Maine: When “Reformers” Tried to Take Over the Schools with a Brazen For-Profit Scheme

9 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

1. Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

   January 30, 2018 at 10:37 am

   What is WRONG with JEB? Good GAWD, wonder where his money is?

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • dianeravitch says:

     January 30, 2018 at 10:39 am

     Look at his webeite.

     He is subsidized by the tech industry

     LikeLike

     Reply
2. carolmalaysia says:

   January 30, 2018 at 10:54 am

   This is educational corruption at its worst. Digital schools have statistically been proven to be the worst. Kids can stay at home and log on. Then they are accounted for even if they do no work or learn anything. It is a scam to make money for corporations. This is working to get rid of expensive teachers and use digital for all learning.

   Disgusting. How long will this garbage continue? Probably as long as politicians enjoy getting money from their wealthy donors…corporate and private.

   LikeLike

   Reply
3. Susan Lee Schwartz says:

   January 30, 2018 at 11:27 am

   Posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Special-Report-The-profit-in-General_News-Digital_Education_Fraud_Fraud-180130-706.html

   with this introduction: DON’T MISS THIS:At stake is the future of thousands of Maine schoolchildren who would enroll in the full-time virtual schools and the future of tens of thousands more who would be legally required to take online courses at their public high schools in order to receive their diplomas. THE aggressive reform drive to dramatically expand and deregulate online education — a partnership formed between Maine’s top education official and a foundation entangled with the very companies that stand to make millions of dollars from the policies it advocates, by providing portions of the education agenda.SEE: ALEC-sponsored digital education bills– in Maine, several ALEC model bills that would benefit online education companies were introduced including several measures that sought to use public funds to pay private school tuition, a law that allows public schools to act like charter schools.’

   My comments:
   and read this recent article in The nY Times Online Courses Are Harming the Students Who Need the Most Help – https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/business/online-courses-are-harming-the-students-who-need-the-most-help.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_up_20180122&nl=upshot&nl_art=0&nlid=50637717&ref=headline&te=1 Online education is still in its youth. As of now, however, the evidence is clear. For advanced learners, online classes are a terrific option, but academically challenged students need a classroom with a teacher’s support.

   This article summarizes a year-long investigation Of Michigan charter schools by the Detroit Free Press. Eighty percent operate for profit. No accountability. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/06/22/michigan-spends-1b-on-charter-schools-but-fails-to-hold/77155074/

   And the end of our Public schools is in evidence across the nation The Education Law Center reports that the New Jersey legislature plans to give Camden’s public schools to out-of-state charter chains. Camden is one of the most impoverished small cities in the state. Public assets will be handed over to private entities, a blatant grab of public funds.
   Look at North Carolina: How a Once Great State Destroyed Its Public Schools https://dianeravitch.net/2018/01/08/north-carolina-how-a-once-great-state-destroyed-its-public-schools/

   LikeLike

   Reply
4. Chiara says:

   January 30, 2018 at 11:37 am

   I was really wonderful work.

   I bet people in Maine had no earthly idea that Jeb Bush’s lobbying shop had captured their state government.

   Ed reformers once put a state law on the floor in Ohio and then had to pull it, because they forgot to take the lobbyist-written caption off it and insert their own.

   THAT’S how captured they are.

   LikeLike

   Reply
5. retired teacher says:

   January 30, 2018 at 12:15 pm

   Cyber education under the influence of ALEC or Jeb Bush’s group is a festering “pay to play” scheme. They pay the people in decision making positions to open the door for them. They will create a marketing buzz about their product to create an artificial market for their cyber products for the sole purpose of milking the public schools to gain access to public funds. If state representatives were honestly protecting the public trust, they would never let these corporate vandals in. Cyber education is an abject failure. In fact, it is about as effective as not going to school at all. There is very little actual need for them as they rarely provide any meaningful education.

   LikeLike

   Reply
6. Laura H. Chapman says:

   January 30, 2018 at 12:40 pm

   The ten-point plan for Digital Learning NOW, published in 2010, forwarded by Jeb Bush and ALEC also has Gates fingerprints all over it. The 2010 plan is stated, but the overall aims are not.

   Digital Learning NOW has references to the Gates-funded Common Core, Gates-funded Data Quality Campaign, and State Longitudinal Data System (also funded by USDE).

   The ten-point plan for Digital Learning Now is nothing short of a call for every state to pass legislation that ensures on-line learning can be a wild-west environment where the only thing approximating education are data–reports on student mastery of competencies or course completion

   The plan calls for de-regulation–who originates a program, the curriculum, the teacher, and so on. The ten-point plan requires states to put in place and appeal process for the providers–not an ounce of protection for students.

   And the plan requires that money follow the student, come from the state, with districts having no control of budgets. The plan praises charter schools: “Charter schools are the vanguards of digital learning.” p.18.

   Between 2010 and now, the gist of this digital agenda has been expanded to include international players and efforts to standardize “data standards” for online programming, “interoperable” systems so all educational content can be delivered online and “massively open” to enrollments world-wide. Scaling up is in the wet dreams of many supporters–one menu for all–pricing to be determined by the provider.
   The http://digitallearningnow.com/site/uploads/2014/03/Roadmap-for-Reform.pdf

   Supporters of “global” online and standardized education are members of The IMSGlobal Learning Consortium “Competencies & Academic Standards Exchange.™ Members are helping to produce and promote machine readable standards that will enable artificial intelligence algorithms to align assessment, standards, curriculum, and assets (budgets, resources)

   Among the members of IMS Global.org are these: Pearson, Google, IBM, MicroSoft.mozilla, Oracle, McGraw-Hill, Macmillan, many universities and community colleges here and elsewhere converting to online courses. Add to the list state departments of Education, local districts, and testing companies (ETS, ACT, PARCC, SMARTER). Conspicuous supporters are the Bill and Melinda Gates and Lumina Foundations (assets of Sallie Mae).

   In addition to members from the US, the IMS Global Learning Consortium includes alliances and agencies from Japan, the Netherlands, the EU, UK, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Spain.

   If you are familiar with our Common Core Standards, you will recall that each standard had a letter and number code, and not by accident. The alpha-numeric labeling of academic standards and competencies is at the heart of the international project of The IMSGlobal Learning Consortium–“Competencies & Academic Standards Exchange.™ and a related effort in the US known as CEDS for Common Education Data Standards. Workers at CEDS and IMS credit their collaboration on coding. CEDS ignores almost all of the content standards put on the books in varied subjects since about 2008. Standards are replaced with “demonstrated competencies” (mastery of a skill or chunk of content).

   Scaling up online learning is proceeding as if there are no barriers to Internet services within the US or in the countries participating in this work. I am not an expert on access outside the US but Trump has killed net neutrality, and the fate of the e-learning rate discounts in unclear.

   There can be no doubt that DeVos wants the equivalent of per-student state funding augmented by federal funding for “choice.” This is say that the whole architecture of local control of education, including elected school boards, local funding for schools, and standards for education are on the chopping block. All state legislatures are being lobbied by the online/digital industry. They are receiving help in that effort from charter schools and the drumbeat for our students to be “global competitive.” Since 2007, preparing students to be global competitive has been the official mission of the US Department of Education.

   Click to access CASE%20presentation.pdf

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • retired teacher says:

     January 30, 2018 at 3:52 pm

     Computer instruction that supplants human teachers was always Gates’ end game. The whole CCSS with tests and arbitrary cut scores were part of the game plan along with VAM. The rest of us should be sharing all the research that shows that computer instruction has been a dismal failure. All of it is simply a ploy for Gates to cash in on public school funding.

     LikeLike

     Reply
7. jake jacobs says:

   January 30, 2018 at 5:02 pm

   NPR was just remembering times that various presidents brought guests to the State of the Union address to be recognized in the speech. One that caught my attention was George HW Bush who invited four governors to be commended for joining his education initiative. One of the governors was Bill Clinton.

   We may think of the Bushes and Clintons as adversaries, but they were collaborating on education policies for quite some time.

   LikeLike

   Reply