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

Indianapolis Plan for Privatization

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2013 //
17

Indianapolis has developed a plan that they call “neighborhoods of educational opportunity.” Every child in the future will go to a high-quality school, which is sure to be a charter school that destabilizes the neighborhood and excludes students who are not likely to get high scores.

It is the usual Reformy con job. Promise the moon, shutter public schools, hand the money off to private operators who are free to set their own admission policies and discipline policies.

At some point soon, the American public will stop buying pie-in-the-sky promises and ignore these hucksters who want to privatize our nation’s public schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Indiana

NJ Teacher to Booker: Change Before It’s Too Late

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2013 //
14

A reader writes:

yes, yes! As a black educator and unfortunately a TFA alum who has now been a teacher for 15 years, I don’t understand why Obama and Booker have embraced this corporate style of reform. I worked tirelessly to elect Obama but I continue to find his governance particularly his stance on education and civil rights disappointing. I will not do the same for Booker and I hope that the teacher’s union does not endorse him. Booker does not have grassroots support, many Newark residents see the destruction he has wreaked on their schools and do not support him. He is the darling of the media and white liberal/moderate crowd as well as hedge funds and business community. We all know that TFA and the privatization movement it has spawned is directly responsible for the decline in the black middle class. Black female educators have been disproportionately impacted by layoffs and “evaluations.” Obama as the first black president and Booker as the heir to this legacy and possible contender for higher office should recognize this and change their position on what’s right for schools before it is too late. They should support public schools, community schools and educators. Sometimes it feels like we (anti-reformers) are screaming at people like Obama and Booker through a sound proof glass door. They can see us, we can see them but they can’t hear us and they won’t open the door because they don’t want to hear the truth.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, NYC, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations

Heilig: Feds Want to Reduce Collection of Data That Affect Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2013 //
14

This is an astonishing post by Julian Vasquez Heilig. He has a passion for equity, and he bridles when reformers lower the standards for becoming a teacher and claim they are doing it “for the kids.”

He asks, Would you rather fly with an experienced pilot or fly with one who had only five weeks’ training? Or how about one with 30 hours of training? If the answer seems obvious, and if you prefer that your children have teachers who are well prepared and highly qualified, wait until you see the chart in the middle of his post, showing the explosive growth in teachers with alternate certification.

Then consider that the U.S. Department of Education wants to STOP collecting this data. And that’s not all. In the Department’s single-minded commitment to something-or-other (not equity), this is what they propose to stop reporting:

“That brings us to the federal governments request to no longer keep track of this huge influx of teachers with a modicum of training to “pilot” our classrooms. The Department of Education is seeking public comments on the Civil Rights Data Collection process for 2013-2016. The feds have decided that it is no longer necessary to keep track of the FTE of teachers meeting all state licensing/certification requirements. The feds have also decided these data points are also no longer important for Civil Rights:

“Number of students awaiting special education evaluation (LEA)

“Whether students are ability grouped for English/Math

“Harassment and bullying policies (LEA)

“Number of students enrolled in AP foreign language(disaggregated by race, sex, disability, LEP)

“Number of students who took AP exams for all AP courses enrolled in (disaggregated by race, sex, disability, LEP)

“Number of students who passed AP exams for all AP courses enrolled in (disaggregated by race, sex, disability, LEP

“Total personnel salaries”

Categories Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Race to the Top, Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching, U.S. Department of Education

Crooks & Liars Asks: Why Is StudentsFirst Nonprofit?

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2013 //
13

Blogger Crooks & Liars asks why Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst is a nonprofit.

He writes: “If ever there was an organization that stands out as one that should never have been granted nonprofit status and doesn’t deserve to continue having it, it’s StudentsFirst. One look at their 2011 tax disclosures reveals a fat, political, ideological organization. StudentsFirst not only crosses the line, they stomp on it and erase it for their own benefit.”

Nonprofits are allowed to do some advocacy, but as I understand the tax law (let me be the first to say that only tax lawyers understand the tax law and even they sometimes need help figuring it out), nonprofits are not supposed to lobby directly for legislation. Or, maybe do it just a little bit. Or maybe pretend they are advocating but not lobbying.

The tax laws and tax code make no sense. if you view the universe of nonprofits actively lobbying for vouchers, charters, tax breaks, or seeking appropriations and earmarks for entrepreneurs, it makes no sense that they are classified as nonprofits. Some nonprofits lobby on behalf of for-profit corporations, which make handsome donations to the nonprofits.

In some quarters, what is called “reform” is driven by big money, not what is best for students. Yes, Virginia, there is an education industry, and it is like any other industry: it wants a return on its investments.

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, StudentsFirst

When Joel Klein and Condi Rice Accused Public Schools of Endangering National Security

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2013 //
26

A reader who goes by the name “Democracy” reminds us of the much-hyped report by a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations, whose co-chairs were Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice. It blamed the public schools for endangering national security and for the nation’s economic problems. I reviewed it here.

This is “Democracy’s” comment:

“Aah, Joel Klein.

Klein was a recent co-author – with Condaleezza Rice – of a Council on Foreign Relations education “report” that consisted mostly of tripe. But what can one reasonably expect from the likes of Klein and Rice?

Joel Klein perpetrates and perpetuates the myth that public education is in “crisis,” and without serious “reform” “the U.S. economy will continue to suffer.”

The “reform” pushed by Klein (and the Council report) is to impose the “business model” on public schools. This is the same “model” that led to big budget deficits, a ballooned national debt and a broken economy. Rather than take responsibility for what they did, the big bankers and hedge funders and politicians who brokered it all point the finger of blame at public schools and teachers.

Klein advocates more testing, merit pay through “value-added” evaluations, more charter schools and vouchers as “innovative” reforms. There is little or no research to support any of them.

Klein blames the current economic quagmire on public education. He writes that we used to “have a successful middle class,” but “that’s changed markedly since 1980.” Klein says “we’re rapidly moving toward two America’s –– a wealthy elite and an increasingly large underclass that lacks the skills to succeed.” His answer to the problem? The market, since “markets impose accountability.” A person would have to be moronic to make – or believe – such a claim.

Klein never makes any mention whatsoever, as he blames schools and teachers, of the supply-side economic policies pushed by conservative presidents, politicians and businessmen that are directly responsible for big budget deficits, millions of job losses, the most severe income stratification in the developed world, and our unsustainable national debt. He calls for “radical reform” of public education (more tests, merit pay, vouchers, etc), but says not one word about reforming the banking, derivatives trading and skewed tax system – coupled with regulatory enforcement –– that are sorely needed.

Condaleezza Rice was George W. Bush’s national security director before 9/11 occurred and during the launching of the war in Iraq, which she favored and supported. Rice helped to sell the American public the big lie of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, warning infamously that “ we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Journalists who covered her reported that she “made public claims that she knew to be false.”

There’s little doubt but that Rice (and her colleagues) ignored repeated warnings about imminent terrorist threats. After 9/11, she said (repeatedly) that no one could have predicted that planes might be used as weapons, despite the fact that there were at least a dozen documented warnings of it.

Initially, until public pressure forced the Bush administration to relent, Rice refused to testify before the 9/11 Commission. When she did, it wasn’t pretty. She wiggles and squirms, and tries to obfuscate and evade answering questions about the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) of August 6, 2001. That PDB was titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US” and warned that Bin Ladin was “determined…to conduct terrorist attacks in the US,” that he “prepares years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks.” The memo noted “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks,” and it warned that a group of “Bin Ladin’s supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.”

Now just imagine that the physical and human dimensions of the Twin Towers and Pentagon and planes were converted into schools and schoolchildren. Would anyone seriously think that there had not been ample warning of an impending disaster? Would anyone think that any of those involved in ignoring the threat should NOT be held accountable? What Rice said in private testimony to the 9/11 Commission has not been declassified (it should be…there are likely some real “whoppers” in there). What she said in public testimony can be seen below. It isn’t pretty.

The Aug. 6, 2001 PDB is here:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/index.htm

Question: Why hasn’t Condaleezza Rice been held accountable for her negligence and malfeasance in office, and for her repeated lies?

Question: Why does anyone believe a single word that comes out of Joel Klein’s mouth?

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Klein, Joel

The Problems That Federal Legislation Studiously Avoids

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2013 //
15

The commenter who calls himself or herself “Democracy” says the following about the Reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently known as NCLB):

“Bill Mathis correctly points out that education legislation pending in the Congress “would still ‘disaggregate’ test results by ethnic affiliation and income levels so as ‘to shine a light’ on the disparities and inequalities of educational opportunities and outcomes.” He adds this: “These inequalities have been well-documented for the last half-century.” And yet, they persist.

The problem is that proposed legislation does nothing to address the inequities. To provide substance would “require politicians and inside the beltway actors to actually press for funding equal to the mandates. It would require significant investments in job, community and comprehensive educational support systems.”

Over at the Center for Education Reform, resident crackpot Jeanne Allen dispenses some horrifically bad information and advice on education “reform.” Allen claims (incorrectly) that “65 percent of America’s K-12 student population that is failing and falling through the cracks” (she must not read anything about NAEP scores or disaggregated PISA scores).

Allen says that “the federal role should be one of assessment and data gathering,” and “there must be firm consequences for federal spending at state and local levels” because “local control is a hallow theme when it is school board groups and teachers unions doing the controlling.” Yet, when it comes to charter schools, Allen wants no accountability whatsoever.

Allen demands merit pay for regular public school teachers based on student test scores, even though there is no solid research to support it. As Mathis notes, “test-based evaluation systems have such a high error rate that their use in teacher evaluation is unstable.” This troubles Jeanne Allen not at all. But then, the Center for Education Reform gets its funding from conservative organizations like the Arnold, Bradley, Broad, Kern, Milken, and Walton Foundations, and from the Gates Foundation.

To cite but two examples, the Arnold Foundation is a right-wing organization founded by a hedge-funder who resists accountability and transparency in derivatives markets but calls for them in education. Its executive director, Denis Cabrese was former chief of staff to DIck Armey, the Texas conservative who now heads up FreedomWorks, the group that helps to pull the Tea Party strings and gets funding from the billionaire arch-conservative Koch brothers.

And the Walton Foundation focuses on “competition”, “charter school choice,” “private school choice,” and teacher effectiveness. It funds groups like Teach for America, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (whose board of directors includes Rick Hess and whose advisory board includes a KIPP founder, a Walton board member, and education blatherer Andrew Rotherham) and the Charter School Growth Fund (interestingly, Kevin Hall sits on the board of both this group AND the Charter School Authorizers and was previously the “Chief Operating Officer of The Broad Foundation” and “worked at…Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Teach For America.”).

The corporate-style “reformers” – and their Republican and Democratic allies – care not for addressing the real inequities in American public schooling.

And that truly is a shame.”

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty, Race to the Top, U.S. Department of Education, US Education

Reform as Crony Capitalism

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2013 //
13

Responding to another reader, Robert Shepherd challenges the claim that reformers want a free market in schooling:

“We are NOT seeing the emergence of free market alternatives to public schools. We are seeing is crony capitalist alternatives dependent upon federal and state regulation and the public dole that could not possibly survive in truly free markets. It doesn’t matter whether it originates on the right or the left or what rhetoric it uses, tyranny is tyranny. It’s a NewSpeak version of the language of classical liberalism that is being used to defend what is actually happening. It’s incredibly naive to buy into the rhetoric in the face of the realities. Let’s see: Pass a federal law that ensures that almost all public schools will fail. Require states to provide alternatives. Have the Secretary of Education, now a private citizen, found an online virtual school to provide those alternatives, one that depends upon the same taxpayer dollars but siphons off a lot of those into private profits. There are eight million stories in the Naked City, and this has been one of them. The others have much the same general form.

“If that’s what you think of as the creation of free market alternatives, then you have started mainlining the Soma.”

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit

Karen Francisco: How Failed Charter Schools Survive and Turn a Profit

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
20

In an earlier post, Karen Francisco (editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette) lamented that failing charters escape accountability by turning into voucher schools or shopping for an authorizer with low standards. When challenged by a reader, Francisco explained what happened in Fort Wayne.

She wrote:

“In fact, the two failed Imagine Inc. charter schools in Fort Wayne are being converted to voucher schools. The local charter board has been dismissed, loans forgiven and Indiana taxpayers will continue to pay Bakke’s company to operate two underperforming schools. In addition, an out-of-state real estate investment trust — EPT Properties — will continue to collect about $1 million a year for the charter school lease. Instead of through the charter board, the tax dollars now will be funneled through low- and middle-income families to a religious organization and, in turn, to the REIT.”

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

Indiana: “It’s the Money, Stupid”

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
41

Karen Francisco, editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, writes that she is often asked to explain what a charter school is. She used to say that it was a publicly- funded school that is exempt from many state regulations in exchange for higher accountability.

But now she sees failing charter schools turn into voucher schools or go shopping for an authorizer with low or no standards.

She writes:

“If I’m feeling less charitable, I explain that charter schools are an effort to weaken and destroy teacher unions. Charter operators hire primarily young, inexperienced teachers; work them to death and then decline to renew their contracts when they should be giving them raises.”

But when she read about the bond investors’ conference this week, she realized that the driving force behind charters is not accountability, it’s not just union-busting, it’s profit.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Indiana

Protests Planned Against Nation’s Largest Charter Operator

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2013 //
39

This post was written by Sharon Higgins, a parent activist and indefatigable blogger in Oakland, California. Her blogs include “Charterschoolscandals,” wherein she tracks the amazing variety of graft, theft, corruption, scandals, and other predictable consequences of deregulation of public money with little or no oversight (I.e., privatization). She has written on many occasions about the proliferation of Gulen-inspired charters, which are now the largest chain in the nation.

Higgins writes:

This weekend, hundreds of people from all over the country, mostly Turkish Americans, are traveling to Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, to protest Fethullah Gulen at his remote compound in the Poconos. Among other activities, Gulen’s followers (a.k.a. the “Gulen Movement”) operate a global network of schools, including the largest charter school network.

Yesterday, an Associated Press report about the protest was picked up by news agencies across the US. A local paper published a more in-depth piece (“Protesters expected at Saylorsburg Islamic center: West End cleric criticized by opponents of Turkish regime.” Pocono Record, 7/10/2013). Both articles mention that a Facebook page was created two weeks ago to organize the event.

In conjunction with the major Pennsylvania protest on Saturday, July 13, a small protest will take place at a Gulen Movement-associated charter school in Oakland, California.

In addition, Mary Addi, the former Ohio Gulen charter school teacher who appeared on last year’s CBS 60 Minutes report about Fethullah Gulen, has started an online petition calling on the Obama administration to investigate the “Gulen-inspired” charter schools for “violating the civil rights of American teachers and administrators for the past eleven years by blatantly ignoring federal age, nationality, and gender equal opportunity laws.” It needs our signatures.

How the protest and the Turkish uprising are tied to Fethullah Gulen and his followers

The Pennsylvania protest is an extension of the Turkish protests that have been drawing international attention since late May. The Turkish uprising is against actions and policies of the country’s leadership and Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP), the ruling party which took power over a decade ago. These excerpts describe how Fethullah Gulen and his followers are directly connected to the current Turkish regime:

— “Gülen is considered one of [Turkish Prime Minister] Erdoğan’s most powerful allies but is reviled and feared by much of Turkey’s population.” — “Letter from Turkey: The Deep State.” The New Yorker, 3/12/2012

— “But the [Gulen movement’s] stealthy expansion of power — as well as its tactics and lack of transparency — is now drawing accusations that Mr. Gulen’s supporters are using their influence in Turkey’s courts and police and intelligence services to engage in witch hunts against opponents with the aim of creating a more conservative Islamic Turkey… We are troubled by the secretive nature of the Gulen movement, all the smoke and mirrors,” said a senior American official, who requested anonymity to avoid breaching diplomatic protocol. ‘It is clear they want influence and power. We are concerned there is a hidden agenda to challenge secular Turkey and guide the country in a more Islamic direction.’” — ““Turkey Feels Sway of Reclusive Cleric in the U.S.” The New York Times, 4/24/2012

— “When the moderate Islamist AKP took power in 2002, the Gulen movement provided indispensable support for [Prime Minister Erdogan] with its extensive influence in the media, police and judicial system.” — “Who is Fethullah Gulen, Turkey’s Powerful Cleric in Self-Exile?”, International Business Times, 6/6/2013

— “Followers of [Fethullah Gülen] have established a global network of schools, banks, insurance funds and media outlets. They present themselves outwardly as modern, but pursue an uncompromisingly Islamist agenda. And increasingly, they are calling the shots within the Turkish government…” — “Turkish Power Struggle: Brotherly Love Begins to Fray in Ankara.” Der Spiegel, 6/25/2013

Where’s that big, investigative piece, Mr. Hayes?

As an American Foreign Policy Council report of March 2013 astutely points out at its conclusion: “The charter school experiment has resulted in the United States being the only country in the world where the Gülen Movement has been able to establish schools fully funded by the host country’s taxpayers.”

Got that everyone?

In March 2012, Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s All In and Editor at Large at The Nation tweeted this question: “How come no one has done the big, investigative piece on Turkish Imam Fethullah Gulen and his movement’s global school network?”

Well that’s a really good question, Mr. Hayes. With most taxpayers still in the dark about this secretive and controversial group and its highly questionable and alarming activities — and with four new Gulen charter schools opening next month (bringing the total to 139 schools in 27 states) — maybe it’s time for you to press on that using your influence as an important member of the US media.

By Sharon Higgins
Oakland, California

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »