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The Incredible But True Story of the Plan to Destroy Public Education in Bridgeport, Connecticut

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2014 //
14

Jonathan Pelto tells the astonishing story of a calculated effort by Connecticut Governor Malloy and Bridgeport Mayor Finch to destroy public education in Bridgeport. First, starve the public schools of resources that they needed and to which they were entitled by state law; then declare the schools were failing and beyond help; finally, turn over the children to corporate charter chains that would get preferential treatment from the state, whoe commissioner of education founded one of the state’s charter chains.

The story is made credible not only by the facts of deliberate underfunding of the district, but by linking to an article by Bridgeport Board of Education member Howard Gardner, who was initially invited by the mayor to collaborate with the takedown of public education.

Gardner wrote in the Connecticut Post:

“Five years ago I was invited to join a newly formed education reform initiative comprised of Mayor Finch, then Superintendent John Ramos, then Board of Ed chair Barbara Bellinger, other community leaders, heads of local social service organizations, and business leaders. This organization was founded on the pretext of bolstering the performance of Bridgeport public schools, but operated under a hidden agenda shared only by a clandestine subgroup comprised of Meghan Lowney, Nate Snow and Robert Francis, and blessed by the Mayor. Suspecting that the purported agenda was not genuine, I resigned from Bridgeport Partner for Student Success, a.k.a., Excel Bridgeport.

“I walked away from BPSS over four years ago not having a complete grasp of the hidden agenda. However, subsequent chain of events have made its goals crystal clear — allow the Bridgeport Public School to be decimated, undermined; and then, point to the failure of the traditional public school system in Bridgeport. On that premise, they would build a case for alternative solutions — charter schools and corporation-based educational models. In hind sight one can deduce the various attempts to carry out this diabolical plot: the illegal takeover of an elected BBOE, the failed attempt at a charter change referendum and the hiring of Paul Vallas, public school destroyer extraordinaire.

“For his efforts in balancing the BBOE’s budget, Mr. Vallas might have left here as a hero to some; however, his results came with heavy damage to the district’s teaching/learning resources.

“This is the stark reality of Mr. Vallas’ legacy — the district has 72 less certified staff, including 27 in special education, than we had four years ago. Music, arts and other electives are non-existing at our high schools.”

There ought to be a law to punish those who harm public institutions and the children and communities that depend on them.

Categories Arts Education, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers

Patrick Walsh on the Death of Philosophy in a World of Philistines

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2014 //
22

Many bloggers have commented on the pretentiousness and vacuousness of the gaggle of politicians, entrepreneurs, and hedge funders who have gathered in the Adirondacks of New York and audaciously dubbed themselves the “thought leaders” of our time. They called their meeting “Camp Philos,” to claim association with such intellectual giants as Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their goal, they said, was to discuss “education reform,” but it is now generally understood that this term refers to the privatization and monetization of public education. They no doubt spoke of getting the nation’s children workforce-ready, prepared for global competition, primed to ace the next round of standardized tests.

What would Ralph Waldo Emerson say? Would he write about the convergence of crass values, of minds trained for profit making, of souls so devoid of ideals that they confuse commerce with philosophy?

Of everything I have read, whether humorous or serious yet, the best is the musings of a teacher named Patrick Walsh who writes the RagingHorse blog. I can give you but a sample of his critique of this circus of self-celebration and vulgar commercialism.

He writes:

“Needless to say, anyone who can convince themselves that they could place the words “Philosopher’s Camp “ before the words, “education reform” in the same breath they are comparing themselves with the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson is well nigh in need of a good teacher, a course in philosophy 101, or at the very least, a dictionary.

“On the other hand the event – which achieves a kind of horrible sublimity in its sheer vulgarity — is perfectly consistent with the tactics of the long stealth campaign to privatize the school system that built America. Of the privatizers many repugnant tactics, none is more more consistent, intrinsic nor effective than the conscious manipulation of language and images. In the way does a half assed experiment, hatched up in secret by shills and testing companies and financed by a billionaire come to be known as the miraculous Common Core State Standards, the are the answer to all that ills us, the solution to all problems. In this way does the almost Biblical struggle for Civil Rights come to be employed by the privatizer’s public relations department, as a tool to strip teachers of the right to due process and undermine unions. In this way does the word “philosophy”, one of the most transcendent and spiritually charged words in any language, come to be used in Lake Placid, as a fig leaf for yet the latest episode in most rapacious campaign against a public system in American history. The privatizers know little or nothing of education but they do know, as Orwell knew ( see “Politics and the English Language” ) that those who control the language control reality.

“Cuomo, coming off orchestrating what is surely the most egregiously unfair education law in the history of New York state, is the “honorary chairman” of the philosophical retreat. It troubles the philosophical Chairman Governor not at all that no educator was invited to Camp Philos, nor even that those who attempted to attend were summarily rejected, one and all.

“Still, even as I find the privatizers among the most cynical, ignorant and narcissistic people on the face of the earth, I must admit there is one place in which I agree with them, even as I radically disagree with their methods and ends.”

Walsh agrees that American education has failed in its duty to teach generations of students to appreciate the meaning of philosophy.

He writes:

“I would define the failure as philosophical in both nature and cause. Allow me to elaborate. Education is, in its essence, a philosophical endeavor. Yes, of course we need to insure that our citizens acquire enough practical skills so that they can navigate the always unknown road ahead. Yes, of course, it means that schools must do all they can to insure our students have the requisite skills to gain employment in an ever more frighteningly competitive world in which jobs are now routinely “out-sourced” or mechanized out of existence altogether. That said, education is not job training. Job training is a wonderful thing and a necessity but education serves a much larger, deeper, and more vital role, and that is where the philosophical element, directly or indirectly, enters into the picture.

“Accordingly, in the front and center of our education system should be some variations of the following questions:

“What, as a society, do we value ?

What kind of a people are we ?

What do we really believe in ?

Do we live our beliefs ?

What kind of citizens do we wish to produce ?

What does it mean to be educated ?

What, if anything, are our responsibilities to each other ?

How are we to live together ?

“Were it within my power to do so, I would immediately and unapologetically do all I could do to introduce the study of philosophy on some level beginning in the third grade, the age of my daughter as of this writing. And I would make it an essential part of the curriculum in every grade until high school graduation. Implicit with this undertaking would be the understanding that some may not grasp the meaning of the study for years if at all but all would benefit from the exposure.

“Children would begin with a study of the word: “philo,” which means “love. “Sophia,” which means “wisdom.” Let them spend a week, a month, a year — whatever it takes – discussing and attempting to grasp those two words alone and the concept of those together, and you cannot help but have a child with an imagination larger because it is more unleashed than before. Help a child understand that this thing called “wisdom” exists and is real and has been honored and revered by the civilized since the beginning of civilization, that it has nothing to do with the accumulation of material wealth, nothing to do with power over others, nothing to do with competition or control, and you have opened the portals of the mind. And you have done something else: you have given a child a way of seeing that affords he or she some mode of mental protection against a corporate assault that, for many, begins at the moment of consciousness. Worse, the assault is designed to wed that struggling to be formed identity with a product, now and forevermore.”

He writes:

“The study of philosophy would not merely make our children “college and career ready” ( whatever those weasel words actually mean), it would help them to understand this mystery called Life in all of its paradoxical, tragic and wondrous nature.

“We now live in a nation where most citizens seem to believe that the word “philosophy” is synonymous with “opinion.” We have all heard vulgar examples in statements such as “My philosophy is to hit a guy before he hits you” or some such foolishness. It is, I would argue, the absence of philosophical knowledge that has contributed to much of America’s horrible and dangerous confusion of technology with science, data with knowledge and knowledge with wisdom. Most of all has led to the groutesques idea that knowedge is power rather than liberation from the need for power.

“This is worse than sad.. No decent society, never mind democracy, can exist in this kind of mass confusion.
And, yes, many of these same people are products of the public school system and yes, that school system failed them. And it continues to fail them.

“When I have asked my students why they go to school and why they study, overwhelmingly they reply with some variation of “ to do well on the test.” This is sick but it is hardly an accident. But why should they think differently? It is, however, a crime. It is the crime of starving the imaginations of millions of children by sheer neglect. And it is a crime that the miraculous Common Core will not only not correct but will, in fact, perpetuate.

“I do not believe in magical thinking. (I leave that for the proponents of the Common Core) I am well aware that the study of philosophy will not automatically and magically open the doors of the imagination. Pre-Nazi Germany had the most rigorous school curriculum but it did little to stop millions from embracing Hitler. Something more is needed. That said, I know this: the absence of something as immense as philosophy can only diminish this nation. As I see it, the problem is ecological. By this I mean if you deprive a child of philosophical awareness you do not get child minus philosophy. You get someone radically different and radically weaker. You get a person whose imagination, the key to all, has been severely diminished.

“The purpose of education is not to be found in the vulgar slogan, “knowledge is power” but the absence of philosophy is one reason why that slogan is so readily swallowed in our increasingly competitive, miserable, punitive land. As philosophers and artists and spiritual geniuses have known for thousands of years, education is the emacipation of the human imagination. The purpose of education is freedom.”

I will not lift all the words of this brilliant blog. I want you to open the link and read it all yourself. These are not the words of a college professor or an eminent theologian, but a classroom teacher in one of the toughest neighborhoods of New York City.

Patrick Walsh is a teacher. He can pass the tests the politicians mandate. Can we say the same of the politicians whose forte is self-promotion?

Categories Corporate Reformers, Cuomo, Andrew, Privatization, Real Education

Teachers of Conscience Speak Out Against Market-Based Reforms

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2014 //
26

A group of teachers in New York City wrote an impassioned plea against the market-based reforms of the Bush-Obama era. It has since been signed by parents and educators from across the nation. It takes a strong position against high-stakes testing and the standardization of the Common Core. Read this letter and consider signing it.
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This is the beginning:

“We have patiently taught under the policies of market-based education reforms and have long since concluded that they constitute a subversion of the democratic ideals of public education. Policymakers have adopted the reforms of business leaders and economists without consideration for the diverse stakeholders whose participation is necessary for true democratic reform. We have neglected an important debate on the purpose and promise of public education while students have been subjected to years of experimental and shifting high-stakes tests with no proven correlation between those tests and future academic success. The tests have been routinely flawed in design and scoring, and do not meaningfully inform classroom instruction. Test scores have also been misapplied to the evaluation of teachers and schools, creating a climate of sanctions that is misguided and unsupportive.

“In your first speech as Chancellor, you spoke of the importance of critical thinking, or a “thinking curriculum” in education. We know you to be a proponent of critical pedagogy, part of the progressive education tradition. As teachers, we hold critical thinking and critical literacies in highest regard. As professionals, we resolve to not be passive consumers of education marketing or unthinking implementers of unproven policy reforms. We believe critical thinking, artistry, and democracy to be among the cornerstones of public education. We want creative, “thinking” students who are equipped to be the problem solvers of today and tomorrow; equipped to tackle our most vexing public problems: racial and economic disparity, discrimination, homelessness, hunger, violence, environmental degradation, public health, and all other problems foreseen and unforeseen. We want students to love learning and to be insatiable in their inquiries. However, it is a basic truism of classroom life and sound pedagogy that institutional policies should reflect the values and habits of mind we intend to impart on our students. It becomes incongruous, therefore, to charge our students to think critically and question, while burdening our schools with policies that frustrate teachers’ efforts to implement a “thinking curriculum,” perpetuating historic inequalities in public education.

“The “Crisis of Education” and a Crisis of Pedagogy

“Business leaders and economists have used reductive arguments to identify a “crisis of education” while branding educational success words such as achievement, effectiveness, and performance as synonymous with standardized test scores. The majority of education policy decisions are now guided by test scores, making standardized tests an indispensable product. Market-based reforms have been an excellent model of corporate demand creation–branding the disease and selling the cure. Stanford education professor Linda-Darling Hammond described policymakers’ mistaken reliance on standardized tests when she wrote, “There is a saying that American students are the most tested, and the least examined, of any in the world. We test students in the U.S. far more than any other nation, in the mistaken belief that testing produces greater learning.”

“The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

“For-Profit Standardized Tests as Snake Oil

“The keystone of market-based reforms–highly dependent on the mining and misuse of quantifiable data–has been the outsourcing of standardized test production to for-profit education corporations. In New York State, a single British-based corporation, Pearson PLC, manages standardized testing for grades 3-8, gifted and talented testing, college-based exams for prospective teachers, and New York State teacher certification exams. Contracts currently held by Pearson include: $32.1 million five-year contract, which began in 2011, for the creation of English Language Arts and Math assessments; $6.2 million three-year contract in 2012 to create an online education data portal; $1 million five-year contract, which began in 2010, to create and administer field tests; $200,000 contract through the Office of General Services for books and materials.

“Pearson’s management of testing in New York has resulted in a series of high-profile errors. In 2012, questions pertaining to an 8th grade ELA passage about a pineapple and a hare had to be thrown out after they were found to be nonsensical. It was also discovered that test questions had been previously used by Pearson in other state exams. In total, 29 questions had to be eliminated from the tests that year, prompting New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch to comment, “The mistakes that have been revealed are really disturbing. What happens here as a result of these mistakes is that it makes the public at large question the efficacy of the state testing system.” That same year, 7,000 elementary and middle school students were banned from their graduation ceremonies after they were mistakenly recorded as having failed their state tests…….

Categories Corporate Reformers, Standardized Testing, Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching, U.S. education

Gary Rubinstein Writes a Letter to Mike Petrilli

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2014 //
31

Gary Rubinsten has written a series of “reformers,” questioning their claims. In this letter, he writes to B list reformer Michael Petrilli. Understand that a reformer these days is someone who hates unions, views teachers with contempt as lazy and greedy, blames teachers if schools don’t achieve perfection, and welcomes school privatization. Mike is interesting to Gary, mainly because he occasionally deviates from the rightwing script. For example, it has fallen to Mike to defend the Common Core standards on behalf of his employer, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which is a recipient of generous Gates funding.

Gary was interested to see Mike break ranks with fellow reformers by asserting that college is not really for everyone. That was a break with reformist dogma, which believes passionately in the infinite perfectibility of all, a goal that will be attained presumably when every class is taught by a TFA teacher. Mike broke ranks, but it was only a minor deviation. He still hates unions and loves high-stakes testing and a Common Core.

Gary challenges Mike to answer this simple question: do you really believe that raising standards ever higher will produce big leaps in achievement?

Gary writes :

“But this isn’t the biggest problem I have with the Common Core and the defending of it by you and even by Randi Weingarten. The problem I have, and this is one that I have not heard you address specifically, is that it is based on several shaky premises. The weakest premise, and one I really hope you’ll address, is that “raising standards” — making them harder, you can call it ‘rigor’ if you want to use a euphemism will “raise achievement.” Do you have any basis for that belief? I even saw in a recent thing you wrote,

“For instance, the standards are clear that elementary-school teachers should assign texts that match a student’s grade level, rather than their current reading level. Yet the majority of teachers reported that they continue to assign such “leveled texts” to their charges.

“Have you found that when you try to learn something that starting with an advanced level book on that topic helps you learn? Maybe you like to run on the treadmill. Try this, double the speed that you usually run at. See how that works out for you. I’ve taught for 16 of the past 23 years and my goal is to teach just a little bit beyond the student’s comfort level. When you try to push kids too hard, they get discouraged. This does not maximize learning. Even with things that I try to learn, like Chess and piano, if I try to read too hard of a Chess book or try to play a piano piece that is way above my level — it just doesn’t work. And I’m an adult who is choosing to study this stuff in my spare time, not a child who is forced to sit through a math class. Come on. This is common sense. Yet the opposite, the idea that making it harder is surely going to raise achievement, is the main premise of the argument of the common core.

“Yes, I admit that there can be expectations that are too low, and that’s not good either. I see people at the gym on the treadmill and they’re reading the New Yorker at the same time, and I’m thinking if you’re able to comprehend ‘Shouts and Murmurs’ you’re not running fast enough. But I am not convinced that the old standards were too easy like that. In my experience with teachers and as a teacher, I find that it is to the teacher’s and to the student’s advantage for the teacher to teach at the appropriate level, not too hard, not too easy. This is because students get bored and misbehave when it is too easy and when it is too hard. The students, in a sense, train the teacher to teach to the proper level, and a federal mandate to teach faster and harder upsets this self-correcting feedback loop.

“Did Alabama and Mississippi really have such low standards that it required a federal intervention? I seriously doubt it. We all use the same textbooks and teach the same sorts of things. Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, reading books, writing essays. What do you think all the educators in Mississippi have been doing for all these years before the common core? Surely kids from those states had to take the SATs and they were not completely bewildered by them so much more than kids from other states. I think the argument that the standards were so different before the common core is incredibly exaggerated.

“The common core has been oversold as some necessary miracle cure. It isn’t a miracle. It isn’t going to cure anything. And it is very, very expensive. It was a waste of money, I think. Do you have some sort of estimate of the complete cost of the common core and the expected boost in achievement because of it. You, yourself, admit that schools are not able to perform miracles and get everyone ‘college ready’ so the expected boost can’t be so gigantic. Is it worth all that money?”

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers

Governor Malloy Stops Bashing Teachers Long Enough to Wish Them “Happy Teachers’Day”

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2014 //
14

Jonathan Pelto notes the hypocrisy of Governor Dannell Malloy, one of the most anti-teacher governors in the nation, issuing a smarmy proclamation in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week.

The trick is to bash teachers day after day, but say really kind (if insincere) things this week and right before the election.

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers

NYC “Charter School Gold Rush” Begins, Thanks to Governor Cuomo

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2014 //
24

A story in today’s New York Daily News reports that charter schools will flock to New York City, thanks to Governor Cuomo’s preferential treatment of them in a state law that applies only to New York City. Charter students account for only 3% of the state’s enrollment, and only 6% in the Big Apple, but Cuomo made clear that he was taking care of the hedge fund managers who put $800,000 into his campaign chest for re-election.

In effect, Governor Cuomo shafted the 97% of the state’s children whose schools are stifled by the 2% tax cap he placed on them.

But for charter schools, it’s that “great come and get it day.”

Says the story:

“Recent state law changes are making New York City the friendlist in nation for opening charter schools.

“Get ready for a charter school gold rush.

“Recently enacted changes in state law created an environment for opening charter schools in New York City that’s friendlier than almost any other city in the nation.

“From an infrastructure perspective, things have never been better,” said James Merriman, the influential CEO of the New York City Charter School Center.

“We have the governor and state Legislature to thank for that.”

“Would-be charter school operators have already contacted the center asking for information on the benefits of the law spearheaded by Gov. Cuomo. It requires that the city provide new or expanding charters with space in traditional public school buildings or rent for privately-owned space.

“The law also increases per-pupil funding for charters from $13,527 to an estimated $14,027 by the 2017-2018 school year.

“It changes the whole game,” said Ric Campbell, 61, co-founder of the South Bronx Early College Academy. “It’s a huge advantage.”
Campbell’s middle school received its charter in December and won’t open until September 2015 with 110 kids and $300,000 dedicated to facility-related expenses.

“If Campbell qualifies for the new benefits he could spend the money on hiring four more teachers, laptops for each student, field trips to college campuses or more arts and music programming, he said.

“He’s not the only one excited by the benefits of the new law.

“Everyone who reaches out to our organization is considering whether they are eligible,” said Kyle Rosenkrans, vice president of policy and advocacy at the Northeast Charter Schools Network, which works directly with 183 schools.

“James Merriman, the CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, said that from an infrastructure perspective, things have never been better

“Gov. Cuomo has given a green light to a separate and unequal school system that favors privately run charter schools and underfunds traditional public schools,” said Zakiyah Ansari, advocacy director for the Alliance for Quality Education.

“The charter movement is counting on the continued support of Cuomo, who is listed as honorary chairman of a private education conference in Lake Placid beginning Sunday and attended by charter operators and deep-pocketed hedge fund donors.

“It’s not just about putting more money in the public school system, it’s trying something new and that’s what charter schools are all about,” Cuomo has told charter supporters.

“That doesn’t sit well with Ansari.

“Political contributions from super-wealthy ideological promoters of privatization have too much control over education policy under Cuomo’s new law — instead parents and communities should be in the driver’s seat for their children’s future,” she said.

“Rosenkrans was guardedly optimistic about the law, which he said includes a lot of vague language that still needs to be hashed out.
Still, observers expect an avalanche of applicants for the 52 remaining spots allocated by the state for new charter schools in New York City — and teachers eager to land jobs.

“That’s on top of the 21 approved charter schools set to open in the city this year.

“All told, that means 73 new charter schools in the coming years.”

NEW YORK CITY IS A NATIONAL LEADER IN PER-PUPIL FUNDING FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS.:
New York City: $13,527
Washington, D.C.: $12,306
Memphis: $7,895
Houston: $8,300

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/state-law-city-easiest-nation-open-charter-schools-article-1.1778486#ixzz30r9NIHOR

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

Good News! Mercedes Schneider’s New Book is Way Ahead of Peterson’s Screed Against Teachers on amazon.com

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2014 //
28

Mercedes Schneider’s hard-hitting new book–A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Educations–which explores the persons and organizations behind the attacks on public education– was officially published on April 22 by Information Age Publishing. She has no public relations campaign, no marketing budget, no press release, no press conferences, no webinars, no flyers, just word of mouth. As of this minute, it is ranked about #5,100 on amazon.com

 

Paul Peterson and his co-authors published a book about the same time called Teachers Versus the Public: What Americans Think About Schools and How To Fix Them, in which they argue that teachers (not the unions, but teachers–those dangerous people who pretend to be your second cousins and your friends) are the enemies of school reform. By that, they mean that teachers are blocking such wonderful reforms as vouchers, charters, merit pay, abolishing tenure, high-stakes testing, and other things they like but teachers don’t. The book was published by the Brookings Institution Press and was heavily promoted. It has the endorsements of such heavy hitters as Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush, and Eric Hanushek. At a webinar last week, Peterson and his co-authors introduced their book to the public. Lily Eskelsen of the NEA bravely joined the panel and asked Peterson whether he planned to abandon his tenure at Harvard. I don’t think he answered her question, and I doubt he will abandon his tenure to set a good example for the nation’s teachers. As of this minute, the Peterson book is ranked on amazon.com at about #128,000.

 

Mercedes’ book is so under-promoted that it doesn’t even have a jacket cover on the amazon website. Yet her book, with no promotion, no marketing, no press release, is outselling Peterson’s. Maybe the public likes teachers and doesn’t think they are public enemy number 1.

 

Read  Mercedes’ thoughts on the matter. 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers, Vouchers

Jonathan Pelto: The Origins of ConnCAN

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2014 //
6

In an earlier post, I referred to ConnCan, the organization that was the inspiration for 50CAN and lots of state CANS. I said it was founded by hedge fund managers. Leonie Haimson then wrote in and corrected me, saying it was founded by Jonathan Sackler. Now comes Jonathan Pelto of Connecticut to set us both straight. He says we are both right. Here is the story of the origin of ConnCAN:

 

 

Jonathan Pelto writes:

 

 

Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, Inc. (ConnCAN) was formed in 2004 by Jonathan Sackler, who served as the founding chair. However, the role of ConnCAN’s Board Chairman was then transferred to Brian Olson, the co-founder of Viking Global Investors. Viking Global Investors is a hedge fund which currently manages over $10 billion. In addition to being a long-time member of ConnCAN, Olsen presently serves on the Leadership Council of the Newschools Venture Fund.
Following Olson’s tenure as the Chairman of ConnCAN, the position was given to Will Heins, the former Senior Vice President of Greenwich Capital Markets.
Of the twelve present members of ConnCAN’s Board of Directors, at least nine are or were “hedge fund managers,” including Art Reimers, a former partner and managing director of Goldman Sachs.
Three months after Sackler and his allies formed ConnCAN, they also incorporated Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Advocacy, Inc. (ConnAD), which was originally designed to be the lobbying and public relations arm of ConnCAN. The number two spot at ConnAD went to Alexander Troy, who lists his occupation as “private investor.” Troy worked for the hedge fund, Perry Partners during the 1990s and eventually created his own hedge fund company called Troy Capital in 2003.
The primary players behind ConnCAN and ConnAD were also the individuals who financed the creation of Achievement First Inc. in 2003. Achievement First Inc. is the charter school management chain with schools in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Achievement First Inc. was founded by Stefan Pryor and Dacia Toll. Pryor now serves as Commissioner of Education under Connecticut’s Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy and Dacia Toll is Achievement First’s CEO. Achievement First, Inc. collects significantly more public funds from Connecticut taxpayers than any other charter school or charter management company.
Achievement First’s incorporation papers were signed by Greenwich businessman William Berkley (who remains the Chairman of its Board of Directors) and Jonathan Sackler. Achievement First’s initial Board of Directors also included Alexander Troy.
Today, ConnCAN’s Board Chair, Will Heins serves on the Board of Achievement First’s Elm City College Preparatory School, ConnCAN Board member Andy Boas serves as the Board Chair of Achievement First’s Bridgeport Academy and Alexander Troy serves on the Board of Achievement First’s Amistad Academy.
ConnCAN, ConnAD and a successor group called A Better Connecticut were the leading funders in the record breaking $6 million lobbying and PR campaign to support Governor Malloy’s “education reform” initiative in 2012.
Sackler also is the individual who formed 50CAN and ConnCAN’s Chief Operating Office, Marc Porter Magee, became 50CAN’s President. 50CAN’s Board now includes Sackler, Dacia Toll (Achievement First) and Richard Barth (Kipp Charter Schools and spouse of Wendy Kopp), as well as others.
 

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

New York City Parents: Join Press Conference on May 6 to Protest Lack of Charter School Accountability

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2014 //
8

Class Size Matters
Please distribute to all parents!

 

Parents and elected officials are holding a press conference Tuesday May 6 at Tweed to speak out against the new state law that gives any new and/or expanding charter free space either in our public school buildings or in private space paid for by the city .

 

Meanwhile, many thousands of NYC public school students are sitting in vastly overcrowded schools, subjected to excessive class sizes, in trailers or on waiting lists for their zoned schools, with an underfunded capital plan. This is one of the worst charter giveaways ever passed into law, and will create even more inequitable conditions in our city going forward.
Eva Moskowitz charter chain, Success Academy, raised more than $7.5 million in one night, from Jeb Bush and her Wall St. buddies, while claiming she could not afford to rent her own space. Instead, the DOE is being forced to rent three parochial schools for her, and pay for renovations to suit her specifications. Here is yet another shameless ruse in which Success Academy is planning to make big sums off the stock trades of their billionaire supporters.
Clearly the charter lobby wants to drain as much resources and space from the public schools in order to destabilize and further overcrowd the system, or else they would pay for space themselves.
A flyer for our press conference is posted here: http://tinyurl.com/qy3mlaf
Please invite your City Council reps and other elected officials to attend as well.
Hearings follow the press conference at 10 AM at City Hall on the lack of charter accountability, including their egregious practice of suspending and pushing out large numbers of high need students.
Meanwhile, comedian Louis CK’s tweets have made a huge splash on the Common Core math materials given his children as test prep; see Rebecca Mead in the New Yorker, and the tweets themselves. Cynthia Wachtell bewailed the lack of poetry on the Common Core curriculum and exams. Rebecca, Cynthia and Louis are all public school parents, and welcome voices in this debate. Take a look and join the discussion!

 

We just heard today’s 3rd grade math exam was awful. What did you hear from your kids?
Thanks,

 

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
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Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York City, Parents, Privatization

Leonie Haimson Corrects the Origin of ConnCAN

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2014 //
8

In an earlier post, I noted that the original branch of the rapidly growing 50CAN, NYCAN, and other charter-advocacy groups stemmed from ConnCAN. I said that ConnCAN, in Connecticut, was started by hedge fund managers, who are its usual supporters wherever it launches. I also pointed out (correctly) that in the psychiatric literature, the term CAN refers to “child abuse and neglect.”

 

Leonie Haimson, leader of Class Size Matters in New York, sent the following correction to my post:

 

Leonie Haimson writes:

 

Actually CAN was founded not by hedgefunders but by Jonathan Sackler, heir to a Perdue Phama, makers of the controversial drug Oxycontin. Sackler is a big supporter of charter schools, especially Achievement First. As the NY Times reported, “in 2007 Purdue Pharma agreed to pay $600 million in fines and other payments to resolve the charge that the company had misled doctors and patients by claiming that the drug’s [Oxycontin’s] long-acting quality made it less likely to be abused than traditional narcotics. The company’s president, medical director and top lawyer pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of misbranding and paid more than $34 million in fines”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/business/01sackler.html?_r=0

As Edushyster noted, http://edushyster.com/?p=386, “Last year alone the drug generated $2.8 billion in sales for Purdue Pharma. And with Purdue desperate to extend the patent on OxyContin, the company recently began testing the drug on children. “

She also points out, “In 2010 his daughter Madeleine released a “documentary” called “The Lottery,” chronicling four New York City kids competing to get into a New York City Charter School. The Wall Street Journal praised the film, noting hopefully that it “could change the national debate about public education.” No mention of Ms. Sackler’s antecedents–or the role of OxyContin sales in funding her film–was ever made.”

 

My addition to Leonie Haimson’s correction: Madeleine Sackler’s “documentary” was a paean of praise to Eva Moskowitz’s Harlem Success Academy. Viewed critically, it shows how the chain whips up a frenzy over the lottery as a way of creating market demand and branding the schools as exclusive.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers
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