Archives for category: For-Profit
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Renewed Battle Over Parent Trigger In Florida

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2013 //
10

“Parent trigger” is a zombie policy. It has never transformed a single school. It has no evidence. It is a slogan pretending to be a policy. It is the quintessence of a corporate power grab.

In the wake of the Newtown massacre, no decent person should utter the words “parent trigger.”

But in Florida, Coach Bob Sikes alerts his readers to the return of the “parent trigger” legislation that failed to pass last year. It failed because–no matter how hard Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee promoted it–every parent group in Florida opposed it. Somehow the PTAs understood that “parent empowerment” would benefit the corporations running charter schools, not their children.

Jeb Bush vowed to bring it back, and here it comes. Only here is an interesting turn of events. One of the sponsors is a Republican legislator who was not friendly to charters last year. Coach Bob wonders if her change of heart has anything to do with the campaign contributions doled out by the for-profit charter corporations.

By the way, he doesn’t mention it here, but Frank Biden is an executive with the for-profit Mavericks charter chain cited in his post. Frank is the brother of Joe Biden.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Parent trigger, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle

Turmoil in Muskegon Heights Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2013 //
12

When the school district of impoverished Muskegon Heights went broke, Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan felt no obligation to save public education. He appointed an emergency manager to privatize the whole district. The district was handed over to a for-profit operator, Mosaica, which promptly fired all the teachers. It hired a new staff and started fresh. About a quarter of the staff left in short order. There have been three principals at the high school in six months. And the schools have hired uncertified teachers, which is illegal in the state.

Not to worry. The private sector knows best.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Michigan, Privatization

HELP! Privatizers Target Fort Wayne

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2013 //
6

A member of the Fort Wayne, Indiana, school board writes:

They are coming after Fort Wayne next. Please, all come to the faux public hearing on Carpe Diem application on Tuesday, 26th at 5:30, Taylor campus. I need a couple hundred.

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

Activists in Four States Organize to Support Public Education

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
3

If you are in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, or Illinois–or anywhere else–please join with parents, students, and educators to support public schools. These states have been targets for rightwing demands for privatization. Enough is enough. Time to organize and mobilize to fend off the attacks on teachers, principals, and public schools.

Time For Action Update:

Parents Across America, in cooperation with Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education and with other grassroots groups, invites you to “Public Schools Across America,” a 4-state Regional Action Planning Meeting.

Across the country, there is a rising chorus of protest against corporate-style school reform. Parents, teachers, students, principals, superintendents, scholars, school board members, civil rights lawyers and other concerned citizens are voicing opposition to the privatization of our schools which threatens the future of our children and the fundamental democratic principles upon which our system of public education is based.

With “Public Schools Across America,” we hope to create a model for coordinated regional action in support of public education which could be expanded and replicated across the U.S.
Who: You are invited! And please share this invitation with others interested in regional joint action in support of public education (even if they are not in our region – as long as they are able to get themselves to Ft Wayne). This meeting is not limited to educators. It for parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens who support public education and want to get more involved in supporting our public schools and our children.

What: The first “Public Schools Across America” Regional Action Planning Meeting.

Featured speaker: Indiana State Superintendent Glenda Ritz, newly-elected superintendent.

Where: Fort Wayne, IN, chosen because it is located within a reasonable drive from all 4 states, and is FULL of public education activists!. We will meet at the Plymouth United Church of Christ, conveniently located at 501 W Berry Street in Ft. Wayne.

When: Saturday, Feb 23, 2013 from 12 noon to 5 pm (snacks provided).

Why: To share our concerns about attacks on public education and how we have addressed them locally, and to consider joint activities across our region and potentially across the U.S. to strengthen public education.

Thank you for all you do in support of our public schools and our children. Hope to see you in Ft. Wayne!

Julie Woestehoff and Maureen Reedy

Julie Woestehoff, executive director, Parents United for Responsible Education (Chicago)
Co-founder of Parents Across America.
E-mail: pure@pureparents.org

Maureen Reedy ~ Co-founder of Public Schools Across America
Parent and 29-year public school teacher
Ohio Teacher of the Year, 2002
E-mail: Maureen.reedy@gmail.com

Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education (NEIFPE) Blog: http://neifpe.blogspot.com/;

Email: neifpe@gmail.com; LinkedIn: NEIFPE and Twitter

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Privatization

Indianapolis: Farewell to Public Education

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2013 //
33

I received a desperate message on Facebook from Tarrey Banks, the founder of The Project School in Indianapolis. TPS is a charter school started with a grant from the Walton Foundation. Greg Ballard, the mayor of Indianapolis, is the authorizer. TPS has low test scores, after four years, and the mayor has decided to close it. Banks and TPS parents are outraged. They went to court, blocked the mayor in a lower court, but then lost when a federal judge upheld the closure. TPS is losing the battle.

To get the big picture of what is happening in Indianapolis, read here. You will encounter a familiar cast of characters, including, of course, Bill Gates and Stand for Children.

What is happening in Indianapolis is terrifying if you believe that public education belongs to the public, not to private corporations. .

Here comes a scary future. First, the “blueprint” for Indianapolis, confidently predicting a future of perfection and excellence, but without any meaningful road map. Just promises. And here come the charters, opening with high hopes and closing when judged by scores.

Open, close. Open, close. Open, close.

Below is Banks’ letter. Read it. Read Mayor Ballard’s Blueprint for Utopia. But if you read nothing else today, read this article about the grand plan to privatize the schools of Indianapolis.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5_NQFzJRhSGZ2ZEaWZFYmhwNU0/edit?usp=sharing

This is the Mind Trust / Mayor Ballard (TFA Deputy Mayor Jason Kloth) take-over blueprint. This will literally be the end of public education in the urban core of Indianapolis.

We need help. It’s all but over. The 10th most populated city in the country is about to be one of the biggest systems of educational apartheid in the nation.

My name is Tarrey Banks and I’m the founding school leader of the Indianapolis Project School. I am a lifelong public school educator who made the decision to start a charter school with a group of passionate educators. We are the only truly progressive public school in our city. We take and teach all kids…we don’t push out, kick out, expel, etc. My daughter is a 7 year old student at our school…I made it for her because I know that all kids deserve what she deserves. We are four years old and this week we were the victim of a conservative political strategic attack. Just 3 weeks our mayor has decided to close our doors. The process was corrupt and the information they used was false and/or inaccurate. We are fighting the good fight, but I firmly believe our school will be shut down by the close of business on Monday. I truly believe this is the death of progressive public education in our city if we do not use this as a catalyst to attack the corporate reform agenda.

I know you are busy…you must be. I intend to use the closing of our school as the beginning of a rebellion. Will you help? How can I get you to Indianapolis to push this force back and make folks wake up and see what is happening? Our city is doomed if I can’t move this conversation in a different direction. We have 100’s of families, students, community members, educators ready to protest…to really blow it up…but I need more…I need a national presence…

Will you? What can I do?

Tarrey Banks

Categories ALEC, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Indiana, On-Line Education, Privatization, Stand for Children, U.S. education

Ken Previti: Brevard County Schools Did Not Have to Close

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2013 //
5

Ken Previti writes this comment about the three public schools closed in Brevard County over the objections of the parents. The best solution: Elect a new school board. Run for school board. Organize and mobilize.

One harsh fact needs to be remembered about school closings, teacher evaluations and school ranking by student test scores. The total amount that “needed” to be cut from the budget by closing three Brevard schools was identical to the amount “needed” to build the new charter school demanded by the appointed Florida State Board of Education.

Brevard County IS the Space Coast, home of brilliant Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral engineers and large military installations and military/industrial corporations.. (I live there.) It is also overwhelmingly republican at-all-costs, and that includes Tea Party candidates.

Tea Party Republican Billionaire Gov. Rick Scott was the CEO of the corporation convicted of the biggest fraud against Medicare in history. When questioned personally he replied that he repeatedly refused to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate him, yet his money paid for TV messages that got him elected.

Past Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of W. and son of H.W., has organizations and investments in huge corporate education reform interests – including testing and test prep materials.
The school closings are a scam.

“Public-private partnerships” is the euphemism meaning “public tax money for private profit.” The school closings and the charter school building (scheduled to be built blocks from where I live) are part of the financial scam of the selling of America – one school at a time.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization, Support for public schools

Reader Asks: Is This the True Goal of “Reform”?

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2013 //
46

A reader posts the following comment.

Thought you might be interested in Gates latest “Request for Proposal: Literacy Courseware Challenge.” More teacher-less, computerized learning to support his Common Core [National] Standards. “Adaptive digital learning tools” are his robo-teachers, because apparently the standards [read: curriculum, no matter how many people say that the CC are not a curriculum] are teacher-proof. Just create a huge quonset hut, or even better, a stadium, full of computer cubicles, sit the kids down, and, voila! A perfect Gates-ian school. Disgusting.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/Pages/rfp-literacy-courseware-challenge.aspx

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, On-Line Education, Privatization

New Blog Will “Follow the Money”

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2013 //
8

I just heard from a new blogger who has spent years quietly investigating the money trail behind the privatization movement.

He has decided to be silent no more.

Read his new blog.

It is called “Charter School Finance Footnoted.” Its subtitle is:  “Public funds lining private pockets.”

And he adds, as a descriptor:

“Keeping an eye on what charter schools tell their investors but not the rest of us.”

This should be interesting.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

Former Texas State Commissioner Blasts Pressure to Adopt Common Core

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2013 //
7

Robert Scott, who recently stepped down as State Commissioner of Education in Texas, told Georgia legislators that he was pressured to adopt the Common Core standards before they were written.

He said, in the video that appears in the linked article:

“My experience with the Common Core actually started when I was asked to sign on to them before they were written. … I was told I needed to sign a letter agreeing to the Common Core, and I asked if I might read them first, which is, I think, appropriate.  I was told they hadn’t been written, but they still wanted my signature on the letter. And I said, ‘That’s absurd; first of all, I don’t have the legal authority to do that because our [Texas] law requires our elected state board of education to adopt curriculum standards with the direct input of Texas teachers, parents  and business. So adopting something that was written behind closed doors in another state would not meet my state law.’ … I said, ‘Let me take a wait–and–see approach.‘ If something remarkable was in there that I found that we did not have in ours that I would work with our board … and try to incorporate into our state curriculum …

 

“Then I was told, ‘Oh no no, a state that adopts Common Core must adopt in its totality the Common Core and can only add 15 percent.’ It was then that I realized that this initiative which had  been constantly portrayed as state-led and voluntary was really about control. It was about control. Then it got co-opted by the Department of Education later. And it was about control totality from some education reform groups who candidly admit their real goal here is to create a national marketplace for education products and services.”

Supporters of the Common Core dispute his claim.

Scott made national headlines when he was State Commissioner because he spoke candidly against the excessive testing of students in Texas. He said testing had become “the heart of the vampire” and had perverted the purpose of education. He didn’t last long in his job after being so brutally frank. Texas has long been obsessed with testing and accountability, and Scott spoke from the heart. He also helped to ignite the national anti-testing movement.

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Industry, For-Profit, Race to the Top, Testing, Texas

Return of The Zombie Film “Won’t Back Down”

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2013 //
19

The anti-teacher, anti-public school movie “Won’t Back Down” was released into 2,500 movie theaters (owned by its producer Walden Media) and died a quick and ignominious death. Despite massive advance publicity at NBC’s “Education Nation” and a CBS promotion, despite Michelle Rhee hosting screenings at both national political conventions, despite attention on the “Ellen” show, the film had one of the worst opening weekends in recent history. The critics ridiculed it, and within four weeks, the film had disappeared.

It became a dead film, but it lives on as a zombie film. Its producers Philip Anschutz and Rupert Murdoch never expected to make money. They are billionaires, and they didn’t care about the box office receipts. They wanted their propaganda film to persuade people that teachers are lazy, that unions are evil, and that parents must seize control of their school and hand it over to a charter corporation.

Their goal was nothing short of privatization of public education.

So now they have taken their dud and, with the help of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are showing it to legislators in conservative states, hoping to keep their campaign alive with a zombie film that died months ago.

Call it the ALEC road show.

You know who Rupert Murdoch is. He is the man who owns Fox News and many publications and is now embroiled in a scandal in Great Britain, where his reporters hacked into the telephones of scores of people, including a dead teenage girl.

Maybe you don’t know much about Philip Anschutz, who owns Walden Media. He has been a successful movie producer (“Chronicles of Narnia,” among others). His energy company is very involved in the controversial practice of hydrofracking in many parts of he nation, which environmentalists oppose. He contributes generously to libertarian, anti-government think tanks. He supported anti-gay campaigns in Colorado and California.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Parent trigger
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