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What Is HANY and Who Funds Them?

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2016 //
19

HANY is High Achievement New York. It has mounted a very costly campaign to oppose the opt out movement and to support high-stakes testing and the Common Core.

 

Who is funding their expensive campaign to maintain the status quo?

 

Fortunately, blogger and former teacher Deb Escobar has done the research and provides the answers. This will come as no surprise to readers of this blog. HANY is funded by the Billionaire Boys Club.

 

Who is the Man Behind the Curtain? Why, it is Bill Gates!

 

But he is not alone.

 

The purpose of this post is to pull back the curtain and let you know who is funding this massive campaign that aims to fix our “broken” system. Because, you know, it’s all for the children. Let’s start with their coalition members, beginning with Arva Rice, President and CEO of the New York Urban League, who previously was affiliated with Paul Tudor Jones (yes the hedge fund guy) and his Robin Hood Foundation.

 

Then there is New York Campaign for Achievement Now (NYCAN), part of the larger 50-state education reform group. The funding stream for 50CAN includes Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bush Foundation, JP Morgan Chase, and the Walton Foundation, among others. A veritable who’s-who of big money in the education reform game. The NY chapter adds more money from Gates, along with Bloomberg Philanthrophies, Kenneth M. Hirsch and William E. Simon.

 

Include Association for a Better New York, founded by real estate tycoon Bill Rudin. Their self-stated goal is to “promote neighborhood revitalization.” AKA gentrification. AKA keeping their fingers on the real estate prize in NY.

 

Coalition member Parents for Excellence in Bethlehem has bought the Common Core Gates funded spin. Co-President Kim Namkoong is a parent, also a mathematician and computer programmer. She is a face for the “How is My Kid Doing?” campaign that is funded by – you guessed it – the Council for a Strong America folks and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Bethlehem Parents for Excellence has a lackluster website (a surprise considering Namkoong’s stated occupation) that does not list its donors. They advocate for common core and testing.

 

Membership includes reformy groups Educators4Excellence and StudentsFirstNY. Educators4Excellence, also funded by the Gates Foundation, is comprised of anti-union young teachers, many of whom are alumni of Teach For America. See ed blogger Jonathan Pelto’s research on the group here. StudentsFirstNY is that pro-charter, pro-voucher group that shares its physical address with New York Charter queen Eva Moskowitz’ organization. NYS Families for Excellent Schools also shares that same address and is a hedge-funded PAC for education reforms.

 

The corporate reformers are a cozy group. There are not many of them, but they have so much money that they pop up again and again, singing the same tired old song. Test your children (not mine); put your children in “no excuses” charters (not mine); testing will make everyone smarter; the harder the tests, the smarter everyone will be and the more the achievement gap will close.

 

Evidence has nothing to do with their campaign. They do what the Man (or Men) Behind the Curtain want them to do.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

New Era of Segregation Expands in Mississippi as Legislature Endorses More School Choice

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2016 //
16

The segregated states of the Deep South fought desegregation tooth-and-nail for years after the 1954 Brown decision. The white leadership did not want white children to go to school with black children, period. Their first response was to declare that they would never desegregate: never, never, never. As pressure from the federal government and the courts accelerated, southern officials found a new tactic to preserve segregation: school choice. School choice, they knew, would protect the status quo: White children would “choose” to stay in white schools, and black children would “choose” to stay in black schools. Eventually the federal courts struck down every school choice plan, recognizing that it was a blatant effort to avoid the letter and spirit of the Brown decision.

 

But here we are, eighty years later, with segregation on the rise and school choice in the ascendancy as its vehicle.

 

Southern states are adopting charters and vouchers because their long-frustrated effort to return to segregated schools is at last feasible. Not only is it feasible, in some circles, it is fashionable. Now the media celebrates all-black schools and ignores the fact that they are segregated. The subtext is: Look at this! An all-black school with high test scores! Isn’t that great?

 

Mississippi just passed legislation to establish vouchers for children with special needs and to permit more charters. The “vouchers for children with special needs” is a first step towards a broader voucher plan that grows to include low-income children; then to include children in schools that have low test scores; then to include more and more children, until everyone gets a voucher. The not-so-subtle joke is that the voucher is not large enough to pay the tuition at a first-rate private school, so most of the children will have a voucher to go to a religious school whose teachers are uncertified and whose resources are meager. Worse, the children with special needs abandon the legal protections that the public school guarantees when they leave the public system.

 

Other states, such as Ohio, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Florida, and Maryland, have endorsed voucher plans (which are never called vouchers but some euphemism, like “opportunity scholarships.) The irony in these states is that their constitutions explicitly prohibits the diversion of public school funds to religious schools, yet legislators proclaim their fealty to constitutional principles even as they pass laws to send public money to religious schools. Vouchers for children with disabilities is the camel’s nose under the tent, to get the movement started.

 

The rise of vouchers is not a response to popular demand. Vouchers have been put to voters in several states, and every time they have been soundly defeated, even in red state Utah. The revival of the voucher movement is nothing more than ideology and politics taking charge of schooling. School choice is not the “civil rights issue of our time,” as its proponents claim; it is the predictable way to roll back civil rights in our time.

 

After 25 years of experimentation with charters and vouchers, we know that they do not get better results than public schools unless they choose their students and kick out the ones who don’t have high test scores and don’t adhere to strict requirements for obedience. Charters and vouchers drain money from public schools, which still educate the vast majority of children. Once school choice gets rooted in a state, the subject consumes all the energy of legislators. It is as if the 90% who attend real public schools became invisible.

 

Despite the absence of any advantages and the presence of scandals, frauds, and discrimination, more and more states are falling victim to the false promise of “school choice.” As one Florida superintendent explained it to me, charters enable parents to keep their children away from “those children.” Both charters and vouchers increase racial segregation, religious segregation, and economic segregation.

 

These trends are ominous for our democracy.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Mississippi, Privatization, School Choice, Segregation, Vouchers

Wanted: Peer Reviewers for U.S. Department of Education Charter School Program

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2016 //
14

Yes, you can apply. Just don’t tell them you read this blog.

 

https://innovation.ed.gov/what-we-do/charter-schools/charter-school-program-state-educational-agencies-sea/

 

What’s New

 
2016 PEER REVIEWERS

 

The Office of Innovation and Improvement is seeking individuals to serve as peer reviewers for the FY 2016 Charter Schools Program (CSP) State educational agency (SEA) grant competition. The CSP SEA program is a competitive grant program that enables SEAs to provide financial assistance, through subgrants to eligible applicants, for the planning, program design, and initial implementation of charter schools and for the dissemination of information about successful charter schools.

 

For FY 2016, Congress appropriated $333 million for the CSP. Approximately $160 million of these funds are available for new FY 2016 SEA grant awards through this competition.

 

We invite qualified individuals to apply to serve as grant application peer reviewers by completing the Peer Reviewer Application Form. A hard copy of the peer reviewer application can be found here [below].

 

Additional information can be found in the CSP SEA Call for Peer Reviewers. If you have questions about the peer review process and/or potential conflicts of interest please contact the SEA competition manager, Kathryn Meeley by email: Kathryn.Meeley@ed.gov.

 

Program Description

 

The purpose of the CSP is to increase the national understanding of the charter school model by (1) expanding the number of high-quality charter schools available to students across the Nation by providing financial assistance for the planning, program design, and initial implementation of charter schools, and (2) by evaluating the effects of charter schools, including their effects on students, student academic achievement, staff and parents.

 

2016 CHARTER SCHOOLS PROGRAM STATE EDUCATIONAL AGENCY GRANT COMPETITION

 

CALL FOR PEER REVIEWERS

 
CONTEXT: The U.S. Department of Education (Department), Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII), is seeking individuals to serve as peer reviewers for the FY 2016 Charter Schools Program (CSP) State educational agency (SEA) grant competition. The purpose of the CSP is to increase national understanding of the charter school model and to expand the number of high-quality charter schools available to students across the nation. The CSP SEA program is a competitive grant program that enables SEAs to provide financial assistance, through subgrants to eligible applicants, for the planning, program design, and initial implementation of charter schools and for the dissemination of information about successful charter schools.  For FY 2016, Congress appropriated $333 million for the CSP.  Approximately $160 million of these funds are available for new FY 2016 SEA grant awards through this competition.  We invite qualified individuals to apply to serve as grant application peer reviewers by completing the Peer Reviewer Application Form.

 

NOTE: Even if you applied to be a peer reviewer in the past, please complete the Peer Reviewer Application Form as directed below by 5:00 p.m. (EST) on Friday, April 15, 2016 to be considered for a peer reviewer position for the 2016 SEA competition.

 

WHO:  We are seeking peer reviewers from various professions and backgrounds with an understanding of the charter school sector and expertise in at least one of the following areas:  Charter School Authorizing and Accountability; Charter School Policy; Charter School Research and Evaluation; Charter School Development and Implementation; or Charter School Grant Administration.  Peer reviewers may have expertise in various geographies, including urban, suburban, rural, and tribal communities.

 

WHAT: Peer reviewers will independently read, score, and provide timely, well written comments for SEA grant applications submitted to the U.S. Department of Education under the CSP and travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in one week of in-person panel discussions.  

 

  • Availability: Reviewers for the CSP SEA competition will need to dedicate approximately 80 hours for the review process (40 hours will be needed to review all assigned applications, and another 40 hours will be needed to participate in the on-site application review). This time estimate includes participation in an orientation session by conference call prior to evaluating the applications, time for reading, scoring, developing comments, and discussing assigned applications.  While exact dates for the review have not yet been finalized, we expect it will be around the end of May through July, 2016. 
  • Where: Reviewers will read, score and develop comments from their location prior to traveling to Washington, D.C., to participate in one week of in-person panel discussions.
  • Tools: Each reviewer must have access to the Internet, a phone, a computer, a printer and have the ability to interact within the web environment.
  • Quality of review: Each reviewer must provide detailed, objective, constructive, timely and, well written reviews for each assigned application. These reviews will be used to recommend applications for funding. They will also be shared with each applicant and the comments regarding winning applicants will be made available to the general public following the reviews.

 

HONORARIUM: Reviewers will receive an honorarium of $200 per application for the satisfactory completion of the above requirements during the grant review schedule. A satisfactory review requires that each application is read, scored, and discussed.  The final, high-quality comments and corresponding scores will be reviewed and approved by a panel monitor prior to their final submission in the G5 system.  Travel costs for the onsite portion of the review will also be covered.

 

IF INTERESTED: If you would like to be considered as a peer reviewer, please click here and complete the Peer Reviewer Application Form.  After completing the form you will be prompted to send your resume and contact information via email with the subject heading “FY 2016 CSP SEA PEER REVIEWER” to the email address provided in the Peer Reviewer Application Form.  You must complete both steps by 5:00 p.m. EST on Friday, April 15, 2016 to be considered as an FY 2016 CSP SEA peer reviewer. Please do not exceed the five-page limit for resumes.

 

G5 REGISTRATION: To serve as a reviewer you will need to register in G5.  If you would like take care of this process prior to being selected you can register at www.g5.gov.  For support with this process you may contact G5 at edcaps.user@ed.gov or call 1-888-336-8930.  *Please note that registering in G5 at this time does not guarantee that you will be selected as a reviewer. 

 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Please remember that if your organization intends to apply for a grant under any CSP competitions, you may not be eligible to serve as a reviewer.  As a reviewer, you will have a conflict of interest if:

  • You helped prepare an application, regardless of financial interest in the success or failure of that application.
  • You have agreed to serve, or you have been offered a position, as an employee, advisor, or consultant on the project.
  • Your personal financial interest will be affected by the outcome of the competition, which would include any family members, employees or associates of the project applying for funding.

 

If you have any questions about the peer review process and/or potential conflicts of interest please contact the SEA competition manager, Kathryn Meeley by email: Kathryn.Meeley@ed.gov. 

 

NON-DISCRIMINATION: The Department solicits reviewers without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, age or disability.  The Department will provide reasonable accommodations for a qualified individual with a disability so that individual might participate in the peer reviewer application process.  If you require a reasonable accommodation to apply to participate in this review, please contact Kathryn Meeley by phone, (202) 453-6818 or email at kathryn.meeley@ed.gov  no later than 5:00 p.m. EST, Friday, April 8, 2016 to ensure we can facilitate the application process. 

 

PROGRAM INFORMATION: For more information about the Charter Schools Program State Educational Agency Grant Program, click here. 

Categories Charter Schools, U.S. Department of Education

Ken Bernstein: Hillary is Poorly Informed about Education Issues, But I Will Vote for Her

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2016 //
66

Ken Bernstein is a social studies teacher in the D.C. area who has received numerous awards for his dedicated service. He writes extensively and blogs regularly for The Daily Kos. He is a deeply thoughtful and intelligent person who is passionate about teaching and public service. In this post, he analyzes Hillary Clinton’s views on education and acknowledges that she is woefully out of touch. Although Chelsea Clinton attended public schools in Arkansas, she enrolled in Sidwell Friends when her father became president. That was a full decade before the advent of high-stakes testing introduced by No Child Left Behind. Thus, Clinton has no idea how testing has spun out of control and become the master of education, a giant tail wagging the dog.

 

Not only her remarks on testing ill-informed, but so are her remarks about Common Core. Clearly she has no idea why opposition to Common Core is bipartisan and why so many parents and teachers oppose it. It would not be hard to find out why, but her education advisors don’t seem to know or haven’t shared what they know. I wish I could sit down with her for half an hour, but I don’t know how to make that happen.

 

Most puzzling is her insistence that she would have her children or grandchildren take the tests. She must know that she is saying this on an interview on Long Island, where more than 50% of parents opted out. Did she think she would win hearts and minds by belittling the parents who refuse to subject their children to meaningless tests? They are meaningless for reasons I stated in a post a few days ago; they have no instructional value as teachers learn nothing about what children know and don’t know. All they get is a score and a ranking for each child. That is not diagnostic. What is the point of learning that your child “failed” to meet the standard, but no one knows why? Also, some savvy parents have been informed that the passing mark was set so high that 70% of the children are supposed to fail. What parent would find that acceptable?

 

Her affection for charters is as ill-informed as her affection for testing and accountability. How could she take the endorsement of the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions and at the same time praise non-union charters (more than 90% of charters are non-union)? The biggest funders of charters fund them because they are non-union. Will she, as president, continue to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the expansion of non-union charters? Someone should ask these questions.

 

Ken writes:

 

If by now you have grasped that I am not happy with this part of the interview with Newsday, you are correct. Were education the only issue on which I decided who to support for the Presidency, I might have real reservations — provided there was a candidate who showed a deeper understanding. In fact this cycle there is not, in either party, of ANY of those who were ever in the race.

 

Further, on almost all of the other issues important to me, Hillary Clinton’s experience, understanding of government and international issues, makes her far superior to anyone else who sought the Presidency this cycle.

 

I knew I would not be completely happy with her approach to education at the time I decided to support her….

 

I hope that when she becomes President, as I believe she will, Hillary Clinton will make sure that she includes the voices of teachers in (a) who she picks for Secretary of Education, (b) how her administration shapes it educational policy.

 

I know from others how good a listener Hillary Clinton can be.

 

I hope very much that she will apply that skill set and listen to different voices on education, because what I read in this interview with the editorial board was disappointing.

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Education Reform, Politics, Testing

Los Angeles: An Astonishing Swindle of Public Money

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2016 //
28

This story is incredible, astonishing, unbelievable.

In 2013, the operators of a Los Angeles charter school were convicted of misappropriating $200,000 from school funds. The school is called Ivy Academia. The founders are in jail.

Recently, the school complained that the district had failed to provide adequate quarters, as it was required to do under the Starr’s very charter-friendly law. The matter went to an arbitrator, who awarded Ivy Academica $7.2 million dollars plus legal fees of $625,000.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

“The Los Angeles Unified School District must pay $7.1 million to a San Fernando Valley charter school for failing to provide the school with rent-free classroom space, a violation of state law.

“School districts are required to share classrooms and other facilities with charter schools but, for three years starting in 2007, Ivy Academia Entrepreneurial Charter did not get enough space for its 1,100 students.

“The district’s approval of the charter required arbitration of legal disputes.

“In his written ruling, arbitrator John Zebrowski said that the district’s failure to comply with the law harmed children attending the charter during those years because it forced the school to use some money intended for educational programs to lease a building. Zebrowski said students were further harmed because the building leased by the charter was inferior to what it would have received from L.A. Unified….

“Ivy Academia spent $3 million on rent and other costs from 2007-10, but the arbitrator said L.A. Unified should be on the hook for more money because he believed the property denied to the charter had a higher value. The district must also pay the charter $650,000 in attorneys’ fees.

“Ivy was forced to cobble together multiple private facilities that were inferior and didn’t have things like playing fields, libraries, permanent science labs, and enough special education space,” Paul Minney, an attorney for the charter school, said in a statement.

“L.A. Unified acknowledged that it did not provide Ivy Academia the space it is entitled to under Proposition 39, which requires districts to offer charters facilities that are reasonably equivalent to those provided to students in traditional public schools.

“David Huff, an attorney representing the school district, said L.A. Unified simply didn’t have the space during the years that it did not comply.

“Huff also pointed to a criminal case that in April 2013 found two of Ivy Academia’s leaders guilty of misuse of public funds.

“According to prosecutors in that case, Yevgeny “Eugene” Selivanov negotiated the 10-year lease of a building for $18,390 a month but then charged the school $43,870 a month to sublease the property.

“It is the district’s theory that had we made a compliant offer of space. . . Ivy would have never accepted because it would have ended their $25,000 a month profit,” Huff said.

“But the arbitrator said the district could not prove that the charter would have rejected such an offer.”

So the charter operators were making a cool $25,000 in profit every month by over gargling the district. And the arbitrator rules that money will be subtracted from the district’s overcrowded schools, which have inadequate repairs and few arts teachers, to further enrich this school, even as its founders sit in jail.

An ally in Los Angeles wonders if the district’s case was sabotaged by a Broadie plant on the inside.

Astonishing.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Los Angeles

Hedge Fund Manager Gives Eva Moskowitz $25 Million

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2016 //
40

Hedge fund manager Julian Robertson gave Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain $25 million to help it expand. The chain picked up another $10 million from its friends at a fund-raising event.

 

Clearly, the 1% has not been disturbed by the stories of students humiliated by their teacher or students with disabilities pushed out to keep the scores high.

 

Even with all this additional funding, Moskowitz still demands that the city give her free space (taken away from existing schools that enroll the students she pushes out) or pay her rent in private space. When a Success Academy school co-locates with a public school, it refurbishes its rooms, separates them from the other school whose building it was, and creates a separate-and-unequal situation.

 

Nice work, billionaires!

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy

Success Academy Reports Drop in Applications

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2016 //
18

Part of the marketing technique of Success Academy is to recruit, recruit, recruit, so that there is overwhelming number of applicants. In my neighborhood–which is upscale–Eva Moskowitz opened a charter and suddenly there were posters advertising for students on every bus stop and available spot in the neighborhood. When she first opened in Harlem, she spent $325,000 on a marketing campaign, which produced demand and enabled her to say that she needed more schools. The other virtue of having 10 applicants for every seat is that the network is able to screen out the students they don’t want.

 

This year, the number of applications declined, but there was still–SA reported–a large number of applications for every seat.

 

The network has some legal problems, as well as a year of bad PR:

 

A series of New York Times reports highlighting controversial discipline policies attracted national attention — much of it negative — to a network that had previously been heralded as a national model by education reform advocates. The first Times report shed light on a school with a “got to go” list of unruly students, a second contains a video showing a teacher ripping up a child’s paper for not understanding a math problem. A PBS News report also documented the network’s practice of suspending children as young as kindergarten.

 

The investigations soon followed.

 

Most notably, the federal Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights is looking into a complaint filed by former Success parents alleging that the network discriminates against students with special needs and, in some cases, tries to counsel them out of Success schools.

 

Public Advocate Letitia James is conducting a similar investigation in New York City, and comptroller Scott Stringer has pledged to audit the network’s finances. Mayor Bill de Blasio, one of Moskowitz’s longtime political foes, has become more emboldened in his public criticism of the network, after losing an early battle with Moskowitz over school space.

 

The charter industry has played fast and loose with waiting list stories. You have to take their word for how many applicants there are. Often a family will apply to 3 or 4 different charters, and they are on the wait list for all. Others have kept wait lists that include children who applied in earlier years.

 

There are days when I think that Eva should become chancellor so she can show her ability to work her magic for all children, not just the ones who are accepted into SA.

Categories Charter Schools

Joanne Barkan: Do Philanthropists Hate Democracy?

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2016 //
46
  • This is a must read.

 

Joanne Barkan has written a remarkable article that closely examines Bill Gates’ determination to force charter schools on the people of Washington State.

 

This is is a story that you should read and understand. The people of the state voted against charters three times. But Gates was not to be denied. In 2012, he put together a huge pot of millions to overwhelm the citizens’ groups, parents, and educators who opposed his will. This vote passed by the tiniest of margins. Gates then put on his philanthropic hat and rushed a group of charters to open, so as to establish new facts on the ground.

 

 

When the high court of the state ruled against public funding for privately managed charters, Gates started an end run around the court. He was not to be denied. Barkan shows how little corporate reformers think of democracy and how much they prefer mayoral control and other mechanisms to eliminate civic engagement.

 

Defenders of of corporate reform like to say that they must counter the vast sums spent by teachers’ unions. Barkan exposes the lie:

 

 

“Education-reform philanthropists justify their massive political spending as a necessary counterweight to the teachers unions;8 yet, the philanthropists can, and consistently do, far outspend the unions. In 2004, Paul Allen had a net worth of $21 billion, Bill Gates had a net worth of $46.6 billion, and John T. Walton (who died in 2005) had a net worth of $20 billion.9 Donald Fisher’s net worth was $1.3 billion in 2005.10 In 2015, Allen had a net worth of $17.8 billion, Gates had a net worth of $76 billion, and Doris Fisher (Donald Fisher’s widow and a charter school donor) had a net worth of $2.9 billion.11 And the unions? According to the 2015 reports filed with the Office of Labor-Management Standards, the National Education Association had $388.8 million in total receipts; the American Federation of Teachers had $327.6 million in total receipts.12 As political rivals, the education-reform philanthropists and the teachers unions have never competed on a level playing field….

 

“The Washington charter saga highlights the workings of charitable plutocracy. Multibillionaire philanthropists use their personal wealth, their tax-exempt private foundations, and their high-profile identities as philanthropists to mold public policy to a degree not possible for other citizens. They exert this excessive influence without public input or accountability. As for the charitable donors who are trying to reshape public education according to their favorite theories or ideological preferences, they are intervening with too heavy a hand in a critical institution that belongs to the public and requires democratic control. But in any public domain, the philanthropist’s will and democratic control are often at odds.

 

“Voters, their elected representatives, grass-roots activists, civic groups, unions, public opinion—all can thwart an uber-philanthropist’s effort to impose his or her vision of the common good on everyone else. Democracy can be a nuisance for the multibillionaire—a fact of life that Bill Gates has often lamented….

 

 

“Questioning the work of megaphilanthropists is a tricky business. Many readers of this article will be fuming in this way: Would you rather let children remain illiterate, or allow generous people to use their wealth to give them schools? Would you rather send more money to our bumbling government, or let visionary philanthropists solve society’s problems? Here is a counterquestion: Would you rather have self-appointed social engineers—whose sole qualification is vast wealth—shape public policy according to their personal views, or try to repair American democracy?”

 

 

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Washington State

Steven Singer: Watch Out, Pittsburgh! The Privatizers Are Coming Again!

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2016 //
4

Steven Singer warns that the wealthy privatizers are gearing up to take back the public schools. At the last school board elections, parents, educators, and community leaders joined together to throw out the corporate reformers. The people who actually send their children to Pittsburgh public schools gained control of the board. One of the first decisions of the new board was to cancel a contract with Teach for America.

 

Corporate reformers can’t tolerate losing control of schools their own children don’t attend. Now they are coming back, with a PAC and lots of money, something that supporters of public schools are usually short of.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Pittsburgh

Would You Pay $250,000 to Play Ed Reform Poker?

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2016 //
11

If ever you needed a reminder that the corporate reform movement is led by the super-rich, not by public school parents or teachers, this is it. The rephormer group called “Education Reform Now” is throwing a poker party to support privatization by charter and testing for other people’s children. Doesn’t that sound like fun, and it is all for a cause that will damage public schools.

 

Jonathan Pelto writes about the poker party here.
“For $250,000 you can nab 10 seats at the poker tournament, 10 rebuys (a technique for expanding your winnings), 10 cocktail tickets for non-poker players and the honor of having not one, but two, “special guests” sit at your table. [Education Reform Now hires famous people, usually sports stars and actors, to attend the event and sit and play with the wealthy donors]

 

“For $100,000 you get the same benefits, but alas, the company of only one “special guest.”

 

“Other Sponsorship levels include a $50,000 package, a table of 10 poker seats for $20,000 or a single poker seat for $1,000.”

 

Pelto includes a short and valuable glossary of the leading players in corporate reform circles.

 

Peter Greene commented on the poker game here. He notes that one seat at the table is equivalent to five years of a typical teacher’s income. He has an interesting idea:

 

” Frankly, I like the idea of the Network for Public Education or BATs buying a table or two, then sitting there making rude comments about charter schools, common core, and testing all night. But I’m afraid that my exclusive tailor, Jean-Claude Pennee, could not whip up something appropriate in time. And I’m sure it takes a certain level of wealth to set up and participate in an event like this without feeling a twinge of shame or irony. On the website for the event we can find information like this:

 

 

*Mississippi’s average per pupil expenditure is $7,890 per year while New Jersey’s is $17,620, a disparity reflected across the nation. There is a ceiling, however, on what can be achieved through traditional approaches to resource re-allocation.*

 

 

“These are exactly the same people who declare that we have to get teacher pay under control and that you cannot improve public education by throwing money at it. Yes, throwing money at the education of children across America is a waste of money, money that could be spent on much more valuable and important things. But when the rich want to spend an evening throwing money at each other– well, that’s just good sense and great fun.”

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing
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