Archives for category: Corporate Reform
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Jon Pelto: Is Gov. Malloy the Scott Walker of Connecticut?

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2015 //
8

Jonathan Pelto notes with alarm that Connecticut Governor Dannell Malloy will be the next chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.

The respected blog “Academe” reposted Jon ‘s excellent post entitled, The Malloy Administration’s stunning attack on unions, professors and the future of Connecticut State University.

Jon writes:

“While people across the nation may not know it, in a few months, Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy will be taking the helm of the Democratic Governors Association. In that position he will claim to be speaking for the nation’s Democratic governors and be responsible for electing more Democratic governors in the 2016 election cycle.

“Having already pushed through the deepest cuts in state history to Connecticut’s public institutions of higher education, the neoliberal, pro-Corporate Education Reform Industry governor is now engaged in an unprecedented attack on faculty at both Connecticut State University (now under the Connecticut Board of Regents) and the University of Connecticut.

“For the first time in UConn history, the Board of Trustees, which is made up of the governor’s political appointees and donors, have hired an outside, out-of-state, Chris Christie affiliated, anti-union law firm to lead the attack on the UConn AAUP. You can read more about the Malloy administration’s approach at UConn at: New Jersey lawyer known for privatization effort leads UConn bargaining effort against faculty. And UConn hires Gov. Chris Christie connected law firm to negotiate contract with faculty union.”

“And now, as yesterday’s post explains, the Malloy administration dropped a contract proposal on Connecticut State University – AAUP faculty that eliminates a requirement that the institution declare financial exigency before firing tenured and non-tenured faculty and eliminates the requirement that prior to taking that “nuclear option,’ the management first meet with the AAUP chapter to discuss and find alternative solutions to firing tenured faculty. In addition, Malloy’s contract proposal takes the unprecedented step of inserting “Agency Fee” language into the contract itself, even though the matter is well settled and does not appear in any of the other State Employee contracts that cover more than the 45,000 Connecticut unionized state employees.”

Is Dannell Malloy the Scott Walker of the Democratic Party?

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reform

Peter Greene Explains the Real Reason No Democrat Will Go to Campbell Brown’s Party

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2015 //
18

Campbell Brown announced she was holding a televised debate on education issues for Democratic candidates, and no one accepted her invitation. She blames the teachers’ unions, and the media are parroting her.

Are they shunning her because they know she is a far-right Republican, and Dems don’t participate in debates organized by the other party?

Peter Greene explains the real reason.

She is just not that important.

Frankly, I have been trying to interest public education groups to organize a forum for Democratic candidates on education. There are many tough questions we need to ask them about equity, testing, privatization, strengthening the teaching profession, resources, and many other issues.

Now, that would be a newsworthy forum, and I hope to find a leader among public education advocates to make it happen.

Categories Corporate Reform, Democrats

Sam Chaltain: Are the Edu-Wars Finally Over?

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2015 //
71

Blogger Sam Chaltain says that there used to be a monumental struggle between two extremes: on one side were the “New-Schoolers,” led by Michelle Rhee, who were champions of choice, TFA, charters, and so forth. On the other were the “Old-Schoolers,” led by me, representing “tenured elders, district loyalists, progressive die-hards, etc.”

Now, writes Sam, the battle is over, old hat, finished, and done, because he is part of a group that has envisioned a new paradigm for American education that is “that clearly places students at the center by making learning more personalized, relevant, and real-world-situated.”

To wit, check out the website of the Convergence Policy Center’s Education Reimagined project (full disclosure: I’m a contributor). For two years, Convergence has been gathering almost thirty of us – practitioners and policymakers, “Deformers” and “Status-Quo’ers,” Progressives and Conservatives, union leaders and union critics – to spend time together, for the purpose of seeing if they could ever get all of us to agree on anything.

And they did! They found a great Convergence!

The wars are over! Forget the Vergara trial to take away teachers’ due process rights. Forget Eli Broad’s move to take over half the students in the Los Angeles Unified School District and his plans to charterize the District of Columbia. Forget Scott Walker’s efforts to eliminate public education in Milwaukee, and eventually in other parts of Wisconsin. Forget the hedge funders who pour millions of dollars into state and local school board races and who buy politicians with strategic donations. Stop worrying so much about poverty and segregation.

All of those concerns are Old School.

Is Sam right? Are the wars over? Should we stop resisting and get out of the way of the Great Convergence?

If the battle is over, I am ready to quit; is Eli Broad? is Bill Gates? is Scott Walker? is John Kasich? is Rick Scott? is Bobby Jindal? will the hedge fund guys put away their checkbooks? If I stop, and they don’t, what will happen to the teaching profession? What will happen to public education?

What do you think? I am listening and reading.

Categories Corporate Reform, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Teacher Tenure

Meet the Chair of the Cuomo Commission: A Textbook Case of “Failing Upward”

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2015 //
14

A reader sent this article about the remarkable and surprising career of Richard Parsons, the businessman who will chair the Cuomo Commission to review the Common Core standards and assessments.

Parsons, the article says, is a glorious exemplar of “failing up,” something that happens only in the business world. He dropped out of high school and got a GED. He dropped out of the University of Hawaii. Nonetheless, he entered the corporate world and moved up and up. He was chairman of the Dime Savings Bank, which failed. He was chairman of AOL Time Warner, which was a disastrous merger. He then became chairman of Citigroup. That did not end well either.

Last month, shareholders finally rebelled against Citigroup, the worst of the Too Big To Fail bailout disasters, by filing a lawsuit against outgoing chairman Dick Parsons and handful of executives for stuffing their pockets while running the bank into the ground.
Anyone familiar with Dick Parsons’ past could have told you his term as Citigroup’s chairman would end like this: Shareholder lawsuits, executive pay scandals, and corporate failure on a colossal scale. It’s the Dick Parsons Management Style. In each of the three companies Parsons was appointed to lead, they all failed spectacularly, and somehow Parsons and a handful of top executives always walked away from the yellow-tape crime scenes unscathed.

This past April, for his final act as Citigroup’s chairman, Dick Parsons made sure that Citi’s top executives were handsomely rewarded for their failures. He arranged a pay package for CEO Vikram Pandit amounting to $53 million despite the fact that Citi’s stock plummeted 44% last year, and has woefully underperformed other bank stocks even by their low standards.

Citigroup, as you might recall, got the largest bailout of any banking institution, larger than BofA’s– $50 billion in direct funds, and over $300 billion more in “stopgap” federal guarantees on the worthless garbage in Citi’s “assets” portfolio. Those are just the most obvious bailouts Citi received—this doesn’t take into account the flood of free cash, the murky mortgage-backed securities buyback programs, the accounting rules changes that allowed banks like Citi to decide how much their assets “should be worth” as opposed to what they’re really worth on their beloved free-market, and so on…
So just as Dick Parsons stepped down as Citigroup chairman last month, shareholders finally rebelled, suing Parsons, CEO Pandit and a handful of executives for corporate plunder.

How to explain his miraculous rise to the top?


Dick Parsons’ biography can be summed up in two phases of his life: before meeting Nelson Rockefeller, and after meeting Nelson Rockefeller.
Before meeting Nelson Rockefeller, Dick Parsons was a self confessed clown from a middle-class African-American family in Brooklyn. “Left to my own devices, I don’t feel any compulsion to strive,” he told to the New York Times. Race was never an issue with Parsons either: ”I don’t have any experience in my life where someone rejected me for race or any other reason.’

So Parsons dropped out of high school with a “C” average, earning a GED certificate. He enrolled in the University of Hawaii for reasons he could never really explain, joined a frat, and became their social chairman. As one of Parsons’ frat brohs recalled to journalist Nina Munk, “Here’s this guy who’s at the bar sixty-seven days in a row and, as you can imagine, he did very poorly in school.”

Parsons did worse than poorly: He flunked out of U. Hawaii. Without earning a degree.

And then slacker Dick Parsons met oligarch Nelson Rockefeller, and from here on out, Parsons lived out a Cinderella fairytale for the One Percenters. As luck would have it, Dick Parsons’ grandfather was once a favorite groundskeeper at the famous Rockefeller Compound in Pocantico Hills and lived in a hut on in the shadow of the oligarchs’ mansion. Soon, Dick Parsons and his wife would move into one of those same groundskeepers huts under Nelson Rockefeller’s patronage.

As Parsons later admitted, “The old-boy network lives…I didn’t grow up with any of the old boys. I didn’t go to school with any of the old boys. But by becoming a part of that Rockefeller entourage, that created for me a group of people who’ve looked out for me ever since.”

Just the right person to lead the Cuomo Commission on the Common Core standards and assessments. Especially given his deep knowledge of standards, assessment, and curriculum.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reform, Cuomo, Andrew, Standardized Testing

Laura Chapman: What Charters Do Best

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2015 //
90

People often wonder why hedge fund managers and entrepreneurs are so devoted to the proliferation of charter schools and so hostile to public schools. If you survey the research, it is clear that they get about the same results overall as public schools. There are some that get high scores, but they usually get them by cherry picking the most motivated and able students. Some are fly-by-night operations.

What’s the lure? I believe that some number of the 1% who love charters are motivated by a desire to do good. Others think the free-market of choice and competition will work wonders. Still others are motivated by profit. None are at all concerned that they are inflicting grievous harm on a basic public institution that is central to our democracy. Or they they are experimenting on other people’s children.

Laura H. Chapman reminds us of the power and allure of profits.

She writes:

In Forbes magazine, 2013, by Allison Wiggin.

“About the only thing charters do well is limit the influence of teachers’ unions. And fatten their investors’ portfolios.

In part, it’s the tax code that makes charter schools so lucrative: Under the federal “New Markets Tax Credit” program that became law toward the end of the Clinton presidency, firms that invest in charters and other projects located in “underserved” areas can collect a generous tax credit — up to 39% — to offset their costs.

So attractive is the math, according to a 2010 article by Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News, “that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.”

It’s not only wealthy Americans making a killing on charter schools. So are foreigners, under a program critics call “green card via red carpet.”

“Wealthy individuals from as far away as China, Nigeria, Russia and Australia are spending tens of millions of dollars to build classrooms, libraries, basketball courts and science labs for American charter schools,” says a 2012 Reuters report.

The formal name of the program is EB-5, and it’s not only for charter schools. Foreigners who pony up $1 million in a wide variety of development projects — or as little as $500,000 in “targeted employment areas” — are entitled to buy immigration visas for themselves and family members.

“In the past two decades,” Reuters reports, “much of the investment has gone into commercial real estate projects, like luxury hotels, ski resorts and even gas stations. Lately, however, enterprising brokers have seen a golden opportunity to match cash-starved charter schools with cash-flush foreigners in investment deals that benefit both.”

More at.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/09/10/charter-school-gravy-train-runs-express-to-fat-city/

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Unions

Big New Reform Idea: Bankruptcy

By dianeravitch
September 30, 2015 //
38

Jonas Persson of the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch reports on a panel discussion in Néw Orleans about speeding up the dismantling of public education.

The event was a conference sponsored by the voucher-loving American Federation for Children, celebrating the privatization of Néw Orleans schools.

The panel Persson describes was called “Knocking out Yesterday’s Education Models” but a panelist “joked that the working title of the panel had been “What Happens After You Blow it All Up?”

Persson writes:

“But in the absence of a new hurricane that would sweep away public schools, a man-made calamity might do the trick. Such was the argument of Rebecca Sibilia, who is the CEO of a new non-profit education group: Edbuild.

“When you think of bankruptcy … this is a huge opportunity. Bankruptcy is not a problem for kids; bankruptcy is a problem for the people governing the system, right? So, when a school district goes bankrupt all of their legacy debt can be eliminated . . . How are we going to pay for the buildings? How are we going to bring in new operators when there is pension debt? Look, if we can eliminate that in an entire urban system, then we can throw all the cards up in the air, and redistribute everything with all new models. You’ve heard it first: bankruptcy might be the thing that leads to the next education revolution,” Sibilia explained.”

This has already happened in Chester Uplands, Pennsylvania, where the district’s exorbitant payments to charter schools has brought it to fiscal collapse, requiring a loan from the state to make payroll. It could happen in cities like Philadelphia and even Los Angeles, as the charter sector siphons away the best students and resources that cause the district to cut programs and lay off teachers.

At some point the tipping point comes, and the parasite sucks the life out of the host. That’s the reformers’ end game,

– See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/12932#.dpuf

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Vouchers

See “Heal Our Schools”! Sponsor a Showing in Your Town

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2015 //
4

Laurie Gabriel is a teacher who decided to take action to save her profession and students. She directed and produced an excellent documentary called “Heal Our Schools.” Below is her schedule of showings.

My favorite scenes: when she interviews three critics of teachers, then invites them to teach a lesson. It is hilarious!

Contact Laurie to show it in your community.

She writes:

Heal Our Schools Fall Screening Schedule – add your city to the list!

Heal Our Schools is a teacher-produced film about giving classroom control back to teachers.

NEED VENUES IN LA ON OCTOBER 18 AND ALBUQUERQUE NOVEMBER 20!

OCTOBER 2 – DENVER
10:00 am, Elvis Cinema, 7400 E. Hampden Ave.

OCTOBER 3 – DENVER
2:30 pm, First Unitarian Church, 4101 E. Hampden Ave.

OCTOBER 18 – LOS ANGELES
evening – looking for venue/charity to share in proceeds!

OCTOBER 19 – SAN FRANCISCO
7:00 pm, – First Unitarian Church, 1187 Franklin St.

OCTOBER 20 – SEATTLE
7:00 pm, Freedom Socialist Hall, 5018 Ranier Ave. S.

OCTOBER 24 – BOULDER / LAFAYETTE CO
2:00 pm, Running River School 1370 Forest Park Circle, Lafayette

NOVEMBER 5-7 MINNEAPOLIS, MN
Details pending

NOVEMBER 12 – 14 YAKIMA /TRI-CITIES WA
Details TBA

NOVEMBER 19 – SANTA FE NM
7:00 pm, Center for Progress and Justice, 1420 Cerrillos Rd.

NOVEMBER 20 – ALBUQUERQUE
evening – looking for venue/charity to share in proceeds!

Call 719-213-6850 or email laurie@healourschools.org for more information.

Categories Corporate Reform, Teachers and Teaching

New Jersey: How Gov. Christie Is Stealing from Public Schools While Protecting Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2015 //
7

David Rutherford is in his first year as a member the the school board in Plainfield, New Jersey. He dug into the budget and discovered that the state of Néw Jersey is cheating the children of Plainfield. Since the election of Chris Christie, the state has ignored a law requiring that it fund schools based on student needs. Plainfield has been shorted by millions of dollars. Rutherford estimates that Plainfield is owed $70 million by the state.

Guess who has not been shorted? Charter schools, which have the backing of several prominent hedge fund billionaires in Néw Jersey.

Charter schools have been sucking students and dollars out of the Plainfield public schools.

Until now, the fiscally responsible Plainfield district had been running a surplus. But it won’t last.

Rutherford writes:

“But surplus is a finite resource, and long term the picture is far more grim. The state of New Jersey’s refusal to pay districts the funds they deserve and the over-funding of charter schools will become growing problems for which this district, and many others, must find difficult long term solutions. Millions of dollars in lost money will undoubtably have a grave impact on students and the community.

“Applying the Pressure

“We must demand that Chris Christie and the New Jersey State Legislature cease to steal from the neediest public school districts while keeping charter schools afloat. Language that allows for charter over-payment must be removed from next year’s budget.

“The Highland Park and Paterson Boards of Education have already passed resolutions demanding that the Legislature take a stand and eliminate that language. In fact, you can read Highland Park’s resolution, which has been accepted in principle by the New Jersey School Boards Association and should be up for vote at the next School Board Delegate Assembly meeting on November 26th.

“Seven million dollars in over-payments on top of $70 million in underfunding over the course of the past six years is nothing short of theft, and the blame falls on a bipartisan coalition of our leaders in Trenton. This includes the two-thirds Democratic State Assembly and Senate. They must be held accountable.”

 

If policies like Néw Jersey’s stay in place, districts like Plainfield will go bankrupt, setting them up for privatization. There will be many others in the same situation. Good news for hedge fund managers who want to destroy public education. Bad news for kids, teachers, public education, and democracy.

Categories Budget Cuts, Corporate Reform, Funding, New Jersey, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

Corporate Reformers Swarm Atlanta Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2015 //
28

With the Georgia legislature poised to create a statewide charter district modeled on Tennessee’s failed “Achievement School District,” the usual cast of reform characters has rushed in to privatize as many of Atlanta’s public schools as they can get away with.

Here comes the Boston Consulting Group, the Waltons, and many more, looking to transfer schools from democratic to private control.

Categories Atlanta, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform

Broad and Walton Fund a Study to Promote More Charters Schools in D.C.

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2015 //
18

Big surprise. A study funded by the Broad Foundation and the Walton Foundation recommends more charters for the District of Columbia.

The report, “A Tale of Two Systems: Education Reform in Washington D.C.,” was funded by the Walton Family Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. The Washington-based Progressive Policy Institute promotes market-based solutions to public policy issues. It appears that the long-term goal is to turn the entire district into a charter district, although a few public schools might remain open to enroll the students the charters don’t want.

The new study looks at the history of education reform in the city and includes research showing greater academic improvements in charter schools. It compares District and national test scores that show bigger gains for charter schools, particularly among African American and poor students.

It notes that comparisons are difficult because charter and traditional schools serve different demographics. Charter schools serve families who actively choose their schools, which can indicate a higher level of family commitment to education. D.C. Public Schools serve more students in crisis, who are are homeless or returning from jail, experts say. Also, charter schools don’t accept students after a certain month of the year or grade level, so they tend to serve a more stable group of students.

But the report argues that the governance model is the most important difference in the larger gains.

“It creates an environment in which the extraordinary measures necessary to effectively educate poor, minority children are not only easier to implement, they are virtually required if schools are to survive,” the report says.

In an interview, Osborne predicted that in 30 to 50 years, most urban districts will have mostly charter schools or other types of schools that are given more autonomy and expected to perform or be closed. “The magic is not in the word ‘charter,’ it’s in that arms-length relationship with the system,” he said.

So, even though most research shows that charters do not outperform ordinary public schools on average, D.C. should push for more and more charters. The report acknowledges that the remanning public schools serve children with greater needs than the charters, but so what. The charters get higher test scores because they don’t have the kids who have severe disabilities, the ELLs, the homeless, the students in crisis, and those returning from jail.

It must be the autonomy that makes the charters so terrific, not the fact that they exclude the kids who are most challenging and most expensive to educate.

Why don’t the Broads and Waltons come up with another pastime?

Why should the nation abandon public education because they like the free market that made them billionaires?

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Walton Foundation
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