Charter Schools USA, H4QED, and the Indiana State Board of Ed

By Doug Martin

UPDATE:  Charter School USA, in fact, was one of the sponsors of the school privatization rally at the statehouse today.  See pic at the end of this article:

As I point out in Hoosier School Heist, if it wasn’t for the Bush family, Charter Schools USA (CS USA) would never have been imported from Florida into Indiana.  As my book details, CS USA has been buying Indiana politicians for some time.  And now, they are at it again, out to ask the state board of education for more expansion, which is why people need to see that the battle between Pence, Republicans, and fake Democrats against Ritz over control of the state board is a battle between pro-school privatizing millionaires and everyone else.

CS USA is calling for the state to allow IPS’s Emma Donnan middle school (a state takeover school run by CS USA) to now expand to a K-8 facility.  Hayleigh Colombo, at Chalkbeat Indiana, writes that “under a less direct partnership, the school would still work with IPS and the district could count the school’s test scores under the state A to F accountability system. In return, IPS would help the charter school recruit students in lower grades to the school.”

In other words, CS USA wants to continue to make money from the school, as opposed to giving it back fully to IPS, while IPS recruits the students for the charter school company and takes the heat for bad test scores. 

SOME HISTORY AND AN UPDATE ON THE BUYOUT

Jeb Bush’s buddy (and Bush family friend) Jon Hage owns Charter Schools USA, which now operates Emma Donnan Middle School, Emmerich Manual High School, and the Thomas Carr Howe Community High School in Indianapolis.  

From the looks of recent campaign finance records, Hage and crew want to really expand operations in the Hoosier state.

In 2014, CS USA joined the Amway/Walmart/Hedge Fund PAC (now called Hoosiers for Quality Education, or H4QED, a billionaire front group holding a rally today in Indy) in Indiana, handing the PAC $5,000. 

That same year, CS USA also gave House Education Committee chairperson Bob Behning, who now desires to be an education reform lobbyist, $2,000.

Since 2012, CS USA has given $23,000 to politicians and PACS in Indiana, alone.

But it doesn’t end there.  Red Apple Development, the real estate branch of CS USA, has also given big money:  $17,000 since 2012.  This year they contributed $5,000 to the Hoosiers for Quality Education PAC, which funds David Long, Brian Bosma, and a whole slew of Republicans now attacking Glenda Ritz and teachers.

In total, Jeb Bush friend Jon Hage’s CS USA and Red Development have dropped $40,000 into Indiana campaign funds since 2012.

THIS MY FRIENDS

The school privatizing state board will do what the charter school companies want, plain and simple.  Recently, as Chalkbeat Indiana reported, state board member Dan Elsener (who is a major player in my book Hoosier School Heist) said. “We didn’t say we’re no longer intervening at Arlington and we’re giving it back to IPS. We were careful there. We took responsibility. If we just say, ‘It’s over now, everything’s fine,’ I’m not too sure that’s realistic.

Elsener stressed the school remains under state oversight even if IPS resumes operation of the school.”

Since House Bill 1638 is now in the works for the state to take over even more Indiana schools, Ritz is an obstacle to the billionaires and millionaires. This, my friends, is why Republicans and Wall Street Democrats like Gordon Hendry want Glenda Ritz out of the way.  More people need to understand this and say it loud and clear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Doesn't This Feel Liberating?

Besides plugging Arne Duncan as the best hope to carry NCLB forward to its corporatizing conclusion, W had a few other truths this week to inspire a public made giddy with glee that he is finally leaving. In his final public policy speech, we find that W is not only the liberator of the Middle East, but also the liberator of us all via NCLB:

Now, under this system, if your public school is failing, you'll have the option of transferring to another public school or charter school. And it's -- I view that as liberation. I view that as empowerment.

Yes, yes, yes. Schools, indeed, have been liberated--from art, music, P.E., social studies, and even science. Throw in, or throw out, rather, Black History, health, holiday lore, assemblies, field trips, and recess and you have some real liberation, yes? Children have been empowered to cram their brains with testing items and to learn like parrots, all punctuated by their marching silently in the hallways to lunch 30 inches apart in lockstep.

Schools, yes, have been liberated from teachers who care too much or are too ethical to be part of the bureaucracies of sanctioned child abuse that schools have become in poor communities. Many of the teachers remaining have become empowered to create harsh behavior control regimens and to treat children as if it is their fault that they are not passing tests that would, otherwise, provide a teacher testing bonus. Urban schools have been liberated of most of their caring teachers.

Schools, too, have been liberated out of existence, to be replaced by charter chain gangs or church school vouchers that are no better or even worse than the impoverished public schools that are being shuttered. Charter school principals and mayors have been empowered to hire and fire at will without regard for due process or collective bargaining, while these same administrators have been liberated from any oversight or dissent from democratically-elected board members.

And children, yes, they have been liberated, too, from caring about what they are forced to "learn," liberated from any historical or cultural contexts for the factoids they parrot back at teachers. They have become empowered to pursue an anti-cultural sameness and a crass economic fundamentalism that makes education irrelevant unless it is motivated by a financial or other extrinsic reward.

Finally, the public has been liberated from a concern for what is imporant, what is significant educationally to sustain our republic, to maintain our political and cultural values, to preserve our ethics, to restore our environment, to even survive in the world as one of the best reasons to hope for the future of humankind.

As Cal State professor, Art Costa, has said, "What was once educationally significant, but difficult to measure, has been replaced by what is insignificant and easy to measure. So now we test how well we have taught what we do not value."

And yet he will not leave yet. He remains this week still the clueless and dangerous simpleton made senseless to the world by an unconscious convoluted stream of ideological bromides that are simply stunning in their absurdity and outlandishness:

The key to measuring is to test. And by the way, I've heard every excuse in the book why we should not test -- oh, there's too many tests; you teach the test; testing is intrusive; testing is not the role of government. How can you possibly determine whether a child can read at grade level if you don't test? And for those who claim we're teaching the test, uh-uh. We're teaching a child to read so he or she can pass the test.

Testing is important to solve problems. You can't solve them unless you diagnose the problem in the first place. . . .

To sum up Bush and to mangle T. S. Eliot all at the same time,

. . . And the end of all his exploring
Will be to arrive where he started
And still not know the place for the first time.

Decider Speaks: "Childrens Do Learn"

From Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Offering a grammar lesson guaranteed to make any English teacher cringe, President George W. Bush told a group of New York school kids on Wednesday: "Childrens do learn."

Bush made his latest grammatical slip-up at a made-for-TV event where he urged Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, the centerpiece of his education policy, as he touted a new national report card on improved test scores.

The event drew New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plus teachers and about 20 fourth and fifth graders from P.S. 76.

During his first presidential campaign, Bush -- who promised to be the "education president" -- once asked: "Is our children learning?"

On Wednesday, Bush seemed to answer his own question with the same kind of grammatical twist.

"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured," he said.

The White House opted to clean up Bush's diction in the official transcript.

Bush is no stranger to verbal gaffes. He often acknowledges he was no more than an average student in school and jokes about his habit of mangling the English language.

Just a day earlier, the White House inadvertently showed how it tries to prevent Bush from making even more slips of the tongue than he already does.

As Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, a marked-up draft of his speech briefly popped up on the U.N. Web site, complete with a phonetic pronunciation guide to get him past troublesome names of countries and world leaders.

A little humor, yes

This from David Corn--apparently he doing a little stand-up these days:

So Bush recently reiterated that he believes intelligence design should be taught in public schools. He says evolution is just a theory and intelligence design is just a theory. So why not teach both theories? Well, I have a theory. I believe that Bush believes in intelligence design because he knows that the only way he could have become president was...through divine intervention.