Idaho: Boise Superintendent Stands Up to the Privatizing Albertson Foundation | Diane Ravitch's blog

Idaho: Boise Superintendent Stands Up to the Privatizing Albertson Foundation | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Idaho: Boise Superintendent Stands Up to the Privatizing Albertson Foundation

Dr. Don Coberly, the superintendent of the Boise, Idaho, school district,wrote a blunt letter to the district’s staff telling them not to believe the smears disseminated by the rich and powerful Albertson Foundation. This would be like the superintendent of Los Angeles telling Eli Broad to take his money and go away. Or the superintendent of any district turning down a bribe from the Gates Foundation to open more charters.

For his courage, I add Don Coberly to the blog’s honor roll.

The Albertson Foundation has been pushing charters and virtual charters. It doesn’t like public education. It is running an anti-public school campaign called “Don’t Fail Idaho.” It is about time that an educator with guts started a campaign calling out the Albertson Foundation for their anti-public school propaganda. Call it the “Albertson Foundation Fails Democracy” campaign.

Superintendent Coberly wrote:
Dear Boise School District staff member:

It’s been a while since we have communicated directly with you in an update. We wanted to take this opportunity to address an important issue.

Over the last few weeks you may have heard or seen the latest advertisements from the J.A and Kathryn Albertson Foundation’s “Don’t Fail Idaho” campaign. Perhaps the most controversial claim is that four out of five Idaho students are not prepared for life after high school. There are four facts we want you to understand about this campaign:
It promotes an agenda that is designed to undermine public schools.
It is highly inaccurate.
It offers no real solutions to increasing post-secondary readiness.
It is a disservice to the work you do every day for the youth of this district.
Undermining public schools

Why would someone want to undermine public education in Idaho? The motive is quite clear. At a recent Downtown Rotary Club meeting, the executive director of the Albertson Foundation stated that the goal of the Foundation is to increase charter school seats by 20,000 in the next few years. That will only happen if Idahoans lose faith in their public schools.

Predicting college success

Now let’s set the record straight. The data in question have been spun to create the illusion that 80% of Idaho’s high school graduates are not prepared for college. The source of the data is the 2015 SAT test, administered to juniors in Idaho’s high schools last April. The criteria used by the Foundation? A score of 500 on each of the 3 sections of the test, and an overall score of 1550, adopted by the Idaho Board of Education as an indicator of college success.

The creator of the SAT indicated that achieving this score provides a Idaho: Boise Superintendent Stands Up to the Privatizing Albertson Foundation | Diane Ravitch's blog: