Archives for category: Privatization
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Privatization, Profits, and Politicians

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2012 //
8

A reader noted the similarity between Governor Chris Christie’s plan to privatize low-performing public schools, and Governor Rick Snyder’s reform plan in Michigan. Other readers have commented on the irony of conservative Republican governors–allegedly committed to small government–aggressively using the powers of government to undermine local control and privatize schools.

The similarity goes beyond Christie and Snyder. The same ideas–privatize low-performng schools, close low-performing schools–are embedded in Race to the Top, also in the Boston Consulting Group’s plan for Philadelphia, the Mind Trust plan for Indianapolis, the Bloomberg reforms in New York City, Mayor Frank Jackson’s plan for Cleveland. None of these plans ever works, other than by pushing out the low-performing kids and sending them to other struggling schools. It makes you wish that these guys would take a peek at evidence or actually care about the kids. And it also makes you wonder why none of them ever has an original idea. They just copy one another ad infinitum. And the more they copy stale, failed ideas, the more they praise themselves as “innovators.”

When you see how popular these ideas are among conservative Republicans, it shows how far to the right the Republican party has gone, when the principle of profit trumps the principle of local control and respect for tradition:

This sounds very eerily the same as what Gov Rick Snyder has already done here in Michigan. The Educational Achievement Authority (EAA) is set to operate the lowest performing 5% of Michigan schools starting in the 12-13 school year. Here is a quote from the michigan.gov website explaining the EAA ” It (EAA) will first apply to underperforming schools in Detroit in the 2012-2013 school year and then be expanded to cover the entire state.” Is this not a state takeover?
Categories Boston Consulting Group, Michigan, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Privatization

Is This the True Christie Plan?

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2012 //
40

A reader suggests the real purpose of the Christie “school reform” plan. Or could it be to introduce private markets to public education, with profits for some, losses for others?

Chris Christie, like many Republicans, main goal is to break the teacher union; it has nothing to do with education. He has no real interest in helping underperforming schools or struggling students.

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, New Jersey, Privatization, Unions

Profiteers Circling the Schools, Looking for $$

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2012 //
61

So here it is folks. Stephanie Simon of Reuters attended that private equity investors’ conference at an elite Manhattan setting and the boys are looking to make money from selling their stuff to the schools, running schools, teaching math, investing in new ventures of all kinds.

This is what many suspected but found hard to believe. The Wall Street crowd says this is their moment.

They see the steady advance of privatization and for-profit ventures and they love it.

They know that the purpose of the new academic standards is to create winners and losers, and they will invest in product to sell to both ends of the spectrum.

They will monetize the children, outsource the teaching, do anything that turns a buck.

Who will stop them?

We know Romney won’t. Will Obama?

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Campaign Contributions Matter

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2012 //
7

A reader reports on the campaign contributions of a major charter school owner in Ohio.
Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Ohio, On-Line Education, Privatization

Are Charter Schools Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2012 //
11

A school district review in Philadelphia determined that many of the charters set up significant obstacles to students who want to enroll.

In one school, applications are available only one day in the year. “Another unnamed charter required applicants to complete an 11-page application, write an essay, respond to 20 short-answer questions, provide three recommendations, be interviewed, and provide records related to their disciplinary history, citizenship and disability status.”

When the School Reform Commission imposes its massive privatization scheme, there will be many more hoops and hurdles, leaving the public schools with the students who couldn’t figure out how to get into a charter school. A system of haves and have-nots. Winners and losers.

Categories Charter Schools, Philadelphia, Privatization

Best Way to Eliminate Public Education

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2012 //
2

Lance Hill of New Orleans responded to blogger Mike Deshotels, who noted the double standard for charter schools and public schools. Public schools must meet standards, but voucher schools do not? Lance writes:

Mike, excellent post on the contradictions of the Louisiana accountability
plan.  

This isn’t even a policy debate: it’s a debate on simple logic.   Imagine a
hospital that graded doctors on mortality rates. If a hospital administrator
transferred all the critical care patients into the maternity ward, suddenly
the maternity ward doctors would go from an A grade to an F grade.    

If  a policy defies simple logic, there has to be some motive for it other
than its declared purpose.  In this case, I believe the hidden agenda for
grading teachers and schools is to use it as a means to privatize schools
and control the labor force.  The corporate reformers don’t care that a few
good schools and teachers lose out:  it is acceptable collateral damage.  I
predict that once control of public education is transferred to the private
sector,  then meaningful assessment policies will be implemented.  Indeed,
in the 2005 Gates-funded draconian “Tough Choices or Tough Times” report
which advocates “contract schools” and also advocates abolishing high-stakes
testing.  It is implicit that this federally-imposed plan would only
possible if public education were privatized and controlled by state or
federal government. 

Skills Commission member Anthony Carnevale’s dissent. This is the only
dissent I found on the net-amazing given some of the commission members.
It’s also a good short summary of the report’s recommendations:     
http://bit.ly/QpJfMy

Skills Commission 2005 Report. A little-read report but a blueprint for what
is happening all around us:
http://bit.ly/ObCVCL

The proof that the “accountability” plans are, in truth, “power and control”
plans is that the Jindal/White voucher plan initially imposed no
accountability standards for voucher schools nor performance standards for
teachers.  Why?  Because the non-public schools are already in the private
sector.  Vouchers were simply another way of undermining public schools so
the state could privatize them.  What at first appeared to be a double
standard-regulation for public schools but not for non-public schools-now
makes perfect sense as a means to an end.   


Lance Hill

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

How to Create Failing Schools

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2012 //
4

Mike Deshotels of Louisiana has figured out how the scheme works.

Create a program that rates all schools by a standard that assures that half will be above the standard and half will be below.

Of course, schools that enroll affluent students will appear largely in the top half, and schools that enroll poor students will rank largely in the bottom half.

Declare those in the bottom half to be failing schools.

Privatize those schools.

Start over.

Categories Accountability, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Privatization, Testing

Beware! Sneaky Reformer Trick in L.A.

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2012 //
46

On August 14, there will be a benefit concert in Los Angeles to “honor” teachers.

The concert is a promotion for a new “Superman”-style film that vilifies public schools and promotes privatization.

The film celebrates the “parent trigger” law, which gives parents the power to seize control of their school, fire the staff, and turn it over to a charter chain. The parent trigger was promoted by charter advocates and billionaire foundations Broad, Gates, and Walton.

Strange way to “honor” teachers–by firing them and giving the school to a non-union private entity to manage, which may hire only young teachers willing to work a 50-60 hour week at low wages. More “honors” like this and there won’t be a teaching profession in America, just teaching temps.

The concert is sponsored by Walmart (the Walton family) and Walden Media. The Walton Family Foundation gave out $159 million last year for charters and vouchers.

Walden Media was one of the producers of “Waiting for ‘Superman.'” Billionaire Philip Anschutz, who owns Walden Media, funds rightwing groups, is anti-environment and bankrolled anti-gay referenda.

It’s sad to see Viola Davis involved in this sneaky push for privatization. I remember when she won the Academy Award in 2010 and announced that she was proud to be a graduate of Central Falls High School, right at the time that all the corporate reformers were gloating about the threat to shut it down.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Parent trigger, Privatization

How Markets Fail in Public Schooling

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2012 //
88

We have had animated discussions on this blog about whether the market model works for public education, whether parents should be smart shoppers, when business practices make sense (and don’t).

I just read an interesting piece on salon.com that covers some of the same grounds but offers some useful insights about why the market model does not work for public education.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Privatization

A Different Perspective from England

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2012 //
5

A reader in the U.K. points out that education issues in the U.S. and U.K. have evolved differently. I am not sure that other readers in the U.K. would agree. There, as here, we have debates about how to educate, what to teach, and who should be in charge. When I visited London a few years ago, I toured “city academies,” which are schools that the government “gives” to wealthy businessmen who are willing to put up about $2 million dollars to build a facility; those I saw were oriented toward vo-tech studies. That seemed to me a clear movement towards privatization.

I don’t know which country is leading and which is following, or whether neither is the right term.

The battles in the U.S. over curriculum content and pedagogy have taken a back seat to the battles over the future of public education and the survival of teaching as a profession.

I hope that other readers in the U.K. weigh in.

As a teacher in England, I follow your blog (and read your books) with a fascination about both the similarities and differences between our education systems. Ideologically the US and England often go through similar fads and exchange thinkers all the time. The current UK government has flirted (I think that’s the best word) with the ideas of the American school reform movement. Most recently Michelle Rhee was over here promoting her own legend and being praised by ministers. However, there are differences as well as similarities.Schools are governed at different levels in our countries. In England (I am glossing over what happens in the other nations of the UK) education is controlled by the UK government, with administrative powers delegated to Local Education Authorities (now just “Local Authorities”) which are the locally elected councils covering cities, London boroughs and counties. These never had as much power as American states (teachers pay and conditions and qualifications were decided nationally) and in many ways may be more comparable to school boards in the US, but were often seen as powerful and unaccountable particularly prior to the 1980s due to the lack of autonomy in individual schools. Power has shifted significantly over the years, with the 1980s seeing an increase in both centralisation (with the setting of the national curriculum and new tests and exams and creation of OFSTED, the national schools inspectorate) and decentralised to schools (with schools being given more responsibility to run their own finances).A lot of political debate since then has centred over where power should lie. The underlying agenda of that article is about the power of local authorities and also the perception of central government (particularly under the Tories) as supporting traditional education and local government as supporting progressive education. The New Statesman magazine (along with the Guardian newspaper) is the voice of the middle-class left in England and for that reason will assume both that local authorities are good and that traditional education is bad. None of this necessarily maps onto reality, nor onto comparisons with the US. The two new(er) types of school that the article opposes are Academies, which are former local authority schools given more power and autonomy, and Free Schools which are new schools set up by parents. While comparisons can be made with Charter Schools and the US situation the following differences are probably key:

1) The English National Curriculum and testing system are already in place. Far from being part of a movement for standardised tests, Academies and free schools are given more freedom from the National Curriculum.

2) The closing of “bad schools” is not yet on the agenda. This may be because demographics mean new schools can be introduced to cope with a rising school population without closing old schools. It might also reflect the fact that there are not, as yet, very many free schools.

3) The traditional vs. progressive faultlines are more clearly on display in the debate here. That is why the charter schools mentioned are KIPP (who are quite traditional on discipline) rather than, say, the online charter schools you have been describing recently. Although some of the free schools can easily be described as “progressive” this is not something the media says much about, and the last thing the New Statesman would admit to.

4) Despite a lot of controversy over exam standards here, our exams have not become mutiple-choice, short answer messes like the American ones and only one of our three main exam boards is private. The government has shown a preference for essay questions, and more challenging exams.

5) Our teaching unions are terrible. They oppose everything but stop nothing and are barely able to work together. The government finds them a useful scapegoat but they really count for nothing.

6) The government has held off on privatisation. A lot of the debate is not about what they are doing to involve private companies, but what they might do in the future.

There is definitely the potential for a US style reform movement lobbying for privatisation and union-busting. There is Teach First, an English equivalent of Teach For America, a lot of similar rhetoric and moves towards unqualified teachers. There are academy sponsors who resemble charter schools chains. But on the whole we are not there yet. I recognise more of the English debate in your older books like “Left Back”, than in “The Death and Life of the Great American School System”. Curriculum content is more controversial than anything else. To give examples, the most heated debates in English education recently have been over whether to teach phonics and whether exams have got easier and what to do about that.
Categories International, Privatization
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