Look Ma, I'm a turnaround expert!

With the Obama administration pouring billions into its nationwide campaign to overhaul failing schools, dozens of companies with little or no experience are portraying themselves as school turnaround experts as they compete for the money.(NY Times) 

Mr. Duncan helped trigger the stampede in a June 2009 speech, saying that only a handful of groups, nationwide, had any experience in school overhauls.“We need everyone who cares about public education,” he said, “to get into the business of turning around our lowest-performing schools.

Ownership Society News

Innovation impossible in public schools says Gates

Billionaire Bill proved once again that you don't have to be all that smart to be the world's second-richest man. At the recent Techonomy conference, Gates thanked God for charter schools and wrote off any possibility of  "innovation" coming from within the public school system. (The Daily Riff)

Actually it was public school teachers who created the original charter schools (God was busy that day helping Microsoft's lawyers settle their anti-trust case so the teachers asked us for help). This alone shows a big problem in Gates' thinking. If innovation isn't generated from within the public schools system, how do you explain the birth of charter and small schools? 

Why WaPo and Kaplan stock crashed, Friday

Testing giant Kaplan, WaPo's main profit center, is under investigation by the feds. NYT reports that undercover officers have uncovered "deceptive practices."

Speaking of the Post, they ran this story, page 1 on Saturday, where the FDA assures us that the dispersant COREXIT, used in massive quantities by BP to break up oil globs in the Gulf, is NOT harmful when ingested by humans (that's us). My tip for investors like Warren Buffet, who already owns millions of shares of NALCO (NLC)  producer of COREXIT--buy more. It's currently trading at only $24.5/share.  My tip for fish eaters, this stuff goes great with crab meat or shrimp.

Business 'standards'

Hewlett-Packard is big into the e-Learning business and is a big player in the world of ed philanthropy. But last week, HP's CEO Mark Hurd was forced to resign after he was caught diddling around with a company contractor on company time and on the company dime. OK, stuff like this goes on all the time in the biz world. No big deal, right? But the statement that caught my on this story was:

The shakeup stems from an internal investigation launched after a former HP contractor came forward to accuse Hurd of sexual harassment. A subsequent investigation overseen by HP's board found there was no violation of the company's sexual harassment policy, but concluded Hurd had violated standards of business conduct. (Tech Chronicles)

So the obvious question is, why the gap between HP policy on sexual harassment and "standards of business conduct"? Then I wonder about the size of Hurd's golden parachute.



Side note: Hurd replaced former CEO Carly Fiorina, the T-Party wing-nut Republican senate candidate in California.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Obama--'If I were a teacher...'

So FDR I think said—he was asked once what he thought about unions. He said, “If I was a worker in a factory and I wanted to improve my life, I would join a union.” Well, I tell you what. I think that’s true for workers generally. I think if I was a coal miner, I’d want a union representing me to make sure that I was safe and you did not have some of the tragedies that we’ve been seeing in the coal industry. If I was a teacher, I’d want a union to make sure that the teachers’ perspective was represented as we think about shaping an education system for our future. (AFL-CIO Now)

Richard Trumka, Pres. AFL-CIO

We cannot accept as "normal" almost 15 million Americans out of work and another 8.5 million underemployed, or unemployment rates of 15.6 percent among African Americans and 26.1 percent among teenagers. Maybe our companies can function with the status quo, sheltered by hidden wads of cash and a recovering stock market -- but our families can't. (Huffington)

Joel Klein's PR flack lying and hating on Diane

But if Ms. Ravitch had her way, she'd probably do away with tests all together -- she doesn't believe in a system of accountability because, in her words "children arrive in school with poor attitudes toward learning" and even the best teachers are "not going to make them learn." (Huffington)

UFT member, Mark Kagan

It’s morally and ethically wrong to take away the jobs of people who have worked hard for decades simply because a cheaper body can be found. It is a spiritual pollution of the values that we should uphold. It is another step away from civilized behavior toward the idea that only might makes right. If we can make this case to the public we can win; otherwise, scratch and claw as we will, we will be fighting an ultimately losing battle. (The Chief) 

Columbia prof, Justin Snider

We remain very far from an accountability system impervious to perverse incentives. Therefore, we must be very careful in how we use student test scores in any decisions, especially those about personnel. (The Answer Sheet)

The arrogance of power

Klein--"I'm above the law. I know Ravenel Boykin Curry IV"

Mayor Bloomberg's hand-picked schools Chancellor Joel Klein, is bigger than the law. He laughs at law. Giggles at union contracts. Guffaws at the very idea of community input. On Wednesday, Klein announced he would use his little-known "emergency powers," to do an end run around state law and take space away from a program for autistic children in order to expand his patron's favorite Girls Preparatory Charter School. 


State law forbids such a move without consultation with parents. According to the N.Y. Times:

Parents of students affected by the move brought the case to the state commissioner, complaining that the city had given them no information about where the autistic children would go. In his ruling on Monday, Mr. Steiner agreed, saying that the city had to hold new public hearings before moving students, a process that would effectively put off any change for at least a year. 

When State Commissioner Steiner ruled that Klein's charter expansion was illegal, Klein responded by invoking the little know emergency clause which permits the DOE to act unilaterally when it is, “immediately necessary for the preservation of student health, safety or general welfare.”   

Silver's response:

“The school governance law is crystal clear that the Department of Education must consult with parents in a meaningful way when they are considering co-locating a school in an existing school building.  This is really a breathtaking end run around both the law’s requirements and the right of parents to have a voice in a decision that will impact the lives of their children. Unfortunately it’s the kind of arrogance that too many parents have come to expect from Chancellor Klein when it comes to having a voice in their children’s education. This is blatant abuse of the Chancellor’s emergency powers.” (The Lo-Down)

It's worth mentioning that Girls Prep is the darling of billionaire hedge-fund operator and DFER patron, Ravenel Boykin Curry IV of Eagle Capital Management. The school's curriculum appears to be little more than test-prep with hefty contracts going to Open Court Reading Program, and Saxon Math.


Check out this piece of satire, "Klein Declares Martial Law" on NYC Public School Parents blog.

More Rhee lies

 When will she be fired?

Remember back in January, when D.C. Chancellor Rhee fired hundreds of teachers claiming, "I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school"?

Well nothing's changed in the nation's capitol. Her latest round of mass teacher firings was accompanied by another round of lies and mistatements. The broom now claims  that she had fired 241 teachers, including 165 who received poor appraisals under the so-called IMPACT system which tries to tie student's standardized test scores to individual teachers.

In fact, the actual number of teachers fired for scores in the "ineffective" range on the IMPACT evaluation system is 76, or fewer than half of the 165 originally cited.

4 questions:

Why does Rhee continue to lie and mislead about teacher firings? Why did it take so long for the press to expose her lies? Will WTU leaders finally stand up? And finally, when will Rhee be fired?

In my mailbox

To: Supporters of the campaign for a Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA).
From: BBA Co-Chairs Helen Ladd, Pedro Noguera, and Tom Payzant
Date: August 4, 2010
Re:      
     Job Search for BBA Coordinator;
     Civil Rights Groups Criticize Administration Policy
     Media Coverage of BBA Newark Pilot Site
 
1. We have now secured funding from several foundations that permits us to hire a full time national coordinator for the BBA campaign. By filling this position, we hope to expand our efforts to persuade policymakers that education improvement must be complemented by improvements in the socioeconomic conditions impeding children's ability to benefit from what schools can offer (particularly the lack of high-quality early childhood services, limited access to routine and preventive health care, and the unavailability of high-quality programs for out-of-school time); and that schools accountability for providing a quality education cannot be defined primarily by standardized tests of basic skills, but most include a holistic qualitative review of schools' resources and outcomes.

A job description for this new position is now on our website at: http://www.boldapproach.org/BBA%20Job%20Description%20announcement%200810.pdf
If you know of anyone who would be suitable for this position, please urge him or her to apply, and let us know of your recommendation as well.

2. An important statement was issued last week by a coalition of civil rights organizations, criticizing Administration education policies for failing to provide sufficient resources (opportunities to learn) to schools serving disadvantaged children, while demanding that these schools perform at high levels. The statement calls attention to the Administration's shifting of funds from formula grants to competitive grants that benefit only a minority of children whose schools are in need of additional resources, while allowing the majority of disadvantaged children to languish in schools that have insufficient resources.

The statement also critiques other aspects of the Administration's education policy, and aligns itself with BBA's call for schools that are rooted in their communities and provide "wraparound services."
Until now, the civil rights groups have been hesitant to publicly criticize the Administration's education policies, despite private misgivings. The significance of this new statement is that the groups have apparently given up hope that private discussions alone can dissuade the Administration from its present course.

The civil rights groups that sponsored this statement include: Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, National Action Network, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., National Council for Educating Black Children, National Urban League, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Schott Foundation for Public Education.

The civil rights group's statement can be found at: http://www.otlcampaign.org/sites/default/files/resources/CivilRights%20framework-FINAL7-25-10.pdf

3. Another important statement was also issued last week by a coalition of community organizations in minority and low-income communities, pulled together by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. This statement also denounces the Administration's education program, focusing on the failure of the Administration's school turnaround strategies to involve parents and other community representatives in decisions about drastic measures to turn around schools deemed to be low performing. The statement observes that the Administration's policies are "both time-tested and flawed." It insists that low-performance is not solely attributable to school quality, because "both internal and external obstacles" contribute to this low performance: "The Administration's interventions lay the burden of failure on the schools themselves, and do not encourage an analysis of other factors that may be contributing to poor performance." The coalition's statement can be found at: http://www.ceps-ourschools.org/pdfs/Communities_Left_Behind.pdf
The combination of BBA, the civil rights statement, and the Annenberg statement can add new momentum to efforts to chart a more reasonable framework for the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act over the next year.

4. For over a year, BBA Co-chair Pedro Noguera has led an effort to demonstrate, in a pilot project in Newark, NJ., that BBA principles can be effective. An article in the New York Times recently described this effort. In the long run, we hope to establish a few more pilot projects along these lines, in other cities and in other parts of the country. The Times article is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/education/26newark.html

Love in the Ownership Society -- Part 2

T-S-A-K-O-P-O-U-L-O-S

Turns out, Crate & Barrel doesn't carry brooms. So I ran over to Home Depot and got this Rubbermaid puppy with a stained/lacquered wood handle for only $21.79. I'm sure Michelle will love it. Problem is, how to ship it to Sacramento? Will they let me take it on the plane? I hear they're now charging big money for carry-ons.

Got home and sure enough, my wedding invitation was in the mail (KJ and Michelle must have read my blog yesterday and realized they had left me off the list). That's when I found it--the typo of the century. Sure, you say, it's only a spelling error. But jeez, now there's even a story in the Post. How the hell do you misspell the name of the billionaire real estate mogul who's footing the wedding bill and hosting it at his mansion? I mean, this is Kevin's patron, the guy who bankrolled his campaign.

Come on Michelle. I know you're not an educator but...

Love is in the air in the Ownership Society

They're not the Clintons, but...

KJ/Rhee wedding on Labor Day (irony) is at home of billionaire real estate speculator Angelo Tsakopoulos (no irony). He got KJ to run for mayor of Sacramento and bankrolled his campaign. He also owns most of California and is Wal-Mart's land developer.

Does this mean Broad Foundation darling, Rhee is leaving D.C.? Definitely if Fenty loses the mayor's race because of her. Hopefully she leaves anyway, and like BP, cleans up her mess before she goes.

OK, gotta run. On my way to Crate & Barrel to check the gift registry. I'm sure my invitation is in the mail. I'm leaning towards a new broom. Oh BTW, Michelle will be wearing a gown designed by Monique Lhuillier. 

Talk about "retrograde" -- how about turning back clock to 1868

In case you've you've forgotten why the Republicans need another butt-whupping in the upcoming midterm elections (I almost have), here's a reminder. The latest GOP game plan includes the repeal of the 14th Amendment. You know, that's the one that guaranteed full and equal rights for African-American, former slaves in 1868 and overruled the Dred Scott decision, which held that black people could not be citizens of the U.S. The 14th Amendment also became the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

The Republicans' target in 2010 is no longer fugitive slaves, but rather undocumented immigrant workers. Repeal will allow laws like Arizona's SB 1070 to remain in place. While repeal has no chance of passing (unless frightened Dems decide to "reach across the aisle"), the campaign provides another wedge issue around which the party's anti-immigrant base can be mobilized for the mid-term elections. The party's brigade of racist demagogues is led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Arizona's Jon Kyl and newcomer to the cause, Lindsey Graham,

I'm watching to see if Democrats stand up or wilt on this as elections grow near.

N.Y.'s reform shipwreck

In N.Y. top-down, corporate school reform is in shambles. Nine years of Mayor Bloomberg's testing madness with inflated results, school closings, charter-izing and privatizing have produced little besides demoralization and conflict. The Sunday Times ("When 81% Passing Suddenly Becomes 18%") reports that test scores have plummeted and that the gap between white and students of color has grown wider. Charter schools continue to under-perform neighborhood schools. His only message to the city's educators, repeated often by the mayor's toadies: stop complaining and work harder. Problem is--the ship, headed in the wrong direction, has washed up on the rocks and rowing harder just won't work.

Barack, Arnie--you watching this?

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Daley's cheerleaders

I tried to get a word in edgewise: "But Dr. Finney, what about Mayor Daley? Have you ever criticized him?" He didn't answer—he just kept up his filibuster. Finally, when he stopped to take a breath, I asked why he'd participated in the June 28 press conference with Huberman if he loved the union so much.

"Before you play Captain Kidd and make me walk the plank, let me tell you this," he said. "I'm a free spirit. You can characterize me as a puppet, but I deny it." (Ben Joravsky in The Reader)

The "Blueprint"

Duncan's scheme for turnarounds (4 models in the 'blueprint') is pretty much dead. What results will be more controlled, provided schools focus on a set of items for improvement (curriculum, prof dev, school climate, parent involvement and such). No doubt charters will continue to be funded and remain, and nothing will stop state/district from closing schools (so we in MA will remain stuck with the 'teachers reapply for jobs' model being imposed in Boston). Test scores likely to remain the major criterion for identifying schools. (FairTest's Monty Neill)

Super-profits but no jobs

”That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II. In short, the corporations are making out like bandits. Now they’re sitting on mountains of cash and they still are not interested in hiring to any significant degree, or strengthening workers’ paychecks. (Bob Herbert, NYT)

The promise and peril of Race To Top

The worrisome part of the Race to the Top program is reflected in its very name — it is indeed a race to reform, quickly and dramatically, with inadequate attention to conducting pilot studies or discerning what research shows to work or not work in schools. (L.A. Times editorial)

SENATE VOTE SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY ON EDUCATION JOBS

This from the NEA:

This week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blocked the Senate from voting on an education jobs amendment as part of a larger bill on small business. But, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has scheduled another vote for Monday evening, August 2. The package being considered will provide $10 billion to save over 135,000 education jobs. It will also provide funds for Medicaid to help prevent more deep cuts to the programs that serve our most vulnerable populations.

We are facing an education crisis, with hundreds of thousands of educators being laid off, class sizes growing, and programs critical to students’ success being cut or eliminated. Our students’ education and the future of our nation are at stake! EVERY VOTE COUNTS and every Senator needs to hear a strong message of support. Tell your Senatorts to stand up for what is right!

CONTACT YOUR SENATORS TODAY:

• E-mail your Senators. Tell them to VOTE YES on a $10 billion education jobs package (H.R. 1586).
  
  
• Call 1-866-608-6355 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              1-866-608-6355      end_of_the_skype_highlighting to contact your Senators. You will hear talking points and will be connected to the United States Capitol Switchboard – ask for one of your Senators. Tell your Senator that public education faces a budget catastrophe and that he/she should VOTE YES on a $10 billion education jobs fund. Remember to call back to speak with your other Senator.

Mendacity!

"You said it yourself, Big Daddy, mendacity is a system we live in."-- Brick, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Monty Neill's comments on Obama's Urban League Speech

Obama is responding to the jointly-issued statement from all of the major civil rights groups, which thrashed his Race To The Top reform. Monty makes reference to the 1958 film while taking issue with the style and substance of the speech in this post to the North Dakota Study Group.

Of course he defends RTTT even though its main tenets are not backed up by any evidence, as FEA, the civil rights groups and the community groups all point out. He simply asserts that because states are doing (were stampeded/bribed into doing) what Duncan wanted, they are automatically improving. Who needs evidence?... Mendacity

Duncan rewards Arizona

Arne Duncan has claimed sole discretion when it comes to awarding Race To The Top funding to states. "I look them in the eye to see if they are sincere," says the Ed Sec. He must have seen something in the eyes of Arizona's Gov. Brewer and Sen. McCain to push Arizona up from 40th to a finalist's position in the competition for a piece of the ever-shrinking federal funding pie.

Maybe it was the state's commitment to driving out Mexican immigrants from state schools under SB1070, that caught Duncan's eye. Or maybe it was their ban on minority studies.

Ann-Eve Pedersen of the Arizona Education Network says she can think of just one reason the economically depressed state was a surprise finalist in the second round of the $4 billion Race to the Top competition, after finishing 40th out of 41 competitors in the first round in March.“Maybe the federal government has taken pity on the state of education funding here." (Edweek)

QUOTABLES

Chicago Teachers Union V.P. Jesse Sharkey

“They have come into our house at night, the house of the public schools, and they have taken everything that isn’t nailed down,” Sharkey said. “Now they come to us and say, ‘Give us a hand.’”(Catalyst)

How "revolutionary" can you be when Jeb Bush is your biggest fan?

Duncan's "Quiet Revolution"

First we had Bush's No Child Left Behind, which took its name from the Children's Defense Fund's slogan, "Leave No Child Behind." Now we have Arne Duncan's "Quiet Revolution" with its name coopted from the 60's Quiet Revolution in Quebec. 


The irony is that at the heart of the Quebecois movement was the unionization of public employees. Duncan's "revolution" targets the teacher unions, collective-bargaining rights, and public space in general. And so it goes. Privatized charter schools,which systemically exclude ELL kids and those with disabilities, become "the civil rights movement of our generation."

Top-down corporate reform, mass teacher firings and school closings become r-r-r-revolutionary.

The question is: can you have a revolution, albeit a quiet one, that is skewered by every major civil rights organization in the country? If it's really about fixing failing schools, why has this coalition of community-based organizations trashed the Race To The Top and Duncan's Blueprint? I mean, how revolutionary can you be when Jeb Bush is your biggest fan?

He knows what's good for Detroit, including how people should vote

How does Arne Duncan know what's best for the people of Detroit? It's "common sense."

After all, says Arne, without big city mayors exercising one-man rule over the schools, it's impossible, "for children to reach their full potential, and ultimately for the city reach its full potential."

Is there any research to back up such a bizarre assertion? Of course not. But he does have a spokesman who doesn't mind fiddling with the truth.

Peter Cunningman, a Duncan spokesman, pointed out to The Detroit News that his boss previously worked as CEO for the Chicago Public Schools, where he said mayoral control led to improved test scores.

And what test scores might these be, you ask? And how did the mayor produce them, you ask? And how, from 400 miles away would Duncan or Cunningham know that the Chicago approach would be best for Detroit (whose former mayor is on his way to jail), you ask?

Why, it's common sense.

The impact of IMPACT

Here in D.C., Chancellor Rhee is sailing through the floodgates, opened when union leaders signed on to a bogus contract. The agreement allowed pay increases based mainly on the good will of a few private foundations, in exchange for Rhee's ability to fire teachers in mass, using the IMPACT evaluation process. IMPACT is mainly an attempt to link student test scores with individual teachers. It also includes 22 other measurement points which are supposed to be assessed in a 30 minute-observation by a master-teacher.  

Valerie Strauss shows why the entire process in suspect in this post on the Answer Sheet.

A number of teachers never got the full five evaluations, apparently because a number of master teachers hired to do the jobs quit, according to sources in the school system. But even if they all were, let’s look closely at this: In 30 minutes, a teacher is supposed to demonstrate all 22 different teaching elements. What teacher demonstrates 22 teaching elements -- some of which are not particularly related -- in 30 minutes? Suppose a teacher takes 30 minutes to introduce new material and doesn’t have time to show. ... Oh well. Bad evaluation.

In many cases, Rhee is even ignoring her own evaluation process and firing teachers and school staff arbitrarily, in hopes of impressing her corporate and foundation patrons and getting a leg-up on Race To The Top funding.

Rhee has used the vagaries of the contract to fire the first volley in what's bound to be a full-scale war, with the firing of 241 teachers. So far, the war has been one-sided with only Rhee's side on the attack. Hopefully, that will change.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Maureen Dowd

The West Wing white guys who pushed to ditch Shirley Sherrod before Glenn Beck could pounce not only didn’t bother to Google, they weren’t familiar enough with civil rights history to recognize the name Sherrod. And they didn’t return the calls and e-mail of prominent blacks who tried to alert them that something was wrong. Charles Sherrod, Shirley’s husband, was a Freedom Rider who, along with the civil rights hero John Lewis, was a key member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of the ‘60s. (NYT)

Mayoral control

The only thing that every researcher agrees about is, as David Hursh of the Warner School of Education says, mayoral control represents “a decline in public input, a decline in accountability, a lack of debate over what schools should be doing.” (Shea Howell, Michigan Citizen)

Van Jones

The former White House green jobs czar who, like Shirley Sherrod, was thrown under the bus by the Obama administration amid another phony scandal stoked by Fox: 

Sherrod is "like Rosa Parks and she got slimed." (At Netroots) 

Past is prologue

Vacationing here in West Virgina, it's hard not to think about the state's rich history of struggle for social-justice. Signs are everywhere, especially in these difficult times. I got a good history lesson reading this editorial in yesterday's Charleston Gazette, showing once again that past is prologue.

In 1920, a strike at Matewan turned into a shoot-out that killed seven Baldwin-Felts guards who had been hired as strikebreakers. Town Police Chief Sid Hatfield, a champion of the strikers, was charged in a different fracas. As he and a companion walked up the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse, they were gunned down by other Baldwin-Felts agents. The murder inflamed miners, who gathered for a second march. In August 1921, 10,000 to 15,000 armed workers entered Logan County. Their advance was halted at Blair Mountain, where Sheriff Chafin's forces had installed machine guns behind breastworks. Full-scale warfare ensued for several days, and perhaps 20 were killed on both sides. President Warren Harding sent Army units and even a squadron of fighter planes to suppress the uprising. Afterward, UMW leaders were tried for treason, but juries found them innocent.

The locus of struggle now seems to be the hotel workers, among the lowest paid in the nation. Hyatt has now become the main target because of their refusal to negotiate a union contract in good faith. Yesterday in San Francisco, about 150 union marchers were jailed.  Hyatt becomes especially significant as it is owned by one of President Obama's richest and most powerful backers, Penny Pritzker and the Pritzker family. They became notorious for firing 98 hospitality workers at a Boston hotel and replacing them with non-union workers who they were forced to train before being put out on the street.

Connections to education reform and current administration policies couldn't be clearer as the fate of teachers and their right to bargain collectively also hangs in the balance. Hopefully Obama, who has backed union rights in the past, won't turn into Warren Harding on this one.