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Ed Johnson for School Board in Atlanta on September 17!

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2019 //
6

Atlanta is holding a special election on September 17 to fill the vacant seat in District 2.

This election is crucial, because the current board majority, dominated by TFA alums, is committed to the so-called Portfolio Model, which means an abdication of the board’s responsibility and a proliferation of private charters.

Ed Johnson, a dedicated and well-informed citizen of Atlanta, should be elected. I have known Ed Johnson for years as a person with deep understanding of education and of systems. He believes in steady and thoughtful improvement, not radical disruption that upends the lives of children and communities.

This election could tip the balance on the board.

To understand why Ed Johnson is perfect for this job, read his responses to the questionnaire of the Georgia Charter Schools Association.


Ed Johnson
Candidate, Atlanta Board of Education District 2

Questionnaire by Georgia Charter Schools Association (GCSA)

1. Briefly share your qualifications for the office of District 2 School Board Member.

My qualifications are exactly those the Atlanta Independent Schools System (AISS) Charter requires, namely:

I am at least 18 years of age
I am a resident of the city and I have been a resident of the Atlanta Board of Education (“Board”) District 2 for at least one year immediately preceding the date of filing a notice of candidacy to seek office
I am a qualified elector of the city
I am not an employee of the State Department of Education nor a member of the State Board of Education

Moreover,

I do not currently hold an elective public office
I am not an employee of the Atlanta Board of Education or any other local board of education
I do not serve on the governing body of any private K-12 educational institution, however grade level-wise constituted

Perhaps this question actually meant to ask, “What personal qualities are you prepared to bring to the Board as the District 2 representative?” Assuming so:

I hold a keen, uncompromised position for the public’s Atlanta public schools system to remain a wholly public good committed to continually improving in quality as a public good essential to advancing democratic practices of civil society ever and ever closer to democratic ideals. Kindly see my bio brief at this link: https://tinyurl.com/y57uymu6

2. What is your vision for Atlanta Public Schools and how would you implement it?

Visions alone are insufficient. Visions, as well as missions, must be anchored in, aligned to, and function in harmony with an invariant Purpose.

Although my vision matters less than any visions District 2 communities and Atlanta civil society, at large, may hold for the public’s Atlanta Independent Schools System, which is commonly known as Atlanta Public Schools (APS), my personal vision is for APS to become the wholly unfractured public good it is chartered to be, so it can become Where Authentic Public Education Meets Purpose in service to sustaining and advancing democratic practices ever closer to democratic ideals that benefit all of Atlanta civil society and beyond. For this to happen, having a commonly agreed-to invariant Purpose is essential. Unfortunately, APS has not a commonly agreed-to invariant Purpose. Today, on account of the poor quality of top leadership of APS—Board and superintendent—the “purpose” of APS is whatever any one or more of some 300-plus private actors APS leadership calls “partners” selfishly want the “purpose” of APS to be, at any given moment, in service to themselves.

I, as an individual Board member, will not have the authority to implement my personal vision or anything else. However, as a Board member, I will seek to influence the Board to catalyze, via policy, the start of a very, very, very long overdue journey of never ending continual quality improvement anchored in Where Authentic Public Education Meets Purpose, as stated above.

3. Please describe your position on charter public schools.

Kindly know I am not a purveyor of any of the miscalled terms “charter public schools,” “public charter schools,” and “traditional public schools.” Without question, such terms are meant to manipulate. Thus I speak only the authentic and truthful terms “public schools” and “charter schools.”

That said, charter schools may be rightfully likened to vampire bats that feed on their victims’ blood but instead feed on the public’s public schools’ various resources, including but not limited to fiscal, physical, academic, and social resources. The thinking that such feeding then means charter schools are public schools is just plain ludicrous. And just as Count Dracula feeds on his victims’ blood after having promised eternal life in an instant, charter schools feed on parents’ hopes with promises of giving their children instant “access” to instant “high quality education,” in instant “high quality charter school seats,” in instant “high quality charter schools.” In Atlanta, such parents targeted by charter schools tend to be those of children labeled “Black.”

Data—for example, results from Georgia Milestones standardized test assessments since the inception of the tests in 2015—are clear that charter schools are not, in general, the inherently “high quality schools” they claim to be. And even if they were, nonetheless, all the wasted fiscal, academic, and social costs associated with having two parallel school systems is morally and ethically reprehensible. Such wasted costs should be going to improving public schools in the manner of the never ending journey of continual quality improvement I mention in my response to question 2, above.

So, my position? Charter schools are an abomination upon civil society. Moreover, our local, state, and federal lawmakers should not be in the business of legitimating selfishness. It’s not much of a stretch to see the connections to selfish acts of shooting up schools, for example, facilitated by easy access to military-style guns. Selfishness learned in one context invariably manifests in any number of other contexts, sometimes “by any means necessary.”

4. What do you think are the three greatest issues or problems facing Atlanta Public Schools? How could charter public schools help address these issues?

There is but one overarching greatest issue and that issue subsumes all other issues: Influence the Board to catalyze “Adopting district-wide policies that support an environment for the quality improvement and progress for all decision makers in the district, as well as for students.”

Charter schools are anathema to realizing this overarching issue, which actually is a role the Atlanta Independent Schools System Charter requires the Board to fulfill, and it never has.

5. What are the specific issues facing District 2? What should be done to address these issues?

The specific, overarching issue facing District 2 is the presence of a concentration of charter schools. Six of 14 schools are charter schools. That’s 43 percent charter schools. Data suggest the outsized presence of so many charter schools in District 2 feed greedily on resources that, morally and ethically, should be going to the eight District 2 public schools.

To address this issue, the Board members be must called to account, both severally and individually, for failing to honor their sworn Oath of Office that begins: “I will be governed by the public good ….” Charter schools are not public goods, so are anathema to Board members’ fulfilling their Oath of Office, and they don’t.

6. Do you support the expansion and approval of more high quality charter schools in the Atlanta Public Schools district?

No. Besides, various data sources are clear: Neither APS nor District 2 has any “high quality charter schools” compared to public schools. The term is a blatantly intentional miscalling meant to manipulate the unsuspecting.

7. Do you believe charter public schools should receive funding and resources equal to that of traditional public schools?

Again, I am not a purveyor of the intentionally misleading terms “charter public schools” and “traditional public schools.” There are public schools and there are charter schools.

Originally, to get themselves established, charter schools sold the public on the idea that they can do more with less, inherently, as if charter schools are automatically and instantly “high quality schools.” Now that the truth is known and the lie exposed, by their own admission, charter schools pressing for funding equality or equity with public schools should be taken as evidence that charter schools are a totally cost-equable, hence totally duplicative, hence totally wasteful schooling structure, inherently, and so should be allowed to die in the open daylight, just as Count Dracula dies when exposed to open daylight, or gets staked in the heart. Once staked in the heart, the stake must never be removed, lest he or it comes back to life.

8. What are your thoughts on the strategic plan APS is currently working on? In your opinion, what should be addressed?

The development of that strategic plan is an essential step the Board and superintendent, Meria Carstarphen, are taking in their process that aims to implement The City Fund’s free-market portfolio of schools “idea.” The “idea” is just that, and it has absolutely no basis in pedagogy nor in actually intending to improve schools, only change them.

The process simply begs disrupting and destroying APS as the public good it is supposed to be by continually closing and replacing public schools with ever more charter schools. The Board and Carstarphen cloak what they do by intentionally miscalling it “Excellent Schools Project.” The several other urban public school districts The City Funds has targeted for privatization do likewise; that is, apply an agreeable though erroneous name that cloaks the privatization agenda.

The Board voted their “Creating a System of Excellent Schools” process into existence by the 5­-3 vote they took during their March meeting, last school year. Sadly, at least one Board member voted not fully understanding the vote, but understandably so, because the Board Chairman, Jason Esteves, had snookered the Board member into voting in favor of the vote, I learned. Indeed, the vote was an extraordinarily slick execution that Esteves pulled off. It can help to have a graphical rendering of the process the Board voted into existence in order to see the full effect of the vote, at a relatively high level. See such a graphical rendering on the next page (or below), and note the thick black-lines trace through the process involving initial development of the strategic plan.

For more about my position and understanding of the so-called Excellent Schools Project, kindly see these of mine:

https://mailchi.mp/d25f43df98e4/icf-international-atlanta-school-board-prepares-a-fresh-assault-on-public-education
https://mailchi.mp/285384c108ec/how-are-the-apsl-planning-to-destroy-public-education-in-atlanta-with-excellent-schools
https:

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Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teach for America

Ed Johnson: Atlanta Schools Need Improvement, Not Change

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2019 //
19

 

Ed Johnson is an adherent of the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming, who wrote and spoke about the superiority of Improvement over disruptive change. Ed lives in Atlanta, where the school board and its superintendent believe that they must shock the system, privatize, impose constant disruption. As he shows in the chart below, their approach (the so-called “portfolio model”) has made matters worse. He announces here that he is running for a seat on the board. Wouldn’t that be wonderful to have a critic of disruption on a board now dominated by Ex-TFA know-it-all’s?

19 July 2019

“Turn around the turnaround so APS can start improving!”

I am not a proponent of letter grades for schools.  However, Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA) is, to wit:
“This website provides school reports for all public elementary, middle, and high schools in Georgia. These reports include A-F letter grades based on school performance and other useful information about the school, such as performance on statewide assessments, the make-up of the school’s student body, the graduation rate, and additional academic information.”
So, for those who like to have letter grades for schools, I say: Okay, let’s have them.  Ditto for “heat maps.”
My short presentation, here in PDF and here in PowerPoint Show format (download only), carries the title, Atlanta Board of Education District Schools Cumulative Growth by Quantified GOSA Letter Grades since “School Turnaround.”
The presentation aims to be fairly self-explanatory.  Still, essential points about it are:
  • Baseline year 2014 marks the first year of execution of the Atlanta school board and superintendent’s School Turnaround Strategy.
  • For each year from Baseline year 2014 through year 2018, each schools’ GOSA letter grade A, B, C, D, or F is translated to the numeral 2, 1, 0, -1, or -3, respectively.  A is translated to 2, B to 1, C to 0, D to -1, and F to -3.  This then quantifies the letter grades and, yes, the translation procedure is arbitrary—or might one say, “innovative?”  Alternatively, a compounding procedure might be used instead of this purely additive one.
  • Each school’s quantified letter grades are added such that the running sum is recorded over time, creating a time series.  The first addend, at 2014, is noted and added to the second addend, at 2015, and the sum there noted.  Then the sum at 2015 is added to the third addend, at 2016, and the sum there noted.  Then the sum at 2016 is added to the fourth addend, at 2017, and the sum there noted.  And, finally, the sum at 2017 is added to the fifth addend, at 2018, and the sum there noted.  This then establishes a running record as a time series of the school’s Quantified Letter Grade Cumulative Growth.
The presentation offers plots of Quantified Letter Grade Cumulative Growth, over time.  There is a plot for all schools in the Atlanta Public Schools system as well as a plot of schools for each of the six Atlanta school board districts, with school names listed in a side box.  School names are as known by GOSA, except in one case.

For example, the following plot of Atlanta school board District 1 schools shows, at year 2018, the full range of the schools’ quantified letter grade cumulative growth.  Mary Lin Elementary School marks the positive extreme of the range, at 10 (2, 4, 6, 8 10), while Price Middle School and Thomasville Heights Elementary School both mark the negative extreme of the range, at -15 (-3, -6, -9, -12, -15).  All other school board District 1 schools fall in between these extremes, at year 2018.

Note that the Atlanta school board and superintendent outsourced Thomasville Heights Elementary School to a private operator at the beginning stage of executing their School Turnaround Strategy.  They did so as one of their earliest bold actions aiming to fix the supposedly horribly broken school and keeping the state from taking it over, they claimed.

Interestingly, any one of the plots in the presentation looked at holistically, rather than analytically, offers a basis for predicting the future, if only short term.  An obvious prediction to make is that schools in the mostly northern area of Atlanta serving mostly children labeled “white” will generally continue to stay better or get better, while schools in the mostly southern area of Atlanta serving mostly children labeled “black” will generally continue to stay worse or get worse.  The zero-line in the above plot effectively demarcates north Atlanta-area schools, above the line, and south Atlanta-area schools, below the line.

Why is this bifurcation of public education in Atlanta so persistent?   Why does it keep happening?

Well, consider the Atlanta school board and superintendent’s School Turnaround Strategy is today’s version of the root cause of the matter, as it entails essentially the latest in a long string of school reform quick fixes, change initiatives, bold actions, and solutions meant to instantly fix the broken Atlanta Public Schools system and close so-called achievement gaps, opportunity gaps, access gaps, equity gaps, 30 million words gaps, and all manner of gap.  Such has been the root cause for nearly three decades, starting with the school boards of the permanent superintendents Benjamin Canada, then Beverly Hall, and now Meria Carstarphen.

However, the basic, immutable facts have been, and always will be, change does not mean improvement, bold actions do not substitute for quality leadership, there are no solutions, APS cannot break, and so APS cannot be fixed.

One has only to consider what “solution” means and the kinds of systems to which solutions apply—namely, mechanical systems and mathematical systems, for example, but not, dynamic, idiosyncratic social systems such as public school systems and, yes, children.  Public school systems and children are not the kind of systems where solutions can fix them.  Trying to fix APS is much the same as trying to fix a child, which can only be a most egregious, inhumane, and even evil endeavor.

Atlanta Public Schools can only be improved, continually, never ending.

If one won’t believe me and my having been out in the wilderness for the longest of time yammering and crying about these basic, immutable facts, then perhaps one will believe the billionaire Bill Gates and The 74, which he funds.

According to this recent article by The 74, Mr. Gates seems to have recently cottoned to what some might consider W. Edwards Deming’s “continuous improvement” philosophy.  But, of course, putting $93 million towards his new interest entitles Mr. Gates to claim and declare it as his own Continuous Improvement Model.

However, if one were to examine—better yet, read and study–Dr. Deming’s last seminal works, The New Economics for Business, Government, Education(1993, The MIT Press) and Out of the Crisis (1982, The MIT Press), one will not find the term “continuous improvement.”  One will only find the term “continual improvement.”  The point being, it seems Mr. Gates is dragging public education into yet another experiment without having essential knowledge of what is required.

I am aware some of Mr. Gates’ foundation employees attended a Deming conference a few years ago and so I have always wondered what would come of it.  Maybe we are about to find out.  Hopefully, prayerfully, Mr. Gates will not end up having tarnished or compromised Dr. Deming’s legacy:  “Well, we tried the Continuous Improvement Model but it, too, turned out to be one of our experiments that didn’t work out.  So we will move on to look for the next promising elixir to magically fix all the nation’s failing public schools in poor and minority communities.”

I any case, I hope we can understand Dr. Deming’s continual improvement philosophy posits a way of learning, a way of getting knowledge and wisdom, hence a way of life.  The philosophy does not posit a model that, if scripted and the script implemented and “scaled up,” that then will solve and fix all broken public school systems, or turn them around.

In this sense, the plot above, as in the presentation, shows a failing Atlanta school board and superintendent School Turnaround Strategy poised to keep on failing (prediction, knowledge).

Thus, for me, the time has come to “Turn around the turnaround so APS can start improving!”

Accordingly, I decided at the last minute to seek the now open Atlanta Board of Education District 2 Seat in a Special Election to be held 17 September 2019.

I simply could not walk away—meaning, I had already taken the first step to leave Atlanta behind by first greatly downsizing to a small fixer-upper bungalow and working on it a while before moving back to my hometown, having already jettisoned years of accumulated stuff.  When nearly three years ago I made this initial downsizing move, I purchased the bungalow within the same ZIP code, as intended.  However, I discovered soon afterwards that I had also purchased just a few hundred yards inside Atlanta school board District 2.  What can I say?

If any of my yammering and crying in the wilderness over the years about Atlanta Public Schools needing improvement, not change, have ever resonated, then I humbly ask for your non-funds support, endorsement, and vote according to your civil privileges.

You have all the civil privileges of supporting, endorsing, and voting for me if you reside principally in Atlanta Board of Education District 2.  If you reside principally outside of District 2, you still have the civil privileges of supporting and endorsing me to those important to you but you cannot vote for me.

Because mainly, though not exclusively, at least one candidate funded by The City Fund’s local executive director is in the race for the District 2 Seat, and because big money is just itching for a fund-raising fight, I have committed to forgo soliciting and accepting campaign contributions.  The fund raising fight The City Fund and other big money are itching for won‘t be mine to give.

Really, just think what a blow it will be to big money when someone (me!) gets elected with no strings attached to big money’s purse strings or school privatization agenda!  Someone who has never been bought and sold, and won’t be, to put it bluntly!

Let’s do this!  Let’s “Turn around the turnaround so APS can start improving!”

Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality in Public Education
Atlanta GA | (404) 505-8176 | edwjohnson@aol.com
Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Ed Johnson: My Personal Fight with Cyberattacks and Competition: A Horror Story

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2019 //
12

Ed Johnson lives in Atlanta and fights daily against the malignant competition and punishment inflicted on the children of Atlanta by the school board and superintendent. He shares the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming, who taught the importance of collaboration and teamwork.

He wrote this post and sent it to the school board:

 

Cyberattacks and competition
I have been under cyberattack for nearly a year, now.
First, it was attempted blackmail to “expose” me by making public an old username and password I used once to visit an “unsavory” website some 25 years ago.  I hear this blackmail tactic is quite common, and successful.
 
Well, blackmail didn’t work on me, so then came invading my computer and encrypting all personal files and holding the encrypted files hostage pending my paying the one bitcoin (~680 USD) ransom demand before I would be given the decryption key.
 
Well, holding my personal files hostage for ransom didn’t work on me, so then on 18 Dec 2018, there suddenly came a great flood of email notifications from subscription and online services all over the globe thanking me for having signed up.  Fraudulent signups continue to occur at the rate of around six or so per day.  The aim of the bountiful fraudulent signups seems to be the gamble that, in the fog of hurriedly unsubscribing the many services, one is bound to click on a Trojan Horse disguised as an “Unsubscribe” link.
 
Well, fraudulent subscriptions haven’t worked on me, so two days ago, this happened: My receiving notifications of Diane Ravitch blog posts had been blocked at wordpress.com, for crying out loud!
 
For the first time, I felt panicky.  No Diane Ravitch blog posts?!!  No, that can’t be!
 
But in the end that didn’t work on me, either.  Not for long, anyway.
 
So I remain a happy camper.
 
Even so, I guess we will always have some folk who have been taught and deeply conditioned to compete “by any means necessary” to win at the expense of others.
 
Atlanta Public Schools Leadership (APSL; school board and superintendent) are pretty good at teaching and conditioning people, even young children, to win at the expense of others, when winning and losing is not at all necessary, as with their Race2Read competition, for example.
 
Just think, the many children innocently and trustingly pour themselves into reading, wanting to do their best, to be helpful, to contribute, only to have the APSL adults turn on them and declare ten reading winner kids (“Top Student Readers”) and to tell the thousands of other children they are the reading loser kids, even if that is not the reality, at all.  Because they show they utterly fail to understand variation, the APSL adults create reading winners and reading losers out of the children, arbitrarily and capriciously, and ignorantly.
 
The currently serving APSL have always shown that everybody cooperating to achieve a common goal is an extremely foreign concept to them.  As their Race2Read competition exemplifies, the APSL would rather have children, students, schools, parents and community members, and even school bus drivers, competing than cooperating and collaborating.
 
How unfortunate, here in the twenty-first century, some among the APSL keep practicing the regressive belief that competition motivates people and boosts morale and improves quality, as does, for example, school board member Cynthia Briscoe Brown opining in a school board meeting here (at 1:22:30 thru 1:24:56) that the new “Elite Bus Driver” program is a way of “boosting morale” among school bus drivers.
 
Now, tell me, what parents would want an inferior, second-rate school bus driver at the wheel of the school bus transporting their children?  Or an inferior, second-rate mechanic having worked on the school bus?  What might parents think or do if they knew the majority of both school bus drivers and school bus mechanics have been told, and have come to believe, they are the inferior, second-rate ones?
 
Intentions hold no water, here.  Again, we are in the twenty-first century and the APSL should be progressing into it, not regressing back out of it, by way of behaviorism and Taylorism.
 
One dimension along which the APSL should have already progressed further into this century is that of recognizing the unethical and immoral nature of arbitrary and capricious competition—such as the Race2Read competition and the Elite Bus Driver program—and simply not do it.
 
So, how many children made Race2Read competition losers will grow up to transfer, unconsciously, their learned reading loser position in life into a selfish coding and hacking practice of “winning” by cyberattacking others?
 
What?  Did someone just say such a matter can’t be measured so therefore can’t happen?
 
Really?

 
Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality in Public Education
Atlanta GA | (404) 505-8176 | edwjohnson@aol.com
 

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Competition, Education Industry, Education Reform, Technology, Computers, Testing

Jan Resseger: The Futility of School Closings

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2019 //
3

 

Jan Resseger does not title her post “The Futility of School Closings.” She calls it “Considering School Closures as Philadelphia’s Empty Germantown High School Faces Sheriff’s Sale.” I inserted “futility,” because that is what I see as I read the books and studies she cites.

I am persuaded by books like Eve Ewing’s Ghosts in the Schoolyard (Chicago) and by Shani Robinson’s None of the Above (Atlanta) that the primary purpose of school closings is to gentrify low-income neighborhoods, push out poor black people, and open charters to lure white middle-class families. Chicago lost 200,000 black people from 2000 to 2016. Coincidence?

Read Jan’s great post and see what you think.

Categories Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia

The Inside Story of the Atlanta Cheating Scandal: A Book You Should Read

By dianeravitch
April 30, 2019 //
56

 

I just finished reading a compelling book about the famed Atlanta Cheating Scandal. It is titled None of the Above: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed, and the Criminalization of Educators. I found it hard to put down.

It was written by Shani Robinson, one of the teachers convicted in 2015 of racketeering, for changing her students’ answers on a state test, and journalist Anna Simonton. It is Shani’s story, and with Anna’s help, it is a very good read.

Shani was a Teach for America teacher who taught first graders at Dunbar Elementary School in Atlanta. She was one of dozens of teachers and administrators accused of cheating to raise her students’ test scores. Being arrested, charged, threatened, tried, and convicted was an ordeal, which she describes in detail. Throughout this ordeal, she maintained her innocence. She very credibly insists that she never changed her students’ test answers. Her student scores were not counted towards the school’s “AYP” and had no bearing on the school’s rating because first grade scores were not part of the No Child Left Behind dragnet.

She never received a bonus or any other monetary reward. Yet she and other educators were accused and convicted on a racketeering charge (the federal RICO statute that was designed to snare members of the Mafia and other organized criminals). She did not conspire with anyone, she writes, and to this day she insists upon her innocence.

What is especially shocking is her account of the “justice” system. At every step along the way, she and the others who were accused were offered the opportunity to get out of the charges if only they agreed to plead guilty. They got off scot free if they were willing to accuse others. Repeatedly she was told that she had a choice: If you stick with your plea of innocence, you face 20 years in prison; if you confess your criminal behavior, you will get probation, community service, and a nominal fine. Those who were convicted lost their job, their reputations, their careers, and in some cases, their freedom.

Others whom Shani trusted confessed to crimes they had not committed. She insisted upon her innocence and refused to lie to win her freedom. She cannot help comparing the longest trial in Georgia’s history with the cheating scandal in Washington, D.C., where no one was charged and there was no trial or punishment, nor even a credible investigation.

Somehow the whole procedure sounds like a story from the old Soviet Union, but this is American “justice” as practiced in Georgia.

What makes the story even more interesting is the way she connects her personal dilemma with the history of racism and injustice in Georgia and with the manipulation of politics by corporate interests. She notes again and again that the media created a feeding frenzy because of allegations that educators cheated, but were not interested at all in reporting how corporate interests shifted or stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the schools for real estate development or gentrification.

She describes Atlanta’s history as the first city to build public housing, which became home to many thousands of black families, and the first city to tear down all of its public housing, ostensibly to woo middle class families back to the city (and to push out poor black families).

She became disenchanted with Teach for America as she saw its recruits—funded by out-of-state billionaires and trained by TFA’s Leadership for Educational Equity– organize a takeover of the Atlanta school board so as to make way for corporate education reform, especially charter schools.

She details the efforts of for-profit Charter Schools USA to open a charter in Atlanta, and the determination of the black community to keep them out.

Hypocrisy?

She writes:

“I tried to keep my cool as I came to terms with the fact that some very bad things had happened in my school district, worked to remain self-assured that my name would be cleared, and attempted to quell my outrage at the naked hypocrisy of some of the public figures who scrambled to condemn educators for ‘cheating the children.’ There were so many ways that children, particularly black children, were being cheated out of a decent life. During the decade that some APS staff members were tampering with tests, most teachers were doing the best they could with few resources for contending with kids who suffered generational trauma stemming from urban renewal, racialized violence, the drug epidemic, mass incarceration, and the obliteration of public housing. Meanwhile, real estate moguls and financiers were finagling ways to line their pockets with the education dollars that should have been going to the classroom.”

The most memorable line in the trial was uttered by the utterly reprehensible Judge Baxter, who said that the cheating scandal was “the sickest thing to ever happen in this town.” Shani wonders if he never gave any thought to slavery, Jim Crow, and the many other attacks on blacks as equally “sick.”

Shani Robinson’s appeal has not yet been heard. She may yet be sent to prison. Her book is a persuasive argument that some of the worst criminals in Atlanta were never tried for their crimes against the children of Atlanta.

 

Categories ALEC, Atlanta, Cheating, Education Reform, Georgia, Injustice

Tom Ultican: Atlanta School Board Votes for Privatization

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2019 //
8

 

Tom Ultican has been writing about differentcities where the Destroy Public Education Movement has made extraordinary gains. Atlanta has fallen into the clutches of the DPE as a result of Teach for America’s success in electing its alumni to the school board, which hired a superintendent committedto the DPE agenda.

Ultican writes:

“On March 4, the Atlanta Public School (APS) board voted 5 to 3 to begin adopting the “System of Excellent Schools.” That is Atlanta’s euphemistic name for the portfolio district model which systematically ends democratic governance of public schools. The portfolio model was a response to John Chubb’s and Terry Moe’s 1990 book, Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools, which claimed that poor academic performance was “one of the prices Americans pay for choosing to exercise direct democratic control over their schools.”

“A Rand Corporation researcher named Paul Hill who founded the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) began working out the mechanics of ending democratic control of public education. His solution to ending demon democracy – which is extremely unpopular with many billionaires – was the portfolio model of school governance.

“The portfolio model of school governance directs closing schools that score in the bottom 5% on standardized testing and reopening them as charter schools or Innovation schools. In either case, the local community loses their right to hold elected leaders accountable, because the schools are removed from the school board’s portfolio. It is a plan that guarantees school churn in poor neighborhoods, venerates disruption and dismisses the value of stability and community history.

Atlanta’s Comprador Regime

“Atlanta resident Ed Johnson compared what is happening in APS to a “comprador regime” serving today’s neocolonialists. In the 19th century, a comprador was a native servant doing the bidding of his European masters; the new compradors are doing the bidding of billionaires privatizing public education.

”Chalkbeat reported that Atlanta is one of seven US cities The City Fund has targeted for implementation of the portfolio district governance model. The city fund was founded in 2018 by two billionaires, John Arnold the former Enron executive who did not go to prison and Reed Hastings the founder and CEO of Netflix. Neerav Kingsland, Executive Director of The City Fund, stated, “Along with the Hastings Fund and the Arnold Foundation, we’ve also received funds from the Dell Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Ballmer Group.”

“City Fund has designated RedefinED as their representative in Atlanta. Ed Chang, the Executive Director of RedefinED, is an example of the billionaire created education “reform” leader recruited initially by Teach for America (TFA).

“TFA is the billionaire financed destroy-public-education (DPE) army. TFA teachers are not qualified to be in a classroom. They are new college graduates with no legitimate teacher training nor any academic study of education theory. Originally, TFA was proposed as an emergency corps of teachers for states like West Virginia who were having trouble attracting qualified professional educators. Then billionaires started financing TFA. They pushed through laws defining TFA teachers as “highly qualified” and purchased spurious research claiming TFA teachers were effective. If your child is in a TFA teacher’s classroom, they are being cheated out of a professionally delivered education. However, TFA provides the DPE billionaires a group of young ambitious people who suffer from group think bordering on cult like indoctrination.

“Chang is originally from Chicago where he trained to be a physical therapist. He came south as a TFA seventh grade science teacher. Chang helped found an Atlanta charter school and through that experience received a Building Excellent Schools (BES) fellowship. BES claims to train “high-capacity individuals to take on the demanding and urgent work of leading high-achieving, college preparatory urban charter schools.”

“After his subsequent charter school proposal was rejected, Chang started doing strategy work for the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). This led him to a yearlong Fisher Fellowship training to start and run a KIPP charter school. In 2009, he opened KIPP STRIVE Academy in Atlanta.

“While complicit in stealing neighborhood public schools from Atlanta’s poorest communities, Chang says with a straight face, “Education is the civil rights movement of today.”

“Chang now has more than a decade working in billionaire financed DPE organizations. He started in TFA, had two billionaire supported “fellowships” and now has millions of dollars to use as the Executive Director of RedefinED. It is quite common for TFA alums like Chang to end up on the boards of multiple education “reform” organizations.

“Under Chang’s direction, RedefinED has provided monetary support for both the fake teacher program, TFA, and the fake graduate school, Relay. In addition, they have given funds to the Georgia Charter School Association, Purpose Built Schools, Kindezi School, KIPP and Resurgence Hall.”

Keep reading to learn the scope of the civic disaster in Atlanta, where DPE is rapidly applying its failed ideas and dismantling public education.

The sad part of DPE is that it proclaims lofty goals but eventually has to confront its failures, which are predictable.

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Portfolio District, Privatization

Edward Johnson: Does the Atlanta School Board Know Who Dr. Alonzo A. Crim Was?

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2019 //
6

 

Ed Johnson fights day after day to try to budge the Atlanta School Board, which is following the disastrous path of corporate reform, which has failed everywhere. The Atlanta School Board is controlled by individuals who formerly were part of Teach for America, and it is their dream to turn Atlanta in a portfolio district with many privately managed schools.

He writes:

 

Does pursuing “Excellent Schools” make the APSL fit to even say the name Alonzo A. Crim?

 

“The anticipated closure of Crim High School creates a need to formally recognize the legacy of Dr. Alonzo A. Crim, a former Superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools and the first African-American to lead the school district in that role. The Board appointed an ad hoc committee to make a recommendation for honoring Dr. Crim. … [T]he ad hoc committee is recommending that the Atlanta Public Schools central office be named ‘The Alonzo A. Crim Center for Learning and Leadership.’”

 

Yes, it is proper and fitting for the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) central office to carry the name “Alonzo A. Crim.”  That need never be the question.

 

However, with is not proper and fitting is the obviously limited and racialist reason the APSL (Atlanta Board of Education members and Superintendent) state for formally recognizing Dr. Crim’s legacy.

 

Stating only that Dr. Crim was “the first African-American to lead” APS is insignificant in the face of the fact that Dr. Crim was, first and foremost, an “education man,” or educationist, unlike any one of them.

 

You see, Dr. Crim understood that people such as the APSL “who concentrate on standards, goals, performance, achievement, and such get school reform wrong.”  Dr. Crim understood “such people opt for a demand model of learning rather than a support model of learning.”

 

Dr. Crim understood that people such as the APSL “who concentrate on standards, goals, performance, achievement, and such get improvement wrong.”  Dr. Crim understood “such people opt for rigor and maximum difficulty rather than optimum difficulty.  Harder is better, they believe.”

 

Dr. Crim understood that people such as the APSL “who concentrate on standards, goals, performance, achievement, and such get teaching and learning wrong.”  Dr. Crim understood “such people opt to focus on uniform and specific skills rather than understanding.”

 

Dr. Crim understood that people such as the APSL “who concentrate on standards, goals, performance, achievement, and such get evaluation wrong.”  Dr. Crim understood “such people opt for critical reliance on standardized test results and all manner of measures rather than helping kids become better thinkers and learners.”

 

And Dr. Crim understood that people such as the APSL “who concentrate on standards, goals, performance, achievement, and such utterly misunderstand motivation.”  Dr. Crim understood “such people opt to force kids to overly focus on how well they are doing rather than on what they are doing.”  Dr. Crim understood “such people believe excellence means being top-ranked.”

 

How do I know Dr. Crim understood this about people such as the APSL?

 

Because I asked him, as did the AJC, at my invitation.

 

You see, back on 23 March 2000, Dr. Crim listened to Social Psychologist and former teacher Alfie Kohn lecture on and argue these understandings at Georgia State University.

 

At the end of Dr. Kohn’s lecture, I approached Dr. Crim, introduced myself as President of the Atlanta Area Deming Study Group, and asked his opinion of the understandings Dr. Kohn made.  To my delight, Dr. Crim replied: “Alfie is right on.  He gets it!”

 

With those words, Dr. Crim renewed my hope for the future of public education, in general, and Atlanta Public Schools, in particular.  Still, I had one concern: has Dr. Crim the moral and ethical courage to publicly lend his voice to the matter?

 

To put my concern to rest, I contacted the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reporter who covered Dr. Kohn’s lecture with the idea to interview Dr. Crim.

 

The AJC reporter subsequently interviewed Dr. Crim, and reported: “‘I think [Kohn is] right on the money,’ said one member of the audience, former Atlanta school Superintendent Alonzo Crim, now a GSU education professor.  ‘Just as Kohn said, we’re trying to go back to the ’20s and make our schools factories.’”  (“Uphill battle: Many teachers think using standardized tests to measure specific objectives will change education for the worse,” AJC, 16 April 2000.)

 

Obviously, the APSL do not “get it!”

 

For if they did “get it,” they would know their chasing after implementing The City Fund’s so-called portfolio of schools idea that is utterly and totally void of educational value and calling what they do “Creating a System of Excellent Schools” flies in the face of Dr. Crim’s legacy.

 

Words simply refuse to come for describing just how unfit the APSL are to even speak Dr. Crim’s name, let alone THEY put his name on anything.

 

The APSL putting the name Alonzo A. Crim on Atlanta Public Schools central office facility is on the order of David Duke saying he “has respect for” Spike Lee.  I mean, gosh damn!

 

Compounding the matter are members of what The Black Agenda Report say is the Black Mis-Leadership Class.  Without question, a chief among the Black Mis-Leadership Class members is Dr. Michael L. Lomax, President and CEO of United Negro College Fund (UNCF).

 

Lomax was a cheerleader for school reformer Beverly Hall, and we know how godawful that turned out.  Lomax was a cheerleader for school reformer Michelle Rhee, and we know how disastrously “rheeform” turned out.  In short, whether he realizes it or not, will admit it or not, Lomax’s record is one of continuing efforts to destroy the very thing that allowed the UNCF to come to be—you know, that thing called democracy.  His op-ed The Atlanta Voice recently published, entitled “I support APS’s upcoming vote on school-rating system,” proves the point, yet again.

 

Still, the mindboggling question is, how does such educated ignorance come to be?

 

Unlike Dr. Crim and the renewed hope he wrought for the future of Atlanta Public Schools, the currently serving Atlanta Board of Education and Superintendent, in partnership with Michael Lomax and other Black Mis-Leadership Class members, have utterly destroyed that hope.

 

They are nothing on the order of being the education man Dr. Crim was.

 

And, in their arrogance, they refuse to learn to know it.  Why?

 

“[Dr. W. Edwards] Deming was a visionary, whose belief in continual improvement led to a set of transformational theories and teachings that changed the way we think about quality, management, and leadership. He believed in a world where there is joy in learning and joy in work—where ‘everyone will win.’”

 

Ed Johnson

Advocate for Quality in Public Education

Atlanta GA | (404) 505-8176 | edwjohnson@aol.com

 

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Portfolio District, Privatization

Atlanta: A Public Protest Against the “Portfolio Model”

By dianeravitch
March 9, 2019 //
17

The Atlanta School Board is controlled by a slate of former Teach for America teachers. They are devoted to privately managed charter schools. They don’t seem to have any ideas about how to improve public schools other than to outsource them. They are determined to impose a portfolio district model that welcomes more charter operators staffed by temps like they once were.

A group of Atlanta citizens, led by Edward Johnson, perennial fighter for incremental improvement, not disruption, has presented a petition to the School Board:

 

An Open Letter to Atlanta Board of Education:
Why the Portfolio Privatization Plan for Atlanta is a Bad Idea

 

We, the undersigned, request that members of the Atlanta Board of Education vote against any resolution or resolutions brought before the Board on March 4, 2019, or at any other time, that would establish any aspects of the would-be Excellent Schools Framework in the Atlanta Public Schools district.
 
The Excellent Schools Framework, which is based on the so-called Portfolio of Schools plan, is another corporate privatization effort intended to, in effect, turn over our public schools to private companies and establish charter schools that use public money for what are essentially private schools.  Our public schools are not stocks and bonds in an investment portfolio to be bought, sold, and speculated. Our public schools are where children ought to be nurtured, protected, and educated.
 
We know that, in addition to privatization, school closures and attacks on teachers will accompany any implementation of the Portfolio of Schools plan, which the Atlanta Board of Education’s would-be Excellent Schools Framework is based on.  No research exists that indicates the so-called Portfolio of Schools plan actually leads to improving learning for students and teaching for teachers.
 
We also know The City Fund is promoting the so-called Portfolio of Schools plan, with $200 million raised to use to influence targeted urban public school districts to adopt, adapt, and implement the plan.  The City Fund’s local designated entity, RedefinED, has used its money to organize astroturf support for this plan.
 
This proposal is especially disturbing, coming at the time when the Board and Superintendent have already set hundreds of billions of dollars to go to billionaire social impact investors and real estate developers in “The Gulch” deal, downtown.
 
We urge you, the Atlanta Board of Education, to forgo your Excellent Schools Framework and, instead, adopt evidence-based models, such as the Community Schools model, that actually work for children.
 
Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Portfolio District, Privatization

Atlanta: AFT Leader Asks School Board Leader Jason Esteves to Abandon “Portfolio” Model

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2019 //
10

This letter by the head of the Atlanta AFT local was addressed to the chair of the board of Atlanta Public Schools, who is an alumnus of Teach for America. Four members of the school board are TFA alumni, presumably trained by TFA’s Leadership for Educational Equity and primed to support charter schools, not public schools. What is the connection between TFA and privatization? Why does TFA favor charter schools over public schools? Why would a locally elected school board want to relinquish its responsibilities to corporate charter chains controlled by out of state entities?

February 18, 2019
 
Jason F. Esteves, Board Chair
Atlanta Board of Education
130 Trinity Ave., SW
Atlanta, GA 30303
 
Dear Board Chair Esteves:
 

You are now privileged to hold the position of Treasurer of the Georgia Democratic Party. That party has been pro-public education. Yet you are supporting the “Portfolio of Schools” model for Atlanta Public Schools.  This model is called “Innovative Schools” in Denver. And per your leadership, it is called “Excellent Schools” in Atlanta. “Excellent Schools” is not pro-public education. As you may or may not know, seven cities are being courted in order to turn their schools over to this model. 
In the interest of time and since I’ve not heard back from you, we are asking you once again to meet with some concerned Atlanta public school stakeholders and you are requested to walk away from the Portfolio of Schools plan.   We understand that you, one other board member, and the superintendent chose the facilitator to sell the Portfolio of Schools model to the board.

You, Eshe Collins, Matt Westmoreland, and Courtney English are TFA products.

  • What is the connection between TFA and KIPP?
 
In short, the direction of the board has amounted to preying on citizens and selling the district short. Black elected leadership has closed schools and brought in partnerships.
  • Does the board decide the partnerships or does the superintendent decide?
 
This superintendent served without goals or an evaluation for years.
  • Did the superintendent do her own evaluation, scorecard, and narrative?
  • How close to contract renewal did the board receive that information from the superintendent?
 
The superintendent’s contract is over in 2020. Unlike the previous process where Ann Cramer conducted various activities, we also want to discuss, vet and publish a process for a superintendent search that should be real and open. Unlike the last superintendent search, where we the union had reports from Austin, Texas, and St. Paul, Minnesota, it is time that Atlanta, all of Atlanta, know who is doing what. Atlanta taxpayers are being exploited. It is insane that you are awarding 25 to 40-year contracts to companies that are not about real evidence-based solutions for our children. The superintendent’s School Turnaround Strategy was a failure. The Strategic Plan was a failure. “Excellent Schools” is a private takeover with failure built in. You are closing schools, giving large charter companies contracts at the taxpayer’s expense and restructuring communities. Some members on the board are disengaged in the community, keeping big funding sources pleased in order to stay in the political arena.
  • Are you planning on running for City Council?
 
You ran for the state house and now you are on the Board of Education. You are Afro-Latino.
  • Are you aware of the Austin Latino Chamber of Commerce Op-Ed per the now Atlanta Superintendent?
 
We applaud you for forming relationships with the Latino Business Community, but per the Latinos and Hispanics in APS, we have not seen a comprehensive engagement plan with them.
 
Please walk away from the Portfolio of Schools plan and paradigm and, when and if you are ready, we are ready to help with evidence-based solutions that work in public schools. Please review the NCSL, OECD and PISA reports. The GFT asked former Senator Vincent Fort to sponsor the Community Schools Bill. It passed the Senate 50 to 1 a few years back. Senator Emmanuel Jones is sponsoring it during this session. By the way, when you close schools you destroy communities and gentrify.  Controlled agendas hurt people at-large. Please help champion the Community Schools Bill as the Chair of the Democratic Party supports it.

Thank you.

 
Sincerely,
 
 
Verdaillia Turner, President, Atlanta Federation of Teachers
VT/ksf
 

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, KIPP Charter Schools, Portfolio District, Privatization, Teach for America

Reader: How to Manipulate Test Scores

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2018 //
24

A reader has collected the ways that test scores can be manipulated to make a school or a district look better or worse:

How to Manipulate Test Scores

1) Manipulate the standards

2) Manipulate the test items

3) Manipulate the cut scores

4) Manipulate the test takers

5) Manipulate the responses (i.e., change the answers, also referred to as, “The DC Rheeform Miracle” a tactic so successful that Atlanta gave it go.)

6) Manipulate the media

Number five is the only overt form of cheating, however, all the other methods are forms of de-facto cheating. Number 1, 2, 3 were used by reformers to prove that our schools were failing; numbers 4, 5. 6 are used by reformers to prove that the charter experiment is working. Six reasons why Common Coercion test-and-punish reform was a criminal enterprise.

Categories Atlanta, Cheating, District of Columbia, Testing
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