Archives for category: For-Profit
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A Conversation about the Goal of Reformers

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2012 //
9

I wrote a post about the attacks on teachers, which got some interesting responses.

Reader A wrote:

This has absolutely nothing to do with teacher quality. This has everything to do with:

1. Destroying unions;

2. Destroying public education;

3. Hijacking tax funding for education to for-profit corporations;

4. Control of the public to perpetuate the 1%.

But Bill and Arne won’t say that in public.

Reader B replied:

@mooseinsquirrels: In attacking the problem, it’s important to outline the ultimate motives of those who’d destroy unions, etc. Otherwise, it sounds as if teachers see themselves as the primary victims. My hope is that we can refine our rhetoric in a way that makes plain the stakes for society generally.

Some in the 1% do see a big money pie of which they’d gladly enjoy a slice. But destroying unions and demeaning the profession are primarily steps in the industrialization of education. Students are raw materials, teachers are workers on the assembly line and computers are robots. Efficient manufacture demands standardized tools, techniques and outputs. Unions create friction and therefore must be eliminated.

Degradation, not destruction, is the likely outcome for public education. The system will be partially privatized, but others will profit as contractors with what remains of the public system. Just as KIPP will never accept Diane’s challenge to take over an entire system, the smarter education entrepreneurs will avoid taking over the entire system when they peel off some kids, generate feel-good numbers, and collect a profit.

Ultimately, we must convince parents in all classes that 1) education is best when it draws out the talents and passions of children, and 2) the industrialization of schooling has the effect (and perhaps the design) of squelching them.

@lets_be_reasonable: Your analysis tacitly accepts the industrialization of education metaphor. Teacher quality is measured by product quality which is measured by how much someone will pay for it. I propose we rehumanize the product and reject any value-added metric. It’s sickening.

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

Spread the Word about October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2012 //
77

I will write about this every single day from now until October 17.

Please write your thoughts about what needs to change in federal education policy and send a letter to President Obama by that date.

You can write it now and follow instructions here.

Anthony Cody, experienced middle school science teacher and fabulous blogger, has offered to coordinate our campaign to write President Obama on October 17.

We call it the Campaign for Our Public Schools.

Our campaign is meant to include everyone who cares about public education: students, parents, teachers, principals, school board members, and concerned citizens. We want everyone to write the President and tell him what needs to change in his education policies.

Tell your friends about the Campaign. If you have a blog, write about it. Wherever you are, spread the news. Join us.

Here are the instructions:

You can send your letter to Anthony Cody or to this blog.

Or you can send it directly to the White House, with a copy to me or Anthony.

Anthony will gather all the emails sent to him and me and forward them to the White House.

1. Email your letters to anthony_cody@hotmail.com.

2. Or submit them as comments to this blog. You can respond to this post or to any other post on this blog about the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools.

All letters collected through these two channels will be compiled into a single document, which will be sent to the White House on Oct. 18.

In ADDITION to this,

3. You can mail copies of your letters through US mail to The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 20500

4. You can send them by email from this page: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

If you choose to write or email the White House, please send us a copy so we can keep track of how many letters were sent to the President.

One more thought: when you write to the President, also write to your Senators and Congressman or -woman and to your state legislator and Governor. Send the same letter to them all.

Let’s raise our voices NOW against privatization, against high-stakes testing, against teacher bashing, against profiteering.

Let’s advocate for policies that are good for students, that truly improve education, that respect the education profession, and that strengthen our democratic system of public education.

Let’s act. Start here. Start now.

Join our campaign. Speak out. Enough is enough.

Diane

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Obama, Parents, Privatization, Race to the Top, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, US Education

What Race to the Top Has Accomplished

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2012 //
65

Let’s give credit where credit is due.

Because of Race to the Top, most states are now evaluating teachers based in significant part on student test scores. The American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education say that the methodology for doing this is inaccurate and unstable. The ratings bounce around from year to year. Such ratings reflect which students were in the class, not teacher quality.

Because of Race to the Top, more states are permitting privatization of public schools.

Because of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, all schools are labeled by their test scores.

Because of Race to the Top, there is more teaching to the test, more fear and anxiety associated with testing, more narrowing of the curriculum, more cheating.

Because of Race to the Top, many schools in poor and minority neighborhoods will be closed.

Because of Race to the Top, many principals and teachers will be fired.

Is this what President Obama meant when he referred to the “results” of his Race to the Top? It explains why Romney applauded it and specifically hailed Arne Duncan.

This reader has a different view of Race to the Top:

In addition to the intimidation and demoralization of teachers, Race to the Top is having its intended results: the destabilization, fragmentation and privatization of the public schools.

In their public utterances on education, Obama and Duncan are frauds, but the education reform complex is being managed by very intelligent and far seeking -venal, but far-seeking – people. They know exactly what they are doing, and more often than not are getting their way.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Duncan, Arne, For-Profit, Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Romney, Mitt, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, US Education

Why Privatizers Don’t Care About Evidence

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2012 //
25

A reader writes:

This is the reason why no one listens to all the sound reasons presented so far.

“No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.” ~ Karl R. Popper

Categories ALEC, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Race to the Top, US Education

ALEC Triumphant in Louisiana

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2012 //
10

I wrote a post about radical legislation in Pennsylvania that will authorize the Governor to create a charter commission with power to overturn local decisions. This legislation was written by the corporate-funded organization ALEC.

The Louisiana legislature passed the radical ALEC agenda last spring. Teachers lost tenure; unqualified people can become teachers. Test scores determine teachers’ careers. More than half the state’s students are eligible for vouchers, with some going to fundamentalist schools. Charters will pop up everywhere. Students can take their tuition money to online schools that get poor results, or to any snake-oil salesman that hangs out a shingle and pretends to be an educator.

Everything comes out of the minimum foundation funding for public schools, which is supposedly illegal, but who cares? Lots of new opportunities to make a buck in Louisiana or any other state that passes ALEC model legislation.

A reader in Louisiana notes that the proposed governor’s commission, stripping local boards of their decision-making powers, has already passed in his state:

This legislation was passed in Louisiana last spring. Don’t let this happen to Penn -teachers get the word out to fight this. This December our Board of Education will present the first list of applicants to fall under this new provision and they have shown that they decry true accountability. My school district,St. Tammany Parish, is the highest performing large school district in the state with highest average ACT score in the state and above the national average. We have never allowed charters but we are now expecting to be invaded. One prospective charter operator is advertising on Craig’s List for personnel to open an “international school.” He is a former instructor of Muslim studies at the Air Force Academy (5years) from Edinburgh, Scotland. Where do these charter promoters come from and how do end up here.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, For-Profit, Louisiana, On-Line Education, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Pennsylvania Governor Pushing ALEC Law

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
9

Governor Tom Corbett wants charter “reform.” He is trying to persuade the state legislature to allow him to create a commission that could authorize charter schools over the opposition of local school boards.

As a Pennsylvania blogger says, this puts the fox in charge of the henhouse.

This is ALEC model legislation. It’s on the ballot in Georgia next month, where ALEC allies hope to eliminate local control.

This is not conservative. It is radical. Since when do conservatives destroy local control to advance the monied interests?

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

My Candid Views about School Choice

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
1

This is part 2 of my interview by Abby Rappaport of the American Prospect. This came at the end of a long day in Austin, after I gave two speeches, one in the morning to the Texas School Boards Association and Texas Association of School Administrators, and another in the afternoon to parents and teachers. I was too tired to choose my words. I said what I think.

In part 1 of the interview, we talked about testing and accountability.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Texas, US Education, Vouchers

Bill Moyers on ALEC

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
4

Because I was traveling in Texas over the weekend, I didn’t see Bill Moyers’ report on ALEC. I watched it last night, and I hope you will too.

If you want to understand how we are losing our democracy, watch this program.

If you want to know why so many states are passing copycat legislation to suppress voters’ rights, to eliminate collective bargaining, to encourage online schooling, to privatize public education, watch this program.

ALEC brings together lobbyists for major corporations and elected state officials in luxurious resorts. In its seminars, the legislators learn how to advance corporate-sponsored, free-market ideas in their state. Its model legislation is introduced in state after state, often with minimal or no changes in the wording.

Watch Moyers show how Tennessee adopted ALEC’s online school bill and how Arizona is almost a wholly owned ALEC state. Watch how Scott Walker followed the ALEC template.

Moyers could do an entire special on ALEC’s education bills. ALEC promotes the parent trigger, so that parents can be tricked into handing their public schools over to charter chains. ALEC promotes gubernatorial commissions with the power to over-ride the decisions of local school boards to open more charters. ALEC promotes vouchers. ALEC, as he noted, promotes virtual charter schools (Pearson’s Connections Academy and K12 wrote the ALEC model law). ALEC has model legislations for vouchers for students with special needs. ALEC has a model law to allow people to teach without credentials. ALEC has legislation to eliminate tenure protection. ALEC has model legislation for educator evaluation.

It is all so familiar, isn’t it?

ALEC wants nothing less than to privatize public education, to eliminate unions, and to dismantle the education profession.

Categories ALEC, Education Industry, For-Profit, K12 Inc., On-Line Education, Parent trigger, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Tennessee, Testing, Unions, US Education

Michelle Rhee’s Plan to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
33

Michelle Rhee is is a one-person PAC. She is raising hundreds of millions of dollars from rightwing billionaires and foundations and corporations to subsidize her program.

What is her program? Destroy teachers’ unions; eliminate tenure and seniority; privatize public education. Having failed to transform the public schools of the District of Columbia, she now wants to privatize public education everywhere.

When I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I learned from a Democratic state senator that Rhee had poured $105,000 into a race between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Democrat. The difference between them? The conservative Democrat supports vouchers. My informant said, “Candidates here will jump through hoops for a contribution of $1,000. Getting $105,000 is unimaginable.” Rhee bought the election. The voucher-loving Democrat won. He added: Most of Rhee’s money goes to conservative Republicans.

She is trying to buy a seat in Connecticut now. A reader writes:

Rhee’s fraud of an organization has nothing to do with students, teaching or learning. It is a political lobbyist group that secretly slithers around the nation passing our billionaire donated cash to influence and bribe politicians. Her dirty donations push the privatization, anti-union, anti-public school, collective bargaining busting, teacher trashing dogma down their throats. Here she is a pariah and getting her money is the kiss of death here in CT:

http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/10/01/michelle-buy-yourself-an-election-rhee-returns-to-undermine-democracy-in-connecticut/

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/is_michelle_rhee_trying_to_buy_a_seat_in_the_5th/#comments-31483

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, For-Profit, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Tennessee, Unions, US Education, Vouchers

Wall Street Eyes Profit Potential in Public School Budgets

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2012 //
9

The privatization movement has swung into high gear.

Many people find it hard to understand why so many Wall Street hedge fund managers and equity investors have suddenly become interested in public education.

Here is a good explanation.

No one ever went wrong by following the money.

Who wins? Who loses?

And another important issue: where is the evidence that privatization improves education or saves money? Or does it save money while making education worse?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education
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