Archives for category: Privatization
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Which Democrats Are Hostile to Teachers?

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2012 //
41

As a historian, I can assure you that the roots of the current “reform” movement are on the far right. Vouchers began with Milton Friedman in 1955; charters began in 1988 with liberal origins, but were quickly adopted by the right as a substitute for vouchers because voters always defeated voucher proposals. The attacks on teachers’ unions are out of the rightwing playbook. The demands for test-based accountability did not originate in the Democratic party. The effort to remove all job protections–seniority, tenure, the right to due process–did not originate with liberal thinkers or policymakers, but can be traced to the Reagan administration and even earlier to rightwing Republicans who never wanted any unions or job protections for workers. The embrace of privatization and for-profit schooling is neither liberal nor Democratic.

How this happened is a long story.

No matter who supports this agenda, it is not bipartisan. It originated in the ideology of  the rightwing extreme of the GOP. Its goal is privatization.

This reader notes the long list of Democrats who have adopted the rightwing GOP agenda:

It’s not just right wing states and politicians that want to harass teachers.

Plenty of Dems are in on the fun.

Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado is a nominal Democrat who never saw a teacher he didn’t look upon with suspicion or a test company he didn’t want to give a contract to.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is leading the charge in teacher demonization efforts in the Midwest, and I would argue that his anti-union, anti-teacher track record is beginning to rival that of his brethren to the north, Scott Walker and Paul Ryan.

Emanuel is a Democrat in name and once led the DCCC when Dems took back the House of Representatives.

Congressman George Miller, who chairs the House Education Committee, is a Democrat but like Bennet in the Senate, he too never met a teacher he felt could be trusted to teach without “high stakes accountability measures” imposed from afar.

Cory Booker is a Democrat who is currently engaged in the wholesale privatization of the Newark school system.  He’s got buddies in the hedge funds and Wall Street who bankroll him, he’s great friends with Chris Christie and loves Christie’s privatization efforts at the state level and his demonization of teachers and teachers unions in the media.  That won’t stop Booker from running against Christie for governor next year, however, so those of us who live in NJ can expect privatization of the schools no matter who wins – Christie or Booker.

Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg were all nominal Democrats before they embarked upon their teacher demonization/school privatization agendas as well.

And of course the Democratic politician who has had the most impact in the teacher demonization/school privatization effort is Barack Obama – from Race to the Top to Central Falls, Rhode Island to Race to the Top II: The Municipal Version to Race to the Top III: The District Version, few politicians have been as successful at bringing teacher evaluations tied to test scores and changes to tenure laws or promoting a broad expansion of high stakes testing in every grade in every subject, K-12, as Barack Obama.

I wish it were simply right wingers and Republicans out to harass teachers who were the problem.  Unfortunately, because both parties take money from the same corporate masters, politicians in both parties are out to give those masters what they ultimately want when it comes to public education – a privatized system with busted unions, cheap labor costs, and lots and lots of opportunities to cash in on the latest ed buzz craze (these days that being the Common Core Federal Standards, the tests that are going to be aligned to those standards and the test prep materials that are going to be needed to get students prepared for those tests.)

Categories Emanuel, Rahm, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, U.S. Department of Education, Unions, US Education, Vouchers

A Labor Day Gift: Samuel Gompers on Public Education

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2012 //
1

Thanks to Thomas J. Mertz,  who sent me this item from his regular blog.

This post contains Samuel Gompers’ views on the importance of public education for working people and for democracy.

In Gompers’ time, the rich took care of their children, as they always had, with private tutors, boarding schools, and private academies.

The role of public education was and should be to make possible a good public school for all of the people. Its goal is not to raise test scores but to enable the fullest development of children and young people and to prepare each to participate as citizens in our society in the fullest sense of the word.

Public education made education a right, not a privilege. Be it noted that at every step in the expansion of public education, such as the opening of high schools, there was opposition, typically from industrialists, business leaders, and others who did not see why their tax money should be used to educate other people’s children. They were willing to pay for basic literacy, which future workers needed, but they saw no point in paying for high school and “frills.”

Let’s mark this Labor Day by noting that we are today in the midst of a movement for privatization of public education unlike anything we have ever seen in our history.

In the past, the wealthiest elements of society railed about paying for education and spoke out against expanding opportunity to others, but there has never before been an organized effort to turn public schools over to private hands on the scale that exists today.

Never before did the wealthiest people find allies in rightwing think tanks and at the highest levels of both political parties for policies that would eliminate neighborhood community schools, that would give public school funding to private management, and that permit for-profit entrepreneurs to open publicly-funded schools.

If education were privatized, you can be sure that the wealthy will continue to get the best for their children, and everyone else will be left to rummage through the offerings of private vendors, or to seek a school that will accept their child.

And with the loss of public education will come the death of an institution whose overriding purpose was to prepare the next generation of citizens. And  as we are already seeing in cities around the nation, privatization shatters communities, when the one institution that held them together and reinforced communal ties is handed over to the marketplace.

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Unions, US Education, Vouchers

NOT the Ugly Face of a Tea Party Educator! UPDATE

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2012 //
25

UPDATE: Several members of the Indiana Tea Party have written to say that they oppose Tony Bennett because of his support for Common Core standards. Jeb Bush supports Common Core, so of course, Tony Bennett supports them. And so do the Jeb Bush “Chiefs for Change.” But the Tea Party does not! Read the comments. The Tea Party supports local control.

So, let’s say that Tony Bennett’s desire to take control of local districts is just a power grab by a far-right politician.

Tony Bennett (not the singer) is State Commissioner of Education in Indiana.

He follows the ALEC/Jeb Bush script in everything he does.

Vouchers, charters, reducing or eliminating standards to become a teacher, for-profit schools, for-profit online “schools.”

Whatever ALEC wants, Bennett delivers.

He recently announced that he wants the power to take control of entire school districts, if in his judgement they are failing.

He says he believes in local control. He doesn’t.

He believes in power.

He believes in privatization.

Thats part of the ALEC script too.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, For-Profit, Indiana, On-Line Education, Privatization

Profiteers Circle Schools

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2012 //
9

A reader discovered the agenda for a big conference of equity investors, technology corporations, and supportive foundations.

A high-level official of the U.S. Department of Education will be there too.

Folks, read the agenda.

Public education is up for grabs.

Lots of corporations are licking their chops.

This is scary.

Remember reading about “the Great Barbecue,” in the late nineteenth century?

That’s when greedy men plundered the public treasury. .

Are the public schools now on the spit?

So much money, all guaranteed by the government.

Now we will see how entrepreneurs reform our schools and get rich too.

The reader writes:

 

Yep, there’s money to be made . . .

and Jeb is there to give the April 18th keynote . . .

Check out this agenda for the 2013 Education Summit in Arizona.
http://edinnovation.asu.edu/accommodations/

The April 17th panel at 4:35 p.m. will include Ron Packard (of K12 Inc.) and other profiteers discussing, “A Class of Their Own: From Seed to Scale in a Decade: What Does it take for an Education Company to Reach $$$1Billion?”

Check out the who’s who list of CEOs and their elected friends networking to the online charter school profits. The Trojan horse philanthropists , Gates and Milken, will be there too.http://edinnovation.asu.edu

I wonder what they will discuss in the session . . . .
“The Fall of the Wall: Capital Flows to Education: What sectors and companies are attracting investment?”

Margaret Thatcher may have been a milk snatcher . . but don’t let Jeb fool you, he is poised to take it all . . and give it to his CEO buddies.
Categories Bush, Jeb, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, K12 Inc., Privatization, Technology, Computers, U.S. Department of Education

For-Profit Online Charter Scandal

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2012 //
18

Maine’s State Commissioner of Education Stephen Bowen went to San Francisco to hear Jeb Bush tout the glories of for-profit online charter schools. Jeb Bush’s foundation paid for the trip. The commissioner met with Jeb’s chief education aide, Patricia Levesque, whose company lobbies for the online corporations. She promised help.

This is what the Maine Sunday Telegram found after getting access to public records of the correspondence:

Bowen was preparing an aggressive reform drive on initiatives intended to dramatically expand and deregulate online education in Maine, but he felt overwhelmed.

“I have no ‘political’ staff who I can work with to move this stuff through the process,” he emailed her from his office.

Levesque replied not to worry; her staff in Florida would be happy to suggest policies, write laws and gubernatorial decrees, and develop strategies to ensure they were implemented.

“When you suggested there might be a way for us to get some policy help, it was all I could do not to jump for joy,” Bowen wrote Levesque from his office.

“Let us help,” she responded.

So was a partnership formed between Maine’s top education official and a foundation entangled with the very companies that stand to make millions of dollars from the policies it advocates.

In the months that followed, according to more than 1,000 pages of emails obtained by a public records request, the commissioner would rely on the foundation to provide him with key portions of his education agenda. These included draft laws, the content of the administration’s digital education strategy and the text ofGov. Paul LePage’s Feb. 1 executive order on digital education.

A Maine Sunday Telegram investigation found large portions of Maine’s digital education agenda are being guided behind the scenes by out-of-state companies that stand to capitalize on the changes, especially the nation’s two largest online education providers.

K12 Inc. of Herndon, Va., and Connections Education, the Baltimore-based subsidiary of education publishing giant Pearson, are both seeking to expand online offerings and to open full-time virtual charter schools in Maine, with taxpayers paying the tuition for the students who use the services.

Categories ALEC, Bush, Jeb, Chiefs for Change, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Privatization

More about Milk and Choice

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2012 //
5

A teacher in New York City wrote to tell me that he worked in the dairy industry for many years before becoming a teacher.

When he read about Jeb Bush touting the virtues of choosing schools the way we choose milk, he laughed.

Did you know, he wrote, that a small number of big corporations control the dairy industry. No matter what label is on the carton, the odds are that you are buying from agri-business, not a small producer. There are really only two kinds of milk–skim and cream–and all the others are variations, built from one or the other.

In many places, you think you are choosing, but all the milk comes from the same corporation.

The illusion of choice.

That’s not what gets me, though. What gets me is that Jeb’s argument is intended to dissolve any sense of public responsibility for basic services.

Some things ought not be privatized.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

A Brave State School Board Member

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2012 //
14

Lottie Beebe, an elected member of the state school board in Louisiana, spoke out bravely at the last meeting.

She decried the privatization of public education.

She questioned why the state was spending nearly $1 million to bring in ill-trained TFA members even as districts are paying an additional $2,000-4,000 for each TFA recruit.

She asked why the board had hired a TFA person to be its executive director.

She was, of course, voted down.

Governor Bobby Jindal controls the board.

The last person elected to the board is the executive director of TFA in New Orleans.

Lottie Beebe believes in public education; she believes that children should have well-prepared professional teachers.

She is out of fashion.

But she is right. When we compare ourselves to the top-performing nations in the world, they all have strong public school systems staffed by professional educators.

Now I will have to create a new category for brave members of state and local school boards. I hope it is a long list.

Categories Honor Roll, Louisiana, Privatization, Teach for America TFA

How Is a School Like Milk?

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2012 //
29

Jeb Bush spoke to the Republican National Convention on his favorite subject: how to save American education by privatizing it.

Bush said that choosing a school should be like buying milk.

This came from a newspaper report:

    “Everywhere in our lives, we get the chance to choose,” he said in aprepared version of his remarks sent to reporters. “Go down any supermarket aisle – you’ll find an incredible selection of milk. You can get whole milk, 2% milk, low-fat milk or skim milk. Organic milk, and milk with extra Vitamin D. There’s flavored milk- chocolate, strawberry or vanilla – and it doesn’t even taste like milk. They even make milk for people who can’t drink milk.”
    “Shouldn’t parents have that kind of choice in schools?” Bush said.

He agrees with Condoleeza Rice that education is “the civil rights issue of our time.”

But how can this be?

Is shopping for milk a civil right? How are these comparable?

This is not a good analogy.

Isn’t public education a public responsibility? Isn’t it a public good? How can it be compared to something as trivial as shopping for milk?

You can see where he is going with this analogy. An end to public education, a welcome mat for the privatizers, the for-profit schools, the for-profit online corporations.

Anyone is welcome to produce their own brand of milk, funded by taxpayers.

They can buy the high-priced milk, if they can afford it. They can buy the plain milk, or if they are poor, they can buy the rancid milk. It’s their choice.

Needless to say, Bush said nothing about the research showing that charter schools and voucher schools get similar results to public schools; and that the online for-profit schools get decidedly worse results.

But this is not about the kids. It is about letting the free market have its way with the kids.

 

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization, Vouchers

What Is Ouroboros?

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2012 //
2

In response to a post defining a failing school, Paul Thomas tweeted a definition of current school reform, as exemplified by the ruinous policies of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. It is called “ouroboros.”  See here for further explanation.

Categories Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing

Cleveland Plan: Criticism and Response

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2012 //
10

A couple of weeks ago, I invited Stephen Dyer of Innovation Ohio to write a post explaining the Cleveland Plan.

He did that here.

I thought the post was fair, balanced, and informative.

Terry Ryan of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, based jointly in Dayton and Washington, D.C., responded to Dyer and criticized me for printing the post.

When I visited Cleveland earlier this year to address the Cleveland City Club, what stuck me was that it is a sad, sad city. Except for sports stadiums, it feels abandoned. The downtown is small and has many empty commercial buildings. Neighborhoods have boarded up buildings and empty lots where buildings used to be. I was struck by how impoverished the city is, how disheartened the teachers are, and how inadequate is the response of state and city leaders to the collapse of this once-proud city.

According to NAEP, the district consists of 100% poor children.

About the time I was in Cleveland, the Cleveland Plan was announced, and all I heard about was merit pay and charters. I haven’t seen any evidence that this is a winning strategy for a deeply impoverished city. Charters in Ohio don’t get better results than regular public schools; many are in academic emergency or academic watch. I wanted to understand more, which is why I asked Dyer to explain the Cleveland Plan. The plan has been warmly embraced by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (D) and Governor John Kasich (R).

Just a bit of background. I was a founding director of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. I left the board in 2009. One of the reasons that I became disillusioned with charter schools was that I saw several of the charters in Ohio sponsored by TBF flounder and fail. My experience at TBF pushed me away from the nostrums that are now so popular on the right and with some Democrats, such as Arne Duncan. I came to see charters as part of a wider effort to privatize public education.

Two things I want to add:

First, I know Terry Ryan and always found him to be fair-minded, so I was disappointed that he took issue with my invitation to Stephen Dyer to write on an issue about which he is deeply knowledgeable. I previously asked Terry’s colleague Mike Petrilli to write a blog to explain why some conservatives support the Common Core standards (he was too busy). I don’t clear my decisions with anyone. I was also surprised that Terry thinks I am less committed to local democracy when I question charters, which transfer public funds to private corporations and replace public control of public education. It is because I believe in democracy that I am disturbed by the rapid growth of charters, which erode the democratically-controlled public sector. The growth of charters is the leading edge of a free market in education, and Terry knows it.

Second, unlike Dyer, I am unalterably opposed to for-profit schools. I think they are an abomination, and moreso in Ohio than in most places, where the for-profit sector is unusually rapacious and greedy and uses its profits to expand and generate more profits, not good schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Merit pay, Ohio, Privatization
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