Obama's Accountability Measures Where It Counts: Non-Existent

While Obama's man, Arne Duncan, parades around the country talking about "No Excuses" for poor teachers teaching poorer children in the poorest schools, the swollen leeches of Wall Street continue to feed on the blood of working men and women without the benefit of any protections from an Administration rudderless and aimless and gutless when it comes to THE REAL ACCOUNTABILITY ISSUE that remains hidden under an attempt to institute accountability in the most vlunerable of our public institutions--the schools.

To pretend that schools are going to educate us out of this financial crisis and an economic calamity that have been papered over so that the same cycle can happen again to benefit the same scum who now run the West Wing, well, it is too much cynicism even for me to appreciate.  Until responsible federal leadership is appointed to solve our educational problems, rather than to divert attention away from the unaccountable thieves who run the Economy out of the White House, our schools, teachers, and children will continue to fall prey to the same corporate parasites who see education as another major growth industry. 

For a good synopsis of the real issues in a half hour or so, have a look at the five part series from the Real News featuring scholar and financial regulator, William Black.  It is well worth the time.  Part One is below, and it runs around 11 minutes.  You will never think of accountability the same way again.

How Did BP Become a Stakeholder in Shaping California K-12 Environmental Education Policy and in Writing Its Curriculum?

Mr. Theodore R. Mitchell

State Board President

Contact:
State Board of Education
1430 N Street, Room 5111
Sacramento, CA 95814
916-319- 0827

Ted Mitchell is President and CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy firm focused on transforming public education for underserved children. 

Ted is the man to ask.  Give him a call.

Story from Democracy Now, one of the few remaining streams of free media in the world:

Should an oil giant responsible for the worst spill in US history play a role in what public school children learn about the environment? Well if you’re in California, there’s a good chance they will. BP has helped develop the new environmental curriculum for California’s public schools. The curriculum will be taught to over six million pupils in some 1,000 districts. BP employees were part of a state-appointed team that crafted the program’s "guiding principles.”[includes rush transcript]

Will Rahm the Raptor Take Arne Back to Chicago with Him? Please.

Here's a clue for clueless Dems who can't seem to understand why progressives have given up on this bunch of Wall Street enablers:

Get rid of the corporate crony insider in charge of federal education policy.

Wall Street Banksters Giving Big to Elect Mark Pollard and Other Corporate Charter Advocates

With the caps off contributions, the charterites and the ed industry are going all in to corner the three-quarters of a trillion dollars that Americans spend each year on education.  Notice that Pollard can no longer remember any names from his Park Avenue meetings.  From the NYTimes:

Mark H. Pollard was a little-known candidate for New York State Senate in Brooklyn facing the herculean feat of ousting a 26-year incumbent. But then he got an unexpected telephone call saying that a group of wealthy investors who supported charter schools wanted to meet with him.

So in June, Mr. Pollard, a Democrat, found himself in Manhattan, sipping wine on a Park Avenue patio with people whose names he can no longer recall. Then “the checks started rolling in,” he said, and by July he had received more than $100,000.

“They made my campaign viable,” said Mr. Pollard, a lawyer who supports the charter school movement. The windfall has made him a legitimate contender, allowing him to hire a veteran campaign manager and print thousands of pamphlets. . . .

Fenty/Rhee Announce Teacher Bribes Ahead of Tuesday's Vote

Looking to complete a Hail Mary that might turn around a losing game late in the fourth quarter, Rhee's corporate coaches have have decided that it is time to offer the $65 million in pay-for-score funds collected from the Waltons, Eli Broad, and former Enron kingpins.  And remember teachers, if Rhee Fenty is defeated, that money will go to some other school system desperate enough to be bought by the corporate testocracy. 

Does the brain trust on the sidelines really believe that some dirty money can "incent" teachers into the top quintile of test score generators?  Having all teachers performing as "highly effective" on DC's pay for scores evaluation scheme is the equivalent of having a baseball team where everyone is hitting .300--all the time.  Excuse the mixed metaphors.  From WaPo:

. . . the performance bonuses are targeted toward the highest-evaluated among them. If a teacher received highly-effective evaluations for two years in a row, his or her base pay could rise by as much as $26,000 a year in addition to the bonus pay.

Sixteen percent of the city's teachers were ranked highly effective last school year. . . . .

No Takers on My Offer of $100? Grayson, Kuster? Anyone?

I am getting all sorts of solicitations from Alan Grayson, ann Kuster, and others, all asking for money.  I don't have much money, but I have enough to offer the first 10 candidates who say yes a hundred dollars each.  As before, here is the deal:

I know, a hundred bucks is a drop in the big corporate bucket, but if the 35,000+ souls who signed the Educator Roundtable petition would make a similar commitment, then we could be talking some serious contribuing power.

The new PDK/Gallup Poll is out, and it has some good information for any politician who cares about what the public thinks.  We know that the Oligarchs don't care--they would not be trying to privatize public education and the teaching profession if they cared what the public thinks.

Here is the deal that I will make with the first ten politiicans aspiring to win or retain a U. S.  House or U. S. Senate seat who are willing to support the following positions.   An email from your office with your signature in support of these postions gets a $100 check from me.  Ready?

 
SCHOOL TURNAROUNDS
While only 13% of Americans surveyed would choose to close a poor-performing school in their neighborhood and reopen it as a charter school, 54% would "keep the school open with existing teachers and principal and provide comprehensive outside support."  Would you work to advance federal education policy that is consistent with these positions?

NATIONAL CURRICULUM AND STANDARDS
While 28% and 19% of Americans surveyed would have the federal government set education standards and decide what is taught, respectively, 69% and 80% would have education standards and what is taught decided at the state or local levels.  Would you work to advance education policy that is consistent with these positions?

NCLB
While only 22% of Americans surveyed view No Child Left Behind as helping the public schools in their communities, 73% believe NCLB is hurting their local schools or making no difference in their local schools.  Would you work to advance education policy that is consistent with these positions?

SUPPORT FOR LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS
While 23% of Americans surveyed would grade the school they know most about, the one their oldest child attends, with a C, D, or F (only 1% F), the corporate reformers who run the U. S. Department of Education have declared an education crisis that requires turning public schools upside down or privatizing them.  Even so, 77% of Americans would give the public school their oldest child attends an A or a B.  Would you work to advance education policy that is consistent with these positions?

HOW SCHOOLS COULD EARN AN "A"
While only 6% of Americans surveyed view the implementation of standardized testing/grading as the way school could earn an "A," 34 percent believe the best way for a school to earn an A is to improve teaching. Last year in 2009, when the PDK poll asked Americans if they believed in "relaxing  teacher education and certification plans so more people could qualify to teach these subjects," 71% said NO.  Would you work, then, to advance education policy that is consistent with these positions?

VIEWS ON TEACHING AND TEACHERS
In 1990, 51% of Americans surveyed would like to have a one of their children to become a teacher in the public schools. In 2010 that 67% of Americans would like to have a child "take up teaching."  Today 71% " trust and confidence in the men and women who are teaching children in the public schools."  Despite the fact that the corporate education reform machine that runs ED spends overtime bashing teachers, criticizing their professionalism, and trying to embarrass them, would you work to advance education policy that is consistent with these positions offered by the PDK/Gallup survey?

TEACHER EVALUATION
While only 13% of Americans surveyed see the primary purpose of evaluating teachers as "establishing their salaries based upon their skills," 60% of Americans believe the primary purpose of teacher evaluation is "helping them improve their ability to teach." Would you work to advance education policy that is consistent with these positions?

PAYING STUDENTS
The vast majority of Americans, 76% reject the notion of paying students for good behavior or grades.  Would you work to advance education policy that is consistent with these positions?

CHARTER SCHOOLS
The history of public attitudes in the PDK poll toward charter schools has been up and down and then up again. This year support has edged up to 68%.  Even so, what the public knows about charter schools remains wildly uncertain.  Last year in the 2009 PDK survey, for instance, a majority of 51% believed that charter schools are not public schools and 57% thought that charter schools charged tuition.  Almost half (46%) believed charter schools are free to teach religion.

So it is clear from what Americans say that there is widespread confusion about the nature and function of charter schools.  That being the case, would you work to educate the public about charter schools and how they affect public school funding, and would your advance education policy that is consistent with the most reliable research findings on the value of charter schools when compared to student performance in public schools and when the negative social and pedagogical effects (segregation and test prep) of charter schools are taken into account?

Click chart from 2009 PDK survey to enlarge.

Challenging the Corporate Media on Education Coverage

"In Extra!, I find all the news that the Respectables find unfit to print.
It is great therapy for me; it keeps my blood pressure down and my skull from going numb."
—Studs Terkel

Extra! September 2010

Tea Party vs. U.S. Social Forum
Mass movements that matter for media—Round 2
By Julie Hollar

First, Bash the Teachers
Media find a scapegoat for educational failure
By Peter Hart

Right-Wing Tilt on Sunday Morning
The conservative records of talking-head lawmakers
By Jim Naureckas and Alyssa Figueroa

Articles only available in print:

Teach for America’s Opaque Agenda
Journalist Barbara Miner confronts a media darling
by Janine Jackson

‘A Deeper Truth Than Newspapers and Networks Are Likely to Provide’
Jonathan Kozol on media and education

‘Race to the Top’ and the Bill Gates Connection
Who gets to speak about what schools need?
by Susan Ohanian

Media’s Favorite School ‘Reformer’
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee
by Zein El-Amine

Right-Wing Tilt on Sunday Morning
The conservative records of talking-head lawmakers
by Alyssa Figueroa and Jim Naureckas

August to June

 

From the website:

A 95 minute documentary that celebrates values we are on the brink of losing in the single-minded pursuit of higher test scores.

Come inside a public school happily and purposefully going against current trends!  Join 26 8-10 year olds, their teacher, and their parents for a year bursting with opportunities for curiosity, creativity and compassion.

"…a flat-out gorgeous, beautiful movie, a brilliant poem of childhoods in motion over time.  …here it's impossible to lose sight of the kids or forget them after the film stops.  They have signed the air with an individual presence that honors both the film and the education they are getting.”~ Joseph Featherstone, author Schools Where Children Learn, and Dear Josie, emeritus faculty leader Michigan State University’s acclaimed teacher education program.

Gates Donates $3.6 Million to Broad Residency

From a recent press release:

Record Number of Broad Residents Take on Local, State, Federal Roles Managing Education Reform

Published: Wednesday, Sep. 8, 2010 - 5:13 am

By The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 8 -- Broad Residency Receives $3.6 million Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Help Execute Teacher Effectiveness Initiatives

This donation from one billionaire to another billionaire's corporate training program is tied, at least in part, to the $290 million Gates Foundation investment in pay per test score programs coming to three cities and a consortia of LA-based charters.

Here's the rest of the press release:

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Broad Residency in Urban Education announced today it has placed its largest class of 42 early career executives into 28 public education systems across the country, expanding for the first time into state departments of education.

The Broad Residency is a management development program that places talented executives with private and civic sector experience and advanced degrees from top business, public policy and law schools into two-year, full-time, paid positions at the top levels of urban school districts, state and federal departments of education and leading charter management organizations. Broad Residents work to improve central office management practices so that more money reaches the classroom, teachers receive effective support and students receive a quality education. During their two-year "residency," participants receive intensive professional development and access to a nationwide network of education reform leaders, which enables them to actively share their successes and experiences as they work to improve the delivery of quality education.

The Broad Center has received a $3.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to recruit and train as many as 18 Broad Residents over the next four years to provide management support to school districts and charter management organizations addressing the issue of teacher effectiveness. Broad Residents will help school systems dramatically improve the recruitment, selection, training, placement, and evaluation of teachers. The Gates Foundation grant is the first multi-million-dollar grant The Broad Residency has received from a funder other than The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

Also, for the first time since The Broad Residency began in 2002, two Residents will be working at the state level, for the Delaware and Louisiana departments of education, in which significant reforms are underway. For the second year, Broad Residents will be working at the U.S. Department of Education, supporting states and school districts in their efforts to improve student achievement.

"We are pleased that these bright managers will help large education systems – including state departments of education – use limited resources to better support teachers and deliver results for students, parents and communities," said Eli Broad, founder of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

To date, 215 Broad Residents have been placed in 32 school districts and 23 public charter school management organizations nationwide. Nine out of ten Broad Resident graduates have stayed in the field of urban education.

The 2010-2012 Residents will be working in the following school districts:

• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, N.C.
• Chicago Public Schools
• District of Columbia Public Schools
• Denver Public Schools
• Detroit Public Schools
• Fulton County Schools, Ga.
• Hillsborough County Public Schools, Fla.
• Houston Independent School District
• Knox County Schools, Tenn.
• Memphis City Schools, Tenn.
• New Haven Public Schools, Conn.
• New York City Department of Education
• Pittsburgh Public Schools
• Prince George's County Public Schools, Md.
• Providence Public Schools, R.I.
• Washoe County School District, Nev.

In addition, 2010-2012 Residents will work in the following charter school management organizations:

• Achievement First, New York
• Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, Los Angeles
• Aspire Public Schools, Oakland, Calif.
• Green Dot Public Schools, Los Angeles
• KIPP, Houston
• LEARN Charter School, Chicago
• New Schools for New Orleans, New Orleans
• The College-Ready Promise, Los Angeles
• Uncommon Schools, New York

For a list of this year's Broad Residents, bios, photos and quotes, please visit http://broadresidency.org/residents/2010-2012.html. For examples of specific, quantifiable outcomes Broad Residents have achieved to improve operations and teaching and learning across the country, please visit http://www.broadresidency.org/about/results.html.

All Broad Residents have M.B.A.s or other advanced degrees. Seventy-four percent of this year's class, selected from a candidate pool of more than 2,500 applicants, come from leading business and law schools such as Harvard University, Duke University or the University of Michigan. Participants have an average of 10 years of experience, typically from a Fortune 500 or other major company. Fifty-two percent are people of color. The Broad Residency continues to be far more selective – at 2 percent – than the highest-rated M.B.A. programs.

The Broad Residency (www.broadresidency.org) pays 50 percent of each Resident's salary the first year, and 25 percent the second year, with the partner organization paying the balance, except where a Resident is already employed by that organization. The Broad Center also covers the full cost of professional development sessions for all Residents.

The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems, which operates The Broad Residency, is funded by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation (www.broadeducation.org), a national venture philanthropy established by philanthropist Eli Broad to advance entrepreneurship for the public good in education, science and the arts.

SOURCE The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems

The Gates Foundation also released their annual report yesterday.

Some recent grants:

• $275,000 to the Center for Education Reform "to support development of a new awareness tool, "The Bullpen", that will offer and analyze real time education news"
• $3.4 million to Stand for Children Leadership Center "to support education reforms, training, technical assistance, and tools designed to increase teacher effectiveness"
• $1 million to the Center for American Progress (sic) "to fund Empowering Effective Teachers advocacy grantees and an additional leading organization to communicate the importance of reforms and support progressive states to implement them".

Former TFA/KIPP Teacher: "Why I don't believe in 'reform'"

An interesting blog post from Education News Colorado:

Why I don't believe in "reform"

By: Marc Waxman

September 7th, 2010

Marc Waxman has been an educator for 17 years, including 12 in New York City, and the last two in Denver.

I don’t believe. I wish I could believe. I am supposed to believe. But, I don’t. I don’t believe in education “reform” in our country.

I don’t believe charter schools are a panacea, I don’t believe that linking student achievement to teacher evaluation will significantly impact education, and for that matter, I don’t believe student achievement” should be the ultimate goal of education in our country.

I am supposed to believe in all this, especially if you look at my resume and follow the major media discussion of education “reform.” Let me explain.

When I graduated from college in 1994 I joined Teach For America. I taught two years in Paterson, NJ (made famous by Joe “Batman” Clark from Eastside High School – which was just across the street from the 1,000-student K-8 school where I taught. After my two years of TFA service I became one of the first teachers and administrators at KIPP in the South Bronx. After three years at KIPP, I spent the next nine years co-founding and co-directing a new school in Harlem which started as a school-within-a school, was part of a take-over of a failing school that was closed, became an official New York City public school, and then converted to become one of only five conversion charter schools in NYC.

[Continued here]

The rest is certainly worth reading. Mr. Waxman presents the following Dewey quote before concluding by asking readers, "what's your vision of a good education?":

What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information… if in the process an individual loses his own soul: loses his appreciation of things worth while, of the values to which these things are relative; if he loses desire to apply what he has learned and, above all, loses the ability to extract meaning from his future experiences as they occur?

The next lightbulb that may come on for Mr. Waxman (and let's hope it does) is that the supporters of the reform movement he sees as leading us astray push their agenda because they're incapable of viewing education from this point of view: the conservatives (and so-called "liberals" or "progressives" like Whitney Tilson) who shun anything Dewey or go so far as to label his book one of the most dangerous pieces of work out there; the assorted neoliberal reformers (which includes New Democrats, neocons, and Libertarians) that use business rhetoric and practices to minimize and eventually eliminate the possibility of anything but testing dungeons (or "Dickensian prisons"); and the Tea Party-slash-religious right that irrationally fears public schools would teach communism/socialism, anti-American values, and, in general, enter into territory that only the church or family should venture if public schools were to operate in a more Dewey-esque manner. To these folks, all that really matters is test scores. A section of this crowd masquerading as "progressives" (ie the New Democrats, DFER crowd, and Gates/Broad foundations) may incorporate, like Duncan, some of the rhetoric about a well-rounded education, art classes, small classes, strong teacher-student relationships, and the disdain for fill in the bubble tests, but their actions consistently point in the opposite direction. It's really a rhetorical coup, and one the right wing is happy to watch silently unfold over the past 20 years (although they'll slip up and show their approval of the reform crowd every now and then, as Checker recently did here).

It may also strike Mr. Waxman that looking at education from a critical perspective - who gets what kind of education and why - opens up a bag of questions that the backers mentioned above cannot and will not ask themselves or society as a whole. That suits the prostisuits in various sectors just fine, leaving it to parents, a handful of advocacy groups, teachers, and children to advocate for a system of public education that philosophers like Dewey dare to ask.

A final question - and one I certainly do not have an answer for - is this: how do we build a coalition to counter those pushing us in the wrong direction? I look at it this way: We don't have the backing of billion-dollar philanthrocapitalists, hedge fund managers, political leadership in either political party, or the mainstream media outlets, but we may have to mimic some of their techniques, strategies, and methods. We may have to pull in non-educational groups to forge alliances. We certainly need to use social media to make connections and strategize. But I'm at a loss at how to go about doing such work, and this is hardly an exhaustive list of what it'd take to push back against those thrusting us in the wrong direction (including, unfortunately, the first President in a long time with a chance* of actually doing something good for education).

* President Obama's rhetoric in the Presidential campaign gave us every indication that he'd do what he's doing now: push charters, merit pay tied to test scores, competition, and the rest of the stuff his administration has done. Still, it was possible that he was just using that as a rhetorical tool to neutralize McCain's "reform" friendly agenda and convince centrist that he wouldn't walk hand-in-hand with the unions.