Archives for category: Privatization
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Joshua Starr Belongs on Honor Roll: Proof

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2012 //
21

I previously named Joshua Starr, superintendent of Montgomery County public schools in Maryland, to the honor roll for his courage and wisdom.

He rejected Race to the Top Funding because his schools have a nationally acclaimed peer review evaluation system. He called for a three-year moratorium on standardized testing.

For daring to be different, he is now under attack.

He is wrong, says Checker Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, for not following in the footsteps of Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, and Joel Klein.

Who thinks that Chicago or DC schools are a national model? In NYC, only 26% of voters approve of the Bloomberg-Klein reforms.

Josh Starr has dared to say what parents, teachers and 99% of educators believe. He belongs on the honor roll.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Honor Roll, Klein, Joel, Privatization, Race to the Top, Rhee, Michelle

Secret Document Leaked: Chicago Plans to Close Nearly 100 Schools

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2012 //
15

The Chicago Tribune obtained a copy of a secret document describing the plan of Chicago Public Schools to close 95 schools, mostly in minority neighborhoods. The plan was dated September 10.

This represents a dramatic elimination of public schools in Chicago.

The city says it will slow down charter growth, at least this year, but there can be little doubt that the school closings will create a growing pool of displaced students for Chicago’s growing charter sector.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Kaya Henderson Abandons 20 More Schools

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2012 //
22

Kaya Henderson, chancellor of the DC public schools, intends to close another 20 public schools.

DC is now the second largest urban district with the greatest proportion of its students in privately managed charter, after New Orleans.

Unlike New Orleans, DC did not suffer a natural disaster. Instead, its leaders don’t know how to improve its schools so they look for private managers who might know how to do it.

People should not accept positions of leadership when they don’t know how to do what is expected of them.

DC is a major beachhead for the privatization movement. It’s a shame that those in charge don’t know how to improve schools. They just close them.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Privatization

John Thompson: Maybe The Goal of Reformers IS Privatization

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2012 //
21

A few days ago, John Thompson posted a blog wondering if I was too hasty in spotting a privatization movement on the near horizon.

The emergence of a secret memo in Tulsa has caused him to rethink his views.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Inflated Claims of Charter Success in NYC

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2012 //
8

A regular reader in New York City is a data hound. He gets annoyed when he sees the media repeating things that are factually wrong. Recently he noticed the repetition of inflated claims of charter success. Here, he goes to the sources to set the record straight.

A recent series of articles in the New York Times’ SchoolBook site examined charter schools in New York City. While the series was more honest than most reporting on charter schools, charter school advocates were still able to get away with untruths and the media reported them as the truth.

Throughout the series charter advocates claimed to be preparing students for college. Does their rhetoric match their results? The data suggests not. The average SAT score for charter high school graduates in New York City was 430 in reading and 438 in math versus the national average of 497 in reading ad 514 in math. Less than a quarter of their graduates earned a passing score on the state exams in Trigonometry or Physics or Chemistry, and only 8.4% of their graduates earned a score of 3 or above on an AP exam. This would not strike anybody as a result that can be truthfully called “students prepared for college.”

In another story in the series Democracy Prep, a charter organization, acknowledged that their policy of holding many students back “drove some families away.” If only they copped to this fact when Mayor of New York City praised them for taking over and turning around a failing charter school. The truth is that they accomplished this by threatening to hold back about 100 of the 247 students in the school according to the Wall Street Journal and, as a result, only 70% of the students returned. The test scores then went up 30%, but they got rid of 30% of their struggling students. Not a great model for improving a school. Brings back memories of the Vietnam-era idea that it made sense to destroy villages in order to save them.

One KIPP school was said to have “a greater share of students with special needs than the citywide average.” The citywide average of students with special needs in middle schools is 18.8%. In the KIPP school, 18.6% of their students have special needs. In what should come as no surprise, the school has only 2.5% of students with the highest level of special needs as opposed to 9.1% in the average New York City middle school. So the truth is that the KIPP school actually has fewer students with special needs and a lot, lot fewer students with the highest special needs than the average city middle school. The KIPP school also accepts many, many fewer students with incoming math scores in the lowest third than the city middle school average (14.3% at KIPP vs. the 38.3% public middle school average). Believe it or not, this KIPP school is accepting more disadvantaged students than the other KIPP schools in New York City, so you can imagine what the average student profile at the other KIPP schools is like. It would appear despite the charter school claim to make “no excuses” they have plenty of excuses for not educating the same students as their public school colleagues.

Categories Charter Schools, New York City, Privatization

The Privatizing of San Antonio Schools

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2012 //
9

A big foundation in Texas is creating a $50 million fund to open 145 new charters for 80,000 children in San Antonio. The city already has one-quarter of its students in charters. One of the chains likeliest to grow there are Great Hearts, BASIS, KIPP, AND IDEA.

It seems that the goal is to create a privatized system of schools in San Antonio, with whatever public schools remain enrolling the kids the charters don’t want.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, KIPP Charter Schools, Privatization, Texas

The Most Common Spelling Error When Writing on a Computer Keyboard

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2012 //
11

Anyone who writes on a computer–as almost everyone does these days–is subject to two kinds of dangers.

One is auto-correct. This feature, which I frankly loathe, will take a minor spelling error made in haste and substitute completely different language that changes the meaning of what you wrote.

The other is that if you make a mistake and leave out a letter, the word may make sense yet be embarrassingly wrong.

The most common spelling error for anyone who writes often about education is to type the word “public” as in “public school” and leave out the letter L.

If you don’t proofread carefully, you are likely to be embarrassed.

That is an appropriate punishment for failure to proofread.

Since I have made many inadvertent spelling errors on this blog, due to haste, I am careful not to sneer at others who do the same. My excuse, such as it is, is that I have no editorial staff, no assistant, no one to check out what I wrote before I post.

When you do have a professional staff, it is truly embarrassing when a big error goes by unnoticed.

Look at this ad in a Tacoma, Washington, newspaper for a “pubic charter school.”

This perhaps calls attention to the fact that many people consider charter schools to be a form of privatization.

Maybe someone deleted that L on purpose.

Categories Charter Schools, Humor, Privatization

A Brief Conversation with John Thompson

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2012 //
20

John Thompson wonders if I overstate my concern about the current direction of the education reform movement.

He is not convinced that the end game is privatization.

Perhaps I sat through too many closed-door meetings of conservative think tanks to think otherwise.

As I read and listen to the leading lights of the movement (Jeb Bush; Tony Bennett; ALEC; DFER; Stand for Children; Michelle Rhee), I hear no liking for the public schools. I hear promises of the golden age to come when public schools have been replaced by charters and vouchers and virtual schools, when teachers have no unions or tenure or job protections whatever, when teachers need no more than a few weeks of training to be considered “highly qualified,” when schools are regularly closed if their test scores don’t improve, and teachers fired if their students’ scores don’t improve.

I see the P-word at work (privatization); I see the education profession turned into jobs for temps and short-timers.

I think it is time to stop practices that we know are harmful to children and to their education, like high-stakes testing.

Maybe I am wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.

I try to follow the evidence.

John, where do you think this is heading?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Privatization Accelerates in Memphis

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2012 //
1

Memphis is set to lose more charter schools to privatization. With Kevin Huffman, former PR director for TFA, now Commissioner of Education, backed by a rightwing majority in the legislature, public schools are being handed off to charter chains.

EduShyster supplies the details. The reform business is booming in Tennessee, especially in poor Memphis.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Tennessee

Tony Bennett Lands on his Feet in Florida

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2012 //
16

Tony Bennett, the defeated state superintendent from Indiana, has landed the job as state commissioner in Florida.

Bennett is the hero to the rightwing “reform” sector, a champion of privatization, vouchers, charters, online for-profit schools, and the Common Core. His last action in Indiana was to lower standards for new trackers and principals, so that no preparation was needed to become a teacher and anyone could become a principal with only two years of experience as a teacher, even in higher education.

Jeb Bush is mad for Bennett, who serves as head of Bush’s Chiefs for Change.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Indiana, Merit pay, On-Line Education, Privatization
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