EduShyster has written a hilarious and accurate description of Sweden’s love affair with privatization.
School choice advocates swooned over the Swedish model.
But something very bad happened on the Road to Utopia.
Read her post and learn from it.
Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
Anthony Cody, in a brilliant column, asks whether Common Core will be the Rosetta Stone of Corporate reform.
The Rosetta Stone, he explains, made it possible to decipher ancient languages:
” In the year 1799, a French soldier discovered an ancient stone in Egypt that had been inscribed with a royal proclamation in the year 196 BC, in three languages; Ancient Greek, Demotic, and Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The same text in all three languages allowed scholars to crack the code of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, and since then, the term “Rosetta Stone” has come to signify a means by which hidden codes are uncovered. The Common Core has become a Rosetta Stone for understanding how corporate education reform is reshaping public education.”
The Common Core weaves together and makes plain what once seemed to be disparate themes:
1. It unveils the powerful role of the Gates Foundation, which poured nearly $200 million into creating and promoting the Common Core standards.
2. It shows the heavy hand of the federal government, manipulating states into adopting the Common Core, despite the fact that it is prohibited by law from influencing curriculum and instruction in the nation’s schools.
3. It has revealed the extent to which nonprofits, including the teachers’s unions, accepted funding from Gates to advance the Common Core.
4. “The Common Core is propelled by a vision of education as serving the needs of commerce and corporations. Many of the arguments for Common Core portray our children as products on an assembly line. As a high level Gates Foundation official wrote recently, “I am pleased to see the excitement in the business community for the common core. Businesses are the primary consumers of the output of our schools, so it’s a natural alliance.”
5. Common Core reinforces NCLB’s insistence that schools be held accountable for constantly rising scores.
6. Common Core was designed to cause tests ores to plummet.
Read on.
What comes clear is that Common Core has little to do with education reform and everything to do with the corporate agenda of high-stakes testing and the undermining of public education.
EduShyster retains the capacity for astonishment and surprise.
In this post, she identifies some seemingly blatant conflicts of interest on the part of big players in the education reform world.
Yet no one cares. Ethics? What’s that?
She calls it “carerruption.”
I don’t feel like getting a lawyer’s letter today threatening to sue me for defamation, so I will ask you to read EduShyster yourself.
When Frank Bruni wrote a column saying that American students are too “coddled,” he added a gratuitous swipe at “leftwing paranoiacs” who “imagine some conspiracy to ultimately privatize education and create a new frontier of profits for money-mad plutocrats.”
Well, here is another point of view, called “Wall Street is Designing the Future of Public Education.” It appears on Salon.com.
I think Bruni has not heard about the investors’ conferences where hedge funders and entrepreneurs gather to learn about the opportunities to make a profit in public education. Stephanie Simon, then at Reuters (now at politico.com), wrote an article about this called “Private Firms Eyeing Profits from U.S. Public Schools.”
Why are so many hedge fund managers so interested in funding charter chains?
Why is the tech industry so devoted to Common Core and charters like Rocketship?
Why are billionaires and other wealthy individuals sending money to local school board races in districts where they do not live?
Anna Simonton, who wrote this post for Alternet, has done a herculean task trying to disentangle the web of connections among advocacy groups and entrepreneurs:
She writes:
The Education Reform Industrial Complex is a dizzying house of mirrors, with money ricocheting back and forth between many more players. To outline all of the connections would be a Herculean task.
Suffice it to say, their investments are paying off. National charter school enrollment has increased from 340,000 students in 1999 to 1.8 million in 2011. As of 2009, President Obama’s Race to the Top fund rewards states for tying teacher compensation to test scores. Teach for America boasts over 19,000 corps members and alumni teachers in 36 states and the District of Columbia, and has nearly doubled the number of alumni in school system leadership in the past two years. As a result, business is booming for education companies like K12 Inc., the country’s largest operator of full-time virtual schools, whose CEO received a compensation package of $6 million in 2011.
Most of this change has taken place as the result of campaigning and lobbying at the state and federal levels. But as the Atlanta school board election shows, no race is too small for the millionaires behind the education “reform” movement.
Last year these same millionaires bought school boards in New Orleans, Indianapolis, Memphis, and a little town in New Jersey called Perth Amboy. (The money in that purchase came from a man who made his fortune selling Bank of America shares to the government for twice what he paid, while stroking a pair of brass testicles he keeps on his desk for good luck.) This year Denver and Los Angeles were also sites of the onslaught, with reformer candidates collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.
As regular readers of this blog know, there is a silver lining: An informed public.
Simonton writes:
In Seattle, Wash. and Bridgeport, Conn., the same script concluded with very different results. Last year, Bridgeport voters rejected a measure that would have ended school board elections for good by authorizing the mayor to choose board members. The referendum was backed by Michelle Rhee and Michael Bloomberg, but real grassroots organizing efforts shot it down.
This year, in Seattle, blogger and activist Sue Peters ran for school board on a platform critical of corporate education reform. She was outspent 4 to 1 by her billionaire-backed opponent, but squeaked by with 52% of the vote.
These cases offer hope that when voters are made aware of the money trail, they turn out and vote in their community’s interest.
Jan Resseger here links to a startling expose that appeared in the Guardian, a U.K. newspaper.
The Guardian gained access to secret documents showing the ties that bind a far-right network of public policy groups called the State Policy Network.
There is a public policy institute in almost every state, all sharing the same far-right ideology.
This group, which operates in tandem with the ALEC agenda, seeks to deregulate and privatize public services, privativepublic schools with charters and vouchers, reduce the corporate tax burden, reduce or eliminate regulation of greenhouse gases, and eliminate any public restriction on private greed.
Resseger writes:
The Guardian describes the State Policy Network as a sister organization to the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC. “SPN’s president, Tracie Sharp, told theGuardian that ‘as a pro-freedom network of thinktanks, we focus on issues like workplace freedom, education reform, and individual choice in healthcare: backbone issues of a free people and a free society.'”
Despite that the majority of the state affiliates of the State Policy Network are 501 (C) (3) organizations, according to The Guardian, the State Policy Network makes grants to its member think-tanks for projects “aimed at changing state laws and policies, or (that) refer to ‘advancing model legislation’ and ‘candidate briefings’, in ways that arguably cross the line into lobbying.”
See if your own state is represented on the list here.
The proposals submitted by specific state think-tanks for funding from the State Policy Network’s war chest include attacks on public employee pensions, campaigns to eliminate or reduce taxes, promotion of school vouchers, attacks on worker and union rights, and opposition to Medicaid.
Another post by Resseger reported the source of funding for this far-right assault on the public sector. Stinktanks.org reveals that the State Policy Network (SPN) has $83 million in funding from such sources as the Koch Brothers:
Stinktanks writes:
SPN has become an $83 million right-wing empire. SPN and its affiliates are not required to disclose their donors, and almost none of the groups publish a list of funders. Tax documents and other available records reveal that SPN is funded by large corporations, right-wing foundations, and wealthy conservative ideologues. Some of the most notable corporate funders of SPN and its web of “think tanks” include Big Tobacco companies (like Reynolds), Big Oil corporations (like the Koch family fortune), AT&T, Kraft Foods, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Facebook, and Microsoft. SPN and its “think tanks” are also largely funded by right-wing special interest groups and individuals, including the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Coors family (of Coors Brewing Company), the Walton Family Foundation (of Walmart), Richard Mellon Scaife, Art Pope, the Roe Foundation, and the Bradley Foundation.
Stinktanks was written and posted by the Center for Media and Democracy, which also posts about “ALEC Exposed.”
If you want to know who is funding and lobbying for the attacks on public education and on teachers, this is a good place to start.
For more on the “Guardian” exposé, read NPR’s interview of “Guardian” correspondent Edward Pilkington by Terry Gross.
Shaun Johnson eloquently explains here why he is letting his AERA membership lapse.
In brief, he is disappointed that AERA has not taken a leadership role in defending public education against the corporate-funded assault on its very existence.
But, Shaun, don’t give up.
AERA invited me to give the John Dewey lecture at AERA in Philadelphia on April 3, 2014. When I last spoke at AERA in 2011 in New Orleans (my topic was “Who Kidnapped Superman?“), the room held only about 400 people, and there were more people outside the room than inside it, because the room was too small.
This time, I have been promised a room that holds at least 1,000 people.
Come to Philadelphia. You will not be disappointed.
In recent years, the Gates Foundation has funded AstroTurf “teacher-led groups” to advocate for policies that most teachers reject. One of these groups is called Educators for Excellence.
In this post, a guest blogger for EduShyster explains why he refused to join E4E. Among other things, he could not bring himself to sign the pledge:
“which states that they “pledge to support using value-added test-score data in evaluations, higher hurdles to achieving tenure, the elimination of seniority-driven layoffs, school choice, and merit pay.”
The Gates Foundation has shelled out a lot of money to create teacher groups, led by young teachers with limited classroom experience, to push its anti-teacher agenda. A very clever strategy.
On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the three top performing states are Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut. You would think that the governors and legislatures of these states would shower praise on their successful educators and schools and protect and strengthen them. But none of these states is immune from the assault on public education by the privatization movement.
The notorious corporate reform lobbying group Stand for Children has pushed to remove due process rights from teachers in Massachusetts and to lift the cap on charter schools. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie speaks of his state’s schools as “failure factories.” In Connecticut, Governor Dannell Malloy hired a charter school founder as state commissioner and has been a darling of the super-rich who fund the privatization movement.
In this post, Jonathan Pelto describes just how closely tied Malloy is to the privatization movement. One of its main advocacy groups is ConnCAN, which is now 50CAN, whose goal is to spread the message about privatization nationwide.
The corporate reformers have Malloy funded his priorities:
“Since Malloy introduced the most anti-teacher, anti-union education reform bill of any Democratic governor in the nation, the corporate reform industry has spent more than $6 million lobbying on behalf of Malloy’s initiatives. One education reform group, A Better Connecticut, which was formed by the present and former CEOs of ConnCAN spent in excess of $2 million television advertisements “thanking” Malloy for his leadership in promoting charter schools and the privatization of public education.
“Malloy has also been going to the corporate education reform industry for campaign contributions.
“Last year Malloy, a held a lucrative fundraiser for the Prosperity for Connecticut Political Action Committee at the home of Jonathan Sackler, the corporate executive who helped finance Achievement First, Inc., ConnCAN, 50-CAN and other education reform organizations. The fundraiser netted in excess of $40,000 for the Malloy related PAC.
“This year the money from the corporate education reform industry has been funneled through the federal and state accounts of the Democratic State Central Committee.
“Malloy’s recent contributions include another $20,000 from Sackler and his wife, at least $15,000 from other members of ConnCAN’s Board of Directors and at least $11,000 from members of Achievement First’s Board of Directors. Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, co-founded Achievement First, Inc. and the larger charter school management company has received a major increase in funding since Pryor took over the State Department of Education.”
Laurel Sturt was a fashion designer who decided to give up her career and become a Teaching Fellow. She was motivated by a desire to help children and make a difference, as most teachers are.
In an interview in the Atlantic, she explains what happened to her. Her experience is not unique, but it is important that it appears in a mainstream publication.
Laurel Sturt was a 46-year-old fashion designer in New York City whose career trajectory took an unlikely shift one day on the subway. A self-proclaimed social activist, Sturt noticed an ad for a Teaching Fellows program. Then and there, she decided to quit her job in fashion design and shift her focus to her real passion: helping others. She enrolled in the two-year program and was assigned to teach at an elementary school in a high-poverty neighborhood near the South Bronx.
She wanted to be a social activist but she arrived as No Child Left Behind and Mayor Bloomberg’s similar program took effect. This is how she described what she saw:
I saw a lot of problems with all the testing, with all the slogans everywhere, as if you were in North Korea or something. It was very strange. … It was all about achievement through test scores. I resented the fact that we were test-prepping them all the time and we couldn’t give them a rich, authentic education.
And she learned the reason for the “achievement gap” or “opportunity gap”:
It was a very poor neighborhood with a lot of English-language learners who knew little or no English. With poverty comes this condition called Toxic Stress. It explains why the children were so difficult to handle, needy, and so behind in learning. When your dad is in prison or your mom is on drugs, or your mom drank alcohol when you were a fetus, if you didn’t sleep the night before because you were allowed to play video games all night, or maybe there was a shooting, your cognitive ability is harmed. It rewires their brain so they’re unable to employ working memory, which is what you use when you’re learning. We’re charged with being the parents of these kids, being the friends, the mentors. Teachers are given all these social responsibility towards children that aren’t ours. It’s a failure of the system to address the poverty that creates the achievement gap.
Having been enticed by the subway ads to make a difference, she signed up, she did her best, but she eventually left teaching. Why?
I saw that no matter what I wanted for the kids, it wasn’t going to happen. The system purported to be supporting students just wasn’t there. They need remediation, tiny class sizes, one-on-one attention—they need parenting, basically. Their parents are affected by the same Toxic Stress that they are, and it repeats itself in a cycle from parent to child. In America, the wealthiest school is going to get ten times more funding than the lowest one. For every dollar my school was getting, one in the suburbs was getting ten dollars. That’s huge. The kids come in disadvantaged, and they’re subjected to this disadvantaged school. My school was completely third-world. And through it all, it completely negated your life outside school. It was so exhausting. To teach anyway means to be giving, to deliver something. You’re giving out, giving out, giving out. And when you come up against these natural obstructions because of poverty, and then the lack of support from the administration, it’s just too much.
Civil rights attorney Wendy Lecker writes here about a battle over the future of two elementary schools in Connecticut.
In both cases, parents resisted efforts to turn their children over to corporate reformers.
She writes:
In recent weeks, parents from two community schools protested proposals by Christina Kishimoto, Hartford’s outgoing “reform” superintendent, and Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor, to hand their schools over to private companies. Neither school community was consulted before the plans were developed.
The initial proposal was to give Hartford’s Clark Elementary school to Achievement First, Inc., the charter school company co-founded by Pryor. Almost 18 percent of Clark’s students have disabilities, and 15.2 percent are English Language Learners. Clark’s school governance council has begged the district, in vain, for additional resources, including teachers, a psychologist, a guidance counselor and basic school repairs such as a functional heating and cooling system.
Only 6.7 percent of Achievement First’s students have special needs, 6.7 percent are English Language Learners. Moreover, Achievement First has the highest rate of suspensions in the state for children under 6 years old, and has been investigated and cited for federal violations in mistreating students with disabilities.
Upon hearing of the proposed Achievement First takeover, Clark’s parents fought back. They openly feared that their special needs children would “not have a place” at an Achievement First school. One parent said “Our teachers work very hard and they love our kids.” Another remarked that when children do not listen, Achievement First suspends them. “Our teachers find a way to keep them in school, find out what is behind their (behavior).” Noting the school was praised by the district in 2013 for its academic progress, a parent declared, “We didn’t ask for our school to be redesigned but only for supports to keep making improvements.”
In the face of the strong opposition from parents, the mayoral-controlled majority of the school board backed down.
In the second instance, the board rejected an effort to turn another elementary school with large numbers of high-need students over to Steve Perry’s new private management company.
The “reformers” are still looking for a way to execute their plans.
Lecker is not sure that the parents will prevail unless they stand together and refuse to permit this hostile takeover of their community school.
