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This Letter About Corporate Involvement in Education Policy Should Go Viral

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2013 //
37

Paul Horton, a history teacher at the University of Chicago Lab School, wrote a letter to Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), when the Senator announced his intention to retire.

Horton asked whether the senator was aware of the corporate influence on Race to the Top and the Common Core standards.

Horton told the senator that critics of these programs are not extremists:

“In fact…critics of the RTTT mandates and the CCS come from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. In the national education debate, the status quo agenda that is being pushed comes from the corporate middle of both parties that is backed by many of those who have been the biggest beneficiaries of the current economic “recovery” in Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Manhattan (and Westchester County) and large foundations.”

Horton urges Senator Harkin to call Secretary Duncan to a hearing to testify under oath and answer the following questions:

“How many of your staffers have worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Who are they, and why did you hire them?

“What role did these staffers and Bill Gates have on the formulation of the RTTT mandates?

“How much classroom teaching experience do the principal authors of the RTTT mandates have, individually, and as a group?

“Why are these individuals qualified to make decisions about education policy?

“Were you, or anyone who works within the Department of Education in contact with any representative or lobbyist representing Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill, or InBloom before or during the writing of the RTTT mandates?

“What is the Broad Foundation? What is your connection to the Broad Foundation? What education policies does the Broad Foundation support? How do these policies support public education? How do these policies support private education? What was the role of the Broad Foundation in the creation of the RTTT mandates?

“How many individuals associated with the Broad Foundation helped author the report, “Smart Options: Investing Recovery Funds for Student Success” that was published in April of 2009 and served as a blueprint for the RTTT mandates? How many representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation assisted in writing this report? What was their role in authoring this report? How many representatives of McKinsey Consulting participated in authoring this report? What was David Coleman’s role in authoring this report?

“Do you know David Coleman? Have you ever had any conversations with David Coleman? Has anyone on your staff had any conversations with David Coleman? Did anyone within the Department of Education have any connection to any of the authors of the Common Core Standards? Did anyone in your Department have any conversations with any of the authors of the Common Core Standards as they were being written?

“Have you ever had any conversations with representatives or lobbyists who represent the Walton Family Foundation? Has anyone on your staff had any conversations with the Walton Family Foundation or lobbyists representing the Walton Family Foundation? If so, what was the substance of those conversations?

“Do you know Michelle Rhee? If so, could you describe your relationship with Michelle Rhee? Have you, or anyone working within the Department of Education, had any conversations with Students First, Rhee’s advocacy group, about the dispersal foundation funds for candidates in local and state school board elections?

“This is just a start. Public concerns about possible collusion between the Department of Education and education corporations could be addressed with a few straightforward answers to these and other questions.

“Every parent, student, and teacher in the country is concerned about the influence of corporate vendors on education policy. What is represented as an extreme movement by our Education Secretary can be more accurately described as a consumer revolt against shoddy products produced by an education vendor biopoly (Pearson and McGraw Hill). Because these two vendors have redefined the education marketplace to meet the requirements of RTTT, they both need to be required to write competitive impact statements for the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice.”

This is an extraordinary letter. Please read it. Send it to your friends. Send it to everyone on your email list. tweet it. These are questions that should be answered by the Secretary, under oath, in public hearings.

American education is being radically reconstituted and centralized, with little or no democratic deliberation. The public hears bland assurances about “high standards for all,” “college and career readiness for all,” and other unproven claims and assertions about sweeping changes that have not been subject to trial or open debate or careful review.

Horton asks tough questions. The American public deserves real answers–not flowery rhetoric– about who made the decisions to reconstruct the nation’s education system, with what evidence, and for whose benefit.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Race to the Top

A Brilliant Post By Anthony Cody: How to Win

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2013 //
23

Anthony Cody gets stronger and sharper with every column he writes.

In this post, he explains how the best defense is a good offense.

He shows how critics of NCLB were tricked in 2008, then tricked again by Race to the Top.

It’s time to stop collaborating with those who want to destroy public education, he says.

It’s time to recognize, he writes, that Common Core is old wine in new bottles. Instead of getting rid of the testing and accountability dragnet, we will be ensnared in it even more deeply.

He writes,

“The Common Core could be called a “High Tech Rehabilitation of High Stakes Tests.” The major goal of the project has been to overcome objections to data-driven school reform, by offering standards and tests that are so new and different that we will not mind having our schools driven by them. They are heavily supported by a coalition of corporate entities that stand to make billions from the privatization of education. If we cannot mount a coherent counterproposal, we will be stuck objecting piecemeal to the worst elements of this regime, just as we did with NCLB. This may give us some small victories, but the entire project will remain intact.”

What would a good offense look like? The first step, as he puts it, is to “discredit bogus claims and false solutions,” as we do here regularly, like the stories about the miracle schools where 100% of the students graduate and go to college (except for those that don’t), or the miracle claims for mayoral control (but forget about D.C. and Cleveland), or the phony claims about privatization and inexperienced teachers.

What else? Read his post.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing, U.S. education, Vouchers

Kids Are Never Too Young to Learn to Make Money

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2013 //
11

EduShyster reports here about a charter school in Utah where the goal of schooling is commerce.

Starting in kindergarten, the curriculum is all about buying and selling:

“HighMark administrators are quick to point out that the school is not a pint-sized business school. Instead, key business concepts and principles are integrated into every aspect of the K-8 charter. For example, “a student wanting to become a dentist will learn about the marketing aspect of dentistry, the pros and cons of opening their own office, entrepreneurship, and what leadership qualities are necessary to hire and supervise a staff.””

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Economy, Education Industry, For-Profit

Who Are the Public School Haters?

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2013 //
22

It is clear by now that there is a very small number of very wealthy people who just don’t like public education. They don’t like teachers who work in public schools and want to strip them of any and every right, privilege, and status. They want to treat them like fast-food workers or salesmen who work on commission.

Given the chance, they would take the public’s money and give it to voucher schools, religious schools, entrepreneurs, to anyone who wants to start a school or an online business, regardless of their experience or qualifications. No one can take seriously their claim that they want to improve education or that they are “doing it for the kids” or they “put kids first” or they want to make kids “globally competitive.”

None of this is true.

Here Mike Deshotels explains who the haters are. They need do do some rethinking about the damage they are doing to our students, our teachers, and our nation.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Stand for Children, Vouchers

Big Rumor in Louisiana: John White Heading to DC

By dianeravitch
May 24, 2013 //
32

The Louisiana blogs, which these days are the only place in that corrupt state to read honest and probing discourse, are buzzing with rumors that their state commissioner John White will soon leave for a job with Arne Duncan.

If true, he will not be missed. Jindal will find another reactionary ideologue to take White’s place and pursue the governor’s radical privatization agenda.

Why would Duncan want White? When Jindal chose White, Duncan called him “a visionary leader.” White would help Duncan prepare the nation for mass privatization. Sad to say, White and Duncan are on the same page. ALEC beams, as do all the other rightwing extremists to see this Democratic administration advancing its agenda–or doing nothing to impede it.

Categories ALEC, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Privatization

Is the Reform Movement Based on the Soviet Model?

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2013 //
34

Author William Doyle has been observing the current “reform movement” promoted by people like Arne Duncan, Michael Bloomberg, Bobby Jindal, Rick Snyder, Rick Scott, and Michelle Rhee, and he has developed a theory about its true nature. Doyle thinks that the current movement is Soviet-style, with unrealistic targets and top-down control. What struck me as amazing is that I read an article in the Teachers College Record and blogged about it a year ago, in which the author argued that the current model of “education reform” is Stalinist. At the time, I thought this was perhaps extreme. I am not so sure anymore.

Doyle writes:

The currently dominant theories of education reform are being mis-labeled as “market-driven education reforms” or “corporate education reforms.”

 

Most of these theories would not last 5 minutes in a truly free market; or a profitable corporation; successful hedge fund or private equity firm, since the results have been so poor.

 

These sham reforms – – including turning schools over to political cronies and education amateurs and cyber-charters, the flagrant abuse and misuse of standardized tests, spending tens of billions of dollars on unproven reforms, unproven technologies and unproven testing schemes – – are actually the opposite of the free market or corporate models – – they are Soviet-style sham reforms.

 

Like Soviet models, they are based on top-down, rigid command and control; ideological orthodoxy and one-party thought; flagrant disregard for evidence; the brutalization of human capital; the disembowlement of unions; the crushing of dissent; and the massive misapplication of resources and data; all of which create massive inefficiencies and inevitably poor results.

 

They also rely on cults of personality created for false idols; and the creation of false miracles and Potemkin success stories.

Like the Soviet Union, they will collapse.

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

Join Discussion of Parent Trigger Hoax: LINK ADDED

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2013 //
4

Please join this important discussion about the corporate attempt to trick parents into handing their public schools over to private corporations:

The Parent Trigger from California to Florida

Sunday, May 26, 2013 from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM Pacific Time

We will be hearing from Lori Yuan, a parent in Adelanto who fought the Parent Trigger at her school, and Parents Across America Founding Member Rita Solnet who, along with other organizations, defeated the Parent Trigger bill in the Florida State Senate on March 9, 2013.

To reserve your ticket, go to eventbrite.

This event is free.

This event is organized by Parents Across America.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Parent trigger, Parents, Privatization

More Foundation Money to Fund Privatization

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2013 //
7

Researchers Sarah Reckhow of Michigan State University and doctoral student Jeffrey Snyder reported at an AERA session that foundation giving is increasingly concentrated on a small number of recipients.

Foundation funding is moving away from giving to public schools–attended by 90% of American students–and is going instead to “challengers” to the system, especially charter schools–attended by about 5% of American students.

The story in Education Week says:

“At the start of the decade, less than a quarter of K-12 giving from top foundations—about $90 million in all—was given to the same few groups. Five years later, 35 percent of foundation giving, or $230 million, went to groups getting support from other foundations, and by 2010, $540 million, representing 64 percent of major foundation giving for K-12, was similarly aligned.”

The groups now getting the lion’s share of foundation funding are KIPP, Teach for America, the NewSchools Venture Fund, the Charter School Growth Fund, and the D.C. Public Education Fund.

None of the main recipients of foundation funding are models for American education. All are committed to privatization. The best known alumni of TFA are Michelle Rhee, John White of Louisiana, and Kevin Huffman of Tennessee, all of whom support vouchers and charters.

When will the foundations wise up and stop supporting failed policies?

Don’t they care about the 90% of American children who attend public schools? Or do they think that someday all schools will be run by private entrepreneurs?

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Nicholas Lemann Reviews Rhee Memoir

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2013 //
9

Nicholas Lemann has written a powerful review of Michelle Rhee’s memoir, in which she calls herself “radical.” She is indeed radical. She wants to tear down public education, a basic democratic institution. That is very radical.

As Lemann points out, Rhee has reduced all the problems of American education to the very existence of unions. This can’t offer much hope to the many states where unions are weak or nonexistent. Who should those states blame since they don’t have unions to scapegoat?

Lemann notes that Rhee loves to portray herself as a victim, a woman of courage who stands up fearlessly to the rich and powerful. The reality, of course, is that Rhee is a tool of the rich and powerful.

An excerpt:

“Rhee is a major self-dramatizer. As naturally appealing to her as is the idea that more order, structure, discipline, and competition is the answer to all problems, even more appealing is the picture of herself as a righteously angry and fearless crusader who has the guts to stand up to entrenched power. She is always the little guy, and whoever she is fighting is always rich, powerful, and elite—and if, as her life progresses, her posse becomes Oprah Winfrey, Theodore Forstmann, and the Gates Foundation lined up against beleaguered school superintendents and presidents of union chapters, the irony of that situation has no tonal effect on her narrative. Again and again she gives us scenes of herself being warned that she cannot do what is plainly the right thing, because it is too risky, too difficult, too threatening to the unions, too likely to bring on horrific and unfair personal attacks—but the way she’s made, there’s nothing she can do but ignore the warnings and plow valiantly.”

Of course, she is ridiculous because she has collected tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions, from America’s richest people. Just days ago, she got $8 million from the far-right Walton Family Foundation.

The other point Leman makes is that Rhee has no evidence for her claims. She starts with her conclusions, then looks for “evidence.”

An excerpt:

“Rhee simply isn’t interested in reasoning forward from evidence to conclusions: conclusions are where she starts, which means that her book cannot be trusted as an analysis of what is wrong with public schools, when and why it went wrong, and what might improve the situation. The only topics worth discussing for Rhee are abolishing teacher tenure, establishing charter schools, and imposing pay-for-performance regimes based on student test scores. We are asked to understand these measures as the only possible means of addressing a crisis of decline that is existentially threatening the United States as a nation and denying civil rights to poor black people.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

This Man Loves Disruption

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2013 //
44

Clayton Christiansen loves disruption.

He loves the idea that almost everything familiar to us will die and be replaced by competition.

Many corporate reformers swear by him. They think disruption is creative.

I wish they would get out of our lives and make money selling something other than disruption.

Categories Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit
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