Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

A Line in the Sand

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
2

The billionaires want charter schools in Washington State.

It is very distressing to them that the voters have already turned down charter schools three times. So they have put up a few millions to try again. This time the charter referendum closely tracks the rightwing ALEC model. It allows either a majority of parents or teachers to give away the public school to a private charter corporation, even if the school is a good school. It also creates a super-commission to create more charters over the opposition of local school boards.

These are mechanisms found in ALEC’s privatization model laws.

Here are the facts from Melissa Westbrook of “Say No on 1240,” the parent group that is fighting to protect public education and to stop privatization of education stave in Washington State. Please help them if you can:

Dear Dr. Ravitch,

I’m a long-time public education activist in Seattle and also write a blog, Seattle Schools Community Forum. I am also now the Chair of the No On 1240 campaign here in Washington State. You mentioned our efforts recently in your blog.

We are once again – for the 4th time – fighting off the establishment of a charter school system here in Washington State. We have fought off charters three times at the ballot box – 1996, 2000 and 2004 – and multiple times in our Legislature.

We are only one of nine states that do not have charters and we are virtually the ONLY state that has ever brought the establishment of charters to the ballot.

The Washington State Supreme Court ruled this summer that the Legislature is not fully-funding our existing schools; Washington State does not even fund our schools to the national average. So it begs the question of bringing on more underfunded schools and thinning the pot of education dollars to already struggling schools.

As in previous elections, this one is back by wealthy businessmen and this being Washington State, that would be Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft fame. The entire Yes campaign is made up of about 10 families, all with connections to Microsoft and Amazon to the tune of $4.5M. They also include a Walmart heiress from Arkansas and the head of Netflicks in LA.

Our campaign, No On 1240, is a grassroots campaign of parents and community members. (There is another No campaign started by the teachers union, the Washington Education Association, that we are working with but we wanted to be a separate campaign so that pro-charter supporters could NOT say the only people saying no were unions.)

Beyond the interesting fact that Washington State has fought off charters before, here are some other key issues that make this of national interest:

– a trigger section is embedded in this initiative. As you likely know, all other trigger laws are separate but the writers of this initiative put it into the initiative. The trigger is the harshest in the entire country.

It would allow a charter group, as part of the proposal, to submit a petition with a majority of signatures by EITHER teachers or parents to take over ANY existing school, failing or not.

It is breathtaking in its aggressiveness. The charter then takes the school community, building and all, with no public notification that this is happening. They would not have to pay rent to the district and the district would have to provide major maintenance to the building.

– it would give charters the right of first refusal to any school building for lease or sale at or BELOW market value. If you are a cash-strapped district, you have problem and, of course, it is never a good deal to have to sell public property for less than it is worth.

– it creates a Charter Commission that is politically appointed, once appointed has no oversight from anyone, elected or not, AND all members have to be pro-charter (this is actually in the initiative wording). I note that in Georgia they have a ballot measure about having a charter commission being able to ok charters.

Our campaign is having a Money Blast on Thursday, October 11th to try to get a one-day blitz of fundraising.

We are hoping to raise awareness about the charter issue here in Washington State as well as the Money Blast.

If we manage, against Bill Gates & Company, to fight off charters – for the 4th time – it will be a major national line in the sand. I know that other states are starting to look around and ask, “Where are these results charters promised? Where is the accountability and ease of closing low-performing charters that was promised?”

I think the question is out there – are charters really that great and is it worth the investment of our scarce education dollars?

Attached is more information about the campaign and the initiative text.

Could you please write a thread about our fight and our one-day Money Blast on Thursday the 11th? We have to fight off Bill Gates and the charter movement that wants to take over our public schools.

Do not hesitate to contact me for more information.

Best wishes,
Melissa Westbrook, Chair
No On 1240

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Washington State

Putting a Stake in the Heart of the Vampire

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
14

On Sunday evening, after I spoke to the joint meeting of the Texas School Boards Association and the Texas Association of School Administrators, and after I spoke to parents and teachers at Eastside Memorial High School, I met Abby Rappaport, who writes for The American Prospect.

Abby knows Texas politics well. She asked me many good questions, and reprinted a slightly edited version of the interview. I boiled down everything I said to TSBA and TASA in the interview. I told her what I thought about high-stakes testing, about the Chicago strike, and about choice.

The only thing with which I disagree in her post is that I was not famous for promoting the “reform movement.” The so-called reform movement of today didn’t exist until about five years ago, and by then I was on my way out the door.

I don’t know if I was famous, but I’d like to think I got to be known among educators for the histories that I wrote, like The Great School Wars (a history of the NYC schools) in 1974; The Troubled Crusade (1983); Left Back (2000); and The Language Police (2003). Those books survive, and none is about testing/accountability/choice/competition.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Unions, US Education

Michelle Rhee’s Plan to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
33

Michelle Rhee is is a one-person PAC. She is raising hundreds of millions of dollars from rightwing billionaires and foundations and corporations to subsidize her program.

What is her program? Destroy teachers’ unions; eliminate tenure and seniority; privatize public education. Having failed to transform the public schools of the District of Columbia, she now wants to privatize public education everywhere.

When I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I learned from a Democratic state senator that Rhee had poured $105,000 into a race between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Democrat. The difference between them? The conservative Democrat supports vouchers. My informant said, “Candidates here will jump through hoops for a contribution of $1,000. Getting $105,000 is unimaginable.” Rhee bought the election. The voucher-loving Democrat won. He added: Most of Rhee’s money goes to conservative Republicans.

She is trying to buy a seat in Connecticut now. A reader writes:

Rhee’s fraud of an organization has nothing to do with students, teaching or learning. It is a political lobbyist group that secretly slithers around the nation passing our billionaire donated cash to influence and bribe politicians. Her dirty donations push the privatization, anti-union, anti-public school, collective bargaining busting, teacher trashing dogma down their throats. Here she is a pariah and getting her money is the kiss of death here in CT:

http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/10/01/michelle-buy-yourself-an-election-rhee-returns-to-undermine-democracy-in-connecticut/

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/is_michelle_rhee_trying_to_buy_a_seat_in_the_5th/#comments-31483

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, For-Profit, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Tennessee, Unions, US Education, Vouchers

Wall Street Eyes Profit Potential in Public School Budgets

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2012 //
9

The privatization movement has swung into high gear.

Many people find it hard to understand why so many Wall Street hedge fund managers and equity investors have suddenly become interested in public education.

Here is a good explanation.

No one ever went wrong by following the money.

Who wins? Who loses?

And another important issue: where is the evidence that privatization improves education or saves money? Or does it save money while making education worse?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

A Remarkable Investigative Reporter

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2012 //
10

Stephanie Simon of Reuters has written one blockbuster story after another. She has done the digging and investigation that make her stories genuinely valuable. In education, as more newspapers cut back their in-depth education reporting, this kind of investigative journalism is becoming increasingly rare.

She wrote stunning articles about the privatization momentum in Louisiana, about TFA, about profiteers jumping into education, about the parent trigger, and about testing in kindergarten.

She is truly fair and balanced, never taking sides, but clearly explaining the issues in context, with attention to their consequences.

Categories Charter Schools, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Parent trigger, Privatization, Teach for America TFA

My Recent Articles about Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2012 //
7

Recently, a newly elected member of a school board asked me to suggest background reading. So I put together a list of the reviews I have written for the New York Review of Books in the past two years. When I get some time, I will suggest a reading list of books.

I think you will enjoy them.

**********************************

This is a review of Steven Brill’s book “Class Warfare” and Janet Mayer’s “As Bad As They Say.”

**********************************

This is a review of “Waiting for ‘Superman'”

************************************

This is a review of Pasi Sahlberg’s book “Finnish Lessons”

****************************************

This is a continuation of the previous review, and it reviews Wendy Kopp’s latest book about Teach for America:

*****************************************

This is a review of the report by a task force chaired by Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice, which claimed that public education is so terrible that it is a “very grave threat to national security

****************************************

As a bonus, this is a post I wrote for CNN explaining why Michelle Rhee is wrong.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Ravitch, Diane

Can Stand for Children Save Its Soul?

By dianeravitch
September 30, 2012 //
10

No one knows for sure when Stand for Children abandoned its original mission of advocating for public schools and seeking more equitable funding.

But by 2011, Stand for Children had become a handmaiden of the hedge fund managers and super-rich, promoting their agenda of privatization. Its founder, Jonah Edelman, boasted at the Aspen Ideas Festival of how he had outsmarted the teachers’ unions and had bought up the best lobbyists. He worked with like-minded legislators in Illinois to pass legislation to take away teachers’ job protections. The legislation said that the Chicago Teachers Union would need a 75% approval to strike, and Edelman was certain this would never happen.

He sat side by side with an equity investor from Chicago as he boasted of his triumph in crushing the teachers of Illinois, especially those in Chicago.

It cost millions to achieve this “victory,” and he had no trouble raising the millions.

Stand for Children, with no roots in Massachusetts, went there to bully the teachers’ union with the threat of a ballot initiative to strip them of hard-won rights, so the union conceded to avoid an expensive election battle.

Flush with cash from equity investors, Stand is now operating in many states. It still pretends to be “for the children,” but it uses its money to attack their teachers. It still pretends to be a supporter of better education, but cannot explain how to get better education if teachers are treated as at-will employees, lacking any academic freedom or collective voice.

Many of its former supporters now refer to Stand for Children with a different name: They call it Stand On Children.

There is always hope for redemption. Jonah was embarrassed when the Aspen video went public (http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/jonah-edelman-apologizes-to-my-blog-readers/). He even recanted in a public letter. But he has not stopped trying to crush teachers and their unions.

Jonah, come home.

Jonah, think of the great legacy of your parents, Marian Wright Edelman and Peter Edelman.

Jonah, the civil rights movement of the 1960s fought so that workers could join a union to protect themselves.

Jonah, remember that Martin Luther King, Jr., died when he went to Memphis to defend the sanitation workers who wanted to join a union.

Jonah, leave the hedge fund managers and the equity investors and return to your roots. Fight for real education reform, not privatization. Respect those who teach our nation’s children.

It is never too late.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Stand for Children

Is It Really “All About the Kids”?

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2012 //
18

The review in the New York Times of the anti-union film makes an important point: when people loudly insist that “it’s all about the kids,” you can be sure that it’s not.

As A.O. Scott puts it, “A movie that insists, repeatedly and at high volume, that ‘it’s all about the kids’ might just cause you to wonder what else it is about, and this one is not shy about showing its ideological hand.”

Surely, you have noticed how often the corporate reformers use terms like “children first,” “students first,” “children come first,” when they have something else in mind.

For one thing, they want to persuade the public that teachers are not interested in the well-being of their students. Only the corporations and the mayor really care about your children, not their teachers.

They have very deliberately claimed brand ownership of the word “reform,” even when they are peddling GOP dogma that’s forty years old.

More standardized testing=reform.

More shuttered schools=reform

Lower standards for teachers=reform

More private management=reform.

For-profit schools=reform.

What do they really want?

Categories Corporate Reformers

The Big Tradeoff: Common Core and the Budget

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2012 //
12

Mike Fair, a Republican legislator in South Carolina, worries about the cost and complexity of the new standards and tests.

When you read about the heavy spending that lies ahead, in a time when school budgets are being slashed and teachers laid off, you can see why the Common Core national standards/national tests movement is warmly endorsed by the technology industry.

This is an excerpt:

School districts will need enough computers to allow almost every student to take multiple annual exams. These computers must be suitable for the “innovative” test items and must be maintained and upgraded. Add to this the cost of increased IT staffing, and you begin to realize the problems of buying a Porsche test on a Ford budget.

A recent study projects that states will collectively spend $2.8 billion and $6.9 billion over seven years on technology alone for Common Core. And the authors cautioned that they were accepting the consortiums’ cost estimates at face value; analyst Ze’ev Wurman has predicted that South Carolina’s annual testing costs may skyrocket to $100 per student, compared with $12 per student today.

School districts that can’t afford substantial new technology will have to rotate students through the computer labs; Smarter Balanced recommends a 12-week testing window. But that creates significant security problems — how to keep the earlier-tested students from talking to the later-tested ones? — as well as inequity in results. The students tested late in the window will have almost three more months of instruction than those first out of the gate. Might this give an unfair advantage? And might teachers, whose evaluations depend on these test scores, resent having their students put at the front of the testing window?

These problems will have to be worked out, assuming the whole concept of nationalized standards, tests and curricula doesn’t collapse under its own weight. When that collapse or implosion happens, I hope it is before too much damage is done to our budgets, our schools and our children.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Technology, Computers, Testing

About Dr. Steve Perry

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2012 //
11

CNN contributor Steve Perry is an ardent critic of unions and everyone else who is not supportive of the corporate reform movement.

Bruce Adams of Buffalo took the time to review Dr. Perry’s recent book.

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Unions
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »