Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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Salon: Who is the Real Campbell Brown?

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2017 //
10

Last spring, Salon published an article by Kali Holloway about Campbell Brown and her transition from news anchor to “education reformer” and “charter propagandist.” The article was posted before California’s highest court threw out the Vergara case, whose plaintiffs claimed that teacher tenure was racially discriminatory. It also was posted before a judge in Minnesota tossed out Campbell Brown’s copycat effort to kill teacher tenure in that state.

 

Nonetheless, the article accurately depicts Campbell Brown’s contempt for public schools, teachers unions, and teachers. Facebook announced that it plans to hire her as its face to the news media. It is important to know her low opinion of public education, a basic democratic institution, and the people who work to educate our children. As the article shows, Brown did not want to disclose the funders of her website, The 74, claiming that they might be harassed (as if!).

 

The article says The 74 is funded by: The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Jonathan Sackler (of OxyContin producer Purdue Pharma) and the Walton Family Foundation.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Common Core Advocate May Be DeVos’ Deputy

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2017 //
26

According to the Trump group’s favorite news media, businessman Allen B. Hubbard is the likely choice for the #2 job in the U.S. Department of Education. He is a strong advocate for school choice and for the Common Core.

 

He is on the board of the Lumina Foundation, which has made large grants to support implementation of Common Core.

 

Like DeVos, he is very wealthy.

 

So pmuch for Trump’s vow to eliminate Common Core.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Andre Agassi Charter School Fails and Will be Taken Over by Another Charter Operator

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2017 //
10

Andre Agassi is in the charter school business with his partner Bobby Turner, and they are building and opening charters across the nation. Agassi and Turner raised $750 million for their for-profit venture.

 

Meanwhile, back in Las Vegas, Agassi’s flagship charter school is one of the lowest performing schools in Nevada, and it will be taken over by Democracy Prep Charter School, based in New York City.

 

Agassi should sell tennis rackets and get out of the school racket.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, Nevada, Privatization

Philadelphia Disgrace! 8 Librarians for 220 Schools and 134,000 Students

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2017 //
64

Do you want to know what is wrong with American education? Look no further than Philadelphia. The city public schools have been a plaything for the city’s rich and powerful. The students are mainly black and poor. The schools are underfunded. Charter schools are thriving. Public schools have been closed to make way for privately managed charters. The city schools have not had democratic control of years. It is run by a School Reform Commission appointed by the governor and the mayor. The SRC does not have a clue about how to “reform” the schools.

 

Consequence: The city’s public schools have eight full-time librarians for 220 schools and 134,000 students. 

 

As Philadelphia school budgets have shrunk, librarians have grown rarer, almost to the point of extinction. In 1991, the school system employed 176 certified librarians. Now, the librarians are only at Anderson, Elkin, Greenberg, Penn Alexander, Roosevelt, and Sullivan elementaries and Central and South Philadelphia High Schools.

 

In addition to the librarian-staffed libraries, 13 libraries are kept open by 128 volunteers from the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children, according to the district.

 

What a disgrace for the nation’s fifth largest city!

 

When I went to the Houston public schools in the 1950s, my public schools had fully staffed libraries. Are we poorer now than then?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Librarians, Philadelphia, Privatization

New York Times: Who Is Betsy DeVos?

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2017 //
9

Noam Scheiber of the New York Times has dug deep into the political activities of Betsy DeVos and her family and produced a comprehensive analysis of the way they have used their vast wealth to impose their radical agenda on the state of Michigan.

 

Not it only have they led the campaignn for privatization of public education, but they have successfully fought labor unions, income taxes, estate taxes, and any effort to curb their self-interest. They even have spent money to defeat moderate Republicans. They seem to have a hammer lock on the Republican legislature in Michigan. Scheiber compares them to the Koch brothers in their use of their wealth to achieve their radical political goals. They want to restore the America of a century ago, before the New Deal.

 

“They have this moralized sense of the free market that leads to this total program to turn back the ideas of the New Deal, the welfare state,” Kim Phillips-Fein, a historian who has written extensively about the conservative movement, said, describing the DeVoses.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Rigging the Results of PISA Tests to Favor Asia

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2017 //
16

As I have written many times, the scores on international tests have no predictive value about our economy. If they did, we would be a third world country by now since our scores have always been mediocre to very low on those tests. To learn more, read my chapter on international scores in “Reign of Error.”

 

Now, surprisingly, an article appears in Forbes challenging the PISA methodology and asserting that Asian nations get to choose their best students.

 

This false information has been used by the media and “reformers” to bash public schools and promote privatization.

 

Shameful. A hoax.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Hoax, International, Privatization, Testing

Peter Greene: Arne’s Education Ideas Are Now on the Ash Heap of History

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2017 //
49

Peter Greene reviews Arne Duncan’s bold effort to declare American public education a failure, to impose high-stakes testing on teachers everywhere, and to develop a test-based system of evaluation for teachers, students, administrators, and schools, all tied to national standards (the Common Core). In pursuit of his fancy, Duncan caused damage to real people: thousands of schools were called “failures,” thousands of teachers’ lives were ruined.

 

If you read my book “Reign of Error,” you will learn that reformers spun a Big Lie about “failing schools,” as an excuse for privatizing as many as they could. They pointed to an achievement gap between different groups and blamed it on schools and teachers, without bothering to demonstrate that their preferred alternative–charter schools–would have any effect on reducing those gaps.

 

In reviewing Duncan’s disappearing “legacy,” Greene offers a few words of consolation:

 

At this point I can feel a little bad for Duncan—he didn’t really accomplish any of his major goals, and the next administration is not even going to pay lip service to his efforts. It must be tough to feel like you really know a lot about how something works, but the people in power won’t even listen to you. It feels, in fact, a lot like being a teacher during Duncan’s tenure at the U.S. Department of Education.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Jeff Bryant: Dems Must Fight Fight Betsy DeVos

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2017 //
6

 

Jeff Bryant writes that Dems owe nothing to DeVos. They must oppose her. Will there be 3 Republicans who will join them? Probably not.

 

He notes that Obama and Duncan and King paved the way for DeVos with their love of charters. They brought us half-way to privatization. She will finish what they started.

 

She is a spoiled billionaire who has never worked a day in her life. She hates public schools. Given her druthers, all our children would be in evangelical Christian schools, at public expense.

 

She he has spread millions to Republican candidates, including four members of the Senate committee that will review her nil qualifications. If they had any decency, they would recuse themselves. They don’t and they won’t.

 

If and and when she is confirmed, we will fight her. We will protest, demonstrate and show no deference to this sheltered scion of privilege.

 

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishents Do Not Include Education

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2017 //
43

Compared to Trump, Obama is a portrait of dignity, reason, and intellect.  The Washington Monthly published a list of his top 50 accomplishments. Note that there is no mention of K-12 education. As readers of this blog  know, Obama’s education policies were a continuation of the George W. Bush policies of measure-and-punish. Arne Duncan did whatever Gates and Broad wanted. He advanced privatization by his constant promotion of charter schools and his refusal to demand accountability for them.  He demoralized teachers by insisting that they be evaluated by test scores of their students. He trumpeted the lie that our public schools are failing. He was an agent of the right wingers who want to replace public education with an array of bad choices. When unions were under attack in Wisconsin and in the courts, the Obama administration was not there. It collaborated in the destruction of the Democratic base.

 

This is too was Obama’s legacy: the assault on public schools, teachers, and unions.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Obama, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Stephen Henderson: Betsy DeVos Twists Facts to Advance Her Privatization Agenda

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2017 //
7

Stephen Henderson is the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. He is not anti-charter; his own children attend a Detroit charter school. He is opposed to lies and propaganda. He has written that the charter movement has done nothing to lift the children of Detroit, and that there are as many bad charter schools as public schools. He has written critically of DeVos’s successful efforts to torpedo accountability and oversight of charter schools.

 

When it comes to data and research, he says, DeVos is not to be trusted.

 

He writes:

 

A true advocate for children would look at the statistics for charter versus traditional public schools in Michigan and suggest taking a pause, to see what’s working, what’s not, and how we might alter the course.

 

Instead, DeVos and her family have spent millions advocating for the state’s cap on charter schools to be lifted, so more operators can open and, if they choose, profit from more charters.

 

Someone focused on outcomes for Detroit students might have looked at the data and suggested better oversight and accountability.

 

But just this year, DeVos and her family heavily pressured lawmakers to dump a bipartisan-supported oversight commission for all schools in the city, and then showered the GOP majority who complied with more than $1 million dollars in campaign contributions.

 

The Department of Education needs a secretary who values data and research, and respects the relationship between outcomes and policy imperatives.

 

Nothing in Betsy DeVos’ history of lobbying to shield the charter industry from greater accountability suggests she understands that.

 

If she’s confirmed, it will be a dark day for the value of data and truth in education policy.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Data, Detroit, Education Industry, Michigan, Privatization, Research
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