Archives for category: Corporate Reform
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Jan Resseger: Meet the National Lobbyists Who Have Pushed a Far-Right Wing Agenda into the States

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2017 //
30

Jan Resseger read Gordon Lafer’s new book, “The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time,” and she understood the pattern on the rug.

“Gordon Lafer explains that in the November 2010 election, “Eleven state governments switched from Democratic or divided control to unified Republican control of the governorship and both houses of the legislature. Since these lawmakers took office in early 2011, the United States has seen an unprecedented wave of legislation aimed at lowering labor standards and slashing public services.” (p. 2) “In January 2011, legislatures across the country took office under a unique set of circumstances. In many states, new majorities rode to power on the energy of the Tea Party ‘wave’ election and the corporate-backed RedMap campaign… (T)his was the first class of legislators elected under post-Citizens United campaign finance rules, and the sudden influence of unlimited money in politics was felt across the country. Finally, the 2011 legislative sessions opened in the midst of record budget deficits (from the Great Recession), creating an atmosphere of fiscal crisis that made it politically feasible to undertake more dramatic legislation than might otherwise have been possible… For the corporate lobbies and their legislative allies, the 2010 elections created a strategic opportunity to restructure labor relations, political power, and the size of government.” (p 44)…

“Lafer continues: “Political science traditionally views policy initiatives as emerging from either reasoned evaluation of what has worked to address a given social problem, or a strategic response to public opinion. But the corporate agenda for education reform is neither. Its initiatives are not the product of education scholars and often have little or no evidentiary basis to support them. They are also broadly unpopular… In this sense, education policy… provides an instructive window into the ability of corporate lobbies to move an extremely broad and ambitious agenda that is supported neither by social scientific evidence nor by the popular will.” (p. 130)

“Who are the corporate lobbies crafting and pushing the anti-tax, union-bashing, anti-public education agenda? “Almost all of these initiatives reflect ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) model legislation, and have been championed by the Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity, and a wide range of allied corporate lobbies.” (p. 130) “Furthermore, the corporate agenda is carried out through an integrated network that operates on multiple channels at once: funding ALEC to write bills, craft legislative talking points, and provide a meeting place for legislators and lobbyists to build relationships; supporting local think tanks in the ALEC-affiliated State Policy Network to produce white papers, legislative testimony, opinion columns, and media experts; contributing to candidate campaigns and party committees; making independent expenditures on behalf of lawmakers or issues; and deploying field organizers to key legislative districts.” (p. 39)

“A primary strategy is tax cutting: “‘The best way to stimulate the economy,’ insisted a senior fellow at the Koch-funded Cato Institute, is ‘to shrink government… lower marginal tax rates, and streamline regulations.’ The corporate right’s exhortations for an unprecedented policy of cutting taxes and services in the midst of recession was not an evidence-based policy and indeed did not yield the economic growth its proponents forecast… There was no reason to believe that tax cuts were the key to economic recovery. However continuing tax cuts achieved something else; they dramatically—and perhaps permanently—shrank the size of government.” (p. 65)

“How has all this affected public education? “(B)udget cuts were particularly widespread—and particularly devastating—in the country’s school systems. In 2010-11, 70 percent of all U.S. school districts made cuts to essential services. Despite widespread evidence of the academic and economic value of preschool education, twelve states cut pre-K funding that year, including Arizona, which eliminated it completely. Ohio repealed full-day kindergarten and cut its preschool program to the point that it served 75 percent fewer four-year-olds than it had a decade earlier. Pennsylvania also cut back from full-day to half-day kindergarten in many districts—including Philadelphia, which also eliminated 40 percent of its teaching staff…. More than half the nation’s school districts changed their thermostat settings…. Research shows that the availability of trained librarians makes a significant improvement in student reading and writing skills, yet by 2014, one-third of public schools in the country lacked a full-time certified librarian.” (p. 69)

Conspiracy theory? No, a well-planned, carefully executed plan to cut taxes, kill unions, privatize education.

Categories ALEC, Budget Cuts, Corporate Reform, Privatization, School Choice, Unions

Tom Ultican’s Sharp Critique of What Went Wrong and How to Make Things Right

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2017 //
19

Tom Ultican became a teacher of math and physics in San Diego after a career in Silicon Valley. He is retiring. He loves teaching.

He describes with precision the people who imposed bad ideas on the schools and messed them up. Maybe they meant well but their lack of knowledge or experience in the classroom led to naive and foolish and failed interventions, like Common Core and “turnaround,” with mad firings.

He writes:

“Standards based education is bad education theory. In the 1960’s Benjamin Bloom proposed mastery education in which instruction would be individualized and students would master certain skills before they moved ahead. By the 1970’s this idea had been married with B.F. Skinner’s behaviorist philosophy and teachers were given lists of discrete items for their students to master. The “reform” became derisively known as “seats and sheets.””

Tom says he is leaving the classroom. I hope there is a way to keep his kbowledge, experience, and wisdom engaged in educating the next generation.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Competency Based Education, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, NCLB, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, San Diego, Technology, Turnaround Schools

Gary Rubinstein: Rick Hess is the Reformer Who Thinks

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2017 //
28

Gary Rubinstein read Rick Hess’s latest book, “Letters to a Young Education Reformer” and found much to admire, even though Gary is one of the most perceptive critics of what is now called “reform.”

He writes:

“I was eager to receive Rick Hess’s latest book ‘letters to a young education reformer.’ Hess is the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank. Hess is one of the few defenders of the reform movement whom I respect. His writings, like his column in Education Week, always have the nuance that most reform writers at places like The 74 and Education Post lack.

“This book explains what is behind some of the failures of the reform movement. With states opting out of the Common Core, parents opting out of state tests, and prominent reformers even opting out of ed reform, the reform movement is currently experiencing a slump.

“Though the book is written in an informal tone with plenty of very interesting anecdotes, it is a very scathing critique of the reform movement, the style of reform that really became big with people like Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and, of course, President Obama.

“Hess knows what missteps reformers committed along the way to lead to this. By writing about these mistakes in a series of letters to an unnamed ‘young education reformer,’ Hess hopes that the next generation of ed reformers will avoid those mistakes.”

Gary offers quotes from the book that he likes, such as:

““Washington-centric, dogmatic big R Reform has too often neglected this reality, with reformers exhausting themselves to win policy fights and then winding up too bloodied and battered to make those wins matter. It’s left me to wonder whether all the fuss and furor of recent years has done more harm than good.”

“In the fourth letter he writes:

“Calling something an implementation problem is how we reformers let ourselves off the hook. It’s a fancy way to avoid saying that we didn’t realize how a new policy would affect real people … and that it turned out worse than promised.”

Gary disagrees with two major arguments that Hess makes:

“One is that I think that Hess has overestimated the potential of the Reformers. I see his central argument as: it’s time for us to start playing fair, to stop misusing data and to stop ignoring, and otherwise showing contempt, for Reform critics. He seems to think that the Reform movement has made some progress, but to get to the next level, to win, they will need to be more open to discussion with critics and be more open about potential problems when things like the Common Core are implemented.

“I think the opposite is true. I think the Reformers have actually overachieved to get the victories they have. Getting more humble and honest and letting critics participate in the discussion will not get them to the next level at all. In a fair matchup, Reformers will get clobbered. I think they are going to lose the education reform war either way, but really the only chance they have is to ramp up the slick messaging and the lying. With the dishonest route, I think they have about a ten percent chance of ultimately winning. With the honest route, I think they have a zero percent chance of winning.”

Gary clearly enjoyed the book because it made him think.

Without having read this book, I want to add my thoughts about Rick Hess. I sponsored Rick’s first appearance in D.C. right after he received his doctorate from Harvard. For several years in the 1990s and early 2000s, I ran an annual education policy conference at the Brookings Institution, to which I invited researchers on different sides of contentious issues. I also invited a lunch speaker and a dinner speaker. In 1998, looking for a fresh face, I invited Rick as the lunch speaker after hearing good things about his first book, “Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform.” Rick subsequently found a home at AEI, and my confidence in him was affirmed.

From the very first day that I turned against the corporate reform movement, Rick has been gracious to me. When “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” was published in 2010, I called Grover (Russ) Whitehurst at the Brookings Institution, where I had been a Senior Fellow for 17 years, to ask if I could hold an event at Brookings to present my book, which was my refutation of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. He said I would have to rent the auditorium, pay for the sound system, and pay for any incidental costs, in addition to paying my own way. Having sat in his seat at Brookings in the mid-90s, I knew this was not customary for someone who was part of Brookings.

So I called Rick to ask if I could do the event at the free-market American Enterprise Institute. Rick immediately said yes and created an excellent event, where I spoke to an overflowing crowd, and a balanced panel responded with thoughtful questions. AEI paid all expenses. It was an excellent setting in which to present to the D.C. establishment my change of mind about the basic “reform” principles of testing and choice. Clearly, I appreciated Rick’s openness to dissent.

Categories Corporate Reform

Sen. Bernie Sanders Endorses Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for L.A. School Board!!

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2017 //
17

Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for the Los Angeles school board. The election will be held May 16.

““Billionaires should not make a profit off of public school children. That’s why I’m supporting Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for the Los Angeles School Board. They will fight against the Trump/DeVos agenda to destabilize and undermine public schools,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders in a statement.”

Zimmer’s opponent Nick Melvoin is supported by billionaires who hope to privatize public schools in Los Angeles.

Zimmer is committed to fighting the Trump-DeVos agenda of charters and vouchers. His opponent is not.

I recommend that citizens of Los Angeles vote for Zimmer and Padilla. They will fight for public schools and the common good.

The Network for Public Education has endorsed both Zimmer and Padilla.

Send a message to Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos! No privatization! No corporate control! No vouchers! The public schools belong to the people, not the billionaires!

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

Jeannie Kaplan: Denver’s Corporate Reformers Try to Distance Themselves from DeVos

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2017 //
28

Jeannie Kaplan watches with amusement as the corporate reform-led Denver School Board tries to distance themselves from Betsy DeVos.

She says, “They can run, but they can’t hide.”

You see, Denver Board of Education and superintendent, once the drip of privatization as characterized particularly by choice and charters starts, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to stop. What starts as a drip quickly becomes a flood that is almost impossible to control. You may truly not believe in vouchers, but you have fostered an atmosphere in Denver where vouchers could be the logical outcome of Choice and Charters, intended or not. And while DFER, too, tried to separate itself from parts of the Trump/DeVos agenda, it simultaneously sent out a notice congratulating “Betsy DeVos on her appointment as Secretary of Education, and we applaud Mrs. DeVos’s commitment to growing the number of high-quality public charter schools.” Further, Betsy DeVos has given money to DFER which in turn has given lots of money to DPS campaigns including the Committee for Denver’s Kids cited below. You can’t always have it both ways, and even the best public relations departments cannot always convince you of their stories.

This is a problems for all the Democrats who have cheered on “school choice,” but thought they could draw the line at vouchers. Like Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado, who is a major supporter of charters. Like Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, who wants to be President and has been a major supporter of charters. Like California Governor Jerry Brown, who never saw a charter he didn’t like. Like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who voted against DeVos, but advocates both charters and vouchers.

Once you jump on board the school choice train, it is hard to explain why you only meant charters, not vouchers.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democrats for Education Reform, Denver, Education Reform, School Choice, Vouchers

Christine Langhoff: The Corporate Reformers Are in Control of Massachusetts Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2017 //
11

Christine Langhoff teaches in Massachusetts and is a member of the Network for Public Education.

She writes:


Massachusetts public education is being run by a cabal of reformsters, many of them affiliated with a local thinkster tank, The Pioneer Institute. Jim Peyser, state Secretary of Education, is a former director of The NewSchools Venture Fund, having run the Pioneer Institute from 1993-2000. Gov. Weld named him as undersecretary of education in 1995, shortly after the introduction of charters to the state, for which Peyser was – and is – an advocate. In charge of higher education is perennial gadfly Chris Gabrieli, failed gubernatorial candidate, who has developed no fewer than three reformy edu-businesses. (Time on Learning – extended day and year no extra pay; TransformEd – measuring grit and feelings; and Empower Schools, which seeks to destroy union contracts and impose a “third way” in urban districts – so far 3 and counting). So, to use the local dialect, all of them are wicked reformy.

Things have not been going so well for Chester. He signed on as chairman of PARCC, but that boat sank under the weight of the Common Core. This past November, when he thought the charter cap would be lifted and privatization could proceed apace, that too went down to an ignominious 2-1 defeat, in the process awakening parents and taxpayers to the charter scam. He has lately signed on to be a Chief for Change. Reformsters, unlike teachers, don’t need tenure because they have sinecures.

I think this latest peevish salvo stems from Chester’s frustration at being unable to simply sign executive orders and command the world as he would have it. Recently, after testimony from Lisa Guisbond of Citizens for Public Schools, he was forced to revise a punitive policy for students opting out:

“On the related issue of state testing, I thought you should know that some teachers are being given these instructions for handling students whose parents have chosen to opt them out:

‘When a student opts out they will remain in the classroom, listen as the test directions are being read and given the test. If after 15 minutes the student doesn’t write anything down, then, and only then, may the teacher remove the test.’

A 4th grade teacher shared her reaction:

‘This is public shaming, will cause emotional harm, and is a travesty to the precious relationship between teachers and students. Remember we cannot say anything except the scripted words on the test document or we are threatened with job termination, legal and or criminal action.’

So we have a fourth grader embarrassed and crying and a teacher who could lose his or her job for consoling the child. The teacher must ignore this child in need and say nothing.

I trust that these instructions are in error, and that your humane instructions from last year, Commissioner Chester, that students should not be pressured or punished for opting out, remain in place. I urge you to communicate this to the field.”

Delay and Revise MA ESSA Plan to Help, Not Harm, Struggling Schools

At the April 18 board meeting, one of the topics under discussion was the use of the scores from this year’s round of testing. Chester proposed to have 2017 scores included in the average for determining school levels. That was nearly unanimously rejected by the Board due to the use of several variants of tests in the past three years. Previously, it had been agreed that schools would be “held harmless” during the transition to a new test.

A recess was called, during which time Secretary Peyser expressed his belief that if the 2017 scores were not included, teachers would deliberately have students tank the exams so that they could increase scores in future years. In other words,he believes teachers across the state would INTENTIONALLY have thousands of children do poorly on tests in order to create a low baseline. NB: At the time of the discussion, we were already halfway through the testing period.

These people have no respect for the work teachers do. They do not believe we have any integrity. They do not treat us as professionals. It is indeed shameful.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Students, Teachers and Teaching

North Carolina: Legislators Propose Special Perks for Corporate Charters

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2017 //
13

Under a bill proposed in the North Carolina legislature, corporations would gain the power to set aside half the seats in a new charter for their employees if they contributed funds, land, or equipment. For their generosity, the corporation would also have seats on the charter boards. The charter would become a perk for corporate leaders and valued employees, kind of like a company store.

The state House is considering a collection of bills that would change who can start a charter and how quickly the schools can grow. Corporations would be able to reserve spaces in schools for their employees’ children, and two towns would be able to set up charter schools for their residents. Under current law, charters are open to any student in the state, although schools can give preference to siblings and school employees’ children.

“This is loosening the restrictions on how charters operate and what they’re allowed to do,” Rep. Graig Meyer, an Orange County Democrat, said of the collection of bills the House Education Committee approved Monday in divided votes.

Under one bill, up to half a charter school’s seats could be reserved for children whose parents work for companies that donate land, buildings or equipment to the school. Employees of those companies would also be able to join the charter school’s board of directors.

Rep. John R. Bradford III, a Mecklenburg Republican, framed the bill as an economic development tool that could help attract companies to rural counties. Companies would be able to offer classroom seats as employee perks, Bradford said, equating charter enrollment to companies paying for employee meals.

“This creates a vehicle where a company can create an employee benefit,” he said.

Meyer objected, saying the provision would have taxpayer money going to company schools.

“This moves closer to privatization than North Carolina has ever allowed before,” he said.

Another bill would allow charter enrollment to grow 30 percent a year without approval from the State Board of Education. Charters are now limited to 20 percent annual growth without board approval. Some Democrats objected on the grounds that it could fuel growth in schools that aren’t good. Allowing charters with bad records to expand would not be fair to taxpayers, parents or students, said Rep. Bobbie Richardson, a Louisburg Democrat.

At the same time, the legislature imposed a mandate to reduce class size without any new funding, which will cause layoffs of thousands of teachers and overcrowding in grades not included in the mandate.

North Carolina blogger-teacher Stuart Egan calls the corporate-control bill “The Privatization of Public Schools Bill.”

Can there be any question that the NC legislature is systematically privatizing the schools of the state?

Categories Charter Schools, Class size, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, North Carolina, Privatization

Russ Walsh: School Choice and the Faustian Bargain

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2017 //
25

In the wake of Betsy and Randi’s visit together to a public school in Ohio, Russ Walsh reflects on how school choice affects democracy. Every dollar that goes to a charter or voucher is taken away from public schools like those they visited. “Choice” means budget cuts to the public school, and it means that public dollars go to privately controlled schools.


“While the school that DeVos and Weingarten visited is in a heavily Republican district in Ohio, the voters there are no fans of school choice. As one voter put it, vouchers are “like theft.” “It’s saying we passed a levy to go to our school district, and it’s going somewhere else.” Exactly. School choice is theft of our tax dollars and theft of our democracy.

Choice sounds so democratic, so quintessentially American that voucher and charter school champions keep using the term to hoodwink people into thinking that choice in schooling is a good thing. I suggest that those of us who oppose vouchers and charter schools call school choice what it is in the eyes of that Ohio voter, tax theft. The government collects our taxes in order to provide essential services to all of us. There is no choice involved, we all must pay taxes (unless, apparently, we are hugely wealthy). Those essential services include providing for a military, promoting research on health and welfare, providing for police and fire protection, and funding public schools. When money is diverted from the support of the public schools, it amounts to, as the Ohio voter said, theft. Or maybe another way to say it is “taxation without representation”, since voters have no voice and no oversight of how tax money is spent in schools that receive money through vouchers or charters.

It should be readily apparent that corporate education reformers are anti-democracy. In city after city around the country democratically elected school boards have been replaced by boards appointed by the mayor or governor. In Philadelphia, an appointed board has been in place for nearly two decades and the deterioration of the schools has continued unabated. In Detroit, in Betsy DeVos’ home state, the state took over the schools and has systematically led them into chaos. And let us remember that DeVos has spent millions to get legislation passed in Michigan that limits any kind of oversight for voucher and charter schools. So quite literally these schools are stealing public funds with no accountability as to how they spend it…

When parents send their children to charter schools or voucher schools, they are looking for a better opportunity for their children. We can all understand the appeal of that. What parents may not realize is that they have entered into a Faustian bargain. In order to get this shiny new toy of a voucher, they must give up their voice in their child’s education. No elected school board, no independent audit, no budget vote, no say in school policies.

In this drama, Betsy DeVos plays a willing Mephistopheles, offering choice, but getting you to sign away your voice. Without a voice, there is no democracy.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

How Jeb Bush and His Foundation for Educational Excellence Profited Their Corporate Sponsors

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2017 //
31

This is not a new article but it remains timely and worthy of your attention.

Jeb Bush runs an organization called the Foundation for Educational Excellence. Betsy DeVos was a member of his board. FEE receives corporate contributions. It works closely with ALEC, the rightwing corporate-sponsored organization that lobbies for charters, vouchers, and against teachers’ unions and tenure.

In the Public Interest was able to obtain a trove of emails that revealed the influence of FEE in several states, including Florida, New Mexico, Maine, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Rhode Island.

The e-mails are between the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) and a group Bush set up called Chiefs for Change, whose members are current and former state education commissioners who support Bush’s agenda of school reform, which includes school choice, online education, retention of third-graders who can’t read and school accountability systems based on standardized tests. That includes evaluating teachers based on student test scores and grading schools A-F based on test scores. John White of Louisiana is a current member, as is Tony Bennett, the new commissioner of Florida who got the job after Indiana voters rejected his Bush-style reforms last November and tossed him out of office.

Donald Cohen, chair of the nonprofit In the Public Interest, a resource center on privatization and responsible for contracting in the public sector, said the e-mails show how education companies that have been known to contribute to the foundation are using the organization “to move an education agenda that may or not be in our interests but are in theirs.”

He said companies ask the foundation to help state officials pass laws and regulations that make it easier to expand charter schools, require students to take online education courses, and do other things that could result in business and profits for them. The e-mails show, Cohen said, that Bush’s foundation would often do this with the help of Chiefs for Change and other affiliated groups.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization, Testing

Busted Pencils on the New Documentary: “Backpack Full of Cash”

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2017 //
16

Tim Slekar regularly posts podcasts of high value to the resistance, to those fighting privatization and high stakes testing.

This episode features an interview with Sarah Mondale and Vera Aronow, the veteran filmmakers whose new documentary tells the story of the organized assault on public education. Please take the time to listen.

In 2001, Sarah Mondale and Sarah Patton made a four-part documentary called “School,” which ran on PBS and was turned into a book.

The new film is titled “Backpack Full of Cash,” the term corporate reformers use to describe their goal: every child with a backpack full of cash, taking it anywhere he or she chooses.

It is narrated by Matt Damon.

We should all call PBS, which recently ran a series opposing public schools and touting the glories of the free market, and urge them to give airtime to this documentary. PBS is probably trying to curry favor with the Trump administration to stop the defunding of public television. It is sad, don’t you think, that public television gives airtime to a show attacking public education?

Send emails to: http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/feedback/

Categories Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Privatization, School Choice
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