Archives for category: Democrats for Education Reform
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EduShyster on the Michigan Plan to End Public Education As We Know It

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2012 //
17

Just to show that great minds think alike, here is EduShyster’s description of the Michigan plan to end public education as we know it.

The plan was designed by the deep thinkers at the free-market think tank called the Mackinac Center.

She calls it a reform “turducken,” which is one reform wrapped inside another, all of them together accomplishing the long-held dream of the extreme right: abolish public education and replace it with a market-driven system, with minimal regulation, minimal oversight, free choice for all, and profits for the plucky.

Sort of like the stock market. Just where you want your children’s future to be decided, right?

I wonder whether Governor Snyder will get a special award from ALEC as the first state to take the bold move of dis-establishing public education?

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Michigan, Privatization

Why the Grassroots Will Win

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2012 //
34

People often ask me: How can parents and teachers hope to beat the big money that is buying elections in state and local races around the nation? What chance do we have when they can dump $100,000, $200,000, $500,000 into a race without breaking a sweat?

True, they have a lot of money. But they have no popular base. The only time they win votes is when they trick voters with false rhetoric and pie-in-the-sky promises. They call themselves “reformers,” when they are in fact privatizers.

They claim they know how to close the achievement gap but their standard-bearer, Michelle Rhee, left DC with the biggest achievement gap of all big cities in the nation.

They claim to be leading the “civil rights issue” of our day, but can you truly imagine a civil rights movement led by billionaires, Wall Street hedge fund managers, ALEC, and rightwing think tanks?

They say they love teachers even as they push legislation to cut teachers’ pensions and take away their job rights and their right to join a union.

There are two reasons they will fail:

First, none of their ideas has ever succeeded, whether it’s high-stakes testing, charters, vouchers, merit pay or test-based teacher evaluations.

But even more important, the public is getting wise. The public has figured out the corporate reform strategy. In state after state, parents are organizing.

Here is one great example in Texas, of all places.

Similar groups of parents are organizing in every state. Even students are getting active in the movement to protect the commons.

When the public gets wise, the privatization movement dies.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Parent Groups, Parents, Privatization, US Education

Sirota Exposes the Big Lie Technique

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2012 //
6

David Sirota, an author and talk-show host, here analyzes the election results and says they exposed the Big Lie of the corporate reform movement.

The public is not hankering to privatize their public schools.

The corporate leaders and rightwing establishment dropped millions of dollars to push their agenda of privatization, teacher-bashing and anti-unionism. They lost some major contests.

I will be posting more about some important local races they lost.

We have to do two things to beat them: get the word out to the public about who they are and what they want (read Sirota).

Two: never lose hope.

Those who fight to defend the commons against corporate raiders are on the right side of history.

Nothing they demand is right for children, nor does it improve education.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Idaho, Indiana, Merit pay, Parents, Privatization, Stand for Children, Students, Technology, Computers, Testing, Unions, US Education, Vouchers

How a Leading Rightwing Group Views the Election

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2012 //
0

The Center for Education Reform in Washington, D.C., is one of the nation’s leading advocates for privatization of public education. Its leader, Jeanne Allen, was an education policy analyst at the rightwing think tank, the Heritage Foundation, before she founded CER in 1993:

The Center for Education Reform has long advocated for charters and vouchers. It has nothing to say about improving public schools, only that they should be replaced by private management or vouchers.

CER is closely allied with other conservative groups committed to privatization, like ALEC, the Heartland Institute, Democrats for Education Reform, and Black Alliance for Educational Options. CER claimed credit for helping to write the Heartland Institute’s version of the parent trigger law, which served as a model for ALEC.

If you want to track the advance of privatization, keep your eye on the Center for Education Reform.

This is CER’s take on the 2012 elections (to see the links, go to the CER website):

The Center for Education Reform Analysis:
How Education Reform Fared on Election Day

WASHINGTON, DC – The Center for Education Reform analyzed Tuesday’s results through the prism of education reform. Our EDlection Roundup provides our analysis on races up and down the ballots, including:

The White House: The Center congratulated President Obama and offered thoughts about how he could refocus education issues in his second term.

Governors: Two states, North Carolina and Indiana, will be inaugurating reform-minded Governors. They join the 23 other states who are also led by reformers. Is yours one of them? See our Governor grades.

Senate Races: We take a look at the results of four Senate races where candidates were strong reformers, and where two – Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) – were victorious.

Ballot Initiatives: There were education reform ballot initiatives in Georgia, Idaho, and Washington. We look at the results, which included a decisive victory in Georgia.

Superintendents: We examine the results of Superintendent races, with a special look at the disappointing defeat of Tony Bennett, a stalwart reformer.

###

CER, since 1993, is the leading voice and advocate for lasting, substantive and structural education reform in the U.S. Additional information about the Center and its activities can be found at http://www.edreform.com.

The Center for Education Reform
(tel) 800-521-2118 • 301-986-8088 • (fax) 301-986-1826
cer@edreform.com • http://www.edreform.com

Categories ALEC, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Charter Schools, ConnCAN, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Indiana, Parent trigger, Privatization, Vouchers

EduShyster Credits Stephanie Rivera for SFER Expose

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2012 //
9

Earlier, I published a post about Students for Education Reform, linking to a post by EduShyster.

SFER is a junior version of Democrats for Education Reform, the group formed by Wall Street hedge fund managers to promote privatization and high-stakes testing.

EduShyster here says that the credit for investigative reporting goes to Stephanie Rivera, a student at Rutgers, who plans to be a teacher and often engages in dialogue with her peers at SFER and TFA. Her website is called Teacher Under Construction.

EduShyster writes:

Actually all of the credit for “digging” goes to Stephanie Rivera, a student at Rutgers. She posts regular updates about SFER on her blog, Teacher Under Construction, and has done an amazing job of reaching out to SFER members and getting them to talk openly about things that don’t seem quite right about a student group.
SFER has been under the radar so far but that’s only because they haven’t done much.

That will soon change though. Students from SFER’s chapter at Whitworth University in Washington state, a private, virtually all white school, lobbied ardently for the state’s new charter law, including going door to door. I suspect that here in Massachusetts, where the charter lobby will file a bill in the coming months to eliminate the cap on charters in our poorest cities, it will be students from Smith and Harvard who provide the ground troops…

I can’t help but admire the evil genius that came up with this concept. Students across the country, who are utterly sincere in their passion and zeal, are being lined up behind the privatizers’ policy agenda. Ask questions and you’re accused of “attacking students.” Yet the students who make up the bulk of SFER’s membership don’t seem to know anything about their national organization’s funders, its positions or of the implications of those positions.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Students

The Lowdown on $tudents for Educational Reform

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2012 //
17

EduShyster has done the research and digging on Students for Educational Reform that has thus far eluded mainstream journalists.

(This should not be surprising since few journalists have paid much attention to Democrats for Education Reform, the Wall Street hedge fund managers group, which is able to direct millions of dollars to state and local political elections from a small number of very rich donors. Typically DFER is described in news stories as just another Democratic advocacy group interested in education reform rather than as a small group of billionaires who want to promote privatization of public education.)

EduShyster gives us insight into their $uccess, their board, their ties to the financial elites, and the current focus of their activities (demanding tougher teacher evaluations, a curious preoccupation for university students).

She invites readers to offer a slogan for them. One suggestion she offers: “Pawns of billionaires.”

Maybe you can think of others.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, NYC, Students, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Usdin Wins in New Orleans

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
3

Sarah Usdin won a school board seat in New Orleans, unfortunately.

She is a major advocate for privatization of public education.

Her background is Teach for America, the New Teacher Project (founded by Michelle Rhee), and New Schools for New Orleans (which opens charters).

She had the advantage of more than $110,000 in contributions from Wall Street hedge fund managers (“Democrats for Education Reform”), and others committed to wiping out public education in New Orleans and elsewhere.

Her campaign chest far exceeded that of her opponents, who included parent activist Karran Harper Royal.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, Klein, Joel, New Orleans, Privatization

Bill Ayers Writes a Letter to the President

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
11

I won’t go into the baggage associated with Bill Ayers. During the campaign of 2008, his name came up again and again and was hurled as an accusation against candidate Barack Obama.

I recall Sarah Palin saying that Obama was guilty of “palling around with terrorists,” or words to that effect.

I did not approve of or condone what he did in the 1960s.

Bill Ayers is not the same person he was forty years ago. Today, he is a respected education thinker. But then, none of us is the same person we were 40 or 20 or even 10 years ago.

People grow and change. If they are willing, they learn.

Ayers has written a letter to President Obama that expresses the views of many educators today.

He calls on the President to rethink his policies.

He reminds him of the great advantages that the University of Chicago Lab School offered to the Obama children, the Ayers children, the Duncan children, and the Rahm Emanuel children even now.

Isn’t this what we should want for all children?

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Obama, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, U.S. Department of Education, Unions, US Education, Vouchers

The Most Important Education Vote Yesterday

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
17

The most important education vote yesterday occurred in Indiana.

As the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette pointed out in its editorial, this election has national implications.

Tony Bennett had become the face of rightwing reform in America.

His mission was to bring the ALEC agenda to life in the Hoosier State.

He was head of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, the group of state superintendents that were most eager to privatize public education, expand charters and vouchers, turn children over to for-profit corporations, and reduce the status of teachers.

He was honored by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute as the “reformiest” state superintendent in the nation.

The Wall Street hedge fund managers and assorted billionaires pumped $1.5 million into his campaign for re-election.

He was soundly defeated by veteran teacher Glenda Ritz.

Ritz raised $325,000 for her campaign to restore public education in Indiana.

Ritz won over Bennett by a comfortable margin of 53-47.

She got 1.3 million votes, almost 100,000 more votes than Mike Pence, the Republican running for governor, who barely eked out a victory.

Make no mistake: The people of Indiana said “no” to Tony Bennett’s radical plans to turn public education into a free-market of choice and competition, based on high-stakes testing.

The people of Indiana elected Glenda Ritz to rebuild their public school system and to wipe away the misguided, mean-spirited “reforms” imposed by Bennett.

This is a victory for the parents, citizens and educators of Indiana.

Most important, it is a victory for the children of the state of Indiana.

Now, they will have a chance to have a good education, not to be consumers in a vast shopping mall of test-based choices, not to be data points for corporations bent on turning a profit.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, ALEC, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Indiana, Privatization, Vouchers

Why Do Hedge Fund Managers Love Charters?

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
40

Julian Vasquez Heilig has a scintillating new post on one of the most interesting questions of our age:

Why do hedge fund managers adore charters?

Many sit on charter boards.

They have their own PAC called Democrats for Education Reform to spread campaign cash to charter-friendly candidates.

What is the connection between hedge fund managers and charters?

Some of their friends think they are kind philanthropists with big hearts.

Some think they have a profit motive.

Some think it is a really fun hobby (“my charter has higher test scores than your charter”).

Some believe that they look down on public schools because they went to elite private schools.

Others opine that it is the old colonialist impulse, taking up the “white man’s burden” to care for children of color.

What do you think?

Categories Charter Schools, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization
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