Murdoch Dumps Klein's Amplify: Stock Worth Minus 42 Cents Per Share

After Rupert hired NYC's former chancellor and education profiteer, Joel Klein, News Corps spent a billion dollars to promote Amplify's digital education solution, which amounts to cheap laptops loaded with an endless supply digital worksheets for schoolchildren of the poor.  

This week Murdoch fired Klein and sold what remains of a busted company, taking a beating in the process. That's what I call a serious feedback issue.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Max Mason
Published: October 1, 2015 - 4:02PM

News Corporation has sold its digital education play Amplify for an undisclosed sum after the loss-making business laid off 500 employees, or about 50 per cent of its workforce.

The sale was flagged at News Corp's financial results in August, where Amplify was the driving force behind the media conglomerate's $US149 million full-year loss, thanks to a $US371 million write-down in the digital education business.

News Corp said Amplify had been sold to a management team supported by a group of private investors.

Amplify was born from the purchase of Wireless Generation for around $US390 million in 2010.

News Corp originally bought Wireless Generation, expanded and relaunched the business as Amplify with the former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, Joel Klein, as chief executive.

Larry Berger, the co-founder of Wireless Generation, who was president of Amplify Learning, will reportedly become chief executive of Amplify.

Mr Klein will remain on the board of News Corp.

Deutsche Bank estimated that Amplify would have made a $US117 million loss in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the 2016 financial year, with a valuation of negative $US235 million, or negative US42¢ per share.

News Corp has invested more than $US1 billion in Amplify and chief financial officer Bedi Singh told investors at the briefing in August that results had been disappointing. At the time, News Corp said it had stopping selling products to new customers and was in the final phase of talks to sell Amplify.

The majority of the 500 job cuts, a mix of full- and part-time employees, took place on Tuesday, US time, with the remainder of affected staff staying through the transition period.

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson said the company was extremely proud of Amplify's work.

"It is tragic that so many children are digitally literate but functionally illiterate, and it has been the cherished vision of all at Amplify to ensure that students, regardless of their background, have access to a contemporary curriculum delivered on a contemporary platform," Mr Thomson said.

"There is no doubt that the foundations laid by the creative team at Amplify will be profoundly influential in coming years as both curriculum and classroom evolve. All who have been involved in the Amplify business at News Corp should be conscious of their contribution to education in the US and beyond."

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/news-corp-exits-digital-education-business-amplify-20151001-gjyp19.html

Klein Doing Damage Control for Deasy While Selling His Own Tablet Solution

Ole McChoakumchild, himself, Joel Klein, had his media mothballs removed long enough this morning to go on CBS to pretend to defend "Dr." John Deasy's slimeware that he provided for Apple hardware  and Pearson software to complete the Los Angeles IPad fiasco deal.  What he was really for is to get Murdoch's Amplify tablets under the national spotlight.

And what a salesman Klein is!  A rather feisty report on the panel at CBS told Klein she had read that much of what kids "learned" on screen was retained for a very short time.  How do you make sure that is not happening? 

Klein's answer: you give them informal assessments more often, beginning immediately after they read something.  That's Rupert's boy!

From the LA Times:

. . . Emails and other documents, some of which were released under a California Public Records Act request Friday, showed detailed — and numerous — contacts between Deasy, Deputy Supt. Jaime Aquino and the corporate executives.

 

It appears that the officials began discussing the school system's effort to supply students computers equipped with online curriculum at least two years before the contract was approved.

In one email, from May 24, 2012, Aquino seems to strategize with higher-ups from Pearson on how to ensure that it got the job.

"I believe we would have to make sure that your bid is the lowest one," wrote Aquino, who was an executive with a Pearson affiliate before joining L.A. Unified.

Deasy was one of the last to participate in that email exchange and made his comments after Aquino's, which covered several topics.

"Understand your points and we need to work together on this quickly," Deasy wrote. "I want to not loose [sic] an amazing opportunity and fully recognize our current limits."

On Sunday, Deasy said that the conversations were only about a "pilot program we did at several schools months before we decided to do a large-scale implementation. We did work closely on this pilot."

Deasy said he recalled that Aquino also offered another major vendor, Amplify Education Inc., a similar opportunity.

"Nothing was done in any inappropriate way whatsoever," the superintendent said. "Of course I talk to people. I would be expected to."

Aquino left L.A. Unified at the end of last year and has not responded to interview requests. . . .

Indiana DOE Stalls FOIA Naming Joel Klein and Jeb Bush and Detailing the Dog and Pony Tony Tour

*Updated in body of text

GUEST POST: 

Indiana Department of Education Fails to Release Documents on Tony Bennett, Jeb Bush, and Other School Privatizers

By Doug Martin

On Friday afternoon, just days before the next state supt. of public education will be elected, Indiana’s Public Access Counselor, Joseph B. Hoage, quietly voiced his opinion on the Indiana Department of Education failing to release Freedom of Information Act documents that likely, when forced by law to be made public, will show the crony capitalism behind Tony Bennett and Jeb Bush’s school privatization plan for Indiana.

Here is the background.  On February 16th, the Washington D.C. nonprofit, In the Public Interest, requested private emails and other files from Tony Bennett, and the IDOE has failed to do comply with this in a timely matter.  Thus, ITPI, on October 4th, filed a formal complaint with Hoage’s Indiana PAC office, which reads in part:

In this request, the Indiana Department of Education has yet to produce documents despite acknowledgement of the request and the beginning of the review of responsive records on March 15, 2012.  Even after In the Public Interest limited the scope of the request in August 2012—a limitation within the records the Department claimed it had begun collecting over six months ago—the Department has yet to produce documents.  This failure to produce in such a long period of time is unreasonable. See Opinion of the Public Access Counselor 08-FC-162 (finding unreasonableness for a public records request dated January 2008 when the complaint was filed June 27, 2008 despite the public records request being “more involved than is standard”).

Undoubtedly, the original request was specific enough for the IDOE to take immediate action, even though they deny this.  In part, this earliest demand reads:

From January 1, 2010 to the date of this request, please provide a copy of all communication (including, but not limited to, email, fax, and written) “created, received, maintained, or filed with” Tony Bennett , Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction and/or his designees and the following people and organizations.

The request names Jeb Bush, as well as Joel Klein of Wireless Generation.

It continues with:

Additionally, please provide copies of any and all records of the Superintendent’s expenses that were paid for by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the Foundation for Florida’s Future, or the Alliance for Excellent Education from January 1, 2010 to the date of this request.

As Fort Wayne Journal Gazette’s Karen Francisco has noted, Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education paid for Bennett’s visit to D.C. on November 15, 2011, to commingle with Arne Duncan and chairman of the U.S. House Education Committee, John Kline. Besides charter schools and virtual learning outfits, the Foundation for Excellence in Education markets the fake parent trigger law, too, a hot button in Indiana.

To hint at what we might find when Bennett is finally forced to release his emails, let us look to a similar FOIA request from ITPI in Maine, which had no problem releasing the files.  In September, Portland Press Herald‘s Colin Woodard detailed over 1,000 FOIA documents concerning Jeb Bush’s role in promoting for-profit online learning schools with Maine’s educational commissioner, Steven Bowen, and Governor Paul LePage.  Essentially, Maine officials let Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education execute its Digital Learning Now! plan for the state, which includes, among other things, a requirement that all students take an online course in order to receive a high school diploma, as does the Indiana plan.  In this passage, Woodard connects the cronyism:

K12 was especially engaged in lobbying on the charter school bill and other legislation connected with digital learning. K12 has paid $33,074 to Augusta lobbyists since 2009, and contributed $19,000 to LePage’s election effort through the RGA Maine PAC. Connections paid Maine lobbyists $3,950 last year, all of it in connection with the charter bill, which allowed virtual schools but required that they be governed by local nonprofit organizations.

K12, Inc. and Connections Academy (now owned by Pearson) have been flooding campaign donations to Bennett and Indiana Republicans.  Contributions to Bennett go back to 2008, when K12 threw $2,000 his way and both online privatization outfits donated to Indiana corporate school representatives Brian Bosma, Theresa Lubbers, and Robert Behning, as they made their plans to privatize Indiana schools.  Last year, Bennett received $5,000 from K12. Both K12 and Connections Academy fund Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, as well.

In Indiana, K12 runs three Hoosier Academies, two of which have been given an “F” grade and one a “D.” They also operate Indiana blending-learning schools. Rupert Murdoch and Joel Klein’s Wireless Generation is also active in the state, fundingBennett’s campaigns.

As I and others have extensively pointed out, Jeb Bush has hyped his anti-public school operations in Indiana for years now. In2009, he spoke at the Bill Gates-Fordham Foundation sponsored Indiana Education Roundtable, whose representatives include Carol D’Amico, a former George W. Bush-appointed National Board for Education Sciences board member. This year, Jeb picked Tony Bennett to boss his D.C.-based corporate school reform group, Chiefs for Change, alongside Maine’s Steven Bowen and former Edison Schools’ Chris Cerf (now New Jersey’s commissioner of education) who profited handsomely when the then-Florida governor bought out the company’s failing stock with teachers’ retirement funding, a maneuver sticking state pensioners to this day with a $182 million investment in a company out to destroy public education and unions. And Bush friends at Charter Schools USA have been given several so-called failing schools in Indiana, where parents have recently been protesting the corporate takeover.

Besides Jeb Bush, ITPI names Patricia Levesque and other school privatization/online learning marketers in Indiana, Florida, Maine. 

Earlier this year, when Bennett was supposedly being scrutinized by Indiana’s Select Committee on Education, Levesque and fellow Bush operatives Mary Laura Bragg and Jaryn Emholf, both also listed in the ITPI FOIA requests) blasted several emails to them, which were leaked to me. 

Levesque directs Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education and his Foundation for Florida’s Future. Levesque is proud that as the current board of director of Bush’s corporate school organizations, she doesn’t take a paycheck, but this is deceptive. Levesque’s own consulting company, Meridian Strategies, raked in $100,000 in 2008 (page 8) and $123,000 in 2009 working for the Foundation for Excellence in Education (page 8). For work with Foundation for Florida’s Future, where Levesque is also executive director, her company made $276,000 in 2010 (page 8).

Levesque, who also lobbies on behalf of many virtual schools, outlined a new strategy in October 2010 at a school reform conference to privatize public schools. In an article entitled “How Outline Learning Companies Bought America’s Schools,” The Nation’s Lee Fang writes that:

Levesque noted that reform efforts had failed because the opposition had time to organize. Next year, Levesque advised, reformers should “spread” the unions thin “by playing offense” with decoy legislation. Levesque said she planned to sponsor a series of statewide reforms, like allowing taxpayer dollars to go to religious schools by overturning the so-called Blaine Amendment, “even if it doesn’t pass…to keep them busy on that front.” She also advised paycheck protection, a unionbusting scheme, as well as a state-provided insurance program to encourage teachers to leave the union and a transparency law to force teachers unions to show additional information to the public. Needling the labor unions with all these bills, Levesque said, allows certain charter bills to fly “under the radar.”

THE INDIANA PUBLIC ACCESS COUNSELOR’S COP OUT

Here is the Indiana PAC’s conclusion, which is nowhere as harsh as it should be:

Based on the foregoing, it is my opinion that the Department has acted contrary to section 3(b) of the APRA by failing to provide all records in a reasonable period of time that were responsive to the reasonably particularized portions of Ms. Kaissal’s February 22, 2012 request. However, it is my opinion that at this time the Department has complied with section 3(b) in its efforts to provide all records in a reasonable period of time that were responsive to the reasonably particularized request that was received on August 29, 2012.

As I mentioned above, the original February request is “particularized” enough.  There is no legitimate reason for IDOE’s hold-up, even though it blames a small staff in the Office of Legal Affairs, among other things.  Perhaps more IDOE members who are spreading corporate-run charter school and school vouchers across the state should be switching to this office.  Having read over all the documents on the case, I believe the Department is stalling on releasing these potentially damaging emails and other written files from Bennett because it is waiting until after Tuesday’s election.  Public Access Counselor Hoage wants it both ways, claiming the IDOE was, in fact, holding up the request, but not really.

To make matters worse, IDOE’s Heather Neal is also named in the FOIA request.  Neal, if one remembers, was Indiana’s Public Access Counselor before she started working for Tony Bennett.

Bennett desires info on every Indiana teacher, so he can deem them “unaccountable” and replace them with Teach for America recruits on their temporary stop in the schools before they head off to Wall Street.  He wants data on all students, so that he can declare schools as “broken” and package them up for the privatizers. But when it comes to passing cash onto friends of Jeb Bush and others who have donated to Bennett’s campaigns, like K12, Inc., Indiana’s supt. of public instruction and the IDOE feel it is not in their best interest to be examined.  

* [Updated] ITPI’s Donald Cohen agrees. Via email, Cohen had this to say: “We submitted these requests to discover the extent of private influence on education policy. They are refusing, stonewalling, even though they are clearly violating the state's open records law. I can only wonder what they are hiding from Indiana voters.”

I can pretty much guess what they are hiding.  When these files are finally released by law, I will gladly connect all the dots and expose Tony Bennett for the corporate school reform flunky that he truly is.  In the meantime, I suggest we all file FOIA requests with the IDOE.  

Progressive Eugenics and Liberal Institutions

For a time I was a fan of Jane's Addiction (everyone was doing it), but that "Been Caught Stealin'" song was really one of their least interesting off of their break-out album Ritual de lo Habitual.  I was partial though to the prior album Nothing's Shocking and particularly amazed at the song "Pigs in Zen."

Now I won't share those lyrics here, but I will tell you that I think they're very appropriate to our national (and by that I mean everyone) somnolence.  The song has a break in the lyrics where Perry Farrell (peripheral!), the vocalist, talks some "wisdom." Part of this goes,

Some people should die
That's just unconscious knowledge
Because, because the bigger you get
The wider you're spread
You gotta depend on me
Now your vision is dead
The more your dream is dead

Now, interpretations of words are multiple and infinite (random) but I had always seen this as something of the "progressive" "spread" of culture and its dominating technological perspectives.  (Of course, likely this is a self-pitying lyric based on the "spread" of the band's popularity and the pressures to "sell out.")

I'll be honest that every time a politician opens their mouths I'm more than a little afraid.  When our talking heads and national "leaders" can speak about fully half of our population as parasites then I think we ought to brace ourselves for the coming horrors.  I don't believe we can "take back" public education; it was "sold" 30 years ago (as my friend Lawrence Baines makes clear in his books time and again).  Let's just say that as an institution it has been "spread" wide and has really done the work that has lead us to this point.  We have sacrificed all vitality for obedience and passivity in the face of the robotic future.  That future is not utopia for the lowly animals whose only "value" is as labor.  That includes teachers (at long last they have come for you, teachers--you must have known it was coming).

Below I'll offer something I posted much earlier in the year at the Errant as it seems the drive to a progressive acceptance of a eugenics philosophy seems to be bringing our oligarchical tribes to a commonality.  What follows was a reading and response to a post by Walmart Scholar Jay P. Greene--a  Freidmaniac and Market Proselytizer who is "endowed" to spread Ed Reform in our bastions os Higher Learning--his is U of Arkansas Bentonvil...er, Fayetteville.

***

"Jay Greene and Roland Fryer–Clearing a Path for “Liberal” Eugenics"


First, Jay Greene makes 150k per annum from WalMart graft through his assignment as the Chief for Change in the Educational Propaganda Department at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville; likely he gets “scholarships” and speaking fees and free vacations from any number of ALEC-related,  Jeb Bush “emceed” events; but, because this is not enough, his blog is now subsidized by advertising.   Of course, that’s not a surprise, a shill is a shill is a shill and, truth be told, any master is the right master–the master of the moment with their 30 shekels--and as long as their is an "aegis" to be under.

Okay, I’ve expressed my utter disdain enough for now, besides what can one do against one of the many James Harthouses (Dickens character in Hard Times)that scum up the drain?  I can’t hate him out of a job or out of the national character for, be assured, his is a very national character.

All I can do is say, look!, listen!, and hope you see how I see, hear how I hear.

I hate to do it, but I have to excerpt what he has written today as it probably offers the most clear example of barely disguised motivation that Harthouses ever show.  It comes very near to being honest about the intentions of the sycophants and their masters.

So, let’s be off.  Be warned I will reproduce most of the post because I find it so revealing.

My comments below are interspersed between quoted sections.

Let’s begin with the beginning: the title of the piece, “Are Charter Schools Models of Reform for Traditional Public Schools?“  Of course Jay will answer yes through some mouthpiece “study results” but think about the question as an honest one.  Do public schools do a good or bad job at their core mission?  Of course, “core mission” is often a contentious thing and I would argue that schools do a very good job at the task for which they were designed: housing children for 13+ years and instilling the “way” of society as it functions “in the moment.”  This means simply replicating all of our social structures–respect for authority (especially gunslingers and business owners–as they own the property the police protect), continuing prejudices against the poor and minorities, indoctrination in “competitive” success, the veracity (as backed by scripture) of Western morality and “progress,” and so on.

Jay though is asking if there are charter schools out there who know how to create good test takers and if so, what model do they use.  But under this, always under this, is the real point: If we can make “test taking” the only measure of success we do not need to value teachers in the least and we do not need to value the very idea of education, especially the idea that public education purports to be a kind of egalitarian, socialist institution.  Two birds with one stone–1. No idea of commonwealth at the level of, well, the commons (Jay makes this explicit though in a condescending aside) and 2. No more labor costs by reducing teaching to “labor” on a par with “tutor.”  As an example an Indiana school district has recently used a budget referendum bait and switch to hire myriad “interventionists” and “preventionists” (or, tutors and aides--warm bodies, poorly paid).

In other words, Sal Khan’s “Khan Academy” (whose glorious wonderful amazing online tutorials are being used in my kids’ school via our lovely shiny iPads) will simply replace teachers.  Come on, you know it’s going to happen.  Kahn will be Time’s “Man of the Year” soon, mark my words (ed. "most influential person"), he of the true entrepreneurial spirit!  Don’t believe me?  Check out the love for him at the NewSchools Venture Fund’s “Summit.”  That’s the horrible Joel Klein on stage with him.  Spend some time reviewing the sponsors of this gathering why don’t you?

But, back to Greene’s blog post and his question “Are charter schools models of reform for traditional public schools?”

Yes, answers Roland Fryer in an amazing study released this month [pdf].  Based on earlier work [pdf], he identified 5 features of charter schools that helped them produce strong results: “increased time, better human capital, more student-level differentiation, frequent use of data to inform instruction, and a culture of high expectations.”  Fryer then somehow convinced the superintendent and school board in Houston to pursue these five reforms in a serious way in 9 struggling traditional public schools.  

Fryer is an economist who directs Harvard's EdLabs...I doubt he had much trouble convincing anyone of anything when it was likely paid for by the Gates Foundation, or the Broad Foundation, or the Ford Foundation, or the Stearns Foundation--need I go on?  Further here are the "stakeholders" of EdLabs that Roland Fryer shills for and upon whose orders he experiments with children's lives: Condoleeza Rice, Eli and Edythe Broad, Joel Klein (that nasty man is everywhere implicated in these hate-crimes), and, ta da, Michelle Rhee.  You've got to be kidding, right?

Here, in brief, is what they did: 

To increase time on task, the school day was lengthened one hour and the school year was lengthened ten days. This amounts to 21 percent more school than students in these schools obtained in the year pre-treatment and roughly the same as successful charter schools in New York City. In addition, students were strongly encouraged and even incentivized to attend classes on Saturday. In an effort to significantly alter the human capital in the nine schools, 100 percent of principals, 30 percent of other administrators, and 52 percent of teachers were removed and replaced with individuals who possessed the values and beliefs consistent with an achievement-driven mantra and, wherever possible, a demonstrated record of achievement.

Out with the OLD in with the Indoctrinated Foot Soldiers of Reform--I love that though, "values and beliefs (yikes) consistent with an achievement-driven mantra..."  Oh to be young again!

To enhance student-level differentiation, we supplied all sixth and ninth graders with a math tutor in a two-on-one setting and provided an extra dose of reading or math instruction to students in other grades who had previously performed below grade level.

Spoiler Alert: THIS, this right here, is the only thing that matters in teaching and learning in this whole pile of horse manure.  Two-on-one instruction.  First Lesson-more attention, oddly for these robot-loving minds, it's human attention, is a key to learning retention.  I'd hazard a guess it has something to do with working with a supportive person to achieve a stated common goal.  Hmm...strange how that works.

This model was adapted from the MATCH school in Boston – a charter school that largely adheres to the methods described in Dobbie and Fryer (2011b). In order to help teachers use interim data on student performance to guide and inform instructional practice, we required schools to administer interim assessments every three to four weeks and provided schools with three cumulative benchmarks assessments, as well as assistance in analyzing and presenting student performance on these assessments. Finally, to instill a culture of high expectations and college access for all students, we started by setting clear expectations for school leadership.

Finally, to be sure these soon-to-be job-seekers wouldn't go out and seek a job as these are non-existent we propagandized the non-value that is 4 more years in a system designed to keep you off the streets and keep money flowing to itself and its masters.  "Learning" you see, is not cheap, and the more we can keep you in prison, er, school, the more we continue to get paid!

Schools were provided with a rubric for the school and classroom environment and were expected to implement school-parent-student contracts. Specific student performance goals were set for each school and the principal was held accountable for these goals.

Sign 'em over, mom and dad, they're in this for the state and corporate gain, or rather for the good of society.  Unless you can tell me my name I'll keep the child!  (psst, Rumpel...oh do kids even know fairy tales anymore?)

And the result:

First, never play the "stats" game with these guys--it's totally useless as the whole of this venture is to manipulate the results so that the programs move forward.  What works in the pharmaceutical industry will work in education too, right Mitch Eli Lilly Daniels?

In the grade/subject areas in which we implemented all five policies described in Dobbie and Fryer (2011b) – sixth and ninth grade math – the increase in student achievement is dramatic. Relative to students who attended comparison schools, sixth grade math scores increased 0.484σ (.097) in one year. In seventh and eighth grades, the treatment effect in math is 0.125σ (.065) and is statistically significant. A very similar pattern emerges in high school math: large effects in ninth grade and a more modest but statistically significant effect in tenth and eleventh grade, which suggest that two-on-one tutoring is particularly effective.

Oh my lands!, as my Great Grandma Ollie might have exclaimed.

The results in reading exhibit a different pattern. If anything, the reading scores demonstrate a slight decrease in middle school, though not statistically significant, and a modest increase in high school. Impacts on attendance – which are positive and statistically insignificant – are difficult to interpret given the longer school day and longer school year.

Difficulty to interpret, not enough binary code, not enough equating and summing...Hey, folks, reading well requires agility of mind and an openness to ambiguity and interpretations often at cross-purposes.  In other words, reading, language, is what makes us the beings we are.  This is the very real and very hard work of thinking.  But is also the very real and very important work of the Imagination (the Fancy, Mr. Gradgrind; Love, Mr. Harthouse); the quality of mind that one uses in empathy, a word little known and a faculty little exercised and a quality little prized in the world of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, ma'am.

Using data from the National Student Clearinghouse, we investigate treatment effects on two college outcomes: whether a student enrolled in any college (extensive margin) and whether they chose a four-year college, conditional on enrolling in any college (intensive margin). Calculated at the mean, students are 6.2 percentage points less likely to attend college, though the effect is not statistically significant. Conditional on attending college, however, treatment students are 17.7 percentage points more likely to enroll in a four-year institution, relative to a mean of 46% in comparison schools – a 40% increase.

Did you totally zone out there?  Me too.  But I wanted to show the level of pure "statistical" hogwash that passes for "research" and "results."

Traditional public schools can get results like a KIPP school without having to actually become KIPP schools.  They just have to imitate a few of the key features employed by KIPP and other successful charter schools.  This is incredibly encouraging news.  It means that traditional public schools are really capable of making significant progress if only they become more open to learning from successful charter schools.  They can make that progress without having to cure poverty and all other social ills (although I’m sure that would be nice too).

What was the one item of testable success detailed above?  Math scores in the two grades wherein the students were given extra instruction with tutors.

Unleash the dogs of revolution!  Traditional schools, can you handle that alteration?  Well, no, actually, because Jay and his buddies (like Mitch and Tony in Indiana) have cut all your budgets in order to instigate a testing program that will create massive failures.  BUT the good news is, after you fail, Traditional Schools, and the state has fired all of your “human capital” and replaced them with Teach for American drones they will pay nothing, you will succeed at tutoring the children in math!

But once the dust settles–we will have begun down the path that is the logic of eugenics…oh my friends, it is upon us again.  All paeans to progress lead us to one fact–some folks just aren’t good for much.  Absolutely nothing…well, except War, ‘cuz somebody needs to die in war right?  If you don’t believe me, just take a glance at some recent work in academia.  Here’s a book that actually defends the concept of eugenics–but the good kind.  One assumes if an academic philosopher is staking out territory against “state” eugenics then we are already well down the rabbit hole (note this title was published 8 years ago).  I am not exaggerating in the least.  What does rigid adherence to “measurable standards” ultimately lead?

All the talk of Finland’s success comes down to this–low poverty and all the same kind of people.  Well, I know a good way to start making that happen.  Did you know, incidentally, that the state leading the way in Education Reform, Indiana, was the first state to pass Sterilization Laws in 1907?  Fun fact.

It stuns me to think these people exist and that they really put such "programmatic" planning on paper, in public, on a pretty website, with their names on it, and their holy institutions of hierarchy in boldface.  Hurray, Harvard, leader in legitimizing Eugenics!

Protecting Student Privacy Rights and Data

This story isn't new, it was reported in the Huffington Post last December. HT to Ken Derstine of PA and Rosalie Friend of Save Our Schools NY. What's new is parents are taking legal action to protect the rights of their children.

Confidential Student And Teacher Data To Be Provided To LLC Run By Gates and Murdoch 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/confidential-student-and-_b_1156701.html?mid=55

For more information contact:

Norman Siegel: (347) 907-0867; NSiegel@stellp.com

Leonie Haimson: (917) 435-9329; leonie@classsizematters.org

Attorney and Parents Send Letter to NYS Attorney General & Education Officials Questioning Legality of Providing Confidential Student Data to Limited Corporation and Demanding Parental Right to Consent

On Sunday, October 14, at a press conference held at the midtown law offices of Siegel Teitelbaum & Evans LLP, attorney Norman Siegel and New York parents released a letter sent Friday to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the New York State Board of Regents, demanding that the agreement between the NY State Education Department and the “Shared Learning Collaborative” be released, setting out the conditions and restrictions on the use of confidential student and teacher data to be provided to this limited corporation.  The letter asked that parents be informed exactly what information concerning their children will be shared with this corporation, why the transfer of this data does not violate federal privacy protections, and demanding that the parents have the right to withhold their children’s information from being shared.   The letter is posted at http://bit.ly/W6H2qV

Background: In Aug. 25, 2011, NY State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli informed the NY State Education Department that he was rejecting its proposed no-bid contract with Wireless Generation to build a state data system, composed of confidential student and teacher information because of privacy concerns. Wireless Generation is a subsidiary of News Corporation.  Several high-ranking former executives and employees of the News Corporation in the UK were being investigated for violations of privacy and bribing public officials.  As the State Comptroller wrote, "in light of the significant ongoing investigations and continuing revelations with respect to News Corporation, we are returning the contract with Wireless Generation unapproved."  Since then, the scandal has continued to grow, with the number of indicted News Corporation officials expanding in number.

Yet four months later, in December, the NY Board of Regents approved NYSED’s plan to provide this confidential student and teacher data to a limited corporation, called the Shared Learning Collaborative LLC (SLC). The Gates Foundation awarded $76.5 million to form this LLC, with $44 million going to Wireless Generation, to design and operate the system.  According to the SLC’s website, New York is one of five states – along with Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, and North Carolina – participating in Phase I of this project, starting in late 2012. The pilot districts are Jefferson County School District (CO); Unit 5 (Normal, IL); District 87 (Bloomington, IL); Everett (MA);  Guilford County Schools (NC), and NYC. Four more states – Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana – have committed to join Phase II in 2013.  Though New York City is one of the pilot districts, the city’s parents have been told nothing about this project, and the state has not shared its agreement with the SLC about the use and protection of this data, despite several requests to do so.

Apart from the lack of parental disclosure and privacy concerns, the SLC website makes it clear that this student data will be used to help companies develop and market educational products.  However FERPA, or the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, appears not to allow the sharing of confidential student information for commercial purposes.

Leonie Haimson, the Executive Director of Class Size Matters, said: “Just this week in Washington the Federal Trade Commission announced sweeping new protections for children’s privacy data. The reason is simple: abuses are rampant, and once a child’s identity is in the marketplace it cannot be called back or protected. We stand with the FTC, every major privacy advocacy group, and all concerned parents in opposing any action to relax child privacy protections, including this plan by the NY State Education Department and the NYC Department of Education, to share confidential information about our public school students without their parents’ knowledge or consent.”

Janice Bloom, a member of ParentVoicesNY and a parent of a kindergarten student and a 3^rd grader in a Brooklyn public school, said, “I am outraged that the state and the city would have agreed to share our children’s confidential data with a private corporation, without telling us anything about it. I am even more upset that this data is apparently being made available to companies for the purpose of marketing commercial products to the public school system. Parents need to be fully informed of the purpose and ramifications of this project, and provided with the right to opt out.  I do not believe that public schools should be in the business of exploiting children for profit.”

Karen Sprowal, the mother of a 4^th grader, added: “As a parent of a special needs child, I need to be especially vigilant as to where my child’s information ends up, who gains access to it and for what reason.  I think that the State and the City owe a detailed explanation to me and other NYC parents what the purpose of this project is, as well as an apology for having decided to go forward without telling us a word about it in advance.” 

As Nancy Cauthen, a member of the organization Change the Stakes and the mother of a 6th and a 10^th grader in NYC public schools said: “The erosion of privacy that this project represents is part and parcel of the pillaging of public education for private gain.  The fact that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is involved makes me even more fearful that my child’s privacy will be violated and abused.”

Julie Cavanagh, a special education teacher in Brooklyn, explained: “As a public school teacher I am concerned not only for the privacy of my students, and the way this data will be provided to for-profit enterprises, but I am also worried that this national database may be used to blacklist members of the teaching profession.  Though the National Academy of Sciences and other expert groups have concluded that teacher evaluation systems based on student test scores are not to be trusted, the Gates Foundation seems intent on foisting these systems on the nation.  When the DOE’s unreliable teacher data reports were released, Murdoch’s NY Post not only published them in the paper, but tracked down and harassed teachers who had received low ratings. ”

Tracy Pyper, the Advocacy Chair of the Westchester/East Putnam Region PTA, said:   "I was extremely troubled to learn that NY State has decided to hand over student personal information to Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Generation, without asking or even telling their parents about this.  And while I realize that at this point, only NYC data is being provided, it is just a matter of time before all of our children in NY State may have their confidential information shared.  Once parents are made aware of how the state is making critical decisions about our children’s private information, without parental consent, they will be very concerned.  I strongly urge the State Education Department to halt all further action until they can explain exactly what personal information will be provided to Wireless Generation, what safeguards they are taking to protect the information, and most importantly, give parents the right to opt out.”

Norman Siegel, attorney, concluded:  “The risks are real and immediate. The State Education Department has a fundamental responsibility to protect the privacy rights of public school children and their families. Before a single child's information is turned over to the Shared Learning Collaborative (a joint venture of the Gates Foundation and Wireless Generation LLC), our education officials must guarantee that no harm will come to New York school children by meeting the following requirements:

·         Publish the agreement with SLC in printed and electronic form, include a thorough  explanation of its purpose and provisions, and make it available to parents and local school authorities statewide;

·         Hold hearings throughout the state to explain the agreement, answer questions from the public, obtain informed comment, and gauge public reaction;

·         Notify all parents of the impending disclosure, and provide them with a right to consent;

·         Define what rights families or individuals will have to obtain relief if harmed by improper use or release of their private information, including how claims can be made;

·         Agree to allow no disclosure of public school records until the State Education Department and the NYC Department of Education meets all of its ethical, security, and statutory obligations to the parents and public school children of the city and state;

·         Ensure that the privacy interest of public school children and their families are put above the interests of the Shared Learning Collaborative, News Corporation and its agents and subsidiaries.

Joel Klein, News Corp. and ALEC

Looks like Parents Across America have a solid press operation. Nice work.

Schooling in the Ownership Society
Media Matters 

The Wall Street Journal Covers Up ALEC Link To Anti-Union School Privatization Law

BLOG ››› JULY 24, 2012 2:26 PM EDT ››› MELODY JOHNSON

The Wall Street Journal this morning failed to report ties between the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and controversial "parent-trigger" legislation that would allow parents to take over and convert public schools to charter schools. They also failed to report that the Journal's parent company, News Corp, is a member of ALEC. The Journal's treatment of the legislation also cited no criticism of the proposal, which has been described as an effort "to manipulate parents into letting [the charter school lobby] privatize more public schools.

In the July 23 article, the Wall Street Journal reported on legislation that, according to the article, "empowers parents to take control of a school if enough of them sign petitions" and convert it into a charter school. But the article failed to mention that the proposal is based heavily on model legislation developed by ALEC, a controversial right-wing group that was recently exposed as a significant influence in the pro-charter movement in Georgia.

ALEC has also been behind such controversial legislation as voter ID laws and "Stand Your Ground" legislation. After the group's involvement in these efforts were made public, several of their corporate membersleft the organization. One of the corporations who remains a member of ALEC, however, is News Corp, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal. The article did not disclose the paper's relationship with ALEC and similarly did not disclose their relationship even while shielding ALEC from critics.

In addition to not disclosing their conflict of interest, the Journal reported on the claims of "advocates" of the legislation, but made no mention of opposition by several parent organizations, including parents who wanted their initial petition signatures in favor of that legislation revoked, because "many parents said that they had been misled about what the petitions called for" as well as "harassment by some signature gatherers." In addition, the nonprofit group Parents Across America pointed out:

According to Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters and a public school parent in NYC, "The Parent Trigger was devised as an underhanded trick by the charter lobby to manipulate parents into letting them privatize more public schools.  The fact that it has aroused huge controversy and has so far failed to achieve any results in California is one more reason legislators should be wary of passing it here in New York State. Parents want to be involved from the ground up in devising positive reforms to improve their children's schools, like class size reduction or offering a more well-rounded curriculum.  They do not want their schools either closed, converted into charters or half their staff fired."http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/27-5

New Jersey's big fat corporate ed reform liars

Al denounced the idea of charters when it became clear that the concept had changed and was being hijacked by corporate and business interests. In Al’s view, such hijacking would result in the privatization of public education and, ultimately, its destruction — all without improving student outcomes. — Edith Shanker

It all started a few days ago when Edison scoundrel and Broadyte Chris Cerf published a fact-free diatribe extolling a charter school solution to a non-existant problem. To say that Cerf plays fast and loose with facts would be the understatement of the summer, but his most mendacious statements (and a grievous factual error) occur in regards to the venerable Albert Shanker.

The incorrigible Cerf isn't the first corporate snake oil salesman to try and misrepresent the late President of the American Federation of Teachers' views, or for that matter, spin the original purpose of charters to be a gateway drug to vouchers. The latter argument is usual spun as "charter schools were created to be schools of choice." Anyone familiar with actual history knows that Shanker intended charters to supplement public schools by serving the most difficult to educate students (the ones current charters avoid like the plague), he never supported the core segregationist tenet of "school choice." Most high profile corporate education privatizers have perpetuated these outrageous lies at one time or another.

In What Chris Cerf Needs to Know About Albert Shanker the distinguished Professor Diane Ravitch took Cerf to task on his 896 word deception. Notably, the first thing she has to do is correct Cerf on Shanker's union affiliation. It speaks volumes that the bumbling Cerf, endeavoring to enlist an authoritative source, can't even get his source's association right. Ravitch literally schools Cerf across the board on Shanker's vision, intentions, and motivations for charters, and reiterated his staunch opposition to privatization and union busting. Since Ravitch knew Shanker, her recitation of historical facts is further bolstered by an understanding of the person being discussed.

Interestingly, at the end of her piece Ravitch outlines a set of ideas that would bring charter schools back in alignment with their original intent before they became a lucrative path to ever more privatization. Her list reads like a social justice manifesto, which, if implemented, would send the current charter camp scurrying onto the next bubble. Imagine Eva Moskowitz, Steve Barr, or Geoffrey Canada actually taking suggestions like this to heart?

...insist that all charters recruit and enroll only the lowest-performing students, the students who have dropped out, and the students who are doing poorly in their present public school. Ravitch

One would think that the profiteers and poverty pimps in the corporate education reform camp would have slithered back under their stones after being excoriated so effectively. Instead, Ravitch's speaking truth to corporate power brought out an even more deceitful and duplicitous individual than Cerf. Enter Laura Waters, an arch-reactionary with a doctoral degree in corporate servitude, or something to that effect. Waters, whose zeal for school privatization and segregation exceeds that of even Ben Austin or Michelle Rhee, cobbles together screeds littered with neoliberal gems like:

Free market competition is the best way to ensure that kids have real school choices

A survey of Water's corporate education reform essays reads like a John Birch Society education wish-list, with right-wing schemes of competition, choice, privatization, high stakes testing, and "merit" pay at the fore. Sadly, this reactionary repugnant is a School Board President.

Waters had the unmitigated gall to attack Professor Ravitch on her piece critical of Cerf. Despite having never met Shanker (unlike Ravitch), Waters decides that she can best speak for him. She then claims he'd be a corporate reformer pushing for segregationist ideas like school choice. The widely respected blogger Jersey Jazzman (aka Duke) exposed Waters' absurd ramblings to reality based community, and puts the reformers' misconceptions in perspective:

I guess maybe Laura has a ouija board now with which she communes with Shanker to get his answers

The rest of the Jazzman's post further dismantles Waters' tirade, including her patently false assertion that charters in New Jersey cannot be run by private entities. Ravitch wrote a short response on the Waters' fiasco, but it was the Darcie Cimarusti's response to Waters' arrogance that reminded us of another big fat liar — Rupert Murdoch's lapdog, Joel Klein. Like Cerf and Waters, Klein tried to claim Shanker as a corporate privatizer. Cimarusti (aka Mother Crusader) prompted rereading of a year old essay by Shanker's widow, Edith Shanker, entitled A Response To Joel Klein, in which all of these misattributions are cleared up.

A day later the Jazzman had even more evidence of Cerf, Klein, and Waters' perfidy. In that post he includes a brilliant comment by Jennie Shanker, daughter of the late unionist, that is profound beyond words:

your stance on this issue is diametrically opposed to his values and intent, and you are dead wrong to shame Diane Ravitch for her position. Indeed, if you consider your thinking to be in line with my father's, I recommend that you champion her work, as my family does. If anyone can speak for my father in this day and age, the person who should be most trusted is Dr. Ravitch. It's unfortunate that many people who read your article will not see this comment. I would like to respectfully request that you reconsider further publicizing your characterization n of my father's position on this topic. From what is in evidence in this article, despite your love for the man, you are in no position to speak for him.

I feel it's very powerful that she names Professor Ravitch as the inheritor of Shanker's mantle. Moreover, these clashes with the corporate education reformers are extremely important, and not just empty exercises. We must point out every lie, false claim, miracle school, vested interest, and, yes, falsification of Shanker's ideals that the no-excuses crowd puts out there. Every time the corporate reformers get away with telling the public falsehoods, they are able to push us ever closer towards their goals of total privatization.

Guest Post: Tough Educational Challenges Make for Bad 'Reforms'

By John Thompson

There is an old saying that, "Tough cases make bad law." Similarly, the New York Department of Education, due to its size, is a tough educational challenge. Ordinarily, Eric Nadelstern's "The Evolution of School Support Networks in New York City" would primarily interest policy wonks, but since the architects of New York City's "reforms" have tried to impose them on the rest of the country, this acronym-packed account of governance squabbles holds lessons for all educators. It also helps explain why so many bad educational policies are being imposed on our nation's schools.

According to Nadelstern, the bad old "status quo," which dominated the NYC schools from 1968 to 2003, was a bunch of "fiefdoms," that rewarded loyal constituencies and perpetuated a culture of compliance. Nadelstern sought to replace those bad fiefdoms with good "networks" (as in Networks for School Renewal) and good "zones" (as in the Learning Zone.) But, Chancellor Rudy Crew co-opted the idea of devolution and supposedly created a bad "district" (as in the Chancellor's District) that micromanaged.

Then, Crew's bad version of decentralization was replaced by the Mayor Mike Bloomberg's good form of centralization, known as "mayoral control." The good Bloomberg dissolved the Board of Education, and created the Education Priorities Panel. Concurrently, the bad Bloomberg "ran roughshod over" the panel and imposed good policies (such as ending social promotion) and bad micromanaging (such as mandating 150 minutes of tutoring a week.)

Nadelstern's describes a Manichean division between righteous crusaders for "Children First," as opposed to "vested interest groups" who "preyed on the school system." The battle between good and evil became even sharper when Joel Klein became the chancellor. Klein, a litigator not an educator, came to the rescue not by addressing educational substance but by creating ten regional superintendents. To keep his people from becoming an "imperial superintendency," he stripped them of financial power. Klein gave the power of the purse to six regional operations centers (ROCs). But, the ROCs recreated the same "dysfunctional, top-down culture," and became "districts on steroids." So, Klein created an Office of New Schools. Klein used that office to staff schools with principals who had been trained in his philosophy. By the way, Klein had a "genius" for defeating the bad micromanagers. For instance, he defeated some of them by micromanaging the number of boxes (two) they could move from their old offices to their new ones.

If this narrative sounds arcane, please be patient because the really good stuff begins in 2004 when Nadelstern was promoted. Unfortunately, his boss had a different priority, the stress of the political conflict took its toll, and Nadelstern underwent two back surgeries. Then, the Autonomy Zone was created as "an antidote to regional mismanagement." The Zone was rebranded as Empowerment Schools and "we created the first integrated service center (ISC)." But Klein had a couple of different priorities, and he created the learning support centers (LSCs) and the partnership school organizations (PSOs). The presumably bad side of Klein mistakenly allowed the Division of Instruction to become "a safe haven" for dissenters. The good Klein later authorized Nadelstern to dismantle the bad division. But, the good PSOs created a balance between supporting schools and creating a "culture of accountability," while the bad PSOs made excuses. Also, the ISC "foundered," and the ROCs were reorganized along the lines of school support organizations (SSOs).

Nadelstern writes with unmistakable pride that his Empowerment Zone grew to 535 schools and 22 networks as he became "completely responsible" for the "day-to-day operations" of 1,700 schools. Because he met weekly with subordinates who made weekly visits to those schools, presumably Nadelstern could always divine who was using and who was misusing their power. On the other hand, the SSOs were not as prescient, and their "diffused reporting structure" was "problematic" when resolving problems.

Getting back the alphabet soup of "reform," the ISCs were aligned into clusters, but it took a high-profile battle with a deputy chancellor before it was determined that the right way to organize clusters was around function, not geography. Seven members of the chancellor's cabinet had worked for Nadelstern, but "in retrospect, it is easy to see that our work began to unravel the summer before Joel Klein's departure and my retirement." So, once again, the district is squandering millions of dollars by micromanaging schools.

For some reason, Nadelstern does not take the story full circle and he does not mention the emails that the Klein administration was forced to release due to the Freedom of Information Act. He did not ask whether the old de facto "office of constituent service" has been reconstituted for the benefit of charter schools and Klein's other allies (such as his new boss Rupert Murdoch.)

Instead, Nadelstern outlines recommendations for the top down destruction of top down governance. Centralized power should "nurture successful networks" while protecting them from the networks that would destroy them. That way, the opponents of the superintendents' opponents would be empowered, as their enemies are driven out of the system. Then, good principals would reign supreme, unfettered by teachers' representatives or, for that matter, the administrators with the best knowledge of how schools actually operate - assistant principals. The good superintendents, using aggregate student data, would reward and punish principals and networks. And, none of the palace intrigue would influence the objective evaluations of principals or teachers...

Seriously, why is Nadelstern so confident that he can tell the difference between the top down, centralized punishment of adults (in service to children,) as opposed the micromanaging that damages students? Given the time that Nadelstern and Klein devoted to the DOE's battles over ROCs, ISCs, LSCs, PSOs, and SSOs, how could they had time to figure out whether their data had a connection to the realities inside schools? How could they ensure that their good principals and superintendents, when unchecked by other peoples' power, conveyed reliable information to the righteous few who held them accountable? And, even if Nadelstern could staff every school with administrators with the sterling moral character required to report the whole truth, given the damage done by the stress of the political combat that felled him, why would he think that school leaders could survive the unrelenting pressure that was imposed on them?

Nadelstern worked for a tough litigator whose policies damaged some students in order to help others, in the belief that a final victory over the forces of darkness would liberate them all. Since Klein created a system where it was unlikely that accurate information would be conveyed up the chain of command, it would have been nice if his deputy had cited research on how their reforms were actually implemented or journalism documenting the damage that was done to schools that they left behind. It would have also been refreshing for a person in Nadelstern's position to balance his reports of big increases in the graduation rate with an acknowledgement that "credit recovery" programs jacked up those numbers.

Given the enormous challenge of reforming central offices, should he have not urged novices like Klein to stick with the big enough task of reforming the district's administration? Why would they have possibly thought that they could train an entire system to think the way that they think? Why were they so confident in their ability to identify which schools deserved to be rewarded and punished?

Nadelstern is so convinced that a "culture of accountability" produced the improvements that occurred in his school, he ignores the damage that it did to other schools. He seems obsessed with the political combat that it took before he was "permitted to commander the chancellor's conference room at Tweed" so that he could enact the constructive part of his agenda. I have no doubt that Nadelstern benefitted some students when he worked with 14 network leaders to develop a "strong common culture of service to schools." But, his own words seem to indicate that his boss' "reforms" did more harm than good, and that their accomplishments are transitory. And, why did he adopt a risky bank shot of engaging in brutal bureaucratic combat in order to achieve the opposite - a culture where only some favored schools could treat educators and students with respect?

The answer, I bet, is linked to the enormity of the challenge of gaining control, in order to relinquish control. My theory was that the obsession with fighting New York-sized political battles blinded people to the opportunities to draw upon the Big Apple's strengths. Rather than rooting out all dissent, they could have better served students by making compromises and building on the city's diversity. And the same applies to Klein's and Nadelstern's acolytes who feel so entitled to use the tough and unique case of New York City in order to micromanage the way that districts across our diverse nation run their own classrooms.

Dr. John Thompson was an award-winning historian, lobbyist, and guerilla-gardener who became an award-winning inner city teacher after crack and gangs hit his neighborhood. He blogs at thisweekineducation.com, and huffingtonpost.com, and is writing a book on 18 years of idealistic politics in the classroom and realistic politics outside.