Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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Reformer Andy Smarick Chosen as Head of State Education Board in Maryland

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2016 //
15

Andy Smarick, a prominent figure in the conservative think-tank world, has been chosen by his colleagues as president of the Maryland State Board of Education. He was appointed to the board by Republican Governor Larry Hogan. Maryland, once a blue state, has been turning conservative since Hogan’s election.

Smarick is known for his belief that low-performing schools can’t be turned around and that they should be “relinquished” to private operators. In his book “The Urban School System of the Future,” he lays out his vision of a portfolio district, in which public schools disappear, replaced by a dazzling array of charters.

Smarick worked in the George W. Bush administration. He was also briefly deputy superintendent of education in New Jersey. He is a fellow at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a member of the staff at Andrew Rotherham’s Bellwether Education Partners.

In 2010, when he was appointed in New Jersey, Jersey Jazzman summed up his resume, which is solidly in the anti-public school camp.

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

Nashville Dad: Money Pouring in to Gain Control of School Board: Is It Really About the Kids?

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2016 //
7

T.C. Weber, a Nashville public school parent who writes a blog called “Dad Gone Wild,” writes that Nashville is a much overlooked epicenter of the corporate reform movement.

Nashville has, for the last several years, been an under-the-radar playground for the education reform movement. People may be familiar with the stories of New Orleans, Newark, Los Angeles, and lately, Denver, but the battles have been just as fierce in Nashville. Things ratcheted up in 2008 when Karl Dean was elected mayor. Dean fancied himself as a bit of the next coming of Michael Bloomberg when he opened up the doors wide to the education reform movement and invited them in with open arms.

Those were the salad days for the reform movement in Nashville. Nobody could really predict the unintended consequences of many of the policies, and they all sounded so great, there was little opposition. Teach for America was invited to town with full mayoral support along with the New Teacher Project. Dean set up the Charter Incubator, which was designed to help grow more charters faster. Next thing you know, Ravi Gupta and Todd Dickson showed up in town to great fanfare with their charter school models. Life was good for the reformers. Then came the overreach.

In 2012, Great Hearts Academy was invited by a group of wealthy charter school advocates to open a charter school in Nashville. One that would be located in an affluent part of town but wouldn’t offer a transportation plan. The proposed school was also lacking a diversity plan. That’s when the battle lines began to be drawn. Previously, charter schools were something that happened to those “other people,” but now they were coming to middle class neighborhoods and people were starting to question why. Great Hearts’ application was denied after a fierce public battle, and despite a hefty fine imposed on Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) from the state, the days of easy expansion for charter schools came to an end. People had gotten a look behind the curtain and weren’t impressed.

Over the last four years, it has been one fight after another over charter schools. Fights that were often initiated by the charter community’s over-zealousness for expansion. Despite numerous studies showing the negative financial impact that charter expansion would have for MNPS, then-Mayor Dean and others continued to push for more expansion. Unfortunately for them, parents had begun to read the research and fight back. Over time, the efforts of charter operators to expand have been met with dwindling success until this year, when no new charter school applications were approved.

Now reformer money is rolling in to elect new school board members who will support charter expansion. Oregon-based Stand for Children is leading the way with corporate donations to school board candidates committed to privatization.

Back tracking just a bit, 2012 saw the first of the big dollar school board elections in Nashville. In District 5, Elissa Kim brought in just shy of $84K and ended up winning the election. Interestingly enough, District 9 candidate Margaret Dolan raised over $100k, but still lost to Amy Frogge, who raised only $17,864. The 2014 election saw a little less money invested and allowed the charter contingency to pick up two backers in Mary Pierce and Tyese Hunter. This year also saw a proliferation of negative mailers from outside groups. In all fairness, candidate Pierce did renounce negative mailers sent out by Michelle Rhee’s Students First organization during the campaign. Despite picking up these two seats, charter supporters were losing the fight for more charter growth and public sentiment was beginning to turn. This was largely due to board members Will Pinkston and Amy Frogge being far more effective at making the argument for temperance in charter growth than their opponents did for expanding.

That’s why, along with their opposition to vouchers and their insistence that the state properly fund public education, both Pinkston and Frogge have found themselves subject to a well-financed attack in their respective bids for re-election. Pinkston, specifically, is a prized target. His opponent, a small businessman with 5 children in MNPS, has somehow managed to raise $90K despite never having run for office before. That’s the kind of money you need for a statewide election, not a local school board position. It begs the questions why and how did the candidate become that skilled a fundraiser? With final disclosures still a week away, it’s not hard to envision the campaign beating the 2012 record of $113k raised. That’s just obscene. To make things worse, Pinkston and Frogge are not alone in facing abnormally well-funded opponents.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Nashville, Privatization, Stand for Children

Washington State: Charter School Backers Want to Oust Judge Who Authored Anti-Charter Decision

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2016 //
11

Voters of Washington State, wake up!

The billionaires who have been trying to privatize your public schools are up to their old tricks.

Bill Gates and his pals have been pushing charters schools since the late 1990s. There have been four referenda on charter schools in Washington State. The privatizers lost the first three, but swamped the race with millions in their 2012 campaign and won by a razor-thin margin, defeating the NAACP, teachers, parents, the League of Women Voters, and school board members.

Defenders of public schools sued to stop public money from going to privately managed charter schools. In 2015, Washington’s highest court agreed with them that charters are not common schools, as required by the state constitution, because their boards are not elected. Funding charter schools with public money, the high court ruled, was unconstitutional.

Now the billionaires are running a candidate against state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Madsen, who wrote the 6-3 decision against funding charter schools with public money dedicated to public schools.

Some of the biggest proponents of charter schools in Washington state are pouring money into the race to defeat state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Madsen, who authored last year’s decision declaring the privately run, publicly funded schools unconstitutional.

The political arm of Stand for Children spent $116,000 this month on independent expenditures supporting Greg Zempel, Madsen’s chief opponent, in what constitutes the biggest infusion of outside cash in a Washington judicial race since 2010. According to Mercedes Schneider, Stand for Children (aka, “Stand ON Children”) has collected $725,000 to knock out Justice Madsen. Justice Madsen has raised $30,000 for her re-election.

The group is funded by some of the same wealthy donors who supported the 2012 initiative to allow charter schools in Washington, which the court’s decision overturned.

Zempel, the elected Kittitas County prosecutor, has been critical of the high court’s 6-3 decision in the charter-schools case, as well as what he has described as the court’s tendency to be unpredictable in its rulings.

Madsen, the court’s chief justice, wrote the opinion in September that ruled charter schools cannot be funded the same way as traditional public schools, primarily because they are run by boards that are appointed rather than elected by voters.

State lawmakers passed a bill this year that aims to keep charter schools open, but the statewide teachers union has promised to challenge the new law in court as well.

Most of the Stand for Children PAC’s funding this year has come from a single source: Connie Ballmer, a wealthy philanthropist and wife of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who donated $500,000.

The PAC’s other two main donors are Reed Hastings, the founder and CEO of Netflix; and Vulcan Inc., which is owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

The billionaires can’t buy the state Supreme Court, but they are trying their best to oust the judge who dared to stand in their way. Billionaires don’t send their own children to public schools, but think they have the right to kill them because they prefer privately run schools.

Hastings advocates for killing elected school boards and replacing teachers with technology.

There is only one thing that can defeat billionaires who want to buy our democracy: Voters.

Tell your neighbors. Tell your friends. Tell your colleagues. Save your public schools. Vote!

Show the billionaires that they can’t punish judges, they can’t privatize public schools, and they can’t subvert democracy!

To learn more about Bill Gates and his efforts to undermine public schools in Washington State, read parent activist Dora Taylor’s reports:

Emails reveal OSPI in contempt of Supreme Court ruling on charter schools in Washington State, https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2016/02/14/emails-reveal-ospi-in-contempt-of-supreme-court-ruling-on-charter-schools-in-washington-state/

Emails reveal the “Gates Machine” in action after the Washington State Supreme Court’s decision that charter schools are unconstitutional, https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/emails-reveal-the-gates-machine-in-action-after-the-washington-state-supreme-courts-decision-that-charter-schools-are-unconstitutional/

The Mary Walker School District rescinds their request for charter schools in the Seattle Public School District, https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/the-mary-walker-school-district-rescinds-their-request-for-charter-schools-in-the-seattle-public-school-district/

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Washington State

California: Charter School Wins Renewal, Announces Its Closing

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2016 //
14

The Silicon Valley Flex Academy in Santa Clara County, California, recently won a five-year renewal of its contract, from 2016 to 2021, but will not open this fall due to “fiscal unsustainability.”

A Morgan Hill charter school is closing its doors due to a terminated contract and financial troubles, which means almost 250 students will have to enroll in new schools before the start of the academic year, Santa Clara County education officials said Wednesday.

Silicon Valley Flex Academy at 610 Jarvis Drive served 240 students between grades six to 12 and opened in 2011 under a countywide charter, county education officials said.

In November, Santa Clara County’s Board of Education had renewed the academy’s charter for another five years from 2016 to 2021, according to the county office.

On Monday night, the academy’s board told the county the academy would close because of “fiscal unsustainability” after its service provider, K12, cut their contract, county officials said.

Classes for the new school year were set to begin on Aug. 11, according to the school’s website.

The county office is working with the charter school’s board along with Morgan Hill Unified School District and its Superintendent Steve Betando to register the students for the 2016-17 academic year.

If you love disruption, watch the charter industry in California, where schools open and close with frequency, almost as frequently as in Florida.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, K12 Inc., Privatization

E-Mails Released: Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson Bankrupted the Black Mayors Association to Benefit Charter Movement

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2016 //
12

Dave McKenna of Deadspin writes here about the release under court order of emails written by outgoing Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson about his efforts to take control of the National Conference of Black Mayors, bankrupt it, and open a new organization that would promote charter schools. Johnson is married to controversial Michelle Rhee, who has been a beneficiary and advocate for charters and vouchers.

This is a must-read.


The emails come mainly from the early days of Johnson’s hostile takeover of the National Conference of Black Mayors—the mayor and his minions described their mission against the historic Atlanta-based non-profit as a “coup” when they launched it in 2013—and reveal lots of no-goodnik behavior from Johnson and his coup team, a clique of civil servants on the Sacramento payroll, staffers from Johnson’s huge web of nonprofit groups, at least three public relations outfits, volunteer hangers-on, and lots of lawyers from the firm of Ballard Spahr. (At least a dozen Ballard Spahr lawyers have worked pro bono for Johnson on NCBM litigation.) The records indicate that at some point Johnson changed his goal from running the NCBM to ruining it. Johnson’s team, for example, is found dispatching secret agents to spy on NCBM board members at hotels and restaurants while conspiring to sabotage a potential $2 million windfall for the NCBM scheduled to come just a few months before he filed to have the organization dissolved through the bankruptcy courts. The documents also appear to support detractors’ long-leveled allegations that Johnson mingled the NCBM’s mission with that of Michelle Rhee, his wife and fellow school-privatization demagogue.

The city clerk’s release of the documents completes a request made under the California Public Records Act in the spring of 2015 by Cosmo Garvin, a reporter for the Sacramento News & Review. Unlike the rest of the media in the state capital, Garvin covered Johnson tenaciously and aggressively. He knew Johnson was conducting business using Gmail accounts rather than his assigned government address, so he requested any records on the city’s public servers from those personal email accounts. On July 1, 2015, Johnson sued his own city and Garvin’s weekly newspaper to prevent hundreds of emails from being made public, claiming attorney/client privilege….

The bulk of the unsealed documents deal with Johnson’s takeover of the NCBM, a clandestine and ultimately disastrous effort that peaked in May 2013 when he succeeded in being named president of the group, only to be deposed by the group’s board of directors two weeks into his term. It’s been a non-stop legal battle ever since between Johnson and NCBM elders, with suits filed by and against the group’s executive director, Vanessa Williams, and a controversial bankruptcy petition all still pending. After civil litigation in Georgia courts, Johnson was restored as the NCBM’s president in early 2014, but was still clearly at war with his constituents.

Johnson’s only meaningful act after regaining the presidency was a request, filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia on April 30, 2014 to have the NCBM dissolved under Chapter 7 of the federal code. Then on May 1, 2014, just one day after the bankruptcy filing and before he’d even resigned as NCBM president, Johnson founded a clone non-profit group, which he dubbed the African American Mayors Association (AAMA). He named himself president of the new group, and brought many NCBM sponsors with him. He installed AAMA’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Ave. NW in Washington, D.C.—just three blocks from the White House. (The just-released documents indicate that AAMA’s prime real estate was originally offered by former NCBM board member Clarence Anthony for use by the NCBM.)…


As expected, the latest batch of documents—totaling several hundred pages—shows that Johnson’s misuse of attorney/client privilege staved off potential political embarrassments, many of them NCBM-related. He was, to give one telling example, preventing the release of his schedule for Sept. 9, 2013, which included preparation for a trip to Birmingham, Ala. The listed rehearsals included a “Students First Session” followed by “NCBM Prep.”

StudentsFirst is the charter school advocacy group founded by Michelle Rhee. (Johnson is also a major player in the school privatization movement.) The email that Johnson tried so hard to hide provides a reminder that he and Rhee went to Birmingham together to exploit the attention being given the 50th anniversary of bombing of the 16th Street Church. Amid the solemn commemorations of that seminal moment in the American civil rights movement, they co-hosted a town hall meeting promoting charter schools.

One of the reasons Johnson would presumably want this played down is that the NCBM has historically opposed charter schools, and didn’t like Johnson using their group to further an education agenda that both membership and leadership vehemently opposed. Former NCBM president Robert Bowser told me in 2014 that the group had made their stance clear to Johnson after he proposed a resolution to get the NCBM to endorse charter schools. “We took a vote and said, ‘Hell no!’ to his resolution,” Bowser said. “The black mayors are not buying the charter schools, period.” Rhee, meanwhile, was overwhelmingly despised by Washington, D.C.’s black residents when she ran its public school system from 2007 to 2010; any hint that the NCBM was being used to serve her ends would likely be toxic to the group’s core constituency.

The Birmingham meeting, as it turned, didn’t provide any obvious payoff for Rhee. StudentsFirst, which was a cash cow—the Walton Foundation, one of many deep-pocketed benefactors, gave Rhee’s group $8 million just a few months before the Alabama getaway—quietly folded earlier this year, without donating billions of dollars to education projects or meeting any of the other megalomaniacal goals Rhee loudly predicted for her non-profit on Oprah Winfrey’s show at its founding. It’s rather fitting that while StudentsFirst’s website is now largely defunct, its fundraising page is still running and ready to accept donations.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Cheating, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Michelle Rhee, Privatization, StudentsFirst

Breaking News: National NAACP Calls for Moratorium on Charters!

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2016 //
33

Julian Vasquez Heilig reports on his blog Cloaking Inequity that the National NAACP passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on charters.

Read the text of the resolution.

Delegates to the 2016 national convention of the NAACP in Cincinnati passed a resolution expressing their concern about the lack of public governance, the targeting of low-income communities of color, increased segregation, and harsh disciplinary policies associated with charter schools.

Do you think that the Walton family, ALEC, the hedge fund managers, Scott Walker, Pat McCrory, and every other Republican governor will stop claiming the mantle of the civil rights movement, now that their favorite “reform” policy has been denounced by the real civil rights movement?

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Discipline, Education Industry

Anthony Cody: A Critical, Skeptical, Reluctant Vote for Clinton

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2016 //
45

Anthony Cody, co-founder of the Network for Public Education, strongly supported Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination. Like Bernie’s many millions of followers, Anthony was deeply disappointed when Bernie lost the nomination and thoroughly disgusted when he learned that the Democratic National Committee had undermined Bernie’s campaign.

What to do now? Anthony will vote for Clinton, but not with enthusiasm.

He writes:

How will education reform be handled by a Clinton administration? We know that big money held sway over education policy under President Obama. Candidate Clinton has been vague and inconsistent, offering both criticism and praise for charter schools and high stakes tests. Tim Kaine has shown a better understanding of education issues. But in 2008, many of us thought that Obama would be better than George W. Bush on education, especially with Linda Darling-Hammond advising him. But then the hedge fund money talked, Darling-Hammond walked, and we got seven years of Arne Duncan. So the only thing that will keep Clinton from going the way Obama went is intense grassroots pressure.

All of this brings us to the great challenge this election presents to us. We have a balancing act to perform. While I plan to vote for Clinton, we cannot simply “get on board” the DNC campaign train. We cannot unsee the corruption, the deep flaws in Clinton and her corporate allies. There IS something wrong with taking big money for speeches from Wall Street financiers, especially when they invite you back time after time – and you refuse to share what you told them.

We must continue to uncover the corruption of both corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans. If grassroots organizing can reclaim the Democratic Party so it fights for working people, then that would be excellent. Such a reclamation is under way over in Britain right now and is worth watching. If corporate Democratic Party leadership clings to power and will not allow this to happen, then a third party alternative should be strengthened. I respect those who have already made this leap, but I cannot do so while Trump looms. I have joined Bernie Sanders effort to continue his political revolution and defeat Donald Trump, and look forward to the continued growth of this movement.

Categories Accountability, Clinton, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Obama, Privatization, Trump

Corporate Education Reformers Are Running Scared

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2016 //
79

Molly Knefel writes in Truthout about the meeting at the Democratic convention with Clinton staffers and the hedge fund managers’ Democrats for Education Reform.

I am fully prepared for any disappointment that Clinton will bring and still hoping for any sign that she will support public schools, public school teachers, and the students who attend public schools.

It is satisfying to see that DFER spokesmen are fearful that Clinton might actually support the “social justice” goals of me, the Network for Public Education, and the millions of parents and teachers who feel betrayed by the so-called “reform” movement.

On other other hand, it is shocking to see Clinton staffers defending George W. Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind legislation. We thought that one had died and been buried, and yet here they are–representatives of the Democratic nominee–praising NCLB and its emphasis on accountability. It is a tired chestnut that NCLB alerted us to achievement gaps. That is utter nonsense. Everyone knew there were achievement gaps between different groups, and NCLB did nothing about them. Nothing. Testing does not close achievement gaps.

I suport Hillary Clinton. I will vote for her. But I will be a tough critic when her staff says dumb things that refute common sense and evidence about the harm that NCLB has done, especially to the most vulnerable children.

It is time for truth: Everything promoted by the corporate reform movement–charter schools, vouchers, evaluating teachers by test scores, closing schools that have low test scores (and high numbers of needy students)–has failed.

Their numbers are small. They represent hedge fund money, but very few people.

Their critics, however, represent millions of parents and educators and people who love their community public schools.

We are many, and they are few.

And, yes, Jonathan Alter, the Network for Public Education will continue to fight for social justice for children, for improving their lives as well as their schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Network for Public Education, Privatization, Testing

Jeff Bryant: The Selection of Tim Kaine is Bad News for “Reformers”

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2016 //
36

Jeff Bryant writes that corporate reformers are feeling nervous these days. As you know, none of their promises has come true anywhere, after 15 years of their strategies. They are uneasy about Hillary Clinton, and their fears have grown deeper since she selected Tim Kaine as her running mate.

If she had chosen Corey Booker, there would be champagne corks popping in the penthouses of reform leaders.

Instead, she picked Kaine, who sent his children to public schools in Richmond and who has never been a supporter of school choice, charters, or high-stakes testing. Nor is his wife Anne Holton, who was Secretary of Education in Virginia until her husband was picked to run for vice-president. Anne Holton’s father, Governor Holton, enrolled his children in Richmond’s public schools, and she went to desegregated schools. Her tenure in office was marked by opposition to charter schools.

He is not as progressive as Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, but he is a friend of public schools.

As Bernie Sanders said of Kaine, “He is more conservative than I am, but on his worst day he is 100 times BETTER than Trump.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization, Testing

Congratulations to Brian and Cindy Malone! Their film, “Education Inc.,” Won a Heartland Emmy Award

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2016 //
1

I am reposting this notice because the original post attributed the fabulous film “Education, Inc.” to the wrong film-makers.

Brian and Cindy Malone spent years creating the film “Education, Inc.” which documents the corporate assault on public education.

It just won an Emmy award. from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (Heartland Region).

The Malones donated the Emmy to Douglas County Schools as a symbol of a great community coming together.

This is wonderful news!

The Malones join the honor roll of this blog for helping to tell the story of the creeping privatization of public education, and doing so with a dramatic film.

Please go to their website and arrange a showing in your community.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Honor Roll
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