Archives for category: Shame
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Peter Greene: None Dare Call It “Philanthropy”

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2018 //
26

In this post, Peter Greene spells out the difference between philanthropy and the desire to control the lives of others.

One is generous, the other is a blunt use of power to gratify one’s own ego.

One helps people achieve the goals they have set for themselves, the other imposes the donor’s will on unwilling and resistant recipients, whose voice is silenced.

“Modern fauxlanthropy is not about helping people; it’s about buying control, about hiring people to promote your own program and ideas. It’s about doing an end run around the entire democratic process, even creating positions that never existed, like Curriculum Director of the United States, and then using sheer force of money to appoint yourself to that position. It’s about buying compliance.

“It is privatization. It is about taking a section of the public sector and buying control of it so that you can run it as if it was your own personal possession.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Injustice, Koch Brothers, Philanthropy, Shame, Walton Foundation

“This Veteran Supported Trump—Until Trump Deported His Wife”

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2018 //
52

Alejandro Juarez is the wife of a military veteran. He served four tours of duty in combat. She has two children born in America. She entered the country illegally twenty years ago. She has no criminal record. The Trump administration deported her to Mexico. That’s the result of the Trump zero-tolerance policy. I listened to her on radio on the day she was deported, leaving her family.

This is an administration that seems to enjoy separating families. There are at least 500 children who were separated from their parents at the border and have not been reunited with them. The Trump administration lost them. They had no system for identifying them and tracking their whereabouts. The administration had the nerve to tell the ACLU, which sued to demand reunification, to take charge of reuniting those the Trump administration had separated. Some of the lost children are babies. They can’t say their names. They are lost. Our great nation orphaned them. Shameful.

“Sgt. Temo Juarez was a Trump guy. An Iraq combat veteran who served as a Marine infantryman and then an Army National Guardsman, his friends called him a “super conservative.” With his wife, he brought up their two daughters in Central Florida. He supported Trump in 2016, eager for a change.

“But now, “I am eating my words,” he told the military newspaper Stars and Stripes in an interview published last week.

“On Friday, Juarez and his family became the latest victims of Trump’s zero-tolerance policy on immigration.

“On that day, his wife, Alejandra, left the country under a deportation order. She had come to the United States from Mexico illegally as a teenager two decades ago and had until now being living undisturbed with Temo, a naturalized U.S. citizen, and daughters, both natural-born Americans. This week, Temo will fly to Mexico with his daughters, 9-year-old Estela and 16-year-old Pamela — and leave his younger daughter there, even though English is her first language. He can’t do his construction job and take care of her in Florida by himself.”

Alejandro was not a criminal. She was not a rapist or a murderer. She is the mother of two American children and the wife of a citizen.

There are 11,000 other military veterans whose families are in jeopardy.

When will this reign of madness end?

Categories Accountability, Shame

North Carolina: An Insider on the Hoax of School Choice

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2018 //
5

A few days ago, I posted teacher Stuart Egan’s description of the attack on public schools in North Carolina, which identified the malefactors who are luring kids to charter schools, religious schools, cyber charters, and home schools, driving down public school enrollment to 81%.

Egan received a response from a staff member of the North Carolina Department of Instruction, which is led by Mark Johnson, former TFA who marches to the tune of the Tea Party and has no conscience of his own, no vision for the 81%, no concern about the quality of education in the state’s charter or religious schools. How does TFA find the people who advocate and act so strongly against public schools that enroll the majority of students? Will TFA ever be held accountable for them?

Here is the comment:

“This is so spot on. Everyone should translate ‘choice’ into ‘undermining of public schools’, because that is exactly what it is. The most sickening part is how low-income families and those of children with disabilities have been targeted, cajoled, hoodwinked and bamboozled into believing that choice automatically equates to quality. (Anyone who considers themselves conservative should be outraged at this profound misuse of their tax dollars.)

“Unfortunately, I get to witness this erosion and implosion every day at DPI. I just met another of my colleagues whose job was eliminated by the General Assembly’s draconian cuts and our puppet superintendent’s ‘just following orders’ approach. It was so sad to see this person, who was providing passionate, competent and knowledgeable support to eastern NC schools trying mightily to serve their markedly low-income populations, tossed aside in this ponzi scheme to dangle ‘school choice’ in front of needy families. It’s like eliminating the road crew that is fixing potholes and cracks on I-95 and using the public’s money to build a flimsy expensive two-lane highway right next to it that has no markings, guardrails, speed limits or enforcement (with full kickbacks going to the private paving company). ‘Hey mom and dad — let your kids ride on this shiny new road because you’ll have a choice, and we all know choice is better!’

“EdNC put out an excellent article a few days ago: https://www.ednc.org/2018/07/11/steep-cuts-to-north-carolinas-education-agency-hurt-low-performing-schools-the-most/. It perfectly spells out the absurdity in our agency and our feckless leadership. We’re told ‘shh, be quiet; this is a sensitive time’ for all our colleagues who were laid off, when in reality there should be a loud leader fighting for his folks every step of the way, even if the jobs could not be saved. You see, that’s how the damage really occurs here in our agency — not by vocal or visible action of those who ultimately have to answer to their supervisor every day, month and year, but by the SILENCE and joint inaction of the only ones in the agency who AREN’T supervised. The superintendent has no official boss and writes no annual work plan like the rest of us; instead, he gets a four-year ride and won’t have a whiff of accountability for another two and half years, long after the damage has been done. Meanwhile, scores of good people continue to walk out the door, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and the Public Schools of North Carolina will continue to suffer for it.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, Fraud, North Carolina, Privatization, Shame, Teach for America, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

Peter Greene on the Evil We Are Doing at Our Borders to Families and Children

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2018 //
35

Peter Greene offers a useful summary of the disgraceful, disgusting situation at our borders, where families are separated and children torn from their parents. The law doesn’t say so. It is wrong. It is evil. It is contrary to decency. Yes, we have done evil things in the past, but we should not do this evil thing now. Trump could stop it with a wave of his hand. Babies and toddlers are incarcerated. Their parents may never see them again. Some have been shipped hundreds or thousands of miles from their parents. Some are sent to foster homes. This is inhumane. We disgrace our nation in the eyes of the world.

Their parents broke the law. So what. First of all, as noted above, mostly we’re talking misdemeanors which means this is not the same as what happens to someone who was convicted of murder– it’s like taking the kids away from someone who was caught jay-walking.

The bullshit claims that the feds had to do this because evildoers were pouring across the border, because every brownskinned person is a member of an evil gang and a rapist and murder and we must get rid of them all. This is just racist bullshit with no foundation in reality (just like all racist bullshit).

The Bible. A complete non-starter, and the fact that it has even come up is a sign of how far removed from any serious religious or spiritual thought this administration is. Do we really have to point out that the Bible justified the Inquisition, slavery and a lot of other bad stuff. But if you want a religious take on it, here’s what the United Methodist Church (the one that Jeff Sessions nominally belongs to) has to say in condemnation. And here’s a Twitter thread listing the many religious condemnations of this.

This shameful policy is part of a larger initiative– to cut back the number of brown people coming to this country by making this country so unwelcoming, so cruel, so much worse than what they’re trying to escape that coming to America will be unattractive. That’s now our policy, our new unofficial motto– “If you aren’t white, it sucks to be here and you might as well not come.” That’s as stark a betrayal of our national ideals as we’ve ever seen in our long history of not living up to those ideals. And every gutless member of Congress who can’t find the spine to say so needs to face trouble at the polls come the fall. And really, when this is done, all of us who are worked up about it need to ask if there aren’t perhaps other equally huge but less visceral injustices being perpetrated that we should be throwing our energies against.

Call your member of Congress. Now.

Categories Cruelty, Shame

Jeanne Allen Warns: Do Not Watch NBC Charter Exposé Tonight!

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2018 //
26

Jeanne Allen, CEO of the pro-choice, Pro-DeVos Center for Education Reform, does not want you to watch an NBC special tonight on charter schools. Allen’s CER is an outspoken supporter of privatization of public funding and a hyperactive opponent of public schools.

In the following letter, she reports that she warned NBC that its show was based on an article in The Hechinger Report,” which she says is biased against charter schools. Really? It’s been my observation that The Hechinger Report is completely nonpartisan and unbiased on every contentious issue.

Here is the letter that Jeanne (former education analyst for the fringe-right Heritage Foundation), sent to NBC and to her mailing list of thousands.

The Center for Education Reform

RE: NBC’s Charter School Mistake

Dear Friends:

Sunday night, June 17th, NBC News is airing a charter school story that argues charters are increasingly geared to support “white flight.” If the claims weren’t so outlandish and unfounded, it would be laughable.

The producer, who was incredibly open to receiving information countering these allegations, based his report on an analysis performed by the Hechinger Report. In one of the documents CER supplied, we demonstrated Hechinger’s bias against charter schools, as well as the folly of the argument.

Indeed, Hechinger claims to have used NCES data to calculate racial balance in charter schools across the country that justify erroneous claims that increasingly charter schools do not reflect the racial balance of surrounding schools. However, as we pointed out, no researcher can make such statements based on NCES data. One needs at least 4 data points (see link for explanation) and further review, analysis and study, to make any legitimate comparisons.

In the case of the school they use as their prime example, George’s Lake Onocee Academy, originally boundaries were drawn around the school based on a development that was responsible for its existence. The other public schools in the district were failing, and developers wanted to offer a better school to the community. The district was opposed to the creation of the school. And while the boundary no longer exists around that school, local leaders have still fanned the flames of bigotry that Hechinger seized to market the sizzling story to its media partner NBC.

The Hechinger Report journalist then called numerous other states and asked about racial composition of their schools. One might ask why they’d have to call states if they thought they had irrefutable data.

We don’t fault NBC for viewing Hechinger’s work as legitimate or being misled by their data. The thousands of policies, laws and data points that apply to charter school everywhere are complex and require a trained eye and understanding. However, if one is disposed against charters as Hechinger is because they give parents freedom to make choices rather mandate assignment based on artificial factors, then one will make any conclusion that justified their narrative.

Such is the case in this piece which some charter advocates argue is balanced. Regardless of what is said tomorrow night, there is no balance in any piece which starts with the premise that the very reform that created opportunities for millions of children who were failed by the traditional system, and which serve a higher percentage of at risk and minority children, is creating racial imbalance. Indeed, if mandatory assignment by zip code and busing were the answer, we would not have failed students for 3 generations.

All children deserve the education they need to become exceptional adults. The freedom to make that choice is fundamental, as charter schools have shown consistently since 1992.

We hope NBC and other news media will find ways to help the public understand that fact, as well as the enormous need that still exists to bring innovation and opportunity to millions more students trapped in failing schools that Hechinger and its friends in the teachers unions irresponsibility seem determined to defend at all costs, including mis-use of data.

If you’d like to discuss this or any other issue, please call us at 202-750-0012 or drop us a note here.

– Jeanne Allen, Founder & CEO

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Media, Privatization, Segregation, Shame

Tom Ultican: Blame the Democrats for the Mind Trust Model of Privatization

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2018 //
17

 

Tom Ultican blames Democrats for the destruction of public schools in Indianapolis, led by the well-funded Mind Trust. 

What he describes is the Democratic party’s betrayal of public education and democracy. It is a shameful legacy, and it is not about the past. It is happening right now.

He writes:

”The Mind Trust is the proto-type urban school privatizing design. Working locally, it uses a combination of national money and local money to control teacher professional development, create political hegemony and accelerate charter school growth. The destroy public education (DPE) movement has identified The Mind Trust as a model for the nation.

“A Little History

“In 1999, Bart Peterson became the first Democrat to win the Indianapolis mayor’s race since 1967. Peterson campaigned on the promise to bring charter schools to Indianapolis. He claimed, “We are simply in an age where cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all, 1950s style education just doesn’t work for a lot of kids. The evidence is the dropout rate. The evidence is the number of at-risk kids who are failing at school.”

“The new mayor joined with Republican state senator Teresa Lubbers to finally achieve her almost decade long effort of passing a charter school law in Indiana. In the new charter school law, Lubbers provided for the mayor of Indianapolis to be a charter school authorizer. Then Democratic governor, Frank O’Bannon, signed the legislation into law.

“During his first run for office, Peterson invited David Harris a 27-year old lawyer with no education background to be his education guy. Harris became the director of the mayor’s new charter school office. By the 2006-2007, the Peterson administration had authorized 16 charter schools.”

He then goes on to quote conservatives who are thrilled to see that Democrats have embraced their privatization agenda.

Tultican lists the board of directors of the Mind Trust. Notably, none are educators.

“It is noteworthy that no school teachers or parent organization leaders are on this board which is dominated by corporate leaders and politicians. It is possible that one of the four school organization chief administrators taught at one time during their career but no one with recent classroom experience is represented.”

Mind Trust leader David Harris became a rising star in the privatization movement. Tultican helpfully lists his peers, all prominent in the “Destroy Public Education Movement.”

And then there are the funders! Gates, Walton, the usual suspects, the crowd that is contemptuous of public schools.

“December 2016 the not so Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) published a lengthy piece lauding privatization and choice in public schools. They held Indianapolis up as being a leader in developing 21st century schools and The Mind Trust as the catalyst. The paper stated:

A key reason is The Mind Trust, founded in 2006 by Mayor Peterson and David Harris as a kind of venture capital outfit for the charter sector, to raise money and recruit talent. The Mind Trust convinced Teach For America (TFA), The New Teacher Project (now TNTP), and Stand for Children to come to Indianapolis, in part by raising money for them. Since then TFA has brought in more than 500 teachers and 39 school leaders (the latter through its Indianapolis Principal Fellowship); TNTP’s Indianapolis Teaching Fellows Program has trained 498 teachers; and Stand for Children has worked to engage the community, to educate parents about school reform, and to spearhead fundraising for school board candidates. The Mind Trust has also raised millions of dollars and offered start-up space, grants, and other help to eight nonprofit organizations and 17 new schools, with more to come.

“The PPI claims that bringing in 500 teachers who commit for just two years and have only five weeks of teacher training improves education. This is supposedly better than bringing in experienced teachers or newly minted teachers who are committed to a career in education and have between one and two years of teacher training at a university.

“They are also saying that having Stand for Children invade Indianapolis with their dark money and undermining local democratic processes is desirable.

“Instead of raising millions of dollars to improve public schools, The Mind Trust is using that money in a way that undermines the education of two-thirds of the students in Indianapolis who attend those public schools.”

This is as good an analysis of the privatization movement as you will read. And an ansolutely devastating critique of the role of the Democratic Party in promoting this anti-democratic attack on public education.

The Mind Trust has taken the lead role in destroying public education in Indianapolis. It is a shameful legacy.

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Democrats, Education Industry, Indianapolis, Privatization, Shame

Bruce Lesley: The Undeclared War on Children

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2018 //
18

 

Bruce Lesley writes here about the Republicans’ efforts to remove health coverage from children.

What kind of person would want children to die because they are uninsured and their parents can’t afford medical care?

He writes:

”The year 2017 may go down as the worst year in decades for children in Congress.

“Children’s Health: CHIP, Medicaid, and the ACA

“When the year begin, on January 3, 2017, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Defense Fund, Children’s Dental Health Project, Children’s Hospital Association, Family Voices, First Focus, and National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners had one simple request of Congress when it came to the health of children Recognizing that 95 percent of children had health care coverage — a historic high — our organizations requested that Congress adopt a “do no harm to children standard.”

Sadly, “do no harm” was too high a standard for this Congress. They decided to inflict harm on millions of children.

 

Categories Childhood, Education Reform, Shame

Our President Sneers at Science

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2018 //
21

 

In his passion to make America “great” again, Trump chooses to ignore science, which has been one of the basic sources of American ingenuity, progress, and economic growth. His idea of “greatness” seems to be firmly rooted in the 1920s, if not earlier.

In this article in the New York Times, two prominent scientists describe Trump’s atavistic disdain for science.

“After almost a year in office, President Trump has yet to name a science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Since World War II, no American president has shown greater disdain for science — or more lack of awareness of its likely costs.

“The O.S.T.P. was authorized by Congress in May 1976 to give the president “independent, expert judgment and assistance on policy matters which require accurate assessments of the complex scientific and technological features involved.” It has played an important role in coordinating national science and technology activities and policies among federal agencies.

“The director of the office, who is nominated by the president and requires Senate approval, typically serves as the president’s science adviser, providing him with confidential, unbiased counsel. Much of what the federal government does and the many policy changes the president and his appointees are now making or hope to make have scientific and technological underpinnings.

“The science adviser is the one individual who can quickly pull all the relevant information together for the president, cut through conflicting advice coming from other senior advisers and Cabinet secretaries, and get evidence-based options in front of him. Especially important has been the adviser’s role in helping the president deal with crises — Sept. 11, the subsequent anthrax attacks, the Fukushima nuclear nightmare in 2011, the Ebola and Zika outbreaks, hurricane devastation and cyberattacks.

“The previous O.S.T.P. director, John Holdren, a physicist and energy-policy expert from Harvard, was named to the position hardly a month after the 2008 elections and was then quickly approved by the Senate. He served throughout President Barack Obama’s two terms. In June 2001, five months into his first term, George W. Bush nominated the physicist John Marburger, then director of Brookhaven National Laboratory, to the post; he served until Dr. Holdren stepped in.

“Today, the O.S.T.P. maintains only a skeleton staff led by the deputy chief technology officer, Michael Kratsios, a technologically inexperienced Silicon Valley financier holding just a bachelor’s degree in political science. The posts of deputy director and four congressionally mandated associate directors remain vacant.

“It’s difficult to know what Mr. Trump really thinks about scientific issues of public concern, but he has rejected the scientific arguments for human-caused climate change and questioned the public-health case for vaccinations. And he has ignored the negative impacts of his immigration bans on American science and technology.”

We are cursed to have a president who is an ignoramus and proud of it.

 

 

Categories Education Reform, Science, Shame, Stupid, Trump

Who Are the Sacklers? The Billionaires Who Make Oxycontin and Fund Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2017 //
14

You might enjoy reading this very informative article in Esquire magazine about the Sackler family.

This is one of the richest families in America, and their name is attached to museums and universities, to perpetuate their philanthropy and greatness.

Their fortune is built on the success of Oxycontin, the painkiller to which many people have become addicted.

Fifty thousand people die per year because of their addiction to Oxycontin.

The Sacklers are also very generous contributors to charter schools.

They funded ConnCAN, and they funded 50CAN. Both organizations demand more privatization of public schools for the benefit of charter operators.

A member of the Sackler family made a movie called “The Lottery,” celebrating the Success Academy charter schools. A great big advertisement.

One of the Sacklers also invested in AltSchool, the faltering attempt to reimagine school as a high-tech environment.

Someday, as the deaths are added up, family members of the deceased may start picketing the museums and universities to take the Sackler name off buildings.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Shame

ProPublica: For-Profit Schools Offer Students Prizes to Recruit Other Students

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2017 //
9

Heather Vogell, an investigative reporter writing for ProPublica and USA Today, reports that for-profit schools are handing out rewards to students who recruit other students or post positive reviews on Facebook. This practice shows the difference between a business—where the bottom line is profit—and a school, which is dedicated to education and human development.

Vogell writes:

“Lyla Elkins transferred to North Nicholas High School in Cape Coral, Florida, in 2016 with hopes of sailing through its computer-based courses and graduating early. She didn’t realize the for-profit charter school would also be a source of income: a $25 gift card each time she persuaded a new student to enroll.

“I referred almost all of my friends,” said Elkins, 17, who earned three gift cards. She also won a Valentine’s Day teddy bear in a raffle for sharing one of the school’s Facebook posts.

“Such incentives are rampant among for-profit operators of public alternative high schools like North Nicholas, which serves students at risk of dropping out. These schools market aggressively to attract new students, especially during weeks when the state is tallying enrollment for funding purposes. They often turn their students into promoters, dangling rewards for plugs on social media, student referrals or online reviews, a ProPublica-USA Today investigation found. Some also offer valuable perks simply for enrolling.

“The schools’ reality is often less inspiring than their promotions. While they face a daunting mission of salvaging students who struggled elsewhere, they’re characterized by high absenteeism, low graduation rates, little instruction from teachers and few extracurricular activities or elective classes. Their intensive recruitment, when coupled with poor outcomes, “is wrong on so many levels,” said Samuel E. Abrams, a professor at Columbia Teachers College and author of a 2016 book on for-profit education. “It’s not addressing the pedagogical needs of these kids.”

“It’s legal for schools to provide gift cards to students for referrals, and free electronic devices, such as tablets or computers, to newcomers. And students are free to express their opinions on their schools. But advertisements have less protection under the First Amendment, and some for-profit school promotions involving online posts or reviews may violate federal consumer safeguards.

“According to the Federal Trade Commission, companies that use students and other groups as social media marketers should instruct them to disclose publicly that they expect to be paid. In settlements with the FTC, companies that failed to encourage such disclosures have agreed to follow the law — or face a potential penalty of up to $40,000 per transgression. Those instances didn’t involve students.”

For-profit companies have no shame in exploiting their students to lure more students.

“Refer-a-friend programs like the one at North Nicholas are common in the sector. “Bring a friend into Mavericks!” said one 2015 Facebook post for a Palm Springs school in the for-profit Florida charter chain. “They will get help getting their diploma and you will get a gift card.” The post promised a $5 gift card for each referral as part of the “Friends & Family Club,” as long as the recipient had acceptable attendance and no disciplinary problems.

“Mavericks’ new parent company, EdisonLearning, hands out Walmart gift cards for student referrals at its “Bridgescape” schools in Illinois and Ohio. It posted pictures on Facebook this past spring of students displaying their prizes. EdisonLearning officials said the gift cards enable low-income students to buy essentials.”

Shameless.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Shame
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