Archives for the month of: January, 2018
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The GOP Tax Law Threatens Democracy by Undermining the Public Schools

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2018 //
12

 

Johann Neem and Tony Tian-Ren Lin explain just how terrible the GOP Tax Law is. It harms our democracy by transferring public funds from public schools to private schools, without the consent of the governed.

“Most attention on the tax legislation enacted last month has focused on its impact on Americans’ wallets. But it was also a victory for school choice and a massive blow to public education.

“It initially included measures to benefit home-schooling families and the final version benefited those who use private schools while eroding the state and local sources that fund public schools. The financial strain to the public schools caused by the loss of that revenue is well documented. The long-term harm to the nation is less evident, but no less profound.

“Public schools were established to knit together the civic fabric of our democracy. They never fully succeeded in that task, but as our discourse becomes increasingly poisoned and our political divisions seem to grow deeper with each passing year, we need them to do so more than ever. Unfortunately, these same developments make Americans more resistant to restoring and completing this original vision for our schools.

”Legislation like the tax bill, which threatens the funding base for public schools and encourages private schooling, promises to exacerbate these problems and poses a real danger to American democracy.

“America’s founders understood that the American experiment would fail if citizens did not hold a common vision for the greater good. The need for a shared civic culture became urgent by the 1830s as ethnic and ideological conflicts produced violence in America’s streets. One of the most effective antidotes to this disunity was tax-supported “common” public schools. America’s public schools were founded to educate citizens and bring diverse Americans together to instill a common vision for the nation.”

Johann Neem and his family came to the U.S. from India when he was a child. He credits the public schools for giving him the opportunity to rise and succeed in American society.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Tom Ultican: Blame the Democrats for the Mind Trust Model of Privatization

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2018 //
17

 

Tom Ultican blames Democrats for the destruction of public schools in Indianapolis, led by the well-funded Mind Trust. 

What he describes is the Democratic party’s betrayal of public education and democracy. It is a shameful legacy, and it is not about the past. It is happening right now.

He writes:

”The Mind Trust is the proto-type urban school privatizing design. Working locally, it uses a combination of national money and local money to control teacher professional development, create political hegemony and accelerate charter school growth. The destroy public education (DPE) movement has identified The Mind Trust as a model for the nation.

“A Little History

“In 1999, Bart Peterson became the first Democrat to win the Indianapolis mayor’s race since 1967. Peterson campaigned on the promise to bring charter schools to Indianapolis. He claimed, “We are simply in an age where cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all, 1950s style education just doesn’t work for a lot of kids. The evidence is the dropout rate. The evidence is the number of at-risk kids who are failing at school.”

“The new mayor joined with Republican state senator Teresa Lubbers to finally achieve her almost decade long effort of passing a charter school law in Indiana. In the new charter school law, Lubbers provided for the mayor of Indianapolis to be a charter school authorizer. Then Democratic governor, Frank O’Bannon, signed the legislation into law.

“During his first run for office, Peterson invited David Harris a 27-year old lawyer with no education background to be his education guy. Harris became the director of the mayor’s new charter school office. By the 2006-2007, the Peterson administration had authorized 16 charter schools.”

He then goes on to quote conservatives who are thrilled to see that Democrats have embraced their privatization agenda.

Tultican lists the board of directors of the Mind Trust. Notably, none are educators.

“It is noteworthy that no school teachers or parent organization leaders are on this board which is dominated by corporate leaders and politicians. It is possible that one of the four school organization chief administrators taught at one time during their career but no one with recent classroom experience is represented.”

Mind Trust leader David Harris became a rising star in the privatization movement. Tultican helpfully lists his peers, all prominent in the “Destroy Public Education Movement.”

And then there are the funders! Gates, Walton, the usual suspects, the crowd that is contemptuous of public schools.

“December 2016 the not so Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) published a lengthy piece lauding privatization and choice in public schools. They held Indianapolis up as being a leader in developing 21st century schools and The Mind Trust as the catalyst. The paper stated:

A key reason is The Mind Trust, founded in 2006 by Mayor Peterson and David Harris as a kind of venture capital outfit for the charter sector, to raise money and recruit talent. The Mind Trust convinced Teach For America (TFA), The New Teacher Project (now TNTP), and Stand for Children to come to Indianapolis, in part by raising money for them. Since then TFA has brought in more than 500 teachers and 39 school leaders (the latter through its Indianapolis Principal Fellowship); TNTP’s Indianapolis Teaching Fellows Program has trained 498 teachers; and Stand for Children has worked to engage the community, to educate parents about school reform, and to spearhead fundraising for school board candidates. The Mind Trust has also raised millions of dollars and offered start-up space, grants, and other help to eight nonprofit organizations and 17 new schools, with more to come.

“The PPI claims that bringing in 500 teachers who commit for just two years and have only five weeks of teacher training improves education. This is supposedly better than bringing in experienced teachers or newly minted teachers who are committed to a career in education and have between one and two years of teacher training at a university.

“They are also saying that having Stand for Children invade Indianapolis with their dark money and undermining local democratic processes is desirable.

“Instead of raising millions of dollars to improve public schools, The Mind Trust is using that money in a way that undermines the education of two-thirds of the students in Indianapolis who attend those public schools.”

This is as good an analysis of the privatization movement as you will read. And an ansolutely devastating critique of the role of the Democratic Party in promoting this anti-democratic attack on public education.

The Mind Trust has taken the lead role in destroying public education in Indianapolis. It is a shameful legacy.

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Democrats, Education Industry, Indianapolis, Privatization, Shame

Second Day in Vietnam: Learning about the New Fulbright University Vietnam

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2018 //
9

 

 

The highlight today was meeting two key figures in the development of a new American-style University, which will be the Fulbright University Vietnam.

A reader of this Blog put me in touch with the university vice-president, Ted Osius, who served as Ambassador to Vietnam for three years and speaks fluent Vietnamese. We met today, along with the chief academic officer, and they discussed their plans to open a new University next year, incorporating critical thinking, multidisciplinary projects, and academic freedom. One of their models is the multidisciplinary undergraduate program at Colorado College. They have been interviewing faculty, aiming for a 2019 opening. They have already had great interest from students, many of whom have participated in faculty interviews.

During his years as a career foreign service officer, Osius fell in love with Vietnam and its people. He wants to do what he can to develop a new leadership group of people to build the country. He pointed out that eight of the 18 people on the national governing council were graduates of a Fulbright economics program started in Vietnam by Harvard after the war. Today, Vietnam has a vibrant and growing economy.

The Vietnamese Government has provided land. The US government and individual Americans have contributed funding. It is an exciting venture.

Categories International

First Day in Vietnam

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2018 //
48

 

After an overnight stopover at my son’s home in Los Angeles, we flew Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong then transferred to a flight to Ho Chi Minh City. When we exited the airport, the crowds were in the thousands, apparently families waiting for loved ones. It was a chaotic, noisy, but peaceable and happy scene.

After almost 24 continuous hours of travel, we checked into our hotel, the Park Hyatt, which is very beautiful. The city is teeming. The population is about 13 Million. We decided to go on a Jeep tour of the city at night. There were six in our party, and we traveled in two Jeeps. The Jeeps, the guide said, were American vehicles left behind at the end of the war. Sturdy, heavy metal,  a top made of camouflage canvas (furled up, it’s hot here, in the high 80s, and the peak of their tourist season.).

About the name of the city. It was Saigon until the war ended, and it was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. People use the names interchangeably.

Saigon-HMC is booming. The government is socialist but the economy is capitalist. Commerce is the life blood of the city. In addition to countless small indigenous shops, there are fancy western stores.

The traffic is other-worldly. The streets are filled with motor scooters, cars, and buses. The air pollution is horrible, and it is not uncommon to see people on scooters wearing face masks. There are more motor scooters than anything else, and they weave in and out of the other vehicles. Riding in the Jeep, I was tempted to close my eyes a few times for fear of a collision, which never happened. The motor bikers, most with two riders, were utterly heedless and bold. Add to the mass havoc on the streets the overflowing sidewalks, bars, cafes. This is a very busy city. HMC at night reminded me of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, times 10, and stretching for miles, not just a few blocks.

The Jeep tour took us first to a rooftop restaurant for a Vietnamese meal. The views were staggering. HMC  has a large number of high-rise buildings, many of which are illuminated with undulating and beautiful neon lighting. After dinner we went to one of those high-rise buildings, which has a rooftop bar, spotlights, and a rooftop swimming pool. The background music was American pop songs.

There are cranes everywhere in the central city. New office buildings, new residences. A thriving middle class and even a wealthy elite.

This is what I learned about the education system. Schooling is free for the first five years. After that, families must pay. Superior students receive scholarships. About 52% of the children of high school age attend school.

Tomorrow I will meet with the president of a local university, American style. I’m looking forward to learning more about this beautiful country.

One other thing: I feel deeply ashamed of our war here. One of the guides said today that his parents taught him to look forward, not back. I have vivid memories of that terrible time. I feel awful about the lives lost on both sides. I grieve for all those who died. I am not able to forget what we did here.

 

 

Categories Education Reform

Bruce Lesley: The Undeclared War on Children

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2018 //
18

 

Bruce Lesley writes here about the Republicans’ efforts to remove health coverage from children.

What kind of person would want children to die because they are uninsured and their parents can’t afford medical care?

He writes:

”The year 2017 may go down as the worst year in decades for children in Congress.

“Children’s Health: CHIP, Medicaid, and the ACA

“When the year begin, on January 3, 2017, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Defense Fund, Children’s Dental Health Project, Children’s Hospital Association, Family Voices, First Focus, and National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners had one simple request of Congress when it came to the health of children Recognizing that 95 percent of children had health care coverage — a historic high — our organizations requested that Congress adopt a “do no harm to children standard.”

Sadly, “do no harm” was too high a standard for this Congress. They decided to inflict harm on millions of children.

 

Categories Childhood, Education Reform, Shame

Thomas Cox: In Praise of Our Public Schools

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2018 //
32

 

 

Thomas A. Cox practiced law in Georgia for many years and taught Education Policy and the Law at Emory University. Recently he moved to Virginia and discovered that the state’s leading newspaper, the Richmond Times Dispatch, was habitually hostile to the principle of public education and cheerleading for privatization. Cox submitted this opinion article to set the record straight, which the newspaper published.

I hope the editorial writers read his article.

He wrote about the falsity of the “failing schools narrative” and demonstrated that it is just plain wrong.

“Not often heard over the noise of this failure narrative is some compelling evidence that America’s public schools, far from being awash in failure, have overall been performing remarkably well, particularly in the face of new challenges and changing demographics. This counter-narrative is shared by a number of education researchers, historians, and educators, although they seldom receive the same fanfare (or financial impetus) as the nay-saying privatization advocates.”

Privatization is no answer to the challenges faced by our students today.

“A blind reliance on profit-driven markets to address and solve the challenges in educating America’s children would constitute a non-evidence-based leap of faith. Even worse, it would drive us toward abandoning our long-shared concept of education as a “common good” that we as a democratic polity have a collective responsibility to provide to all children. For almost two centuries, our country has served as a model to the world by striving to achieve that ideal through a shared societal commitment to publicly funded and locally operated schools.

“Although far from perfect and in need of constant re-evaluation and improvement, public schools and their legions of dedicated teachers continue to serve as critically important institutional forces in our nation’s ongoing struggle to provide equal opportunities for all citizens. In an age when so many economic and societal forces serve instead to increase inequality, now is no time for us to abandon that common commitment.”

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, For-Profit, NAEP, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Supporting public schools

My Review of Daniel Koretz’s “The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better.” No More Paywall.

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2018 //
21

I reviewed Harvard Professor Daniel Koretz’s “The Testing Charade” in “The New Republic.” It was behind a paywall until a few days ago. The paywall has been lifted.

Here are the main points.

Koretz demolishes the test-and-punish regime of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. He says in no uncertain terms that they failed. He says they ignored Campbell’s Law, which declares that attaching high stakes to tests distorts both the measure and distorts the process they were meant to measure. The emphasis on testing led to inflation of scores, so any rise in scores as a result of pressure is of little or no significance and surely does not mean that students are better educated. I enjoyed reading the book, and my reservation is that Koretz is not at all sure what to do about accountability. I am not either. I wish that the leaders of Congress understood what a complicated subject of accountability is. I would like to see greater accountability at the top, where decisions are made about funding and autonomy. We have a wacky system where teachers, principals and students are held accountable without the power to change the conditions under which they Labor.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Failure, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

Julian Vasquez Heilig: Charters Want Less Accountability (Because Why Not?)

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2018 //
11

 

Julian Vasquez Heilig reported here that the California Charter School Association was using its muscle in the state legislature to weaken accountability, especially rules that govern conflicts of interest.

The good news: The bill has been killed.

JVH wrote:

The California Charter School Association has been carrying a bill – SB 806 (Glazer) – to loosen regulations on conflict of interest at charter schools. Pretty obscene in the midst of conflict of interest stories like this and this, two stories that came out since this bill was rejected by the Legislature last year.

The author is determined to stop charter schools from having to comply with Government Code 1090; This law protects the public and prevents conflicts of interest. SB 806 has a provision which stops authorizers like Los Angeles Unified or East Side from being able to require that new charter petitioners agree to comply with Government Code 1090; SB 806 says that only the limited conflict of interest provisions within the bill can be applied. The only changes in the bill that were made since last year are some minor new transparency for contracts between charter schools and CMOs. This is inadequate because CMOs manage charter schools and should comply with open meetings and public records laws, just like school districts that manage district schools.

The charters school lobbyists are sneaky because they are pushing this right after the holiday recess and the bill sprung onto the calendar not leaving much time for the public to speak out.

Here is a simple but important idea:

#KidsNotProfits

On January 9, the effort to weaken the conflict of interest Limits was killed by opponents of the charter industry.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Ohio: Charter Graduates Less Likely to Earn College Degrees Than Graduates of Urban Public Schools

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2018 //
17

 

Ohio has terrible education policy—it is a leader in privatization—but very strong data collection. Its data demonstrate how awful its policies are.

In this post, you will learn that the graduates of charter schools are least likely to earn a college degree within six years after high school as compared to every other kind of school.

Stephen Dyer writes:

”One of the more interesting — and telling — datasets now available with the state report card is how kids who graduate from Ohio’s schools perform after they graduate. For example, we now know the percentage of graduates who have a college degree within 6 years, as well as how many graduates have enrolled in college within 2 years of graduation.

“Looking at these two metrics, it’s remarkable how bad charter schools perform. Overall, Ohio school districts have 5 times the rate of students with college degrees that charters have. And Big 8 urban districts (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati. Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown) have twice the rate.”

Some charter schools had zero college graduates.

Open the link for the graphs from the state website.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Privatization

Something Bad Is Happening to This Blog

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2018 //
107

 

Over the past two years, I have gotten a steady stream of emails from people who were accustomed to reading the blog every day, some were daily commenters, who no longer received it. They complained to me on my personal email, wondering why they were blocked. Some asked if I had blocked them. I could not explain what had happened. Among those who were kicked off the blog were my partner, one of my brothers, a Regent of the state of New York, a well-known commenter “Back to Basic” (May King) who had been recognized as a hero, Gordon Wilder, and many others.

Time after time, when I heard from those who had been blocked, I wrote to the help center at WordPress, which hosts the Blog. Each time, I got a response from someone called a “Happiness Engineer” informing me that the reader had done something wrong. They touched the wrong button, they unsubscribed, they were still subscribed, they should jump down, turn around, execute a pirouette online or something. Frankly, none of it made any sense. I didn’t know how to follow their directions nor did anyone else.

For a while, I tried scanning the spam folder, but the Blog gets at least 1,000 pieces of spam daily, and I couldn’t keep it up. Soon I would spend all my time trying to rescue regular readers from the spam file and have little time to read or write.

Meanwhile, the complaints continue to come to me, and I don’t know how to stop the blocking of readers. That is why I rejoined Facebook last week after a long hiatus, so that people who want to see my posts may do so, even if WordPress has blocked them.

I have directly and repeatedly asked WP if they are sabotaging the Blog and they insist they are not. I am certain that many readers have been blocked by an algorithm or by hacking.

It is a fact. It is happening. I don’t know why. If you have any suggestions, pass them on. I’m not getting any help from WordPress.

Gordon Wilder, an 89-year-old reader who is still blocked, wrote this to me:

“I have no way of knowing for sure and I MAY be way off base but I wonder if this is not done on purpose. You have been a voice in the wilderness in education and with ALL that is going on now to squelch quality journalism, the net neutrality ending, the ability for companies to buy ALL the news outlets which results in one view, usually VERY Conservative, propaganda controlling the “news” that people get ad nauseum, this would seem consistent with the controlling of quality journalism.

“So MUCH divisive rhetoric that some, maybe a great many have lost confidence in ALL news. I find it VERY frightening when one considers that already 5 or 6 major corporations control about 80% of the “news” that people receive.

“I do not know what to tell you concerning this problem. I received some garbage which in my ignorance did not seem to make a whole lot of sense in solving the problem. Go around Robin Hood’s barn type of thing so I never followed through with it. Carol Ring forwards some of the items you post but I cannot respond to any of it.

“SAD day for democracy in the U. S. First they try to control the “truth” for adults and now they wish to control the minds of our children – charter schools and now giving a huge tax break on top of everything else to those who wish to send their children to private schools. I may be way off base but the future does NOT look promising to me. Post Truth, a new term seems to say it all in my book.

“God help us.”

 

 

Categories Education Reform
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