Detroit is in turmoil, as reform arrives. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of teachers don’t know if they have a job.
The reform plan closed a bunch of schools and opened another bunch of schools.
That’s reform.
Open some, close some, see if it works, start over.
Sort of like an old game called 52 Pick-up, where you throw all the cards in the air and see where they land.
Education Week has an article by the always well-informed Alyson Klein that speculates about Romney’s possible choice for Secretary of Education.
The possibilities include:
Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, who shaped the Romney agenda for privatization of the nation’s schools;
Tom Luna, the state superintendent in Idaho who is known for his allegiance to online corporations and his efforts to increase class size;
Joel Klein, the former chancellor of NYC, now selling technology for Rupert Murdoch, another supporter of privatization and opponent of unions, seniority and tenure;
Michelle Rhee, leader of a national campaign to remove all tenure, seniority and collective bargaining fromt teachers;
Chris Cerf, acting commission in New Jersey, who is leading Chris Christie’s push to privatize public schools in that state;
Here is the big surprise:
Arne Duncan, who is seen by Republicans as compatible with Romney’s agenda and, as the article, says, eager to stay on.
There are other names, but it is interesting to realize that at least four of the six listed here are allegedly, nominally Democrats.
A reader remembers that when David Halberstam used the phrase “the best and the brightest,” it was not praise. It was an ironic reference to the seemingly brilliant Harvard graduates at the State Department, the National Security Council, and the think tanks who got us into the war in Vietnam.
You often hear education reformers, including President Obama, talk about how we must have the “Best and Brightest” from the most elite schools enter the teaching workforce to improve education.
I always want to say to say to them, the phrase “Best and Brightest” doesn’t actually mean what you think it means.
When David Halberstam used the phrase “Best and Brightest” for his book on the Vietnam War, he used it ironically to show how these so-called geniuses from the so-called elite colleges took the nation down the path of an insane policy that cost many lives. Even when it became apparent the policy wasn’t working, they continued to double down on it, throwing more soldiers and more money into the conflict, rather than admitting they had been wrong about the whole thing to begin with.
The parallel between the geniuses, the so-called Best and Brightest, in the Kennedy and Johnson administration who brought us the Vietnam War and the Best and Brightest in the Bush and Obama administrations, in the think tanks and non-profits who bring us education reform is striking. It is true that lives are not being lost due to the failed ed policies the reformers continue to pursue, but lives of students certainly are being worsened by these policies, futures, minimized. And as with the Vietnam policy, the reformers refuse to admit when the policies fail – merit pay doesn’t work, sure let’s try it again anyway! Teacher evaluations tied to test scores is untested – sure, let’s give that to the whole country even though we don’t know how it will play out!
I think you can extrapolate the “Best and Brightest” comparison to the rest of the culture and society as well. It is the “Best and the Brightest” that our so-called elite universities have to offer who have brought us such wonderful innovations such as collateralized debt obligations,securitization, Too Big To Fail Banks and all the other things that helped bring about the ’08 collapse (and will undoubtedly help bring about the next one too.) The Best and Brightest have brought us the idea that GMO is the way to feed the world, monocropping and corporate farming is the only way society can grow its food.
Frankly I think we need fewer “Best and Brightest” in our society and more people with the humility to say, “You know, maybe I’m not as smart as I think I am, maybe I shouldn’t hoist my untested policies upon the entire nation.
Three charter schools want to open in St. John’s County in Florida, which is the state’s highest ranking county.
Some of the state legislators, including one of the state senate’s most avid supporters of charters, are surprised. They thought that charters were supposed to rescue students in failing schools, but St. John’s County is known for its excellent public schools.
If approved, the charters will siphon almost $13 million out of the public school budget, requiring at least 200 teacher layoffs. School officials are alarmed. The excellent public schools of St. John’s County won’t be quite so excellent in the future. This is the kind of competition that Jeb Bush put into place, which he wants to replicate across the nation.
Two of the charters would be run by a for-profit charter chain that is already collecting $158 million in revenues from South Florida charters, which includes an annual profit to the firm of $9 million. It’s a very good business indeed.
A reader who runs a charter school wrote a week or so ago and insisted that charters are not deregulated; he asked for examples of state laws and regulations that charters are not required to meet. Here are some that apply in Florida, according to this article:
I asked for news about Detroit.
Detroit is one of the trying grounds for corporate reform.
It is a petri dish for reformers to try out their theories.
The district has an intense concentration of racial segregation and poverty and low test scores.
For reformers, this toxic combination suggests that what is needed is school reform, meaning, charter schools run by private management. No part of the reform plan addresses racial segregation and poverty.
We previously learned that the emergency manager decided to create many new privately managed charters. And he imposed a new contract that laid off teachers and will allow class sizes to soar in K-3 to as high as 41 and in 6-12 to as high as 61.
We also noted that charter leaders in Detroit are compensated with higher salaries than public school leaders.
Here is the latest report from Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley. The “reform” plan abolished a small school for the deaf, probably because it cost too much. The parent of the profoundly deaf student in this article has been told that her daughter should go to school in Flint, not Detroit, or should be mainstreamed.
And inexplicably, a teacher rated effective, who happens to be one of the few black male elementary teachers in the city or state or nation, doesn’t know if he will have a job. Hundreds of teachers are waiting to hear if they have a job when school starts in a few days.
In short, as Riley observes, “Detroit schoolchildren are caught in a chaos of power, lawsuits, lack of staff and major confusion.”
As a general rule, chaos is not good for children.
The Memphis public schools are about to merge with the Shelby County schools into a single district.
The guiding document was written by a 21-member Transition Planning Commission.
The director of the TPC happens to work for the reform group Stand for Children, now best known among educators for its efforts to crush the Chicago Teachers Union.
Several articles about Memphis have appeared on this blog. The TPC proposed, for example, that the proportion of students in charter schools increase from 4 percent to 19 percent by 2016, even though it is by now clear that charter schools don’t get better results than public schools.
The TPC decided that teachers should have merit pay, despite the fact that merit pay has never been successful in producing anything but demoralization.
The TPC decided that teachers’ education and experience will not count.
This high school teacher says they are wrong.
He writes, “the TPC recommends teachers no longer be paid more for their advanced degrees. They claim master’s degrees and doctorates are irrelevant in the classroom. This is a terrible insult. To assert that education is the cornerstone of success for everyone in our community except teachers disrespects the professionals who teach and care for our children each day. It belittles the years of study and the large sums of money teachers invest in their careers, and it will ultimately run the best and brightest teachers out of our classrooms and into jobs that offer higher compensation and less degradation.”
Why does one teacher know more than a commission of 21 people?
Carol Burris has written an article addressed to parents, explaining what tests are good for and how they are being misused.
Send this to your friends, especially if they are public school parents.
She identifies three “reforms” that parents should be concerned about, involving the misuse of testing.
This is the “reform” that you should keep your eye on:
The amassing of individual student scores in national and state databases.
State and national databases are being created in order to analyze and house students’ test scores. No parental permission is required. I wonder why not. Students who take the SAT must sign off before we send their scores to colleges. Before my high school’s students could participate in the National Educational Longitudinal Study, they needed written permission from their parents. Yet, in New York, massive amounts of student data are now being collected and sent beyond the school without parental permission —end of year course grades, test scores, attendance, ethnicity, disabilities and the kinds of modifications that students receive. This data will be used to evaluate teachers, schools, schools of education and perhaps for other purposes yet unknown. Schools are no longer reporting collective data; we are now sending individual student data. Although the name remains in the district, what assurances do parents truly have that future databases will not be connected and used for other purposes? The more data that is sent, the easier it will be to identify the individual student.
Eleven states have agreed to give confidential teacher and student data for free to a shared learning collaborative funded by Bill Gates and run byMurdoch’s Wireless Corp. Wireless received $44 million for the project. With Common Core State Standards testing, such databases are expected to expand. Funding for data warehousing siphons taxpayer dollars from the classroom to corporations like Wireless and Pearson. Because Common Core testing will be computer-based, the purchase of hardware, software and upgrades will consume school budgets, while providing profits for the testing and computer industries.
Although all of the above is in motion, it can be modified or stopped. Parents should speak to their local PTAs and School Boards, as well as their legislators. They should ask questions regarding what data is being collected and to whom it is sent.
Burris recommends that:
It is time to get Back to Basics. Let’s make sure that every test a student takes is used to measure and enhance her learning, not for adult, high-stakes purposes. Basic commonsense tells us that student test results belong to families, not databases. Remind politicians that the relationship between student and teacher, not student and test helps our young people get through life’s challenges. Finally, let’s return to the basic purpose of public schooling — to promote the academic, social and emotional growth of our children. It is the role of schools to develop healthy and productive citizens, not master test takers.
StudentsFirst, Parent Revolution, and Democrats for Education Reform are hosting a screening of the film “Won’t Back Down” at the Democratic National Convention. It is not on the official program, so I hear.
UPDATE: This screening is not sponsored by the DNC. It is being shown independently by the sponsors mentioned above.
This is the film celebrating the parent trigger, the law started by the billionaire-funded Parent Revolution in California and since adopted by the far-rightwing group ALEC as model legislation to encourage parents to seize control of their public school and hand it over to a charter school operator.
http://www.studentsfirst.org/page/s/dnc-signup
Join Us for a Screening of Won’t Back Down at the DNC
You and your guests are cordially invited to a pre-screening of Won’t Back
Down at the Democratic National Convention sponsored by Democrats for
Education Reform, Parent Revolution and StudentsFirst. The film will be
followed by a panel discussion with Michelle Rhee, Ben Austin, Joe Williams,
Mayor Kevin Johnson and others.
Where: EpiCentre Theaters – 210 E. Trade St., Charlotte, NC 28202
Date: September 3, 2012
Time: 1:00 – 3:00pm
Thanks to a reader who forwarded this fascinating and informative article about the situation in Chester Upland, Pennsylvania.
I posted previously about the Governor’s appointment of a “recovery officer” to help the district get back on its feet.
The Governor appointed a prominent advocate for vouchers and charters to a position that puts him in complete control of the district and its future. Ironically, the “recovery officer” has been a consultant to the charter school in the district that takes away 1/3 of the district’s stressed budget. The charter school is owned by the governor’s biggest campaign contributor. The charter school owner collects $16 million each year as a management fee. So many interesting coincidences!
It seems likely that the district won’t get back on its feet. More likely there won’t be a district in the future.
This “recovery officer” law sounds an awful lot like the law permitting the governor in Michigan to appoint emergency financial managers. These EFMs arrive in financially troubled districts and decide that the cure was to close down public education and to hand the children over to for-profit charter chains. The most amazing one is Muskegon Heights, where the district has a $12 million deficit; the for-profit charter chain plans to extract a profit of $8.75 million to $11 million. And that’s just for starters.
Somehow all this seems to be aligned with the ALEC agenda of dismantling public education by fiat, the sooner the better.
It’s Chester Upland and Muskegon Heights today.
Who’s next?
This teacher (from the west) agrees with a previous post that the real goal of the reform movement is to do away with unions. That would leave them clear sailing to cut budgets even more, lay off teachers, increase class size, encourage for-profit ventures, and privatize at will, with no one powerful enough to stop them. What is sometimes called the “neoliberal” agenda is actually the old rightwing agenda, and it starts with union-busting and concludes with privatization.
| I’ve often thought this mess boils down to busting the unions. Once that’s done, it’s smooth sailing for the “reformers.”From where I stand, the union appears to be silent. What gives? I thumbed through a recent national magazine from the NEA. Nothing on what’s currently transpiring. Our local representation is always “looking into that,” yet provides no answers when asked about the union’s stance on privatization. I thought the front page of the NEA website would be bursting with anti-privatization articles. Instead I found all kinds of back-to-school tips for teachers.Anyone here a union rep? In the know? What is going on? |
