Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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Milwaukee: Poster District for the Failure of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2014 //
19

Bob Peterson here writes about the fate of Milwaukee which is a model city for almost every bad idea of the corporate reform movement.

Milwaukee has had vouchers and charters since 1990. The voucher schools and charter schools do not outperform the public schools. The public schools have disproportionate numbers of students with special needs, who Re not wanted by the voucher and charter schools.

Some of the charter and voucher schools are abysmal and should never have been funded or kept open.

On the NAEP, Milwaukee is one of the nation’s lowest performing districts.

The current school board now wants to turn its lowest-performing schools into charters, even though their record is no better than public schools.

The public schools are slowly and surely dying. The children are not benefitting.

One of our nation’s basic democratic institutions is being abandoned by those responsible for its health.

This is called “reform.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Milwaukee, Vouchers

EduShyster: Newly Released Documents Show Links Between Charters and TFA

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2014 //
13

EduShyster and co-author Chad Sommer reveal the contents of newly released documents that show the close relationship between Teach for America and charters (90% of which are non-union).

Sommer is an alum of TFA, class of 2011

TFA are inexperienced and inexpensive. They are an essential part of the charter business model.

They write:

Emails sent by the Broad Foundation, a leading advocate of market-based education reform and charter expansion, and acquired through a freedom of information request, reveal that many charter management organizations consider TFA presence in a region a necessary prerequisite for opening new schools. According to the documents, charter management organizations including Rocketship, KIPP, Noble, LEARN and Uncommon Schools all indicated that a supply of TFA teachers was a general pre-condition for expanding into a new region. The emails, which detail the Broad Foundation’s failed efforts to lure high-performing charter operators to Detroit, were released as part of a trove of thousands of documents requested as part of an investigation into Michigan’s embattled Education Achievement Authority.

Greetings from the charter state
In New Jersey, where controversial charter expansion plans have been unveiled in Newark and Camden, TFA is likely to play a key role in providing *local talent* to staff new schools. Cami Anderson’s One Newark education reform plan is predicated on 40% of Newark public schools becoming privately managed charter schools by the 2016-2017 school year. Meanwhile in Camden, yet another TFA-alum-turned-state-appointed-superintendent, Paymon Rouhanifard, has begun introducing local residents to the charter operators that will soon be *turning around* their public schools, but without naming the schools to be turned around. [Note: effective in the fall of 2014, TFA corps members in Newark, Camden and Trenton will all be managed under a single entity: TFA New Jersey].

The handover of public schools to private management would not be possible without the availability of the reserve army of eager and unquestioning TFA, who are willing to work long hours and won’t stay around long enough to ask for a pension.

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization, Teach for America

The Vergara Case: The Corporate Reformers Blame Teachers, Ignore Social Science

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2014 //
10

Julie Gutman Dickinson, a pro-union lawyer, here explains that the Vergara case is not what it appears to be.

Its wealthy corporate backers say that teachers are to blame if students get low scores, ignoring decades of social science about the effects of poverty and inadequate resources.

Their attack on teachers is a convenient way to divert attention from the impact of massive budget cuts that devastated the schools of California during the Schwarzenegger era. This is a case that serves the “reformers” well, as it will provide a template for similar legal battles across the nation. And if the plaintiffs should prevail, based on anecdotes, it will be yet another blow against the teaching profession, another incitement for people to avoid or leave the classroom for less embattled fields.

She writes:

Though efforts to remake public education have attracted both Democrats and Republicans, the three-pronged strategy of austerity, privatization and demonization is familiar to anyone who has watched the conservative movement over the past several decades. First you starve government of the resources needed to perform at a high level. Then you claim that the private sector is more efficient and effective, and should be given greater authority. Finally you target public sector workers and the unions that represent them in order to clear the field of opposition, claiming that they are hurting the very people they are charged with serving.

The buildup to Vergara is a perfect example of this sequence. Over the past decade, California saw massive cuts in its education budget, which has only recently started to recover. In 2010-11, the state was 46th in the nation in K-12 spending per student, and 50th in the number of K-12 students per teacher. At the same time, the Golden State has been ground zero for education privatizers, who have spent millions of dollars on school board races, legislation such as the controversial parent trigger law and the relentless effort to advance charter schools.

Now, with Vergara, these forces are seeking to strip teachers of fundamental protections, using the patronizing argument that children must come first (indeed, the name of the group that brought the Vergara suit is the cloying “Students Matter”). That facile assertion is convenient cover for a legal case predicated on weak evidenceand willful blindness toward the actual conditions that impact both children and teachers.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Robert Shepherd’s Reformish Lexicon

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2014 //
22

Robert Shepherd, a frequent contributor to this blog, has started his own blog.

Our of our brilliant friend’s first contributions is a “Reformish lexicon
” in which he attempts to translate the language of “reform” into plain English.

If you have more words for him, send them in. There are many more. He has only scratched the surface.

Categories Coleman, David, Common Core, Corporate Reformers

LAUSD Heads for Fiscal Cliff

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2014 //
42

The Los Angeles school district is making short-term and long-term decisions that are fiscally and educationally irresponsible. Having committed to spend $1 billion to give an iPad for Common Core testing to every student and staff member, the district is short changing or eliminating essential programs.

The money for the iPads is mostly from a bond issue intended for construction and facilities. Consequently, there is not enough money for necessary repairs.

As the previous post showed, the libraries in half the district’s elementary and middle schools are closed due to budget cuts.

A reader comments about the failure to plan ahead:

“The closure of libraries comes on the heels of the “Repairs not iPads” facebook page detailing the fiscal priorities of LAUSD.

“There are 55,000 outstanding repair orders at present, school libraries are shut down all over the city, and the district’s proposed arts plan suggests increasing “arts integration” as a cost savings measure instead of bringing back the hundreds of arts specialists let go over the last few years.

“All this while, Deasy still maintains that all students will receive their own device.

“While we now know that superintendents like Deasy believe in the “corporate-style” of education, the one gaping hole in this plan is that corporations want to stay solvent and make decisions that will ensure present and future financial viability. This is the one missing element in Deasy’s iPad project……no plan to pay for it beyond the first few years.

“When asked, district officials provide answers like “we just can’t not do this”(Bernadette Lucas), “this is the cost of doing business in the 21st century” (Board member Tamar Galatzan) and “I can’t speak to that”(project leader Ron Chandler).

“Any business considers what it will take to stay in business, but not LAUSD. The bond funds will be gone, so the only other source of income is the general fund.

“Is the State of California going to bail out LAUSD? They have already demonstrated that they can’t or won’t even provide the basic needed services, like nurses, counselors, libraries, working bathrooms and water fountains, siesmic safety, etc., etc.????

“The problem is that Deasy won’t be around to be held accountable.

“But, we, the citizens of Los Angeles will be left with a totally bankrupt school system and no way to put the pieces back together.”

Categories Arts Education, Broad Foundation, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Libraries, Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

The Mayoral Race in Newark: How to Fix Education is a Central Issue

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2014 //
15

The race for mayor of Newark, New Jersey, has narrowed to two candidates: Ras Baraka and Shavar Jeffries. It has become a referendum on the direction of school reform and whether Newark’s public schools will be turned over to private charter organizations.

Baraka, a city councilman and high school principal, has received the endorsement of the Network for Public Education, based. On his support for research-based methods of school improvement and his commitment to democratically controlled public schools (Newark has been under state control since 1995). Jeffries is a strong supporter of the continued privatization of schools in Newark, which coincides with the plans of Chris Christie’s administration.

This article by Josh Eidelson in Salon contains an informative interview with Baraka.

It is interesting that the editor of the “Star-Ledger” says in the article that Baraka has no new ideas; he just wants to fix the public schools, not blow them up. This is the same editor who admitted that his newspaper had erred in endorsing Christie’s re-election. If he read research about charters in New Jersey, which demonstrates their success in culling the students they want and excluding the ones they don’t want. He should invite Bruce Baker of Rutgers to meet the editorial board.

The election this fall will determine whether public education will survive in Newark or whether the children will become part of the national experiment in privatization of public schools..

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, New Jersey

Paul Horton: Common Core Standards Are Not About Education but About Profits

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2014 //
92

The next time that a supporter of the Common Core standards says there are no critics on the left, tell them to read this post by Paul Horton.

Arne Duncan says that the opposition to the Common Core standards emanate from the Tea Party and other rightwing extremists. The media have bought that line, and in some states it is surely true.

But recently the media have noticed that the Common Core has outspoken critics on the left, even though they can’t understand why anyone on the left would oppose standards that allegedly produce equity, excellence, critical thinking, and everything good.

Paul Horton is one of the nation’s most articulate and eloquent opponents of the Common Core standards.  Paul Horton teaches history at the University of Chicago Lab School. He is not a member of the Tea Party; he does not wear a tin foil hat. He is a serious and well-informed teacher.

In this post (which is behind an Education Week paywall), he argues that the purpose of the Common Core standards is to generate profits for business and deskill teachers. He argues that the Common Core standards are essential to the long-term strategy of leaders in business-industry-and-government to eliminate unions, to replace experienced teachers with Teach for America, and to hand public schools over to private management. The driving force, he maintains, is corporate greed.

He insists that the best thing to do with the CCSS is to eliminate it.

He writes:

It has become increasingly clear to me that the Common Core is not about the Common Core and that CBS is not a news network, but a new mindset created by corporate honchos who want to exploit Computer Business Systems to de-skill white- collar professions to break unions and lower wages.

To the extent that teaching and the medical professions, for example, can be scripted and digitalized in measurable units, efficiency targets can demand less human interaction and “time theft.”

This is the brave new world that Simon Head describes in his recently published, Mindless: Why Smarter Machines are Making Dumber Humans. Can you guess? You got it, profit! We have been focusing on Common Core like lonely young men focus on Mona Lisa’s smile. Common Core is like the tip of the iceberg on the surface: it has become the reified image of a global crisis that most of us can not quite get our minds around.

He adds:

But while the corporate-funded technocrats of the Democratic party are pushing their education policies down the throats of as many Americans as they can, inspiring more mobilization from the right, what is left of the union-supported Populist wing of the party is steaming mad. The Tea Party has been successful in its Grover Norquist inspired strangulation of government at all levels, and the Democratic Party is cooperating with corporate-led attempts to break public unions. The Obama administration has gone after teacher unions with a vengeance.

According to Head, most Americans can’t see the big picture because “CBSs (Computer Business Systems) are the semi-discovered black holes of the contemporary economy.” (3) He argues that Information technology is creating income inequality by driving down wages in the white-collar professions that could not be previously “Taylorized.” “By making us dumber, smart machines also diminish our earning power.” (3) In other words my doctor and I face the same set of issues: as machines and algorithms take over, our work can be divided into units and our efficiency can be statistically measured. We are in the same boat as weavers who worked the “putting out” system in the late eighteenth century—they were paid for each piece produced. In other words, corporate bosses are trying to push teachers, doctors, and all white collar-service workers into a work structure that is increasingly deskilled to justify lowering salaries and benefits, busting unions and professional organizations, increase productivity, and forcing all white collar workers to compete through the use of digitalized efficiency reports and student and student test data banks. This data will be shared with consulting firms like McKinsey to evaluate potential and current employees world wide. Troublemakers, union organizers, and those with low productivity and test scores will be funneled into the lowest-paying service jobs.

And he concludes:

The reason Mr. Gates and Mr. Duncan become very upset when states want to drop the Common Core, PARCC, data collection, or standardized testing is that all of these components are required by CBS. Pearson Education, a British company that gave ninety-four percent of its campaign contributions to the Obama campaign, is working with Microsoft and InBloom to scale up data collection. All of these companies are scaling up the de-skilling of the education workplace and they are breaking what is considered learning down to discrete, easily measured units. The global teaching profession at the school and university levels is being set up for work speed-ups with productivity gains going to management and investors. Assessment data for all teachers will be stored to determine salaries based on effectiveness as measure by student test scores. Students will also have their data collected and evaluated at each stage of their academic and professional careers. Based on McKinsey’s model of employment disruption, CBS and data analysis will be used to force white-collar employees to compete with employees around the world. Layoffs will be frequent to motivate greater productivity….

 

The Common Core deskills the teaching profession by turning the teaching into a delivery machine. Relationships with students are to be ignored and replaced by the mechanical delivery of scripted lessons in a particular sequence. In effect, the teacher craftsman will be forced to work on an assembly line. Evaluations will be based on a standard Charlotte Danielson rubric that has its origins in Kaplan’s “Balanced Scorecard” and “Value Added Measures” based on student test scores….

 

Understanding Common Core is about seeing a much larger picture. That picture is a collage of the strategic plans of most multinational corporations that are increasingly managed or heavily influenced by the CBS approach to business and labor relations. What the Tea Party erroneously views as the socialistic overreach of the Obama Administration is in reality the administration’s acquiescence to the power of multi-nationals that are pushing the CBS imperative to de-skill and destroy what is left of the American and global skilled white-collar middle-class.

The corporate-owned major editorial boards and television media refuse to report the big picture. They will focus on Glenn Beck’s ignorant bloviating about the Common Core to throw “reasonable people” who read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal off the real story: corporate greed….

We need to discard every element of the Race to the Top including the Common Core because RTTT is a very different animal than state curriculum standards. The global economy has changed since the mid 80s when states were coordinating education policy reforms. RTTT is the handmaiden of multinational corporations that want to bust unions to capture productivity gains. This might be ok if they planned on sharing some of those gains with a hard-working workforce as Adam Smith believed should happen. The global reality of growing income inequality should serve as a wake-up call to our education unions.

 

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

YES! Reaching the Public with “The Myth of Our Failing Schools”

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2014 //
111

YES! Magazine devotes a special issue to public education and its findings  will not surprise readers of this blog.

The lead article by executive editor Dean Paton is “The Myth Behind Public School Failure,” demonstrating that our public schools are NOT failing. Here is the line that follows the title:

“In the rush to privatize the country’s schools, corporations and politicians have decimated school budgets, replaced teaching with standardized testing, and placed the blame on teachers and students.”

There is also a powerful infographic titled “Why Corporations Want Our Public Schools.”

The answer will not surprise you.

The important point about YES! is that the message about the theft of our public schools is reaching a larger public.

This is good news.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Jonathan Pelto: Steve Perry’s School Performs Below Hartford Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2014 //
41

It is a strange world we live in, when schools are compelled to compete for “customers” and when some chain schools hold themselves up as owners of a “secret sauce” to produce high test scores, and some individuals market themselves as savants. We have a plethora of savants, individuals who claim that they alone have cured vexing educational problems. They boast, and their boasting naturally draws scrutiny.

Steve Perry, who is principal of a magnet school in Hartford, Connecticut, has perfected the style of the boastful savant. He used to be a commentator on CNN, which accepted his self-portrait as a miracle man. He recently created a managent company to open charter schools at a hefty fee. He claims a graduation rate of 100%.

No one has been more relentless in fact-checking Perry’s claims than Connecticut political analyst and blogger Jonathan Pelto. See here and numerous other entries.

In his latest blog, Pelto shows that Perry’s school has lower test scores for African American students than the much-maligned public schools of Hartford. yet Perry now seeks to open more schools.

A couple of years ago, when I checked various “miracle schools,” none turned out to be true. All had high attrition, skimming, or other ways of manufacturing high scores. And then there are charters who get high scores by turning children into “little test-taking machines.” This is the current definition of “success,” but there are no careers that rely on test-taking. It is difficult to see the exaltation of the ability to guess the one right answer as the key to success in college or careers.

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers

The Vergara Case and Other People’s Children: A Teacher’s View

By dianeravitch
February 25, 2014 //
31

The Vergara trial in Los Angeles prompted this National Board Certified Teacher to reflect on the power dynamics in LAUSD. And how it affects the students. The trial is funded by a very wealthy tech entrepreneur whose legal team claims that due process rights for teachers denies the civil rights of minority students because it is harder to fire teachers if they get a hearing. Superintendent John Deasy testified for the plaintiffs who are suing his districts because he says he can’t fire ineffective teachers.

The classroom teacher wrote this commentary on the trial and the issues:

“The Vergara case is truly the epicenter of everything wrong with the direction of American public education.

“Sorry in advance for this long post, but this case connects a lot of dots…from my classroom in Los Angeles…to Wall Street…to The White House.

“The words in this case are twisted in Orwellian ways, where a term like “Civil Rights” gets to be used by the oppressors instead of those trying to liberate kids from their dictums.

“Teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District is an exercise in futility these days. Watching this court case unfold with its Trojan Horse arguments about the best education for students is like hearing the 1% argue that what the financial system needs is less regulation so that the poor people of the country can be free to achieve their American Dream.

“Their words are all about “liberty” and “justice” and “equality”, but it is obvious who reaps the benefits of those terms.

“It is no coincidence that our District Superintendent John Deasy, was the first witness called to testify against the teachers of his own district.

“He knew that he had the backing of the very rich benefactors who have paved his life in education. He keeps winning because there is no realistic way to challenge his authority.

“The Editorial Board of the LA TIMES, like the Editorial Boards of papers like The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune are enamored by this sort of superintendent–a man who is brought in to kick teachers’ whining butts and bring up test scores. The cosmetic nature of HOW they do it is apparent to anyone who looks at it.

“They have lowered graduation requirements and (as in our school) have brought in empty BS “Advisory” classes that the kids can get full credit for attending (that’s 40 additional credits after four years!!!) so that graduation rates can be boosted. No one is going to do an in depth analysis of this because the public wants results! Arne Duncan can give a big hooray for Deasy and company because the graduation figures are going up! Numbers don’t lie!

“Are our kids “smarter” because John Deasy is our superintendent? No. The pedagogy that Deasy believes in is small-minded and literal. If a teacher in LA is doing great things in his or her classroom, the chances are it’s IN SPITE of the District, not because of it. The only true education emphasis that Deasy champions is the same one that most of the 1% from Bill Gates to Barack Obama to Arne Duncan adhere to: Get the most kids through the education factory they oversee (and often profit from) towards the goal of making them somewhat competent in the world to not go out and steal. It is a very low bar. Very few schools and administrations treat education as a mind-blowing, explosive and subversive experience. That would be about the last thing on John Deasy’s agenda.

“For Deasy and those who back him, Education is defined by them alone, using their own, limited metrics about what they think constitutes “education”.

“For Deasy’s system, creative teaching is seen only as an added bonus–not a primary function. If it happens, great, but it is not the most important aspect of education. Creativity and the emphasis on a critical understanding of the world is not the thing the system values most. Deasy, Duncan, Gates and Pearson value kids responding to its metrics. Actually, if those metrics are achieved, then the Education System says the “product” is successfully educated.

“The truth is that the System will NEVER get the results from this urban population of kids (or for most others either) because they neglect to deal with a variety of factors: Poverty, environment, lack of parental wherewithal, economic forces that dictate a certain path for the working class that Deasy oversees.

“But Deasy’s route to “success” was vastly different from that likely of the students he oversees. In fact, ironically, his path was much more “American” in its orchestration of how the country actually works: Inheritance, privilege and obsequiousness. Although most people are tired of hearing about Deasy’s PhD “controversy” (http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/education/blog/2008/10/prince_georges_says_goodbye_to.html) it is always worth remembering because it is a perfect metaphor for how Deasy has always gotten his way throughout his entire education life. With the tremendous support of a financial power structure that has bolstered his career from Day One, Deasy has been the beneficiary of those whose interests he promotes. First it was the financial interests of billionaires Bill Gates and later Eli Broad which morph conveniently into the political interests of the neo-liberal Democrat agenda.

“Brought in and imposed upon the city by former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Deasy consolidated his support by having Eli Broad pony up millions into LAUSD to “buy” support for him. Deasy has enjoyed the unfaltering support of The United Way, the Chamber of Commerce, multi-millionaire Jamie Alter-Lynton’s LA SCHOOL REPORT and The LA Times…behind these entities are all men and women of great wealth who have thrown their considerable influence backing Deasy’s “Reform” Agenda but do not send their own kids to LAUSD. Our current Mayor Eric Garcetti is a product of the UCLA Lab School and the tony Harvard Westlake Prep (as Mayor Emmanuel sends his kids to University of Chicago Lab where the Obama kids also attended).

“No matter.

“Like many other inner cities with very separate education agendas for other people’s children, these socially-liberal Titans of LA Power pull the strings for a school system that is both racist and classist. The type of education that Deasy prescribes for the kids of LAUSD would never go over in his former school district of Santa Monica. Educated, mostly white and financially secure parents would not tolerate the low bar for their own kids. They would not tolerate the class size that our students endure and are supposed to “buck up” and learn in, nor the pitiful lack of electives, art, drama or field trip opportunities.

“As for LAUSD teachers? Most suffer in silence. Our system’s teachers are cowed and intimidated. Where do they look for support? How did they become the enemy? Hundreds of teachers in “jail” in LA. Deasy gets a 91% disapproval rating from the very people he leads and it doesn’t garner a shrug. Imagine if the Secretary of Defense got that rating from the troops or any municipal Police Chief from the officers on the street? There would be calls for firing immediately, but teachers are demonized and can be ignored. Everyone from Obama to Bill Gates to Arne Duncan gives lip service to “WE LOVE TEACHERS!” but it is in much the same way as Colonel Sanders LOVES his chickens.

“Only a neo-liberal, corporatist agenda could get a piece of agitprop like the anti-union teacher film WON’T BACK DOWN at the last Democratic Convention. Wall Street loves people like Arne Duncan and John Deasy and Barack Obama. No matter that these people never had any experience in public urban education before they rose to power, they have sought to undermine teachers and student opportunities at every level.

“They have no shame of putting my students in a real-life movie that actually SUBVERTS their interests. They will back law suits like Vergara v. California stating its “for the kids”. Deasy will claim that his teachers are the problem, instead of the social issues that hold students’ lives in their sway. Ghastly, Deasy then claims that its HIS OWN self-serving, self-aggrandizing, self-benefiting educational policies (and those of Gates, Broad, Pearson, et. al) that are the life preservers for the kids.

“Our kids are afloat in a desperate sea and the “rescue” ship they send is manned by cannibals.

“The LAUSD School Board is a feckless lot. It is too much inside baseball to go into the individual psychologies of the seven members. Suffice to say they read the newspapers and are always VERY concerned how they appear to the editorial boards who keep them in line. Education is political and its big business. To say otherwise is ignorant at best and downright disingenuous at worst. I do not hold out much hope for this sorry lot because they are all in over their heads.

“Without rehashing the iPad story, LA’s citizens got upset because they saw it as a ridiculous waste of their money–while teachers saw it as horrifying waste of resources and priorities. We were told by our leader, Deasy, that iPads were a Civil Rights issue which was met with universal derision. We are now forced to figure out some way of threading the needle of asking the public to actually give MORE to public education which actually IS a Civil Rights issue, but it has been polluted by Deasy’s “version” of Civil Rights. When our own district stabs us in the back, undercutting our desire to make the public understand what the system truly needs, then what hope do we have to actually do right by our kids?

“John Deasy, Bill Gates, Arne Duncan and Barack Obama have miserably failed all urban kids. Their education is a disaster for my students. But the people who have the influence and power to change it don’t realize it (charitably?) or they simply BELIEVE the “philanthropists” when they say something is true and necessary because they also NEED those people for their political survival. And they get their backing because they back them. And so on and so on and so on….

“To connect the dots even further in this depressing spirit, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has announced that Bill Gates will be a keynote speaker at their 2014 Teaching and Learning conference next month. As a National Board teacher, I am horrified by this entity that is supposed to recognize the excellence in teaching is becoming just a shill front. Education is political and the National Board steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the destruction of public education. In fact, Gates has given so much money to this organization that it has created a toxic influence in the organization, reducing the “reliability” of what National Board constitutes great teaching.

“My disenfranchised classroom loses out simply because we can’t buy our way into a seat at the table.

“My kids can’t “buy” their way into a PhD.

“My kids have to accept what Deasy and The LA Times tells them is necessary for them.

“Who is our court of appeal in this system?

“Vergara v. California is the rich’s power grab. American public education is on trial not by “the people” but by the oligarchs who use it as a punching board to misdirect the culpability of many of these elites in creating the societal pathologies these kids navigate everyday.

“The true enemy of the nine students whose names are cynically being used in the suit are not their teachers–but those who exploit their desire for a true education–and will replace their trust with fat bank accounts in someone else’s name at a desk very far away (and with a much better window view) than theirs at the school’s they originally came from.”

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Broad Foundation, California, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Graduation rates, Los Angeles, Students
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