Business "Leaders" Fail at Public Education

Diane Ravitch. 

Let’s state a simple fact: there is NO EVIDENCE that Common Core will improve education or test scores. It was launched in 2010. It has been tested in many states, and test scores have collapsed. Why the stubborn insistence that it will raise American test scores compared to the rest of the world or prepare all students for college and career? There is no evidence for this stubborn belief. If businessmen acted this way in their own corporations, every one of their products would be untested. Their gasoline would cause engines to explode, their buildings would collapse, their software would be fraught with bugs, and their hardware would melt. And they wouldn’t understand why. They would keep insisting that we have to keep doing the same things over and over. At least their customers would have a choice, unlike American parents and children, who are forced to endure Common Core despite their protests.

First, our schools are NOT failing. Test scores on the NAEP are at their highest point ever, for all groups of students, including whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Scores on NAEP rose steadily since the 1970s until NCLB went into effect; then the rate of gains slowed. But in 2015, the NAEP scores went flat or declined, when the full force of NCLB , Race to the Top, and Common Core converged. Repeat, our schools are NOT failing, but our policymakers have rained chaos and disruption on them since 2001.

Second, we have heard this claim about “our failing schools” since 1983, when the Reagan-era report “A Nation at Risk” was published to moaning and groaning. We have been warned again and again that the schools were harming our economy. Yet our economy has grown since 1983. The biggest harm to our economy has come not from our schools but from major corporations outsourcing jobs to other countries where labor is cheaper, not better.

Corporate Titans throw Millions into Tuck Campaign

Corporate school  “reformers” have raised over $4 million from the very rich during the last week to contribute to the campaign to elect Marshall Tuck as Superintendent of Public Instruction.  According the Sacramento Bee The fund includes $1 million each from Los Angeles businessmen Bill Bloomfield and Eli Broad, a major financier of efforts to overhaul public education. The Gap co-founder Doris Fisher and Laurene Powell Jobs, philanthropist and widow of Steve Jobs, have each contributed $500,000.

This anti union efforts raised in just one week  dwarfs the $2 million raised by teachers’ unions in favor of Torlakson.

Corporate advocates want Tuck in office to  support the anti tenure decisions and anti teacher due process  procedures of the Vergara case.

A handful of ultra-wealthy donors who support school privatization and cutting public pension systems are behind a flood of spending supporting former Wall Street Banker Marshall Tuck's campaign for state schools superintendent, campaign disclosure records show.

Far from "Parents and Teachers for Tuck," the $4.7 million collected so far comes instead from sources that support school vouchers, privatization of public pension systems and using disruptive business tactics to overhaul public schools.

Major funders include:

$500,000 from Carrie Walton Penner, whose family made its fortune running anti-union, low-wage paying Wal-Mart. The Walmart 1% website reports that Penner's biography includes serving on the board of the Alliance for School Choice - a school voucher advocacy group.

We Won't Give Up- Attacks on Teachers

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel is angry at people who would treat our children as commodities in order to yield profits, attack educators and create conflict rather than actually work to improve public education for all our students. Watch and hear what he has to say.

Defend public education in California

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/make-or-break-moment-public-education-california

Make or Break Moment for Public Education in California

Posted on 07 November 2011

By Pablo Rodriguez
Communities for a New California

On Friday, November 4th, I proudly joined a growing movement of students, teachers, parents, and workers and sent the open letter below to the fifty corporate elite who serve on the boards of California's public colleges and universities. We are the 99%, and through our taxes we are already paying more than our fair share to save public education and vital social services in California.  We are at a make-or-break moment for the future of public education.

We have endured $17 billion in cuts to public education and 200% increases in tuition for the University of California, California State University and community college students since just 2008. Now, $2.5 billion in additional cuts to education and essential services are under consideration for December.  We call on those corporate elite to sign theReFund California pledge[1] to make Wall Street pay for refunding public education.

A week of actions at fifteen California university campuses[2] will begin at Fresno State University on November 8th[3] (see video below) and will demand the corporate elite on the boards of our colleges and universities sign the pledge.   The week of campus actions will conclude Nov. 16 at the meetings of the University of California and California State University governing boards and reinforce the message, “It is time banks, corporations, and the wealthiest 1% PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE.