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New York: Regents Set to Adopt Harsh Test-and-Punish Regime

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2017 //
51

Despite the failure of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, despite the cruel pressures of this approach on very young children, the New York State Board of Regents is set to adopt a punitive plan (to meet the requirements of the new “Every Student Succeeds Act”). Common sense and concern for education values appears to have disappeared from Albany.

Cruelest of all: the state will retain the absurd Common Core standards for the littlest children, K-2 (with a new name, of course).

Districts with high numbers of opt outs will be punished.

Here is the summary in Newsday, by John Hildebrand, showing how little impact parent activism has had on the Board of Regents. Sorry to note, the state teachers’ union applauds these retrograde decisions. (Postscript: I hear the state teachers’ union is discussing their position, so the quote in this article may not be the last word.P

“ALBANY — Sweeping new objectives for school districts and students, with potential effects on controversial state tests and academic standards, are on the state Board of Regents agenda at its first meeting since classes resumed for the 2017-18 academic year.

“The 17-member educational policy board on Monday will tackle the issue of regulating districts as it works toward agreement on enforcement of the revamped federal law called the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. New York, like many other states, must submit its enforcement plan to the U.S. Department of Education by Sept. 18 for final approval.

“A 200-page draft plan, under review since May, would regulate schools on a range of objectives important to Long Island.

“Those include steps to discourage students from boycotting state tests — a movement that last spring swept up about 19 percent of more than 1 million students statewide in grades three through eight eligible to take the exams. That included about 90,000 students in Nassau and Suffolk counties, more than 50 percent of the region’s test-takers in those grades.

“Later on Monday, the Regents are scheduled to approve new academic standards, formerly known as Common Core and recently renamed as Next Generation Learning standards. The detailed guidelines — 1,048 standards in English and 450 in math — encompass classroom lessons from preschool through 12th grade statewide.

“The actions, while distinct from one another, are largely intended to settle controversies over student testing and school accountability that began rocking the state more than seven years ago. Though disagreements continue, policy experts said the Regents’ upcoming actions could set the state’s educational course for years to come.

“They’re kind of like cornerstone initiatives,” said Robert Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents and a veteran observer of Albany politics. “The standards define what students are supposed to learn, and ESSA defines how schools will be held accountable for teaching students.”

“Highlights of proposals the Regents are expected to consider include:

“School districts that don’t meet federal requirements for student participation in testing — and that includes all but a handful of districts on the Island — would have to draft plans for improvement. Systems that don’t improve would face potential intervention by a regional BOCES district or the state.

“The goal for high school graduation rates would eventually rise to 95 percent statewide, from a current level of slightly more than 80 percent. State education officials have not decided how diploma requirements might be revised to make that reachable.

“In rating school districts’ academic performance, greater recognition would be given to students who score well on college-level exams sponsored by the Advanced Placement program and by International Baccalaureate.

“For some districts, that could help balance out low performance by other students on the state’s own grade-level tests.

“Greater weight also would be given for student improvement, or “growth,” on state tests, as opposed to recognizing only the percentage of students who reach proficiency level. This reflects the intent of the Every Student Succeeds Act, signed into law in 2015 by President Barack Obama, which was to provide states with greater flexibility in regulating schools than was possible under the former federal law known as No Child Left Behind.

“Questions linger over whether the proposals will have an effect on stemming the test-refusal movement, especially on the Island.

“Jeanette Deutermann of North Bellmore, chief organizer of the Long Island Opt Out network, predicted that test boycotts in the region will continue unabated as long as the state sticks with academic standards that she and many other parents believe place too much stress on students.

“Deutermann pointed especially to standards in the earliest grades.

“Pre-kindergarten standards say all students should write their numerals to five,” she said. “Some kids are just learning how to hold a pencil.”

“At the state level, education leaders credit the Regents’ leadership and Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia for listening to their concerns and quieting debate over tests and related issues. Statewide, the percentage of those opting out of the spring English and math exams was down 2 percentage points from 2016.

“New York State United Teachers, a statewide union umbrella group that once fiercely opposed federal and state efforts to tie test results to teacher performance evaluations, recently expressed support for much of the state’s plan to enforce ESSA.

“Overall, it’s reasonable and rational,” said Andy Pallotta, president of the 600,000-member NYSUT organization, during an interview on WCNY-FM, an upstate public radio station. “I think we’re on the way.”

Categories Early Childhood Education, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Graduation rates, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing

Massachusetts: State Fines Dark Money Group $426,000 in Charter Battle

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2017 //
82

In November 2016, the state of Massachusetts held a referendum about whether to expand the number of charters in the state. Millions of dollars were spent on both sides, but the pro-charter groups spent twice as much as the anti-charter groups (mostly funded by teachers’ unions).

Much of the large pro-charter funding was bundled by a group called Families for Excellebt Schools. The names of many individual donors were not released. That’s called “dark money.” It enables the group to pretend to be worried families, eager to enroll their chilren in charter schools, when they are actually billionaires and millionaires who want to promote privatization. One member of the group is billionaire Alice Walton of Arkansas. Another is the chairman of the state board in Massachusetts, who offered nearly $500,000 to undermine public education in a state where he is in control.

FES pulled the same shenanigans in New York, pumping millions into a campaign to persuade the legislature to shower charters with perks and public space and money. But it didn’t work in the Bay State.

Families for Excellent Schools has been ordered to pay a fine of $426,500 for violating campaign finance laws in the state.

“An advocacy organization that gave more than $15 million to a Massachusetts ballot campaign to lift the cap on charter schools has agreed to pay $426,500 to settle allegations of campaign finance violations.

“The Office of Campaign and Political Finance alleged that Families for Excellent Schools contributed money to the ballot campaign in a way that was designed to hide the identity of its donors. The organization denies any wrongdoing.

“This is the largest settlement ever collected by Massachusetts’ Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

“Massachusetts voters deserve to know the identity of all those who attempt to influence them before Election Day,” said Office of Campaign and Political Finance Director Michael Sullivan in a press release. “Complete and accurate disclosure of campaign activity is the goal of OCPF and the cornerstone of the campaign finance law.”

“Families for Excellent Schools is a New York-based advocacy group, which gave $15.3 million to Great Schools Massachusetts, the ballot committee promoting a question in 2016 that would have lifted the cap on charter schools. The question failed at the polls.”

Indeed, the question failed overwhelmingly at the polls.

Families for Excellent Schools agreed not to engage in any election-related activities in the state for four years.

The fine is Penny ante for a group like FES, but it is satisfying to see them get caught hiding the names of donors.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, Funding, Massachusetts, Privatization

Oh, Dear! NYC Success Academy Recruiting Teachers in Seattle!

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2017 //
26

We understand that Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charters in New York City have a hard time holding on to teachers. We understand that in some of the charters the teacher attrition rate is as high as 50-60% annually. We know some of the reviews on Glass Door by former teachers at SA are scathing. That explains why the SUNY charter committee wants to lower standards for charter teachers and let the charters certify their own teachers, to speed up recruitment.

What we didn’t know is that Success Academy in New York City has sent recruiters to Seattle in search of teachers.

The working conditions for teachers in many states are bad and getting worse. But the answer to teacher shortages is to improve working conditions, not to poach from other cities.

Categories Education Reform

Peter Greene: My Do-Over! Public Schools Are Not Charities!

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2017 //
9

A regular reader pointed out that I mistakenly posted the same Peter Greene column twice–on the branded classroom.

I had a senior moment!

To make up for it, I am posting Peter’s wonderful new review of the XQ extravaganza.

He points out that the show was like a Jerry Lewis telethon to “save” public schools. But public schools are not a charity: they are “a civic institution, a civic duty, a civic obligation.”

He writes:

“Charity is optional for the giver. Only give what you feel you can afford when you feel you can afford it. Charitable giving makes you feel good precisely because you didn’t have to do it. And you can give what you feel like giving (pro tip– for disasters like Harvey and Irma, send money, not shit that volunteers have to that may or may not be any use). You could send money, but you could also volunteer to put on a show or, you know, send thoughts and prayers. If you have better things to spend your money on, well then, the charity will just have to wait. Shouldn’t be a problem because…

“Charity is optional for the receiver. Sure, the thinking goes, it would be nice if they had a little more money to work with, but if that money doesn’t come in, they’ll scrape by somehow. You know how resourceful those poor folks are.

“Too much charity is bad. Wouldn’t want to make people dependent. Besides, this kind of support isn’t really sustainable, so we’d better not overdo it.

“Charity has to be earned. Of course, we only give charity to people who show they deserve it by displaying proper character or proper goals or proper deference with their betters who have the money. Or they can deserve it by having a really sad story. Undercover Boss is infuriating because in every episode we hear a sad story about someone who can barely support their struggling family/sick child/aging parent on the shitty wages and benefits that the company pays, so in almost every episode, the boss makes things better for that one employee, not asking if perhaps his company’s shitty wages and benefits might be hard on Every Other Employee!

“Charter schools are frequently pitched as charities, and charteristas like that favorite reformster chorus “Well, we saved that one kid from terrible public schools” while steadfastly refusing to talk about the 600 students still in that “terrible public school” or the obligation, as members of the civic body, to help that public school. Because…

“I gave at the office. Charity allows you to pretend that you’ve fulfilled any obligation you had to deal with the issue. Send the check in, then check out. Cash and dash. Drive-by do-gooding….

“Treating schools for poor kids (because, really, are we talking about any others) as charities let’s people glide by the whole idea that they have any kind of obligation to educate all children, including Those Peoples’ Children in That Part of Town. It allows a bunch of people to say, “Well, since I’ve given some support to a miracle school filled with hero teachers, my work is done. And I feel great about it.”

“When the critical mass of Americans (or at least a critical mass of people in power) decide to commit to doing something, they do it. There were no bake sales for the Apollo program or car washes to support the war in Afghanistan. We just did it, price tag be damned. When I contemplate the XQ telethon, I come back to the same old depressing conclusion– one of the fundamental reasons we don’t solve the problems of public education is that we don’t really want to. We just want to pretend we’re kind of trying while making sure the business is not too expensive. Please don’t tax me for the real amount of equitable public education for all– but I will drop a couple of dollars in the collection plate, and my friend here will do a nice song and dance. Now we’ve done our part– please go away and don’t bother us about this for a year or so.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform

Samuel Abrams Responds to Barron’s Takedown of His Book and the Editor Makes a Snarky Comment

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2017 //
18

Samuel Abrams, veteran high school teacher and now Director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, at Teachers College, Columbia University, wrote an excellent book about the perils of for-profit schooling. Most of the book tells the story of the rise and calamitous fall of the Edison Project. The business magazine Barron’s published a scathing review of the book by anti-public school ideologue Bob Bowdon, whose film “The Cartel” compared the New Jersey teachers’ union to the mafia.

Samuel Abrams wrote a response to the review. Here is the original letter, followed by the heavily edited published version:

The original letter to the editor:

To the Editor:

In faulting me in his review of Education and the Commercial Mindset for focusing on the failure of Edison Schools rather than the success of National Heritage Academies (NHA), Bob Bowdon misses a central point of my book (“Balancing the Books: Slurring Charter Schools,” Sept. 4).

Edison was the standard-bearer of a movement hailed by Wall Street analysts in the 1990s to outsource the operation of public schools to for-profit educational management organizations (EMOs). Analysts forecasted that Edison and similar EMOs surfacing in its wake would run 10 to 20 percent of the country’s public schools by 2010 and reward investors handsomely. By 2010, the portion of public schools run by EMOs was 0.7 percent and has not changed since. Moreover, investors in Edison saw the stock plummet 90 percent from when it was taken public with much fanfare by Merrill Lynch in 1999 to the time it was taken over in 2003 by the private equity firm Liberty Partners, which, in turn, sold the company in 2013 for 80 percent less than it had paid.

While NHA has indeed tripled in size since 2001 to 84 schools today, as Bowdon writes, this growth along with that of other for-profit EMOs such as the Leona Group and Mosaica constitutes a blip relative to what analysts had predicted.

Furthermore, in contending that I ignored the consistent proliferation of charter schools, Bowdon misses another central point of my book. As I wrote in my prologue, “With the number of charter schools as a whole—from solo operations to network members—growing from 2 in Minnesota in 1992 to 6,440 across 42 states and the District of Columbia by 2013, the appeal and force of educational outsourcing cannot be questioned.”

Finally, in dismissing my argument that the complexity of primary and secondary schooling does not afford parents the transparency essential to conventional contract enforcement, Bowdon cites the complexity of Android and Apple smartphones as proof that complexity itself presents no barrier to the commercial model. Bowdon thus misses yet a third central point of my book.

While smartphones as well as their networks are clearly complex, they are discrete goods and services, respectively, and consequently comport with the commercial model because their effectiveness may be easily judged. In the case of primary and secondary schooling, however, the immediate consumer is a child or adolescent while the parent is at a necessary distance. School districts are accordingly well justified in outsourcing discrete services like busing or food preparation to commercial operators but not a complex service like school management. The implicit information asymmetry in the latter case generates significant potential for moral hazard.

Samuel E. Abrams

New York, N.Y.

Here is the heavily edited and sharply reduced version that Barron’s published, along with a defensive comment by the book editor:

Missing the Point

To the Editor:

In faulting me in his review of Education and the Commercial Mindset for focusing on the failure of Edison Schools rather than the success of National Heritage Academies, or NHA, Bob Bowdon misses a central point of my book (“Slurring Charter Schools,” Balancing the Books, Sept. 2).

Edison was the standard-bearer of a movement hailed by Wall Street analysts in the 1990s to outsource the operation of public schools to for-profit educational management organizations. Analysts forecasted that Edison and similar EMOs surfacing in its wake would run 10% to 20% of the country’s public schools by 2010 and reward investors handsomely. By 2010, the portion of public schools run by EMOs was 0.7% and hasn’t changed since. Moreover, investors in Edison saw the stock plummet 90% from when it was taken public with much fanfare by Merrill Lynch in 1999, to the time it was taken over in 2003 by the private-equity firm Liberty Partners, which, in turn, sold Edison in 2013 for 80% less than it had paid.

Samuel E. Abrams
New York City

Editor Gene Epstein replies: Bowdon wrote that Edison was a case of “switching a government-run monopoly for a privately run monopoly.” That was the reason he dismissed Edison for not being an example of competitive alternatives to government-run schools. Abrams misses this central point, apparently expecting Bowdon to be impressed by the fact that Edison was “hailed by Wall Street analysts.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Bad News for Bridge International Academies

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2017 //
26

The Liberian government received a report on the various for-profit corporations providing schooling. The bottom line: scores went up, but the cost of services varied dramatically. The most expensive of all the providers was Bridge International Academies, the for-profit corporation that is funded by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and other luminaries of the tech sector. Their costs were so much higher than that of any other service that it is doubtful that they are sustainable.

The so-called Partnership schools received double the funding of the public schools: $100 instead of only $50. And the Ministry of Education made sure that the Partnership schools were well-supplied with teachers, including the best-trained.

Four of the networks managed to produce results for less than $100 per pupil. Bridge, however, cost more than $1,000 per pupil, a figure dramatically higher than any other network, and their results were not markedly better.

Will Nicholas Kristof reconsider his fulsome praise for Bridge International Academies? The skeptics were right to be concerned about sustainability and scalability. Why did the billionaires think it was a good idea to try to turn a profit off the backs of the poorest people in the world? These Silicon Valley geniuses may be good at selling product, but they are not very good at creating or providing an education system.

Download the brief here.  Download the report here.

 

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, International, Privatization

Laura Chapman: Why The Gamification of Education Fails

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2017 //
19

I wrote a post about my experience playing “Words with Friends” and how my intrinsic desire to play the game was undermined by the offer of digital badges.

How “Words with Friends” Proved to Me that Edward Deci Is Right about Motivation

Laura Chapman wisely related my e periencevto the growing trend to introduce video games into the classroom and incentivize students with digital badges.

She writes:

“The “gamification of education” is one aspect of the effort to shove apps and software into schools, call it personalized learning while teaching lessons about competition not unlike those Diane reports in this blog.

“Here is a recent study, and not the only one, where the gamification feature does not produce gains in learninng.

Computers & Education

Volume 80, January 2015, Pages 152-161 by Michael D. Hanus and Jesse Fox

“Gamification, the application of game elements to non-game settings, continues to grow in popularity as a method to increase student engagement in the classroom.

“We tested students across two courses, measuring their motivation, social comparison, effort, satisfaction, learner empowerment, and academic performance at four points during a 16-week semester.

“One course received a gamified curriculum, featuring a leaderboard and badges, whereas the other course received the same curriculum without the gamified elements.

“Our results found that students in the gamified course showed less motivation, satisfaction, and empowerment over time than those in the non-gamified class. The effect of course type on students’ final exam scores was mediated by students’ levels of intrinsic motivation, with students in the gamified course showing less motivation and lower final exam scores than the non-gamified class.

“This suggests that some care should be taken when applying certain gamification mechanics to educational settings.

“I scanned several other studies. Middle school students, for example, showed initial interest in game-like presentations of content, but they lost interest in the “do this and get a badge, or try again” formula thinly disguised as quests or adventures.

“Younger students in gamified classrooms are learning less about content and more about their status relative to peers in a computer display and dashboard environment that is the equivalent of a class list with stars for “good students” and nothing at all for others. The great variation is gold, silver, and bronze stars. The badge system for “competency based personalized education” is marketed as if revolutionary. I think not.”

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

John Merrow Reviews Laurene P. Jobs’ Timid TV Bash of Our High Schools

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2017 //
7

John Merrow watched the show funded by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs and presented, monopoly-style, on four major channels simultaneously (NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX). Why no CNN? Why no MSNBC? Why no QVC? Why no cooking channels? Just asking.

Merrow concluded that the show was lacking any reference to history, e perience, or knowledge (other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?)

An excerpt of what might have been:

“As I see it, the program wanted to look bold without criticizing the ‘school reform’ crowd that still controls most of what happens in schools. It could have been bold. It could–and should–have said “Most high schools treat kids like numbers, their scores on standardized tests. That has to change…and here’s how it can happen, how it is happening.” But in order to do that, the narrative would have had to renounce and reject not just Republican education policies of “No Child Left Behind” but also those of the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top,” widely supported by Democrats for Education Reform and other traditional ‘school reformers.’ Given that Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan now works for Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, that wasn’t going to happen.

“Last night’s program was high energy and cute without being daring. For example, it had a clever ‘red carpet’ segment but with teachers as the stars. Lots of cheering, but that was it. That’s sadly timid. Imagine if Melissa Rivers, the host on the red carpet, had asked teachers the question she always asks the Hollywood stars: “You look marvelous. What are you wearing tonight?’

“And picture a male teacher responding: “These old things? I bought these khakis 12 or 13 years ago. I was going to buy a new pair for tonight, but I just spent $380 on basic supplies for my classroom. Oh, and would it be rude of me to ask how much your outfit cost?”

“Imagine a female teacher responding, “What am I wearing? Actually, I’d rather talk about tomorrow’s field trip….I’m taking my kids to the Getty Museum, where they will….. see provocative art and meet contemporary artists. And the next day my students will be on Skype, talking with students in a high school in Paris about climate change. We’ve been measuring the air quality here and sharing the data with them for purposes of comparison and analysis. But I have to charge the kids for the bus to the Museum and I had to ask some wealthy parents to pay for the scientific equipment because the school district has been cutting our instructional budget.”

“And another teacher could have said, “To be honest, I’m happy for this attention, but I can’t help but thinking about the fact that you make 17 or 18 times more money per year than I do.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Media, Privatization, Propaganda, Testing

Viola Davis: Don’t Forget the Teachers and Public School That Changed Your Life

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2017 //
13

Viola Davis is one of the most gifted actors of our time. She has won the Tony Award, the Academy Award, and many other awards. She has never forgotten her humble origins and those who helped her rise to the top.

When she received the Tony award in 2010, she gave a powerful speech. She thanked God, her parents, and her teachers at Central Falls High School in Central Falls, Rhode Island. In that order.

I recall leaping to my feet when I heard her speak in 2010, because that was the very time when the city of Central Falls and the state of Rhode Island threatened to fire the entire staff of the High School that Viola Davis attended. To fire them en masse, from the principal to the lunch room staff. Arne Duncan congratulated the state officials for having the “courage” to fire everyone, and President Obama echoed Arne’s insult.

It was also the year of “Waiting for Superman,” and the corporate assault on the public schools went into high gear.

But then there was Viola Davis, thanking her teachers. I learned later that her own sister was a teacher at Central Falls HS.

But…but…but…then, Viola Davis took a leading role in the film “Won’t Back Down,” funded and produced by arch-evangelical billionaire Philip Anschutz (one of the “Superman” funders). “Won’t Back Down” celebrates the parent trigger, telling the fictional story of a parent and a teacher who were so disgusted with their public school that they gathered signatures and flipped the school over to a charter operator. I didn’t get to see the movie because it opened in 2,500 theatres (Anschutz owns the Regal theatre chain) and its receipts were so bad that it closed within a month and disappeared.

Last night, Viol Davis moderated Laurene Powell Jobs’ XQ extravaganza, which asserted that high schools are obsolete and need to be reinvented.

Viola Davis, please watch the speech you gave at the Oscars at 2010.

We need a real champion for public schools.

Trump and DeVos want to eliminate the schools that made you who you are today. Our public schools need your help. They are far from perfect. They need real reform, not a wrecking ball and disruption.

Viola Davis, help us. Join the millions of parents and educators who want better public schools.

The billionaires don’t need your help. We do. They are using you.

Join the Network for Public Education. Help the children and teachers whom the billionaires despise.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Parent trigger, Parents, Privatization, Propaganda, Rhode Island, Students

Stephen Singer Reviews Mrs. Jobs’ Extravaganza on Fixing Schools

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2017 //
16

If you are not yet totally bored by reading about a billionaire’s vision for redesigning the high schools of America, you will enjoy reading veteran teacher Stephen Singer’s take on the vacuous production. Mrs. Jobs must have spent millions to buy an hour on four networks. What could your school have done with that money? Arts classes? Instruments for the school band? A school nurse? Free meals? Reopened the library and hired a librarian?

Instead she produced a vanity show.

Singer decided it was an exercise in desperation. The Reform brand is now owned by Trump and DeVos. Jobs had to find a way to claim that HER reform is different from THEIR reform, although it is not.

“So now that it’s over, what have we learned?

“1) Corporate education reformers are THAT desperate to distance themselves from Donald Trump.

“His wholehearted endorsement of their agenda has done them serious life threatening damage. He has exposed their racist, privileged, corporatist policies for exactly what they are. No amount of celebrities will replace that in the public consciousness.

“2) Rich people cannot set education policy.

“Steve Jobs widow may be a very nice lady. But she has no freaking clue about public education. Nor is she honest enough to engage actual classroom teachers in the discussion to find out.

“Instead of relying on the billionaires of the world, we should tax them. Then we can afford to fully fund our schools and let the people actually in the classroom decide what’s best for the students in their care. Let parents decide. Let school boards decide. Not a privileged tech philanthrocapitalist.

“3) Celebrities will do anything for money.

“The things these Hollywood elite prostitutes did last night to sell snake oil would make porn stars blush. I will never look at any of these people the same. Some of them I knew were true believers because of other projects. Heck! As much as I love Common’s new album, he does rap about Corey Booker – so warning there. Viola Davis is an amazing actress but she was in the parent trigger propaganda film “Won’t Back Down.”

“Being famous doesn’t mean you know a damn thing. We recognize their faces. We associate them with past roles and characters we loved. We think their political stands are authentic when they are often just a pose. We’ve got to stop respecting these people just because they’re celebrities.

“What will the long-term effect of last night’s propaganda be?

“I don’t know.

“I seriously doubt anyone really bought that. But you know what they say – no one ever went broke betting on the stupidity of the public.

“And that’s what this was – a high stakes wager on American gullibility.”

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