Archives for category: ALEC
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Why Louisiana Judge Struck Down Tenure Law

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2013 //
10

Mercedes Schneider explains the significance of the Jindal legislation–Act 1–that was declared unconstitutional by a Louisiana judge yesterday.

The state constitution says that each piece of legislation shall deal with only one subject. It was on this procedural ground that the law was declared unconstitutional.

As Schneider shows, Act 1 covered numerous subjects. Its primary purposes were: first, to destroy the teaching profession; second, to remove the powers of local school boards; third, to make the state superintendent the most powerful figure in the state; fourth, to make test scores the singular purpose of education.

Under this legislation, tenure would become hard to get and easy to lose. A teacher’s survival or termination would be tied tightly to the rise or fall of test scores. Test scores are the heart and soul of the law and are used punitively against teachers.

Not surpringly, the legislation closely tracks ALEC model laws for getting rid of tenure, making certification optional, and gutting local control.

Categories ALEC, Louisiana, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Will Republicans Kill Vouchers in Texas and Wisconsin?

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2013 //
3

When I was in Texas last week, several people–including state legislators–told me that they believe that rural Republicans will join Democrats in voting down vouchers. The rural Republicans know that vouchers would kill their local public schools, and they don’t believe that would be right.

Something similar may be happening in Wisconsin. Governor Scott Walker is eager to expand vouchers to new parts of the state, and Republican Senators are less than enthusiastic. Some say they want any voucher program to be subject to a local referendum, but Walker stoutly refuses. He must know that voters have never approved a voucher program. Other Republicans are undoubtedly concerned about how vouchers will affect their community schools. Of coure, Governor Walker wants vouchers for children with disabilities, which is an ALEC bill. The reality is that children with disabilities have better programs and more constitutional protections in public schools than in private and religious schools.

The fact that Republicans are pushing back against vouchers is good news.

Categories ALEC, Vouchers, Wisconsin

Nashville Leaders Fight GOP Plan to Kill Local Control

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2013 //
7

Republican leaders in the Tennessee legislature are pushing ALEC model legislation to strip the Metro Nashville school board of its power to authorize charters. This is intended to punish Nashville for refusing to support Arizona-based Great Hearts Academy, a corporate chain that wants to open in an affluent white neighborhood. Memphis is also included in the proposal.

Nashville leaders, excepting the corporate-friendly mayor, oppose the legislation. The mayor believes that the power to expand charters is more important than local control. .

The ALEC bill has the support of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst, the Wall Street hedge fund managers’ Democrats for Education Reform, and Stand for Children. In other words, the usual cheerleaders for corporate reform.

Opposition to the ALEC legislation was so intense from parents in Nashville and Memphis (the only districts targeted to lose local control) that the House Education Committee delayed a vote on the measure.

Supporters of public education are not giving up without a fight.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Democrats for Education Reform, Stand for Children, StudentsFirst, Tennessee

Inside the Interlocking Directorate of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
5

In this installment of her investigative analysis of the National Council on Teacher Quality, Mercedes Schneider reviews the career of Deborah McGriff.

This provides a fascinating insight into the tangled web of the corporate reform movement.

Categories ALEC, Broad Foundation, Bush, Jeb, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ)

Indianapolis: Farewell to Public Education

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
33

I received a desperate message on Facebook from Tarrey Banks, the founder of The Project School in Indianapolis. TPS is a charter school started with a grant from the Walton Foundation. Greg Ballard, the mayor of Indianapolis, is the authorizer. TPS has low test scores, after four years, and the mayor has decided to close it. Banks and TPS parents are outraged. They went to court, blocked the mayor in a lower court, but then lost when a federal judge upheld the closure. TPS is losing the battle.

To get the big picture of what is happening in Indianapolis, read here. You will encounter a familiar cast of characters, including, of course, Bill Gates and Stand for Children.

What is happening in Indianapolis is terrifying if you believe that public education belongs to the public, not to private corporations. .

Here comes a scary future. First, the “blueprint” for Indianapolis, confidently predicting a future of perfection and excellence, but without any meaningful road map. Just promises. And here come the charters, opening with high hopes and closing when judged by scores.

Open, close. Open, close. Open, close.

Below is Banks’ letter. Read it. Read Mayor Ballard’s Blueprint for Utopia. But if you read nothing else today, read this article about the grand plan to privatize the schools of Indianapolis.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5_NQFzJRhSGZ2ZEaWZFYmhwNU0/edit?usp=sharing

This is the Mind Trust / Mayor Ballard (TFA Deputy Mayor Jason Kloth) take-over blueprint. This will literally be the end of public education in the urban core of Indianapolis.

We need help. It’s all but over. The 10th most populated city in the country is about to be one of the biggest systems of educational apartheid in the nation.

My name is Tarrey Banks and I’m the founding school leader of the Indianapolis Project School. I am a lifelong public school educator who made the decision to start a charter school with a group of passionate educators. We are the only truly progressive public school in our city. We take and teach all kids…we don’t push out, kick out, expel, etc. My daughter is a 7 year old student at our school…I made it for her because I know that all kids deserve what she deserves. We are four years old and this week we were the victim of a conservative political strategic attack. Just 3 weeks our mayor has decided to close our doors. The process was corrupt and the information they used was false and/or inaccurate. We are fighting the good fight, but I firmly believe our school will be shut down by the close of business on Monday. I truly believe this is the death of progressive public education in our city if we do not use this as a catalyst to attack the corporate reform agenda.

I know you are busy…you must be. I intend to use the closing of our school as the beginning of a rebellion. Will you help? How can I get you to Indianapolis to push this force back and make folks wake up and see what is happening? Our city is doomed if I can’t move this conversation in a different direction. We have 100’s of families, students, community members, educators ready to protest…to really blow it up…but I need more…I need a national presence…

Will you? What can I do?

Tarrey Banks

Categories ALEC, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Indiana, On-Line Education, Privatization, Stand for Children, U.S. education

Return of The Zombie Film “Won’t Back Down”

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2013 //
19

The anti-teacher, anti-public school movie “Won’t Back Down” was released into 2,500 movie theaters (owned by its producer Walden Media) and died a quick and ignominious death. Despite massive advance publicity at NBC’s “Education Nation” and a CBS promotion, despite Michelle Rhee hosting screenings at both national political conventions, despite attention on the “Ellen” show, the film had one of the worst opening weekends in recent history. The critics ridiculed it, and within four weeks, the film had disappeared.

It became a dead film, but it lives on as a zombie film. Its producers Philip Anschutz and Rupert Murdoch never expected to make money. They are billionaires, and they didn’t care about the box office receipts. They wanted their propaganda film to persuade people that teachers are lazy, that unions are evil, and that parents must seize control of their school and hand it over to a charter corporation.

Their goal was nothing short of privatization of public education.

So now they have taken their dud and, with the help of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are showing it to legislators in conservative states, hoping to keep their campaign alive with a zombie film that died months ago.

Call it the ALEC road show.

You know who Rupert Murdoch is. He is the man who owns Fox News and many publications and is now embroiled in a scandal in Great Britain, where his reporters hacked into the telephones of scores of people, including a dead teenage girl.

Maybe you don’t know much about Philip Anschutz, who owns Walden Media. He has been a successful movie producer (“Chronicles of Narnia,” among others). His energy company is very involved in the controversial practice of hydrofracking in many parts of he nation, which environmentalists oppose. He contributes generously to libertarian, anti-government think tanks. He supported anti-gay campaigns in Colorado and California.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Parent trigger

Indiana: Politicians and Landlord Welcome New Charter School

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2013 //
2

Ball State University terminated three low-performing charter schools, but not to worry. More are on the way.

Despite the lack of demand, the state board of education invited charter school Carpe Diem to come to Fort Wayne. As veteran Fort Wayne journalist Karen Francisco put it, “Indiana supporters of corporate education reform are determined to force a charter school on Fort Wayne– whether the community wants one or not.”

The state charter board will hold a “hearing,” but apparently the most interested party is the charter’s prospective landlord. Read the article to see all the really cool connections between the charter board, the landlord, and politicians.

Carpe Diem is heavily dependent on computers, has very large class sizes, and is reportedly a favorite of ALEC.

Another step backward for American education.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Indiana, On-Line Education

Tennessee Legislature Protects Failing Virtual Charter School

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2013 //
18

Just an hour ago, I posted the story about how officials at the Tennessee Virtual Academy had instructed teachers to delete failing grades, allegedly to show “progress.”

The virtual school, run by the for-profit K12 corporation, is among the lowest-performing schools in the state.

This afternoon a state legislative committee blocked any discussion of the school altering grades and prevented efforts to limit enrollment in the school. Although the legislators refused to hear any reference to the school’s practice of deleting failing grades, they did hear a teacher who claimed that home instruction on a computer was a very positive experience for children with autism.

The legislators gave the virtual school an additional two years with no accountability, despite its poor academic performance.

The school gets about $5,000 per pupil and enrolls more than 3,000 students. It is known for its astute lobbying and well-targeted campaign contributions.

Another step backward for American education.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Privatization, Tennessee

More on Charter Legislation in Tennessee

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2013 //
10

The Tennessee Legislature is rushing to pass legislation that would allow charters to apply to the state to get authorization, instead of the local school board. As noted in an earlier post, the legislation would apply only to Nashville and Memphis.

Note the rationale for targeting these two districts: they already have the most charter schools, so they of course need many more and the state must do it, not the local board.

This legislation–gutting local control–comes right out of the ALEC playbook, which considers privatization to be a higher value than local control. This is evidence not of conservatism–which respects local control–but of radicalism in the service of corporate interests.

ALEC pushed through the same idea as a constitutional amendment in Georgia, and big-money came from the Waltons and others interested in increasing privatization while claiming they are doing it “for the children.”

 

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Privatization, Tennessee

Tennessee Republicans Seek to Gut Local Control

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2013 //
12

The Republican super-majority in the Tennessee legislature introduced legislation to strip away the the power of the school boards in Memphis (Shelby County) and Nashville to authorize charter schools.

The power would be moved to a state authority.

This move is retaliation against the Metro Nashville school board, which rejected an application from the Great Hearts charter school academy of Arizona. The school board rejected Great Hearts four times! The problem was that Great Hearts wanted to open in a mostly white, affluent neighborhood and had inadequate plans for student diversity.

In an exposé in the Arizona Republic a few months ago, Great Hearts was singled out for dubious financial self-dealing. See here and here. Arizona blogger David Safier reported last fall that Great Hearts expects each family to make a contribution of at least $1500 to defray costs.

Metro Nashville decided it didn’t want Great Hearts to open in its district.

Nashville’s insistence on turning down this particular application infuriated State Commissioner Kevin Huffman (whose prior experience is limited solely to TFA). Huffman withheld $3.4 million that the state owed to Nashville. The governor and legislators were angry too that Nashville acted to exercise local control. They are now talking about vouchers.

Huffman and the state’s far-right Governor and legislature are determined to privatize as many schools as possible as quickly as possible in Memphis and Nashville.

Local control be damned!

Question: why are the Republicans in Tennessee so determined to destroy public education in their state? Has anyone in the state read the research on charters and vouchers? Or are they taking marching orders from ALEC?

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Privatization, Tennessee
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »