This blogger wondered who was appointed to the Florida state board. This is a powerful board that selects the state commissioner of education and sets policy for the children, teachers, and schools of the state. The board has given the green light to charters, vouchers, online schools, for-profit schools, any alternative that anyone can dream of.
Who are these people? Read the post and you will understand.
Read it and you will see how Florida became a Mecca for privatization.
This investment service says the trend is downward, and it’s a good time to go short on K12. High student churn, poor results, increasing government scrutiny do not augur well for the future of for-profit virtual schooling.
Stephen Dyer raises the question about whether Ohio will follow in Florida’s path and open an investigation of the K12 for-profit school. In Ohio, K12 has classes of 51 students to a single teacher even though it is paid to have a ratio of 20:1.
That is way profitable for K12, though not for the students.
Dyer’s article includes a link to a story about the sharp drop in K12’s stock price that occurred after news of the Florida investigation broke. That story points out that K12 is under investigation in Georgia as well as Florida.
You do have to wonder at what point Secretary of Education Arne Duncan might speak out against the poor quality of online for-profit charter schools and other for-profit entrepreneurs that raid school budgets and produce terrible results. Will he?
This Chicago teacher sees a sinister motive in the avalanche of hostility to teachers. Teachers were always considered admirable even though teaching was not well paid and not very prestigious. But these days, teachers have become “enemies,” who soak up money and do little work, who get “paid for breathing” and “tenure for life.” None of this is true. This teacher sees a dark side:
The teacher bashing was key to changing public perception about teachers because in order to squeeze money out of cash-strapped districts, you have to cut personnel. It certainly was unfair and hurt, but it was just a tactic in a larger war to privatize a public good.
This is about Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation and Apple iPads delivering online tests 4 or more times a year to every child K-12 in Chicago. And re-selling student data to CPS to evaluate every teacher.
This is about a brutal teacher eval methodology based on junk science. It is imposed at the same time as tough common core tests that most believe children will do poorly on. And all to provide an excuse to fire roughly 6,000 CPS teachers and vastly increase class sizes.
This is about remaking the 3rd largest school district in the nation as a scalable market for Rupert Murdoch’s and Apple’s benefit. This is about hedge fund managers placing their bets on these companies getting huge contracts in the largest school districts — that is why they have flooded Chicago with tv and radio ads demonizing teachers.
And this is about Democrats raising billions of dollars in campaign funding.
Listen to an excellent panel discussion, featuring the brilliant Dissent writer Joanne Barkan. She is the author of “Got Dough: How Billionaires Rule Our Schools,” which you should read.
K12, the giant cyber corporation that sells for-profit schooling, is in trouble in Seminole County, Florida, because the state insists that teachers must be certified. But having certified teachers is more expensive than having uncertified teachers, which cuts into K12’s profit margins.
The Florida Department of Education has opened an investigation into K12.
So, you can see, this is a big problem for regulators, who have this quaint attachment to the idea that teachers should meet a standard of some sort, but also for K12, whose profit margins are at risk.
You will note in the first article that K12 has another problem: The NCAA refuses to accept the credits of K12’s online program Aventa Learning, because of low standards. So student athletes hoping to get a quick and easy degree by point-and-click will have to enroll elsewhere, perhaps in a real school.
Former Governor Jeb Bush has been selling online schooling all over the country, as a win-win (cut costs, make money), and he wields influence in Florida. The investigation should be interesting.
A reader sent this today:
CHRIS HEDGES: Well, you know, the tactic is clear. And, you know, the secretary of education, Duncan, is behind it. And that is essentially the stripping away of—you know, of qualified teachers. We’re watching it in New York. You know, the mayor of New York is very much a part of this effort. The assault on the New York City teachers’ union is as egregious as the assault against the Chicago Teachers Union.
And it really boils down to the fact that we spend $600-some billion a year, the federal government, on education, and the corporations want it. That’s what’s happening. And that comes through charter schools. It comes through standardized testing. And it comes through breaking teachers’ unions and essentially hiring temp workers, people who have very little skills. This is what Teach for America is about. They teach by rote, and they earn nothing. There’s no career.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/11/chris_hedges_on_9_11_touring
Count on Stephanie Simon of Reuters to get the story that eluded every other reporter.
She is the one that got the inside story on Louisiana, TFA, and for-profit investors.
Now she has the scoop on Chicago.
The strike in Chicago is not about money.
It is a national story.
It’s about the survival of public education.
Read her story.
Jessie B. Ramey attended a meeting at the White House with a delegation of Pennsylvania educators.
Ramey wrote an open letter to Roberto Rodriguez, President Obama’s education advisor, asking the White House to stop berating educators and public education.
Based on the story in The Atlantic claiming that Michelle Rhee is “taking over the Democratic Party,” it becomes imperative for President Obama to distance himself from Rhee’s anti-teacher ideas.
Does President Obama support charter schools, like Rhee? Yes.
Does President Obama support for-profit schools, like Rhee? He hasn’t said.
Does President Obama worry about a dual school system in American cities, with charters for the haves and public schools for the have-nots? We need to know.
Does President Obama want entire school staffs to be fired because of low test scores? He said no at the Convention but he supported the firing of the staff at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island and his Race to the Top turnaround strategy supports mass firings. Does he approve or disapprove?
Does President Obama truly want to stop the odious practice of teaching to the test? Will he explain how teachers can avoid teaching to the test if their pay and their job depends on student test scores?
President Obama must let the nation’s teachers know that he is with them. He can do so by disassociating himself from Rhee’s anti-teacher agenda, as well as from policies pushed by his own Race to the Top.
And he could go to Chicago and tell Rahm Emanuel to settle with the teachers and do what is right for the children of Chicago.
The nation’s leading anti-testing organization has issued a call to its supporters to turn out and welcome Secretary Duncan if he visits their communities on his cross-country bus tour.
Tell him why his teach-to-the-test policies are failing. Tell him why high-stakes testing is bad for the quality of education. Tell him that children need time to play and dance and sing, not just take test prep. Tell him that it is wrong to ditch physical education and the arts and recess for more testing.
Greet him warmly. Of course, the tour starts in Silicon Valley, where the edu-entrepreneurs are heavily represented.
Here is the FairTest message.
Give Arne’s “Bus Tour” a Warm Welcome
Once again, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is running a “back to school” bus tour, starting in California on Sept. 12 and winding east to DC (see http://www.ed.gov/blog/topic/bustour/ for full schedule).
FairTest encourages assessment reformers to give Duncan the “welcome” his destructive policies deserve. A handful of people is sufficient to make a big impact. You can leaflet the locations where Duncan and his surrogates stop, challenging their policies while educating the media and the audience. The National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing provides a succinct critique of federal testing policies (see http://www.fairtest.org/national-resolution-highstakes-testing)
The tour starts in the Redwood City/Silicon Valley, California area. Other stops include: Sacramento, California; Reno and Elko, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Rawlins, Rock Springs, and Cheyenne, Wyoming; Denver and Limon, Colorado; Topeka and Emporia, Kansas; Kansas City and Columbia, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri ; Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Evansville, Indiana; Lexington, Kentucky; Charleston and McDowell County, West Virginia; Roanoke and Richmond, Virginia.
If Duncan’s bus tour is visiting your region, please help make the public aware of the growing grassroots resistance to high-stakes testing. Feel free to call on FairTest at any time for assistance in your important work.
Diane Ravitch's blog 