Into my mailbox came this link, which suggests there are some mighty big winners in the new education world of New Orleans.
Read it and gasp.
Advocates say that New Orleans is a national model. The documents here raise questions about who benefits from the avalanche of money poured into the city’s new way of doing business.
This is becoming an increasingly familiar–and alarming –story. Charter advocates are pouring large amounts of money–more than $200,000–into local school board races, in districts where few are residents. They are targeting candidates who dare to question the expansion of charters.
In Santa Clara County, incumbent Anna Song is under attack by the charter lobby, which is throwing large sums into a campaign to defeat her.
The article in the Mercury News says:
The most aggressive campaign appears to be aimed at Anna Song, who is running for her fourth term on the county Board of Education.
The Santa Clara County Schools Political Action Committee has raised nearly $200,000 from Jan. 1 through Oct. 20, and financed auto-dial calls plus four mailers slamming Song and three supporting her challenger, trustee David Neighbors.
“It’s an outrageous amount of money to take out one school board member,” said Song, who’s running for a seat that represents areas served by the Santa Clara, Milpitas and the Berryessa school districts.
Neighbors, who has benefited from $76,000 worth of PAC mailers and auto-calls for his candidacy and against Song, said about the PAC, “I don’t know much about it.”
Created at the suggestion of the California Charter Schools Association, the PAC is run by Santa Clara County political consultants Jay Rosenthal and Jude Barry.
Through Oct. 20, Neighbors raised $23,539.
The articles goes on to note that this PAC spending dwarfs the usual spending on local school board races:
The PAC is also sending mailers to re-elect Grace Mah, who’s running for the county school board to represent areas within the Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Sunnyvale school districts. Her opponent, Dave Cortright, is an outspoken opponent of Bullis Charter School in Los Altos.
The PAC dwarfs spending in county school board elections, where serious candidates typically have spent closer to $30,000. “What they’re doing could be very significant,” said Terry Christensen, professor emeritus at San Jose State and a specialist in state and local politics. Because so little is typically spent in a county school board race he said, “it wouldn’t take much to have an influence.”
Among the big donations to the PACs are $75,000 from the California Charter Schools Association Advocates; $50,000 from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; $50,000 from Gap heir John J. Fisher; $40,000 from Emerson Collective, the nonprofit run by Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell Jobs; and $10,000 from Rocketship charter schools board member Timothy Ranzetta.
Song had the audacity to vote against opening 20 Rocketship charters in her district, which would drain students and funding from the public schools. This is Rocketship’s answer: go along or get out of the way.
Cortright, who has raised $1,000, dared to oppose the Bullis charter school in Los Altos, which is known as the publicly funded private school for the children of the super-rich.
TeachPlus is one of those Gates-funded teacher organizations that is supposed to provide a different perspective on teaching than the teachers’ unions. It can be counted on to advocate for the interests of new teachers who allegedly want merit pay, don’t care about job protections, and want to be judged by the test scores of their students. The teachers for whom it seems to speak are part of the New American Economy, where jobs are short-term, not seen as part of a career.
TeachPlus has just conducted a survey of teachers. Its first startling discovery is that “For the first time in almost a half-century, teachers with ten or fewer years experience comprise over 50% of the teaching force. We refer to these teachers as the New Majority.” This “new generation” of teachers–unlike, we may suppose, the older generation of veterans–have “high expectations for their students and a strong desire to build a profession based on high standards.”
The “new generation” wants student growth to be part of teacher evaluations (the veterans do not); the new generation wants students growth to count for at least 20 percent of their evaluation (the veterans do not); the new generation wants to change compensation and tenure so younger teachers (themselves) can get higher salaries (the veterans do not). The veterans want licensure tests to cover the skills needed in the classroom (the new generation does not).
Both generations agree they need more time to collaborate with their peers. Both agree on the importance of clear and measurable standards.
And here is the interesting part:
Both agree that current evaluations are not helpful in improving practice (what are current evaluation? Using test scores to measure teacher quality.)
Both agree that a longer school day would not be helpful “to support students more effectively.”
Both agree that increasing class size to pay some teachers more would be a mistake.
The takeaway: Teachers, young and old, agree and disagree on various “reform” proposals.
On two issues they are united: They do not see the value of a longer school day, and they do not want larger class sizes in exchange for higher pay.
But a matter that should concern us all: Current “reform” policies are driving experienced teachers out of the nation’s classrooms. This cannot be good for anyone. It is certainly not good for the young teachers, who need senior teachers to help them improve.
How can a profession become “great” by demoralizing and ousting those who know the most?
Who would go to a hospital in an emergency and insist on being treated by an intern, not a senior physician?
Who would want their legal affairs to be handled by a lawyer who just graduated law school if they could get a senior partner instead?
When will President Obama, Secretary Duncan, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and all the other people driving current policy realize that they are inflicting harm on the nation’s education system?
Jonathan Raymond, superintendent of the Sacramento City school district, has some lessons for New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.
Friedman recently raved about the success of Race to the Top, claiming that it was preparing students for the high-skill jobs of the new economy.
Raymond says this is wrong. Race to the Top is divisive and subjects schools to derision.
It is top-down, heavy-handed and undermines the collaboration needed to make genuine improvement.
States that promise to comply with Duncan’s heavy handed mandates are “winners” while those making progress without Duncan’s script are losers.
He adds:
Meanwhile, school districts that are making real, tangible strides to increase student learning are left behind in this “race.” In Sacramento City Unified, we are turning around seven low-performing schools (called Priority Schools) through research-proven strategies for raising student achievement. Six of the seven schools have shown dramatic increases in student achievement and dramatic improvements in school culture and climate. These strategies include relevant professional development for principals and teachers; collaborative teacher planning time; data analysis and inquiry; and building strong family and community engagement. With federal funding, we could take this pilot program to scale statewide. California districts could build on each other’s successes and the gains of districts across the country. This is exactly what federal dollars should be spent on.
Yet Race to the Top’s scripted approach effectively discounts these reforms because they do not fit into the neat categories created by the prescriptive program. Moreover, forcing school districts to compete for badly needed resources is like offering a starving man food but only if he agrees to whatever strings may be attached. This is certainly the choice that school districts like ours face in California.
Michelle Rhee is endorsing and funding rightwing candidates across the nation, showering cash on those who are opposed to teachers’ rights and unions and support privatization of public education.
In Ohio, she is using her StudentsFirst millions–collected from anonymous billionaires, millionaires and corporations–to support opponents of public education.
Now, here in Ohio, Michelle Rhee’s true colors simply cannot be ignored. Rhee has chosen to fund multiple candidates in Ohio who are running for the Ohio House this year, citing their individual votes to support the Kasich budget that cut public education funding by $1.8 billion as a reason for StudentsFirst’s support. Let me restate that: StudentsFirst supports these candidates because they supported Kasich’s budget that cut $1.8 billion from school funding.
PlunderBund (http://s.tt/1rpCF)
Of all her endorsements in Ohio, the most disgusting is that Rhee is supporting a candidate with no education experience running against Maureen Reedy, an experienced and admired teacher. The two are candidates for an open seat in the 29th district.
Maureen Reedy was a teacher for 29 years. Rhee claims to “love” effective teachers. Maureen Reedy was Ohio’s Teacher of the Year in 2002. But Michelle Rhee is supporting her Republican opponent.
Maureen Reedy has pledged to expose the frauds that allow profiteers to waste millions of taxpayers’ dollars in Ohio. She has pledged to support public education in the state legislature. And that is why Rhee opposes Maureen Reedy.
This election tells us who Michelle Rhee is. She supports far-right Republicans, not Democrats. She supports those who voted to defund public education. She supports those who advocate for privatization of public education and who benefit from ineffective, for-profit schools. She does not support effective teachers. She opposes effective teachers.
Forget what she calls herself.
Judge her by her actions.
She is a rightwing Republican who hates public education and those who support it.
Want to know why Rhee opposes Maureen Reedy? Here is an excerpt from an article Reedy wrote for the Columbus Dispatch:
Charter schools are a poor investment of Ohio’s education dollars and have a worse track record than public schools in our state; there are twice as many failing charter schools as successful ones, and one in two charter schools is either in academic emergency or academic watch, compared with only one in 11 traditional public-school buildings. Five of seven of Ohio’s largest electronic-charter-school districts’ graduation rates are lower than the state’s worst public-school system’s graduation rate, and six of seven of the electronic charter schools districts are rated less than effective.
And finally, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow has failed in every identified state category for eight years, a worse track record than the Cleveland City School system, which is under threat of being shut down by the state. The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow is run by unlicensed administrators. Lager, in addition to his $3 million salary, earned an additional $12 million funneled through his software company, which sells products to his charter-school corporation. Just how much does the average teacher in the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow earn you may ask? Approximately $34,000 per year.
Pennsylvania has 16 full-time cyber charter schools. Of the twelve that have been around long enough to report on test scores, only one made AYP this year. Last year, two made AYP. Eight are in corrective action status. None has ever been closed. The other four were authorized earlier this year.
Last summer, the offices of the state’s largest cyber charter school was raided by the FBI, which apparently had many questions about where the money is going in an enterprise that collects more than $100 million every year. The board of that school fired its top staff but the investigation continues.
A review of the cyber charters by CREDO at Stanford University concluded that they get terrible results: their students have low scores, low graduation rates, and high attrition rates. A spokesperson for CREDO said: “whatever cyberschools are doing in PA is definitely not working and should not be replicated.”
But the cyber charters just keep growing, as they spend more and more money to recruit students and more and more money to lobby legislators.
So what does the future hold for cyber charters in Pennsylvania in light of evidence that cyber charters get poor education results and need greater oversight?
Eight more cyber charter schools just applied to the state for authorization.
The state auditor complained that the cyber charters overbill the state.
But aside from his report, has the governor or legislative leaders or the state commissioner of education expressed concern about the growth of the state’s lowest performing education sector?
Are you kidding? This is not about improving education. It’s not about “the kids.” This is the edu-business.
Citizens in Missouri have awakened to the rapid advance of the privatization movement. They have formed an organization called Missouri Public School Advocates to awaken the public and push back against the privatizers.
Missouri Public School Advocates
A Strong Voice for Missouri Public Schools
Calling All Public School Supporters!
The Public Schools are under siege throughout this country.
In Missouri, serious efforts by the State General Assembly to dismantle quality Public School programs date back to the implementation of term limits in 2002 and the large scale change in the membership of that body in 2004.
Learn more about what we do here.
The effort to downsize government and greatly reduce the available resources to fund the Public Schools and the effort to privatize the delivery of education services and erode the strength of the Public Schools is coming from right wing intellectual think tanks, wealthy corporations and individuals, and state legislators who either genuinely believe that the Public Schools are failing or see the delivery of education as a golden opportunity to secure government funding for private enterprise.
Because of these efforts, State Support for the Public Schools is at a low ebb.
Now a group of Distinguished Educators have said, “Enough is enough”. We have formed a non-profit organization entitled MISSOURI PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVOCATES to unite Public School Supporters throughout the State and make a difference.
We want your help to Stop State efforts to reduce Public School funding and to Stop State action to subsidize private education entrepreneurs. JOIN THE MISSOURI PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVOCATES AND LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD.
Missouri Public School Statistics
>In 2010, 8 out of 10 Missouri Public School Districts reduced their number of classroom teachers. There are now 2500 fewer teachers for Missouri kids.
>For the current school year, the State Foundation Formula is $420 million dollars below its statutorily required level.
>Missouri now ranks 46th out of 50 states in average salary for Public School teachers and is more than $10000. per teacher below the national average.
>With regard to State Support of total Public School funding, Missouri is even worse ranking 47th. Missouri pays only 30.6 per cent of K-12 funding while the national average for State Support is 45.5 per cent.
>And in 2011, Missouri sank to 47th in per pupil funding for State Colleges and Universities. The average rate of tuition for Missouri’s four year institutions of higher learning has nearly doubled over the last decade.
How Do I Join Missouri Public School Advocates?
Go to the Missouri Public School Advocates (MPSA) website at mopublic
schooladvocates.org and click on Membership Button. Our current roster of MPSA members is listed online.
Memberships start at just $10.00!
When you become a member of MPSA, you will:
>Ensure that the Public Schools have a strong voice speaking out on their behalf,
>Unite Public School supporters throughout Missouri under an inclusive umbrella, which will provide real policital clout,
>Support candidates for the Missouri General Assembly who are truly Public Education Supporters.
About MPSA
MPSA is completely non-partisan. We are open to anyone who is a supporter of the Public Schools.
We believe the Public School is the Institution that has done the most to make our country great.
This Institution has provided an opportunity for every child to acquire an education and to become a productive and self-supporting human being.
For all inquiries or other communication, please contact us at the information below.
Contact Information
Address:
14373 Conway Meadows Ct. E.
Chesterfield, MO 63017
Email: Gary Sharpe, President
info@mopublic
schooladvocates.org
Phone: 573-230-3388
Please send all correspondance to Gary Sharpe at 14373 Conway Meadows Court E., Chesterfield, Missouri 63017 or info@mopublicschooladvocates.org. Thank you.
In a recent interview, Ann Romney was asked which issue she cared most about. This was her answer.
“AR: I’ve been a First Lady of the State. I have seen what happens to people’s lives if they don’t get a proper education. And we know the answers to that. The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers’ unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system.”
We may safely assume that Mrs. Romney is expressing the views of her husband, the candidate.
This is the line of thought:
1. Charter schools–privately managed, deregulated schools–are the answer to the problems of American education.
2. Teachers’ unions are an obstacle to the privatization that the Romneys favor.
3. “We need to throw out” the American system of public education, the system that has evolved since the 1820s and is embedded in every state constitution.
Make no mistake: this is not a conservative policy, it is radical and extremist.
Will any major journalist notice the far-right extremism of the Romney campaign? If Michelle Obama had said anything so outrageous, it would be reported on front pages across America.
Has any member of the large Romney family ever attended an American public school?
Kevin Johnson, who was a basketball star but is now the Mayor of Sacramento (and the husband of Michelle Rhee), recently visited Bridgeport, Connecticut, to urge its citizens to support a mayoral takeover of the public schools. He asked them to end the practice of electing their local school board. This is a big goal of privatizers, as it will remove an obstacle to closing more public schools and turning them over to charter operators.
John Bagley wrote an opinion piece answering Kevin Johnson. Bagley is not only a member of the elected board in Bridgeport, but a former NBA basketball player, like Kevin Johnson.
Bagley points out that New Haven, with its appointed board, has more “failing schools” than Bridgeport. And Sacramento has an elected board.
His advice to Mayor Johnson: “Don’t come into my house and mess with my right to vote.”
Tim Holt wrote a terrific post a while back on why the business model is not right for education. He sent it here in a comment.
Tim is a science teacher in Texas.
He points out in his post that many new businesses open every year, and almost as many businesses close.
It’s astonishing to think of the businesses that were once household names–like Polaroid, Eastern Airlines, Pan Am, Woolworth’s–that are gone. Business works that way. New ones open, some make it, some don’t. Old ones die off. Investors learn to live with churn, instability, a certain amount of turmoil.
Turmoil is not good for children. Nor is instability.
