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Ivanka Trump Promotes Bracelet She Wore on “60 Minutes,” Selling for $10,000

By dianeravitch
November 16, 2016 //
22

Wasting no time to cash in, Ivanka Trump is offering the bracelet (copies) she wore on “60 Minutes” for $10,000.

But all is not well with the Trump brand. The name “Trump” will be removed from threee residential buildings in Manhattan, in response to a petition signed by many tenants. The owner of the building says he did not respond to the petition, but you can bet your bottom dollar that he realized that the Trump name does not add value to his properties in a neighborhood that voted heavily against him.

I am pleased to see that the petition was started by my college classmate and dear friend, Linda Gottlieb, who gathered 600 signatures demanding the removal of the Trump name from the building she and her husband live in. Linda was also the producer of “Dirty Dancing,” clearly a force to be reckoned with.

Categories Accountability, For-Profit, Trump

Emily Talmadge: The Beast Will Thrive in a Trump Administration and We Must Say No

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2016 //
9

Please watch the 10-second video at the end of this post. You will love it!

Emily Talmadge, a teacher-blogger in Maine, used to worry about the dangers inherent in a Clinton administration. Now she warns that the threat of competency based education–delivered online, all the time, profiting a few, bad for humans–will thrive in a Trump Administration.

“The real agenda – the ongoing march toward a cradle-to-grave system of human capital development that relies on the most sophisticated data collection and tracking technologies to serve its unthinkably profitable end – is fueled and directed by a multi-billion dollar education-industrial-complex that has been built over the course of decades.

“It’s an absolute beast, an army of epic scale, and it’s a system that has the same uncanny ability to blend in with its surroundings as a chameleon.

“Take, for example, the new “innovative assessment systems” that are being thrust on us every which way in the wake of ESSA. Under the banner of free market ideology, the far-right American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is promoting the very same assessment policies that far-left groups like the national unions and the National Center for Fair and Open Testing are now pushing. And though some claim that one ideology is merely “co-opting” the ideas of the other, the reality is that they lead to the same data-mining, cradle-to-career tracking end.

“Consider, too, the massive push for blended, competency-based, and digital learning – all unproven methods of educating children, but highly favored by ed-tech providers and data-miners.

“Most of these corporate-backed policies were cooked up in Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, and then made their way not only to the far-right ALEC, but also to left-leaning groups like the Center for Collaborative Education, the Coalition for Essential Schools, and the Great Schools Partnership. Depending on what sort of population each group is targeting, these wolves will dress themselves up in sheep’s clothing and make appeals to different values. For the right, they will package their policies in the language of the free market and choice; for the left, they will wrap them in a blanket of social-justice terminology.

“Pull back the curtain far enough, however, and you will see they are selling the same thing.”

Emily lives in Maine, whose Tea Party Governor Paul LePage was one of the first to jump on the Jeb Bush “Digital Learning Now!” bandwagon.

It was exposed in a wonderful, prize-winning “follow the money” investigative report.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Competency Based Education, Education Industry, For-Profit, Hoax, Maine, Online Learning, Technology, Computers

Mercedes Schneider: Donald Trump’s Vision for Education

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2016 //
16

Mercedes Schneider here assembles the themes and details of President-elect Trump’s plans for education, or at least the federal role in education.

It is a nightmare vision, a dystopian vision. It is a vision of privatization, a concept I have been highlighting and exposing day after day as a source of inequity, fraud, graft, and bad education.

Please someone tell Mr. Trump that no high-performing nation in the world has charters and vouchers and for-profit schools and public tuition for home-schooling. Tell him that the two nations that embraced privatization–Sweden and Chile–now regret it. They saw increased segregation, not better education.

In Trump world, school choice is the answer to every education issue.

Too bad there is no evidence for his vision. Too bad for our public schools. Too bad for our kids. Too bad for our future.

We can’t let this happen. Parents, students, teachers, administrators, local school boards, state school boards: we have to stand together to defend what belongs to us. We must protect the commons.

Public schools under democratic control are part of our heritage as Americans. Conservatives don’t destroy traditional institutions. Conservatives conserve. Anarchists blow up neighborhood schools. Not conservatives. Nihilists destroy what belongs to all of us. Stand and argue. Resist.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Segregation, Trump, Vouchers

Andre Agassi: Raising Hundreds of Millions As His Own Charter is One of the Worst Schools in Nevada

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2016 //
10

Angie Sullivan, Nevada teacher, reports on the bizarre actions of Andre Agassi, one-time tennis star and high school dropout. His flagship charter school that bears his name is on the state’s list of persistently low-performing schools. It is also known for high rates of teacher and principal turnover. The state may give Agassi’s charter to another charter operator. But Agassi and his business partner Bobby Turner have raised nearly $300 million to build charter schools around the country.

Sullivan writes:


Turner-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund II, L.P. raised $296,294,416 on 2016-06-16.

http://www.whosraisingmoney.com/turner-agassi-charter-school-facilities-fund-ii-l-p

Agassi has become a very very wealthy man selling his “charter doctrine”.

Unfortunately, his own flagship charter school shows charters are the ultimate tax payer scam.

The worst schools in the state of Nevada are charters.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7bJdQH4mFmEVktMRWhDWFY0Mm8/view

In particular, Agassi Preparatory is not graduating, not performing, not achieving.

Agassi has open the door financially for other Vegas charters which are also on the lowest performing list.

He preaches charter doctrine all over he United States selling real estate and profiteering.

This isn’t really about kids. This is about cold hard cash.

Now Agassi charter may be taken over by another charter.

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/news/possible-changes-ahead-for-agassi-prep-academy

The tax payer needs to be asking some serious questions about who is making money from these charter deals.

The tax payer needs to demand some accountability and transparency from Nevada’s charters.

This is some serious fraud and waste.

Someone needs to be accountable for this fiasco.

Maybe the Charter Authority needs to answer some questions.

Maybe the Nevada State Board of Education.

Maybe the Nevada Department of Education.

Who knew all these charters were failing and either covered it up or did nothing about it? It looks like it’s been going on for at least a decade too from the data I’ve been collecting.

Not good.

Dirty dirty dirty.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Nevada, Privatization

New York Daily News: Bury This Man in a Landslide!

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2016 //
113

This powerful editorial about the election was published by the New York Daily News, Donald Trump’s hometown tabloid. The editorial appeared before Comey injected his explosive news into the election. The Daily News reacted to Comey’s statement with a call for him to be fired for meddling in the election. Then on November 1, the News published a front-page editorial titled: “Damn Right We’re With Her.”

The editorial board of the News knows Trump very well. They have watched him for many years.

If you want to know why Trump must be defeated, this is your reading assignment for today.

The first editorial tells you why Trump should not be president–ever.

The November 1 editorial tells you why Clinton should be elected.

The editorial board has met with both Trump and Clinton many times.

And this is why they doubled down on their endorsement despite Director Comey’s intervention:

The Daily News again extends its wholehearted endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

We do so with faith that Clinton would be a transformative leader for the good, far beyond making history as the first female President.

And we do so with fact-based, fearful conviction that Donald Trump would lead a nation divided against itself, with catastrophic consequences at home and abroad.

Lost in a campaign distorted by Trump’s ego-driven demagoguery is the indisputable truth that Clinton’s instincts, skills and programs are an excellent match for the challenges of a uniquely frightening American moment.

We are a country at war. The 50 states are united in rage. The 320 million people of this land tear at one another in a battle to reclaim their destiny from a government that, put bluntly, screwed them on a bipartisan basis.

Almost an entire American generation has been born since the country last had a semblance of responsive, responsible governing. Instead, Democrats and Republicans alike have exhausted the nation in stalemates over symbols and dogma.

Meanwhile, the working and middle classes suffered joblessness, home foreclosures, wage stagnation, massive student debt, opioid addiction and further ills – as the wealthy rode the waves ever more comfortably, often with Uncle Sam manning the galley oars.

Now comes a reckoning that made vengeful soulmates of the unlikely Bernie Sanders and the ungodly Trump. Vessels for white-hot anger, the socialist and the tax-evading billionaire built their candidacies on destroying a “rigged” system as champion of its victims.

But revenge for the sake of revenge – which is the heart of Trump’s campaign – would be madness as the chief motivator for selecting the custodian of the world’s shining-star democracy, largest economy and mightiest military.

On Oct. 20, the Daily News Editorial Board published the longest editorial in its 97-year history – a call for burying Trump in a landslide. We needed 7,500 words to document his unfitness for the presidency as an ignorant and divisive “liar, thief, bully, hypocrite, sexual victimizer and unhinged, self-adoring demagogue.”

Leaving aside his Trumpian mountain of disqualifications, the crucial distinction between the renegade Republican and Clinton is that Clinton is, at heart, a forward-looking optimist who offers rational programs targeted to create a stronger, fairer, more unified America.

Her unparalleled understanding of the world, her unmatched grasp of policy successes and failures and her proven ability to broker constructive compromise between hunkered-down ideologues must far outweigh the nagging mistrust that Clinton generates after her decades at the height of national service….

No illusions: Expecting to hold the House, Republicans have telegraphed plans to launch multiple anti-Clinton investigations. Still more, Senate GOP leaders have pledged to block all Clinton Supreme Court nominations.

Even so, victory — the more solid the better — would position Clinton to win action on behalf of the working and middle classes by addressing the interests both of her ideological foes and of all the Americans who are furious that Washington catered to a corrupt, elite establishment while condescendingly dismissing their needs and beliefs.

Donald Trump is all about selling a single repulsively flawed product: himself.

Hillary Clinton is no saleswoman. Instead, she is a doer who has a historic chance to prove that the U.S. government can actually work to the benefit of its citizen bosses.

No election in our lifetimes has produced a clearer choice: Clinton over Trump, urgently and by acclamation.

There is more. It is worth reading, as is the first editorial referenced here.

Bottom line is that Clinton has plans to improve life for our nation, while Trump is an egotistical bully, a liar, and a vengeful hypocrite who would bring our nation and our economy to ruin.

Categories For-Profit, Fraud, Trump

EdWeek: How Virtual Charters Evade Accountability by Lobbying and Campaign Contributions

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2016 //
15

Ariana Prothero writes in Education Week about the “Outsized Influence” of lobbyists for the virtual charter industry.

The virtual or online charter industry is a sham and a fraud. Readers of this blog have read many articles and research studies demonstrating that these “schools” survive by the power of their lobbying and campaign contributions, not because they have any educational value. Studies, even by charter-friendly organizations like CREDO of Stanford, have repeatedly demonstrated that virtual charters have high dropout rates, low test scores, and low graduation rates. This doesn’t seem to bother state officials because…well, lobbying and campaign contributions.

K12 Inc is the biggest operator in the field. It was started by the Milken brothers, it operates for-profit, and it is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The article doesn’t mention it, but two dozen K12 Inc schools lost NCAA accreditation because of the shoddiness of the education they offered.

The article goes into detail about K12 Inc and also Connections Academy, which is owned by Pearson. It does not go into the protected status of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) in Ohio, which has been relieved of all accountability because of its owner’s generosity to legislators and the governor.

K12 Inc owns CAVA (the California Virtual Academy), which was shown to be profitable while delivering inferior education in a powerful series by Jessica Califati in the San Jose Mercury-News. The state attorney general worked out a fine for K12 Inc, but the company continues to operate as usual. I personally communicated with a member of the California state school board to ask whether there would be any action to close CAVA, in light of its poor results, and I was told that it was under investigation by three different state agencies. I don’t know if that was real or just another way of saying “forget about it.”

There are even some in the charter industry who realize that virtual charters are an embarrassment to the whole industry.

But to date, even in Republican strongholds like Tennessee, the abysmal Tennessee Virtual Academy has escaped all efforts to close it down.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, K12 Inc., Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Angie Sullivan: The Nevada Achievement School District is Only for Public Schools, Not for Failing Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2016 //
7

Nevada imported a woman named Jana Wilcox Lavin to run its “Achievement School District.” She is not an educator. She has a degree in marketing. The Nevada ASD is modeled on Tennessee’s failed ASD, which took over the state’s lowest performing schools and promised to vault them to the state’s top 25% in only five years and failed to do so (most are still in the bottom 5%). Lavin is employed by the United Way at the same time that she plans for the Nevada ASD. She ran charters in the Tennessee ASD and holds it up as a model. Is this what is called an “urban myth” or is it just a hoax? How many teachers and principals will be fired, how many charters will scoop up millions of dollars, and how many will succeed or fail? Place your bets, folks, it is Nevada.

Angie Sullivan, who teaches in a low-income school in Clark County (Las Vegas) writes:

The unfairness of the Achievement School District law became crystal clear during a discussion with Jana Wilcox Lavin.

The law requires a list which includes the under-performing schools in the bottom 5%.

It is apparent that Nevada’s under-performing schools are mainly charters and rural schools. 70% of the under-performing Nevada schools are charters and rural schools.

However the law ONLY allows a public school to be selected for charter take-over.

Severely underperforming charters are not allowed to be taken over by the Achievement School District.

This law is a direct attack on public schools while obviously ignoring the cancerous and tragic Nevada charters.

Also, rural schools which fill the under-performing list will most likely never be selected because there simply is zero appetite by charter schools to take over a rural school. This made me laugh inside to learn -having grown up in the rural communities of Lovelock, Winnemucca, and McDermitt. I would love to see an outsider go into those places and take over the school. I picture the community chasing the outsider out of town with a shotgun.

We also had a frank discussion about the alternative schools – 3 are on the list. These schools fill a specific need in our communities. Desert Oasis for instance is actually a school which serves a unique community of high school students and adult students. Teachers there teach could teach a 90 year old adult student in the same classroom as a 16 year old student. While the data looks terrible for this school, the school is likely to be the most effective we have at actually graduating students. Literally no other school serves the communities Desert Oasis takes on. The Desert Oasis teacher who attended the BEC meeting spoke about helping a student graduate who lied about his age to serve in the American Military during World War II.

For obvious reasons, Jana Wilcox Lavin will be looking into the possibility of the Nevada State School Board moving the Alternative Schools onto a different system because it is not appropriate to grade them as we currently do or include them on this list.

We had a frank discussion about the lists.

Apparently the multiple failure lists which caused 6,000 teachers to panic were produced by CCSD. I’m not exactly sure who or why this destruction and disruption occurs year after year. I would like to investigate this further and ask for the resignation of whomever takes on this task of scaring 140 school staffs – unnecessarily. Media needs to be aware of this scare tactic. Next year, when these lists are published, we all need to ask frankly if it is a “real” list or a scare tactic by the district. If it is not the “real” list – teachers need to stand against this harassment.

Frankly, CCSD blames the Nevada State School Board, I have asked during multiple interviews. Jana Wilcox Lavin stated the only list she has created is the under-performing 5% as required by legislators. And a Nevada State School Board member claims their hands are tied by the legislators.

Everyone blames someone else while public school teachers are bullied and threatened.

Bottom line: There is a list of 47 underperforming schools but the only schools seriously being considered are the 17 regular public schools in Vegas within the urban core. 30% of the schools are targeted. And it will most likely be Limited English Language students who will have their schools taken over.

Nothing will be done about the numerous charters which have extreme failing track records.

Nothing will be done about failing rural schools.

It will be brown children in Vegas with limited English who will be experimented on by the Achievement School District.

Jana Wilcox Lavin claimed the Achievement School District has been successful other places. I have read thousands of pages of University research which refute those claims. I regularly communicate with activist teachers all over the nation who refute those claims.

I follow this unfair and wasteful charter movement very closely – the success of charters nationwide has been very, very limited. The success of charters in Nevada is almost zero. As I have noted, Nevada charters are best at segregation by race, money, and religion.

This is the most blatantly unfair privatization legislation ever implemented. It targets ONLY public schools in urban Vegas and blatantly ignores all the other school failures in the state.

This law is not about helping Nevada kids. It is about public school privatization.

And a very wise BEC Meeting attendee stated: No one ever considers how many bodies will be damaged as we make these changes.

I am tired of being one of the bodies.

No one in power listens to the people directly affected. Teachers, Parents, and Students have zero voice.

Communities which do not want their neighborhood school to participate in this unfair take-over need to stand up for their schools – like West Prep and Tom Williams.

https://ccea-nv.org/dev/wordpress/front-page/roar-of-community-opposition-to-west-prep-charter-school-consideration/

_____________________________

http://www.doe.nv.gov/ASD/

__________________________

http://m.reviewjournal.com/news/education/21-ccsd-schools-eligible-be-converted-charter-schools-through-new-initiative

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Nevada, Privatization

Christine Langhoff: The Real Goal of Question 2 in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2016 //
8

Retired teacher Christine Langhoff has been following the debate over Question 2 in Massachusetts closely. She concluded that its real goal was not to close the achievement gap–charters have not done that anywhere in the nation–nor even to provide better schools–most charters in the nation are no better and many are unquestionably worse–than public schools.

The real purpose is to bankrupt urban districts, and maybe other districts as well. This has been the story in Pennsylvania, where charters have sucked resources out of public school districts, causing budget cuts, layoffs, and program cuts to public schools. Meanwhile, the charter schools get outside funding from Wall Street, the Waltons, financiers, and other champions of privatization. The ultimate goal is the destruction of public education.

She writes:


It’s becoming apparent to many that the real objective of Question 2 is not merely to further the cause of privatization to benefit the hedge funders, but also to bankrupt our urban school systems. There is no mechanism in the ballot question to financially support more charters because Marc Kenen, executive director of the MA Charter School Association, author of the proposal did not include one.

The current law regarding charter funding is carefully worded. Up to 9% of a city or town’s education funding can be directed to charters. In the so-called “failing” districts, the percentage is up to 18%. This means that if a city like Boston decides to increase school funding, the parasitic charters get more dollars. The state is supposed to reimburse cities and towns for costs associated with charters, but has failed to do so in recent years. Last year, about 50% of the reimbursement due to Boston was not made.

This afternoon, the Boston City Council, which has taken a stand in opposition to Question 2, held a hearing on the financial impact of Question 2, should it pass, and how the diversion of money to charters is already harming the city’s ability to fully fund our schools. Dave Sweeney, Boston’s Chief Financial Officer was among those who testified. (See his explanation of the impact of charter funding on the city’s finances here: https://medium.com/@DaveSweeney3/analyzing-the-fiscal-impact-of-question-2-9f1a36d8d823) Councilor Tim McCarthy pursues this line of questioning about the state’s failure to honor this requirement beginning at about 1:22:00

Tito Jackson expressed his dismay that the state board of education – a cabal of appointees by the pro-charter Gov. Baker – has taken the position that DESE is not obligated to take into acount the financial impact the opening of more charters will have on the host cities and towns where the Board decides to site these charters. He also notes that the state of Massachusetts currently underfunds public education to the tune of more than $1 billion. Start at about 1:37:00 for his testimony.

https://www.cityofboston.gov/citycouncil/cc_video_library.asp?

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

Paul Buchheit: New Layers of Dirt on Charter Movement

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2016 //
13

As we know, the charter school movement began as a way to help public schools by encouraging innovation. However, in the past 25 years, it has evolved into an industry that is bent on privatization and that shamelessly diverts money and real estate from public schools.

The charter movement today is the darling of ALEC, the Koch brothers, and every rightwing governor and think tank.

In this article, Paul Buchheit describes the dark role that charter schools now play on behalf of corporate elites and their determination to privatize public education for fun and profit.

Their most important innovation seems to be their commitment to turning schools for children of color into tightly disciplined boot camps, where they learn the value of unquestioning obedience.

Any prospect of collaboration with public schools disappeared long ago, as it would be a compact between a robber and his victim.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

Marilyn Rhames: “I Don’t Want Your Job, I Want Change!”

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2016 //
8

I posted Robert Pondiscio’s proposal this morning that a talented African-American teacher-journalist should take Peter Cunningham’s job at Education Post, and that other white leaders of the reform movement should step aside because the reform movement has too many whites (with little or no teaching experience) in leadership roles.

The woman he recommended is Marilyn Rhames. She wrote a response to Pondiscio’s proposal.

In a sharp response, she reminds reformers that the point of “reform” is supposed to be about improving the education of black and brown children, not high-paying jobs for reformers.


“I wanted very much to believe that you had moved closer to acknowledging the racist paternalism that exists in reform circles after you lauded my “stellar” resume. But in highlighting my genius, you subtly sounded the alarm: Marilyn Anderson Rhames is a major black talent who could very well take your job, Peter Cunningham (and other white ed leaders who signed the diversity pledge). What a way to endorse multiculturalism!

My Ivy League educated, teacher-journalist-mother African American self has the potential to make a seismic shift in the systemic injustice that blocks black and brown children from a quality education, so why didn’t your piece frame me in that light? Instead, you positioned me as a threat. In your piece, I was the “other” in an us-versus-them fight for limited, high-paying ed reform jobs. Your title says it all: “Reform Leaders: You’re Fired.”

Ain’t I a reformer? In light of all my brilliance, your title should have been, “Black Reform Leaders: You’re Finally Hired!”

Your piece states that my ex-boss Peter Cunningham, and the many other middle-aged, privileged, non-educator white men who manage the education reform agenda that impacts millions of black and brown children living in poverty, need to step down from their six-figure salaries and let the “foot soldiers,” like me take their place. Why stop at Cunningham? You could have offered your nice-paying job at the Fordham Institute to me. I just may be more qualified than you to do your job, too!

Oh, I forgot, that to you would be “suicide.””

Marilyn,

I hope that you know that no high-performing nation in the world allows entrepreneurs, corporate charter chains, and non-educators to get public money to run privately controlled schools. You should also know, though your friends in the reform movement won’t tell you, that the surest path to a well-paying job and the middle class is a union job, with good pay, reasonable hours, and a pension. Surely you know that the money for the reform movement comes from the anti-union Walton family and Wall Street financiers. Rightwing governor’s like Scott Walker and Rick Scott love to create charters and offer vouchers while defunding the public schools that most black and brown children attend.

I invite you to stand with us to protect public schools from privatization and to fight for the resources and transformation in every state that will make every public school a good school for every child. We don’t have any billionaires on our side, but we have millions of parents and teachers and many others who understand that public education is a pillar of democracy. Privatization always produces inequality, winners and losers. Join us. We need you.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Inequality, Privatization
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