Bill Phillis, former State Deputy Superintendent, watches over school spending and misspending in Ohio, in hopes that one day there will be equitable and adequate funding of public schools, instead of the current regime of school choice, waste, fraud, and abuse.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
James Shelton has a storied history as a reformer. He led the education program at the Gates Foundation. He was East Coast leader of the NewSchools Venture Fund, which underwrites charters. He co-founded a company that was acquired by Edison Learning. He worked for McKinsey. He was Arne Duncan’s Deputy Secretary, where he oversaw the i3 program, which was part of Race to the Top.
Then he moved to the digital start-up 2U, which was a roaring success and is now valued at $2 Billion, according to the Los Angeles Times. 2U is the company that built the online platform for USC’s Graduate School of Social Work. The latter became the biggest graduate program in social work in the world. But the program ballooned by lowering entry standards and has become so costly that a large proportion of the USC social work staff is likely to be terminated.
Shelton explained here why he was leaving 2U, even though he loves the company.
He then ran the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, a major promoter of online learning and charter schools.
He left CZI last summer.
Being a reformer brings great rewards, though not necessarily to students, teachers, or public schools.
Eugene Robinson, columnist for the Washington Post, wrote this persuasive commentary:
What would a president have to do, hypothetically, to get this Congress to impeach him?
Obstruct a Justice Department investigation, perhaps? No, apparently that’s not enough. What about playing footsie with a hostile foreign power? Abusing his office to settle personal grievances? Using instruments of the state, including the justice system, to attack his perceived political opponents? Aligning the nation with murderous foreign dictators while forsaking democracy and human rights? Violating campaign-finance laws with disguised hush-money payments to alleged paramours? Giving aid and comfort to neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Defying requests and subpoenas from congressional committees charged with oversight? Refusing to protect our electoral system from malign foreign interference? Cruelly ripping young children away from their asylum-seeking parents? Lying constantly and shamelessly to the American people, to the point where not a single word he says or writes can be believed?
President Trump has done all of this and more. If he doesn’t warrant the opening of an impeachment inquiry, what president ever would?
Impeachment is a risky strategy, many say, because it will excite Trump’s mean-spirited base. But aren’t they already at fever pitch, waiting for the next word or tweet from him?
Impeachment will fail, they say, because the Senate will never vote too convict. That is true, or that may be true, but since Trump has stonewalled the House of Representatives and refused to turn over any documents or to allow anyone in his administration to testify, an impeachment may be the only way that the House can fulfill its Constitutional duty of oversight. Trump has shredded the Constitution by treating the House as a nuisance, not a co-equal part of the federal government.
Nancy Pelosi once said off-handedly that Trump was “self-impeaching.” I took that to mean that his utter contempt for the Constitution was forcing the House to impeach him. I hope they oblige him.
I wish you had a subscription to the Los Angeles Times so you could read this article in full. If you do, you should.
The University of Southern California had one of the nation’s best graduate social work programs. In search of more revenue, it made a deal with an East Coast digital startup to establish an online degree in social work, and enrollment ballooned from 900 in 2010 to 3,500 in 2016. The university saved on the cost of dorms and classrooms.
The money was rolling in, but the big beneficiary was the tech company, which kept more than half the revenue and is now valued at more than $2 billion. USC’s once prestigious social work school has lowered its standards to admit students who would not have qualified in the past; its reputation has suffered; and it is “facing a budget crisis so severe that nearly half of the staff may lose their jobs.”
Maryland-based corporation 2U Inc. now services universities around the country and abroad, but it relies on USC for about a fifth of its revenue.
Industry analysts have pressed 2U executives repeatedly about the unfolding situation at the social work school, and the company lowered revenue forecasts last fall, citing in part instability at the Los Angeles university…
Part-time teaching positions are being largely eliminated and professors required to shoulder significantly heavier course loads. A university committee has recommended laying off up to 45% of the non-teaching staff….
2U takes a 60% cut of online tuition from the social work program, and the contract carries onerous penalties if USC breaks the arrangement. People familiar with the agreement told The Times it contains a so-called poison tail that requires the university to continue handing over its revenue share for two years after canceling.
USC’s contract with the company extends to 2030.
The arrangement has been great for 2U. Not so much for USC.
John Merrow has created a challenge for himself. Every year on his birthday, he sets a goal of cycling the same number of miles as his age. This year he turns 78, so his goal is to bike 78 miles.
He invites his friends to make a gift of $78 or some multiple of 78 to a recommended charity. This year he includes the Network for Public Education on his list (as he did last year).
I just donated $780 to NPE in honor of John’s birthday.
This is a generous tradition. Thank you,John Merrow.
Mercedes Schneider delved into the experience of Elizabeth Warren’s senior education advisor.
He entered teaching through Teach for America. I hear that his linked-in profile has been deleted since this post appeared but you might want to check to see if it has been restored.
I have met Elizabeth Warren twice, once in her Senate Office, about 2015, where we had a 30-minute conversation about education. I was greatly impressed by her quick intelligence. Earlier this year, I attended a house party in her honor at the home of a mutual friend in Manhattan and again was taken by her ideas about higher education, her passion, and her articulateness.
I was surprised and disappointed therefore to learn that her senior education advisor is TFA. TFA is a favorite of the Waltons, Eli Broad, and other billionaires who support privatization of public education. The Waltons have given many millions to TFA, at one point a single grant of $48 million; Broad assembled $100 million from a group of his allies for TFA. The organization supplies a large part of the workforce for private charter schools. Its leaders in high policy positions, like Michelle Rhee, John White, and Kevin Huffman have typically been pro-testing, anti-teacher, and anti-union.
I hope Warren clears the air by explaining where she stands on K-12 issues, whether she believes all children should have a credentialed teacher, whether she pledges to eliminate the federal Charter Schools Program (Betsy DeVos’ $440 Million Slush Fund), whether she supports the NAACP call for a moratorium on new charters, and whether she will actively fight to restore and protect teachers’ right to bargain collectively.
The New York Daily News published an opinion piece attacking Bernie Sander’s call for a moratorium on charter schools, echoing the NAACP and Black Lives Matter. The article claimed that Senator Sanders was hurting children of color.
Carol Burris and I published a response in the same publication to the attack, which is included here.
Yohuru Williams and Carol Burris assess the expressed views of the Democratic candidates—thus far—on K-12 education.
One hopes that the other candidates will soon state or clarify their views about privatization, testing, funding, and other important issues that the president can change.
They should all be asked at town halls whether they will kill the federal Charter Schools Program slush fund, which is now $440 million a year and is being used by DeVos to expand corporate chains.
Jan Resseger writes an in-depth account of the ongoing battle by teachers in West Virginia to keep charters and vouchers out of their state.
They struck twice and they continue to fight.
The Republican majority in the legislature is determined to introduce privatization, despite the poor results in other states.
The Republican leadership have added provisions to the pending legislation to prevent walkouts in the future.
”We learned on Tuesday that a poison pill had been added to the Senate’s omnibus bill—to ban strikes by teachers: “Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Trump says an anti-strike provision was amended into an omnibus education bill…. The amendment also says no county superintendent may close school in anticipation of a strike. And the amendment says that if a strike causes school to be closed then that school can’t participate in extracurricular activities… Democrats in the Senate argued that the provision was retaliatory for the strikes of the past two years.”
What happens next will be decided by the House and Governor Jim Justice.
Mary Holden is a teacher in Nashville, Tennessee. I have met Mary on several occasions, usually when I was in Nashville. She spent 15 years teaching high school, then switched to middle school, teaching sixth grade. She wasn’t sure how she would react to the change. In short, she LOVED it!
There are many weird things that happen in middle school that I never experienced as a high school teacher. Boogers. Penises drawn in weird places. Bad smells, especially after PE on a hot day. Excessive bottle flipping. Weird dance moves that kids break into constantly and at the most random times. Fortnite, Fornite, Fornite. Pokemon. K-Pop. More Fortnite. Do you play Fornite, Mrs. Holden? No?? Why not? Some unusually phrased graffiti in the bathroom because these kids think they know what they’re talking about when it comes to sex but really they have no idea (most of them, anyway).
Also, farts. I mean, audible farts during class. Oh, and burps, too. And lots of talking about farts and burps. Do these kids not realize the embarrassment it might cause them? No, not in 6th grade, they don’t. I’m teaching 7th grade next year – next summer, I’ll give a full report on whether or not they care about these things yet.
In 6th grade, there are loose teeth and boo-boos healed with Band-Aids. Silly jokes. Random stories that go on and on about what they did over the weekend. And there are hugs. Hugs because they are happy and hugs because they are feeling sad. There are tears sometimes. Tantrums, even. I’ve been called Mom more than once. That doesn’t really happen in high school much. I mean, think back to your own experience in middle school. It’s a really strange and awkward time in life. It’s something we all have to get through. And so teaching middle school is full of unusual things that happen on a daily basis.
But I also experienced real joy. Kids who love to read. (YAY!!! This makes me so happy!!) Kids who still see the magic in things. (I may or may not have squashed a student’s belief in the Elf on the Shelf being real.) (Yes, in 6th grade!) (Also, I’m sorry about that, kiddo, I thought you knew!) When we were studying Ancient Egypt in Social Studies class and we mummified a chicken, they were really into it! And when we read The Giver, Freak the Mighty, and Refugee in English class, they were really moved. Like I could see the awe and fear and sadness and joy in their faces as we read and talked about each book. That kind of thing dwindles away as we get older and is much harder to detect in high school. Kids this age are creative and love to show it – they wrote creepy tales of their own and created ABC books about ancient civilizations. I feel like I really got to know my students this year and, as a result, really grew to care deeply about them in a way I didn’t always experience at the high school level. And as a bonus, most of my students really like school and learning new things! It was inspiring to see.
Mary reminds me of what I tell future teachers when they ask if they are doing the right thing by going into teaching.
In the future, your students won’t remember the name of the mayor or the governor. They won’t remember the name of the superintendent. They will remember you.
Diane Ravitch's blog 