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Jean Haverhill on the Enemies of Public Education in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2016 //
23

So, what should business leaders and think tanks do when their state’s public schools are first in the nation? Disrupt them, of course. Demand more privately managed charters, more competition. Just make sure there is no praise for accomplishments. Complain, complain, complain, so the public thinks ill of the best schools in the nation.

Jean Haverhill writes about what is happening:

“http://www.endcommoncorema.com I need to offer more time to this group. The MA Business Alliance brings in Sir Michael Barber with a phony study on “PARCC” superiority to MCAS. Measured Progress in NH (formerly a research firm) conveys the Sir Michael Barber infiltrating through MA Business Alliance directly to the Board of Ed. Fordham Institute is actively pursuing this avenue. David Driscoll, of NAEP, is going to be testing our kids on “grit”. The MA Business Alliance is tying up the grass roots effort of parents (in the courts) who have diligently gathered signatures to put common core/testing onto the November ballot. People in Worcester County, Essex County, Hampshire County may not be aware of all of the intricacies/ circumstances of groups in Boston but in particular, I prefer to spend my time on calling out (a) Fordham Institute and Education Next (Michael Petrilli, Andy Smarick, Education Next) for their constant pushing on vouchers/charters and tests (b) NAEP measurement of “grit” (thanks, David Driscoll) © Measured Progress ( a “research” firm tied up with West Ed and Pearson) and the (d) MA Business Alliance trying to defeat the grass roots efforts of parents. These are some pretty powerful foes or public education as I know it. If we fight amongst ourselves, these major elements will proceed with their own agenda and their own special interests.”

Warning: wherever Michael Barber goes, testing, ranking, and privatization follows.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reform, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: A Stunning Conflict of Interest

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
26

EduShyster was alerted by a confidential tip to the possibility that Jim Peyser, the State Secretary of  Education, remains a director of an organization that lobbies for more charter schools.

 

She checked public records and learned that Peyser is still listed as a director of “Families for Excellent Schools.” This is an organization of hedge fund managers, millionaires, and billionaires who lobby for privately managed charter schools.

 

“The Secretary of Education, Jim Peyser sets education policy for the state and also votes on said policy. And as a director for the charter school advocacy group Families for Excellent Schools, and its 501 (c) (4) lobbying arm, Peyser is seeking to influence the very state policy that he is then voting upon. In other words, he is lobbying himself.As the Secretary of Education, Jim Peyser sets education policy for the state and also votes on said policy. And as a director for the charter school advocacy group Families for Excellent Schools, and its 501 (c) (4) lobbying arm, Peyser is seeking to influence the very state policy that he is then voting upon. In other words, he is lobbying himself….

 

 

“But wait, there’s more
“If it sounds like our Secretary of Education has his hands full, both lobbying and being lobbied, consider that Father Peyser wears yet another cap these days. He is also the defendant in a class-action lawsuit vs. the state’s charter cap, defending the very cap that he is working feverishly, whilst wearing one of his other caps, to lift. The obvious question: how does he do it all? Followed by: what size hat does Peyser wear? Followed by: doesn’t Massachusetts have some kind, ANY kind of, conflict of interest law? Alas, I’m informed that its nearly as toothless as our public records law.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Massachusetts

BREAKING NEWS! Bombshell Report on Dark Money Behind School Privatization in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2015 //
35

Massachusetts Jobs with Justice released a well-documented report on the dark money behind a shadowy group called “Families for Excellent Schools.” FES is leading the campaign for more charter schools in Massachusetts. Of course, FES flies under a fake flag, because the “families” are not representing the families of Boston or the families that need excellent schools. FES is a gross deception. They are representing hedge fund managers and other wealthy individuals. Their idea of “excellent schools” is Exeter, Andover, Deerfield Academy, Groton, Sidwell Friends, and other elite schools that their own children attend. But these are not the excellent schools they want for the children of Massachusetts; they prefer no-excuses schools, where discipline and uniformity produces higher test scores. In the battle between Eva Moskowitz and Mayor de Blasio over the expansion of the charter sector, FES came up with nearly $10 million to beat the mayor. That’s not the kind of money that one gathers in needy communities, but it is the kind of money one collects with a few phone calls to Wall Street movers and shakers.

 

The JwJ report tears the veil away from FES, revealing where the money comes from. Up until now, it had pretended to be just another grassroots group working for “excellent” schools, and not a hedge fund-front group pushing privatization.

 

The report also revealed that one of the directors of FES is James Peyser, the Massachusetts State Superintendent of Education. This was another shocker. Why should the public official responsible for the maintenance and improvement of public schools serve on the board of an organization dedicated to privatizing public schools. Peyser holds the same position as Horace Mann. He should be embarrassed and the people of Massachusetts should be outraged.

 

Just bear in mind that the push for privatization is occurring in the state that is far and away the best performing state school system in the United States. The expansion of the charter sector will undermine public education and divide communities. FES should be ashamed. Why don’t they take their millions and open health clinics for poor children?

 

 

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization

News Flash for the New York Times!

By dianeravitch
November 22, 2015 //
51

News flash! There is a national test that enables us to compare reading and math scores for every state! It is called NAEP. It reports scores by race, ELLs, poverty, gender, disability status, achievement gaps. This is apparently unknown to the Néw York Times and the Secretary of Education, who has said repeatedly that we need Common Core tests to compare states.

The New York Times, America’s newspaper of record, has a story today about Massachusetts’ decision to abandon PARCC, even though its State Commissioner Mitchell Chrster is chairman of the board of PARCC. True or Memorex? Time will tell.

But the story has a serious problem: the opening sentence.

“It has been one of the most stubborn problems in education: With 50 states, 50 standards and 50 tests, how could anyone really know what American students were learning, or how well?”

Later the story has this sentence:

“The state’s rejection of that test sounded the bell on common assessments, signaling that the future will now look much like the past — with more tests, but almost no ability to compare the difference between one state and another.”

What happened to the National Assessment of Educational Progress? It has been comparing all the states and D.C., as well as many cities, since 1992. Has no one at the New York Times ever heard of NAEP?

Categories Common Core, Massachusetts, NAEP, Standardized Testing

Massachusetts: State Attorney General Defends the Charter Cap

By dianeravitch
November 16, 2015 //
3

In a strange turn of events, Maureen Healey, the Attorney General for the state of Massachusetts, issued a brief defending the cap on charter schools. There is currently a strong push by charter advocates to lift the cap so charters can expand. She speaks on behalf of the Baker administration, but Governor Charles Baker (a Republican) supports charter schools.

 

Attorney General Maura Healey, acting on behalf of the Baker administration, moved Friday to crush a lawsuit that would overturn the state cap on the number of charter schools, forcefully challenging the argument that limiting these schools deprives children of a quality education.

 
The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court in September, names as plaintiffs five Boston students who were unable to secure charter school seats during the lottery earlier this year and were assigned instead to traditional Boston public schools that have been classified by the state as underperforming.

 
The defendants include James A. Peyser, Governor Charlie Baker’s secretary of education, and other Baker administration officials who are officially responsible for enforcing the cap, even though they strongly support lifting it to allow more charter schools.

 
That tension has raised questions in legal and political circles about how Baker, a Republican, and Healey, a Democrat, might respond to the lawsuit, which argues that the cap unfairly deprives thousands of Massachusetts students of their constitutional right to a quality education.

 
On Friday, Healey, acting as the attorney for Peyser and other education officials, made clear that the state intends to aggressively fight the suit. In two strongly worded legal filings, the attorney general argues the lawsuit should be dismissed on several grounds.

 
She contends that the argument advanced by the five plaintiffs that there is a direct link between the charter school cap and the poor education they claim to be receiving is “illogical, highly speculative, and remote.”

 
“Numerous other factors” other than the charter cap could be responsible for the poor performance of some schools, Healey writes. And simply opening more charter schools won’t necessarily help because there is no guarantee that they would be high-quality charters, she contends.

 
‘Numerous factors other than the cap could be responsible for the poor performance of some schools.’

 

“Not all charter schools in Massachusetts are high-performing,” Healey writes. “In fact, it is not unusual for the department or the board to impose conditions on existing charter schools, or close them because they do not perform as required.”
Healey also asserts that Boston has not, as the plaintiffs argue, reached its limit on the number of charter schools because it still has seats available in so-called Commonwealth and in-district charter schools, which are given more flexibility than traditional public schools, though not as much as full-fledged charter schools.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Massachusetts

Massachusetts Public School Parents Don’t Want to Lift the Charter Cap; Will the Legislature Listen?

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2015 //
5

When the Indiana legislature held hearings about education, parents drove hours to testify and sat for several hours as the imported “experts” spoke. Many of the parents had to leave after waiting for five hours.

Look at what happened in Massachusetts when the Legislature held hearings about lifting the charter cap.

The politicians danced in and out; some left early. The parents waited.

The foundations testified. The parents waited.

The school committees testified. The parents waited.

The heads of charter schools testified. The parents waited.

The charter parents in their matching T-shirts testified. The parents waited.

After hours went by, and almost no one was left, the parents spoke.

Look at the photo. It tells the story.

Who owns the public schools if not the public?

Categories Charter Schools, Massachusetts, Parents

Mercedes Schneider: Mitchell Chester Has a Big New Idea in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2015 //
12

The world of education policy wonks has been waiting with bated breath to learn whether State Commissioner Mitchell Chester would choose to stay with the state’s test called MCAS or to adopt the Common Core PARCC test (Chester is chair of the PARCC board).

Chester answered the question by proposing to merge the two tests and create a hybrid!

No one actually knows what this means or how it will work. Will it satisfy all parties or make everyone angry?

Categories Common Core, Massachusetts, Testing

EduShyster: Three “White Shoe” Law Firms Sue to Lift the Charter Cap in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2015 //
9

EduShyster reports that three of the city’s leading law firms have filed a lawsuit to overturn the state’s cap on the number of charter schools.

The irony is that they are suing the state and the state board of education, which are led by charter advocates.

She writes:

So our defendants in a case alleging that the charter cap is a violation of students’ civil rights also happen to be wildly pro proponents of lifting said cap. Are there any other ways in which this case is in fact the opposite of what it purports to be? Funny you should ask…It turns out that the case has nothing to with individual rights period—it’s actually a separation of powers case that will hinge on the concept of *justiciability.* I will tell you no more about this now as we have officially stumbled onto a terrain in which I am *needs improvement.* But suffice it to say that this is yet another reason for the decided lack of enthusiasm that beshrouds this case. You see, our white-shod friends have accidentally raised a topic that our proponent-defendants would prefer to eschew: the increasingly unequal state of school funding in Massachusetts, and the role that charter schools play in exacerbating that inequality, especially in poor districts.

Remember the line about charter schools saving poor kids from failing schools? Here is the irony. Massachusetts is the highest performing state in the nation. As more charter schools are opened, more school districts will lose students and resources.

The Bay State–or at least its current leaders–seem determined to create a fiscal crisis for underfunded districts and a two-tier system of schools with public funds. One free to choose its students, the other required to enroll all students.

Categories Charter Schools, Massachusetts

Mercedes Schneider: Who is Roland Fryer, Jr.?

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2015 //
41

I first learned about Roland Fryer, Jr., a Harvard economist, when he devised an experiment to pay students for raising test scores in several cities, which failed. Subsequently, he seemed to be involved in other such experiments where the methodology always involved incentives for teachers or students to get higher scores. Here is an outside review of the merit pay plan he designed for New York City. Another of his less-than-successful incentive plans was called “loss aversion.” It works like this: the district gives teachers a $4,000 bonus at the start of the school year; if scores go up, they keep it. If scores don’t go up, they give the money back.

That gave me an idea: how about “loss aversion” for economists? If their predictions are wrong, their computer is confiscated. Or their pay is cut. Or they lose a digit on one finger.

Mercedes Schneider decided to learn more about Fryer after learning that Charlie Baker, the Republican governor, had appointed Fryer to the State Board of Education. The state is on the verge of deciding whether to stick with its MCAS state tests or switch to PARCC. The State Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts, Mitchell Chester, is chair of the PARCC Governing Board. Gosh, I wonder which test they will choose?

Schneider wondered, who is Roland Fryer, Jr.

She writes that Fryer was “promoted from assistant professor to full professor after a single year on the Harvard University faculty (and skipping right over associate professor, to boot).

“Fryer is also the faculty director of Harvard University-based EdLabs, which describes itself as just a helpful group of individuals with no agenda:”

Here is their agenda:

We are an eclectic collection of scientists, educators, and implementers with diverse backgrounds and vast experience, generating ideas and implementing experiments that have the potential to transform education.

Edlabs has no political affiliation or agenda to promote. We squeeze truths from data. People may not always like what we discover, but we will disseminate our results no matter what we find.

Sounds good, yes?

But then she checked out EdLab’s associates and funding, and almost every notable reformer group was there.

Among his advisors: Joel Klein, Condoleeza Rice, and Eli Broad.

Among his funders: the usual suspects. You can guess, or read the post.

Schneider reports on one of Fryer’s ideas to close the achievement gap: don’t test the affluent districts (like the one he lives in), because it would leave less time for reading Shakespeare; but test the poor kids daily.

As I have said on more than one occasion, tests are a measure, not an educational intervention. They measure gaps, they don’t close them. If you have a fever, you can find out how high it is with a thermometer, but taking your temperature again and again will not lower your fever.

Categories Corporate Reform, Massachusetts, Standardized Testing

BREAKING: Union Activist in Holyoke Wins Right to Hearing

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2015 //
13

Gus Morales, the outspoken leader of the Holyoke, Massachusetts, Teachers Association, won the right to a hearing from the state’s Department of Labor Relations after he was laid off by his district.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association and his colleagues believe he was dismissed because he led protests against the state takeover of the district.

“The state Department of Labor Relations (DLR) has found “probable cause” to believe that the Holyoke Public Schools illegally fired Holyoke Teachers Association (HTA) President Gus Morales because of his activism as a union leader.

“The DLR will hold a hearing on the complaint, which stems from a charge filed by the HTA on June 25. The DLR complaint is similar to a grand jury indictment; the upcoming hearing will have many of the characteristics of a trial, with witnesses and cross-examination.

“Because I speak out against policies that I see as bad for our students and bad for our educators, I have been targeted for two straight years,” said Morales, whose employment contract with the Holyoke Public Schools was not renewed at the end of the school year.

“Morales, who does not have professional teaching status, was similarly dismissed at the end the 2013-14 school year after his election to lead the HTA. Then, as now, the DLR issued a complaint that found reason to believe that Morales was illegally terminated for his union activism.”

”

Morales and the HTA were vocal opponents of the takeover, which was imposed in April despite widespread objections from the community and several of its elected leaders.

“It is an outrage that an educator and leader such as Gus Morales, who has spoken out for the students and the Holyoke community, is being targeted for dismissal,” said MTA President Barbara Madeloni. “The MTA will not tolerate attacks on educators, especially when the attack is meant to cause fear among those who challenge the deeply flawed accountability system used to punish educators, students and communities. Gus has the courage to address the real issues affecting Holyoke — such as economic and racial injustice — and the MTA supports him and the HTA in holding the state accountable for providing resources that the community can use to combat these problems.”

“Throughout stakeholder meetings to craft a “turnaround” plan for Holyoke Public Schools, Morales and others from the HTA raised concerns about the influence of standardized tests, the need to provide social services to students living in poverty, inadequate programs for students on special education plans, the lack of ethnic diversity in the teaching ranks and other issues that they felt that the receiver needs to address.”

Morales never got a bad evaluation until he spoke out against bad policies.

Categories Massachusetts, Teachers, Unions
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