Archives for category: Corporate Reform

“In the Public Interest” is an organization dedicated to warning the public about the dangers of privatizing public services.

 

It has written a guidebook to explain to citizens what Social Impact Bonds are, how they work, who they benefit, and why they are dangerous for our society.

 

Shar Habibi, ITPI’s director of research, writes:

 

“Our guide is a must-read for any citizen or decision-maker trying to understand these new financing structures. It will help you ask tough questions to ensure that private dollars don’t create perverse incentives, fail to serve the neediest cases (also known as ‘creaming’), or distort measures of success for our most important social services.

“Ultimately, Pay for Success ignores the deeper cause of many of our growing social problems: underinvestment in the public interest. America desperately needs more investment in all our public services. Prevention-focused public funding of critical public services—like pre-K for all children and help for juveniles who end up in the criminal justice system—is our simplest and least expensive solution.”

Jonathan Pelto warns that the innocent-sounding group “Students for Education Reform” is actually a front for the hedge funders’ “Democrats for Education Reform.”Not many student-led groups have a budget in excess of $7 million. DFER is one of the richest and most insidious of the privatizers. Like all reformer groups, the name is intended to confuse the public about the purpose of the organization, which is to privatize public schools, not to reform them.

 

Pelto writes:

 

Dedicated to promoting the privatization of public education, more taxpayer funds for privately owned, but publicly funded charter schools, the Common Core, the Common Core testing scheme and a host of anti-teacher initiatives, Students for Education Reform, Inc. (SFER) was created in late 2009, according to their narrative, by a couple of undergraduate students at Princeton University.

Claiming to have over 100 chapters across the country, the “student run” advocacy group has, as of late last summer, collected more than $7.3 million since its inception to fund their “education reform” activities.

According to the organization’s most recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 990 reports (2014), in addition to the $5.7 million that has flowed into SFER’s coffers as of September 1, 2014, an additional $1.6 million has been collected by a closely-related company called the SFER Action Network Inc. which appears to serve as the political arm of SFER and formed in 2013.

Although Students for Education Reform is “run” by students, the self-described “grassroots” group is governed by a Board of Directors that is made up of some of the biggest corporate executives and players associated with the Corporate Education Reform Industry.

SFER’s website reports that the present Students for Education Reform Board of Directors includes;

April Chou (Chair) – The Chief Growth Officer at the KIPP Bay Area Charter School chain.

Adam Cioth (Treasurer) – The founder of Rolling Hills Capital hedge fund and a major funder of the public school privatization movement.

Christy Chin – The Managing Director of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, the philanthropy arm of the venture capital firm, Draper Richards. The Foundation is one of SFER’s funders.

Stuart Cobert – The Deputy General Counsel at the Unilever Corporation.

Justin Cohen – The President of Mass Insight, a major Education Reform Consulting company.

Shavar Jeffries – Recently appointed President of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), Jeffries was recently the unsuccessful “education reform” candidate for Mayor of Newark, New Jersey.

Nancy Poon Lue – A Partner in the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund

And Chris Stewart, Director of Outreach and External Affairs for the Gates Foundation funded Pro-Corporate Education Reform Blog called Education Post.

Until recently the SFER Board also included acclaimed education reform financier Jonathan Sackler (Whose activities include funding the Achievement First Inc. Charter School Chain, forming ConnCAN and 50CAN and serving on the Board of The New Schools Venture Fund) and Rebecca Ledley (A member of the UP Academy Charter School Company and spouse of Charles Ledley, who serves on the Board of Directors of Education Reform Now (ERN) and its affiliate, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER.)

 

There is more. Open the link. Think about the (hedgefunder) Wolf in (student) Sheep clothing.

 

 

 

Jamaal Bowman wrote a powerful and important letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo. Bowman is a Néw York City middle school principal.

Please read and share. Help it go viral. It is an incisive critique of corporate reform. When did it become “liberal” to attack unions, career teachers, and public education? This used to be the agenda of the far rightwing of the Republican Party.

He writes:

“I hope this letter finds you and your family in good health and good spirits. I write not only to you, but also to those who share your view of public education….

“I also want to personally thank you for allowing me to provide testimony to the common core commission at the College of New Rochelle…..The work of the commission, along with your hiring of Jere Hochman as Deputy Secretary of Education, has me very excited about the direction in which we are moving.

“My excitement turned to devastation however as I watched your November 17th interview with David Gergen at the Harvard Kennedy School of Public Leadership [link to video is in Bowman’s post]. As an education practitioner for sixteen years, it was both frustrating and disheartening to watch the two of you pontificate about public education in what I consider to be a dangerous and irresponsible manner.

“Your discussion was wide ranging; covering topics from police reform to the new construction at LaGuardia Airport. As the conversation shifted to education, you told the audience that you are in constant conflict with the teacher union. You shared that your “unabashed” support for charter schools, to which you refer to as “laboratories of invention,” as well as your teacher evaluation mandate, are two of the causes of this conflict. You also went on to share your excitement around the possibilities of technology as a means to help circumvent the “machine” of the teacher union bureaucracy.

“Mr. Gergen, to whom you refer to as one of the experts and craftsman of his generation, recklessly framed the conversation in a way that greatly mis-categorizes the public education narrative. Mr. Gergen stated that teacher unions don’t want “young smart” people from Teach for America entering the profession. He then went on to praise charter schools as places that provide “24/7 support to children and families,” and “really work with the children themselves.” While Mr. Gergen made these comments, you nodded your head enthusiastically in agreement.

“There are two things that are incredibly careless about this conversation. First, it lacks a valid and reliable research base. Second, the two of you have a platform to really shape public discourse. As such, you must take extra special care to avoid facilitating misinformation regarding public education or any other topic. If you don’t, the perpetuation of child suffering will continue in schools throughout the state — as it does in schools all over the country.

“What does the data tell us about these widely discussed topics? First, public schools as a whole “outperform” charter schools. I place the word outperform in quotes because of our narrow view of what it means to perform in public schools today. The few charter schools that are celebrated for closing the alleged “achievement gap” have faced extreme criticism and scrutiny for their draconian test prep and recruitment practices, and boast incredibly high student and staff attrition rates. Some may argue these practices are the price to pay for achievement, but consider these questions:

“Are we ready to accept the instability and emotional trauma that comes with schools designed around draconian test prep practices?

“Does high performance on standardized assessments truly equate to what we all mean by achievement?
Research shows otherwise: In 2003, the “gold standard” of charter schools, KIPP, had a graduating class that ranked fifth in New York City on the math standardized tests. Six years after entering college, only 21% of that cohort had earned a college degree.

“In the landmark book, ‘Crossing The Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities,’ former college presidents William G. Bowen and Michael S. McPherson found that student high school G.P.A. was more predictive of college success than S.A.T. scores.

“As you can see Mr. Governor, high performance on standardized tests alone do not equate to a quality education. What research identifies as a determinate of quality schools, lies in a well rounded curriculum inclusive of both academic and adaptive skills, where students get to solve problems creatively, work with their peers, and experience both teacher and student centered pedagogy.

“As to your comments regarding charter schools serving as “labs of invention,” allow me to remind you that some of the most innovative schools in the country are public schools right here in your state. From the NYC iSchool, to Westside Collaborative, to Brooklyn New School, to Quest to Learn, there is amazing work happening in unionized public schools that we all can learn from. Charter schools that promote silent breakfast, silent lunch, silent hallway transitions, and have teachers walking around with clipboards to give demerits to students who misbehave, do not sound like labs of invention to me — they sound like labs of oppression.

“Your statement related to wanting teacher evaluations because “right now we have none” is categorically false. Teachers have been evaluated throughout my entire career. With regard to the new evaluation system, the issue isn’t that teachers are averse to evaluations, they just want evaluations that are fair and just. An evaluation that is 50% aligned to invalid and unreliable tests, created by a 3rd party for-profit company, aligned to new standards and curriculum with minimal teacher input, is both unfair and unjust. What makes matters worse is by continuing to turn a deaf ear to the research on child and brain development, we continue to have an achievement gap that will never be closed by an evaluation system tied to test scores.

“Furthermore, why are charter schools exempt from your teacher evaluation plan? That also doesn’t seem fair or just.

“Regarding Mr. Gergen’s comments, teacher unions aren’t afraid of “young smart” teachers entering the profession. On the contrary, that is what they want! Teacher unions oppose Teach for America (TFA) because the majority of TFA recruits leave the classroom within three years, with most leaving the profession entirely. This obviously creates a continued vacuum in our most vulnerable communities and has indirectly undermined the recruitment and stability of teachers via traditional pathways. Further, Teach for America has been around for 25 years and our so called “achievement gap” has grown. Their impact has been a net zero at best for the profession.

“Mr. Gergen also seems to think only charter schools support students and families 24/7. To this I say check my phone records, and the phone records of educators throughout the country. We all love our students as our own children and we are constantly in touch with families into the evenings and on weekends to support them with whatever they need. Mr. Gergen disrespects and undermines the profession with these nonsensical statements.

“Lastly, regarding your excitement for technology, technology is simply a tool to help us get things done more efficiently and effectively. It will not in and of itself “revolutionize public education” as you say. The education revolution begins with a paradigm shift driven by the needs and brilliance of the children we serve.

“If we really want to transform public education, Mr. Governor, we have to stop investing in purchasing, administering, and scoring annual assessments from grades 3-8. We know 3rd grade reading scores predict future outcomes, so let’s invest heavily in early childhood education, teacher training, and school support. Lets focus on birth to age eight programs, implement a strong literacy and Montessori curriculum, and institute portfolio based assessments and apprenticeships in grades 6-12. If we do this, you will have a model education system for the world to aspire to.

“Mr. Governor, you, like many of your elected colleagues, are lawyers, not educators. I am an educator. I have been throughout my professional life. I do not know the law, and would never try to speak with any conviction about what should happen in a courtroom. What’s most dangerous about the public education discourse is the fact that finance, tech, government, and the “elite” are all driving the conversation without educators included. They have the audacity, to make life-altering decisions for other people’s children, while sending their children to independent schools.

“The masses of people, which are our most vulnerable, continue to be handled without empathy or care. Empathy requires that we walk in the shoes of others; something that charter reformers, common core advocates, and Teach for America has never done.

“In closing, I want to turn your attention back to your announcement of the Common Core commission. Do you realize that in that speech you mentioned the word “standards” ten times, and the word “tests” fifteen times, while only mentioning the word “learning” one time? Standards and tests are meaningless if they aren’t grounded in learning. Learning is innate, natural, and driven by the needs of children. This is why we must change the conversation from standards and testing to teaching and learning. This fundamental flaw in ideology continues to lead our education system down a destructive path.

“Further, although you and Mr. Gergen discussed innovation as essential to moving the education agenda forward, during your Common Core commission announcement the words creativity, collaboration, and communication, which many experts believe are pillars of innovation, received a total of zero mentions. Innovation is not just about using a computer, tablet, or smartphone; innovation is a way of thinking, doing, and being.

“Thank you Mr. Governor for all that you do for our state. In the future please be mindful to handle the topic of public education with extreme care. Be weary of your pro charter school advisors. The charter school money train and gentrification plans are well documented. Our work isn’t about teacher unions, charters, or technology; our work is about children — and the future of our democracy.”

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final say in reality.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

—

Jonathan Pelto notes the arrival of a new front group to promote charters in Connecticut. He also notes that the name is new, but the people are the same as the existing front groups.

“As Connecticut faces yet another massive state budget crisis, even more Pro-Charter School and Corporate Education Reform Industry money is flowing into Connecticut to help grease the charter school operators’ efforts to grab additional public funds courtesy of charter school aficionado and “education reform” groupie Governor Dannel Malloy.

“This time the corporate funded charter school lobbyists are calling themselves “Fight for Fairness CT” and are rallying in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford.

“Charter school organizers are using http://www.fightforfairnessct.org, a website that was created by a New York City advertising company on October 23 2015.

“Although they are calling themselves by a different name, the group is actually the same controversial New York based charter school lobby group known as “Families for Excellent Schools” http://www.familiesforexcellentschools.org/ except when they call themselves “Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy.”

“While their primary purpose has been to support Eva Moskowitz and the other New York Charter School operators, Families for Excellent Schools arrived in Connecticut from New York last year and registered both Families for Excellent Schools AND Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy as lobbying entities with Connecticut’s Office of State Ethics.

“However, Families for Excellent Schools immediately created a new front group called Coalition for Every Child, setting up a website named http://www.foreverychildct.org/

“When slapped for failing to register Coalition for Every Child with the Connecticut’s ethics office, the New Yorkers quickly changed their name to Families for Excellent Schools/Coalition for Every Child.

“This year Families for Excellent Schools has spent nearly $1.2 million lobbying in favor of Governor Malloy’s charter school and education reform initiatives.

“A quick glimpse at the newly formed http://www.fightforfairnessct.org will reveal the same logo as the old http://www.foreverychildct.org/, although they did change the color from Yellow to Blue to go along with the new t-shirts that Families for Excellent Schools are handing out to charter school parents and students in New York and Connecticut.”

The charter school kudzu.

Ted Dintersmith is a most unusual venture capitalist. He recently co-authored a book with Harvard professor Tony Wagner called “Most Likely to Succeed,” and also produced a documentary of the same name that is critical of rote learning, standardized testing, and no-excuses charter schools.

In this post, EduShyster interviews Ted Dintersmith, and he will surprise you with his candor. He has taken the documentary on the road, to show parents and students the value of project-based learning.

EduShyster asks Dintersmith whether there is any hope, and he tells her to look at any kindergarten and think about ways to capture the spirit and motivation you see there. (That is, unless it is a kindergarten that is subject to standardized testing.)

He answers:

When people say *is there any hope?* I say walk with me through kindergartens all over your state. Look at the the characteristics of every five year old. If we just didn’t screw that up there is every reason to be optimistic. If we could take those characteristics and develop them and make them more powerful through education, there’d be all sorts of reasons for optimism. What kids tell me in state after state—and I’ve now been in 25 out of 50 states with this film—is that when they have the chance to experience project-based learning, they thrive and blossom and develop confidence.

Dintersmith is a huge supporter of projects driven by students’ passions as opposed to adults compelling students to do what they expect of them. This is good news! A venture capitalist who has seen the light.

I am currently reading the book and enjoying it.

Anthony Cody gives us an overview of the past 14 years, in which the common theme is that teachers cannot be trusted to grade or assess their students.

Having survived the onerous and intrusive NCLB and the teacher-bashing of Race to the Top, educators and a growing part of the public realize that it is not the schools that are failing, it is the “reforms” of Bush and Obama.

So with the failure of test-based accountability, the next wave of disruptive innovation is upon us. Led by former Gates executive Tom Vanderbilt Ark, the latest thing is competency based learning and competency based assessment. The idea is even embedded in the President’s “Testing Action Plan.”

Cody writes:

“We have been badgered for the past 14 years by reformers insisting on the fierce urgency of change, and they have had their way – twice! First, seven years of NCLB, followed by the past seven years of Race to the Top, and now the “next generation” of tests, which were promised to be “smarter,” computer-adapted, and deliver results more quickly. None of it worked. Scores on the independent NAEP tests are flat or down. The SBAC and PARCC tests are more difficult without being any “smarter” in telling us about what our students can do. The idea that these tests could somehow promote and measure creativity and critical thinking is debunked. The growing opt out movement poses a huge threat to the standardized testing “measure to manage” paradigm.

“So what is to be done?

“Reinvent the tests once again, using technology. And who better for the job than Tom Vander Ark, formerly of the Gates Foundation, and now associated with a long list of education technology companies. The latest package of solutions is being called “competency based learning,” and it was featured prominently in the Department of Education’s latest “Testing Action Plan.”

So here we go again, but this time with the technology leading the way. This is the breakthrough that equity investors have been waiting for.

Don’t fall for it. Empower teachers, not computers, to assess their students.

Stop the financialization and monetization of public education. Don’t be fooled.

Last year, Camp Philos had its first meeting in a remote area of the Adirondacks of New York. Governor Cuomo was the keynote speaker at this gathering of philosophers who strategize about replacing public schools with private management and opening up the secure flow of government funding to private investors.

This year, the philosophers’ camp convened in Martha’s Vineyard, an equally inaccessible and very expensive location. It was in late October. Some of the stars of privatization were there, plus a few new faces.

The event was sponsored by the Broad Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and ConnCAN. The usual lineup of billionaires paid for this strategy session on how to steal democracy from the public, how to promote the ALEC agenda while calling yourself a Democrat.

Voters in Jefferson County recalled their rightwing school board. Voters in Douglas County replaced their pro-voucher school board.

But voters in Denver gave “reformers” a sweeping victory. The new board will be 7-0 in support of Superintendent Tom Boasberg’s DFER agenda. Robert Speth, the challenger to board president Happy Haynes, lost by less than 1,000 votes. Haynes recently was appointed by the mayor as director of parks for the city. There will not be a single dissenting vote on the board.

Film-makers Jack Paar and Ron Halpern are making a film about the corporate assault on public education.

It will be called “Corporatized.”

There are a growing number of videos about the corporate assault on public education. More are on the way. Videos are an important way of awakening the public to the well-coordinated threat to privatize public schools.

Here are some films and short videos that you should see and that you should show at community events

Standardized

Race to Nowhere

Inequality for All

Rise above the mark

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Standardized Testing

Refuse tests: a short film (3:33)

Change the Stakes

Go Public: A Day in the Life of an American School District

Beyond Measure

Standardized testing is not teaching

The Other PARCC

The Public School Wars

Hear Our Teachers

Heal Our Schools

http://theinconvenienttruthbehindwaitingforsuperman.com

https://vimeo.com/122720631 (Defies Measurement)

Education Inc.

[NOTE: This piece was cross-posted at Salon: http://www.salon.com/2015/10/26/our_real_charter_school_nightmare_the_new_war_on_public_schools_and_teachers/%5D

Peter Cunningham, who previously served as Arne Duncan’s Assistant Secretary for Communications, is a very charming fellow. When he left the administration, he returned to Chicago and was invited by the Broad Foundation to start a blog defending “reformers” who advocated for charter schools, high-stakes testing, teacher evaluation based on student test scores, and the rest of the Race to the Top agenda. The blog, called “Education Post,” received $12 million from the Broad Foundation, the Bloomberg Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and an anonymous donor.

Peter just wrote a column that puzzled me. It appeared on Huffington Post. He says that teachers’ unions should embrace “reform” if they want public education to survive. I was puzzled because the major thrust of “reform” as currently defined is to privatize as many schools as possible and to eliminate teachers’ unions.

He writes:

“America’s teachers unions probably will not put reform leaders like Newark’s Chris Cerf, Philadelphia’s William Hite, D.C’s Kaya Henderson, or Denver’s Tom Boasberg at the top of their Christmas card mailing list. But they should, because no one is working harder to improve and preserve traditional, unionized, district-run schools.

“Yes, these and other reform superintendents support creating new, high-quality schools, including public charters, and giving all parents the power to choose the right schools for their children. But they and their leadership teams are most deeply committed to investing in and strengthening the existing district-run schools. No one wants these schools to work for kids more than these district leaders.”

Cunningham attributes opposition to charters solely to unions trying to protect their membership and their revenue. Why should unions feel threatened by privately managed charters? As Cunningham notes, 93% of charters are non-union. Cunningham thinks that everyone who opposes turning public tax revenues over to private operators has the sinister motive of protecting the unions. He even says that pro-public education bloggers are merely union fronts. Whether they are teachers, academics, or journalists, Cunningham can’t see any reason for them to question charters other than their allegiance to the unions.

“Charter critics claim that charters pull resources and higher achieving students away from traditional public schools, but, in a poll conducted by Education Post, 65 percent of parents rejected this argument. Instead, they agreed that public charters offer high quality options to parents who have been traditionally denied the power of school choice.

“Teacher unions, who need unionized teachers and dues in order to exist, are fighting desperately to convince parents to stay with the traditional, district-run schools. But rather than appealing to parents on the strength of the education that traditional schools offer, their strategy primarily focuses on limiting funding for charters, capping their growth or organizing their teachers to join a union.

“At the same time, teacher unions have mobilized teacher bloggers, academics, pseudo-journalists and various non-profit organizations to ignore or smear the great work of high-performing charters. They rail against the small percentage that aren’t serving kids well and that reform leaders agree should be, well, reformed.”

What you learn from reading Cunningham’s article is how little he understands about the role of public education in a democracy. He doesn’t know how public schools are central, traditional, and beloved public institutions in most communities. Does he not know that every national poll shows that parents think well of their own local public school?

Why would Cunningham cite a poll in the conservative journal Education Next to rebut charges that charter schools skim the students they want and that charters draw funding away from public schools? These issues are questions of fact, not of public opinion.

How can he not know that many high-performing charters screen out the students with the greatest needs? Was he unaware of the federal GAO report criticizing charters for their small numbers of students with disabilities? Was he unaware of lawsuits filed on behalf of students with disabilities who were excluded from charter schools? How can he not know that charters in some communities, like Chester-Upland in Pennsylvania, are bankrupting the local public schools? How can he not be upset by the avaricious behavior of for-profit charters? Does he not know that the NCAA stripped accreditation from two dozen virtual charter schools because of their low quality? How can he not be outraged by the terrible education offered by virtual charters? How can he overlook the actions of charter operators in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and other states, where charters are known for their lack of accountability and their poor performance?

I am a critic of charters. I wasn’t always opposed to charters. In 1998, I testified for a charter law before the New York legislature. I thought that charters would enroll the neediest students, the ones who dropped out or were about to drop out. I thought they would share what they learned with the local public schools. I thought this collaboration would help students and strengthen public education.

But it hasn’t worked this way. I never imagined that charters would exclude the neediest students or that they would compete with public schools and boast about their higher test scores. I never imagined that charters would bus their students and parents to political rallies to demand the closing of public schools and the diversion of more money to charter operators. I never imagined that tax dollars would flow to for-profit schools and corporations. I never imagined that charters would be granted to non-educators. I could not have dreamed of charter chains taking the place of community schools.

I grew up in Texas at a time when there was a dual school system. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a dual school system was unconstitutional. It seems that “reformers” today want to re-establish a dual school system: one composed of charters that are free of most state regulations and free to write their own admission rules and discipline rules; this system has the financial support of billionaire hedge fund managers and philanthropists, as well as the U.S. Department of Education. The other system is the public schools, which are bound by law to accept all students, to abide by district, state, and judicial rules governing discipline, and–usually–due process for educators. So charter schools are free to choose their students and avoid regulations.

Does Peter Cunningham know that no high-performing nation in the world has privately managed charter or vouchers? They have strong, well-resourced, equitable public school systems. Privatization favors the haves and disadvantages the have-nots. It increases segregation and inequity.

That’s why so many people oppose privatization. Not because they are controlled by the teachers’ unions, but because they sincerely believe that public services should not be privatized but should remain under public, democratic control.