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A Busy Day in the Life of a Fighter for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2016 //
9

You will enjoy reading about Leonie Haimson’s busy and productive day. Leonie is a fighter for smaller class size, better funding for schools, and student privacy. She is founder of Class Size Matters and Student Privacy Matters. She is tireless (and unpaid). She is the most frightening antagonist for education reformers because they can’t understand people who are motivated by principle, not profit.

She started the day at the Harvard Club, outside the doors, protesting with other activists against the billionaires and dark money behind Question 2 in Massachusetts. Inside, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker had come to talk to the conservative Manhattan Institute about his efforts to lift the charter cap, thus expanding privatization of public education.

That afternoon, she learned that she and other allies had come a judicial decision to open the meetings of School Leadership Teams to the public.

She wrote:

“The Appellate court heard arguments from both sides on January 21, 2016 — and took nearly a year to rule. But finally, in another slam-dunk, unanimous decision, they reaffirmed the lower Court ruling that SLT’s are public bodies in state governance law, and thus their meetings must be open to the public. Much thanks goes to Michael Thomas, Tish James and the attorneys from NY Lawyers for Public Interest and Advocates for Justice who represented the Public Advocate and Class Size Matters in court.”

Leonie is on many boards, including the Network for Public Education and New York State Allies for Public Education, which organized the successful statewide parent opt out. She is already a hero of this blog. She is the right person to take on the billionaires. They can’t buy her or beat her.

Go, Leonie, go!

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Parents, Privatization, Resistance

Washington Post: Opiod Use Kills Thousands, Enforcement Dwindles: Why?

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2016 //
32

The Washington Post has an interesting article about a curious phenomenon: Deaths caused by opiod abuse are rising, while prosecution of those involved in the supply line by the Drug Enforcement Administration has been ebbing.

The story begins:

“A decade ago, the Drug ­Enforcement Administration launched an aggressive campaign to curb a rising opioid epidemic that was claiming thousands of American lives each year. The DEA began to target wholesale companies that distributed hundreds of millions of highly addictive pills to the corrupt pharmacies and pill mills that illegally sold the drugs for street use.

Leading the campaign was the agency’s Office of Diversion Control, whose investigators around the country began filing civil cases against the distributors, issuing orders to immediately suspend the flow of drugs and generating large fines.

But the industry fought back. Former DEA and Justice Department officials hired by drug companies began pressing for a softer approach. In early 2012, the deputy attorney general summoned the DEA’s diversion chief to an unusual meeting over a case against two major drug companies.

“That meeting was to chastise me for going after industry, and that’s all that meeting was about,” recalled Joseph T. Rannazzisi, who ran the diversion office for a decade before he was removed from his position and retired in 2015.

Rannazzisi vowed after that meeting to continue the campaign. But soon officials at DEA headquarters began delaying and blocking enforcement actions, and the number of cases plummeted, according to on-the-record interviews with five former agency supervisors and internal records obtained by The Washington Post.”

What gives?

It is always useful to follow the money trail. The article mentions Purdue Pharmaceuticals, one of the biggest manufacturers of opioids.

Purdue has made one family into billionaires: the Sackler family of Connecticut, who made Forbes list of the nation’s richest families in 2015, with a family valuation of $13.5 billion. By some estimates, more than 2 million people are addicted to OxyContin is the US. Purdue has paid out hundreds of millions in fine, and the state of Kentucky is suing the company for nearly $1 billion. Not to put to fine a point on the matter, one article blamed the opiod epidemic on one company, with its aggressive marketing: “How the American opiate epidemic was started by one pharmaceutical company.” That company: Purdue, owned by the Sackler family.

What does this have to do with education?

Jonathan Sackler of the billionaire Sacklers is a big supporter of charters and privatization. Jonathan Pelto pointed this out in this post.

Charters? Check.

50CAN? Check.

StudentsFirst? Check.

Teach for America? Check.

Students for Educational Reform? Check.

And let us not forget daughter Madeline Sackler’s worshipful film about Eva Moskowitz called “The Lottery.”

It is ironic that people who fight for the public good must turn to crowd-sourcing and GoFundMe and Kickstarter campaigns, while those who push privatization of public schools can count on fortunes created by drug abuse, death, and addiction.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Marla Kilfoyle: The Plan to Privatize Public Education and the Sound of Silence

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2016 //
29

Marla Kilfoyle is a teacher on Long Island and executive director of the BATS.

In this post, she describes the well-funded effort to privatize public education in New York State.

We have lived with it for so many years that it seems to be just one more issue, although it is an issue that the mainstream media completely ignores. It is the “Sound of Silence,” as she says.

She writes:

“Election season is always a difficult time for many educators and education activist. We begin to look at all the campaign donations that fly to politicians from people, and organizations, that seek to destroy public education. It is the same old players emerging here in N.Y.

“The Waltons, The Koch Brothers, StudentsFirstNY funded by Wall Street Hedge Funders like Paul Singer, Dan Loeb, and John Paul Tudor.

“The NYS Senate Republican Committee are HUGE cheerleaders for the charter movement and have received millions for this election cycle from the folks listed above. For the sake of transparency, our Governor, and a smattering of Democrats, are also cheerleaders for charter expansion and the privatization movement.

“I will have to say that NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE, is a bigger cheerleader for privatization than John Flanagan, the Republican majority leader in our Senate. He is also a member of ALEC

“The ALEC education agenda is model legislation that travels around the nation when they need to defund schools, close them, and open up unaccountable charters. They support ending public education for a competitive model of education. The problem with a competitive model is that there are always winners and losers. We should have NO losers when it comes to education in this country….

“Republican Carl Marcellino, who is running against Democrat Jim Gaughran, got not one but two, yes two, $142,590 independent expenditure from StudentsFirstNY (A20133) for media. Republican Elaine Phillips, who is running against Democrat Adam Haber, got a $271,950 independent expenditure from StudentsFirstNY (A20133). Anyone who follows the fight to save public education KNOWS that StudentsFirst has been on the frontlines of the attack on public education and public school teachers. They have been the cheerleaders for Common Core, High-Stakes Testing, School Closures, vouchers, choice, and charter expansion. The sad thing is that Marcellino is on the NYS Education Committee. Call me crazy but shouldn’t that mean he should fight for public education NOT privatization? The larger question is – who will Marcellino and Phillips be accountable to when it comes to education policy? We all know the answer to that question. The Money!

“The PAC that is distributing all this money to StudentsFirstNY – New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany is funded by anti-public education billionaires. The other PAC, New Yorkers for Independent Action, is also supported by billionaires who are anti-public education. This money is being distributed to politicians who will support their destructive agenda for public education in NY.
Bottom line is – we must get to the polls and vote anyone out who takes this money – Republican or Democrat.

“As a public educator, education activist, and mother I will NOT be voting for anyone who takes money from StudentsFirstNY, New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany or New Yorkers for Independent Action. Public education is for the public good and we should be funding that equitably, not defunding and destroying it. Public education should not be competitive where you have winners and losers. Public education is the cornerstone of our democracy and is the great equalizer.

“So, why did I title this piece the sound of silence?

“While the NYS Senate Republican Committee is raking in all this cash from anti-public education billionaires, NOT many of them have said a word about Donald Trump’s behavior. To me, silence means acceptance.

“It’s OK to malign immigrants and it’s OK to malign women….

“Oh, and by the way, the NYS Senate Republican Committee thinks it is OK to pay for and distribute anti-semitic flyers. This is a flyer that the Senate Republican Committee distributed about Adam Haber, who is Jewish and running against Republican Elaine Phillips.

“To add insult to injury this was distributed during the week of Yom Kippur.”

Open the link to see the anti-Semitic image that the New York State Republican Committee distributed about Adam Haber. This is the same committee that received millions in contributions from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York, Privatization, Teachers

Jersey Jazzman Gives a Lesson to DFER About W.E.B. DuBois and the Talented Tenth

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2016 //
13

The NAACP’s decision to call for a moratorium of charter school expansion until laws can be revised to provide accountability and transparency. This decision sent shock waves inside the corporate reform echo chamber. Would they still be able to call themselves leaders of the civil rights ipissue of our time if the NAACP disagreed with their aggressive efforts to privatize public schools?

The right wing reform headquarters called the Center for Education Reform in D.C. put out a press release accusing the NAACP of caving in to pressure from teachers’ unions. Of course, that implies that the corporate-funded conservatives at CER care more about black children than the NAACP and its national convention. Hard to believe.

Then Shavar Jeffries of the Democrats for Education Reform (the hedge fund managers’ pro-charter advocacy group) issued a statement saying that the great African-American scholar W.E.B. DuBois would be shocked to see the NAACP turn against charter schools and privatization.

Jersey Jazzman calls out Jeffries for apparently never having read DuBois. JJ points out that DuBois was clear about his commitment to an elite education for “the talented tenth.” Maybe Jeffries was acknowledging that charters are only for a small elite (which Mike Petrilli called “the strivers”). If so, that case should be stated openly and clearly, instead of pretending that charters could save “poor kids in failing schools.”

JJ also notes that DuBois was a Marxist and it was unlikely that he would support the privatization of public education. Or that he would be able to tolerate an alliance with Wall Street and hedge fund managers.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Equity, Privatization

Our Lost Poet on the “Charge of the Gates Brigade”

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2016 //
22

This is one of the very best poems from Some DamPoet. He/she wrote it after the Gates Foundation admitted that its plans were not working out as well as they hoped, but that they intended to double down on their foundering efforts. The Los Angeles Times reprimanded the Gates Foundation for its hubris. So does Our Poet.

“The Charge of the Gates Brigade” (based on “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Half a wit, half a wit,
Half a wit onward,
All in the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
“Forward, the Gates Brigade!
Charge for the schools!” he said.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered

II

“Forward, the Gates Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the Coleman knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and lie.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered

III

Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
Boldly they tuned out that,
Into the Ravitch jaws,
Into the mouth of cat
Bill and Mel foundered

IV

Flashed all their BS bare,
Dashed was their savoir faire
VAMming the teachers there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in with mir’s-n-smoke
Valiantly went for broke;
Cluelessly rushin’
Reeled from reality’s stroke
Shattered and sundered.
VAMming attack, for naught,
Bill and Mel foundered

V

Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
While Bill and Mel chewed fat
They that had fought the BAT
Came through the Ravitch jaws,
Back from the mouth of cat,
All that was left in end:
Bill and Mel foundered

VI

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Gates Brigade,
Bill and Mel foundered

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Common Core, Education Reform, Failure, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Angie Sullivan: Nevada Showers Billions on a Billionaire, Nothing for Children

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2016 //
13

Angie Sullivan teaches second grade in Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada. She is a passionate advocate for her students, most of whom live in poverty in a county blessed with untold riches.

Guess what? The Nevada Legislature has decided to issue bonds so that billionaire Sheldon Adelson can have a new stadium. Adelson is a far-right Republican; he was one of Newt Gingrich’s biggest supporters. He now supports Trump.

Angie writes about it here, in an email circulated to journalists, legislators, and school board members:

Important events.

Drop-out Sheldon Adelson declared one of America’s richest men

http://www.forbes.com/profile/sheldon-adelson/

Sheldon Adelson gave money to Trump – both have extreme political views.

http://fortune.com/2016/09/20/donald-trump-donation/

Trump is rejected by prominent Nevada Republicans

http://m.reviewjournal.com/politics/election-2016/prominent-republicans-back-away-trump-election-nears

Sheldon Adelson wants a stadium and for tax payers to assume the risk.

http://m.reviewjournal.com/business/stadium/adelson-commits-personal-wealth-back-stadium-plan

U.S. Senator Harry Reid backs stadium.

http://m.reviewjournal.com/business/stadium/reid-declares-support-stadium-raiders-move-las-vegas

Democratic Lobbyists campaign for stadium

http://www.ktnv.com/news/ralston/sands-to-stadium-committee-your-money-or-your-team

Special session called to give Adelson funding for stadium

http://m.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada-legislature/brian-sandoval-sets-stage-special-session-lawmakers-study-las-vegas-stadium

Democratic Nevada Senators could stop stadium deal or at least make sure stadium jobs were union or starving public schools got much needed funding. They don’t.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nevada-senate-approves-raiders-stadium-deal-now-must-pass-assembly/amp/?client=safari

A few Nevada Democratic Senators try

http://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2016/oct/09/education-not-a-billionaire-deserves-our-tax-money/

The Culinary Union openly campaigns against this give-away to Billionaire Adelson – who is aggressively anti-union.

The DNC uses Culinary to campaign for Hillary.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_561c5817e4b050c6c4a29bc2

Democrats hate Adelson?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-gop-mega-donor-sheldon-adelson-is-mad-bad-and-a-danger-to-the-republic-20120410

Seems confusing?

Perhaps circular.

Not hard to figure out; money is driving this car.

To be clear: Sheldon Adelson could pay for 20 stadiums if he wanted to do so. He enjoys making us do it for him.

___________

What these political money games look like for me?

I worked from 3:30pm to 7:30pm at my school trying to copy reading materials. I have zero reading textbooks. The copiers were not working.

No textbooks

No paper.

No copier.

I gave up for tonight.

And I am only one accountable?

Guess that makes me a whiner?

Maybe I should suffer because my Title I, Tier I at-risk school teaches the poor?

I was emailing Democratic Nevada Senators who received huge donations from Adelson – asking them to hold out since the stadium deal is a money pit and public schools are starving in Nevada.

http://www.cdcgamingreports.com/stadium-finance-experts-blast-vegas-deal-cut-by-worst-hagglers-in-haggletown/

Second year in a row a special session is held to give a billionaire a tax payer funded deal.

I get lectured by democrats who could have done something: They say the money will trickle down to me and my at-risk kids.

Trickle down? I am waiting by the broken copier right now because I have no textbooks.

I’m not supposed to be disappointed?

30 years Nevada public education has been neglected. We are not ahead even after last session restored previous cuts.

Over-night Sheldon Adelson gets a new toy.

Is it any wonder teachers feel like they have zero allies?

Stop your whining and eat those crumbs!

I guess I should lose my job because I state openly I need a reading textbook.

Pardon me for being disappointed today.

The injustice is so thick it is hard for me to see.

I will be at every protest Culinary needs to hold to make those stadium jobs UNION.

Angie

Categories Billionaires, Funding, Nevada

Arthur Camins: Individual Choice is No Substitute for Democracy

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2016 //
11

Since the Reagan era, Republicans have touted the virtues of individual choice. The idea was appealing but ignored the fact that none of us lives alone on an island. We form communities and societies to solve problems and create possibilities that none of us can do alone. We collaborate for our common well-being and safety.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party decided to co-opt the language of Republicans in the crucial area of education. Whereas once Democrats championed equity and support for teacher professionalism, the Obama administration joined in the chorus seeking school choice instead of better public schools for all and belittled our nation’s career educators. So for the past 15 years, we have had a Bush-Obama agenda of testing, accountability, school choice and competition. This agenda has done incredible damage to children, teachers, and public schools. Arthur Camins writes that it also hurts our democracy.

In this post, Arthur Camins explains why individual choice undermines democracy. Camins is Director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Camins writes:

“In an 1857 speech, Fredrick Douglass offered this advice: Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. […] If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

“Douglass called for a struggle for a democracy in which the disempowered are the active agents and shapers of their own destiny.

“Donald Trump and promoters of unelected school boards would have us acquiesce to a contrary subservient vision. How dare I equate Trump’s racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, authoritarian appeal with charter-school advocates who wrap themselves in the mantle of civil rights? Well, I am not equating, but I am asserting that they share a dangerous dismissal of the vitalness of democracy.

“Trump wears his disdain for democracy proudly on his sleeve. I am your voice… No one knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. Trump’s message is that the solution to persistent problems is not democracy or for people to join with one another in a struggle for a better life, but rather to trust him.

“Advocates for privately governed, but publicly funded, charter schools are more circumspect. To justify abandonment of democracy, they point to the dysfunction of elected school boards. Netflix’s billionaire CEO Reed Hastings, a charter school cheerleader, argued that instability due to turnover in elected school boards makes long-term planning difficult. Similarly, in one post the Fordham Foundation asserted, “When it comes to school boards, what matters most is the character of those who serve — not how they were selected.” Whatever it takes to get the job done assertions have a practical and utilitarian patina, but are profoundly anti-democratic as its apostles typically eschew the inconvenience of dissent and challenge. History is replete with examples of the slippery slope that begin with constrained restrictions of inconvenient democracy in the name of addressing real or trumped up threats but end with more generalized despotism. The solution to the necessary messiness of contentious democracy is never its avoidance in the name of expediency.

“In contrast to Douglass’s call for struggle, Trump, and advocates for privately governed charter schools share a let others solve your problems for you philosophy. Many share something else. They are- or claim to be- billionaires. The already empowered stake their claims to legitimacy on convincing “the less fortunate” that despite vast differences in wealth, power, and life circumstances, they should trust the judgment of their self-appointed defenders rather than one another. One such disingenuous pitch is that poor folks should have the same school choices as the wealthy. The cynical messages are: Give up on struggle for equity across your racial differences. Give up on democratically governed schools. Improvement depends on being out for yourself, just like us.”

There is more. Please read it.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Privatization

Will the Billionaires Destroy Public Education?

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2016 //
23

This link will take you to the opening pages of the revised “Death and Life of the Great American Dchool System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” The book was originally published in 2010. It became a surprise national bestseller.

The publisher at Basic Books, Lara Heimert, invited me to lunch a year ago and made an unusual offer. She said that I could revise the book any way I wanted. This was an extraordinary offer. Publishers usually warn you not to add or subtract unless you keep the line count exactly the same. They want to avoid the expense of resetting the entire book. But I was offered the opportunity to change, add, delete as I wished. It was an offer I could not refuse.

The two big changes I made were these:

I removed my long-standing support for national standards and tests in light of the Common Core debacle.

Second, I revised my estimation of the 1983 report, “A Nation at Risk,” which gave rise to the myth that American education was broken.

I hope you will take the time to read this new edition. It reflects much of what I have learned from YOU on this blog over the past four years.

Diane

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty, Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing

Alan Singer: Why Is Eva Moskowitz Allowed to Close Her Schools for Political Rallies?

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2016 //
36

On September 28, Eva Moskowitz closed her Success Academy charter schools for the day so her students, teachers, and families could attend a political rally. Alan Singer wonders why this is permitted? The students, the staff, and families are used as pawns to advance Moskowitz’s political goals. Certainly, the children don’t need more charters. They already attend one. They can’t attend two or three. Eva is using them for her own benefit.

Who pays the bills? Families for Excellent schools. They are not the families of the students. They are billionaires and hedge fund managers whose excellent schools are private and have a tuition of $50,000 or more. You surely won’t see them hanging out with the children at these political rallies.

Face it: the kids are pawns being cynically used to advance adult interests.

Why is it legal?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, Politics, Privatization

Kevin Kumashiro: Who Is Funding the Attacks on Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2016 //
11

Kevin Kumashiro is a professor of Asian-American Studies and a scholar of American education. You must read his book “Bad Teacher,” in which he dissects the corporate reform movement.

This important article–“When Billionaires Become Educational Experts”–describes the right wing foundations and business groups that are financing the war on public schools and their teachers. It will make you eager to read his book.

Categories Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching
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