Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In recent years, we have heard and read a lot about the failure of public schools in the United States. “Our schools are failing” has almost become a mantra with members of the media, many of our politicians, and the advocates of school reform. I have seen few people who have questioned the assertions made by the media, elected officials, and school reformers that schools in this country are not adequately educating our youth and that our educational system is a total and abject failure.
Many of those who criticize our public education system offer charter schools and the privatization of public schools as solutions to the “education problem” in this country.
I’m a retired public school educator. I have known and am friends with many current and former public school teachers. I know that there are many fine classroom practitioners working in our public schools today…and many excellent schools where our children receive a quality education. I am aware that there are also many schools where children may not be receiving the highest quality education. (What often go unmentioned in the media are the real reasons—including poverty—why some schools in this country may be failing.)
One problem with the “our schools are failing” mantra—as I see it—is that all our schools are lumped together in one basket labeled “failing.” How did this come to be? Do we Americans really believe that NO public schools in this country provide their students with an adequate education? Do we believe that all schools need to be reformed? If not, do we believe that even the schools which are actually doing an estimable job of educating their students need to be reformed?
I think it is time we start taking a good look at the individuals and organizations that are behind the push to establish thousands of charter schools and to use taxpayer money to fund private and religious schools as the means of raising the quality of education in this country.
ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council)
Last May, education historian Diane Ravitch wrote the following about one group that has been driving the school reform movement:
Since the 2010 elections, when Republicans took control of many states, there has been an explosion of legislation advancing privatization of public schools and stripping teachers of job protections and collective bargaining rights. Even some Democratic governors, seeing the strong rightward drift of our politics, have jumped on the right-wing bandwagon, seeking to remove any protection for academic freedom from public school teachers.
This outburst of anti-public school, anti-teacher legislation is no accident. It is the work of a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Founded in 1973, ALEC is an organization of nearly 2,000 conservative state legislators. Its hallmark is promotion of privatization and corporate interests in every sphere, not only education, but healthcare, the environment, the economy, voting laws, public safety, etc. It drafts model legislation that conservative legislators take back to their states and introduce as their own “reform” ideas. ALEC is the guiding force behind state-level efforts to privatize public education and to turn teachers into at-will employees who may be fired for any reason. The ALEC agenda is today the “reform” agenda for education.
Ravitch continued:
A recent article in the Newark Star-Ledger showed how closely New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s “reform” legislation is modeled on ALEC’s work in education. Wherever you see states expanding vouchers, charters, and other forms of privatization, wherever you see states lowering standards for entry into the teaching profession, wherever you see states opening up new opportunities for profit-making entities, wherever you see the expansion of for-profit online charter schools, you are likely to find legislation that echoes the ALEC model.
ALEC has been leading the privatization movement for nearly 40 years, but the only thing new is the attention it is getting, and the fact that many of its ideas are now being enacted. Just last week, the Michigan House of Representatives expanded the number of cyber charters that may operate in the state, even though the academic results for such online schools are dismal.
ALEC Exposed provides a wealth of information about how—through ALEC—“corporations, ideologues, and their politician allies voted to spend public tax dollars to subsidize private K-12 education and attack professional teachers and teachers’ unions…” (You can find the information in Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers–the ALEC report prepared by The Center for American Democracy.)
Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst
In addition to ALEC, there is another organization called StudentsFirst that has been helping to spearhead the effort to “reform” our public schools. According to Stephanie Simon, Michelle Rhee, founder and CEO of StudentsFirst, has “emerged as the leader of an unlikely coalition of politicians, philanthropists, financiers and entrepreneurs who believe the nation’s $500 billion-a-year public education system needs a massive overhaul.” Simon added that Rhee, the former chancellor of the D.C. public schools, “has vowed to raise $1 billion” for StudentsFirst, and “forever break the hold of teachers unions on education policy.”
Simon continued:
StudentsFirst has its own political action committee (PAC), its own SuperPAC, and a staff of 75, including a cadre of seasoned lobbyists Rhee sends from state to state as political battles heat up. She has flooded the airwaves with TV and radio ads in a half dozen states weighing new policies on charter schools, teacher assessment and other hot-button issues.
To her supporters, Rhee is a once-in-a-generation leader who has the smarts and the star power to make a difference on one of the nation’s most intractable public policy issues.
But critics say Rhee risks destroying the very public schools she aims to save by forging alliances with political conservatives, evangelical groups and business interests that favor turning a large chunk of public education over to the private sector. She won’t disclose her donors, but public records indicate that they include billionaire financiers and wealthy foundations.
In January the National Opportunity to Learn Campaign published its review of Rhee’s StudentsFirst State Policy Report Card for 2013:
Here’s an excerpt from the summary of the campaign’s review:
On Monday, the pro-privatization education group StudentsFirst, led by former D.C. public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, released a State Policy Report Card, ranking states and giving each a letter grade based on their implementation of a slew of education reform policies. Rather than focus on issues facing students and families, particularly those affected by unequal access to school resources, the policy benchmarks in the new report reveal StudentsFirst’s obsession with charter schools and de-professionalizing the teaching profession. The report pushes policies that are either untested or disproven — but happen to be welcome in the halls of right-wing think tanks and politicians.
The National Opportunity to Learn Campaign listed five reasons why the StudentsFrirst Report Card is “a veritable wish list for privatization advocates and a recipe for failure for everyone else”:
1. Ironically, It Ignores The Needs of Students
2. It Opposes Personalized and Student-Centered Learning
3. It Argues That We Don’t Have Enough Quality Teachers… While Advocating That We Lower the Bar for Teacher Preparation
4. It Continues the Disastrous High-Stakes Testing Drumbeat
5. It Advocates “Equal Funding” and “Equitable Access” for Charter Corporations and Private Schools, Not Students
The DeVos Family
In May of 2011, Rachel Tabachnick wrote an article for AlterNet about the DeVos family, a wealthy family that has “remained largely under the radar, while leading a stealth assault on America’s schools” that has the “potential to do away with public education as we know it.”
Quoting Tabachnick:
Vouchers have always been a staple of the right-wing agenda. Like previous efforts, this most recent push for vouchers is led by a network of conservative think tanks, PACs, Religious Right groups and wealthy conservative donors. But “school choice,” as they euphemistically paint vouchers, is merely a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is the total elimination of our public education system.
The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of Dick DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.
According to Tabachnick, the Devoses, who are big contributors to the Republican Party, spent millions of dollars “promoting the failed voucher initiative in Michigan in 2000.” Following that defeat, Tabachnick claims that the family decided to alter its strategy.
Tabachnick:
Instead of taking the issue directly to voters, they would support bills for vouchers in state legislatures. In 2002 Dick DeVos gave a speech on school choice at the Heritage Foundation. After an introduction by former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett, DeVos described a system of “rewards and consequences” to pressure state politicians to support vouchers. “That has got to be the battle. It will not be as visible,” stated DeVos. He described how his wife Betsy was putting these ideas into practice in their home state of Michigan and claimed this effort has reduced the number of anti-school choice Republicans from six to two. The millions raised from the wealthy pro-privatization contributors would be used to finance campaigns of voucher supporters and purchase ads attacking opposing candidates.
Dick DeVos advocates “stealth” strategy, Heritage Foundation, December 3, 2002
Last April, Daniel Denvir wrote an article for City Paper about the push for a school voucher program in the state of Pennsylvania. He said that names on the fliers of “legislative hopefuls” sounded like the names of “homegrown” candidates. He said that a “different picture” emerged when one followed the money:
…that of a statewide campaign, funded by wealthy donors, to stack the Pennsylvania primary battles on April 24 in favor of those supporting school vouchers, which allocate taxpayer funds for private and religious school tuition. The pro-voucher political action committee (PAC) Students First — funded by Pennsylvania hedge-fund managers and American Federation for Children, a Washington, D.C., pro-voucher group headed by Amway heiress and major right-wing donor Betsy DeVos — emerged on the state’s political scene with a bang for the 2010 elections. And they are back to spend big in 2012.
Lawrence Feinberg, co-chairman of the anti-voucher Keystone State Education Coalition, said, “I see a move by essentially a handful of very wealthy people who want to privatize public education for a wide variety of reasons. Not the least of which has to do with crushing labor unions, but they also want tax dollars going to private and religious schools.”
School Reform and The Profit Motive
In his Salon article The Bait and Switch of School “Reform,” David Sirota writes about the profit motive behind some of the reforms being advocated by “Big Money” interests.
Sirota:
As the Texas Observer recently reported in its exposé of one school-focused mega-corporation, “in the past two decades, an education-reform movement has swept the country, pushing for more standardized testing and accountability and for more alternatives to the traditional classroom — most of it supplied by private companies.”
A straightforward example of how this part of the profit-making scheme works arose just a few months ago in New York City. There, Rupert Murdoch dumped $1 million into a corporate “reform” movement pushing to both implement more standardized testing and divert money for education fundamentals (hiring teachers, buying textbooks, maintaining school buildings, etc.) into testing-assessment technology. At the same time, Murdoch was buying an educational technology company called Wireless Generation, which had just signed a lucrative contract with New York City’s school system (a sweetheart deal inked by New York City school official Joel Klein, who immediately went to work for Murdoch.
Such shenanigans are increasingly commonplace throughout America, resulting in a revenue jackpot for testing companies and high tech firms, even though many of their products have not objectively improved student achievement.
At the same time, major banks are reaping a windfall from “reformers’” successful efforts to take public money out of public schools and put it into privately administered charter schools. As the New York Daily News recently reported:
“Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction. The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years…
“The credit can even be piggybacked on other tax breaks for historic preservation or job creation. By combining the various credits with the interest from the loan itself, a lender can almost double his investment over the seven-year period.
“No wonder JPMorgan Chase announced this week it was creating a new $325 million pool to invest in charter schools and take advantage of the New Markets Tax Credit.”
SOURCES
Ravitch: A primer on the group driving school reform (Washington Post)
Activist targeting schools, backed by big bucks (Reuters)
5 Ways Michelle Rhee’s Report Puts Students Last (National Opportunity to Learn Campaign)
Right-Wing Campaign to Privatize Public Ed Takes Hold in Pennsylvania (AlterNet)
Big corporate money in support of school vouchers hits primary races statewide. Will it tip the scales in Philly? (City Paper)
The bait and switch of school “reform” (Salon)
The Deep Pockets Behind Education Reform (Forbes)
Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers (The Center for American Democracy)
Boron: I just question their reasoning to have a government provided retirement.
I am not sure what that is supposed to mean, but on the face of it, the reasoning for having the government provide retirement, instead of a private organization or corporation or self-directed investment, is blatantly obvious: The government cannot fail.
(Or if it does, the stock market and all corporations and laws and courts and recourse will go with it, money will be worthless, contracts void, and laws moot.)
No corporation can say they will never run out of money, no union can say that, no private individual can guarantee it. The government of the USA is unique in the security and benefits it can provide; no matter how byzantine the process in the end it really can just print the money it needs to provide the benefits it has promised. Anything else carries a risk of catastrophic loss.
I will also point out that the Dow Jones industrial average was at an all time high the month before the Great Depression began, and no amount of diversification or “staying away from risk” would have “been the key” to financially surviving that crash.
“No corporation can say they will never run out of money, no union can say that, no private individual can guarantee it.”
Tony,
To add to that, we have seen many cases now where corporations put themselves into bankruptcy to avoid paying for pensions that had been part of the original employer/employee bargain.
More of Jindal’s education overhaul ruled unconstitutional
By Traci G. Lee
3/5/13
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/05/more-of-jindals-education-overhaul-ruled-unconstitutional/
A Baton Rouge judge ruled Monday that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s teacher tenure and evaluation reform was unconstitutional. The measure known as Act 1 would reform teacher evaluations and, as the Louisiana Federation of Teachers argued, make tenure more difficult to obtain and maintain.
State Judge Michael Caldwell had previously upheld three of four sections of Act 1 last December, but reversed his ruling after a review of the case, declaring the entire bill unconstitutional because it violated the “single object” section of Louisiana’s Constitution, which says any bill brought before the Legislature must contain only one “aim or purpose of enactment.”
Jindal responded to the judge’s ruling in a written statement that called the decision disappointing, and said he expects to “prevail in the state Supreme Court” later this month. Jindal also blamed “the coalition of the status quo” for blocking reforms that would “reward good teachers and give more choices to families.”
Under Jindal’s proposals, local school boards would have less power over hiring and firing decisions, establish a statewide salary schedule for teachers, toughen the path for teachers to reach tenure status, remove seniority-based protections for teachers during layoffs, and require state superintendents’ review of local school superintendent contracts.
This is not the first time a judge has ruled one of Jindal’s educational reform measures unconstitutional. Last November, Louisiana state Judge Tim Kelley ruled Jindal’s private tuition voucher program unconstitutional because it improperly diverted local tax dollars meant for public schools to private schools instead.
Our parent report card for Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst
January 7, 2013
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2013/01/our-parent-report-card-for-michelle.html
Michelle Rhee, former DC Chancellor and founder of the organization StudentsFirst, has come out with a new state by state report card, grading states on how well they adhere to the corporate reform agenda of privatization and “choice” (i.e. expanding charters and vouchers) , merit pay, and rigid evaluation systems based on test scores.
Her grading scheme actually punishes states that have policies to reduce class size above grade three, or offer incentives to keep classes small – even though class size reduction is one of the top priorities of parents, and one of the few education reforms that have proven to work. At the same time she gives points to states that either have mayoral control, support the “Parent trigger” or provide other ways to supersede the authority of democratically-elected school boards.
Even as Rhee often claims that student outcomes and achievement are what matters most, the two states with the highest student achievement in the nation, Massachusetts and New Jersey, received a “D-” and a “D.” California got an “F” for refusing to sign onto the provisions of “Race to the Top”, including test-based evaluations of teachers; Richard Zeiger, the state’s deputy superintendent, called the state’s failing grade a “badge of honor.”
I thought it was a good time to reprint the Parents Across America report card for Rhee, where she received failing grades in categories important to parents. See below.
Since our report card was produced, there has been more attention paid to the Rhee’s checkered past and recent failings :
– How she most likely greatly exaggerated her own record as a teacher.
– Evidence of widespread cheating in DC schools when she ran them, and her failure to investigate these allegations properly — a special focus of a Frontline program due to air tonight [Correction: tomorrow night];
– The voluminous research pointing out that evaluating teachers on the basis of test scores through value-added models, as she pushed for in DC and now in her state report cards, is unstable, unreliable and unfair. (See the most recent analysis from a group of statistical experts, concluding that “We cannot at this time encourage anyone to use VAM in a high stakes endeavor.”)
– The way she inflated the number of supporters of StudentsFirst, counting as members anyone who signed deceptively-phrased online petitions, calling for unobjectionable policies like paying good teachers more or stopping bullying in schools.
– How she fired more than more than 5 percent of the teachers in DC, though at least some of these teachers may need to be reinstated because she did this improperly.
– How the teacher evaluation system she relied upon, called IMPACT, was altered after she left by her successor to diminish its reliance on test scores, dropping that component from 50 to 35 percent.
– How a recent report from the organization she used to run, TNTP, though predictably positive in its spin, revealed that the IMPACT teacher evaluation system was one of the top reasons that even “top performing” teachers plan to leave DC schools. The report also cast further doubt on the system, saying that there may be a “flaw in the design or implementation of IMPACT [that] makes it easier for teachers working in low-need schools to earn top ratings.”
– The documented predilection of StudentsFirst to fund right-wing Republican candidates, despite claims of bipartisanship.
– Most recently, Rhee made a tone-deaf statement on the mass shootings in Newtown CT, calling such children “our most valuable assets”.
– Finally, her refusal to oppose a bill in Michigan that would allow concealed weapons in schools, until the legislation had already been vetoed by the Governor.
If we were updating the report card today, we would certainly give her an “F” for her position on school safety as well.
Elaine:
I am all for choices.
Historically, the stock market has performed very well. It is over 14,000 now. Diversification is the key and staying away from risk after 40 helps the retirement.
Gene & Boron,
Michelle Rhee’s Failing Report Card
Friday, 11 January 2013 08:07
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/michelle-rhees-failing-report-card
Michelle Rhee gained notoriety as the chancellor of DC’s public schools under Adrian Fenty’s administration from 2007 to 2011. Her conduct in this position was one of the main reasons he was not re-elected. Among other things, she publicly took pleasure in firing large numbers of teachers and administrators. Incredibly, she also claims not to have realized that high stake testing would provide incentives for teachers or administrators to cheat on the scoring of exams.
Since she left the DC school system she started a new organization, StudentsFirst, which was created to push for the sort of changes to the school system she sought to implement as chancellor. The organization received considerable media attention for a report card it issued on the public school systems in the 50 states earlier this week. While most of the items on the report card were part of an educational agenda of questionable merit (see Diana Ravitch’s blog for specific critiques), one item had nothing to do with education whatsoever.
Rhee’s report card gave schools a failing grade if teachers received a defined benefit pension (worse if it was backloaded). The school system gets an “A” in this category if teachers only had a 401(k) type defined contribution plan or a cash balance account.
Pensions are now and have historically been an important part of teachers’ compensations. Teachers, like most public sector employees, are paid less in wages than workers in the private sector with comparable education and experience. They make up much of this gap with a better benefit package, including better pension benefits, than workers in the private sector receive.
Given this reality, it is difficult to see how students are helped if a school system replaces a defined benefit pension that guarantees teachers a specific level of income after they retire, with a defined contribution plan, where retirement income will depend on the teachers’ investment success and the timing of the market. Since state governments don’t have to care about the timing of market swings, only overall averages, assuming timing and investment risk is an important benefit that governments can provide their workers at essential zero cost. A defined benefit pension will make a job more attractive to workers than if the state gave teachers the same amount of money in the form of a contribution to a 401(k) account.
In short, Rhee’s report card means that states get credit for making their teachers more financially insecure without saving the government a penny. This position might coincide with a business agenda to eliminate defined benefit pensions, but it is very difficult to see how it will improve our children’s education.
Boron,
“I just question their reasoning to have a government provided retirement.”
Do you question the why or the how? I think the case for why is fairly obvious – it’s a benefit fought for and won by the unions and standard across many industries. The how is another matter. Recently on another thread the topic of how the USPS pensions are funded. Congress forced the USPS to fund their pensions in a unique way – unknown and unprecedented in any other sector of government – that essentially served as sabotage to their daily operations by requiring they “pre-pay” their pensions 75 years out. The USPS didn’t want this, preferring as most organizations do to fund their pensions as they go along. However, Congress – using the facile excuse that funding as they go would result in ever increasing postage (when compared to the rest of the world we have been paying way too little for our postal service for 40 years) and funded in their electoral campaigns by companies like FedEx, UPS, and DHL – forced this unwanted change that is the root of the USPS current financial crisis. Not all pension plans or their funding mechanisms are created equal. Just so, it could be that the state funded retirement and its flawed specifics are a poorly formulated plan foisted upon the teacher’s union due to the state’s unfair and inherently unbalanced bargaining position. Without being directly privy to the negotiations or absent further evidence, it is not possible to definitively lay the blame at the feet of the union when the state could be the instigator of a pension scheme designed to “fail on purpose”.
Boron,
I had money taken out of my paycheck for many years and put into a private retirement fund. I lost a ton of money–twice–when the.com bubble burst and in 2008 when we had a financial meltdown. My pension check, however, hasn’t decreased since I retired in 2004. In fact, I’ve received a couple of increases.
Gene H:
I am not advocating for or against private schools. I am merely pointing out that by making retirement tied to the job they have limited the choices teachers can make concerning their employment. Reducing turnover rates has probably led to lower wages and poorer treatment of teachers by the administration.
I cannot say for certain but I believe union dues are the same for everyone except new teachers and, for my wife at least, are about $600-700 per year. There is not that much financial value on a per teacher basis. Unions do help teachers when they are wrongfully terminated or have problems with parents. So they are not a waste of money, I just question their reasoning to have a government provided retirement.
If you leave, the money you put in is returned with whatever interest is required by law but there is much more incentive to stay after a certain number of years. In other words the retirement pays out a little more but it comes with a downside. Which is lower pay and less respect.
We all know that money today is worth more than money tomorrow so being in control of your retirement is probably a better deal than having it dictated by state government at the behest of the union.
It could be that state funded retirement was voted on by the rank and file and in that case there isnt much to say to my wife except “deal with it.”
Albany charter cash cow: Big banks making a bundle on new construction as schools bear the cost
By Juan Gonzalez
THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2010
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/albany-charter-cash-big-banks-making-bundle-new-construction-schools-bear-cost-article-1.448008
Excerpt:
Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction.
The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.
In Albany, which boasts the state’s highest percentage of charter school enrollments, a nonprofit called the Brighter Choice Foundation has employed the New Markets Tax Credit to arrange private financing for five of the city’s nine charter schools.
But many of those same schools are now straining to pay escalating rents, which are going toward the debt service that Brighter Choice incurred during construction.
The Henry Johnson Charter School, for example, saw the rent for its 31,000-square-foot building skyrocket from $170,000 in 2008 to $560,000 last year.
The Albany Community School’s rent jumped from $195,000 to $350,000.
Green Tech High Charter School rents went from $443,000 to $487,000.
Meanwhile, all the Albany charter schools haven’t achieved the enrollment levels their founders expected, even after recruiting hundreds of students from suburban school districts to fill their seats.
The result has been less money in per-pupil state aid to pay operating costs, including those big rent bills.
Several charters have fallen into additional debt to the Brighter Choice Foundation.
You’d think these financial problems would raise eyebrows among state regulators – or at least worry those charter school boards.
But the powerful charter lobby has so far successfully battled to prevent independent government audits of how its schools spend their state aid.
And key officers of Albany’s charter school boards are themselves board members, employees or former employees of the Brighter Choice Foundation or its affiliates.
Christian Bender, for example, executive director of the foundation, is chairman or vice chairman of four of the Albany charters.
Tom Carroll, the foundation’s vice chairman and one of the authors of the state’s charter law when he was in the Pataki administration, was a founding board member of Albany Community Charter School and is currently chairman of two other charters, Brighter Choice School for Boys and Brighter Choice School for Girls.
Astroturf Activism: Who is Behind Students for Education Reform?
George Joseph and StudentNation
January 11, 2013
http://www.thenation.com/blog/172174/astroturf-activism-who-behind-students-education-reform#
Excerpt:
In late November, a small crowd of Columbia University and New York University students organized by Students For Education Reform (SFER) marched from the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) building in downtown Manhattan to the steps of the Department of Education building, demanding that public school teachers reach an agreement with the Bloomberg administration over new evaluation standards. Hanging in the balance is $450 million worth of state aid that will be withheld from city public schools by Governor Cuomo if a deal is not reached by January 17. Students sporting red and green Christmas hats called on teachers to “Make a deal!” and “Compromise!” in a spectacular show of misplaced activist spirit.
The “compromise” would place teachers at the mercy of a counterproductive test-based system, allowing up to 40 percent of their evaluative ratings to come from the standardized test scores of their students. It’s even worse than it sounds though, because New York state requires that “teachers rated ineffective on student performance based on objective assessments must be rated ineffective overall,” as education historian Diane Ravitch explains, “a teacher who does not raise test scores will be found ineffective overall, no matter how well he or she does with the remaining 60 percent. In other words, the 40 percent allocated to student performance actually counts for 100 percent.”
SFER, a student network that has exploded on more than 100 college campuses across the country since it was started by two students at Princeton in 2009, is an “education reform” front for a lobbying firm, exploiting college idealism for corporate profit. The group’s website declares: “We believe student voices matter. For too long, policymakers have not heard the voice of the stakeholders affected by education policy: students themselves.” But the pitch should replace stakeholders with stockholders, because the dollars behind the “grassroots” movement say more than the students themselves.
SFER has received $1.6 million from Education Reform Now, whose PAC, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), shelled out $1 million to attack the Chicago Teachers Union. DFER worked with the Koch brothers and ALEC to push Proposition 32, which if passed, would have blocked labor unions from using automatic payroll deductions for political purposes. Though SFER claims neutral territory, its motives are laid bare by its rallying around the funding of charter schools, the issue of limiting tenure, and its strict focus on testing. The testing corporations and charter school CEOs might agree with hedge funder and DFER founder Whitney Tilson’s explanation for his interest in education: “Hedge funds are always looking for ways to turn a small amount of capital into a large amount of capital.”
Attending a counter-rally planned to coincide with SFER’s day of action, I met Stephanie Rivera, a “future teacher” and “educational equity activist” currently studying at Rutgers University. She believes that educational reform “benefits organizations that look at education like a business. It benefits testing companies like Pearson, and groups like StudentsFirst, Teach for America, and DFER rather than the students themselves.”
Elaborating on the campus-corporate connection, public school teacher and education activist Brian Jones noted that “these are well-funded Astroturf groups with very specific agendas that try and sprout campus organizations to represent them on the idea that this is some kind of grassroots initiative, when really its very tightly scripted, controlled.”
Nashville Leaders Fight GOP Plan to Kill Local Control
By Diane Ravitch
February 20, 2013
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/20/nashville-leaders-fight-gop-plan-to-kill-local-control/
Republican leaders in the Tennessee legislature are pushing ALEC model legislation to strip the Metro Nashville school board of its power to authorize charters. This is intended to punish Nashville for refusing to support Arizona-based Great Hearts Academy, a corporate chain that wants to open in an affluent white neighborhood. Memphis is also included in the proposal.
Nashville leaders, excepting the corporate-friendly mayor, oppose the legislation. The mayor believes that the power to expand charters is more important than local control. .
The ALEC bill has the support of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst, the Wall Street hedge fund managers’ Democrats for Education Reform, and Stand for Children. In other words, the usual cheerleaders for corporate reform.
Opposition to the ALEC legislation was so intense from parents in Nashville and Memphis (the only districts targeted to lose local control) that the House Education Committee delayed a vote on the measure.
Supporters of public education are not giving up without a fight.
Big money doesn’t buy much in L.A. school races
BY HOWARD BLUME,
Los Angeles Times
March 6, 2013
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-74702954/
Excerpt:
Outside interests poured money into Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s war chest for this week’s school board elections in an attempt to influence education reform here and nationwide. But when the votes were tallied, the group could count only one clear winner.
The mayor’s political action committee, which amassed more than $3.9 million on behalf of three candidates, secured just incumbent Monica Garcia’s seat.
In the other two races, the Coalition for School Reform lost its bid to unseat incumbent Steve Zimmer, who was backed by the teachers union. The group’s other favored candidate, Antonio Sanchez, is headed for a May 21 runoff.
The results were “a loss for the mayor and the future of reform in the district,” said former state Sen. Gloria Romero, who is generally allied with Villaraigosa’s education agenda.
But American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten summed up Tuesday’s election this way: “Big monied interests — most of whom live far away from Los Angeles and virtually none of whom have children in LAUSD schools — were rebuked by parents, teachers and the community.”
The costliest race was between Zimmer and attorney Kate Anderson in District 4, which spans the Westside and west San Fernando Valley. There, the mayor’s group spent more than $1.5 million on Anderson’s behalf. The coalition campaign portrayed one-term incumbent Zimmer as an L.A. Unified insider who voted to fire thousands of teachers and approved a hugely expensive new school.
Taking on Zimmer was “an odd choice,” said Charles Kerchner, a professor at Claremont Graduate University. Overall, Zimmer has been the most independent current board member and a “bridge builder,” Kerchner said.
Zimmer and the union could not keep pace with the coalition’s fundraising, but he was able to turn the tables on the opposition’s attack ads.
“Our message is very simple,” Zimmer wrote in an email blast just before election day. “Don’t believe the lies of March.” He exhorted supporters who “have joined our students and their families in resisting this takeover of the board and this assault on our democracy.”
Zimmer, who claimed 52% of the vote, said Wednesday that “the willingness to win by any means necessary makes me very sad…They really did try to buy a seat and were pretty brazen about it.”
He added that he still intends to cooperate with Supt. John Deasy and Villaraigosa. “This election hasn’t changed me.”
The coalition’s clear victory was in Garcia’s District 2, which encompasses downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. The two-term incumbent received 56% of the votes. The teachers union had hoped to push Garcia into a runoff but devoted few resources to that goal.
In all, campaign committees affiliated with United Teachers Los Angeles spent close to $1 million, according to the City Ethics Commission. That included $150,000 from the American Federation of Teachers.
The coalition’s coffers included $1 million from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, about $340,000 from the California Charter Schools Assn., $250,000 from an organization led by former District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and $250,000 from a New York-based subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
Smote!
Education Reform Takes a Corporate Path With Help From ALEC
By Anthony Cody
October 3, 2011
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/10/education_reform_takes_a_corpo.html
Guest post by the administrative team of United Opt Out: Shaun Johnson, Morna McDermott, Laurie Murphy, Peg Robertson, Tim Slekar and Ceresta Smith (a website dedicated to ending punitive high stakes testing in public education).
Excerpt:
In the past year, a number of states have introduced laws that “reform” education in similar ways. In state after state, teacher seniority and due process has been undermined, and the use of standardized tests to pay and evaluate teachers been expanded. In recent months, reports have emerged of a shadowy group that has developed tremendous influence over legislation in states across the country. This group is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). And, according to ALEC Exposed,
Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called “model bills” reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. Through ALEC, corporations have “a VOICE and a VOTE” on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state.”
In the context of public education policy in America, ALEC has sponsored legislation that, 1) advocates simple standardized testing as an accountability gauge, 2) calls for rigid accountability systems that ignores substantial research on teaching and learning, 3) supports taxpayer-subsidized vouchers, 4) releases private schools that receive tax dollars from state accountability systems, 5) pushes charter schools as alternatives to community based public schools, and 6) supports the elimination of locally elected school boards. These reforms have been enacted in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio and New York. Also Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, and Florida are all considering similar legislative actions.
This legislation embodies the central tenets of corporatized education reform– standardized testing, choice, accountability, and standardized curricula. Each of these tenets has been thoroughly examined over the last decade or more. What else can be said about the validity of these programs other than the fact that the empirical evidence consistently points out that each of these corporate ideas continually fails to deliver positive change to our system of public education in America.
In fact, as near as we can tell, the current debates in education reform are not about empirical evidence–this fight is largely about ideology. What does it mean to be an educated person? How do we define success and what does it mean to be accountable for it? Arguments and methods that do not adhere to a particular ideology about education are summarily shut out, and it just so happens that the concerns of a vast majority of teachers, parents, higher education faculty members, and even students are being ignored.
Again, how is it that ALEC can exert so much influence on public education? You would expect that citizens within a democracy can, so to speak, hire and fire those who represent them. You would expect that elected officials were being informed by those most closely associated with public education. As evidenced above this is not the case. Wealth and power as opposed to wisdom and evidence are the new masters driving the corporate reform agenda. Therefore, we at United Opt Out have been pushed to advocate what may seem like an extreme action — the boycotting of state standardized tests.
Elaine,
it is no surprise that Christie would be using an ALEC designed education “reform” legislation. As the article above suggests, he has been publicly dismissive of the teaching profession.
Nonprofit group releases emails which depict connection between ALEC, education reform and corporate investors
January 30, 2013
http://louisianavoice.com/2013/01/30/nonprofit-group-releases-emails-which-depict-connection-between-alec-education-reform-and-corporate-investors/
Excerpt:
Any lingering doubts about the connection between public education, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and for-profit education providers may have been erased once and for all with the release of thousands of emails that demonstrate that an educational foundation begun by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is “distorting democracy” by molding state education policies to benefit the foundation’s private corporate donors…
Donald Cohen, chairperson of the nonprofit In the Public Interest, http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/blog/jeb-bushs-education-nonprofit-really-about-corporate-profits?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+itpi-blog+%28ITPI+Commentary+Feed%29 released the emails, which included correspondence between Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) and a second group Bush founded called Chiefs for Change, whose members are current and former state education leaders who support Bush’s education reform agenda.
He said the emails “conclusively reveal that FEE staff acted to promote their corporate funders’ priorities, and demonstrate the dangerous role that corporate money plays in shaping our education policy. Correspondence in Florida, New Mexico, Maine, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Louisiana paint a graphic picture of corporate money distorting democracy.”
That agenda includes school choice, online education, school accountability systems based on standardized tests, evaluating teachers on the basis of student test scores and giving schools grades of A-F on the basis of those test scores.
Louisiana Education Superintendent John White is a member of Chiefs for Change.
Some of the emails released by Cohen included correspondence between FEE and White and White’s predecessor, Paul Pastorek.
The emails provide conclusive evidence that FEE staff promoted their corporate funders’ interests in Florida, New Mexico, Maine, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Louisiana. Those interests coincide with the agenda promoted by ALEC’s pay-for-play operation. Corporate donors work closely with state legislators and state education policy makers at ALEC conferences, seminars and annual meetings, according to the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy.
The emails between FEE and state education officials show that FEE, at times working through its Chiefs for Change affiliate, wrote and edited laws, regulations and executive orders in such a way as to enhance profit opportunities for FEE’s corporate funders.
Bush’s organization is supported by many of the same for-profit school corporations that also provide funding for ALEC. Those corporations vote as equals with ALEC legislators on templates to change laws governing America’s public schools.
FEE also receives financial backing from many of the same conservative foundations striving to privatize public schools that also bankroll ALEC. FEE and ALEC lobby for many of the same changes to state laws, changes which benefit their corporate benefactors.
FEE and ALEC also have many of the same “experts” who serve as members or staff employees and the two organizations also collaborate on the annual ALEC education “report card” which grades states’ allegiance to their policies.
FEE acted as a conduit for ALEC model legislation for Maine Gov. Paul LePage which removed barriers to creating online K-12 schools and in some cases, required online classes.
Chris Christie’s Education Bills Bear Striking Resemblance To ALEC Models
By Pat Garofalo
Apr 2, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/education/2012/04/02/456513/chris-christie-alec/
The American Legislative Exchange Council, as has been extensively reported, provides model legislation to state lawmakers, giving them templates for right-wing laws. Some lawmakers take this a bit too literally, as one forgot to remove ALEC’s mission statement from her anti-tax bill.
According to an analysis by the Newark Star-Ledger, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has quietly been using ALEC legislation in the Garden state during his high-profile education reform push:
A Star-Ledger analysis of hundreds of documents shows that ALEC bills are surfacing in New Jersey, where Republican Gov. Chris Christie is trying to remake the state, frequently against the wishes of a Democrat-controlled Legislature.
Drawing on bills crafted by the council, on New Jersey legislation and dozens of e-mails by Christie staffers and others, The Star-Ledger found a pattern of similarities between ALEC’s proposals and several measures championed by the Christie administration. At least three bills, one executive order and one agency rule accomplish the same goals set out by ALEC using the same specific policies. In eight passages contained in those documents, New Jersey initiatives and ALEC proposals line up almost word for word. Two other Republican bills not pushed by the governor’s office are nearly identical to ALEC models.
Christie’s allegedly ALEC-based bills cover a slew of education topics, including the use of standardized testing and reforming teacher tenure. (Christie, of course, has a habit of publicly berating teachers.)
The Christie administration is denying that ALEC had any connection to the legislation. “Our reforms have no basis in anyone’s model legislation,” said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak. “The governor said to me, ‘Who’s ALEC?’”
State Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D), meanwhile, said that she had “never seen anything like this.” “To wholesale just lift up a package of education-reform initiatives that are being developed for use in every state around the country? I don’t think that bodes well for us,” she said.
How a Leading Rightwing Group Views the Election
By Diane Ravitch
November 13, 2012
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/11/13/how-rightwing-views-the-election/
Excerpt:
The Center for Education Reform in Washington, D.C., is one of the nation’s leading advocates for privatization of public education. Its leader, Jeanne Allen, was an education policy analyst at the rightwing think tank, the Heritage Foundation, before she founded CER in 1993:
The Center for Education Reform has long advocated for charters and vouchers. It has nothing to say about improving public schools, only that they should be replaced by private management or vouchers.
CER is closely allied with other conservative groups committed to privatization, like ALEC, the Heartland Institute, Democrats for Education Reform, and Black Alliance for Educational Options. CER claimed credit for helping to write the Heartland Institute’s version of the parent trigger law, which served as a model for ALEC.
One lives to be of something or another, Elaine.
It wasn’t a heavily featured article, it almost went below my radar and I stumbled upon it quite by accident. I figured it might have escaped your notice as it almost escaped mine.
Gene,
Some teachers need to read their contracts and be aware of their rights.