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Parents, Beware! Is Your Child for Sale?

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2013 //
41

This appeared on the New York City parent blog:

NYC Public School Parents
Independent voices of New York City public school parents
FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2013

Parents beware! NY and eight other states plan to share your child’s confidential school records with private corporations without your consent!

New York is one of five states that have agreed to share confidential NYC student and teacher data in Phase I with the “Shared Learning Collaborative” or SLC, a project of the Gates Foundation.

The other states and districts in Phase I include North Carolina (Guilford Co.), Colorado (Jefferson Co.), Illinois (Unit 5 Normal and District 87 Bloomington) and Massachusetts (Everett). Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana are in Phase II, according to the Gates Foundation, intend to start piloting the system in 2013.

The data to be shared will include the names of students, their grades, test scores, disciplinary and attendance records, and likely race, ethnicity, free lunch and special education status as well.

These records are to be stored in a massive electronic data bank, being built by Wireless Generation, a subsidiary of News Corporation. News Corporation is owned by Rupert Murdoch and has been found to illegally violate the privacy of individuals in Great Britain and in the United States.

Over the next few months, the Gates Foundation plans to turn over all this personal data to another, as yet unnamed corporation, headed by Iwan Streichenberger, the former marketing director of a company called Promethean that sells whiteboards, based in Atlanta GA.

This new corporation intends to make this confidential student information available in turn to commercial enterprises to help them develop and market their “learning products.” This new corporation is supposed to be financially sustainable by 2016, which means either states, districts or vendors will have to pay for its upkeep and maintenance. All this is happening without parental knowledge or consent.

There are serious questions as to whether this plan complies with the federal law protecting student privacy, called FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), which allows states or districts to disclose students’ personally identifiable education records without parental consent only in very limited circumstances and under stringent conditions, none of which apply in this case.
Moreover, we have learned that this confidential information is to be put on a cloud managed by Amazon.com, with few if any protections against data leakage.

After our press conference with our attorney, Norman Siegel in October, the NY State Education Department finally released its contract with the Gates Foundation. As we feared, it only reaffirmed our concerns about the lack of privacy for children, the weak protections against data leakage, and the denial of the parental right to consent. Here is a letter from our attorneys expressing our concerns.

We believe that any state that enters into an agreement with the Shared Learning Collaborative, or its successor corporation, should at the very least be obligated to:

Release its contract with the Gates Foundation, notify all parents of the impending disclosure of their children’s confidential records, and provide them with the right to consent;

Hold public hearings for parents to be able to express their concerns about the plan’s potential to risk their children’s privacy, security and safety;

Explain how families can obtain relief if their children are harmed by improper use or accidental release of this information, including who will be held financially responsible;

Affirm that they will respect the privacy rights of public schoolchildren more than the interests of the Gates Foundation, News Corporation, or any other company or vendor with whom this confidential information may be shared.

Please see below; video of Khem Irby, parent activist in North Carolina, speaking before the Guilford school board about this issue last week.

Here is a fact sheet with this information you can download and distribute. You can also leave a comment on the Gates website here, if you think parents should have the right to consent.

For more information, please email us at info@classsizematters.org or call us at 212-674-7320.

Leonie Haimson at 1/18/2013

Categories For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Parents, Students

Memphis Families Outraged by School Takeover

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2013 //
48

Parents in the Binghampton district in Tennessee are furious that the state took over their school, changed the name and colors, brought in an inexperienced staff, and no one thought to consult them.

Tennessee created the “Achievement School District” and put charter founder Chris Barbic in charge. Barbic, a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, has promised to take the schools scoring in the bottom 5% and put them in the state’s top 25% in five years. He has the authority to take control of low-performing schools to turn them around.

One of them is Lester School, now renamed Cornerstone Preparatory School and turned into a charter.

At the community meeting, feelings ran high:

“Parents resent an outside group coming in and taking over, particularly, they say, when there is scant evidence teachers and staff are experienced enough to know what they are doing.

“They are furious that the school’s name and colors were changed without input. And they question why the principal has never led an inner-city school and earned her education degree only two years ago.

“And you think you and this gentleman here know what African-American children need?” radio show host Thaddeus Matthews asked Wednesday, pressing Settle to explain why more than half the teachers in the school are in the process of being licensed to teach, but not yet certified.

“It is disrespectful to this community that you are going to come in and make a decision about the lives of children in this community and get no community input. The people in this community have a right to be represented,” he said.”

Barbic promised to work with the community to try to “work out the issues.”

It won’t be easy. Apparently the Cornerstone staff is applying “no excuses” behavior policies, and the parents call it child abuse. “Anger first boiled over in a meeting Dec. 19 at the Lester Community Center. One little girl told the crowd of 120-plus people in a three-hour meeting that her teacher refused to let her use the restroom or get her fresh clothes when she wet her pants. She also said the teacher took her shoes, apparently because she was slow tying her laces. Other parents said teachers twisted their children’s arms or took their shoes as punishment.”

The school is trying to calm the situation: “Cornerstone called more than 100 parents during the holiday break, sent letters to each family and scheduled grade-level meetings with parents, starting last week, to talk over their concerns.”

Let me add that I like Barbic’s pledge. It is concrete and it has a five-year deadline. He can be held accountable in five years. It is not clear what happens if he doesn’t meet his goal. Will he be fired? If he accomplishes it, he can then go to work on the next group of schools in the bottom 5%. Statistically, there is always a bottom 5%.

Categories Charter Schools, Parents, Privatization, Tennessee

How Can Parents Fight School Closings?

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
14

Jersey Jazzman explains what is now obvious: School closings have a disparate impact on children and communities of color. Community schools are closed, destabilizing the neighborhood. Charter schools open, which choose and reject those they want or don’t want. Most charters don’t want the kids with the greatest needs.

A new parent group has formed in Newark, which has been a playground for the rich and famous, who move around Other People’s Children like pieces on a chess board. It has lodged a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Will OCR find policies supported by the U.S. Secretary of Education discriminatory?

Let’s watch and see.

If that doesn’t happen, the parents should go to court. We still have an independent judiciary.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Detroit, New Jersey, New York City, Parents

NYC Parent Group Grades Michelle Rhee

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2013 //
44

A Néw York City parent organization has created a report card for Michelle Rhee. Good read.

Categories Accountability, New York City, Parent Groups, Parents, Rhee, Michelle

Parents: How to Support Your Public Schools

By dianeravitch
December 26, 2012 //
8

The best group now organizing and mobilizing to strengthen public education is Parents Across America.

You don’t have to be a public school parent to join. PAA welcomes educators and everyone who supports public schools.

If you care about improving your public schools and fighting off corporate control and privatization, join Parents Across America.

PAA has chapters in many cities. If there is no PAA chapter in your city or town, start one.

Check out the website to learn about their activities and their mission.

In brief, it is to stop privatization, stop punitive high-stakes testing, stop the attacks on teachers, stop the school closings.

And it is to support policies like reducing class size, expanding early childhood education, expanding after-school programs and social services, and building collaboration among parents, teachers, and communities.

Parents want what is best for their children.

Categories Parents

A Sad Story of “Reform Churn” in Newark

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2012 //
3

Did the Global Village School Zone in Newark have a chance?

Did it get enough time?

Did it spend enough money?

Does Superintendent Cami Anderson have better ideas?

Doesn’t reform take time?

Stay tuned.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, New Jersey, Parents, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Parent Power in Philadelphia

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2012 //
5

Earlier this year, the William Penn Foundation commissioned a report from the Boston Consulting Group on the future of the Philadelphia public schools. BCG, as is customary, recommended closing dozens of public schools and opening dozens of privately managed charters.

Parents and community leaders were outraged.

One group, Parents United for Public Education, complained that the William Penn Foundation was engaged in lobbying, and it sought a legal opinion from the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia to support its claim.

Please read the linked article. It reveals an intent to privatize public schools, not to study their needs dispassionately.

The hard-charging president of the William Penn Foundation has suddenly resigned, in what appears to be an ouster by the board. Is this a mini-replay of the Ford Foundation’s ill-fated intervention into school politics in New York City in 1968-70? No one knows, for now. Perhaps the foundation did not enjoy being cast in the role of villain in the city’s struggles.

The interesting story here is that Philadelphia parents (and give credit here to the tireless Helen Gym) pressed the theory that the new muscular venture philanthropy crossed a clear line from philanthropy to political activism.

In the past decade, a handful of very wealthy foundations have used their funding to steer public schools, without regard to the wishes of parents or to the democratic process. Philadelphia parents just threw a wrench into the gears of the privatization machine.

Categories Boston Consulting Group, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Parents, Philadelphia, Privatization

Ohio Starts New Group to Support Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 28, 2012 //
16

Citizens of Ohio have launched a new organization to support strong public schools.

Is there an organization like this in your community or state?

Please let me know.

I will compile a list and circulate it to everyone.

From Ohio comes this good news:

Ohio’s Teachers, Parents, Superintendents, School Board members and Citizens have launched a new movement ~ Strong Schools / Strong Communities

Strong Schools Strong Communities is a non-partisan movement dedicated to informing and engaging Ohioans at the community level to understand, appreciate and support our system of common public schools.

Visit our website at http://www.strongschoolsohio.com
Friend us on Face Book at : http://www.strongschoolsohio.com

Categories Ohio, Parents, US Education

Michigan Parents Push Back Against Business Model

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2012 //
45

As I travel the country, I am often astonished to see how discouraged educators and parents are by the unproven schemes foisted on their schools by politicians.

The worst of these schemes come from radical politicians who think that government should get out of the business of providing public education.

They want education to be a commodity that you pick up whenever you want, wherever you want.

That is their ideal, though they are far from accomplishing it because it is fundamentally a very idiotic idea.

Governor Bobby Jindal is on that track in Louisiana.

Governor Rick Snyder is pushing hard in Michigan to ensure that education is available “any time, any place, anywhere, anyhow,” or words to that effect.

He doesn’t see to see any purpose or value in public education or public schools.

He recently got a report from a pretentiously named group of faithful right-wing operatives who call themselves the “Oxford Foundation,” even though they have nothing to do with Oxford University and they are not a foundation. They are Republican party wonks, cranking out what the governor wants.

The basic idea behind many of the radical deregulatory schemes is to strap the money to the child’s back (usually called either “fair student funding” or “weighted student funding” or some variation thereof) and then let the student take the money anywhere.

To a local public school; to a religious school; to a for-profit virtual charter; to a trade school; to anyone who hangs out a shingle or advertises on TV. In time, there would be no limits on what sort of institution fits the rubric of “any place, any time.”

Yes, there is pushback. I recently met with a group of superintendents in Michigan whose districts encompass nearly half the children in the state: They are not happy. They are discouraged. In private, one said this whole approach is “educational malpractice.”

And the parents are organizing.

I recently received this excellent post from Michigan Parents for Schools.

The parents understand that what is happening will destroy their schools and their communities.

They know more about their children and about education than Governor Snyder and the “Oxford Foundation.”

The best way to stop this madness is to educate the public. Educate parents.

Bottom line: Vote the rascals out.

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, Michigan, Parent Groups, Parents, Vouchers

Why the Grassroots Will Win

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2012 //
34

People often ask me: How can parents and teachers hope to beat the big money that is buying elections in state and local races around the nation? What chance do we have when they can dump $100,000, $200,000, $500,000 into a race without breaking a sweat?

True, they have a lot of money. But they have no popular base. The only time they win votes is when they trick voters with false rhetoric and pie-in-the-sky promises. They call themselves “reformers,” when they are in fact privatizers.

They claim they know how to close the achievement gap but their standard-bearer, Michelle Rhee, left DC with the biggest achievement gap of all big cities in the nation.

They claim to be leading the “civil rights issue” of our day, but can you truly imagine a civil rights movement led by billionaires, Wall Street hedge fund managers, ALEC, and rightwing think tanks?

They say they love teachers even as they push legislation to cut teachers’ pensions and take away their job rights and their right to join a union.

There are two reasons they will fail:

First, none of their ideas has ever succeeded, whether it’s high-stakes testing, charters, vouchers, merit pay or test-based teacher evaluations.

But even more important, the public is getting wise. The public has figured out the corporate reform strategy. In state after state, parents are organizing.

Here is one great example in Texas, of all places.

Similar groups of parents are organizing in every state. Even students are getting active in the movement to protect the commons.

When the public gets wise, the privatization movement dies.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Parent Groups, Parents, Privatization, US Education
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