Archives for the month of: April, 2017
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Help Florida Parents of Third Graders Fight for Their Children

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
5

I just contributed $200 to this just cause.

If we crowd source our support, parents in Florida can fight the unjust law that prevents their children from advancing to fourth grade unless they take and pass the state test. Children who opt out will be retained. Children who received all A’s all year will flunk.

Support the parents fighting this stupid state mandate:

Dear Friends of Public Education,

As the Plaintiffs move towards the Florida Supreme Court, they must continue to pay their attorney. They have agreed to pay $7400.00 to progress this case. This is a small portion of the entire legal bill. With your generous donations, we can make it.

Here is a compelling video appeal from one of the parents: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_y8yDe0lOu0

At this time they have raised over $5000.00 of that $7400.00 and for that we thank you!

The families now have until April 4th to commit so please share the campaign and continue to support the fight to make sure that #180DaysCount.

There are 3 ways to donate.

1) gofundme.com/StopGr3Retention

2) Paypal link on https://www.facebook.com/TheOptOutFloridaNetwork/

3) To avoid GoFundMe fees, you may send a check directly to Attorney for the Plaintiffs:

The Law Office of Andrea Flynn Mogensen, P.A.
200 South Washington Boulevard, Suite 7
Sarasota FL 34236

Note on your check: “Third Grade Florida Supreme Court” and please let us know you have sent it at TheOptOutFLNetwork@gmail.com

It has been encouraging that SO MANY teachers have donated.

If you can contribute a challenge match to help the families get over this first hurdle, we would be very grateful.

Categories Florida, Testing

Why the FBI Can’t Tell All About Trump

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
18

I posted this article a few days ago with the warning that I could not vouch for the source. I have since checked out the website–WhoWhatWhy–and conclude that it is a highly reputable source for honest investigative journalism.

I think if you scan the website, see who writes for it, who edits it, who is on the board of directors, you will agree this is not fake news.

Here is the mission statement:

WhoWhatWhy embodies a form of investigative reporting that is rigorous, relentless and scientific — we call it forensic journalism.

Forensic journalism requires skepticism towards power and credentialed expertise; a determination to unearth the facts interested parties want to keep hidden; and an unflinching commitment to follow the trail wherever it leads. We are truth seeking-not quote seeking.

We take on controversial topics others will not touch and dig deep to uncover and name the institutions and persons shaping our world. Our organization is neither partisan nor ideological and only provides accounts based on extensive research and thorough sourcing.

In addition to producing rigorous investigative reporting, we seek to further the long-term survival and betterment of the news industry as a whole.

The story with which I began is about the possible connection between Trump and the Russian mafia. This story has enormous implications for our democracy and for future elections.

It begins:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation cannot tell us what we need to know about Donald Trump’s contacts with Russia. Why? Because doing so would jeopardize a long-running, ultra-sensitive operation targeting mobsters tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and to Trump.

But the Feds’ stonewalling risks something far more dangerous: Failing to resolve a crisis of trust in America’s president. WhoWhatWhy provides the details of a two-month investigation in this 6,500-word exposé.

The FBI apparently knew, directly or indirectly, based upon available facts, that prior to Election Day, Trump and his campaign had personal and business dealings with certain individuals and entities linked to criminal elements — including reputed Russian gangsters — connected to Putin.

The same facts suggest that the FBI knew or should have known enough prior to the election to justify informing the public about its ongoing investigation of potentially compromising relationships between Trump, Putin, and Russian mobsters — even if it meant losing or exposing a valued informant.

***

It will take an agency independent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to expose Donald Trump’s true relationship with Moscow and the role Russia may have played in getting him elected.

Director James Comey recently revealed in a congressional hearing for the first time that the FBI “is investigating … the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

However, a two-month WhoWhatWhy investigation has revealed an important reason the Bureau may be facing undisclosed obstacles to revealing what it knows to the public or to lawmakers.

Our investigation also may explain why the FBI, which was very public about its probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails, never disclosed its investigation of the Trump campaign prior to the election, even though we now know that it commenced last July.

Categories Democracy, Media, Trump

Mercedes Schneider on the Pahara Institute, Which Trains True Believers in Privatization and Testing

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
14

Mercedes Schneider wrote an excellent study–“A Chronicle of Echoes”–of the echo chamber of corporate reform.

In this post, she reviews one of the entrails in the belly of the beast. It is called the Pahara Institute, which claims to train leaders who will create the high-quality, high-performing schools that all children need.

If you look at the list of big-name participants, which includes local superintendents, state superintendents, even a former Secretary of Education, you realize why all these people sound like robots. They have been programmed in their echo chamber.

But one question keeps popping up: These people are in positions of power. They are not on the outside looking in. Where are the great schools and the great districts that they should have produced by now? One day, all children will have an excellent education, but is there a timetable? Ten years? Twenty years? The fifth of never? Will they ever deliver? Or will they just keep promising and promising until the funders stop funding?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Trump-DeVos Suck Up Watch: PBS Is Showing a Series Attacking Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
42

Laura Chapman wrote the following expose of a new series that will appear on PBS. It must be public television’s effort to curry favor with the Trump administration, as it reflects the extremist agenda of Betsy DeVos, who is intent on creating a free market in publicly-funded schooling. Since Trump’s budget has proposed to eliminate funding for public television, this series may be a demonstration that even PBS will give a showcase to libertarians who want to destroy public institutions.

More than ten years ago, PBS ran a four-part series called SCHOOL, produced by Sarah Patton, Sarah Mondale, and Vera Aronow. It was a history of public education that documented the role of public education in welcoming generations of immigrants and leading the way to a better society. For the past four years the same team has been creating a one-hour documentary exposing the corporate assault on public education. They have struggled to find funding, but they are near completion. The very least that PBS could do to compensate for featuring a one-sided rightwing diatribe against public education would be to show “Backpack Full of Cash,” which portrays the bitter forces of reaction that seek to destroy one of our most treasured democratic institutions, public schools funded by all and open to all.

It is ironic and sad that public television would lend credibility to an attack on public education. Encouraging the forces intent on destroying everything “public” will not save public television.

Chapman writes:

“I just posted about the SCHOOL, INC. television programs on PBS. I did not do enough research. Here is what you really should know about the programs.

“These programs are pure propaganda for so-called free market education. They have been produced courtesy of Free to Choose, a promoter of all things that the late Milton and Rosa Friedman would love.

“The PBS website says that funding for these programs has been provided by the Texas-based Rose-Marie and Jack R. Anderson Foundation. See http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rose-Marie_and_Jack_R._Anderson_Foundation
The Anderson Foundation s one of several ultra conservative funders, but the series is also sell-funded by being part of the Free to Choose Network. That Network is a non-profit set up by the one of the Executive Producers Bob Chitester

“Bob Chitester is chairman, president and CEO of Free To Choose Network, a 501-c-3 public foundation housing Free To Choose Media, an award-winning, global entertainment company which produces and distributes thought-provoking public television programs and series. In 1977, Chitester and economist Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, undertook a film project which became Free To Choose, an award-winning PBS TV series and an international best-selling book based on the series. You can learn more about the connection of this non-profit to the Friedman doctrine of market-based education here and elsewhere on the internet. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Free_to_Choose_Network

“Among the others responsible for the series is Andrew Coulson. Coulson is the Creator, Writer, and Director. His bio, posted on PBS, says Coulson studied mathematics and computer science at McGill University and worked as a Microsoft software engineer. In 1994, he became ” troubled by the fact that teaching and learning were being left behind by the relentless progress in other fields. His book, Market Education: The Unknown History, received endorsements from Washington Post columnist William Raspberry, Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson, and University of Chicago education psychologist Herbert Walberg. His 2009 paper for the peer-reviewed Journal of School Choice was the most comprehensive review of the worldwide scientific literature comparing alternative education systems. In 2011 he conducted a statistical study titled “The Other Lottery: Are Philanthropists Backing the Best Charter Schools?” Coulson has ….testified before the United States House and Senate on the state of American education and co-authored amicus briefs for the United States Supreme Court. He was senior fellow in education policy at the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute, and contributed chapters to books by the Hoover Institution and Canada’s Fraser Institute. Prior to his death in February 2016, Coulson made arrangements to ensure School, Inc. would be completed for broadcast television.”

“There are many reasons why I support my local PBS broadcasters. This programing is not one of them.

“Overall, I think that PBS has done a miserable job of seeking spokespersons for public education, especially parents, students, administrators and politicians. Diane Ravitch has appeared on Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers and a few other programs, but I have seen no real coverage of the issues facing public education right now.

“I wonder if PBS scheduled this series to coincide with the Betsy DeVos/Trump agenda that will pour money into vouchers and set in motion market-based education as if the new norm for American education. I wonder if Milton and Rosa Friedman smiling. Did PBS intend to insult many of their supporters, including me, by scheduling this series now?

“Please be aware that this PBS series is a propaganda machine for market-based education. The programs are not presented in a context that makes that obvious.

“I intend to let my local PBS stations know that this series looks like a well-planned and perfectly timed promo for the DeVos/Trump agenda.

“I will also ask for them to take affirmative steps to support public education and the public schools in their viewing areas.

“PBS seems to be satisfied with educational programming for use by teachers and cartoony programs for children. Sesame Street is hosted after it has made money elsewhere. Unless I am mistaken, Trump’s proposed budget for PBS will bring a 20% cut, not total elimination.

“PBS needs all the support it can get. This is not a way to support the public schools who serve the majority of our students and with uncommon ingenuity and devotion in the midst of budget cuts and unwarranted, unsupported attacks from billionaires, including the funders of these programs.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Trump, Vouchers

Darren Walker: How the Arts Changed My Life and Enrich the Nation

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
8

Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation. He was recently honored at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and used the occasion to explain how his exposure to the arts changed his life.

He said,

“As a little boy, I lived with my mother and sister in a little shotgun house—in an African-American community in rural Liberty County, Texas. My grandmother worked as a maid in the home of a wealthy Houston family. And every month, she would bring me old art magazines and programs from arts events the family attended.

“I remember, vividly, feeling transfixed by the magic I saw on those pages—by images of worlds to which I had no other exposure. I remember flipping through those magazines and programs, and falling in love, swiftly and deeply. Those pages unlocked my capacity to imagine a world beyond my own—and to imagine my place in it.

“Simply put, the arts changed my life. They imbued me with the power to imagine, the power to dream, and the power to know I could express myself with dignity, and beauty, and grace.

“But here’s the thing: I was lucky.

“I was lucky to have the right grandmother. Lucky that she worked as a maid in the right house. Lucky that house was inhabited by the right wealthy family, who subscribed to the right magazines, and had diverse interests in the arts. Lucky that family showed their love by giving me their discarded magazines and programs.”

He then goes on to explain how important the arts are to the nation, not only as cultural enrichment but as a thriving economy. But the arts cannot be measured or valued by dollars alone.

“You see, all of us here tonight: We are all the lucky ones. Because there are children across the country growing up in circumstances not unlike those of my childhood—children who, day after day, experience in their lives the most terrible manifestations of inequality.

“For them, exposure to the arts, to imagination and ambition, remains a matter of chance or circumstance. But it shouldn’t be. It can’t be. Not in a democracy like ours.

“Everyone deserves to experience the arts. No child should need a permission slip to dream.

“Art is not a privilege. Art is the soul of our civilization; the beating heart of our humanity; a miracle to which we all should bear witness, over and over again, in every home—from the most modest and humble to the grandest and well-fashioned.

“And tonight—in this place, our national cathedral to the arts, and in this moment, these perilous and challenging times in our nation’s history—I would argue that we need the arts and humanities more than ever before.”

As an aside, I was reminded of a line attributed to Winston Churchill. Allegedly, someone said during World War 2 that the government had to spend less on the arts and more on the military. He is said to have replied, “If we don’t have the arts, then what are we fighting for?” My googling indicated that the quote is apocryphal, but it is good nonetheless.

Categories Art, Arts Education, Democracy

BREAKING NEWS: Julian Vasquez Heilig Has Won OK to Open Five For-Profit Charter Schools in Michigan!

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2017 //
19

Julian Vasquez Heilig has deep ties to the state of Michigan, as he is from Lansing, and he graduated from the University of Michigan. He has made his mark as a scholar of education policy at the University of Texas and now Sacramento State in California. Although he has established a reputation as a well-informed critic of charters, he could not pass up the opportunity to open a chain of charters in his home state of Michigan, where anyone can open a charter school and the financial rewards of for-profit charters are large. What’s principle when profits are so alluring?

The five charters will open this September, which is kind of quick, but then they are mostly online schools. It is no problem that Julian will continue to live in California, because, well, the weather is better.

It took only four weeks to have his request approved, so why wait to get started?

Here are three of his five new charters. You will have to open the link to read about the other two. They are doozies:

SELL Academy: SELL Academy will be primarily online and have a statewide attendance zone and serve grades 9-12. The school plans to implement an online real estate and sales curriculum through partnership with Trump University. The school aims to integrate sales into project-based learning experiences to allow students to develop critical thinking skills and a deeper understanding of sales— including real estate deals. Tremendous! There will be a brick-and-mortar location at a Trump property to be determined later.

Perfect Graduation Academy for Boys: Perfect Academy for Boys will be primarily online have a statewide with a brick-and-mortar location on land to be purchased by school and then leased back to me by my Charter Management Organization at a “great” price. Perfect will serve grades 9-10. The school will be a single-gender charter school that provides a rigorous, college preparatory program for grades 9-12. We will have a 100% graduation rate for everyone that is still at our school after four years. I promise. Perfect Academy for Boys will offer an extended day, week and year religious-based educational program. The focus is on boys, because, well, you know boys.

Exodus Academy for Girls: Exodus Academy for Girls will be primarily online have a statewide with a brick-and-mortar location on land to be purchased by school and then leased back to me by my Charter Management Organization at a “great” price (see above). I am actually thinking I might sell this school before it opens or mid-year. I’m taking offers— I’m ready to exodus.

He says he knows that Betsy DeVos will be thrilled with his success and that he was inspired by her comparison of schools to Ubers and other disruptive innovations in ride-sharing. He wants to be part of the new economy.

Need I say that Julian will be leaving the board of the Network for Public Education as of close of business today?

(April Fool!)

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Hoax, Humor, Privatization

Future: A Student Thanks “Misses DeVos for My Real Good Education”

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2017 //
7

This post is satire. It appears in The New Yorker as a letter written in 2040 by a student whose education was shaped by Betsy DeVos.

Without saying so, it acknowledges her avid support for school choice that includes schools where children learn nothing other than the religious right version of science (dinosaurs and humans living at the same time), and not much else.

An excerpt:

I am the smartest and oldest student in my school so next year I will go to Harvard right away. I will study rules and politics so some day I can make them good like you did. I would not have this amazing scenario of life without you so thank you again to you.

My private school cost my parents lots of big money (they are better at going into banks than me). I got a good education here and did real good. My favorite parts of school are Prayer Class, Pledge of Allegiance Class, Food Eating Time, Run Around Time, Nap Times 1, 2, and 3, and Science (Nap Time 4).

I like my teachers because they are the only ones left. A lot of them went home because they couldn’t stop crying every time we talked. One Run Around Time I ran by Misses Pensky and heard her say to Mister Graham, “it’s only getting worse. These kids are in their twenties and they can’t even identify the colors of traffic signals. We’re all going to die.” The next day Misses Pensky was gone. I do not know where she went. Maybe to pick out a nice box for when she dies to go to sleep in?

Is it funny or sad? Can you really satirize the madness of putting a religious zealot who knows nothing about education other than “choice” in charge of the U.S. Department of Education?

Categories Betsy DeVos, Humor, U.S. Department of Education

Trump Puts Kushner in Charge of Innovation Across the Federal Government

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2017 //
20

This should be an April Fools Day joke but unfortunately it is real.

Trump announced that he was putting his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of introducing innovation into the federal government, especially the values of American business.

The Office of American Innovation will have a huge portfolio. As the White House announced:

““The Office of American Innovation will bring a creative and strategic approach to many critical issues and intractable problems that affect Americans’ quality of life,” said Kushner. “We have an opportunity to identify and implement solutions by combining internal resources with the private sector’s innovation and creativity, enabling the Federal Government to better serve Americans.”

“Individuals involved have already hosted listening and working sessions with more than 100 private-sector CEOs, other external thought leaders, and senior Government officials. OAI will create task forces to focus on initiatives such as modernizing Government services and information technology, improving services to veterans, creating transformational infrastructure projects, implementing regulatory and process reforms, creating manufacturing jobs, addressing the drug and opioid epidemic, and developing “workforce of the future” programs.”

Immediately after the announcement, a former high-level official of Kushner’s newspaper suggested that he knows very little about innovation.

Eliabeth Spiers was hired by Kushner as editor-in-chief of his paper, the New York Observer.

She wrote:

“I worked for Kushner for 18 months as he tried to infuse a much smaller institution than the U.S. government with cost-cutting impulses from the commercial real estate world. And my experience doesn’t bode well for the Office of American Innovation. Not everything that works in the private sector is transferrable to the public sector — and even if it were, Kushner isn’t the best person to transfer it.”

Kushner’s idea of innovation is cost-cutting. He thinks he has great expertise, but he inherited the family business. Needless to say, he knows little about government nor has he ever run a large organization.

April Fools Day indeed.

The New York Times reported today that Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump are worth about $741 million. They are still receiving profits from their sprawling business empire. In other words, they are loaded with potential conflicts of interest.

We are the fools this day.

Categories Trump

ALERT: Secretary Betsy DeVos Holds Secret Meeting with Russian Grizzly Bear!

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2017 //
6

The National Education Policy Center reports that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos held a secret meeting with a Russian grizzly bear!

There is an actual photograph of the meeting included in the post!

BOULDER, CO (April 1, 2017) – As part of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s campaign to promote educational vouchers, she held a secret meeting last week with Boo Boo Medvedev, a Russian bear who is said to have close ties to bear leadership throughout the northern hemisphere.

Tensions between the two camps had flared following reports that DeVos had urged American teachers to open fire on members of the bear community. As a result, the powerful bear lobby had threatened to maul politicians who pretended not to know about recent studies of vouchers in Louisiana, Ohio and Indiana, all showing negative test score effects—in some cases, surprisingly large.

An Education Department spokesman announced on Friday that the talks were very successful. “The Secretary explained to Mr. Medvedev that her statements had been falsely reported by the Fake News Liberal Establishment Media™. By the end of the meeting, the Secretary had the bear eating out of her hand.”

Please read the posts to find out what the Bear promised Secretary DeVos.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Humor

Humor Day: Mike Pence Asks Waiter to Remove Mrs. Butterworth from the Table Until His Wife Arrives

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2017 //
18

Thanks to Duane Swacker for this hilarious piece from the Onion!

Mike Pence asks the waiter to remove Mrs. Butterworth from the table until his wife arrives. Her comely shape embarrasses him.

Someone on Twitter said that Mike Pence seems to be obsessed with the sanctity of marriage, but obsessed with interfering in the sanctity of other people’s marriages.

Categories Humor, Pence
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