Archives for category: Privatization
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Can You Imagine This Scenario?

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2012 //
4

Imagine a governor rushing to the aid of a financially distressed public school district by naming a voucher advocate to run it.

Imagine that this new manager–with unprecedented power to determine the future of the district–has worked as a consultant to the big charter school in the district.

Imagine that the district pays one-third of its budget to that same charter school.

Imagine that the very wealthy owner of the charter school collects $16 million a year in “management fees” from the charter school budget.

Imagine that this same businessman who owns the charter and collects $16 million a year is also the single biggest contributor to the governor.

What, you can’t imagine such a thing could happen?

Neither could I.

It’s too improbable, too outrageous.

Why the national press would be all over this story, wouldn’t they?

Imagine that.

Categories For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Vouchers

Here is My Interview on CNN

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2012 //
36

Many readers have contacted me to ask why CNN has not posted Randi Kaye’s interview with me, rebutting Michelle Rhee’s assertions.

This reader, Michael Brocoum, made a copy of the interview and posted it on Youtube. Here it is.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the interview began with a question about the National Assessment of Educational Progress (you will note that it is misspelled by CNN as the National Assessment of Educational Process). I don’t recall the precise wording, but the question went like this:

“You claim that test scores on NAEP are at their highest point in history, but how do you explain that the scale score for fourth grade reading is only 221? That’s 221 out of 500. That’s less than 50%. Isn’t 50% a failing grade?”

I then tried to explain that scale scores don’t work like that, that the question itself was a completely erroneous interpretation of scale scores. NAEP has a vertical scale, and scale scores in the 4th grade are lower than in the 8th grade. They can’t be converted into a grade in the way that Randi Kaye asserted, although they are useful as measures of progress.

Consider this: the average scale score for 4th grade is 221, but students scoring at the 90th percentile–our top students–have a scale score of 264. By Randi Kaye’s fallacious reasoning, they are failing too! In 8th grade reading, the students at the 90th percentile had a scale score of 307 (on a scale of 500). She would convert that to a grade of 61, which is borderline failing.

Wouldn’t you think that the editor or research staff at CNN would have prevented Randi Kaye from making such absurd assertions?

But it was of a piece with all the questions that followed. I felt as if I were being interrogated by someone who worked for StudentsFirst, not by a reporter seeking to ascertain either my views or the basic facts.

Rhee said at the outset of my interview that the answer to what she thinks is the terrible performance of our schools is merit pay. So Randi Kaye drilled in on that with two questions (one of them was dropped from the show before it aired). She ended up with a quote from someone named Lucas who said he wanted merit pay. That wasn’t exactly definitive, since I was able point out that merit pay has been tried again and again and has always failed to make a difference.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Michigan, NAEP, Privatization, Ravitch, Diane, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Who Is Promoting Vouchers in Pennsylvania?

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2012 //
9

An astonishing $6 million plus has been pumped into the voucher campaign in Pennsylvania in the last year alone.

As this article notes, Tea Party activists were getting cold feet about vouchers because they objected that vouchers might be too generous to poor children.

Not to worry: Governor Tom Corbett and his allies in the Legislature changed the formula to make sure that some of the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars will be spread to more affluent districts.

All this money for vouchers will be extracted from public school budgets at the same time that Corbett & Co. are cutting those same budgets.

It seems as though the Republican conservatives want to decimate public education.

Who are these people?

In little more than a year, activists like Michigan’s Betsy DeVos, of the Amway fortune; the heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton; and three wealthy Main Line hedge-fund traders have doled out an astonishing $6-million-plus in campaign cash to top Harrisburg pols, while they and allies have spent millions more on rallies, inflammatory mailers and lobbyists.

Betsy DeVos’s group, the American Federation for Children, pushes for vouchers under the guise of it being a “civil rights” issue. Just trust the rightwing to protect the civil rights of poor children. And then there is the Walton family, which gives generously to anyone who promotes vouchers and charters (as well as TFA and KIPP and Rhee). And of course, the hedge fund managers. These are the 1%. They don’t have any use for public education. They use their vast resources to undermine the public sector and to advance the cause of privatization.

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Vouchers

The Big Business of Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2012 //
25

You may have been naive enough to think that charter schools are multiplying because some people want better education for American children.

You may have thought they were expanding to give more choices to children trapped in bad public schools.

You may have wondered why they continue to proliferate when so many studies agree that they don’t get better results than the public schools.

But if you thought those things, you were on the wrong track.

There are other reasons that charters are growing by leaps and bounds.

They make money for investors!

They are a great investment opportunity!

Both links refer to the same interview on CNBC with the head of a real estate investment trust who explains why charters are a sure thing.

Follow the money.

 

Categories Boston Consulting Group, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Romney’s Education Agenda

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2012 //
30

I read Romney’s education agenda carefully.

You should do the same.

It’s pro-privatization.

It repeats the myth of “failing” public schools.

There is not a good word in it for public education.

Romney is avid for charter schools and vouchers.

Here is the analysis of his agenda that I wrote for the New York Review of Books.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Privatization, Romney, Mitt, Vouchers

What’s Wrong with Privatization?

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2012 //
22

Someone tweeted me a few days ago and asked “what’s wrong with privatization?”

I didn’t have time or space to respond in 140 characters, but fortunately someone else has done it for me.

See this article.

Let me be clear. I believe in the value and strength of the private sector. Long ago, I traveled in the Soviet Union and in China, and I developed a deep respect for the efficiency of the private sector in supplying goods to markets for consumers.

But I believe that a healthy and decent society has a strong private sector to provide goods and services (contractors, plumbers, electricians, repairs, etc.), and a healthy public sector to provide essential public services, like public education, roads, postal service, parks, beaches, transportation, government, police, military, fire fighting, libraries, and healthcare for those who can’t afford to buy it in the private sector. I may be forgetting other essential public services, but you get the point, I hope.

Privatization of public services is not in the public interest. The services are inevitably more expensive to the consumer and the taxpayer, who must now pay profits as well as the cost of the services. And the services are not more efficient; they are even less efficient because there is less money available to pay for the same service. And as the enclosed article shows, there is actually an incentive for failure. Privatized schools want public schools to fail so they can get more customers. Privatized prisons want more criminals for them to house.

We need a healthy private sector and a healthy public sector.

Unfortunately, there is a movement to privatize public education. Big money is going to fund political candidates in both parties who are committed to privatization.

The privatized schools–whether voucher or charter–do not outperform our public schools.

We must resist the current well-funded effort to privatize our public schools.

Categories Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Privatization

In Praise of Valerie Strauss

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2012 //
7

All of us who are frustrated and occasionally outraged by current federal and state education policy owe a debt of thanks to Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post.

Her daily blog “The Answer Sheet” is a source of sustenance, information, and wisdom.

She has provided a regular outlet for teachers, researchers, and everyone else who has important things to say about high-stakes testing, privatization, the war on teachers, the politics of education, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and almost everything else that is on the minds of education-minded people these days.

When my last book was published, I was very fortunate to be interviewed by Valerie on C-SPAN. I had never met her. The hour passed very quickly, as we enjoyed the conversation. Over the past two years, many of my articles have appeared on her blog. She helped me find my audience, as she helps educators everywhere know that they are not alone.

Thank you, Valerie, for all you do to encourage the people who dedicate their lives every day to educating the nation’s children. Thank you for your support for teachers, principals, and administrators. Thank you for understanding parents and children. Thank you for your wisdom, your courage, and your steadfastness.

Categories Education Reform, Honor Roll, Parents, Privatization, Students, Teachers and Teaching

Why Is K12 Online Corp. Advertising on Kansas TV?

By dianeravitch
August 14, 2012 //
13

David Reber is a teacher in Kansas who happens to be a terrific writer.

His articles are always insightful.

This one is about the relentless advertising campaign in Kansas of the online giant K12.

As the privatization movement gathers steam, as equity investors launch their latest scheme to extract profits from the public schools, we will be bombarded by even more appeals to go digital. Of course, we are all going digital. But there is no good reason to home school children who don’t need to be home schooled. Virtual academies get terrible results for children. This has been documented by the National Education Policy Center and in exposes in the NY Times and the Washington Post.

Home schooling by computer may be right for some, but it is not right for most students. Don’t buy their con job.

Categories Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Privatization

The Reformers’ Game Plan

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2012 //
7

This reader offers a succinct summary of the reformers’ game plan. He might have added additional elements: a) budget cuts to disable public schools; and b) laws that remove accountability and transparency with privately managed charters; c) evaluating teachers on a bell curve, so that half will always be “below average,” thus creating a “crisis”; d) demanding 100% perfection, 100% proficiency and saying that anything less proves failure.

You can see it played out in state after state, especially in those with Republican governors, and in the pronouncements of the U.S. Department of Education, and it is fully developed in the Romney education agenda. They think that that private management of public education is the wave of the future, preferably it is generates profits for investors, and they are doing their best to make it happen:

First, the reformers have yet another scapegoat [to blame]  for poverty.  Now it’s the schools that are at fault, not the destruction of our social safety net, not the elimination of worker protections, not the imposition of fair taxation that enables the government to maintain our national infrastructure, and certainly not the actions of the 1% to extract all of the wealth of the U.S. economy for themselves alone.  We don’t need to fix the failed and irrational policies of the past thirty years.  No!  We just have to reform the schools with for-profit charters, voucher plans and virtual “distance learning” that just happens to divert more tax money to … wait for it … the 1%!

And of course, never mind how all of these reforms are failures.  By the time the public is fully aware of that fact, it will be too late to change and we’ll be on to the next scapegoat.

Second, this is just another impossible goal against which to conclude our schools are failures.  The logic here is brilliant:  Set the standard so impossibly high that the schools will be failures by default.  Keep the focus on the unions and test scores, so the public won’t make the real connections between the economics policies of the past three decades but instead will follow the reformers in blind rage.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Vouchers

Who Else Is Rolling Over in His Grave?

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2012 //
48

A reader, noting the plan to privatize 40% of the schools in Philadelphia, had this to say:

WILLIAM PENN is rolling over in his grave, I’m sure.

It occurred to me that :

John Dewey must be rolling over in his grave as he sees our national leaders using standardized tests to impose rankings and ratings on students, teachers, principals, and schools, while many abandon the arts to reach their targets.

Horace Mann must be rolling over in his grave as he sees corporations descending on the schools to make a profit and to privatize as many as possible.

Henry Barnard must be rolling over in his grave as he sees a Democratic governor in his home state of Connecticut handing public schools over to private managers and calling it “reform.”

Thomas Jefferson must be rolling over in his grave as he sees Bobby Jindal giving public funds to voucher students to attend religious schools in Louisiana.

Lyndon B. Johnson must be ruling over in his grave as he sees his beloved Elementary and Secondary Education Act, meant to equalize resources and help poor kids, turned into a club to impose testing and privately managed schools.

Martin Luther King, Jr. must be rolling over in his grave as he sees Wall Street hedge fund managers and billionaires say that they are leading the civil rights movement of our day, as they attack unions and privatize public schools.

Who else is rolling in their grave?

Categories Connecticut, Philadelphia, Poverty, Privatization, Race to the Top, US Education, Vouchers
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