Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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EduShyster Imagines Dr. MLK & Today’s “Reform” Movement

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2014 //
8

EduShyster has a dream, but it is not the one that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke about in 1963 at the March on Washington.

She has a dream of Dr. King returning today to see the new “reform” movement which so often claims that it is the “civil rights movement” of our time.

He tours the “no excuses” school and sees that it is segregated. He discovers that the new “civil rights movement” is funded by many billionaires.

He might be shocked to discover that poverty is now considered “an excuse,” not something to be opposed and banished.

He might be even more amazed to discover that in today’s world, the labor unions are an obstacle to closing the achievement gap, and not–as he thought–a valued ally in his efforts to advance social justice.

As he completes his tour of “excellent” charter schools, more surprises in store for him:

Separate but innovative
Tough news on this issue, reformers. Even Dr. King 2.0, now with more excellence, might have a problem with our apparent abandonment of the ideal of universal public education. In Detroit, for example, where he delivered his speech at the Great March in 1963, there are now dual school systems: one of charter schools and the other a public system that must accept all children and is rapidly becoming the last resort for the toughest-to-serve kids. And in Washington DC, where King dreamed of an equal future for children of all races, two separate systems, one for strivers, one for discards, compete for public resources. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that even Dr. King 2.0 would not be a fan of “separate but innovative.”

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Unions

Bob Braun: More on the Outrage in Newark

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2014 //
20

Bob Braun covered politics and education in New Jersey for the Star-Ledger for 50 years until his recent retirement. He now has his own blog, which is an invaluable source of information and insight into New Jersey political doings.

Here he writes about the ouster of five Newark principals by state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson. Four of them spoke at a public hearing about the pending closure of their public schools, which will be handed over to KIPP. The fifth was suspended because she supported the president of the school’s PTSA, who was banned from entering the school his children attended.

Here is how the story begins:

At Newark’s Hawthorne Avenue School, the test scores are up, higher than state-imposed goals—and certainly better than those of the highly touted “Renew” schools favored by the administration. The hallways are quiet. Teachers and administrators get along. And this was all done despite central office’s stripping away of faculty resources and shameful neglect of the building. So, in the crazy, bullying logic of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration of city schools, it was time to suspend the school’s successful  principal, H. Grady James. He was just too good to be allowed to stay.

Time to suspend him—and to try to smear his reputation by saying he was involved in some sort of “incident” now under  “investigation.”  The “incident” was a community meeting at the Hopewell Baptist Church last Wednesday where he spoke, praising the efforts of his students, teachers and parents.

James was one of five principals indefinitely suspended in one day by Cami Anderson, Christie’s agent in Newark. The others were Tony Motley, Bragaw Avenue School; Dorothy Handfield, Belmont-Runyon School; Deneen Washington, Maple Avenue School, and Lisa Brown, Ivy Hill School.

Braun’s article is maddening. It all seems so unfair. These principals were ousted the way a corporation fires a dangerous or possibly criminal employee: They were called to central headquarters, where their keys were taken away, and their computer access blocked. They were told not to enter the schools until further notice.

Governor Christie and Commissioner Chris Cerf want to privatize the entire Newark school district, to make it like New Orleans. Cami Anderson is their agent. She bullied the principals the same way that Christie bullies teachers and mayors.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, Privatization

Peter Greene Reviews Fordham’s Wacky Video

By dianeravitch
January 18, 2014 //
21

Peter Greene, an English teacher and blogger in Pennsylvania, reviewed the wild and wacky video made by the staff at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Apparently the kids there wanted the world to see them as fun-loving buddies who can laugh at themselves, but Greene thinks it didn’t work. Despite the high production values, there is something unfunny about Fordham’s policy ideas (no to smaller classes, yes to Common Core).

Greene, you will note, updated his post at a time when he was teaching William Faulkner’s Light in August to high school students, a task we may assume is as valuable (more valuable?) to society than having a desk job in Washington and telling the nation’s teachers what they ought to be doing.

He writes:

“Final effect? People making wacky shenanigans out of policy ideas that are being used to destroy public education? It’s a hard thing to parse– how would “Springtime for Hitler” have come across if it had been staged by the Nazis themselves? I am not meaning to suggest that Fordham = Nazis, but I do wonder what we’re to make of people making themselves look more ridiculous that we could make them look on purpose.

“It is part of the tone deafness problem. I want to shake them and say, “Did you not see this? Do you not know how you look, both awkward and opposite-of-cool, while making jokes about policies being used to destroy peoples’ careers?” Somehow while shooting for cool and relaxed and with it, they’ve hit uncool and callous, thereby suggesting that they are imbued with so much hubris and arrogance that they either can’t see or don’t care (because only unimportant people will be bothered, and they don’t matter). This is the education industry equivalent of those bankers’ videos of obscenely wealthy parties, the Christmas cards from wealthy apartments, the total lack of understanding of what things are like out there on the street, because the street is just for the commoners who don’t matter.

“It’s an oddly fascinating train wreck. Is it awesomely funny because it’s so awful, or is it too awful to be funny. Whatever the case, it gives a strong 2:20 feel for what sort of attitude permeates Fordham, and it is just as bad as we ever imagined. maybe worse.”

Categories Class size, Common Core, Corporate Reformers

TFA’s Mighty Ambitions

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2014 //
14

Teach for America has created a spin-off called Leaders for Educational Excellence that quietly trains and supports the ambitions of former TFA and their ascent to positions of power.

Teach for America, through LEE, hopes to take charge of the reins of power in many districts, states, and the halls of Congress.

TFA, of course, is a mainstay of the corporate reform movement, supplying the ill-trained recruits to the charter chains like Rocketship and gaining elective positions by espousing the slogans of “reform.”

Electoral work amounts to less than a third of LEE’s budget, its officials say, but it has nevertheless fueled popular accounts of the organization, mostly critical. Such accounts accuse the group of supporting candidates who espouse a particular “corporate” brand of education policy focused on expanding charter schools and test-based accountability.

Critics point to prominent TFA alumni and LEE members, such as Bill Ferguson, a state senator in Maryland, who sponsored legislation that included an iteration of the “parent trigger.” That policy permits parents to turn over the management of schools to outside operators.

LEE officials contest such depictions.

“We do not exist to propagate policy,” said Mr. Buman.

And Stephen Sawchuck’s article in Education Week adds:

The connection to TFA also appears to have given LEE-backed candidates access to an informal network that can fuel spending. Campaign-finance records from the Nevada state board races, for instance, turn up some of the same donors who have contributed to other endeavors affiliated with so-called “reform” priorities, including charter school expansion and teacher evaluations linked to student test scores.

Those contributors include Alan Fournier, who helps finance the New Jersey chapter of StudentsFirst, the advocacy group founded by former District of Columbia Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, and Charles Ledley, a donor to Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee.

“There’s a strong network of people who are supportive of TFA alums, regardless of what their policy or visions are for the respective school systems,” Mr. Esteves said.

In essence, the issue boils down to one of self-selection: Even if LEE itself is politically neutral, it supports candidates who by definition must take policy stands. And those who reach out for its help may well favor a certain approach after being immersed in TFA’s philosophy, Mr. McGuinn of Drew University said.

It is doubtless sheer accident that TFA/LEE-supported candidates support charter schools, test-based evaluation, and the same policy prescriptions as Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

Hey, I live in Brooklyn. Anyone want to buy a world-famous bridge?

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

Peter Greene: Why I Agree with Arne Duncan

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2014 //
36

Peter Greene, who teaches in Pennsylvania, read an interview in “US News” in which Arne Duncan claimed that our students fall behind those in other nations because we are “not serious” about education.

Greene agrees with Arne that our country is not serious about education.

If we took education seriously, he writes, teachers would be highly respected and well paid.

“If we were serious about education, we would not allow our public school system to be hijacked and dismantled by rich and powerful amateurs.”

“If we were serious about education, our media would direct its questions about education to teachers…

“If we were serious about education, we would never entrust our nation’s educational leadership to men who have no training or experience in education at all and who only listened to other men with no training or experience in education at all. If we were serious about education, we would demand leadership by people who were also serious about education, and we would demand leadership based on proven principles and techniques developed by people who truly cared about the education of America’s students.

“In short, Arne, if we were serious about education, we would not have you and your cronies running the Department of Education and popping up as “leaders” in the national discussion of education and more than we would be asking Robin Williams and Justin Bieber to straighten out the war in Afghanistan. If we were serious about education, we would send the whole wave of privateers masquerading as reformers scuttling back to their hedge funds and corporate tax havens….”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne

Steve Nelson Predicts What 2014 Holds for Education Reformers

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2014 //
4

EduShyster, move over! Here comes someone writing in the same vein, though to be accurate, nobody tops EduShyster.

Here is Steve Nelson with a hilarious account of the events that are in store for corporate reform.

No one is spared!

It is a month-by-month account.

Here is his prediction for July:

“In an otherwise slow month for school-related news, Pearson Education announces the acquisition of the United States Department of Education. John Fallon, Pearson’s Chief Executive, appoints Arne Duncan as Chief Operating Officer for the new division. “Arne richly deserves this new appointment, as he has been working on our behalf for many years.” Doug Peterson, CEO of the McGraw-Hill Companies, asks the SEC to investigate, claiming, “I was pretty sure we had Duncan in our pocket. This is ridiculous.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Humor, Pearson

A Charter Teacher Writes in Response to Jeff Bryant

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2014 //
15

After reading Jeff Bryant’s article on abuses in charter schools, a teacher posted this letter on the site where it was originally posted:

 

She writes:

      Charter schools suffer from the problems that this article highlights–gobs and gobs of public money with virtually no public supervision.
      That money is a magnet to profit motivated conmen/conwomen, simple disarmingly pious crooks, and megalomaniacs. The truth is that those millions of dollars keep flowing with few questions once the charter is granted and the school opened.
      The school systems are run by an executive staff that is answerable to almost no one except their hand picked board. Administrators often draw huge salaries not merited by the student population density (or their expertise and contribution to their charter systems).
      I can speak with authority because I was a “teacher” at a charter school. I say “teacher” because I have no training in anything but the the subjects which I supposedly taught.
      Teaching is a craft like any other I discovered when I tried to teach for a single year. A craft that I had not learned.
      I was underpaid, over worked, and, to be honest, had no idea what I was doing. I also had no curriculum to teach from in either of my subjects. Believe it or not I was not the worst teacher there.
      While I was trying to teach without any sort of training and without text books or a curriculum the President of this educational Potemkin village was drawing $250,000 per year for a total student count over seven schools of less than 1000. He once remarked to me that he “didn’t give a damn about education!” and proved it every day..
      Technically he wasn’t even stealing. The board had voted him one bonus and pay increase after another for doing very little positive. I won’t go into all of the issues with run down buildings, bathrooms that didn’t work, roofs that leaked, no toilet paper/paper towels, special Ed….
      When a system without controls is created these sorts of abuses are invited and they, indeed, come right in.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

StudentsFirst Issues Another Ludicrous State Report Card

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2014 //
84

StudentsFirst, the organization created by Michelle Rhee to promote her ideas about fixing schools by high-stakes testing and choice, has issued its second state-by-state report card.

The highest scoring states are not those whose students have the highest achievement on NAEP; that would be Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

No, the highest scoring states are those that do what Rhee did in D.C., the nation’s lowest-scoring district on NAEP.

She awards points for “elevating the teaching profession,” which means tying evaluations of teachers and principals to test scores, eliminating teacher tenure, eliminating collective bargaining, awarding bonuses to teachers whose students get higher test scores, and opening teaching jobs to teachers who have no certification or other credentials. In other words, the way to “elevate the teaching profession” is to make teachers into temporary workers whose job depends on the test scores of their students and to lower standards for entry into teaching. I wish that whoever defined this category would read the research on value-added methodology (VAM), like here and here. Tying teacher and principal evaluations leads to narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, and CHEATING.

She awards points for “empowering parents,” which means that a state gets higher scores if it offers charters and vouchers and has a parent trigger so that parents can hand their public school over to a charter corporation. Of course, the report offers no research to support these recommendations since voucher schools do not outperform neighborhood public schools-their advocates, nor do charters, on average. Some charters get higher test scores, because they enroll motivated students who apply. Others get high scores because they exclude students with disabilities and English learners. But on average, there is not much difference in outcomes between public schools and charter schools. The “parent trigger” has thus far–in its four years as state law in California–converted one public school to charter status and fired one principal.

Her third priority–spending wisely and well–promotes governance by the state and mayoral control. In other words, states get a plus if they override or preferably abolish local school boards.

The highest scoring states: Louisiana: #1; Florida (#2); Indiana (#3); Rhode Island (#4); D.C. (#5).

How did the highest performing states in the nation do on the StudentsFirst report card:

Massachusetts: (first in nation on NAEP): D (#21 on Rhee’s report card);

New Jersey: (tied for second place in the nation on NAEP): D (#31 on Rhee’s report card);

Connecticut (tied for second in the nation on NAEP): D+ (#24 on Rhee’s report card).

It is ironic that an organization that wants states to rank teachers, students, and schools in relation to student test scores issues a report card that evaluates states without any reference to student test scores.

Clearly, the rankings have nothing whatever to do with any academic outcomes for students. These are the states that comes closest to complying with Michelle Rhee’s ideological preferences: privatization and dismantling the teaching profession.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Politico.com Slants Its Coverage

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2014 //
22

In an article about the retirement of veteran Democratic Congressman George Miller, a favorite of hedge fund managers (DFER) and other supporters of high-stakes testing and privatization, politico.com used language that showed a partisan bent.

It wrote:

“EDUCATION
Miller exit leaves hole in ed leadership
By MAGGIE SEVERNS and LIBBY A. NELSON and STEPHANIE SIMON 1/13/14 4:04 PM

“Rep. George Miller’s departure coincides with that of Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate education committee. Will their replacements be reformers or establishment-oriented Democrats?”

So a Congressman who is supported by Wall Street billionaires and by advocates of privatization is a “reformer,” while those who fight for equity of funding and support for teachers and public schools are “establishment-oriented Democrats”?

Are Duncan and Obama “establishment-oriented Democrats” or are they “reformers” fighting “establishment-oriented Democrats”? If the President of the United States and the Secretary of Education are not “establishment-oriented Democrats,” who is?

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to refer to a combination of the Obama administration, the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, the Dell Foundation, the Arnold Foundation, Rupert Murdoch, Art Pope, Democrats for Education Reform, ALEC, and a galaxy of other powerhouses as “the establishment” or “the status quo”?

This is called “framing the narrative.”

Is politico.com supported by Walton, Broad, and Gates, or are they merely innocent dupes of the billionaire-funded status quo?

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Obama

Missouri: Draft Report Calls for Dismantling of Kansas City Public School District

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2014 //
35

Reporter Garrett Haake of KSHB In Kansas City reported that State Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro and the State Board commissioned a report that calls for a radical restructuring of the Kansas City school district.

“It calls for replacing the top-down district structure with a much smaller, near purely administrative entity called a Community Schools Office (CSO). The CSO would retain some functions of the current district, including facilities maintenance, enrollment and transportation coordination, but its primary purpose would be to set accountability standards for schools, which would themselves be free to run largely independently, so long as they hit those standards.

“The school system would shift its focus from operating schools directly to finding the best possible nonprofit operators, empowering them to run schools and holding them accountable for results,” the executive summary said. “Schools that succeed would grow to serve more students. Those that continually fall short would be replaced with better options.”

It adds:

“Kansas City students could choose any public school to attend, and while some would be charter schools, the report makes clear that most would not be – and pre-buts the notion that it is replacing public schools with charters. The report notes that Kansas City has several “high quality operators” of public schools already that fit the bill, including Lincoln Prep and Academie Lafayette.

“The report also identifies what its authors consider another glaring need, and proposes instituting universal pre-kindergarten for children ages 3 and 4 city-wide. The report says this can be done using funds reallocated in the reorganization of the district, without raising taxes.”

“The Missouri State Board of Education will hear a presentation of the draft report, which it paid education reform consultants CEE-Trust $385,000 after a controversial bidding process to produce, Monday afternoon.”

Over a month ago, some legislators demanded Nicastro’s resignation after hundreds of emails revealed that this plan was in the works since last April, funded by two local foundations.

“The e-mails show Nicastro and officials from the Hall Family Foundation and Kauffman Foundation working with Kauffman partner CEE-Trust as far back as April to develop a plan for the future of KCPS, should the district fail to regain accreditation.
Obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the education equality group MORE2 (More Squared), they show a series of meetings, conference calls and even budgetary discussions between Nicastro, foundation backers and CEE-Trust leadership designed to get a process in motion quickly – without going through a typical request for proposal project.

“District officials, including KCPS Superintendent Dr. Stephen Green, said they knew nothing of the discussions. A spokesman for Kansas City Mayor Sly James said he, too, was not informed.

“The Missouri Board of Education rejected the Memorandum of Understanding drawn up by the group over the summer. But with coaching from Nicastro and her aides, CEE-Trust ultimately submitted a bid and won a contract to study options for the long-struggling district for $385,000.

“When the e-mails were first published in the Kansas City Star on Sunday, negative reaction to the back-room dealings came swiftly.

Read more: http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/education/calls-mount-for-nicastro-resignation-after-e-mails-released#ixzz2qJVmop9P

Categories Corporate Reformers, Missouri
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