A Guide to Corporate Education "reform"
Lots of parents are confused by the large number of education organizations that have sprouted up like weeds in recent years, many of which have “Children” or “Students” in the title, and claim to be working in the interests of children but actually pursuing the free-market ideology of privatizers, hedge funders and billionaires.
Yesterday on Diane Ravitch’s blog, I wrote how one could identify these astroturf groups by their rhetoric and often contradictory positions; along with linking toa spreadsheet that lists the names of these organizations, their boards and funders.
I hope this will be a helpful tool for parents, advocates and others who are trying to make out who is who in the battle to preserve and strengthen our public
Popular backlash against high stakes testing grows stronger, but the Senate doesn't appear to notice (with video)
See the video below of the rally on Wednesday of the Seattle Garfield high school teacher boycott of the MAP test, with teachers, parents and the local NAACP speaking up about the waste of time and money and invalid teacher evaluation metrics that result, and reading statements of support from teachers, parents, and advocates around the nation. (Many of them are posted here).Here are just a few links from the past week, thanks to the newsletter of Monty Neill of FairTest.
Mayor's Appointees Force Big Testing Contract Despite Looming Classroom Cuts
Wednesday's Panel for Educational Policy meeting held on Staten Island focused exclusively on contracts.My resolution to rescind our prior approval of the tutoring services contract for Champion Learning passed unanimously. Following the disclosure that the comptroller's office had rejected the contract due to an ongoing federal investigation even the mayor's appointees agreed to revoke our approval. See here for text of the resolution.
Deputy Chancellor Polakow-Suransky presented an awful $19 million testing technology contract for Pearson. The contract includes both assessment content and the assessment technology platform. The platform includes important things like: "the capability to import and host ("ingest") content from varied and multiple sources". You can read all the details of what we bought here. I