Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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K12 Online Schools Exposed-UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2012 //
8

I forgot the critical link, now inserted.

A lawsuit in Virginia, where the K12 for-profit virtual schools corporation is based, has brought out some dirty linen.

Among the allegations are that K12 relies upon churn to produce high revenues and that some teachers have a class size of 400 students.

Follow the links and read the document. It’s fascinating and alarming.

This is the scam that Jeb Bush and Bob Wise are promoting as 21st century learning. They call it personalization and customization. Their “Ten Elements” for digital learning urges states to deregulate these for-profit schools completely, to allow them free rein to recruit students and use uncertified teachers. They even say that these corporations should not be required to have an office in the state where they open a virtual school.

This is education reform.

Follow the money.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, On-Line Education

A True Story: How Parents and Teachers Saved Their School

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2012 //
8

Will Hollywood make this movie?

It is not “based on a true story.”

It is a true story.

It is a story of parents and teachers in Red Hook, Brooklyn, who joined together to fight off the invasion of a billionaire-owned charter school.

It is an inspiring story.

The powerless against the powerful.

The people who love the school standing up to those who see it as real estate.

Read and see what happened.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, NYC

A Student at John Dewey Speaks

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
17

I wrote a post about the NYC Department of Education’s determination to destroy once-esteemed John Dewey High School in Brooklyn. The post was called “The Ugly Face of Reform in New York City.”

First, they turned it into a dump for the low-performing kids rejected by their small schools and charters. Then they began systematically starving it of needed resources. As this comment shows, even the students know the score:

I am currently a student at the school. Many people don’t realize how hurt we really are, we lack so many things. Our budget is dry, insufficient equipment, low enrollment, slashed programs and classes, new inexperienced teachers replacing traditionally great ones that have been their for DECADES before I was even born! We’re turning into a typical high school. A conventional one at that, and that’s not a good thing. There’s no such thing as bands or cycles anymore. Where is the liberty we used to have of changing our schedules to fit our own needs academically? Where is the freedom of being metal detector free (even though many high schools throughout NYC are implementing metal detectors anyway) and where are all the students on the campus?

It’s exasperating. We did not deserve this. I personally try my best to make a number higher in that school, my 92 average is for the school, and for my family. Not necessarily for me. I want to turn that 62% graduation rate into a 63, and I want my classmates to want the same thing. I don’t want Dewey to be another school on the list that reads “Closed Schools Due to Poor Performance” and I certainly do not want Dewey to be restructured into small schools with a sugar coated name. I also do not want another Insideschools page that reads “This school was closed in due to poor performance.” in the header. And no, I hope the administration doesn’t win this time. They’ve closed enough schools, far too many, and this is the breaking point!

Can’t anyone volunteer to be a principal? One who actually cares about the school? Not Elvin and her inexperienced crew. Shockingly, some of the new appointed AP’s have never taught/are not teaching any classes. The DOE knows the demise of Dewey, but they’re purposefully ignoring it. And they can get away with it, like the corporate rats because the people are sheep. A herd of sheep. They would rather kiss *** than to speak up for themselves. It’s sad. This is not like me, I don’t even know how I managed to type this much. Just know this proves my anger, as a Dewey student. This will not be the end for us. Trust me, we’re in this too deep and we’ve fought too much to go down now. The DOE picked the wrong school to mess with. The worst part is that this corruption is not only happening in NYC, but also in Chicago, and other cities.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, NYC

If You Happen to Be in NOLA

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
2

If you happen to be in New Orleans this Saturday September 22, you won’t want to miss this fascinating panel discussion about “The Education Experiment: Petri Dish Reform in New Orleans and Louisiana.”

And even if you can’t get there for the panel discussion, open the link and see what they are talking about.

New Orleans is the first American city to wipe out public education and replace it with a charter system (80% of the students are in charters). Louisiana has passed legislation that will transfer $2 billion in public fund away from public schools to voucher schools.

Pay attention.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, On-Line Education, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Testing, Vouchers

Fox News’ Conflict of Interest?

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
12

Some of the tests that Chicago teachers complained about, the tests on which their evaluations would depend, the tests at the heart of the strike—are administered by a subsidiary of Fox News.

Media Matters, a public-interest watchdog, pointed out that Fox News aired 89 segments about the strike in a one-week period without disclosing the financial ties between Fox News and Wireless Generation, both of which are part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation empire.

Full disclosure might also imply the need to disclose that Murdoch donates significant sums of money to charter schools and to Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

Then there is the fact that Joel Klein heads the education division of News Corporation. Klein is a member of Jeb Bush’s board and chairman of the Broad Center Board, and Rhee is on the Broad board, and so is Wendy Kopp, and so is her husband, and so is Margaret Spellings …

Such a tangled web of relationships, and all devoted to the same purposes: privatizing the nation’s public schools, selling technology to replace teachers, weakening unions and eliminating any rights that teachers have or had.

Categories Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, StudentsFirst, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Testing

Reformers Buy $1 Million Ads to Spin the Strike

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
4

Fred Klonsky reports that Education Reform Now, the Wall Street hedge fund managers’ front group, spent $1 million on TV ads to try to persuade the public that the Mayor won. ERN is part of Democrats for Education Reform, the Wall Street boys who want Democrats to adopt Republican policies. DFER has cannily used its vast resources to reshape Democratic policy to align with those of the far-right in the Republican party.

Klonsky tried to imagine how many books or teachers’ salaries that $1 million would pay for. But groups like ERN/DFER don’t spend money on improving schools. They spend money to control schools.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

The Not-So-Hidden Crisis

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2012 //
8

While the billionaires and multi-millionaires wring their hands over the public schools and promise to end poverty by testing kids and their teachers, there is a back story.

The back story is that income inequality is growing worse in America. And nowhere is it more blatant and more outrageous than in New York City, the very epicenter of faux education reform.

While the mayor and his three chancellors have expanded the number of charter schools, increased testing and demanded value-added assessment of teachers and waged war against tenure and seniority, the income gap between the rich and poor has become a wide chasm.

An article in the New York Times today says that the poverty rate is at its highest point in a decade.

And get this:

“Median income for the lowest fifth was $8,844, down $463 from 2010. For the highest, it was $223,285, up $1,919.

“In Manhattan, the disparity was even starker. The lowest fifth made $9,681, while the highest took home $391,022. The wealthiest fifth of Manhattanites made more than 40 times what the lowest fifth reported, a widening gap (it was 38 times, the year before) surpassed by only a few developing countries, including Namibia and Sierra Leone.”

Do the reformers still believe that we can fix the schools first, then turn our attention to poverty? Or that if we fix the schools, then poverty will take care of itself? Yes, they do. Do they have any evidence that any of this will happen? No.

The economic policies of the past decade have been very very good for the very very rich. Not good at all for the other end of the spectrum.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Corporate Reformers, Economy, Education Reform, Poverty

A Future Teacher’s Review of That Movie

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2012 //
6

Stephanie Rivera is a junior at Rutgers in New Jersey who plans to teach. She has tangled with Students For Education Reform about education issues, both on Twitter and her blog. Here is her review.

I must say, the more I read about the movie, the less I want to see it. I can’t stand the idea that film makers manipulate your emotions to sell political propaganda. This sort of emotional manipulation can persuade people to go to war or to vote against their self-interest. In this case, it is being cynically used to undermine a vital democratic institution. No thanks.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Parent trigger

The Real Story Behind “Won’t Back Down”

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2012 //
5

The Center for Media and Democracy keeps a careful watch on the activities of ALEC, the ultra-conservative organization of state legislators. One of ALEC’s model law is a “parent trigger” bill.

The new film “Won’t Back Down” pulls together the threads of corporate backing for the privatization of public education.

Read about it here.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Parent trigger, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle

A Great Story about the Strike

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2012 //
5

Harold Meyerson wrote a great story about the strike in the Washington Post. Please read it.

The mainstream media, the pundits and the editorial writers were so hostile to the strike that it is refreshing to read someone who really understands what happened in Chicago. Meyerson sees the strike not just as a job action, but as a strike against the national faux-reform movement, which demands incessant testing and pushes privatization.

He gets it.

And as you would expect, someone writes in response and says the teachers are not the union, the union is not the teachers. Oh, please. Who were the 98% of teachers who voted to authorize the strike? Who was it that donned red T-shirts and overflowed the streets of Chicago? Let me say it slowly: The union is the teachers. The teachers are the union.

Regardless of what the media said and wrote, teachers tell of the support from police, firefighters, transit workers, parents, and ordinary citizens who honked their horns and gave a thumbs-up.

Meyerson understood who supported the strike, who opposed it, and what the issues were (and continue to be).

The mainstream media did not. They echoed one another, and their sponsors.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Testing, Unions
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