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Sue Legg: Florida Republican Proposes to Fix Charter Mess

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2016 //
13

Well, this is a hopeful sign. A Republican the state senate in Florida has proposed to change the charter law so that it focuses on the neediest children, the ones for whom charters were first created. With the house leadership firmly controlled by Rep. Eric Fresen, whose brother-in-law owns one  of the largest and most profitable charter chains in the state, the two houses of the legislature may be on a collision course. Rep. Fresen always takes care of the charter industry.

 

Sue Legg, who has studied Florida charter schools on behalf of the state League of Women Voters, wrote with the following information:

 

 

A recent Senate President, Don Gaetz, proposed a bill this week to curb ‘private enrichment’ facilities schemes by charter school management firms and their real estate arms. He acknowledged that the legislature has gotten away from the original intent for charters schools. His bill would prioritize charters serving impoverished students and/or those with disabilities.

 

Florida has over 650 charter schools, over a third are run by for-profit firms. The legislature, the Governor, the Department of Education and the State Board of Education are all strong charter supporters.

 

This is the first time that a staunch Republican legislator has publically acknowledged the rampant charter exploitation and abuse and taken meaningful steps to curb it. It even addresses public ownership of facilities. The bill is not perfect; it may not pass. However, Senator Gaetz calls for “Charters with a Conscience”. Sometimes you just have to share the good news. 

 

Senator Gaetz is thinking about what is right. He and Rep. Fresen (HB 873) are squaring off over charter school funding for facilities. Both bills would reduce the amount of capital outlay dollars public schools can assess through local property taxes. According to the Miami Herald, Senator Gaetz’s bill would also crack down on ‘private enrichment’ schemes that charter management firms use to build and lease facilities for which they charge exorbitant rates.
Charter board members would have to swear that capital outlay funds would only be used for facilities. Funds would be awarded only to public entities, a 501(c)(3) specifying in its articles of incorporation that all property will return to specified public entities upon dissolution, or is owned by or leased to a person or entity who is not an affiliated party to the charter school.

 

The Senate proposal has some other very good features. It would reconfigure the funding formula to prioritize those charters that offer quality alternative schools for impoverished students or those with disabilities. Certain charters would receive a base capital outlay allocation from state funds, but those that serve at least 75% of children qualifying for free or reduced lunch or 25% of children with ESE, would receive an additional twenty five percent or fifty percent if both criteria are met. The Miami Herald quotes Senator Gaetz who suggested that ‘…we want to weight it for those charters that have a social conscience’.

 

The bill does not take capital outlay money away from traditional public schools for charter schools. It does, however, change the formula for how the money is allocated.

 

There are some ‘gotchas’ in the Senate bill. The legislature still needs to work with districts to create viable policy. Nevertheless, Senator Gaetz appears to recognize that unregulated school choice benefits some companies more than children.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit

Wall Street Journal: Obama Staffers Flee to Broken For-Profit College Sector

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2016 //
10

A few days ago, I posted about the odd circumstance that friends of President Obama had bought one of the nation’s largest for-profit corporations that provide higher education, even though it is generally known that these “colleges” have abysmal graduation rates and are known for predatory practices.

 

Now, the Wall Street Journal is pointing out the irony that the Obama administration harassed these institutions, drove down their value, and former Obama staff and current friends are taking them over at a fire sale price. We know, based on the actions of the Department of Education under Arne Duncan, that the administration has no objection to for-profit charter operators. We know, from Arne Duncan’s selection of Joanne Weiss, CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund as his chief of staff, that he has a fondness for the corporate sector. We know, from Arne Duncan’s selection of Ted Mitchell, also a CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, as Under Secretary of Education, that the Department favors entrepreneurs. NewSchools Venture Fund underwrites charter chains and education businesses. It is at the epicenter of the corporate ed reform biz.

 

So, I am not so sure I agree with the WSJ’s characterization of the Obama administration as hostile to for-profit ventures. I think the collapse of for-profit higher education value is due to its poor performance and its lack of value or values. The dropout rates are higher than those in nonprofit institutions, and some employers will not recognize degrees from these diploma mills.

 

In an editorial titled “Regulating Education for Profit,” the WSJ writes:

 

Check out last week’s proposed sale of Apollo Education, parent company of the University of Phoenix. When Mr. Obama was preparing to take office in January 2009, Apollo stock hit a multiyear high above $78 per share. Seven years later, after Washington’s regulatory onslaught that favored nonprofits over for-profits in doling out federal subsidies, the shares had recently fallen below $7.

 

The University of Phoenix was once educating close to half a million students but last month reported an enrollment below 180,000. And with Apollo recently trading below book value, it might be a real bargain—especially for an investor betting that the next Administration might go easier on for-profit colleges. Now comes news that Apollo will be sold to several private equity firms. And coincidence of all coincidences, after the sale closes the company will be run by a former top official in the Obama education department, the same outfit that led the attack on Apollo.

 

The Vistria Group is a Chicago private-equity firm. The company was founded around the time that Mr. Obama was beginning his second term and its founders include Marty Nesbitt, who began playing pick-up basketball with Mr. Obama years before he became President, and Tony Miller, who was the second highest-ranking official in the Department of Education from 2009 until 2013.

 

Once the sale closes, Mr. Miller will become chairman of Apollo’s board….

 

By the way, the Obama education department will have to approve Vistria’s purchase of Apollo, and we’re told the guidelines for approval are notably vague. What better way to win a regulatory blessing than have a former senior education official like Mr. Miller commune with his old regulatory comrades. Hey, Tony, great to see you; any job for me after, say, Jan. 20, 2017?….

 

To summarize, an Obama pal is the day-to-day boss of a department that succeeds in destroying 90% of the value of a politically targeted company. Then he leaves government, buys the company at a fire-sale price and announces that the problems that attracted so much negative government attention are ending—just in time for a new Administration that might not hate for-profit education as much as this one. Government mediation sure can be a lucrative business model.

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, For-Profit, Higher Education

BREAKING NEWS: Lawsuit Filed Against Magnolia Charter Chain in California

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2016 //
11

A lawsuit has been filed against the Gulen-affiliated Magnolia charter chain in California. 
The plaintiffs accuse the chain of significant financial improprieties. 
“The complaint calls for a comprehensive investigation by the State Department of Education. It cites findings made last year by the state in an audit of Magnolia including that 69% of Magnolia’s financial transactions were unaccounted for; that Magnolia routinely awards large contracts to vendors that have overlapping connections with their own employees and board of directors; and that Magnolia has illegally used hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to pay for visas for Turkish nationals.
“The complaint states that all three of these activities are hallmarks of Gülen charters. Magnolia has denied ties to Gülen, an organization under investigation by the Turkish and United States governments.  
“Magnolia is headed by Caprice Young, former president of the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), and founder of the powerful lobby, the California Charter Schools Association. Under Young’s leadership, Magnolia runs 11 schools, including eight in LAUSD, and recently submitted petitions for eight more schools in Anaheim, LAUSD, Garden Grove, Fremont, and Oceanside. The complaint states that if all eight charter schools were to be approved, the cost to the state of California would be in the billions of dollars.”

Categories California, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Funding, Gulen Charter Schools, Hoax

What Does Illinois Governor Rauner Have in Common with Martin Shkreli?

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2016 //
9

Did you know that Governor Bruce Rauner has something in common with that guy who bought the rights to rare drugs and raised the prices sky-high?

 

I learned about it from blogger Glenn Brown.

 

 

“…Rauner is never going to brag about his spoils derived from Ovation because in 2008 the Federal Trade Commission took the company to federal court, accusing it of price gouging and violating antitrust laws. According to the FTC, Ovation acquired control of the only two drugs used to treat heart defects in premature babies. The company then raised the cost of treatment nearly 1,300 percent. (The Star Tribune reported in 2008 that Ovation also bought three other children’s drugs and raised their prices by 864 to 3,437 percent.)

 

 

“Ovation acquired the rights to a drug developed by Merck & Co. called Indocin I.V. Ovation then acquired the drug NeoProfen from Abbott Laboratories about a year later in 2006. The FTC asserted the NeoProfen acquisition was unlawful because Ovation knew it was getting the only competitor to its Indocin I.V. drug.

 

 

“The FTC detailed how Ovation quickly raised the price of Indocin from $36 to nearly $500 a vial. The price of NeoProfen was similarly inflated by Ovation. The FTC brought its complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota in 2008. The Minnesota Attorney General joined the FTC as a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Acting FTC Bureau of Competition Director David P. Wales issued this statement upon announcement of the legal action:

 

 

“‘While Ovation is profiting from its illegal acquisition, hospitals and ultimately consumers and American taxpayers are forced to pay millions of dollars a year more for these life-saving medications. The action taken today is intended to restore the lost competition and require Ovation to give up its unlawful profits.’

 

 

“The FTC went on to say: ‘Indocin and NeoProfen are the only two pharmaceutical treatments sold in the U.S. for a condition known as patent ductus arteriosus, a disorder that primarily affects very low birth- weight premature infants. In babies with this condition, the blood vessel connecting two major arteries of the heart fails to close on its own soon after birth. Patent ductus arteriosus can be fatal if not treated. The only treatment other than drug therapy is surgery, which carries the risk of serious complications and costs far more than treatment with either Indocin or NeoProfen.’

 

 

“The FTC’s Commissioners approved filing of the federal complaint by a vote of 4-0. Most devastating of all is this statement from Commissioner Jon Leibowitz (appointed by George W. Bush) who wrote separately: ‘Ovation’s profiteering on the backs of critically ill premature babies is not only immoral, it is illegal. Ovation’s behavior is a stark reminder of why America desperately needs health care reform and why vigorous antitrust enforcement is as relevant today as it was when the agency was created almost one hundred years ago in 1914.’ And U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) said: ‘A company like Ovation knows that when it comes to saving a baby’s life, price is no object. They banked on that, literally…’” (Rauner company raised cost of life-saving drug for babies 1,300% by Doug Ibendahl,Oct. 21, 2014).

 

 

“…As we’ve said repeatedly here at Republican News Watch, it doesn’t matter how much money Bruce Rauner has made. But it does matter what he was willing to do for it, and it does matter who he expected to subsidize his lifestyle. Rauner and his partners made the decision that it was okay to squeeze parents desperate to save the life of their newborn child. What else is it going to take for those still supporting Bruce Rauner?” (Rauner’s former company settled federal lawsuit over infant heart drug by Doug Ibendahl, Oct. 23,2014).
Doug Ibendahl is a Chicago Attorney and a former General Counsel of the Illinois Republican Party.

 

 

 

Categories For-Profit, Illinois

Peter Greene: Governor LePage of Maine Appoints Himself as State Commissioner of Education

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2016 //
10

Governor Paul LePage is a Tea Party guy who has twice been elected governor of Maine. He prevailed each time in a three-way split.

As Peter Greene notes, Governor LePage is known for his bizarre statements. Among other things, he refused to attend an event honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:

One of his first acts as governor was to refuse to attend a Martin Luther King Day breakfast and, when called on it, to tell the NAACP to kiss his butt. He also undid decades of environmental reguations, and took down a mural of labor history in the capitol, comparing it to North Korean brainswashing. He sabotaged a $120 million wind power plan.

He has gone through six education commissioners in three years. The last nominee might have had some trouble getting approved by the State Senate because he is a creationist.

Governor LePage is a strong supporter of charter schools, choice, digital learning, and competency based education (nonstop assessment by computers). He views public schools with contempt.

Early on in his first term, he embraced Jeb Bush’s digital learning plan and set about implementing it. One of the best exposes of our time was written by Colin Woodard about “The Profit Motive behind Virtual Schools in Maine.” That’s when many people recognized that the tech companies were giving money to Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence, and FEE was promoting the tech companies’ products. And it was all about profit.

Greene thinks that Governor LePage may crown himself King of Maine. One hopes that he will have only one opponent in the next election. He is an embarrassment to the state of Maine.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Maine, Privatization, Technology

How Privatizers Learn to Hoax the Public 

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2016 //
17

The Foundation for Education Excellence, the organization founded by Jeb Bush to turn education into an industry, is holding a boot camp to teach newcomers how to shape their message of privatization and call it “reform.”
The teachers are not educators–who cares what they think?–but PR specialists who know the tricks of their trade: how to sell ice to Eskimos, how to sell a defective used car to unwary buyers, how to persuade people that the moon is made of cheddar cheese. 

Categories Bush, Jeb, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit

Obama Friends Take Over For-Profit Higher Education Group

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2016 //
15

A group of investors with close ties to the Obama administration have taken control of the University of Phoenix and other for-profit “universities.”

“The troubled for-profit education company that owns the giant University of Phoenix agreed on Monday to be bought for $1.1 billion by a group of investors that includes a private equity firm with close ties to the Obama administration.

“The university and its owner, the Apollo Education Group, have been subject to a series of state and federal investigations into allegations of shady recruiting, deceptive advertising and questionable financial aid practices.

“In recent years, many for-profit educational institutions that have received billions of dollars in federal aid, including the University of Phoenix, have been pummeled by criticisms that they preyed upon veterans and low-income students, saddling them with outsize student loan debt and subpar instruction.

“Moreover, at many of these schools, enrollment has been falling and profits shrinking, casting doubt on the future health of the industry.

“The investors in the Apollo Education Group include the Chicago-based investment firm Vistria Group, the Phoenix-based Najafi Companies, and funds affiliated with Apollo Global Management, which is not connected to the Apollo Education Group….

“Vistria’s founder is Marty Nesbitt, one of President Obama’s closest friends and the chairman of the Obama Foundation. Mr. Nesbitt is also a longtime business partner of Penny Pritzker, the commerce secretary.

“A Vistria partner and its chief operating officer, Tony Miller, was deputy secretary of the United States Department of Education between 2009 and 2013. He has been tapped to become the new chairman of Apollo Education Group in August, when the deal is scheduled to be completed.”

If you watched the video of the congressional panel quizzing John King about the ethical “lapses” of Chief Information Officer Danny Harris, you may recall that King said that deputy secretary Miller had cleared Harris.

Now we understand why the for-profit higher education industry has gotten a free pass.

Categories For-Profit, Higher Education

Gene Glass: Would Horace Mann Tweet? (Make This Go Viral!)

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2016 //
8

Gene Glass has written one of the most brilliant, most perceptive commentaries on the billionaires’ reform movement that I have ever read.

He gives a witty, well-sourced analysis of the familiar corporate reform narrative and punches giant holes in it.

Here is the opening sentence:

“A democratically run public education system in America is under siege. It is being attacked by greedy, union-hating corporations and billionaire boys whose success in business has proven to them that their circle of competence knows no bounds.”

Glass is one of our nation’s most celebrated and honored researchers. He called VAM “stupid” back in 1998. Unlike many ivory-tower academics, he is taking sides: he is on the side of public education, democracy, and truth.

If you don’t read this, shame on you.

Please tweet it, post it on Facebook, share it with your friends and your elected officials.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, ESSA, For-Profit, Hoax, Research, Testing

CONNECT THE DOTS: Competency-Based Education, Digitized Instruction, Data Mining, The Vanishing Teacher, and Profit

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2016 //
27

This post appears on a Florida blog called Accountabaloney. The blog was started by two parents in southern Florida, a retired pediatrician and a graphic designer. They are Sue Woltanski and Suzette Lopez.

This is the planned statement I presented to the Monroe County School Board, my local district board, on Tuesday, January 26, 2015. In it, I called the alarm regarding Competency Based Education (CBE), data mining and the planned destruction of public school as we know it. Please read it, study the attached links and additional reading, and share the information. We hope it will inspire parents and educators to speak out against efforts to destroy public schools while profiting off our children.

We believe Florida’s accountabaloney system is deeply entangled in this move to CBE. Schools and teachers must be labeled as failing, otherwise there is no political will to completely overhaul them. Years of underfunding public schools has hastened their demise. Voucher programs highlight the concocted need for students to flee failing schools while nothing is done towards funding needed public school improvements. State mandated remediation programs have brought CBE and data mining into our classrooms.

It must be stopped.

Mr. Chairman, Board Members, Mr. Superintendent,

Almost 2 years ago, I first spoke to this board about concerns regarding standardized testing. At that time I quoted State Representative Keith Perry who, during a House Education committee meeting had described the current state of education as a period of “Creative Destruction” in which only by destroying our schools will we emerge in the future with something better. He called this “the American Way.” At last fall’s Excellence in Education Summit, Miami Representative Erik Fresen publicly repeated the need to completely destroy public schools (at 54:45).

“Policy is what matters… The most courageous policy of all, which is: take the entire system that exists right now and disrupt it completely. That will require policy changes.”

Today, I am here to, once again, sound the alarm and to inform you that the complete destruction of our public schools is closer than you think. It goes by the name of Competency Based Education and it has already infiltrated Monroe County Public Schools. Multiple bills are currently being pushed through the Florida legislature this session allowing the unbridled expansion of the policies Mr. Fresen needs to “take down the entire system.”

I will try to outline what is happening:

In this modern computer era, digital personal data is gold, currently being traded like currency. You know when you search for something on Amazon and Google and then you start seeing ads related to that search in your feed? That is the result of data mining.

In a video I have linked, the CEO of Knewton explains how Education is today’s most data mined industry. He explains “the name of the game is data per user.” From Amazon or Netflix they get 1 data point per user per day. Google and Facebook 10 data points per user per day. In education, Knewton gets 5-10 million actionable data points per student per day! Apparently, every sentence of every passage in digital content has a data tag and they can tell how interested a child is in a certain topic, how difficult it was, etc., etc. Ten million data points a day! This data grab is a gold mine to companies that want to market and design products. For venture capitalists, Education is the new hot commodity.

This is probably why last year’s FSA had a reading passage straight out of American Girl… Not only is this, clearly, product placement advertising on our state mandated test, which should be questioned, but, by using a data tagged American Girl passage, data can be collected to see just what parts of the story is most interesting to boys and girls and marketing strategies can be developed.

This is also why, though paper and pencil tests would dramatically reduce testing time, there is an insistence on computer based testing. On a computer based test, more data than just marked answers can and is being collected and shared.

This also explains why state approved remedial reading and math programs have essentially all been computer based. State tests can be created, and cut scores manipulated, in order to fail large numbers of students and state law can mandate each failing student participate in a digital remediation program, ensuring a steady stream of data points to third party participants.

Keep in mind that student test scores are digitally linked to personal identification data, including student address, IEP, free lunch status, health records, and discipline records and god knows what else. What if your “permanent record” went viral? Last November, a U.S. Congressional committee criticized the USDOE, exposing how vulnerable its information systems are to security threats. I encourage you to watch the proceeding. Currently, federal student data is NOT secure.

Monroe County already participates in the sharing of student data through associations with Certi-port, Achieve 3000, iReady, iStation, and more. These are vendors that are known to collect and distribute student data. Can they guarantee our student’s privacy is protected? Who are they sharing the data with? Do we know? We do not.

Last week, the Senate Education Committee voted favorably on SB1714. This bill allows for Competency Based Education pilot programs, funded by massive grants from the Gates Foundation, in Lake and Pinellas County and at P.K. Yonge. An amendment was added allowing Commissioner Stewart to expand the program to other counties. They are expanding the program before they have any data on its effectiveness. By 2022 every single school in Lake County will be converted to CBE.

In Florida, to my knowledge, There has never been a legislative workshop devoted to even discussing what CBE involves. CBE is a data driven education system that follows a set of prescribed standards and requires demonstration of “competency” before advancement. It has embedded testing within the curriculum that collects hidden streams of data via unknown algorithms. Stealth, continuous data–collected by vendors, can be shared with third parties–parental consent not needed.

The goal is to digitalize education so data can be collected and, remember, data is gold.

According to Edweek, researchers are busy developing computerized tutoring systems that gather information on students’ facial expressions, heart rate, posture, pupil dilation, and more. Those data are then analyzed for signs of student engagement, boredom, or confusion, leading a computer avatar to respond with encouragement, empathy, or maybe a helpful hint.” Creepy…

The measurement of social and emotional competencies, like grit, perseverance and tenacity, is a stated goal of the USDOE . Measurement of these non-cognitive competencies is already embedded into education programs.

Monroe has spent millions of dollars increasing our technology capabilities under mandates from the state. Initially we were concerned that all these computers were used for little more than testing and test prep. The mandates may, actually, have been in preparation for CBE.

The good news is that, with CBE, end of course exams and the FSA will become obsolete. When data on student progress can be collected every minute of every day, the “BIG” test is no longer necessary.

The bad news… teachers won’t be necessary, either. Current pilot programs include teachers as facilitators but soon taxpayers will wonder why we need to pay a professional to monitor students engaged in primarily an online education and a move will be made to hire a less expensive substitute. By then high quality teachers, stripped of all professional decision making, will have already left the profession in droves.

Why even have brick and mortar buildings for an education that mostly takes place on line?

Why even call it education anymore when it is really the harvesting of student data?

Consider this the alarm.

In hindsight, it becomes clear that this was the goal all along. We have been allowing our children to participate in this huge data gathering scheme which has the ultimate goal of destroying public school as we know it. Students need face to face interactions with humans. No computer algorithm can allow and encourage the creative mind. America has prospered because of creativity and ingenuity. We must fight to keep that in our schools. We need to stop participating in the system designed to destroy our schools. This is not about accountability and it is certainly not about what is best “for the kids.” What is best for the kids is that everyone stands up and says “our children are not data points for you to profit from.”

Competency Based Education is NOT the answer for the type of quality public education I want my children to have. It IS the complete destruction of public schools that Representatives Fresen and Perry have envisioned. Do not expect prestigious private schools to institute it. CBE is designed for “other people’s children” and it has already infiltrated our schools. And it will make a few people ultra rich.

SB 1714 allows for CBE expansion without any evidence it even works.

It is the start of a Brave New World and we need to keep it out of Monroe County until and unless long term data from these pilot studies demonstrates its effectiveness.

In the meantime, I ask that you protect our children from the data grab. Achieve 3000, iReady, iStation, and other CBE data mining programs are already being used throughout Monroe. There should be significant discussions regarding whether their risks outweigh their benefits.

The alarm has been sounded. Please heed this warning.

Thank you.

ADDENDUM:

While asking for input in writing these remarks, these two remarks were particularly worthy of repeating in full:

From an Electrical Engineer by training, Information Security Professional by career choice and Software Engineer, having developed many commercial applications. He has first hand experienced developing applications for education – and has witnessed the “lure of data data data”:

Your definition of CBE is far too generous and idealistic. Let me just say that CBE and CBT crap has been around for a very, very long time.. The essence of it really comes down to nothing more than one long series of IF THEN ELSE statements preprogrammed to provide the illusion that you are advancing or retracting.

In other words this is just a three letter word that represents a profession (teaching) being codified into a linear progression of computer steps.

There is far too much faith that this will somehow magically create a more learned student than what a dedicated human being can. CBE and CBT are all about removing the need for professional teachers — fast forward 20 years…

If we let them use our kids to perfect this technology: teachers will look and act more like electronic librarians or proctors. All the courses and supporting standards will have been written I eve, debugged (at the cost of your children’s education) and shrink wrapped into a tidy downloadable virtual machine. Going to school will look a whole lot more like Startreck the search for Spock when Spock was brought back as a boy and forced to relearn a lifetime of knowledge downloaded into computer based CBT and CBE.

This stuff will make a lot if people very very rich, but until it’s fully functional we will loose generations of children to poor education through this grand technological dissection of the educational process. Computer Programmers are quite prone to being godlike – in commanding and getting their own way – after all they are creating their own alternate reality through their profession. That is CBE and CBT – a codified alternate reality that we won’t know if it’s good or bad until we put a classroom if kids through it !

From Peggy Robertson (www.pegwithpen.com)

People truly are not getting what is happening because mainstream media is keeping this very very quiet. Look at Colorado. One of the advanced states. Consequentially, CBE “advanced” states will also be the fastest to move towards alt. certified/fake teachers who stick around for a couple years. Because…… when you have 150 kids on computers and the computer creates the curriculum and the computer assesses students daily and plans for the next day’s instruction, well, golly, it seems there’s no need for a teacher in that picture. All that is needed is facilitators and a teacher here and there when it’s necessary to round up the kids for a computer lesson that the COMPUTER decides a human might actually need to teach. Don’t believe me? Check out Teach to One Math. Check out Carpe Diem. Check out Hickenlooper’s executive order for badges and Relay’s current foothold in Colorado. Check out my blogs that discuss this at http://www.pegwithpen.com. Check out the ESSA which GIVES FUNDING TO MAKE ALL THIS HAPPEN. And they will sell it as inquiry project/performance based that allows children to move and advance at their own pace – and let me tell you what it will really be…..mundane, skill,drill instruction that is tied to standards that will have many many data tags that will be used to track and manage children and make changes within the curriculum based on the shifts and demands within the market – NOT based on needs of children. If they want to, they can tell the public that suddenly we need a flood of pharmacists (for example), they can direct students into this profession via online classes, flood the market, therefore knock down salaries and benefit the corporate regime. Don’t think for a second that this was ever about the common good.

Peggy

ADDITIONAL READING:

The first four are “must reads” but really you should read it all, and more. They are talking about profiting off the total destruction of public school.:

CBE Online is Neither Personalized Nor Higher-Order Thinking!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/12/the-astonishing-amount-of-data-being-collected-about-your-children/

http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/the-business-of-badging-and-predicting-childrens-futures/

http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2016/01/personalized-learning

http://emilytalmage.com She documents CBE which is being instituted in Maine Schools

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/01/07/new-student-database-slammed-by-privacy-experts/

In top performing nations, teachers – not students- use technology. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/09/22/study-students-who-use-computers-often-in-school-have-lower-test-scores

https://epic.org/2016/01/epic-warns-education-departmen.html

http://kcur.org/post/missouri-auditor-finds-student-social-security-information-risk#stream/0

http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/data-breaches-and-ostriches/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-confusing-consumers-profit

https://www.facebook.com/notes/alison-hawver-mcdowell/a-troubling-scenario-cbehigher-edindustrystudent-debttechinternet-providers/415669021959739?hc_location=ufi

http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/20/how-to-foster-grit-tenacity-and-perseverance-an-educators-guide/

Are Monroe County’s Chromebooks protected?

“Google’s Chromebooks as used in schools also come with “Chrome Sync” enabled by default, a feature that sends the student users’ entire browsing trail to Google, linking the data collected to the students’ accounts which often include their names and dates of birth. Google notes that the tracking behavior can be turned off by the student or even at a district level. But as shipped, students’ Chromebooks are configured to send every student’s entire browsing history back to Google, in near real time. That’s true even despite Google’s signature on the “Student Privacy Pledge” which includes a commitment to “not collect student personal information beyond that needed for authorized educational/school purposes, or as authorized by the parent/student.”

This is important: Google becomes school official if Chrome books used in classroom, meaning that FERPA rules do not apply. http://www.local15tv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/Google-Becomes-a-39-School-Official-39-if-Chromebooks-Used-in-Classrooms-248827.shtml#.VqLG8sdYfSc

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/12/30/google-a-school-official-this-regulatory-quirk-can-leave-parents-in-the-dark/

Categories Data and Data Mining, Florida, For-Profit, Technology, Computers

Liberia Cuts Deal to Outsource Education

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2016 //
21

The new Minister of Education in Liberia made a deal with the for-profit Bridge International Academies to supply elementary education. The company’s investors include Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. (NEA is an investment company, not the teachers’ union.)

 

 

“The Minister who has been serving the position for less than a year instead of helping to fix has turned to outsourcing reform in the sector to a private institution with negotiations ongoing for the private entity to manage the primary and early childhood education for a period of five years. Bridge Academies which runs education projects in Kenya and Uganda has record of using android mobile phones in providing classroom lessons to pupils.

 

“Under the Bridge Academies project, the notes and other lectures materials are stored on an android mobile phone and the teachers use the phones to teach, a method where the teacher does not have to be sophisticated to teach. The institution charges US$6 per student per month in Uganda and Kenya as part of its project and also charges other fees for feeding and others. Some in Kenya and Uganda believe that $6 plus other charges by Bridge Academies is a lot of money for the millions in the two countries. In Uganda, many say the amount requires poor Ugandan families with many children to borrow in order to keep all their children in school or to choose which child goes to school.

 

“Despite charging fees, the World Bank through its sector investment arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) invested US$10 million in Bridge Academies in 2014 in order to increase the number of Bridge schools in the country and expand to three countries including Uganda. The IFC also approved a loan of US$4.1 million to Merryland High School, a private, fee-charging secondary school in Entebbe, Uganda in December 2014.

 

“Bridge continues to get criticisms from the Governments of both Kenya and Uganda for its method of using Android mobile phones to teach students where most of the teachers used only use what is placed on the phone as Bridge resulted to using teachers who are not qualified to teach since the teaching materials are placed on a phone and the teacher only needs to teach what is available. The entity teaching method is seen in the two countries as discouraging the employment of qualified teachers who will interact with the students while teaching instead of using fixed materials downloaded on a mobile phone.

 

“Current Education Minister Werner whom many described as reformer, instead of working to revamp the education sector, took off time visiting East Africa mainly Kenya and Uganda where he started negotiations for Bridge to come to Liberia and manage the primary education sector on a private-public partnership program. FrontPageAfrica has gathered that Bridge officials are in Liberia to conclude arrangement for a pilot project of the first 50 schools to begin using the Bridge project beginning school year 2016-17.

 

“As part of the project the PPP providers will design their programmes (curriculum materials, etc., from April to September 2017 while phase two will rollout contracting out the remaining schools over 5 years, with government exit possible each year dependent on provided performance- September 2017 onwards. Eventually the Ministry of Education is aiming to contract out all primary and early childhood education schools to private providers who meet the required standards over 5 year period. According to the tentative timeline the by February/March 2016 the memorandum of Understanding for the pilot 50 schools will be signed and by September 2016, the first 50 schools launch, with baselines and performance measures.”

 

 

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, International
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