Schools Matter:
Schools Matter All Week
Tea Party School Bus Hijack, Muncie, Indiana
by Doug Martin While Douglas Storm and I were exposing the corporate assault on our schools on WFHB radio on Eugene V. Debs’ birthday during the Zinn Read-In at Purdue, Tea Party front men were spreading misinformation in Muncie, Indiana, which stopped a property tax referendum vote from passing, leaving public school children after this year without bus transportation to schools. One Tea Party
Educational Innovation, Bill Gates and Rocketship, Inc. Style
That was then,this is now, designed by Gates Foundation & Rocketship Education, Inc. (is that a Sputnik that I hear beeping??):Up close and depersonalized:From WaPo: As the quality of software improves, Danner thinks “Rocketeers” could spend as much as 50 percent of the school day with computers.
Part 2: Has Corporate Education "Reform" Earned Another 25 Years to Complete the Resegregation and Privatization Agendas?
As noted in Part 1 of our consideration of the 2013 NAEP results, the twenty years of NAEP testing prior to 1990 are not presented this year by Duncan's Little Shop of Horrors. To do so would serve as a reminder of how the dramatic narrowing of the achievement gaps between white and minority children came to a halt, essentially, in 1988, the same year that the resegregation of American schools bec
NOV 07
Has Corporate Education "Reform" Earned Another 25 Years to Complete the Resegregation and Privatization Agendas? Part I
With a series of conservative SCOTUS decisions beginning with the Nixon Court, and with a particular hostility by the Reaganites toward the equity and equality agenda that grew from the War on Poverty in 1960s, the resegregation of public schoolsOriginal chart by Orfield & Lee, 2006took hold in earnest in 1988, and it has continued unabated since then (click chart to enlarge). It is not
Gates, Bloomberg, and Corporate Welfare Are Losers in Colorado Vote
With support from major plutocrats who own the U. S. Department of Education and most state departments of education, the plan to turn Colorado’s PreK-12 urban schools into segregated corporate reform schools has gone down in flames with an overwhelming rejection by Colorado voters, 65-35. For a measure to aid education to be paid for with a tax increase, voters have to know that there is som
Union Leadership as Political Sleight of Hand
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is nearly stereotypical as a bully, so much so that if he weren't in a position of power, he would be a walking satire of himself.When he yelled at a female teacher recently, reasonable people across the U.S. responded with disgust, as Jersey Jazzman did:Some think this misogyny is part of Christie's "Jersey-style" charm. Let me tell you something: I was bo
Arne's approach to education in high-poverty situations
Sent to the Miami Herald, Nov 5.Arne Duncan's reaction to the high poverty (80%) and resulting (and well-documented) "deplorable conditions" in schools in Haiti was to recommend "clear data systems" in order to keep track of enrollment and student progress ("US Education secretary visits Haiti classrooms," Nov 5).Next he will recommend that fire departments invest in
NOV 06
Learning standards and real life.
Sent to the Baltimore Sun, Nov 6Arnold Packer is right: "The Common Core won't help the common man," (Nov. 5). As Packer points out, the math standards are skewed to the college path. So are the English Language Arts standards: Susan Ohanian has remarked that they seem to be made for English majors. John Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, spoke to this problem i
Opt Out of Testing Is Now a National Movement
A clip from The Nation: ". . . .As standardized testing has grown, so too has its shadow. In 2011, the United Opt Outmovement was established to counter the pro-testing mania sweeping the country. Its website provides opt-out guides for forty-nine states and the District of Columbia, and connects a burgeoning community of grumbling and disaffected parents.“I didn’t ask for high-stakes tes
An Overarching Accountability System Requires an Overarching Accountability System-Maker
Like his The Allure of Order, Jal Mehta’s“From Bureaucracy to Profession: Remaking the Educational Sector for the Twenty-First Century” provides an awesome and eclectic explanation of how to break out of the blame game and create a 21st century educational sector. “The political science concept of “path dependence” explains why the well-meaning efforts of accountability-driven reformers have faile
Exploiting Fear to Steer Education Policy: It's Not Just for K-12 Anymore
Posted at Alternet October 31, 2013 as "Public Threat, Private Gain: How Scare Tactics Steer Education Policy to Benefit Corporate Interests." For more than 100 years, K-12 education policy has been driven by fears of foreign domination. Now that ideology is taking over higher ed, and lining corporate coffers in the process.In the fall of 2006, a special commission appointed by the U
Vallas and CorpEd Lose in Bridgeport Election
The school board election in Bridgeport represents a clear referendum on the antiquarian loser reforms that have increasingly crippled public education over the past 30 years. Will state governments and the Feds take note? How sweet it is! From CTPost.com: BRIDGEPORT -- The city Board of Education slipped out of the hands of Mayor Bill Finch and Schools Superintendent Paul Vallason Tuesday, d
Now Posted Online: Doug Martin on Douglas Storm's WFHB Radio Show: Muckraking Education Politics
In case you missed it last night, here is the link to listen to Doug Martin and Douglas Storm discussing the corporate takeover of public schools last night on WFHB radio in Bloomington, Indiana: http://wfhb.org/news/interchange/interchange-doug-martin-muckraking-education-politcs/ This is from Storm's write-up on last night's show:Martin is a native Hoosier who has been investigating Indiana’s “
Duncan's Expensive Haiti Trip to Prop Up Paul Vallas's National Corporate Welfare Scheme
Some are wondering why Arne Duncan is taking eight members of his staff, along with translators and a security detachment to Haiti. Simple: Since 2010, long-time mentor and education reform loser, Paul Vallas, has been providing "expertise" in creating a national system of publicly funded schools in Haiti that will be privately run. And yes, to stay certified, schools must lock in to t
NOV 05
Doug Martin Interview Tonight at 6pm on WFHB in Bloomington, Indiana
Tonight, Doug Storm will interview Doug Martin on the hour-long community affairs interview/discussion program "Interchange" on WFHB, the community radio station in Bloomington, Indiana. The show, "Muckraking Education," will focus on the systemic fraud that has undermined the very idea of the public good. From the public conception of political office as representation to the
New York's 7 Million Dollar Teacher Observation Coaches
When Tennessee became the first state to implement a teacher evaluation system based on a Rube Goldberg designed observation rubric and invalid, unreliable, and unfair testing methodology, the State became a laughingstock. Now that same crackpot scheme has come to New York and most likely to a school near you, if your state or locality is accepting Race to the Top bribe money.A clip from DNAinfo
NOV 04
Anya Kamenetz. . . Pt. 2
See Pt. 1 here.When Anya Kamenetz is not doing exclusive interviews with Bill Gates or his pals in the Billionaire Boys Club, she spends a lot of her time picking the brains of people who have knowledge of subjects for which she knows nothing, e. g., education, educational history, educational theory. Anya then portrays those knowledgeable experts and university teachers that make up a big c
Rude and uninformed
Re: Chris Christie says story about teacher confrontation was misrepresented, Nov 4.American schools are not the "failure factories" Gov. Christie claims they are: The only serious problem with American education is the rate of child poverty, 23%, the second highest among industrialized countries. High poverty means poor nutrition, poor health care, lack of access to books, all of which
Jal Mehta Nails the Reasons Why School Reform Has Failed
The Allure of Order provides one of the best single explanations of how and why top-down school reform failed. Elites chose to “colonize” the disrespected teaching profession. Part of the solution, Mehta indicated, was transforming teaching into a real and respected profession.Mehta’s “From Bureaucracy to Profession: Remaking the Educational Sector for the Twenty-First Century” provides an equally
NOV 03
Can I bubble? Yes, I can!
This real kindergarten poster was sent fromTexas and posted by Shaun Johnson @thechalkface on Oct. 27:
Teacher Latest Victim of Nation's Largest Governor
See a pattern here?Governor Christie Responds To Teacher During Town Hall - YouTube► 9:13► 9:13www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkuTm-ON904Sep 8, 2010 - Uploaded by GovChristieGovernor Chris Christie responds to a teacher's question during a town hall meeting at Raritan Township ...Chris Christie Gets into Shouting Match at the Jersey Shore | TIME ...newsfeed.time.com/.../chris-christie-gets-into-shouting
NOV 02
Anya Kamenentz, Beautiful Shill for Corporate Higher Ed, Pt. 1
A drastic shortage of college educated workers is the latest fabricated educational crisis by the hedge fund swindlers from Wall Street and the corporate foundations. Here is the astonishing bullshit news as presented on the website from the diploma mill, College for America, which is the exploitative moneymaking scam for Southern New Hampshire University:In a city, a business opens a new plant.