A plan to blow up the Philadelphia public school system

Philadelphia officials say that the traditional district structure, with a superintendent in charge of all public schools, has been shown not to work and that it is time for a change. Supposing that were true, a plan that entails people bidding for a chance to run an achievement network hardly seems like a way to run a civic institution, as the public school system should be viewed. Schools are not businesses, students aren’t widgets, and test scores aren’t a product. -- Valerie Strauss, Washington Post

Kenneth Cole's anti-teacher billboard

It's all in the family

A billboard advertising Kenneth Cole — the clothing company owned by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s brother-in-law — puns to southbound commuters, ”Shouldn’t Everyone Be Well Red?” In smaller lettering, the billboard says, “Teachers’ Rights Vs. Students’ Rights …”

Kenneth Cole’s three daughters attended private schools.The designer is married to Maria Cuomo, whose brother is Gov. Cuomo. -- State of Education

Time for a boycott? Of course.

Collins -- A Very Pricey Pineapple

"Pearson is just one part of the picture, albeit a part about the size of Mount Rushmore. Its lobbyists include the guy who served as the top White House liaison with Congress on drafting the No Child law. It has its own nonprofit foundation that sends state education commissioners on free trips overseas to contemplate school reform." -- Gail Collins, New York Times

ALEC calls out for help from right-wing Breitbart bloggers

The right-wing lobbying group ALEC is in retreat mode and we bloggers and tweeters deserve some of the credit.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, the once-obscure organization that pairs corporations with state lawmakers to draft pro-business and often anti-union legislation for the state level, is in damage control mode. Corporate members such as McDonald's, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Mars, Inc. have cut ties with ALEC after taking heat from a coalition of progressive groups angry over ALEC's "discriminatory" voter ID bills and controversial "Stand Your Ground" self-defense legislation that figures into the Trayvon Martin shooting in central Florida. -- Mother Jones

The credit (or blame) for ALEC's tactical retreat goes to the army of progressive social networkers who have put pressure of the groups corporate members, including the Gates Foundation, to quit. And quit they have, especially in the wake of the Trayvon Martin killing. In the past, ALEC has operated behind closed doors, shunning media coverage in order to protect their corporate patrons.

In response to corporations abandoning ship in mass, ALEC Director of External Relations Caitlyn Korb put out a desperate call call for help to all Breitbart Bloggers at a recent Heritage Foundation "Bloggers Briefing."  According to PR Watch, Korb is a new ALEC employee who recently worked for the Cato Institute. Both ALEC and Cato have received funding from Koch family foundations. The Heritage Foundation is an ALEC member.

This hedge-fund "school reformer" is so rich, he donates to the Koch Bros.

Griffin is the one on the right

Greg Hinz at Crain's, "Follow the money: Citadel's Ken Griffin and the Illinois GOP," reports on the Chicago hedge-fund billionaire who secretly throws millions into Republican political campaigns.

Wait, did I say Republican? There are no Republicans in Chicago so Griffin does the next best thing. He writes six-figure checks made out to the Rahm Emanuel campaign fund.

Writes Hinz:

In a fascinating series of events that just now are coming to light, it appears that every single penny the Illinois Republican Party got in the first quarter from other political groups for non-federal elections came courtesy of Ken Griffin, CEO of Chicago hedge fund Citadel LLC, and his wife, Anne Griffin, one way or another.

As I have pointed out before on these pages, Ken and Anne Griffin are also powerhouse players in corporate-style school reform and will back any politician in either party, who opposes the teachers union or who supports an expansion of privately-run charter schools. 

The Griffins were largely responsible for bringing the Portland-based group, Stand For Children into Illinois to manage the campaign around SB7. 

In the 2012 election cycle, the couple gave over $500,000 to the Republican Governors Association, $300,000 to Rove's American Crossroads, and $150,000 to the Wisconsin Club for Growth. 

Charles Koch named them as part of a list of elite donors who have pledged $1 million to his and brother David's conservative fundraising machine. Yes, the Griffins are so rich, they even donate money to help out the Koch Bros. 

Duncan's failed $3 billion SIG, a windfall for consultants but...

Arne Duncan's $3 billion "turnaround" School Improvement Grant has worked well -- for consultants, that is. As for improving schools? Not so well.

Alyson Klein writes in Edweek:

The federal program providing billions of dollars to help states and districts close or remake some of their worst-performing schools remains a work in progress after two years, with more than 1,200 turnaround efforts under way but still no definitive verdict on its effectiveness.

To get their one-time hit of SIG money, schools were forced to fire their principals and at least half of their teachers arbitrarily, in violation of collective-bargaining agreements. Districts were then pushed to turn schools over to private management consultants. The net result -- after nearly a decade of SIG, first, Bush's version under NCLB, and now after 2 years of Duncan's Race To The Top "turnaround" version -- no significant gains in measurable learning outcomes.

According to Klein:

Some schools and districts spent millions of dollars on outside experts and consultants. Others went through the politically ticklish process of replacing teachers and principals, while combating community skepticism and meeting the demands of district and state overseers.

Klein's article spotlights one SIG consulting group, the New York City-based Global Partnership Schools, headed by by Rudy Crew, a former head of the New York City and Miami school systems, and Manuel Rivera, a former superintendent of the Rochester, N.Y., schools. (Crew left the company last fall.) The company operates SIG schools in Baltimore; Bridgeport, Conn.; and Pueblo, Colo.

In Pueblo, for example, where GPS has a $7.4 million contract, student performance slipped further at five of the six schools the company operates, The Denver Post reported. At the GPS-operated school in Baltimore, Garrison Middle School, nearly every indicator of quality has dropped since GPS took over in 2010, The Baltimore Sun found.

So far the SIG has been a godsend to dozens of private consulting and turnaround companies like GPS who have elbowed their way up to the Race To The Top feeding trough. But it's more an indictment of Arne Duncan's failed top-down version of reform.

Easy money without govt. regs for ed start-up companies

Congress has passed a bill making it easier for ed start-up companies to raise capital while at the same time, easing government regulation. The Jump-Start Our Business Start-Ups, or JOBS Act  would allow companies to raise up to $1 million,  The bill establishes a new form of company financing called “crowd funding” and allows school entrepreneurs to raise money by selling shares over the internet.

"In K-12, it's a hard place to raise capital, and a lot of the entrepreneurs are raising less than $1 million anyways," said Adam J. Newman, a founding and managing partner of Education Growth Advisors, an education business advisory firm in Stamford, Conn. "It certainly creates a way for more dollars to come in." -- Edweek

Easy money without regulation? No wonder both parties could find common ground on this bill. Pres. Obama is expected to sign it shortly. And how misleading to call this the JOBS ACT!

CPS finally admits to serving kids pink slime

The USDA commodity beef from Don Lee Farms, a major supplier to school districts across the U.S., came through Chartwells, CPS spokeswoman Ziegler said.

Behind the push for online learning

There's a reason Gates and the power philanthropists are pushing online education so hard and it has less to do with teaching and learning as it does with super profits. The Boston Consulting Group reports that the Internet accounted for $684 billion, or 4.7% of all U.S. economic activity in 2010. By way of comparison, the federal government, contributed $625 billion, or 4.3%, to the nation's output.

If it was considered its own separate industry, the Internet would also be larger than America's education, construction or agricultural sectors. -- CNN

BOYCOTTING ALEC

Meet the Three ALEC Supporting Corporate Giants Who Dare You to Boycott Them

As the ALEC boycott continues to grow some corporations are not getting the message. Executives from Pfizer, Reynolds American, and Procter & Gamble are daring you to boycott them. Beneath the good news that Kraft and Pepsi have joined Coca-Cola in deciding to stop supporting ALEC, there are some companies who just don’t get it. According to Reuters, Pfizer, Reynolds American, and Procter & Gamble have all came out in support of ALEC. Tobacco maker Reynolds American said, “ALEC provides a valuable forum for sharing of ideas and fostering better understanding of a broad range of both legislative and business issues.” --Read the rest here.

By: Jason Easley, April 5, 2012
See more posts by Jason Easley

Also see this story in today's L.A. Times: 

Coca-Cola, Kraft leave conservative ALEC after boycott launched

Coca-Cola Co. and Kraft Foods Inc. bowed to consumer pressure this week and cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative lobbying group that has recently backed controversial voter ID and so-called “stand your ground” laws.

Brother Fred would boycott ALEC companies if he could, but he first would have to start using their products. 

More on Canada's "war" on unions

Geoffrey Canada's "war " on teachers union with Rhee, Klein, Home Depot, hedge-funders, and Robin Hood Fund, gets a WSJ (Murdoch) pat on the head.

"We are very worried that the teachers unions are really pushing that this time period, the Bloomberg time period, be thought of as over, and now we…get back to business as usual," said Mr. Canada, head of the Harlem Children's Zone, which won fame in the 2010 documentary "Waiting for 'Superman.'"

All the usual suspects are bellying up to the anti-union feeding trough, including DFER's Joe Williams.

"They're going to be running this like a full-time political campaign that doesn't end," said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, which works toward similar goals.

Geoffrey Canada declares war on teacher unions

Rhee & Canada lead the war on teacher unions.

“Folks are genuinely looking for opportunities to make peace and not war,” Mr. Canada said. “And I think that’s terrific. But someone has to make war.” -- Geoffrey Canada        

Canada's war declaration comes at the end of a Times story announcing the formation of a well-financed and politically connected alliance aimed at nothing less than smashing teacher unions. The new Officers in the anti-teacher army include (as you might expect) Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee. Klein left his post as NYC schools chancellor to pimp for international criminal and tabloid publishing giant Rupert Murdoch. Rhee is building her own billion-dollar lobbying company, Children First, and advising Tea Party Gov. Rick Scott on his own union-busting initiatives. The new group, called StudentsFirstNY, is an arm of Rhee's lobbying group, Children First. Others include, Micah Lasher, who is leaving his job next week as the director of state legislative affairs for Mayor Bloomberg, Eva Moskowitz, the former councilwoman who now runs a chain of  charter schools, former Mayor Koch; and Canada.

The group's strategy is to pour money in pour money into the upcoming political campaigns of anti-union politicians and particularly the next N.Y. mayoral election. It follows the lead of Gates Foundation-backed Stand For Children who used a similar campaign strategy to elect Illinois pols favorable to the passage of the anti-union Senate Bill 7. Also recall that the same tactic was used in D.C. when corporate reformers and muscle foundations backed Fenty (and Rhee) in a losing mayoral campaign which resulted in Rhee getting the boot. 

******

The war on unions and progressive organizations also uses dirty tricks right out of the Nixon Watergate playbook. This disciple of the late Andrew Breitbart, and a staffer for Republican Congressman Thad McCotter of Michigan, thought he was being clever when he tried unsuccessfully to fake it as a union organizer.

For several years, young conservatives have made a cottage industry of going undercover and trying to goad people working at perceived liberal institutions — like Acorn, NPR and Planned Parenthood — into saying something stupid. Trained by well-financed foundations, these dirty tricksters pose as pimps, sex traffickers and Muslim activists and record conversations surreptitiously. Then they release videos that have often been heavily edited.

But all it took was for him to open his mouth for listeners to see he was just another right-wing douchebag. 

Edelman: It's all about $$$

Joanne Barkan has this great quote in her excellent piece in Dissent Magazine:

Jonah Edelman, CEO of Stand for Children ($5.2 million from Gates, 2003-2011), sums up the thinking: “We’ve learned the hard way that if you want to have the clout needed to change policies for kids, you have to help politicians get elected. It’s about money, money, money” (Wall Street Journal, November 3, 2010).

Who's behind 'Stand Your Ground' and school privatization? -- ALEC

Krugman

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman shines his light on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the force behind the so-called "Stand Your Ground" law in Florida and other states. The law is now being used as the basis for the defense in the murder of Trayvon Martin. When you turn the rock over on the current wave of union-busting, anti-immigrant, and school privatization legislation being pushed in states like Virginia and Arizona, there you will find ALEC.

Writes Krugman:

Many ALEC-drafted bills pursue standard conservative goals: union-busting, undermining environmental protection, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatization — that is, on turning the provision of public services, from schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the most prominent beneficiaries of privatization, such as the online education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved with the organization.

New manifesto for corporate school reformers

Klein and Rice offer their manifesto the Council on Foreign Relations

Joel Klein and Condoleezza Rice are the authors of the latest in a long string of Ownership Society Manifestos dating back to A Nation At Risk. They presented their report,  U.S. Education Reform and National Security to, of all people, the Council on Foreign Relations. It portrays public schools as a threat to our national security and sonds the national security alarm as a scare tactic to push their school privatization agenda.

The report supposedly  represents the findings of a task force of "prominent education experts, national security authorities, and corporate leaders" who claim:

Educational failure puts the United States' future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk. The country will not be able to keep pace—much less lead—globally unless it moves to fix the problems it has allowed to fester for too long.

It calls for an expansion of school vouchers and privately-run charter schools, along with Common Core standards as supposed cures for the U.S.' weakened global economic and security position.

Remember if was the Nation At Risk report back in 1983, which first raised the alarming connection between public education's supposed failures and imminent threats to national security.

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss points out that severaql task force members, including Linda Darling-Hammond and the AFT's Randi Weingarten, signed on to the report (wrongly, in my opinion)  only for the purpose of offering their dissenting opinions as an attachment.

Thanks to Strauss for posting this piece of dissent by Carole Artigiani, joined by Darling-Hammond, Stephen M. Walt, and Weingarten.

“...National security requires a healthy economy, energy independence, investments in research and development, strong defense, a thriving civil society, a respected and involved diplomatic corps, and, most of all, a healthy and high-functioning political system. (The current political environment is a clear demonstration of what happens when we have a public—and public officials—who are uninformed and/or ill-informed about our nation’s history, our political system, and the values upon which it was built.)
“Certainly schools must play a critical role in assuring that these needs of national security can be met. Yet, while some of the data are disturbing, nothing in this report convinces me that that our public schools “constitute a very grave national security threat facing this country.”

“Indeed, claims of alarm can only set the stage for dramatic actions unsupported by evidence: in this case, market-based approaches to school reform, that, overall, have not demonstrated their effectiveness. Indeed, charter schools and vouchers are diverting funds and energy away from neighborhood schools, and the more successful ones rely on additional support from private sources (“voluntary taxation”), a situation that is neither sustainable nor scalable. 

They might have also taken note of this nation's engagement in "eternal war" on several fronts at once. It is that, and certainly not public education which has become the main cause of our weakened global security position as well as a threat to our economy, our democracy and public education here at home.

There's one better to make this point than Pasi Sahlberg, Finland's equivalent to Arne Duncan. Finland leads the world in reading and math scores which Sahlberg attributes to their de-emphasis on standardized testing and valuing of the nation's teachers. In a tweet the other day, Sahlberg asks: 

Would Finland do well in education if it was an empire? Or had over 20% child poverty rate? Or spent over 4% of GDP in defense? Who knows!

The question answers itself.

If anyone had doubts... TFA reveals itself in deal with Imagine Schools, Inc.

Imagine Prep in Sunrise, Arizona

"The major problem with our government-operated public schools is best understood by comparing the government monopolies that operate public elementary and secondary schools in this nation and our public university systems." -- Dennis Bakke, founder of Imagine Schools, Inc.

I'm sure Wendy Kopp will say, it's "all about the kids." But some think it's more about real estate. WaPo's Valerie Strauss thinks it's about expansion of the TFA empire.

Whatever it's really about, Teach for America is partnering with the nation’s largest for-profit charter school network, Imagine Schools, Inc. Writes Strauss:

Imagine is based in Arlington, Virginia, with some 75 schools in more than a dozen states, including Maryland, and the District of Columbia. The for-profit charter operator has been investigated in some states for the way it exercises control over the schools it manages, essentially ignoring the boards of trustees that are supposed to really run the schools.

It has also come under scrutiny for its complicated real estate deals that generate millions of public dollars for Imagine. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for example, detailed the deals involving six Imagine schools operating with public money in St. Louis. Essentially Imagine opened schools and then sold the buildings in which the schools operated to a company that then leased them back to Imagine at often extremely high rates, which are, of course, paid for out of public money.

Imagine Schools are run by Dennis and Eileen Bakke, members of The Fellowship, The Family, the powerful, but secretive religious cult that worked in Uganda to pass laws calling for the death penalty for gays. They are virulently anti-public school, anti-teacher and above all, anti-union. They are also part of the anti-union Christian management movement.

The Bakke's, The Fellowship, "Imagine" charter schools and their real estate arm, "Schoolhouse Finance LLC", seem like the perfect match for Kopp. Their large network of essentially private schools run with public money, will provide plenty of jobs for TFA's five-week wonders. But TFA's well-intentioned grads are likely to run into a buzz saw when they start teaching in Imagine's tightly-run, top-down controlled network schools.

According to a NewYork Times report:

Imagine is not shy about the way it wields its power, which it calls essential to its governing philosophy. “Imagine Schools operates the entire school, and is not a consultant or management company,” its Web site says. “All principals, teachers, and staff are Imagine Schools people. The Imagine Schools culture is meant to permeate every aspect of the school’s life.”

As for measurable student learning outcomes, Imagine schools rank near the bottom. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:

Imagine Schools Inc., the nation's largest charter school operator, runs six charter schools in St. Louis. Together, their performance on state standardized exams is worse than any school district in Missouri.

An interesting side note -- Imagine Schools drew rave notices from Strauss' WaPo colleague, Jay Mathews back in 2008. His puff piece on the Bakke's failed to mention any of Imagine's performance issues or real estate dealings.

Stand for Children back in Chicago flush with cash

Best antidote to Stand For Children, Rudy Lozano, Jr.

Union-busting school reformers  Stand For Children, are back in Illinois with deep pockets. This time around SFC is bankrolling a gaggle of Republican (and a few anti-union Dems) in local elections. In a letter to the Chicago Tribune, SFC's director, Mary Anderson lauds the conservative paper's endorsed, mainly Republican candidates list. 

Most importantly to Chicagoans, Stand tossed $70,000 behind anti-teacher candidates running in opposition to CTU-backed progressives, Rudy Lozano (21st District) and Kenny Johnson (26th District). CTU Political Director Stacy Davis Gates (no relation, I'm sure), says the best response to the STC invasion should be:

1.Vote for Rudy and Kenny
2.Tell your friends and family to vote for Rudy and Kenny
3. Volunteer this weekend and Election Day to help us Get Out The Vote

How P.S. 261 ran-off Success Academy charter school hustlers

From an opinion piece in the New York Times, "How charter schools can hurt", written by public school parent, Lucinda Rosenfeld:

A few weeks ago, for three days in a row starting at 3 p.m., a representative from the Success Academy charter school that is scheduled to open this fall in adjacent Cobble Hill stood outside the doors of P.S. 261, handing out fliers and attempting to recruit its students. On day two, outraged teachers asked the man to leave. He refused. On day three, a loose group of teachers, parents and students occupied the sidewalk next to him. Heated words were exchanged. It wasn’t until the next day, when a schoolwide rally unfolded in the front yard — and cameras from NY1 arrived — that the representative vanished. I can’t help wondering if this is the educational future that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had in mind when, in his State of the City address earlier this year, he called for 50 new charter schools to open in the next two years.

Gates uses funding to force privately-run charters on school districts

Last spring, as the Texas Legislature debated massive cuts to public schools—one of many desperate measures to close a $27 billion biennial budget deficit—10,000 protesters massed in Austin for a “Save Our Schools” rally. In the end, the damage to the state’s already-underfunded schools added up to $5.4 billion, forcing districts to lay off tens of thousands of teachers and staffers. -- American Prospect

The Gates Foundation moved on Austin and and other districts, forcing them to sign a pledge to promote privately-run charter schools in exchange for funding. Gates calls it their District-Charter Collaboration Compact under which the foundation awards the districts—14 so far—$100,000. These districts also supposedly get a shot at another $40 million worth of grants.

Last fall, following the Austin school board signed such a pledge with local charters. The agreement, Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said, would make Austin eligible for grants “from people and places that otherwise would not have given us the time of day.” A month later, the city again became a venue for protests—smaller, but equally vociferous—arguing against a new partnership.

According to Abby Rapoport, writing in the American Prospect:

It’s a story being repeated across the country. With most states cutting school funding, Gates and other private foundations are wielding outsize influence over public education, using their much-sought-after millions to fund and shape a top-down reform agenda. Like the other major (but smaller) players, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, Gates uses its funds to encourage public schools to adopt a more corporate approach.

 Of course there's little difference the power foundations and federal funding, in this regard. Arne Duncan has also used his control of federal dollars to make competitive grants to states and school districts through Race To The Top, in exchange for a promise to close neighborhood schools and turn them over to private operators.

Anschutz makes Koch Bros. "look moderate..."

Bankrolled L.A. mayor's corporate school  reform & 'Waiting for Superman"

Robert Skeels posts on Dissident Voice about Philip Anschutz' connections with Mayor Vilaraigosa's corporate school reform initiative in L.A. Anschutz has donated at least $100,000 to the Mayor's Coalition for School Reform — a slush fund to elect privatization friendly school board candidates for Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Anschutz, a reactionary that makes the fascist-friendly Koch Brothers look moderate in comparison, also funded Waiting for Superman, the poverty pimping propaganda piece by the smug mendacious hipster Davis Guggenheim. How far to the right is Anschutz? Master researcher and educator Kenneth Libby’s “Philip Anschutz and Walden Media: What Kind of Agenda?” exhaustive list shows huge sums of Anschutz’s fortune going to organizations that are anathema to social justice and public schools, including Hoover, AEI, Heritage, Cato, etc., along with school privatization favorites like KIPP and Alliance for Choice in Education.