A reader, Jill Koyama, calls attention to an important topic:
I actually conducted a 3-year study of private tutoring companies in NYC. Here is the link to my book, Making Failure Pay: For-Profit Tutoring, High-Stakes Testing, and Public Schools, published in 2010 by the University of Chicago Press:
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo8917055.html
In the last few years, there has been an all-out attack on local control. Most of the attack comes from the privatization movement, which thinks that school boards debate too much, listen too much, move too slowly. The privatizers prefer mayoral control in cities to get fast action. And they push laws and constitutional amendments allowing the governor to create a commission to override local school boards that reject charters. This is the ALEC agenda.
Happily, leading members of the National School Boards Association will have a chance to ask Arne Duncan why he pushes mayoral control, which has done so little for Cleveland and Chicago–and is now approved in NYC by only 18% of the public.
And they can ask Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia what he thinks about that state’s recent drive to strip local school boards of control of their districts. They might also ask him what he thinks of the re segregation that charters are promoting.
Media Advisory
Contact: Linda Embrey
Communications Office, National School Boards Association
Office: 703-838-6737; Cell: 571-437-7425
Onsite Press Room as of January 27: 202-797-4820; lembrey@nsba.org
Secretary of Education, Key Congressional Leader to Address National School Boards Association’s Advocacy Conference
Alexandria, Va. (Jan. 25, 2013) – U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee & Member, Senate Finance Committee will speak at the National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) 40th annual Federal Relations Network Conference on Monday, Jan. 28. The conference is taking place January 27 to 29 at the Washington Hilton, 1919 Connecticut Ave., Washington, D.C., and will be attended by more than 700 school board leaders from across the country. Attendees will participate in sessions on major public education issues and meet with their members of Congress and Capitol Hill staff to discuss key education policy issues.
The following events are open to the press and are being provided to the media for planning purposes. Items are subject to change.
Monday, Jan. 28:
3 p.m. – Remarks by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. He will speak about progress in K-12 education and the Obama administration’s goals for education reform going forward. A question-and-answer session will follow.
3:30 p.m. – Remarks by Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee & Member, Senate Finance Committee.
Media are welcome to cover these conference sessions. Valid credentials must be shown before obtaining a NSBA press pass. The press room and press registration will be located in the Embassy Room, Terrace Level. Please contact Linda Embrey at 703-838-6737 (office), 571-437-7425 (cell/onsite), 202-797-4820 (onsite press room on Jan. 27), or at lembrey@nsba.org .
# # #
Founded in 1940, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is a not-for-profit organization representing state associations of school boards and their more than 90,000 local school board members throughout the U.S. Working with and through our state associations, NSBA advocates for equity and excellence in public education through school board leadership. http://www.nsba.org
If you would rather not receive future communications from National School Boards Association (NSBA), let us know by clicking here.
National School Boards Association (NSBA), 1680 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314 United States
Crazy Crawfish is a blogger who worked in the Louisiana Department of Education. He cares a lot about accurate data. He noticed, as did other researchers in Louisiana, that all the historical data for the past ten years disappeared overnight and have been replaced by press releases about the glorious success of Governor Jindal’s marketing slogan, which the Jindal team calls “Louisiana Believes.”
Don’t miss this one. It is called “Louisiana Believes Anything.”
To his eternal shame, emergency manager Roy Roberts will close down more public schools in Detroit to cut the deficit. Who knew that public schools were supposed to turn a profit/surplus?
Roberts is carrying out the orders of Governor Rick Snyder, who views public education with contempt.
Privatization proceeds. Public education in Detroit will be extinguished if the Governor and his willing accomplice have their way.
Shameful.
Ball State University announced that it was not renewing seven charters.
Among the seven were three Imagine charters, one in Indianapolis and two in Fort Wayne.
Imagine is one of the nation’s biggest for-profit charter operators.
Some people have wondered what happened to the much ballyhooed film “Won’t Back Down.”
Recall that it was featured on NBC’s “Education Nation,” which is the showcase for the corporate reform movement; one of its stars was interviewed on “Ellen”; it had an elegant opening party at the New York Public Library; Michelle Rhee hosted showings at the two national political conventions.
Should have been a big hit, right? Wrong.
It opened in 2,5000 theaters and disappeared within a month. Hardly anyone wanted to see it.
But it lives! The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is showing it around the country to business organizations, to convince them that the local public schools are awful and that they must support charter schools. Think of it: Schools where children learn to obey or get kicked out.
Here are the events planned for this week in Birmingham, Alabama, where businesses are still looking for the best way to train their workforce:
“Greetings,
On behalf of the Birmingham Business Alliance, I would like to thank each of for agreeing to participate in our panel discussion next week in conjunction with our “Breaking the Monopoly of Mediocrity in Education” tour. As we continue to work towards providing all students in the state of Alabama with quality education options and creating a dynamic workforce, it is important to have dialogue with those who are not only advocates for better education but, who are also actively working to bring about change. Attached you will find the final agenda as well as talking points for each panel. Within each panel, if there is an issue that you feel should be addressed, please don’t hesitate to send your suggestion. A more detailed email will be sent on Tuesday of next week and will address any concerns or changes that are brought to my attention by panel participants. Again, we are excited to have each of you participate in this interactive forum. Please feel free to forward the invitation and registration link to any of your contacts or distribution list who would be interested in attending.
Thank you and we look forward to your participation.
L. Waymond Jackson, Jr.
Director – Education and Workforce Development
birminghambusinessalliance
THE CHAMBER FOR REGIONAL PROSPERITY
505 20th Street North, Suite 200
Birmingham, AL 35203
(205) 241-8117 (office)
(205) 324-2560 (fax)
www.birminghambusinessalliance.com<http://www.birminghambusinessalliance.com/>
On January 24th and 25th please join the Birmingham Business Alliance, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and the Institute for a Competitive Workforce as we kick-off their national tour “Breaking the Monopoly of Mediocrity in Education.” The tour will focus on the various methods of education reform, business community involvement and engaging the community to become catalyst for change in education and workforce development. Most recently, this tour has visited cities such as Memphis, Indiana, and Phoenix to name a few.
Day one consists of a screening of the movie “Won’t Back Down” featuring Academy Award Nominee, Viola Davis (The Help), immediately followed by a networking reception and opportunity to discuss the education reform issues addressed in the film.
Day two features a panel discussion comprised of area business and education leaders sharing ideas regarding education reform and how best to align the workforce needs of industry with K-12 , post-secondary, and higher education. Topics to be discussed include, The Importance of Pre-K and Early Childhood Education, and How to Achieve a Ready to Work and Engaged Workforce.
Registration for this event is free and due to limited seating we encourage you to register before the event. For a complete listing of panel participants please view the attached agenda; to register click on the link below. Also, included in your “free” registration on Thursday, January 24th are popcorn, drinks, and hors d’ oeuvres and breakfast and lunch are included on Friday, January 25th. Thanks and we look forward to seeing you next week.
Ah, those private companies sure know how to do it right, don’t they?
In New York City, the city’s biggest provider of tutoring services is under investigation for inflated bills and other little financial issues. Since 2006, the company has collected $87 million from the city.
The tutoring company was founded in 2005 by a 22-year-old college graduate. The firm has been investigated and sanctioned for previous financial misbehavior but the city Department of Education, controlled by Mayor Bloomberg, awarded it a new contract last November. The City Comptroller refuses to honor the contract.
Reader Mike Dixon commented on a post about Martin Luther King Jr.‘s definition of the purpose of education:
A cynical person might suspect that corporate education reform is intended to promote exactly what MLK warned about.
The state of Oregon accuses two men of scamming the taxpayers by inflating enrollment figures in their online charter schools.
The schools–at least ten of them–were opened in conjunction with local school boards.
Apparently no one was supervising their claims.
The state wants the pair to repay $17 million plus nearly $3 million in costs and damages.
This is the danger of deregulation. There may be superintendents who would steal if they had the opportunity but they are watched by too many eyes. Maybe they get away with some thousands, but never millions.
This appeared on the New York City parent blog:
NYC Public School Parents
Independent voices of New York City public school parents
FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2013
Parents beware! NY and eight other states plan to share your child’s confidential school records with private corporations without your consent!
New York is one of five states that have agreed to share confidential NYC student and teacher data in Phase I with the “Shared Learning Collaborative” or SLC, a project of the Gates Foundation.
The other states and districts in Phase I include North Carolina (Guilford Co.), Colorado (Jefferson Co.), Illinois (Unit 5 Normal and District 87 Bloomington) and Massachusetts (Everett). Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana are in Phase II, according to the Gates Foundation, intend to start piloting the system in 2013.
The data to be shared will include the names of students, their grades, test scores, disciplinary and attendance records, and likely race, ethnicity, free lunch and special education status as well.
These records are to be stored in a massive electronic data bank, being built by Wireless Generation, a subsidiary of News Corporation. News Corporation is owned by Rupert Murdoch and has been found to illegally violate the privacy of individuals in Great Britain and in the United States.
Over the next few months, the Gates Foundation plans to turn over all this personal data to another, as yet unnamed corporation, headed by Iwan Streichenberger, the former marketing director of a company called Promethean that sells whiteboards, based in Atlanta GA.
This new corporation intends to make this confidential student information available in turn to commercial enterprises to help them develop and market their “learning products.” This new corporation is supposed to be financially sustainable by 2016, which means either states, districts or vendors will have to pay for its upkeep and maintenance. All this is happening without parental knowledge or consent.
There are serious questions as to whether this plan complies with the federal law protecting student privacy, called FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), which allows states or districts to disclose students’ personally identifiable education records without parental consent only in very limited circumstances and under stringent conditions, none of which apply in this case.
Moreover, we have learned that this confidential information is to be put on a cloud managed by Amazon.com, with few if any protections against data leakage.
After our press conference with our attorney, Norman Siegel in October, the NY State Education Department finally released its contract with the Gates Foundation. As we feared, it only reaffirmed our concerns about the lack of privacy for children, the weak protections against data leakage, and the denial of the parental right to consent. Here is a letter from our attorneys expressing our concerns.
We believe that any state that enters into an agreement with the Shared Learning Collaborative, or its successor corporation, should at the very least be obligated to:
Release its contract with the Gates Foundation, notify all parents of the impending disclosure of their children’s confidential records, and provide them with the right to consent;
Hold public hearings for parents to be able to express their concerns about the plan’s potential to risk their children’s privacy, security and safety;
Explain how families can obtain relief if their children are harmed by improper use or accidental release of this information, including who will be held financially responsible;
Affirm that they will respect the privacy rights of public schoolchildren more than the interests of the Gates Foundation, News Corporation, or any other company or vendor with whom this confidential information may be shared.
Please see below; video of Khem Irby, parent activist in North Carolina, speaking before the Guilford school board about this issue last week.
Here is a fact sheet with this information you can download and distribute. You can also leave a comment on the Gates website here, if you think parents should have the right to consent.
For more information, please email us at info@classsizematters.org or call us at 212-674-7320.
Leonie Haimson at 1/18/2013
Diane Ravitch's blog 