Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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California: Why Marshall Tuck Should Not Be Elected State Superintendent

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2014 //
39

California blogger “RedQueeninLA” reviews the contest between Marshall Tuck and Tom Torlakson for state superintendent and concludes that Tuck is unfit for the office.

Tuck is the candidate of the power elite, the billionaires who cynically employ fake rhetoric about “it’s all for the kids,” when their real goal is to demonize teachers and invest in technology. They have zero commitment to public education as a civic responsibility.

Tuck comes from the world of investment banking. His education experience at Green Dot Charter Schools and at former Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa’s takeover schools was a failure. On that ground alone–his dismal experience–he should be disqualified.

But his greatest liability is his contempt for public education. With him at the helm, public school students would have no advocate in Sacramento. But the oligarchs would.

On behalf of the power elite, Marshall Tuck is running a:

“professionally organized, PR-driven, fact- and experience-free, 1%-obsessed campaign. With relentless repetition their agenda is focused on issues to degrade the influence of organized labour and drive the market predominance of high technology. The challenger, Marshall Tuck, simply blusters through one Big Lie after another, disingenuously claiming to be all about “the children” when in fact this is seemingly the opposite of his agenda. Marshall Tuck’s resume offers no evidence to suggest children’s best interests are the focus of his attention. What all these billionaire-backed candidates – whether Sanchez I v Kayser, Anderson v Zimmer, Sanchez II v Ratliff, or Johnson v McKenna – is about, is the corporate interests of their paymasters.”

Will the 1% buy the state superintendents’ job in California? Will Tuck–the puppet of the oligarchs–win despite his record of failure? Will the public ignore his contempt for public schools and their teachers?

Or will they see through the mask of power politics and reject his deceptive and divisive rhetoric?

I hope that the voters choose Tom Torlakson, a veteran educator who will truly fight for the kids, their teachers, and their public schools.

The race in California is a test of democracy? Can the voters be hoodwinked by Big Lies and Big Money?

Categories California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers

Cuomo Promises More Charter Schools, Tougher Teacher Evaluations, After Election

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2014 //
50

Governor Andrew Cuomo promised, in a meeting with the New York Daily News editorial board, to “bust” the public school monopoly.

 

 

Vowing to break “one of the only remaining public monopolies,” Gov. Cuomo on Monday said he’ll push for a new round of teacher evaluation standards if re-elected.

Cuomo, during a meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board, said better teachers and competition from charter schools are the best ways to revamp an underachieving and entrenched public education system.

“I believe these kinds of changes are probably the single best thing that I can do as governor that’s going to matter long-term,” he said, “to break what is in essence one of the only remaining public monopolies — and that’s what this is, it’s a public monopoly.”

He said the key is to put “real performance measures with some competition, which is why I like charter schools.”

Cuomo said he will push a plan that includes more incentives — and sanctions — that “make it a more rigorous evaluation system.”

Cuomo expects fierce opposition from the state’s teachers, who are already upset with him and have refused to endorse his re-election bid.

“The teachers don’t want to do the evaluations and they don’t want to do rigorous evaluations — I get it,” Cuomo said. “I feel exactly opposite.”

 

Cuomo sounds more and more like Scott Walker of Wisconsin every day. Bust the unions. Humble the teachers. Crush public schools and introduce free market competition.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations

Late $$$$$ for Marshall Tuck

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2014 //
21

Marshall Tuck, running against educator Tom Torlakson, got a late infusion of huge campaign contributions.

Former Mayor Michael Blomberg sent $250,000.

Eli Broad sent two checks totaling $1,000,000.

Alice L. Walton of the Walmart family sent two gifts totaling $450,000.

Carrie Penner (of the same Walton family) sent $500,000.

Doris Fisher of the family that owns The Gap sent two gifts totaling $950,000.

Arthur Rock, a member of TFA’s board, sent $250,000.

Laurene Powell Jobs sent two checks totaling $500,000.

There are many other very large contributions, plus earlier contributions made by many of the same people.

The reformers really, really, really want to elect Tuck.

Think of the expansion of privatization!

Think of having a charter advocate running the State Department of Education. Their guy!!

Do the voters know about this? Are they informed? Will they allow the billionaires to buy this job?

 

Categories California, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Laura H. Chapman: Education Is Not a Business

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2014 //
33

Laura H. Chapman explains that education is not a business.

“I live in Cincinnati, world headquarters for P&G. There is something more to notice than this observation:
“Proctor and Gamble hasn’t remained a very successful company because it keeps tossing out its leadership every three months.”

“True, P&G has a history of promoting from within. The wheel does not have to be reinvented every time there is a change in leadership.

“But P&G routinely does a triage on its underperforming product lines, and many of the people who are in charge of them.

“In August of this year, the CEO of P&G announced the company would cut 70 to 80 “core strategic” brands, and reorganize management of other brands into about a dozen business units under “four focused industry sectors,” creating a much simpler management and operational structure.

“The CEO said 
“There’s a lot of evidence in a number of our business categories that the shopper and consumer really doesn’t want more assortment and more choice, they want more value.

“And P&G wants more tax breaks than the last count several years ago of $3.2 billion, about in the middle of the pack of the largest U.S. corporations that we subsidize for doing business and making a profit.

“Education is not a business. It is a public service, a public responsibility, and civic virtue to the extent that it prepares students to be active participants in determining how the larger society is governed and the values it honors.

“The current triage in education seeks to close “underperforming schools,” fire “underperforming” teachers and principals, and blame students who are “underperforming” for not having enough grit, not having the right stuff, and not fixing the economy.

“Unlike brands that can be vanished from the marketplace, our “underperforming” students do not go away.”

Categories Closing schools, Corporate Reformers

Legal Scholar: Eliminating Teachers’ Job Security Will Damage the Profession without Helping Children

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2014 //
34

Ewin Chemerinsky, Dean of the School of Law at the University of California in Irvine, wrote this compelling article about the Vergara decision and teachers’ due process rights.

 

He writes, in part:

 

American public education desperately needs to be improved, especially for the most disadvantaged children. But eliminating teachers’ job security and due-process rights is not going to attract better educators — or do much to improve school quality.

 

In recent months, several respected progressive scholars and politicians have endorsed litigation, like a successful case in California, to weaken the protections afforded public school teachers. Former CNN anchor Campbell Brown is spearheading a suit in New York. Their goals are laudable, but their means are misguided.

 

The problem of inner-city schools is not that the dedicated teachers who work in them have too many rights, but that the students who go to them are disadvantaged in many ways, the schools have inadequate resources and the schools are surrounded by communities that are dangerous, lack essential services and are largely segregated both by race and class.

 

Taking the modest job security accorded by tenure away from teachers will address none of these problems.

 

The causal relationship alleged by the plaintiffs in these lawsuits — that teachers’ rights cause minority students to receive substandard educations — is belied by readily available empirical evidence.

 

If the plaintiffs were correct, similarly situated students in states with weak protection of teachers — such as Texas, Alabama and Mississippi — would have higher levels of achievement and the racial achievement gap would be smaller in those states. But there is no evidence that minority students in Houston, Birmingham or Jackson outperform those in Los Angeles or New York.

 

He adds:

 

One of the biggest challenges in education today is teacher retention. In the District of Columbia, 80% of teachers leave within five years. Getting rid of tenure and due process will not encourage more teachers to stay in the profession. It will drive them out and discourage other qualified people from entering the profession in the first place.

 

The plaintiffs who are bringing these lawsuits have misappropriated the soaring rhetoric and fundamental principles of the civil rights movement. Civil rights lawyers have worked for decades to end racial segregation in schools and neighborhoods and equalize school funding.

 

Cloaking the attack on teachers’ rights in the rhetoric of the civil rights movement is misleading. Lessening the legal protections for teachers will not advance civil rights or improve education.

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teacher Tenure

Schneider: Hewlett Foundation Proposes an Accountability Program for CCSS

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2014 //
23

Mercedes Schneider, no fan of the Common Core standards, here reviews a new proposal for Common Core accountability, this one funded by the Hewlett Foundation. We are supposed to believe that the ideas are new, but almost everyone involved was a key player in the creation of the standards or the federally-funded CC tests.

 

Schneider says that what is needed is not more accountability for standards that have never been reviewed, revised, or piloted, but accountability for a dozen years of testing post-NCLB.

 

Why no piloting for CCSS? She writes:

 

Piloting was needed for CCSS, and it never happened. Instead, overly eager governors and state superintendents signed on for an as-of-then, not-yet-created CCSS. No wise caution. Just, “let’s do it!”

That word “urgency” was continuously thrown around, and it makes an appearance in the current, Hewlett-funded report. No time to pilot a finished CCSS product. Simply declare that CCSS was “based on research” and push for implementation.

This is how fools operate.

America has been hearing since 1983 that Our Education System Places Our Nation at Risk. I was 16 years old then. I am now 47.

America is not facing impending collapse.

We do have time to test the likes of CCSS before rushing in.

 

She identifies where accountability is needed most, and that is for programs that have been tried and obviously failed:

 

How about an accountability report on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and its strategic placement on a life support that enables former-basketball-playing US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to hold states hostage to the federal whim?

The Hewlett-funded report notes that between 2000 and 2012, PISA scores have “declined.” Those are chiefly the NCLB years and beyond, with the continued “test-driven reform” focus. It is the test-driven focus that could use a hefty helping of “accountability.”

And let us not forget the NCLB-instituted push for privatization of public education via charters, vouchers, and online “education.” An accountability study on the effects of “market-driven,” under-regulated “reform” upon the quality of American education would prove useful.

There is also the very real push to erase teaching as a profession and replace it with temporary teachers hailing from the amply-funded and -connected teacher temp agency, Teach for America (TFA). A nationwide accountability study on the effects of the teacher revolving door exacerbated by TFA would be a long-overdue first of its kind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Testing

John Thompson: Why Are Teachers Beating Up Reformers?

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2014 //
15

John Thompson, teacher and historian, explains here why teachers are beating up reformers. Shocking but true. Charters don’t outperform public schools unless they exclude low performers. Vouchers are sending kids to church schools that do not perform as well as public schools. Teacher evaluation by test scores is a disaster. The testing culture has demoralized teachers. The reformers have no idea how to “fix” schools.

He writes:

“During the high tide of corporate reform in 2010, their scorched earth public relations campaign against teachers and unions was doubly effective because they all sang from the same hymnal. Since then, however, reformers’ failures to improve schools have been accompanied by political defeat after defeat. Now they are on the same page with a kinder, gentler message.

“Now, the most public message is that a toxic testing culture has mysteriously appeared in schools. As the Center for American Progress, in Testing Overload in America’s Schools, recently admitted “a culture has arisen in some states and districts that places a premium on testing over learning.” So, the reformers who made that culture of test prep inevitable now want to listen to teachers, and create a humane testing culture.

“As Alexander Russo recently reported, in Why Think Tankers Hate the Vergara Strategy, some indicate that the Vergara campaign against teachers’ legal rights is a dubious approach. I’m also struck by the number of reformers, who complain about unions’ financial and political power, and who seem to by crying that We Reformers Are Being Beaten Up by Teachers.

“Yes! Reformers Are Being Beaten Up by Teachers!

“I communicate with a lot of individual reformers who agree that test-driven accountability has failed, but they can’t yet visualize an accountability system that could satisfy their reform coalition and teachers. I repeatedly hear the pained protest that, Testing Isn’t Going Away.

“So, what alternative do we have?

“Talk about Low Expectations! Are they saying that a democracy can’t prosper without test and punish imposed from on high? Do they believe that families and students are just as feckless as teachers, and none of us will teach and learn without reward and punish regimes that toughen us up for economic combat in the global marketplace?”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers

Will Duncan Raise the Stakes for Schools of Education?

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2014 //
18

Politico.com reports on the pending announcement of new federal regulations governing schools of education. Arne Duncan wants to drive the “bad” schools out of business. Did you know that was part of his job as Secretary of Education? The question is how he will determine which schools of education are “bad” schools. Will he grade these colleges by the test scores of students taught by graduates of schools of education? That will certainly make the stakes even higher for high-stakes testing. Oh, and did you hear that Duncan is modifying his fervent support for testing. But does he mean it? Watch for the regulations governing schools of education.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Breaking News: Federal Judge Appoints Receiver for Mosaica Charter Chain

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2014 //
31

This just in from Atlanta.

 

Federal Judge Timothy C. Batten, Sr., has appointed a special receiver to operate the “business” of Mosaica, which, according to the complaint and motion filed by its creditor, Tatonka Capital, has $20 million in unpaid debt and $10 million in operating losses in the last year. The receiver will be responsible for the continued operations of all the charter schools now being run by Mosaica.

 

This is the riskiness of the charter business. Mosaica is a “for-profit” charter business that is not making a profit and is instead deep in debt.

 

It is amazing the children are turned over to for-profit corporations for their education.

 

This is one of the dangers of “reform,” in which the motivating goal is profit, not education.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Alan Singer: Is It “Quid Pro Cuomo” Time?

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2014 //
2

Alan Singer sees a pattern:

Andrew Cuomo gets large campaign contributions from hedge fund managers, and Andrew Cuomo becomes a charter cheerleader. This, despite the fact that charters enroll only 3% of New York state’s children. At the beginning of his term as Governor, he promised to be the students’ lobbyist. Who knew that he intended to be the lobbyist for the 3% while ignoring the vast majority of children, who are enrolled in public schools?

Singer notes some fascinating details about Cuomo’s support for charter schools:

“It is probably just a coincidence. Could charter school dollars pouring into Andrew Cuomo’s reelection campaign at the same time that new charter agreements are approved by New York State really be “Quid Pro Cuomo”? Readers and voters have to decide for themselves.

“One month before Election Day, the State University of New York Charter School Committee gave its approval for seventeen new charter schools in New York City, including fourteen new Success Academy charter schools. This will eventually give the politically connected network headed by its contentious chief executive, Eva Moskowitz, a total of fifty charter schools in the city with over 16,000 students. Three new charter schools were also approved for a group called Achievement First.

“According to Joseph Belluck, the committee chairman, “parents in the communities where these schools are do not care about the politics of this issue. They want their kids to have good schools, and they want their kids to have a good education.” That may be true. However, it is Belluck’s job to know about the political issues, especially about the influence of political contributions, and take them into account before these decisions are made. But again, maybe he did.

“Belluck, a partner in the Manhattan law firm, was appointed to the SUNY Board of Trustees in June 2010. Before founding his law firm in 2002 he was counsel to the New York State Attorney General. Belluck is a major Democratic Party contributor. According to the website Little Sis, between 2004 and 2012 he gave $134,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign and about $200,000 to other Democratic Party candidates and committees.

“According to at least one website, in 2010, Belluck donated over $50,000 to Cuomo’s successful gubernatorial campaign. New York Press reported that Belluck donated $21,900 to Cuomo in 2008, $34,000 in 2009, and $60,000 in 2012. The Albany-Times Union called Belluck Cuomo’s second largest donor. Belluck is so politically connected that his law firm includes Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson. Sampson, by the way, was indicted in 2013 by a federal grand jury. He pleaded not guilty to charges that he stole money from the sale of foreclosed homes. The charges are still pending.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York
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