Archives for category: Education Industry
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Good News! Mercedes Schneider’s New Book is Way Ahead of Peterson’s Screed Against Teachers on amazon.com

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2014 //
28

Mercedes Schneider’s hard-hitting new book–A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Educations–which explores the persons and organizations behind the attacks on public education– was officially published on April 22 by Information Age Publishing. She has no public relations campaign, no marketing budget, no press release, no press conferences, no webinars, no flyers, just word of mouth. As of this minute, it is ranked about #5,100 on amazon.com

 

Paul Peterson and his co-authors published a book about the same time called Teachers Versus the Public: What Americans Think About Schools and How To Fix Them, in which they argue that teachers (not the unions, but teachers–those dangerous people who pretend to be your second cousins and your friends) are the enemies of school reform. By that, they mean that teachers are blocking such wonderful reforms as vouchers, charters, merit pay, abolishing tenure, high-stakes testing, and other things they like but teachers don’t. The book was published by the Brookings Institution Press and was heavily promoted. It has the endorsements of such heavy hitters as Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush, and Eric Hanushek. At a webinar last week, Peterson and his co-authors introduced their book to the public. Lily Eskelsen of the NEA bravely joined the panel and asked Peterson whether he planned to abandon his tenure at Harvard. I don’t think he answered her question, and I doubt he will abandon his tenure to set a good example for the nation’s teachers. As of this minute, the Peterson book is ranked on amazon.com at about #128,000.

 

Mercedes’ book is so under-promoted that it doesn’t even have a jacket cover on the amazon website. Yet her book, with no promotion, no marketing, no press release, is outselling Peterson’s. Maybe the public likes teachers and doesn’t think they are public enemy number 1.

 

Read  Mercedes’ thoughts on the matter. 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers, Vouchers

Jonathan Pelto: The Origins of ConnCAN

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2014 //
6

In an earlier post, I referred to ConnCan, the organization that was the inspiration for 50CAN and lots of state CANS. I said it was founded by hedge fund managers. Leonie Haimson then wrote in and corrected me, saying it was founded by Jonathan Sackler. Now comes Jonathan Pelto of Connecticut to set us both straight. He says we are both right. Here is the story of the origin of ConnCAN:

 

 

Jonathan Pelto writes:

 

 

Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, Inc. (ConnCAN) was formed in 2004 by Jonathan Sackler, who served as the founding chair. However, the role of ConnCAN’s Board Chairman was then transferred to Brian Olson, the co-founder of Viking Global Investors. Viking Global Investors is a hedge fund which currently manages over $10 billion. In addition to being a long-time member of ConnCAN, Olsen presently serves on the Leadership Council of the Newschools Venture Fund.
Following Olson’s tenure as the Chairman of ConnCAN, the position was given to Will Heins, the former Senior Vice President of Greenwich Capital Markets.
Of the twelve present members of ConnCAN’s Board of Directors, at least nine are or were “hedge fund managers,” including Art Reimers, a former partner and managing director of Goldman Sachs.
Three months after Sackler and his allies formed ConnCAN, they also incorporated Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Advocacy, Inc. (ConnAD), which was originally designed to be the lobbying and public relations arm of ConnCAN. The number two spot at ConnAD went to Alexander Troy, who lists his occupation as “private investor.” Troy worked for the hedge fund, Perry Partners during the 1990s and eventually created his own hedge fund company called Troy Capital in 2003.
The primary players behind ConnCAN and ConnAD were also the individuals who financed the creation of Achievement First Inc. in 2003. Achievement First Inc. is the charter school management chain with schools in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Achievement First Inc. was founded by Stefan Pryor and Dacia Toll. Pryor now serves as Commissioner of Education under Connecticut’s Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy and Dacia Toll is Achievement First’s CEO. Achievement First, Inc. collects significantly more public funds from Connecticut taxpayers than any other charter school or charter management company.
Achievement First’s incorporation papers were signed by Greenwich businessman William Berkley (who remains the Chairman of its Board of Directors) and Jonathan Sackler. Achievement First’s initial Board of Directors also included Alexander Troy.
Today, ConnCAN’s Board Chair, Will Heins serves on the Board of Achievement First’s Elm City College Preparatory School, ConnCAN Board member Andy Boas serves as the Board Chair of Achievement First’s Bridgeport Academy and Alexander Troy serves on the Board of Achievement First’s Amistad Academy.
ConnCAN, ConnAD and a successor group called A Better Connecticut were the leading funders in the record breaking $6 million lobbying and PR campaign to support Governor Malloy’s “education reform” initiative in 2012.
Sackler also is the individual who formed 50CAN and ConnCAN’s Chief Operating Office, Marc Porter Magee, became 50CAN’s President. 50CAN’s Board now includes Sackler, Dacia Toll (Achievement First) and Richard Barth (Kipp Charter Schools and spouse of Wendy Kopp), as well as others.
 

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

New York City Parents: Join Press Conference on May 6 to Protest Lack of Charter School Accountability

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2014 //
8

Class Size Matters
Please distribute to all parents!

 

Parents and elected officials are holding a press conference Tuesday May 6 at Tweed to speak out against the new state law that gives any new and/or expanding charter free space either in our public school buildings or in private space paid for by the city .

 

Meanwhile, many thousands of NYC public school students are sitting in vastly overcrowded schools, subjected to excessive class sizes, in trailers or on waiting lists for their zoned schools, with an underfunded capital plan. This is one of the worst charter giveaways ever passed into law, and will create even more inequitable conditions in our city going forward.
Eva Moskowitz charter chain, Success Academy, raised more than $7.5 million in one night, from Jeb Bush and her Wall St. buddies, while claiming she could not afford to rent her own space. Instead, the DOE is being forced to rent three parochial schools for her, and pay for renovations to suit her specifications. Here is yet another shameless ruse in which Success Academy is planning to make big sums off the stock trades of their billionaire supporters.
Clearly the charter lobby wants to drain as much resources and space from the public schools in order to destabilize and further overcrowd the system, or else they would pay for space themselves.
A flyer for our press conference is posted here: http://tinyurl.com/qy3mlaf
Please invite your City Council reps and other elected officials to attend as well.
Hearings follow the press conference at 10 AM at City Hall on the lack of charter accountability, including their egregious practice of suspending and pushing out large numbers of high need students.
Meanwhile, comedian Louis CK’s tweets have made a huge splash on the Common Core math materials given his children as test prep; see Rebecca Mead in the New Yorker, and the tweets themselves. Cynthia Wachtell bewailed the lack of poetry on the Common Core curriculum and exams. Rebecca, Cynthia and Louis are all public school parents, and welcome voices in this debate. Take a look and join the discussion!

 

We just heard today’s 3rd grade math exam was awful. What did you hear from your kids?
Thanks,

 

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York City, Parents, Privatization

Why the Tech Industry Loves Common Core

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2014 //
16

A teacher sent the following comment in reference to the requirement that all Common Core testing must be done online. Schools will lay off teachers and cut programs and services to pay for technology for testing:

“My campus has 1200 students and 32 computers in the lab. You do the math. We have to buy HUNDREDS of new computers, so that our primary-aged kids can take a test in the spring. Our district has frozen our salaries, cut staff, and cut our benefits…because our funding was also cut by our state…but we still have to come up with the $10 million that these computers will cost our district.”

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, For-Profit, Technology, Computers, Testing

Jersey Jazzman: New Jersey Sends Bradford to New York

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2014 //
7

New Jersey is sharing its riches. Darrell Bradford, formerly of a billionaire-funded group called B4Kids, will move to New York to become CEO of NYCan. This is another of those fake “reform” groups that advocates for privatization as the cure for poverty and the surefire way to get rid of unions.

Jersey Jazzman knows him well and describes his role in advocating for vouchers.

The origin of these CAN groups is Connecticut, where Jonathan Sackler, a billionaire leader in the pharmaceutical industry (see Leonie Haimson’s comments below) and various hedge fund managers organized to advocate for privatization, mayoral control (to speed the pace of privatization), and anti-teacher legislation.

In the psychiatric literature, CAN is an acronym that stands for “child abuse abuse and neglect.”

Welcome to New York, Darrell. If you can make it here, you’ll make it anywhere, it’s up to you, New York, New York.

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, New York, Privatization

Peter Greene Explains Why Cami Hates Democracy

By dianeravitch
April 30, 2014 //
16

Peter Greene, a man of infinite patience, watched a video in which Cami Anderson explains why she has the right to tell everyone in Newark what to do without listening to their opinions.

She compares herself to her sister, who is a surgeon. Her sister doesn’t ask the opinion of nobodies; she does what she has to do to save the patient’s life.

Greene points out to Cami that her sister is a highly trained professional who spent years learning her profession, whereas Cami’s five weeks of training in TFA is hardly equivalent. Furthermore, her sister operates with the consent of the patient and the patient’s family, and was not given consent to cut up the patient by Chris Christie.

The bottom line, Greene sees, is this:

“Democracy is stupid.

“Look, say the Reformistas. We are just better than you are. We are wiser, smarter, and just plain righter than the rest of you. So you should stop getting in our way. All of you lesser humans should stop insisting that you’re entitled to some sort of voice– you aren’t. Shut up, sit down, and let the superior humans take care of these difficult matters.”

Greene is not sure where Cami is, other than noting she is at Arizona State University/GSV. A few days ago, I wrote about the education “gold rush.” Cami is speaking to 2,000 entrepreneurs, hedge fund managers, and investors who are looking to make profits in education with the Next Big Thing. They paid $1,000-2,000 each to meet at the Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale. The meeting was co-sponsored by Global Silicon Valley, which leads the way in monetizing and privatizing education.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, New Jersey, Teach for America

How Charter School Managers Succeed Fabulously in Busine$$

By dianeravitch
April 30, 2014 //
13

A few years ago, I was alerted to the phenomenal success of an entrepreneur-lawyer in Pennsylvania named Vahan Gureghian.

With a bit of googling, I learned that he had opened a charter school in Chester County, Pennsylvania, that enrolled 2,600 students, half the district’s children. Consequently, the district was plunged into bankruptcy, unable to make its payroll, and Governor Corbett appointed an emergency manager for the district who is a devotee of vouchers.

I also learned on google that Gureghian is one of the biggest donors to Republican candidates and committees in Pennsylvania, was Governor Corbett’s largest single donor, and was named to Governor Corbett’s education transition team. As of 2012, he had given some $800,000 to candidates and political groups.

Meanwhile, Gureghian’s empire continued to expand and to produce excellent returns for him.

Here is a quote from a website (linked above) describing Pennsylvania’s biggest campaign donors, which shows what success looks like:

In 2007, Gureghian built a 30,000-square-foot, French chateau-style mansion in Gladwyne that received attention in a number of publications, including Mother Jones. The house had 10 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a two-lane bowling alley, wine room, media room, 200-capacity great hall, several bars and a moat, according to Mother Jones.

Last year, he paid $28.9 million for oceanfront property in Palm Beach, on which he has proposed building a 20,000-square-foot mansion, the Palm Beach Daily News reported.

In 2009, 18-year-old Kenny Forder of New Jersey posted photos of the Gladwyne mansion on his Homes of the Rich website. Gureghian’s lawyer responded with a cease and desist letter, stating that teenager had violated Gureghian’s privacy, demanding that the photos be removed and threatening a lawsuit.

The letter is posted on the Homes of the Rich website. The photos were removed.

Now, mind you, Gureghian doesn’t claim to be an educator. He runs a business that supplies all the goods and services to his charter schools. That is a very good business.

He recently expanded his charter franchise into Camden, New Jersey, where he can expect to do very well indeed. Jersey Jazzman wrote a blistering critique of Gureghian’s management company, not exactly welcoming its presence in New Jersey.

You know, you really must give these edu-entrepreneurs credit. They see opportunities where others see only educational problems. The really ingenious discovery of charter chain managers is that they can squeeze the fat out of public school operations (like expensive teachers and pensions) and make a handsome profit.

You must hand it to him: Gureghian shows how to create a business plan and strategy that works wondrously well.

His is the kind of operation that Reed Hastings must have had in mind when he told the California Charter Schools Association that he looks forward to the elimination of local school boards and to the day when 90% of children are enrolled in privately managed charter schools.

What a vivid demonstration of the rich innovation that charters produce!

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Privatization

John Thompson: Who Does More Damage to Public Education: The Tea Party or Arne Duncan?

By dianeravitch
April 30, 2014 //
59

John Thompson raises a provocative and important question: who is inflicting more damage on teachers and students? Tea Party extremists like North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory or Secretary of Education Arne Duncan?

Thompson, a teacher and historian, describes the assault on teachers in North Carolina, whose governor and Legislature seem determined to destroy public education by expanding vouchers and charters and to dismantle the teaching profession by eliminating tenure, laying off teacher aides, and keeping salaries stagnant.

Thompson writes:

“Which sets of school reforms are inflicting the most damage on teachers and students? Has the right wing Tea Party’s most extreme assaults on public education hurt schools the most? Or, has the Duncan administration’s ill-conceived corporate reforms done the most harm?

“North Carolina was once touted as an exemplar of standards based reforms, and Wake County was praised for its socio-economic integration. Tea Party Governor Pat McCrory and Republicans are phasing out tenure and gutting salaries. As a result, mid-year teacher resignations in Wake schools have increased by an “alarming” 41% this school year. The number of resigning teachers who said they are moving to other North Carolina schools dropped, as there was an increase in teachers leaving for other states. Early retirements have tripled.

“The problem is so extreme that Doug Thilman, Wake’s assistant superintendent for human resources, said at a press conference, “Good teachers are having to make hard decisions to leave our classrooms for a better future somewhere else or in another line of work, in another profession – not in our public schools and not in our state.”

But then there is Arne Duncan’s mad idea that the way to “fix” schools is to fire half or all the staff.

Thompson writes:

“The mirror image of Wakes’ crisis is found in Chicago “turnaround schools.” Chicago’s Catalyst quotes Michael Hansen, senior researcher for the American Institutes for Research, who explains that the Duncan administration’s School Improvement Grant (SIG) are “under-researched.” High attrition following a turnaround has the potential to produce “more harm than help.” (emphasis by the Catalyst)

Ignoring educational research, these expensive turnaround campaigns begin with the mass dismissal of teachers. This immediately reduces the number of African-American teachers serving African-American communities, as well as reducing the experience levels of teachers. Catalyst reports, however, that “large chunks of the new staff–teachers who were hand-picked and spent weeks over the summer getting to know each other, becoming a team and learning how to spark improvement when the school reopened–leave within a few years.”

Catalyst reports “At 16 of the 17 schools that underwent a turnaround between 2007 and 2011, more than half of teachers hired in the first year of the turnaround left by the third year.” Moreover, “Among all turnarounds, an average of two-thirds of new teachers left by year three.” (emphasis in the original)

As the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) explains, such high levels of attrition is problematic because, “It can produce a range of organizational problems at schools, such as discontinuity in professional development, shortages in key subjects and loss of teacher leadership.”

I say that the answer to Thompson’s question is clear. McCrory is gutting public education in his state, and only in his state. Duncan’s idiotic idea of “turnaround” is harming schools and communities across the nation, laying off veteran teachers, reducing the number of African-American teachers, and generating harmful turmoil.

Let’s face it. Duncan has inflicted incalculable harm on public education, especially in urban districts. He became Secretary of Education after eight unsuccessful years as superintendent of schools in Chicago, which was and remains a low-performing district. He was unqualified to be Secretary of Education. In the past, we have had governors with no education credentials, but they at least had the good sense to recognize the reality of federalism, the limitations on their powers, and fact that control of education is a state and local function. Duncan has recognized none of these factors and has used federal funding to impose his will and his bad ideas on districts across the nation. It seems he won’t be satisfied until every teacher is inexperienced (preferably certified by Teach for America), every public school has been turned over to private management, every decision is tightly tied to test scores, and every teacher education institution is run by charter school teachers who grant advanced degrees to one another.

Duncan is a terrific basketball payer but a disastrous Secretary of Education. The real test of public education is whether it can survive two more years of his failed and harmful policies.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teach for America, Testing

Breaking News: For-Profit Charter Corporation Out in Muskegon Heights, Michigan

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2014 //
57

It seems like only yesterday that Governor RickSnyder appointed an emergency manager for the public schools of Muskegon Heights, which were running a deficit.

The emergency manager turned the district over to Mosaica, a for-profit charter chain.

But Mosaica didn’t make a profit, instead they ran a deficit, and their contract has been canceled“.

“Muskegon Heights Public Schools Emergency Manager Gregory Weatherspoon said the separation came down to an issue of finances. Mosaica, a for-profit company, was running a deficit budget and not making a profit. School officials said the split is not the result of dissatisfaction with academic progress of students in the K-12 Muskegon Heights Public School Academy.

“Weatherspoon said both Mosaica and the charter district board agreed the separation agreement was necessary.

“They came here to do a service for the children,” Weatherspoon said. “They got the job done, but it didn’t fit their financial model… The profit just simply wasn’t there.”

“At the core of the financial problems were investments into the school buildings, which Mosaica leased from the public school district for $1, as well as higher-than-expected special education costs and lower-than-expected enrollment. As the first charter school district in the nation, school officials have acknowledged there was a lot of uncertainty about costs when Mosaica took on the management role two years ago.

“Mosaica recently has had cash flow troubles that resulted in it seeking emergency advances of state aid in order to make payroll, which had to be delayed earlier this month. The management company, based in Atlanta, fronted $761,000 so that staff could be paid, Weatherspoon said.

The company will be repaid that money with a portion of a $1.4 million emergency state loan that Muskegon Heights Public Schools expects to receive on Monday, he said.

“Mosaica’s contract calls for it to receive about a $1 million annual management fee. It was paid the fee the first year of the contract, but not this year. This year, the company will receive $84,000 split over the next three months, which will help cover administrators’ salaries for the rest of the year, said John Gretzinger, an attorney for the charter district.

What do you say? Job well done? No profits to be found? Try, try again? What next?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Michigan

Michael Fiorillo: Reformers’ Game Plan

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2014 //
158

Reader Michael Fiorillo deciphers the corporate reformers’ game plan:

The Final Solution to the Teacher Question:

– Proclaim austerity for the public schools, while continuing to expand charters.

– Create incentives for non-educators to be in positions of power, from Assistant Principal on up.

– Maintain a climate of scapegoating and witch hunting for “bad teachers,” who are posited as the cause of poverty and student failure, doing everything possible to keep debate from addressing systemic inequities.

– Neutralize and eventually eliminate teacher unions (the first part largely accomplished in the case of the AFT). As part of that process, eliminate tenure, seniority and defined benefit pensions.

– Create and maintain a climate of constant disruption and destabilization, with cascading mandates that are impossible to keep up or comply with.

– Create teacher evaluations based on Common Core-related high stakes tests for which no curriculum has been developed. Arbitrarily impose cut scores on those exams that cast students, teachers and schools as failing, as was done by NYS Education Commissioner John King and Regent Meryl Tisch.

– Get teachers and administrators, whether through extortion (see RttT funding) threats or non-stop propaganda, to accept the premises of “data-driven” everything, even when that data is irrelevant, opaque, contradictory, or just plain wrong.

– Get everyone to internalize the premises and language of so-called education reform:

– Parents are not citizens with rights, but “customers” who are provided “choices”
that are in fact restricted to the decisions of those in charge, based on policies
developed by an educational industrial complex made up of foundations,
McKinsey-type consultants and captive academics.

– Students are “valuable assets” and “products,” whose value is to be enhanced
(see the definition of VAM) before being offered to employers.

– Teachers are fungible units of “human capital,” to be deployed as policy-makers
and management see fit. Since human capital depreciates over time, it
needs to be replaced by fresh capital, branded as “the Best and Brightest.”

– Schools are part of an investment “portfolio,” explicitly including the real estate
they inhabit, and are subject to the “demands” of the market and the preferences
of policy-makers and management.

– Create an intimidating, punitive environment, where the questions and qualms are either disregarded or responded to with threats.

– Get the university education programs on board under threat of continuing attack. Once they are on board, go after them anyway, and deregulate the teacher licensing process so that it’s easier to hire temps.

– Eliminate instruction that is deemed irrelevant to the most narrowly-cast labor market needs of employers, getting rid of art, music, dance, electives, etc., thereby reducing the focus of education to preparation for passive acceptance of low-wage employment.

– Embed software and electronic gadgets in every facet of the classroom and school, from reading to test-taking, with the intention of automating as much classroom input and output as possible.

– Use the automation of the classroom to enlarge class size – something explicitly promoted by Bill Gates – and transform teachers into overseers of student digital production that is connected to massive databases, so that every keystroke is data to be potentially monetized.

– Cash your bonus checks, exercise your stock options, and declare Excellence and Civil Rights achieved.

Categories Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Data and Data Mining, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers, Testing
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »