Rev/Dr. Anika Whitfield on Arkansas Decision to Crush Little Rock Teachers’ Union

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2019 //
20

Yesterday the Arkansas State Board of Education voted to return control of the Little Rock School District to the people of Little Rock. This followed massive demonstrations and demands by the citizenry. At the same meeting, the board voted unanimously to deny recognition to the Little Rock Educators Association, which represents 60% of the teachers in the district.

Rev/Dr. Anika Whitfield, an activist in Grassroots Arkansas, was outraged by the latter decision. She is a podiatrist and an ordained minister. For her volunteer fight for public schools and democracy, she is one of the heroes in my new book SLAYING GOLIATH.

She wrote the following response to the board’s stripping of the teachers’ right to join as a union.

October 10, 2019 will be a day marked in Arkansas history as the enslavement of LRSD teachers and educators, a day when democracy and liberation was denied to them.
 
The Auditorium in the Arkansas Department of Education was overflowing with concerned community members from the LRSD.  People who took leave from work to lend their voices for a people’s democracy to a nine member board appointed by a republic/empire run by billionaires and millionaires who maintain their wealth primarily from the economy of persons who earn the lowest compensation.  With the help of Gov. Asa Hutchinson, the Walton Family Foundation, Stephen’s, Inc. and Walter Hussman have been siphoning money from the people in our state who are the most vulnerable, our children.  And, to add insult to injury, they are targeting our children who primarily come from homes were their families are the lowest income earners in our state. The wealthy are maintaining their riches by stealing from the poor.  This a model of capitalism that traces back to the origins of this nation that we call the United States of America. 
 
Yesterday, we witnessed the nine appointed members of the state board of education unanimously remove the collective bargaining power of teachers and educators.  Their coup of sorts was made deliverable through a myriad of chaotic twists and turns of the worst type of confusion and violations of Robert’s Rules of Order.  And, after reflecting on the manner in which the state board of education directors conducted themselves on yesterday, it has become more evident that their goal was to be deceitful and underhanded, to ward off any opportunities for the public to call their hand and stop their votes. 
 
Dr. Sarah Moore, one of the nine appointed directors of the Arkansas State Board of Education, who worked as a Doctoral Academy Fellow at the Office of Education Policy (funded by the Walton Family Foundation) at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, made the initial motion to no longer recognize the Little Rock Educators Association (LREA) at the end of their call meeting on September 27, 2019. Yesterday, Atty Chad Pekron, who was appointed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson to the state board of education in July 2019, made and rescinded two or three motions to overturn, table, and then to vote on Dr. Moore’s tabled motion from the September 27th meeting.
 
After all of the smoke was clear, and the confusion was never resolved, the public realized that the state board of education voted to unanimously deny the Little Rock school teachers and educators the recognition of their union.  What a sad day in Little Rock and in Arkansas history. Justice, Liberation, Equity and Democracy continue to be lawfully denied by the Empire of the Republic of wealth, greed, and fear that is being unjustifiably marketed as a great America.  
Categories Arkansas, Little Rock, Teachers, Unions, Walton Foundation

Arkansas: Inside the Shadowy World of the School “Choice” Movement, Part 2

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2019 //
2

Cathy Frye continues her revelations about her three years working as communications director for a Walton-funded organization deceptively named the Arkansas Public Schools Resource Center (APSRC). As is by now universally known, the Walton family supports charters and vouchers, not public schools. As is less well known, privatizers create organizations with misleading names to fool the suckers. As she explained in part 1, 85% of the rural public school districts in the state of Arkansas pay good money to belong to an organization that does not serve their interests.

She writes:

APSRC uses Constant Contact to email its members. Recipients are divided into various groupings. Some emails are sent only to open-enrollment charter schools. Others only to traditional districts. And still others to anyone and everyone. 

This is where things get dicey. 

You see, APSRC Executive Director Scott Smith is but one of three Arkansas Walton stepchildren vying for the attention of wealthy absentee parents. 

You’ve got Smith representing APSRC, which purports to represent and serve both traditional public school districts and open-enrollment charters. 

Next up is Gary Newton of Arkansas Learns, who happens to be the nephew of Arkansas State Board of Education Chairman Diane Zook. 

And then we have The Reform Alliance, which currently uses a voucher program to “help” special-education students, foster kids, etc… attend private schools  – many of which are faith-based – and to give up any rights they have under the IDEA Act. (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)

All three organizations lobby state lawmakers on behalf of the Waltons. All three are at all times pursuing often contradictory/opposing passages of legislation. All three are always, always at odds with one another. 

The 2017 General Assembly proved to be a challenge for me. If I wrote about private-school-voucher bills, Smith fretted. I found that interesting. I mean, if APSRC truly represents and supports public schools, you’d think he would be right up front testifying before lawmakers with other membership organizations – the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, for example. Or maybe the Arkansas School Board Association. 

And you would think that I would be able to freely report on such bills, testimony and reactions. 

Nope.  Because – horrors! – I might offend Arkansas Learns and/or The Reform Alliance. In other words, I might have angered the generous benefactor of all three competing nonprofits – the Walton Family Foundation. 

Three “competing” organizations all serving one master: the Waltons.

Then she discovered a curious fact. The Waltons were funneling their money to the APSRC through a university.

It was around that time (2017) when I started to question why Southern Arkansas University had been deemed the public entity that would provide  APSRC with HR services. SAU also kept track of our leave time and managed our benefits and retirement plans. 

I would later learn that the SAU Foundation is the recipient of Walton grant funds intended for APSRC. SAU is charged with disseminating the money and administering HR services for APSRC staff. 

When I started working for APSRC, I was given the same (presumably) packet handed to new university employees. 

So why funnel funding through state university foundations? Remember, from 2008 until 2012, the University of Central Arkansas served as APSRC’s Walton-funding dispensary.

Why so devious? Why so much obfuscation?

My hunch is that the Waltons know that what they are selling would be rejected by the public if it had honest labeling. The Waltons really don’t understand that most people like their public schools and don’t want to go to a privately-run charter where they have no voice or to a religious school, and they don’t want to split up their community into competing factions. They want to cheer for the same basketball team and have a senior class that represents the whole community, not a bunch of little schools that open and close on a whim.

I am looking forward to more insider reports from Cathy Frye.

 

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Peter Greene: Beware DFER’s Phony Poll about Democrats and Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2019 //
15

 

Hedge fund managers decided in 2005 that the best way to advance the charter school idea was to create a faux organization called Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), then to funnel campaign cash to Democratic candidates who promised to support charter schools. This worked for a time. Senator Barack Obama spoke at the inaugural meeting of DFER at a penthouse in Manhattan filled with Wall Street types. When Obama was elected, DFER recommended Arne Duncan to be Secretary of Education, and Obama picked him over the highly qualified Linda Darling-Hammond, who had been his spokesperson during the campaign.

But some Democrats realized that DFER was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Democratic Party of California passed a resolution demanding that DFER drop the D because it was a front for corporate interests. The Democratic party of Colorado also passed a resolution denouncing DFER.

In 2016, DFER supported a referendum in Massachusetts to expand the number of charter schools, in company with the Waltons and big Republican donors. The charter campaign went down to a crashing defeat, after charters were denounced by the state Democratic Party and almost every school district committee in the state. The only demographic that supported the expansion of charters was members of the Republican Party.

Today, the loudest champion of charter schools is Betsy DeVos. The biggest allies of the charter movement are Republican governors and legislatures.

Sensing the change in the air, recognizing that charter schools now belong to ALEC and DeVos, almost every  Democratic candidate for President has steered clear of charter schools. Bernie Sanders endorsed the NAACP call for a moratorium on new charters.

But wait! DFER has commissioned a poll to demonstrate that Democrats actually favor charters!

Peter Greene says the poll is baloney. He explains it here. His advice: Ignore it.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, DFER, Education Industry, Fraud, Opinion Polling, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider: Tracing the Origins of an Educational MoneyMaker

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2019 //
57

 

A reader of Mercedes Schneider’s blog asked her to investigate a new curriculum that the state was imposing on all teachers. Schneider took the challenge, which resulted in this post.

I play a role in this venture so I want to explain how I got involved. In 2007 or 2008, I was invited to co-chair a new organization whose purpose was to advocate for the liberal arts. The other co-chair was Antonia Cortese, Secretary-treasurer of the AFT. The board was bipartisan. Our goal was to take a stand against the narrow test-based focus of No Child Left Behind and make the case for the importance of literature, history, and the arts.  The organization was called Common Core Inc., but it had no connection to the “Common Core State Standards,” which did not then exist.

At some point in 2010, the executive director Lynne Munson decided to take money from the Gates Foundation to expand into “curriculum mapping,” changing the original focus from an advocacy group to a purveyor of services, selling its wares. I quit the board.  During the two years of my association with the board, I never received any compensation.

As Schneider shows, Common Core Inc. is now “Great Minds,” and it has a large budget.

It is big business, a part of the education industry.

 

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Arkansas: State Board Votes to Restore Local Control to Little Rock But Read the Fine Print

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2019 //
2

 

The Arkansas State Board of Education planned to restore local control to schools in the whitest part of Little Rock, but the community rose up in opposition and demanded the restoration of the entire district, one Little Rock.

Massive crowds gathered to raise their voices in protest and the state board folded.

THE ARKANSAS STATE Board of Education abandoned its previously adopted plan to relinquish only partial control of Little Rock School District after widespread pushback by thousands of teachers, parents, students and community activists who argued it would have catapulted the city into another era of segregated schools.

Instead, the board voted unanimously Thursday to return control of the entire school district to a locally elected school board under a yet-to-be-agreed-upon memorandum of understanding with the state that will include some continued monitoring of the city’s poorest performing schools.

The decision, prompted by a surprise motion to scrap the previous plan, shocked many gathered at a meeting to protest it who were expecting to face stiff opposition by the governor-appointed board.

Cathy Frye, who has been writing about her experiences inside the shadowy world of school choice in Arkansas, says that the battle is won, but the war is not. 

She says the decision was a tactical retreat by the Waltons. They won’t give up. They want the property.

She writes:

The Arkansas State Board of Education, during what appeared to be a meticulously staged meeting, voted Thursday to return the Little Rock School District to local control. 

This about-face occurred because state leaders and board members feared further public shaming and opted instead for an awkward retreat.

Stakeholders celebrated the vote, only to get a clapback from the state board when it next voted to oust the Little Rock Education Association. (As we all know, Governor Asa Hutchinson and his GOP underlings loathe unions.) 

Remember, the Waltons have invested millions in organizations that lobby specifically for the Arkansas school -“choice” movement. Despite today’s vote to reinstate local control, the Walton Family Foundation will persist in its efforts to dismantle LRSD and other districts that might appeal to charter-school leaders and the private-school crowd.

Again, they don’t just want your students and the funding that follows them. They want your facilities. (More on that below.) 

Right now, given public sentiment, the Waltons will let things quiet down. But you can bet that the various nonprofits that they fund already are stepping up their behind-the-scenes efforts to get their projects back on track. 

It is imperative that the various grassroots organizations involved in fending off the Waltons’ school grabs remain intersectional and vigorous in their efforts to protect their districts, teachers, students, and, again, their buildings. You have won a battle. Not the war.

She offers some concrete advice for the Resistance.

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Little Rock, Privatization, Walton Foundation

If You Want to Read Teresa Hanafin Every Day, Sign Up Here

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2019 //
2

 

My Favorite morning news summary is Fast Forward, written by Teresa Hanafin of the Boston Globe.

I skip the local sports report, but love her tips from the Old Farmers’ Almanac, and her commentaries on national politics.

I often quote her column. You can sign up here. 

Categories Humor, Media

“Education Deans for Justice and Equity” Speak Out Against Market-Based Disruption

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2019 //
8

 

At last! The leaders of 350 teacher education programs have issued a bold statement in collaboration with the National Education Policy Center denouncing attacks on teacher education and market-based “remedies.”

The group calls itself Education Deans for Justice and Equity.

Their efforts contrast with those of a group called “Deans for Impact,” funded in 2015 by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, which supports charter schools (such as KIPP, Achievement First, and Uncommon Schools), Teach for America, Educators for Excellence, New Leaders, TNTP, Conservative Leaders for Education, Teach Plus, Stand for Children, and a long list of other Corporate Reform ventures. Deans for Impact has 24 members. The founder and executive director of Deans for Impact is Benjamin Riley, former director of policy and advocacy at the NewSchools Venture Fund, which is heavily endowed by billionaire foundations to launch charter schools and promote education technology.

The statement of Education Deans for Justice and Equity criticizes such disruption agents as Teach for America (which places inexperienced, unprepared college graduates into challenging urban and rural classrooms), the National Council on Teacher Quality (which pretends to evaluate teacher education programs without having the knowledge or experience to do so and without ever setting foot in the institutions they grade), the Relay “Graduate School of Education” (a program intended to grant master’s degrees to charter teachers that lacks the necessary elements of a graduate institution, such as scholars and research), and Pearson’s EdTPA (which seeks to replace human judgement of prospective teachers with a standardized tool).

Their statement begins:

Teachers are important, as is their preparation. We, Education Deans for Justice and Equity, support efforts to improve both. But improving teaching and teacher education must be part of larger efforts to advance equity in society.

Whether crediting teachers as the single most important factor in student success or blaming and scapegoating them for failing schools that only widen social and economic dispari- ties, many of the stories that circulate about education presume that it’s all about the teacher. Concerned less with the system of education and more with the individual actor, this rhetoric tends to reduce the problem of education to the shortcomings of individuals. The solution correspondingly focuses on incentives and other market-based changes.

Without a doubt, teacher-education programs cannot and should not operate as if all is well, because it is not. Several current efforts to reform teacher education in the United States, however, are making things worse. Although stemming from a wide range of actors (includ- ing the federal government, state governments, and advocacy organizations), these trends share a fundamental flaw: They focus on “thin” equity.

In their recently published book, Reclaiming Accountability in Teacher Education,1 Marilyn Cochran-Smith and colleagues contrast two understandings of equity. “Thin” equity defines the problem as the curtailing of individual rights and liberties, and the resulting solutions focus on equal access and market-based changes. In contrast, “strong” equity defines the problem as the legacies of systemic injustices, and the resulting solutions focus on increas- ing participatory democracy. Because thin-equi ty reforms obscure the legacies of systemic injustices, and instead focus narrowly on student achievement, teacher accountability, re- wards, and punishments, improving teacher education requires moving away from these and toward strong-equity reforms.

Below, we identify seven current trends impacting teacher education (including at many of our institutions) that are grounded in thin-equity understandings. In a number of ways, these approaches lack a sound research basis, and in some instances, they have already proven to widen disparities. Following a discussion of these trends, we present our alternative vision for teacher-education reform.

First, marketizing teacher education. Most teacher education in the United States happens at universities, and with much variability. Nonetheless, the long-touted claim that higher education’s “monopoly” over teacher education results in mediocrity and complacency has resulted in increased competition by way of “alternative” routes—some that meet state stan- dards (and some that do not), and some that involve little to no formal preparation via fast- track programs. These include non-university-based programs like the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence; programs that partner with universities, like Teach For America; and programs that identify as institutions of higher education, like the Relay Grad- uate School of Education. Such faith in the market to drive improvement frames Congress’s recent rewrite of Title II of ESSA, which allows for public funds to support both non-profit and for-profit alternative certification programs and routes. The problem? Merely expand- ing competition without building the capacity of all programs to prepare teachers has led not to improvement, but to widened disparities among students and increased corporate profiteering off of education.

Second, shaming teacher education. The assumption that shaming will spur effort to com- pete is another way to place faith in the market to drive improvement. Such is the approach of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) in its annual Teacher Prep Review, which scores (and, for the most part, gives failing grades to) teacher-education programs using an eight-dimension framework. Since its inception, the vast majority of programs nationwide have opted not to participate and share materials for review, citing NCTQ’s faulty methods of review and the lack of research basis for its framework.

Third, externally regulating teacher education at the federal level. The twice-proposed, Obama-era Teacher Preparation Regulations were never implemented, but their “value-add- ed” logic reverberates in other reforms, including NCTQ’s review and the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) accreditation. Measurement experts warn that the use of value-added modeling to determine the effectiveness of teachers to raise test scores, and in turn, the effectiveness of programs to prepare teachers to do so, are neither reliable nor statistically valid.

These are three of the seven malign trends they discuss. Open the link to read the statement in full. It is short and won’t take more than five minutes of reading time.

It is very encouraging to see the leaders of teacher education stand up for professionalism and research-based practice, and to take a stand against quackery.

Categories Equity, Higher Education, Justice, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), National Education Policy Center, Teach for America, Teacher Education

Arkansas: Inside the Shadowy World of the School “Choice” Movement, Part 1

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2019 //
7

Cathy Frye is an experienced journalist who switched careers. Three years ago, she was hired to work for the Arkansas Public School Resource Center as communications director. Before she was hired, she was asked if she had any qualms about charter schools, and she said no. When she quit her job in June 2019, she decided to tell what she had learned, and she started to report about her experiences on her blog. 

Here is the lowdown. Eighty-five percent of the rural public school districts in the state belong to the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, but the APSRC is a Walton-funded school choice operation.

When Frye quit, she said she felt a burden lift.

No more working in an environment steeped in secrecy and paranoia. No more placating a male boss who acted more like an abusive stalker ex-boyfriend than an actual leader. No more weird workplace silos that left “team leaders” completely in the dark as to what other departments were doing. No more legislative education committee meetings that reeked of conspiracy, deception and stale men’s suits in dire need of dry-cleaning. 

I think the turning point for me was when, at the beginning of APSRC’s annual membership drive in the spring/summer of 2019, Smith said on three occasions – in my presence – that “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” 

“Them” refers to public school districts – as in APSRC’s current member districts and potential member districts.

I spent decades looking for facts. I believe in transparent and ethical journalistic practices.

Baffle them with bullshit?

Um, that’s a hard no. 

We’re talking about the education of Arkansas’ children. We’re talking about the teachers who work long hours for pitiful pay. We’re talking about inadequate funding, inadequate facilities and the fact that the state has taken its largest school district hostage just so that it can take it apart and reinstate segregation in the Little Rock School District.

There will be no “baffle them with bullshit” from my little corner of the universe. 

Also, covering the 2019 legislative session left me disturbed and downright angry about what is happening in public education. The 2017 General Assembly gave me serious pause. The 2019 session revealed the seamiest side of the school-”choice” movement.

In this post and those that will follow, I’m going to share the details of my three years at APSRC. Since quitting, I’ve learned that most people – even those in education – don’t realize how APSRC is structured or how it operates. Yes, it’s a nonprofit primarily funded by the Waltons. But it’s also a powerful and influential force where the governor and state Legislature are concerned. 

This is a blog that I will follow.

The Waltons, like their fellow billionaires the Kochs and the DeVos family, are dedicated to the destruction of public schools.

How clever to launch a “public school resource center” with which to peddle their anti-public school venom.

 

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Fraud, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Peter Greene: A Teacher’s Final Lesson

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2019 //
10

 

This post is a moving tribute to a teacher who died of cancer at the age of 32.

Ashley Kuzma exhausted every possibility, holding on to life as long as she could.

She wrote her obituary.

She reminds us about what matters most.

I urge you to read it.

 

Categories Education Reform

Los Angeles: School Board Committee Rejects Plan to Give Schools a Single Grade

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2019 //
9

The Resistance won a big victory in Los Angeles.

Thanks to newly elected LAUSD board member Jackie Goldberg, a key committee of the school board rejected a plan to assign a single grade to every school. 

The idea of grading schools with a single letter was first hatched by Jeb Bush, in his relentless push to impose test-based accountability on every public school in Florida and to set up those with the worst grades to be privatized.

Several states have adopted the Jeb Bush plan, and in every case, the letter grade was a reliable proxy for students’ family income. The schools where poor students predominated received the lowest grades and were fair game for the charter industry.

Jackie Goldberg has a long history as a teacher, school board member, and state legislator, and she strongly opposed the plan.

Nick Melvoin, who was elected with the help of millions of dollars contributed by Eli Broad and other friends of the charter lobby, proposed the plan.

The Los Angeles Unified school board’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee approved a resolution introduced by board member Jackie Goldberg that calls for the district to suspend implementation of “any use of stars, scores, or any other rating system” for its schools. 

The committee’s action includes a shift in support by Kelly Gonez, who says she now opposes assigning single ratings to schools. Gonez last yearco-sponsored a resolution with board member Nick Melvoin that called for creating a school performance framework that would include a “single, summative rating for each school.”  The board approved that resolution in April 2018. 

Goldberg’s resolution, which is expected to pass when it goes before the full board Nov. 5, would effectively kill the idea to give all schools in the district a single rating, which Melvoin says would allow the district to better identify and help struggling schools…

The three board members on the committee — McKenna, Scott Schmerelson and Gonez — voted unanimously to send Goldberg’s resolution to the full board, where it needs four votes to pass. Board member Richard Vladovic also indicated to EdSource that he supports the new resolution. Goldberg’s expected vote would give the resolution a five-vote majority on the seven-member board…

Goldberg’s resolution says that summative rankings “promote unhealthy competition between schools” and “penalize schools that serve socioeconomically disadvantaged student populations.” 

Jackie Goldberg proves that one person can make a difference. She does so by dint of superior experience, knowledge, and intellect.

The billionaires once owned the LAUSD. They bought it, fair and square.

No longer.

Be on alert for the next school board election. The sharks will gather round again.

 

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization, Resistance
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