Julian Vasquez Heilig writes one of the best education blogs in the blogosphere.
In this post, he has video of the scholars’ panel at the NPE17 conference in Oakland, California, where the top was “school choice and privatization.”
Julian is a member of the panel, along with Frank Adamson of Stanford, who has studied choice from an international perspective; Janelle Scott of Berkeley; Roxana Marachi of San Jose State University.
The discussion is lively, and I think you will enjoy watching it.
Most of the charter schools in the failing “Achievement School District” are in Memphis. The bloom is definitely off the rose for charters in Memphis.
The State is compelling districts to turn student data over to charter schools. The Metro Nashville School Board said no. So did the school board in Memphis.
The state is suing the Metro Nashville School Board because it refuses to give its student data to charter recruiters. It will probably sue Memphis too. The state is more concerned about the tiny proportion of students enrolled in charters than about the 90+% enrolled in public schools. This is madness.
The charters say they need the data for their marketing.
What happened to those mythical waiting lists for charters?
If the charters want to compete and take students and resources from the public schools, why should the public schools help them?
PS: Sorry for the typo in the original title; I wrote it on my cell phone last night as I was walking the dog and could not see full title.
Karen Wolfe is baffled: why did Betsy DeVos just give $12.6 million to Rocketship charter chain, which has a dismal record? Rocketship puts poor kids in front of computers and employs teacher aides to save money.
“Silicon Valley-based Rocketship is a charter school chain with a bevy of star backers that’s reported sky-high student achievement and recently landed a $12.6 million grant from Betsy DeVos’ Department of Education. But beyond the hype is a galaxy of problems, including plummeting test scores, litigation and allegations of student mistreatment.
Co-founded by the brain behind Yahoo’s first advertising platform, John Danner and Teach For America alum, Preston Smith, Rocketship has attracted the support of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists whose fortunes were made disrupting industries with tech: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and early Apple investor Arthur Rock, among others.
“Rocketship has grown over the last decade into a network of thirteen schools around the country, serving nearly 8,000 kindergarten through fifth-grade students who are overwhelmingly poor and Latino. The venture proclaims it is “dedicated to eliminating the achievement gap” with a business model which, Education Week explains, “replace[s] one credentialed teacher per grade with software and an hourly-wage aide, freeing up $500,000 yearly per school.”
“Rocketship’s initial results were promising. But the charter chain’s sky-high student outcomes have not held up: A 2014 analysis by the California Department of Education found that in the previous five years the number of Rocketship students scoring at the “proficient” level or above on California state tests fell by 30 percentage points in English and 14 percentage points in math…
“For years education activists and district officials have been raising alarms about Rocketship’s negative effect on student well-being. Students just five to ten years old sit in front of computers for 80 to100 minutes per day. The schools track, to the minute, the time that each elementary school child spends online, and their percentage of “goals” reached. That screen time is so valued by Rocketship that there’s almost no time for art or play. Students are even discouraged from taking bathroom breaks. One former teacher told NPR, “I’ve never had second-graders pee their pants except for at Rocketship.”
“A family physician in Santa Clara County with patients in Rocketship schools wrote the school board a letter noting a pattern of urinary tract infections and extreme stress.
“Parents and former employees have also raised concerns about safety due to a student to teacher ratio around thirty-seven to one, and about the school’s extreme no-talking policy called “Zone Zero” they claim “amounted to hours of enforced silence.”
Why? Replicating failing charters is not good for children, but it helps advance the DeVos agenda of privatization and union-busting.
Maurice Cunningham, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, is an expert on the infusion of Dark Money into education.
He wrote several articles about the millions of dollars that poured into Massachusetts to promote the referendum to increase the number of charter schools in November 2016.
This article is about a Dark Money passthrough called Stand for Children, which began its life as a pro-public school group but turned into a pro-Privatization, anti-union, anti-teacher organization. It highlights the role of Stand for Children in Massachusetts. It does not explore its national activities, where it plays a pernicious part in the attack on public schools, unions, and teachers.
Those who remember the early days of SFC now call it “Stand ON Children.”
It has funneled money to corporate reform candidates in cities from Nashville to Denver. It tried to squelch the Chicago Teachers Union by buying up all the top lobbyists in Illinois. It has funded anti-union, anti-teacher campaigns.
It pretends to be a “civil rights” organization. It is not.
Arthur Camins retired recently as Director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology. He has taught and been an administrator in New York City, Massachusetts, and Louisville, Kentucky. Unlike Betsy Dezvos and other ersatz “reformers,” he knows quite a lot about teaching and innovation.
In this post, he explains the fraud of school choice.
He writes:
“Segregation and the evil twins–racism and inequity– are the divide and conquer gifts that keep on giving to the rich and taking from everyone else. Over the decades, the wealthy and empowered have found ways to dress up their barely concealed essential messages: We deserve what we have. Inequality is the natural order of the world. Caring about others is for losers. Winners care about themselves. If you are unhappy with your station in life, blame yourself. Some of you would be better off if was it not for Them.
“The latest incarnation of message obfuscation is the vaguely democratic-sounding term, school choice. The push for expansion of charter schools- publicly funded, but privately controlled– and for vouchers to offset a portion of the tuition for private schools is the old wolf in new sheep’s clothing.
“Equity and universal high quality have never been the goals of school choice, the roots of which are resistance to desegregation. Its latest advocates do not suggest vouchers so that the poor can attend elite, expensive private schools. They do not demand adequate funding for all schools. They do not want to give students experience interacting with one another across class or race. They certainly do not want to end the defining characteristic of the status quo, rationing of quality by socioeconomic status.
“Their rhetoric notwithstanding, they have other goals: Undermine public sector unions to reduce their political power, as well as members’ pay and health and retirement benefits; Pander to subgroups to undermine political unity; Undercut the power of unified organizing by offering an escape hatch for the so-called “deserving poor.” Advance the advantages of privilege.
“Segregation is the simple enabling strategy. Contrary to popular mythology, post-Brown v. Board of education segregation was not so much the product of individual choices, but rather intentionally segregative transportation, zoning, housing and employment policies. Policy and preexisting bias were mutually reinforcing. Increased isolation was the inevitable result. People naturally trust folks they know and interact with regularly. Economic and racial isolation turns the distant “them” into an abstraction, easily stereotyped in the absence of countervailing evidence informed by direct contact and shared struggle. It is the empowered’s Tower of Babel tactic. Sow distrust and hatred, so that even when diverse citizens speak the same language, building for the common good becomes too challenging and threatening….
“Rather than addressing the structural causes of growing inequity, appeals to market-based education play on parents’ anxieties about their children losing out in the intense competition for well-paying jobs. Similarly, school choice rhetoric reinforces some parents’ bias that going to school with certain others will hurt their children. It encourages parents to take a belligerent, you can’t-make-me, stance…
“Coupled with the exaltation of selfishness, segregation is a time-tested way for the privileged to remain in control. School choice is the latest euphemism for leaving everyone to fend for themselves in a dystopian world of ruthless competition.
“When centrists Democrats adopt choice rhetoric, they abet conservative ideology. They enable labeling of legislative solutions to help people as being about Them, not us. If the last presidential election is any indication, Democratic politicians are reluctant to take on the rhetoric of choice and the segregation and inequity it supports. That will only change when voters demand that candidates adopt a different, explicitly pro-integration, stance.
“It is time to bring back the old labor slogan: An injury to one is an injury to all.”
Anthony Cody writes here about the political power of teachers and how it should be used.
Cody reports on a discussion between Barbara Madeloni of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and Eric Heins of the California Teachers Association at the Network for Public Education Conference last week in Oakland.
Barbara Madeloni believes in the importance of building a movement. It was that movement, working closely with parents that defeated a referendum to expand charter schools in the state last fall.
In California, the powerful California Teachers Association just gave its endorsement for governor to Gavin Newsom, even though he refused to take a position as between the charter lobby and public schools and couldn’t say whether he was for or against teachers.
This is what Newsom said some weeks earlier, in a public appearance:
“I’m not interested in the stale and raging debate about which side, which camp you’re on – are you with the charter people, are you anti-charter, are you with the teachers, are you anti-teacher. I’ve been hearing that damn debate for ten damn years. With all due respect, I got four kids. I have an eight year old, second grade. I have a five, three and a one year old. I’m not gonna wait around until they’ve all graduated to resolve whether Eli Broad was right or whether or not the CTA was wrong. I’m not interested in that debate. I’m interested in shaping a different conversation around a 21st century education system that brings people together, that could shape public opinion, not just here in the state, but could shape an agenda more broadly across the country, particularly in a time of Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump. We need that kind of leadership.”
With views like these, will Newsom remember that he was endorsed by the CTA? Will he care? Is he unsure whether he is for or against teachers? How can anyone who cares about education be against teachers? How can they be bored and indifferent to galloping privatization? It is views like these that laid the groundwork for Betsy DeVos.
This post is a real tour de force. That means that Mercedes Schneider has managed to say something truly original, which I hope you will read in full.
Betsy DeVos is constantly saying how much she wants the best for every child, how urgent it is to let parents have charter schools, voucher schools, for-profit schools, cybercharters, almost anything but public schools. Despite her protestations, she is contemptuous of public schools and has spent many millions through her American Federation for Children to advance privatization.
So zmercedes uses her post to tell you what Betsy would say if she spoke her mind, without covering up any of her thoughts.
She begins like this.
“First of all, I’d like to thank all of you for coming because I appreciate yet another opportunity to campaign in a manner that ultimately promotes my favorite minority, the one to which I belong: America’s elite among elite, those possessing the top .1% in American net worth.
“One way to understand my elitist motivations is to study the history and positions of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Of course, I would have preferred that ALEC be kept from public awareness, which it was for almost four decades. However, the unfortunate truth is that those without the interests of corporate America in mind destroyed that beautiful ALEC secrecy in 2012.
“The ALEC end game is to supplant federal control over states with corporate control. We prefer to promote this idea as federalism, or state control. The reality is states are ripe for control, and that control might as well come from moneyed interests– the .1%– rather than the federal government.
“The beauty in promoting “state control” is that those outside of the top .1% (or, let’s be generous, outside of the top 1%) hear the term “state control” and equate it with “local control.” Though I occasionally mention local control, I do not ultimately advocate for local control. You will not hear me give a speech in which I advocate replacing state control with local control. Local control is too close to you people, and, as such, corporate interests become more difficult to serve because it is the state legislators (and therefore, statehouses) that ALEC corporations control, not usually the local politicians.
“Besides, we lose the ability to hide our ALEC intentions behind federal scapegoating if we do not center our pseudo-local arguments on state control, and the best way to fool the public is to divert attention from the corporate control we desire by actively campaigning for federal control over states as the ultimate problem.”
Keep reading.
Meet the real Betsy.
Unvarnished.
The Network for Public Education just held its fourth annual conference in Oakland, California, on October 14-15.
It was a fabulous conference, with great speakers, roundtables, panels, and camaraderie.
I opened the conference on October 14. I introduced our wonderful board and staff (we have 1.5 staff members and hundreds of amazing volunteers).
I described what we are for and what we oppose.
If you agree with us, please join, donate whatever you can, and help us continue our grassroots efforts to strengthen and support public education.
In the days ahead, I will post all the keynote addresses. They were fantastic.
If you knew how inspiring these two days were, you will want to join us next year. I can’t give the location yet, but we will meet in the Midwest.
The arch-conservative billionaire Koch Brothers have unleashed campaign ads against Lt. Governor Ralph Northam in the Virginia governor’s race.
The Washington Post reported that the Koch Brothers have spent nearly $3 Million Against Northam.
“Americans for Prosperity, the heart of the billionaire Koch Brothers’ conservative political network, plans to ramp up its campaign against Ralph Northam, the Democrat in Virginia’s governor’s race.
“The conservative group announced Friday that it would spend at least $1 million on mailers and digital ads targeting Northam’s record on taxes, education and economic development.
“It follows at least $1.8 million in anti-Northam television commercials and mailers to date, according to data collected by the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. The group also says it has contacted hundreds of thousands of Virginia voters through its phone-banking and canvassing efforts…
“Americans for Prosperity is also launching a digital video featuring a charter school administrator criticizing Northam for voting against a bill to establish “educational savings accounts” that allow parents who remove children from public schools to receive 90 percent of the state funding that would have been spent on their child. They would be able to use the funds for private-school tuition, tutoring, books and other educational costs. Critics say such accounts are similar to vouchers in that they drain resources from public schools.”
The Koch Brothers despise public education and are eager to elect a governor who will promote the DeVos agenda of school privatization via charters and vouchers.
If you live in Virginia and you love your local public school, get active in the campaign for Ralph Northam.
When the Orlando Sentinel published an in-depth expose of Florida’s unregulated, unaccountable, wasteful voucher programs, defenders of vouchers rushed to attack the series.
Remember, Betsy DeVos considers Florida the model that she wants for America.
Scott Maxwell of the Sentinel responds to the critics here.
The nation needs more journalistic scrutiny of the unscrupulous, fraudulent, and incompetent hucksters who are siphoning billions of dollars away from public schools with certified teachers. In Florida, it is $1 Billion a year, and that is only for vouchers, not charters, which has its own share of scams and frauds. In Michigan, the charter industry drains $1 Billion a year away from public schools, and the charters don’t get better outcomes than the public schools; many are far worse, and 80% are for-profit.
Congratulations to the Orlando Sentinel for scrutinizing Florida’s voucher schools.
For the first time ever, I add a newspaper to the honor roll of this Blog.
Here is an excerpt.
“The “Schools without Rules” series exposed scores of problems at these publicly funded schools — everything from forged safety reports to a school run by a pastor accused of lewd or lascivious molestation.
“Just as importantly, it exposed a wicked hypocrisy among politicians who scream for “accountability” for public schools but let anything go when your tax dollars are whisked away to private ones.
“This little-regulated system needs an overhaul. And the world needs more real journalists.
“Among the findings from reporters Beth Kassab, Leslie Postal and Annie Martin:
“Teachers without certification or even college degrees.
“Forged documents: Schools faked up clean bills of health from fire departments, which had found safety problems. Even after the schools were caught, state officials let them remain open.
“Shady hirings: Two teachers worked at voucher schools (the state calls them “scholarship” schools) after being fired from public schools for having porn on their school computers.
“Alleged crime: At one school for special-needs kids, suspicions of impropriety — among parents and even a teacher — continued until authorities arrested the school owner, accusing her of stealing more than $4 million in Medicaid funds.
“Troubling finances and learning environments: Two school were evicted from their locations for nonpayment of rent while the school year was still going on. Another shared office-suite space with a bail bondsman.”
If there were newspapers in every state willing to investigate the privatization of their public schools, the public would understand the scandal that is going on in the dark. In Ohio, local newspapers started paying attention to charter scandals, and it affected public opinion. In the past two years, charter enrollments have fallen in Ohio as the public understands the risks they are taking by enrolling their children in schools without roots and the damage they are doing to their public schools.
More coverage, please!
