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Salt Lake City Tribune: Stop DeVos Before She Ruins Public Education

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2017 //
16

The Salt Lake City Tribune published an impassioned opinion piece by educators in opposition to billionaire Betsy DeVos.

 

Here is a part of the article:

 

Now is the time to contact your members of Congress to proclaim — unequivocally — that the hope for the future of our children is directly connected to support for public education. President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos as the next secretary of education delivers a severe blow to the future of public education. While her statements indicate a desire to provide all parents the opportunity to choose the best schools for their children, a deeper look into her promotion of unregulated, for-profit charters and vouchers indicates a very different agenda.

 

From the Reagan administration through the Obama administration, a market-based agenda has spread an often-inaccurate narrative — leading Americans to believe that our public schools, teachers and students are failing miserably. This story was used to steamroll the country with privatization mandates while shifting billions of tax dollars to those who manufactured the narrative.
This is a fine article that echoes both research and common sense.

 

Stop Billionaire Betsy before she does to the nation what she has done to Detroit.

Categories Betsy DeVos, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, School Choice

Jeff Bezos Loves Charters and Privatization

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2017 //
24

Who is Jeff Bezos? Jeff Bezos founded Amazon. He is a billionaire. He loves charters and privatization of schools. In 2013, he bought The Washington Post, which had been a bastion of liberal thought under the ownership of the Graham family.

 

Bezos did not introduce charter-love and teacher-bashing to the Washington Post. While the news staff always played it straight, the Post editorial board was madly in love with Michelle Rhee during her stormy tenure. In their eyes, Rhee could do no wrong. She was their Joan of Arc. Even now, after a decade of Rhee-Henderson control, the Post still worships Rhee, as this article by editorial page editor Fred Hiatt showed.

 

When Bezos bought the Post in 2013, investigative journalist Lee Fang revealed in The Nation that Bezos is a generous supporter of school privatization.

 

Lee Fang wrote:

 

“There’s one area where Bezos has been hyper-active, but it is largely unknown to the general public: education reform. A look at the Bezos Family Foundation, which was founded by Jackie and Mike Bezos but is financed primarily by Jeff Bezos, reveals a fairly aggressive effort in recent years to press forward with a neoliberal education agenda:

 

• The Bezos Foundation has donated to Education Reform Now, a nonprofit organization that funds attack advertisements against teachers’ unions and other advocacy efforts to promote test-based evaluations of teachers. Education Reform Now also sponsors Democrats for Education Reform.

 

• The Bezos Foundation provided $500,000 to NBC Universal to sponsor the Education Nation, a media series devoted to debating high-stakes testing, charter schools and other education reforms.

 

• The Bezos Foundation provided over $100,000 worth of Amazon stock to the League of Education Voters Foundation to help pass the education reform in Washington State. Last year, the group helped pass I-1240, a ballot measure that created a charter school system in Washington State. In many states, charter schools open the door for privatization by inviting for-profit charter management companies to take over public schools that are ostensibly run by nonprofits.

 

Other education philanthropy supported by the Bezos Foundation include KIPP, Teach for America and many individual charter schools, including privately funded math and science programs across the country.”

 

Lee Fang says there is one good result of Bezos taking over the Post. It used to be controlled by for-profit Kaplan University and avoided negative coverage of the sham industry.

 

He wrote:

 

“For now, the change in ownership will probably only benefit the Post’s education coverage, given the newspaper’s long relationship with Kaplan, which helped prop up the paper’s finances for years while the Post either largely ignored the issue of for-profit colleges or sent its executives to Capitol Hill to lobby against better oversight of the industry.

 

“Part of the ugly history of the Post is its reliance on a predatory for-profit college called Kaplan University. Though Washington Post blogger Lydia DePillis seemed to whitewash this relationship yesterday by referring to Kaplan as only a “lucrative test prep business,” in reality, Kaplan University was one of worst for-profit colleges in the country.”

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, School Choice

Education Lingo and How It is Used to Mislead the Public

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2017 //
50

Emma Brown has an informative article today in the Washington Post about education lingo and its misuses.

 

Advocates of vouchers call them “opportunity scholarships” or “education savings accounts” or something else, because the American public doesn’t like vouchers. There have been many referenda on vouchers, and they have been defeated every time. When Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick sponsored a referendum on vouchers in Michigan in 2000, it was rejected by 69-31%. The most recent referendum was in Florida in 2012, when Jeb Bush tried to pull the wool over the eyes of voters by calling his voucher amendment the “Religious Liberty Amendment,” hoping the public was dumb enough to be deceived, and it was defeated by 58-42%. Maybe had it been called “the Education Voucher Amendment,” it would have gone down by 70-30%.

 

Thus, privatizers use a different term: school choice.

 

“School choice” was long tainted because of its origins with segregationist white southerners.

 

Reform is now a tainted word as well because it is a cover for privatization.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

A Wake-Up Call for Fred Hiatt, Editorial Page Editor of the Washington Post

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2017 //
107

Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Washington Post, wrote an uninformed opinion piece urging Trump to invite cities to become “laboratories of choice,” where every student could go to the school of his or her choice. He says this would be “the right kind of choice.” “Uninformed” is the polite term. I was tempted to say “absurd” or idiotic,” but decided to be polite.

 

He begins his article by reciting the specious claims of the right wingers that everyone exercises choice except the poor. I know these claims because I was part of three rightwing think tanks where they were repeated again and again. Some people choose parochial schools; some choose private schools; others choose safe suburbs and neighborhoods. Only the poor are “stuck” in “failing schools.”

 

The assumption behind these assertions is that choosing schools will improve education. But there is no evidence for this claim.

 

Here is some news for Mr. Hiatt.

 

We already have laboratories of choice. First, there is New Orleans, which has no public schools. The scores are up, but most of the charter schools continue to be low-performing, probably because they have the poor kids who were not accepted in the top-performing charters. The district as a whole is low-performing in relation to the state, which is one of the lowest-performing in the nation.

 

Then there is Milwaukee, which has had vouchers and charters for 25 years. Three sectors compete, and all are low-performing. How is that for a “laboratory of choice,” Mr. Hiatt?

 

Then there is Detroit, in Betsy DeVos’ home state of Michigan. Detroit is the lowest-performing urban district tested by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It is overrun by charters, many of them operating for profit. Now there is another fine example of a failing “laboratory of choice.”

 

Mr. Hiatt, why don’t you take a look at other nations’ school system. The one that most people admire, Finland, has well-resourced schools, highly educated teachers, professional autonomy, a strong professional union, and excellent results. What it does not have is standardized testing, competition, or choice.

 

Please, Fred, read my last two books Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Read Samuel Abrams’ Education and the Commercial Mindset. Read Mercedes Schneider’s School Choice. Pay attention. Be informed before you write.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Detroit, Education Industry, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Privatization, School Choice, Segregation, Vouchers

Peter Greene Has an Answer to Doug1943’s Question

By dianeravitch
December 28, 2016 //
47

This morning I posted a question written by Doug1943, rehashing corporate reformer arguments about “allowing children to escape failing public schools.” I invited readers to answer his question(s).

 

Peter Greene put his answer into a post. 

 

This should satisfy Doug (or not), and this is only an introduction to the rest of the post where Doug will find answers:

 

Most public ed advocates that I know and interact with would agree that, particularly in some large urban districts, there are some schools with serious problems. I would never tell you that all public schools are flawless and there are no huge problems. There are, from serious underfunding to long-standing institutional racism to a lack of any sort of vision from leaders. There are absolutely some serious issues, but it does not appear to me that choice-charter-voucher advocates are proposing anything that will actually solve any of the problems.

 

They call to mind lying with a broken leg on the sidewalk, and someone runs up with a chain saw and says, “Hey, I’m going to take off your arms” and I ask what help that will be and are they even a doctor and they reply, “Well, no– but we have to do something!” No, thanks.

 

Do charters generally do a better job? There’s no clear evidence that they do– often they get the same results with the same kids (as far as we can tell, given that we have no good way in place to measure school success– your reservations about standardized tests are on point) and a little too often they do worse. Do charters solve poverty? No. Do charters and choice spur competition that leads to greatness? There’s zero evidence that they do. Do they allow children to “escape” bad schools? Maybe– but here’s the big problem as charters are currently handled: the escape comes at the cost of making a bad school worse by stripping it of resources. And as I frequently point out, the free market can’t handle this problem. The free market survives by picking winners and losers and dropping the losers out– there is not one single business or business sector in this country that serves every single citizen, but serving 100% of US students is exactly the education gig.

 

So in short, yes, there are problems and no, the charter-choice-voucher idea doesn’t solve any of them.

 

So what are my alternative suggestions? Let me first note that the guy who wants to treat my broken leg by chainsawing off my arms is the person carrying the burden of proof. But as someone who is invested in public education, and who has already noticed most of the issues that charter fans holler about in their marketing materials. In the interests of not writing an entire book, let me offer just a quick list of some major steps that, I believe, would help.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Please Answer Doug1943’s Question

By dianeravitch
December 28, 2016 //
431

I am trying to take a break. Reading all the comments, but posting only when I must.

 

Doug1943 asked a long question. He is immersed in the privatization narrative, as you will see. His email ID suggests a connection to a libertarian institute.

 

My short answer to him is: read my last book, “Reign of Error,” which goes into detail about what children and schools need. No school is so bad that it can’t be improved. No high-performing nation in the world has turned its public schools over to the private sector. Test scores are primarily measures of family income. Choice promotes segregation by race, religion, income, and social class.

 

 

Here is Doug’s question:

 

“I think the problem is this: the people opposing allowing people to escape from bad public schools don’t seem to want to acknowledge that there is such a thing as bad public schools. Or, at most, they seem to believe that if we just raised taxes and put more money into these schools, they’d be better. Or, that there is nothing the schools can do, it’s general poverty that is the problem.

 

“Of course, if any or all these views are correct, then you must carry on doing what you’re doing (which seems to me, as an ‘outsider’, is just talking to yourselves, which is the norm for American forums on both Left and Right).

 

“However, I think you ought to give some thought to trying to address the issues that proponents of vouchers, charters, etc. claim are real: that at least some public schools are unreformably bad, and parents who have some ambition for their children should be allowed to escape from them. In other words, should have the same opportunities that the Clinton and Obama children had.

 

“Or, if you agree that some public schools are bad, but not unreformably so, how can they be reformed?

 

“It’s this that — again as an outsider — strikes me as your great weakness: you don’t seem to admit that there is a problem at all. Thus your quotes around “better” in your reply: you seem to dismiss good exam results that some charters get. Now, maybe you’re right about these results– I certainly have huge reservations about multiple-choice standardized tests. But you ought to make the case.

 

“By the way, I personally would prefer there to be a system of state schools that had high standards, and educated all children to the limits of their inherent capabilities, so that the issue of ‘charter schools’ and vouchers wouldn’t even arise.. I assume that such a system would cost substantially more than the current system, but that it would be well worth it. But we don’t seem to be allowed to have that choice.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

North Carolina and the Tyranny of the Tea Party

By dianeravitch
December 28, 2016 //
8

This is one of the most important–and frightening–articles I have read in a long while. If you care about the future of our democracy, I urge you to read it.

 

It is about the takeover of North Carolina by the Tea Party, their tactics, their voter suppression aimed at black voters, and their cynical manipulation of anti-gay sentiment. The article doesn’t mention the enactment of school privatization laws, which have been a central plank in the putsch. But it is a cautionary tale.

 

In North Carolina, Some Democrats See Their Grim Future – POLITICO
https://apple.news/ASZaPmPZ4T-Cz6sPNG5kncg

Categories Charter Schools, Democracy, North Carolina, Privatization, Racism, School Choice

Sue Legg on the Chaotic School Choice Mess in Florida

By dianeravitch
December 27, 2016 //
4

Earlier today I posted a request by Sue Legg of the Florida League of Women Voters for your ideas about punchy slogans to support public schools.

 

Sue read the comments and sent this response:

 

“Sue Legg: Great comments. We are at a crucial decision point here in Gainesville. Our schools on the westside are over crowded and under enrolled on the east side Charter and tax credit vouchers have drained low income area public schools. This year we have put over $500,000 extra into a ‘turn around’ failing school to help its kids suffering from traumatic backgrounds. Five teachers of 20 have left this school this fall, and it is only one of several such schools. Will we build a new school on the west side and let the failing schools on the eastside dwindle? Will we rezone? If we do, will parents start their own charter schools? Florida is awash in charters–over 650 of them plus the voucher schools.

 

“I know it will take more than slogans to penetrate the fog generated by school choice. Yet, a few ‘choice’ words that convey the risk of social upheaval that privatization brings are needed. Hmmm, social cohesion or social upheaval, what is your choice?”

Categories Charter Schools, Florida, School Choice, Vouchers

Michigan: Schools Decline with Choice Policies

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2016 //
13

Politico reports that the proof of Betsy DeVos’s school choice policies can be found in Michigan. She claims that choice would “fundamentally improve education.”

 

But it hasn’t.

 

Despite two decades of charter-school growth, the state’s overall academic progress has failed to keep pace with other states: Michigan ranks near the bottom for fourth- and eighth-grade math and fourth-grade reading on a nationally representative test, nicknamed the “Nation’s Report Card.” Notably, the state’s charter schools scored worse on that test than their traditional public-school counterparts, according to an analysis of federal data.

 

Critics say Michigan’s laissez-faire attitude about charter-school regulation has led to marginal and, in some cases, terrible schools in the state’s poorest communities as part of a system dominated by for-profit operators. Charter-school growth has also weakened the finances and enrollment of traditional public-school districts like Detroit’s, at a time when many communities are still recovering from the economic downturn that hit Michigan’s auto industry particularly hard.

 

The results in Michigan are so disappointing that even some supporters of school choice are critical of the state’s policies.

 

So, let’s see, follow Betsy’s policies and the state opens bad charter schools and undercuts public schools. A disaster for everyone.

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Failure, Michigan, School Choice

Peter Greene on the Hoax of School Choice

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2016 //
31

Peter Greene here debates a libertarian proponent of school choice–on his blog, not in person.

 

The debate typically begins with the undocumented assertion that public schools are failing. This is a standby of the  school choice crowd. I demolished that particular claim in my last book, “Reign of Error.” The public schools are actually performing (if you mean test scores and graduation rates) better than ever, and in affluent districts, they are doing a great job.

 

Greene uses the shaky claims for choice as an opportunity to knock them down, one by one. No, educators don’t need to be “incentivized” by competition. No, choice does not “empower” parents. It enables schools to choose the students they want and reject the ones they don’t. It’s most certain result is hypersegregation. By Race, religion, and social class. That’s why “school choice” was the rallying cry of southern segregationists in the 1950s and early 1960s.

 

He doesn’t mention the fact that none of the highest performing nations in the world have adopted school choice.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers
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