so depressing. To think that our politicians and the elite are working towards the destruction of public education is most disgusting. The deformers and the elite say they care, but we know they lie and really don’t give one hoot about other people’s children … the deformers really want SLAVES to serve them This bashing is an OLD trick.
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Jeb Bush is probably the most dangerous of the three in politics, between him, and the two Georges’.
His example of living the American Dream, is to provide “school choice” for the public…a really cool and sneaky way of diverting public tax dollars into private hands. These private hands include Jeb’s, as his American Dream involves being part owner of the Florida Marlins.
While most Americans work hard for a living, Mr Bush dreams of ways to “capitalize” on the labor of the American people.
Each dollar diverted from our public schools, from our taxes, and from our democracy…has the unbridled potential of ending up in his bank accounts, or others like him…and may well be used to write the check to buy a Major League Baseball team.
Mr Bush’s 21st Century American Economics Plan…
1) promise the public “choice”
2) divert public tax dollars from the people to private accounts
3) increase wealth in fewer hands
4) sit back in his private Box seat and smile at how wonderful America is.
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For the public, school “choice”
For the public, a silenced “voice…
But for Bush and the likes,
…a time to rejoice!
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“Jeb Bush is probably the most dangerous of the three in politics, between him, and the two Georges’.”
Will have to thoroughly disagree. The results of the Jebster’s educational nightmarish policies are nothing in comparison to the death and destruction wrought by Georgie the Least around the world through his illegal wars of aggression.
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I put this comment u p on an OPED article about Betsy Devos. by Robert Weiner,
https://www.opednews.com/articles/DeVos-Push-for-Education–by-Robert-Weiner-Choice_Education_Education_Education-Costs-170421-337.html#comment655708
I have been writing about education here, for many years . Let me be very clear about this: in 1998 I was a celebrated NYC teacher, at the top of a forty year career, in my eighth year teaching the entire seventh grade at a new magnet school on the east side of Manhattan. That year, I was (NYSEC’s ) NYS English Council’s “Educator of Excellence”! My practice was selected as the NYC cohort for the Pew research on the Principle of Learning (Resnick, at Harvard thesis). http://www.newvisions.org/page/-/Prelaunch%20files/PDFs/NV%20Publications/challengestandards.pdf
But, the assault on teachers had begun!
Go to my author’s page https://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html?sid=40790
where this essay
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
describing the scandalous deprivation of civil rights which happened to me (and thousands of other wonderful teachers) when the UFT abandoned me — as it had abandoned tens of thousands of tenured, experienced teachers in NYC.
Fake News began the rant to demonize our schools, 2 decades ago when they saw simple ploy to cause failure…take out the professional practitioner. Target the teachers !
I wrote “Magic Elixir,” https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html almost 2 decades ago, based on Daniel Willingham’s claim that in education, no evidence is required….but then , after listening to the GOP debates by people who would run our country, liars and charlatans are at the top of our nation. I wrote “Bamboozle Them,” long before our newest con artist, Betsy Devos, came along. https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
I know Diane Ravitch for more than a decade now. Here is a link to all of her posts on Betsy Devos. https://dianeravitch.net/?s=betsy+deVos
I highly recommend you follow her site, and talk to her there.Diane Ravitch’s blog | A site to discuss better education for all
I have been using information from her site, about the state legislatures which are taking over the local schools, with nary an educator on board, and giving them to charters, with not a shred of oversight! Here is her piece on the A Slick Campaign for Privatization .
Here is a link to Diane’s posts on charter school corruption . Diane Ravich predicted the current disaster for public education years ago. How Not to Fix Our Public Schools and in her book Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools
This is a nation wide conspiracy by the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.. and the fraud follows it-.
THIS is all out war on education because DEMOCRACY depends on shared knowledge and they want to dumb the people down (link is to John Gatto) . They are using weapons of mass instruction to kill real learning and replace genuine curricula that enables critical thinking.
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George W. Bush pushed for testing. My understanding is that brother Neil had something to do with making the tests. So nothing surprises me.
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The Bush connection to testing goes back to the founding of the resort town of Jupiter, Florida by Prescott Bush and the scion of the McGraw publishing company. The Bush and McGraw families have been business partners since that time. Neil’s edu-software was called Ignite! (a family affinity for exclamation marks) and was rolled out just after NCLB.
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Thanks, Christine for that reminder of the Bush and McGraw families intimate ties.
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MA Ed Commissioner Mitchell Chestet used to head up PARCC. Now he’s gone on to be a Chief for Change.
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Diane, are you aware of lobbying efforts by private education companies to deregulate virtual courses, particular those used for online credit recovery? I recently spoke with a group of Georgia state legislators about how these courses have been used to artificially inflate graduation rates, showing them exactly where the GA congress had gutted virtual course regulations in the 2015 education bill.
BTW – Jay Mathews wrote a column about my OCR experiences in February.
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Yes, absolutely the tech companies lobby to get their stuff into the schools.
They call their tech stuff “personalized” when it is depersonalized.
Read “Reign of Error” and look in the index for Jeb Bush’s push for “Digital Learning NOW!” His corporate sponsors are tech companies and he works through his “Chiefs for Change”
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Thanks for that info, Diane. I’ll look into this. My district got a state senate commendation for its astounding 13% point graduation rate increase in one year. It ascribed the gains to “personalized learning programs” (a euphemism indeed), not even mentioning what they were. I immediately saw the doublespeak in this. Of course, it depends on how one defines a ‘person.’ I see relationships as essential to personhood, so the absence of any relationship with a real teacher depersonalizes these courses. But their definition of ‘person’ includes at its essence autonomy and control. They call it personal because students can work ‘at their own pace’ without the interference of a pesky teacher or other classmates. But really all the course entail are entering ‘correct’ information into a computer, which most students are just guessing at.
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One of the recommendations of Bush’s Digital Learning NOW! is complete deregulation of virtual providers. They don’t even have to have an office in the state where they are selling their product.
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Diane: This in from EdWeek about how things are in private universities in India:
QUOTE FROM ARTICLE:
“While certain private institutes have managed to break away from the stereotypes attached and emerged as quality Institutes, there are still several problems plaguing the private sector today. The most important one is that owners of private colleges consider them to be businesses rather than educational institutes. More importance is put on infrastructure rather than research work and the quality of faculty is bad. Quality faculty is not willing to take up such jobs because such institutes don’t pay well or give their teachers autonomy and freedom for research.”
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/dissonances-and-paradoxes-private-sector-growth
Dissonances and Paradoxes of Private-Sector Growth | Inside Higher Ed
http://www.insidehighered.com
Despite the growth in private higher educational institutions, people in India still prefer public institutions over private institutions.
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Let me add too that I collected evidence last year on one of the major vendors that their courses are coded in such a way as to enable students to increase their grades by increasing the odds of guessing the correct answers on multiple choice assessments. I have a pretty large sample size and studied it extensively for a semester. I gave this data to a major news organization, and I’m told it will be published as part of a large investigation into virtual courses.
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What is OCR for those of of self-diagnosed with AIIDS*
*Acronym Identification Impaired Disorder Syndrome (to be included in the DSMVI.
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online credit recovery
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“. . . and I’m told it will be published as part of a large investigation into virtual courses.”
If I may interpret that for you FE: The results of your investigation will never see the light of day. (Unless of course you have a few hundreds of millions of dollars to “donate” to us.) Yes, I’m that jaded.
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Donate to who?
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Sometimes my postings are not meant to be taken literally.
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Any teacher who has ever seen 3rd graders throwing up or retained 3 times, know this is cruel and unproductive way to ensure growth.
Florida Virtual School (FLVS) has the reins on the online education business in Florida. They franchise themselves out to any of the 67 districts, but the districts must compete head to head with them for students. So, other than a few start-ups, they’re pretty much in control.
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