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

Wendy Lecker: How to Create a Teacher Shortage

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2017 //
23

Wendy Lecker is a civil rights lawyer who specializes in education and writes frequent newspaper columns.

In this article, she shows how some districts and states are strengthening the profession while others–notably Connecticut– are contributing to a teacher shortage.

She writes:

“A serious teacher shortage is plaguing school districts across the country. The Learning Policy Institute (“LPI”) recently found that in addition to teachers leaving the profession, enrollment in teacher preparation programs has dropped 35 percent.

“It is no wonder. Over the past decade, teachers have been subjected to a barrage of unproven mandates “that hamper learning. They are judged by evaluation systems, based on student test scores, that experts and courts across this country have rejected as arbitrary and invalid. And, as one former teacher and current Colorado state senator remarked, “Teachers are constantly being bashed … It’s not the same job it used to be.”

“Connecticut is no exception to the teacher shortage, nor to its causes. Teachers have undergone a revolving door of evidence-free mandates, invalid evaluations and vilification from our governor who infamously declared that all teachers have to do for four years is “show up” to get tenure. Every year, hundreds of positions go unfilled in Connecticut classrooms.

“LPI issued a report in 2016 on the causes of the teacher shortage, based on a review of an extensive body of research. Of particular note for Connecticut is the finding that inadequate preparation is a major factor in teacher attrition.

“Alternatively certified teachers have markedly higher turnover rates than traditionally certified teachers, with the largest disparities in high-minority schools. Teachers with comprehensive preparation were 21/2 times less likely to leave than those with weak preparation. Accordingly, LPI recommends providing scholarships and loan forgiveness for strong teacher preparation programs, and robust induction programs.

“Some districts are making strides in identifying and addressing the root causes of teacher shortages.

“In Niagara Falls, New York, for example, the district embarked on a multipronged effort to cultivate teachers, particularly teachers of color. The district provides a scholarship for a graduate of its high school entering the teaching program at Niagara University. It also received an endowment at Niagara University for paraprofessionals who want to be trained as teachers; and provides financial assistance, reduced workloads and other supports to ensure success.

“Niagara Falls public schools provide high school seniors with the opportunity to shadow teachers as an internship. Twelfth-grade teachers partner with Niagara University to ensure that students will not incur the expense of remedial education once they matriculate. They have also partnered with the local community college to establish academies such as the physical education academy. The superintendent reaches out to local African-American churches to request contact with graduates who have left the area in order to entice them to return. However, the superintendent does not favor lowering certification standards or weakening preparation. Those avenues would not only devalue the profession but also would harm the needy children in his district.

“As featured in my previous column, Long Beach, California, also partners with its local university to train teachers, who student teach in the district’s schools. The high-poverty district has a 92-percent retention rate and credits its partnership with the university for protecting it against teacher shortages.

“Connecticut had promising programs for growing teachers. Last year, Bridgeport initiated a comprehensive minority recruitment program for paraprofessionals to become teachers. Hartford, Waterbury and CREC had similar programs. Just as this program was to expand, the state pulled the funding. The State Department of Education (“SDE”) had a successful program, Teaching Opportunities for Paraprofessionals, however its funding was eliminated in 2002.

“Connecticut also has high quality, university-based teacher preparation programs, which have made efforts to identify and address specific shortage areas and minority recruitment.

“Rather than build on these successful efforts, SDE and the State Board of Education seek to weaken teaching. Last year, they approved an unproven fly-by-night outfit called Relay to provide alternative certification.”

“Now, they intend to lower teacher certification requirements. One idea they are considering is abandoning the requirement that bilingual teachers have content certification, as if English Language Learners do not deserve a teacher who knows the subject she teaches.”

By the way, the North Carolina legislature killed the funding for its highly successful Teaching Fellows Program–which produced career teachers– and transferred the funding to Teach for America, which hires itinerant teachers from out of state.

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching

Peter Greene: When Democrats Echo DeVos

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2017 //
35

Peter agreement has noticed a Democratic think tank in D.C. that sounds like an echo chamber for Betsy DeVos. It is called the Progressive Policy Institute, and back in the 1990s, it inspired many of the Clinton administration’s flirtations with privatization.

It’s back, and it sounds like a np mouthpiece for a Betsy Dezvos. Even DFER and other charter-loving Dems have tried to distance themselves from the Trump administration. But not PPI.

Its spokesman on education is David Osborne, and he adores privatization. He is yet another non-educator who wants to reinvent schools. And of course, he loves charters. Like ALEC, like the Walton family, like the whole privatization industry, he loves deregulation without accountability.

Peter writes:

“You may not have heard of the Progressive Policy Institute lately, but they’ll be coming up more often as their Education Honcho releases his new book. PPI is worth paying attention to, if for no other reason than the organization provides Exhibit #1,635 of Why Teachers Can’t Trust Alleged Democrats….

“I have not read the book (and it’s not high on my list), but I am curious where he stands on the charter characteristics of non-transparency, non-accountability, and generating profits for private corporations and individuals. Nor do I see any signs of Osborne grappling of what happens to “undesireable” students in a charter world in which no charter has to take a student they don’t want (a serious issue in New Orleans).

“There’s a whole world of charter mis-information here, coupled with the tone of someone who has no interest in a serious conversation about any of the issues that charters raise. That’s all just another day at the education debates.

“No, what I want you to notice, and remember as this group pops up, is that these are self-labeled progressives, folks with long and strong Democratic ties. The GOP is no friend of public education, but at least they never pretend otherwise. But here’s evidence once again that when it comes to education, some Democrats are completely indistinguishable from the GOP.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Anita Senkowski to the New York Times: Please Look at Charter Rip-Offs in Northern Michigan

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2017 //
2

Anita Senkowski is a blogger in northern Michigan who has written numerous posts about a for-profit charter operator who ripped off taxpayers and is now serving a term in jail for his financial crimes. She read Mark Binelli’s piece in the New York Times about charter schools in Detroit and its surroundings and hopes that he will come to Northern Michigan to see how the fraudster mentality permeates the DeVos charter industry throughout the state.

She writes:

Binelli’s fine piece, focused primarily on districts south of Eight Mile Road, the northern border of Detroit made infamous by former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young in his 1973 inaugural address. Telling “rip-off artists and muggers” to “hit Eight Mile Road” and leave Detroit, Young made few friends in suburban Detroit, especially Oakland County.

As they say in Las Vegas, the house always wins.

And although Michigan gambled on charter schools and its children lost, there have been winners.

One, former optometrist Steven Ingersoll, (whose story I’ve beaten like a rented mule for three years), walked away with millions. Although he’s serving a 41-month federal prison term, no Michigan authority (state or local law enforcement) has expressed any interest in prosecuting Ingersoll for his admitted fraudulent conversion of approximately $5.0 million from the Grand Traverse Academy and another roughly $1.4 million from the Bay City Academy.

If Ingersoll had lived in Mississippi and not Michigan, John Grisham would have already written a not-very-fictitious-sounding novel about him.

In its theory of the case, the federal government asserted Ingersoll’s federal tax evasion case demonstrated the truth of the sayings that “money gives power” and “unchecked power corrupts”.

“Steven Ingersoll obtained control over millions of dollars by creating and running the public charter schools known as the Grand Traverse Academy. The power of that money enabled Steven Ingersoll to corrupt himself, his wife Deborah Ingersoll, his brother Gayle Ingersoll, Roy Bradley, Sr., and Tammy Bradley.

As the person who controlled the accounting books and public funds intended for the operation of the Grand Traverse Academy, Steven Ingersoll ignored his obligation to separate his personal finances from the finances of the Grand Traverse Academy.

Instead, Steven Ingersoll treated the tax dollars provided for public education as his personal piggy bank, ultimately diverting approximately $3.5 million from the Grand Traverse Academy to uses other than the operation of the Grand Traverse Academy.

Steven Ingersoll also manipulated the books of entities he controlled, including Smart Schools Management and Smart Schools Incorporated, to hide his diversion of the public money that had been entrusted to him.”

And Ingersoll, on who reported to FCI Duluth on February 2, 2017 to serve a 41 month sentence for his federal tax evasion and conspiracy convictions, filed a “pro se” motion to vacate on January 24, 2017, seeking “post-conviction relief” based on attorney Martin Crandall’s alleged “ineffective assistance of counsel” — an attorney who’d sued him for nonpayment of nearly $362,000 in outstanding legal fees.

Ingersoll’s motion was denied, and he’s sitting in stir until January 22, 2020 — ironic, since he was an optometrist.

Let’s hope Binelli takes a look back here in Michigan…about 250 miles north of Eight Mile Road.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Detroit, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Michigan, Privatization

Massachusetts: State Fines Dark Money Group $426,000 in Charter Battle

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2017 //
82

In November 2016, the state of Massachusetts held a referendum about whether to expand the number of charters in the state. Millions of dollars were spent on both sides, but the pro-charter groups spent twice as much as the anti-charter groups (mostly funded by teachers’ unions).

Much of the large pro-charter funding was bundled by a group called Families for Excellebt Schools. The names of many individual donors were not released. That’s called “dark money.” It enables the group to pretend to be worried families, eager to enroll their chilren in charter schools, when they are actually billionaires and millionaires who want to promote privatization. One member of the group is billionaire Alice Walton of Arkansas. Another is the chairman of the state board in Massachusetts, who offered nearly $500,000 to undermine public education in a state where he is in control.

FES pulled the same shenanigans in New York, pumping millions into a campaign to persuade the legislature to shower charters with perks and public space and money. But it didn’t work in the Bay State.

Families for Excellent Schools has been ordered to pay a fine of $426,500 for violating campaign finance laws in the state.

“An advocacy organization that gave more than $15 million to a Massachusetts ballot campaign to lift the cap on charter schools has agreed to pay $426,500 to settle allegations of campaign finance violations.

“The Office of Campaign and Political Finance alleged that Families for Excellent Schools contributed money to the ballot campaign in a way that was designed to hide the identity of its donors. The organization denies any wrongdoing.

“This is the largest settlement ever collected by Massachusetts’ Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

“Massachusetts voters deserve to know the identity of all those who attempt to influence them before Election Day,” said Office of Campaign and Political Finance Director Michael Sullivan in a press release. “Complete and accurate disclosure of campaign activity is the goal of OCPF and the cornerstone of the campaign finance law.”

“Families for Excellent Schools is a New York-based advocacy group, which gave $15.3 million to Great Schools Massachusetts, the ballot committee promoting a question in 2016 that would have lifted the cap on charter schools. The question failed at the polls.”

Indeed, the question failed overwhelmingly at the polls.

Families for Excellent Schools agreed not to engage in any election-related activities in the state for four years.

The fine is Penny ante for a group like FES, but it is satisfying to see them get caught hiding the names of donors.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, Funding, Massachusetts, Privatization

Peter Greene: My Do-Over! Public Schools Are Not Charities!

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2017 //
9

A regular reader pointed out that I mistakenly posted the same Peter Greene column twice–on the branded classroom.

I had a senior moment!

To make up for it, I am posting Peter’s wonderful new review of the XQ extravaganza.

He points out that the show was like a Jerry Lewis telethon to “save” public schools. But public schools are not a charity: they are “a civic institution, a civic duty, a civic obligation.”

He writes:

“Charity is optional for the giver. Only give what you feel you can afford when you feel you can afford it. Charitable giving makes you feel good precisely because you didn’t have to do it. And you can give what you feel like giving (pro tip– for disasters like Harvey and Irma, send money, not shit that volunteers have to that may or may not be any use). You could send money, but you could also volunteer to put on a show or, you know, send thoughts and prayers. If you have better things to spend your money on, well then, the charity will just have to wait. Shouldn’t be a problem because…

“Charity is optional for the receiver. Sure, the thinking goes, it would be nice if they had a little more money to work with, but if that money doesn’t come in, they’ll scrape by somehow. You know how resourceful those poor folks are.

“Too much charity is bad. Wouldn’t want to make people dependent. Besides, this kind of support isn’t really sustainable, so we’d better not overdo it.

“Charity has to be earned. Of course, we only give charity to people who show they deserve it by displaying proper character or proper goals or proper deference with their betters who have the money. Or they can deserve it by having a really sad story. Undercover Boss is infuriating because in every episode we hear a sad story about someone who can barely support their struggling family/sick child/aging parent on the shitty wages and benefits that the company pays, so in almost every episode, the boss makes things better for that one employee, not asking if perhaps his company’s shitty wages and benefits might be hard on Every Other Employee!

“Charter schools are frequently pitched as charities, and charteristas like that favorite reformster chorus “Well, we saved that one kid from terrible public schools” while steadfastly refusing to talk about the 600 students still in that “terrible public school” or the obligation, as members of the civic body, to help that public school. Because…

“I gave at the office. Charity allows you to pretend that you’ve fulfilled any obligation you had to deal with the issue. Send the check in, then check out. Cash and dash. Drive-by do-gooding….

“Treating schools for poor kids (because, really, are we talking about any others) as charities let’s people glide by the whole idea that they have any kind of obligation to educate all children, including Those Peoples’ Children in That Part of Town. It allows a bunch of people to say, “Well, since I’ve given some support to a miracle school filled with hero teachers, my work is done. And I feel great about it.”

“When the critical mass of Americans (or at least a critical mass of people in power) decide to commit to doing something, they do it. There were no bake sales for the Apollo program or car washes to support the war in Afghanistan. We just did it, price tag be damned. When I contemplate the XQ telethon, I come back to the same old depressing conclusion– one of the fundamental reasons we don’t solve the problems of public education is that we don’t really want to. We just want to pretend we’re kind of trying while making sure the business is not too expensive. Please don’t tax me for the real amount of equitable public education for all– but I will drop a couple of dollars in the collection plate, and my friend here will do a nice song and dance. Now we’ve done our part– please go away and don’t bother us about this for a year or so.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform

Samuel Abrams Responds to Barron’s Takedown of His Book and the Editor Makes a Snarky Comment

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2017 //
18

Samuel Abrams, veteran high school teacher and now Director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, at Teachers College, Columbia University, wrote an excellent book about the perils of for-profit schooling. Most of the book tells the story of the rise and calamitous fall of the Edison Project. The business magazine Barron’s published a scathing review of the book by anti-public school ideologue Bob Bowdon, whose film “The Cartel” compared the New Jersey teachers’ union to the mafia.

Samuel Abrams wrote a response to the review. Here is the original letter, followed by the heavily edited published version:

The original letter to the editor:

To the Editor:

In faulting me in his review of Education and the Commercial Mindset for focusing on the failure of Edison Schools rather than the success of National Heritage Academies (NHA), Bob Bowdon misses a central point of my book (“Balancing the Books: Slurring Charter Schools,” Sept. 4).

Edison was the standard-bearer of a movement hailed by Wall Street analysts in the 1990s to outsource the operation of public schools to for-profit educational management organizations (EMOs). Analysts forecasted that Edison and similar EMOs surfacing in its wake would run 10 to 20 percent of the country’s public schools by 2010 and reward investors handsomely. By 2010, the portion of public schools run by EMOs was 0.7 percent and has not changed since. Moreover, investors in Edison saw the stock plummet 90 percent from when it was taken public with much fanfare by Merrill Lynch in 1999 to the time it was taken over in 2003 by the private equity firm Liberty Partners, which, in turn, sold the company in 2013 for 80 percent less than it had paid.

While NHA has indeed tripled in size since 2001 to 84 schools today, as Bowdon writes, this growth along with that of other for-profit EMOs such as the Leona Group and Mosaica constitutes a blip relative to what analysts had predicted.

Furthermore, in contending that I ignored the consistent proliferation of charter schools, Bowdon misses another central point of my book. As I wrote in my prologue, “With the number of charter schools as a whole—from solo operations to network members—growing from 2 in Minnesota in 1992 to 6,440 across 42 states and the District of Columbia by 2013, the appeal and force of educational outsourcing cannot be questioned.”

Finally, in dismissing my argument that the complexity of primary and secondary schooling does not afford parents the transparency essential to conventional contract enforcement, Bowdon cites the complexity of Android and Apple smartphones as proof that complexity itself presents no barrier to the commercial model. Bowdon thus misses yet a third central point of my book.

While smartphones as well as their networks are clearly complex, they are discrete goods and services, respectively, and consequently comport with the commercial model because their effectiveness may be easily judged. In the case of primary and secondary schooling, however, the immediate consumer is a child or adolescent while the parent is at a necessary distance. School districts are accordingly well justified in outsourcing discrete services like busing or food preparation to commercial operators but not a complex service like school management. The implicit information asymmetry in the latter case generates significant potential for moral hazard.

Samuel E. Abrams

New York, N.Y.

Here is the heavily edited and sharply reduced version that Barron’s published, along with a defensive comment by the book editor:

Missing the Point

To the Editor:

In faulting me in his review of Education and the Commercial Mindset for focusing on the failure of Edison Schools rather than the success of National Heritage Academies, or NHA, Bob Bowdon misses a central point of my book (“Slurring Charter Schools,” Balancing the Books, Sept. 2).

Edison was the standard-bearer of a movement hailed by Wall Street analysts in the 1990s to outsource the operation of public schools to for-profit educational management organizations. Analysts forecasted that Edison and similar EMOs surfacing in its wake would run 10% to 20% of the country’s public schools by 2010 and reward investors handsomely. By 2010, the portion of public schools run by EMOs was 0.7% and hasn’t changed since. Moreover, investors in Edison saw the stock plummet 90% from when it was taken public with much fanfare by Merrill Lynch in 1999, to the time it was taken over in 2003 by the private-equity firm Liberty Partners, which, in turn, sold Edison in 2013 for 80% less than it had paid.

Samuel E. Abrams
New York City

Editor Gene Epstein replies: Bowdon wrote that Edison was a case of “switching a government-run monopoly for a privately run monopoly.” That was the reason he dismissed Edison for not being an example of competitive alternatives to government-run schools. Abrams misses this central point, apparently expecting Bowdon to be impressed by the fact that Edison was “hailed by Wall Street analysts.”

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

John Thompson Reviews John Merrow’s “Addicted to Reform,” and Loves It!

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2017 //
17

John Thompson, historian and teacher in Oklahoma, Reviews John Merrow’s ADDICTED TO REFORM:


In “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education”, John Merrow lets it all out. Merrow, the winner of the George Polk Award and two George Foster Peabody Awards, leads us down “Memory Lane,” republishing his astonishing journalism that predates “A Nation at Risk,” and its warning against “a rising tide of mediocrity.” He also recalls successful innovators such as James Comer, E.D. Hirsch, Deborah Meier, and Henry Levin.
ADDICTED TO REFORM by John Merrow | Kirkus Reviews
But Merrow shows how high stakes testing dramatically increased our output of mediocre and even worse lessons for our kids. He tells us how the bubble-in reform “mania” got to a point where a principal told his teachers to “motor down,” to stop teaching 11th grade material to high-performing freshmen in order to prepare for the 9th grade test. Even more despicable was cancelling an annual kindergarten play so five-year-olds could spend more time becoming “college and career ready.”

The veteran reporter, with four decades of experience at NPR and PBS, reviews the way that test and punish “went into high gear during [the] Bush and Obama” administrations, when “‘regurgitation education’ became the order of the day.” Accountability-driven, competition-driven reformers turned schools into dreary places for “parroting back answers, while devaluing intellectual curiosity, cooperative learning, projects, field trips, the arts, physical education and citizenship.”

Merrow recalls the legacies of “blindly worshipping test scores.” Under Arne Duncan, Joel Klein, and Michelle Rhee, et. al and with funding by the “Billionaires Boys Club,” test scores became more than “the holy grail.” Merrow concludes, “Test scores are their addiction, the equivalent of crack cocaine, oxycodone, or crystal meth.”

Given Merrow’s influential coverage of corporate reform abuse in Washington D.C., it is no surprise that his discussion of Rhee is especially important. High stakes testing like the DC-CAS is always a bad idea, Merrow concludes, but in D.C. “it was an open invitation to disaster.” It was a part of a mentality where, for instance, D.C.’s director of professional development said that 80% of the district’s teachers lacked the skills or motivation to be successful in the classroom.

This narrow viewpoint, which was brought nationwide by “Waiting for Superman,” “The 74,” and other corporate-funded public relations assaults on public education, has “poisoned learning by turning it into a ‘gotcha game.’” But, Merrow concludes that our schools won’t “be out of the woods” until we “stop belittling and sometimes humiliating” teachers.

Merrow dissects the “heroic teacher” meme that set educators up to fail in their single-handed fight against the legacies of poverty. He cites teachers’ accounts of how “the testing mania has caused people to lose their minds.” Teachers explain how they “are becoming more like McDonald’s workers.” And, as another teacher explains, “I’m still in the classroom, but I miss teaching. It’s all about testing.”

The result of the lavishly-funded, data-driven mandates to transform “teacher quality” is that only prison guards, child care workers, and secretaries have higher attrition rates. A seemingly conservative estimate is that 81% of teachers believe that schools have too much testing and, that helps explain why about 60% of teachers say they are losing enthusiasm for the job, with nearly half saying they would quit if they could find a higher-paying job.

Merrow offers a 12-Step plan to reverse the harm inflicted by corporate school reform. In doing so, he often reminds us that it wasn’t just a misguided ideology and hubris that led sincere reformers astray. He notes the profit motives that undoubtedly influenced edu-philanthropists and charter providers, motivating them to ignore the overwhelming evidence of the unintended harm they were dumping on children.

For instance, Merrow speculates that if Jesse James would come back, today he’d become a charter operator in North Carolina. Similarly, huge administrative costs richly reward charter operators. The New York City Schools Chancellor is compensated at a rate of 40 cents per student, but charter leader Eva Moskowitz earns $51.35 per student, and Deborah Kenny is compensated at a rate of $375 per student.

The part of Addicted to Reform that taught me the most was Merrow’s account of Big Pharma’s influence on special education practices. I had no idea that it was once claimed that some ADD treatments were “safer than aspirin.” But the lessons that I most needed to learn are included in Merrow’s account of the “Buy Now, Pay Later” economics of Ed Tech. His bottom line isn’t surprising, “harnessing technology, … to raise test scores, makes education worse, not better.”

On one hand, the solutions in the 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education are modest. However, their strengths are rooted in what our democracy already knows how to do. We don’t need a new Common Core, Merrow says, to teach us how to respect the science that calls for high-quality early education, or to bring exploratory learning back into classrooms. By now, there is a widely held understanding that due to reform, “Students have been the losers, sentenced to mind-numbing schooling. Teachers who care about their craft have also lost out.”

The big winners have been the testing companies. But the grassroots Opt Out movement has led the counterattack. The refusal to take these punitive tests has empowered students and patrons, while revealing some of the darkest sides of the reform addiction. For instance, when 90% of students opted out in a Connecticut school, the administration forced opt outers to attend classes where there would be “no new learning” allowed.

And that brings us back to why Merrow was right to use the word “addiction” to diagnose the failure of reform. Merrow shows how corporate reform began as a fundamentally anti-intellectual movement (by admittedly smart people who knew little of the institution they sought to transform) and ended up defending policies that are sometimes irrational and/or cruel. Somehow, they couldn’t see the damage done by shaming poor children of color into increasing their “outputs.” These social engineers imposed the stress of testing to overcome the stress of poverty, and consciously contributed to increased segregation in order to reverse the legacies of segregation.

And many reformers are still convincing themselves that they haven’t created a disaster. It would be hard to explain such a continuing debacle without using Merrow’s language of addiction, as well has his guide to following their money.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Testing

Arthur Goldstein: The Myth of NYC’s “Bad Teachers” CORRECTED!

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2017 //
47

Arthur Goldstein is a veteran New York City high school teacher and blogger.

He went slightly ballistic when he read an op-ed article in The New York Times by Marc Steinberg, who became an instant principal during the Bloomberg-Klein regime and left to join the rightwing billionaire Walton Family Foundation, as director of its K-12 program. The Waltons despise public education and spend hundreds of millions backing charters, vouchers, and other modes of privatization. The WFF claims credit for funding one of every four charter schools in the nation. The Waltons individually spend millions on political campaigns to support privatization and undermine the teaching profession. They are avowed enemies of public education, the teaching profession, and collective bargaining.

Sternberg was a golden boy in the Bloomberg-Klein era. He graduated Princeton in 1995, joined Teach for America, picked up an MBA and MA in education at Harvard. Only nine years after finishing college, he was a principal in New York City. He quickly became a Klein favorite and moved up to become Deputy Chancellor in a few short years.

Now, at the pinnacle of rightwing power, with hundreds of millions to dispense every year, what really annoys him is that Mayor de Blasio plans to place hundreds of displaced teachers into classrooms. These are the teachers known as the “Absent Teacher Reserve,” where teachers are assigned when they have been accused of misconduct but are still awaiting a hearing or where they have been placed because their school was closed and they haven’t found a new job. Why haven’t they found a new job? If they are experienced, their salaries are at the high end of the salary scale, and principals don’t want to hire a permanent teacher whose salary is $90,000 instead of two young teachers for $45,000 each.

[ADDITION: Arthur Goldstein wrote at the end of the day to tell me I had confused “the rubber room” and the “Absent Teacher Reserve.” He explained:

[ATR teachers are not rubber room teachers. Rubber room teachers are those who are awaiting hearings. They don’t have rubber rooms anymore, so those teachers are placed in offices or schools. We had one in our school last year. He was given a job running our tutoring room.

[Teachers facing charges are generally not allowed to teach….ATR teachers are often displaced from schools. Some of them have been through hearings. They may have been found guilty on minor charges and fined. None of them have been found unfit. Had they been found unfit they would have been fired.]

As it happens, a friend of mine lost his job when the large school where he taught was closed and replaced by five or six small schools. He has a Ph.D. in history, but that didn’t help him find a new job. This highly educated, highly experienced teacher involuntarily became a permanent substitute, assigned to the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR), bounced from school to school in a humiliating fashion. Marc Sternberg considers him a “bad teacher,” although he was never given a bad rating as a teacher. Mayor de Blasio wants him to get a permanent job. Sternberg thinks he should be fired.

Arthur Goldstein responds here to Marc Sternberg:

“I’ve never been in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR), so I can’t speak from experience here. My experience is limited to being an occasional substitute teacher, not one of my favorite things. I was in my school a few times this summer, and one day a secretary asked me to cover a class. I thought I’d maybe help out, so I asked, “Which class?”

“She told me she needed a teacher for a day, and that there were three classes, two hours each. I told her thanks but no thanks. Six hours is a long time to work as a substitute teacher. It’s far different teaching students you don’t know. A classroom culture takes time to build, but goes a long way.

“Now imagine that you’re an ATR teacher, and your stock in trade has been showing up and teaching whatever to whomever. Physics today, Chinese tomorrow. And then there are the principals, quoted in the press, who say how awful ATR teachers are. I’d only hire 5% of them, maybe, they say. And there are two issues with that.

“Issue number one, of course, is if I were teaching Chinese or physics, I’d be totally incompetent. I know virtually nothing about either. Even if a teacher were to leave me lessons all I could do would be follow instructions, watch the kids, and hope for the best. On this astral plane, I get lessons for subbing well less than half the time I do it. Sometimes I hear that ATRs should simply give lessons in their own subject areas. Mine is ESL, so it would be ludicrous to give such a lesson to native speakers. But even if I were to give one in ELA, imagine the reaction of a group of teenagers when a sub they will likely never see again gives a lesson on a different subject. And even if it’s the same subject, it’s ridiculous to compare the class culture of a regular teacher to one of a sub.

“Issue number two is that administrators, already overworked, now have to do at three to six observations for most teachers. If I were a principal, it would not be a high priority to observe teachers who were just passing through. I’m chapter leader of the most overcrowded and largest school in Queens. My job is nuts (and believe it or not, I’m not complaining). The principal’s job is crazier than mine. There is no time to fairly assess teachers who aren’t around very long. Frankly, I question where principals who cavalierly toss out percentages even find the time to look.

“I wonder if any writers who attack ATRs ever had or saw a substitute teacher. To compare a classroom with a culture, developed over time, with one led by a total stranger the students expect to never see again is preposterous. Watching hedge funded “Families for Excellent Schools” organize a dozen parents to protest the ATR is beyond the pale.

“This year things will be different for a lot of ATR teachers. The new plan is to place a whole lot of them, provisionally at least, in schools. You’d think that the people who bemoaned the cost of the ATR would be jumping for joy. By making teachers, you know, teach, they’re no longer throwing away all that city money they claimed to be so concerned about.

“To the contrary, they’re complaining. What if they’re no good? A parent wrote an op-ed in the Daily News saying she didn’t want her kid taught by them. Some guy on the Walmart payroll wrote virtually the same nonsense in the NY Times. You read in Chalkbeat about principals threatening to observe newly place ATRs to death. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty, or incompetent, or at least something that merited a conversation?

“Let’s be frank here—it seems that ATR detractors simply want all of them fired without due process. That’s a slippery slope. We are all ATR teachers. It’s just a matter of being in the wrong place at the right time.

“Here’s something you won’t read in the papers—with the help of UFT and my administration, we’ve placed at least four ATR teachers permanently at Francis Lewis High School. Three are in my department, and one is an English teacher working mostly with ELLs. 100% of them are doing fine.

“ATRs need a chance, and Lord knows NYC kids need teachers. Yesterday, I counted 248 oversized classes in my school alone. It’s time for ATR critics to shut up until and unless they discover something worth talking about.”

Wouldn’t it be amazing if the Walton Family Foundation stopped acting as an echo chamber for Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos and began to use its billions to address the real problems of students and schools?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York City, Privatization, Teachers, Walton Foundation

John Merrow Reviews Laurene P. Jobs’ Timid TV Bash of Our High Schools

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2017 //
7

John Merrow watched the show funded by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs and presented, monopoly-style, on four major channels simultaneously (NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX). Why no CNN? Why no MSNBC? Why no QVC? Why no cooking channels? Just asking.

Merrow concluded that the show was lacking any reference to history, e perience, or knowledge (other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?)

An excerpt of what might have been:

“As I see it, the program wanted to look bold without criticizing the ‘school reform’ crowd that still controls most of what happens in schools. It could have been bold. It could–and should–have said “Most high schools treat kids like numbers, their scores on standardized tests. That has to change…and here’s how it can happen, how it is happening.” But in order to do that, the narrative would have had to renounce and reject not just Republican education policies of “No Child Left Behind” but also those of the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top,” widely supported by Democrats for Education Reform and other traditional ‘school reformers.’ Given that Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan now works for Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, that wasn’t going to happen.

“Last night’s program was high energy and cute without being daring. For example, it had a clever ‘red carpet’ segment but with teachers as the stars. Lots of cheering, but that was it. That’s sadly timid. Imagine if Melissa Rivers, the host on the red carpet, had asked teachers the question she always asks the Hollywood stars: “You look marvelous. What are you wearing tonight?’

“And picture a male teacher responding: “These old things? I bought these khakis 12 or 13 years ago. I was going to buy a new pair for tonight, but I just spent $380 on basic supplies for my classroom. Oh, and would it be rude of me to ask how much your outfit cost?”

“Imagine a female teacher responding, “What am I wearing? Actually, I’d rather talk about tomorrow’s field trip….I’m taking my kids to the Getty Museum, where they will….. see provocative art and meet contemporary artists. And the next day my students will be on Skype, talking with students in a high school in Paris about climate change. We’ve been measuring the air quality here and sharing the data with them for purposes of comparison and analysis. But I have to charge the kids for the bus to the Museum and I had to ask some wealthy parents to pay for the scientific equipment because the school district has been cutting our instructional budget.”

“And another teacher could have said, “To be honest, I’m happy for this attention, but I can’t help but thinking about the fact that you make 17 or 18 times more money per year than I do.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Media, Privatization, Propaganda, Testing

Viola Davis: Don’t Forget the Teachers and Public School That Changed Your Life

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2017 //
13

Viola Davis is one of the most gifted actors of our time. She has won the Tony Award, the Academy Award, and many other awards. She has never forgotten her humble origins and those who helped her rise to the top.

When she received the Tony award in 2010, she gave a powerful speech. She thanked God, her parents, and her teachers at Central Falls High School in Central Falls, Rhode Island. In that order.

I recall leaping to my feet when I heard her speak in 2010, because that was the very time when the city of Central Falls and the state of Rhode Island threatened to fire the entire staff of the High School that Viola Davis attended. To fire them en masse, from the principal to the lunch room staff. Arne Duncan congratulated the state officials for having the “courage” to fire everyone, and President Obama echoed Arne’s insult.

It was also the year of “Waiting for Superman,” and the corporate assault on the public schools went into high gear.

But then there was Viola Davis, thanking her teachers. I learned later that her own sister was a teacher at Central Falls HS.

But…but…but…then, Viola Davis took a leading role in the film “Won’t Back Down,” funded and produced by arch-evangelical billionaire Philip Anschutz (one of the “Superman” funders). “Won’t Back Down” celebrates the parent trigger, telling the fictional story of a parent and a teacher who were so disgusted with their public school that they gathered signatures and flipped the school over to a charter operator. I didn’t get to see the movie because it opened in 2,500 theatres (Anschutz owns the Regal theatre chain) and its receipts were so bad that it closed within a month and disappeared.

Last night, Viol Davis moderated Laurene Powell Jobs’ XQ extravaganza, which asserted that high schools are obsolete and need to be reinvented.

Viola Davis, please watch the speech you gave at the Oscars at 2010.

We need a real champion for public schools.

Trump and DeVos want to eliminate the schools that made you who you are today. Our public schools need your help. They are far from perfect. They need real reform, not a wrecking ball and disruption.

Viola Davis, help us. Join the millions of parents and educators who want better public schools.

The billionaires don’t need your help. We do. They are using you.

Join the Network for Public Education. Help the children and teachers whom the billionaires despise.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Parent trigger, Parents, Privatization, Propaganda, Rhode Island, Students
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »