ERIC BLANC: Oakland Teachers Are Striking Against Billionaire Privatizers #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED

Oakland Teachers Are Striking Against Billionaire Privatizers

Oakland Teachers Are Striking Against Billionaire Privatizers 
Oakland teachers are on strike today to defeat plans by the superrich to take over and dismantle their public schools.

The project of free market education reform is so widespread in America that many cities and states insist on claiming the title of “ground zero” of education privatization. Whether or not Oakland can claim that unfortunate title, it’s clear that the privatizershave made huge headway in the city: Oakland is now the city in California with the highest percentage of students in privately run charters, and the city’s school district is aiming to deepen its downsizing project by closing twenty-four of the city’s eighty-seven public schools.

Which makes the teachers’ strike that kicked off today in Oakland all the more crucial.

Stopping and reversing the privatization offensive will take mass collective action. It will also require understanding the billionaires and their political proxies who are behind these attacks on public education. Here’s a crash course on the powerful enemies of Oakland’s public schools.

The Rogers Family

Recently deceased, Gary Rogers was the CEO and owner of the multibillion-dollar ice cream company Dreyer’s. His Rogers Family foundation was and remains the largest financial contributor to GO Public Schools, a front group through which the ultrawealthy have funded the takeover and privatization of Oakland public education.

To ensure the election of pro-charter candidates to the school board in 2012, 2014, and 2016, Rogers teamed up with fellow billionaires including former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Walton Family, which founded Walmart, to spend millions dollars in campaign contributions. By all accounts, their investment has paid off. If the Rogers Foundation and GO get their way, well over 50 percent of Oakland schools will soon be charters.

The rich may be greedy, but they are not stupid. Rather than openly announce their hopes to bust unionsand make profits in the $600 billion industry that is public education, Rogers and his friends have funneled their money into GO, which claims to be an organization to improve schools for Oakland students and parents. Its website affirms that “quality education is the path to opportunity for our kids and can interrupt historical inequity and oppression. Student needs drive our work.”

The irony of such claims is that, in practice, the spread of charter schools has greatly exacerbated educational inequities.

In Oakland, and across the nation, charters systematically cherry pick certain students, while leaving high-needs children — with disabilities, traumatic family backgrounds, or a lack of proficiency in English — to regular public schools. As such, it’s not surprising that privatization has greatly increased racial resegregation in Oakland: 19.2 percent of charter students are African American, compared to 29.5 percent in district schools.

At the same time, charters drain over $57 million in funds from Oakland schools yearly. This is why Oakland Education Association president Keith Brown has said that “the privatization of education is a blatant attack on our black and brown students.”

Eli Broad

Ever since the state takeover of Oakland public schools in 2003, the district has been led by a revolving door of apparatchiks trained by Eli Broad, the fourth-richest person in the United States, worth over $7.4 billion.

Though Broad has no professional experience in education, this hasn’t stopped him from using his immense personal fortune to impose his vision upon Oakland schools. After making a killing in the home building and insurance industries, he founded the Broad Academy in 2002 to train a new generation of privatizing school leaders.

By 2012, the center was boasting that it had “filled more superintendent positions than any other national training program.” In Oakland, Broad graduates include superintendents Randolph Ward (2003–2006), Kimberly Statham (2006–2007), Vincent Matthews (2007–2009), and Antwan Wilson (2014–2017).

The Broad Foundation has also directly influenced decision-making in Oakland by granting $6 million for “staff development” and paying for the salaries of no less than ten top administrators. Under the tutelage of Broad trainees, the number of students in Oakland charters has skyrocketed upwards to 30 percent.

Part of the reason why Eli Broad has, until recently, largely avoided public vilification is that he’s a liberal — as well as a major funder of the Democratic Party establishment, including leading lights such as Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, and Chuck Schumer. “The unions no longer control the education agenda of the Democratic Party,” Broad bragged to the Wall Street Journal. The unspoken subtext: billionaires like him do.

His trainees have also smartly draped themselves in the veneer of corporate antiracism. Former Oakland superintendent, and Broad Academy graduate, Antwan Wilson thus framed his corporate reforms — which, among other things, wrecked the district’s budget — as a means to achieve social justice.

Behind this rhetoric, however, lies a neoliberal ideology that blames public services and individuals for  CONTINUE READING: Oakland Teachers Are Striking Against Billionaire Privatizers

L.A. Schools’ Superintendent Attempts a Coup – Carl J. Petersen – Medium #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

L.A. Schools’ Superintendent Attempts a Coup – Carl J. Petersen – Medium

L.A. Schools’ Superintendent Attempts a Coup

“The secrecy has got to stop.”

- LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson

In a clear case of insubordination, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Austin Beutner has ignored a request for copies of contracts that the District had signed for four months. On at least one occasion, Beutner publicly promised to turn over these “confidential contracts” to Board Member Scott Schmerelson but did not do so until last week. “The consultants’ work was not disclosed”.

To make matters worse, it appears that information about the contracts, which “total $3 million so far”, was selectively released to other Board Members. Schmerelson noted at yesterday’s Board meeting that he is “sure that certain offices receive more information than others”, which eliminates any notion that the information was somehow unavailable. The lack of disclosure was willful and a clear attempt to keep information away from an elected Board Member who is, by definition, Beutner’s boss. In the private sector, this would be a fireable offense. It should be no different in the public sector.

In discussing Schmerelson’s “Reimagining Open Government Based on Transparency, Accountability, and Oversight” resolution, no direct reason was given for lack of candor by the Superintendent. However, Board President Monica Garcia did complain in passing about the past handling of “sensitive CONTINUE READING: L.A. Schools’ Superintendent Attempts a Coup – Carl J. Petersen – Medium

Boiling Frogs & Building Brands: P&G’s Partnership With Strive – Wrench in the Gears

Boiling Frogs & Building Brands: P&G’s Partnership With Strive – Wrench in the Gears

Boiling Frogs & Building Brands: P&G’s Partnership With Strive

This is a follow up to my previous post about Strive Together’s plans for “cradle to career” collective impact. Pursuing this work is a curious experience. Most times I can’t tell what, if any, progress I’m making. Yet I continue to forge ahead and regularly stumble across guideposts that seem to affirm I’m doing the work I’m supposed to do. So, I sit back down at the kitchen table and keep going, as my friend Chris says, a Jeremiah warning of the coming Babylonians.

A recent sign for me had to do with Strive (and Knowledgeworks) being based in Cincinnati. It’s not a city most people think much about, but it holds a prominent place in my childhood memories. You see, my dad was a career executive at Procter and Gamble (P&G), which is headquartered there. His job, selling Folgers coffee, was our family’s ticket to a comfortable suburban life, far different from his own unstable childhood as the son of an often under-employed mason and cashier. It seems somehow fitting that I step up now to call this company out on its efforts to set up an infrastructure of cybernetic biocapitalism.

Strive worked closely with executives at P&G in setting up its “collective” impact roadmap as seen in the following excerpt from the report, “Putting Collective Impact in Context,” prepared for the Wallace Foundation by Teachers College, Columbia University in 2015. The cradle to career pipeline is being constructed with specific metrics that will underpin speculative investment markets in human capital. Everyone was given marching orders. Comply with the established metrics or you’re out of the club. CONTINUE READING: Boiling Frogs & Building Brands: P&G’s Partnership With Strive – Wrench in the Gears

I’m a Loser, Baby. So Why Don’t You Kill Me? | Teacher in a strange land

I’m a Loser, Baby. So Why Don’t You Kill Me? | Teacher in a strange land

I’m a Loser, Baby. So Why Don’t You Kill Me?

I decided right away, when Donald Trump Jr. made his inane remark about ‘loser teachers’ spreading socialism, that I wasn’t going to respond in any tangible way. A serious eye-roll perhaps, or a brief snort. I knew there would be reactions—memes, blogs and columns and snarky tweets, digital photo frames spelling out ‘LOSER’ in red —to wallow in. No need to add to the clutter of pointless, short-term outrage.

After all, the guy’s a moron. Crafting a snarky response for just another forgettable disgrace in the daily parade of verbal horrors would be too easy.

So I waited for the spate of blogs.  I’ve read a at least a dozen pieces written by earnest, irate teachers who work so hard, don’t get enough money or recognition, and are tired of this shit.

Of course, those teachers DO work so hard. Of course, they’re doing a good job, making a difference, changing lives 24/7 for $40K a year, barely able to feed their families and driving 14-year old Cavaliers. It’s outrageous that the President’s feckless son calls them ‘losers,’ for their effort to instill a little lukewarm democracy in their classrooms.

Then I read a piece on Education Week from a teacher blogger making the same case: We have a right, even a duty, to imbue our students with basic principles of citizenship CONTINUE READING: I’m a Loser, Baby. So Why Don’t You Kill Me? | Teacher in a strange land

West Virginia Teachers Went on Strike Again to Protest School Privatization. They Stayed on Strike to Send Their Lawmakers a Message - Teen Vogue

West Virginia Teachers Went on Strike Again to Protest School Privatization. They Stayed on Strike to Send Their Lawmakers a Message - Teen Vogue

West Virginia Teachers Went on Strike Again to Protest School Privatization. They Stayed on Strike to Send Their Lawmakers a Message
Most of the state’s public schools were shut down for a second day.

Teachers in West Virginia stayed on strike Wednesday, February 20, after a tense standoff with state lawmakers over education legislation. As reported by the Charleston Gazette-Mail, leaders from West Virginia’s major school-employee labor unions called for a strike starting February 19. On Tuesday, 54 of the state’s 55 school districts shut down as teachers walked out.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and Fred Albert, the president of AFT West Virginia, wrote in a statement that at issue was an education overhaul bill they say is a threat to public education funding.

“The state Senate is trying for a second time this year to ram through a so-called education bill that defunds public education, retaliates against teachers who stood up for their students last year, and appears to be driven by outside wealthy interests like Americans for Prosperity that, like Betsy DeVos, want to eliminate public schools,” wrote Albert and Weingarten in their statement. The reference to DeVos, President Donald Trump’s secretary of education, seeks to link the bill at play in West Virginia to the secretary’s controversial school-choice policies.

Striking educators have already filled the House gallery in West Virginia's capitol building, awaiting today's legislative discussion of the Republicans' bill introducing school privatization into the state. In the rotunda, thousands are chanting "Kill the bill! Kill the bill!" pic.twitter.com/0FRKzk2zMc

— Eric Blanc (@_ericblanc) February 19, 2019

Albert and Weingarten accused the state Senate of “ramming through a secret bill on a purely partisan vote,” a reference to a broad education bill that would allow allocating public funds for private education and allow the first-ever charter schools to open in West Virginia, according to the CONTINUE READING: West Virginia Teachers Went on Strike Again to Protest School Privatization. They Stayed on Strike to Send Their Lawmakers a Message - Teen Vogue

The Real Reason Betsy DeVos Tried to Fire Her Own Department’s Inspector General | janresseger

The Real Reason Betsy DeVos Tried to Fire Her Own Department’s Inspector General | janresseger

The Real Reason Betsy DeVos Tried to Fire Her Own Department’s Inspector General

Betsy DeVos is back in the news.  She recently tried to fire the U.S. Department of Education’s Acting Inspector General, Sandra Bruce, and replace her with Phil Rosenfelt, who has been serving as the Department of Education’s General Council. Democrats in Congress criticized the nomination of Rosenfelt because the Office of Inspector General in any federal department is supposed to be an objective watchdog—independent from the operation and policies of the department it oversees.

When Democrats raised concerns, DeVos backtracked and reinstated Sandra Bruce in her old job.

Early in February, the Washington Post’s Laura Meckler explained: “The White House backed down Friday from plans to install a longtime Education Department official as the agency’s acting inspector general following an outcry from congressional Democrats… President Trump had already signed papers designating Philip H. Rosenfelt, a career lawyer who works in the Education Department’s general-council office, as acting inspector general. The move was never officially announced, but Education Department leaders notified the inspector general’s office and lawmakers that it was official.” Congressional Democratic leaders had formally complained: “The conflicts or appearances of conflict are a result of Mr. Rosenfelt’s prior work in the Department’s Office of General Council, which has a role implementing virtually all programs that the inspector general investigates…”

Now, however, it turns out that DeVos’s motive for trying to fire Sandra Bruce was far more suspicious than just an attempt to hire someone who would protect the pet projects of the Department. It looks as though DeVos tried to fire Sandra Bruce because, as part of her job as Inspector General, Bruce was investigating DeVos’s reinstatement last November of Departmental approval for a shady accrediting agency of for-profit colleges, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). Late in 2015, The Obama Department of Education had removed approval of ACICS as a federal accreditor of for-profit colleges.

A brief review…

Why does federal accreditation of for-profit colleges matter?  For-profit colleges and trade CONTINUE READING: The Real Reason Betsy DeVos Tried to Fire Her Own Department’s Inspector General | janresseger

Good News, Arizona Teachers: No DNA Database for You | deutsch29

Good News, Arizona Teachers: No DNA Database for You | deutsch29

Good News, Arizona Teachers: No DNA Database for You

Betsy DeVos is back in the news.  She recently tried to fire the U.S. Department of Education’s Acting Inspector General, Sandra Bruce, and replace her with Phil Rosenfelt, who has been serving as the Department of Education’s General Council. Democrats in Congress criticized the nomination of Rosenfelt because the Office of Inspector General in any federal department is supposed to be an objective watchdog—independent from the operation and policies of the department it oversees.

When Democrats raised concerns, DeVos backtracked and reinstated Sandra Bruce in her old job.

Early in February, the Washington Post’s Laura Meckler explained: “The White House backed down Friday from plans to install a longtime Education Department official as the agency’s acting inspector general following an outcry from congressional Democrats… President Trump had already signed papers designating Philip H. Rosenfelt, a career lawyer who works in the Education Department’s general-council office, as acting inspector general. The move was never officially announced, but Education Department leaders notified the inspector general’s office and lawmakers that it was official.” Congressional Democratic leaders had formally complained: “The conflicts or appearances of conflict are a result of Mr. Rosenfelt’s prior work in the Department’s Office of General Council, which has a role implementing virtually all programs that the inspector general investigates…”

Now, however, it turns out that DeVos’s motive for trying to fire Sandra Bruce was far more suspicious than just an attempt to hire someone who would protect the pet projects of the Department. It looks as though DeVos tried to fire Sandra Bruce because, as part of her job as CONTINUE READING: Good News, Arizona Teachers: No DNA Database for You | deutsch29

Dallas Chamber of Commerce Disrupts Dallas Schools | tultican

Dallas Chamber of Commerce Disrupts Dallas Schools | tultican

Dallas Chamber of Commerce Disrupts Dallas Schools

By T. Ultican 2/20/2019

Since 2012, the business community in Dallas has aggressively asserted control over Dallas Independent School District (DISD). For the first time, running for one of the nine DISD school board positions is an expensive proposition. Besides wielding a political war-chest, prominent business leaders are supporting charter schools and advocating for increased hiring of untrained temp teachers from Teach for America (TFA). Money is also dedicated to advancing school vouchers. Democratic local control of public schools in Dallas faces serious threat.

A harbinger of this all out political attack by wealthy Dallas residents living in gated communities came just before the 2012 school board elections. Mike Miles was hired as Superintendent of Schools starting in July 2012. Miles came from a small school district in Colorado Springs, Colorado one year after training at the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy. The academy Billionaire Eli Broad founded to train education leaders in his philosophy of school governance.

The Edythe and Eli Broad Foundation has contributed $100’s of millionstowards privatizing public schools and they have a remarkable record for placing their trainees in market-reform friendly school districts.

One of the documents studied by Broad’s administration students is The Broad Academy School Closure Guide. Broad-trained administrators are famous for; closing public schools, hiring consultants, bad relations with teachers, large technology purchases and saddling school districts with debt. Oklahoma educator and historian, John Thompson, wrote a series of articles documenting the disruptive history of Broad Academy graduates (1, 2, and 3).

Among the first hires Miles made was communications Chief Jennifer Sprague. Dallas magazine noted,

“The 31-year-old had performed the same job for Miles in Colorado Springs, at Harrison School District Two, where she earned $86,652. He brought her to Dallas for $185,000.”

Besides hiring pricey cronies, Miles brought the billionaire spawned reform agenda to Dallas and created discontent throughout the DISD organization. In CONTINUE READING: Dallas Chamber of Commerce Disrupts Dallas Schools | tultican

Marie Corfield: The @StarLedger, #FakeNews & the #PARCC Propaganda Machine

Marie Corfield: The @StarLedger, #FakeNews & the #PARCC Propaganda Machine

The @StarLedger, #FakeNews & the #PARCC Propaganda Machine

Years before 'fake news' became a household word, New Jersey's largest newspaper, The Star Ledger started its very own propaganda machine to bash teachers and prop up PARCC testing.

With the flurry of PARCC testing bills posted in Trenton in the past couple of weeks, the state's largest newspaper and education 'reform' cheerleader has been shaking its pom-pons recently in favor of the deeply flawed test, tossing out wild claims with little evidence to back them up (all emphasis mine):

Phil Murphy has long strained to appease powerful critics of the PARCC, namely the teacher’s union, which prefers we let kids graduate without the kind of tests that hold teachers accountable. 

The idea that an invalid, poorly designed and un-vetted test can hold teachers "accountable" is simply illogical. The Ledger offers no evidence to support this far-fetched claim. Even the Christie administration wasn't so sure it would work because they kept changing the test's percentage of our evaluations seemingly at random.

But we need the PARCC because an A in Millburn is not the same as an A in Camden. We have to ensure that all kids succeed, not just those in affluent districts.

If the Ledger's only measure of success is the number of prestigious colleges and CONTINUE READING: Marie Corfield: The @StarLedger, #FakeNews & the #PARCC Propaganda Machine

Bernie Sanders is Running for President, and the Establishment Just Sh!t Its Pants! | gadflyonthewallblog

Bernie Sanders is Running for President, and the Establishment Just Sh!t Its Pants! | gadflyonthewallblog

Bernie Sanders is Running for President, and the Establishment Just Sh!t Its Pants!

You’ve heard of the shot heard round the world?

Well yesterday we had its fecal equivalent!

When Bernie Sanders said he was running for President for a second time, establishment hacks on the left and right had to make a run for the bathroom.

And after a single day of the Sanders campaign in which it raised almost $6 million of small donations from everyday folks, neoliberals and neofascists of every stripe are a little bit lighter this morning – a little less…. full.

Take our bullshitter in chief.

Donald Trump loves to squeeze out twitter storms in the early morning hours – presumably while sitting on his White House thrown.

This morning, he was moved to thumb out the following:

“Crazy Bernie has just entered the race. I wish him well!”

Like Hell you do, you arrogant xenophobic windbag!

Bernie is running for President – the best candidate situated to take you down.

He’s anti-establishment. A populist. And stands for the opposite of everything you’ve built your rocky neoconfederate administration on.

You wish him well! HA!

Trump is the most transparently fake candidate in CONTINUE READING: Bernie Sanders is Running for President, and the Establishment Just Sh!t Its Pants! | gadflyonthewallblog

Online Therapy in Schools? Privacy and Quality Concerns

Online Therapy in Schools? Privacy and Quality Concerns

Online Therapy in Schools? Privacy and Quality Concerns

Most of us are concerned when we hear of a credit card data breach in a store or company where we do business. Many parents are also troubled about academic and social-emotional behavioral online assessment data collected about their children in school.

But what about your child surrendering their personal and sensitive information in an outsourced, online, school therapy session?

Some public schools are using online mental health, occupational, physical, and speech therapy services. Teletherapy involves linking a distant clinician to a client for assessment, intervention, and/or consultation.

This raises all kinds of quality and privacy concerns.

• Who’s the clinician?
• Where did they go to school?
• Do they have an adequate degree?
• Where are they living?
• Do they have huge caseloads?
• How are they paid?
• Is it about school budget cuts?
• How is privacy addressed?
• Who sees the information?
• Where is the information stored?
• Will it follow the student forever?
• Who’s monitoring how online therapy is handled in school?

Here is the ad for eLuma who provide these services to schools across the country. Whether you are looking for Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy (OT), Physical  CONTINUE READING: Online Therapy in Schools? Privacy and Quality Concerns

Why Oakland teachers are striking: ‘Quite simply, you can’t feed the minds of our students by starving their schools.’ - #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED

Why Oakland teachers are striking: ‘Quite simply, you can’t feed the minds of our students by starving their schools.’ - The Washington Post

Why Oakland teachers are striking: ‘Quite simply, you can’t feed the minds of our students by starving their schools.’

It’s only February and we’ve already seen in this new year teachers in Los Angeles, Denver and West Virginia go on strike, extending a wave of labor actions by educators that started in February 2018.

Now, it’s Oakland’s turn.

Oakland teachers are going out on strike Thursday over largely the same issues that provoked the Los Angeles walkout: pay, large class size, too few nurses and counselors and other support staff, and the spread of charter schools where nearly 30 percent of the district’s students are now enrolled.

It was teachers in West Virginia a year ago who walked out because of low pay and inadequate access to quality health care, prompting a wave of strikes in mostly Republican-led states, including Oklahoma and Arizona, in what became known as the “Red For Ed” movement. And though California is Democratic, teachers are finding some of the same problems as in GOP-led states.

This year, though, the focus of the strikes in both red and blue states is expanding to include the impact on districts of charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated.

West Virginia teachers walked out this week to protest a bill that would have taken funds from traditional districts and used them for charters and programs that use public funds for private and religious school tuition. It was a push against what public education advocates say is a movement to privatize public education, which Los Angeles teachers had made their strike rallying cry as well.

[This time, it wasn’t about pay: West Virginia teachers go on strike over the privatization of public education (and they won’t be the last)This time, it wasn’t about pay: West Virginia teachers go on strike over the privatization of public education (and they won’t be the last)] CONTINUE READING: Why Oakland teachers are striking: ‘Quite simply, you can’t feed the minds of our students by starving their schools.’ - The Washington Post