Archives for category: Budget Cuts
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The Secret Strategy of Corporate School Reform?

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
80

I want to test out a theory. I invite you to tell me what you think. It’s a thought experiment but very close to reality.

Suppose you wanted to destroy public education.

Suppose you wanted to make it so unpleasant to be a teacher or a student in a public school that everyone began to long for a way out. What would you do?

Let’s see. You would subject kids to tests repeatedly to the point that their parents complained bitterly. You would take away art and music, maybe physical education too, to make more time for testing. You would open a few charters, which would scoop up the best students, the strivers, and exclude the troublemakers. You would leave the public schools as refuges for the kids rejected or unwanted by the charters. Wouldn’t it be likely that all the motivated parents would clamor for a way to get their kids out too? Then there would be charters for the “good” kids and the public schools would be the dumping grounds.

Do the same for teachers but in different ways. Threaten them with termination if they don’t comply. Tell them their experience and education don’t count. Tell them their quality will depend on their students’ test scores. Watch their spirits droop as their best students leave for charter schools. Be sure to put non-educators in charge and lecture them regularly about how they are responsible if any child should fail. Snap the whip to keep them on their toes. Never treat them as professionals but as lazy time-servers who need constant reminders of their inadequacy.

In time, public education would be stigmatized and avoided by all who could get away. Is this where Race to the Top is going?

These thoughts, which have been percolating, were inspired by the following comments from a reader.

She wrote:

I was pleased to learn, thanks to Diane Ravitch, that the head of the principals’ association here in NC came out against testing last week. Ironically, my state superintendent just announced that NC will be paying (millions, I assume) to Pearson, a British company, to create tests that I and other NC teachers will have to give. NC is a nightmare to teach in right now. There have never been unions, so teachers have always been asked to do things administration could never get away with in a union state, but every work day this year is devoted to Race to the Top. My next semester begins on January 23 and the work day on the 22nd is occupied with RttT instead of finalizing my grades or planning for new students and courses. One of our RttT workshops involved using string, tape, spaghetti, and marshmellows to construct something. We also watched 30 second Disney/Pixar clips which were referred to constantly as “authentic texts.” I have been teaching English since the 1970s, and I have never seen anything like the direction public schools are going in now. I know Ms. Ravitch is strongly against charters, but I am for anything that is exempt from this madness that has over-taken public education. Public education is apparently for sale, and teachers and students are the victims. Like the Titanic, I am not sure it can be saved.

Categories Budget Cuts, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Is This the Broad Academy Playlist?

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2013 //
13

A reader offered this comment in response to the post about school closings in Sacramento:

A “Broad” superintendent who follows its “play-list” to “capture” the school board and privatize the district as much as possible:

– Convinced the board of education to turn all the power over to the superintendent.

– Keeps secret all the contracts and consultants hired by the superintendent. In fact, it’s been said that the latest consultant working with the superintendent was the principal of Kevin Johnson’s St. Hope H.S. None of this information can be found on the district’s web site. Even the organization chart with unfilled positions is dated July 2012.

– Consistently and knowingly breaches the contract to keep the union busy with grievances and court procedures.

– Whittles away at teacher tenure by creating a class of teachers in the district’s “priority schools” whose jobs are protected from last hired, first fired. (Yes, the union is
grieving this.)

– Increases class size to 30+ in all grades except those in “priority” schools.

– In “failing” schools the district insists on split grades rather than keeping class sizes
low.

– Forces remedial programs (more test prep on top of test prep) onto “failing” schools
without any input from the teachers and wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars on
consultants and test prep companies.

– Closes the neighborhood schools under the pretext that there are too few students in
the school. But in fact, it’s because they are “failing” (read: poverty and neglect.)

– “Allows” a private charter school to locate in the former “neighborhood ” school.

– Parents who want and need a neighborhood school drop out of the public school and send their kids to the charter.

– Pink slips for union teachers.

Categories Broad Foundation, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Poverty, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Can You Do This?

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2013 //
62

A reader comments:

* *

What do the following major problems have in common?

1. Severe budget cuts to schools, bashing of teachers, lack of a broad based curriculum for developing critical and creative thinking students and cheating scandals?

2. Allowing civilians to buy assault weapons that can be used to murder innocent children and adults?

3. Inadequate mental health services?

4. Unaffordable health care services and millions of uninsured?

5. High rates of poverty?

6. Global warming, climate changes with bizarre weather patterns and allowing the destruction of the planet?

7. The crash of 2008 that led to a severe economic crisis?

8. Extreme materialism and money as top priority?

9. Special interest groups and corporations having greater influence on politicians than the people?

10. High crime rates and overcrowded prisons?

All of these problems reflect a deterioration of human values- the type of values which are humane and indicative of the ideals of humanity. Values such as kindness, caring for others, love, integrity and compassion make us good human beings. These values are the antidote and solution to many problems in the world today.

Certainly there are many people who display these values, but many more people with human values are needed if we are to reach a tipping point. For us to create a world that reflects love and caring for all it must begin with each individual. To reach critical mass the consciousness of more people must be raised so that the problems mentioned are unacceptable and not tolerated.

It is for each of us to get in touch with our humanity and with others to positively influence our leaders or replace them with people who will lead with human values. Are we as a human family willing to put into action those values which will create a better world for everyone? This is a question for each of us to answer.

Raymond Gerson

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Poverty

Wake the Town and Tell the People

By dianeravitch
January 18, 2013 //
3

If we all speak out based on our knowledge and experience, we can turn this privatization movement around. It is led by people who know nothing about teaching or children. They are obsessed with data and incentives and punishments. Their bad ideas keep failing.

From a reader:

Hi Diane.

This is the first time I have commented on your blog but I have been reading your posts since the blog’s inception. Please know that you inspire me and keep me going. The reason being, you give me hope that we, as public school teachers, have a voice out there fighting for us.

I have been teaching for 12 years in a small upstate New York city school. We are ravaged with 75% poverty and developmentally innappropriate expectations for our kids from the Common Core. There is no “soft bigotry” of low expectations, just expectations WAY out of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky).

I have seen the corporate reform agenda taking shape for years and have seen main stream media’s narrative of it’s benefits. It’s demonization of us public school teachers. It frustrates me to such a degree that it is hard to have hope for change. You give me that hope. You inspire me to get the message out to my collegues. To speak up at meetings and generally be the voice of dissent in this otherwise brainwashed, “duped” society. Thank you for that. And thank you for continuing this fight against the monster that is the pritization movement. Enjoy your break. It is well deserved.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Teacher Evaluations, Vouchers

Chaotic Situation in Muskegon Heights

By dianeravitch
January 18, 2013 //
29

The governor-appointed emergency manager who was put in charge of Muskegon Heights public schools decided to privatize the schools, fire the teachers, and hire a for-profit charter operator, Mosaica.

The governor and his rightwing allies are certain that a for-profit corporation will succeed where public education failed. You might say that Govermor Rick Snyder is following Andy Smarick’s belief that you can’t improve low-performing schools, you have to close them down and start over with new management.

So far, the Muskegon Heights takeover has been a disaster. Michigan Public Radio has been running a series about Muskegon Heights and learned that at least 25% of the newly hired staff left before the end of the first semester. The students are reacting to the turmoil by constantly testing their teachers, which makes it harder for the teachers to control their classes and harder for students to learn, as teachers come and go.

The company claims it had only 60 days to start up the school and that it hired the “best” teachers. But more likely the best teachers were not applying for a job in an impoverished district that pays $35,000 a year.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Michigan, Privatization

Charter School Math in Connecticut

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2013 //
12

Connecticut has the misfortune to have a bad combination: a significant group of very rich hedge fund managers devoted to charter schools and a state commissioner of education who wants to open more charter schools. The charter schools in the state serve disproportionately small numbers of English language learners. So is it a good idea to open more of them?

Here’s a shocking outbreak of common sense from the Stamford Advocate.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Connecticut District Devoured by Edu-Vultures

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2013 //
45

Jonathan Pelto has unearthed a shocking story of a school district in Connecticut that is being pulled apart, privatized, and spit out by pseudo-saviors.

Windham, Connecticut, was in academic trouble so the state board of education appointed a “special master” to oversee school reform and the legislature appropriated $1 million per year extra. The district of 3,500 students has many who are impoverished and/or non-English-speaking.

Of the $2 million allocated in the first two years, some $750,000 went for the salary and benefits of the “special master” and his personal staff. More money went for consultants. Charters will open , one run by a group with the amazingly candid name “Our Piece of the Pie.” Among their sterling credentials: they run a charter school with six (6) students.

It is not clear that any of the new money will directly benefit students, such as, hiring another social worker or providing after-school programs.

Is anyone in Connecticut paying attention? Does anyone care?

Categories Budget Cuts, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

Weep for Detroit

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2013 //
10

Detroit is the saddest school district in the United States.

It is a petri dish for every failed corporate reform idea.

The schools are at the bottom on federal tests.

The city has suffered de-industrialization, unemployment and extreme poverty.

And the state’s answer?

Privatization and budget cuts, merit pay and testing.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Michigan

Is Corporate Reform Like Vietnam?

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
14

I hesitated to post this because it refers to me.

But I decided to post it because the author, Mark Naison, makes a powerful point about the present moment.

What is happening in education today is ignorant, willful, and dangerous.

Thoughtless politicians and self-seeking entrepreneurs are hurting children, damaging public education, and demeaning the teaching profession with their misguided policies. They welcome for-profit schooling, they are closing down urban education in city after city, and they want a “free market” in schooling. At the same time, they acquiesce to deep budget cuts in essential services for children. Is there a parallel with Vietnam in the 1960s? Naison thinks so.

Categories Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

Bruce Baker on Rheeformy Logic & Goofball Rating Schemes

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
2

Bruce Baker has prepared what may be the most devastating critique of Michelle Rhee’s absurd state rankings. The criteria are without merit, as are her policy ideas.

Best of all, Bruce says he is eager to see some well-known reformers move to Louisiana to take advantage of the schools that Rhee gave top billing in her report.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Merit pay, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst
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