Philadelphia’s Mayor’s Office of Education Responds to Demands For Transparency

from Wrench in the Gears
February 10, 2018


Last Monday, parents, teachers, and community members took to the streets outside the marble halls of Girard College to protest a closed-door event where representatives of the Mayor’s Office of Education, the Philadelphia Education Fund, and the Read by Fourth Campaign met with Chamber of Commerce affiliates about the future of business in Philadelphia’s schools. We handed out a sheet with five demands to the attendees on their way into the event and requested the Mayor’s Office of Education respond by February 9, 2018.

I share below the response we received with annotated comments. While I appreciate Mr. Hackney’s efforts to address the demands, I am left with a lack of clarity about the role private interests, corporations and non-profits, will play in shaping education policy going forward. We specifically asked the mayor to take a public stance against adaptive learning management systems for literacy and the use of Pay for Success or Social Impact Bonds to fund early childhood or K12 education and workforce development. The letter below endorses the former and says nothing about the latter, which is a serious concern. It supports the use of software in literacy but there is no mention of reduced class sizes, restoration of libraries with librarians, or reading specialists.

The letter also indicates an acceptance of closed door meetings whereby “feedback from a diverse set of stakeholders” is obtained. What stakeholders would need to meet with the mayor and his representatives in small groups outside the public eye? As we move to “local control,” that is a very important question. Will we have a version of “local control” that preferences “Big L” interests like Comcast over “little l” interests like regular parents and teachers? Who gets a seat at the table? Will community engagement drive policy development or remain an easily-dismissed charade as it was under the School Reform Commission?

For reference, these were the original demands:

Click here to read the rest of the post and view the videos. 

 

Stop the Corporate Closure of 11 Boston Public Schools: We Can Do This

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Be at English High 5 pm Wednesday December 14, 144 McBride Street.  Let your voices be heard to stop this stealth takeover by the corporate foundations.  Let's do this!

Will Tennessee Lawmakers Follow Corporate Script on Schools?

The Gates and Broad legions are making policy at the US Department of Education, and now they have fanned out into the centers of state government to make sure that state departments of education are writing their RTTT grant proposals in the fashion that their colleagues in Washington will give a thumbs up. In order to make sure that state legislatures don't lose their nerve on rewriting their state education law to garner a few dollars poisoned by bribery and reckless disregard for democratic institutions, teams of Gates of Broad consultants patrol the halls of state legislatures and take the media to lunch.

Policy consultants, public relations experts, communications teams, think tank veterans, all are in place for when ABC or the AP or another corporate media outlet shows up to find out what is going on in the corporate race to take over American public education, state by state. Oh yes, don't forget the oligarchs' policy wonks to keep policy chumps like Phil Bredesen out front talking as if he knew what he was saying.

Taking us on this media tour will be Achieve, Inc. veteran, Susan Bodary, now of Seattle-based Education First Consulting. Susan holds a BS in public law:

Tennessee lawmakers got their first detailed look Monday at Gov. Phil Bredesen's education proposals for a special legislative session.

The Democratic governor is urging lawmakers to approve a series of changes that he says are needed the strengthen the state's application for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal "Race to the Top" money. The special session begins Tuesday afternoon and the federal application deadline is Jan. 19.

A key change would include using student testing data in evaluating teachers and for making decisions about tenure.

Susan Bodary, of Seattle-based Education First Consulting, told a joint meeting of the Senate education and finance committees that federal guidelines consider the use of testing data "as one of the lynchpin issues of this competition."

The Tennessee Education Association, which represents 55,000 teaches and other educators, has announced that it could support no more than 35 percent of evaluations being based on testing data. Bredesen, who has called for at least half of evaluations to be based on data, wants to leave the specific amount up to a special advisory panel of the State Board of Education.

Tennessee's application is based on "the belief that great teachers and great leaders make the greatest difference in student learning, unequivocally," Bodary said.

The state's main competitors for the federal money are Louisiana, Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Indiana and Massachusetts, she said.

Other K-12 changes would include requiring annual evaluations of teachers and principals and creating a special school district for failing schools.

Some lawmakers raised concerns about the federal government meddling in the state's responsibility for education.

"I think the whole scheme is patently unconstitutional, but there too much money not to go with it," said Democratic Sen. Douglas Henry of Nashville.

Others said they worried about what will happen after the federal money runs out. Education Commissioner Tim Webb said the administration would design a program that would seek to avoid creating "a vacuum where the districts get sucked into a funding problem."

Republican Sen. Jamie Woodson of Knoxville said she's also concerned about "federal impositions on what is very much a state obligation," but added that the changes could have a positive effect on Tennessee's education system.

"What I see this as is an opportunity not just to chase federal dollars ... this is an opportunity for us to rethink education policy, to rebuild the box," she said. "It's potentially transformational."

Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette Investigates Corporate Charter Outfit, Imagine, Inc.

Reporters Dan Stockman and Kelly Soderlund of the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette have produced a piece of investigative journalism that is rare in these late high times for corporate school reform, as crooked stock manipulators have turned their eye to the mountain of federal dollars intended to feed the corporate charter school movement. Reform of, by, and for the Corporation, all with public tax dollars and without oversight, the corporate charter movement is a sewer of corruption waiting to have its smelly cover popped off, a cover that the New York Times and the Washington Post won't go near, since their editorial boards are owned by those crafting education policy.

Stockman and Soderlund have performed a huge public service that is rare in American journalism today, with a three part investigation of Imagine Schools, Inc., a charter chain gang outfit operated by lunatic megalomaniac, Dennis Bakke. Here is a clip from Part One of "Education Inc:"

FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The local school board was about to spend almost $100,000 of taxpayer money on a busing service for students.

But there was no discussion of bids to ensure taxpayers got the best deal. There were no questions about cost, insurance or alternatives to this contract awarded to a southern Indiana trucking company.

Most importantly, there was no vote.

Despite spending millions of tax dollars a year, the board of this public school votes on almost nothing.

Not the $87,510 a year to operate school buses. Not $114,871 to run a lunch program. Not which teachers are hired or whether to hold summer school, or even whether to borrow more than $1 million for operations.

All those decisions and many more were made by a private company from Virginia, though Internal Revenue Service regulations say tax-exempt organizations such as this one must have independent, local control.

Welcome to Imagine charter schools.

When Imagine board members do make major decisions, they often do so by signing papers outside of public meetings, with no public debate and no public vote. Instead of local control, a Journal Gazette investigation found, executives with the for-profit management company tell the Fort Wayne board members how decisions will be made and how money will be spent.

Local school officials deny any wrongdoing. Imagine corporate officials, who operate two Fort Wayne schools and hope to open a third next year, did not return calls for comment.

“We’ve not heard any comment from the IRS in any way that I’m aware of,” said Don Willis, a local businessman who founded the Imagine charter schools in Fort Wayne and is chairman of the Imagine-Fort Wayne Charter School board.

Other board members refused to answer questions or said they did not know the answers.

Founded in 2006 and opened to students in the fall of 2007, Imagine-Fort Wayne Charter School Inc. is a local non-profit agency that supposedly runs Imagine MASTer Academy, a public charter school paid for with taxes. Its sister entity, IFWCS Campus II, runs Imagine Schools on Broadway, and IFWCS Campus III will run the planned Imagine Bridge Academy.

Charter schools are public schools, funded by the state on a per-student basis. They can also receive money from federal grants, state tuition support and private foundations, but they are free of some of the regulations imposed on traditional public schools, so they can use innovative techniques and try to improve education.

Imagine Schools Inc., a for-profit company in Arlington, Va., makes nearly every important decision in Fort Wayne and has even used the local agency’s non-profit status to expand its charter school empire of 73 schools in 12 states.

“Ultimately, for all charities, the board of directors should be the entity that has full oversight and control over the organization,” said Bennett Weiner, chief operating officer of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, a national charity-monitoring organization based in Virginia. “The staff reports to the board of directors, not the other way around.”

That might be news to board members, the IRS, state regulators and the Hoosiers whose tax dollars pay for those schools. For the 2007-08 school year, Imagine MASTer Academy received $2.9 million in taxes, plus a $1.24 million low-interest loan from the state. . . .

Do read on. And on.

Wall Street Accounting Practices in Main Street Charter Schools

While the new post-partisan ED putsch steamrolls across America with the Oligarchs driving this unfriendly corporate takeover of American schools, the evidence is already in on what happens when you offer corporations public education dollars with no oversight. When will Obamaites and Dumcan come to the realization that this could easily be a bigger scandal than the thievery that NCLB enabled? Where is the public commitment to public schools???? If 83% of Minnesota public schools had financial irregularities in the state audits, do you think that Sam Dillon or Maria Glod would not be all over it?? Damn!

Are those Eli Broad and Bill Gates political contributions really worth the total corruption of the American public school system? Even when the test scores aren't even any better??? And often worse?? ht to Sharon Higgins, from Minnesota Public Radio:

Report: Most charter schools mismanage finances

by Elizabeth Baier, Minnesota Public Radio

June 2, 2009

St. Paul, Minn. — The progressive think tank Minnesota 2020 has released a new study suggesting the majority of charter schools in the state do not follow basic financial guidelines and, in some cases, violate state law.

The study describes the charter school movement as "rife with mismanagement." It found financial irregularities in 121 of the state's 145 charter schools during an audit of the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2007.

The study, "Checking in on Charter Schools: An examination of Charter School Finances," was released at a press conference Tuesday morning in Minneapolis.

"Charter school directors cannot handle simple financial accounting practices, nor do many charter schools have an interest in allowing the public to be aware of their machinations," the report concluded.

The organizations said it reviewed financial audits of 145 charter schools for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2007. The reports were filed with the Minnesota Department of Education.

The report identified five charter schools among the biggest offenders. They included two Minneapolis schools: the Aurora Charter School, where 98 percent of the students are Hispanic, and Heart of the Earth Charter, a Native American school that closed last summer after its executive director, Joel Pourier, was accused of embezzling more than $1.3 million.

The report also identified the Recovery School of Southern Minnesota in Owatonna, the Duluth Public Schools Academy in Duluth, and the E.C.H.O. Charter School in Echo as having the most financial offenses in their 2007 audits.

Among other trends in charter schools around the state, according to the report:

• 83 percent had at least one financial irregularity;
• 29 percent did not comply with the law regarding board meeting minutes;
• 55 percent had limited control of the school's funds;
• 26 percent didn't have proper collateral for their bank deposit insurance;
• 51 percent of those with problems identified on their 2007 financial audits had the same problems in the 2008 audits.

The study recommends the state reconsider renewing charters with schools that cannot successfully pass financial audits or provide board meetings minutes. It also suggests revoking charter with schools that have long-standing financial problems.

In a statement, the Minnesota Department of Education said both school districts and charter schools frequently have "findings" in the financial audits they submit to the state. Districts and charter schools are required to submit plans to the Education Department to correct their financial shortcomings, but the department said it's up to the local school districts and charter school boards to make sure corrective action is taken.

The think tank report follows a 2008 report by the state auditor which also raised questions about financial management at charter schools. In that report, the auditor's office recommended that charter school board members be required to attend financial management training. It also found that charters were roughly comparable to district schools in terms of financial health.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report)

Tennessee Democrats: Tell Arne Duncan to Take His $100 Million and Go to Hell With It

The squeeze is on. Duncan has begun using the $5 billion federal slush fund to bribe his way to the successful corporate takeover of urban schooling in America. With the Feds now acting as front men for the Oligarchs (Gates, Broad, Waltons, etc.), the decision to be faced by state and local governments alone is simply this: to reenergize the public responsibility to offer humane public schools to all children or to turn the education of poor children over to corporate welfare schools that offer two tracks: test prep chain gangs or prison prep chain gangs.

There is no evidence to demonstrate that the corporate solution being proposed offers any pedagogical or social advantage over a renewed commitment to public schools. The KIPP cult-for-culture model being held up as the exemplar for can never work on a large scale, and Duncan knows it.

The short-term advantage of accepting the Duncan bribes signals a capitulation of public responsibility in a democratic state to provide for the equal education of its citizens. To accept the Duncan bribes is to invite the advancement of publicly-sanctioned, corporate-controlled apartheid schools for America. Don't do it.

From the Tennessean:

. . . .Democrats blocked a bill last week that would have made thousands of impoverished students in the state's 11 largest school districts eligible to enroll in charter schools. Lawmakers said they felt the expansion was too much too soon.

But the Obama administration disagrees. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Thursday that Tennessee's stance could jeopardize the state's shot at millions of dollars set aside to encourage school innovation.

"We want to reward those states that are willing to lead the country where we need to go and are willing to push this reform agenda very, very hard," Duncan told The Associated Press. "And the states that don't have the stomach or the political will, unfortunately, they're going to lose out."

Charter schools are publicly funded but operate independently of local school boards, giving them more flexibility with staffing rules and school curriculum.

Under state law, charters can accept only low-performing students, students from low-performing schools and, in some cases, low-income students in early grades.

A bill introduced this year would have opened charter schools to any students receiving free and reduced-price lunch in the state's 11 largest districts, making about 73 percent of Metro Nashville's 75,000 students eligible. Currently about 20,000 Nashville students, or 27 percent, are eligible to attend charters, though less than 1 percent are enrolled, according to the Tennessee Charter Schools Association.

President Barack Obama has specifically called for changes to enrollment rules and said he believes restrictions hamper innovation. Opponents say charter schools cherry-pick the best students and siphon resources from regular schools because taxpayer dollars follow the student. . . .

The Sunny Side of the Depression for Corporations: Cutting Wages and Benefits

Today's Washington Post has a story on the new strategy by corporations to use the Depression that their greed and incompetence created as reason enough to cut wages and benefits of those workers lucky enough to still have a paycheck. This follows on the heels of recent developments by banks to use some of the billions in federal bailouts to buy up foreclosed properties, rather than to loan money to citizens trying to buy homes. All of this is occurring as bank lobbyists use more bailout dough to buy up enough votes from crooked Senators of both parties to halt modifications in the bankruptcy law last week that could have saved 1.7 million homeowners from foreclosure. As Durbin admitted last week, banks "frankly own the place."

Meanwhile, kids hoping for college must contend with a minefield of crooks and gougers from the Sallie Maes of the world, ready to victimize those who can't afford to pay their own way without loans. And their younger brothers and sisters--well, they continue the cram as the Business Roundtable's cheap charter movement picks off more and more poor public schools for corporate welfare conversion, all with the blessing of the Obama Administration. Which brings us back to the subject of cut wages and benefits for workers, yes?

Finally, following a voucher link on my Google Alerts, I came across a summary in the Miami Herald of Florida legislative action during the current session that just ended. These two actions were stacked together in the list of "accomplishments" for Florida's illustrious body of corporate stooges:

- Strengthen a private school voucher program for children from low-income families by giving insurance companies dollar-for-dollar credits against premium taxes for donations to the program, now supported solely through similar corporation income tax credits.

- Require public school students who lose or damage textbooks to pay 100 percent of replacement costs instead of 50 percent to 75 percent under present law.

No write-down for students losing a book, but some pretty good action for corporations with giving programs to shut down public schools.

Fenty Shoves Out Rhee Opposition and Hires Former Spellings Lieutenant

From WaPo:

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty named a former Bush administration official yesterday as his state superintendent of education, replacing Deborah A. Gist, who has resigned to become Rhode Island education commissioner.

Kerri L. Briggs, former assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education under Margaret Spellings, will manage the $380 million agency. The agency's responsibilities include special education, distributing federal grants and setting academic standards.

. . . .

Last year, Gist asserted that she had authority over Rhee's plans to restructure schools deemed to be failing under the No Child Left Behind law. But she was overruled by D.C. lawyers. Her name has surfaced in several recent national searches for superintendents, including in St. Louis. . . . .

And so another voice is eliminated from the opposition to the corporate takeover of public education in America. And if you doubted the role of Broad and Gates and the other oligarchs, here is an infomercial, On Leadership: Eli Broad, from the oligarchs' favorite media charity case, the once-great Washington Post

NEA Joins Corporate Raiding Party on Public Education

Did I say something about union sellouts earlier today? Bracey just posted at ARN the Ed Week link below that announces the NEA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers have split the spoils from the corporate charter school blitzkrieg that is now being unleashed against public education. They have agreed to support the Tucker Plan (Tough Choices or Tough Times) that was pumped out of the sludge tanks in 2006. See here and here and here for reviews of the plan. Here is the beginning of the evaluation by Miller and Gerson:

The "Tough Choices or Tough Times" report of the National Commission on Skills in the Workplace, funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and signed by a bipartisan collection of prominent politicians, businesspeople, and urban school superintendents, called for a series of measures including:

(a) replacing public schools with what the report called "contract schools", which would be charter schools writ large;

(b) eliminating nearly all the powers of local school boards - their role would be to write and sign the authorizing agreements for the "contract schools;

(c) eliminating teacher pensions and slashing health benefits; and

(d) forcing all 10th graders to take a high school exit examination based on 12th grade skills, and terminating the education of those who failed (i.e., throwing millions of students out into the streets as they turn 16). . . . .

The hounds are loose. Here is the news from Ed Week:

By Catherine Gewertz

Washington

The nation’s largest teachers’ union and two leading business groups said today they have become partners in the work of a blue-ribbon commission trying to revolutionize American education.

The announcement by the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers marks the next step in taking the ideas in a high-profile December 2006 report, “Tough Choices or Tough Times,” from proposals to practice. The report, by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, called for sweeping, systemic changes in education funding, assessment, school management, and teacher pay and training. ( "U.S. Urged to Reinvent Its Schools," Dec. 20, 2006.)

At a news conference here, leaders of the National Center on Education and the Economy , which sponsored the commission, also said that Arizona, Delaware, and New Mexico would begin the planning required to rework aspects of their education systems to reflect the commission’s framework. In doing so, the new states join Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Utah, which signed on to do likewise in October. . . .

Aging Geeky Oligarch Front and Center in Education Takeover

Image Source:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/
images/gateswinmcnameegetty.jpg

If you don't think it is showtime for big business in K12 schools, you didn't read the Obama speech yesterday or notice the phony cackle of Arne Duncan as he made the talk show rounds to sell the takeover of American education by the reigning American oligarchs. The Gates-Broad-Walton Group now own the Education Department, and whether or not the President knows what is going on or whether he has used American schools as a bargaining chip to buy corporate support for policies that matter to him, is entirely irrelevant. One thing is for sure: unless teachers, parents, and students move beyond their unions and school boards and into the streets, this plan for corporate schools will sail through quicker than you can Microsoft.

Union leaders have been bought or are in denial or both. Have a look at reaction from the speech. From the AP:

. . . .We finally have an education president," said Randi Weingarten [bought], president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers. "We really embrace the fact that he's talked about both shared responsibility and making sure there is a voice for teachers, something that was totally lacking in the last eight years."

The president of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, Dennis van Roekel said, "President Obama always says he will do it with educators, not to them."

"That is a wonderful feeling, for the president of the United States to acknowledge and respect the professional knowledge and skills that those educators bring to every job in the school," van Roekel said.

Van Roekel [in denial] insisted that Obama's call for teacher performance pay does not necessarily mean raises or bonuses would be tied to student test scores. It could mean more pay for board-certified teachers or for those who work in high-poverty, hard-to-staff schools, he said.

However, administration officials said later they do mean higher pay based on student achievement, among other things. . . .

And yesterday Gates and Broad did some bank walking in Seattle, where they offered several million tax-deductible dollars to one of Eli's Broad's miracle admin school graduates in charge of the Seattle Schools, who last week earned new respect from the bosses by suspending those two teachers for giving attention to the wishes of parents on the testing of their children. The oligarchs will have none of that, and yesterday Goodloe-Johnson was paid off with some more dough to gather some more "data."

In a lucrative vote of confidence in Seattle Public Schools, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will give the district $7.2 million over the next three years, saying it is impressed with the five-year plan developed under Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson.

The grant is one of four the district plans to announce Tuesday, for a total of $9 million.

The Gates Foundation's contribution is its first major donation to the city's public schools since 2000, when it gave a five-year, $26 million grant, one of the first in its initial $350 million effort to improve the nation's schools. . . .

. . . . The Alliance for Education, a nonprofit organization that raises funds for Seattle Public Schools, will manage all four grants. The district must show progress each year in order to get the full $9 million, said President and CEO Patrick D'Amelio.

The Gates Foundation's gift also is one of the first since Phillips started working there and the foundation revamped its strategy in education giving.

The foundation still thinks that high schools should be smaller, Phillips said, but in Seattle and elsewhere, the foundation will also focus on supporting good teaching with tools, training and research.

The $7.2 million for Seattle isn't big by Gates standards, but Phillips said it is significant for a district of Seattle's size. The foundation recently gave $8 million to support data systems in the entire state of Texas.

And remember, every time the oligarchs give 3 bucks to advance their own ideological agendas, taxpapers give them back at least a dollar for being so generous. Some states like Florida have dollar for dollar tax credits, so that corporations giving to the state school voucher fund can offset up to 75% of their tax obligation. Now how sweet is that pot!

Stimulating Corporate Control of Education

From Ken Libby, who spent the weekend looking into the educational giveaways folded into the Senate version of the Stimulus:

Stimulating Corporate Education
Ken Libby

The current stimulus bill highlights the different approaches taken by the two major parties in their goal to eliminate public education and strengthen private control of one of the most essential institutions in a democratic society.

Republicans would prefer to drop emergency education funding entirely, favoring the market-based voucher system first envisioned by Milton Friedman and embraced by neoconservatives. The Democratic stimulus package passed by the House and currently debated by the Senate proposes a slower transition to private control of education.

The $79 billion for "State Fiscal Stabilization" would provide emergency funds for education and social services. However, in an effort to gain a few Republican votes, the Democratic leadership in the Senate appears willing to slice $40 billion from this fund. Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration may fight the $40 billion cut.

However, the "State Fiscal Stabilization" fund proposed by Democrats includes language designed to shift control of education to corporate interests through the charter school movement. The stimulus package would allow Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, privatizer extraordinaire in the Chicago Public Schools prior to his work in the Obama administration, to direct nearly $14 billion for "State Incentive Grants" and a $650 million "Innovation Fund." Securing a few Republican votes may require cutting these programs in half if the "State Fiscal Stabilization" fund is slashed, a compromise representing the worst of both political ideologies.

Regardless, eligibility for Duncan's new $650,000,000 "Innovation Fund" giveaway under the Democratic stimulus package requires an organization to "demonstrate that they have established partnerships with the private sector, which may include philanthropic organizations, and that the private sector will provide matching funds in order to help bring the results to scale." Yet securing a grant also would "allow such eligible entities to work in partnership with the private sector and the philanthropic community" to expand "to scale based on demonstrated success." This is a significant injection of federal funding into the corporate model of educational reform envisioned by Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Family Foundation, KIPP schools, Teach For America, Chris Whittle of Edison Schools, the Committee for Economic Development, and the Business Roundtable.

States willing to play by the data manipulation game mastered by corporate charter chains are eligible for billions more in "Incentive Grants." Section 1406(b) of the stimulus bill specifies "[t]he Secretary shall determine which States receive grants under this section, and the amount of those grants, on the basis of information provided in State applications under section 1405 and such other criteria as the Secretary determines appropriate."

States receiving these funds are also required to adhere to specific aspects of the America COMPETES Act, most notably to "align the requirements, standards, and assessments with the knowledge and skill necessary for success in academic credit-bearing coursework in postsecondary education, in the 21st Century workforce, and in the Armed Forces without the need for remediation," practically a summary of Duncan's position as CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

Duncan spent the past seven years reforming CPS, which included the opening of 5 high school military academies filled by minority students, mandating curriculum optimal for teaching children the limited reading skills demanded by the minimum-wage employment in corporate America, expelling low-achieving students to boost test scores, spreading the corporate/militant model of education reserved for minority students in inner-city charter schools, and preserving the best public education for the wealthiest families. The Democratic stimulus package looks to expand Chicago's model nationwide. This also offers the first glimpse into how the Democratic Party will approach the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, particularly how conditional funding will force cash-strapped states to adopt national standards.

Education Industry Associates, representing many of the most powerful education interest groups, claims "[e]ducation is rapidly becoming a $1 trillion industry, representing 10% of America's GNP and second in size only to the health care industry." Elementary and secondary education represents nearly $600 billion annually, with high-poverty schools the target of for-profit education management organizations (EMOs) in the endless search for emerging markets. Neoliberal social entrepreneurs are salivating at the prospect of expanding their teach-to-the-test, militarized learning environments.

Under the education provisions in the current stimulus plan, Federal dollars will be diverted to for-profit corporations and non-profits and foundations representing corporate America, a continuation of the abysmal policies of the Department of Education during the previous eight years. Washington elites, and the Democratic party in particular, are presenting a false choice of eliminating supplemental state assistance or providing "State Fiscal Stabilization" with billions reserved for dismantling public education.

Under the current plan, any stimulus signed by the President will significantly weaken public education. Emergency public funding will either be slashed in an era of unprecedented bailouts for the same institutions responsible for the State and local budget shortages; or, public education funding will be diverted back to corporate America through the U. S. Department of Education.

The Washington elite couldn't care less about public education for the poor when their children have access to high-quality education free from testing regimens and militaristic learning environments, which they deem necessary for working class children to overcome the effects of the poverty that Washington continues to simply ignore. As for the general public, a far cheaper education system guided and controlled by corporate America becomes the only education system capable of legitimizing current power structures and economic systems that display a blatant disregard for our children and our collective future.


Last updated: 3:25 pm

TFA and KIPP: Ivy League Temps and Corporate Missionaries, Part II

Teach For America, Awhile: Ivy League Temps and Corporate Missionaries
Part II

Jim Horn
February 4, 2009
Cambridge, MA

The limitation that was put upon outward action by the fixed arrangements of the typical traditional schoolroom, with its fixed rows of desks and its military regimen of pupils who were permitted to move only at certain fixed signals, put a great restriction upon intellectual and moral freedom. Straitjacket and chain-gang procedures had to be done away with if there was to be a chance for growth of individuals in the intellectual springs of freedom without which there is no assurance of genuine and continued normal growth. –John Dewey, Experience and Education, 1938

In the bestseller, Outliers, in which Malcolm Gladwell offers his latest tribute to the obvious made endlessly obvious, Gladwell offers up the KIPP phenomenon as an entirely ridiculous example for an entirely sensible observation. I mean, who can argue with Gladwell’s main premise that most people achieve success with hard work and the help of others, rather than from a personal advantage or special gift. But who, on the other hand, believes that urban poverty and all its attendant horrors is the responsibility of the poor, which Gladwell also argues in order to rationalize the “helping-hand” solution that people like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and lesser stars in the social entrepreneurial firmament offer via TFA and KIPP to the poor as shabby, abusive, and self-serving substitutes for doing something about poverty, which is the problem that is at the heart of all the gaps between the haves and have nots.

Now it would seem that if success in life were achieved with the help of others and some good luck, as Gladwell argues convincingly, wouldn’t it make sense that failure follows a similar pattern? Can we really believe in the self-made failure when we can no longer believe in the simplistic explanation of the self-made success? Apparently Gladwell can, as he attributes the educational testing disadvantages of the poor to the failure of the poor who constitute the communities they live in. As sad evidence, Gladwell offers us the example of 12 year-old Marita, whose “community does not give her what she needs,” and, thus, is placed into the KIPP crucible so that she may be melted down and molded into a ghettoized version of the middle class child:

Marita's life is not the life of a typical twelve-year-old. Nor is it what we would necessarily wish for a twelve-year old. Children, we like to believe, should have time to play and dream and sleep. Marita has responsibilities. What is being asked of her is the same thing that was asked of the Korean pilots. To become a success at what they did, they had to shed some part of their own identity, because the deep respect for authority that runs throughout Korean culture simply does not work in the cockpit. Marita has had to do the same because the cultural legacy she had been given does not match her circumstances either -- not when middle and upper middle class families are using weekends and summer vacation to push their children ahead. Her community does not give her what she needs. So what does she have to do? Give up her evenings and weekends and friends -- all the elements of her old world -- and replace them with KIPP (p. 266).

Missionary zeal and colonial imperialism? The high price of salvation? Or just the simple trading in of childhood and socio-cultural development for the anti-cultural and intellectually-sterilizing curriculums of the testing companies? Gladwell’s modern day version of blaming the poor for their poverty widespread, and it is not so far as it may seem from our Puritan forefathers’ preferred explanation of poverty as resulting from the moral depravity of the poor. Today’s public punishment of the poor comes, however, not in physical humiliations on the public square, but in the public shaming from within the local newspapers, which print the test scores that correlate directly to family income, and in the psychologically-damaging scripted learning interventions that are grounded in the economic-behavioral catechism of working harder and being nicer for the forever-back-to-basics teacher trainees supplied from among the members of the Economic Elect. These TFAers, then, share neither cultural nor ethnic likeness with those they would save, and their concern for the “failed” communities they would seem to serve is neatly contained within a covenant that expires at the end of two years.

Recently, however, TFA has been working a new angle to hang on to some TFA alums so that they may be directed post-TFA into “educational equity leadership” positions as, 1) KIPP school administrators and other for-profit and non-profit charter school companies, 2) political apparatchiks to push the TFA/KIPP agenda, which neatly overlays the Business Roundtable agenda, and 3) social entrepreneurs who will mine the never-ending supply of golden tax credits that are awaiting those with “innovative solutions” to “educational inequity:”

The social entrepreneurship initiative seeks to inspire alumni to participate in this field and connect them to the skills and resources necessary for success. We will define success around the number of ventures created by alumni that are recognized by leading fellowship programs for social entrepreneurs, reach financial and organizational stability, and demonstrate clear potential to have measurable impact. By 2010 we aim to have 12 new alumni actively engaged as social entrepreneurs (TFA 2007 Annual Report, p. 17).

Sounds like it’s all about the kids to me.

The TFA/KIPP phenomenon, of course, would not be possible without the deep pockets of corporate contributors such as the Broad Foundation that pump billions into a number of ventures aimed at replacing urban public education with a corporate welfare model that is, of course, tax supported. There is no greater exemplar of the TFA business model in action than the presently controversial reign of DC Schools Chancellor, Michelle Rhee (Baltimore Corps ’92). With the help of unnamed foundations who are providing Rhee with $75,000,000 per year for five years in order to buy out the union, the shuttering of schools, the re-opening of cheap charter chain-gang alternatives, and the institutionalization of bonus pay for test scores can, in the meantime, proceed unfettered by collective bargaining agreements. All at taxpayer expense.

While few believe that TFA/KIPP can be scaled up to the levels required to provide the final educational solution for all public school children, TFA/KIPP offers a model to emulate for those who would prefer their teachers minimally prepared, non-union, untenured, with fewer expensive benefits and less pay, and who report to school CEOs who hire and fire at will in non-profit corporate charter schools that are not burdened by school board regulations or by oversight from elected officials or their representatives. And even if it could be scaled up, the TFA/KIPP model offers imagined solutions for learning in poor communities only, for there is no school in any leafy suburb of America whose parents would allow their Seths and Kaitlins to be subjected to the parrot learning, behavioral straightjackets, and the well-intentioned, though clueless, neophytes from TFA. Just no way.

And yet, for the children of the poor, who sometimes dodge bullets on the way home from the 10-12 hour KIPP days of working hard and being nice with “no excuses,” or who must suffer pain and even death from common maladies left untreated like tooth aches turned into deadly brain infections (see the story of Daemonte Driver), or who, like Marita, must give up everything to survive in the neighborhood school turned pressure cooker, for these children KIPP and TFA are good enough—even a KIPP/TFA look-alike is good enough.

The fact remains, of course, that until poverty and the segregation that accompanies poverty are dealt with, urban schools will continue to fall prey to “bold reformers” who unfailingly hide behind the fig leaf of “educational equity” to pursue their own political agendas that leave children behind once more and that leave our society more vulnerable to a virulent brand of anti-democratic corporate socialism. Meanwhile, we will continue to rush in paramedics with aspirin to treat a deadly cancer that requires the best oncologists that we refuse to provide. It is, once again in our history, the repeated parading of blind hubris born of invisible privilege and unchecked greed that allows such repulsive abuse to be treated as virtuous charity, and such thinly masked self-aggrandizement as the just reward for the continued malignant neglect of the poor.

Cross-posted at Change.org
JH

"The Latest Nation At Risk Report" by Carl Glickman

From Carl Glickman at Forum for Education and Democracy. HT to Monty Neill at ARN:

The Latest Nation At Risk Report: The Education Roundtable to Tell Corporate America How to Stop Ruining America

We feel compelled to report to the American people that the business and financial foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur— companies that extolled themselves as models of excellent practices have deceived the American people with sloppy, undisciplined, and greedy practices that are driving Americans out of their homes, threatening their retirements, and dashing their hopes of a financially secure future. Indeed, if an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre corporate financial performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

As it stands, our businesses have allowed this to happen, with greedy CEOs and upper management taking enormous benefits for themselves while preaching and dictating to our schools the need to adopt their “sound” business practices of unbridled free markets, privatization strategies, and the notion of competition as the force for change. Taxpayers are now providing an initial $700 billon bailout of some of these companies, whose CEO’s have been actively involved in dictating to policy-makers that America’s schools should model the management style of the private sector.

God forbid that our schools become more like these kinds of businesses! Our business and financial communities have, in effect, been committing rash, thoughtless acts of unilateral financial disarmament, dragging our citizens and their children into economic insecurity while having many of these same citizens pay the bill. By making their terminology, practices and transactions incomprehensible to the lay audience, these business leaders enjoyed a decade-long end run around the public and our alleged watchdog agencies. The hubris of high rollers on the top floors of America’s giant companies permitting unfettered profit-taking at the expense of others has no limit. To be blunt, the business community has become an industry at risk of implosion.

To help our colleagues in the business community, we educators hereby recommend a new guiding and monitoring organization for business and financial institutions. The Education Roundtable will gather a team of the country’s top educators, whose charge will be to set business standards, goals, and accountability structures for all corporations and financial institutions. To promote a greater culture of accountability, the Roundtable will also require each entity to publish a report card every year, based on a series of standardized assessments.

Our final word, perhaps better characterized as a plea, is that all segments of our population will give close attention to the implementation of our recommendations. Our present plight did not appear overnight, and the responsibility for our current situation is widespread. Reform of our corporate and financial system will take time and unwavering commitment. For no one can doubt that the United States is under challenge from many quarters.

……………………………………………………………
Epilogue

There will be some angry readers out there who will bristle as I have lifted some of the exact wording of the Nation at Risk Report of 1983 and changed the word “schools” and “public education” to “business and financial institutions.” And yes, I have taken plenty of liberties to extend and add sentences to define all business and financial leaders and stock market manipulators as untrustworthy, immoral, dangerous people who have let our country down; crushing the day to day lives and long term hopes of the large majority of Americans who can not afford to lose their jobs, their homes, and their savings. And my business friends -- if there still are a few left -- will bristle at the idea that educators and lay people, with no experiences in business or finance, should be taking charge of what they need to do. If so, the point has been made and hopefully, sincerely taken before further policy making.

Handing Over the High School Curriculum to Corporate Control in New Jersey

NJ MISSTEPS ON SECONDARY REFORM PLAN
NEW TESTS, NO NEW RESOURCES
Stan Karp

On April 25, the New Jersey High School Redesign Steering Committee released its long-awaited recommendations for secondary reform in a report entitled NJ Steps: Re-designing Education in NJ for the 21st Century. In a presentation to a joint meeting of the State Board of Education and the NJ Commission on Higher Education, Governor Jon Corzine and Commissioner Lucille Davy outlined a major increase in state graduation requirements, including six new high stakes end-of-course exams that would be required to earn a high school diploma by 2016.

Although the report urges "a fundamental change in public education in the state that will affect students in all grades," the committee did not propose any new resources to support its recommendations. The absence of new funds in a time of tight budgets and continuing controversy over the state’s new school funding formula raised serious questions about how the committee plans to reach its goal of "preparing every student for success." There is also debate about how that "success" should be defined.

Aside from the costs of implementing the plan, education advocates raised concerns about the impact of the proposed tests and standardization of courses on school programs and student options, and about the top-down process that has so far shaped the HS Redesign effort.

End of Course Exams

The plan offers little direct help to the state’s large urban high schools that are already struggling to meet existing state standards and the escalating benchmarks of the federal No Child Left Behind Law. NJ Steps promises "special consideration" to such schools declaring, "The extra supports required by these students...must be front and center of any efforts to raise expectations." However, these supports are not described in detail in the proposal or backed with committed resources.

By contrast, the new standards and tests are outlined in charts and timelines that leave little room for alternative visions of reform. To receive a high school diploma, students would be required to take and pass end-of-course exams in Language Arts, Algebra I & II, Geometry, Biology and Chemistry. The plan includes references to "individualized attention, more relevant coursework," and "restructured learning experiences." But the heart of the proposal is a largely conventional plan to ramp up traditional academic course work in a "one-size-fits-all" framework that will be difficult to impose and costly to implement.

As a report on exit exams from the Center on Education Policy notes:

"The direct costs of developing and administering the tests themselves make up a tiny fraction of the total costs of implementing an exit exam policy. The bulk of the costs go toward other ‘hidden’ expenses necessary to give students a strong chance of passing the mandatory exams. These include remedial services for students who fail, programs to prevent failure, and professional development to upgrade the skills of teachers who must prepare students for the exams....The true costs of an exit exam policy are often invisible to state policymakers, because the expenses are being borne mostly by local school districts—and often by shifting existing funds away from other educational priorities." (“The Hidden Cost of High School Exit Exams,” Center on Education Policy, May 2004)

Currently only 35% of all NJ districts require Chemistry, less than 45% require Algebra II, and less than 70% require Algebra I, Geometry, and Biology. Moving these numbers up to 100% within eight years, as NJ Steps proposes, would require major increases in educational investment. The report acknowledges that "New Jersey is currently facing a shortage of qualified math, science, and special education teachers" and that "Teacher attrition...is especially acute in low-performing, high poverty schools where experienced, expert teachers are most needed."

Under the plan, freshman entering high school in September 2008 would need to pass tests in Language Arts, Algebra I and Biology to get a diploma. Two years later, Geometry and Chemistry would be added. The following year’s freshman class would also have to pass an Algebra II exam.

Advocates for vocational ed programs are concerned that required courses will squeeze out the applied electives and practical real world training that attract students to such programs. Others are concerned that an expanded system of high-stakes exit tests will negatively affect graduation and dropout rates, especially if they are not matched by dramatic improvements in secondary programs and performance. Currently, New Jersey has the nation’s second highest graduation rate according to Education Week. Neighboring New York state, which adopted a similar series of tests several years ago, is number 40.

American Diploma Project

Although the plan was presented by the New Jersey High School Redesign Committee, its origins lie in the American Diploma Project (ADP) sponsored by Achieve, Inc. Achieve is a national educational consulting group created by business leaders and the nation’s Governors to align K-12 curriculum with the needs and expectations of the business world and higher education. Art Ryan, retiring CEO of Prudential and a national co-chair of Achieve, has been a leader of the NJ effort. Ryan, Corzine and Susan Cole, the president of Montclair State University, are co-chairs of the Redesign Steering Committee. According to NJ Steps, the "ADP benchmarks have become the foundation for change and redesign of high schools in New Jersey."

In August 2006, the HS Redesign Steering Committee was formed with representation from the state’s major professional education organizations, including the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, New Jersey School Boards Association, New Jersey Commission on Higher Education, and the New Jersey Education Association. The Chamber of Commerce and the business-led New Jersey United for Higher School Standards were also represented. Parent and community groups, school-based educators and others were limited to asking questions at a series of public meetings designed to win support for the plan.

Now that the plan has been formulated and endorsed by "New Jersey’s higher education and business communities," it is being submitted to the State Board of Education for approval. The plan also calls for creation of a "P-16 Council" of "key stakeholders to create a seamless, aligned system of public education in New Jersey." The recurring theme of "aligning" the K-12 system from the top-down to meet the needs of higher education and business has sparked concerns that the plan does not represent the full range of interests that public education must serve and could reinforce new types of tracking and other forms of educational inequality.

Secondary Education Initiative

Throughout the process, the concerns of urban "Abbott" advocates been marginalized. A Court-ordered mediation agreement did lead in 2004 to the creation of the Secondary Education Initiative [SEI] which required the 31 "special needs" Abbott districts to develop plans to provide college prep curricula, small learning communities and student/family supports for all middle and high school students. But this effort was consigned to a separate, lesser track in the NJ Department of Education’s since-dissolved "Abbott division" and only belatedly folded into the HS Redesign effort. As it became clear that the Administration was developing a new school funding formula that would eliminate the Abbott framework, hoped-for supports for SEI, including formation of technical assistance teams, inclusion of SEI in district budget planning, and development of a research plan to evaluate the reform, did not materialize.

NJ Steps does pledge to continue SEI and even declares, "with the implementation of the new school funding formula in January 2008, these reforms will be expanded to districts throughout the state." However the substance of these commitments is uncertain and the DOE’s record of sustaining secondary reform, especially in urban districts, is not strong.

NJ Steps says that "with strained local and state budgets, any additional resources will have to be found through strategic reallocations." Yet for nearly 15 years the State has assumed full control of NJ’s three largest urban districts during a period with the highest, Abbott-mandated levels of funding for urban secondary schools in the nation. But little has been accomplished in the way of "reallocation" or sustained investment for secondary reform, particularly in the large comprehensive high schools. When the SEI regulations were first adopted in 2004-2005, four districts were selected as "phase one pilots" to test the assumptions of the plan and apply its lessons to other districts. But only one limited pilot, in Orange, went forward and a systematic evaluation of the results has not been done.

As it retreats from Abbott commitments, the Department is circulating a scaled-back, draft version of the secondary regulations for use under the new School Funding and Reform Act. Where the original SEI regulations required implementation of small learning communities and a defined program of student/family supports, the draft regulations ask districts to pick from a list of "personalization strategies" that include "adult mentoring programs" or "other practices." Substantive elements like a requirement that teacher teams working with cohorts of students over multiple years receive two-three hours per week of common planning time have been removed, (even as NJ Steps declares that: "New Jersey’s schools must design and offer sustained, intensive, job-embedded professional development to enable teachers, superintendents, principals, and supervisors to support high student achievement.")

Unfortunately, these are signs of the recurring pattern of reform failure. New plans drop from the sky without summing up the lessons of previous ones or addressing the real experience of school communities with past reform efforts. Those parts of the plan that can be moved "on paper," such as standards and tests, are adopted by the State, with increasing detail and prescription, in the name of "accountability" and "higher expectations." But the more difficult efforts to build local capacity that can address issues of school climate, improve professional practice and create inclusive, credible process don’t receive the sustained attention and resources needed to put them in place. The rhetoric of "higher expectations" substitutes for the real changes needed to achieve them.

There are too many examples of this in NJ Steps. In proposing that Chemistry, now required by just 33% of all NJ districts, be made mandatory for all students, the report says, "The Steering Committee recognizes that a Lab Chemistry course, as it has been traditionally taught, would require facilities that may not be available in many schools for dramatically increased numbers of students." Yet instead of linking this recommendation to the need for equalizing educational opportunity, the report cites ways "to reorient how Chemistry is taught so that extensive capital investment by districts may not be required." Such approaches raise doubts among educators, parents and equity advocates about the real intent and potential impact of the plan. A plan that relies so heavily on "raising expectations" through high-stakes exams has a special obligation to address the true costs of passing them.

New Jersey is in urgent need of a robust reform effort that promotes multiple pathways to success for an increasingly diverse student population. But such an effort must rely less on state standards and high-stakes exams and more on credible resources, school-based change, and an inclusive, collaborative reform process. Unless the NJDOE and the HS Redesign Committee heed the lessons of past rounds of failed reform, this new plan could do more harm than good or be "dead-on-arrival" in the schools and communities that need reform most.

For more info contact skarp@edlawcenter.org.

Prepared: April 30, 2008

Copyright © 2008 Education Law Center. All Rights Reserved.

More dropouts? You bet. What is going to help the tens of thousands of poor kids pass multiple exams, the ones who can't pass the current single high school graduation test? "Thowed away."

One curriculum "choice" for all, no excuses, no ifs, ands, or buts? You bet--that's what the economy of scale demands.

The arts and music and history and constitutional government? If it can't be used to pump consumption in the global economy, who cares?

What's it all based on? Propaganda from the Fordham Foundation and Manhattan Institute. There is not a single refereed source in all of the Report to substantiate any of the proposed actions.

Where is environmental awareness in this Exxon/Mobil science curriculum that ignores the approaching ecological calamity? Nowhere in sight.

Where are the university schools of education in this discussion? Waiting for their marching orders.

Where was the NJEA as all this was unfolding? Right up there in line at the same feeding trough. Ditto for the NJ School Boards Association.
JH

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Save the Republic and the Earth,
Jim Horn
ontogenyx@mac.com