Archives for category: Education Reform
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How Can Charters Be Losing Public Support When They Are Allegedly Successful?

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2017 //
51

Jonathan Chait is a long-time charter supporter. He is unhappy that charters are “losing the narrative,” because he is certain that they are a great success.

By “losing the narrative,” I assume he means that the NAACP called for accountability for all charters, and that the pro-choice EdNext poll showed that public support for charters has slipped sharply in only one year, from 51% to 39%.

How could this be if they are a great success? He doesn’t explain.

He is especially upset that the New York Times featured a story about Michigan claiming that Michigan’s charters have been a big disappointment. This followed upon a front-page story in the New York Times describing the chaos of charters in Michigan, where students have many choices but education results (test scores) are down. He calls the Michigan story an example of “anecdotes” lacking factual data.

Michigan seems to be a good place to look at charters because it is Betsy DeVos’s state, the one that has gone overboard for charters and choice, one that has had a quarter-century of charters. She is Secretary of Education and it seems reasonable to assume that she would like to do to the nation what she has done to Michigan, where her money directs education policy.

Well, the most recent Times story points out that charters began in 1994 in Michigan. Michigan was hell-bent on competition and choice as the remedy for inequality. But Michigan schools today are underfunded, and the results have been dismal. In fact, as a report in 2016 by the charter-friendly Education Trust-West showed, the state’s scores on national tests have plummeted:

Michigan’s K-12 system is among the weakest in the country and getting worse. In little more than a decade, Michigan has gone from being a fairly average state in elementary reading and math achievement to the bottom 10 states. It’s a devastating fall. Indeed, new national assessment data suggest Michigan is witnessing systemic decline across the K-12 spectrum. White, black, brown, higher-income, low-income — it doesn’t matter who they are or where they live. …

That seems factual enough.

An article about charters in Arizona would show massive conflicts of interest, nepotism, and self-dealing. An article about Ohio would show pay-for-play charters where the owners give big contributions to Republican officials and get lucrative charter contracts. An article about Florida would show that charter operators are members of the legislature and pad their pockets by passing legislation that takes money from public schools and gives it to their charters. An article about Nevada would show that charters dominate the list of the state’s lowest performing schools. An article about California charters would have to include the state’s long history of scandals and frauds.

There are charter schools that get good test scores. But most of them are known for high attrition rates and excluding students with disabilities, students who don’t speak English, and students who don’t conform.

The issue that Chait never considers is whether it makes sense long term to fund two separate school systems: one that is free to accept the students it wants and free to exclude the ones it doesn’t want, and the other required to accept all students.

We went through a long history of having two separate-and-unequal school systems.

That is what DeVos and Trump want. That is what ALEC wants. That is what every red-state governor wants. That is what many blue-state governors, reliant on campaign contributions from charter-loving financiers, want. That is what the Koch brothers want.

Suppose that the data show that test scores are higher in a racially segregated system. Suppose the data show that test scores are higher when you exclude kids with disabilities, kids who don’t speak English, and students who are slow learners. Suppose the data show that test scores go up when you kick out the kids with low scores or never admit them.

Is that a model for public education. I say it is not. Where will the excluded children go?

It would be wrong for our society no matter what the test scores are. It would be wrong for our nation and for our children.

Sometimes principles matter more than data. And the public is catching on.

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

Laurene Powell Jobs’ Big Show: No Educators Invited

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2017 //
49

I have posted a couple of times about the celebrity show that Mrs. Jobs is paying for tonight. Lots of stars. No educators. If you should watch, write in with a comment. I have other things I have to do.

Here is what Politico says:

“STAR-STUDDED EVENT LOOKS AT RETHINKING HIGH SCHOOL: A hodgepodge of actors and musical stars will come together for a one-hour television special tonight on rethinking high school, set for broadcast on four major U.S. networks. The special was put together by the XQ Institute, a project of Laurene Powell Jobs’ philanthropic LLC called the Emerson Collective, and the nonprofit Entertainment Industry Foundation. In 2015, the XQ Institute launched a call to “rethink” high school, arguing that the average American high school has failed to keep up with huge changes in society and technology. High schools were revamped to use technology in unique ways; to shed traditional grades, classrooms and subjects to look more like creative workplaces; and set in nontraditional locations, like public museums.

– Russlynn Ali, XQ founder and former Education Department head of civil rights during the Obama administration, said “fixing our educational system is one of the biggest problems there is. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, we all have a vital interest in preparing America’s young people for the opportunities of the 21st century. But change of this magnitude is extraordinarily difficult, and won’t happen unless we unite around this common cause. Tonight’s special will highlight some of those schools, encourage educators and the public to build on those efforts and feature musical performances.” Celebrities expected to be there include Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks and Viola Davis. The special will air at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC.”

Open it for links.

http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=7a4567fcd7b496feae6fd258d30929ce1c151b2826d367480ee2df486e8c5e40bdf41a6bb996790f2f220479c91b352bcf191b308fda384f

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

USA Today: Join Trump’s Swamp by Playing Golf at One of His Golf Clubs

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
18

USA Today posted an investigation into the way that CEOs and lobbyists make contact with Trump: they join one of his golf clubs. Of course, for $200,000, they could join Mar-a-Lago, his winter residence (he doubled the entry fee after his election).

Dozens of lobbyists, contractors and others who make their living influencing the government pay President Trump’s companies for membership in his private golf clubs, a status that can put them in close contact with the president, a USA TODAY investigation found.

Members of the clubs Trump has visited most often as president — in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia — include at least 50 executives whose companies hold federal contracts and 21 lobbyists and trade group officials. Two-thirds played on one of the 58 days the president was there, according to scores they posted online.

Because membership lists at Trump’s clubs are secret, the public has until now been unable to assess the conflicts they could create. USA TODAY found the names of 4,500 members by reviewing social media and a public website golfers use to track their handicaps, then researched and contacted hundreds to determine whether they had business with the government.

Or, they could rent a $22,000 a night suite at the Trump Hotel located within walking distance of the White House. The building is owned by the federal government and the lease prohibits any profit-making by any elected federal government official, but that doesn’t include Trump apparently.

Categories Education Reform

Nancy Bailey: Beware of Laurene Powell Jobs’s Bad Advice About “Reinventing” High Schools

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
41

Nancy Bailey, experienced teachers, knows what make high schools successful. She posts a to-do list here.

She also knows that Steve Jobs’ billionaire widow Laurene Powell Jobs is peddling snake oil. Her goal is to eliminate the American high school and replace it with online learning, despite the lack of evidence for it–and the plethora of evidence that says it is a dramatic flop.

She writes:

“It’s especially ironic that Powell-Jobs uses a school bus to hype her venture philanthropic program. You won’t need school buses for what she’s proposing. That is unless they take students to places other than brick-and-mortar schools–like museums.

“Her “remake the American high school” mantra is really about replacing high schools with technology—learning anytime, anyplace. Here are titles and phrases from the website that hint of that.

Going to School in a Museum: Does Learning Have to Happen in a School?

Imagine a Super School

America Needs a New Way of Learning

High School Will Never Be the Same Again

The Next Generation Must Learn to Adapt to a Changing World

When Your School is a Museum

“Laurene Powell Jobs and the quest to change high schools are not new. If you want to blame someone for difficulties in public schools, blame politicians and corporate CEOs who have irresponsibly been attempting this feat on their own for years.

“Remember Bill Gates and the small school initiative? They tried to break up Manuel High School in Denver using more than $2 million. It was a failure.

“The Gates Foundation also failed at the first Philadelphia School of the Future—an all-tech high school.

“Go back even further.

“In 1995, the RJR Nabisco Foundation launched Reinventing Education: Entrepreneurship in America’s Public School, by the Chairman and CEO of IBM Lou V. Gerstner, Jr.

“Gerstner talked of New Century Schools—“clearing away restrictions” at the same time pushing for the standards that would eventually hamstring teachers into a standardization box when it came to teaching….

“Schools highlighted on the XQ website advertised as innovative are all driven by technology. Teachers might be mentioned, but it’s not clear if their use of the word teacher means a qualified teacher with an actual degree in teaching.

“It isn’t clear whether students have access to a well-rounded curriculum. Some of their innovative schools seem to specialize in a narrow area.

“One question to ask, did Powell-Jobs attend a public high school herself? Do her children attend public schools?”

Please, Laurene, stop reinventing the schools. You know nothing about it, and you are surrounded by people who know even less.

Turn your considerable wealth and energies to helping solve the problem of poverty.

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

Laura Chapman on the Merger of Two Failing Corporate Reform Groups

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
6

Laura Chapman writes:

Clayton Christensen’s ideas as interpreted by others for K-12 education are not original but part of the ritual promotion of tech as always better than human judgment and teacher collective bargaining as collaboration gone wrong.

Here is an example of actual disruption, mislabeled “Partnership for Educational Justice.” Begin quote from Politico.

By Caitlin Emma | 09/06/2017 10:00 AM EDT With help from Kimberly Hefling, Mel Leonor and Benjamin Wermund

EXCLUSIVE: GROUPS TEAM UP TO MAKE BIGGER MARK: Two reform groups are teaming up to drive change in state education policy by using the courts. The nonprofit 50CAN is joining forces with the Partnership for Educational Justice, a nonprofit founded by former CNN anchor Campbell Brown, which is known for lawsuits targeting state policies the group says allow ineffective teachers to remain in the classroom. The partnership will allow 50CAN to get involved in litigation for the first time. And it will allow the Partnership’s small staff to draw on 50CAN’s policy expertise to better determine where lawsuits might be successful.

The Partnership for Educational Justice will retain its name and pro bono legal help, but 50CAN will serve as PEJ’s fiduciary board. Both organizations will continue their push against teacher tenure laws in three states – Minnesota, New Jersey and New York – and may look at litigation on other issues, like school funding.

“50CAN has never done any impact litigation work, so we see an opportunity to provide the backend support for their work in a way that helps them go further,” said 50CAN CEO Marc Porter Magee. “I really think the next set of successes in education reform are going to come from these kinds of collaborations.” Ralia Polechronis, executive director of the Partnership for Educational Justice, said “the beauty of a partnership like this is that PEJ can take advantage of the policy expertise that 50CAN has at a very local level.”

The Partnership for Educational Justice has yet to prevail in lawsuits aimed at ending teacher tenure policies in Minnesota, New Jersey or New York. And the organization suffered a setback Monday when the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld a dismissal of its lawsuit, The Star Tribune reports. Porter Magee said the lawsuits aren’t intended to bring about quick change, but are “long-term commitments.” End Quote.

So there it is, plain as day. “Successes in education reform” is defined as getting rid of teacher tenure laws. All wonderful things in education flow from this “long term commitment” to end collective bargaining among teachers.

Drive down the cost of labor by marketing tech for de-personalized learning, pay the least possible for human teachers. Teachers who will just have to get used to working at low pay without continuing contracts and erratic “on call” schedules.

Notice that teaching is also a profession dominated by women and that this effort, launched by a woman of great privilege, is marketing the legal challenges to teacher unions paid for by the “Partnership for Educational Justice.” So far, the only measure of educational justice is that the anti-union, anti-teacher have failed in the courts.

Campbell Brown and her 50Can friends are supporters of injustice for teachers. Why not just sue every union, including those for first responders, for firefighters, for police officers, for nurses, for all of the workers in civil service positions? Perhaps they will.

For the time being 50CAN will work for union-busting only for teachers.

IN case you did not know, 50CAN is an umbrella organization that enlists state and local foundations to campaign for privately managed charter schools and to close “failing” public schools so charter schools can expand.

In 2016, 50CAN merged with Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst to push for charter schools, and the five week wonder “Teach for America” temps passed off as if well prepared teachers, and other schemes to demolish public schools and teacher unions…not merely disrupt them. So these three groups– StudentsFirst, 50Can, and The Partnership for Educational Justice are now working in concert, as partners, to destroy public education and treat teachers as disposable temps as if this agenda is a matter of securing “educational justice.” Let’s call it a good example of Trumpianism with alt-fact labeling of the whole “partnership” effort.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching

Erika Christakis: The War on Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
33

Writing in The Atlantic, Erika Christakis describes “the war on public schools” that readers of this blog know well, but that has been sold to the public as “reform.”

She writes:

“Few people care more about individual students than public-school teachers do, but what’s really missing in this dystopian narrative is a hearty helping of reality: 21st-century public schools, with their record numbers of graduates and expanded missions, are nothing close to the cesspools portrayed by political hyperbole. This hyperbole was not invented by Trump or DeVos, but their words and proposals have brought to a boil something that’s been simmering for a while—the denigration of our public schools, and a growing neglect of their role as an incubator of citizens.

“Americans have in recent decades come to talk about education less as a public good, like a strong military or a noncorrupt judiciary, than as a private consumable. In an address to the Brookings Institution, DeVos described school choice as “a fundamental right.” That sounds appealing. Who wouldn’t want to deploy their tax dollars with greater specificity? Imagine purchasing a gym membership with funds normally allocated to the upkeep of a park.

“My point here is not to debate the effect of school choice on individual outcomes: The evidence is mixed, and subject to cherry-picking on all sides. I am more concerned with how the current discussion has ignored public schools’ victories, while also detracting from their civic role. Our public-education system is about much more than personal achievement; it is about preparing people to work together to advance not just themselves but society. Unfortunately, the current debate’s focus on individual rights and choices has distracted many politicians and policy makers from a key stakeholder: our nation as a whole. As a result, a cynicism has taken root that suggests there is no hope for public education. This is demonstrably false. It’s also dangerous.”

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

Alexandra Petri: The Nightmare People Are in Charge Now

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2017 //
42

Alexandra Petri is a gifted writer, who works for the Washington Post.

This is one of her best.

The unshakeable sense that you are being persecuted is in charge of the Justice Department. In fact, it just announced this change in policy. The man with a slow eerie smile that you thought you got rid of in the ’80s is somehow back, standing behind a lectern, his smile growing wider and wider, even when you blink. How did he get here? You could have sworn—

The thing that lives under the bed has the president’s phone number and sometimes speaks for him at news conferences.

The thing that scuttles into the corner when you open the door to the attic, the clawlike hand that reaches out from under your closet door, they are both listed as Rational Voices in the Trump Cabinet and are about to come out in support of his plan for tax reform.

The sensation of drowning, drowning all the time, is what comes out every time you turn on your television.

All the clocks everywhere are melting. Weeks and months are indistinguishable. Everything partakes of a terrifying unreality. You try to write down what is happening but it doesn’t make any sense.

The Dreamers are out. The Nightmare People are in charge.

Categories Education Reform

Pennsylvania: Debate about School Choice, September 19

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2017 //
6

Here is an event you won’t want to miss:

CONSIDER IT: SCHOOL CHOICE AND THE CASES FOR TRADITIONAL PUBLIC EDUCATION AND CHARTER SCHOOLS

September 19 @ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM Hilton Reading

Berks County Community Foundation
Panelists:

Carol Corbett Burris: Executive Director of the Network for Public Education

Alyson Miles: Deputy Director of Government Affairs for the American Federation for Children

James Paul: Senior Policy Analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation

Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig: Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and the Director of the Doctorate in Educational Leadership at California State University Sacramento

Karin Mallett: The WFMZ TV anchor and reporter returns as the moderator

School choice has been a hot topic in Berks County, in part due to a lengthy and costly dispute between the Reading School District and I-LEAD Charter School.

The topic has also been in the national spotlight as President Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have focused on expanding education choice.

With this in mind, a discussion on school choice is being organized as part of Berks County Community Foundation’s Consider It initiative. State Sen. Judy Schwank and Berks County Commissioners Chairman Christian Leinbach are co-chairs of this nonpartisan program, which is designed to promote thoughtful discussion of divisive local and national issues while maintaining a level of civility among participants.

The next Consider It Dinner will take place Tuesday, September 19, 2017, at 5 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Reading, 701 Penn St., Reading, Pa. Tickets are available here. For $10 each, tickets include dinner, the panel discussion, reading material, and an opportunity to participate in the conversation.

https://bccf.org/event/consider-it-2017/

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Pennsylvania, School Choice

How Michigan Gambled on Charter Schools and the Children Lost

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2017 //
9

More than any other state, Michigan placed its bets on charter schools. This article shows what happened. Republican Governor John Engler sold his party on the miracle of school choice. Betsy DeVos jumped on the Choice bandwagon and financed its grip on the legislature. Although the article doesn’t mention it, Betsy and her husband funded a voucher referendum in 2000 that was overwhelmingly defeated.

The author Mark Binelli describes the mess that choice and charters have made of the state’s education system. The state is overrun by unaccountable charters, most of which operate for profit.

The damage has fallen most heavily on black children, especially in Detroit and in the districts where the state installed emergency managers and gave the public schools to for-profit charter operators.

Rich districts still have public schools.

Binelli writes:

“Michigan’s aggressively free-market approach to schools has resulted in one of the most deregulated educational environments in the country, a laboratory in which consumer choice and a shifting landscape of supply and demand (and profit motive, in the case of many charters) were pitched as ways to improve life in the classroom for the state’s 1.5 million public-school students. But a Brookings Institution analysis done this year of national test scores ranked Michigan last among all states when it came to improvements in student proficiency. And a 2016 analysis by the Education Trust-Midwest, a nonpartisan education policy and research organization, found that 70 percent of Michigan charters were in the bottom half of the state’s rankings. Michigan has the most for-profit charter schools in the country and some of the least state oversight. Even staunch charter advocates have blanched at the Michigan model.

“The story of Carver is the story of Michigan’s grand educational experiment writ small. It spans more than two decades, three governors and, now, the United States Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, whose relentless advocacy for unchecked “school choice” in her home state might soon, her critics fear, be going national. But it’s important to understand that what happened to Michigan’s schools isn’t solely, or even primarily, an education story: It’s a business story. Today in Michigan, hundreds of nonprofit public charters have become potential financial assets to outside entities, inevitably complicating their broader social missions. In the case of Carver, interested parties have included a for-profit educational management organization, or E.M.O., in Georgia; an Indian tribe in a remote section of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; and a financial firm in Minnesota. “That’s all it is now — it’s moneymaking,” Darrel Redrick, a charter-school proponent and an administrator at Carver at the time I visited, told me.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Deregulation, Detroit, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Michigan

Leonie Haimson: Parents Revolt Against Summit-CZI Plans

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2017 //
35

Leonie Haimson reports here on the parent revolt against the Summit platform, pushed now by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

One of their biggest concerns is data privacy and the lack thereof.

Haimson writes:

Over the course of the 2016-2017 school year, parents throughout the country rebelled against the platform, both because of its lack of privacy but also because they experienced its negative impact on their children’s learning and attitudes to school. In addition, Summit and the schools using the platform are no longer asking for parental consent, probably because so many parents refused or resisted signing the consent forms.

After the Washington Post article appeared, I expanded on the privacy concerns cited in that piece, and pointed out additional issues in my blog. I included a list of questions parents should ask Summit to clarify their data-sharing plans. Parents who sent them to Summit informed me that Summit failed to answer these questions. (I later expanded on these questions, and Rachael Stickland, the co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, submitted them to Summit representatives after personally meeting them at SXSW EDU conference in March. She also received no response.)

Meanwhile, the list of Summit schools, both public and charter, that had allegedly adopted the platform last year was taken down from the Summit website sometime between February 15 and February 18, according to the Wayback Machine – making it even more difficult to ascertain which schools and students are were actually using it. The archived list is here.

On March 3, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported on the experience of parents in Boone County, Kentucky whose schools had adopted the platform– many of whom did not want to consent to their children’s data being shared with so little specificity and so few restrictions:

At the beginning of the school year, parents had to sign a permission slip allowing Summit to access their child’s profile information. Summit uses the info to “conduct surveys and studies, develop new features, products and services and otherwise as requested,” the form states. The agreement also allows Summit to disclose information to third-party service providers and partners “as directed” by schools. That, perhaps, is the biggest source of contention surrounding Summit. … “It’s optional. Nobody has to do Summit, [Deputy Superintendent Karen] Cheser said… Summit spokeswoman declined to speak on the record with The Enquirer.”

Yet within weeks of the publication of this article, at about the same time that the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative took over, someone involved in the Summit initiative decided that parents would no longer be granted the right of consent – either for their children to be subjected to the Summit instructional program or for their data to be shared according to Summit’s open-ended policies. In fact, Summit claimed the right to access, data-mine and redisclose their children’s data in the same way as before – yet now, without asking if parents agreed to these terms.

As she notes, Summit no longer considers it necessary to get parental consent before they collect and use student data.

Categories Education Reform, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Technology
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