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Louisiana: Why Allow Billionaires to Take Control of Our Schools?

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2016 //
6

Retired educator Mike Deshotels expresses his frustration with the charter industry in Louissiana, which has stymied every effort to regulate them, allow local districts to decide if they want them, or to hold them accountable. The new Governor John Bel Edwards pushed for charter reform, but was repeatedly rebuffed by legislators who were funded by charter advocates.

This must be child’s play for the billionaires, none of whom live in the state.

Deshotels wrote:

This story in The Advocate describes some of the House Education Committee actions yesterday, killing several bills designed to curb abuses by charters. Charter school administrators descended on the Education Committee in force Wednesday while the administrators and teachers in the real public schools were teaching children.

The charter advocates are a highly effective special interest group because they are backed up by big business in Louisiana and nationwide who are determined to privatize education as much as possible. In my opinion these folks have no respect for public schools or professional educators. They just see public education as a way to make money off of children.

As part of their strategy, charter advocates funnel huge amounts of political contributions to legislators and BESE members to insure that no legislation will pass to limit their growth and profits. So when legislators vote against reasonable bills to prevent charter abuses, it is the political contributions they received or expect to receive that are controlling the voting. If you are a supporter of public education, you need to know who voted against you repeatedly this week. I will provide that later.

Here is the testimony I gave to the House Education Committee in favor of HB 98, that would delete a provision in the 2012 Jindal legislation that allows BESE to approve independent charter school authorizers. Those authorizers could approve many new charter schools over the objection of our elected school boards.

Testimony on HB 98

Good morning. My name is Michael Deshotels and I live in Zachary. I do education research and write a blog on education for educators and parents.

I am here in support of HB 98, because we need to correct an error that was made in 2012 when the legislature rushed to try everything that they thought would improve public education in Louisiana. This part of the legislation was a mistake because it can take away our right to run our public schools through our elected school boards.

Most citizens believe in local control of our government services. It is wiser to have our schools run by our local school boards than by unelected groups or even by BESE. In addition, my research shows that it is also more effective to have our schools managed by our local school boards.

At one time it was thought that if low performing schools were taken over by BESE and given to charter school operators, that their student performance would improve over their performance in school board operated schools. That has now been proven to be wrong!

All of my research shows that the schools operated by BESE approved charters generally do a poorer job. All but one of the takeover schools in the Baton Rouge area, have been total failures. They have done so poorly that parents pulled their children out and some schools had to be shut down for lack of support. My research shows that the takeover schools in New Orleans still do not do as good a job of educating low-income students as do our local school boards across the state.

This experiment with our children has failed! It would be mistake therefore to allow new groups that are independent of the taxpayers to approve more charters.

It is a well-known fact that big contributors from outside Louisiana are the ones pushing for these new charters. Those contributors are the Waltons, the Broads from California (not spelled with an x), the Gates foundation from Washington state and Mike Bloomberg from New York. These big donors are the primary financiers of our present BESE elections and they are the primary financiers for New Schools for Baton Rouge, one of the groups that wants to be a charter authorizer. But to add insult to injury, these donors are not contributing money to help our public schools. They are donating millions to get politicians elected to privatize our schools and to use our tax money to do it with.

It is a serious error to say that that MFP money for each child belongs to the parent and that they should be able to take it to any school they choose. Citizens who have no children in public schools pay most of the MFP allocation and we are happy to do it. We deserve the right to choose how our schools will be run through our elected school boards. Please vote for this bill.”

All of the bills to regulate charters failed, despite the governor’s support.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Louisiana, School Choice

Mercedes Schneider: What Did Campbell Brown Say About the Vergara Reversal?

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2016 //
23

Mercedes Schneider writes here about Campbell Brown and the Vergara case. The lower court decision became an opportunity for the telegenic former TV correspondent to launch a new career as a tenure-fighting, union-busting vigilante.

 

Riding the Vergara wave, she created an organization called the “Partnership for Educational Justice,” funded by the usual billionaires.  PEJ filed a copy-cat Vergara lawsuit in New York and just week filed a similar lawsuit in Minnesota. Bad timing, to say the least.

 

On a roll, Brown launched a news site, “The 74,” to chronicle the struggle for corporate-style reform of public education. The 74 refers to the 74 million children of school age, many allegedly trapped in schools with unions and tenure. It was reported that the billionaires (Bloomberg, Walton and others) gave her $4 million for The 74).

 

So what did Campbell say about the overturning of the Vergara by a unanimous three-judge Court of Appeal? Nothing. A deafening silence.

 

Meanwhile, Mercedes examines a curious incident in the night at the Los Angeles Times, where education coverage is funded by billionaire Eli Broad. The original story about the decision by Howard Blume was mysteriously rewritten. Whole sections were dropped or revised to make them , well, less problematic to the funder. Accidental? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

Read the post for the details.

 

And remember to thank the Constitution for checks and balances and an independent judiciary (at least in California).

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Media, Teacher Tenure

Assignment: Do a Close Reading of This Article About Vergara Decision

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2016 //
35

As I read the story in the New York Times about the overturning of the infamous Vergara decision, I realized that the article presented an opportunity for “close reading” and for critical thinking. Unlike the Common Core standards, which asks the reader to stick to the four corners of the text, I expect readers to draw upon their background knowledge to interpret the text, authors’ intentions, and missing information or context. In the end, however, we must recognized that it is a newspaper article, and space is limited. Nonetheless, what is written and what is omitted is left out matters, because the Times is a national newspaper, read by the public and the media, few of whom will ever read the decision or understand the background.

 

 

Why do philanthropists want to end teachers’ job protections? Why do billionaires like Eli Broad and the Walton family want to get rid of job protections? Did the plaintiffs prove that the children’s teachers were ineffective? Or did they just use test scores as “evidence”? Which states allow teachers to have due process rights? Which do not? Does the latter group of states–which have no job protections–have better schools than the former group? What is the Partnership for Educational Justice? What is its goal? Does a district attract better teachers when it does not have job protections? Why has recruitment of new teachers plummeted in recent years?

 

These are just a few questions that come to mind. What are yours?

 

 

 

Categories Broad Foundation, California, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Media, Teacher Tenure, Walton Foundation

Know Your Multi-Millionaire “Reformers”: Art Pope

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2016 //
7

Art Pope is a major political figure in North Carolina. I don’t know whether he is a billionaire or only a multi-millionaire. Jane Mayer wrote in the New Yorker a few years ago that he bought the state of North Carolina.

 

Art Pope made his fortune by owning a large chain of discount variety stores around the state. He is a libertarian to the extreme. He used his political contributions to help Tea Party Republicans defeat moderate Republicans. His investments in political campaigns paid off big time in 2010, when his faction won control of the state legislature. Then in 2012, a Republican was elected governor, and for the first time in a century or more, North Carolina had an all-Republican leadership, free to impose its will.

 

Governor McCrory appointed Art Pope as state budget director, giving him the power to implement his extreme ideology. (In Pope’s only try for elected office, he failed.) On Pope’s watch, the state legislature enacted charters, cyber charters, and vouchers. And cut the public schools’ budget. And reduced environmental regulations. And did whatever they could think of to reduce government and give corporations free reign. ALEC must point to North Carolina as its model state.

 

The best source of information on the damage wrought by these modern-day vandals is NC Policy Watch’s Altered State: How Five Years of Conservative Rule Have Redefined North Carolina, which sums up the depredations of the past five years.

 

Pope funded the extremely conservative libertarian Locke Institute, which acts as an advocacy group for his ideology. One of the directors of the Locke Institute started his own charter chain (he is not an educator) and has made millions of dollars on leases.

 

Know who owns your state.

Categories ALEC, Billionaires, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, North Carolina

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

Checker Finn: Why Donald Trump Might Set Back Education “Reform”

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2016 //
21

Checker Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute fears that the election of Donald Trump would be a disaster for education reforms like charters, vouchers, higher standards, harder tests, and test-based evaluations. Republicans might lose control of either or both houses of Congress. They might see governors and legislatures retaken by Democrats.

This is the best argument–maybe the only argument–I have heard for Trump. Can you imaginary the social reactionaries that Cruz might sweep in? We would go backwards a century.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reform, Politics

John Thompson Forecasts the End of the Corporate Reform Era

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2016 //
21

Dr. John Thompson, historian and teacher in Oklahoma City, anticipates the collapse of corporate reform in this outstanding post. He gives much of the credit to the opt out movement, which stood up to political and corporate power to protect their children. Who ever thought it was a great idea to subject 9-year-old children to 8 hours of testing? Who thought it would be a good idea to fire teachers if test scores didn’t go up every year? Who thought it was a good idea to drain resources from public schools and give them to privately managed charter schools?

 

Parents certainly didn’t. They refused to be bullied by school officials and politicians.

 

Thompson writes:

 

“Three cheers for the Opt Out movement! When the history of the collapse of data-driven, competition-driven school improvement is written, the parents and students of the grassroots Opt Out uprising will get much – or most – of the credit for driving a stake through the heart of the testing vampire.”

 

Thompson thanks Tom Loveless for pointing out that all of these alleged reforms have not produced the promised miracles. But he faults all those who continue to believe that testing, punishments, rewards, and competition improves education.

 

But he gives Loveless a demerit for continuing to accept the premises of corporate reform.

 

“One cheer for the Brookings Institute’s Tom Loveless, and his discussion of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and for noting the failure of CCSS to raise student performance. Okay, maybe he deserves 1-1/2 or 1-3/4ths cheers for his resisting changes to the reliable NAEP tests in order to please Common Core advocates, and for concluding, “Watch the Opt Out movement.”

 

Loveless notes that “states that adopted CCSS and have been implementing the standards have registered about the same gains and losses on NAEP as states that either adopted and rescinded CCSS or never adopted CCSS in the first place.” He then gets to the key point, “The big story is that NAEP scores have been flat for six years, an unprecedented stagnation in national achievement that states have experienced regardless of their stance on CCSS.“ Now, Loveless says, “CCSS is paying a political price for those disappointing NAEP scores.”

 

“The big story, however, is the failure of the entire standards-driven, test-driven, competition-driven model of school improvement. Loveless is free to adopt his own methodology for his latest research paper on education reform but he deserves a “boo” for continuing to reduce complex and inter-related processes to a bunch of single, simple, distinct, quantifiable categories….

 

“Loveless, Brookings, and other reformers deserve a loud round of boos for pretending that the failure of Common Core standards is unfair and/or regrettable. On the contrary, the political and educational battle over national standards is a part of the inter-connected debacle produced by a simplistic faith in standards and curriculum; bubble-in accountability; and the federal government’s funding of teacher-bashing, mass charterization, and the top-down reforms of the last 1-1/2 decades.

 

“While I appreciate Loveless’s candor in acknowledging that the stagnation of NAEP scores in the last six years is unprecedented, his focus on standards misses the other big points. These realities have not been lost on the grassroots Opt Out movement….

 

“Perhaps we’re seeing the last days of the education blame game. Maybe Loveless and other pro-reform analysts will give up on trying to pin the rejection of their policies on parents and teachers. As parents refuse to allow their children to take the tests, it will become even more impossible to set cut scores, meaning that it will become even more impossible to claim that systems can identify the children and adults who supposedly should be punished for their scores. Once the punitive parts of school reform are repudiated, little or nothing will be left of this unfortunate period of education history. And, the Opt Out movement will deserve the credit it is granted in closing that chapter.”

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Common Core, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Failure, Opt Out, Parents, Privatization, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations

Help Amy Frogge Win in Nashville!

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2016 //
1

Please consider making a donation to Amy Frogge, a great friend of public schools, who is running for re-election to the Metro Nashville school board. Amy is a lawyer whose children attend public schools in Nashville. She ran for school because are as a mom and a citizen, knowing nothing of corporate reform. Her opponent was well-funded and had a 5-1 advantage over Amy. Amy went door to door, and she won!

 

As a board member, she has fought for public schools. She has opposed privatization and high-stakes testing. She is on the honor roll of this blog for her courageoussupportfor the children of Nashville.

 

 

Amy needs our help. The “reformers” want her gone. Please donate whatever you can.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Nashville, Tennessee

Julian Vasquez Heilig Will Open New Center for the Study of Education Profitization

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2016 //
11

Julian Vasquez Heilig announced on his blog that he will soon open a new “center” for the study and support of Education Profitization.

 

He says he has pledges of $10 million each from the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Arnold Foundation, and the Donald Trump Business Casual Clothing Foundation.

 

Where is the Walton Foundation?

 

Heilig writes:

 

I sincerely hope that the new Center will work closely with the University of Arkansas College of Education Faculty, Fordham Foundation, ALEC, BAEO, Education Next, Libre and every other neoliberal so we can make this money.

Categories Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit

NEPC: No Evidence for Portfolio Districts

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2016 //
12

Many districts have adopted the so-called portfolio district. Schools are treated like stocks in a stock portfolio, keeping the “good” (high test scores) and getting rid of the “bad” (low scores). The implicit assumption is that the staff is causing the low scores, not poverty or social conditions. This encourages districts to hand off their schools to charter chains that promise to get high scores, which they do by pushing out low-scoring students.

 

 

 

The “Portfolio” Approach to School District Governance

 
Press Release: http://nepc.info/node/7908
NEPC Publication: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/options
Contact:
William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Kevin Welner: (303) 492-8370, kevin.welner@colorado.edu

 
BOULDER, CO (March 29, 2016) – A new but widespread policy approach called “portfolio districts” shifts decision-making away from district superintendents and other central-office leaders. This approach is being used in more than three dozen large districts, including New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Denver.

 

But the policy’s expansion is not being driven by evidence of success.

 

In a new brief released today, The “Portfolio” Approach to School District Governance, William Mathis and Kevin Welner explain that changes in governance involve complex trade-offs and that there exists a very limited body of generally accepted research about the effects of portfolio district reform. But research evidence does exist concerning the four primary reform strategies that provide the foundation for portfolio districts: school-level decentralization of management; the reconstitution or closing of “failing” schools; the expansion of choice, primarily through charter schools; and performance-based (generally test-based) accountability. The research into these strategies gives reason to pause— it provides little promise of meaningful benefits.

 

In the end, student outcomes in under-resourced communities will continue—absent serious policy interventions—to be driven by larger societal inequities, including structural racism and denied opportunities related to poverty. While best practices in schools can mitigate some of this harm, the evidence indicates that simply imposing a changed governance approach will do little to overcome these core problems. In fact, Mathis warns, “the focus on governmental structural changes is a false promise, distracting from real needs and deferring needed efforts to address true inequities.”

 

Mathis and Welner explain that instead of changing the governance structure of urban school districts, equity-focused reformers call for a strong and comprehensive redirection of policy to address concentrated poverty. They nevertheless conclude that this equity-focused approach can be undertaken in a more decentralized, portfolio-based structure—should a community wish to take its district in that direction. The starting point of such a reform would be a restricting of authority, but a research-based model must also include elements that address opportunities to learn.

 

They offer the following five reforms:

 

Adequate funding provided to our neediest schools,
Stable school environments,
Meaningful and relevant curriculum and pedagogy,
Highly qualified teachers, and
Personalized instruction.
Welner is Director and Mathis is Managing Director of the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. This brief is the third in a series of concise publications, Research-Based Options for Education Policymaking, that takes up a number of important policy issues and identifies policies supported by research. Each section focuses on a different issue, and its recommendations to policymakers are based on the latest scholarship.

 

 

Find William Mathis and Kevin Welner’s brief on the NEPC website at: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/research-based-options

 

 

 

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Research
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