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Archives for category: Education Industry
Only days before Arne Duncan hailed North Carolina as one of the stars of the Race to the Top, Bill McDiarmid, dean of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, warned that public education was in dire peril in the state.
Although North Carolina was once renowned as the most forward-looking state in the south, known for fundings its schools and for promoting statewide early childhood education under previous governors, the current governor and legislature seem determined to obliterate the common schools of North Carolina. The mantra of the legislature–echoing Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and the rest of the false reformers, is that “our schools are broken.”
Their solution: charters and vouchers; Teach for America; flunking third graders who don’t pass a reading test, and other punitive actions. At the same time, they enacted generous corporate tax breaks. The shift of public funds away from public schools to the private sector will exacerbate racial segregation. When the radical extremists took control of the legislature, they made sure to gerrymander their own districts to maintain a majority.
McDiarmid writes:
Concerns about the direction of education in the state are widely shared. Researchers at UNC-Wilmington recently conducted a poll of 2,350 state residents. They found that 94 percent of the respondents believe that education is now headed in the wrong direction in the state. Large majorities disagreed with recent policy decisions: 85 percent disapprove of vouchers for students to attend private schools; 81 percent believe that the state should provide scholarships to talented high school students to attract them to teaching via the Teaching Fellows Program; 96 percent disagree with cutting the salary incentive for teachers to pursue master’s degrees; and 75 percent disagree with eliminating tenure. In sum, probably a very significant majority of North Carolinians disagrees with the current policy direction.
The bad news for those concerned about where we are headed is that a number of key folks in the General Assembly are in “safe seats.” This tends to make legislators less responsive to the concerns of the public. These lawmakers are highly unlikely to be turned out this fall — or perhaps for several elections to come. In 2010, the Republican majority in the Legislature controlled redistricting. They were able to create for themselves election districts that virtually ensured their re-elections and the dominance of their party throughout the decade. Certainly, a number of these folks in the majority are open to conversation and debate about educational policy and attend to non-partisan research. Some who hold key leadership posts appear committed, however, to an agenda intent on replacing public schools with private schools.
Equally discouraging are the changes to the tax code. The majority passed legislation rolling back corporate and individual taxes. A flat 5.8 percent tax on incomes replaced the almost century-old graduated tax schedule. The cost to the state of these changes? Over $1 billion annually. At this rate, North Carolina is well on its way to meeting Grover Norquist’s goal of shrinking the size of government to “where it can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” As the largest expenditure category in the state budget, education is already fighting for air.
Absent from much of the debate about the move toward privatization is attention to the role of public schooling in a democratic society. Our schools trace their origins back to 19th century public school advocates. Recognizing that an educated citizenry is essential to maintaining a democracy, they believed that mixing of children from all social classes in free “common schools” would lead to a stronger sense of shared civic purpose.
Due to persistent residential segregation, North Carolina failed to achieve the goal of schools where all our children – regardless of social class, race, or family circumstances – learn together. Yet, for many children, school remains the one place where they rub shoulders with others who differ from themselves socially, linguistically, and culturally. Like it or not, they must learn to get along with these “others” – arguably a critical attitude in a diverse democratic society such as ours.
Peter Greene noticed in his scan of reports from Arne Duncan that Duncan singled out the super stars of his Race to the Top.
Most surprising of all was that North Carolina won a gold star for improving the teaching profession.
To call this startling is an understatement.
Don’t take my word for it: Read what Duke University Professor Helen Ladd and former New York Times education editor Edward Fiske wrote about the appalling attacks on teachers and on public education in recent years in North Carolina.
Teachers are bailing out of North Carolina because salaries are so low and have not increased since 2008.
The legislature has passed law after law stripping teachers of any and all rights and privileges.
Teachers can no longer get a raise for earning an advanced degree (just shows you what the legislature thinks of education).
The legislature killed off its successful North Carolina Teaching Fellows, which produced well-prepared teachers who made a career of teaching, yet found $5-6 million to bring in Teach for America, guaranteed not to stay in teaching.
North Carolina has one of the worst climates for teachers in the United States, and it has gotten progressively worse over the past three years since hard-right Republicans took control of the legislature and the governorship.
What exactly did Arne find admirable about teaching conditions in North Carolina?
Was he misinformed or does he approve of the war against teachers by the state’s extremists in the legislature and its governor?
The bottom line is that Race to the Top was a waste of $5 billion that might have been used for the arts, for reducing class sizes in needy schools, for opening health clinics, for doing what was actually needed by students and teachers and communities. It could have been a national competition to reward the districts that produced actionable plans for racial integration. Instead, it piled on more testing, demoralized teachers and principals, added tons of paperwork, and rewarded consultants, entrepreneurs, and snake-oil salesmen.
A fascinating article in Education Week describes a verbal tiff between the Council of Chief State School Officers and the leaders of the two major teachers’ unions.
The Chiefs, as they are known, are the state superintendents. CCSSO received at least $32 million from the Gates Foundation to “write” and advocate for the Common Core, and no matter how much parents and teachers complain and demand revisions, the Chiefs “won’t back down.” They made their certainty and intransigence clear to the union leaders.
The AFT and the NEA also were paid millions by Gates to promote the Common Core, but the unions have members and both Randi and Dennis have vocally criticized the implementation of the Common Core. In some states, the rollout has been nothing short of disastrous.
Randi Weingarten was unusually outspoken in criticizing the rush to impose the Common Core, and she warned the Chiefs that the standards were in serious jeopardy. The article makes clear that while Randi is listening to teachers, the Chiefs are not. Their attitude on full display was “full steam ahead, the critics are wrong, there is nothing but anecdote on their side.” You would think they might have reflected just a bit on the terrible results of Common Core testing in New York, where only 3% of English language learners passed the tests, only 5% of children with disabilities, only 16-17% of African American and Hispanic students, and only 31% of all students.
The advocates of Common Core claim that the new standards teach critical thinking and reflection, but there was no evidence of either critical thinking or reflection from the CCSSO or the other organizations paid to promote the standards.
Andrew Ujifusa writes:
“Anxiety over the Common Core State Standards was on full display Tuesday during the Council of Chief State School Officers’ annual legislative conference. Leaders of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the nation’s two largest teacher unions, squabbled with state K-12 chiefs over how teachers and the general public perceive the standards, and how well they are being implemented in classrooms.”
Weingarten told those present that they do not understand how angry many parents and educators are. During the discussion, Weingarten “said that in cases like New York state, the poor rollout of the common core had led to “immobilization” among teachers and a distrust that those in positions of authority knew how to do the job right.
“Weingarten added that she expects that many of her members would call for outright opposition to the standards during the AFT’s summer convention, even though both the AFT and NEA support the standards and Weingarten said she wouldn’t back away from the common core.
“On the subject of transitioning to the common core, Weingarten told the chiefs, “The field doesn’t trust the people in this room to have their backs.”
“During the same discussion, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, while he said the union remained squarely behind the standards themselves, also expressed concern that teachers were not getting enough time to learn the standards themselves, to find common-core aligned curricular materials, and to talk to parents as well as each other.
“Those remarks triggered an irritated response from Massachusetts K-12 chief Mitchell D. Chester, who said that the two national unions seemed to be “condoning” strident and vocal common-core foes “at the peril of those [teachers] who are moving things ahead,” an accusation Weingarten denied……
“Weingarten responded that attacking her for being the messenger of concerns about the standards missed the point, telling the state chiefs, “People think we are doing terrible things to them, parents and teachers alike.”
Kati Haycock of Education Trust defended the Common Core. The Gates Foundation paid Education Trust $2,039,526 to advocate for the Common Core.
Michael Cohen of Achieve, which helped to write the standards, strongly defended them.
Gates has paid many millions to Achieve to write and promote the Common Core:
“Gates money also flowed to Achieve, Inc.; prior to June 2009, Achieve received $23.5 million in Gates funding. Another $13.2 million followed after CCSS creation, with $9.3 million devoted to “building strategic alliances” for CCSS promotion:
“June 2012
Purpose: to strengthen and expand the ADP Network, provide
more support to states for CCSS implementation, and build strategic national
and statewide alliances by engaging directly with key stakeholders
Amount: $9,297,699”
Jeff Bryant of the Education Opportunity Network writes in Salon that voters are increasingly disenchanted with the bipartisan Bush-Obama education policies of high-stakes testing, Common Core, and privatization.
He points out that the attacks on public education are not playing well at all in the political arena. The overwhelming majority of parents are very happy with their local public schools and respect their teachers. The public is beginning to see through the lies they have been told about their schools. So much of the rhetoric of the “reformers” sounds appealing and benign, if not downright inspirational, but it ends up as nonstop testing, the closing of local public schools, merit pay, union-busting, the enrichment of multinational corporations, and standardization.
Bryant predicts that Democrats will suffer at the polls for their slavish espousal of hard-right GOP doctrine.
He writes:
“The only overriding constants? People generally like their local schools, trust their children’s teachers and think public school and teachers should get more money. Wonder when a politician will back that!
“Many observers, including journalists at The Wall Street Journal, have accurately surmised that the American public is currently deeply divided on education policy. But that analysis barely scratches the surface.
“Go much deeper and you find that the “new liberal consensus” that Adam Serwer wrote about in Mother Jones, which propelled Obama into a second term, believes in funding the nation’s public schools but has little to no allegiance to Obama’s education reform policies.
“Outside of the elite circles of the Beltway and the very rich, who continue to be the main proponents of these education policies, it is getting harder and harder to discern who exactly is the constituency being served by the reform agenda.
“Most Americans do not see any evidence that punitive measures aimed at their local schools are in any way beneficial to their children and grandchildren. In fact, there’s some reasonable doubt whether the president himself understands it.
So is Arne Duncan making education policy on his own? Or is the policy agenda of the Obama administration indistinguishable from that of rightwing Republicans like Bobby Jindal, Rick Scott, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Mike Pence, and Tom Corbett?
A frequent contributor to the blog’s discussions calls himself or herself “Democracy.” Here is the comment left by this reader in response to the announcement about changes that will be made to the SAT:
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“Democracy” writes:
I’ve noted this point multiple times on this blog but it bears repeating.
College enrollment specialists say that their research finds the SAT predicts between 3 and 15 percent of freshman-year college grades, and after than that nothing. Shoe size would work as well, or better. The ACT, the SAT’s big competitor, is only marginally better. The “new, improved” SAT will be no different. (though in a perverse twist, the SAT changes suggest that it will now make an attempt to enhance citizenship…don’t believe it).
The real story is that both the ACT and the College Board (purveyor of the PSAT, SAT, and the AP program) were major players in the development of the Common Core standards – and its massive testing regimen – which are about to be unleashed on public schools across the nation.
The Common Core was funded by Bill Gates, and it was largely the work of three main groups: Achieve, ACT, and College Board. Toss in the Education Trust. All of these groups are tied tightly to corporate-style “reform.”
Achieve, Inc.’s board includes Louis Gertner, who’s bad-mouthed public education for decades. It also includes Tennessee Republican governor Bill Haslam, a pro-life, anti-gay, corporate friendly politician. The board also includes Prudential executive (and former big banker) Mark Grier (Prudential has been fined multiple times for deceptive sales practices and improper trading), and Intel CEO Craig Barrett (who keeps repeating the STEM “crisis” myth). Intel has laid off thousands of workers and is masterful and aggressive at avoiding tax payments and seeking subsidization, much like Boeing, and Microsoft, and GE, and IBM, and Chevron, and AT & T. These are some of the biggest tax cheaters in the country. There’s a reason that Achieve’s main publications never mention democratic citizenship as a mission of public education.
Achieve’s funders include – not surprisingly – Boeing, Intel, GE, IBM, Chevron, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, Prudential (and State Farm, MetLife and other insurance companies), and the Gates Foundation. The Education Trust is funded by MetLife, State Farm, IBM, and by the Broad, Gates and Walton Foundations, among others.
The “leaders” at the College Board include president David Coleman, who was instrumental in writing the Common Core standards, and who was a former McKinsey consultant and treasurer of disgraced former DC chancellor Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst. It includes policy chief Stefanie Sanford, former policy director for Texas Governor Rick Perry and “director of advocacy” for the Gates Foundation. It includes assessment chief Cyndie Schmeiser, who is now in charge of the PSAT, SAT, and AccuPlacer (worthless academic measures), and who was previously the chief operating officer at ACT. And it includes Amy Wilkins, formerly of the Education Trust.
Slide on over to charlatan Wendy Kopp’s Teach for America, and one finds that the big contributors are the right-wing Arnold Foundation (which wants to privatize public pensions), the arch-conservative Kern Foundation (which even wants to inculcate ministers into the belief that unregulated “free enterprise” is a “moral system”), the Broad and Gates and Walton Foundations, Cisco, State Farm, and big banks –– Bank of America, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Wells Fargo –– that have paid billions and billions in penalties and fines (with a very hefty dose yet to come) for ripping off consumers and rigging “markets.”
The very same groups who seek to “reform” American public schooling so that no child is left behind, are selling snake oil that will –– and already does –– deny millions of kids a decent education. They perpetuate a corrupted system that marginalizes workers and citizens, that off-shores millions of jobs, that creates enormous inequities in income and wealth through transfers of money from public treasuries to private coffers, and they tell us that the solution lies in better teachers, more “rigorous” standards, and “accountability.”
These people and groups tout the importance of “transformative reform.” They all recite the same jargon, and they all seem to believe that teachers (especially those deemed the “best and brightest”) hold the key to restoring American “economic competitiveness,” which is the foundational rationale for the Common Core.
It’s all unmitigated foolishness. Nonsense. But you won’t read about any of that in mainstream press accounts of the SAT changes. And that’s a dire shame.
The New York State Senate legislation to protect charter schools is not limited in its reach to charters in New York City. According to the press release cited below, school districts across New York State will have to provide free facilities or public school space for charter schools that wish to open and will then have no jurisdiction over their own space. This is nothing but a brazen power grab by corporate charter operators.
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Parents and other supporters of public schools will rally today against Governor Cuomo’s attempt to wrest control of the New York City public schools for the benefit of his campaign contributors.
Dan Morris. 917.952.8920.
Julian Vinocur. 212.328.9268.
Media Advisory for Fri. March 14, Noon, Cuomo’s Midtown Office
Rally Against Quid Pro Cuomo State Budget Deal and Gubernatorial Control of NYC Schools
*Parents condemn Cuomo’s pay-to-play budget deal with charter school lobbyists who are bankrolling his re-election campaign and want to undermine New York City’s power over its schools.*
WHAT: Public school parents, community leaders, and elected officials will rally against the budget deal Cuomo clearly orchestrated with the Senate Majority to advance the extremist, anti-de Blasio agenda of charter school lobbyists who are heavily funding the Governor’s re-election campaign. This disturbing Quid pro Cuomo opens the door to gubernatorial control of New York City schools.
WHO: Outraged public school parents, community leaders, and elected officials who won’t stand for Cuomo and the Senate Majority cutting a pay-to-play budget deal with charter school lobbyists.
WHERE: Governor Cuomo’s Midtown office: 633 Third Avenue, between E40th and E41st Streets.
WHEN: Friday, March 14, Noon.
Governor Cuomo has received about $800,000 from charter supporters in the financial and real estate sectors. To protect their favorite hobby, the governor now proposes to take control of funding charter construction and co-locations. This would effectively nullify mayoral control in New York City and assure that Cuomo’s sponsors in the charter sector can expand at will into other people’s public schools. With the governor’s help, they can insert their privately managed schools into public school buildings, kicking out kids with special needs and kids from the neighborhood. The governor will also make sure that his political patrons never will be asked to pay rent for their use (or usurpation) of public space.
Governor Cuomo is ably representing the interests of the hedge fund managers and the real estate moguls who contributed to his campaign, as well as the 3% of students in New York State and the 6% in New York City enrolled in charter schools.
Money rules!
Media Contacts:
Julian Vinocur, Julian@aqeny.org, 212.328.9268
Dan Morris, dlmcommunications@gmail.com, 917.952.8920
Firestorm Over Governor Cuomo’s & Senate Majority’s “Pay-to-Play” School Politics
Political Donations from Wealthy Charter Investors Fuel “Gubernatorial Control” over NYC School Issues
New York, NY— Currently, the State Senate Majority is considering a budget proposal that reportedly would invest state funds in capital construction for privately-run charter schools and would undermine the power of NYC to make its own determinations on charter school co-locations and charter school rent.
Governor Cuomo immediately reinforced the Senate proposal by saying today on the Capitol Press Room radio show that charter schools are “the big issue in the budget.” As reported by ChalkbeatNY, the Governor and the Senate Majority have been the beneficiaries of huge campaign contributions from the financiers and ideological backers of privately-run charter schools. New York’s lead education & civil rights advocates released the following statement:
“The ‘pay-to-play’ school politics we are witnessing today between the Governor and Senate Majority is an outrage. The real civil rights issue of our time is that Governor Cuomo has completely abandoned his constitutional responsibility to provide adequate funding for the 97% of students in public schools across the state. Unfortunately, the majority of public school students do not have rich Wall Street honchos to make the Governor pay attention to them,” said Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP’s NYS Conference.
“Governor Cuomo is the master puppeteer of this ‘pay-to-play’ fiasco, pulling strings in the Senate to get ‘Gubernatorial Control’ over New York City school issues. It’s a power play to satisfy the big-money political donors that want corporate charter school chains to thrive at the expense of public school students. The Governor is the biggest beneficiary in Albany of shady ‘pay-to-play’ interests who want to privatize education, and he is taking it out on the 97% of parents, students and teachers that want him to stop his assault on public schools,” said Jonathan Westin, Executive Director of New York Communities for Change.
“Governor Cuomo has not toured a single public school since he took office, and yet he wants ‘Gubernatorial Control’ of New York City schools. Give me a break—Governor Cuomo has turned his back on the 97% of students across the state attending public schools, but now he says charter schools are his top priority in this budget. Meanwhile the Senate Majority has school districts crying for relief from underfunding, yet they want money for charter schools. It looks like Governor Cuomo and the Senate Majority are bending over backwards for the charter school lobbyists who are big campaign donors,” said Zakiyah Ansari, public school parent and Advocacy Director for the Alliance for Quality Education.
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Professor David Hursh of the University of Rochester visited New Zealand, where he explained so-called “education reform” in the United States. He very bluntly describes the bipartisan agenda that is proving to be harmful to students, teachers, and public education.
Hursh met with educators in Australia and New Zealand over a five-week period, encouraging them to resist the high-stakes testing movement.
