Archives for category: Chiefs for Change
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Good News from Florida

By dianeravitch
November 14, 2012 //
7

I should have reported this sooner, but other election returns distracted me.

Jeb Bush’s latest privatization scheme suffered a major setback at the hands of Florida voters.

He and his allies pushed Amendment 8 to allow public funds to flow to religious schools. As usual with “reform” measures, this one had a misleading name. It was about “religious freedom,” but voters recognized it was a voucher scheme and they rejected it overwhelmingly.

Other bad news for the Bush machine: Tony Bennett, the head of Bush’s Chiefs for Change, was whipped.

Tony Luna pushed Bush’s expensive but profitable (for tech companies) ideas about mandatory laptops for every student and mandatory online courses, as well as merit pay and union-demolition. Happily, the Luna laws were crushed and repealed by Idaho voters.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Chiefs for Change, Florida, For-Profit, Idaho, Indiana, Privatization, Religion, Testing, Vouchers

The Most Important Education Vote Yesterday

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
17

The most important education vote yesterday occurred in Indiana.

As the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette pointed out in its editorial, this election has national implications.

Tony Bennett had become the face of rightwing reform in America.

His mission was to bring the ALEC agenda to life in the Hoosier State.

He was head of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, the group of state superintendents that were most eager to privatize public education, expand charters and vouchers, turn children over to for-profit corporations, and reduce the status of teachers.

He was honored by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute as the “reformiest” state superintendent in the nation.

The Wall Street hedge fund managers and assorted billionaires pumped $1.5 million into his campaign for re-election.

He was soundly defeated by veteran teacher Glenda Ritz.

Ritz raised $325,000 for her campaign to restore public education in Indiana.

Ritz won over Bennett by a comfortable margin of 53-47.

She got 1.3 million votes, almost 100,000 more votes than Mike Pence, the Republican running for governor, who barely eked out a victory.

Make no mistake: The people of Indiana said “no” to Tony Bennett’s radical plans to turn public education into a free-market of choice and competition, based on high-stakes testing.

The people of Indiana elected Glenda Ritz to rebuild their public school system and to wipe away the misguided, mean-spirited “reforms” imposed by Bennett.

This is a victory for the parents, citizens and educators of Indiana.

Most important, it is a victory for the children of the state of Indiana.

Now, they will have a chance to have a good education, not to be consumers in a vast shopping mall of test-based choices, not to be data points for corporations bent on turning a profit.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, ALEC, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Indiana, Privatization, Vouchers

UPSET: Tony Bennett Loses in Indiana!

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2012 //
26

Tony Bennett has conceded.

Bennett is the quintessential reformer: pro-charter, pro-voucher, pro-privatization. Anti-union, anti-teacher, surrounded in state education department by 11 TFA staff.

Head of Jeb Bush’s rightwing Chiefs for Change.

Rumor in Florida is that the state board of education wants Tony Bennet as state commissioner to implement the rightwing agenda in that state.

Congratulations to the educators in Indiana! Time to reform and rehabilitate your state’s education system.

Congratulations to Glenda Ritz, a genuine educator!

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Indiana, Privatization, Vouchers

Possible Upset in Indiana?

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2012 //
5

Watch this one.

Glenda Ritz is running ahead of Tony Bennett for state superintendent. Bennett is for charters, vouchers, teacher-bashing, anti-union, privatization, for-profit charters and cyber charters. He is head of Jeb Bush’s rightwing Chiefs for Change. He outspent Ritz 5-1.

The latest:
3,686 of 5,319 precincts – 69 percent
Glenda Ritz, Dem 970,768 – 51 percent
Tony Bennett, GOP (i) 918,172 – 49 percent

As of Oct. 30 finance reporting deadline, Bennett had raised more than $1.5 million; Ritz was slightly over $325,000.

Categories Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Indiana, Privatization, Testing

Breaking News: Indiana DOE Stonewalls FOIA about Big $$$

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2012 //
10

In the Public Interest, a nonpartisan public policy group in DC, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for communications between Tony Bennett, the far-right Indiana State Superintendent of Education in Indiana, and certain individuals–specifically Jeb Bush and Joel Klein.

The question of interest is whether certain parties with a financial interest might be influencing Bennett’s decisions. Bush and Klein are both selling technology; Klein works for Rupert Murdoch and is a member of Bush’s board. Bush’s organization is funded by high-tech corporations and online for-profits.

The Indiana DOE is stalling on releasing the requested material, presumably until after Tuesday’s election, when Bennett faces challenger Glenda Ritz.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Indiana, Klein, Joel

Some Reasons to Vote for Glenda Ritz

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2012 //
3

http://ahuntingtonteacher.blogspot.com/2012/10/tony-bennett-selling-big-lie-about.html

Tony Bennett Selling the Big Lie about Need for Hoosier Teacher Accountability
In 2010,

Tony Bennett and the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) introduced relaxed teacher qualifications known as REPA. A slideshow presented by Bennett stated the need for REPA was a grade of “D” for “policies affecting teaching quality”. This grade was given by the National Council for Teaching Quality (NCTQ).

The grade of “D” was endorsed by NCTQ’s technical panel. Tony Bennett sits on the technical panel of NCTQ.

The NCTQ’s report was described by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) as “so fundamentally flawed it is not worthy of your engagement.” The AACTE went as far to call the report “unprofessional” in its obvious attempt to deteriorate traditional education.

Perhaps the NCTQ’s report and Indiana’s grade of “D” for teaching quality policies would have never gained much merit except for a strong endorsement that followed by a group known as Chiefs for Change.

The Chiefs for Change have only eleven members. Tony Bennett is one of them.

In sum, much of the turmoil surrounding the need for greater teacher accountability is because Bennett has said teachers need improvement and endorsed his own statement saying so.

Bennett has a history of disregarding public opinion, or even the law, for that matter, and forcing through his plan to dismantle public education. This also might explain language found here at the IDOE website:
Final RISE rubric ratings did not sufficiently differentiate teacher performance (61% Effective, 30% Highly Effective) or identify specific teacher strengths and weaknesses (67% of teachers received no rating lower than “effective” on all 19 RISE rubric competencies). When all the data is analyzed in the fall, these ratings are unlikely to accurately reflect actual teacher and student performance.
Bennett’s mind is stuck in a bell curve; a percentage of students must always be failing, a percentage of teachers must therefore also be failing. Bennett’s goal in Indiana is to continually fail a portion of students, teachers, and schools for the sake of privatization.

Teachers have not bought into the RISE evaluation system that creates:
· a detrimental “teach to the test” atmosphere.
· greater focus on only select students, especially “bubble” students.
· an environment of competition, not cooperation, among colleagues.
· teacher flight from schools most in need.
· less qualified teachers who do not stay in the profession.

The RISE evaluation has nothing to do with improving instruction. Bennett purposefully took away funding for advance degrees to create funds for merit pay. (Lest we forget, Bennett stood idly by while Daniels cut $300 million from Hoosier school budgets. This shortfall was felt most by teachers, who on average have taken huge pay cuts. In my district, teachers have taken between a 12% and 20% pay cut over the past three years.)

As one commenter said, (Bennett is) driving down teacher’s salaries and forcing them to fight over what spare money is left. Then he is telling the public he rewards the best teachers with merit pay.

Perhaps that is why Bennett also had to include this on the IDOE webpage:
Increased collaboration and conversation promotes overall satisfaction with the new evaluation system and belief that the new system raises student achievement.
This quote is reminiscent of one attributed to Joesph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Indiana, it is time for a change. How can Bennett think he is putting students first by continually putting teachers last? A teacher’s working conditions are the student’s learning conditions. Bennett’s denigration of the Hoosier teacher results in the denigration of all public education students.

It will take years to fix the damage Bennett has wreaked on Hoosier schools. Four more years of Tony Bennett’s policies and the damage may well be irreversible.

We need a new superintendent who will work with teachers, not against them. Glenda Ritz needs your support. She does not have the million plus dollar funding from huge corporations that will profit from Bennett’s privatization efforts. For Ritz to claim victory, it will take a grass roots effort from every citizen who cares about public education in Indiana. Get out the vote for Glenda Ritz.

Categories Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reformers, Indiana, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ)

Tony Bennett: Fiasco in Indiana

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2012 //
5

Social media has allowed educators to contact one another and express their views. The news they tell does not often get covered in the local press. The educators’ insights are worth sharing.

Read this post from Indiana about State Superintendent of Education Bennett, no friend of public schools.

Bennett is running for re-election against veteran educator Glenda Ritz.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Indiana

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette Endorses Glenda Ritz!

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2012 //
3

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette published a powerful editorial endorsing educator Glenda Ritz for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana.

Tony Bennett, the current superintendent, is a foe of public education. He removed the word “public” from his title. He has done whatever he could to promote privatization of the state’s public schools. He opened the state to for-profit corporations to make money while supplying mediocre education.

Bennett is a willing hand-maiden of ALEC and the far-right. He is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change.

Not surprisingly, Bennett has a huge campaign chest. Let’s get the word out to parents and citizens who don’t want to privatize their public schools.

In case you don’t have time to open the link, here is the editorial:

Indiana public schools are struggling under the leadership of Tony Bennett, superintendent of public instruction. His unproven experiment in school choice and privatization has strained local districts at the very time they’ve needed the support and resources of a strong Indiana Department of Education.

Fortunately, his challenger, Glenda Ritz, demonstrates the skill and passion to help all students and recognizes the state’s civic health and economy depend on strong public schools. Her experience in communicating a classroom perspective to legislators is sorely needed as educators grapple with a host of new laws and regulations.

Indiana enjoyed almost 24 years of steady, collaborative effort to improve public education under Republicans H. Dean Evans and Suellen Reed, but Bennett’s election four years ago marked an end to the partnership among policymakers, educators, parents and the business community. The noteworthy improvement Indiana schools have made in recent years, including higher graduation rates, is the result of the foundation Evans and Reed set.

Rather than follow their example, Bennett cleaned house, replacing experienced educators with a DOE staff whose frequent turnover has left school districts struggling to interpret rules and requirements. He took advantage of GOP majorities to push an expansive legislative agenda, including the nation’s most expansive voucher program. Before its effects are even known, he is looking to extend it, eliminating the restriction that vouchers go only to students who first attend public school.

While enthusiastically promoting vouchers and charter schools, Bennett has expanded state control of local schools and exercised authority to hand them over to for-profit operators. Through the rule-making process, he has weakened the licensing requirements for teachers and administrators and now champions the national Common Core academic standards – less rigorous than Indiana’s highly acclaimed standards – and a new test to replace ISTEP+.

Also troubling are his ties with out-of-state donors and corporate interests. He spent much of 2011 traveling the country, often at the expense of groups looking to privatize schools. His campaign donors include wealthy school-choice proponents. Wal-Mart heir Alice Walton gave him $200,000, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg contributed $40,000. Some of the largest have come from groups backed by hedge-fund managers. Bennett’s campaign chest is nearing $1.5 million. Compare that to the $39,000 Reed had raised at the end of her 2004 re-election contest. Ritz has raised about $100,000 to compete against Bennett.

What she lacks in fundraising prowess, Ritz makes up for in experience. A library media specialist for Washington Township schools in Marion County, she is one of just 155 Indiana educators certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, considered the gold standard in teacher certification.

Ritz proposes more local input in policy promulgated by the state. She said she would begin with a comprehensive assessment of school needs, including curriculum and technology.

“DOE is going to be bottom up instead of top down,” Ritz said.

She also pledges to support early learning and to stop increased reliance on standardized testing, now misappropriated to paint public schools, districts, students and teachers as failures. The inaccurate depiction doesn’t serve the state in attracting jobs or retaining young families.

Voters should compare the leadership styles and results of a politically ambitious superintendent versus his two widely respected predecessors. Ritz promises to serve more in the mold of Evans and Reed; she’s the easy choice for Indiana’s top education post.

Categories Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Education Reform, For-Profit, Indiana, On-Line Education, Privatization, Vouchers

Nashville Charter Outrage Grows

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2012 //
12

Commissioner Kevin Huffman ordered the Nasville school board to approve the Great Hearts charter school.

Four times the board turned it down, so Huffman is cutting $3.4 million from the district’s budget.

Even more ominous, he and Republican governor Haslam threaten to push legislation to create a state panel to authorize charters over the opposition of local boards.

This is the ALEC model legislation, in which the demand for privatization trumps local control.

Interesting that Tennessee Democrats spotted Huffman’s membership in the far-right “Chiefs for Change,” run by Jeb Bush.

This is a power grab, and Democrats must wake up or lose public education.

By the way, Great Hearts expects an upfront “voluntary” contribution of $1200 from parents.

Partisan battle intensifies feud over charter school

Lawmakers are furious about Metro’s $3.4M loss

Written by Lisa Fingeroot The Tennessean
2:45 AM, Sep 19, 2012 | 

Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman / Erin O’Leary / File / Gannett Tennessee
 
Gov. Haslam, others discuss state’s decision to wi…: Gov. Bill Haslam, Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman and Speaker of the House Beth Harwell discuss the state’s decision to withhold about $3.4m from the Metro Nashville school system because the board refused to approve a charter school.

Rep. Mike Stewart
A decision by the state to withhold almost $3.4 million from Metro Nashville Public Schools for defying an order to approve a charter school escalated an already simmering partisan battle over whose political philosophy will shape public schools.
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam stopped just short Tuesday of saying a statewide charter school authorizer would be on his legislative agenda when the session begins in January. But Democratic representatives are lining up behind the Metro school board and every district’s right to make decisions for its constituency.
“At a time when we hear so much about ‘education reform’ and ‘local control’ from this administration, this unprecedented action would seem counterproductive,” said Rep. Sherry Jones, D-Nashville, House minority whip.
“Taking $3 million from Nashville children is a foolish move and I intend to fight this kind of petulant behavior when we get back in January,” said Jones, who plans to fight any proposal for a statewide charter school authorizer.
State officials said they chose to withhold administrative money — not classroom funds — in hopes of having the least possible effect on students.
Kevin Huffman, commissioner of education, announced Tuesday that the state would withhold a month of administrative funding because the Metro school board refused to approve a charter school application by Arizona-based Great Hearts Academies after being ordered to do so. Board members voted 5-4 to deny the charter Sept. 11, after the board’s attorney said they would be breaking the law.
“We’re responsible for enforcing the law,” said Haslam, who is accused of backflipping on his opinion about whether Metro schools should be fined. In August he said, “With education, the discussion should always be about what’s best for the students.… That being said, threatening money, that’s not the business we’re in.”
Haslam said Tuesday that “when their own attorney tells them that they are violating state law, we can’t just stand back.”
The school system released a statement early Tuesday saying officials had not had time to develop a plan for the loss of funds during October. The state money earmarked for non-classroom expenses is not designated for administrative purposes only, but for all kinds of expenses that also affect Metro’s 81,000 students, such as utilities, student transportation, and maintenance of the system’s 5,000 classrooms, the statement said.
The Metro school system has an annual budget of nearly $700 million with less than 30 percent supplied by the state, said school spokeswoman Meredith Libbey.
Newly elected school board member Amy Frogge, who voted against Great Hearts, called the state Board of Education’s decision “shameful.”
“Apparently a few people at the top are angry with five of us for voting against Great Hearts and they’ve decided to take it out on 80,000 children,” said Frogge. “This will not hurt me or the board. It will hurt the less fortunate.”
Frogge, an attorney, said she believed the board’s vote last week against Great Hearts was legal. The state gave Metro an “unclear mandate” about the charter school, she said. On the one hand, it asked Metro to approve the school. On the other hand, it also issued three contingencies for Great Hearts approval, one being diversity, she said.
“I felt the contingencies should be met before approval,” she said. “The state raised the diversity issue. My question was, ‘How are they going to comply?’”
Diversity was the main sticking point between Metro officials and Great Hearts, which wanted to open a school on Nashville’s affluent and mostly white west side. The school board didn’t have a formal diversity policy and has since decided to develop one.
Metro school board member Michael Hayes voted in favor of Great Hearts. He said the state could have taken much more punitive measures — replacing board members, taking over the district, filing suit in court, or withholding more money.
“Our counsel openly stated if we voted against it … we’d be violating state law, and sanctions could include withholding of funds.”
State law gives the education commissioner authority to withhold funding as an enforcement measure.
Board gets support

Rep. Mike Turner, D-Old Hickory, entered the fray Tuesday when he released a statement supporting the Metro board.
“Each school board knows the best way to handle their students,” he said.
The Democratic Caucus has long discussed and been in favor of more control for local school boards, spokesman Zak Kelley said.
“There is a lot of talk about introducing legislation to ensure that the decisions of the local school boards are respected,” said state Rep. Mike Stewart, D-Nashville. “I don’t think it’s appropriate or wise of a nonelected official to wander into Nashville and tell the people’s representatives how to spend tax dollars,” Stewart said of Huffman.
At this time, however, state law establishes a charter school appeal process that allows the state Board of Education to override a local board and direct it to approve the charter. When Metro school officials chose to defy that direction, Huffman accused them of breaking the law and discussed the financial penalty with Haslam, who approved it.
Haslam and Hayes said there is greater support for a statewide authorizer since Metro school officials denied Great Hearts.
While Huffman was appointed by Haslam, the bulk of criticism for the decision to withhold funds from Metro schools was aimed at Huffman.
Stewart accused Huffman of promoting “a radical and often untested agenda” and said, “It’s not a mainstream Republican agenda. It’s a radical agenda that places great emphasis on taking money away from public schools and turning them over to private entities.”
Huffman is listed among a group of 11 national education officials who have been named “Chiefs for Change” by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a foundation started by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to promote educational reforms across the nation. School choice through charter schools and vouchers and accountability determined through high-stakes testing are the cornerstones of the Bush reform movement.
“Huffman has staked out a position in the far-right radical school reform movement that people like Jeb Bush have championed,” Stewart said.
Former Metro school board member Mark North, who was on the board during three of its four votes relating to Great Hearts Academies charter school, released scathing comments about Huffman on Tuesday, too.
“Huffman’s position is indefensible,” North said.
Huffman’s “heavy-handed, iron-fisted power play is the embodiment of the exercise of arbitrary and oppressive authority in a sort of political extortion,” North added.
Related Links

Categories ALEC, Bush, Jeb, Chiefs for Change, Education Reform, Tennessee

Talk About Nerve!

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2012 //
25

A group of 30 organizations associated with corporate reform wrote a letter to Secretary Arne Duncan to insist that he hold teacher education programs accountable for the test scores of the students taught by their graduates.

Groups like Teach for America, StudentsFirst, Democrats for Education Reform (the Wall Street hedge fund managers), The New Teacher Project, various charter chains, Jeb Bush’s rightwing Chiefs for Change and his Foundation for Educational Excellence, and various and sundry groups that love teaching to the test stand together as one.

Their views are in direct opposition to those of the leaders of higher education, who oppose this extension of federal control into their institutions.

Read Gary Rubinstein’s blog about it here, where you will see the full cast of corporate reform characters, many of them funded by the Gates Foundation.

They are certain that what minority students need most is more testing. They want the test scores of the students to determine the career and livelihood of their teachers. And they want the federal government to punish the schools of education that prepared the teachers of these children.

If Duncan takes their advice, he will assume the power to penalize schools of education if the students of their graduates can’t raise their test scores every year.

The vise of standardized testing will tighten around public education.

These people and these organizations are wrong. They are driving American education in a destructive direction. They will reduce children to data points, as the organizations thrive. Wasn’t a decade of NCLB enough for them?

They are on the wrong side of history. They may be flying high now, but their ideas hurt children and ruin the quality of education.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, ConnCAN, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Higher Education, StudentsFirst, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, U.S. Department of Education
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