Look who's running the Lab School

I must have conjured her up. No sooner did I post  about the new, private GEMS Academy opening in Chicago with a tuition of about $30K ("Good News Rich People"), than their competition over at Lab School, hires a new director. Guess who?

It's none other than Robin Appleby. Who's that, you ask?

Before coming to Lab,  Appleby lived in Dubai, where she ran four campuses of the Global Education Management Systems American Academies consisting of 5,000 students. In that role, she also served as Superintendent and CEO of GEMS Dubai American Academy, an American and International Baccalaureate school comprising 2,300 students, representing 100 countries. -- Hyde Park Herald

Rahm must be so pleased. Now his kids can get a world-class education. John Dewey must be turning in his grave.

Techies vie with ed conglomerates for a piece of the Common Core market

It's ed tech start-up companies vs. the oligopoly at Stanford conference.

Silicon Valley tech companies, conferencing at Stanford, are trying to become the "Facebook of education," writes Lauren Hepler in the Silicon Valley Business Journal ("Online kindergarten? Tech bets on K-12 disruption"). The potential for superprofits has Valley heads spinning.

Hepler points out that, overall, the market for education is massive. She says the $1.5 trillion US education industry accounts for roughly 10 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, or the second-biggest sector after healthcare,

After meeting with power philanthropist Bill Gates, tech entrepreneur Mick Hewitt, co-founder and CEO of MasteryConnect, sees the looming implementation of government “Common Core” standards for reading and math in elementary, middle and high schools as an unparalleled opportunity for startups in the field.

“I believe we are truly at an inflection point,” Hewitt said at last weeks K-12 education technology event hosted by the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, or VLAB. “I would be wrong if I said the Common Core and the dollars around it haven’t driven a lot of the activity for us.”

But these techie startups are up against corporate conglomerates that continue to dominate the K-12 market, writes Hepler.

“There was one word that kept me and my co-founders up at night,” Hewitt said at the VLAB event Thursday as he clicked to a presentation slide emblazoned with a Monopoly-style logo that read “Oligopoly”

He explained that a “marriage to textbooks” sold to schools by companies like Pearson and McGraw-Hill has for years blocked new entrants from providing educational alternatives.

But, Scott Drossos, the senior vice president of one-on-one learning for Pearson, said that although his company “has been accused of being acquisitive” — or buying up promising startups in the field — he sees monetization as a fundamental question not to be ignored.

Yes, monetization -- a keyword in the new lexicon of "public" education.

Difficult students an "outcast group, thrown into an abyss" by New Orleans charters

At many N.O. charter schools, including Sci Academy, plenty of teachers last for less than two years.

Here's the real deal on New Orleans charter schools as documented by Daily Beast/Newsweek writer Andrea Gabor. No, they're definitely not the panacea Arne Duncan claimed they were. For one thing, they were started on a faulty and racist premise -- that  young, white, inexperienced teachers were better for the predominantly-African-American N.O. students, than older, black veteran teachers.

Writes Gabor:

After the storm, the state fired the city’s unionized teachers, who were mostly middle-aged African-Americans, an action that has been challenged in court. While a few schools have hired back teachers who worked in the pre-Katrina schools, the city now relies heavily on inexperienced educators—mostly young, white, and from out of town—who are willing, at least in the short run, to put in grueling hours. But at many schools, including Sci Academy, plenty of teachers last for less than two years. In New Orleans, teachers with certifications from Teach for America number close to 400, five times the level a few years ago. Within the RSD, in 2011, 42 percent of teachers had less than three years of experience; 22 percent have spent just one year or less in the classroom, according to “The State of Public Education in New Orleans,” a 2012 report by the pro-charter Cowen Institute at Tulane University.

Gabor's piece goes on from there to reveal the way N.O. charters, under the pressure of current testing policies,  combined with the broad leeway given to charter schools to suspend and expel students, means the “difficult to teach” kids have been effectively abandoned.

“New ideas on how to teach disruptive and unmotivated students have not emerged from charter schools,” charges Barbara Ferguson, a former superintendent of public schools in New Orleans and a founder of Research on Reforms. “Whether the difficult-to-teach high school students are expelled by charter schools or whether they attended schools closed by the RSD, they are an outcast group, thrown into an abyss ... Neither the RSD nor the state Department of Education tracks these students to determine if they ever enter another high school.”

Tilson short-selling K12Inc.

Hedge-funder Tilson

You would think that the online learning company, K12Inc. would find synergy with hedge-funder Whitney Tilson, the money bags behind DFER and a co-founder of TFA and KIPP board member. But no! Tilson would never let ideological unity get in the way of super-profits. So Tilson is having his T2 Fund short-sell the hell out of K12 stock, hoping the company collapases. In fact, he calls the company “a catastrophe for education” in spite of solid financials.

So why is Tilson shorting K12? In addition to his research alleging that conditions and academic performance at each of K12’s online academies have declined significantly since its IPO, Tilson said he believed companies like K12 undermine the charter school movement in which he is deeply entrenched and that he has spent years fighting for.

“I try and separate my emotion from whether it’s a good investment,” Tilson said.

I could have told him and his investors that months ago. In fact, I did just that, last November. But would they listen? NOOOO. Now writes Buzz Feed,

The king of the privatized virtual learning world, K12Inc. has investors checking to see if they're still wearing their shorts. The problem continues to be extravagant costs stemming from huge salaries paid to top execs, plus K12 students scoring behind kids in brick-and-mortar schools.

So on one rare sunny day, Tilson and I will hopefully both be celebrating ( him with champagne and me with 4-buck Chuck) the death of K12Inc.

Billionaire charter supporter Ty Warner, busted for tax evasion.

Ty Warner

Ty Warner, the Beanie Babies billionaire who's fond of driving his white Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow convertible and arriving for appointments wearing a fur coat, a top hat and carrying a cane, has been busted for tax evasion. Yay!

It seems he tried to hide hundreds of millions in secret Swiss bank accounts to avoid paying taxes. But don't worry about him.  All he had to do was agree to a $53 million settlement which will likely make the whole thing go away.

Duncan and Agassi

While Warner doesn't like to pay any taxes, he does invest millions in privately-run charter schools through the Andre Agassi Foundation. Aggasi, the former tennis pro, has become a big-time charter school entrepreneur and a fav of Ed Sec Arne Duncan. Warner took about $6 million out of his secret Swiss account and gave it to Aggasi to help promote his Rocketship Charters.

Warner already was in trouble with Michelle Obama for marketing a line of black Beanie Babies named "Sweet Sasha” and “Marvelous Malia.”

Forbes piece pounds charters

About the only thing charters do well is limit the influence of teachers’ unions. And fatten their investors’ portfolios.

An article appearing in the Sept. 10th issue of Forbes, gives a swift kick in the rear end to charter schools. According to Forbes contributor Addison Wiggin, charter schools have selective enrollments, don't perform any better than regular public schools, and are part of a corrupt system that funnels public funds into the pockets of privatizers and corporate cronies through real estate deals and tax credits.

He writes:

Charter schools are frequently a way for politicians to reward their cronies. In Ohio, two firms operate 9% of the state’s charter schools and are collecting 38% of the state’s charter school funding increase this year. The operators of both firms donate generously to elected Republicans.

In Florida, the for-profit school industry flooded legislative candidates with $1.8 million in donations last year. “Most of the money,” reports The Miami Herald, “went to Republicans, whose support of charter schools, vouchers, online education and private colleges has put public education dollars in private-sector pockets.”

But it's not just about Republicans. Wiggin saves his best shots for Democrats like the ones in Philadelphis who closed  23 public schools  — about 10% of the total — to be replaced by charters. Not to mention Arne Duncan who "rolled out the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” initiative, doling out $4.4 billion in federal money to the states — but only to those states that lifted their caps on the number of charter schools."

Something I wasn't aware of was a program called EB-5 that encourages foreign investors who pony up $1 million in a wide variety of development projects — or as little as $500,000 in “targeted employment areas” — to buy immigration visas for themselves and family members.

“There’s a risk to taking education to Wall Street,” says Education Week — “one that helps explain why so few publicly traded companies cater to the educational needs of students in elementary, middle and high school.”

But EdWeek charter school blogger Katie Ash attacks Wiggin's piece for being "inflammatory." Wiggin doesn't mince words, says Ash, "and I'm sure many will take offense at his staunch views."

Not me. He's shooting straight.

Milwaukee targeted as next New Orleans-style "recovery zone"

Milwaukee's public school system, already hit hard by devastating budget cuts and teacher firings, has become the next big urban school system to be targeted for privatization. MPS, the home of the nation's first crippling school voucher system, is now threatened with a New Orleans-style "recovery zone" where dozens of public schools would be handed over to private companies to operate with poorly trained, non-union teachers.

Right-wing privatization groups, like WILL, are also trying to force MPS to sell off school buildings or hand them over directly to private charter school operators in what would be one of the largest real estate swindles in city history.

Among the groups vying for a piece of the action is Rocketship Charter Schools, owned by tennis player turned ed entrepreneur, Andre Agassi. Eight Rocketship schools are expected to open in Milwaukee, and plans to enroll about 4,000 students.

PROTEST PLANNED

In response, a large demonstration is planned for Saturday, September 21, sponsored by Parents for Public Schools, Women Committed to an Informed Community, the Wisconsin Alliance of Excellent Schools, the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association and dozens of other groups. Students, parents, educators and friends of public schools from around Milwaukee and across Wisconsin will assemble at Milwaukee High School of the Arts at 10:30 a.m., then march across the 16th Street Bridge to Forest Home Avenue School, where a rally will commence at 1:00 p.m. to proclaim the civil right of every child to a world class public education. Teachers and public education supporters from Chicago and other cities are expected to march in solidarity.

Attached is a flyer and list of co-sponsors.

Rahm's Midway privatization deal crashes and burns. Where are the feds?

I don't think so...

As if we needed another reason to dump mayoral control of the schools, look no further than the collapse of another corrupt City Hall boondoggle -- the privatization of Midway Airport.

In my August 22nd post, I showed how Rahm Emanuel's proposed privatization of Midway, part of the Mayor's so-called Infrastructure Trust, was a continuation of his and the previous mayor's ongoing efforts to privatize nearly all remaining public space in the city, including public schools. The plan, which targets unions and funnels billions into the pockets of foreign corporations represented by political cronies like lobbyist and former 12th Ward Alderman Mark Fary (husband of city Aviation Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino), has now fallen through. All but one of the bidders has reportedly pulled out of the deal in the face of ongoing City Hall corruption investigations.

According to the Tribune:

The privatization process has played out behind closed doors, and the Emanuel administration and the bidders have declined to discuss much in the way of specifics, making it difficult to immediately sort out what happened. What is clear, however, is that the stalled Midway effort is the latest hitch in Emanuel's attempt to privatize public assets to raise money and help the city dig out from under a mountain of red ink. The mayor's Chicago Infrastructure Trust also has gotten off to a slow start.

Fran Spielman writes in yesterday's Sun-Times:

Emanuel was facing mounting opposition from a City Council still suffering from the political after-effects of the widely-despised, 75-year deal that privatized Chicago parking meters.

Cronies: Ahmad, Emanuel & Scott (Heather Charles/Tribune)

But the real reason the mayor was forced to junk the Midway deal  probably had more to do with the recent indictment in Ohio of Rahm's former comptroller, Amer Ahmad, and his connection to the city's CFO Lois Scott. Scott who would have been the mayor’s point-person in selling the Midway deal to the City Council, has been implicated in the Ahmad scandal. She's one who recommended Ahmad to Rahm. It turns out that Scott's private financial firm worked on some $200 million in state highway construction bonds in Ohio and that Scott Balice Strategies LLC, co-owned by Scott, served as "financial adviser to the treasurer" on those Ohio deals. After Scott came aboard as Emanuel's chief financial officer in May 2011, she selected a firm that employed Ahmad's onetime boss, former Ohio Treasurer Kevin Boyce, for hundreds of thousands of dollars in city bond work.When Boyce was a public official, Scott's firm profited, and when Scott became a public official under Emanuel, Boyce's firm profited. And Ahmad was at the center of it all.

Ahmad was also placed on the  boards of all four of the City's largest pension funds. All this on top of the mayor's efforts to remove or hamstring Chicago's IG, Joe Ferguson, just made the deal too big a load for Rahm's PR department.

A previous Midway deal fell apart four years ago, leaving Chicago taxpayers with a $126 million down payment but no apparent way to shore up underfunded city pensions.

Where are the feds?

Also see: 
Ald. Waguespack: Emanuel camp skilled at shifting facts, changing stories
Pinstripe patronage at city hall should be taken ‘out of the hands of one person’: alderman

The embrace of market models -- 'the new wisdom'

The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss interviews Michael Katz and Mike Rose, editors of an important new book, Public Education Under Siege that's worth adding to your summer fall reading list.

 Q)  How did this set of beliefs take hold, even among some liberals who previously had recognized that the public education system should be run as a civic institution rather than a business? 

 A) Multiple reasons, really.  In general, in American politics there’s been a shift toward the Right going on since the Reagan presidency.  And even before that, there’s been a growing attraction toward market-based solutions to public policy problems.  This embrace of market models, and along with it a technological orientation to social issues, has become increasingly bi-partisan.  It’s the new wisdom.

The great TFA/charter scam -- Drive-by Teachers

A TFAer in Birmingham, AL.

Today's NYT carries a piece,  "At Charter Schools, Short Careers by Choice" by Mokoto Rich. The notion that young, inexperienced short-timers, many with only 5 weeks of TFA training, should form the backbone of the nation's teaching core, has become one of the lynch pins of corporate-style school reform.

The drive-by teacher strategy is being pushed heavily by the power philanthropists in the Gates, Broad, and Walton Foundations. It actually is based on the Wal-Mart model where about 70% of its poorly-paid workforce turns over within a year. This is what the reformers mean by 21st Century jobs.

At Success Academy Charter Schools, a chain run by Eva Moskowitz, a former New York City councilwoman, the average is about four years in the classroom. KIPP, one of the country’s best known and largest charter operators, with 141 schools in 20 states, also keeps teachers in classrooms for an average of about four years. 

Short careers by choice, translates into teachers being reduced to low-wage information-age delivery clerks while most "learning" is done by students sitting in front of a computer screen. The benefits to the charter operators include the elimination of pensions, tenure, salary increases, and union protection. This means more money going into the pockets of the charter operators. Moskowitz for example, pulls down about $400,000/yr.

Rich says the notion of a foreshortened teaching career was largely introduced by Teach for America, which places high-achieving college graduates into low-income schools for two years. Today, Teach for America places about a third of its recruits in charter schools.

“Strong schools can withstand the turnover of their teachers,” said Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America. “The strongest schools develop their teachers tremendously so they become great in the classroom even in their first and second years.”

But studies have shown that on average, teacher turnover diminishes student achievement, writes Rich. Advocates who argue that teaching should become more like medicine or law say that while programs like Teach for America fill a need in the short term, educational leaders should be focused on improving training and working environments so that teachers will invest in long careers.

Reformers claim that this is all a generational thing where today's young teachers are "restless" and don't like to stay in one job too long. One young teacher, "who is already thinking beyond the classroom",  is quoted, saying, “I feel like our generation is always moving onto the next thing, and always moving onto something bigger and better.”

I wonder, especially, with a shrinking job market and devastated middle class, what a real teacher would feel is "bigger and better" than teaching children?

James Meredith: The civil rights issue of our time...

Accompanied by U.S. marshals and surrounded by jeering crowds, James Meredith enrolled as the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi in 1962.

“The civil rights issue of our time is to stop unproven co-called education reforms from totally destroying our children’s public education,” says Meredith, “and to get parents, teachers, community leaders and elders, the whole ‘Family of God,’ to take back control of our children’s education from politicians, bureaucrats and for-profits, who have turned our public schools into pawns in a game of money and power.”  -- Diane Ravitch Blog

Union busting behind Rahm's privatization of Midway

I don't agree. 

A story in today's Sun-Times reveals some of the real reasons behind Rahm Emanuel's assault on public space and public decision making. Reporter Fran Spielman's story is all about the planned privatization of Midway Airport. But it could just as easily be about privately-run charter schools, the Chicago Skyway, or the expansion of privately-managed charter schools. 

This time it's Aviation Committee Chairman Michael Zalewski (23rd), whose ward includes Midway, who's kicking sand in Rahm's face. He’s concerned that a private contractor would attempt to shoehorn more late-night flights into the airport. But he's also worried about a revolt from the many union members who live in his ward.

His concerns are exacerbated by the fact that one of two finalists for the Midway lease — Spain’s Ferrovial — has been accused of “union busting and black-listing,” Zalewski said. 

“A number of employees from Europe came to see me last week with these allegations — that one of the finalists is a notorious union-busting company,” the alderman said.
“I told them I needed proof. I’m awaiting that documentation. But, if it’s true, that’s a huge problem” that would require Emanuel to either risk a political donnybrook with organized labor’s City Council allies or award the contract to the only other bidder, Zalewski said.

Great Britain’s largest union has alleged that a union shop steward on a massive London tunnel project that includes Ferrovial was fired and black-listed after raising health and safety concerns on behalf of rank-and-file employees.

The Great Lakes Airport Alliance is a partnership between Ferrovial and Australia’s Macquarie Group that leased the Chicago Skyway for 99 years. The rival team includes Industry Funds Management of Australia and Manchester Airports Group.

Could things be any clearer?

Ahmad and Rahm

Carrying Rahm's water in defending Midway's privatization is none other than his Chief Financial Officer Lois Scott.  If you don't know who Scott is, she's the one who recommended Rahm's former comptroller Amer Ahmad, who was just indicted in Ohio on conspiracy charges about directing state investments in exchange for bribes. Ahmad currently sits on the boards of all four of the City's largest pension funds. Ahmad tendered his resignation to Emanuel on July 23, more than 10 months after the former comptroller was questioned by FBI agents in the probe involving his tenure as Ohio deputy treasurer.

It turns out that Scott's private financial firm apparently worked on some $200 million in state highway construction bonds in Ohio and that Scott Balice Strategies LLC, co-owned by Scott, served as "financial adviser to the treasurer" on those Ohio deals. Scott sold her interest in the firm in 2011 when she came to work at City Hall.

As you might expect, Scott loves the Midway privatization deal. If you were in her expensive shoes, you would too.

Lois Scott 

Funny, Crain's has been all over Rahm for his choice of Ahmad as his chief money guy.  But looking back, guess what I found. Ahmad had made Crain's 2012 40 Under 40 list and quoted the high praise being offered by none other than, Lois Scott.

"There's been some extraordinary results," says city CFO Lois Scott, noting Mr. Ahmad's perhaps not universally appreciated efforts to get tax and fine delinquents to pay up, or the more than $100 million she says he saved by tightening up the city's health insurance coverage. "I give major credit to Amer."

The best quote in the Crain's story comes pre-indictment  from Ahmad himself :

What's next? Government pension reform, he says, adding with a smile, "Sometimes I miss the private sector."

I'll bet you do, Amer.  And they will miss you too, while you're (uhm) away.

Yuck, Tuck

Marshall Tucker Band

When I first got this news from a friend in L.A.,  I thought she was talking about Marshall Tucker, the S. Carolina piano tuner after whom one of my favorite '70s bands ("Heard it in a love song") was named.  But alas, it was about Marshall Tuck, the corporate f*%k, who just announced he's running for State Supt. of Education in California.

Tuck is the head of the Partnership for LA Schools and former Green Dot Charter exec. He's also big in the so-called Parent Revolution, the group behind the so-called "Parent Trigger", one of the great hoaxes ever played on public school parents and their children.

Tuck will be running against the incumbent Tom Torlakson, who I'm sure will be baited for being a "union lover" (a Class 1 felony in some parts of the state). Tuck will most likely have a huge pot of money in his war chest coming from the likes billionaire boys clubbers like Broad, DFER and other corporate reformers.

According to the L.A. Times:

Under Torlakson and Gov. Jerry Brown — who also enjoyed teachers union support — the state has bucked national trends in education policy. Top state officials, for example, have resisted efforts to make students' standardized test scores a major component of a teacher's performance evaluation. 

Running against Tuck, I wish him luck.

Profiting off the 'deliberate starvation' of Philly schools

The district has never recovered from Paul Vallas' financial mismanagement. 

Yes, schools will open on time in Philly. But only by going further into debt to the banks. According to the NYT, ("A City Borrows So That Its Schools Open On Time") the situation is not as dire yet as Detroit’s. But the problem is so severe that the city agreed at the last minute on Thursday to borrow $50 million just to be able to open schools on time. Even with that money, schools will open Sept. 9 with a minimum of staffing and sharply curtailed extracurricular activities and other programs.

“The concept is just jaw-dropping,” said Helen Gym, who has three children in the city’s public schools. “Nobody is talking about what it takes to get a child educated. It’s just about what the lowest number is needed to get the bare minimum. That’s what we’re talking about here: the deliberate starvation of one of the nation’s biggest school districts.”

The district has been victimized by state takeover, which put the schools under the control of a corporate School Reform Commission. It was the SRC that brought in Paul Vallas as CEO and Vallas left the school district in 2007 in a state of financial chaos from which it has never recovered.

Look for Supt. Hite to try and take advantage of the crisis by forcing more concessions from teachers and the unions.

Children on Medicaid are prescribed anti-psychotic drugs at 4 times rate of those privately insured

Drug makers for years have been making billions marketing antipsychotic and antidepressents for use in schools and foster homes on children with behavioral issues.

Now Barron's and WSJ report that the feds are investigating the over-prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs like Abilify (now the nation's No. 1 prescription drug) to children from low-income families on Medicaid. The children, often diagnosed with "behavioral problems" such as bipolar disorder or "irritability" associated with autism, or even kids with ADHD, are prescribed antipsychotics at four times the rate of privately insured children, according to a study by Stephen Crystal, a professor of health policy at Rutgers University, that looked at data from 2004 on 6- to 17-year-old children in seven states.

Government Medicaid data indicate that some of the prescriptions are being written for very young children. An analysis by Mathematica found that in 2008, 19,045 children age 5 and under were prescribed antipsychotics through Medicaid, 3% of recipients under 20, up from 7,759 in 1999, according to James Verdier, a senior fellow at the organization. Some were under a year old, including one listed as a month old. In New York, a spokesman for the state health department said some children between ages 1 and 2 received antipsychotics for conditions such as autistic disorder and attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity.

Dr. Fernando Siles, a pediatric psychiatrist in the Dallas area who treats many poor foster children, says he sometimes prescribes such medications to treat serious behavior problems. "A child that continues to be aggressive will be kicked out from his foster home," he says. "The antipsychotic is to stabilize the behavior of the child, to keep him from being moved and moved again."

The article doesn't break it down by race. I would like to know if children of color are being given anti-psychotics in great numbers than are white kids. What would you guess?

Rahm selling off everything that's not nailed down

I don't think so. 

Following the direction set by his predecessor, Mayor Emanuel has put the whole city up for sale. Next up on the auction block, the airports, hospitals, and port. 

Writes Mick Dumke in the Reader:

"We are taking what was an underutilized, run-down port and turning it into an engine of opportunity," Emanuel promised.

These are the times we live in: the city has to sell off pieces of public property so it can invest in them. At least that's the narrative that Emanuel is advancing out of City Hall, like Mayor Daley before him. When they say it over and over it almost makes sense, like it's not paradoxical after all. It certainly sounds a lot better than coming out and saying that the city is for sale.

There's one problem, and it's not so little: Most of the city's long-term privatization deals are put together behind closed doors, with such complicated terms that no one can tell if the public gained or got gamed until long after they're on the books. 

For Pearson CEO, measurable learning outcomes is a growth industry

Pearson CEO Fallon

“Education is now emerging as one of the major growth industries for the next decade and beyond; it is serving a huge rise in the global middle class, and we now need to be thinking of how to serve global products focused on efficacy,” says Pearson CEO John Fallon.

Our strategy is to transform Pearson into a single operating company that is sharply focussed on the biggest needs in global education and on measurable learning outcomes. With our restructuring program on track and the reorganisation of the company under way, we are making significant progress towards that goal." -- StockMarketWire.com 

Can MOOCS replace face-to-face teaching/learning?

Peter Scott, a professor of higher education studies, writes about MOOCS in yesterday's Guardian.

The acronym stands for mass open online courses, now rapidly replacing face-to-face teaching/learning in post-secondary education in Britain and the U.S.. The idea is to make higher education more accessible to the masses by uploading more and more courses to the Cloud. But the reality is that the testing and credentialing component, along with the separation of  teaching from accreditation that goes along with MOOCS, are actually making the end product even more unattainable for all but the elite.

In my view, the ones who stand to benefit the most are the big global media and testing companies, like Pearson and global online diploma mills like the University of Phoenix.

Writes Scott:

Government cuts, high fees, league-table snobbism – all point to a reinforcement of elite forms of higher education. Attempts to deliver HE-lite through further education colleges and private providers are never going to get very far. So Moocs provide the perfect cover story – "higher education for the masses" when real-world opportunities to go to university are being cut.

Scott makes the case that the debate about the potential of Moocs has to be put into a wider context, "a more fundamental debate about the nature of the university curriculum and teaching in a mass system." He asks, how can the Socratic tutorial coexist with the delivery of expert skills? How can we keep the curriculum open in increasingly industrialized "learning environments" and "managed" institutions?

There is another equally fundamental debate about "openness" more generally – the links between open-access courses and open access (good old "widening participation") and between open-source research publication and democratic science, and also between both and the need to build an open society.

Difficult stuff, writes Scott – "but far better than narrowing the debate about Moocs to a neo-liberal fix."

K12 Inc. lags far behind face-to-face schools in Florida

The thing about privatization is, there's little or no public accountability. Take for example, K12 Inc., the e-learning company that competes with traditional schools for a piece of the  multi-billion-dollar education pie.

Progress Florida also found that K12 schools are not only lagging behind in performance, but they also have “fewer students qualifying for free-or-reduced-lunch, fewer students with disabilities, fewer ELL students, and fewer minority students.” But K12's poor performance hasn't hurt their bottom line any.  In 2012, K12 Inc. experienced “a 35 percent increase in revenue to more than $700 million, the report found.”

According the report:

“…Notably only 27.7 percent of K12 Inc. schools make adequate yearly progress—a national metric of measuring student achievement—and this figure is merely half nearly half the rate achieved by public face-to-face schools. The on-time graduation rate for K12 Inc. schools is 49.1percent, compared to 79.4 percent for all students in the states in which K12 Inc. operates.”

 Lisa Larson-Walker (Slate)

Speaking of Florida, Tea Party Gov. Rick Scott's regime is awash in scandal and corruption. Not only has he lost his privatizing school chief, Tony Bennett, to a grade-changing scandal, but now his biggest outside campaign contributor, Bill Edwards, has been caught swindling Florida military families and veterans.

Ironically, the one's crying the loudest over the Bennett resignation, besides Jeb Bush and his GOP pals, are the so-called Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Obama's ed chief, Arne Duncan.

Who says there's no bi-partisanship?

The selling of Chicago

CFO Lois Scott refuses to reveal specifics of  Midway privatization. 

Like Daley's selling of the city's parking spaces, Rahm is doing his sell-off of Midway Airport in the dark, until after the deal is done.

He's using the manufactured pension crisis to justify the further looting and burning of Chicago the same way that Daley used the city's debt crisis to cut his parking meter deal and the selling off of the Skyway before that. Neither deal did anything to get the city back on sound financial footing.

The victims of all this is what's left of public space -- schools, clinics, mass transit, and housing projects, none of whom will benefit from the Airport deal.

Fran Spielman at the Sun-Times reports:

In a meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board to discuss the city’s financial crisis, Chief Financial Officer Lois Scott refused to discuss specifics of the competition or the potential for a $2 billion windfall. Nor would she say when final bids are due or even confirm that only two bid teams remain. 

 The only question is whether a reluctant City Council would go along with the idea.

Of course they will. When have they ever said NO?

Last week, Bloomberg reported that the Midway sweepstakes was down to two bidding groups and that a contract could be awarded as soon as this fall. The rivals were identified as Great Lakes Airport Alliance — a partnership between Spain’s Ferrovial and Macquarie Group, which leased the Chicago Skyway for 99 years — and a team that includes Industry Funds Management of Australia and Manchester Airports Group.

Best quote comes from Ald. O'Connor:

“Any time one talks about privatizing a municipal asset, immediately the next words out of their mouth is, ‘parking meters.’ 

Ya think?