Dan Walters Argues for More Testing - Again and Again

Dan Walters continues to use his position as a major editorial writer in the Bee in support of corporate style school control in support of the fake school reform industry and consultants.  (Sac Bee, Nov. 15, page A3) He does this by regularly describing neoliberal charter advocates such as Gloria Romero and Michelle Rhee  and others as advocates of “school reform”.

In reality they are advocates of more testing and test driven change.

High-stakes standardized tests, and the new curriculum they have spawned, require  teachers to avoid thinking deeply about the information  we’re sending to students.  The aim of testing is to provide demonstrable, measurable evidence that work is being produced — that teachers and students are not thinking creatively  when they should be lecturing, memorizing, studying. The idea is that a teacher’s job is to get information into the heads of students, and a student’s job is to write it out, unchanged, on a test.

Ego, Money and False Promises: Michelle Rhee’s Big Secret and the Collapse of Education “Reform”

Jeff Bryant

Maybe it’s time to stick a fork in education reform, and get set for what the new ed-tech industrialists are going to bring us.

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When Michelle Rhee left the center stage of the movement known as “education reform,” inquiring minds wanted to know why.

Was it because “she didn’t play well in the sandbox.” Was it to solidify her and her husband’s image as “the next Bill and Hillary Clinton?”

But here’s one theory that no one seemed to consider: It was a good business decision.

Regardless of how you feel about Michelle Rhee, you have to admit she has been an adroit business person – tapping into a growing market demand, using a clever publicity campaign to reach celebrity recognition, outmaneuver her competitors (such as teachers unions), and amassing significant amounts of capital to roll out a formidable new “product,” her organization StudentsFirst.

So it’s not beyond reasonable to wonder if Rhee got out of the business of “education reform” while the gettin’ was good and left StudentsFirst at a time when it has likely peaked in influence and may even be in decline.

If that’s indeed the case, is Rhee’s exit the first sign of a larger exodus from the reform movement soon to follow? Is the whole enterprise known as education reform starting to go south? And if so, where is all the big money behind it going to go to next?

Becoming the Bickersons

Perhaps Rhee realized, just in time, the reform venture was turning into a money pit, as forces and personalities dragged the effort down with inefficiency, contention and lack of productivity.

A victory for the corporate "reformers" in the Vergara v California case

California judge Rolf Treu ruled Tuesday  in the Vergara  v.California case that California teacher tenure laws deprive students of their right to an education that is guaranteed  under the state Constitution and violates their civil rights. The decision is a major defeat for teachers’ unions and will presumably lead to challenges of tenure laws in other states.  The ruling overturned five state statutes giving California teachers firing protections and rights to tenure and seniority.

The implementation of the ruling has been stayed while under appeal.

The Sacramento Bee editorial board and Bee columnists Marcos Breton and Dan Walters, along with their candidate Marc Tucker each applaud the court ruling. Note what they say in their columns. They applaud this defeat of the teachers unions, they do not deal with the critical issue of adequate school funding.

What do the  sides  agree upon?

It is clear that many students in California receive a substandard education and that failing schools are concentrated in poor and minority neighborhoods.   The judge cites the long history of  successful law suites Serrano V. Priest I, II. III, and more that mandated changes in state funding to provide equal funding.  There is also general agreement that teacher quality is a significant factor in improving education.

The problem is that the remedy of the corporate “reformers”  and of  the court does not resolve the basic issues.  It deals with teacher placement, tenure, and freedom of speech, not the adequate funding of schools.   It may at most respond to the 1-3 % of  poor teachers in the classrooms.

California is one of a number of states that require  in their state constitution  that the state provide  adequate public education.  This has been reaffirmed numerous times in Serrano v. Priest 1,2,, 3 and cited again in this court ruling.  

Manufactured "news" about schools and education

The apparent “news site” the Heschinger Report, http://hechingerreport.org carries a post  alleging that the current law suite on teacher tenure is a good thing.  http://hechingerreport.org/content/californias-students-get-their-day-in-court_14786/  Feb. 19 date.

They are in part funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

Their self description is Informing the public through quality journalism.

If you follow the link on the story, it goes back to tntp and Michelle Rhee.

New Teacher Project

http://tntp.org/about-tntp/our-historyThe

Someone sues the schools to abolish teacher tenure ?

By Duane Campbell

Julie Watson of The Associated Press reports today in the Sacramento Bee that  nine public school students are suing the state over laws on teacher tenure and seniority which really means that the usual anti union corporate machine has launched a new front in the war on teachers.  See  https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/

These students ( or their parents)  want to invalidate a series of current laws which protect teachers from political interference. Their campaign foci just happen to co-inside with campaigns of a variety of the usual corporate suspects from Michellle Rhee, the Waltons, Students First, Democrats for Educational Reform, and other well financed political action committees.

However, as we learned in the campaign against bi-lingual education ( Prop.227), parent and student front groups can provide an effective campaign strategy. A law suite designed for publicity was an important element in the abolition of bilingual education for the children of California.  It will be difficult to get past the framing of the AP article to real issues.

For example, one of the parents is listed as saying that her child did not learn to read until 3^rd. grade.  Something we would all be concerned about, but it is not clearly connected to teacher tenure and seniority.

More likely, the child was disadvantaged by large classroom sizes,  California’s over crowded classrooms,  and the budget cuts of the recent economic crisis.   Or, it may have been because the child did not respond well to the tightly organized scripted reading lessons now required in most classrooms. Reading resource teachers prepared to assist children falling behind were eliminated from most California classrooms in a long series of budget cuts.

Public School Reform ?

Seth Sandronsky
Take the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. Add its heir, the Race to the Top Fund (RTT-TF), part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. Under NCLB and RTTTF, pupil scores on standardized tests are center stage in public K-12 school reform. Public school principals and teachers with students who fail to measure up to learning standards based on test scores face harsh penalties, ranging from schools closing, with employee layoffs, to openings of charter schools (brick-and-mortar and online).

There is more to this learning and teaching dynamic than meets the eye. For instance, off-stage are for-profit corporations. Their fiduciary responsibility is to private shareholders, not public interests. So what is the interplay between the corporate sector and public K-12 school reform?

We turn to Kaplan Test Preparation (KTP) schools.

Education Reform - Now What ?

Jeff Bryant

All the reviews of last year’s top education news stories are out and the consensus view is 2013 was a “pivotal year” for the nation’s education policy, to quote Texas superintendent John Kuhn.

The pivot from what to what has various interpretations, but 2013 was a year when “an education uprising” made many left-leaning people’s lists of positive developments.

Just like what’s happening in the economic arena, where a populist rage against inequality and systemic unfairness is causing even President Obama to take notice, anger over inequity and unfairness of policies labeled as education “reform” has stirred the masses into action and sent a clear warning sign to policy leaders in 2014, an election year.

Dysfunction Junction

Anti Teacher Initiative Filed

Matt David, a political consultant to Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst has submitted an initiative for the California ballot to remove teacher seniority as a factor in lay-off decisions.  StudentsFirst has long advocated this position and worked with EDVoice to propose  state legislation to achieve this goal.  Matt David is a former communications director for Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

The claim that teacher seniority protection is a major factor in school achievement has no basis in research.  It has long been a favored campaign of the Right in part because it can be used to assault teachers’ unions and because it divides teachers against each other.

Younger teachers frequently assume that their youth and energy makes them a better teacher.  These factors do indeed contribute to teaching, but there is no evidence to indicate that they balance or compensate for the skill of more experienced teachers.  This is an ideological campaign assault, not a provision based upon evidence.

See the prior posts on Michelle Rhee, StudentsFirst, and their connection to corporate assaults on public education. http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-wall-street-power-brokers-are.html

Papering Over Public K-12 School Reform- Michelle Rhee?

Papering Over Public K-12 School Reform  By Seth Sandronsky

 Private interests are busy paying for political favors from lawmakers at the state Capitol in California, writes Dan Morain, a columnist with The Sacramento Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/13/5905448/dan-morain-the-investigation-into.html

According to him, what we know about Sen. Ron Calderon, a pro-business Democrat representing Montebello, and snared in an FBI sting operation recently, is just the tip of the dollars-and-politics iceberg. 

The good senator has ample company, Morain continues. He mentions other actors and forces in the fetid pay-to-play of California state politics. 

Yet his column omits the donor role of a leading public K-12 school reform group under the state Capitol dome. What is going on? 

Al Jazeera America’s Oct. 31 unveiling of an FBI affidavit that alleges Sen. Calderon’s multiple alleged wrongdoings includes his brother Thomas Calderon’s meeting with star education reformer Michelle Rhee’s lobbyists. Her StudentsFirst group operates from a national headquarters in Sacramento. 

The affidavit alleges that StudentsFirst lobbyists met with Sen. Calderon’s brother on Feb. 20. On Feb. 21, Sen. Calderon introduced a teacher-reform measure, Senate Bill 441 that Rhee’s group supports: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/sen/sb_0401-0450/sb_441_cfa_20130423_084911_sen_comm.html 

How our public schools became a threat.

How our Public Schools Became a 'Communist Threat'

By Paul Buchheit

Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast called the public school system a "socialist regime." Michelle Rhee cautions us against commending students for their 'participation' in sports and other activities.
Privatizers believe that any form of working together as a community is anti-American. To them, individual achievement is all that matters. They're now applying their winner-take-all profit motive to our children.

We're Sliding Backwards, Towards "Separate and Unequal"

In 1954, the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education seemed to place our country on the right track. Chief Justice Earl Warren said that education "is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms." Thurgood Marshall insisted on "the right of every American to an equal start in life."

Journalists get the data wrong on school improvement

by Jeff Bryant

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry when an “All-Purpose-Pundit” atThe New York Times takes it upon him/herself to write a commentary about education.

“Thomas Friedman is infamous for his uninformed pieces on education,” Larry Ferlazzo, a retired schoolteacher and ubiquitous education commentator on the Internet recently observed. And there’s “David Brooks, who is equally off-base.”

Diane Ravitch, lamenting a recent column by Times editorialist Bill Keller, who lazily blamed widespread problems with education performance on university teacher preparation programs (without mustering a shred of evidence to support his claim), concluded, “It would be wonderful if theNew York Times elevated someone to the op-ed page as a columnist who actually knew something about education.”

Staying true to form last week was Times opinionator Nicholas Kritsof. Prompted by the latest results of the National Assessment of Education Progress, aka “the Nation’s Report Card,” Kritsof observed on Twitter, “Latest NAEP school test scores suggest that school reform helps. Big improvements in DC & Tennessee, both centers of reform.”

Since 1990, the “Main NAEP,” given every other year in grades 4 and 8 to measure national and state achievement in reading and math, has led to all sorts of overblown claims. This year’s results have been subjected to the same tendencies – despite the fact that the results were described as“stubbornly mixed” by reliable news outlets, with stagnation in 4th grade reading and math and slight gains in 8th grade reading only.

Rhee's Failures- Promotion, PR, not Evidence

Jeff Bryant

Without doubt the poster person for the reform movement has been ex-chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system Michelle Rhee, who rocketed to the limelight of American consciousness with her grandiose portrayals in the popular press and the major documentary film “Waiting for Superman.”

Rhee is known as none other than “America’s most famous school reformer.”

But it is Rhee’s spectacular rise and fall that in many ways symbolizes the fallen arc of the education reform movement. This month, that trajectory sank even lower.

Despite a generation of pledges to advance American prosperity, the economic conditions of typical Americans continue to deteriorate: more widespread poverty among children, persistently high uninsured rates among the elderly, more people who lack the savings to cover basic expenses for three months if they lose their job, more wage earners in low-pay jobs barely able to cover basic needs, and explosive growth in income inequality.

Michelle Rhee : front person for elite attacks on public schools

Excerpts from;  The Activist Handbook. Second edition.  2013. Reprinted with permission.

Randy Shaw

Michelle Rhee, chancellor for Washington, D.C., schools from 2007-2010, is the front person for elite attacks on teacher unions and public schools. Local school superintendents rarely become national figures, but Rhee appeared on the cover of Time magazine holding a broom to signify plans to sweep away teacher tenure. ..

By 2012 Rhee toured the nation promoting charter schools and vouchers, assessing teachers based on their students’ test scores, and most important condemning the evils of teacher unions.  Rhee made more than 150 public appearances in 2011-2012, reportedly getting as much as $50,000 per speech plus “first-class expenses.” It’s a pretty good deal for an educational “reformer” whose reputation is based on her controversial tenure as D.C. Chancellor.  Rhee closed schools, fired over half of the teachers, and tried to eliminate tenure….

Prominent educator Diane Ravitch has explained the Rhee phenomenon:

“This formula which will be a tragedy for our nation and for an entire generation of children, is now immensely popular in the states and the Congress.  Most governors endorse it.  The big foundations endorse it. “

New Data Shows School 'Reformers' Are Getting it Wrong | Perspectives, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

New Data Shows School 'Reformers' Are Getting it Wrong | Perspectives, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

David Sirota.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that many “reformers’” policies have spectacularly failed, prompted massive scandals and/or offered no actual proof of success, an elite media that typically amplifies — rather than challenges — power and money loyally casts “reformers’” systematic pillaging of public education as laudable courage (the most recent example of this is Time magazine’s cover cheering on wildly unpopular Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel after he cited budget austerity to justify the largest mass school closing in American history — all while he is also proposing to spend $100 million of taxpayer dollars on a new private sports stadium).

In other words, elite media organizations (which, in many cases, have their own vested financial interest in education “reform”) go out of their way to portray the anti-public-education movement as heroic rather than what it really is: just another get-rich-quick scheme shrouded in the veneer of altruism.

That gets to the news that exposes “reformers’” schemes — and all the illusions that surround them. According to a new U.S. Department of Education study, “about one in five public schools was considered high poverty in 2011… up from about one in eight in 2000.” This followed an earlier study from the department finding that “many high-poverty schools receive less than their fair share of state and local funding… leav(ing) students in high-poverty schools with fewer resources than schools attended by their wealthier peers.”

Those data sets powerfully raise the question that “reformers” are so desperate to avoid: Are we really expected to believe that it’s just a coincidence that the public education and poverty crises are happening at the same time? Put another way: Are we really expected to believe that everything other than poverty is what’s causing problems in failing public schools?

House of Cards Episode 2 - "Rheesons to Investigate"

See essay below: Essay on Michelle Rhee which no major paper will publish.  John Merrow.

House of Cards Episode 1 - "Broad's Academy of Power"

In this, episode 1 of the Badass Teacher’s House of Card Series, Eli Broad’s ideals and his intentions for the Public School System in America are exposed. Don’t believe the rhetoric and propaganda, instead do YOUR homework and follow the money trail.

Who is Eli Broad?
http://www.defendpubliceducation.net/
http://www.broadeducation.org/about/c…

Is Broad a Public School Bully in his own back yard?
http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-30…

Parents Protest over school closures - school "reform"

http://www.thenation.com/article/175532/are-street-protests-next-fight-over-education-reform#axzz2b9Kf7lwT

Amy Dean, The Nation

"As it stands now, if nothing changes, the schools are going to have to open without any adults in the large spaces where kids gather," predicted Philadelphia public schools parent Michael Mullins in late June….

As the showdown in Philadelphia indicates, the ongoing battle over education "reform" and school funding--topics often discussed in think tanks, political campaigns or Waiting for "Superman"-style media productions--is moving into the streets. 

Chicago and Seattle, too, have seen vigorous protests against austerity, privatization, high-stakes testing and union-busting. Such demonstrations together represent a forceful challenge to the corporate-financed push for "education reform" undertaken by the likes of Michelle Rhee, the former schools chancellor of Washington, DC. But these movements are more than mere isolated acts of resistance; in their demands, the outlines of a coherent policy agenda can be discerned--one that looks honestly at what it will take to bring quality education to America's least privileged communities.

One thing this movement has already accomplished is exposing how the education "reform" movement provides cover to Republicans and neoliberal Democrats who are starving the public school system. In championing privately run charter schools, the (self-described) reformers paint traditional schools as failures that should be defunded--even if those traditional schools outperform charters. By bashing teachers unions, figures like Rhee have helped politicians scapegoat the unions for fiscal woes, even as many of those lawmakers advocate cutting taxes. And by claiming that those who cite poverty's impact on student achievement are merely making excuses for sub-par teaching, the "reform" camp has played down the devastating effects of ruthless budget cutting.

Essay on Michelle Rhee which no major newspaper will accept.

by John Merrow:
Michelle Rhee lobbies across the country for greater test-based accountability and changes in teacher tenure rules.  She often appears on television and in newspapers, commenting on a great range of education issues.  Easily America’s best-known education activist, she is always introduced as the former Chancellor of the public schools in Washington, DC, the woman who took on a corrupt and failing system and shook it up. The rest of the story is rarely mentioned.

The op-ed below has been rejected[1] by four newspapers, three of them national publications. One editor’s rejection note said that Michelle Rhee was not a national story.

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CAVEAT EMPTOR: MICHELLE RHEE’S EDUCATION REFORM CAMPAIGN

Today, too many of America’s children are not getting the quality education they need and deserve. StudentsFirst is helping to change that with common sense reforms that help make sure all students have great schools and great teachers.(StudentsFirst press release, emphasis added)

Michelle Rhee created StudentsFirst after leaving her post as Chancellor of Washington, DC’s Public Schools in the fall of 2010. She announced her intentions on “Oprah” that December: to fix America’s schools by enrolling one million members and raising one billion dollars.[2]

Easily America’s most visible education activist, she has been crisscrossing the country lobbying for change and donating money to candidates whose policies she supports. StudentsFirst claims to have helped pass 110 ‘student-centered policies’ in 18 states.

Sacramento District Insists on closing public schools

The  Sacramento City school district is  closing  seven elementary schools, disproportionately hurting students in low-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods.

In response, twelve students and their parents filed a civil rights lawsuit, asking a federal court to block the closures. The suit claims that the Sacramento City Unified District’s decision “was motivated by an intent to discriminate against the minority populations” and will result in “a disastrous discriminatory effect on the poor, disadvantaged population which is served by these neighborhood schools slated for closure."

A lawsuit filed by parents with the help of Sacramento attorney Mark Merin on the bases of the racial and class discrimination in the decisions as to which schools to close  was dismissed by the federal judge Kim Mueller.

 Jonathan Tran of Hmong Innovating Politics, the group that organized the rally, told the June 12 rally , “The district applied an arbitrary and illegitimate standard to target schools that are predominantly high in low-income and minority populations … At the end of the day, that is unacceptable.”

Michelle Rhee's group takes in $28.5 million

Michelle Rhee’s group tripled its budget By: Byron Tau July 2, 2013 02:01 PM EDT

Former Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s advocacy group tripled its budget in the second year of existence, while spending heavily on politics across the country. According to tax documents obtained by POLITICO, Rhee’s group StudentsFirst raised $28.5 million between August 2011 and July 2012. The group spent more than $3.6 million on political activities during the same time period. That fundraising number — released more than year later because of lag time in Internal Revenue Service reporting requirements — smashes the $7.6 million haul the group raised during the first nine months of existence and positions Rhee and StudentsFirst as a major outside advocacy group on the issue of education. Since their launch, StudentsFirst expanded into 18 states and claims to have helped pass over 110 new policies. Their 2011-2012 fundraising haul is far short of the group’s initial ambitions — Rhee once promised to raise $1 billion in the first year. The group has since scaled back its fundraising ambitions. Rhee received a salary of about $300,000 for her work with the group, for which she serves as founder, CEO and director.