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Arkansas: Inside the Shadowy World of the School “Choice” Movement, Part 2

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2019 //
2

Cathy Frye continues her revelations about her three years working as communications director for a Walton-funded organization deceptively named the Arkansas Public Schools Resource Center (APSRC). As is by now universally known, the Walton family supports charters and vouchers, not public schools. As is less well known, privatizers create organizations with misleading names to fool the suckers. As she explained in part 1, 85% of the rural public school districts in the state of Arkansas pay good money to belong to an organization that does not serve their interests.

She writes:

APSRC uses Constant Contact to email its members. Recipients are divided into various groupings. Some emails are sent only to open-enrollment charter schools. Others only to traditional districts. And still others to anyone and everyone. 

This is where things get dicey. 

You see, APSRC Executive Director Scott Smith is but one of three Arkansas Walton stepchildren vying for the attention of wealthy absentee parents. 

You’ve got Smith representing APSRC, which purports to represent and serve both traditional public school districts and open-enrollment charters. 

Next up is Gary Newton of Arkansas Learns, who happens to be the nephew of Arkansas State Board of Education Chairman Diane Zook. 

And then we have The Reform Alliance, which currently uses a voucher program to “help” special-education students, foster kids, etc… attend private schools  – many of which are faith-based – and to give up any rights they have under the IDEA Act. (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)

All three organizations lobby state lawmakers on behalf of the Waltons. All three are at all times pursuing often contradictory/opposing passages of legislation. All three are always, always at odds with one another. 

The 2017 General Assembly proved to be a challenge for me. If I wrote about private-school-voucher bills, Smith fretted. I found that interesting. I mean, if APSRC truly represents and supports public schools, you’d think he would be right up front testifying before lawmakers with other membership organizations – the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, for example. Or maybe the Arkansas School Board Association. 

And you would think that I would be able to freely report on such bills, testimony and reactions. 

Nope.  Because – horrors! – I might offend Arkansas Learns and/or The Reform Alliance. In other words, I might have angered the generous benefactor of all three competing nonprofits – the Walton Family Foundation. 

Three “competing” organizations all serving one master: the Waltons.

Then she discovered a curious fact. The Waltons were funneling their money to the APSRC through a university.

It was around that time (2017) when I started to question why Southern Arkansas University had been deemed the public entity that would provide  APSRC with HR services. SAU also kept track of our leave time and managed our benefits and retirement plans. 

I would later learn that the SAU Foundation is the recipient of Walton grant funds intended for APSRC. SAU is charged with disseminating the money and administering HR services for APSRC staff. 

When I started working for APSRC, I was given the same (presumably) packet handed to new university employees. 

So why funnel funding through state university foundations? Remember, from 2008 until 2012, the University of Central Arkansas served as APSRC’s Walton-funding dispensary.

Why so devious? Why so much obfuscation?

My hunch is that the Waltons know that what they are selling would be rejected by the public if it had honest labeling. The Waltons really don’t understand that most people like their public schools and don’t want to go to a privately-run charter where they have no voice or to a religious school, and they don’t want to split up their community into competing factions. They want to cheer for the same basketball team and have a senior class that represents the whole community, not a bunch of little schools that open and close on a whim.

I am looking forward to more insider reports from Cathy Frye.

 

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Los Angeles: School Board Committee Rejects Plan to Give Schools a Single Grade

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2019 //
9

The Resistance won a big victory in Los Angeles.

Thanks to newly elected LAUSD board member Jackie Goldberg, a key committee of the school board rejected a plan to assign a single grade to every school. 

The idea of grading schools with a single letter was first hatched by Jeb Bush, in his relentless push to impose test-based accountability on every public school in Florida and to set up those with the worst grades to be privatized.

Several states have adopted the Jeb Bush plan, and in every case, the letter grade was a reliable proxy for students’ family income. The schools where poor students predominated received the lowest grades and were fair game for the charter industry.

Jackie Goldberg has a long history as a teacher, school board member, and state legislator, and she strongly opposed the plan.

Nick Melvoin, who was elected with the help of millions of dollars contributed by Eli Broad and other friends of the charter lobby, proposed the plan.

The Los Angeles Unified school board’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee approved a resolution introduced by board member Jackie Goldberg that calls for the district to suspend implementation of “any use of stars, scores, or any other rating system” for its schools. 

The committee’s action includes a shift in support by Kelly Gonez, who says she now opposes assigning single ratings to schools. Gonez last yearco-sponsored a resolution with board member Nick Melvoin that called for creating a school performance framework that would include a “single, summative rating for each school.”  The board approved that resolution in April 2018. 

Goldberg’s resolution, which is expected to pass when it goes before the full board Nov. 5, would effectively kill the idea to give all schools in the district a single rating, which Melvoin says would allow the district to better identify and help struggling schools…

The three board members on the committee — McKenna, Scott Schmerelson and Gonez — voted unanimously to send Goldberg’s resolution to the full board, where it needs four votes to pass. Board member Richard Vladovic also indicated to EdSource that he supports the new resolution. Goldberg’s expected vote would give the resolution a five-vote majority on the seven-member board…

Goldberg’s resolution says that summative rankings “promote unhealthy competition between schools” and “penalize schools that serve socioeconomically disadvantaged student populations.” 

Jackie Goldberg proves that one person can make a difference. She does so by dint of superior experience, knowledge, and intellect.

The billionaires once owned the LAUSD. They bought it, fair and square.

No longer.

Be on alert for the next school board election. The sharks will gather round again.

 

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization, Resistance

Leonie Haimson: DeBlasio’s Hypocritical Embrace of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2019 //
18

Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, is outraged that Mayor DeBlasio is handing schools over to Laurene Powell Jobs and the charter-promoting Robin Hood Foundation.

Powell Jobs has handed out $100 million to jumpstart “innovative” schools. Four of the 10 schools to which she gave $10 million each have already failed. Her closest associate is Arne Duncan, whose Race to the Top was a disaster.

Over the last decade or so, the Robin Hood Foundation has primarily supported charter schools in its education portfolio, as might be predicted considering it was founded by hedge funders and its board is still composed largely of corporate executives and financiers.  According to Wikipedia, its board chair, Larry Robbins, is also the board chair of KIPP NY charter schools, and board chair of the Relay Graduate School, that trains teachers in the charter school “no excuses” regimented style of instruction. Robbins is also a member of the NY Board of Teach for America.

DeBlasio, who claimed to be a charter critic, has invited Robin Hood to open 18 new charter schools. Astonishing!

 

Haimson writes:

Given that these two private funders will help select the winners, or as Robin Hood put it, “will partner with the Department of Education on a rigorous selection process”, that means DOE will be sacrificing control for the design of these public schools to these two organizations for a relative pittance, compared to what it will cost to operate them.

But an even greater concern, as I expressed it to the Daily News, is that every new school will likely take space and funding away from our existing public schools, which are already underfunded and in many cases squeezed for space. Every new school makes overcrowding worse by eating up classroom space with the need to carve out new, replicated administrative and cluster rooms. 

We already have seen how worse inequities have resulted from the expansion of co-located charter schools in our public school buildings, as well as how the Gates-funded small schools initiative led to many of the remaining large high schools becoming even more overcrowded with the high-needs students that the small schools refused to enroll.  Many of these disadvantaged students at the large schools ended up more likely to be discharged, enrolled in low-quality credit recovery programs, or graduating without a Regents diploma  — all of which served the purposes of the organizations running the show as their small schools graduation data appeared better in comparison.  Another piece of evidence that DOE is caught in an infinite feedback loop: the Senior adviserto the XQ Institute is Michele Cahill, who ran the small schools initiative when she was at DOE. 

It feels as though we are seeing a rerun of the Bloomberg-Klein regime.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Fake, Privatization

Rhode Island: Governor Gina Raimondo’s Plan to Demolish Public Education in Providence

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2019 //
6

 

Andrew Stewart recounts the alarming plans that Governor Gina Raimondo has in store for Providence public schools. She is a former venture capitalist who seems to have an instinctive suspicion of the public sector. What she has in mind, he says, is the planned demolition of the public schools.

He writes:

Someday, after the operatic cycle of Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo’s political career has reached its concluding note, it will be a masterpiece of neoliberal assault upon the public sector, the commons, and the fabric of the welfare state in America to behold. It is absolutely essential, in order for the faculty and the students of Providence to fight back and win in this contest, to form a broad-based coalition that is centered on the success of students and dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline.

Right now, a multi-year media narrative, assembled by allegedly-liberal local news outlets, is being utilized in order to justify the anti-democratic takeover of public education. (I will offer a further analysis of this narrative in a future report that time and space bars me from providing here.)

Motivation stems a number of reasons, including because the Providence Teachers Union is one of the largest white collar educator unions in the state and its majority composition is white women, meaning success would have a ripple effect for female workers statewide; the PTU benefits and salary package is one of the most robust offerings in the entire state economy and serves as a useful high watermark for all female service and public sector economy workers, especially with paid maternity leave. Whereas suburban teacher unions play a peripheral role in the respective municipal political debates, Providence Teachers Union is a major force in statewide politics. Simultaneously, another front of this attack can be found in the halls of the Community College of Rhode Island, where Raimondo seeks to crush the unionized faculty owing to its large membership, the subject of a future report….

Right now, Providence Public School Department is being taken over by the state and the state’s newly-appointed (by Raimondo) Education Commissioner Angélica M. Infante-Green, an alumnus of the Jeb Bush education privatization project Chiefs for Change, which has seen in the past decade a revolving door installed into various Ed offices in RI. Interim Superintendent Fran Gallo, who has a history in the district, seems to occupy a rubber-stamp position. Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza has recently moved to defund all other charter schools in the city so to move the money into his own personal project, the Achievement First Mayoral Academy, not unlike several other patterns of funding we have seen locally over the years whereupon the independent charters serve the purpose of creating good PR until they are defunded to make room for the big-box corporate players. Achievement First has a national reputation for abominable student abuses and their opaque, unaccountable budgetary processes pertaining to per-pupil expenditures have a distinct and negative impact on special needs and English Language Learner students both inside their charters and outside in the remaining non-privatized schools.

He reminds us that Raimondo’s campaign was funded by the hedge fund industry, which loves charter schools.

Raimondo ascended to her political position by starting out as the first woman elected Treasurer of Rhode Island. With a heavy war chest funded by the hedge fund industry, particularly Paul Tudor Jones, as well as Enron alum John Arnold, she walked into Treasury and saw the writing on the wall.

The Rhode Island Democratic Party was influenced since World War II by the diktats of ethnic Catholicism, with attendant anti-Communism, corruption, and conservatism. Treasury for decades had been run as little more than a bail-out fund for the state and its multiple ridiculous schemes, including failed real estate deals and other pay-offs that clearly violated the responsibility of not just a fiduciary but probably every sane child with a piggy bank.

With this in mind, Raimondo invested the state pension fund (which includes public school teacher contributions) into the hedge funds that in turn finance charter schools (Paul Tudor Jones’s Robin Hood Foundation finances Achievement First) [4], meaning that Providence teachers still to this day see a payroll deduction on their pay stub that finances the literal busting of their own union!

She was aided in this by donor John Arnold, who foisted upon the public, via the Pew Charitable Trust, a phony pension crisis narrative in the media [5] that was picked up by perceived non-partisan outlets like PBS. Raimondo is a pro at manufacturing a crisis to attack organized labor and this recent stab at PTU and Providence public schools bears striking resemblance to the pension heist of 2011.

Privatized education in Providence, he predicts, will be a cash cow for the corporate entities that feed off the misery of inner-city communities and schools.

The untold story, to which Stewart alludes, is not about failing schools, but about racism, structural inequality, white flight, and unexamined white supremacy. Nothing in Governor Raimondo’s plans will address root causes.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Providence, Rhode Island

Gary Rubinstein: Nevada Closes Its Failed “Achievement School District”

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2019 //
30

Gary Rubinstein has followed the failure of the “portfolio model” more closely than anyone in the country. He watched the Tennessee “Achievement School District” as its leaders made bold promises,     then departed for lucrative reformy gigs as the ASD collapsed in failure.

In this post, he describes the failure of Nevada’s copycat ASD. ,which was modeled on Tennessee’s ASD, which was modeled on New Orleans’ low-achieving Recovery School District.

He notes that Michigan’s “Education Achievement Authority” failed and was shuttered.

All of which raises the question, why are Corporate Reformers incapable of learning from experience?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Michigan, Nevada, Privatization, Tennessee

New York City Joins Forces with Corporate Reformers

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2019 //
41

 

Mayor Bill DeBlasio joined in partnership with Laurene Powell Jobs’ XQ Institute and the hedge-funders’ Robin Hood Foundation to create new schools and transform existing schools. The corporate reformers are not offering much money—only $15 million (crumbs from the billionaires’ table)—but they are getting the Mayor to admit that amateur “reformers” know more than the city’s professional educators. You might say that this deal is a vote of no-confidence in Chancellor Richard Carranza.

Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters, has been consistently critical of the DeBlasio administration for ignoring the importance of Class size reduction. She is also critical of this alliance. On the NYC Parents blog, she wrote:

Robin Hood is spending “up to $5M” to create up to “10 New Imagine schools” – and will be involved in the selection process — which means the DOE is giving up authority over the design of these schools to the assorted #corpreformers there for as little as $500K each. #XQ is funding $10M for “up to 10 HS” either new or redesigned schools.

Thus the DOE must be putting in $17M more – to create or “transform” 35 additional schools, as the application specifies that “20 of the 40 schools selected will be existing schools to redesign, and 20 will be new schools.”

In other words, she says, NYC is “a cheap date.”

De Blasio Administration Announces Community-Centered Public-Private Challenge to Open 20 New Schools and Transform 20 Existing Schools Across 5 Boroughs

October 3, 2019

$32 million public-private partnership with initial support from XQ Institute and Robin Hood will transform learning at 40 schools

NEW YORK—Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza today announced the Imagine Schools NYC Challenge, a public-private partnership to create 20 new schools and transform 20 existing schools across New York City into schools of the future. The XQ Institute will support plans for both new and existing high schools, while Robin Hood will support new schools across all grade levels. Launching with an initial investment of $32 million in public and private funds, Imagine Schools NYC will be a model for community-driven school innovation within the City’s Equity and Excellence for All agenda.

“This is a big endorsement of public education in New York City. With this support, we’re going to help educators, students and communities come together to design new schools and re-design existing ones that will challenge our kids and increase academic rigor. I want to see great schools in every neighborhood,” said Mayor de Blasio.

“We are successful when we do things with communities, not to communities or for communities. We are changing the paradigm with Imagine Schools NYC – coming together with educators, students, families, and community partners to design radically different schools from the ground up, and to redesign existing schools to meet the demands of the future. Additionally, this first-of-its-kind public-private partnership will impact not only the 40 “Imagine” and “Reimagine” Schools, but also inform our work to innovate and advance equity and academic excellence across all 1,800 of New York City’s public schools. We’re ready to go, and we know New Yorkers are ready to answer the call,” said Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza.

“Community-driven design teams will build upon the strengths New York City is known for—best-in-class leaders, teachers, and programs,” said Russlynn Ali, Co-Founder and CEO of XQ. “The City’s deep commitment to community agency gives school teams the tools, permission, and flexibility to think and act boldly so all students get what they need—and ensure those visions are sustained. That is why we are so excited to partner in this effort to harness the power of community to transform City high schools into engines of excellence and equity.”

“We are eager to work with the City and Department of Education to launch new schools with new visionary leaders at the helm who are well-poised to serve the children in our most under-resourced communities, and to expand the sharing of effective practices between charter and district schools,” said Wes Moore, CEO of Robin Hood. “We know how critical this work is to increasing economic mobility in New York City.”

This initiative will produce at least 20 new (“Imagine”) or transformed (“Reimagine”) high schools, with at least one new high school in each of the five boroughs. The remaining 20 schools will be a mix of elementary and middle schools. All 40 Imagine NYC Schools will serve as models for the system. They will be innovative, academically rigorous, community-driven, inclusive, and intentional in their commitment to serve all students. The 20 new schools will not have selective admissions. The City is committed to developing all 40 Imagine NYC schools and funding their implementation and is actively seeking additional funders to join this exciting initiative. Private funds for this initiative will go through the Fund for Public Schools.

Through the Imagine Schools NYC Challenge, educators, students, families, and community partners will be empowered to co-construct unique proposals for schools of the future. Across the City, design teams will come together to develop proposals for new or existing schools with a focus on Equity and Excellence for All.

Imagine Schools NYC will focus on the transformation of the student learning experience. Examples of the kinds of actions school design teams could propose include: authentic, real world learning (internships, apprenticeships, college courses and visits, projects in the community); innovative themes; college, community and industry partnerships; changes to curriculum to align with interesting, high-skill, high-demand sectors; focus on arts, civic engagement, technology or a STEM subject.

“We know our schools are more successful when parents, educators, students and community are at the table, deciding what their school needs to engage, support and enhance education. We need buy-in from the children and adults in the building as well as the community at large,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

“We have seen it time and again – whether expanding the largest computer science education program in the country, or providing a record number of students with internships and early work experiences – when the private sector partners with our public education system the big winners are students, families and communities,” said Darren Bloch, Director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships. “This partnership with the Fund for Public Schools, the Department of Education and these prolific education funders, will help advance a powerful new model for designing public schools around educational best practices through a community driven approach. We are deeply appreciative to have the XQ Institute and Robin Hood working with us to achieve this ambitious goal.”

“New Yorkers have been clear: they want academically challenging schools, with real world learning opportunities like internships, high tech training, and serious, fun pathways to college, strong careers, and amazing futures. Students and educators have also been clear: they want schools that are diverse, inclusive, and supportive of all students. Today Chancellor Carranza, listening to educators, students and parents, is issuing a call to action to all of New York City: Let’s develop great schools together,” said Karin Goldmark, Deputy Chancellor for School Planning and Development.

XQ Institute

The Department of Education will partner with XQ Institute, a national leader in transformational high school design, on XQ+NYC, the initiative’s work in grades 9-12.

XQ’s school-design process empowers educators, students, and community members to create high schools where all students realize their full potential—schools that are academically challenging, authentically diverse, and aligned to the skills and knowledge young people need to be successful in an ever-changing world.

Based on research and expert practice, the process helps teams engage thoughtfully and creatively with big priorities for high school design and redesign—like listening to the voices of students, getting a diverse cross-section of the community involved, activating teachers and other educators, and looking beyond the day-to-day constraints that often stifle innovative thinking. These schools will manifest key design principles of excellent, equitable high schools: a strong mission and culture; meaningful, engaged learning; caring, trusting relationships; youth voice and choice; community partnerships; and smart use of time, space, and technology.

Dynamic plans for new high schools as well as transformational models for existing schools will emerge from this effort. XQ Institute has committed $10 million to support the implementation of up to 10 high school plans, with the goal of joining XQ’s national cohort of community-developed schools – models for driving equity, excellence, and innovation.

Robin Hood

Robin Hood, New York City’s largest poverty fighting nonprofit, is partnering with the Department of Education in two ways: First, Robin Hood will commit up to $5 million to support the creation of up to10 new Imagine Schools dedicated to serving the most historically under-resourced students in New York City. Robin Hood will partner with the Department of Education on a rigorous selection process resulting in school designs with the greatest promise of eliminating opportunity gaps for underserved students.

Second, Robin Hood will support both current and new district school leaders in driving transformational change through a $1 million expansion of the DOE’s District-Charter Partnership work centered on proven, effective professional development.

Student and Community Centered Design Process

Starting immediately, and continuing over the next three years, design teams have the opportunity to apply to become Imagine Schools.

Design teams, some of which have already begun forming across the City, will work together to submit initial concept proposals starting in October 2019. Selected teams will advance to additional application rounds in Winter and Spring 2020, with the first round of Imagine and Reimagine school designs announced in May 2020.

The application is available online, and the DOE has a robust outreach strategy to ensure all communities are aware of and apply to participate in this opportunity. So far, through the spring and summer, the DOE has invited principals to attend design day sessions. Department representatives have attended community events and distributed flyers in neighborhoods across the City to raise awareness. The DOE will use its social media, website, parent and family email lists, and parent leadership bodies to encourage teams to participate in the coming weeks.

“It is always a good day when there’s investments made in public schools. Imagine Schools NYC is a community driven initiative addressing many, many needs and is a game changer for students. Educators, students, parents and community stakeholders will be able to develop innovative school models that will provide real-world educational experiences for our students,” said Council Member Mark Treyger, Chair of the Committee on Education. “It’s time to build curricula around the diverse strengths of students and in alignment with 21st century opportunities and needs. I look forward to touring an Imagine School in the near future.”

“This is a bold and forward-thinking initiative where students and communities are called to interact and design their own schools and educational futures. Excellence will emerge when all voices are at the table. As dedicated agents of design learning, design thinking, and implementing, we anticipate the powerful school environments that will come from partnering with designers and creative educators.  Thank you for bringing design practice to its best purpose and position—to this invitation to all New Yorkers to participate in building the platform for creating extraordinary schools.” saidFrances Bronet, President, Pratt Institute.

“Simply stated, re-imagining schools that lift student voice, promote intellectual curiosity, embrace community partnerships, and position students to succeed in the 21st century marketplace, are all key ingredients for success.” said NeQuan C. McLean, President CEC 16.

“We are excited by the limitless possibilities of the Imagine Schools NYC initiative. Highlighting voices of students, families and the community alongside educators to expand our understanding of schools outside of a physical building. This opportunity to envision schools that challenge and radically change what education can be – prioritizing knowledge and embedding schools as the heart of the community. We are all in!” said Sheree Gibson, Co-Chair, Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council (CPAC).

“We believe that Imagine Schools has the power to create meaningful learning experiences that extend beyond the traditional classroom walls whereby students own and direct their own learning,” said Fiorella Cabrejos, principal of Fordham Leadership Academy.

“What our system needs isn’t just new schools—it’s schools that listen to all the voices that are part of the system – the students, parents, teachers, and surrounding communities – and create radical change in response. The Imagine Schools NYC initiative has created a path for this kind of innovation in school design, encouraging opportunities for school design teams to engage with their communities. It’s amazing to see how excited people get to share their ideas about school design. The Imagine Schools NYC initiative is what our city- and our school system overall – needs,” said Meredith Hill, Assistant Principal of Columbia Secondary School.

“The Imagine Schools initiative brought students like me to the table, empowering us to own our education and create a better one for future generations. Student voice is critical to changing the way we learn, and I’m honored to have been a part of this much needed, innovative partnership,” said Makai Bryan, a 12th-grade student in Manhattan.

More information on the process is available at https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/initiatives/imagine-schools-nyc.

pressoffice@cityhall.nyc.gov(212) 788-2958
Categories Accountability, Bill de Blasio, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, New York City

Louisiana: Vote for Pro-Public School Candidates on October 12

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2019 //
4

Louisiana will hold elections for its state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on October 12. This year, as in the past, out-of-State billionaires are spending heavily to keep control of the state board to promote privatization policies. During the tenure of State Superintendent John White, a former deputy to Joel Klein in New York, the state’s ranking on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Is near the absolute bottom in both mathematics and reading, in both 4th and 8th grades. New Orleans has gone all-Charter and its score are in the bottom third of the state’s districts while its schools are highly segregated and stratified. This much is clear: Disruption has won control of the state board but done nothing to improve education.

BESE recommendations from veteran educator Michael Deshotels –
 
Dear Friend of Public Education:
 
With just a few days left before the election of a new BESE, you can help restore sanity and independence to our State Board of Education.
 
Out of state donors are making huge contributions to elect candidates that LABI  and John White will totally control. You will surely see their ads in your mailbox and on radio and television. Do not be deceived! These are not friends of public education. They will be committed to John White,  school privatization, obsessive testing, crushing test prep., etc.  But the results of these so called reforms have been terrible using the very measures they (the reformers) think are so important; Our ranking on NAEP is the worst ever! Why would we want to continue failed policies? Just so that LABI never has to admit that they were wrong, that they know noting about education, and that our students are suffering instead of thriving because of their takeover of education?  See this latest post on my blog. http://louisianaeducator.blogspot.com
 
Here is my abbreviated voting guide listing independent minded, solid public education advocates. Please do your best to get them elected!
 
District 1: including St. Tammany and Jefferson. I recommend Lee Barrios
 
District 2: including Orleans, St. Charles, St. John, St. James and part of Assumption: I recommend Dr. Ashonta Wyatt
 
District 3: including St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Lafourche, Terrebonne, St. Mary, Iberia, St. Martin, part of Iberville and part of St. Landry: I recommend Janice Perea.
 
District 5: including Northeast LA and down to Rapides and Evangeline Parishes. I recommend Dr. Stephen Chapman
 
District 6: including EBR, Livingston, Ascension, Tangipahoa, and Washington Parishes. I recommend Gregory Spiers
 
District 7: including Southwest LA. I recommend Timmie Melancoin
 
District 8: including part of EBR, East and West Feliciana, St. Helena, Iberville, Pointe Coupee, Avoyelles, part of St. Landry part of St. Martin, and part of Assumption. I recommend Vereta Lee.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Louisiana, New Orleans, Privatization, Vouchers

Bill Phillis: Beware Privatizers Running for Local School Boards!

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2019 //
16

 

Bill Phillis, founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, warns that privatizers run for local school boards, as they have in Atlanta and other cities. Teach for America has a special outfit called “Leadership for Educational Equity,” which trains its recruits to go into politics and helps to fund their campaigns.

Bill Phillis writes:

Anti-public school advocates run for seats on boards of education to attempt to completely privatize districts

Privatization of the public common schools takes many forms:
·        Charter schools
·        Vouchers
·        Tuition tax credits
·        Education savings accounts
·        Portfolio districts
·        State takeover that can eventually result in turning the district over to private operators
 
The most ruinous privatization tactic is for privatizers to take control of boards of education
 
Michelle Dillingham, with the Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition, reports that some “fierce” school choice candidates are running for board of education seats in Cincinnati. The Justice Coalition has published a list of “qualities” that voters should look for when choosing a candidate. Topping the list of “qualities” is “a deep commitment to public education.” Public education is the adhesive that has held the American social order together. The education privatization craze has contributed to the fragmentation of our social order.
Phillis links to an article that explains what is happening in Cincinnati, where a TFA alum is running for the school board.
The article by Michelle DillIngham begins:

This November, voters in the Cincinnati Public School District will elect four members to the seven-member Board of Education. One contender, Ben Lindy, the founder and director of the Southwest Ohio Teach for America, has drawn significant controversy among supporters of public schools.

In his recent guest column, “Be proud of schools’ progress, but don’t settle,” (Aug. 31), Lindy’s repeated his use of the term “equity” and a “quality education for every child” are hard to swallow. The controversy surrounding Lindy comes as no surprise to those who follow the influence of Teachers for America and their agenda on public school districts.

TFA is a multi-million-dollar national organization whose main operation is to place non-education major college grads into temporary two-year teaching assignments in urban classrooms with less than two months of preparation. After their two years, the majority of TFA candidates abandon teaching and move on to other fields.

It is not hard to see why professional educators, who have invested in and achieved significant graduate and undergraduate education training, oppose this business strategy for staffing classrooms.

In the last several years, TFA has extracted over $600,000 in “finder’s fees” from our school district. Yet, a majority of TFA recruits do not stay with Cincinnati Public Schools after their two-year contract ends. TFA operates like a temp agency, paying a $5,000 “bounty” per recruit for a two-year commitment. It would make more sense to spend recruitment monies with higher education partners who can refer actual education majors.

School districts in other states have already figured out TFA is not a good return on their investment. Districts in Texas, South Carolina, California and Pennsylvania have all recently ended their contracts with TFA.

The TFA lobby has successfully diverted millions of taxpayer dollars, meant to educate the children of Ohio, to their company. Lindy was not successful in his run for state representative in 2016, but he was able to extract millions of public education tax dollars from the state legislature for TFA.

In April 2019, his joint testimony before the Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee of the House Finance Committee helped secure another $4 million in the upcoming biennial budget for “support for ongoing development and impact of Teach for America alumni working in Ohio.” I guess he thinks TFA recruits who only spend two years in our urban classrooms now deserve another $4 million for their alumni’s “development.”

TFA is funded by billionaire elites, including the Bill Gates, Eli Broad and Walton Family Foundations. This helps explain Lindy’s confidence that he will be able to raise $250,000 to campaign for a seat whose pay is capped at $5,000 per year. It is well documented that TFA’s most influential alumni are proponents of school district takeovers, high stakes student testing, for-profit charter schools, and anti-union efforts – the most familiar to readers is likely Michelle Rhee (whom Lindy directly worked for), but there are others.

TFA, she writes, is closely tied to the Trump-DeVos privatization agenda.
Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Teach for America

Cory Booker’s Long and Profitable Friendship with Betsy DeVos, and Why It Ended

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2019 //
27

 

Cory Booker was recently interviewed by the Washington Post, and he was asked about his past support for vouchers and his friendship with Betsy DeVos. 

He insisted that he turned against vouchers in 2006, and he barely remembered any connection to DeVos. When someone asked if he had flown to Michigan in 2000 at the request of Dick and Betsy DeVos to support their voucher referendum, he at first denied it, then when shown a tape, he said he didn’t remember it.

He opposed DeVos’ nomination to be Secretary of Education in 2017.

DeVos’s allies are stunned by what they call his turnabout. They view Booker’s effort to distance himself from her and her agenda as a betrayal. 

Now that it is politically inconvenient, he has distanced himself from the issue and those who helped launch his political career,” said William E. Oberndorf, who was chairman of the American Education Reform Council when DeVos and Booker were on the board. “Cory once told me that his father used to say to him, ‘Never forget the girl who brought you to the dance.’ I can only conclude that Cory not only forgot one of the girls who brought him to the dance, he missed his . . . moment to stand up for an issue he always said he believed in.” 

Booker’s advocacy for vouchers won him the financial support of conservative Republicans who were delighted to see a black Democratic Mayor supporting their cause.

Booker’s political career took off as a parade of wealthy philanthropists, hedge fund managers and others who supported DeVos’s “school choice” viewpoint poured money into his campaigns and pet projects. 

In 2000, with their voucher referendum on the ballot, the DeVos family invited Booker to debate the legislative director of the ACLU. She kept a tape of the debate and shared it with the Post. The voucher proposal went down to a crushing defeat by 3-1.

In September 2000, Booker delivered a blistering pro-voucher speech to the Manhattan Institute, a conservative policy group. 

Booker’s 2006 race for mayor of Newark won the support of many conservative Republicans. He proposed tuition tax credits (a form of voucher) and went all-in for charters.

When he ran for the Senate in 2014 in a special election, he was helped by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who held a fundraiser for him.

As recently as May 2016, Booker appeared again before the group that DeVos chaired, the American Federation for Children. After DeVos delivered a speech defending herself against attacks from Democrats, Oberndorf warmly introduced Booker, praising his commitment to school choice.

Booker spoke proudly about the growing number of students in Newark’s charter schools, saying, “This mission of this organization is the mission of our nation. . . . I have been involved with this organization for 10 years and I have seen the sacred honor of those here.” 

As Booker finished his speech, the audience gave him a standing ovation. To DeVos and her allies, it seemed that Booker was still firmly in the fold, according to Oberndorf. 

But a year later, he opposed DeVos’ nomination.

Booker’s vote shattered his career-long alliance with DeVos and stunned her supporters. 

“Cory gained a great deal of political support thanks to his association with Betsy and other supporters,” said Mitchell, the president of the American Education Reform Council when Booker and DeVos were board members. “His abandonment of school choice and of Betsy makes it clear that his professed commitment to the issue and his friendship with her were fueled by political ambition, not principle.” 

Betsy helped to fund his political career. But it was no longer convenient to be her friend.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Jersey, Newark, Privatization, Vouchers

Eric Blanc: Why Doesn’t Elizabeth Warren Have a K-12 Plan?

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2019 //
63

 

Eric Blanc asks in Jacobin why Elizabeth Warren does not have a plan for K-12 schooling. She has expressed various positions on education but her overall policy about testing, charter schools, and accountability are murky at best. He questions how different they are from the Bush-Obama strategies.

Blanc recently wrote a comprehensive book about the wave of teachers’ strikes of 2018-19 called Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics. During the strikes, he traveled the nation to talk to strike leaders and striking teachers to understand what was at stake.

He writes:

Elizabeth Warren has a commendably progressive platform on most issues. But her past approach to public education has been closer to that of free-market reformers than most people realize.

The Massachusetts senator’s track record on education has received little scrutiny. Not only was Warren until recently a proponent of market-driven education reform and so-called teacher accountability, but her current platform silences, staff appointments, and political equivocations raise questions about her commitment to reversing the billionaire-funded onslaught against public schools…

There are good reasons to doubt that a Warren presidency would reverse the policies of privatization and education reform that have decimated American’s school system since the 1990s. For someone whose campaign motto is “Warren has a plan for that,” it’s noteworthythat she has not yet issued any plan for K-12 schools — in contrast with Bernie Sanders’ ambitious Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education.

Much of what we do know about Warren’s past and present education proposals, as well as the composition of her staff, should be a cause for concern for teachers, students, and parents.

If Warren wants the support of public school teachers and parents, she must issue a plan that clarifies her plans on testing and privatization.

She needs to be crystal clear about whether she would eliminate the federal mandate for annual testing in grades 3-8, a leftover from George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind, which has been an expensive dud. The testing has enriched the testing industry but had no effect on student scores.

Warren needs to take a stand on the federal Charter Schools Program, which is Betsy DeVos’ slush fund for corporate charter chain that are already amply funded by billionaires.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Privatization, School Choice
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