Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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Maryland: General Assembly Overrides Governor’s Veto, Protecting Public Schools from DeVos Agenda

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2017 //
12

Yesterday the Maryland General Assembly voted to override Governor Larry Hogan’s veto of a bill meant to protect public schools against the privatization agenda of Betsy DeVos.

Maryland has a rightwing Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, who has appointed a pro-privatization state board of education.

But Maryland also has a legislature controlled by Democrats. They hold a veto-proof majority.

The legislature passed an anti-privatization bill called the “Protect Our Schools Act,” intended to block state takeovers and the Trump/DeVos agenda.

Governor Hogan vetoed the bill on Wednesday, saying it would prevent the state from identifying low-performing schools and taking them over (and privatizing them). His appointed state board agreed with him.

Yesterday, the Democratic-controlled legislature overrode Hogan’s veto.

The governor is angry:

The bill [that he vetoed] would set standards for how the state would identify low-performing schools that Hogan says rely too little on standardized tests. And it would prevent the state from taking several actions to improve those schools, including converting them to charter schools, bringing in private management, giving the students vouchers to attend private schools or putting the schools into a special statewide “recovery” school district.

Hogan and members of the state school board argue that the bill would tie their hands as they try to rescue low-performing schools.

Let it be stipulated that neither the governor nor any member of the state school board has EVER rescued a low-performing school.

Congratulations to the educators and parents and students of Maryland for defeating Governor Hogan’s effort to impose the DeVos agenda on the state’s public schools.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Maryland, Privatization, Trump, Vouchers

Mike Klonsky: School-Killer Rahm Plans to Close More Schools in the African-American Community

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2017 //
8

If ever there is an award for the mayor who did the most to disrupt and destroy public education, it will go to Rahm Emanuel. His own children attend the highly resourced University of Chicago Lab School, but he spitefully closes public schools that he controls.

Mike Klonsky points out that the mass school closings have not saved money and have not improved student outcomes. They are part of Mayor Emanuel’s plan for gentrification.

From afar, it looks like spite work on the part of a mayor who doesn’t care about children that are not his own.

Rahm Emanuel is a textbook case in the failure of mayoral control to improve public schools. He is a textbook case in the use of mayoral control to destroy and privatize public education.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Emanuel, Rahm, Privatization

D.C.: New Millions Added to Increase “High-Quality Seats” in Charters

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2017 //
13

One of the strange ideas in the privatization movement is that only charters are able to provide “high-quality seats.”

There seems to be a magical place where charter operators go to buy chairs that are unavailable to public schools.

Only charter operators can buy those chairs. Those chairs are “high-quality seats.”

The Citybridge Education Foundation in D.C., financed by billionaires Katherine and David Bradley, is putting up the money to add new charter schools and to help revamp some low-performing public schools in the District, in search of those elusive “high-quality seats.”

What is it about those “high-quality seats”? Does that mean the teachers are ill-prepared Teach for America recruits? Does that mean that the school gets to exclude low-performing students or students whose disability status and language needs make them a “bad fit” for “high-quality seats”?

Where is the warehouse where they keep those “seats”?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Privatization

New York: 51% of Students on Long Island Opt Out of State Tests

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2017 //
9

The full state count of opt outs has not been released but Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, surveyed the 124 school districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties and concluded that 51.2% of the eligible students did not take the state tests this past week. The story is behind a paywall.

“Last week, the number of students on Long Island in grades three through eight who refused to take the state’s English Language Arts exam topped 97,000, according to a Newsday survey that brought responses from 116 of the 124 school districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties. The number represented 51.2 percent of children eligible for testing — the second consecutive year the boycott has topped 50 percent.

“Some upstate school systems also reported high rates of ELA test refusals, while others have said the numbers were down somewhat. Elia told Newsday on Monday that the department would release official data on opt-out rates after state math tests are completed next month.

“Representatives of the New York State Alliance for Public Education focused much of their ire Monday on Elia’s decision last year to allow students in grades three through eight as much time as they wanted to complete the ELA and math exams.

“The commissioner contended that untimed tests were less stressful than those completed under deadlines. Alliance leaders responded that allowing students to spend entire school days filling in test answers actually heightened stress, and they demanded data on how many pupils engaged in such practices.

“Jeanette Deutermann of North Bellmore, a founder of the coalition and the group Long Island Opt Out, said in the statement issued Monday that the commissioner “has shown utter disregard for the well-being of children and opened the floodgates for abusive testing practices with little to no accountability.”

This will be the third year that large numbers of students–about 20% statewide–have refused the tests. Although the federal ESSA law requires 95% participation in every school, there appear to be zero schools in the state that met that mark.

A corporate reform group called High Achievement New York ran an expensive ad campaign to entice students to take the tests, ignoring the fact that the tests do not create “high achievement.” HANY’s executive director lives in New Jersey.

If everyone opted out, the legislature and even the Congress would have to back off their obsession with testing. Testing is not teaching. Children need more instruction, less testing.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York, Testing

Conservatives Warn Trump Not to Make School Choice a Federal Program

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2017 //
19

At a recent meeting at the Heritage Foundation, conservatives warned that federal control of school choice would be very dangerous.

“A panel of education policy experts agree the Trump administration appears to be moving toward some form of federal management of school choice, but warns that attempts to influence school choice policy from Washington, D.C. could undermine the president’s stated goals of returning education decisions back to the states and local governments.
The panel convened at the Heritage Foundation in the wake of Trump’s statement during his address to Congress that education is “the civil rights issue of our time.” The school choice theme that Trump has adopted since the tail end of his presidential campaign has been largely directed at minority children who are stuck in failing public schools and whose parents or guardians may not have the financial means to transfer them to a private or religious school.

“Trump’s choice for U.S. Education Secretary – Betsy DeVos – worked in her home state of Michigan primarily on school choice and school voucher programs, which allow families to use taxpayer funds for tuition at private and religious schools.

“On the campaign trail, the president proposed block granting $20 billion to families for school choice, and in his recently released budget, he proposed an additional $1.4 billion be spent on school choice programs in 2018.

“Trump also urged Congress to design legislation that funds school choice for low-income families. One such bill, H.R. 610, introduced by Iowa Rep. Steve King (R), has been vehemently opposed by homeschooling families across the country because of concerns the legislation will result in regulation of homeschooling nationwide.

“The panel, led by American Enterprise Institute education fellow Gerard Robinson, discussed ideas on how the federal government might attempt to actually implement school choice policy, whether through financial mechanisms such as school vouchers, education savings accounts, or tax credit scholarships, in which organizations obtain tax credits for donating scholarship funds to individual students or groups of students.

“When I hear folks talking about getting Washington involved in tuition tax credits for scholarship-granting organizations, and I hear the proposals that are being broadly floated, it makes me extraordinarily nervous,” said American Enterprise Institute education policy director Frederick (Rick) Hess. “It takes me very much back to 2000, and the 24-page document that the Bushes drafted that was the original No Child Left Behind.”

“Hess also pointed out the tremendous effects a federal tax credit scholarship program could have on the demands for private schools in the education market.

“If we get into Washington doing scholarship-granting organization tax credits…this is going to have enormous effects on private schools, because it’s going to distort the marketplace,” he said. “They’re going to need to be eligible for these funds.”

“Hess also explained the potential “strings” attached to federal taxpayer dollars as they go to private and religious schools, especially those that are strapped for cash and are willing to go to great lengths to obtain the funding. He warns that a future, more liberal Congress and administration would likely attach greater regulations to those schools.

“When you get a Democratic administration, an Elizabeth Warren administration, and they decide that eligible schools … need to have anti-bullying programs and other accommodations?” he said. “We will very quickly wind up and wonder, ‘What the hell were we thinking, inviting Washington into these decisions?’”

Hmmmm.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

When PBS Sold Airtime to Bill Gates to Promote the Common Core

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
64

After I posted the story about the forthcoming PBS Series called School Inc., which promotes privatization, reflecting the views of the privatization movement, I shared the story with investigative journalist David Sirota. He recalled the time that his journalism compelled PBS to return millions of dollars to billionaire financier John Arnold for a program he funded about “the pension crisis.” Arnold has a passion for eliminating pensions for public employees.

He also pointed out a story about Bill Gates’ generous support for PBS programs like The Teaching Channel and for programs advocating for the Common Core.

Now, we understand that PBS and its affiliates need to raise money, but the public expects that whatever they feature will be fair and balanced, not an advertorial.

And we certainly don’t expect PBS to align its programming with the whims of rich individuals who seek to undermine and/or privatize and/or control public education.

I would certainly be shocked to see a program on PBS funded by billionaire Robert Mercer on why the nation does not need public television. Yet PBS has shockingly committed to airing a four-part series attacking public schools and praising the virtues of privatization.

When does the public interest get equal time?

Please call 703-739-5000 to register your protest.

Be sure to ask when they will give equal time to expose the corporate attack on our public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Media, Privatization, Testing

Mercedes Schneider on the Pahara Institute, Which Trains True Believers in Privatization and Testing

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
14

Mercedes Schneider wrote an excellent study–“A Chronicle of Echoes”–of the echo chamber of corporate reform.

In this post, she reviews one of the entrails in the belly of the beast. It is called the Pahara Institute, which claims to train leaders who will create the high-quality, high-performing schools that all children need.

If you look at the list of big-name participants, which includes local superintendents, state superintendents, even a former Secretary of Education, you realize why all these people sound like robots. They have been programmed in their echo chamber.

But one question keeps popping up: These people are in positions of power. They are not on the outside looking in. Where are the great schools and the great districts that they should have produced by now? One day, all children will have an excellent education, but is there a timetable? Ten years? Twenty years? The fifth of never? Will they ever deliver? Or will they just keep promising and promising until the funders stop funding?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Trump-DeVos Suck Up Watch: PBS Is Showing a Series Attacking Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
42

Laura Chapman wrote the following expose of a new series that will appear on PBS. It must be public television’s effort to curry favor with the Trump administration, as it reflects the extremist agenda of Betsy DeVos, who is intent on creating a free market in publicly-funded schooling. Since Trump’s budget has proposed to eliminate funding for public television, this series may be a demonstration that even PBS will give a showcase to libertarians who want to destroy public institutions.

More than ten years ago, PBS ran a four-part series called SCHOOL, produced by Sarah Patton, Sarah Mondale, and Vera Aronow. It was a history of public education that documented the role of public education in welcoming generations of immigrants and leading the way to a better society. For the past four years the same team has been creating a one-hour documentary exposing the corporate assault on public education. They have struggled to find funding, but they are near completion. The very least that PBS could do to compensate for featuring a one-sided rightwing diatribe against public education would be to show “Backpack Full of Cash,” which portrays the bitter forces of reaction that seek to destroy one of our most treasured democratic institutions, public schools funded by all and open to all.

It is ironic and sad that public television would lend credibility to an attack on public education. Encouraging the forces intent on destroying everything “public” will not save public television.

Chapman writes:

“I just posted about the SCHOOL, INC. television programs on PBS. I did not do enough research. Here is what you really should know about the programs.

“These programs are pure propaganda for so-called free market education. They have been produced courtesy of Free to Choose, a promoter of all things that the late Milton and Rosa Friedman would love.

“The PBS website says that funding for these programs has been provided by the Texas-based Rose-Marie and Jack R. Anderson Foundation. See http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rose-Marie_and_Jack_R._Anderson_Foundation
The Anderson Foundation s one of several ultra conservative funders, but the series is also sell-funded by being part of the Free to Choose Network. That Network is a non-profit set up by the one of the Executive Producers Bob Chitester

“Bob Chitester is chairman, president and CEO of Free To Choose Network, a 501-c-3 public foundation housing Free To Choose Media, an award-winning, global entertainment company which produces and distributes thought-provoking public television programs and series. In 1977, Chitester and economist Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, undertook a film project which became Free To Choose, an award-winning PBS TV series and an international best-selling book based on the series. You can learn more about the connection of this non-profit to the Friedman doctrine of market-based education here and elsewhere on the internet. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Free_to_Choose_Network

“Among the others responsible for the series is Andrew Coulson. Coulson is the Creator, Writer, and Director. His bio, posted on PBS, says Coulson studied mathematics and computer science at McGill University and worked as a Microsoft software engineer. In 1994, he became ” troubled by the fact that teaching and learning were being left behind by the relentless progress in other fields. His book, Market Education: The Unknown History, received endorsements from Washington Post columnist William Raspberry, Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson, and University of Chicago education psychologist Herbert Walberg. His 2009 paper for the peer-reviewed Journal of School Choice was the most comprehensive review of the worldwide scientific literature comparing alternative education systems. In 2011 he conducted a statistical study titled “The Other Lottery: Are Philanthropists Backing the Best Charter Schools?” Coulson has ….testified before the United States House and Senate on the state of American education and co-authored amicus briefs for the United States Supreme Court. He was senior fellow in education policy at the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute, and contributed chapters to books by the Hoover Institution and Canada’s Fraser Institute. Prior to his death in February 2016, Coulson made arrangements to ensure School, Inc. would be completed for broadcast television.”

“There are many reasons why I support my local PBS broadcasters. This programing is not one of them.

“Overall, I think that PBS has done a miserable job of seeking spokespersons for public education, especially parents, students, administrators and politicians. Diane Ravitch has appeared on Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers and a few other programs, but I have seen no real coverage of the issues facing public education right now.

“I wonder if PBS scheduled this series to coincide with the Betsy DeVos/Trump agenda that will pour money into vouchers and set in motion market-based education as if the new norm for American education. I wonder if Milton and Rosa Friedman smiling. Did PBS intend to insult many of their supporters, including me, by scheduling this series now?

“Please be aware that this PBS series is a propaganda machine for market-based education. The programs are not presented in a context that makes that obvious.

“I intend to let my local PBS stations know that this series looks like a well-planned and perfectly timed promo for the DeVos/Trump agenda.

“I will also ask for them to take affirmative steps to support public education and the public schools in their viewing areas.

“PBS seems to be satisfied with educational programming for use by teachers and cartoony programs for children. Sesame Street is hosted after it has made money elsewhere. Unless I am mistaken, Trump’s proposed budget for PBS will bring a 20% cut, not total elimination.

“PBS needs all the support it can get. This is not a way to support the public schools who serve the majority of our students and with uncommon ingenuity and devotion in the midst of budget cuts and unwarranted, unsupported attacks from billionaires, including the funders of these programs.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Trump, Vouchers

Will Pinkston: The Charter Industry is Unraveling in Nashville

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2017 //
17

Will Pinkston, a member of the Metro Nashville school board, has long been suspicious about the ability of the charter industry to keep its grandiose promises. Now, he says, charter schools in that city are in crisis.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2017/03/29/nashvilles-charter-school-industry-unraveling/99747782/

He writes:

“It was just a matter of time before the wheels came off Nashville’s charter school industry. This year, it’s finally happening.

“Advocates for charters — publicly funded private schools — have long argued they’re the best approach for improving K-12 public education. But national research shows, and now a series of new local developments reinforces, that charters are just a collective ruse pushed by special interests trying to privatize our school system.

“The latest example is RePublic Schools. In March a federal judge certified a class-action lawsuit brought by Nashville parents who complained their families are being subjected to illegal hardball recruiting tactics by the charter chain.

“RePublic allegedly sent text messages to thousands of parents. As it turns out, RePublic harvested student and family contact information from a Metro Nashville Public Schools database, then turned over the personal information to an out-of-state vendor that generated the texts.

“Sending unsolicited text messages is a violation of federal law. In their class-action lawsuit, the parents are seeking damages of up to $1,500 per person — leaving RePublic potentially on the hook for millions in penalties.

“Of course, the irony here is: RePublic — which boasts it’s “reimagining public education” — is at the forefront of a movement that claims students and families are flocking to charters. The reality is: Demand for RePublic is anemic, which is why the chain is sending mass text messages in a bid to draw more students and more public money.

“Rocketship is another charter chain that isn’t living up to its own marketing hype. Worse, Rocketship is failing some of Nashville’s most vulnerable kids and, like RePublic, operating in violation of federal law.

“On March 7 WSMV-TV reported that California-based Rocketship isn’t providing legally required services to students with disabilities and English language learners. A report by the Tennessee Department of Education even found that Rocketship is forcing homeless students to scrape together money to pay for uniforms.”

Yet Rocketship continues to seek more charters.

Another charter chain is in financial trouble.

And all these charters drain money from the Nashville public schools.

How much longer will this ruse continue? We have had charter schools for 27 years, and there is still no existence proof that they are better than public schools, except for their willingness to exclude the kids who might lower their scores.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Nashville, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider: A Real Public School is not a Franchise

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2017 //
13

Mercedes Schneider had the stomach to watch Betsy DeVos and Grover Whitehurst talk about their favorite subject –School Choice–at Brookings today. She noticed their careless use of business language to talk about schools, at one point referring to them as “franchises.”

Are Traditional Public Schools “Franchises”?

As I said, Mercedes has a strong stomach, as I find this use of lingo from the business world nauseating. A public school is not part of a chain. It is a community institution.

Unlike charter schools, public schools are fixtures in their community. They are not like shoe stores or fast food restaurants.

When anyone talks about franchises in the same breath with schools, they are not talking about public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization
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