Archives for category: Education Industry
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The Washington Post: What Trump and Clinton Say about American Education

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
45

Reporters at the Washington Post asked both major party candidates what they would do in the area of K-12 education.

Trump gave a brief reply and ignored the questions.

Clinton (or her staff) answered all the questions.

Donald Trump’s answer was, go to my website, and he (or his staff) added this:

“As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice. I want every single inner city child in America who is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom – the civil right – to attend the school of their choice. I understand many stale old politicians will resist. But it’s time for our country to start thinking big once again. We spend too much time quibbling over the smallest words, when we should spend our time dreaming about the great adventures that lie ahead.”

Clinton’s answers were ambiguous; she is for testing, but not too much testing. She is for charter schools, but only good charter schools.

She opposes for-profit charter schools, but doesn’t seem to realize that many allegedly nonprofit charters outsource their management to for-profit companies.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Clinton, Common Core, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing, Trump

Raleigh, N.C. Charter School May Be Closed Due to Poor Academic Performance

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
7

State officials may close the Hope Charter Leadership Academy in Raleigh due to persistently poor academic performance.

“A high-poverty Raleigh charter school is in danger of being ordered to shut down by the state at the end of the school year due to its low test scores and lack of academic growth among its students.

“The N.C. Charter Schools Advisory Board voted Thursday to require the leadership of Hope Charter Leadership Academy to show up at the group’s November meeting with a comprehensive plan to improve academic performance. The vote came after advisory board members decided to hold off on recommending that the State Board of Education take away Hope’s charter at the end of the school year.

“Last school year, Hope’s passing rate on state exams was 26.5 percent, the school didn’t meet growth and it received a “F” school performance grade. Fifth-grade state exam passing rates of 10.5 percent in reading and 5.3 percent in math were called unacceptable.

“These scores are horrible,” said advisory board member Steven Walker as he repeatedly banged his hand on the table. “You’re talking about one kid in 5th-grade passing math, one kid.”

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/wake-ed-blog/article108108117.html#storylink=cpy

Reading this sad story reminds me of a hopeful book I read years ago: “Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh,” by Syracuse University scholar Gerald Grant.

Grant wrote not so many years ago that Raleigh had a successful school system because it adopted a carefully crafted plan to desegregate its schools. Not long after his book was published, a Tea Party faction gained control of the school board and hired one of Michelle Rhee’s deputies to restore segregated neighborhood schools. He was Broad-trained superintendent Anthony Tata. When the Tea Party group lost in the next election, Tata was out but Raleigh did not recover. The state Tea a Party swept the state legislature in 2010, and North Carolina began its race to the bottom, adopting charter schools, virtual schools, and vouchers, while cutting away teacher professionalism and job protections. The state that once boasted the largest number of NBCT teachers in the nation began to fund TFA instead of investing in its career teachers.

A sad story.

Hoping Governor Pat McGrory and his merry band of legislative allies take a whupping at the polls next month so North Carolinians can start to rebuild their public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization

Carol Burris on the Charter Mess in California: Part 3

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
19

Carol Burris is writing a four-part series about charter schools in California. She recently traveled to California to visit charter schools. She found it difficult to get information on certain charter schools, because some are not located in the district that authorized them. Transparency and accountability appear to be non-existent. A recent newspaper series about the online charter K12, Inc., demonstrated that it makes a handsome profit while delivering poor education. But the state has taken no action.

Public money meant for public schools is freely handed out to charters with no supervision or oversight.

She learned about a charter school called WISE, and it sounded good on paper:

The Wise Academy is tucked away on a Girl Scout camp on the Bothin Youth Center in Fairfax, Calif. Its students attend classes in yurts and barns. Wise, which stands for Waldorf-Inspired School of Excellence, follows the curriculum taught in Waldorf private schools — its students garden, enjoy a games class, and celebrate All Souls Day and Michaelmas.

Students must apply to attend, and its preliminary application makes it clear that parents are supposed to pony up cash. The full application demands that families provide all sources of income. The school’s donate button has a default donation of $2,000. A cash-strapped parent would quickly infer that their family “need not apply.”

How many students attend Wise Academy and how well do they achieve? For the taxpaying public, that is a mystery.

You cannot find this K-6 charter school, which has been in operation for three years, on the state’s Education Department website. Rick Bagley, the superintendent of the Ross Valley School District in which Wise is located, was never informed of its presence as required by law.

The state has thus far refused to monitor charter schools or hold them accountable.

A bill that would have banned for-profit charters in California was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2015. An additional bill, which would have prevented financially troubled districts from authorizing charters in other districts, was vetoed by Brown last month. The president of the California State Board of Education, Michael Kirst, worked as a K12 consultant, before his appointment by Brown.

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

A Brief Report from Massachusetts, Ground Zero of the Charter Fraud

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2016 //
17

I am on the train returning from Wellesley to New York City, after Pasi Sahlberg’s brilliant performance last night. I say “performance” because he didn’t give a conventional lecture. He used a multi-media platform to entertain, interact, and inform the audience. He began his talk by posing a mathematical question, which appeared on the screen behind him. He urged the audience to add the numbers, out loud, simple whole numbers, as they appeared on the screen. Many of us showed how easily we were fooled by what we thought we saw. How easily we draw false conclusions. That was his introduction to a performance that included film clips, music, data, and exposition. If you have a chance to invite him to your state or organization, I urge you to do so. He is amazing. As soon as I have the video link, I will post it.

In talking to parents and teachers during my visit, I learned that all those millions from hedge fund managers, billionaires, and union-busters are now showing up as television commercials blanketing the state with lies. Earnest “parents” explain in the commercials that they are voting for Question 2–the approval of more privately run charter schools–because they “support” public schools, they want to “help” public schools. They do not explain that passage of Question 2 means that neighborhood public schools will be closed and replaced by corporate-controlled charter schools. They do not explain that more money for charter schools means less money for public schools. They do not explain that those who vote for Question 2 are voting to cut the budgets of their own public schools.

It is a low, misleading, dishonest campaign. Why are the “reformers” dishonest? Simple. If they told the truth, the public would overwhelmingly reject their goal of privatizing public schools and turning over control to out-of-state corporations. This is the billionaire-funded propaganda campaign that dare not speak its name.

Corporate reform refuses to be truthful. It wraps itself in self-righteous lies about promoting civil rights and closing the achievement gap. Destroying a democratic institution is not promoting civil rights. Creating colonialist “no excuses” charter schools that exclude or kick out low-scoring students does not promote civil rights or reduce the achievement gap. Making a fetish of standardized testing guarantees that the “achievement gap” will never close because the standardized tests are designed to produce achievement gaps that never close.

Where do the “reformers” find the white teachers willing to enforce the harsh discipline of no-excuses schools and impose unquestioning compliance on nonwhite children? Very likely, these teachers attended progressive private or public schools. Did they learn the value of conformity and obedience in TFA training or at the Relay “Graduate School of Education”?

As Alan Singer wrote on Huffington Post, Massachusetts is now ground zero in the battle for public education. It may be the most liberal state in the nation. It is far and away the most successful state school system, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. If the billionaires can persuade the people of Massachusetts to turn over a dozen schools a year from here to eternity, they can do it anywhere. After all, what’s a couple of million dollars to the Waltons, whose family wealth exceeds $130 billion? If the billionaires can hoax the people of Massachusetts for only $15 million, what state will be outside their reach? You can be sure that the charter industry won’t stop in Boston and the small cities of the state. They have their eyes on the suburbs, too.

What happens on November 8 will matter to the future of public education in America.

Will the corporate reformers pull the wool over the eyes of the public? Will their deceptions and lies cover up their goal of undermining one of our most important democratic institutions?

Or will the grassroots actions of parents and teachers strip away their evasions, lies, and propaganda and demonstrate that the public schools of the Bay State are not for sale? Not at any price.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Fraud, Hoax, Massachusetts, Privatization

Doug Garnett: The Brilliant Strategy of the Philanthrocapitalists: The Echo Chamber

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2016 //
54

Doug Garnett is a communications specialist and a regular reader of the blog. He writes here about reading “Policy Patrons,” by Megan Tomkins-Stange.

Been reading Policy Patrons. And it’s given me a different insight.

We all feel like Gates, Broad and others are “dictating” what happens. It’s hard – because they aren’t. What they’re doing is far more subtle but with similar results.

What they’ve done is create a “walled garden” of groups that are all paid to support their position. The list in this article is an example of creating that walled garden – a range of community organizations, researchers, university credibility, etc…

THEN, with the walled garden created, the foundations themselves never have to “tell the government what to do”. They are able to say “well, I know somebody who deals with that – you should talk with them”. Except the foundations have ensured that this “somebody” is somebody who will give the answer they want.

It’s incredibly deceptive – but politicians and press seem incapable of detecting when they’ve been had in this way. Because the “walled garden” of true “ed reform believers” are the only people they end up talking to. In a sense, Gates, Broad, et. al. deliver answers on a silver platter so that state education departments, school districts, politicians, and press don’t have to work hard.

This informal (but massive) walled garden they’ve build believes in testing as management, believes in CCSS, believes in charter schools, and believes that privatizing government services is always good.

As a result, state education bureaucrats NEVER have to wander outside the garden – so they never have to confront uncomfortable truths. (It’s dangerous outside those walls and that threatens one’s career.)

But this also explains why politicians are so shocked when citizens confront them with dissatisfaction with their policies – they’ve been blissfully living inside the Eden of Reform – unaware that they aren’t in touch with reality. I’ve seen this in Oregon. Our legislators cannot believe it when someone rational challenges what they’ve been doing.

It’s a HUGE problem for those of us who believe in public schools and believe in the value of researched answers. Because it’s not illegal what they’ve done. They believe it’s entirely moral. And they think they’re being “good people” by doing it. And it spreads blame by breaking it into tiny bits so no single organization can be blamed for much. Kind of a guaranteed “plausible deniability” clause.

Yet the result is entirely immoral – because it’s the future of our children.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

John King Doubles Down on Importance of Standardized Tests; “Reformers” Cheer

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2016 //
25

Standardized tests produce results normed on a bell curve. The students who cluster in the bottom half of the bell curves are predominantly poor, children with disabilities, and children of color. The bell curve, by design, never closes. That is why it is fundamentally wrong to rank students, teachers, and schools by a measure that favors the most affluent.

Secretary of Education John King is releasing regulations that will punish education programs if their graduates teach students whose scores are low. “Reformers” are supposed to be aware of the power of incentives, but not Secretary King. He thinks he can scare education programs to focus more on raising test scores. More likely is that teachers will get the message to avoid teaching in schools that enroll students who are impoverished, and that their preparation programs will encourage them to steer clear of the neediest children.

This is the report that appeared this morning in politico education (http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=70112e1be3cf7964cb8f83700178acc6d2452a022573f96620522e9d5cbe9274):

TEACHER PREP RULES OUT TODAY: The Obama administration unveiled its long-delayed final regulations governing teacher preparation programs today. The rule preserves much of the administration’s original proposal from 2014, and requires states to develop a rating system for teacher-preparation programs.

– The rule will also eventually punish low-performing programs by cutting off their access to federal TEACH grants that help students pay for teacher training.

– The final rule retains a particularly-controversial component, which holds teacher-preparation programs accountable, in part, for how their graduates perform as teachers, based upon their students’ academic success. However, states will have flexibility in determining how to measure student learning.

– Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, sharply criticized the regulations, saying in a statement that although the department “has made minor tweaks, the flawed framework remains the same.”

– Weingarten said it was “ludicrous to propose evaluating teacher preparation programs based on the performance of the students taught by a program’s graduates.” And she said the rules ultimately punish teacher prep programs that send graduates into the highest-need schools.

– Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement that the group was “pleased the department listened to feedback and made these regulations stronger.”

– Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said she’s impressed with how much the department kept with its original intent, “which was to insert far greater accountability for program quality.” She added that the effectiveness of the rule “very much depends on states doing their bit to hold programs accountable for quality.”

– “I told people they would never see the light of day,” Walsh said of the rules. “I’m happy to be wrong.”

– Education Secretary John B. King Jr. will be speaking about teacher preparation at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education today. Watch the USC event live, starting at 1 p.m. ET, here.

– Read the regulations here

Click to access teacher-prep-final-regs.pdf

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, John King, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Contact the NAACP and Urge Them to Support Their General Assembly’s Resolution for Moratorium on Charters

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2016 //
12

There will be a vote this weekend by the Board of the NAACP on whether it will sustain the general assembly vote for the Moratorium on Charters. The charter lobby is on fire contacting them. I am seeing calls to action on their Association sites. Please post everywhere.

Call these two numbers and express your support for a moratorium on charter schools

Hollywood Bureau
Los Angeles, CA
Phone: (323) 938-5268
Fax: (323) 938-8153

Washington Bureau
1156 15th Street, NW Suite 915
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 463-2940
Fax: (202) 463-2953
washingtonbureau@naacpnet.org

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Arthur Camins: Individual Choice is No Substitute for Democracy

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2016 //
11

Since the Reagan era, Republicans have touted the virtues of individual choice. The idea was appealing but ignored the fact that none of us lives alone on an island. We form communities and societies to solve problems and create possibilities that none of us can do alone. We collaborate for our common well-being and safety.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party decided to co-opt the language of Republicans in the crucial area of education. Whereas once Democrats championed equity and support for teacher professionalism, the Obama administration joined in the chorus seeking school choice instead of better public schools for all and belittled our nation’s career educators. So for the past 15 years, we have had a Bush-Obama agenda of testing, accountability, school choice and competition. This agenda has done incredible damage to children, teachers, and public schools. Arthur Camins writes that it also hurts our democracy.

In this post, Arthur Camins explains why individual choice undermines democracy. Camins is Director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Camins writes:

“In an 1857 speech, Fredrick Douglass offered this advice: Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. […] If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

“Douglass called for a struggle for a democracy in which the disempowered are the active agents and shapers of their own destiny.

“Donald Trump and promoters of unelected school boards would have us acquiesce to a contrary subservient vision. How dare I equate Trump’s racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, authoritarian appeal with charter-school advocates who wrap themselves in the mantle of civil rights? Well, I am not equating, but I am asserting that they share a dangerous dismissal of the vitalness of democracy.

“Trump wears his disdain for democracy proudly on his sleeve. I am your voice… No one knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. Trump’s message is that the solution to persistent problems is not democracy or for people to join with one another in a struggle for a better life, but rather to trust him.

“Advocates for privately governed, but publicly funded, charter schools are more circumspect. To justify abandonment of democracy, they point to the dysfunction of elected school boards. Netflix’s billionaire CEO Reed Hastings, a charter school cheerleader, argued that instability due to turnover in elected school boards makes long-term planning difficult. Similarly, in one post the Fordham Foundation asserted, “When it comes to school boards, what matters most is the character of those who serve — not how they were selected.” Whatever it takes to get the job done assertions have a practical and utilitarian patina, but are profoundly anti-democratic as its apostles typically eschew the inconvenience of dissent and challenge. History is replete with examples of the slippery slope that begin with constrained restrictions of inconvenient democracy in the name of addressing real or trumped up threats but end with more generalized despotism. The solution to the necessary messiness of contentious democracy is never its avoidance in the name of expediency.

“In contrast to Douglass’s call for struggle, Trump, and advocates for privately governed charter schools share a let others solve your problems for you philosophy. Many share something else. They are- or claim to be- billionaires. The already empowered stake their claims to legitimacy on convincing “the less fortunate” that despite vast differences in wealth, power, and life circumstances, they should trust the judgment of their self-appointed defenders rather than one another. One such disingenuous pitch is that poor folks should have the same school choices as the wealthy. The cynical messages are: Give up on struggle for equity across your racial differences. Give up on democratically governed schools. Improvement depends on being out for yourself, just like us.”

There is more. Please read it.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Privatization

Attorney General of Massachusetts Says NO on 2

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2016 //
5

Maura Healey, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, has come out in opposition to Question 2, which would lift the cap on charter schools. Another dozen charter schools would be authorized every year indefinitely. Out-of-State billionaires, including the Waltons of Arkansas, have contributed millions of dollars to privatize public schools in Massachusetts.

I received this email the other day:

cps1

We Have the People, They Have (more and more dark) $$! 

cps2

Dear Diane,
And what excellent people we have! People like youand Attorney General Maura Healey, who has joined Senator Elizabeth Warren and the ever growing movement to protect public education for ALL students.
“If you say the money follows the student and then you don’t actually reimburse the district – then that’s a problem.” – Attorney General Maura Healey
cps3
And in other encouraging news, the Boston and Newton School Committees passed No on 2 resolutions this week, and our total has reached more than164 school committees statewide, including urban and suburban districts.
It’s time to stand up to the out-of-state billionaires and show them what a real grassroots campaign looks like, because when we fight, we win!
There have been countless great commentaries and letters to the editor from our No on 2 grassroots, but I wanted to highlight this commentary by Boston University Professor of Social Studies Education Christopher Martell. Clickhere to read his five thoughtful and clearly presented reasons to vote no.
And don’t miss EduShyster on this week’s big court ruling for keeping the cap and against the folks who argued that lifting the cap is a civil rights issue.
We have victory in our sights thanks to the hard work of people like you, people out knocking on doors, making calls and talking to everyone you know!
Sign up for a canvass shift this Saturday, Oct. 8 near you:
Boston – 10:00 AM
Almont Park
40 Almont St.
Mattapan
Brighton – 3:00 PM
Ronan’s Deli
243 Faneuil St.
Brookline – 1:00 PM
Also Sunday, 11:30 AM
Dunkin’ Donuts
1955 Beacon St., Cleveland Circle
Fall River – 10:30 AM
Fall River Educators Association
178 4th St.
Haverhill – 3:00 PM
Haverhill High School
Parking Lot A
Lowell – 4:00 PM
Riley School
115 Douglas Rd.
Northampton – 10:30 AM
Potpourri Plaza
243 King St.
Norwood – 2:00 PM
Norwood High School
Pittsfield – 2:00 PM
188 East St.
Quincy – 9:30 AM
MTA Office
Worcester – 3:00 PM
16 Alden St.
Click here to see a full list of all neighborhood canvasses. Question 2 is bad for our schools, and it’s time we stand up united to vote NO.
To get in touch with the Save Our Public Schools campaign and learn how to plug in to this important movement, click here.
Best,
Lisa Guisbond and Ann O’Halloran
CPS Executive Director and President
P.S. Click HERE to help CPS continue to inform the public on education issues, including charter schools, high-stakes testing and full funding of our public schools. 
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Privatization

UPDATE: Unmasked! The Pro-Charter Blogger in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2016 //
62

UPDATE: Marc Kenen, the executive director of the Massachusetts Charter School Association and also the author of ballot Question 2, which would expand the number of charter schools in the state, has written to say that this post is untrue. I have no way of knowing who “Nat Morton” is since he or she will not reveal his/her identity. “Nat Morton” is a passionate advocate for charter schools who posted comments here frequently. If Marc Kenen is not “Nat Morton,” I apologize. Someone writes a blog and calls him/herself “Nat Morton,” and I implore that person to give their true name so readers can judge their credentials and their authenticity. I will also ask Marc Kenen to stop writing insulting comments to this blog, as such comments are not permitted.

Knowing this background: I leave the original post intact but warn readers that the identity of “Nat Morton” is unknown, and I can’t be certain who he/she is, other than that it is not me. Beyond that, I can’t know until “Nat Morton” removes his/her mask.

The original post began here:

Reader Christine Langhoff in Massachusetts sent the following comment about a blogger who has frequently written on this blog to defend charter schools, support Question 2 to permit more of them, and to flout his superior research abilities.

“A Boston parent, exchanging emails with (G)Nat Morton, received a digital file from Gnat in support of his arguments. But he forgot to use his nom de plume, and revealed himself as Marc Kenen, executive Director of the MA Charter School Association and also the author of ballot Question 2.

“http://www.masscharterschools.org/about-us/staff

“Kenen has not denied that Nat Morton is his avatar. Further, Stephen B. Ronan is the only person I have ever seen refer to Nat Morton’s blog, and in any forum where the one appears,the other is apt to chime in. This leads me to conclude that Kenen is Gnat is Ronan.

“I find it difficult to enage seriously with someone who would defund our excellent public schools when he is not even willing to own his perspective publicly by using his own name as he advances the cause of the privatizers. And if there’s any question whether the ballot question is designed to defund our schools, it’s worth noting that Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson made this point in the Askwith Forum at Harvard on Sept. 27 regarding Question 2. He asked Kenen directly why he had not written a funding mechanism into the proposal. Start at 1:12:00 (It’s apparent in the video that Kenen bears more than a passing resemblance to his Nat Morton avatar.)

“https://youtu.be/XCsZZ-J7mcU

“https://gseweb.harvard.edu/news/16/09/more-charter-schools-massachusetts-vote-and-national-debate”

So there you have it: the leading advocate of Question 2 (more charters) pretends to be an independent researcher but is in fact a paid employee of the state charter association. Why not give your name and affiliation and let people make their own judgment? This is redolent of the charter movement itself, which pretends to be about helping poor kids but attracts funding from Wall Street, right wing politicians, and others whose real goal is privatization, not helping improve schools for all children.

Our national goal is equal educational opportunity, not a free-market of winners and losers. Privatization does not advance equal educational opportunity. It exacerbates inequality, just like any free market.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Hoax, Massachusetts, Privatization
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