Archives for category: Education Reform
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Fred Smith: More Reasons for Parents in New York to Opt Out Again

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2019 //
33

 

Fred Smith is a testing expert in New York who worked for the NYC Board of Education for many years. He advises the opt out movement.

He writes:

“For five years, 2012 – 2016, Pearson Inc. had a free ride that cost taxpayers $38 million for tests aligned with the Common Core blah blah. Pearson was shielded in completing its run by the State Education Department, which allowed the company to operate without having to provide information about how its exams were functioning. There would be no timely or complete disclosure of data about test materials, such as item statistics, thwarting the opportunity for independent review of their quality; a gag order that prevented teachers from discussing flaws in the exams; top-down engenderment of fear and confusion among parents abetted by compliant superintendents and too many jittery administrators, denying parents information about their right to opt out, effectively keeping most parents marching along blindly to the annual testing beat; and all the while Pearson and NYSED flouting professional standards for educational testing, while most of the academic world watched silently.

“But by 2014 and 2015 a growing opt out movement arose on Long Island and upstate outside of New York City—brilliantly spearheaded by a few indignant parents activists who summoned the courage to say “NO” and drew on a well of leadership skills and organizing ability–the extent to which, perhaps, they did not know they possessed. And 20% of the children targeted for the tests sat them out. Evidence finally obtained from the state and the city revealed that the opposition the exams was fully justified. I urge readers of this influential tide-turning blog to Google a series of reports (“Tests Are Turning Our Kids Into Zeroes”) posted by the Benjamin Center for Public Policy Initiatives at SUNY, New Paltz.

“So where does that leave us? I would hope that parents and other interested parties draw upon our experience with Pearson. A two-stage plan of action is needed as Questar (Pearson’s successor) is about to enter the third year of its five-year, $44 million agreement with SED this April. Before this occurs, a reasonable demand by parents and advocates would be for immediate information about how Questar’s exams worked in 2017 and 2018. To date, such information has not been forthcoming. Lack of transparency and lack of accountability must no longer be accepted as SOP. Stage 2 would follow: If, in two weeks, we don’t get information that we know is already in hand, that should help drive home the message that opting out in April is a rational alternative and a direct way for the voice of parents to be heard. I believe that pushing back against the tests could unify grass roots groups throughout the city on a number of issues that focus the well-being of all children.”

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Students, Testing

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Is It Easy to be a Bad Guy?

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2019 //
61

 

 This is a short and fascinating video clip in which Congressman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez questions a panel of lobbyists about the ethics rules that govern members of Congress and that make it legal to accept donations from industry, own stock in those industries, and get very rich.

Categories Education Reform, Ethics

Angie Sullivan: “Reform” in Nevada is Teacher-Hatred

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2019 //
11

Angie Sullivan manages to write a regular eloquent letter to every legislator in Nevada.

She teaches young children in a high-poverty school in Las Vegas.

Here is her latest:

 

I think the Nevada State School Board is moving in the wrong direction and causing a lot of issues in CCSD.  
My priority would NOT be reform.  
Reform is code for:   HATE THE TEACHER. 
It does not work and it makes us mad.  
Reform is  “teacher hate”  bought by millionaire and billionaire eduphilantrophists.   It is also known as union busting.  We do not need another well-funded group that hates the people in the classroom.  You have abused us for a couple of decades and nearly ruined your school system.  Enough. 
 
Reform has a bad taint across the nation because it is associated with disruption and destruction.  Nothing of value replaced the chaos.  It is not enough to starve and destroy – you still have 320,000 students.  Most districts are abandoning failed reform systems which were expensive and not research based in the first place. 
Reform is a disguised attack teacher working conditions and due process.  The assumption being teachers caused the issue –  when the administration was failing.  Wrong target.  Hit the right place next time. 
Business management is not education leadership. 
Leadership creates synergy and productivity.  Management makes everyone scared and sad. 
Reform means mandates, demands, and crushing job tasks for teachers.  Regressively taxing teacher time and money.  Driving thousands from their education careers by using excessive burdens.  
Leadership should include folks with actual public school experience.   Someone who has studied education preferable.  This seems logical but we have not had someone like that – for awhile.  And it shows.  
Reform means leaders with a background in communications are paid well to attack teachers in the media.  If you ask reformers for their background – it is not often education.  It is usually sales.  Or marketing. 
Those who are associated with reform – are usually not educators, lead from the top instead of gaining labor buy-in, and misuse the funds.  
Reform means expensive computer programs but less staff to care for children.   Computer software is not capable of replacing a human being.  
We do not need to buy anymore $500 million systems.  A corporation should not be allowed to control the district.  
Reform means money changes hands in dirtydowntown and numbers are dark to keep it covered. 
We do not need more testing. Testing is not instruction.  Testing is not learning.  
Reform means authentic care and learning are ignored while schools focus all resources on testing.  Kids are more than a score.  
We do not need to attack Vegas neighborhood schools. 
Reform means takeover and turnaround for public schools in minority at-risk Vegas instead of actually addressing the real failing schools (Rural and Charters – both are predominantly white).  Brown folks are easier to attack.  Enough with the racism.  
We do not need or privatize or sell our schools to for-profit corporations.  
Reform means $350 million in Nevada Charters creating the worst performing, non-graduating, for-profit corporate, and bankrupt system in the state.  
We do not need any more consultants.
Reform means young folks imported from Tennessee, Chicago, Oakland to preach to old grizzled teaching veterans.  A nice suit does not mean you know a thing.   And they open their mouths and it is confirmed – nothing.  I am sure they are paid well.  
We do not anymore reformers.   They just do not know what they are doing.  We tried it their way for a couple of decades and millions of kids suffered.  
How about some good old education leadership?  
 
Clean the house of corruption.  Void bad deals.  Cancel bad contracts.   Review leases.  
 
Shut down the charters.  
 
Get the finances in order.  
 
And hire a fully prepared, skilled and dedicated teacher for every classroom – who is then retained by good working conditions.   Supplies.  Reasonable class size.  
 
Teaching needs to happen.  Not junk science bought by someone on a ship while drunk.  
It’s not exciting.   It works.  
The Teacher,
Angie. 
PS.  Nevada State Board Memers should not  be given $10 million contracts.  We should make a law that puts folks in jail for that.   But would we have a board left?  
Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers

New York Magazine: Cory Booker Has a School Choice Problem

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2019 //
43

 

The Democratic party is discovering that unions–which have greatly shrunken due to the attacks by right-wingers like Scott Walker and Rick Snyder–are part of their base. They are also discovering that school privatization is not an issue that belongs in the Democratic toolkit.

The 2020 candidate with the biggest school choice problem, writes Ed Kilgore at New York magazine, is Cory Booker. 

Kilgore writes that Booker

might be able to explain away his reputation for being a reliable friend of Wall Street as a matter of virtual constituent services given the financial industry’s importance to New Jersey and to the city of Newark where he served as mayor for seven years. But a more concrete problem involves his long history of support for any and every kind of school choice, including not just the charter public schools the Clinton and Obama administrations supported, but the private-school vouchers that most Democrats stridently oppose. What makes this history a fresh concern is the fact that Booker was once a close ally of the DeVos family, the Michigan gazillionaires and education privatization champions who gave the world Donald Trump’s secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Kara Voght has the story:

In 1999, when he was still a city councilman, Booker worked with a conservative financier and a New Jersey Republican mayor to co-found Excellent Education for Everyone, a group dedicated to establishing a school voucher program in the Garden State. The following year, Dick DeVos—the Republican megadonor, school choice evangelist, and husband to the nation’s 11th education secretary—invited the 31-year-old Newark councilman up to his home base of Grand Rapids, Michigan, to speak in defense of a ballot measure that would lift the state’s ban on school voucher programs …

Booker’s association with the DeVos couple continued as he progressed from City Council to Newark’s mayoral seat in 2006 to the US Senate in 2013. In the mid-2000s, Booker and DeVos served together on the board of directors of Alliance for School Choice (AFC), the precursor to the American Federation for Children, which DeVos eventually chaired. Booker twice spoke at the AFC’s annual School Choice Policy Summit: once in 2012 as a mayor and again in 2016 as a senator.

Let me be clear. If Booker is the Democratic candidate against Trump, I will vote for him. I will vote for anyone on the Democratic line against Trump. I will not vote for Booker in the Democratic primary. His support for charters and vouchers is unacceptable to me. I am an education voter. I am also a voter who wants to see higher taxes on the 1%, both a wealth tax (as Elizabeth Warren proposes) and a higher marginal tax rate for those who receive more than $10 million a year (as Alexandria Ocasio Cortez proposes). Booker is unacceptable to me because he will protect Wall Street and the billionaires while supporting school choice, like Trump, DeVos, the Waltons, and the Koch brothers.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

How Did a High School in NYC Fall from “Outstanding” to “Failing” In 12 Years?

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2019 //
19

 

 

Andrea Dupre taught at Murray Bergtraum High School in Manhattan. It was one of the best high schools in the nation in 1999. By 2011, it was a “failing” school.

She explains here what happened.

Another version:

https://outline.com/sY3mnH

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Education Reform, New York City

The Opioid Crisis: Who Should Be Held Accountable?

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2019 //
19

 

Over 200,000 people have died due to opioid addiction. The lead manufacturer of OxyContin is Purdue Pharmaceuticals in Connecticut. The company salespeople assured doctors and nurses that opioids were safe and effective.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maureen Healey is suing the company and members of its board of directors for the damage done by their drug.  The mai owners of Purdue are the Sackler Family, whose net worth exceeds $14 billion.

AG Healey wants to hold them accountable.

One of the main “charities” of Jonathan Sackler is charter schools. He has financed them in Connecticut through his organization called CONNCan. He has also financed 50CAN, which aims to spread charters nationally. He serves on the boards of other charter groups.

Read AG Healey’s devastating account of the family’s and directors’ actions.

https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2019/01/31/Massachusetts%20AGO%20Amended%20Complaint%202019-01-31.pdf?_ga=2.233141022.1274067287.1549222015-666842443.1549222015

The Sacklers produced and marketed a drug that destroyed many lives. Now they use their fortune to endow museums and destroy public schools.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Denis Smith Warns West Virginia: Avoid Charter Schools!

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2019 //
2

 

Teachers across the state of West Virginia walked out last spring. Every school in the state was closed until the teachers got a 5% pay raise and other concessions. Among them, the governor promised to block charter legislation.

Now the Republican dominated legislature is moving forward with legislation for charters, vouchers, and cybercharters. One assumes this is punishment for last year’s actions.

Denis Smith warns the legislators and people of West Virginia that the legislation is an invitation to waste, fraud, abuse, theft, and grifters. 

He writes:

In the last several days, I took some time to examine Senate Bill 451 and its provisions for establishing charter schools in West Virginia. My interest in doing so was based on my previous service as a school administrator in the state, as well as 11 years of experience in Ohio as an administrator for a charter school authorizer and as a consultant in the charter school office of the Ohio Department of Education.

It is this experience in both public education and the charter school environment that allows me to urge West Virginia citizens to do everything possible to halt this odious legislation.

After more than 20 years of growth nationally, it is noteworthy that some of the trend lines for charters are on the decline. This experiment with deregulation has resulted in massive corruption, fraud and diminished learning opportunities for young people.

As a state monitor, I observed a number of incompetent people serve as charter school administrators because Ohio state law has no minimum educational requirements nor any professional licensing prerequisites for school leaders.

In addition, numerous conflicts-of-interest, including a board member serving as landlord and management companies charging exorbitant rents for properties conveniently used for charter schools, are only part of the problem of the charter experiment.

In Ohio, where charters have operated for 20 years, the trend line is down significantly. From a high point of more than 400 schools, 340 are operating today. Moreover, there is a junk pile of failed charters that have closed. The Ohio Department of Education website lists 292 schools that are shuttered, with some closing in mid-year, disrupting the lives of students and their families. Moreover, total charter school enrollment in the state is down by more than 16,000 students since 2013, the peak year of charter operations in the Buckeye State.

The West Virginia omnibus measure allows online schools to operate, as does Ohio and other states. But last year, Ohio’s Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, one of the largest e-schools in the country, closed amid scandal, where the owner and his administrators funneled millions of dollars in donations to friendly state legislators while padding enrollment numbers to gain state education payments.

In my home state of Pennsylvania, there is also a growing scandal involving an online school. The West Virginia Legislature has not heeded these lessons to be learned from its neighboring states that have been in the troubled charter school business for decades.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization, School Choice, Virtual Charter Schools, West Virginia

Cory Booker: What Educators and Parents Need to Know

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2019 //
48

 

 

Mitchell Robinson of Michigan State University explains why he could not support for Cory Booker for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

He writes:

I really don’t want to be a single-issue voter, but education will almost always be the most important issue for me–and Booker is catastrophically wrong and bad on education. His corporate leanings and pro-pharma stance are just the gravy for me on Booker.

So, if you like for-profit charters, then Cory Booker is your guy.

If you want to privatize public education, then Cory Booker is your guy.

If you think that state tax dollars should go toward vouchers to pay for private and religious school tuition, then Cory Booker is your guy.

If you think that Betsy DeVos’ education policies are making schools work better for kids, families, and communities, then Cory Booker is your guy.

And if you think that scapegoating the “failing public schools” takes the heat off your candidate’s support of a corrupt Wall St., or the crushing costs of prescription drugs, or our nightmare of a health care system, then Cory Booker is your guy.

But if you think it’s about time for the Democratic Party to return to their historic support of public education, and teachers unions, and abandon their somewhat recent neo-liberal dalliance with charter schools, and school privatization, and the corporate reform of education agenda, then look for a candidate who isn’t a charter member of “Democrats for Education Reform” (spoiler alert: they aren’t Democrats, and they aren’t *for* education), and who doesn’t have more ties to Betsy DeVos than her yachts have non-US flags, and who was willing to work with Chris Christie to sell-out Newark’s schools to Mark Zuckerberg.

None of this this is new.

This article appeared in Education Week in 2013. Nothing has changed. Cory Booker is still a supporter of charters and vouchers, no different from Betsy DeVos except she’s a billionaire and he raises money from Wall Street billionaires.

Things Educators Need to Know About Cory Booker

Education Week By Alyson Klein October 29, 2013

New Jersey voters this month picked Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a Democrat, to fill the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, also a Democrat, who died in June. Mr. Booker already has a national profile on education issues.

1. ‘Democrat for Education Reform’: Mr. Booker was a galvanizing force in the past decade bringing together a cadre of high-powered, deep-pocketed Wall Street donors with an interest in education policy, to support his early races for city council and mayor. The group eventually became Democrats for Education Reform, now the signature political action committee for left-of-center politicians who are fans of less-than-traditional Democratic policies, including charter schools and teacher performance pay. The group’s founders “knew each other before, but they got involved in politics together to support Cory Booker,” said Joe Williams, the executive director of dfer. The pac poured some quarter-million dollars into Mr. Booker’s Senate campaign, Mr. Williams estimated.

2. Voucher Supporter: Mr. Booker is among a handful of prominent Democrats nationally to support private school vouchers, and championed a proposed New Jersey law that would have created a voucher program in that state. He co-founded Excellent Education for Everyone, a nonprofit organization that sought to promote vouchers and charter schools in New Jersey. The push won backing from other well-known New Jersey Democrats but was ultimately unsuccessful.

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/10/30/10electionsenator.h33.html

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

A Structural Engineer Explains What’s Wrong with Trump’s Wall

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2019 //
46

 

I tried to watch or listen to the State of the Union. I didn’t have much success because I kept yelling at the television.

I borrowed this post from Andrew Tobias, who writes a blog almost every night. I hope he won’t mind. I give him credit. You might want to sign up for his blog. He is great on every subject except charter schools.

Listen To A Structural Forensicist

Have you seen Amy Patrick’s viral Facebook post?  “Let’s have border security, by all means,” she says, “but let’s be smart about it. [The wall] is not smart. It’s not effective. It’s NOT cheap. The returns will be diminishing as technology advances. This is a ridiculous idea that will never be successfully executed and, as such, would be a monumental waste of money.”

To wit:

I’m a licensed structural and civil engineer with a MS in structural engineering from the top program in the nation and over a decade of experience on high-performance projects, and particularly of cleaning up design disasters where the factors weren’t properly accounted for, and I’m an adjunct professor of structural analysis and design at UH-Downtown. I have previously been deposed as an expert witness in matters regarding proper construction of walls and the various factors associated therein, and my testimony has passed Daubert.

Am I a wall expert? I am. I am literally a court-accepted expert on walls.

Structurally and civil engineering-wise, the border wall is not a feasible project. Trump did not hire engineers to design the thing. He solicited bids from contractors, not engineers. This means it’s not been designed by professionals. It’s a disaster of numerous types waiting to happen.

What disasters?

Off the top of my head…

1) It will mess with our ability to drain land in flash flooding. Anything impeding the ability of water to get where it needs to go (doesn’t matter if there are holes in the wall or whatever) is going to dramatically increase the risk of flooding.

2) Messes with all kind of stuff ecologically. For all other projects, we have to do an Environmental Site Assessment, which is arduous. They’re either planning to circumvent all this, or they haven’t accounted for it yet, because that’s part of the design process, and this thing hasn’t been designed.

3) The prototypes they came up with are nearly impossible to build or don’t actually do the job. This article explains more.

And so on.

The estimates provided for the cost are arrived at unreasonably. You can look for yourself at the two-year-old estimate that you see everyone citing.

It does not account for rework, complexities beyond the prototype design, factors to prevent flood and environmental hazard creation, engineering redesign… It’s going to be higher than $50bn. The contractors will hit the government with near CONSTANT change orders. “Cost overrun” will be the name of the game. It will not be completed in Trump’s lifetime.

I’m a structural forensicist, which means I’m called in when things go wrong. This is a project that WILL go wrong. When projects go wrong, the original estimates are just *obliterated*. And when that happens, good luck getting it fixed, because there aren’t that many forensicists out there to right the ship, particularly not that are willing to work on a border wall project— a large quotient of us are immigrants, and besides, we can’t afford to bid on jobs that are this political. We’re small firms, and we’re already busy, and we don’t gamble our reputations on political footballs. So you’d end up with a revolving door of contractors making a giant, uncoordinated muddle of things, and it’d generally be a mess. Good money after bad. The GAO agrees with me.

And it won’t be effective. I could, right now, purchase a 32 foot extension ladder and weld a cheap custom saddle for the top of the proposed wall so that I can get over it. I don’t know who they talked to about the wall design and its efficacy, but it sure as heck wasn’t anybody with any engineering imagination.

Another thing: we are not far from the day where inexpensive drones will be able to pick up and carry someone. This will happen in the next ten years, and it’s folly to think that the coyotes who ferry people over the border won’t purchase or create them. They’re low enough, quiet enough, and small enough to quickly zip people over any wall we could build undetected with our current monitoring setup.

Let’s have border security, by all means, but let’s be smart about it. This is not smart. It’s not effective. It’s NOT cheap. The returns will be diminishing as technology advances, too. This is a ridiculous idea that will never be successfully executed and, as such, would be a monumental waste of money.

 

 

Categories Education Reform

Despite Charter Failure in Michigan, DeVos Awards $47 Million to Her State for More

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2019 //
24

Over the past decade, Michigan has become a national symbol of charter failure. As choice expanded, public school funding declined. Michigan’s NAEP scores fell from the middle of the pack to the bottom 10. Michigan is the only state where 80% of charters operate for profit. Most charters are concentrated inDetroit, which is the lowest performing urban district in The nation.

Betsy DeVos Just awarded $47 million to Michigan to open more charters.

Why does she stay Ina job when she has become a laughing stock? Because Congress gives her more than $400 million to hand out to charters.

 

Help Guide the Launch, Expansion & Replication of Great Charters!


The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) was recently awarded a $47 million Charter Schools Program grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The main goal of the grant is to award subgrants up to $1,250,000 to applicants that are prepared and ready to successfully launch, expand or replicate innovative and effective schools that will provide quality options for underserved populations.

To help accomplish this goal, the MDE has engaged the National Charter Schools Institute to assemble and coordinate a team of experienced and highly skilled professionals to serve on three-person application review teams. 


Each reviewer will be responsible for analyzing up to four applications and calibrating their individual assessment with those of their three-person review team, so a consensus report containing constructive feedback can be provided to each applicant prior to submitting their official grant application to MDE. 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, For-Profit, Funding, Michigan, Privatization
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