Monty Neill Responds to Bush's "Augmentations" to NCLB

Monty's fired up:

President George Bush’s State of the Union proposals to escalate the failing test-and-punish strategy of the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) law, as outlined by a White House policy memo (http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2007/initiatives/print/education.html), rest on misinformation and ideologically skewed assumptions, not evidence. Pres. Bush wants to continue pursuing dead-end policies that have not improved educational quality, particularly for our nation's most vulnerable children

The facts demonstrate that NCLB is not a success. Key independent indicators, including dropout rates, college admissions test scores, and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results are unchanged or only slightly improved. Narrowing of the racial achievement gap has slowed since NCLB was implemented.

Meanwhile, the law has turned many schools into test-coaching programs, denying students the well-rounded, rich education all the nation's children deserve. The Bush administration pretends that minor changes in test scores in a few subjects is an adequate substitute for real education.

Now, the Pres. Bush proposes that all states report their NAEP results along with scores on their local tests. But the NAEP definition of "proficiency" was deemed flawed and too high by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Education. Making states look bad by comparing them to an unreasonable standard will not improve education.

Outside the Bush Administration, a broad consensus on how to overhaul NCLB is emerging, as evidence by the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB, signed by more than 100 education, civil rights, religious, disability and civic groups, including FairTest. It says, "Overall, the law’s emphasis needs to shift from applying sanctions for failing to raise test scores to holding states and localities accountable for making the systemic changes that improve student achievement."

The recommended changes to NCLB include:
- using multiple measures of student learning instead of single test scores;
- expecting rates of improvement actually attained by significant numbers of real schools, replacing the "adequate yearly progress" scheme;
- providing substantial support for building the capacity of schools to serve all students well, then holding them accountable for making improvements; and
- increasing funding to support improvement efforts and to enable all students eligible for Title I services to receive them.

The Forum on Educational Accountability, a group working to implement the Joint Statement, will release more detailed proposals on capacity-building, assessment and accountability in the coming months.

The Joint Statement is available at www.fairtest.org and at www.edaccountability.org.

What FairTest has not confronted or challenged directly is the privatization strategy that emanates from the conservative rationale for the old and new versions of NCLB. FairTest, for whatever reason, continues to pretend that the educational genocide from NCLB is somehow an unintended consequence of incompetence or stupidity. Although there is plenty of that to go around in this Administration, neither incompetence nor stupidity is the reason that Bush Co. has a laser focus on impossible AYP targets for public schools. Look at the privatization initiatives in tonight's speech that depend upon the manufactured failure of schools based on impossible test targets:

• We Will Strengthen School Restructuring. Schools subject to restructuring for chronic underperformance will be required either to make substantial changes in staff or to reconstitute the schools' governance structure.

• We Will Require Persistently Underperforming Schools To Offer "Promise Scholarships." These scholarships will enable low-income students to transfer to private schools or out-of-district public schools, or receive intensive tutoring. Federal funds will follow the students to their new schools.

• We Will Offer Competitive Grants Through The "Opportunity Scholarships Program" To Help Communities Expand School Choice Options For Low-Income Parents And Students. Similar to the Washington, D.C., choice program that the Federal government has funded since 2004, families would be able to send their children to a private school through a locally designed scholarship program. They could also seek intensive tutoring.

• We Will Increase The Availability Of High-Quality Charter Schools, Which Provide Important Options For Parents. Charters will also have a greater degree of flexibility to use their grants in executing planning and startup activities.

• We Will Expand Access To Tutoring. We will ensure that districts notify parents whose children are eligible for tutoring and require school districts to make full use of the Federal funds set aside for tutoring and other school choice activities.

We Will Help Parents Get The Information They Need In Time To Make Informed Decisions About Their Children's School Choice Options. We will strengthen enforcement mechanisms to ensure parents receive proper and timely notice of their tutoring and choice options, and school districts will be allowed to use Federal funds to conduct high-quality parent outreach campaigns.

To Miller and Kennedy: A Plan for Withdrawing from NCLB Insanity

For those in Congress who may be looking for an alternative to the current train wreck of NCLB, read about George Wood's field trip to Nebraska:

Imagine that in this era of reducing everything we do in schools to a score on a high-stakes, standardized test that one state just says no. Imagine that this state relies upon locally established standards, assessments developed by teachers and administered in classrooms by those teachers, and only gives one state wide test—a writing sample again scored by teachers. Imagine that the State Commissioner of Education supports and fights for this system, because he believes that assessment should not drive instruction but simply be one tool to assist good teaching.

If you cannot imagine this, then head out to Nebraska and see their School-based Teacher-led Assessment Reporting System—go see the STARS.

A group of us did just that on a study tour organized by The Alliance for Public Schools. Educators, policy researchers, and reporters spent three days in Nebraska to see STARS in action. We visited classrooms, met with teachers, students, administrators, and parents, were briefed by State Commissioner Doug Christensen and his staff, and attended a state-wide training system for peer reviewers (teachers who will review the work of other teachers).

It is hard to capture in this short space what we saw, and for a full picture I suggest you either visit the STARS web site or pick up a copy of Chris Gallagher’s fine book, Reclaiming Assessment which includes a Foreword by Forum Convener Deborah Meier. The simple outline is this:

• Nebraska’s educational standards, slimmer than most, are either approved by local districts or districts improve upon them and send them back to the state for approval.
• There is only one state-wide assessment which is a writing sample. This is scored by Nebraska teachers at a state-wide review for which there is a waiting list of teachers who want to participate. Samples of these are sent out for scoring to check on reliability—Nebraska’s teachers’ scores are always more demanding.
• Other standards are assessed by teacher-developed assessments, both paper and pencil and performance, taken at the point of instruction. Often students do not even know they are taking a state assessment; it is just one part of a classroom activity.
• Each district chooses a norm-referenced test at whatever grade they want to provide a snapshot comparison of local scores to national norms.
• There are no high-stakes attached to the tests. If students do not do well the teachers meet to see if a) the assessment was inappropriate, b) they did not do a good job of teaching the content, or c) the students need additional work.
• You cannot compare districts by looking at test scores since there is no statewide test.

The system was driven by State Commissioner of Education Doug Christensen, who may be the most visionary state educational leader in the country. He is, as he says, “committed to teachers being instructional leaders. You cannot have good schools without professional educators, and you have professional educators only if you treat them like professionals. That’s what this is all about.” (Read Doug’s speech on assessment here.)

It is indeed. At every school we visited, in every conversation we had, teachers talked about how STARS puts them in charge of their craft. As one of our companions from Hawaii put it, “There is a lot of aloha going on here; teachers sharing their wisdom, working together, acting like professionals.”

As I noted, there is no way to record all we saw in this space. So perhaps the best way to give you a flavor of what is going on in Nebraska is through a few snap shots taken from my notes of the trip;

• Accompanied by an eleventh grader I go to an English classroom where a writing standard is being assessed. She walks over to the teacher who hands her the assessment and she shares it with me. I ask the teacher if he is worried that she sees the assessment before taking it the next period. “Why would I worry about that, this is just like the tasks we ask them to do all the time, they know what is coming and I know they are prepared for it."
• In a fourth grade classroom students are busy at their desks waiting to be called to the back of the room for an assessment on electricity. They each take their turn sitting with the teacher and building simple circuits of varying types. The teacher notes the steps the student takes, what the student can tell her about it, how the student self corrects. This is recorded as part of the assessment on electricity.
• I am talking with a group of seniors about assessment and they ask what goes on in my school and state. After I tell them about our high stakes standardized graduation exams they are amazed. “You mean kids don’t know what is on the test, and it is all a paper and pencil type exam…And their teachers don’t grade it and don’t know what to help them with?” They cannot imagine what it is like and wonder why anyone would do that to students. A math teacher who is in on the session points out to them: “(Tests like that) are why I left Texas to come teach here.”
• A sixth grader watches a video of his oral presentation yesterday, with student and teacher scored rubrics in hand. He makes notes on how to improve his presentation next time.
• In the state-wide training for peer review I watch Educational Service Center staff working with teachers and administrators. “Our ESC is crucial to our small district,” a superintendent tells me. “We are all on the same page, working together, and our teachers value their collaboration.” It is this way everywhere we go, with educators talking about how much time they spend together working on curriculum, assessment, and helping kids learn.

There is much more one could say about what is going on in Nebraska, including that it took a fight with the U. S. Department of Education to get this system approved even though it is clearly working. Working because by all outside measures Nebraska’s kids do well in school; because Nebraska’s teachers feel and act like professionals; and because assessment is seen as a tool to help kids learn, not a stick to use in punishing those who fail. Let’s hope that any change in NCLB takes notice of what is happening out here on the plains.

Most importantly, Nebraska’s kids are in the company of powerful adults. This was an epiphany that came to me after talking with a high school principal near the end of the trip. He and I had a gentle disagreement on how to organize the school day. In reflection I realized that the Nebraska system was not about doing things the way I would do it, it was about giving educators the power to do what worked for their students. Rather than have their classrooms and schools be chained down to a one-size fits all assessment system, educators in Nebraska have the freedom to construct systems that best meet the needs of their students. A responsibility they take seriously and in so doing model professionalism of the highest degree.

As Deborah Meier has said, “Young people learn to be powerful adults when they are in the company of powerful adults.” That is, we learn to be democratic when we watch others being so. Nebraska’s kids are in the presence of educators who do not talk about ‘what the state makes us do.’ Instead they talk about what they have created—the lesson young people learn from watching this is the most important lesson of all.

Announcing the New Testing Surge

Tonight the SOTU Speech will give the Decider an opportunity to change the subject from his foreign war that he would rather forget to the domestic one that he is now eager to wage with new vigor: the war against public education. He will use this event tonight to urge bipartisan support for an escalation, er, surge in testing, a bold (read reckless) plan to lay down a endless blanket of incendiaries from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Sure, there will be some naysayers who tell you that the current testing war is not working any better than the one that the Escalator would rather forget. The achievement gap, for instance, remains a chasm, and test scores in reading and math have been less during the past four years (based on NAEP) than they were in the previous four. Not only that, but the troops in the classroom are demoralized and ready to desert for being blamed with the failure, and the tutoring companies and the corporate welfare charter outfits (the Blackwaters of the edu-world) complain about a shortage of contracts.

What the whining naysayers don't realize, however, is the testing war, the war on public education, is being won. For complete victory, it is just going to require a determined effort to re-arm and re-deploy the NCLB weapon that will assure the demise of the enemy. Just look, for instance, at the growing number of schools in every state of the nation that have already been neutralized by AYP scores that don't pass muster. And just look at the projections that show 70-90 percent of all public schools being taken down, taken out, by 2014, if we have the guts to stay the course, er, to adapt and adjust. Now is not the time to waver in our commitment to crushing the dictatorial government schools. We have the voucher reinforcements ready to pull the trigger on their front, and we have General Marc Tucker ready to launch a full-scale charter assault in his theatre of operations. All we need is the determination to not cut and run. We need to buck up, suck it up, bite the bullet--we need to Reauthorize NCLB Now!!

Five Myths About U.S. Kids and American Schools

A must read from Paul Farhi in yesterday's WaPo:

The usual hand-wringing accompanied the Department of Education's release late last year of new statistics on how U.S. students performed on international tests. How will the United States compete in the global economy, went the lament, when our students lag behind the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong in math and science? American fourth-graders ranked 12th in the world on one international math test, and eighth-graders were 14th. Is this further evidence of the failure of the nation's schools?

Not exactly. In fact, a closer look at how our kids perform against the international "competition" suggests that this story line may contain more than a few myths: . . .

20 Reasons to Repeal NCLB Redux

1. An education policy built on impossible performance demands that undermine public schools should be repealed, not reauthorized.
2. An education policy that ignores the unique needs of English-language learners and special education students should be repealed, not reauthorized.
3. An education policy that abuses and traumatizes children, destroys the desire to learn, and corrupts the purposes of learning should be repealed, not reauthorized.
4. An education policy that bases life-altering decisions on the use of a single assessment should be repealed, not reauthorized.
5. An education policy that ignores poverty as the chief cause for the achievement gap should be eliminated, not reformed.
6. An education policy that replaces the intellectual, social, and emotional growth of children with year-round teaching to raise test scores should be repealed, not reauthorized.
7. An education policy that uses pseudoscience and flawed research to devise national reading and math teaching standards and strategies should be repealed, not reauthorized.
8. An education policy that shrinks the American school curriculum to two or three subjects that are tested, thereby reducing or eliminating recess, social studies, art, music, foreign languages, health and PE should be repealed, not reauthorized.
9. An education policy that discourages integration and diversity, while encouraging homogeneity and segregation, should be repealed, not reauthorized.
10. An education policy that supports the use of tax money to fund private schools and private management of public schools should be repealed, not reauthorized.
11. An education policy that encourages our best and most ethical teachers to leave the profession should be repealed, not reauthorized.
12. An education policy that encourages teachers to ignore the needs of individual students in favor of raising test scores should be repealed, not reauthorized.
12. An education policy that is built on unfunded and under-funded requirements should be repealed, not reauthorized.
13. An education policy that reduces or eliminates local education decision-making should be repealed, not reauthorized.
14. An education policy that mandates that military recruiters have access to student information should be repealed, not reauthorized.
15. An education policy that is used to reward public money to insiders and cronies for their political support should be eliminated, not reformed.
16. An education policy that replaces effective teaching with chain-gang rigidity and parrot learning that minimizes critical thinking and democratic values should be repealed, not reauthorized.
17. An education policy that supports paid propagandists to advance its agenda should be repealed, not reauthorized.
18. An education policy that offers public funds to tutoring companies with no accountability or oversight should be repealed, not reauthorized.
19. An education policy that is not closing the achievement gap or increasing student knowledge should be repealed, not reauthorized.
20. An education policy based on threats, intimidation, and sanctions should be repealed, not reauthorized.

Action Strategies to Fight Back

1. Hold a public forum in your community to discuss 20 Reasons to Repeal NCLB.
2. Organize a meet-up with teachers and parents to talk together about how NCLB is affecting children and school.
3. Persuade your professional and civic organizations to pass resolutions supporting repeal of NCLB.
4. Write letters-to-the-editor and op-ed pieces to your local and regional newspapers.
5. Ask your school board to pass a resolution against NCLB.
6. Contact your U.S. Senators and U. S. Representatives asking for repeal of NCLB.
7. Contact your state legislators to enlist them in the effort to repeal NCLB.
8. Parents: Join the NCLB-mandated Parents Advisory Board at your child’s school. Bring the 20 Reasons to Repeal NCLB to begin a dialogue.
9. Organize a public protest on test days or days given over to test preparation.
10. Make a statement and sign the Petition to Dismantle NCLB at http://www.educatorroundtable.org/

Restoring the Fairness Doctrine to Save the Republic

From Raw Story:

Rep. Hinchey: New bill would break up media monopolies and restore fairness doctrine

Warns media reform critical to prevent 'end of democratic republic'

Concerns about monopolies and fears of a possible "fascist" takeover of the US media have prompted a Democratic congressman to push to restore the Fairness Doctrine, RAW STORY has learned.

"Media reform is the most important issue confronting our democratic republic and the people of our country," Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said at the Free Press National Media Reform Conference held in Memphis, Tennessee last weekend. "This is a critical moment in history that may determine the future of our country…maybe forever."

Hinchey told RAW STORY he plans to reintroduce the Media Ownership Reform Act (MORA) that would break up media monopolies and restore the Fairness Doctrine, which was eliminated by the Federal Communications Commission under the Reagan administration.

“If Rush shoots his mouth off, he must give equal access to our side,” Hinchey said. “The American public will begin to get both sides or all sides of an issue. That is basic – fundamental to a democracy.”

Last year, Hinchey introduced H.R. 3302 (MORA), but Republicans blocked the measure in committee. He also founded the Future of American Media Caucus in Congress in 2005. With Democrats now in control of Congress, a new media reform measure is expected to be assigned to the House Energy and Commerce Committee within the next couple of weeks, Hinchey’s staff confirmed.

“We’ll be trying hard to get the subcommittee and the full committee chairs to bring this to the House floor,” Hinchey pledged. A companion bill will be introduced on the Senate side by Bernie Sanders (D-VT), he added.

MORA would restore the Fairness Doctrine, reinstate a national cap on ownership of radio stations, lower the number of radio stations that one company can own in a local market, and reinstate the 25 percent national cap on television ownership, among other restrictions. The bill’s no-grandfathering provision would compel media conglomerates to divest to comply with new ownership limitations.

MORA would also require public interest reports from broadcasters and require more independently produced programming on TV. In addition, it establishes new public interest obligations to assure that broadcasters meet the needs of local communities and requires increased, sustained public input and outreach to give the people a voice in programming.
Media 'con job'

Hinchey faults the mainstream media for failing to tell Americans the truth about “an administration in Washington that has falsified information to people about weapons of mass destruction in order to justify an illegal and unjustified attack perpetrated on Iraq. How was it that Congress voted to give the President that authority? And how was it that so many people just bought into it when Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center and whatever weapons they had were given to them by the Reagan administration?”

Talk radio has become dominated by shows that are “right wing, even neo-fascist,” he said, adding that even the best newspapers gave readers a “con job” by reporting false information fed by the administration.

“This should make every single citizen in America deeply concerned,” he told conference attendees. “What lies will they tell in the future to jeopardize this democratic republic or even end this democratic republic? That is the objective of many of those involved.”

Hinchey believes the takeover of the U.S. media has been carefully calculated by the “political right wing,” starting with the abolition in 1987 of the Fairness Doctrine, which was originally adopted in 1949 in reaction to the rise of global fascism prior to World War II.

“Fascist government dominated discussions in Europe. They could now broadcast all over and control all information going out. That’s how they took over governments in Spain and Italy,” Hinchey recalled. “The U.S. said the airways should be owned by everyone.”

The Fairness Doctrine required that broadcasters give equal time to people who wished to express an opposing viewpoint. “Under the Reagan administration, the FCC wiped out that rule and said only businesses that operate stations can express their view,” Hinchey noted. Congress passed a bill that would have required the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, but that bill was vetoed by Reagan.

“The veto said clearly that this is an idea from the political right wing because we do not want to allow other points of view – because if we allow free and open discussion on the environment, healthcare [and other issues], in almost every case the right wing will lose.”

Asked whether the Congressman believes there is now an attempt at a fascist takeover of the U.S., a Hinchey staffer noted that Rep. Hinchey’s legislation arose from his concern about increasing concentration of media ownership into the hands of a few individuals and corporations. “Whether or not there is a purpose that includes fascism, we could wind up in a fascist situation if corporations end up controlling information without the government providing some balancing mechanism, such as the Fairness Doctrine,” said the staffer, who spoke on background only and did not wish to be named. “He would also say that the FCC’s recent efforts to weaken media ownership rules in order to enable corporations to own more and more outlets plays into that as well.” . . .

The Bloomberg Defense

A reader writes:

I've been reading your blog for a couple months now and usually appreciate and am with you on most things. I think you're a little quick to jump the gun here though. First - the facts. The "private management companies" must be non-profits.

Yes, and the College Board is "non-profit," too--but they cleared over $500,000,000 last year from their testing products. Besides, how could the corporate sultans receive tax credits or deductions for their largesse if the edu-business companies they plan to fund were not set up as non-profits?

Second - I think the revolutionary part of what Bloomberg/Klein are doing has been lost - the Fair Student Funding Initiative. This means a school like mine in the Bronx that serves the students who need the most will be seeing more money at the expense of schools that tend to serve the Middle Class and Upper Class in nicer part of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens.

I have my doubts as to whether any remaining middle class parents who continue to have kids in NYC public schools will allow their kids' funds to be drained off. It has never happened before, and I don't expect it happen now in this reverse Robin Hood era.

Third - yes, Empowerment Schools can outsource services to other companies. But Empowerment Schools can also partner with community organizations and receive funds that are unavailable to most schools. I teach in an Empowerment School, and we get somewhere in the range of 25%-50% of our total budget from our partner organization - FEGS. Among other things, this allows us to increase our support staff (we have a full time college placement specialist, just like the top private schools)

Sad, indeed. This is the typical neo-liberal treatment to the poverty and racism issue: ignore the real problem, provide services that only the middle class can use, and then blame the poor for not using them.

. . . .Not to mention the fact that literally every request I have made for classroom materials - from technology to books to curricular materials - I have received. Are there flaws with the Tucker model of education reform? Of course, and you've highlighted a lot of them. But with that said, there are a lot of benefits, which I am seeing first hand (and believe me, we are not a KIPP like school - I'd like to think people like Paulo Freire and Myles Horton would be proud of most of what they saw at Bronx Lab).

That Bloomberg and Klein would be falling over themselves to pander to the "empowerment" schools in order to prove their superiority should be expected, I think. That is the Marc Tucker horse they have their money on, after all. Wonder if the schools served by the remaining superintendents have the resources to honor every requst from teachers?

Maybe I am being a little naive here - but I always come back to the fact that the Bronx has something like a 30% graduation rate. What has been done in the past hasn't worked. Isn't it worth trying something new?

The fact that the City, the State, and the Nation have ignored the poverty, repression, and racism that produced what "hasn't worked" does not seem reason enough to give up on the public schools for not accomplishing what no school system alone can ever accomplish, anyway. If Bloomberg's privatization plan is allowed to succeed, I am sure, Steve, that the Mayor's Office will stay busy congratulating you, your colleagues, and themselves for the new bright successes that were so recently painted as dismal failures. Something new, indeed.

Bloomberg, Klein, and the Stealth Privatization Plan

Even though there are few details available on Bloomberg's stealth privatization plan for NYC Schools, there is enough to know that this Tucker Lite version of corporatized education will be conducted without consulting teachers and principals and without the benefit of 6 of the 10 school superintendents who will be replaced by private management outfits that will contract with the Mayor's Office. If principals choose to sign test score performance contracts, they can become "empowerment" schools and be serviced by these new edu-business versions of Kellogg, Brown, and Root.

Taking a page from the Bush playbook on delivering news you'd rather not make public, Bloomberg sent Klein out on Friday to make the announcement during a speech to, who else, a hand-picked group of corporate executives who are part of the "partnership." Wonder how many of these corporate partners have children who attend the crumbling school buildings that they will now manage as the bold new civic-minded slumlords whose real focus remains on minimizing the city tax bill on their deliriously-rich Manhattan sultanates.

With testing practices in place that assure the failure of the most vulnerable children, and with retention policies locked in that hold children back, thus increaing their likelihood of dropping out later, Klein, a mealy-mouthed version of Dickens's Gradgrind, had the audacity Friday to lay claim to a phrase by Jonathan Kozol to characterize the apartheid education system that Klein and Bloomberg are scheming to perpetuate:

Mr. Klein defended the need for vast change to the school system. “How can we be anything but bold,” the chancellor asked, “when 140,000 of our children between the ages of 16 and 20 years old have either dropped out or are on the verge of dropping out?”

Calling the failures of school systems “the shame of our nation,” Mr. Klein said, “We must move forward with resolve.”

Breath-taking, and truly Rovian.

Nelnet Gets to Keep $278,000,000 in Illicit Student Loan Interest Payments

ED's Inspector General's Office announced back in September that ED had overpaid conservative political bankroller, Nelnet, $278 million in interest for student loans that had been subjected to the sleazy practice of "loan recycling."

Now Maggie Spellings has decided to let them keep their fraudulent gains. Why? Incredibly, the only excuse that the ED lawyers can come up with is that if ED starts going after the $278 million owed them by Nelnet, then they might endanger other ill-gotten gains from other crooked outfits (who have paid, through campaign contributions, for admission into the federal treasury feeding frenzy):

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings rejected the inspector general's recommendation that the department seek to recover past overpayments. The audit estimated that Nelnet already has been improperly paid more than $278 million by the government.

Recovering past payments might require the government to also go after money other lenders have received, including some small nonprofit lenders, according to Department of Education officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the settlement. The federal officials said they didn't want to put small lenders out of business.

“This decision was reached in the best interests of taxpayers and students as well as the integrity of the federal student loan programs. The federal student loan programs are an important pillar in this nation's system of financing college opportunity and offer students and families the ability to afford higher education,” Under Secretary Sara Martinez Tucker, who oversees higher education issues, said in a statement.

The audit by the inspector general's office report found that Nelnet has improperly sought and received an artificially high rate of return on many of its loans.

Right on cue, Kennedy and Miller are out front to let the world know how disgusted they are about the decision:

“The administration should have settled for nothing less than the full recovery of Nelnet’s ill-gotten proceeds from these loans,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “The Department of Education’s settlement is a loss for students and taxpayers, who are the victims of Nelnet’s greed.”

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, said his panel would investigate the accord. “We will ensure that taxpayer dollars are used properly,” Mr. Miller said in a statement.

The question is: what will Miller and Kennedy do to oversee and investigate this thievery? And what about the Reading First corruption uncovered by another OIG Report last fall? Will Kennedy and Miller stand by and let Spellings deliver more imperial decrees on that matter as well?

Using a Business Model to Bankrupt Teaching

The neo-liberal cabal at Education Sector, those mainstream conservatives whose greed has brought them wheeling and dealing into the "Post-partisan" Era, have released some more toxic think tank material that is sure to be must-reading among the edu-business leeches aimed at corporatizing every remaining civic purpose in America. This piece of sludge, "Frozen Assets," has the same smell that emanates from the recent release of Marc Tucker’s bankrupt business model for state-funded corporate welfare charter school systems. Tucker Co. is in Colorado this week trying to sell the neo-liberal brand of the same snake oil that has been marketed under a different label by the charlatans who now control the Department of Education.

“Frozen Assets” fantasizes about un-freezing, nay, vaporizing, the remaining attractions to the profession of teaching, a profession that, otherwise, is in the process of being destroyed by an onslaught of rigid testing, test preparation, and behavioral control methods. The target is an estimated $77 billion in guaranteed salaries, retirement, and health benefits that now go to the nation’s underpaid and demonized teacher corps.

According the this report, there are the eight problem areas that arise from teacher contract provisions. I have taken the liberty to share or extrapolate the corporatized solutions:

Problem 1: Increases in teacher salaries based on years of experience
Solution 1: Increase beginning salaries and introduce merit raises on “increased benefits for students,” i. e., higher test scores.

Problem 2: Increases in teacher salaries based on educational credentials and experiences
Solution 2: Increase teacher salaries based on “measurable effects in terms of increased student learning.” You got it--test scores.

Problem 3: Professional development days
Solution 3: Dump contractually-guaranteed professional development days that take teachers away from jobs. Professional development “should give teachers the chance to try out new strategies in real classroom settings, it should include ongoing support after initial training, and it should be evaluated to ensure that it increases student learning.” So all approved professional development will have as its goal increased student learning (higher test scores).

Problem 4: Number of paid sick and personal days
Solution 4: Other professional employees (undefined) would take 3.06 days per 180-day year. You get the picture. No matter that teachers are exposed to every form of crud that circulates among the masses.

Problem 5: Class-size limitations
Solution 5: Citing the only piece of peer-reviewed research in this report, the author concludes that modest reductions in class size do not produce significant results. The most reliable indicators from the Tennessee STAR study show that when enrollments drop below 18 students that significant academic gains are likely. According to “Frozen Assets,” then, the modest reductions in class size called for by many teacher contracts are a waste of money. Wonder what these guys would say if teacher unions demanded a 1:17 teacher student ratio?

Problem 6: Use of teachers’ aides
You guessed it: “. . . as with many of the typical contract provisions described in this report, the research suggests that money spent on teachers’ aides does not yield increased student learning.” If there is not a direct link to increasing the bottom line (test scores), then forget it.

Problem 7: Generous health and insurance benefits
Solution 7: With abysmally low salaries compared to other professions, health insurance remains one of few financial attractions to the teaching profession. Advocating for less health benefits, look at how “Frozen Assets” analyzes the situation: “. . . Podgursky’s analysis suggests that the teacher health and other insurance benefits amount to 9.1 percent of the average salary, compared to 6 percent for other professionals.” With lower take home pay for teachers, would not any semi-literate dolt expect that the health insurance premium would constitute a greater percentage of the overall salary???

Problem 8: Generous retirement benefits.
Solution 8: See Solution 7--same thought disorder. In short, dump defined benefit pensions for teachers and put them all in 401Ks.