Archives for category: For-Profit
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Who Will Reform the Schools? Entrepreneurs and/or Educators?

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2012 //
3

A number of eons ago, I had a Twitter debate with Justin Hamilton, who is Arne Duncan’s press secretary. I forget how it started, but the tenor of the exchange went something like this.

I question whether education would be reformed by educators or entrepreneurs, and Justin, unbidden, sprang to the defense of entrepreneurs. Or maybe he said that teachers and entrepreneurs would both transform education. I narrowed my target and said I was complaining specifically about for-profit entrepreneurs, not people with an entrepreneurial spirit. Justin’s response as something along the lines of, well, you are an entrepreneur, you sell books and make speeches.

Happily, essayist Rachel Levy has saved me the trouble of explaining how shallow Justin’s response was. Her thoughts about intellectual work and business and entrepreneurialism bear reading. I recommend her essay to you, along with the thoughtful comments that follow.

I can’t be angry at Justin. He did write to ask me for a copy of my book, which I sent him gratis and autographed.

I just wish he had found it in his heart or head to say something negative about the unfortunate rise of for-profit schooling and privatization. He didn’t and he couldn’t. That says something about our government’s policies.

Categories For-Profit, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Common Core: A Bonanza for E-Corps

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2012 //
16

A story in the New York Times says that the e-corporations are salivating over the Common Core State Standards.

They foresee the opening up of a multi-billion industry, with more tests, more online resources, more stuff to sell to schools complying with the Common Core.

The standards are indeed a boon for the edu-biz entrepreneurs.

It turns out that Joanne Weiss, chief of staff to Secretary Arne Duncan, was right when she predicted that the standards would open up vast new markets. She wrote:

The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.

I mean, truly, isn’t this why we actually have a federal Department of Education, to meet the needs of American industry and to open up public education as a prime marketplace where entrepreneurs can pursue new business opportunities and make money?

Remember that as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s vision when he signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, authorizing the first major program of federal aid to schools? No? Well, how about when President Jimmy Carter pushed to create the Department in 1979-1980? Not then either? Hmm.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit

Is This the True Christie Plan?

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2012 //
40

A reader suggests the real purpose of the Christie “school reform” plan. Or could it be to introduce private markets to public education, with profits for some, losses for others?

Chris Christie, like many Republicans, main goal is to break the teacher union; it has nothing to do with education. He has no real interest in helping underperforming schools or struggling students.

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, New Jersey, Privatization, Unions

Profiteers Circling the Schools, Looking for $$

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2012 //
61

So here it is folks. Stephanie Simon of Reuters attended that private equity investors’ conference at an elite Manhattan setting and the boys are looking to make money from selling their stuff to the schools, running schools, teaching math, investing in new ventures of all kinds.

This is what many suspected but found hard to believe. The Wall Street crowd says this is their moment.

They see the steady advance of privatization and for-profit ventures and they love it.

They know that the purpose of the new academic standards is to create winners and losers, and they will invest in product to sell to both ends of the spectrum.

They will monetize the children, outsource the teaching, do anything that turns a buck.

Who will stop them?

We know Romney won’t. Will Obama?

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Campaign Contributions Matter

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2012 //
7

A reader reports on the campaign contributions of a major charter school owner in Ohio.
Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Ohio, On-Line Education, Privatization

Best Way to Eliminate Public Education

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2012 //
2

Lance Hill of New Orleans responded to blogger Mike Deshotels, who noted the double standard for charter schools and public schools. Public schools must meet standards, but voucher schools do not? Lance writes:

Mike, excellent post on the contradictions of the Louisiana accountability
plan.  

This isn’t even a policy debate: it’s a debate on simple logic.   Imagine a
hospital that graded doctors on mortality rates. If a hospital administrator
transferred all the critical care patients into the maternity ward, suddenly
the maternity ward doctors would go from an A grade to an F grade.    

If  a policy defies simple logic, there has to be some motive for it other
than its declared purpose.  In this case, I believe the hidden agenda for
grading teachers and schools is to use it as a means to privatize schools
and control the labor force.  The corporate reformers don’t care that a few
good schools and teachers lose out:  it is acceptable collateral damage.  I
predict that once control of public education is transferred to the private
sector,  then meaningful assessment policies will be implemented.  Indeed,
in the 2005 Gates-funded draconian “Tough Choices or Tough Times” report
which advocates “contract schools” and also advocates abolishing high-stakes
testing.  It is implicit that this federally-imposed plan would only
possible if public education were privatized and controlled by state or
federal government. 

Skills Commission member Anthony Carnevale’s dissent. This is the only
dissent I found on the net-amazing given some of the commission members.
It’s also a good short summary of the report’s recommendations:     
http://bit.ly/QpJfMy

Skills Commission 2005 Report. A little-read report but a blueprint for what
is happening all around us:
http://bit.ly/ObCVCL

The proof that the “accountability” plans are, in truth, “power and control”
plans is that the Jindal/White voucher plan initially imposed no
accountability standards for voucher schools nor performance standards for
teachers.  Why?  Because the non-public schools are already in the private
sector.  Vouchers were simply another way of undermining public schools so
the state could privatize them.  What at first appeared to be a double
standard-regulation for public schools but not for non-public schools-now
makes perfect sense as a means to an end.   


Lance Hill

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

A Market Failure: Kids, Teachers, Tough Luck

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2012 //
19

A reader sent an article about a for-profit firm in Pennsylvania that runs four alternative schools for “disciplinary” students. It furloughed its 50 teachers and administrators and closed down without warning. What happens to the students? The teachers? No one knows.

The teachers are in the dark about whether they have jobs in a month. They are paid very low salaries: $31,000 if they have benefits, $36,000 without benefits.  The company is owned by the son of a Congressman. All calls are referred to a lawyer’s office, which has no information.

This is the sector that Republican governors want to expand. Government contracts with minimal or no oversight. At-risk kids put even more at risk in the hands of vendors.

Remind me about the superiority of the private sector. I forget.

Perhaps coincidentally, another reader commented on an earlier post about the market model:

Markets in education are insufficient, because they do not include the overriding public purpose and public interest in educational outcomes. Educational quality is not simply a matter to be settled between “education service providers” and parents. Our entire society has a critical stake in educational outcomes, and public governance  and funding of education is a very effective way to make sure

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Governor Rick Snyder’s Plan

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
15

Governor Snyder’s plan for education in Michigan sounds just like Romney’s and Bobby Jindal’s.

The money should follow the student anywhere and everywhere, to any vendor of education services, regardless of who owns it or manages it.

So, students may take their money to private schools, to hawkers of services, to online courses, whatever. Welcome to anyone who wants to start a school and collect public money.

That is a plan to undermine public education, and the rightwing knows it. That’s their goal.

Education costs won’t go down without increasing class sizes, and the way that will happen is by shifting more dollars to online schools of dubious quality.

It may be worth pointing out that this is not the formula of any high-performing nation in the world.

An editorial writer for the Detroit Free Press sees an issue with the Snyder approach. His column is called “It’s Time to Reshape Public Education.” My suggestion, take care not to destroy it. The entrepreneurs who will flood the new marketplace will care more about their bottom line than about children. Surely, Governor Snyder knows that. This is the governor’s prescription for education spending:

“Any time, any place, any way, any pace.”

It’s a catchy way of saying state money should follow students through all kinds of educational options, from traditional neighborhood schools to charters and online coursework — whatever best enables the student to learn.

Snyder calls it “unfettered flexibility” and hopes to foster more “free market ideas for public schools in Michigan.”

Sounds good, but let’s make sure we have quality controls in place for educators who want to set up shop here and take in our tax dollars.

And let’s not leave decisions about learning entirely up to the students. A few may do just fine taking a physics class online at 2 a.m. from a teacher based in Arizona. But most will probably be better served by a little more structure — and a mandatory gym class.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Michigan, Privatization

Another Charter School Scandal: Ho-Hum

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
3

I guess we will have to get used to this sort of thing.

Some charter schools in Florida padded the enrollment–er, made a miscalculation–of the number of students in their program.

Here is the story:

An audit of Coronado High School found there was no documentation to show 465 students participated in an on-the-job course. The school could provide documentation of 13 students in the course. The audit at North Nicholas High revealed 102 of 372 students were incorrectly reported.

Nice to see they were audited.

The governor had three charter school executives on his transition team.

He named one of them to the State Board of Education.

Does anyone care?

Remember when we used to worry about conflicts of interest?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization

Is a Struggling School Like a Failed Restaurant?

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2012 //
20

Here is a blog that says that a school with low test scores is like a failed restaurant.

We know what happens when a restaurant fails.

It closes. It goes bankrupt. The hungry customers go somewhere else.

He is an entrepreneur who is now in the business of reforming schools.

Here is his analysis:

Struggling schools are like failed restaurants.  The kitchen staff are the educators. Maybe the chef is the chapter union leader.  The restaurant owner/manger is the school administration.  Customers are the kids.  And Eli Broad or one of the education agencies he funds is Gordon Ramsey.  He comes in with honest, straightforward observations, and tells you what’s going wrong.  Sometimes it’s the chef that’s the problem and the management is too disengaged to fix it.  Sometimes it’s the management, inhibiting the talent of a bunch of great cooks.  In most cases, the restaurant is neglected – dirty and infested.  Disgusting actually, especially if you look in the secret places, behind and underneath things, as LA Unified knows all too well.

Well, gosh, wouldn’t you be thrilled to have Eli Broad come to your school and tell you how to fix your problems? Wouldn’t you want to have a guy who made billions in the home-building and insurance industry tell you what’s wrong and what to do?

Or are you just a lousy chef working in a rat-infested building without the sense to do anything about it?

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