Archives for category: Education Industry
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NEPC Grades ALEC Score Card for State Policy

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2013 //
1

The National Education Policy Center is an invaluable resource. It keeps tabs on the half-baked research that pours forth from advocacy groups pretending to be think tanks.

Its latest report reviews ALEC’s “report card” on the states.

You will not be surprised to learn that he states with the highest scores are those with vouchers, charters, and unregulated home schooling.

Its ratings are similar to those of Michelle Rhee. The “best” states are not the ones with the best education, but the ones that match ALEC’s ideology. The highest marks go to states that are abandoning public education for a free-market model of private providers.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, National Education Policy Center, Vouchers

The Great Accountability Scam

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2013 //
3

Crazy Crawfish here writes a brilliant post about The Great Accountability Scam.

He is writing about Louisiana and the Recovery School District, but what he describes applies with equal force to every “reform” scheme in every state and even to Race to the Top.

What he explains is the destructive and failed theory of action that is the very heart of the corporate reform movement.

It goes like this: use test scores to fire teachers, fire principals, close schools, and shatter communities. Create a swath of destruction that falls hardest on poor children, their families and communities. Cover your tracks by declaring success where none exists.

His prime example in this case is Louisiana’s Recovery School District. It has been recognized in the media as a national model, but it is a failed experiment that has benefited its promoters, not students.

RSD is a prime exemplar of the Great Accountability Scam.

Here are his concluding thoughts (but open and read it all):

“What if all these resources we spent taking over school districts, firing teachers, and displacing children were used instead to improve the schools in which they already reside – dozens of these schools now lay shuttered and vacant statewide while the children are bussed to campuses clear across their communities. This is done to disguise how poorly we’ve served these children while we hope taking their temperature over and over and telling them to “get better” will finally work. What if instead of just testing children and holding them “accountable” we held ourselves accountable as a society and worked to improve their plight? All this testing and test prep is not helping our students catch up, and it may actually be bringing everyone else down as well. In Louisiana to disguise this fact John White has changed the “grading scale” and intends to change it yet again next year and every year we continue to employ him. John White will guarantee the scores go up, for what they’re worth, but our students will eventually tire of teachers just taking their temperatures when they show up for school, and who could blame them?

“Kill the RSD, and hand the schools back over to their communities where they belong. The RSD experiment we’ve forced on our children has failed, and miserably so. Instead of spending all that excess funding on bringing in out of state charters and temporary teachers, train the teachers we have, provide funding for universal pre-kindergarten, afterschool programs, restore music and the arts and provide tutors and recruit mentors from the community for children. There are thousands of people just waiting to help, if the state will back off and return to a support role instead of the tyrant it has become under Paul Pastorek and John White. Teachers are trying, but they can’t tackle this task alone.

“I suppose it comes down to whether you want a solution or simply someone to blame. Bobby Jindal just wants a talking point for his futile presidential aspirations; John White wants to help out-of-state vendors, so they can hook him up for a lifetime of perks and positions once he leaves Louisiana. If you are a citizen of this state, if you care about the students, the children, the teachers, your fellow citizens, our way of life and our future, then you need to kick these guys out and take back our schools. Kill the RSD and rescue our teachers and students before it’s too late.

“It’s about time we held our failing leaders responsible. RSD has been in place for almost 7 years and has mostly all new students, and every year it is vying for worst district in the state with two to three times the resources. In my book that deserves an F- and the creators of it should be held accountable.

Categories Accountability, Closing schools, Education Industry, Louisiana, Privatization, Race to the Top

Is There Any Organization That Is Not Funded by Gates?

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
29

Obscene amounts of money translate into power.

Obscene amounts of money–billions–often translate into the ability to buy elections. But not always, as we saw in the recent school board election in Los Angeles, when the candidate of the Billionaire Boys Club was beaten by Steve Zimmer.

Billionaires don’t just try to buy elections.

They try to buy anyone who might help them or hinder them in their quest for power.

The Gates Foundation, for example, underwrites almost every organization in its quest to control American education. It supports rightwing groups like Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence and Ben Austin’s Parent Revolution. In the recent past, it gave money to the reactionary ALEC. It pays young teachers to oppose unions and to testify against the rights of tenured teachers. It also pays unions to support its ideas about evaluations, despite their flaws. It spends hundreds of millions of dollars to support “independent” think tanks, which are somewhat less independent when they become dependent on Gates money.

The other day, I reported that the ACLU had persuaded the U.S. Department of Justice to take action against voucher schools in Milwaukee that discriminate against students with disabilities. My source at the ACLU, who sent me the DOJ statement and the ACLU press release, mentioned in passing that the National Urban League had turned its back on the ACLU’s efforts to make private choice schools non-discriminatory.

Wonder why? Here is a possible answer.

Switch to teacher evaluation.

Some teachers in New York have wondered why their state union organization is not fighting the misuse of test scores as the basis of evaluation.

Wonder why? Here is a possible answer.

Power corrupts. So does money.

Categories ALEC, Bush, Jeb, Common Core, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

8th Grade Student: Why So Much Advertising on Pearson Tests?

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2013 //
23

A student in a gifted program wrote this piercing analysis of the state tests he and his classmates just endured.

The tests he took had many brand names and registered trademarks. He realized this is product placement.

He wrote:

“Non-fictional passages in the test I took included an article about robots, where the brands IBM™, Lego®, FIFA® and Mindstorms™ popped up, each explained with a footnote. I cannot speak for all test takers, but I found the trademark references and their associated footnotes very distracting and troubling.

“According to Barbara Kolson, an intellectual property lawyer for Stuart Weitzman Shoes, “The fact that the brands did not pay Pearson for the ‘product placement’ does not mean that the use is not product placement.” To the test-takers subjected to hidden advertising, it made no difference whether or not it was paid for. The only conclusion they (and this test-taker) made is that they could not be coincidental.”

When I served on the NAEP governing board, there was. Flat prohibition on any reference to brand names. I studied the guidelines of every publisher a decade ago when writing “The Language Police,” and all of them specifically banned brand names.

What gives here? Why the marketing in the new Common Core tests?

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, New York, Pearson, Testing

Texas: The Surefire Plan to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2013 //
37

You think it can’t happen here?

You think your state is immune?

Read about the war on public education in Texas and think again.

Some part of this radical agenda is being promoted in almost every state.

Yours too.

This comment was written by Bonnie Lesley of “Texas Kids Can’t Wait”:

“I worry a lot whether public schools will continue to exist in some states. Our organization, Texas Kids Cant Wait, has felt overwhelmed at times this legislative session about the sheer number of privatization bills, all either sponsored by Sen. Dan Patrick or by someone close to him. We have been battling a big charter (what is in reality the gateway drug to privatization) expansion bill, a parent-trigger bill, opportunity scholarships, taxpayer savings grants, achievement district, “FamiliesFirstSchools”, home-rule districts, vouchers for kids with disabilities, online course expansion, numerous bills to close public schools and turn them over to private charter companies, and on and on. A friend said it is as if they threw a whole bowl full of spaghetti at the wall, believing something would stick.

Every one of the ALEC bills we have seen introduced in other states has been introduced in Texas this year.

The privatizers have also held hostage the very popular bills such as HB 5 to reduce testing significantly unless their privatization bills advanced, and advance they have. So lots of folks are playing poker with kids’s lives and futures.

What keeps many of us fighting 20 hours a day and digging into our own pockets to fund the work is our understanding that these bills are not the end game. We’ve read the web sites, beginning with Milton Freidman’s epistle on the Cato Institute’s website, that lay out the insidious plan we are seeing played out. We have also read Naomi Klein’s brilliant book, Shock Doctrine.

First, impose ridiculous standards and assessments on every school.

Second, create cut points on the assessments to guarantee high rates of failure. (I was in the room when it was done in the State of Delaware, protesting all the way, but losing).

Third, implement draconian accountability systems designed to close as many schools as possible. Then W took the plan national with NCLB.

Fourth, use the accountability system to undermine the credibility and trust that almost everyone gave to public schools. increase the difficulty of reaching goals annually.

Fifth, de-professionalize educators with alternative certification, merit pay, evaluations tied to test scores, scripted curriculum, attacks on professional organizations, phony research that tries to make the case that credentials and experience don’t matter, etc.

Sixth, start privatization with public funded charters with a promise that they will be laboratories of innovation. Many of us fell for that falsehood. Apply pressure each legislative session to implement more and more of them. Then Arne Duncan did so on steroids.

Seventh, use Madison Avenue messaging to name bills to further trick people into acceptance, if not support, of every conceivable voucher scheme. The big push now as states implement Freidman austerity budgets to create a crisis is to portray vouchers as a cheaper way to “save” schools. The bills that would force local boards to sell off publicly owned facilities for $1 each is also part of the overall scheme not only to destroy our schools, but also to make it fiscally impossible for us to recover them if we ever again elect a sane government. Too, districts had to make cuts in their budgets in precisely the areas that research says matter most: quality teachers, preschool, small classes, interventions for struggling students, and rigorous expectations and curriculum. See our report: http://www.equitycenter.org. Click on book, Money STILL Matters in bottom right corner.

Eighth, totally destroy public education with so-called universal vouchers. They have literally already published the handbook. You can find it numerous places on the web.

Ninth, start eliminating the vouchers and charters, little by little.

And, tenth, totally eliminate the costs of education from local, state, and national budgets, thereby providing another huge transfer of wealth through huge tax cuts to the already-billionaire class.

And then only the wealthy will have schools for their kids.

Aw, you may say. They can’t do that! My response is that yes, they most certainly will unless you and I stop it!”

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Alternate Route To Certification, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Pre-K, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, Texas, Vouchers

Why Did Educators Boo Duncan? Jennings Apologizes

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2013 //
67

I did not go to the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco, so was not aware of what is described in this post. Jennifer Jennings says that Arne Duncan was booed when he spoke, and she apologized to Secretary Duncan for the behavior of her fellow researchers.

Why was Secretary Duncan booed, and should AERA (or anyone else) apologize for the booing?

Booing is the behavior of the powerless. Educators are angry–and Jennings knows this–because of the top-down, authoritarian way in which Duncan has imposed policies that are bad for children, ruinous for teachers, and harmful to the quality of education. Jennings also knows that Duncan holds all the power. Educators may write blogs, opinion pieces, books, and research studies, and they will be completely ignored by Duncan. To say the least, he is uninterested in dialogue and unwilling to change his hardened belief that his policies are successful, no matter what anyone says.

In New York City, our mayor proudly announced that the public should hold him accountable for improving the public schools. After he spent $100 million or so to win a new term, someone in the press asked Mayor Bloomberg how the public could hold him accountable. He answered: “They can boo me at parades.”

How can we hold Secretary Duncan accountable?

He is silent as teachers and principals are fired based on test scores. He is silent as beloved schools are closed because of test scores. He is silent as cities turn their public schools over to entrepreneurs. He is silent as for-profit businesses take over public school districts and as for-profit charters proliferate. He is silent as more and more states adopt vouchers to send public money to religious schools. He is actively abetting the misuse of testing. He is actively supporting the forces of privatization.

We know now he will not change course. The only question is whether public education will survive Arne Duncan.

I condemn his misguided and harmful policies, not the researchers who used the only means of protest available to them. What he is doing to our children, our teachers, and our schools is far more offensive than booing. Will Arne Duncan ever apologize to the children, parents, and educators of America for what he has done and continues to do?

Categories Accountability, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

How the “Rich Boyz” of School Reform Struck Out in Boston

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2013 //
8

EduShyster here tells the heartwarming story of how DFER tried to elect one of their own in Boston (white, privileged, no experience or knowledge of public schools necessary) and lost.

If you recall, the California Democratic Party called out DFER as a front for Republican and corporate interests.

Here are the key paragraphs of the resolution:

“Whereas, the political action committee, entitled Democrats for Education Reform is funded by corporations, Republican operatives and wealthy individuals dedicated to privatization and anti-educator initiatives, and not grassroots democrats or classroom educators; and

“Whereas, the billionaires funding Students First and Democrats for Education Reform are supporting candidates and local programs that would dismantle a free public education for every student in California and replace it with company run charter schools, non-credentialed teachers and unproven untested so-called “reforms”;

“THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party reaffirms its commitment to free accessible public schools for all which offer a fair, substantive opportunity to learn with educators who have the right to be represented by their union, bargain collectively and have a voice in the policies which affect their schools, classrooms and their students…”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Massachusetts

How Education Generates Profits for the Canny

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2013 //
12

A reader sends this comment:

While Business fails in Education, Education is certainly good for Business:

1) Quick Turnaround Teachers are funded by Walton, Dell, Gates….http://www.teachforamerica.org/support-us/donors

2) Corporate-funded CCSS http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/01/idUS157777+01-Feb-2012+BW20120201

3) Backed by corporate-advertising http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM_G4Y7SX3g

4) Opening new corporate marketing channels http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/56868-scholastic-new-technology-programs-aimed-at-the-common-core.html

3) in corporate-funded charter schools http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/mediacenter/top-five-grantees

4) advocated by corporate-funded “front men” http://www.ctunet.com/blog/memphis-district-to-lose-212-million-to-charter-schools-by-2016

5) so corporations can steal children’s data without parental consent http://educationnewyork.com/files/FERPA-ccsss.pdf

6) So they can create more “personalized products” http://www.classsizematters.org/new-york-state-inbloom-inc-fact-sheet/

7) And them move on to PERPETUATE “corporate-takeover-of-education” policies http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2012/01/john_white_appointed_chief_of_louisiana_schools.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-FB

All we need now is for TV shows and Movies to start incorporating the benefits of Common Core into their character’s personalities. Actually, the whole takeover of education is almost like a movie script itself!!

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

“Education Drained of Its Humanity”

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2013 //
6

This thoughtful and provocative essay by Shawn Gude situates present-day corporate reform in its historical context. Gude shows the connections between early 20th century social efficiency and the present-day demand for testing, standardizing, and data-based decision-making.

Here is an excerpt:

“There’s a special resemblance between the struggles against scientific management, or Taylorism, and today’s teacher resistance to corporate reform schemes. Just as factory workers fought top-down dictates, deskilling, and the installation of anemic work processes, so too are teachers trying to prevent the undemocratic implementation of high-stakes testing and merit pay, assaults on professionalism, and the dumbing down and narrowing of curricula.

“There are more obvious parallels: Proponents of scientific management counted some prominent progressives in their ranks, just like the contemporary left-neoliberals hawking education reform. The nostrums of both Taylorism and the education accountability movement paper over foundational conflicts and root causes. Many of those who espouse education reform cast their solutions as unimpeachably “scientific” and “data-driven,” yet as with scientific management partisans, the empirical grounding of their prescriptions is highly dubious. And proponents of scientific management and corporate school reform share an antipathy toward unions, often casting them as self-interested inhibitors of progress.”

And here is another excerpt:

“When education is reduced to test prep, rich curricula and the craft of teaching are imperiled. The vapid classroom of neoliberal school reform mirrors the vapid workplace of Taylorism. Teach for America, which implicitly advances the idea that the sparsely trained can out-teach veteran educators, engenders deskilling and deprofessionalization. Non-practitioners dictating to practitioners how they should do their work mirrors management’s disciplining of workers; both militate against work as a creative activity. The appropriation of business language — the head of the Chicago Public Schools is the “CEO” — reinforces the idea that schools should be run like corporations. Merit pay individualizes and severs educators’ ties to one another, forcing them to compete instead of cooperate. So too with the anti-union animus that neoliberal reformers and scientific management proponents display.”

Read the essay. You will understand the roots of the corporate reforms of our day.

Categories Accountability, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, U.S. education

Good Riddance! Cyber School in Virginia May Close

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2013 //
5

The K12 cyber charter in Virginia may close.

The school enrolled 350 students.

The county “hosting” the school decided it was too much of a bother, and only five students from the host county were enrolled.

There have been persistent questions about the quality of virtual charter schools, but their profitability has never been in doubt.

K12 will go looking for another partner or the governor will find another way for them to make a profit by providing inferior education to students in Virginia.

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, On-Line Education
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