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Amy Shuffelton: Why Did PBS Air a Three-Hour Series that Promotes Free Market Schooling?

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2017 //
25

Amy Shuffelton, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, asks why PBS chose to air “School Inc.” when it was so clearly biased and evidence-free. The three-hour program began to air in April, although some local PBS affiliates chose not to show it. In New York City, it is airing now, on Saturdays.

She writes of its thesis and its many errors of fact and interpretation.

Episode One, The Price of Excellence, starts with Coulson wearing 1970s attire and holding an early Sony Walkman. When the Walkman was invented, he points out, it was expensive, but thanks to entrepeneurial inventiveness it soon became widely affordable. Because competitors were hard at work on cheaper replications, Coulson explains, quality improved as prices dropped. Why hasn’t education followed this trend?…

Over the course of three hours, Coulson revisits the story of Jaime Escalante, the real-life Los Angeles teacher whose success preparing low income public school students for the AP Calculus exam was made famous in the 1988 film Stand and Deliver. He visits Cranbrook Schools, an elite private institution in Michigan. Then he turns to charter schools, which aren’t limited by commitments to tradition as schools like Cranbrook are.

What makes the series truly provocative is that Coulson doesn’t stop there. In Episode Three, Forces and Choices, he visits for-profit private schools in Hyderabad India, Sweden, and New Orleans. And in the last ten minutes of the series, he brings his argument to its conclusion: the key to scaling up educational excellence is free market competition between for-profit schools.

The answer is as obvious as Andrew Coulson’s devout belief in the free market as the answer to everything: Follow the money. The series was paid for by a group of libertarian foundations that are hostile to government and specifically to public schools.

The central thesis of Coulson’s series is that public schools are the same as they were 100 years ago because they don’t compete. Competition, he says again and again, drives innovation. Yet, he does not show a single example of innovation in the private sector schools he lauds. Not one, unless you count the class sizes of 12 at the private Cranbrook School in Michigan, where tuition is $29,000 a year and the endowment is $200 million. The private sector schools, at best, look just like public schools, but without the drama club, the marching band, the robotics classes, the sports teams, and the many activities other than drilling students to take tests.

Please email PBS and let them know how you feel about airing bought-and-paid-for rightwing propaganda.

https://networkforpubliceducation.org/2017/06/9479/

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

Thank You, Massachusetts Teachers Association, for Standing Up to Profiteers!

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2017 //
60

The Massachusetts Teachers Association rejected the for-profit promotion of Depersonalized Learning! MTA delegates also adopted a resolution calling for full funding of public schools.

Massachusetts is the highest performing state in the nation on NAEP tests, yet the rightwingers on the state board keep trying to shove corporate reform on their successful public schools and teachers.

Thank you, MTA and your valiant leader, Barbara Madeloni.

Madeloni wrote the following to the MTA membership:

“The Annual Meeting of Delegates, which is the highest decision-making body in the MTA, convened on May 19 and 20 to discuss, debate and vote on policy. In this e-mail, I highlight several of the New Business Items that were approved by the delegates. You can read all of those NBIs here in the members’ area of the MTA website. (First-time users will need the number on their MTA membership cards to log in.) The votes of the Annual Meeting delegates reinforce the membership’s commitment to defending public education and building union power to bring about the schools our communities deserve.

“Personalized Learning: The New Threat to Public Education

NBIs #6, #12 and #13 address the threat posed by the state’s promotion of computer-based “personalized learning” strategies, including one through a program called MAPLE/LearnLaunch. This overview is long, but well worth watching. It explains the real dangers of handing over our schools and students to corporate education technology entities.

“Teaching and learning are deeply human activities. We cannot let ed tech companies depersonalize learning or make education a technocratic endeavor. We must assert the centrality of face-to-face relationships – community – and our professional knowledge and autonomy as essential to public education.

“NBI #6 asserts that the MTA opposes DESE’s MAPLE/LearnLaunch partnership and calls for the MTA to create a web page to “share strategies to combat the harmful effects of unvalidated ed tech products on our students, and to defend teachers’ professional judgment and standards against interference by business interests.”

“NBI #12 calls for a web page dedicated to informing members about the threat to public education posed by privatization, including but not limited to personalized learning programs. This connects to our existing page on State Takeovers/Privatization and encompasses the many forms that privatization is taking in preK-12 and higher education. (Important note: The current page includes a link to a form where members in Level 4 and 5 schools are asked to report on their experiences. Please take a few minutes to fill this out if you are in one of those schools.)

“NBI #13 calls for the MTA to update its 2016 report, Threat to Public Education Now Centers on Massachusetts, to include a section on corporate support for personalized learning.

“Hold the Commonwealth Accountable: Fully Fund Our Public Schools

“NBIs #9 and #10 call for the MTA to prepare to file a lawsuit against the governor and Legislature if they fail to address the school funding shortfall identified by the nonpartisan Foundation Budget Review Commission. The commission determined that public schools are underfunded by at least $1 billion a year. NBI #10 says that in the event a lawsuit must be filed, it should seek to end the state’s punitive accountability system until and unless the schools are fully funded. Moved by retiring Springfield Education Association President Tim Collins, these two NBIs represent one way the MTA is responding to the failure of the Commonwealth to abide by its Constitution and “cherish” our public schools.

“On a related note, the City of Brockton recently set aside $100,000 toward funding a similar education lawsuit, and officials in Worcester are also discussing the issue.”

Categories Corporate Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Massachusetts, Technology

Buzzfeed: DeVos Plans to Cancel Regulations that Protect College Students from Predatory For-Profit “Colleges”

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2017 //
13

Betsy DeVos plans to withdraw federal regulations adopted during the Obama administration to protect college students from predatory for-profit colleges.

“The Trump administration moved today to roll back two regulations designed to protect students against predatory for-profit colleges.

“In federal filings, the Education Department said it would renegotiate the federal “gainful employment” rule, which stops government money from flowing to for-profit colleges whose students take on too much debt, but earn little after they graduate. Years in the making — it went into effect in 2015 after surviving two lengthy court battles with the for-profit college industry — the regulation is arguably the most significant piece of President Obama’s higher education legacy.

“The department also said it would also delay the implementation of a second rule, widely known as “borrower defense to repayment,” which would allow students who said they had been defrauded by their schools to more easily have their federal loans forgiven. Those regulations — which were set to go into effect on July 1 — also included provisions to prevent colleges from forcing their students to sign away their right to sue.

“In a statement, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos called the borrower defense rules “a muddled process that’s unfair to students and schools.”

“It’s time for a regulatory reset. It is the Department’s aim, and this Administration’s commitment, to protect students from predatory practices while also providing clear, fair and balanced rules for colleges and universities to follow,” she said.

“The move was quickly decried by Democrats and student advocates who fought for the regulations’ passage — frequently sparring with the Obama administration over whether they went far enough in penalizing for-profits.

“Today, Secretary DeVos chose for-profit colleges over students and taxpayers,” Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois said in a statement. “Her actions to eliminate important protections in higher education will harm students and waste millions in taxpayer dollars.”

Is it time to restart Trump University?

Categories Betsy DeVos, For-Profit, Fraud, Higher Education, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

Florida: Governor Scott Signs Bill Packed with Millions More for Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2017 //
39

Why do so many Tepublicans hate public schools? They know that funding for education is a zero-sum game. More money for privately-run charters and vouchers means less money for public schools.

Today, Governor Rick Scott of Florida signed into law a bill that transfers more money away from public schools to the privately-run schools.

The charter industry in Florida has been riddled with scandals and frauds. The for-profit charter industry is making money.

In the article cited, Valerie Strauss explains the legislation and the harm it will do to the public schools attended by the great majority of Florida’s students.

Why are Republicans like Rick Scott determined to shift money from public schools to private schools?

It is a scam. Shameful.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Peter Greene on the DeVos Doctrine: Choice Choice Choice

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2017 //
25

Peter Greene read Betsy DeVos’s speech to the big privatization conference in D.C. and he figured out the DeVos doctrine.

Remember the song from “Oklahoma,” about “the farmers and the ranchers can be friends?” Well, DeVos assured her allies in the privatization movement that voucher-lovers and charter-lovers are on the same team. They both want the money that now goes to public schools!

Greene writes:

“The rise of Betsy DeVos opened up some schisms in the education reformster world, including, notably, voucher fans versus charter fans. Charter fans have been distrustful, even openly resistant to DeVos and whatever agenda she is drifting toward. Charter schools and voucher schools are natural competitors, with vouchers having a distinct edge with the private religious school market. But I think it may be more important that they compete in different ways.

“To grossly oversimplify, the charter model is to attach itself to the public school system, coopting the public system’s financial systems but redirecting public monies to private schools. The voucher model is to keep the public funding from ever entering the public system at all. Charters want to slip the money out of the bank, but vouchers want to grab the armored cars delivering it. Charters flirt with the lottery winner so he’ll buy them a nice dinner, and vouchers mug him before he ever gets to the restaurant. Charters fake their family ties so they can wrangle an invite to Thanksgiving

“So it represents a significant shift that DeVos has delivered a speech loaded with a giant olive branch to charter supporters…

“DeVos holds up Florida as an example of robust choice and its awesome results. Including Pitbull’s school. Florida, land charter scam artists and blatantly racist school policy and slavish devotion to the Big Standardized Test and public schools deliberately gutted in order to make choice look good. Florida is the DeVosian model. It may not do much for actual education, but at least people are free to make money.

“The final chorus of this hymn to privatization is to declare that “education is not a zero-sum game.” But of course as currently conceived, it is exactly that. Among the issues that DeVos doesn’t address is the costliness of running multiple parallel school systems with the same (often inadequate) funds you previously used to run a single system. As long as every taxpayer dollar spent to send a student to a private charter or voucher school is a dollar taken away from the public system, then a zero-sum game is exactly what we have.

“The DeVos Doctrine presented here includes several of her emerging greatest hits, such as the idea that parents choosing a school is a pure exercise of democracy. It is not. There is nothing democratic about requiring the taxpaying public to foot the bill for your personal private choice.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Failure, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

PBS Explains Why It Ran a Pro-Privatization Series

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2017 //
41

Valerie Strauss contacted PBS to ask why the public TV Network ran a one-sided three-hour documentary that lambastes public schools and celebrates vouchers, charters, and for-profit schools.

PBS gave its response.

It likes to air diverse views (clearly without fact-checking).

It pays no attention to where the money comes from, even it is dark money funneled through Donors Trust, which bundles contributions from the Koch brothers and DeVos foundations.

Since PBS welcomes diverse views, be sure to contact your local public television station and urge them to run my rebuttal, which aired on WNET, the NYC PBS station.

Since PBS likes diverse views, urge them to air “Backpack Full of Cash,” produced by award-winning Stone Lantern Films, who’s four-part series, “School,” was aired on PBS in 2000. “Backpack” demonstrates the vicious corporate assault on public schools and the harm done to children by the privatization movement.

Don’t agonize, organize.

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

Cory Booker Joins Republicans* to Block Import of Cheaper Prescription Drugs from Canada

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2017 //
30

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to allow Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada, where they are cheaper even though some are made in America. Senator Cory Booker, the faux-progressive, voted with the Republicans to protect the profits of Big Pharma.

“BERNIE SANDERS INTRODUCED a very simple symbolic amendment Wednesday night, urging the federal government to allow Americans to purchase pharmaceutical drugs from Canada, where they are considerably cheaper. Such unrestricted drug importation is currently prohibited by law.

“The policy has widespread support among Americans: one Kaiser poll taken in 2015 found that 72 percent of Americans are in favor of allowing for importation. President-elect Donald Trump also campaigned on a promise to allow for importation.

“The Senate voted down the amendment 52-46, with two senators not voting. Unusually, the vote was not purely along party lines: 13 Republicans joined Sanders and a majority of Democrats in supporting the amendment, while 13 Democrats and a majority of Republicans opposed it.

“One of those Democrats was New Jersey’s Cory Booker, who is considered a rising star in the party and a possible 2020 presidential contender.”

Although Booker voted against DeVos, he supports vouchers and charters, like DeVos.

(Thanks to Arthur Goldstein for the tip.)

*I made a spelling error in original headline and typed Tepublicans. Maybe that was short-hand for Tea Party Republicans.

Categories For-Profit, Hoax

NY Times: The Tech Billionaires Who Are Remaking America’s Schools

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2017 //
37

This is an important article about the Silicon Valley billionaires who want to remake America’s schools, although none has any deep knowledge of children or cognition or the multiple social issues that affect children and families. Being tech entrepreneurs, most of them think there is a technological fix for every problem.

The article focuses on several billionaires and what they aim to achieve.

The writer, Natasha Singer, is careful to add red flags where necessary and seek out evaluations. She also is alert to the possibility that the tech entrepreneurs are building their portfolios and enriching themselves. And she points out that much of what they are doing challenges democracy itself in the absence of public debate and understanding.

She writes:

“In the space of just a few years, technology giants have begun remaking the very nature of schooling on a vast scale, using some of the same techniques that have made their companies linchpins of the American economy. Through their philanthropy, they are influencing the subjects that schools teach, the classroom tools that teachers choose and fundamental approaches to learning….

“The involvement by some of the wealthiest and most influential titans of the 21st century amounts to a singular experiment in education, with millions of students serving as de facto beta testers for their ideas. Some tech leaders believe that applying an engineering mind-set can improve just about any system, and that their business acumen qualifies them to rethink American education…

“Tech companies and their founders have been rolling out programs in America’s public schools with relatively few checks and balances, The New York Times found in interviews with more than 100 company executives, government officials, school administrators, researchers, teachers, parents and students.

“They have the power to change policy, but no corresponding check on that power,” said Megan Tompkins-Stange, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “It does subvert the democratic process.”

Furthermore, there is only limited research into whether the tech giants’ programs have actually improved students’ educational results….

“Mr. Hastings of Netflix and other tech executives rejected the idea that they wielded significant influence in education. The mere fact that classroom internet access has improved, Mr. Hastings said, has had a much greater impact in schools than anything tech philanthropists have done.”

Hastings’ Dreambox software depends on constant data-mining:

“DreamBox Learning tracks a student’s every click, correct answer, hesitation and error — collecting about 50,000 data points per student per hour — and uses those details to adjust the math lessons it shows. And it uses data to help teachers pinpoint which math concepts students may be struggling with.”

This is the same Reed Hastings who just spent $5 million helping charter entrepreneurs gain control of the Los Angeles school board.

“Another difference: Some tech moguls are taking a hands-on role in nearly every step of the education supply chain by financing campaigns to alter policy, building learning apps to advance their aims and subsidizing teacher training. This end-to-end influence represents an “almost monopolistic approach to education reform,” said Larry Cuban, an emeritus professor of education at Stanford University. “That is starkly different to earlier generations of philanthropists.”

“These efforts coincide with a larger Silicon Valley push to sell computers and software to American schools, a lucrative market projected to reach $21 billion by 2020. Already, more than half of the primary- and secondary-school students in the United States use Google services like Gmail in school.”

Singer goes through each of the entrepreneurs’ programs. The only one that impressed me was the program in San Francisco that created a Pricipals’ Innovation Fund, “which awards annual unrestricted grants of $100,000 to the principal at each of the district’s 21 middle and K-8 schools.” The key word here is unrestricted.

Mark Zuckerberg’s dream is to sell his digitized approach to enable children to learn via computer and use teachers as moderators. He calls this “personalized learning,” since the computer algorithm adjusts for each student. Singer’s subtitle for Zuckerberg’s dream is: “Student, Teach Thyself.”

““Our hope over the next decade is to help upgrade a majority of these schools to personalized learning and then start working globally as well,” Mr. Zuckerberg told the audience. “Giving a billion students a personalized education is a great thing to do.”

Please, Natasha Singer, do a follow-up that explains that learning from a machine is depersonalized learning.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Data and Data Mining, Democracy, Education Reform, For-Profit, Online Learning, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Technology

Trump Will Privatize Public Infrastructure

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2017 //
41

The organization “In the Public Interest” reports that global equity investors are gearing up for Trump’s infrastructure plan.

Question: if the banks own bridges and tunnels, can they put fees on them and raise fees whenever they want? They don’t invest for sentiment. They expect a return on investment.

“National: The Trump administration is launching its infrastructure plan with a series of high-profile events this week, beginning at the White House today with a call for privatization of the nation’s air traffic control system. On Wednesday, President Trump goes to Cincinnati for an event that “will highlight the locks, dams and other elements of the inland waterways system crucial for moving agricultural products and other goods,” and promote commercial fees. On Thursday, Trump will host mayors and governors at the White House for an infrastructure “listening session.” On Friday Trump will visit the Department of Transportation’s offices “to discuss its efforts to streamline the regulatory approval and permitting process for road and rail projects,” according to former Goldman Sachs president and COO Gary Cohn, Trump’s point man on the initiative.

“Although the outlines of Trump’s plan have yet to be spelled out, at the heart of the proposal is a dramatic cut in federal infrastructure funding, and for shifting the burden onto states, localities and the private sector.

“However, on May 25 the board of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) agreed on a policy resolution reflecting concerns about what the Trump administration has in mind for the framework for this shift. On private financing, AASHTO declared that “while opportunities exist to expand private participation in the provision of infrastructure,” the administration and Congress must “recognize that most transportation projects do not generate a revenue stream and therefore requires federal support in the form of direct funding rather than financing incentives that encourage borrowing or utilizing private capital.” This point goes directly to the issue of whether the administration’s so-called “asset recycling” model is sustainable.

“AASHTO insists that the focus of federal support should continue to be on transportation infrastructure needs, rather than on a turn toward support for energy transmission lines, rural broadband, and other non-transportation needs, as the administration has outlined. AASHTO is also concerned that the new framework might upend current transportation funding and project selection practices and safeguards, and advocates that “the existing federal program structure including highways, transit, and rail be utilized since it would enable investments to flow to every area of the country.”

“AASHTO also called for continued federal support for last year’s FAST Act transportation package (which “has provided near-term funding stability and relief to states”) and that, “at a minimum, the infrastructure package addresses the funding shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund with a long-term and sustainable revenue solution.”

“National: Private equity is gearing up for Trump’s private finance-heavy infrastructure initiative. The Australian funds manager AMP Capital announced on Thursday they’ve hired Brent Tasugi, a former senior vice-president at Oaktree Capital Management, to its New York-based infrastructure equity team. “Tasugi, who will serve as an investment director for AMP, spent nearly three years at Oaktree, joining the firm in August 2014. He was responsible for the origination and execution of North American transportation, logistics and public-private partnerships, working on projects including the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Puerto Rico and Oaktree’s investment in Lonestar Airport Holdings.” [Sub required]. Any expansion of the ‘public-private partnership’ model in U.S. infrastructure in future years would witness the growth of a private speculative market in once fully-public U.S. assets.

Oaktree recently flipped its interest in the privatized Puerto Rican airport, selling its 50% stake to Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board and a Mexican airport operator, Group Aeroportuario del Sureste (ASUR), which already had a 50% stake in the airport. [Sub required]

“National/International: China’s $810 billion sovereign wealth fund is also gearing up to invest in Trump’s infrastructure initiative. China Investment Corporation has officially launched its representative office in New York “to leverage the city’s strategic position as an international finance centre. The team will be responsible for conducting research on the North American economy, financial markets and policies, as well as strengthening cooperation with the fund’s business partners, CIC said in statement.”

For links, go to the website of ITPI

Categories For-Profit, Privatization

DeVos Hires Top Official at For-Profit University to Help “Right-Size” Department of Education

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2017 //
13

Jennifer Berkshire reports that Secretary Betsy DeVos has turned to a top official from the scandal-plagued for-profit higher education industry to “right-size” the Department of Education.

As the New York Times said when his appointment was announced:

“As chief compliance officer for a corporate owner of for-profit colleges, Robert S. Eitel spent the past 18 months as a top lawyer for a company facing multiple government investigations, including one that ended with a settlement of more than $30 million over deceptive student lending.”

Eitel worked for Bridgepoint Education Inc., which took over a small private college in 2005, called Ashford College. Bridgepoint turned it into a colossus of online higher education. In 2005, Ashford had 300 students. By 2010, it had more than 80,000.

Berkshire interviewed Christopher Crowley of Wayne State, who explained how the business leaders of the new enterprises turned a struggling small college into a profitable success:

Crowley: When Bridgepoint bought Franciscan in 2005, the college was going bankrupt. The total result amount of student loan money that Franciscan was taking in at that point was $3 million. But less than two years later, the school, which was now called Ashford University, was getting $81 million in federal student aid and reporting profits of $3.1 million. By 2010, Ashford University reported $216 million in profit and was receiving $613 million in federal student aid funds. Part of the reason for this was a huge drop in how much less they were spending per student. Franciscan spent about $5,000 per year, per student on instructional costs. Ashford spent just $700. That’s an 86% reduction in spending over five years. That money went to pay for lavish executive compensation as well for marketing and recruitment. By 2010, Bridgepoint was spending $211.6 million on advertising, more than any other publicly traded education company in the United States at the time.”

Ashford’s transformation into a piggy bank for investors is a story of the triumph of opportunistic capitalism fueled by greed. But it is also a story that recounts the collapse of the higher learning. And one of The architects of that transformation will guide Betsy DeVos, who has no managerial experience, as she reorganizes the U.S. Department of Education.

Categories Betsy DeVos, For-Profit, Higher Education
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