NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs
from The Network for Public Education
Five U.S. innovations that helped Finland’s schools improve but that American reformers now ignore | The Washington Post
By Valerie Strauss Finnish educator and scholar Pasi Sahlberg is one of the world’s leading experts on school reform and educational practices. The author of the best-selling “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland?”and a former director general of Finland’s Center for International Mobility and Cooperation, Sahlberg is now a ...read more
Chris Christie to mayor: ‘I’m the decider and you have nothing to do with it’ – The Washington Post
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is consistent — at least when it comes to espousing total indifference to what Newark residents want for their state-operated public school system. Christie just bragged (see video below) that he told new Newark Mayor Ras Baraka that Baraka’s views on education reform don’t matter a whit — and ...read more
Nominee for New London, Connecticut, Superintendent Job Will Not Step Down | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Jon Lender of the Hartford Courant, who has broken story after story about sham practices in the state’s charter industry, describes the process of trying to verify the “doctorate” of Terrence Carter, the nominee for superintendent of the New London schools. The search firm hired by the school board seems to have conducted its research ...read more
HuffPost: How the Koch Brothers Are Bringing Their Ideas to High School Students | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The fabulously wealthy Koch brothers have developed a plan to teach their libertarian ideas to high school students. It is sort of like tobacco companies teaching students that smoking is good for you. They have used their vast resources to identify like-minded teachers, to train them and to supply course materials. Their program, called Young ...read more
Charter Schools USA Nets $2.9 Million Haul For Two Louisiana Schools | Scathing Purple Musings
Small wonder the wife of Charter Schools USA CEO Jonathan Hage was touting their test scores in an Orlando Sentinel opinion piece last month. Sherry Hage and her husband take in a lot of taxpayer money to run schools. Consider this story from Marsha Sills in The Advocate LAFAYETTE — Two new charter schools opening on opposite sides of ...read more
The Charter Sham Formula: Billionaires + Flawed “Reports” + Press Release Media = Misled Public | the becoming radical
Late in 2013, I shared my own experience with the disaster capitalism tactics employed by the Walton-funded Department of Education Reform (University of Arkansas), asking: For the Record: Should We Trust Advocates of “No Excuses”? I detailed reasons why the answer is clearly “No”: the funding determines the claims in the so-called reports (see Pulling a ...read more
Does Kindergarten-Ready Really Mean Common Core-Ready? | Critical Classrooms, Critical Kids
This is an embarrassing but necessary post for me to write. Writing helps me wade through the tangled – often muddy – weeds in my brain, and perhaps what I have to share will be useful to those participating in the early childhood education debate. For me, real personal growth comes with letting down my ...read more
State Seeks Carter’s Withdrawal As Incoming School Chief After Doubts About Use Of ‘Ph.D.’ | Courant.com
BY JON LENDER and KATHLEEN MEGAN NEW LONDON — The New London Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to postpone a decision on whether to go forward with the hiring of Terrence P. Carter as superintendent after meeting with the embattled educator behind closed doors. The vote came hours after the state Department of Education ...read more
Michelle Rhee’s High-Priced PR | Taking Note
In just one year[1] Michelle Rhee spent about $2 million to buy the public relations services of Anita Dunn [2] and SKDKnickerbocker. It’s a continuing relationship that goes back to early in Rhee’s Chancellorship in Washington, and it’s probably the best money Rhee has ever spent (especially because it was contributed by her supporters). Just ...read more
Louisiana Circus Continues! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed the agreement to adopt Common Core. But when Common Core turned toxic among conservative voters, Jindal declared he would pull his state out of Common Core and the federal test. State Commissioner of Education John White–who supports vouchers, charters, and Common Core– refused to go along. He and the Board ...read more
“No Excuses” in New Orleans | Jacobin
This is the first installment in our two-part series looking at charter schools in New Orleans and Detroit. The juxtaposition is no accident — these two cities have the highest percentage of charters in the country. In New Orleans, charters have almost entirely replaced traditional public schools; in Detroit, about half the schools are charters. Both cases ...read more
State Seeks Carter’s Withdrawal As Incoming School Chief After Doubts About Use Of ‘Ph.D.’ | Courant.com
BY JON LENDER and KATHLEEN MEGAN The state Department of Education asked Terrence P. Carter to withdraw from consideration Thursday as superintendent of schools for New London – after a week of damaging disclosures that he used the titles of Ph.D. and Dr. for at least five years without holding an accredited degree. “On behalf ...read more
Judges rule against letting public see LAUSD teachers’ performance | LA Times
The public has no right to know the names of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers in connection with their job performance ratings, according to a court ruling issued Wednesday. In denying a request for disclosure by The Times, a three-judge state appellate court panel found that keeping the names confidential served a stronger public ...read more
Feds Investigating Civil Rights Implications of School Closures in Newark | janresseger
If you are middle class or rich, you are not likely to discover that anybody is planning to punish your child’s school by closing it. School “reform” via “turnaround” happens in school districts like Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Newark, but it doesn’t happen in Winnetka, Grosse Pointe, Bryn Mawr, Chagrin Falls, or Montclair. That ...read more
New Coalition Urges Congress to Listen to Parents and Strengthen Student Privacy Protections | Seattle Education
A new coalition called the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy released a letter today to the leaders of the committees of the House and Senate Education Committees, urging Congress to strengthen FERPA and involve parents in the decision-making process to ensure that their children’s privacy is protected. Many of the groups and individuals in the ...read more
Teachers’ “Actual” Impacts on Tests: A Reality that Defies VAMs |
Drs. Gene Glass and David Berliner (both Regents’ Professors Emeriti from Arizona State University) recently published a book with 15 doctoral students titled the 50 Myths & Lies that Threaten America’s Public Schools (published by Teachers College Press). In one of its chapters, as it pertains to VAMs, they deconstruct the myth that “Teachers are ...read more
Indiana: State Takeover and Privatization of 5 Schools Is Not Working | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Under former State Superintendent Tony Bennett, five schools–four in Indianapolis and one in Gary–were taken over by the state and given to private operators. Students are leaving, there’s not enough money, and there is acrimony between the private operators and the schools. The new State Superintendent Glenda Ritz prefers improving schools rather than taking them ...read more
Educators who support Common Core call new tests ‘a travesty’ – The Washington Post
By Valerie Strauss Many parents and educators in New York are awaiting the release of results of controversial Common Core-aligned standardized tests that were given to students this past spring. Here is a letter that a principal and some of his teachers wrote to their state legislator expressing concerns about the exams. These concerns are ...read more
Will the Malloy administration force the New London Board of Education to hire “Dr.” Terrence Carter? | Wait What?
New London’s elected board of education will be meeting tonight, first behind closed doors, and then in a public meeting to decide whether or not to hire “Dr. Terrence Carter, the individual who has claimed that he had a Ph.D. for the last eight years when it turns out that the only “doctorate” he had ...read more
The Network for Public Education Does a Victory Dance | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Friends, when a small group of parents and educators formed the Network for Public Education in 2013, we had a singular goal: to mobilize the allies of public education against the powerful forces supporting privatization and high-stakes testing. To advance that goal, we hoped to create a force to counter the large amounts of money ...read more
Education “reform’s” new Ann Coulter: A reeling Michelle Rhee passes the lead to Campbell Brown | Salon.com
Exclusive: As Rhee’s efforts flounder, new links emerge between a group she founded and a new face, Campbell Brown JEFF BRYANT For years, Michelle Rhee, the former District of Columbia schools chancellor, has been upheld in the media as someone with the formula and fight required to “fix” public schools. Others – okay, yours truly ...read more
JUL 23
Russ on Reading: Student Advocacy and Tenure: A Philadelphia Story
I once had a superintendent of schools tell me, “Your loyalty should lie with the persons who sign your paycheck – the school board.” I disagreed then and I disagree now. Sure, as an employee of a school district I am sworn to carry out the policies and teach the curriculum that is approved by ...read more
Charter Schools: Do They Deserve Closer Scrutiny? Or Legitimacy? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Andy Smarick, a partner at Bellweather Associates, a senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a former deputy commissioner of education in New Jersey for Governor Christie, and a man with a long list of other affiliations with conservative groups and politicians, loves charter schools. he sees them as the wave of the future, ...read more
The Real “Low Expectations” Problem | the becoming radical
I have asked this about the U.S. Secretary of Education: Why Is Arne Duncan Still Pushing the Dangerous Myth of Low Expectations? And a large part of the answer may be because the uncritical mainstream media not only buy that message, but actively perpetuate it. For example, David Leonhardt beats that drum in Principals in U.S. ...read more
Deregulation of the Economy and of Education: Who Benefits? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This reader commented on a post called “Is the Charter Movement Imploding?” That post reviewed some recent egregious charter school scandals. He wrote: “One purpose of school privatization is to bring about “deregulation” of the education system. wherever and whenever deregulation has been permitted to proceed, the result, for public goods and services, has been ...read more
My Doctoral Thesis | CURMUDGUCATION
I’ve been following the problems of Dr. Terrence Carter in Connecticut with some interest. It seems that the Dr., “hand picked by Arne Duncan” might not have an actual PhD. Not even a super-easy PhD, but a PhD he just bought. Faked the whole thing. And he’s not remotely alone in this. How can somebody ...read more
Terrence Carter has some explaining to do. | Courant.com
Terrence P. Carter has some explaining to do. Mr. Carter, a Chicago educator hired to be New London’s new superintendent of schools, has been referring to himself as “doctor” for more than five years, years in which he has not held a doctorate from an accredited university, The Courant reported Friday. He is scheduled to ...read more
Groups blast CPS budget as ‘shortsighted,’ based on gimmicks | Chicago Sun Times
LAUREN FITZPATRICK On the eve of the approval of Chicago Public Schools’ $5.76 billion budget for 2015, two advocacy groups on Tuesday blasted the budget in their own analyses as unsustainable, shortsighted and based on a gimmick. Both the Civic Federation, which promotes responsible government spending, and Access Living, which advocates for the disabled, said ...read more
Breaking News! Valarie Wilson Wins Democratic Primary for Georgia State Superintendent | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Valarie Wilson won the runoff election to be the Democratic candidate for Georgia’s State Superintendent of Education. The Republican primary was too close to call. Valarie Wilson was endorsed by the Network for Public Education as a true friend of public schools. Her opponent, Alisha Thomas Morgan, was supported by the hedge fund group Democrats ...read more
What Exactly Does Campbell Brown Want? | Jersey Jazzman
It appears that Campbell Brown, in the wake of Michelle Rhee’s continuing descent into irrelevance, is going to be the new face of reforminess for the foreseeable future. Say what you will about Rhee, at least she taught for a couple of years; Brown forms her opinions about teachers, however, unencumbered by even that little ...read more
JUL 22
CPS plans to move Kenwood Academy program into closed school | Chicago Sun Times
LAUREN FITZPATRICK AND FRAN SPIELMAN Despite promises made by the Chicago Public Schools chief not to put schools into buildings shuttered for being underused, CPS plans to move Kenwood Academy’s special academic program into the vacant Canter Middle school building. The Canter building, 4959 S. Blackstone Ave., will house seventh- and eighth-graders from Kenwood’s Academic ...read more
Feds will investigate “One Newark” | Bob Braun’s Ledger
The deeply flawed state school reorganization plan known as “One Newark” faces a federal investigation. In response to a detailed request for a probe from Pulse New Jersey, a parent activist group founded by Johnny Lattner and Sharon Smith, the U.S. Department of Education will determine whether the plan–which has confused the lives of thousands of ...read more
How Does Your State Rank for Children’s Well-Being? | Alternet
The good news is that, in general, American kids are getting better educations and leading healthier lives. The bad news is that more and more children are living in poverty, and, depending on which state they are being raised in, not necessarily able to access those better educations and healthcare. The 25th edition of the Annie ...read more
John Thompson: Oklahoma’s Chief for Change Barresi in Trouble With Voters | Living in Dialogue
By Anthony Cody Guest post by John Thompson. When I attended last year’s Oklahoma Department of Education Vision 2020 annual conference, I put on a brave face, suggesting we were enduring the darkness before the dawn. We had just started enforcing the graduation law requiring high school students to pass four End of Instruction (EOI) tests, ...read more
Search warrants reveal details of FBI raid of Concept Schools | Early & Often
DAN MIHALOPOULOS The recent FBI raid at the Des Plaines headquarters of Concept Schools focused on many of the politically connected charter-school operator’s top administrators and companies with close ties to Concept, according to federal documents obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times. Authorities last month said FBI agents carried out raids at 19 Concept locations in ...read more
What Happens When a City’s Public Schools Vanish? | Alternet
By next fall, New Orleans will have only five public schools—those operated by the Orleans Parish School Board. Everything else will be charters. The post-Katrina path to almost 100 percent charter education began with the post-storm shutdown of the city’s struggling public schools and the firing (recently declared illegal) of some 7,500 unionized teachers and ...read more
Hartford charter school investigation: More Subpoenas In Hartford Charter School Probe – Courant.com
By EDMUND H. MAHONY and JON LENDER HARTFORD — City and state educators said Monday that they had been served with subpoenas by a federal grand jury examining the expenditure of millions of dollars in public money by the troubled charter school management company FUSE. The subpoenas were issued Friday to the Hartford Public Schools ...read more
On Charter Schools, Say This, Not That | EduShyster
A new guide to charter messaging urges advocates to steer clear of corporate speak Once every four minutes, a passionate charter advocate accidentally lapses into the kind of clinical corporate speak that can leave listeners cold—not to mention kids out of the equation. Would that there were a way to remedy this problem once and ...read more
Ira Shor: Why You Should Opt Out Your Children from State Testing | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Ira Shor is a professor at the Coty University of New York, where he teaches composition and rhetoric. Shor understands that standardized testing is the foundation on which the entire “reform” project rests. Take away the test scores, and the data-driven teacher evaluation collapses, along with the ambitious plans for privatization. Shor writes: “Opt-Out: The ...read more
JUL 21
Rocketship Slows Down | EdSurge News
In the winter of 2013, Rocketship Education had aggressive plans for growth. The eight-year-old charter management organization (CMO), hailed by many as a blended learning pioneer, had taken steps to grow from nine schools in two states (California and Wisconsin) to over 50 schools across seven new cities within four years. In addition, the organization ...read more
South Carolina: State Vouchers Allow Profits at Expense of Public Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog
There is more than one way to harm public education. Several states have passed legislation to allow tax credits for scholarships to private and religious schools. This reduces the money available to support public schools. But it gets better! In South Carolina, smart investors can actually make a profit by making gifts to the tax ...read more
Rhee’s StudentsFirst Pulls Out of More States | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Last week, I reported that StudentsFirst had departed from Minnesota and Florida. I assumed the pickings were slim in the former, and the “reform” camp had saturated the state of Florida. Well, there is more to the story, as I learned when I discovered a week-old politico.com in my spam box. StudentsFirst has also pulled ...read more
Why college remediation needs to be overhauled | The Washington Post
By Valerie Strauss High school graduates throw their hats in the air in 2012. (AP Photo/The Sentinel, Dennis R.J. Geppert) Award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York has written here and here about how college remediation rates are often hyped. In in the following post she expands her examination by ...read more
The Billionaire Boys: Reinvesting A Small Percent of the Spoils of Capitalism | janresseger
Posted on July 21, 2014 by janresseger The political philosopher Benjamin Barber may be a little theoretical for the general reader, but he really gets what’s happening these days: “We can be glad Carnegie built libraries, glad that the Gateses are battling AIDS, but inequality will not end because billionaires give back some of ...read more
This is educational ‘innovation’? | The Washington Post
By Valerie Strauss The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, which brings the world the international testing program of 15-year old students known as PISA, just issued a new report called “Measuring Innovation in Education: A New Perspective, Educational Research and Innovation.” Yes, the OECD is measuring innovation in education. There are, of course, innovation ...read more
JUL 20
NYC Public Advocate Letitia James Chastises Commissioner John King | Diane Ravitch’s blog
New York City’s Public Advocate Letitia James wrote the following letter to John King but has received no answer. King believes that children must be tested as a matter of civil rights. James, who is also African American, does not agree. What do you think? PUBLIC ADVOCATE FOR THE CITY OF NEW YORK Letitia James ...read more
Texas Hangin’ its Hat on its New VAM System | VAMboozled
A fellow blogger, James Hamric and author of Hammy’s Education Reform Blog, emailed a few weeks ago connecting me with a recent post he wrote about teacher evaluations in Texas, titling them and his blog post “The good, the bad and the ridiculous.” It seems that the Texas Education Agency (TEA), which serves a similar ...read more
New York Now Leads the Way in the Movement Against Common Core- At The Polls | With A Brooklyn Accent
Something truly extraordinary has happened in the New York State Gubernatorial race-something with broad national implications. A big money Democratic Governor, Andrew Cuomo, who thought he was going to make himself a front runner in the 2016 Presidential Race by ramming through legislation requiring teacher evaluations based on Common Core aligned tests, has generated so ...read more
Opposition to Testing Continues to Accelerate | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The regular report from Bob Schaeffer of Fairtest: The accelerating testing resistance and reform movement is beginning to produce modest victories across the country. Reflecting constituent pressure, more politicians are speaking out against over-testing. A few have established commissions to investigate the problem (and solutions). Several state legislatures have voted to cut back the number ...
Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Among Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Here is the latest federal government report on fraud, waste, and abuse in the charter sector. It was released in May 2014 by the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education. The most common type of fraud identified was embezzlement. CHARTER SCHOOL VULNERABILITIES TO WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE With the increase in funding that ...read more
White Suburban Dads—Even Worse than Moms? | EduShyster
If you could ask Arne Duncan just one question, what would it be? By Patrick Hayes If you could ask Arne Duncan just one question, what would it be? That’s the dilemma I faced when I heard that my district would be hosting a live Q & A with Big Dunk.There was the obvious choice: ...read more
JUL 19
Koch Brothers Plan School Choice Forum in Nashville | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A group funded by the notorious conservative Koch brothers will host a school choice forum in Nashville on July 22. Here are their panelists: “Moderating the talk will be Shaka Mitchell, who works for Rocketship Education, a California-based charter school organization with an East Nashville location set to open this summer. A second Rocketship school ...read more
Mom: My kindergartner was ‘work-sheeted to death’ | The Washington Post
By Valerie Strauss July 19 at 10:16 AM This year I have posted a number of pieces (here, here, here and here, for example) about the travesty that is now kindergarten in many public schools. Today, under this school reform in which standardized-test scores are the chief metric for “accountability” of students, schools, teachers, etc., ...read more
Zephyr Teachout blasts New York’s and Cuomo’s support of Common Core | lohud.com
Zephyr Teachout The Fordham law professor who is challenging Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic ticket outlines her concerns about Common Core, and education plan for New York. In 2008 Microsoft founder Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men, decided that he should take charge of education policy. He promoted a single set of ...read more
Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst Targets Alabama | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Michelle Rhee is determined to see that every legislature is taken over by hard-right Republicans who support her campaign against teachers and public schools. One of her current targets is Alabama. Here is where she is sending money. All but one of those listed below are Republicans, except Patrick Sellers, who challenge a Democratic incumbent ...read more
Why Poor Schools Can’t Succeed on Standardized Tests | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Meredith Broussard, a professor of data journalism at Temple University, was helping her son with his homework, and she made a discovery: he could not find “the right answer” to homework questions unless they were in the textbook. But on further investigation, she learned that the public schools of Philadelphia don’t have a textbook budget. ...read more