Terry Grier Makes Houston Schools Awful Enough to Win the Broad Prize

The picture above is of Arne Duncan and Eli Broad having a swell time at Barack Obama's inauguration party in 2008.  The picture below is Arne and Eli in 2013, this time accompanied by the poster boy for CorpEd's model of segregated urban reform schools, Terry Grier.  With his systemwide No Excuses model in place in Houston, Grier has made life so miserable for teachers and students alike that it has earned him this year's Broad Prize for Urban Education.  Last year 700 teachers had quit by January, which, of course, brings in more white corporate missionaries from TFA to replace real teachers.  These new positive psychology-induced Corp Members will fall on their clipboards for the Corporate Cause until they are discarded for a new crop.

The letter excerpted below was posted by Diane Ravitch at her blog in June.  It is from a Houston teacher who has witnessed what is happening to teachers and children in Houston's public schools. 

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. . . .This letter is about a teacher awakening to the grim political reality of what is deceptively called “education reform.” Her letter should go viral.

She writes:

“This is the sick process education reform has created in big city districts. They just churn through teachers, especially new ones, as fast as they can with no regard to the person’s life, skill set, or qualifications. The harm they do to the students by destabilizing their neighborhood schools cannot be measured. They don’t care if you are a blazing success in the classroom; your teaching certificate is basically meaningless to the administration.

She goes on to add:

” In the student’s mind, a standard classroom teacher is a disposable throwaway. They see no reason to follow the rules, do their homework, or take the exams seriously. They know the teacher will probably get fired, possibly in the middle of the year. They have no respect for their teacher, and no reason to believe their teacher has any ability to discipline or instruct.

“This is the message inner city students have been receiving for over a decade. This is the message reformers convey to the students, the parents, and the taxpayer.

“At new teacher orientation you are led to believe something much different; at the job fair, and in the media, you are told that working for HISD is wonderful, with a fair evaluation system, great pay, and fabulous bonuses.

“Working at HISD is the biggest mistake I have ever made.

“I was warned about education reform. I was told not to do this, and I didn’t listen.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know what “education reform” meant…I thought it was a bunch of talented people swapping ideas about how to best educate the children of poverty. I thought it would be fun, challenging, and engaging. In my ridiculous mind, I could see a group of teachers sharing ideas, lesson plans, and stories. I really believed I was going to learn something positive about public school. I didn’t know it was a scam engineered to deprofessionalize the teaching business, and hand the jobs off to cash strapped ivy leaguers that couldn’t find positions in their fields of study.

“Now I know that people like Michelle Rhee made millions off the backs of the teachers she fired. I know that most of these people have cheated, including some in my own Apollo program. The Atlanta Journal Constitution even did a nationwide study, and can prove mathematically that these districts have failed to educate these students in spite of their “so-called” reforms. This wrong-to-right erasure math is indisputable…

“As for me, I don’t need a study; I can tell everyone about the chaos, the achievement gap, the poverty, the filth, the lies, and the smokescreen.

“It is funny that Arne Duncan (Obama’s Secretary of Education #erasetothetop) came out here and toured Lee HS with my SIO, and he listened to a few talented students, and the police cracked down on the school before his arrival, and they managed to sign up all of the students to some kind of college (mostly 2 year institutions) and convince Arnie that it is a “turnaround success.” But you only have to look at him closely to see he is a Walmart kind of guy. And now we have the privatization of the public trust…we have the Walton Foundation, The Broad Foundation, The Gates Foundation, and countless other vultures, and venture capitalists, including Pearson (the great testing empire), all throwing money to this “teacher witch hunt” fully engaged in the age-old philosophy of “you gotta spend a buck to make a buck.” So, they are making the bucks off of me and my students, and I am helpless to stop them.”

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The Broad Prize for Corporate Domination Goes to Charlotte-Mecklenburg

Why is everyone smiling except the two school officials?

That photogenic charlatan and former superintendent, Peter Gorman (Broad Class of '04) caused all sorts of grief for Charlotte educators, parents, and students before he was scooped up by Rupert Murdoch (Aaaargh!) to serve as one of Murdoch's chief edu-lackeys. Just in time, too, as Charlotte parents and teachers were ready last Spring to tar and feather Broad's man,  Gorman, for introducing 52 new tests to enable a new teacher evaluation scheme based on, what else, test scores:

Skeptical parents and adamant administrators are squaring off over a surge of new testing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, as teachers watch warily and brace for hours of new work.

Next week CMS will launch trial versions of 52 new tests, including an exam for kids as young as kindergarteners who must be tested one-on-one. The tests will be used to evaluate teachers, as the budget shrinks and officials prepare to lay off faculty.

In order to try to salvage the corporate reform schooling PR train wreck in Charlotte, Broad produced $3 million in pocket change to pay for the 52 tests, and three days ago the bare-knuckled philanthrocapitalist picked CMS as winner of the Broad Prize for their continued loyalty to corporate money.

The Broad Foundation has given CMS about $3 million to analyze data and test students, some of that with an eye to crafting the district's Pay for Performance plans.

Mark Anderson, a principal at Crown Point Elementary school, isn't so sure what he thinks about all that money, but he's proud of the district for taking the top prize.

"The pay for performance, well, that varies, but I'm just happy that $550,000 will be used to send kids to college. That's the most important thing to me," said Anderson.

The scholarships will range from $5,000 to $20,000 for needy seniors to help pay for college or trade school. All of the money must be awarded to this year's seniors.

CMS sent several administrators to the ceremony with the help of a grant from the local CD Spangler Foundation. Former Superintendent Peter Gorman was also there. He graduated from the Broad's superintendent training academy seven years ago.

With the search on for a new superintendent and school board elections in November, it's not clear what the district's direction will be. Critics say the Broad foundation and other private donors are trying to take local control away from public schools by influencing education leaders and rewarding certain policies.

Eli Broad, the wealthy businessman who founded the group, says he hopes this award will help convince the public that CMS is on the right course.

"I think if they look at the record and recognize they were chosen as the best district in all districts of urban America, that they'd want to continue with the successful policies they've had," says Broad.

The panel that chose CMS includes three former US education secretaries and the former president of the Service Employees International Union.. . .

At left is Broad, Steve Barr, and the then-president of SEIU, Andy Stern, at a fundraiser for Green Dot Public Schools, Inc. in  2007

Broad Winner Led Texas in "School-to-Prison Pipeline"

From the Texas Tribune:

"The School-to-Prison Pipeline"

by Matt Stiles and Brian Thevenot

When it comes to discipline, the Aldine Independent School District doesn’t mess around. The large suburban district expelled more students last year — 525 — than any other district in Texas, despite being a fraction of the size of large urban districts, according to state data.

Aldine boots nearly three times as many students as neighboring Houston ISD — which expelled 181 students in 2008-09 — even though its enrollment, about 67,000, is only a third the size. The forced-out students get processed into either the Harris County Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program or one of two “very strict” special schools run by the Harris County Department of Education, an unusual agency that provides services to area districts but runs no schools for the general public, according to agency spokeswoman Carol Vaughn. An additional 1,399 students were shipped off to a district alternative program — not technically expelled but removed from traditional classes.

[Continued here]

The 2008-2009 school year was also the year the Broad Foundation gave Aldine the Broad Prize for Urban Education.

The 2008-2009 finalists for the award also included Gwinnett County (whose board member erroneously believed her district had won the prize; her statement was revised after I notified her that Aldine was the winner) and the Broward County Schools (which lost a school board member and county commissioner in an FBI sting in late 2009).