Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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Ever Heard of These Charters?

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2012 //
7

Louisiana passed its historic privatization legislation last spring, which included not only vouchers for more than half the students in the state, but inducement for many organizations to open multiple charter schools.

Now the state is getting swamped with applications from unknown or little-known groups. Maybe it is your Uncle Harry and Aunt Mabel. Maybe it is the guy who usually runs a hardware store. Maybe it is a dentist and his friends. Are they qualified to run schools?

Who knows?

People in public schools call them “pop-up charters” because they materialized out of nowhere to grab some funding away from the public schools. Yes, that. Every charter that opens, no matter how unqualified its founders or inexperienced its teachers, takes money away from the minimum foundation funding fo the state’s public schools. Once they get set up and operating, there is no one to hold them accountable. Accountability is only for public schools.

This is a money grab, plain and simple. And call it what is is: privatization.

Please look over this list and see if you ever heard of any of these would-be charter operators.

Frankly it seems that Bobby Jindal and John White don’t care who sets themselves up in business and calls themselves a school, so long as they take money away from public schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Louisiana, Privatization

Playing Games with Data in Louisiana

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2012 //
18

Yesterday I wrote a post about how the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education was pulling a few fancy tricks to inflate the scores of charter schools. This makes it easier to claim that they are incredibly successful (when they are not) and persuade the Legislature to add many more.

But it turns out that Louisiana is even slicker than Pennsylvania when it comes to playing games with the data. One of our readers, whom I deduce is or was an employee of the Louisiana Department of Education, has the goods.

Read this post and please be sure to open the link for more chicanery in Baton Rouge. The bottom line: Now that Bobby Jindal and John White control the State Department of Education, don’t trust the data they produce.

Actually, John White and Louisiana have already perfected several of these techniques and added a few twists of their own. I’ve documented some of the tricks being used here:

Louisiana Managing Expectations and Manipulating the Public – for example: “T” isn’t for Terrible Schools, it’s for Turnaround Schools!

Basically they are defining schools they take over and/or turn over to charter operators as “Turnaround” schools for two years and don;t report any data on them. If the scores don’t improve they plan to reassign them to a new charter. Only schools that do well will ever get reported. Additionally, all of the recovery school district in New Orleans is defined as a small school district, less than 1000 students. Even though taken together they easily exceed that coun. Several of the sub-districts like Algiers have multiple sites and exceed that number, but for purposes of reporting the data for these districts LDE has decided to count the schools as their own district. I’m pretty sure even then we have one or two schools with more than 1000 students, but this has been reported by our departing accountabilty folks to USDOE with no apparent effect.

PA’s only mistake is not reporting what they were doing, USDOE doesn’t care if you cook the numbers, as long as you tell them you are I guess.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Vouchers

The Next Targets of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2012 //
21

Mike Petrilli of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute summarizes “What’s Next” for reformers (some prefer to call them privatizers).

Race to the Top was a great coup for the privatizers/reformers.

Now they plan to follow up with a direct assault on schools of education, abetted by NCTQ’s forthcoming rankings, to be published by US News. NCTQ was created by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation a dozen years ago, and saved at the outset by a $5 million grant from Secretary of Education Rod Paige. In 2005, it got caught up in a federal investigation for taking money from the Department to speak well of NCLB. Read here to learn more about NCTQ.

The privatizers intend to move on principal evaluation, to make it more like teacher evaluation (test scores matter).

Pension reform will be high on their agenda.

Privatizers will promote digital learning by removing seat time requirements and following the guidance of former Governor Jeb Bush on this subject. No mention is made of the negative evaluations of cyber charters, both by Stanford’s CREDO and the National Education Policy Center, or of exposes that appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post about the awful performance of cyber charters.

Gird your loins, folks, the privatizers are flush with victories in Wisconsin, Louisiana, Ohio, Michigan, Maine, Florida, and other states, and they are coming back to do some more reforming.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Alternate Route To Certification, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Louisiana, Pensions, Principals, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Technology, Computers, Testing, US Education

Follow the Money, Again

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2012 //
8

Here’s a hard-hitting investigative report on the money pouring into California to beat the unions by cutting off dues collections. The face of this campaign is Gloria Romero, who flipped to the right and is now the face of Democrats for Education Reform, the pro-privatization Wall Street hedge fund managers’ group.

Seems the Koch brothers tossed in a few million, which makes it hard to maintain the pretense that the anti-union campaign is warm, fuzzy and progressive.

The only error that I spotted is calling ALEC “neoconservative.” It is a reactionary organization pushing radical schemes to suppress voter rights, relax gun control, crush unions, relax environmental regulation, and privatize public education, among other things.

Categories ALEC, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Parent trigger, Privatization

Pennsylvania Official Altered Test Rules to Inflate Charter Scores

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2012 //
18

The Pennsylvania Secretary of Education changed the state testing rules, without federal approval, to boost the scores of charters. The change involved treating charter schools as if they are districts, not schools. This reduced the number of charters that failed to make adequate yearly progress.

The chief legal counsel for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association said “the change might give the Legislature the false impression that charter schools outperform traditional public schools as they consider bills supported by Corbett to expand the number of charter schools and change how they are authorized in Pennsylvania.”

PSBA pointed out that the new formula overstates the performance of charters. Because of the formula, “…44 of the 77 charter schools that PDE has recently classified as having made AYP for 2011-12 in fact fell short of the targets for academic performance that other public schools had to meet, some even declining in proficiency percentages rather than making gains.”

This is the intersection of politics and education, where the data are adjusted for political ends.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Pennsylvania

Should Students Rate Teachers?

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2012 //
36

Larry Ferlazzo reports on an interesting exchange about student ratings of teachers. Amanda Ripley, who is a cheerleader for corporate reform, loves the idea of trusting students to tell us which teachers are great and which stink.

Felix Salmon points out where she is wrong.

The Gates Foundation loves the idea of student surveys, of course, and several districts are already using them.

I personally have a lot of trouble with the idea of asking students to rate their teachers. It’s bad enough that teachers’ careers now hinge on their students’ test scores, but now they will be asked to win popularity contests. I don’t see this as a way to improve teaching but as a way to compel teachers to pander to students, to assign less homework, to inflate grades, and to seek student approval.

Why are so many people messing up teachers’ ability to teach?

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Students, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

A Conversation about the Goal of Reformers

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2012 //
9

I wrote a post about the attacks on teachers, which got some interesting responses.

Reader A wrote:

This has absolutely nothing to do with teacher quality. This has everything to do with:

1. Destroying unions;

2. Destroying public education;

3. Hijacking tax funding for education to for-profit corporations;

4. Control of the public to perpetuate the 1%.

But Bill and Arne won’t say that in public.

Reader B replied:

@mooseinsquirrels: In attacking the problem, it’s important to outline the ultimate motives of those who’d destroy unions, etc. Otherwise, it sounds as if teachers see themselves as the primary victims. My hope is that we can refine our rhetoric in a way that makes plain the stakes for society generally.

Some in the 1% do see a big money pie of which they’d gladly enjoy a slice. But destroying unions and demeaning the profession are primarily steps in the industrialization of education. Students are raw materials, teachers are workers on the assembly line and computers are robots. Efficient manufacture demands standardized tools, techniques and outputs. Unions create friction and therefore must be eliminated.

Degradation, not destruction, is the likely outcome for public education. The system will be partially privatized, but others will profit as contractors with what remains of the public system. Just as KIPP will never accept Diane’s challenge to take over an entire system, the smarter education entrepreneurs will avoid taking over the entire system when they peel off some kids, generate feel-good numbers, and collect a profit.

Ultimately, we must convince parents in all classes that 1) education is best when it draws out the talents and passions of children, and 2) the industrialization of schooling has the effect (and perhaps the design) of squelching them.

@lets_be_reasonable: Your analysis tacitly accepts the industrialization of education metaphor. Teacher quality is measured by product quality which is measured by how much someone will pay for it. I propose we rehumanize the product and reject any value-added metric. It’s sickening.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

A Union Member Refutes the Propaganda

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2012 //
8

A teacher writes:

I am a union member (AFT affiliate) and nothing in our union contract requires that I teach a certain way or limits the extent to which I stay late, come in early, or take work home. We do have limits on class size (28). Doesn’t this seem like a good idea for children as well as teachers? The only people who seem interested in constricting my work are the occasional administrators/suits who appear now and then with a stack of tests which I have to foist on my students.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Unions

Beware the Reorientation Room!

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
22

What kind of a school has a “reorientation room?”

What kind of a school has a “Dean of School Culture?”

What kind of a school has large numbers of uncertified teachers?

Would you send your own child there?

What kind of school is this? Read the link.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform

Pennsylvania Governor Pushing ALEC Law

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
9

Governor Tom Corbett wants charter “reform.” He is trying to persuade the state legislature to allow him to create a commission that could authorize charter schools over the opposition of local school boards.

As a Pennsylvania blogger says, this puts the fox in charge of the henhouse.

This is ALEC model legislation. It’s on the ballot in Georgia next month, where ALEC allies hope to eliminate local control.

This is not conservative. It is radical. Since when do conservatives destroy local control to advance the monied interests?

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization
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