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Peter Greene on the Tragedy of Lorain, Ohio, and the War to Stamp Out Local Control and Democracy

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2019 //
50

Who knew that Republicans hate local control of public schools? Who knew that the root cause of low test scores was the input of parents and teachers?

Peter Greene tells a story in this post that should be required reading for every course in education and for every state legislator. It is an unbearably sad story, and if it doesn’t make you angry, you aren’t paying attention.

http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/02/oh-lorain-hb-70-and-reformy-attack.html

Greene began his teaching career in Lorain, Ohio. At the end of his year, he and many other teachers were laid off and he moved on to teach in Pennsylvania, where he enjoyed a career that spanned nearly four decades. He remembers Lorain as a factory town, a functioning, multi-ethnic district with three high schools, seven middle schools, and many elementary schools. It was a strong union town, where most people worked in steel mills or auto plants.

Lorain was hit hard by deindustrialization. It was a small city that lost jobs and population.

He writes:

In 2016, my wife and I made a cross country trip. I’d not been back to Lorain (no reason to– I’d made no lasting relationships in my year, mostly because I ate, slept and drank my job), even though its a mere three hours away. The rows of factories are now rubble. My half-a-house apartment is now in a row of boarded-up empty buildings. The strip mall where I bought  albums, my first luxury purchase with my own teacher-pay money is empty. My old high school is a vacant lot. Lorain’s population is now around 63,000, a loss of about a quarter of their population from the mid-70s.

The drop started quickly and continued relentlessly for years. The school district adjusted. The three high schools became two, then one. But the local economy was shrinking so severely that by 2013, the school district was the second-largest employer in town,  behind the hospital. By the 2010s, reportedly 90% of the student population was free and reduced lunch (the standard proxy for measuring poverty).

Lawmakers in Ohio responded to the collapse of Lorain’s economy by declaring that its faltering schools were in “academic distress.” Its test scores were not good enough.

In 2007, Ohio created a new piece of turnaround legislation. The law created an academic distress commission, appointed by the state superintendent, the president of the school board, and the mayor of the city. ADC’s were responsible for coming up with a plan. They could fire and hire administrators and create a budget for the district. Lorain fell under the control of an ADC in 2013, but despite the employment of snazzy consultants, things didn’t seem to be improving. Some scores had started to creep up, but then changes in the state test– and how harshly it would be assessed– destroyed any forward momentum the district had developed.

It was several decades of tough challenges in the community and in the schools– and then, in 2015, that state of Ohio stepped in again to make things even worse.

The state passed a harsh and punitive bill called HB 70, which allowed the state to take over the district and install a tsar. Somehow the legislators imagined that the reason for low test scores was that local citizens had some say over what happened to their schools. Democracy was the problem.

Ohio’s old law called for an academic distress commission, appointed by the state superintendent, the president of the school board, and the mayor of the city. ADC’s were responsible for coming up with a plan. They could fire and hire administrators and create a budget for the district. Under HB 70, that changed dramatically. HB 70 is a corporate reformster’s dream law.

Under the new law, the ADC was required to appoint a CEO to run the district. The list of “include but not limited to” duties of the CEO runs to seventeen items, and they include:

Replacing administration and central office staff
Assigning employees to schools
Allocating teacher class loads and class sizes
Job descriptions for employees
Setting the school calendar
Setting the district budget
Setting grade “configuration”
Determining the school curriculum
Selecting instructional materials and assessments
Making reductions in staff
Establishing employee compensation

The law is nuts; it establishes the CEO as an unchecked tsar of the district with all the powers of both the superintendent and the school board. The only job requirement under the law is “high-level management experience in the public or private sector.” So he could be an education amateur. 

The state took over Lorain and Youngstown, then East Cleveland.

What happened next in Lorain was eye-popping. It was the Corporate Reformers’ dream come true: All authority vested in one person who was thoroughly immersed in Reformy organizations and philosophy and jargon:

Immediately, there were questions. The duly-elected, but now essentially powerless (except for one thing, and we’ll come back to that later) school board demanded information about the search process, conducted by Chicago-based Atlantic Research Partners with little-to-no transparency. ARP was co-founded by Joseph Wise, after he was fired from the superintendent post in Duval County, Florida for “serious conduct” deemed “injurious” which included “not communicating or acting in good faith with board members during budget discussions.” Wise also owns Acceleration Academies.

Of the five finalists, ARP had connections to four. One of the four was connected by virtue of attending the National Superintendents Academy, another property that Wise bought up. The National Superintendents Academy was previously known as SUPES Academy– a name you may remember from the massive scandal involving Barbara Byrd-Bennett and her federal indictment for bribery in Chicago. The twisty background is laid out here, but it underlines another aspect of the reformster world– multiple connections and always failing upward.

The National Superintendents Academy graduate was David Hardy, Jr., and his resume is loaded with reform credentials.

Hardy grew up in West Chester PA, the son of a teacher. He studied business at Colgate, but says an internship changed his mind about that. After graduating from Colgate with a BS in Economics and a secondary concentration in education and English, Hardy headed out for– what else– a Teach for America gig in Miami-Dade schools teaching reading and writing to 6th and 7th graders. After two years of that, he became the Miami-Dade Madison Middle School Language Arts Chair, where he took credit for raising the school’s grade from F to C. He ran a TFA summer institute, worked as a curriculum support specialist, and then went to work for Achievement First as a Dean of Students, consulted for the Children First Network, and then became the founding principal of Achievement First East New York Middle School. Then Chris Cerf tagged him to become the executive director of one of the seven Regional Achievement Centers in Camden responsible for the turnaround of thirty schools. Then chief of academic supports in Philly, then Deputy Superintendent of Academics in St. Louis Public Schools (where they have problems of their own)– his longest time in a single job, at a whopping four years. Hardy graduated from Colgate in 2003.

Along the way he picked up a Masters degrees in education administration, plus a masters and doctorate from Columbia in urban education leadership. And he was selected as a Future Chief by Chiefs for Change. And he’s connected to the Pahara Institute, which is connected to Aspen.

You can read Peter’s description of the big plans of Hardy and the TFA team he brought to Lorain. It will sound familiar to you from the experiences of so many other cities.

Peter concludes:

I didn’t set out to do a hatchet job on David Hardy and his administration, and it would be wrong to ignore the fact that he does have some support in the city. Some residents see the opposition to Hardy as racist, and at least one school board member has said that upon reflection, she supports the embattled CEO. It’s a contentious mess. When the state took over, some folks were pushed out of positions of power, and it’s reasonable to assume that they would not have been impressed if Jesus Christ Himself had taken over the district.

Certain phrases keep coming up in connection with Hardy, like “in over his head.” He can talk a good game (watch this interview from his St. Louis days), but if leading in a city system like Lorain requires relationship-building, Hardy is coming up short. The latest bombshell is not only a slap in the face to staff, but was handled about as poorly as it possibly could have been.

But it’s important to ask if HB 70 set David Hardy up for failure.

It’s a bad law. It was slipped past the legislature as an amendment in a late-night smoke-filled room arrangement that guaranteed that it would not be publicly discussed. And it is most certainly a full-on assault on public education in the state.

Youngstown, Lorain and now East Cleveland have one thing in common– they are among the poorest school districts in the state. As such, it’s unsurprising that they would have low scores on the Big Standardized Test and therefor low grades for their schools. HB 70 targeted poor communities, and it didn’t target them for help. It targeted them to be taken over, dismantled, and handed off to charter operators. The Lorain I knew has taken such a beating over the years, and HB 70 is the legislative equivalent of taking a beaten puppy and saying, “Look, dammit– fetch now or I am going to give your food to a prettier dog.”

Lorain needs help and healing. It does not need to have its teachers beaten down, its parents kept in the dark, its community held at arms length, its elected officials stripped of power. There is no special mystery to why Lorain’s schools are struggling, but HB 70 doesn’t address any of the root issues of a struggling local economy and a loss of resources. It is a law that punishes poverty rather than trying to ameliorate it.

I am trying to imagine what kind of high-quality leadership would make it possible to sell, “Hi! I’m from the state and I’ve been appointed to strip you of local power and chop your community schools up for someone else’s investment opportunity. Also, all the bad things that are happening are your fault, because your town sucks.” No, David Hardy isn’t very good at his job– but who could be good at the job that HB 70 has created? How do you lead well when HB 70 is fundamentally a punishing act of disrespect toward a local district?

HB 70 sets a district up for every bad corporate reform idea in the book. Test Scores! Visionary CEO! Transformation! Disruption! Spank teachers! Test scores! Strip local control! Expectations!  Test Scores! Kids first (but not really)! A smart person with marketworld skills from outside will be so much better than career educators! The state knows more about fixing schools than anyone! Also, test scores!

When gubernatorial candidate Dennis Kucinich visited Lorain last year, he suggested suing the state over HB 70, but that process is already under way. Youngstown has been leading the charge, and Lorain parents have gotten involved— at least on the petition level. The law was challenged in court almost immediately, initially decided in favor of the state, and worked up to the state supreme court which agreed to hear it last October. It also creates some unique issues– Youngstown’s school CEO would not allow the Youngstown board to spend money on the appeal. Lorain teachers filed a “friend of the court” brief as a party directly affected by the outcome, and several districts ands the Ohio School Boards Association have joined the suit.

Meanwhile, new Ohio governor Mike DeWine is sympathetic to some of the issues involved:

“One of the concerns, one of the things that we have seen in Youngstown, Lorain, is the obvious loss of local control, and we’re seeing some of the dynamics that result from the loss of local control. We are a very local government state,” DeWine said. “We like it that way, most of us do. Most of us think that problems get solved locally, so I’ve got some people working on this and we are working with some legislators on this, actually, but I really can’t go into any more details at this point.”

So there is at least some small bit of hope for Lorain and Youngstown and East Cleveland and every other poor Ohio community that was going to fall under HB 70 sooner or later. But if HB 70 ever goes away, those communities will still be facing all the problems they were facing before the state stepped in to help plus all the wreckage left by HB 70. The future is not going to be all rainbows and unicorns any time soon.

And the bitter irony in all of this is that, by many accounts, Lorain was climbing when the state stepped in. We’ll never know how they would have done if the state had just left them alone.

I came to really like Lorain in my brief time there. If things had worked out differently, I would have been glad to stay in that big little town. It deserved better than to be used and discarded by industry; its solid blue collar citizens deserved better as well. And they deserve better treatment by the state than to be thrown under a reform-driven bus that gives them exactly all the wrong things, everything but the support, assistance and resources that they need. This is corporate ed reform at its worst, disenfranchising citizens, trashing communities, and not even coming close to delivering what it promised as an excuse for the power grab.

I’ve kept up with Lorain, watching them in the news over the years ever since I left town right ahead of the industrial collapse. I’ll keep watching the news, hoping for good news from that beautiful little big city on the lake.

 

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

Conservative Journal EdNext Defends Outsourcing American Public Schools to Foreign Entities

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2019 //
19

The Gülen charter schools are one of the biggest chains in the U.S. They have about 160 or more schools. They usually claim they have no connection to Imam Fethullah Gülen, but they can be identified by the unusual number of Turkish teachers in the school, many using H1B visas; by the preponderance of Turkish men on their board of directors; by their inclusion of Turkish language in their curriculum; and by their preference to award contracts to Turkish-owned contractors, even when those firms were not the low bidder.

The Gulen schools call themselves by different names, but they are all somehow connected to a reclusive imam who lives in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

I don’t know whether the Gülen schools are good or bad schools, I just think it odd to outsource what are supposed to be American public schools to foreign nationals.

The conservative journal EdNext, funded largely by the conservative Hoover Institution, defends the Gülen charters and critiques those who would dare to criticize them. 

Should we outsource community public schools to Saudi Arabia? to Russia? to China? to North Korea? to Brazil?

Where would EdNext draw the line? Or do they think there should be no line at all? Why should America have public schools?

American public schools are supposed to teach civics, democratic values, and history. Can we turn that over to teachers who have never studied American history or civics? Is it a good idea to outsource our public schools? According to EdNext, yes.

For anyone who wants to learn more about the Gulen charter school movement, I recommend Mark Hall’s film, “Killing Ed” and parent activist Sharon Higgins’ investigative reporting about the Gulen schools. 

Some Gulen schools have been investigated by the FBI. Here is a 2012 report in the New York Times that EdNext won’t mention.

The writer was Stephanie Saul.

A group of three publicly financed charter schools in Georgia run by followers of Fethullah Gulen, a prominent Turkish imam, have come under scrutiny after they defaulted on bonds and an audit found that the schools improperly granted hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts to businesses and groups, many of them with ties to the Gulen movement.

The audit, released Tuesday by the Fulton County Schools near Atlanta, found the schools made purchases like T-shirts, teacher training and video production services from organizations with connections to school officials or Gulen followers. Those included more than $500,000 in contracts since January 2010 with the Grace Institute, a foundation whose board has included school leaders. In some cases the awards skirted bidding requirements, the audit said.

“I would just question how those vendors were selected when price in many instances wasn’t part of the decision making,” said the Fulton County superintendent, Robert Avossa, who criticized the schools for conflicts of interest. “And those are public dollars.”

Gulen followers run more than 120 charter schools nationwide, making the loosely affiliated network one of the nation’s largest public charter school operators. Despite clear connections, the schools generally deny any affiliation with the Gulen movement, a powerful religious and political force in Turkey whose leader, Mr. Gulen, views establishing schools as part of his mission. While some of the charter schools have been praised for their academic performance, their business practices have raised questions.

The New York Times reported last year that the group’s 36 Texas schools had granted millions of dollars in construction and renovation contracts to firms run by Turkish-Americans with ties to the movement, in some cases bypassing lower bids from firms with no connections to the movement. The Texas schools also awarded deals for cafeteria food, after-school programs and teacher training to organizations affiliated with Gulen followers.

The Georgia audit, posted to the Fulton County Schools Web site Tuesday evening, focused on the Fulton Science Academy Middle School in Alpharetta, Ga., a 500-student school that was recently denied a renewal of its public charter. The school, which had received $32 million in public funds over the past 10 years, said it would operate as a private school. While the audit does not lay out all of the relationships between contractors and the movement, a chart shows connections between the people running the schools, some of the vendors and Gulen-connected groups.

Dr. Avossa said that the audit’s findings had raised concerns about the group’s two other public charter schools in his district: Fulton Science Academy High School and Fulton Sunshine Academy, an elementary school.

He said a full audit would be conducted of those schools “to gauge whether similar wrongdoing is taking place.”

The three schools have enrolled 1,200 students representing a cross section of students in the Fulton County district.

Wells Fargo Bank, trustee of a $19 million bond issue by the schools, told investors on May 15 that the three schools were in default on those bonds. The bank said the default was caused by the group’s failure to disclose in its bond offering last year that its middle school charter renewal might have been in jeopardy. “The failure to disclose the ongoing concerns with Fulton Science Academy’s charter renewal petition constituted an omission of material facts in the public statement,” Wells Fargo said.

A default gives the bondholders the right to demand immediate payment, possibly requiring a liquidation of some school assets. The bonds are trading at about 70 percent of face value.

Concerns about governance and transparency were partly behind the district’s rejection of the Fulton Science Academy Middle School’s demand for a 10-year charter renewal. The school was named a “blue-ribbon” school last year by the federal government for its performance and appealed unsuccessfully to the state.

Kenan Sener, the school’s principal, said that the audit contained significant inaccuracies and that the school would issue a statement on Wednesday, after fully reviewing the document.

Nationwide, the charter schools have pursued an aggressive expansion plan, much of it financed by public bond issues, with the Texas schools borrowing more than $200 million through bond offerings.

In Texas, the group’s spending has been the focus of investigations by the State Legislature and the Texas Education Agency. The federal Department of Education is also investigating the Texas schools, apparently focusing on allegations of discrimination against Hispanic special education students in enrollment. The schools have denied wrongdoing.

One criticism of the schools involves their reliance on teachers imported from Turkey while teacher unemployment in the United States remains high. The audit said the Fulton Science Academy Middle School had paid $75,000 in immigration-related expenses for such employees.

Although the schools are inspired by Mr. Gulen and teach Turkish language and culture, they do not teach religion.

 

Categories Accountability, Citizenship, Civics, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gulen Charter Schools, Privatization

Tennessee: Governor Wants Vouchers, But Many Worry about the Frauds and Scams in Other States

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2019 //
56

 

The newly elected Republican governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, wants vouchers, but he can expect pushback from the local media and local school boards that know of the frauds and scams in other states that have endorsed vouchers.

The Daily Memphian warns about the squandering of taxpayer dollars in other states.

Tennessee lawmakers say that if broader school choice options are offered, the Legislature would need to enact restrictions to avoid the kind of education savings account fraud seen in states where public-dollar vouchers are given to parents for homeschooling and private school enrollment.

Reports from across the nation show situations in which private-school officials and parents spent voucher money for items unrelated to education. Cards were used at beauty supply stores, sporting good shops and for computer tech support, in addition to trying to withdraw cash, which was not allowed.

“Absolutely, that’s one of my concerns,” said Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who chairs the House Education Committee.

The Arizona Republic found many parents there put voucher funds into college-savings accounts then sent their children to public schools, among other fraudulent activity, all amid lax oversight. The Phoenix newspaper also reported the state investigated one case in which voucher funds were allegedly used to pay for an abortion after it adopted an Empowerment Scholarship Account program in 2011.

Arizona voters rejected a 2018 referendum to expand the education accounts to make all public-school students eligible.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in 2004 the principal of a private school used voucher payments to buy two Mercedes-Benz cars, then claimed they were a legitimate expense because he had invested his own money in the school.

The school board in Murfreesboro passed a unanimous resolution against vouchers that would divert public money away from public schools to religious schools and home schooling.

Lawmakers should oppose state money being used for private education, says a resolution approved Thursday by Rutherford County school officials.

The seven Board of Education members also signed the document in opposition to any state legislation allowing vouchers or education savings accounts for private education. The elected school officials represent a district serving 46,772 students from prekindergarten through 12th grade.

Parents and school boards should be aware that the opening bid for vouchers is to authorize one only for students with special needs. That is the camel’s nose under the tent. See what happened in Arizona and Florida, which began with that single group, then added another group, then another group, then another and another. Beware.

Categories Education Reform, Fraud, Tennessee, Vouchers

District of Columbia: Broadies Take Control of All Top Leadership Positions

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2019 //
21

 

The Edythe and Eli Broad Foundation now owns complete control of the schoolsof the District of Columbia.

With the appointment of Lewis Ferebee, former superintendent of Indianapolis, where he collaborated with the Mind Trust to expand privatization, D.C. is now a Broadie district.

DCist.com reports:

“The top three educational leaders in the District of Columbia all have one thing in common: they’ve all studied under a wealthy philanthropist’s educational leadership program that promotes a business perspective in the management of public schools and the use of charters.

“The D.C. state superintendent Hanseul Kang, the deputy mayor of education Paul Kihn, and acting schools chancellor Lewis Ferebee have each been through training at the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems, which houses both the Broad Academy and the Broad Residency in Urban Education.

“Those who support the training program say it offers a unique corporate-like training experience for school leaders and helps them form lasting friendships. Critics of the program say the teachings encourage school leaders to undermine democratic control of public education by making top-down reforms and promoting charter schools.

“There have been hundreds of school leaders that have gone through Broad training, including former DCPS chancellor Antwan Wilson. Kaya Henderson was also named a superintendent in residence at The Broad Center in 2017. But, if Ferebee is confirmed, this will be the first time all of D.C. Public Schools’ top public education leaders will be Broad scholars.”

Michelle Rhee started the Corporate Reform takeover of D.C. in 2007, imposing a harsh evaluation system that led to high turnover of teachers and principals. She was not a Broadie, however; she came out of Teach for America. But after she became a superstar, she joined the board ofthe unaccredited Broad Superintendents’ Academy.

Since 2007, the district has experienced major cheating scandals and, recently, a graduation rate scandal that cast doubt on many of the claims of success.

Despite it’s “reform” leadership, D.C. continues to havethe biggest achievement gaps of any district in the nation, about double the size of the black-white, Hispanic-white gaps in other urban districts.

There is something strangely satisfying about knowing that disciples of Eli Broad have taken complete control of D.C. They will have no one else to blame if they don’t turn the District into one of the nation’s top-performing  districts, as Rhee long ago promised.

 

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Privatization

Today is a Very Important Anniversary of Young People of Courage and Idealism

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2019 //
23

 

My thanks to reader Greg Brozeit, who pointed out on Twitter that today is the anniversary of the execution of the founders of the White Rose Society, a group of university students who defied Hitler’s monstrous criminal regime

Hans and Sophie Scholl and their colleagues were executed by the Nazis on February 22, 1943.

These young people knew that the regime was committing horrendous crimes. They organized resistance among other young people. They knew that the penalty for their resistance was certain death. They were arrested in late January, given a fast trial, and beheaded on this date.

When I think of the Nazis, I will always remember the courage of these young people. I pray that their legacy of hope, fearlessness, and idealism will outlive the memory of the butchers and brutes whose crimes they fought.

 

 

 

Categories Courage

New Jersey: Dark Money Is Paying to Double Down on High-Stakes Testing

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2019 //
15

Wake up, parents and teachers in New Jersey! The billionaires and Dark Money are launching a sneak attack on your children and students.

When he ran for office, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy promised to scrap the Common Core-aligned PARCC and end the state’s high-stakes exit exams.

But billionaires and hedge fund managers don’t want to stop high-stakes testing. They love PARCC because it makes public schools look bad. Making public schools look bad helps the privatization movement.

Dark money and billionaires are dumping money into the bank accounts of key legislators to keep the testing machine alive. Find out which billionaire education reformers are behind the push to keep high-stakes standardized testing alive in New Jersey, and which legislators are doing their bidding. #HijackedByBillionaires

PARCC is a ridiculous exam whose standards were set so high that most students were certain to “fail” to reach proficiency. Half the states in the nation adopted it when it was unveiled in 2010, but almost all have abandoned it. Today only 5 or 6 states still use PARCC, and New Mexico recently announced it was dropping PARCC.
Legislator Theresa Ruiz is leading the fight to keep high-stakes testing. The Bill to save PARCC passed by one vote in the State Senate yesterday and goes to the Assembly for a vote on Monday.

“New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy campaigned on a promise to end PARCC and eliminate exit testing. Following his lead, the New Jersey Department of Education toured the state to get feedback on standardized assessments, wrote a report summarizing their findings, and proposed new regulations to replace ones passed during the Christie administration.

“But on September 12, 2018, before the Board’s discussion began, Senator Teresa Ruiz crashed the New Jersey State Board of Education meeting and suddenly regulations that seemed like a slam dunk were tabled.”

In Ruiz’s latest election, the largest contribution ($5,377) to her campaign came from Education Reform Now Advocacy (ERNA), a dark money 501(c)(4) advocacy organization associated with Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a PAC started by billionaire education reformers.
As a 501(c)(4), ERNA is not required to disclose their donors. This means the people of NJ have no right to know who the money behind Ruiz’s largest campaign contribution came from.Ruiz also received maximum contributions of $2,600 from New Jersey billionaires Alan Fournier and David Tepper, the founders of Better Education for Kids (B4K). They are hedge fund managers who meddle in New Jersey education on behalf of testing and privatization.

B4K, Inc. gave Ruiz a direct contribution of $1,000.

B4K has been the bullhorn for Tepper and Fournier’s reform agenda for close to a decade.

Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Ruiz ally, has fast tracked the bill to be voted on by the full Senate.

Sweeney is no stranger to education reform billionaires either. In fact, in his last election, millions of dollars were spent to support Sweeney and fend off an attempt by the New Jersey Education Association to unseat him.

The New Jerseyans for a Better Tomorrow PAC, which is run by a former Sweeney aide, received over 2 and a half million dollars from General Majority PAC which is “widely seen” as being controlled by New Jersey political boss, George Norcross.

General Majority PAC brought in contributions from three of the nation’s biggest education reform champions.

The largest contribution of $500,000 came from Walmart heiress Alice Walton, followed by $200,000 from Texas billionaire and former Enron trader John Arnold, and $100,000 from California billionaire and Netflix founder Reed Hastings.

ERNA, the dark money 501 (c)(4) that was Ruiz’s largest campaign contributor, contributed $25,000 to General Majority PAC.

Sweeney also received direct maximum contributions of $2,600 from Alan and Jennifer Fournier, David Tepper and B4K, Inc..

Here is an infographic that shows the reach of Dark Money, Wall Street, hedge funds, and assorted billionaires into the effortto preserve high-stakes testing in New Jersey.

 

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corruption, Dark Money, Education Reform, New Jersey, Testing

West Virginia: Send Your Donation to the Striking School Personnel

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2019 //
1
Last year you generously helped support striking teachers and other workers who were fighting for better pay during the historic statewide teacher’s strike in West Virginia.  We are so grateful for that support. Together we raised over $330,000 and with an all-volunteer effort we distributed 100% of it back to over 950 school employees! You can read some of their stories in this article. Thank you, again.
 
This week, West Virginia school personnel and teachers were forced to strike again. Will you donate to support the brave bus drivers, cooks, and other service workers of Putnam County, WV who stood up for the future of public education in West Virginia?
 
PLEASE DONATE AT:  www.wvstrikesupport.com
As you may know, our teachers and school personnel went on anther historic back-to-back strike this week to defend against a wildly unpopular education overhaul bill that could drain money from the public education system, authorize charter schools, make classroom sizes larger, and weaken school employees’ ability to fight back through strikes.  

AND WEST VIRGINIA WON!

Worse yet, the bill bundled together these negative policies with a new pay raise that had been promised to teachers by legislative leaders. After last year’s strike, this bill was a vindictive move by legislators who seem determined to take revenge on our entire state’s education system.

Teachers and personnel went on strike statewide this week because they refused to be bribed into weakening our public education system. 54 out of 55 WV counties closed their schools in solidarity with teachers.  Only Putnam County’s superintendent officially kept schools open,causing school personnel in that county to lose pay and risk being penalized.  But Putnam County workers stood in solidarity. On the first day of the strike most Putnam teachers were in the picket lines, and not a single school bus departed.

On Strike Day 2, the buses remained parked and the picket lines were strong – even in downpours of rain and snow across the state.

THIS FUNDRAISER, in direct coordination with the West Virginia School Service Personnel Association, will raise funds to thank the Putnam County bus drivers and school personnel who stood up to anti-union and anti-public education forces. We have an ambitious goal to help cover the lost pay for two-days of work for Putnam County service personnel who held the line. We are communicating with and supportive of both the AFT and and the WVEA, and will expand our goals as we are able and as needed.

If the strike continues, this fundraiser will also support costs for other personnel around the state who are striking and/or losing pay. If this fund outperforms our goals, we will be able to support more service personnel and teachers who held the line in 2019!
 
PLEASE DONATE TODAY!  www.wvstrikesupport.com

Who we are:

We are a group of West Virginia parents, community members and current/former school employees who want to do what we can to support the educators and school service personnel who serve our children every day. When WV teachers went on strike last year, we raised over $330,000 and with an all-volunteer effort we distributed 100% of it back to over 950 school employees. None of the funds we raise online are used to pay for administration — all of it goes directly to school personnel who’ve requested funds, once we verify their identity and their need.

Like last year, the funds are being managed through Rise Up WV, a community organization based in Charleston. Rise Up WV is an unincorporated nonprofit 501(c4) association registered as a charity in the state of WV. Every dollar raised (except for Gofundme’s administrative fee) will go directly back to striking school employees in the form of direct financial support, appreciation gift cards, lunches, etc.

Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,
THE WEST VIRGINIA SCHOOL PERSONNEL STRIKE FUND COMMITTEE

Brendan Muckian-Bates, West Virginia United steering committee member

Britt Huerta, Volunteer and Former School Personnel

Ryan Frankenberry, WV Working Families Party

Cathy Kunkel, Savanna Lyons, Ric MacDowell, and Paul Dalzell, Rise Up WV

Categories Education Reform

Tom Ultican: Elites in Dallas Impose Massive Disruption on Public Schools, with Charters Schools and TFA

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2019 //
2

Tom Ultican tells a sad story about the takeover of the Dallas school board by the Dallas Chamber of Commerce and other wealthy elites, who don’t send their children to the public schools.

After their failed experiment with Mike Miles, a Broadie who surrounded himself with young but very well-compensated aides from TFA, the elites decided to buy control of the school board. It became too expensive for an ordinary citizen to compete with the money that the elites were pouring in. One candidate, Lori Kilpatrick, almost upset an incumbent, even though her resources were meager. The corporate elites decided not to take any chances in the run off. Her opponent won by outspending her 34-1.

The business elites have an agenda. Hire as many TFA as possible and drive out experienced teachers. Close public schools and replace them with charter schools. So far, none of their plans has benefitted the children of Dallas.

It is a sad story and I hope you will take the time to read it.

Tom Ultican often refers to the “Destroy Public Education” movement.

Dallas elites are in the forefront of that movement. Shame on them. They belong on the Wall of Shame.

Categories Charter Schools, Dallas, Disruption, Education Industry, Privatization, Teach for America, Texas

California Pension Funds Are Major Investors in National Enquirer, Trump’s Ally

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2019 //
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The Los Angeles Times reports that CalPERS, the state’s biggest pension fund, holding the pensions of state workers and taxpayers, was a major investor in the National Enquirer.

“The National Enquirer has been one of President Trump’s most controversial allies, delivering scathing coverage of his opponents to supermarket checkout lines and funneling $150,000 to one of his alleged mistresses to buy her silence.

“So it will probably come as a surprise to many California state employees and taxpayers to learn they were helping fund those efforts.

”During the 2016 presidential campaign, California’s massive public pension fund, CalPERS, was one of the biggest investors in the debt-laden owner of the National Enquirer, according to public records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

“Through an investment managed by a New Jersey hedge fund, California’s public pension fund appears to have owned as much as one-third of American Media Inc., the National Enquirer’s parent company, in 2016. It is not clear whether CalPERS continues to hold a major stake in the tabloid publisher.

”Fewer than a third of California voters cast their ballots for Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in the state.

”Informed of the investment, Jeremy Bulow, a professor of economics at Stanford University, laughed in disbelief.

“I’m sure lots of CalPERS [plan holders] will be happy to know they were paying hush money to help get Trump elected,” he said. “That’s going to make them feel real good about their pension fund managers!”

”The news organization Maplight reported last year that California was one of three states whose pension funds had invested in the privately held publisher, although it did not detail how much of the company the state fund controlled.

”California’s pension fund, the largest in the nation, runs on contributions from taxpayer-funded state agencies and their employees. It has long drawn scrutiny over whether its mandate of seeking strong returns meshes with liberal Californians’ expectations of ethical investment. Some of its investments drawing recent scrutiny have included oil pipelines, retailers that sell semiautomatic rifles, Russian sovereign debt and coal-producing companies.”

Categories California, Education Reform, Pensions

New Jersey: Testing Chaos Continues and Gets Worse

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2019 //
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New Jersey believes in testing its children until they cry. The state clung to PARCC long after almost every other state dropped it. Now an even worse disaster is coming down the pike. Now is the time for Governor Phil Murphy to step in and stop this fiasco.

Jersey Jazzman called the testing regime in New Jersey “testing chaos.” 

Students are forced to take tests in order to graduate, even though the tests have not been validated for this purpose.

The students are required to take tests for which they have not been adequately prepared.

He writes:

I think this is deeply unfair for at least one reason: The state has not been providing the resources necessary for the majority of students to meet this new, higher standard.

The usual suspects have, of course, been making their case that New Jersey must have these tests in place to ensure that high school diplomas “mean something.” They worry that without a rigorous exit exam, New Jersey — consistently one of the highest-performing states in a variety of educational outcome measures — will dumb down its standards and leave its students less than “college- and career-ready.”

First of all: if there is any empirical evidence that high school exit exams, by themselves, improve educational outcomes, I haven’t seen it. After all, weighing the pig doesn’t fatten it up. Plenty of states don’t have exit exams; some, like Connecticut, perform well in national and international comparisons. Where, then, is the evidence exit exams lead to better outcomes?

Second: I often read op-eds like this and think the writers must believe that all we need to do to improve educational outcomes is just try a little harder. Those of us who actually work in schools, however, know it’s never that simple. If a child shows up at the schoolhouse door hungry or ill or in stress, that child will have a disadvantage compared to others in academic outcomes. So if we want all of New Jersey’s students to meet a “high” standard, we have to ask whether those students are arriving at school ready to meet that standard.

Further, we have to ask whether the school itself has the resources it needs to educate children to meet higher levels of achievement. Remember: New Jersey has not been providing its schools with what the state itself determined was necessary for children to achieve equal education opportunity.

Worse, that determination was made back when the standards were lower. Now, suddenly, “reformers” want to raise the bar, without the slightest thought as to whether schools might need even more resources to achieve even higher outcomes.

SOS New Jersey pleads for help to stop this travesty!

https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurSchoolsNJ/posts/2329562277076919?__tn__=-R

THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!!

The horrible legislation that would force our children to take an unlimited number of standardized tests in any grade in order to graduate from high school, is up for a full Senate vote tomorrow and just got posted for a full Assembly vote on Monday. The bills (A4957/S3381) were introduced by Senator Teresa Ruiz in the NJ State Senate and by Assemblywoman Pam Lampitt in the NJ Assembly.

Having the full Assembly vote on this is entirely up to Speaker Craig Coughlin. Please do three 3 right now:

1) Call Speaker Coughlin’s office(732) 855-7441 and ask that Speaker Coughlin pull A4957/S3381 from Monday’s Assembly voting agenda. Tell them you do not want our children forced to take unlimited numbers of standardized tests to graduate from high school.

2) Let Speaker Coughlin know on twitter how you feel about this awful legislation @SpeakerCoughlin

3) Call your Assembly members and ask them to oppose A4957. You can leave a message on their voicemail. Call both your State Senators and two Assembly members. You can look up your legislators here: https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/districts/municipalities.asp

The entire NJ Assembly is up for reelection this November. Let them know parents will NOT FORGET!

PLEASE GET YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY INVOLVED IN STOPPING THIS AWFUL BILL!!

ONCE THIS LEGISLATION BECOMES LAW, IT WILL BE ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO GET RID OF IT AND OUR CHILDREN WILL BE PAYING THE PRICE FOR MANY, MANY YEARS TO COME!

Categories Education Reform, New Jersey
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