Archives for category: Corporate Reform
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Jon Pelto: Connecticut Gov. Malloy and the Politics of Appeasement

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2015 //
6

Jon Pelto is shocked that Democratic legislators in Connecticut are afraid to confront Governor Dannel Malloy. The governor vetoed a bill that would establish qualifications for the State Commissioner of Education.

Despite their overwhelming–almost total–support for the legislation, the legislature refuses to override the Governor’s veto. This leaves the Governor free to hire another inept and politically motivated superintendent who is in the pocket of the super-rich charter industry.

Pelto writes:

“In preparation for the Connecticut General Assembly’s 2015 constitutionally required veto session, Democratic legislative leaders announced yesterday that no votes would be taken on whether to sustain or override the nine bills vetoed by Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy during this year’s legislative session.

“The most noteworthy of the bills that the Democrats are unwilling to bring up for a vote is PA 15-176, which was House Bill 6977, AN ACT ESTABLISHING QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION.

“The legislation requires that any person serving as Connecticut’s Commissioner of Education have an appropriate education degree and teaching experience.

“The legislation arose in response to Governor Malloy’s decision to name Stefan Pryor, a charter school founder and corporate education reform industry advocate, to be his first commissioner of education, despite the fact that Pryor had no educational experience.

“Stefan Pryor’s performance as Malloy’s Education Commissioner led both Democrats and Republicans to call for legislation requiring future leaders of the state department of education to have the requisite education experience.

“The General Assembly’s Education Committee held a public hearing on House Bill #6977 and went on to pass the legislation by a vote of 32 – 0.

“At no time did Malloy or his administration testify against the bill or publicly announce any opposition to the concept.

“The bill went to pass the Connecticut State Senate by a vote of 36 – 0 and the Connecticut House of Representatives by a vote of 138-5.

“In the end, only one Democratic legislator voted against the bill.

“With its passage, HB6977 become Connecticut Public Act 15-176.

“But despite the overwhelming level of support displayed for the bill by the Connecticut General Assembly, Governor Malloy vetoed the legislation.”

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reform

Kansas Teachers Leaving Due to Budget Cuts, Punitive Policies

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2015 //
33

Emily Richmond at The Atlantic reports on the exodus of teachers from Kansas.

“Frustrated and stymied by massive budget cuts that have trimmed salaries and classroom funding, Kansas teachers are “fleeing across the border” to neighboring states that offer better benefits and a friendlier climate for public education, NPR’s Sam Zeff reported.

To be sure, this is a tough time for the Sunflower State, where funding shortfalls forced a half-dozen districts to shorten their academic calendars, and teacher jobs are being advertised on billboards. But it’s hardly an outlier. Las Vegas, home to the nation’s fifth-largest school district, is undergoing a particularly brutal struggle to recruit, and keep, enough new teachers for the upcoming academic year. (After all, how many superintendents have been reduced to zipline stunts to draw attention to a hiring crisis, as was the case with the Las Vegas district’s Pat Skorkowsky?) And it doesn’t take much to find stories of teacher shortages in Arizona and Indiana, among many others….

“One solution: Residency programs that provide new teachers with intensive mentoring, coaching, and support for their first few years in the profession are gaining in popularity. But an underlying issue is that fewer people are opting to become teachers, and when they do, about half will quit within five years. Indeed, in last year’s Gallup poll, the percentage of people who said they didn’t want their children to become teachers jumped to 43 percent from 33 percent a decade earlier.”

The so-called reform movement has succeeded in making teaching an undesirable profession. Not only are teachers quitting, unable to live on meager salaries, but the number of people who want to be teachers has sharply declined. This fits the agenda of the reformers, who want to replace teachers with computers, encourage the retirement of costly experienced teachers, and turn teaching into a low-wage, high-turnover job rather than a profession.

Categories Budget Cuts, Corporate Reform, Kansas, Teachers

Beware of Stack Ranking Employees

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2015 //
38

Big data has captured the imagination of many corporate executives, but it has its limitations. When evaluations are turned into numbers and used to rank employees from best to worst, it crushes motivation. This was W. Edwards Deming’s advice many years ago, but then Bill Gates of Microsoft and Jack Welch of GE emerged as gurus of stack ranking.

But, lo! New studies confirm that stack ranking has negative consequences.

An article in the business section of the Néw York Times reports that stack ranking hurts morale.

“Big Data has made it possible to measure employee performance more thoroughly than ever. But two recent studies offer a warning: Be careful about how you deploy that data.

“Many managers assume that distributing a ranking of their employees’ performance is an effective motivational tool, said Iwan Barankay, an associate professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The idea is that lower-ranking employees will strive to improve, while higher-ranking ones will work to maintain their edge.

“Professor Barankay sought to test this assumption in a study of 1,500 furniture sales workers that he conducted over three years in North America. One group of sales workers was shown how their sales ranked compared with their colleagues. Another group was not shown a comparison, but only their individual results.

“Professor Barankay found that the sales representatives who did not know how they ranked achieved higher subsequent sales than those who were aware of their comparative ranking. The results of the workers who had received high rankings neither improved nor worsened.

“Human nature combined with simple math caused the lower-ranking workers to falter, according to Professor Barankay. Most people optimistically assume that they are above average in their performance, he said. But real life is not Lake Wobegon, and most people, when measured against one another, will inevitably rank as average or below average. For these people, seeing their rank is demoralizing, causing their performance to wilt.”

Now it is time to read Deming. I recommend chapter 9 of Andrea Gabor’s book about Deming titled “The Man Who Discovered Quality.” Deming was adamantly opposed to perfoance pay or anything that undermined employees’ morale and collaboration. His message was to choose your employees well and give them the support to succeed. Most failures are system failures. Don’t blame the frontline workers for problems caused by the system.

Categories Corporate Reform, Data and Data Mining

Can a Privatizer “Improve” Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2015 //
9

Can a fox be trusted to guard the henhouse? Can the guy who oversaw the Néw Orleans experiment in privatization be counted on to “improve” public schools? Does the Laura and John Arnold Foundation care about anything other than privatization and taking away defined benefit pensions from public sector workers? John Arnold was a very successful Enron trader, now a philanthropist and advocate for charter schools.

Reader Chiara contributed this development:

“HOUSTON, TX—The Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF) today announced that Neerav Kingsland has joined the Foundation as a senior education fellow. Mr. Kingsland will oversee the Foundation’s efforts to improve K-12 education. Most recently, he served as the chief executive officer of New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO), a nonprofit organization working to ensure that every child in New Orleans, Louisiana, is able to attend a high-quality public school.”

This is the guy that wants to privatize all public schools, right? Glad to see the ed reform “movement” is moving towards ever-more extreme policy and practice.

Can someone who wants to eliminate public schools really “improve” public schools? If the ed reform movement attaches no value at all to schools that now exist, are they really likely to go about “improving” them with any kind of appreciation for the downside risk inherent in replacing them with the privatized model?

http://www.arnoldfoundation.org/neerav-kingsland-joins-the-laura-and-john-arnold-foundation-as-a-senior-education-fellow/

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Privatization

Poll: Public Rejects Cuomo on Education

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2015 //
10

The respected Sienna College poll finds that nearly 3/4 of the public disapproves of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s education policies.

Cuomo rails against public schools and their teachers. He has no constitutional authority for education but has used the budget process to insert high-stakes tests for teachers. He is a champion for privately managed charter schools. He tried to get vouchers for religious schools, but while failing to do so, won $250 million for them.

The public doesn’t like his anti-public school policies.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Cuomo, Andrew, New York

The Corporate Assault on Education: MUST-READ!

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2015 //
37

This is an incredible article. Please read it.

Kristen Steele’s article is titled “Education: the Next Corporate Frontier: Exposing Power and Evil in a Neoliberal World.”

Steele is an environmental activist who realized that the push for corporate profits has invaded education, as it has so many other sectors of the global economy.

She begins:

“I’m no education expert. Having worked in the environmental and new economy fields for the last two decades, my main concern when it comes to schooling has been what children learn. Along with most activists I know, I’d like to see kids get outdoors more, learn about the intricacies of ecosystems, understand the urgency of climate change, experience growing their own food, and acquire the knowledge and understanding essential to becoming environmentally-conscious citizens. I’d like school reform to be a part of rebuilding vibrant local economies and sustainable communities. This is what I thought was at the heart of the struggle for better education. But there’s a battle being waged on a different front. One that will overwhelm and undo any improvements we’ve made if social and environmental activists don’t join in the fight.

“Over the last thirty years or so, private corporations have been steadily taking over school systems all around the world. Going hand in hand with “free” trade and development, the privatization of education is simply another step towards corporate control of the entire economy. If you’re tuned in to education news in the US, you may be familiar with the public school closures in Chicago, the so-called Recovery School District in New Orleans, and the proposed budget cuts in Milwaukee that have brought parents, students and teachers into the streets. But few of us hear about how students in Chile have been protesting for nearly a decade against rampant privatization that has increased economic inequality. Or how the UK government recently passed an education act allowing the conversion of all state schools into privately run “academies”. Or how Structural Adjustment Programs and development aid have paved the way for privatization of schools acrossAfrica, which has resulted in reduced enrollment of girls and exclusion of the poorest children. Or how similar takeovers are happening in Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, India, and many other countries.

“Privatization exists in different forms, including vouchers, public private partnerships, low-fee private schools, and charter schools. Whatever it’s called, it amounts to the same thing: private corporations gaining control of and profiting from an essential public function. In every country, the identical argument is used: public schools are failing, reform is needed and big business will do it best, providing choice and efficiency. If the statistics don’t match the argument, they are concealed or doctored to fit.

“Privatization in education is eerily reminiscent of every other sector that has come under corporate control; many of the justifications and methods are exactly the same. Just as in agriculture, technology is touted as creating “efficiency.” Just as in healthcare, we’re presented with the illusion of “consumer choice.” Just as in global trade, corporations are deregulated and given generous subsidies. Just as in manufacturing, skilled employees are displaced by underpaid workers with no job security. Just as in energy, the profit motive trumps the wellbeing of people and planet. Just as in politics, legislation is influenced by rich private interests. In none of these sectors has corporate control brought about increased wellbeing for any but the richest segment of society. Why will education be any different?”

Read the rest.

Send this article to your friends, your elected officials, members of your state and local school boards, journalists, anyone else you can think of. It is that important.

Groups like Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform Now, Students First, Campbell Brown’s The 74, and foundations like Gates, Walton, Broad, Dell, Arnold, Helmsley, and dozens more are leading this mass takeover of a crucial public institution.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

A Report from Parody Central

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2015 //
7

A reader called NY Teacher sent the following comment:

“Welcome to Parody Central. They almost make this too easy.

“My apologies to Mr. Zimmerman:

“Must Be Bubbled-In” (Blowin in the Wind)

How many tests must a child withstand
Before we can kill this scam?
How many years will we need to resist?
With so many heads in the sand?
Yes, how many tests must our children endure?
Before test-and-punish is banned?
Right answers my friend, must be bubbled-in
Right answers again and again.

Yes, how many years can Arne still test?
Before he ends up like Rhee?
Yes, how many years can he still insist?
Before even Bill disagrees?
Yes, how many times can Congress turn its head?
Pretending they just cannot see?
Right answers my friend, must be bubbled-in
Right answers again and again.

Yes, how many tests must a child still take?
Before we really know why?
Yes, how many doubts must one nation have?
Before we can hear children cry?
Yes, how many fails will it take till we know
That too many people have lied?
Right answers my friend, must be bubbled-in
Right answers again and again

And if you’re a Paul Simon fan:

When we look back at
All the crap they taught in pre-school
It’s a wonder
Kids can think at all
This lack of rigor in education
Has hurt them some
Why can’t they close-read the writing on the wall

Common – Core- ore-ore
It ‘em gives questions full rigor
Marches to just one drummer
Makes them know all the world’s a gritty day
I got a Coleman standard
Love to give a Pearson test
So Ravitch don’t take our Common Core away
So Ravitch don’t take our Common Core away
So Ravitch don’t take our Common Core away
If you took all the teachers we knew
Back in high school
And brought them all together for one night
We know they’d couldn’t match
Arne’s weak imagination
Everything looks worse in black and white

A little Neil?

The Testing and the Damage Done

We caught you knockin’
at our classroom doors
You test our babies,
with your Common Core
Ooh, ooh, the damage done.

You hit the cities
all across the land
We watched you testing
with your voodoo VAM
Wrong, wrong, the damage done.

We sing the song
because we hate your plan
We know that none
of you can understand
W h y k i d s
keep on, op-ting out.

I’ve seen the testing
and the damage done
We want no part of it for anyone
But now reform is
like a settin’ sun.”

Categories Corporate Reform, Humor

Who Killed PARCC? Parents. Who Will Kill the For-Profit Charters?

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2015 //
6

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy calls on parents to mobilize against the politically charter operators:

 

Lesson learned: Parents parked PARCC and when they learn about the failed charter school experiment they will can charters

Regardless of the merits/lack of merits of PARCC, public school parents sent the message to state officials that PARCC was not good public policy. Hence, PARCC was kicked out of Ohio.

That testing debacle was too controversial for most lobbyists to touch; but parents took it on.

Public school personnel and advocates must inform their respective communities about the horrific failure of the charter school experiment; the one that rips one billion dollars annually from school districts. When parents become informed they will send the message to state officials to can charters.

It is apparent that the for-profit charter lobby is operating the charter train. House leadership derailed HB 2, as amended by the Senate, until September. It may never be put back on track.

It should be noted that according to a July 1 Columbus Dispatch article, ECOT founder William Lager gave $400,000 in direct campaign contributions in the last election cycle. “That does not include any money that he may have given to non-profit political organizations set up by House and Senate leaders.”

 

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net |

Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

Bob Peterson: What Scott Walker Will Do to Public Education

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2015 //
21

Bob Peterson describes what Scott Walker intends to do to public schools and higher education in Wisconsin. Since he plans to run for the Republican nomination for President, it is important to know his views on education.

He is a zealot for school choice and privatization. He doesn’t like public schools or universities. He thinks that taxpayers should foot the bill for religious education. He believes that the purpose of education is workforce training. He is contemptuous of liberal learning. He is proud of his disdain for free inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge.

Peterson writes:

“Buried within the budget are 135 non-budget policy items — a toxic cocktail of attacks on public education, democracy, environmental protections and labor rights.

“For Wisconsin’s schools, the budget is a blueprint for abandoning public education. In Milwaukee, in addition to insufficient funding, the budget includes a “takeover” plan that increases privatization and decreases democratic control of the city’s public schools.

“The budget was passed by the Republican-controlled Senate a few minutes before midnight Tuesday, with all Democrats and one Republican voting “no.” The Assembly is expected to pass the budget and send it to Walker by the end of the week.

“The attack on the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is in the context of a frontal assault on public education across the state. The budget cuts $250 million from the University of Wisconsin system, holds overall K-12 funding flat in the first year with modest increases in the second (which, given inflation, means cuts). And while programs promoting privately run charters are expanded, the budget eliminates Chapter 220 — a metropolitan-wide program designed to reduce racial segregation in public schools and improve equal opportunity for students of color.

“The budget is also expanding the statewide voucher program, under which tax dollars are funneled into private, overwhelmingly religious schools. (The program is modeled after Milwaukee’s private school voucher program which began in 1990 and which now includes 112 schools and 25,000 students.)”

In a dismal field of GOP candidates, Walker stands out for his anti-intellectualism and contempt for learning.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Milwaukee, Republicans, Vouchers, Wisconsin

Detroit: Privatizing a Burned-Over District

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2015 //
11

Over the past generation, Detroit has suffered from de-industrialization, middle-class flight, high poverty, joblessness, and abandonment by the state and civic elites. One reform after another has failed to “save” its schools, because reformers ignored the root causes of poor academic performance.

 

Now, conservative Michigan Governor Rick Snyder plans to get rid of public education and turn Detroit into an all-charter district like Néw Orleans. This is now public officials’ favorite way of getting rid of their responsibility, by handing it off to the private sector.

 

Here is one analysis of the continuing abandonment of the children of Detroit. I don’t usually cite partisan sources but this is as good an in-depth a review as I have seen. If you spot any errors, let me know.

 

It is a sad story. Our nation can’t afford to educate its poorest children. Actually, it can afford to but chooses not to. They need small classes; arts programs; experienced teachers; stability. None of that is part of the plan. We lack the will to help those who most need a good education.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Detroit, Pensions, Privatization
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