Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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The Big Business of Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2012 //
25

You may have been naive enough to think that charter schools are multiplying because some people want better education for American children.

You may have thought they were expanding to give more choices to children trapped in bad public schools.

You may have wondered why they continue to proliferate when so many studies agree that they don’t get better results than the public schools.

But if you thought those things, you were on the wrong track.

There are other reasons that charters are growing by leaps and bounds.

They make money for investors!

They are a great investment opportunity!

Both links refer to the same interview on CNBC with the head of a real estate investment trust who explains why charters are a sure thing.

Follow the money.

 

Categories Boston Consulting Group, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

An Astonishing Article about TFA

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2012 //
28

We are accustomed to reading puff pieces about TFA, to hearing again and again how the “best and the brightest” are sacrificing two years of their lives to save the needy children of America from their wretched teachers, etc.

And we see fund-raising drives for TFA everywhere, on our ATM machine in the bank, as the beneficiary of the recent “Teachers Rock” concert in Los Angeles, as though TFA were a hard-pressed charity, sort of like the Girl Scouts or the March of Dimes.

Here is a refreshingarticle written by Stephanie Simon of Reuters, that lays out the good, the bad, and the ugly.

TFA was created to send smart fresh college graduates to schools serving the neediest children that had acute shortages, in areas like math and science.

The article asks whether TFA lost sight of its mission and has now become a richly endowed corporation that demands payment for its services and is sending teachers to districts that have laid off veteran teachers.

Far from being a needy charity, TFA is a business operation with $300 million in assets.

Some of its graduates are leading the charge for privatization of public education and–despite their own elite education–are promoting test scores as the be-all and end-all of education.

Other organizations suffer from “mission creep.” TFA suffers from “mission abandonment.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teach for America TFA

The NY Times on the Parent Trigger

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2012 //
7

I am not going to write anything substantive about the movie celebrating the so-called “parent trigger” until I have seen it.

But the stories about it continue to miss the point about  why parents and teachers think it is a corporate-conceived and corporate-driven idea, for the benefit of corporate charter chains. Why not mention the Florida parents’ fight to stop this so-called “parent empowerment”? If it really empowered parents, why did parents oppose it?

Here is the latest example. Frank Bruni, usually a thoughtful writer, has an article in today’s New York Times. He sees the movie as part of the ongoing (and at least partially justified) critique of teachers unions. He never mentions that the two states that enthusiastically endorsed parent trigger laws (after California did it first, during the Schwarzenegger years), are right-to-work states, Texas and Mississippi. Nor did he mention the role of the rightwing group ALEC in promoting the trigger idea as a way to hasten the privatization of public education.

Instead he sees it as a righteous plea for better schools (the cloak that reformers always wear as they set out to privatize your schools). That’s exactly what the producers are hoping for, to pull the wool over people’s eyes to their privatization agenda with a soap opera set in a public school.

The tipoff is the ending quote, which is from Joe Williams, the executive director of the falsely named Democrats for Education Reform. DFER is the organization of the Wall Street hedge fund managers. Joe, a nice guy, was formerly a beat reporter for the New York Daily News.

Larry Ferlazzo, a prolific blogger and Sacramento teacher, calls Williams on his line about finding and rewarding the best teachers.

Why did Bruni end up parroting DFER? The hedge fund mangers are not education experts; they are not teachers or principals. They send their children to Andover, Exeter, Lakeside Academy, Trinity, St. Bernard’s, Deerfield Academy and Sidwell Friends. These schools don’t evaluate their teachers by standardized test scores. Why does the parent trigger lead us right back to all the other bad ideas propounded by these out of touch reformers?

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform, Parent trigger, Unions

When Reform Turns Orwellian

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2012 //
1

The author of the article “Is Literature Necessary?” writes a comment:

Thanks for mentioning my essay. I agree that the reform movement is getting more Orwellian by the day. We are told test scores are way up when they are stagnant. We are told that poverty doesn’t matter. We are told that “enthusiasm” trumps experience.People who have spent little or no time in the classroom, like Gates, Rhee, and Coleman, are now the architects of public education going forward. Who needs algebra, literature, music, or any of the arts? In the face of an obesity epidemic among our children, the mayor mandates smaller soda cups while eliminating or reducing physical education. It all feels surreal, but it is happening all the time and unless the trend changes, I fear we may lose public education altogether.
Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Coleman, David, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Rhee, Michelle

What’s Wrong with Privatization?

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2012 //
22

Someone tweeted me a few days ago and asked “what’s wrong with privatization?”

I didn’t have time or space to respond in 140 characters, but fortunately someone else has done it for me.

See this article.

Let me be clear. I believe in the value and strength of the private sector. Long ago, I traveled in the Soviet Union and in China, and I developed a deep respect for the efficiency of the private sector in supplying goods to markets for consumers.

But I believe that a healthy and decent society has a strong private sector to provide goods and services (contractors, plumbers, electricians, repairs, etc.), and a healthy public sector to provide essential public services, like public education, roads, postal service, parks, beaches, transportation, government, police, military, fire fighting, libraries, and healthcare for those who can’t afford to buy it in the private sector. I may be forgetting other essential public services, but you get the point, I hope.

Privatization of public services is not in the public interest. The services are inevitably more expensive to the consumer and the taxpayer, who must now pay profits as well as the cost of the services. And the services are not more efficient; they are even less efficient because there is less money available to pay for the same service. And as the enclosed article shows, there is actually an incentive for failure. Privatized schools want public schools to fail so they can get more customers. Privatized prisons want more criminals for them to house.

We need a healthy private sector and a healthy public sector.

Unfortunately, there is a movement to privatize public education. Big money is going to fund political candidates in both parties who are committed to privatization.

The privatized schools–whether voucher or charter–do not outperform our public schools.

We must resist the current well-funded effort to privatize our public schools.

Categories Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Privatization

About that Washington State Referendum

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2012 //
7

A reader (who is not a teacher) describes the setting for the referendum this fall in Washington State that would introduce charter schools and a parent trigger into the state for the first time. An earlier post pointed out that the referendum–known as I-1240–is funded by Bill Gates and other super-rich high-tech entrepreneurs.

We’ll speak loudly and often. I promise. This is just the beginning.

BUT, we also need our teachers to stop being so quiet, so defensive, so intimidated. It’s a self-fullfilling prophecy when that happens. 

The I-1240 folks are the ones who need to be on the defensive! The Privatizers are the ones who are afraid to say anything in public, knowing that the truth will sink their ship. The billionaire funders—NONE of whom have children in public schools—think they can fund these ersatz “education” groups like LEV, DFER, SFC, SF…(they’re ALL vile and funded by the same fronts)—and then sit back and just pull the puppet strings.

Do the 1% know best? Should the people who never have to choose between mortgage payments and utility bills be telling US what is best for our schools and our children?

This is NOT a battle between “reformers” and the “status quo”. Nor is it a battle between “teachers unions” and “taxpayers”.

It IS a battle between Citizens (both parents and non-parents) and Privatizers. Citizens want free and universal education for all children; privatizers want “charter” schools for some and “public” schools for everyone else who they deem “unworthy”. But the one thing all schools will have in common, if the Privatizers succeed with their awful plans—is private ownership and management, with fat profits, coming directly out of our education dollars.

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

What Our Friends in New Zealand Are Reading

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2012 //
1

Allan Allach of New Zealand has compiled a reading list, some drawn from U.S. sources (one from this blog). What is interesting is the commonality of concerns among so many of us worried about the standardization of education, corporate control of schooling, and the worship of data as the goal of education:

 

Weekend Readings
By Allan Alach
One common element of ‘deform’ across the world, is the use of PISA tests to justify the implementation of GERM.  As Phil Cullen observes in his latest Treehorn Express these tests are an offshoot of the OECD, an organisation of economists. Since when did economists have valid educational credentials? This begs the question- why do we take any notice of PISA? Anyone able to explain this to me?
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.
This week’s homework!
Charter Schools and Corporate Ed Reform
As other countries rush down the charter school road, evidence to the contrary keeps coming out of USA. Naturally our GERM minded politicians take no notice – powerful string pullers behind the scenes? Thanks to Barbara Nelson for this link.
“The following is an excerpt from Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education: What’s at Stake? co-authored by Michelle Fine and Michael Fabricant. The book traces the evolution of the charter school movement from its origins in community- and educator-based efforts to promote progressive change to their role today as instruments of privatization and radical disinvestment in public education.”
New school year: doubling down on failed ed policy
Or ‘how we need to learn from our mistakes”
“This was written by Lisa Guisbond, a policy analyst for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as FairTest, a Boston-based organization that aims to improve standardized testing practices and evaluations of students, teachers and schools.”
10 Ways School Reformers Get It Wrong
“When it comes to education reform, we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel anymore; instead, we’re building square ones.” Nothing else needs to be added. Thanks to Phil Cullen for this link.
Secret Teacher has had it with WALTS, WILFS and other education jargon.
The Guardian newspaper, UK, runs a regular feature where a different secret teacher each time writes about issues of concern. This one is written by an Academy School (aka charter school) teacher, and provides a warning of what is to come.
Yong Zhao on PISA
For the last 18 months or so, I’ve been raising questions about this PISA test programme that is being used by ‘deformers’ all over to justify their educational agenda. Why is a test developed by an economic organisation being used in this way? Why do we give it any credit at all?  Think about it – the PISA tests to determine any country’s educational achievement have exactly the same drawbacks as using tests to determine a child’s achievement. This blog by Diane Ravitch, referencing comments by Yong Zhao, covers this more authoritatively. Getting rid of PISA would be a major step forward.

Technocratic Expansion of Education Data Systems Stirs Privacy Concerns

This is an extremely important article by Anthony Cody.  The online student database system he describes here is also being developed in New Zealand, ready for implementation in 2014. Are similar systems being developed in Australia, UK and elsewhere? This is big brother, people. No exaggeration.  The only thing Orwell got wrong was that he anticipated a far left state, not a right wing corporate based state with fascist overtones. Just to back this up, there’s also another link from a homeschooling website.
Eight problems with Common Core Standards
Another great article by Marion Brady. New Zealand readers might ‘enjoy’ reading this, substituting ‘national’ for ‘common core.’ Aren’t coincidences wonderful?
Thank God for standardized test scores
With the coming publication of ‘achievement data’ for New Zealand schools, as the government rushes in a ‘me too’ fashion’ to join the bandwagon, this satirical article by Joe Bower is timely.
Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Curriculum, Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International

Who Wants to End Local Control of Schools?

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2012 //
5

It’s kind of funny when a blog talks to a blog, which then talks back to the other blog.

I wrote today about how the State Superintendent of Schools in Georgia came out in opposition to a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would allow a commission appointed by the governor to override the decisions of local school boards that reject charter schools.

The news story about him said:

“I cannot support the creation of a new and costly state bureaucracy that takes away local control of schools and unnecessarily duplicates the good work already being done by local districts, the Georgia Department of Education, and the state Board of Education,” Barge said in a prepared statement. “What’s more, this constitutional amendment would direct taxpayer dollars into the pockets of out-of-state, for-profit charter school companies whose schools perform no better than traditional public schools and locally approved charter schools (and worse, in some cases).”

Then, in response to my post,  Jonathan Pelto wrote that Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy pushed for the same authority in Connecticut, to allow his Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor (who founded a charter school and is a strong proponent of charters) to intervene in low-income districts with almost unlimited authority to impose the changes he prefers.

And here is the funny part: The idea is promoted by the conservative group called ALEC, which advocates for vouchers, charters, the parent trigger and opposes unions, tenure, and certification. As an organization of some 2,000 conservative legislators, ALEC would normally be in favor of small government and local control. But ALEC advocates that governors should be able to appoint a commission with the power to overturn local decisions about charter schools, so that more charters will be created despite local opposition. This is a case where ideology trumps ideology.

ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) supports privatization and promotes a free-market ideology. It gained some unwanted attention this spring for its model “stand your ground” legislation, which figured in the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida by George Zimmerman.

Strange world we live in.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Malloy, Dannel

Why Is K12 Online Corp. Advertising on Kansas TV?

By dianeravitch
August 14, 2012 //
13

David Reber is a teacher in Kansas who happens to be a terrific writer.

His articles are always insightful.

This one is about the relentless advertising campaign in Kansas of the online giant K12.

As the privatization movement gathers steam, as equity investors launch their latest scheme to extract profits from the public schools, we will be bombarded by even more appeals to go digital. Of course, we are all going digital. But there is no good reason to home school children who don’t need to be home schooled. Virtual academies get terrible results for children. This has been documented by the National Education Policy Center and in exposes in the NY Times and the Washington Post.

Home schooling by computer may be right for some, but it is not right for most students. Don’t buy their con job.

Categories Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Privatization

The Reformers’ Game Plan

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2012 //
7

This reader offers a succinct summary of the reformers’ game plan. He might have added additional elements: a) budget cuts to disable public schools; and b) laws that remove accountability and transparency with privately managed charters; c) evaluating teachers on a bell curve, so that half will always be “below average,” thus creating a “crisis”; d) demanding 100% perfection, 100% proficiency and saying that anything less proves failure.

You can see it played out in state after state, especially in those with Republican governors, and in the pronouncements of the U.S. Department of Education, and it is fully developed in the Romney education agenda. They think that that private management of public education is the wave of the future, preferably it is generates profits for investors, and they are doing their best to make it happen:

First, the reformers have yet another scapegoat [to blame]  for poverty.  Now it’s the schools that are at fault, not the destruction of our social safety net, not the elimination of worker protections, not the imposition of fair taxation that enables the government to maintain our national infrastructure, and certainly not the actions of the 1% to extract all of the wealth of the U.S. economy for themselves alone.  We don’t need to fix the failed and irrational policies of the past thirty years.  No!  We just have to reform the schools with for-profit charters, voucher plans and virtual “distance learning” that just happens to divert more tax money to … wait for it … the 1%!

And of course, never mind how all of these reforms are failures.  By the time the public is fully aware of that fact, it will be too late to change and we’ll be on to the next scapegoat.

Second, this is just another impossible goal against which to conclude our schools are failures.  The logic here is brilliant:  Set the standard so impossibly high that the schools will be failures by default.  Keep the focus on the unions and test scores, so the public won’t make the real connections between the economics policies of the past three decades but instead will follow the reformers in blind rage.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Vouchers
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