Could things get worse in North Carolina? Here, a teacher describes the bills that are moving towards passage, all of which will undermine public schools and transfer public funds to private corporations.
Archives for category: Education Industry
There are times when reality is zanier than satire.
Read about Douglas County, Colorado, where choice fanatics run the district.
They want students and families to choose schools the way you choose a color for your car or a brand of cereal.
In other words, they don’t believe in public education.
They don’t believe in the democratic ideal of common schooling, where children from many backgrounds learn together. They believe in consumerism.
It is clear by now that there is a very small number of very wealthy people who just don’t like public education. They don’t like teachers who work in public schools and want to strip them of any and every right, privilege, and status. They want to treat them like fast-food workers or salesmen who work on commission.
Given the chance, they would take the public’s money and give it to voucher schools, religious schools, entrepreneurs, to anyone who wants to start a school or an online business, regardless of their experience or qualifications. No one can take seriously their claim that they want to improve education or that they are “doing it for the kids” or they “put kids first” or they want to make kids “globally competitive.”
None of this is true.
Here Mike Deshotels explains who the haters are. They need do do some rethinking about the damage they are doing to our students, our teachers, and our nation.
Nicholas Tampio, who teaches at Fordham University, doesn’t understand why Bill Gates has been allowed to use his billions to gain control of American public education.
Tampio says that innovation comes not from standardization but from diversity, from differing ideas and perspectives.
He recalls when Gates used the power of his technology to replace WordPerfect with Microsoft’s Word. I remember that well, because I thought WordPerfect was far superior to Word and was disappointed when the better software was stamped out by Gates’ passion to standardize.
Tampio thinks that Common Core may stamp out competing ideas. He writes:
“The Common Core may raise standards in some school districts, but one ought to read the literature with a critical eye. The Common Core has not been field-tested anywhere. The Common Core does not address many root causes of underperforming schools, such as hungry students or dangerous neighborhoods. And the Common Core has an opportunity cost, namely, that it forces thriving school districts to adopt programs that may be a worse fit for the student body.
“We can learn a lesson from the recent history of the computing industry. Apple and Microsoft have pressed each other to make better applications, phones, notepads, and cameras. Though Gates may have wanted to vanquish Apple, Steve Jobs prompted him to improve his products, which in turn benefited every computer user. Competition brings out the best in people and institutions. The Common Core standardizes curricula and thereby hinders competition among educational philosophies.”
He argues:
“America needs many kinds of excellent programs and schools: International Baccalaureate programs, science and technology schools, Montessori schools, religious schools, vocational schools, bilingual schools, outdoor schools, and good public schools. Even within programs and schools, teachers should be encouraged to teach their passions and areas of expertise. Teachers inspire life-long learning by bringing a class to a nature center, replicating an experiment from Popular Science, taking a field trip to the state or national capital, or assigning a favorite novel. A human being is not a computer, and a good education is not formatted in a linear code.”
The Red Queen in LA offers a brief tutorial on the meaning of the astonishing electoral victory of Monica Ratliff—and before that, the remarkable upset win of Steve Zimmer.
Both ran against a barrage of out-of-state millions. Zimmer had the support of UTLA, Ratliff did not.
No one thought that either had a chance. Ratliff raised about $50,000 in small donations. Her opponent had millions.
Both won by the same 52-48 margin.
What does it mean?
It means the board has a majority that will rein in John Deasy. It may mean the board will slow down or stop the wildfire growth of unaccountable charters. It may mean a careful review of teacher evaluation methods.
It certainly means that the board will slow down the rush to privatize public education in LA.
That’s great news.
What happened when the head of the biggest charter chain in Illinois had a frank conversation with Wall Street investors?
EduShyster listened in. This is what she learned.
Leona Helmsley, the legendary “queen of mean,” wanted to leave her fortune to dogs. She didn’t care much for people. She left $12 million for the care of her beloved dog Trouble. Her estate is valued in the billions.
She cut her grandchildren out of her will.
Her Meanness—or rather the executors of her estate–are instead promoting the destruction of the teaching profession and the privatization of public education. They are giving munificent sums to Educators for Excellence and Stand for Children, two leading voices for the meanness that Leona believed in.
No? Neither was I.
This was a soirée for the super-rich who support Eva Moskowitz’s charter schools. Those are the miracle schools that claim their students outperform the students in affluent Scarsdale.
Hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb was the honoree. He was surrounded by other hedge fund managers. They think they are Robin Hoods. They forget that the real Robin Hood stole from people like them.
Jeb Bush, Florida’s own Robin Hood was there. So was Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the New York Board of Regents. Chris Christie gave the keynote speech.
All celebrating Eva’s Success Academies. They are the very epitome of no-excuses, nonunion charters.
Loeb said:
“Success is a completely disruptive business model,” Loeb said in the ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental. “Not only does your money go to changing kids’ lives, but if we really succeed, we’ll set a higher bar for all schools to meet.”
The Success model includes teachers whose intensity is a mix of Internet startup and trading desk, and a vast amount of training, maniacal attention to data and replicable processes, Loeb said.
“It’s the Google of charter schools. We’re growing faster, it’s logarithmic,” he added, saying that 11,500 students will be enrolled in two years, up from 7,000 in August.”
Just saw this amazing interview and could not resist posting it in full:
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An Interview with Paul Horton : What Goes on in Chicago—Should be exposed to the world?
[Paul Horton is a History teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory High School]
Posted by Michael Shaughnessy EducationViews Senior Columnist on May 18, 2013 in Commentaries, Daily, Editor’s Pick, Insights on Education, Teachers | 0 Comment
Michael F. Shaughnessy –
1) Paul briefly, what the hell is going on in Chicago?
54 schools are targeted for shut down and 90% are in African American communities within the city. As you may know, the public teachers in Chicago struck last year and made our mayor look bad. Most teachers think that this is payback now. Our County Commissioner, a former history teacher, just called the hearings to close the schools a charade. Our mayor has taken heavy campaign contributions from some people who are heavily invested in charter schools and they are starting to worry about the return on their investments.
Our Mayor is under heavy pressure to close schools if he wants to continue to raise money for his party and a possible future run for Illinois senator. Most political analysts are thinking that our mayor will run for President in the next cycle following a potential Clinton term.
He is very ambitious to make things happen to build a record of accomplishment. The problem is that his decisions about schools might not be the best for the kids of Chicago. He appoints Board Members for the city schools and he is their de facto dictator. He does his best to let his superintendent do the talking, though, to give the impression that he is not in charge.
The Superintendent, Barbara Byrd Bennett, is very good with handling the press. She has command of her Broad Foundation script, as she is a Broad Foundation Administrator School graduate, like her immediate predecessor and Arne Duncan. They are all well schooled in the Broad Foundation lingo:
Layered on top of this is a situation in the Woodlawn neighborhood (where I live) involving the encroachment of the University of Chicago into a neighborhood that it has an interest in gentrifying, located south of its campus. The University has purchased a lease on the best and biggest public school from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in the Woodlawn neighborhood, Wadsworth School.
The students from this school will be forced to attend a school five blocks to the southwest without a green space play area. The move will bring together students from three elementary schools and into a school packed as tight as sardines without adequate play space. The high school that the University is taking for its charter high school, on the other hand, has plenty of park space and several new playgrounds appropriate for elementary age kids. In another case, students will be asked to cross the most dangerous gang boundary in Chicago every morning and afternoon to accommodate a shutdown.
2) Tell us about the demonstration.
The demonstration bought together parents, teachers, and students from the neighborhood and all around the city. It was staged at a very busy intersection along the gang border where the kids next will have to cross next year to go to their new school. It was also staged after school and during the shift change of The University of Chicago Hospitals nearby. Thousands of people commute through this intersection to begin their after school commute. The apex of the protest involved students, teachers, and parents sitting down in the street with blood stained shirts to call attention to the violence potential at that intersection next year. Innocent people are often caught in gang gun battles in and around this intersection. A few months ago a two-month old child was shot and killed in gang crossfire in a child seat in a parked car near this intersection. We have a lot of worried parents who don’t like their kids crossing this intersection at any time.
3) Have you spoken off the record to any police—what do they have to say?
Most of the police I spoke to were very sympathetic to the protests because the mayor is hostile to unions in general. The only cop I talked to who did not share this opinion was the afternoon Grand Crossing Precinct Shift officer who responded with a “no comment.”
4) And our brave firefighters—what is Rahm Emmanuel proposing?
The firefighters I have talked to are upset that the safety corridor plan developed by the city to protect students making this and other commutes to new schools will move them away from their (fire) houses, and in some cases, trucks. They feel that this is a public safety issue and that it violates their contract. The firemen have suggested that the mayor hire more cops to take care of the safety corridors.
5) I heard you were interviewed. What happened?
I was picketing and representing my Union local, AFT 2063, at the protest and a TV reporter asked me for an interview, so I talked to him.
6) Do you have a link?
Here it is: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/video/8884241-police-arrest-demonstrators-protesting-school-closings/
7) What have I neglected to ask?
This is “the City of Broad Shoulders” and we aim to teach the Broad Foundation that they cannot steal our schools or harm our kids. The people of Chicago worked for a hundred years to build these buildings and the public needs to continue to invest in them. We don’t like the idea of private companies profiting from public property that we have invested in. We don’t like not having a say in how and why this happens. What we have here is classic machine politics. The aldermen will support the mayor because he controls who gets what and who doesn’t. The aldermen have been told to shut up, and with a few exceptions, they are shutting up.
The Louisiana blogs, which these days are the only place in that corrupt state to read honest and probing discourse, are buzzing with rumors that their state commissioner John White will soon leave for a job with Arne Duncan.
If true, he will not be missed. Jindal will find another reactionary ideologue to take White’s place and pursue the governor’s radical privatization agenda.
Why would Duncan want White? When Jindal chose White, Duncan called him “a visionary leader.” White would help Duncan prepare the nation for mass privatization. Sad to say, White and Duncan are on the same page. ALEC beams, as do all the other rightwing extremists to see this Democratic administration advancing its agenda–or doing nothing to impede it.
