Archives for category: Broad Foundation
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A Parent Hero of Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2012 //
5

Sharon Higgins of Oakland, California, is a hero of public education.

As a parent of children in the local public schools, Higgins was upset by the Broad Foundation’s takeover of her district. One Broad superintendent after another made decisions without consulting anyone who lived in the community.

Then, with the encouragement of the Broad superintendents, charter schools began opening, drawing students and funding away from the public schools.

Sharon Higgins did what she could. She started a website to report on what was happening. One part of her website is devoted to following the mis-steps of Broad superintendents. Another part of her website catalogues “charter school scandals.”

She has taken great interest in the Gulen charter movement.

She has no funding. She is a public school parent who wants the public to know what is happening and to know who is making decisions that affect their lives and their children without their knowledge or consent.

She is a hero of public education.

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Honor Roll, Parents

The Real Goal of Reformers: Re-Segregation?

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2012 //
33

Anthony Cody has a stunning article this week about what is happening in Louisiana.

The expansion of vouchers and charters will facilitate the re-segregation of the schools, he predicts.

Governor Jindal eliminated all funding for public libraries in his new budget.

The TFA Commissioner has put a young and unqualified TFA alum in charge of teacher evaluation.

The freight train of reform (aka privatization) is running full blast in that unfortunate state.

Arne Duncan will be there any day now to congratulate Governor Jindal on the progress made in “reforming” the schools.

And lots of thanks to the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, and Teach for America for turning the clock back to 1950 and calling it “reform.”

Categories Broad Foundation, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Privatization, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Vouchers

Parent Trigger Hoax

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2012 //
6

Parent Revolution, the organization handsomely funded by the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Walton Foundation, has finally gotten a charter conversion in the state of California, nearly two years after the law was passed.

Some victory: In a school with 600 plus students and 400 families, only 286 parents voted for the charter; when some changed their mind and tried to rescind their vote, they were told by a judge that they could not take their signature off the petition.

Only those who supported the charter were allowed to vote on which charter operator would run the new charter. That reduced the number of eligible voters to180.

Of the 180 who were eligible, only 53 voted on which operator would win control of their public school.

The winning operator received a grand total of 50 votes. That is 1/8 of the parents in the school. That is less than 15% of the parents in the school.

In the linked article above, no mention is made of the fact that the Adelanto school district had a charter that was closed last year because its operators engaged in funny business with the public’s money.

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Parent trigger, Walton Foundation

Why Are Billionaires Funding School Board Races in Louisiana?

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2012 //
7

There are few investigative writers in education journalism these days. It is disturbingly rare to find writers who look behind the press releases, the hype and spin.

One place that cries out for investigative journalism is Louisiana, the locus for the most extreme privatization schemes. The governor is now imposing the New Orleans model on the entire state, and many hold up New Orleans as a national model. That means wiping out public education.

So here is an excellent article that does what journalists are supposed to do: Matthew Cunningham follows the money. He looks closely at the money flowing into the state school board races. In 2007, the total spent was about a quarter million dollars. In 2011, it was multiplied by ten times, to $2.6 million. Read the article to see where the money came from.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), K12 Inc., Louisiana, New Orleans

Why Won’t the Reformers Let Us Teach?

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2012 //
20

An English teacher in Rhode Island writes:

I’m a great teacher. I’m waiting for the opportunity, at the ripe old age of 49, to switch careers. My heart is broken. I am deluged with PLC’s, SLO’s, dog and pony lesson plans that go nowhere, and impossible observations that require me to make my students lie through their teeth. I’m tired of the “idiocracy” that states things like “the SAT is an achievement test” and that “all children can learn” without providing qualifiers and quantifiers. I am waiting for the hammer to fall when I get caught not teaching the new Common Core Curriculum because I’m ignoring it and teaching to the curriculum I created that works VERY well. If I have to learn one new acronym I’m going to eat a bullet. Rhode Island is being run into the ground by a Broad Academy robot. Teachers in my district are running scared, the administrators are capos, the union has been neutered, and the school board couldn’t find it’s hiney with a flashlight. All of this “educational reform” is just making us chase our tails; it’s not letting us teach.

Categories Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

You Must Not Say What You Think

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2012 //
18

The new Broad leader in Dallas has hired a communications director and a PR team to craft a list of “power words” and “power phrases” that teachers and principals are supposed to use when communicating with the public.

Dallas principals and teachers: Please take care to say what you are told. Memorize your lines. If you say the wrong thing, you are in trouble. Let the superintendent and his PR team do your thinking for you. Just do as you are told.

Here is a sample:

If a parent asks about the new administration, a principal might reply, “District leaders are student-focused in their decision making.”

Or: “The superintendent’s plan brings stability and a clear direction to the district.”

Or perhaps: “Destination 2020 will take five to eight years to achieve, but we will make significant progress in one year.”

Or even: “We are all about improving student performance and the quality of instruction; that is the expectation.”

Categories Broad Foundation, Dallas

Michigan’s Emergency District About to Expand

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2012 //
17

Michigan created an emergency district for schools with low test scores, administered by Broad Academy alum John Covington, who decamped from Kansas City after making no improvements there.

The emergency district is about to become the largest district in the state. By adding low-perming districts from across the state, the EAA will have 46,000 students.

The salient feature of the new district is that it is non-union. The assumption of the conservative Rick Snyder administration and the EAA is that unions are the major obstacle to improvement.

The US Department of Education just gave the district a grant to install performance pay in its schools. Never mind that performance pay promotes teaching to the test and has never worked. Why is the Obama administration encouraging an attack on unions?

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Education Industry, Merit pay, Michigan

Bugs in Tech Heaven

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2012 //
14

The Broad-trained superintendent decided to go all-digital in Huntsville, Alabama.

So he purchased 22,000 laptops and a Pearson online curriculum.

The going has been rough.

Students, teachers and parents are complaining about glitches. A student says that it takes her longer to do her homework because the computer loads slowly. When she saves, her answers disappear. A father complains his son watches pornography, despite the filters. Teachers say the Pearson curriculum is the problem.

Maybe schools will one day be all-digital. But first fix the bugs.

Categories Broad Foundation, Education Reform, On-Line Education

More about J.C. Brizard

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2012 //
11

A reader sends in a group of articles about the Chicago superintendent J.C. Brizard:

Brizard is a graduate of the Broad Superintendents Academy
http://www.broadcenter.org/academy/network/profile/featured-jean-claude-brizard

He stirred up churn in Rochester before coming to Chicago:

The Corporate Agenda for Public Schools: Is Brizard on Board?
http://dragonflyeye.net/jongreenbaum/2009/07/24/the-corporate-agenda-for-public-schools-is-brizard-on-board/

He is one of many Broad Superintendents Academy graduates whose churn has left devastated school districts in their wake:

The Broad Foundation: A Parent’s Guide

http://schoolmatters.knoxnews.com/forum/topics/the-broad-foundation-a-parents

Categories Broad Foundation

Fox News’ Conflict of Interest?

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
12

Some of the tests that Chicago teachers complained about, the tests on which their evaluations would depend, the tests at the heart of the strike—are administered by a subsidiary of Fox News.

Media Matters, a public-interest watchdog, pointed out that Fox News aired 89 segments about the strike in a one-week period without disclosing the financial ties between Fox News and Wireless Generation, both of which are part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation empire.

Full disclosure might also imply the need to disclose that Murdoch donates significant sums of money to charter schools and to Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

Then there is the fact that Joel Klein heads the education division of News Corporation. Klein is a member of Jeb Bush’s board and chairman of the Broad Center Board, and Rhee is on the Broad board, and so is Wendy Kopp, and so is her husband, and so is Margaret Spellings …

Such a tangled web of relationships, and all devoted to the same purposes: privatizing the nation’s public schools, selling technology to replace teachers, weakening unions and eliminating any rights that teachers have or had.

Categories Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, StudentsFirst, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Testing
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