Bill Phillis, founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, warns that privatizers run for local school boards, as they have in Atlanta and other cities. Teach for America has a special outfit called “Leadership for Educational Equity,” which trains its recruits to go into politics and helps to fund their campaigns.
Bill Phillis writes:
Anti-public school advocates run for seats on boards of education to attempt to completely privatize districts
This November, voters in the Cincinnati Public School District will elect four members to the seven-member Board of Education. One contender, Ben Lindy, the founder and director of the Southwest Ohio Teach for America, has drawn significant controversy among supporters of public schools.
In his recent guest column, “Be proud of schools’ progress, but don’t settle,” (Aug. 31), Lindy’s repeated his use of the term “equity” and a “quality education for every child” are hard to swallow. The controversy surrounding Lindy comes as no surprise to those who follow the influence of Teachers for America and their agenda on public school districts.
TFA is a multi-million-dollar national organization whose main operation is to place non-education major college grads into temporary two-year teaching assignments in urban classrooms with less than two months of preparation. After their two years, the majority of TFA candidates abandon teaching and move on to other fields.
It is not hard to see why professional educators, who have invested in and achieved significant graduate and undergraduate education training, oppose this business strategy for staffing classrooms.
In the last several years, TFA has extracted over $600,000 in “finder’s fees” from our school district. Yet, a majority of TFA recruits do not stay with Cincinnati Public Schools after their two-year contract ends. TFA operates like a temp agency, paying a $5,000 “bounty” per recruit for a two-year commitment. It would make more sense to spend recruitment monies with higher education partners who can refer actual education majors.
School districts in other states have already figured out TFA is not a good return on their investment. Districts in Texas, South Carolina, California and Pennsylvania have all recently ended their contracts with TFA.
The TFA lobby has successfully diverted millions of taxpayer dollars, meant to educate the children of Ohio, to their company. Lindy was not successful in his run for state representative in 2016, but he was able to extract millions of public education tax dollars from the state legislature for TFA.
In April 2019, his joint testimony before the Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee of the House Finance Committee helped secure another $4 million in the upcoming biennial budget for “support for ongoing development and impact of Teach for America alumni working in Ohio.” I guess he thinks TFA recruits who only spend two years in our urban classrooms now deserve another $4 million for their alumni’s “development.”
TFA is funded by billionaire elites, including the Bill Gates, Eli Broad and Walton Family Foundations. This helps explain Lindy’s confidence that he will be able to raise $250,000 to campaign for a seat whose pay is capped at $5,000 per year. It is well documented that TFA’s most influential alumni are proponents of school district takeovers, high stakes student testing, for-profit charter schools, and anti-union efforts – the most familiar to readers is likely Michelle Rhee (whom Lindy directly worked for), but there are others.
Likewise, districts should also avoid hiring any administrator without legitimate credentials from institutions of higher education. Districts should be wary of any administrator that is a former TFA alumnus or anyone with an MBA in finance and marketing or an economics degree, particularly if they attended Relay or any other “reform” related fake training. Generally, these candidates seek to disrupt and disinvesnt in public education.
TFA = subversion, the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.
TFA is one cog in the monster subversion machine funded by billionaires like Gates, the Waltons, Charles Koch (can’t say Koch brothers anymore since David Koch is dead, long live the false god), and the cancerous Walmart Walton family, et al.
“the subversion machine” YES.
TFA: Sub version: per version of a substitute: see “scab”
A TFA scab is a defect, covering a wound that never heals because that wound is terminal skin cancer.
And Ben Lindy’s loyalist was right on tap to condemn Michelle Dillingham’s op ed. The talking points in support of Lindy are well honed and there was little delay in finding a Lindy supporter. In another brief op ed the teacher’s union is saddled with the objection to his candidacy. In Ohio and elsewhere the letter grade system of reporting on district “performance” is doing what it is intended to do… create the apparent need for a rescue scenerio with TFA and charters/choice the panacea. More than half of Lindy’s campaign funding is from out of state.
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/2019/09/27/opinion-dont-put-political-squabbles-ahead-student-needs/2448874001/
The difficulty is finding info. about the school board candidates. In my personal experience, districts don’t post candidate statements at their websites. Rural Ohio communities don’t get coverage in local (or distant) city newspapers. Often, even teachers seem unable to identify a candidate’s position.
The state’s teachers’ retirement systems have an obligation to provide candidate info for current and retired teachers and, so does the teachers unions. A mailer or email is a start.
Do not trust anything a first-time candidate for an elected position says because there is no history to support what they say. The only thing we can look at (if that data is available) is where that first-time candidate’s money is coming from. If there is a money trail and it leads back to corrupt billionaires out to subvert the existing public schools, then we have our answer.
Hence, Nick Melvoin’s election to LAUSD School Board. TFA alum who is no longer a teacher, with Broad funding. Absurdly obvious, but when you say you care about “the kids,” people fall in line.
It’s up at Oped https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Beware-Privatizers-Running-in-General_News-Diane-Ravitch_Education-Funding_Education-Laws_Education-Vouchers-191004-245.html#comment746598
with my comments containing links to this blog: ( embedded at Oped.
other articles at the Ravitch blog which show the assault on public schools by the privateer$
Jeff Bryant: How Sharp Operators Fleece School Districts of Millions
Bombshell in California: E-Mails Reveal Charter Lobby’s Goal of Complete Privatization of All Schools in the State
Amy Frogge: How Edupreneurs Took Nashville for a Ride
The Perfect Storm [Disaster] of Education Reform”. This is an excellent article about “The Perfect Storm of Education Reform” by three scholars: It begins like this: No Child left behind (NCLB), Race to the Top (rt3), and now Common Core embody over a decade of federal and state education reform purport-edly designed to address inequities for global majority and low-income students.
However, these policies have in fact expanded inequities and exacerbated a discourse of failure regarding teachers, public schools, and teacher preparation programs. Consequently, public confidence in teachers, teacher preparation pro- grams, and student performance is at an all-time low.”
All teacher’s and parents should subscribe toDiane’s daily posts, which nail the war on education in America and the world!
This link, will take you to all the articles on charter fraud, at the blog of Diane Ravitch former ass’t Secretary of Education
This link is to the posts where legislatures are replacing local school boards, with not an educator on board. https://dianeravitch.net/?s=Legislatures
Trust me, All teachers need to be informed about what is going on in 15,880 systems in 50 states– this is a real, hidden assault on education”.get em young and keep ’em dumb so you can re-write history, and create ‘alternative facts’ in this post-truth world. And enrich the corporations that push privatizations(this link is to my series)and sell testing.
Teachers cannot be ignorant about War on teachers and the profession
My great niece and nephew attend a school in Ohio. They attend a charter school and complain that nearly all of their educational materials are online. They hate it.
The Gates Networks for School Improvement (NSI) is their newer capitalization plan. They appear to be investing in “Community Schools” across the country. Their Foundation considers Los Angeles a “CORE” district. LACOE has a Community School Department.” You have to leave a message. We wonder if consultants perform this job. LACOE provides grants through the Department – over $16 million per school.
NIS groups charters and public school data grant funding if depending on their model. One model is using the funds screen and provide mental health services.
“Networks for school improvement consist of a supporting organization such as a nonprofit, university or school district that connects middle and high schools to work together as a network. Their goal is to improve student outcomes by identifying barriers to student success and common problems that they can work on. The network uses data to help identify the problem and the strategy to solve it. Data also help to monitor improvement on whether students are graduating from high school and successful in college.” https://edsource.org/2019/educators-learn-early-results-of-gates-initiative-to-improve-student-outcomes/615388
We wonder if their data, that appears to be using middle schooler records to determine HS outcomes, aligns with the Gates Foundation’s screening markers that would identify which kids are heading to college and which are ripe for his NIS plans
According to GATES P-16 Framework, 8th Grade Students who don’t meet his “on-track” benchmarks are ripe for his Project Schools.
Page 22 defines ON TRACK students as:
8th graders with a GPA of 3.0 or better
8th graders with 96% or better attendance
8th graders with no Ds or Fs in ELA or math
8th graders never suspended (in and out of school)
8th graders with a GPA of 3.0 or better in math who also meet the proficiency benchmark on a standards/ curricula-aligned assessment
8th graders with a GPA of 3.0or better in ELA who also meet the proficiency benchmark on a standards/curricula-aligned assessment
Another model seeks to expand charter high schools to include their own graduate schools. The High Tech High Graduate School of Education in San Diego is an NSI school. They started out as a charter high school and now have a grad school component.
“The Networks for School Improvement (NSI) portfolio includes grants to organizations who will support groups of middle and high schools working together to identify and solve common problems using approaches that best fit their needs, learning what works as they go and refining their approaches.
We invest in partnerships between networks of schools and school support organizations. They will work together to identify and solve common problems by using evidence-based interventions that best fit their needs and data-driven continuous learning—where schools use data to identify a problem, select a strategy to address the problem, set a target for improvement, and iterate to make the approach more effective and improve student achievement.
While each network decides what approach will work best to address their biggest challenges, there are at least two things successful networks share in common—a commitment to continuous learning and improvement, and a focus on using indicators proven to predict students’ learning, progress, and success.
After an open and competitive Request for Proposal (RFP) process in September 2018, this cohort of grantees includes 25 organizations in 16 states (AL, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, MD, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, TN, TX, WA, and WI) to serve as supporting organizations for Networks for School Improvement.”
https://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do/networks-for-school-improvement/
This Initiative provides Gates Foundation
“grants to 21 organizations working with middle and high schools across 13 states to improve outcomes for Black, Latino, and low-income students. We’re excited to gather and share what our grantees are doing to date and what we are learning from their efforts”
LIST OF THE initial 21 school/district NSI Grantees
Achieve Atlanta, Inc. (Atlanta, GA)
American Institutes for Research (Central Florida)
Baltimore City Public Schools (Baltimore, MD)
Bank Street College of Education (Yonkers, NY)
California Education Partners (California)
Center for Leadership and Educational Equity (Rhode Island)
City Year (Milwaukee, WI)
The Commit Partnership (Dallas County, TX)
Communities Foundation of Texas, Inc. (North Texas)
Community Center for Education Results (Washington)
CORE Districts (California)**LA County is noted as one according to the website
Denver Public Schools (Denver, CO)
High Tech High Graduate School of Education (California)
Institute for Learning (Dallas, TX)
KIPP Foundation (Multiple states)
LA Promise Fund (Los Angeles, CA)
Network for College Success (Chicago, IL)
New Tech Network (El Paso County, Comal County, Ector County, TX)
New Visions for Public Schools (New York, NY)
Northwest Regional Education Service District (Oregon)
Partners in School Innovation (Philadelphia, PA)
Seeding Success (Memphis, TN)
Southern Regional Education Board (Jefferson County, AL and Bladen, Beaufort, and Stanley Counties, NC)
Strive (Cincinnati, OH)
Teach Plus, Incorporated (Chicago, IL and Los Angeles, CA)
Additional California projects will be included in the next round of funding, Hughes told EdSource.”
https://edsource.org/2019/educators-learn-early-results-of-gates-initiative-to-improve-student-outcomes/615388
The Gates-funded networks are intended to undermine the authority of local school boards and capture “professional development” activities that might originate without the Gates money, data-gathering, and micromanaging. Gates wants to standardize everthing possible about education to fit his truncated idea of “getting students on track to college and career,” including specific courses and GPA’s.
The CORE districts in California were created by the non-governmental agency “California Office to Reform Education.”
CORE was designed to capture decision-making about policies in at least eight large districts, with only a “memorandum of understanding” from the superintendent, by-passing school boards. The perks for signing on were none for districts, but great for adding data points in every district based on dubious data-gathering and ratings. Those rating schemes included measures of school climate and perceptions of school safety from students, non-teaching staff, parents, and teachers, also so-called “non-cognitive skills.” None of those measures had validity or reliability. Some of the measures are discussed here: https://www.brookings.edu/research/should-non-cognitive-skills-be-included-in-school-accountability-systems-preliminary-evidence-from-californias-core-districts/
CORE is/was a ruse to damage public schools while operating as if was a government authorized entity. Not so, but it was well funded and it had support from several California research universities ( e.g., Stanford) and the Education Trust-West. All wanted to look at reformy data “at scale.”
Although the UC System is considering dropping the ACT/SAT’s as a requirement for submissions, it seems more than a little curious that their 18 Member Faculty Task Force is studying using the Smarter Balanced ” Common Core” Gates initiative as a possible alternative. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-02/uc-sat-test-optional
Let’s hope CA’s scholars are paying close attention to the “work” of the Task Force. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be surprised if the outcome is a continuation of tweaked Common Core Assessment requirement for UC applications.https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/sttf/standardized-testing-tf-charge.pdf
Merging the outcomes>>>>
CA state is planning to roll out SB-2 Statewide Longitudinal Student Database so a Gate’s aligned standardized test would create a seamless transition for the P-20 Ed Tech profiteers.
Meanwhile, the National Ed Tech consortium, Student Data Privacy Alliance (SDPA), that’s layered beneath each state’s iteration of a 501(3)6 lobbying non-profits like CETPA, is funded by the privatizers and profiteers. They write empty privacy agreements that assign “school official” titles to their members and are actively lobbying to water down privacy laws, so vendor members can monetize student data.
Senator Ben Allen was Chair of the Ed Committee when the UC System began this undertaking. We wonder if any Academic Senate Task Force Members advised him on educational issues while he held that position.
Allen supports charter schools and TFA. He is a common core defender and co-sponsor of SB-2. According to Wiki, he “was a member of the executive board of the Los Angeles County School Trustees Association, and he was Chair of L.A. County’s Committee on School District Organization [https://www.lacoe.edu/Business-Services/Business-Advisory-Services/County-Committee]. He led the successful launch of the Los Angeles Spark Program, a non-profit organization that connects at-risk middle school students with apprenticeships; and he currently serves on Spark’s Los Angeles advisory board.”
The Sparks Program is an iteration of Gate’s Networks for School Improvements (NSI) Initiative. Their biggest donors are Dell and Brin Foundations (Google). Google, the California Community Foundation and others aren’t far behind.
Allen currently serves the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Education. Schools are told piloting “FREE” ed-tech saves schools money. They are refusing to order text books. Ed Tech transfers student data to the portfolio investors buying up these start-ups.
Reformer plans appear to be using NSI, Sparks and similar orgs across the country to convince folks that teachers are redundant, technology can fill the void and that the “community will take care of the rest of the kids”. These programs promise no more than 4 hours of high school instructional time per day. They phase out formal education, call Ed Tech the student’s personalized learning plan, and support local non-profits with funding and direction from corporate foundation dollars to create the appearance of self governance, community based education and equity for all.
Ben is also a Member of the CA Tech Caucus
“Caucus Goals
Continue to create policies that will foster innovation in California.
Foster the growth of the technology industry that has been a tremendous boon to California’s economy.
Make sure our next generation receives the proper training and education, so they lead the way for continuous innovation in California.
Ensure that high tech businesses are competitive in a global market, and ensure that these businesses continue to be headquartered in the Golden State.”
Enter the Billionaire for President – Tom Steyer
On his website, the so-called “Common Sense” Media creator and Billionaire for President, Tom Steyer states that in order to create a society where everyone has a fair chance at success, we need five fundamental rights to be protected by law. No one — not corporations and their lobbyists — should have the ability to take any of these rights away, just to make a profit.
These 5 Rights represent essential freedoms that should be guaranteed for all Americans: voting rights protections, a clean environment, a complete education, a living wage, and good health.
If you read between the lines, Steyer is saying that if corporations and their lobbyists want to REMOVE a protection currently held by the people, for instance student data privacy rights, that they should have to give something back. In other words, he and his his corporate friends on both sides of aisle believe that’s exactly what they’ve aggressively been doing – working behind the scenes to make sure education looks EXACTLY how they want it to. Equity looks like EdTech and community funded non-profits are hand picked , staffed and funded through their corporate foundations and Ed Tech portfolio friends.
Same people, same tricks.
https://www.tomsteyer.com/5-rights/
Thanks Clarity for all your info…on target. However, Tom Steyer is far from the only villain of the privatization movement. It was active for many decades before Steyer came into the picture. Charles Koch not only wanted all public education privatized, but in his oligarchic world, he wanted/wants now, all public entities like fire and police service, libraries, post office, etc…all made part of the private Free Market world, based on the theory that competition is the best way to run the world, and our nation. The Kochs developed their own schools to train legislators, starting in elementary school through grad school. Many of these people are also in the Tea Party and the John Birch Society which the Kochs have funded and led for many years. Read Jane Mayer’s book Dark Money. Skipping on to Obama, he too preferred charter schools to public schools and he warned voters in his 2006 Audacity book that if elected Prez he would institute this takeover…and he did. Some years ago, Rupert Murdoch, owner of most of the world’s media, wrote an OpEd in the NY Times on how much public education cost, in the realm of $ 500 Billion a year, and he urged privatization calling it the “greatest new investment opportunity.” Murdoch, in his flamboyant litany, announced that in a short time he could turn public education into a trillion dollar industry. I will be writing more about the Broad and Walton input of vast donations to make this a certainty, later today on my Facebook page if anyone wants even more info.
They are all horrid, Ellen.
CETPA is working with district law firms to push the watery privacy agreements and Steyers slanted common sense media to push their curriculum into schools. What they don’t want to tell kids or educators is that their plan is to unravel data privacy. Its their gift to the oligarchs. They’re sinking their teeth in to undo students privacy protections and first amendment rights while about online safety. VAMPIRES!
Sad days for democracy!
addendum….in LA, Eli Broad and his billionaire cohorts ‘bought’ seats on the LAUSD BoE for years. Broad, who got John Deasy hired as Supt with no national search, raised multi millions of dollars first to front a guy, Sanchez, from no-where-ville to run for BoE. Should have been an easy win, but a very smart teacher/Columbia grad lawyer, Monica Ratliff, challenged that candidate in her mainly Latino district. Although the Broad allies in Sacramento (Speaker John Perez who was cousin of LA Mayor Vilaraigosa and both Broad toadies) pushed Sanchez, and the union UTLA did not fund Ratliff, she did the hard work of going house to house, and with some fellow teachers work too, she won with a pittance of donations. A huge lesson for the Billionaires..so they worked harder and donated more millions to elect a crook and felon Refugio Rodriguez to join their other crooked puppet, their girl Monica Garcia. And in the next election, these overlords donated about $11 M to buy the spots for Melvoin and Gonez. Money talks…big money talks loudly. So now Rodriguez is a convicted con, and Garcia is planning a run for City Council despite she is the most hated of BoE members, and Melvoin is on the spot for having been shown to have colluded with the CCSA charteriszers who are under the guidance of Broad and Co. Melvoin, a lawyer, actually met with the CCSA leaders and asked them what they wanted done by the legal BoE and indicated he would see that would happen. Parents have risen up to take Melvoin down if investigation into his behaviors is illegal. It is like a two bit serial in the funnies…but this conniving can bring down a school district if the public is not assiduous in overseeing their elections.