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Major Media Remove the Conspiracy-Theory Infowars from Their Sites

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2018 //
51

YouTube, Facebook, and Apple have agreed to remove the pernicious, fake content produced by Alex Jones of Infowars.

This is good news. Jones has created a brand based on lies, hoaxes, and fear-mongering. His most disgusting conspiracy theory was his claim that the Sandy Hook massacre was fake, a stage production with child actors, stage managed by the Obama administration to advance the war against guns. Jones is being sued for defamation by parents who lost children at the Sandy Hook massacre. Some have been pursued by stalkers and received death threats.

In its daily news brief, CNN summarized the story:

“Some of the web’s top gatekeepers have unleashed a serious crackdown on content from Infowars and its founder, Alex Jones. Infowars is the site (and Jones the man) that pushes baseless conspiracy theories that often create real-life damage (like the Sandy Hook hoax over which several more families this week sued Jones for defamation). YouTube, Facebook and Apple yesterday removed content from Infowars, claiming it violates their policies, such as YouTube’s barring “hate speech and harassment.” YouTube’s actions probably most damage the brand, which had multiple channels with millions of subscribers and more than a billion views.”

To learn more about Alex Jones, watch John Oliver.

Categories For-Profit, Fraud, Hoax, Lies, Media

Alan Singer: Why Didn’t Chalkbeat Cover the Student Unrest at Success Academy?

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2018 //
2

In a provocative and insightful article, Alan Singer wonders why Chalkbeat did not cover the student unrest at Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy?

He follows the money and sees who is funding Chalkbeat. How can Chalkbeat be independent when it is funded by reformers and its editor-in-chief thinks that SA is the best education she has ever seen?

And then there is this: SA is flooded with more money than any school in America:

Since January 2018, Chalkbeat New York has posted eight articles on New York’s Success Academy Charter School Network. The most recent article covered the graduation ceremony held for the network high schools SIXTEEN graduating seniors at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. An April article featured the Success Academy’s “Slam the Exam” test rally at the 19,000 seat Barclay’s Arena in Brooklyn. The bill for a 2013 high school graduation held at Barclay Center was $60,000.

According to its webpage, “Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization committed to covering one of America’s most important stories: the effort to improve schools for all children, especially those who have historically lacked access to a quality education. We are mission-driven, in that we believe that every child deserves an excellent education, and that a strong press is vital to making that happen. Yet we are also fiercely independent, in that we do not take a position on the best path for achieving equity.” The webpage also stresses Chalkbeat’s commitment to local news coverage.

I do not understand why Chalkbeat did not cover student protests at the Success Academy Charter School Network’s high schools during the 2017-2018 academic year, especially since the protests were covered in New York’s regular press and in other web news magazines. Complaints about the cost of a new dress code and January 2018 protests against an oppressive disciplinary code were covered by the political website Politico. The Wall Street Journal had a feature on “growing pains” at the Network’s two high schools in March 2018. Student protests about unfair summer homework assignments were reported on in the Daily News. None of these issues were covered by Chalkbeat.

How many public schools can rent a stadium for $60,000 for a test-prep rally? 0.

Last year, SA rented Radio City Music Hall. No word on the cost of that very expensive venue.

Next year, maybe Madison Square Garden or Yankee Stadium.

How many schools can hold a graduation ceremony for 16 students in one of NYC’s most significant concert halls? Singer should find out how much that ceremony cost. It may have been almost as much as the Barclay’s Center and so much more prestigious.

P.S. We still don’t know what happened to the “lone scholar” who was on the senior class rolls until just a few weeks before graduation. Did his shirt tail hang out? Did she forget to walk in a straight line? Did she fail to “track” the teacher?

Categories Funding, Harlem Success Academy, Media

Jeanne Allen Warns: Do Not Watch NBC Charter Exposé Tonight!

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2018 //
26

Jeanne Allen, CEO of the pro-choice, Pro-DeVos Center for Education Reform, does not want you to watch an NBC special tonight on charter schools. Allen’s CER is an outspoken supporter of privatization of public funding and a hyperactive opponent of public schools.

In the following letter, she reports that she warned NBC that its show was based on an article in The Hechinger Report,” which she says is biased against charter schools. Really? It’s been my observation that The Hechinger Report is completely nonpartisan and unbiased on every contentious issue.

Here is the letter that Jeanne (former education analyst for the fringe-right Heritage Foundation), sent to NBC and to her mailing list of thousands.

The Center for Education Reform

RE: NBC’s Charter School Mistake

Dear Friends:

Sunday night, June 17th, NBC News is airing a charter school story that argues charters are increasingly geared to support “white flight.” If the claims weren’t so outlandish and unfounded, it would be laughable.

The producer, who was incredibly open to receiving information countering these allegations, based his report on an analysis performed by the Hechinger Report. In one of the documents CER supplied, we demonstrated Hechinger’s bias against charter schools, as well as the folly of the argument.

Indeed, Hechinger claims to have used NCES data to calculate racial balance in charter schools across the country that justify erroneous claims that increasingly charter schools do not reflect the racial balance of surrounding schools. However, as we pointed out, no researcher can make such statements based on NCES data. One needs at least 4 data points (see link for explanation) and further review, analysis and study, to make any legitimate comparisons.

In the case of the school they use as their prime example, George’s Lake Onocee Academy, originally boundaries were drawn around the school based on a development that was responsible for its existence. The other public schools in the district were failing, and developers wanted to offer a better school to the community. The district was opposed to the creation of the school. And while the boundary no longer exists around that school, local leaders have still fanned the flames of bigotry that Hechinger seized to market the sizzling story to its media partner NBC.

The Hechinger Report journalist then called numerous other states and asked about racial composition of their schools. One might ask why they’d have to call states if they thought they had irrefutable data.

We don’t fault NBC for viewing Hechinger’s work as legitimate or being misled by their data. The thousands of policies, laws and data points that apply to charter school everywhere are complex and require a trained eye and understanding. However, if one is disposed against charters as Hechinger is because they give parents freedom to make choices rather mandate assignment based on artificial factors, then one will make any conclusion that justified their narrative.

Such is the case in this piece which some charter advocates argue is balanced. Regardless of what is said tomorrow night, there is no balance in any piece which starts with the premise that the very reform that created opportunities for millions of children who were failed by the traditional system, and which serve a higher percentage of at risk and minority children, is creating racial imbalance. Indeed, if mandatory assignment by zip code and busing were the answer, we would not have failed students for 3 generations.

All children deserve the education they need to become exceptional adults. The freedom to make that choice is fundamental, as charter schools have shown consistently since 1992.

We hope NBC and other news media will find ways to help the public understand that fact, as well as the enormous need that still exists to bring innovation and opportunity to millions more students trapped in failing schools that Hechinger and its friends in the teachers unions irresponsibility seem determined to defend at all costs, including mis-use of data.

If you’d like to discuss this or any other issue, please call us at 202-750-0012 or drop us a note here.

– Jeanne Allen, Founder & CEO

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Media, Privatization, Segregation, Shame

VICE Is Airing a Documentary about Education on Friday on HBO

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2018 //
24

Please, if you have HBO, watch the VICE documentary on Friday. I don’t know the time. I was interviewed. I have no idea what direction it will take, but VICE always has an interesting take on whatever it does.

Let me know how it goes. I never watch myself on TV.

Categories Media

Mercedes Schneider: Peter Cunningham and EdPost Cash In

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2018 //
32

 

Mercedes Schneider is a brilliant blogger. She is unpaid. So is Anthony Cody, Peter Greene, Steven Singer, Tom Ultican, and many more. Bloggers speak truth to power.

But then there is Peter Cunningham. Once upon a time, he worked at the U.S. Department of Education and was known as Arne Duncan’s “brain.”

Now Peter has a blog called Education Post, and unlike the rest of us, he speaks for the billionaires who feel misunderstood and wounded. Hurt, actually, because no one loves them.

As Mercedes explains, he is funded by a bevy of billionaires. Gates recently threw in more than his two cents.  The billionaires love him. And well they should. So sad to have all that money without anyone listening to you. He provides them a voice on social media.

Categories Billionaires, Education Reform, Media

Alt-Right and Neo-Nazis Are Using Popular Film “Black Panther” for Their Cause

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2018 //
22

 

A disturbing article in the Washington Post says that the Alt-Right and White Nationalists are co-opting the popular film “Black Panther” to promote their own hateful vision of ethno-nationalism.

White nationalists have embraced “Black Panther,” Marvel Comics’ blockbuster, to push their argument online that nation-states should be organized by ethnic groups, according to new research published Wednesday, an unlikely convolution of the ground-breaking African superhero movie.

One popular image circulating on far-right corners of the Internet shows the title character — the superhero king of the fictional, secluded and wealthy African nation of Wakanda — wearing a red “Make Wakanda Great Again” hat. This is an explicit homage to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign gear.

The image, first posted online in June, months before the Disney/Marvel film’s February release, carried a headline of “BLACK PANTHER IS ALT-RIGHT,” referring to the movement that espouses racist, anti-Semitic and sexist views and seeks a whites-only state. It claimed the superhero opposed immigration, diversity and democracy while favoring “ethno-nationalism” — a profound mischaracterization of the movie’s main themes, according to researchers at Data & Society, a New York-based think tank that studied far-right online conversation about the film. They said the film uses science fiction and “Afro-futurism,” a thematic exploration of African and African American history, to explore real-life questions of culture, race and politics.

This is such a crock of you-know-what. This country is thoroughly multicultural and that cannot be reversed or imagined away. We must learn to live together or we will surely destroy our great experiment in democracy.

Categories Democracy, Education Reform, Media, Racism

Teacher Calls for Investigation of All D.C. High Schools, Including Charter Schools, for Fake Grad Rates

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2018 //
16

Erich Martel, retired veteran teacher in D.C. school system, wrote a public letter calling for a thorough investigation of graduation rates in all D.C. high schools, including charters, and for the reinstatement of the whistleblower teachers who were fired at Ballou High School. You may recall that NPR ran a story about the miraculous graduation rate and college acceptance rate at Ballou. After a teacher came forward and pointed out that students with numerous absences from school and inadequate credits were allowed to graduate, NPR investigated and corrected the earlier story. The underlying story was about gullible reporters wanting to believe in miracles.

 

Martel writes:

 

Council Member David Grosso

Chairman, Committee on Education, Council of the District of Columbi

Dear Chairman Grosso,

Today’s Washington Post article on the investigation into the Ballou H.S. graduation scandal reports that “a group of [Ballou H.S.] teachers met with D.C. Public School officials” the day after the June 2017 graduation to report that “students who missed dozens of classes had been able to earn passing grades and graduate.” https://tinyurl.com/yc37lerj

A month later, music teacher Monica Brokenborough wrote to Chancellor Antwan Wilson requesting a “thorough investigation … inclusive of pertinent stakeholders,” but never heard back from him. The Washington Post has evidence that Ms. Brokenborough, the WTU representative “tried time and again to reach district officials about her concerns” resulting in the principal cutting her position from the school budget this year.

Chancellor Antwan Wilson conceded at your December 15th Education Committee hearing that effort “he and other officials did not look into it until the November airing of a WAMU and NPR news report.” His words of acknowledgement were chilling:

“‘We know that there was a Ballou teacher who in August complained through the grievance procedure about concerns along with 30 other concerns,’ Wilson said at the hearing. ‘Our team, prioritizing impact [IMPACT???], had not gotten to it.'”

Question:

Will you request that Mayor Bowser immediately instruct Chancellor Wilson to reinstate whole all Ballou teachers who reported these violations and were subsequently terminated/excessed by the principal?

On the December 8th Kojo Nnambi show, you stated,

“I think it is unfair to focus only on Ballou H.S. in this situation. Ballou HS has some wonderful things going on there that we need to celebrate.”

“I’m saying it just frustrates me that this is always going to come down on Ballou.”

“To pick on Ballou alone is unfair. … But let me tell you, that’s not the only place where students are leaving high school not ready for college in the District of Columbia.”

The current investigation appears to be focused solely on Ballou H.S., but I haven’t heard of you requesting that it include all DCPS and charter high schools.

Question:

Will you request that Mayor Bowser expand the investigation to all DCPS AND all DC charter high schools?

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Erich Martel

Ward 3, Retired DCPS high school teacher (Cardozo HS, Wilson HS, Phelps ACE HS)

ehmartel@starpower.net

Categories District of Columbia, Education Reform, Fake News, Graduation rates, Media

Former Facebook Executive Apolgizes for Damage Facebook Has Done to Society

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2017 //
12

A former Facebook executive has taken the extraordinary step of apologizing for the damage the social media giant has done to society.

A former Facebook executive is making waves after he spoke out about his “tremendous guilt” over growing the social network, which he feels has eroded “the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other.”

Chamath Palihapitiya began working for Facebook in 2007 and left in 2011 as its vice president for user growth. When he started, he said, there was not much thought given to the long-term negative consequences of developing such a platform.

“I think in the back, deep, deep recesses of our minds, we kind of knew something bad could happen,” said Palihapitiya, 41. “But I think the way we defined it was not like this.”

That changed as Facebook’s popularity exploded, he said. To date, the social network has more than 2 billion monthly users around the world and continues to grow.

But the ability to connect and share information so quickly — as well as the instant gratification people give and receive over their posts — has resulted in some negative consequences, according to Palihapitiya.

“It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are,” he said. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works: no civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem. This is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem.”

Categories Media, Technology

John Merrow: When “Too Good to Be True” Is Not True

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2017 //
25

John Merrow reviews the miraculous but not true story of the high school in Washington, D.C., that increased its graduation rate from 57% to 100% in one year. And every one of these graduates were accepted into college! A touching story. But a false story. Made even worse by the fact that it was reported by NPR, which is a usually reliable and trustworthy source for news.

Merrow notes that in the original report, 26 of the graduating class of nearly 200 students had not yet earned enough credits to graduate. How, then, could the school have a graduation rate of 100% and a college acceptance rate of 100%?

A little digging, he said, would have revealed the fact that a local D.C. community college accepts all students who have a high school diploma, a GED, or the equivalent, so gaining college acceptance is not a high bar to cross.

He then recounts how NPR walked the story back and did some investigation, finding the original story to be wrong. There was no 100% graduation rate, and many students earned credits with “credit recovery,” sitting in front of a computer for a week to get a semester’s credits. How phony is that!

He writes:

Further evidence that the 100% college acceptance story is bogus comes from academic results. Only 9% of seniors were able to pass the city’s English test, and not a single student passed the math test. The average SAT score for Ballou test-takers was 782 out of a possible 1600. Moreover, teachers told NPR that some administrators actually filled out the college applications for those students who had no interest in attending college!

This disgraceful approach to schooling does widespread damage beyond what is obviously done to kids who receive phony diplomas but no real education. One teacher told NPR, “This is [the] biggest way to keep a community down. To graduate students who aren’t qualified, send them off to college unprepared, so they return to the community to continue the cycle.”

I am not writing this to criticize NPR for missing the story** the first time around. I did that myself more than once in my 41-year career, and I was late in recognizing the flaws in Michelle Rhee’s ‘test scores are everything’ approach in Washington. Her wrong-headed strategy is, arguably, responsible for the mind-set that exists at Ballou today.

Here’s what matters: the Ballou fiasco is the bitter fruit of the ‘School Reform’ movement that continues to dominate educational practice in most school districts today. These (faux) reformers continue to support policies and practices that basically reduce children to a single number, their scores on standardized, machine-scored tests. This approach has led to a diminished curriculum, drill-and-kill schooling, buckets of money leaving the schools and going instead to testing companies and outside consultants, the growth of charter schools (many run by profiteers), and a drumbeat of criticism from ideologues who seem determined to break apart and ruin public education, rather than attempt to reinvent it.

(This approach also once again proves the truth of Campbell’s Law, the more importance given to a single measure, the greater the probability that it will be corrupted. When test scores rule education, some people cheat. And when high school graduation rates rule, people also find ways to cheat.

In case you were not sure, Merrow makes clear that he was hoodwinked by Michelle Rhee, and he calls out the false premises and false promises of the “School Reform” movement, which has done so much to corrupt education by setting targets that can’t be reached without cheating.

Categories District of Columbia, Fraud, High School Graduation, Hoax, Media, Michelle Rhee

Jane Mayer: Can TIME Survive the Koch Brothers Takeover?

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2017 //
12

Jane Mayer is the nation’s leading expert on Dark Money and wrote a very important book of that name. In the linked article here, she raises crucial questions about whether TIME will continue to exercise Tough, independent journalism under the influence of the Kochs

https://www.newyorker.com/sections/news/can-time-inc-survive-the-kochs

“Despite their long and deep involvement in trying to align American politics with their conservative libertarian views, spokesmen for the Kochs insist that the multibillionaire brothers have no plans to play any role in running or shaping the editorial content of the Time Inc. publications. In addition to Time magazine, the company publishes Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated, Money, and several other previously iconic national weeklies. Instead, spokesmen for the Kochs and for Meredith say that the brothers intend to act merely as “passive” investors. They and their underlings will have no seat on the merged company’s board of directors, and play no managerial role other than meeting on a quarterly basis with senior management to discuss “financial and strategic matters.” According to an eighty-page agreement on the merger filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Kochs do, however, reserve the right to send an emissary to attend board meetings if Meredith fails to make good on its hefty 8.5-per-cent interest payments to the Kochs. But the brothers’ motive for financing such a large chunk of the $2.8 billion merger, according to those close to the deal, is purely financial, akin to the role that Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican telecom tycoon, has played at the Times, where he is the single largest investor.

“Those familiar with the Kochs’ history, however, have reason to be skeptical about their professed passivity. Charles Koch, in particular, is known for the unusually tight control he exerts over Koch Industries, the second-largest private company in the U.S., and also over his and his brother’s political and philanthropic ventures. As I wrote in my book “Dark Money,” a former political partner of the Koch brothers, Murray Rothbard, once testified that Charles “cannot tolerate dissent” and will “go to any end to acquire/retain control.” His brother David, meanwhile, has been quoted saying that “if we’re going to give a lot of money, we will make darn sure they spend it in a way that goes along with our intent.”

“This year, among the Kochs’ aims is to spend a projected four hundred million dollars in contributions from themselves and a small group of allied conservative donors they have assembled, to insure Republican victories in the 2018 midterm elections. Ordinarily, political reporters for Time magazine would chronicle this blatant attempt by the Kochs and their allies to buy political influence in the coming election cycle. Will they feel as free to do so now?”

Categories Koch Brothers, Media
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