The great divide

A PIPE DREAM. 'All in this together.' (Chicago alley mural)

“They’re pumping gas. They’re stopping at grocery stores,” said Kim Langdon, 48, of Ashland, N.Y.  “If they’re infected and they don’t know it, they’re putting everyone at risk.”

Rich New Yorkers are fleeing the city and headed for second homes upstate to avoid the densely packed NYC, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis. But NYT reports that upstate locals don't want 'em.

People with second homes in the Catskills region of New York are being warned to stay away in venom-laced Facebook posts and blunt messages from county officials. Boardwalks and beaches in some Jersey Shore towns are barricaded and residents are urging the closure of coastal access bridges to outsiders. In the Hamptons, the famous playground for the rich on the East End of Long Island, locals are angry that an onslaught of visitors has emptied out grocery store shelves.

At least they're not blaming the Chinese.

In Illinois, right-wing pols like NRA puppet and state Rep. Brad Halbrook, calling themselves the New Illinois Movement, are using the issue of early-opening to play off white downstaters against Chicagoans, are pushing to force Chicago to "secede" from the state. They know full well that won't happen. Without Chicago, the state economy, especially their own,  wouldn't exist. But it's a desperate, demagogic (racist) move to salvage some votes and keep down-ticket Republicans from going down with the Trump ship in November.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is suffering worse joblessness than other countries. Almost three million more Americans filed for jobless benefits last week. The total over the past two months is now 36.5 million.

And joblessness in this country usually means no health insurance. And no health insurance usually means sick people who can't afford to see a doctor to treat injuries or illnesses and make them even more susceptible to COVID.

More from David Leonhardt at the Times:

What’s striking is that the countries with the smallest increases in unemployment have something in common. Their governments have put in place sweeping programs that directly pay companies to retain their workers. The details differ. Australia, Denmark and New Zealand created new programs. France and Germany expanded existing programs. But all of them have tried to maintain the connection between employer and employee even as much of the economy is temporarily shut down.

An even better plan would be for universal health care and a guaranteed basic income so that workers wouldn't have to make the impossible choice about work vs. health in the time of Corona.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Protesters throw dollar bills at Clinton motorcade as she leaves Clooney fundraiser.

George Clooney after throwing a $33K/plate fundraiser for Hillary

"Yes. I think it's an obscene amount of money ... The Sanders campaign, when they talk about it is absolutely right. It's ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree completely."  -- NBC News

New York Values -- A conversation

“We’re neighbors here,” she began calmly. “We enjoy the theater. We enjoy the arts. We enjoy Central Park, we enjoy the city — that’s New York. We’ve got all kinds of people, and we’ve all got to get along. Be kind, be patient, be gentle. Cruz is a moron. Marcia, what do you think of that jerk?”

“He was using New York as a symbol,” said Gillespie. “It’s code speak, so if you buy into the code, you start to defend it, and it’s indefensible.”

“That’s a very good insight,” said her friend. 

“Thank you sweetheart,” said Gillespie. -- Washington Post

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis

 "...we won’t be held hostage by the board’s zombie budgets." -- Sun-Times 

Bill Clinton mocks young Sanders supporters

"One of the few things I really haven't enjoyed about this primary: I think it's fine that all these young students have been so enthusiastic for her opponent and [he] sounds so good: 'Just shoot every third person on Wall Street and everything will be fine.'" -- Politico

Robert Scheer

"This war on terror has become a war on the American people." -- Democracy Now

George Clooney admits money he raised for Hillary Clinton is 'obscene' https://t.co/FNXIQxYZO1 #UniteBlue pic.twitter.com/R8dntVEFg1

— The Progressive Mind (@Libertea2012) April 18, 2016

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Pedro Noguera

"The way we are now as a country, not only aren't we living up to the Brown decision, we're not even living up the Plessy v. Ferguson of separate but equal." -- Up W/ Chris Hayes

Melissa Harris-Perry 

"I  live in the 7th ward of New Orleans, and I  don't like what I see happening there in the KIPP schools. I am distressed by the movement away from teachers unions that can actually fight for teachers." -- MSNBC

John McCain

Defending Romney's record at Bain Capital: "And yes, the free enterprise system can be cruel” -- TPM

Charles Blow

Louisiana is the starkest, most glaring example of how our prison policies have failed.  -- NYT, "Plantations, Prisons and Profits"

From the civil rights battle front

Little Rock, 1957

'More Blacks and Latinos Admitted to Elite New York High Schools'

When I read the above headline in the Times this morning, I thought for a moment I was in Arkansas circa 1957, when National Guard troops were needed to escort the Little Rock 9 through the doors of Central High School. Maybe we should call these newly-admitted black and Latino students, the Stuyvesant 9.

 The Right to organize

Richard Kahlenberg and Moshe Marvit have an Op-Ed in today's NYT: "A Civil Right to Unionize." They call for legislation that would make disciplining or firing an employee “on the basis of seeking union membership” illegal just as it now is on the basis of race, color, sex, religion and national origin.

It’s time to add the right to organize a labor union, without employer discrimination, to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, because that right is as fundamental as freedom from discrimination in employment and education.

Selma revisited

Thousands of people, including SOSers like Jesse Turner, Ceresta Smith, and Nancy Flanagan, are heading to Selma, Alabama this weekend for the Bridge Crossing Jubilee. How appropriate to see the merging of the civil rights movement with today's struggles of parents, teachers and community organization to keep the public in public education.

Educational Apartheid

They could just as easily be marching in Chicago where civil rights stalwarts like Jesse Jackson, CTU Pres. Karen Lewis, and Jonathan Kozol have condemned the current system of "educational apartheid".  Jackson's comments at the recent school board meeting, have reframed the whole discussion. The mayor's hand-picked school boss, J.C. Brizard, has been forced to stand before the media to claim, "ninety percent of our kids are black and brown ... how can that be educational apartheid?" Sounds like South Africa
during Apartheid to me.

The mayor himself had to stand before the media on Tuesday and deny that he has already written off 25% of Chicago school children.

Stumbling towards exactitude

Michael Winerip, writing in Sunday's NYT ("10 Years of Assessing Students With Scientific Exactitude") reveals the discrepancy between testing and reality in Bloomberg Town.

Winerip tells the testing story year-by-year, listing every pile of disinformation, scandal, and resistance left in the wake of No Child Left Behind and current state testing madness.

Nearly a quarter of the state’s principals — 1,046 — have signed an online letter protesting the plan to evaluate teachers and principals by test scores. Among the reasons cited is New York’s long tradition of creating tests that have little to do with reality.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Students from Cleveland High visit the Occupy L.A. site at City Hall to ask questions for their civics class.

Occupy L.A.

"It fits in with everything we're doing," said Rebecca Williams, an English literature teacher at the Reseda school. "It's a real-life movement — history in the making." --L.A. Times

Education lagging for Mexican students in N.Y.

“We are stanching an educational hemorrhage, but only partially,” said Robert C. Smith, a sociology professor at the City University of New York who studies the local Mexican population. “The worst outcomes are still possible." -- New York Times

Call him 'Grover'

"...has Bill Gates become the liberals' Grover Norquist? Just as Norquist, elected by and accountable to no one, tied the hands of the "supercommittee" with his no-new-taxes pledge, Gates undermines the authority of school boards with his pro-charter, pro-privatization contract." Philly.com

Condi Rice on Racism

"It is a birth defect with which this country was born out of slavery; we're never really going to be race blind.." -- Face the Nation

Emma Sullivan (quoting Gandhi)

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Student, refuses to apologize to Kan. Gov. after tweet

Occupy Movement: Reframing the school reform debate

Taking it to the DOE

The Occupy Movement in NY has refocused the whole school reform narrative and has transformed power relationships. Where only a few months ago Mayor Bloomberg and his hand-picked administrators were able to exercise control over "public" meetings, silencing opposition from teachers, parents and community members, and dominating the mainstream media, the new movement has changed things.

Yesterday, Occupy the DOE forces made their voices heard. NY1 reports [Video]:

 A couple hundred activists belonging to a group called "Occupy the DOE," including many teachers, spent Monday night on the steps of the Department of Education headquarters in Lower Manhattan to shout demands for improving the schools. Other DOE employees, public school students and their parents also took part in the protest.

This morning's  N.Y.Times quotes Occupy organizer Leia Petty who says the grass-roots group started as a grade-in last month in Zuccotti Park to address a growing list of issues with the Education Department that included overcrowded classrooms, teacher layoffs and school closings. Yet after the Oct. 25 meeting, it was clear that Occupy the DOE struck a chord with the public, and a nerve with the city’s top education officials.

"We want to create an agenda for the 99 percent, to strategize actions,” said Ms. Petty, 30, a high school guidance counselor from Bushwick, Brooklyn. “We came together today to realize that agenda.”

The Washington Post Business Section and Bloomberg News are also keeping a close watch on the Occupy Movement.

Cuts have been a disaster for public ed

Conservatives hail cuts as "an opportunity"

Huffington's Joy Resmovitz reports that a UFT survey of 900 New York City schools finds that three quarters of elementary schools, 61 percent of middle schools and 59 percent of high schools had increased class sizes. 

"What we know is what we feared was happening," [UFT Pres. Mike] Mulgrew says. "Now, all 1 million of our students are ... having their education negatively affected by what has happened between the federal, state and city budgets." In addition to budget cuts, all city agencies were recently warned that they would have to make a total of $2 billion cuts in aggregate for the next year. -- Huffington Post

The problem is that our political leaders, particularly our secretary of education, don't believe that exploding class sizes are a problem. Get rid of him, President Obama.

Even worse, Republican governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey and Florida for example, are pushing for even deeper cuts and the privatization of public schools. Chester Finn and his cabal of right-wing think-tankers over at the Fordham Institute  are celebrating the massive cuts.

“If states look at this as a way to really look at how education is structured, it can be seen as an opportunity,” said Chris Tessone, director of finance at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank in Washington, D.C. “It’s a chance to be innovative, to rethink their staffing model. We see this new normal as an opportunity.” -- Fiscal Times

The Daily News reports that almost half of the city's middle schools bought fewer textbooks. Over a third of high schools cut advanced placement classes, electives and gym. 

“We’re suffering from these budget cuts,” said Christine Wong, a special education teacher at Public School 1 in Chinatown. She said her classes have on average jumped from 17 to 25 students this year. If these cuts continue, it will be devastating,” she said. Wong said her classes suffer from a lack of basic supplies, including copy paper, workbooks and pens.

Over at Bridging Differences, Diane Ravitch describes a district (San Diego) which has been  recovering from years of top-down control by corporate reformers.

The district is now led by a dynamic school board chairman, Richard Barrera, and a low-key superintendent, Bill Kowba. Barrera has a background as a community organizer in the labor movement, and Kowba is a retired rear admiral with 30 years in the Navy and administrative experience in the San Diego public schools. Together, they are passionate and effective advocates for the San Diego public schools.

But whatever progress district schools are making is now threatened by budget cuts.

The state legislature has slashed $15 billion in funding from California's public schools in the past four years. San Diego alone has lost $450 million since 2007-2008 and has had to lay off teachers and other staff, increase class size, and eliminate programs for children. San Diego may be forced to declare bankruptcy, along with many other districts.

The latest NAEP scores are but one indicator that the combination of corporate-style reform and massive budget cuts are failing to improve things and are instead continuing to widen the so-called "achievement gap." WaPo's Valerie Strauss suggests a new T-shirt which would read:  “My nation spent billions on testing and all I got was a 1-point gain.”

Without mentioning the Occupy Wall Street movement, Merrill Goozner, writing at Fiscal Times, believes that a political backlash is building against education spending cuts which could have an impact in 2012.

Nearly all the top ten toss-up states in next year’s presidential election have sharply curtailed their education budgets since the recession began in 2008, a survey by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities shows. And with federal stimulus money evaporating, a new round of cuts to state and local budgets are in the offing. That could turn education into a major campaign issue next year, or at least one that roils the local waters where presidential politics will play out.

It's again worth mentioning one more time that after 10 years, we are continuing to spend upwards of $2 billion a week fighting a murderous, senseless, and unwinnable Afghan war. Can we do this and still maintain a public education system in this country? Uh uh.

N.Y. stops ranking teachers based on student test scores

NYT reports:  New York City education officials announced Thursday that they would end their effort to rank teachers based on their students’ standardized test scores, adding a surprise twist to one of the most contentious issues facing the city’s teaching force.

Joel Klein, the former schools chancellor who now fronts for Rupert Murdoch, championed the rankings, and the city has been supporting their release to the public against a teachers’ union lawsuit for the past year.

But now it appears that the state board will pick up where the city left off making it appear that Mayor Bloomberg and the city are simply trying to avoid the suit.

A victory of sorts, I suppose.

UFT leader responds re. bonuses

Following up on yesterday's post...

UFT V.P. Leo Casey responded to my question about the union's position on the ending of the city's bonus plan for paying teachers, a plan which the union had enthusiastically signed onto in 2007. In fairness to Leo, (my comment at the end of yesterday's blog may have sounded a bit snarky), it turns out that he had already written a piece on this issue for Hechinger rather than in the union's own Edwize blog where I was searching. I searched again but failed to find Leo's Hechinger piece. No matter, I publish it here without comment (for now).

Leo's response:

Here it is what I wrote for the Hechinger Foundation, who asked for a commentary on the subject. We think the program should end. There is a minor issue here, that the D.O.E. is suggesting that they can end it on their own, even though it is a negotiated agreement, and we will insist that it can only be ended by common consent. That is why I talk about going back to the negotiations table. But we would want to end it...

By the way, all the right-wingers are livid about this, since the deal involved allowing our younger members to retire at 55 with 25 years in. That part stays intact, no matter what happens with the bonus program. And since the state constitution protects retirement benefits of those in service, it would be very hard to undo that...

******

We live in an era when educational policy is far too often shaped by ideological dogma. Our challenge is to engage in educational experimentation and innovation, and yet remain grounded in what research tells us works in real classrooms and real schools.

There is a well-established, substantial body of educational research which has found that individual merit pay for teachers fails to produce meaningful gains in student achievement. What is more, individual merit pay has negative consequences, as the culture of trust and collaboration that is at the heart of a good school is undermined when educators are set in invidious competition with each other. In recognition of this reality, the UFT has consistently opposed individual merit pay for NYC educators.

Until the UFT and the NYC D.O.E. entered into an agreement to do a pilot program, there was no research as to the efficacy of school-wide bonuses as a tool of educational improvement. Since a school wide bonus would not have the negative effects of setting educator against educator, and could conceivably contribute to collaboration within the school, the UFT decided that a pilot program was an experiment worth having, provided that it was subject to a rigorous evaluation by independent researchers.

With the publication of the Rand's A Big Apple for Educators, the results of that evaluation are now in: the school-wide bonuses have not produced meaningful gains in student achievement. While one might object that the standardized New York State exams used to evaluate the bonuses were a poor and unreliable measure of student achievement, the report's other findings - most importantly, that the bonuses were seen as a weak motivation that did not change educator behavior and practice - leave little reason to think that a more robust measure of student achievement would produce substantially different results. Indeed, one of the significant findings of the Rand study was that the heavy reliance of the program on benchmarks drawn from the standardized state exams was a factor diminishing its legitimacy with teachers. The evidence tells us that it is time for the UFT and the NYC D.O.E. to return to the negotiations table to find new tools for improving student achievement, such as the development of a rich and powerful curriculum.

If one lesson is to be taken from this study and from the literature on individual merit pay, it is that teachers do not answer to the economic calculus of stockbrokers and hedge fund managers. This observation may not sit well with those for whom the rule of the market and individual financial incentives are an ideological first principle, established prior to logical argument and evidence, but it is the reality of our lives and our schools, and it is affirmed again and again by the education research on performance incentives. While we believe that our challenging and exhausting professional work should provide us with a middle class life, our primary motivation in entering the field of education is not economic gain, but to make a difference in the lives of the young people we teach. Educational policy must recognize this motivation to produce lasting, constructive change.

Leo Casey
Vice President, Academic High Schools
United Federation of Teachers
52 Broadway, 14th Floor
New York, New York 10004
            212-598-6869      

Another reason why teachers shouldn't fall for the old "bonus" scam

New York junks bonuses (for now)

In some districts it's called "merit" or "performance" pay. In others, it's simply called a "bonus." However they're branded, bonuses have become a center piece in corporate-reform strategies which are increasingly being used to undermine collective-bargaining agreements and pit teacher against teacher.

In D.C., these one-time-only pay bumps were used by Chancellor Michelle Rhee to get surviving teachers to accept the firing of hundreds of their colleagues. Rhee used private funds from Gates, Broad and other power philanthropists to underwrite the bonuses while foisting a horrible contract of D.C, teachers and their unions. The bonus offers could later be removed if and when corporate reforms were resisted, when the money dries up, or simply at the whim of the foundations. But the teachers who lost their jobs in the bonus deal, will never be called back to work.

In other districts like Los Angeles, performance bonuses are  tied to a value-added formula which supposedly shows how much each individual teacher adds to their students score on standardized tests. Similar programs have been tried as pilots in Chicago and across the state of Florida, but dropped as soon as corporate funding dried up, leaving in their wake busted contract agreements and a climate of mistrust, fear, and anger.

Yesterday's New York Times reports that the city's $56 million teacher performance bonus program has been permanently discontinued. The decision was made in light of a RAND study that found the bonuses had no positive effect on either student performance or teachers’ attitudes toward their jobs.

The results add to a growing body of evidence nationally that so-called pay-for-performance bonuses for teachers that consist only of financial incentives have no effect on student achievement, the researchers wrote. Even so, federal education policy champions the concept, and spending on performance-based pay for teachers grew to $439 million nationally last year from $99 million in 2006, the study said. 

Shamelessly, the same bureaucrats who had touted the bonus system are now saying, "oh, never mind" or even declaring victory and putting it behind them.

City officials did not dispute the study results, but they said they did not believe the money was wasted, and indicated that they would continue to seek a merit pay model that worked.

“In January, we suspended this program out of concern about its effectiveness,” said Barbara Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. “This study confirms that was the right decision, and provides us with important information as we continue to think about compensation models that differentiate among the performance of our teachers.”

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Austin Poly's first graduating class.

Austin Poly H.S. junior Deandre Joyce

The spring protest over the teachers’ firing was a highlight of his year, Mr. Joyce said. He was among the 36 students suspended for participating in the walkout and sit-in. “Our voices can be heard,” he said. “There is power in numbers.” -- Chicago News Cooperative

D.C. Chancellor Kaya Henderson

Upon hearing of principal Bill Kerlina's resignation: “I guess that we all know everything ain’t for everybody.” -- Bill Turque, Washington Post

Shael Polakow-Suransky

“The dilemma that schools will face is whether to cut a teacher who has been working with kids all day long in a classroom or cut teachers who are working in a support capacity, like librarians." -- NYT

The Reform Pretenders

"I do not blame Mr. Brizard for not raising the graduation rate to 75% in so short a time. Anyone who has engaged in real school reform knows that it would be virtually impossible to do what he promised that quickly. However, I do blame him for pretending that he could. Yet if one is a Klein reformer, trained by the Broad Superintendent Academy, one is taught to scoff at incremental change. The hard work of deep reform that transforms systems is for those old apologists who stay in town for a decade." -- Principal Carol Corbett Burris, 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator

Emperor Bloomberg has no clothes

Plagued by low grades for his handling of public schools and the city budget, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets a negative 40 percent approval rating from voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday. Seventy-eight percent of voters with children in NYC public schools disapprove of his school  leadership.

Toady Steiner renders unto Caesar...

N.Y. State Education Commissioner David Steiner knew what he had to do, even after his hand-picked panel, heavy with Bloomberg friends, voted not to give the clearly unqualified Cathie Black a waiver from the state law requiring the chancellor to have certain education credentials.

The humiliated Steiner, as expected (by me, at least) rendered unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. He knew, without being told, that if he ever wanted to go anywhere in politics in the state of New York, he would have to comply with the powerful autocrat's demand.

Bloomberg the slick billionaire media mogul, was careful to have the pre-arranged deal announced late on Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend with the press fast asleep and the bloggers and Tweeters still burping from Thanksgiving dinner. Is anyone even left in town to read the Saturday papers?

Bloomberg let Steiner save a little face by acceding to his request and changing the job title of his chief accountability officer Shael Polakow-Suransky, to that of chief academic officer in order to make it look like there's an experienced educator somewhere in sight when the corporate Ms. Black moves into Joel Klein's old office.

But Bloomberg and Black's problems have only just begun. The mayor's naked display of personal power will surely cause more resentment and anger, even within his own ranks. He also renders Black damaged goods and mucks up the reputation of the former head of the Hearst magazine empire. She will her take office under a cloud with zero credibility, serving only as a matter of political expediency and as a lackey of the mayor, and some tough battles ahead with the teachers union, parents and community groups.

My favorite line in all this comes from Bloomberg's letter to Steiner informing him of the appointment of Polakow-Suransky and making it seem as if Black had done it herself, rather than the mayor. 

Ms. Black's decision to appoint Mr. Polakow-Suransky as her senior deputy, reflects her commitment to a leadership principle that I view as absolutely essential to running any large organization, whether a private business, a public agency, or an entire city government: empowering those around you.

Stop it please, Mr. Mayor. You're killing me. Oh, my side...

Pedro Noguera at the Fall Forum

"Nothing changed" at the DOE

Sadly, I couldn't make it to the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum this year. So I was much interested in this report from the Forum on Education and Democracy and particularly on Pedro Noguera's keynote speech.

Pedro Noguera has had plenty of access to Obama administration policy makers. In fact, he sat down with 50 people from the U.S. Department of Education, who listened to his thoughts for 90 minutes. 

"Then I left and nothing changed," Noguera, a Convener with The Forum for Education and Democracy, said in an opening address last week at the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum. "I realized that the Obama administration was staying the course not just in Afghanistan, but in education."

Forum director George Wood was named as  CES's new executive board director and announced that the November, 2011 Fall Forum will be held in Providence, R.I.

Noguera is also quoted in yesterday's WSJ on Mayor Bloomberg's selection of Cathie Black and NYC's new chancellor.  

"There needs to be some form of checks and balances," said Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at New York University. "Mayoral control can't mean that the mayor is the only one who makes major decisions."

More reasons to dump mayoral control

Need a couple of good reasons to get rid of mayoral control of urban schools? How about Bloomberg and Daley? Narrow, self-serving political agendas have left both of their autocratically-run school systems in chaos.

With a week to go before Chicago schools chief Ron Huberman flees the coop, there is still no official word on his replacement. It's been 5 months since the system had a chief education officer. And even machine guy and front-running mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel has to preface his education platform with a slam on the current Daley-run system. 

"Chicago's public schools are on a precipice. Testing indicates that 86% of our elementary-school graduates won't be ready for college. Nearly half of high-school entrants will not graduate. Teachers and students aren't learning the skills they need, and too many parents are on the sidelines." (Crain's)

Ouch!

The problem for Rahm is that all this comes after 15 years of mayoral control, including 7 years with Rahm's guy, Arne Duncan at the helm, implementing the very failed policies that Emanuel vows to continue. Says Rahm:

"I believe we should establish Chicago's Race to the Top. If we can raise private capital from our businesses and philanthropic community for the Olympics, we can do so for our children's future."

Whoops. Bad example, Rahm. I mean--the Olympics? Didn't anyone tell you not to say the O-word back here in Chicago? This plus privatization of garbage collection don't sound like political winners to me. But what do I know?

In NYC, Bloomberg's autocratic style has created a new firestorm of protest and opposition. His pick of the eminently unqualified Cathie Black as Joel Klein's replacement was made secretly, so as to "avoid a public spectacle." It left observers (like me) wondering, who's advising this guy?

All this, following on the heels of the Fenty/Rhee debacle in D.C., has once again put mayoral control of the schools back into the limelight and hopefully, at the risk of mixing my metaphors, back onto the chopping block.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mayor Bloomberg on his appointment of Cathie Black

“It’s a chance to change the world.” (N.Y. Post)

Former N.Y. Supt. Rudy Crew

We’re in danger of making the New York City public schools a plaything for the rich and famous. Perhaps the thinking is that directing schools is something you do when you’re finished doing your real job; an avocation that starts with a love of learning and warm remembrances of being in school yourself.(NYT)

Hedge-funder Tilson lays it out bare naked

Charter schools, explained Whitney Tilson, the founder of T2 Partners and one of their most ardent supporters, are the perfect philanthropy for results-oriented business executives. For one thing, they can change lives permanently, not just help people get by from day to day. For another, he said, “hedge funds are always looking for ways to turn a small amount of capital into a large amount of capital.”

A wealthy hedge fund manager can spend more than $1 million financing a charter school start-up. But once it is up and running, it qualifies for state funding, just like a public school. Except that in most cases, charter schools save the taxpayers money because they are much more cost-conscious than the typical big city public school. “It is extremely leveraged philanthropy,” Mr. Tilson said.(NYT) h/t Fred Klonsky

Privatizing the garbage

Rahm Emanuel officially launched his Chicago mayoral campaign Saturday, with a pledge to open the city's garbage collection to bidding from private companies. He has already committed himself to privately funding Chicago's version of Race To the Top.

“Should we continue to collect Chicago’s garbage the same way we have for decades when it can be done cheaper and more efficiently, as other cities have shown?" (Chicago News Cooperative)

Line from the N.Y. Times: Two tenets of Bloomberg era...

Mayor Bloomberg has dumped Chancellor Klein in N.Y.

Klein goes off to work on Rupert Murdoch's right-wing plantation, "to explore possibilities in education." I wonder what possibilities those might be? 

Recently, two famous Wall Street short sellers, James Chanos and Steve Eisman, announced that they see a crash coming in the for-profit education sector, which is heavily dependent on online degrees paid for through federally guaranteed student loans. (New Yorker)

The news is better for Cathie Black who leaves Hearst's own struggling right-wing media plantation for Bloomberg and his potential third-party, beat- Obama, presidential run in 2012. Black is no more qualified to run NYC's public schools than I am to run Cosmo. But none of this is really the public's business, says Bloomberg. The selection process around Black's hiring as well as the Klein dump were both highly secretive. This piece in the Times says it all for me:

Two tenets of the Bloomberg era: the mayor’s faith in the ability of business leaders to fix the ills of government, and his keen dislike of drawn-out public debates that might derail his agenda.

Klein cut secret deal to misuse state $$$

OOPS! He thought the gov said "INCREASE"  class sizes. 

The state cut $500 million in funding from the city schools this year, Zarin-Rosenfeld noted, and the system is facing a "a similarly bleak financial picture next year. But parent advocates note that even when times were good in 2007 and 2008, the department failed to reduce class size. (Juan Gonzalez)

It wasn't just in D.C.

They were the candidates of riches, flush with hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wall Street investors who believed in the promise of charter schools. But when the election results came in on Tuesday, all three State Senate candidates supporting education reform — Basil Smikle, Lynn Nunes and Mark H. Pollard — lost by huge margins, with none cracking 30 percent of the total vote in primary contests against union-backed rivals. (New York Times)