Duncan Favors Shutting Down Elected School Boards

I remember ten years ago when state education officials in Louisiana were going around the state to brief education faculties on the new testing system called LEAP. Accustomed to being the last in education or just above Guam and Mississippi, Louisiana was going to be the first to use the "no excuses" excuse to punish poor children for being poor, i. e., to use a single test to determine if elementary age children would move to the next grade.

And having just come from Long Island U. where I had done work in the Roosevelt Schools that New York's Department of Ed had taken over in hopes of boosting academic performance, I assumed that the State of Louisiana would soon be in the business of taking over bunches of elementary schools across the state, because all of us in the room knew there would be widespread failures--and we even knew where the failures were going to occur. Drive through any city and you can tell with 90+% certainty where the failing schools are by casting a casual eye on the level of poverty reflected in the neighborhood. So when I piped up with my question, What is the state going to do with all the schools that are going to have large number of failures, I remember the response exactly: The State doesn't want them.

By the time that NCLB was being put together two years later, it had become obvious what the State was wanting to do with the schools that it didn't want: it wanted to offer vouchers to parents for a marginal private school education, or it wanted to turn schools into charter schools that would be run by private companies. That hasn't changed, even though it has taken hundreds of thousands of 4th grade and 8th grade failures and a Category 5 hurricane to finally bring that political aspiration to the brink of fruition. Soon after Katrina when it became obvious that the hurricane had wiped out the public school system, Orleans Parish School Board President Phyllis Landrieu expressed the sentiments of those in the State who had been waiting for God, or George Bush, or both, to put their privatization plans into high gear: "I say, Thank you, Katrina' all the time."

So now we have Paul Vallas as overseer of the charterization of NOLA Schools, and the Vallas protege, Arne Duncan, as the Secretary of Eduction. My, my. And the young Mr. Duncan has $5 billion in his pocket to make sure the privatization job that was only wishful thinking ten years ago gets finished, in New Orleans and elsewhere in the state where there are high concentrations of poor kids. Not only that, but we have a Secretary who wants to make sure that the big business model of schooling gets instituted and that public governance through the election of school board members becomes a thing of the past. So that without torches and pitchforks, there will little recourse to accepting what ignorant businessmen offer through their "no excuses" schoolhouse chain gangs that are built on the abuse model of KIPP. Download SUCCESS AT SCALE IN CHARTER SCHOOLING to see the future that Arne and Paul and Phyllis see. And let's not forget to give credit to slick Paul Pastorek, the State Superintendent for Louisiana.

Here is a clip from the Times-Picayune coverage of the Duncan visit to New Orleans yesterday:

Duncan said New Orleans schools benefit from a "set of adults that are pushing a very strong reform agenda" in concert with one another.

"I am a huge fan of Paul Pastorek, " he said of the state superintendent of education.

Along with Vallas, Pastorek has governed the lion's share of the city's public schools with unprecedented power and money during the past two years. The Recovery School District operates 33 schools directly and oversees another 33 charter schools.

Since a state takeover of the city's lower-performing schools, the Orleans Parish School Board has operated five schools directly and has overseen 12 charter schools.

The teachers union lost its collective-bargaining rights after Hurricane Katrina. So, politically, Pastorek and Vallas answer only to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, with members who come from across the state and have varying degrees of familiarity with the school issues and landscape in New Orleans.

Duncan came down squarely against local elected boards as the governance structure for large, urban districts. He said he favors mayoral control, appointed school boards or some type of top-down authority of the type Pastorek exerts.

"You need leadership from the top, " he said.

He argues that elected school boards in urban districts lead to a perpetual churn of superintendents, leadership and policies. . . .

Notice that democratically-elected school boards are not in question here for the leafy suburbs--it is only for the large urban districts, you see. Yes, yes, that dangerous churning of democratic action among the black and the brown--the same kind of action that allowed this fool, Arne Duncan, to be appointed to his present position, through an election that was all about restoring our democracy, we all thought. Now that hope, that last hope, is on life support, and the oligarchs are smiling all the way to the Treasury once again.

Jay Mathews Gets Called Out: Will His Editors Notice?

Thomas Mertz does a superlative job of deconstructing the latest KIPP cover-up that Mathews provides in the Washington Post. Here is the opening from AMP:

How to Spin a Story — Jay Mathews on KIPP Problems
Thomas J. Mertz

The short version is that the first step in spinning a story is to ignore any information that undermines your position; the second step is to include information that supports your biases, and throughout use every trick in the book to evoke sympathy for your cause. This is to be expected from Public Relations flacks and political spokespeople. It is more problematic when spin of this sort comes from one of the leading educational columnists in the United States, Jay Mathews of the Washington Post. In a recent post that pretends to explore problems at Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools — including physical and emotional abuse, questionable financial management and insecure testing protocols —, Mathews does all of the above, with the twist of appearing to include and address the negative information.

It is no secret that Mathews is a charter cheerleader and champion of KIPP schools. His columns and recent book have made that much clear. Opinions and a viewpoint are to be expected from columnists. However, think an ethical line is crossed when – as in Mathews “Turmoil at Two KIPP Schools” — that biased columnist leaves out crucial information while giving the appearance of examining developments contrary to his or her well-established positions. It is a line of trust that is broken and line between journalist and flack that is crossed. . . . .

Read the rest here.

Palin Axes Stim Funds for Poor and Disabled Kids

Give those, ya know, poor kids an inch, and by golly the next thing ya' know, ya' know, is they'll want a hot lunch, or somethin' else equally ridiculous.

From the Anchorage Daily News:

By MEGAN HOLLAND, KYLE HOPKINS and S.J. KOMARNITSKY
Anchorage Daily News

(03/19/09 17:29:31)

Alaska superintendents are already lobbying legislators to reverse Gov. Sarah Palin's decision to reject $172 million for Alaska schools.

Their reactions to Palin's decision have ranged from dismay to panic, superintendents said Thursday.

Much of the stimulus package money for education -- about $74 million -- was designated for poor schools and special-needs kids. It was to be spent over the next two academic years.

Most of the other money is meant to help prevent cuts to classrooms, staff and critical services.

"This is the kids' money, not our money," said Lower Yukon superintendent John Lamont.

Palin's team warned the cash could balloon budgets and unintentionally inflate future state spending.

Many of the state's 53 superintendents are drafting a joint letter to the Legislature, asking lawmakers to override Palin and accept the money, Lamont said.

"Even if it was a two-year package, our students are in dire need," he said.

Lamont's district, which is spread over 22,000 square miles in Western Alaska, has a dropout rate that is more than twice the national average. He had planned to use the $2.2 million he thought his district was getting to hire math and reading specialists.

The news may have come as more of a surprise because the state Department of Education held a teleconference with superintendents this week about the stimulus funding. Superintendents were given estimates of how much they would be receiving, for at least some portions of the money. They were told the governor had some reservations about the money and didn't want frivolous spending, but not that Palin might turn away all the school money, said Kenai Peninsula Borough Schools assistant superintendent Steve Atwater.

Nancy Wagner, superintendent of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, said the federal money could pay for things the district will eventually have to spend money on anyway, like training or materials.

"We wouldn't want to commit to something that we know we couldn't sustain ... it would free up some funding for us to use later," she said.. . . .

KIPP Bullying Tactics Against Fresno Unified Fail

Since the KIPP Fresno horrors emerged, KIPP, Inc.'s home office has attempted to paint itself, alternately, as the victim of ax-grinding parents, disgruntled employees, or the public school district out to shut them down out of jealous revenge for making them look bad. In order to push their self-portrait of system victim, they have recruited an army of supporters in and outside Fresno to march, attend meetings, and to make a joyful noise unto the name of KIPP.

This is the same tactic used by founders, Feinberg and Levin, since the early days of KIPP-Houston, when they manipulated students and parents in attempts to bully school officials into going along with KIPP demands. And this is the same variety of mock democratic action, which is truly a mockery of democratic action, that the Bloomberg oligarchy is using now in New York City to manufacture support through a goon squad of arm-twisting principals who are pressuring teachers and parents to support the continuation of Bloomberg's dictatorial powers over what were once the public schools of the City (see today's story from the Daily News on Bloomberg's "shock troops" strategy).

To assist in the attempt to bully Fresno Unified is, of course, the local media, as may be evidenced here in this clip from KSEE 24News where a local "newsman" goes after a school official in an interview in which the official's response to hostile questions is overlayed with video clips of chanting, marching, and sign-carrying KIPP supporters.

With billions to support a PR and media campaign to squeeze Fresno Unified into writing a letter of endorsement to the State, which would clear KIPP Fresno and KIPP, Inc. from legal liability in the abusive and illegal practices at the Fresno site, the pressure has been non-stop against the officials of Fresno Unified, and the focus has been placed on what the District will do, rather than what the abusers and lawbreakers at KIPP will do to correct the practices that were responsible for the investigation to begin with.

Fresno Unified School District, then, is to be commended for standing up the KIPP bullies with their billionaire backing from the Waltons, Fishers, Dells, Broads, Gatess, etc. Do you think that these characters need a loan from the bankrupt state of California to run their corporate welfare operation?

$25,000,000 and above

• Doris and Donald Fisher

$10,000,000 to $24,999,999

• The Atlantic Philanthropies
• The Broad Family Foundation
• The Walton Family Foundation

$5,000,000 to $9,999,999

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Robertson Foundation

$1,000,000 to $4,999,999

• John and Laura Arnold
• Reed Hastings and Patty Quillin
• Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
• Marcus Foundation
• Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
• Miles Family Foundation
• New Profit Inc.

$500,000 to $999,999

• Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

$100,000 to $499,000

• All Stars Helping Kids
• The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Anonymous
• CityBridge Foundation
• Thomas and Susan Dunn
• John and Laura Fisher
• Goldman Sachs Foundation
• Goldsbury Foundation
• Kinder Foundation
• Koret Foundation
• Steve Mandel
• National Geographic Education Foundation
• SAP
• State Farm Companies Foundation

Now we find out the KIPP, Inc. has not even filed a renewal petition for its charter, even though the charter expires on June 30, 2009. After all the posturing and posing as the victim of the "public school monopoly," I would imagine that we will see KIPP fold up its corrugated building and skip town, much as they have done elsewhere when their indecent and inhumane practices have been challenged by public officials, teachers, and parents.

From the Fresno Unified School District:

REVISED 3-17-09
KIPP Fact Sheet

Revised and Additional Information – March 17, 2009

 The District issued a qualified letter of good standing to the California School Finance Authority. The letter was qualified as it represents a status report from the chartering authority. It is not an endorsement letter.

 Specifically the outstanding issues that resulted in a qualified letter are:

• There remain some items in the original Notice to Cure that need to be corrected, most importantly the lack of credentialed teachers in all core subjects; and,

• The 2nd Interim Budget Report does not appear to reflect all of the school’s facility liabilities. Specifically the reports do not recognize: interest payments due to the facility lender; the facility liability under multiyear commitments for future payments; and, the liability for the line of credit. District staff have provided feedback and asked that the report be corrected.

 A renewal petition for next school year has not been received. District staff offered to meet with KIPP local and Foundation staff to go over the October Report of Findings (a document designed to assist the school with the renewal process), the renewal process and requirements of the renewal petition. KIPP has declined to meet with District staff on this matter.

 County Superintendent Powell has indicated that the County is undertaking a review of the credentialing issue, including whether or not the school will need to repay funds to the State as a result of not staffing core curriculum classes with properly credentialed teachers.

 The financial issues appear resolvable with support of the KIPP Foundation. District CFO, Ruthie Quinto met with KIPP Academy Fresno’s facility lender, LIIF, on Tuesday, March 3 at 3:15 p.m. The lender indicated that they are still offering a complete refinance of the loan that is currently in default. They are offering KIPP Academy Fresno a lower interest rate and a longer repayment period if KIPP Foundation will guarantee $500,000 of the $2.5 million loan. It is unclear at this time why this option has not been acted upon. The lender has indicated that the Foundation could assist KIPP Academy Fresno in the renegotiation and act
as a guarantor of the loan.

 The Superintendent issued a letter to KIPP CEO Richard Barth (March 13, 2009), in an attempt to seek his assistance in resolving the outstanding issues. The letter was faxed to Barth on Friday, March 13, will was also sent email and US mail on Monday, March 16 to Barth, Kanberg, Highbaugh and Lin.

 District also shared a copy of the Barth letter with KIPP Academy board members to demonstrate FUSD’s continued good faith in the process.

 The District issued letters to KIPP parents (February 23 and March 2) in order to communicate accurate and timely information about the situation. District staff continued to respond to parent calls and emails including meeting with them (and members of the community) to address their concerns and to provide accurate information.

 District staff and our charter counsel have been working daily with KIPP Academy Fresno and KIPP Foundation representatives to resolve the remaining issues. In addition, District charter staff have met with the new school leader to provide information, assistance and training particularly in the area of testing and discipline policies. In addition, William Lin is scheduled to meet with Kevin Torosian this Wednesday, March 18 at 2:00 p.m.

 The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) offered to assist Fresno Unified and KIPP to resolve the remaining issues by acting in a communication facilitation role. As a result, KIPP posed a question to the District via CCSA whether or not there would be an opportunity for a letter of good standing to be issued by KIPP’s deadline of Monday, March 16 if they can demonstrate that they have cured the Notice to Cure and their financial situation. The District responded in the affirmative via CCSA. There has been no official
response from KIPP on this matter.

 At the request of the Superintendent, we are responding to the Regional Community Foundation’s offer to provide mediation for District staff and the new school leader to ensure that the relationship going forward is very positive and effective. Information Previously Published (prior to March 16)

 In the spring of 2008, the District received complaints from parents and constituents about issues occurring at the school. While the initial allegations were from parents concerned about the discipline and other practices at the school, the investigation found numerous violations of the school’s charter and state and federal laws.

 The District referred those initial complaints to the local KIPP Academy Fresno Board of Directors for investigation as a charter is expected to investigate its own complaints. However, the Board president indicated its investigation would be ineffective in dealing with the situation. The majority resigned in mass this past summer.

 Under these circumstances, as the chartering authorizer, Fresno Unified has a responsibility to ensure that charters authorized by the District follow federal and state laws and their charter, as well as to provide a safe and educational environment for the students in their care.

 The District issued the Notice to Cure and Correct report this past fall to the school following an extensive investigation into serious allegations at the school site.

 Leadership at KIPP Academy Fresno transitioned on Friday, February 20th. It is our understanding that Mr. William Lin is the new Principal.

 Parents were notified of this leadership change via a letter home on Wednesday, February 18th.

 This decision was made by the KIPP Academy Fresno Board and KIPP Foundation as part of their efforts to correct and respond to the Notice to Cure and Correct report.

 The District does have concerns about the school’s financial stability. Our concerns are as a result of numerous changes KIPP has made to several different versions of their required financial reports.

 In December, KIPP representatives told District staff that KIPP Academy Fresno would close in February 2009 as a result of lack of sufficient funds. However, when the school submitted a draft First Interim budget report the cash flow indicated that the school was sufficiently funded through June.

 As a result of this discrepancy, and the fact that the First Interim Budget Report did not accurately reflect the school’s financial obligations for the facility, District staff requested that the report be revised. The school complied.

 In addition, it is unclear to the District if KIPP has planned for the state budget cuts, which include charter schools, as part of the recently passed State Budget. The second interim report is due on March 4, 2009 and will include the impact for the current plus two years in the report.

 It is our understanding that KIPP has received a foreclosure notice on the school property. Apparently, KIPP was hopeful of receiving state facility funds (Proposition 55) to improve their financial situation. However, it is not known if the state will issue these funds, as the state will consider the charter’s financial situation prior to their release.

 KIPP is requesting a Letter of Good Standing to provide to the state in support of the Prop 55 funding request.

• The letter would be the District’s representation to the state that the charter is in good operating order.

• However, because the District has significant concerns about the remaining issues to be addressed in the Notice to Cure; the charter’s financial stability; and the fact a renewal petition has not been submitted, it would not be prudent for the District to issue such a letter at this time.

• Should the charter receive the funds and subsequently not continue to possess the property for any reason, the District becomes responsible for it.

• We confirmed (2-24-09) with the state that the Prop 55 funds have been placed on hold indefinitely. Our understanding is that at this point even with a letter of good standing, the state will not release these funds.

 The school’s charter ends this June 2009. To date the District has not received a renewal petition from KIPP.

The Joyless Club: The Changing Brains of Children in Kindergarten

HT to Monty Neill at ARN:

Kindergarten Playtime Disappears, Raising Alarm About Children's Learning and Health

College Park, MD, March 20, 2009-Time for play in most kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing, according to results of three new studies released today by the nonprofit Alliance for Childhood. Classic play materials like blocks, sand and water tables, and props for dramatic play have largely disappeared in the 268 kindergarten classrooms studied. The findings are documented in Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School.

Researchers from U.C.L.A. and Long Island University found that, on a typical day, children in all-day kindergartens in Los Angeles and New York City spend four to six times as much time in literacy and math instruction and taking or preparing for tests (about two to three hours per day) as in free play or "choice time" (30 minutes or less). A third research team, at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, found that most of the activities available to children during choice time (a popular euphemism for playtime) are in fact teacher-directed and involve little or no free play, imagination, or creativity.

Child development experts have been raising alarms about the increasingly didactic, test-driven, and joyless course of early childhood education. "These practices, which are not well grounded in research, violate long-established principles of child development and good teaching," states the Alliance report. "It is increasingly clear that they are compromising both children's health and their long-term prospects for success in school."

The report summarizes recent studies and reports showing long-term gains from play and focused, playful learning in early education. It also critiques kindergarten standards, scripted teaching, and standardized testing and makes recommendations for change.

David Elkind, author of The Power of Play, calls the research findings "heartbreaking." In a foreword to the report, Elkind writes, "We have had a politically and commercially driven effort to make kindergarten a one-size-smaller first grade. Why in the world are we trying to teach the elementary curriculum at the early childhood level?"

The full text of Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School is available at www.allianceforchildhood.org.

USA: The Federal Republic of One Test Fits All?

As Arne runs back and forth from meetings with his oligarch handlers, Broad and Gates, to meetings with urban superintendents to give them their instructions, meetings all closed to the news media, we can only assume that big things are getting done. At the top of the list for Gates, Broad, and the Waltons are demands for national testing, pay-per-score for teachers, corporate charter schools, year-round schools for poor kids, a cheap version of growth models to make it impossible to compare charters with public schools, CEO school governance with ability to hire and fire, and a shortened high school for most that is heavy on sci-tech and end of course exams.

The national standards (testing) debate hasn't happened yet, and I expect that it won't happen before the plan becomes part of a mega-bill that gets introduced with demands for an up or down vote tomorrow. Duncan, so far, has not kept a poker face on this one, offering such ignorant comparisons of our somewhat decentralized systems with such national systems as France and Germany. When we consider that France, for all its glory, is four-fifths the size of Texas, we get an idea of how big a federal system of education would be in the U. S. and how difficult it could be to turn the ship if we were to discover that we were headed for a rocky shore. And speaking of shores, would we, as David Berliner has asked, expect children who grow up in the Arizona desert to give as much attention to learning about saltwater marshes as children who live on the Jersey Shore? Would we, too, be smart to put all our eggs into a Soviet-style testing basket that would effect the end of experimentation, novelty, and the possibility of change that a fifty state system keeps alive? In diversity there is strength--but only if we are, indeed, committed to democratic governance, rather than rule by the oligarchs.

Yesterday Deborah Meier had a few things to say about the national standards non-debate in her response to Diane Ravitch in Education Week. Put your feet up for just a minute and read this:

The Power of Big Money & Big State Over Knowledge

Dear Diane,

But let’s not postpone our discussion about national standards for too long. It mostly boils down to my fear about official ideologies and centralized power over ideas. Plus, our old disagreement about intellectual “neutrality” and objectivity.

I found your analysis of Obama’s education policy intriguing: pro-spending, but largely along lines Chicago, NYC, et al have pioneered.

My disagreements are deep-seated. I want a public system of schooling that has local bases and biases—where we don’t all have to agree on what “social justice” teaching means. It’s a risk—but democracy rests on that risk. The messiness of different standards is, to me, a blessing that creates escape hatches for trying something different—within broad limits.

The power of Big Money and the Big State over knowledge and its distribution is immense—including in schooling. My early image of charters was precisely that they might be counter-powers, not so different than what in Boston we called Pilots and in NYC Alternative schools: mom-and-pop ventures, built around a few people with interesting ideas and a constituency that wants to join them in carrying it out. In the case of Pilots and Alternatives, they came under the jurisdiction of local labor-management; charters depend on an arrangement with the State.

But somehow we’ve gotten the worst of both private entrepreneurs and public bureaucrats. Transparency has never been harder to find, whether in our highly centralized urban systems or our continuously enlarging charter sector. There are no serious checks and balances, and lots of private “edu-chains” supported by public funds. There is no “public.” Thus, with virtually no public input, NYC’s mayor is allowed to close neighborhood schools and replace them with charters. Parents meanwhile try to figure out how to manipulate a bewildering array of choices while schools are “empowered” to restrict entrance only to high test-scorers, good writers, whatever. In the name of “fairness and equity” we have more selectivity along racial, class, and ability lines, more (white) gifted classes, and fewer than ever minorities in the prestigious high schools. And flat test scores and rising dropout rates.

The big business mindset, so destructive nationwide, is being offered a free hand in our schools. Schools are “delivery” systems, teachers are deliverers of curriculum, principals are CEOs. It’s an intensification of the old factory-model for new technology factories. Local empowerment in today’s schools usually means more power to the principal and less for the line workers, students, or parents—now seen as obstructers of progress.

We’re told the AIG exec bonuses weren’t tied to performance, but school teachers' salaries should be. And Eli Broad, long associated with AIG, is giving advice to our schools? (See Mike Klonsky’s Small Talk, March 17.)

Garbage in, garbage out is an adage from the early years of computers. At their best, as Walter Stroup so clearly lays out in "What Bernie Madoff Can Teach Us About Accountability in Education" in Education Week this week. Even respected tests are insensitive to schooling—by design. Stroup's succinct piece is a must-read. To make matters worse, when the stakes are high enough you can rely on doctored books. It’s called Campbell’s Law. It reminds me of the old Soviet system—with five-year goals that were met on paper, but rarely in reality. In the end, the Russian people turned the tide in WWII, but only after the State’s vaunted economic power was exposed as a lie. We’ll someday face a similar fate re. education’s cooked data.

You can’t make an omelet, as the expression went in the 1930s, without breaking eggs (meaning people). Making a “revolution” in a labor-intensive field is hard to do without abandoning democracy. Well-intentioned reformers have always seen resistors as obstacles that can best be dealt with by sending them to the “rubber rooms” or their equivalent. It’s a process which views organized teachers and organized parents as obstacles. Temps who move in and out every 2-5 years have many advantages—no retirement pay, for example, and they are less prone to loyalty to a union.

NYC's Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have a vision that requires a series of changes, one quickly following another, close control over data, and little or no discussion so that by the time they’ve “finished” we have no idea what they have wrought—or why. The old reality on the ground has simply disappeared.

A decade of the current bipartisan theory of change, which Obama seems to have bought into, has produced almost no positive results—even in test scores and graduation rates—although claims are made. In NYC class, race and “ability” segregation is one byproduct. The demise of neighborhoods is another. Neighborhood schools are first ignored and then dismantled without community approval. You and I, with our unreasonable hope for schools that put intellectual power in the hands of “the people” are not on the winning side, Diane.

I listened, last week, to some Finnish educators describing what they’ve accomplished by taking the exact opposite path—during approximately the same decade. They have no standardized test (although they do sampling) and have gone from mediocre to No. 1 in math and science. They don’t start formal reading or math teaching until kids are 7 years old, but they’re at the top internationally by age 10! (They provide a classy system of child care starting at age 4.) And they have maintained schools as sites for local community-building. Granted they have a more homogeneous population, more supports for children and families, and, like Singapore, they are the size of NYC. But unlike Singapore they are also a democracy, which should be of special interest to us.

Forgive me for being doom and gloom this week.

Deb

Five Billion for Bribes

From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Education Secretary Arne Duncan says schools must make drastic changes to get money from a special $5 billion fund in the economic stimulus bill.

"We're going to reward those states and those districts that are willing to challenge the status quo and get dramatically better," Duncan said Monday at the White House.

Those who keep doing the same old thing, however, won't be eligible for the money, he said. . . .

Remarkably, the $5 billion fund Duncan is salivating over was originally a $15 billion dollar prize. The House stimulus package was changed in the Senate, where it was cut to $7.5 billion and, finally, $5 billion.

Also, the $5 billion is more like $4.25 billion for State incentives. Another $650 million is open for any of the charter chains, provided they have connections to an outside source of funding willing to match any grants from this stash (this started off as only $350 million in the first House version, then increased in the Senate). Of course, this rules out almost everything but the KIPP, TFA, NLNS, Alliance, Green Dot crowd. Is this a handout straight to the Gates/Broad/Walton crowd? Gates is down $18 billion but pledging to up the giving; I'm not sure about Broad; and Wal-mart is posting seriously strong numbers in the economic crunch. Just to add a little more fuel to the fire, check out today's EdWeek story about the number of Gates people working for Duncan.

Jim Shelton not only worked for Gates, he co-started LearnNow, a for-profit education enterprise that was sold to Chris Whittle's Edison group. If Chris Whittle thinks you're running a business worth buying, you definitely have a different view of education than we do.

Ken Libby

KIPP Fresno Part 4: Will the City and State Cave to the Oligarchs?

The KIPP Fresno horrors offer a chance to view up close the "fierce" kind of schooling that edu-idiots like David Brooks and the oligarchs are calling for as the final reform spearhead that, unfortunately, must travel through the heads and bodies of innocent children in order to approach the presumed target, poverty. KIPP represents the culmination of the conservative and neo-liberal dream antidote to what Ronald Reagan viewed as an overdose of civil rights during the 60s and 70s. For those who pray to St. Ronnie, it is KIPP that will finally force the shiftless and poor urban dwellers to pay with their children's well-being for what they thought they were given through Civil Rights legislation forty years ago. KIPP is aimed at becoming the ultimate accountability tool, the final hazing, the perfect soul extraction device, the final filter applied before guarded entry is granted into the ultimate gated community of middle class drones.

If Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, and the Education Trust have their way, KIPP and the KIPP knock-offs are going to set things right with an remedy that children cannot refuse, and if they or their parents do refuse, then they will earn the poverty that their choice will have sealed. It is perhaps fitting that the denouement to this white neo-liberal telling of the American civil rights story should play out in such a "fierce" and unequivocal assault on children, the most innocent victims to embody the unrelenting effects of Poverty, that marauding perpetrator who remains, indeed, free to ravage, to breed, to infect, and to kill.

From the "Notice to Cure and Correct":

Suspension and Suspension Procedures
Investigation Determined:

. . . . that throughout the school years from 2004 to 2008, the Charter School failed to abide by the California Eduation Code grounds and procedures for suspension of students as stated in California Education Code 48900 et. seq.

Examples:
. . . . Ms. Kutzner stated that she saw ______ was left outside without supervision for three hours for a minor infraction that occurred during breakfast.

Kim Kutzner also witnessed students being forced to stay insmall rooms near the school's office for hours or even entire days withou supervision.

Ms. Kutzner stated that parents of suspended studetns were frequently not notified of the suspensions.

Ms. Kutzner stated that students were routinely sent home for non-serious offenses like talking in class, chewing gum, and bringing a mechanical pencil to school.

She also stated that students were routinely transported from school without their parents being notified.

. . . .In April of 2008, student ________ was in supervised, isolated suspension for three weeks for inappropriately touching another student.

. . . .________ was suspended indefinitely for sexual assault, and the suspension was never brought to the attention of the Board.

Board Composition
The investigation dtermined that the Charter School failed to have not more than 49% of the Charter School's Board of Directors be compensated by the school for services rendered to it within the previous 12 months.

Credentialing
The investigation determined the Charter School failed to assign teachers who hold appropriate California teaching credentials, permits, or other documents issued by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, to teach core curriculum classes.

Criminal Background Checks
The investigation determined that the Charter School failed to require each faculty and staff member to undergo a criminal background check and fingerprinting conducted by the local police department and the FBI, as well as a child-abuse registry check.

Right to Privacy
The investigation determined hat the Charter School disclosed students' information, including addresses and phone numbers, without informing parents about the existence of a directory or providing reasonable time to request information not be disclosed in a directory in violaion of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) 20 USCA 1232g. Further, Mr. Tschang invaded students' and parents' privacy through his disciplinary methods.

Example:
_________ was a student who was disciplined for inappropriately touching another student. Mr. Tschang used what happened to _____ as an example to another student who inappropriately touched a female student. ______ stated that , "He wanted me to talk to him and tell him what consequences he might face afterward. He told me to tell ____ about my situation. He wanted me to tell him what the parents call me: sexual prdator, a nasty kid, and a pervert." Mr. Tshang responded to this by saying, "The reasoning is that we look out for each other at our school, and we learn from each other's mistakes . . . the older student was passing on advice to the younger student about his mistakes made." When discussing the incident, ______stated that, " It made me feel uncomfortable, but I only did it so I could go back to class. I also felt betrayed by Mr. Tschang and used. I was an example."

Massachusetts Testing Kindergartners with Test Designed for Older Students

First comes the insanity of complying with a law (NCLB) that requires ELL kindergarten students to be tested in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. When that insanity is accepted, any child abuse enacted may be blamed on complying with the law. Nuremburg, however, demonstrated that just following orders does not relieve one of moral culpability.

From Daily News Tribune:

A recent statewide mandate to expand the English proficiency exam to kindergartners has many school officials up in arms.

MacArthur Elementary School Principal Anthony Colannino said the Massachusetts English Proficiency Assessment exam is too complicated for young learners, "filling in bubbles much too small for their tiny hands and not-yet- coordinated fingers."

In the past, the test was only administered to third- to 10th-graders whose first language is not English and who are "unable to perform ordinary classroom work in English," according to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. This year the exam will be given to students in kindergarten through second grade.

"Now we're all the way down to 5- and 6-year-olds taking a pencil and paper test," Colannino said. "My students and others in Waltham and across the state are being judged on reading material above their grade level."

Colannino said students started taking the exam March 2. He said during the school day 20 students are scheduled to take the test that requires a maximum of 45 minutes to complete. Testing runs through the end of this week.

J.C. Considine of the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said the state was required to expand the test.

"No Child Left Behind requires states to assess all (limited English proficient) students (from kindergarten through 12th grade) in reading, writing, speaking, and listening," he said. . . .

Duncan Informed of His Lie About DC Schools, While Rhee Remains Oblivious to Violence From Overcrowding

From WaPo's DC Wire:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan is new to Washington, but he's wasted no time perpetuating the canard that the underachieving District school system is flush with cash.

"D.C. has had more money than God for a long time, but the outcomes are still disastrous," Duncan said in a March 4 visit with Post editors and reporters.

But a recent study shows that D.C., ranked against the 50 states, is 13th in per-pupil expenditures ($11,193), placing it behind Vermont, Wyoming, New Jersey, New York, Maine, Rhode Island, Alaska, Connecticut, Montana, Massachusetts, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The January study by EPE Research Center, a division of the nonprofit that publishes Education Week, used Department of Education data from 2005-06 (the latest year available) and adjusted for regional cost differences. It found the national average was $9,963.

Closer to home, a 2007 study by school budget watchdog Mary Levy concluded that DCPS spent almost $4,000 less per pupil than Alexandria, $3,500 less than Arlington County, and about $1,500 more than Fairfax County.

This was news to Duncan. . . .

Meanwhile, when most kids finish eighth grade, they get to go to high school. But not the kids scheduled to attend the new Woodson High in Northeast Washington, DC. Woodson is still under construction as 9th graders this year have been crowded 40 to a classroom into the Ronald H. Brown Middle School. Kids are angry, and they are not throwing their shoes--they are throwing their 20 pound dopey textbooks:

Woodson Academy teacher William Pow had just finished writing on the blackboard one January afternoon, he said, when he turned to face his algebra class and saw the textbook "Mathematics in Life" hurtling toward his head.

He ducked, he said, but it caught him in the neck and shoulder. His colleagues at Woodson have not been as lucky. English teacher Randy Brown said he was hit just above the left ear by a book thrown by a student last month. He was treated for a concussion and said he has since suffered from headaches and nausea.. . . .

. . . .

Teachers said crowding at the school has also fueled behavior problems. February attendance records show that enrollment in math and English classes at the academy averages 35 students, exceeding the contract-established limit of 25. (That cap can be broken for space or staff shortage reasons.) Slade said the records are not correct.

"They're smart. They're not dumb kids. But they're angry because they are 40 to a class, which is totally disrespectful to them," said Brown, a fiftyish, soft-spoken former sculptor whose master's thesis at Howard University was on Virginia Woolf's novel "The Waves." This is his first year in D.C. schools, and he acknowledges that establishing control in his classroom has been a struggle.. . . .