Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
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Georgia: Governor Deal Vetoes Legislation to Allow Opt Out from Testing

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2017 //
29

Rightwing corporate reformers like to go on and on about parental choice. Choice. Choice. Choice. The one choice they will not tolerate is parents who want their children to refuse the state tests. No choice! Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia vetoed a bill that would make it easier to parents to opt their children out of state standardized tests. He also blocked the possibility of students taking the tests using paper and pencil, instead of a computer. Deal was immediately hailed by Jeb Bush, who pushes computerization and digitization whenever possible. Jeb is a big support of school choice if it means vouchers and charters. He opposes parents’ right to opt out of testing. He is also a major supporter of computer-based instruction and computer-based assessment. His “Foundation for Educational Excellence” is largely funded by the software corporations that profit from standardized testing and data mining online. It has long been a goal of the corporate reform industry to use tests to “prove” that public schools are failing, that there is an “achievement gap,” and that parents should pull their children out of public schools and send them to charter schools or demand vouchers. Once that happens, the test scores don’t count anymore, because neither charters nor vouchers raise test scores or close achievement gaps. It is all a massive hoax to promote privatization.

This article appeared in Politico Pro. I am not a s

By Aubree Eliza Weaver
05/09/2017 01:52 PM EDT

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal today vetoed a bill that would have made it easier for students to opt out of taking standardized tests.

House Bill 425 included provisions discouraging disciplinary action against those students who do not participate in federal, state or locally mandated standardized assessments. Additionally, it would have allowed students to complete the exams using paper and pencil, instead of a computer.

“First, as I stated in my veto of SB 133 last year, local school districts currently have the flexibility to determine opt-out procedures for students who cannot, or choose not to, take these statewide assessments and I see no need to impose an addition layer of state-level procedures for these students,” Deal said in a statement.

He also said that reverting to paper-and-pencil exams would make it harder for the state to return test data to districts quickly and goes against the state’s priority of reducing opportunities for students to cheat.

Deal’s decision was lauded by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

“The proposal would have harmed students and teachers by denying access to measurements that track progress on standardized assessments,” the advocacy group, founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said in a statement. “Maintaining a transparent and accountable measurement systems is critical to ensuring students are on track to succeed in college and beyond — and indicates how successful schools are in preparing students for the future.”

To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/education/whiteboard/2017/05/georgia-governor-vetoes-opt-out-measure-087474

This article appeared in Politico Pro. I am not a subscriber because it costs $3,500 a year, the last time I checked. Too rich for my taste.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Data and Data Mining, Education Industry, Georgia, Hoax, Opt Out, Parents, Privatization, Standardized Testing, Technology, Testing

As New York Rebrands Its Common Core Standards, What’s in a Name?

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2017 //
8

Newsday offers an amusing reflection on the change in the name of the Common Core state standards, which became toxic and set off the powerful opt out movement across the state, and especially on Long Island (which Newsday serves). In the last round of state testing, 50% of the eligible students on Long Island opted out of the English Language Arts state test, and 54% on Long Island opted out of the just concluded math tests.

Some teachers question in what way they “bought in,” as suggested below. Many are so familiar with the PR tactics of the State Education Department that they see this as yet another exercise in illusion.

From Newsday:

Pointing Out

Puzzle us this

Here’s a short quiz to start your week: The big news today is NGELAMLS.

What is it?

a) A newly diagnosed tropical disease that has alarmed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

b) A pharmaceutical breakthrough for melting body fat. Ask your doctor about NGELAMLS!

c) An obscure tribe living on the Ilha de Queimada Grande off the coast of Brazil.

d) A new name for the Common Core learning standards in New York.

The correct response is d. That tangle of letters stands for the Next Generation English Language Arts and Mathematics Learning Standards. State education officials have rechecked the standards, as well as the tests they first rolled out in the 2012-13 school year, this time with buy-in from teachers.

For all the controversy, the changes are small. But the messaging is big. By rebranding, the Education Department hopes to start fresh and reduce opt-outs from the tests.

Long Island, the national opt-out epicenter, had nearly 54 percent of eligible students sit out math exams last week. Will NGELAMLS change that?
Anne Michaud

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York, Opt Out, Standardized Testing, Testing

Sue M. Legg Sends an Even Better Post about Erik Fresen and His Likelihood of Going to to Jail

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2017 //
4

Well, this is a new one for me. After I posted Sue Legg’s piece about Erik Fresen, Sue contacted me and told me she had mistakenly sent me her notes, not the finished post.

So, here is the finished post. I must admit. It reads better. And there is a picture of Erik Fresen.

It begins like this:

Remember Representative Fresen, whose sister Magdalena Fresen is Vice President of Academica, Florida’s largest for-profit charter management company? He term limited out of the legislature this year. His next step is to go to jail?

Ethics Florida Style: Go Directly to Jail

The buzz about Florida is that there is more self-interest than public interest than in any other state. Are such allegations warranted? Information is not difficult to find. The Center for Public Integrity ranked states on a corruption index in 2012. Florida was rated an ‘F’ on ethics enforcement agencies. It appears there are rules that are easy to bend and break.

Take the case of former Florida House Representative Erik Fresen who served in the House for eight years. It looks like he will serve in a Florida prison next year. He was Chair of the House Education sub-committee on Appropriations, and a former property consultant for Civica, a real estate company with ties to Academica. Fresen’s sister and brother-in-law operate Academica, the largest for-profit charter management firm in Florida. Their charter school real estate holdings generate over $20 million per year.

Fresen pled guilty this week for failure to file federal income taxes for eight years. During the same period, his House financial record disclosures do not match the IRS income reports. This is simply a culmination of years of questions about Fresen’s ethical behavior.

I just noticed that the words “For-Profit,” “Florida,” and “Fraud” are consecutive in my list of categories. Kind of like “Testing” and “Texas.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Wendy Lecker: The War on Public Schools and the Public Good

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2017 //
5

Like Jan Resseger, Wendy Lecker paid tribute to the political philosopher Benjamin Barber. She acknowledged his work on behalf of democracy and the public good, which is currently under attack by a bipartisan coalition of corporate reformers.

She writes:

Political theorist Benjamin Barber, who died April 24, wrote about the importance of education as a public good. “Education not only speaks to the public, it is the means by which a public is forged.”

As he noted, education transforms individuals into responsible community members, first in their classrooms and ultimately in our democracy. Local school districts are also the basic units of democratic government.　

Michigan professor Marina Whitman recently noted that the essence of a public good is that it is non-excludable; i.e. all can partake, and non-rivalrous; i.e. giving one person the good does not diminish its availability to another.　

Some school reforms strengthen education as a public good; such as school finance reform, which seeks to ensure that all children have adequate educational resources.　
Unfortunately, the reforms pushed in the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations attack education as a public good. For example, choice — charters and vouchers — is a favorite policy of all three administrations. Choice operates on the excludable premise of “saving a few.”

In operation, choice makes education rivalrous. As a New York appellate court observed, diverting funds from public schools to charters ‘benefit a select few at the expense of the ‘common schools, wherein all the children of this State may be educated….’”　

Across this country, public money is diverted from public schools to charters with no consideration of need, quality or the impact on the majority of public school students. The result is invariably the creation of exclusive schools, out of the reach of voter oversight, at the expense of public schools that serve everyone.　

Charter advocates claimed charters would be superior without the constraints faced by local districts. However, after more than 20 years, charters are no better than public schools.

Moreover, they leave public schools without resources to serve the most vulnerable and communities disenfranchised by unelected school boards. 　
As Barber predicted, “What begins as an assault on bureaucratic rigidity becomes an assault on government and all things public … (destroying) a people’s right to govern themselves publicly … (and) to establish the conditions for the development of public citizens.” Reforms that gut public education attack democracy.

You will enjoy reading the full article, which appeared in the Stamford Advocate. Lecker goes into detail about the ways that charter schools are draining resources from public schools and causing fiscal distress to schools that accept all students.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Funding, Inequity, Injustice

Jan Resseger: A Tribute to Benjamin Barber, Philosopher of Democracy and the Common Good

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2017 //
17

Benjamin Barber was a political philosopher whose passion was the strengthening of civil society and democratic institutions. He died April 24.

Jan Resseger wrote a beautiful tribute to him, on the importance of public education and the danger of privatization. Her citations from his works are eloquent and powerful. Jan doesn’t mention that Barber criticized me in his 1992 book, which she quotes; I can tell you frankly, looking back, that he was on the right side of the culture wars of that era twenty-five years ago.

She writes, quoting his works:

“It is the peculiar toxicity of privatization ideology that it rationalizes corrosive private choosing as a surrogate for the public good. It enthuses about consumers as the new citizens who can do more with their dollars and euros and yen than they ever did with their votes. It associates the privileged market sector with liberty as private choice while it condemns democratic government as coercive.” (Consumed, p. 143)

“We are seduced into thinking that the right to choose from a menu is the essence of liberty, but with respect to relevant outcomes the real power, and hence the real freedom, is in the determination of what is on the menu. The powerful are those who set the agenda, not those who choose from the alternatives it offers. We select menu items privately, but we can assure meaningful menu choices only through public decision-making.” (Consumed, p. 139)

“Through vouchers we are able as individuals, through private choosing, to shape institutions and policies that are useful to our own interests but corrupting to the public goods that give private choosing its meaning. I want a school system where my kid gets the very best; you want a school system where your kid is not slowed down by those less gifted or less adequately prepared; she wants a school system where children whose ‘disadvantaged backgrounds’ (often kids of color) won’t stand in the way of her daughter’s learning; he (a person of color) wants a school system where he has the maximum choice to move his kid out of ‘failing schools’ and into successful ones. What do we get? The incomplete satisfaction of those private wants through a fragmented system in which individuals secede from the public realm, undermining the public system to which we can subscribe in common. Of course no one really wants a country defined by deep educational injustice and the surrender of a public and civic pedagogy whose absence will ultimately impact even our own private choices… Yet aggregating our private choices as educational consumers in fact yields an inegalitarian and highly segmented society in which the least advantaged are further disadvantaged as the wealthy retreat ever further from the public sector. As citizens, we would never consciously select such an outcome, but in practice what is good for ‘me,’ the educational consumer, turns out to be a disaster for ‘us’ as citizens and civic educators—and thus for me the denizen of an American commons (or what’s left of it)….” (Consumed, p. 132)

“This book admits no dichotomy between democracy and excellence, for the true democratic premise encompasses excellence: the acquired virtues and skills necessary to living freely, living democratically, and living well. It assumes that every human being, given half a chance, is capable of the self-government that is his or her natural right, and thus capable of acquiring the judgment, foresight, and knowledge that self-government demands. Not everyone can master string physics or string quartets, but everyone can master the conduct of his or her own life. Everyone can become a free and self-governing adult… Education need not begin with equally adept students, because education is itself the equalizer. Equality is achieved not by handicapping the swiftest, but by assuring the less advantaged a comparable opportunity. ‘Comparable’ here does not mean identical… Schooling is what allows math washouts to appreciate the contributions of math whizzes—and may one day help persuade them to allocate tax revenues for basic scientific research… The fundamental assumption of democratic life is not that we are all automatically capable of living both freely and responsibly, but that we are all potentially susceptible to education for freedom and responsibility. Democracy is less the enabler of education than education is the enabler of democracy.” (An Aristocracy of Everyone, pp. 13-14)

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, School Choice

Frank Adamson: Is Education a Choice or a Right?

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2017 //
43

Frank Adamson of Stanford University wrote a marvelous article that lays out the issues with enormous clarity and insight. To read the references and links, open the article.

The United Nations has identified “free, equitable, and quality primary and secondary education” by 2030 as a goal for sustainable development. This goal reaffirms the right to education guaranteed by countries in multiple U.N. declarations over the last half-century.[i] Although these treaties reflect a general consensus that everyone has a right to education, most countries do not actually deliver on this promise. To address the issue, different countries are organizing their education systems based on contrasting values. Some countries have placed the responsibility for choosing schools on families, while others have delivered the right to education at a system-level, with the latter approach correlating with better national outcomes.

Instead of countries delivering on their U.N. treaty commitments to the right to education, some have proposed that parental choice should drive the education “marketplace.” This approach varies across countries. In countries in the global south such as India and Uganda, families can “choose” to send their children to “low fee” private schools, or else their children will likely not receive an education. In countries in the global north like Sweden and the U.S., school “choice” usually happens when governments give parents the option to leave public schools. However, in both cases, governments place the responsibility on the family to figure out the best option for their child instead of fulfilling their child’s right to a free, equitable, high quality education.

Even more problematic is the reality that school “choice” does not guarantee a better education, for a variety of reasons. One issue is that, when a charter school or low-fee private school does provide a good education, everyone wants to go there and there are not enough spots for every student. And that’s the best-case scenario. The more common problem is that schools of choice do not provide higher quality education. In addition, they often exclude certain types of harder and/or more expensive-to-each students – those with disabilities, discipline histories, lower socio-economic status – as well as racial and ethnic minorities and second-language learners. These students may have lower scores on the tests used to judge schools or they may require extra attention from teachers, incentivizing these schools to choose their students, instead of students being able to choose their schools.[ii]

The results are not surprising because these schools compete with each other instead of providing education to everyone. School choice systems operate under a market-based rationale. In this marketplace, schools depend on competition to get students to enroll. This sounds like a great idea—the companies (schools) that produce the best product (education) have the most customers (students), while those that don’t will go out of business (closing the school). But market-based approaches require schools to seek a competitive advantage that leads to their exclusionary approaches. And when these schools exclude the more “expensive” students, these students end up in overcrowded and underperforming schools that lack basic services, or, even worse, without the opportunity for an education at all.

Countries seeking to provide a free, equitable, quality education aren’t trying to create competitive advantage within their systems. Instead, they fulfill their “education as a human right” imperative at the system level by investing in teachers and infrastructure. Their public investments produce some of the highest outcomes on international assessments, with smaller differences between students, meaning the systems function more equitably. These countries, including Finland, Singapore, Canada, Cuba, and others, have signed at least some of the U.N. treaties that declare the right to education, have opted for investing in their public education systems instead of pursuing market-based approaches that lead to inequity, and continually deliver high quality education to their citizens. Instead of forcing parents to choose schools, or even be chosen by schools, countries employing market-based approaches would do well to shift their focus towards ensuring the educational rights of their citizens on a proven pathway to better outcomes.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, International, Justice, Privatization, School Choice

EXPOSE: Hedge Clippers Expose Billionaires’ Attempt to Buy Control of Los Angeles Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2017 //
7

Hedge Clippers, a group of political activists who work to reveal the unprincipled use of hedge fund money to influence politics and education, have posted the names of the billionaires (and millionaires) who have sunk large sums into the Los Angeles school board race in hopes of electing their favorites, Nick Melvoin and Kelly Fitzpatrick-Gonez.

Many of their financial backers are major Republican donors and allies of Trump and DeVos.

The California Charter School Association (CCSA), directly and through its network of entities, has been the biggest spender in the 2017 election for Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school board members to represent Districts 4 and 6, having spent over $4 million to-date. Nearly all of CCSA’s political campaign funding comes from millionaires and billionaires. Out-of-town billionaires make up the bulk of this funding.

Between July 2016 – December 2016, out-of-town billionaires like Doris Fisher, Co-Founder of The Gap, Alice Walton, heiress to the WalMart fortune, and Michael Bloomberg, New York financier and former Mayor, all made big political contributions to the California Charter School Association Advocates (CCSAA) Independent Expenditure Committee.

The combined net worth of these three out-of-town billionaires is $125.5 BILLION. Doris Fisher lives in San Francisco, Alice Walton lives in Bentonville, Arkansas and Michael Bloomberg lives in New York City.

Additionally, numerous contributors to the CCSAA political fund are Trump supporters, a position that puts them out-of-sync with the majority of Los Angeles voters.

Alice Walton and the WalMart family, for example, donated to the Super PAC that worked to elect Trump, donated to Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, and to the Alliance for School Choice, an organization that Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos helped to lead. Richard Riordan, who gave $1 milion to CCSAA to then launch an independent expenditure committee working to elect Melvoin and Gonez, is a Trump supporter and donor. [i] Many other CCSAA donors are as well.

CCSA has poured money into these school board races directly through its Independent Expenditure Committee, [ii] and has also acting as a pass through for three other independent expenditure committees that are involved in the race.

CCSAA sponsors and funds[iii] the deceptively named Parent Teacher Alliance (PTA), also a big electoral spender.

The PTA, CCSAA helps fund[iv] the Students for Education Reform (SFER) Action Network, which also spent money on this election.

LA Students for Change Opposing Steve Zimmer for School Board 2017 is funded by a $1,000,000 donation[v] from former LA Mayor Richard Riordan that was received through CCSAA

According to available filings,[vi] CCSAA and the groups it funds have provided almost all the independent electoral spending on behalf of Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez in the hotly contested District 4 and 6 races.

To see the footnotes and the specific contributions attributed to donors, as well as their political affiliations, read the link.

It is shocking to see the combination of rightwing Republicans and Democrats-in-name-only who have gathered behind Melvoin solely to advance the cause of privatizing public school students and funding.

The only way to stop them is to be informed, inform your friends and neighbors, and if you live in the contested districts in Los Angeles, get out and vote for Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla. Bring your friends and neighbors out to vote. Stop the hijacking of the LAUSD.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

Busted Pencils: THEY DID IT!

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2017 //
26

Tim Slekar followed up his earlier post with an announcement that the war against the teaching profession in Wisconsin has reached a new low.

He declared a victory for the far-right ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council, which writes most of the “model laws” to privatize schools and eliminate the teaching profession).

Well today “they” did it. “They” opened the door to deprofesssionalization and authorized the use of emergency licenses to address the “shortage” and placed our most vulnerable children in a defenseless position.

Instead of truly addressing the EXODUS of teachers and the miserable conditions driving teachers out of the profession “they” simply created a pathway into our classrooms for unlicensed and unqualified personnel.

Of course “they” won’t admit this. In fact, “they” already have “talking points” in case someone dare question the integrity of devaluing the teaching profession.

Now let’s be very clear about how these emergency license rules will really play out in schools across the state.

The most qualified teachers will end up in the most affluent areas.

Emergency licensed teachers will end up in high poverty areas.

School districts with money will hire licensed teachers and require specialized licenses for teachers in fields such as special education.

School districts without money will hire emergency certified people and use the new emergency rules to get around the specialized license requirements for fields such as special education.

ALEC will have won another victory because the cost for teachers will be significantly reduced.

And over time, more and more license reductions will eventually result in a deprofessionalized field and our children will suffer as novices with no sense of the professional, ethical, social, and moral obligations required to be a teacher take over our classrooms.

Can we let this happen?

Does anyone seriously believe that we can have a better education system by hiring unlicensed teachers?

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Teacher Shortage, Teachers, Wisconsin

Busted Pencils: Teacher Licenses Are Under Attack!

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2017 //
8

Tim Slekar, dean of education at Edgewood College in Milwaukee, warns of the strategy that corporate reformers are using to undermine and destroy the teaching profession.

They say there is a shortage. They ignore the fact that the “shortage” is caused by the exodus of experienced teachers due to policies that create intolerable working conditions. They then say that the “solution” to the manufactured shortage is to eliminate entry requirements for teachers, thus lowering the bar to anyone with a college degree.

He writes:

It is happening all across the country. Policy makers, pundits and idiots keep screaming teacher shortage. And, in the same breath advocating and putting forth policies that do away with teacher licensing. Why?

First the BS answer: Allowing license flexibility or doing away with teaching licenses altogether will fix the shortage and if “we” don’t do something fast children will face empty classrooms.

The TRUTH: Softening teacher license policies or doing away with the license altogether will kill the profession of teaching.

Its that simple. Yet trying to get media and policy makers to understand this seems almost impossible. Trust me. I have been trying for 4 months.

Now it’s up to you. Take what you learn below. Call your legislators. Call your local media. Chain yourself to a tree naked. Oops. That was supposed to say “chain yourself to a naked tree.” Do whatever you can to get this ALEC backed attack on the profession of teaching to the people.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage

Paul Ryan Will Visit Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools Tomorrow

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2017 //
48

Eva Moskowitz has become a favorite of the Trump White House and the Republican Party.

Speaker Paul Ryan will visit her schools tomorrow.

“House Speaker Paul Ryan is planning to visit a Success Academy charter school in New York City on Tuesday, sources with knowledge of the visit told POLITICO New York.

Ryan’s visit will be the latest in a series of high-profile visits by Republicans to the city’s largest and most controversial charter network. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has visited Success Academy 1 in Harlem, and Ivanka Trump visited the same school shortly after the presidential election in November.

“Success CEO Eva Moskowitz was briefly on a short list to serve as education secretary under President Donald Trump, and Trump has praised the the city’s charters, likely referring to Success, since taking office. One of Success’ top donors, John Paulson, was an adviser to Trump during the campaign.

“The network’s boldface-named visitors and supporters also happen to be unpopular figures in deep blue New York City.

“Moskowitz has expressed interest in running for mayor for years, but her recent affiliation with the leaders of the national Republican party will likely complicate any future bid. She has been attacked by her longtime foes in the city’s teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, for her ties to the Trump administration. Moskowitz has also been criticized by her staff for not speaking out against Trump policies that are unpopular in her schools.

“Ryan is a longtime supporter of charter schools.

“Spokespeople for Success and Ryan did not respond to requests for comment.

“This story first appeared on POLITICO New York on May 8, 2017.”

To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/education/whiteboard/2017/05/paul-ryan-to-visit-success-academy-school-in-harlem-087403

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization
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