Archives for category: Privatization
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The GOP Destruction of Public Education in Michigan Continues

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2012 //
17

The people of Michigan have received the report of the “Oxford Foundation” on the future of education in that state.

The authors of the report have nothing to do with Oxford University or Britain.

They are not part of a foundation.

They are Republican operatives carrying out the wishes of Governor Rick Snyder to destroy public education in Michigan.

The ideas the report advances are Governor Snyder’s plan to make education “any place, any time, any where, any how, any which way but up or down.”

The basic plan is that anyone can supply education. It is not a public responsibility.

What we now call public education will disappear, if Rick Snyder and the “Oxford Foundation” has its way.

It’s into the free market, with spoils and riches for all!

Good education for those who can afford it.

Boot camps for the rest.

 

Categories ALEC, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), Michigan, Privatization, US Education

Big $$$ to Convince Bridgeport Voters to Abandon Democracy

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2012 //
13

Connecticut blogger and political insider Jonathan Pelto broke the story:

Corporate reformers and privatizers have poured record amounts of campaign cash into Bridgeport, Connecticut, to persuade voters to turn control over their schools to the mayor.

One of the big givers was NYC Mayor Bloomberg, who gave $20,000 to help Mayor Finch gain control over the people’s schools.

Mayoral control in New York City did not narrow the city’s achievement gaps.

Mayoral control has not improved the schools in Cleveland, Chicago, or Detroit (Detroit tried it, abandoned, and one of its recent mayors went to jail for various reasons).

The mayoral-controlled public schools of Washington, DC, have the biggest achievement gaps in the nation, double the gaps in other big cities.

Will the voters of Bridgeport vote to relinquish their right to elect their school board?

Can the public be persuaded by big money to abandon democracy?

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle

Why Washington State Should Vote No on 1240

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2012 //
5

This article explains succinctly why certain members of the billionaire boys club have decided that Washington State absolutely positively must have charter schools. Their recipe for school reform: the free market. And why not? The free market works for them. Will they put their own children (or in the case of the Bezos family, grandchildren) in charter schools? Don’t be silly.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Parent trigger, Privatization, Unions, Walton Foundation, Washington State

Shadowy Group Funds Idaho Luna Laws

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2012 //
3

A group called Education Voters of Idaho refused to disclose its donors until required to do so by a court order.

The biggest donor is a businessman who is an investor in K12, the online charter corporation ($250,000); the second biggest donor is Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($200,000).

EVI promotes the anti-union, anti-teacher, privatizing policies of state superintendent Tom Luna. Supporters of public education are seeking to repeal the Luna laws, which are deceptively called “Students Come First.” The phrase echoes Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and Joel Klein’s Children’s First.

Luna has received heavy funding from technology corporations, and his laws mandate the purchase of a laptop computer for every student, and every student must take two online courses for graduation. They eliminate tenure and seniority. They require that student test scores count for 50% of every educator’s evaluation, including district superintendents, principals and teachers. All educators will have a one or two year contract. They initiate bonus pay based on test scores for all educators. Teachers will not get a written explanation if the principal decides to fire them.

A sample of one of the laws:

School districts no longer have to prove a financial emergency before reducing teacher numbers. School boards can reduce teacher numbers at their discretion but cannot consider seniority when deciding who to eliminate.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Idaho, Luna, Tom, On-Line Education, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Technology, Computers, Testing, Unions

Who Is Thriving in the New World of New Orleans?

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2012 //
5

Into my mailbox came this link, which suggests there are some mighty big winners in the new education world of New Orleans.

Read it and gasp.

Advocates say that New Orleans is a national model. The documents here raise questions about who benefits from the avalanche of money poured into the city’s new way of doing business.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, New Orleans, Privatization

In New Orleans, Students Lead the Way

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2012 //
15

Several student groups convened an open forum for candidates running for the local school board.
This gave students an opportunity to question candidates about where they stand on issues that affect students.

Only one candidate did not appear: Sarah Usdin, who confirmed that she would show but did not. Usdin is the ex-TFA executive director of New Schools for New Orleans. She has received more than $110,000 from generous out-of-state donors like Joel Klein, who sells technology for Rupert Murdoch, and assorted Wall Street hedge fund managers who are devoted to charters.

Key points that emerged from the forum:

-Unanimous opposition expressed by candidates regarding the RSD’s method for closing and chartering schools

-All candidates said they believe the fast-track teacher certification programs are insufficient.

-Unanimous opposition from candidates to New Orleans becoming the first all-charter city.

-Unanimous support for comprehensive sex education

-Unanimous support to extracurricular busses so students can participate in after school programs

This is the students’ account of the meeting they organized:

Press Release
For Release on November 1st, 2012
Contact: Jacob Cohen (jacobcohen@vayla-no.org)

Students Grill Orleans Parish School Board Candidates in
First-Ever Student-led Forum

Candidates express strong support for slate of student issues and opposition to fully chartering New Orleans public schools

At 5:30 pm on October 30th, eleven Orleans Parish School Board candidates put themselves in the hot seat Tuesday evening, sitting before a panel of students. Ten students from schools around the city questioned the candidates on issues ranging from bus transportation to school closings. In “lightning rounds,” the youth asked yes or no questions and had the candidates raise a card indicating their response. Several surprise answers came from this format, including broad condemnation of the proposition that New Orleans should become the first city in the United States in which all schools are chartered.

The forum appears to have been the best attended candidate event in this election cycle, with roughly 150 people packing the main hall at the Ashe’ Cultural Arts Center.

One high school student on the panel described his role as the designated interpreter for family members, revealing a serious lack of services for Limited English Proficient households.

Other issues that students and audience members raised include the need for comprehensive sex education; a higher ratio of guidance counselors to students, and the need for certified teachers and ongoing professional development services.

One sore point that students raised also concerned the way that schools have been closed. Bryan Kelso, a sophomore at Reed High School, told the candidates, “it’s a struggle going to a school that may not be there next year or even next semester,” explaining that his school had been labeled a “failure.” In the lightening round that followed, all of the candidates unanimously said they did not support the RSD or BESE’s method for addressing struggling schools through closure and takeover.

Notwithstanding the support expressed by the candidates on nearly all of the issues they raised, students attending the forum questioned the role the Orleans Parish School Board will play in the future. On a handful of the issues, candidates admitted that the board’s power will be limited until Act 35 is overturned. Students also questioned the power that this future board will have in a city dominated by private charter organizations.

Forum organizers also recognize some of the contradictions between the answers candidates gave at the youth-led event and those given at other, adult forums.

Here is the list of questions for the lightening rounds:

TEACHERS: Do you believe that fast track teacher certification programs are providing schools with enough experienced teachers?

[Every candidate said no.]

TRANSPORTATION I: Are you willing to help the school system provide busses for extracurricular activities?

[Every candidate said yes.]

TRANSPORTATION II: Do you believe that every child should have safe, reliable, free transportation options to and from school?

[Every candidate said yes]

DISCIPLINE: Will you support alternatives to zero tolerance school discipline policies and out-of-school suspensions?

[Every candidate said yes but one, who abstained]

SCHOOL CLOSURES: In general, do you support the Recovery School District and BESE’s process for dealing with schools, including closing schools?

[Every candidate said no.]

COUNSELORS: Do you believe, per the American College Counselor Association’s guidelines, that all Orleans Parish schools should have at least one college or guidance counselor for ever 250 students?

[Every candidate said yes.]

SHAMING STUDENTS: Will you support the posting of individual students’ standardized test scores in school hallways and classrooms?

[Every candidate said no.]

LANGUAGE ACCESS: Will you ensure that families have interpretation and translation services at all direct-run and charter schools?

[every candidate said yes or abstained.]

CHARTERS: Should New Orleans become the first district in the country to have 100% of their schools be charter schools.

[Note: no candidate said yes.]

SEX ED: If in compliance with state and BESE board laws, do you support comprehensive sex education in New Orleans public schools?

[Every candidate voted yes, except for two marked “not present”]

A video highlight reel can be accessed at: http://youtu.be/MUSabzsg5ls

Photographs from the event can be accessed at: http://my.slideroll.com/galleries/members/jacobcohen/gallery/my-gallery/?g=by4jfwgw

Photo reel can be embedded on your site by copying:

A transcription of the event and uncut video can be made available upon request

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, New Orleans, Privatization, Teach for America TFA

Big Money Floods School Board Races in California

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2012 //
6

This is becoming an increasingly familiar–and alarming –story. Charter advocates are pouring large amounts of money–more than $200,000–into local school board races, in districts where few are residents. They are targeting candidates who dare to question the expansion of charters.

In Santa Clara County, incumbent Anna Song is under attack by the charter lobby, which is throwing large sums into a campaign to defeat her.

The article in the Mercury News says:

The most aggressive campaign appears to be aimed at Anna Song, who is running for her fourth term on the county Board of Education.
The Santa Clara County Schools Political Action Committee has raised nearly $200,000 from Jan. 1 through Oct. 20, and financed auto-dial calls plus four mailers slamming Song and three supporting her challenger, trustee David Neighbors.
“It’s an outrageous amount of money to take out one school board member,” said Song, who’s running for a seat that represents areas served by the Santa Clara, Milpitas and the Berryessa school districts.
Neighbors, who has benefited from $76,000 worth of PAC mailers and auto-calls for his candidacy and against Song, said about the PAC, “I don’t know much about it.”
Created at the suggestion of the California Charter Schools Association, the PAC is run by Santa Clara County political consultants Jay Rosenthal and Jude Barry.
Through Oct. 20, Neighbors raised $23,539.

The articles goes on to note that this PAC spending dwarfs the usual spending on local school board races:

The PAC is also sending mailers to re-elect Grace Mah, who’s running for the county school board to represent areas within the Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Sunnyvale school districts. Her opponent, Dave Cortright, is an outspoken opponent of Bullis Charter School in Los Altos.
The PAC dwarfs spending in county school board elections, where serious candidates typically have spent closer to $30,000. “What they’re doing could be very significant,” said Terry Christensen, professor emeritus at San Jose State and a specialist in state and local politics. Because so little is typically spent in a county school board race he said, “it wouldn’t take much to have an influence.”
Among the big donations to the PACs are $75,000 from the California Charter Schools Association Advocates; $50,000 from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; $50,000 from Gap heir John J. Fisher; $40,000 from Emerson Collective, the nonprofit run by Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell Jobs; and $10,000 from Rocketship charter schools board member Timothy Ranzetta.

Song had the audacity to vote against opening 20 Rocketship charters in her district, which would drain students and funding from the public schools. This is Rocketship’s answer: go along or get out of the way.

Cortright, who has raised $1,000, dared to oppose the Bullis charter school in Los Altos, which is known as the publicly funded private school for the children of the super-rich.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

America’s Largest Charter Chain Is…?

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2012 //
25

No, it is not KIPP. It is the Gulen charters, a group of nearly 150 charters located in many states and loosely affiliated or “inspired by” a reclusive Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen. Mr. Gulen lives in seclusion in the Poconos but leads a major political movement in Turkey.

The Gulen charters often specialize in math and science. They have a board of directors composed of Turkish men. Some though not all of their teachers are Turkish. They have names like Harmony, Magnolia, Horizon, and Sonoran. Check here for a full list.

To find out more about the Gulen schools, check this website.

To learn about the Gulen movement, read this.

To read about Gulen schools in Texas and lucrative deals for Turkish construction firms, read here

To read about Gulen schools that were audited in Georgia, read here

To read about a Gulen school and its treatment of autistic students in Minneapolis, read here..

Categories Charter Schools, Georgia, Minnesota, Privatization, Special Education, Testing

Will the East Coast Learn from the Gulf Coast?

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2012 //
10

Thomas J. Adams, on the faculty of Tulane University, has a startling and funny column at Huffington Post about what the East Coast can learn from the Gulf Coast.

Now, New York, New Jersey, and other states have had their own version of Hurricane Katrina. Ours is Sandy.

Adams says we can do what New Orleans did:

The absolute first thing you have to do is fire all your public school teachers. Just fire them. We all know education is broken in this country and that teachers are to blame. So why not take this opportunity to do what you helped us do back in 2005? It might create a bit of confusion when the power gets turned back on and the debris gets removed, but that’s a small price to pay for our children’s future. Besides, if there’s a shortage of teachers we can help with that the same way you helped us. We certainly have a surfeit of energetic recent college graduates who we’ll happily send up there to fix your ailing schools. They may have no experience and most peer-reviewed education research concludes they’re not as effective as your former teachers, but they bring energy to the classroom! Sure, they may only stay for a year or two, but their M.B.A. and law school applications will be so much stronger because of it and they’ll make quality education a national issue.

Then he says, what follows easily is complete privatization and new opportunities:

After you get rid of your teachers it will be that much easier to turn control of your schools over to a variety of non- and for-profit groups. Don’t worry, you need not be concerned about whether these schools are effective or not, whether they cherry pick students, cook their test scores, get rid of education professionals in favor of computers, what kinds of salaries their board members are taking in, etc. As you’ve told us many times on countless of your leading editorial pages, this is the model for education reform in the country. In fact if you’re as lucky as us, this will lead you down an easy road to a voucher system in the next few years. Educational equality will come shortly thereafter, I promise.

While the privatization fever is raging, next to go is public housing, then free clinics.

Read it and remember that Arne Duncan said that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing ever to happen to education in New Orleans. I’m waiting to hear if he says the same about Hurricane Sandy.

Categories Charter Schools, For-Profit, New Orleans, Privatization, Unions, Vouchers

Michelle Rhee Shows Her True Colors

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2012 //
38

Michelle Rhee is endorsing and funding rightwing candidates across the nation, showering cash on those who are opposed to teachers’ rights and unions and support privatization of public education.

In Ohio, she is using her StudentsFirst millions–collected from anonymous billionaires, millionaires and corporations–to support opponents of public education.

An Ohio blogger writes:

Now, here in Ohio, Michelle Rhee’s true colors simply cannot be ignored.  Rhee has chosen to fund multiple candidates in Ohio who are running for the Ohio House this year, citing their individual votes to support the Kasich budget that cut public education funding by $1.8 billion as a reason for StudentsFirst’s support.  Let me restate that: StudentsFirst supports these candidates because they supported Kasich’s budget that cut $1.8 billion from school funding.
PlunderBund (http://s.tt/1rpCF)

Of all her endorsements in Ohio, the most disgusting is that Rhee is supporting a candidate with no education experience running against Maureen Reedy, an experienced and admired teacher. The two are candidates for an open seat in the 29th district.

Maureen Reedy was a teacher for 29 years. Rhee claims to “love” effective teachers. Maureen Reedy was Ohio’s Teacher of the Year in 2002. But Michelle Rhee is supporting her Republican opponent.

Maureen Reedy has pledged to expose the frauds that allow profiteers to waste millions of taxpayers’ dollars in Ohio. She has pledged to support public education in the state legislature. And that is why Rhee opposes Maureen Reedy.

This election tells us who Michelle Rhee is. She supports far-right Republicans, not Democrats. She supports those who voted to defund public education. She supports those who advocate for privatization of public education and who benefit from ineffective, for-profit schools. She does not support effective teachers. She opposes effective teachers.

Forget what she calls herself.

Judge her by her actions.

She is a rightwing Republican who hates public education and those who support it.

Want to know why Rhee opposes Maureen Reedy? Here is an excerpt from an article Reedy wrote for the Columbus Dispatch:

Charter schools are a poor investment of Ohio’s education dollars and have a worse track record than public schools in our state; there are twice as many failing charter schools as successful ones, and one in two charter schools is either in academic emergency or academic watch, compared with only one in 11 traditional public-school buildings. Five of seven of Ohio’s largest electronic-charter-school districts’ graduation rates are lower than the state’s worst public-school system’s graduation rate, and six of seven of the electronic charter schools districts are rated less than effective.

And finally, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow has failed in every identified state category for eight years, a worse track record than the Cleveland City School system, which is under threat of being shut down by the state. The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow is run by unlicensed administrators. Lager, in addition to his $3 million salary, earned an additional $12 million funneled through his software company, which sells products to his charter-school corporation. Just how much does the average teacher in the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow earn you may ask? Approximately $34,000 per year.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Vouchers
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