Archives for category: Klein, Joel
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Joel Klein’s Plan to Spin Education into Gold for Murdoch

By dianeravitch
December 7, 2012 //
5

Earlier this year, Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice chaired a task force at the Council on Foreign Relations, which issued a scathing indictment of public education, calling our public schools “a very grave threat to national security.”

Klein works for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, where he is in charge of selling technology. The latest report from his division repeats the gloomy (and inaccurate statistics) about US education and says there is a way to fix all these dire problems: Buy the technology he is selling!

Here, Jersey Jazzman deconstructs Klein’s snappy visual claims.

Just for the record. Klein’s (and the task force’s) assertion that test scores have been flat for 20 years is flat out wrong. Reading scores on NAEP have increased slowly and significantly for blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians since 1992. Math scores have increased dramatically for the same groups.

Categories Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Klein, Joel, Privatization, Technology, Computers

Wireless Generation Wins Common Core Contract

By dianeravitch
November 30, 2012 //
27

From NYC Parent blog (by Leonie Haimson):

Wireless Generation, owned by Murdoch/run by Joel Klein, Wins the $4.9M Contract to develop the software that will be used to report & analyze results for the new #CommonCore Assessments – both the interim and “summative” exams being developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium for 25 states (blue states in map below.)

Wireless is also developing the software/ infrastructure for the Gates-funded Shared Learning Collaborative, which is collecting confidential student & teacher data in states throughout the country, including NYS, & planning to turn this information over to for-profit commercial ventures, without parental consent, to help companies develop and market their “learning products.” The information will include among other things, names, addresses, grades, test scores, disciplinary and attendance records, and learning disability status.

The SLC has now named a new CEO, Iwan Streichenberger, who is going to direct SLC’s transition from a project to a nonprofit enterprise; to “ manage the technology and related services.”

Streichenberger was formerly the Chief Marketing Officer of a for-profit company called Promethean, where he was “responsible for product development, marketing, and sales strategy for the education technology company’s newest division.

He says he will “look forward to telling the story about the transformative technology we are building and how we are working with our industry partners to help education technology achieve its potential for students” and will be speaking about this at the SXSW Edu conference in Austin Texas March 4-7.

Here we go.

http://shar.es/6uSxE

Wireless Generation Wins Contract for Common Assessments

By Jason Tomassini on November 29, 2012 12:00 PM | No comments

As the two consortia developing assessments around the Common Core State Standards move closer to the tests’ adoption, for the 2014-15 school year, they are starting to award contracts that will shape how the assessments look and operate. On Wednesday, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium announced that the software used to report and analyze results from its assessments will be developed by Wireless Generation, the education software company.

Wireless Generation will partner with Educational Testing Service (ETS) on the contract. The terms of the contract were not disclosed, but the Request for Proposal stipulated the project could not exceed $4.9 million. Smarter Balanced’s projects are funded through a four-year, $175 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

The reporting system will be used for the common assessments students will take in Smarter Balanced’s 25 member states (you can view those states in the map below). The system will collect data from interim and summative assessments given to students and also track their progress toward college and career readiness, as determined by the individual standards. The data will be available to administrators and teachers as well as parents, according to a news release from Smarter Balanced. Schoolwide and districtwide reports will also be available.

The entire system will be open source, which means other computer programmers can build applications using the software’s source code. For instance, Moodle is an open source learning management platform that is used as the framework for companies like Moodlerooms.

Early next year, the public will have a chance to provide input on the system requirements. You can read the Request for Proposal here, and Wireless Generation’s winning proposal here, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Some important notes regarding Wireless Generation. News Corporation, the international media conglomerate implicated in a widespread phone hacking scandal last year, owns 90 percent of Wireless Generation, which is part of the company’s new Amplify education business. Since the acquisition, for $360 million in November 2010, concerns over possible connections between Wireless Generation’s data operations and its parent company have arose. In response, Wireless Generation has pointed out that its data operations are independent from News Corp. and the company has always complied with the many laws governing student data, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. In August 2011, the company did lose a $27 million contract to develop assessment tracking software for New York state education department because of the scandal embroiling News Corp.’s newspaper division.

(Larry Berger, a co-founder and executive chairman of Wireless Generation, serves on the board of Editorial Projects in Education, the nonprofit corporation that publishes Education Week.)

In somewhat related news, the Brown Center on Education Policy, at the Brookings Institution, released a report Wednesday on the cost of state assessments around the country, including a recommendation for states to join testing consortia in order to lower costs. Read more about it here.

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director

Class Size Matters

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New York, NY 10011

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leonie@classsizematters.org

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Follow me on twitter @leoniehaimson

Make a tax-deductible contribution to Class Size Matters now!

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Categories Common Core, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Klein, Joel, Race to the Top, Testing

How The Bloomberg administration Killed a Good School

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2012 //
9

Murray Bergtraum High School is literally within view of City Hall in New York City. Just cross a busy intersection and there it is.

It used to be a good school with a good reputation. Sitting in the center of New York City’s financial and governmental activity, it prepared young people for business careers.

No longer. The Bloomberg administration has a policy of preferring small high schools and charter schools. It’s policy for large high schools is, at best, benign neglect, but more often, dumping ground.

Bergtraum became a dumping ground for students who couldn’t go anywhere else. In ten years of Bloomberg-Klein reforms, it went from a good school to a holding pen.

Since NYC’s miraculous test score gains collapsed in 2010, you don’t hear much boasting about the scores.

But you will hear boasting about the graduation rate. You don’t hear much about the credit recovery programs on which the grad rate data rest.

But when you think of Bloomberg and Klein and Eric Nadelstern (quoted in the article), remember Bergtraum.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Klein, Joel, NYC

Usdin Wins in New Orleans

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
3

Sarah Usdin won a school board seat in New Orleans, unfortunately.

She is a major advocate for privatization of public education.

Her background is Teach for America, the New Teacher Project (founded by Michelle Rhee), and New Schools for New Orleans (which opens charters).

She had the advantage of more than $110,000 in contributions from Wall Street hedge fund managers (“Democrats for Education Reform”), and others committed to wiping out public education in New Orleans and elsewhere.

Her campaign chest far exceeded that of her opponents, who included parent activist Karran Harper Royal.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, Klein, Joel, New Orleans, Privatization

Who Tried to Buy School Elections?

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
6

Robert Valiant has launched a website to gather information about who funded campaigns for charters and vouchers and against teachers, unions and public education.

If you have links to newspaper articles or other reliable sources, please post them to this website.

I hope that a law firm or investigative journalist will find out where Rhee collected money and which races she supported. She certainly influenced the legislature in Tennessee, where she helped Republucans gain a super-majority, enabling her ex-husband TFA State Commissioner Kevin Huffman to impose the full rightwing reform agenda.

http://dumpduncan.org/forum/discussion/42/registry-of-attempts-to-buy-education-elections-by-prizatizers.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Bush, Jeb, California, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Indiana, Klein, Joel, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Luna, Tom, Merit pay, Privatization, US Education, Walton Foundation

Help! Someone Collect All the Elections that Privatizers Are Buying

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2012 //
18

I keep seeing articles about elections influenced by out-of-state and out-of-district contributions.

Sometimes, as in Los Altos, California, and in New Orleans, the elections are for local school board.

Sometimes, as in Louisiana, the election is for state school board.

Sometimes, as in Indiana and Idaho, the election is for state superintendent.

Sometimes, the election is a ballot initiative, as in Georgia, which is voting on whether to give the Governor the authority to create a commission to authorize charter schools even if the local school board objects; and in Washington State, where a referendum would create one of the nation’s most expansive charter laws; or in Michigan, where money is pouring in to oppose an initiative to make collective bargaining a right.

In school district after school district, state after state, PAC money is being bundled to promote candidates and issues with the same agenda: anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-public education, pro-privatization.

Some of the names are familiar: Bill Gates (in Washington), Michael Bloomberg (in Louisiana), Alice Walton (in Georgia and Washington), Joel Klein (in New Orleans), the DeVos family (American Federation for Children) in Michigan, Eli Broad (in Louisiana), Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst (in Michigan and in many districts). Much of the spending is targeted by Democrats for EducationReform (DFER), the Wall Street hedge fund managers group.

This cannot be sheer coincidence. In most places, the amount of money coming from outside is unprecedented. In Louisiana, the spending on a state board race was a multiple of 12 times what was previously spent.

To the naked eye, this seems to be a concerted effort to orchestrate a privatization of public education.

Big money undermining local control, democracy, and public education.

Categories California, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Klein, Joel, Louisiana, Luna, Tom, Michigan, New Orleans, Privatization

Breaking News: Indiana DOE Stonewalls FOIA about Big $$$

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2012 //
10

In the Public Interest, a nonpartisan public policy group in DC, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for communications between Tony Bennett, the far-right Indiana State Superintendent of Education in Indiana, and certain individuals–specifically Jeb Bush and Joel Klein.

The question of interest is whether certain parties with a financial interest might be influencing Bennett’s decisions. Bush and Klein are both selling technology; Klein works for Rupert Murdoch and is a member of Bush’s board. Bush’s organization is funded by high-tech corporations and online for-profits.

The Indiana DOE is stalling on releasing the requested material, presumably until after Tuesday’s election, when Bennett faces challenger Glenda Ritz.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Indiana, Klein, Joel

Did NYC Close the Achievement Gap in a Decade of Mayoral Control?

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2012 //
7

Aaron Pallas of Teachers College asks the question and shows that the answer is no.

Despite a decade of relentless emphasis on testing, accountability and choice, the achievement gap has barely budged.

Pallas writes:

“My conclusion? There’s been no shrinkage in the test score gap between 2006 and 2012, a period in which many of Bloomberg and Klein’s reforms have begun to reach maturity. If the only purpose of their reforms were to close the achievement gap, this flat-lining would indicate that the reforms were dead on arrival.

“That’s probably too harsh a verdict for a complex package of reforms, some of which may prove beneficial in the long run. And the point here is not a referendum on what’s happened in New York City as much as it is a demonstration that racial/ethnic group differences in test performance are stubborn, even in the face of efforts intended to minimize them.

“We are about to enter an era with a new set of Common Core curricular standards and new assessments designed to measure students’ mastery of those standards. The combination of a more challenging set of standards, a lag in the development of curriculum and the professional development that teachers need to teach to those standards, and assessments that are widely proclaimed to be more difficult than existing NCLB-style tests will likely result in plummeting rates of student proficiency in English and mathematics in the near future. Significant closure of the achievement gap may be beyond the grasp of educators who will be struggling simply to keep their heads above water in the next five years.”

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Education Reform, Klein, Joel, NYC, Testing

The Biggest Problem in U.S. Education Is….?

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2012 //
8

Chris Lehman has written an excellent post pulling together solid data about the “reformers'” solutions and the issue that refuse to address: poverty.

What is the problem in U.S. education? What is the cause of low test scores? Is it bad teachers, as the reformers claim?

Or is it poverty, where the U.S. leads the advanced nations of the world?

Can school reform cure poverty? Has it?

If you don’t address the causes, you will never solve the problem of low academic performance.

Nice job, Chris.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Klein, Joel, Poverty, Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Joel Klein’s False History, by Richard Rothstein

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2012 //
21

In a stunning article, Richard Rothstein has dissected Joel Klein’s claim to have grown up in poverty, living in a public housing project, saved by a “great” teacher.

This story is used cynically by Klein and other advocates of privatization to attack public education, teachers and unions. (Wasn’t that great teacher a member of the union in NYC?).

Rothstein says that Klein was not poor, that he actually lived in a public housing project built for white middle-class families. Rothstein further argues that these projects were part of a larger pattern of government subsidy for racial segregation. Klein’s story, he concludes, does not prove what Klein so often claims about the irrelevance of poverty.

This is a must-read.

Categories Education Reform, Klein, Joel, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration
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