Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 'School killer' Rahm still on the hunt

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 'School killer' Rahm still on the hunt:

'School killer' Rahm still on the hunt

Rahm's latest scheme calls for the closing of at least 7 more high schools in Chicago's black community. I know, I know -- he promised the community a moratorium on school closings after blighting the neighborhoods with his 50-school closings four years ago. But now he's promising the Englewood neighborhood a brand new, consolidated $76M large, shiny new high school to mollify the expected opposition.

The mayor's using the same old "underutilization" argument to board up more south-side schools. And it's true that there are about 15 predominantly African-American high schools in the city with enrollments of under 250 students. But there's several things missing from discussion of the consolidation plan (assuming that the decision hasn't already been made and the discussion isn't just for show).

1. Why is enrollment dropping? The obvious answer has more to do with the whitenizing of the city, including the push-out of more than a quarter-million African-Americans over the past few decades, than anything about the schools themselves. It's about neighborhood gentrification and switching neighborhood populations. Disinvestment, loss of jobs, combined with the closing of schools, businesses and community social-services have left these neighborhoods blighted and dangerous. The Chicago Reporter attributes the enrollment declines and eventual school closings to "a legacy of disinvestment and segregation".
2. What's the downside to more mass high school closings? Past closings, done despite massive community opposition, haven't saved the city or the school system much, if any money. After a previous round of closings, internal documents leaked to the press showed how school administrators failed to inform the public of associated transition costs for closing and consolidating a proposed 95 public schools. The cost of maintaining the buildings and problems of reuse often led to even greater debt for the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 'School killer' Rahm still on the hunt:

State commission makes no recommendation on L.A. charter schools’ future - LA Times

State commission makes no recommendation on L.A. charter schools’ future - LA Times:

State commission makes no recommendation on L.A. charter schools’ future

The fate of two Los Angeles charter schools remained an open question Wednesday, after a state commission declined to make a recommendation on whether they should remain open or close this summer.

The move comes amid a federal investigation of the charter network that operates the schools — the Celerity Educational Group. In January, Department of Homeland Security and FBI agents, among others, raided Celerity’s offices as well as the headquarters of a related nonprofit, Celerity Global Development, and the home of its founder, Vielka McFarlane.

No one at the schools has been charged with a crime. But for the last six months, questions about their governance and financial management have threatened the schools’ survival.

Opened nearly a decade ago, Celerity Dyad Charter School in South L.A. and Celerity Troika Charter School in northeast L.A. have test scores high enough to meet the state’s bar for renewal. In fact, the state Board of Education previously was so impressed with the Celerity schools’ performance on standardized tests that in November it voted to allow the charter network to open two more schools.

What’s changed since then?

The board knew in November that the L.A. Unified School District’s inspector general was investigating allegations of financial mismanagement by the Celerity network. But news of the federal inquiry has brought a new level of scrutiny.

Records obtained by The Times show years of questionable spending and potential conflicts of interest by Celerity at a time when former teachers said the schools lacked basic supplies and often leaned on students to raise funds.

The California Department of Education’s charter schools division chose to forgo making a recommendation on Dyad and Troika, a move its director said was unusual. Asked why, staffers said they had too many unanswered questions about potential conflicts of interest and newfound concern that Celerity’s schools might be paying “excessive” management fees.

The state Advisory Commission on Charter Schools — which exists to review charter school petitions and make recommendations to the state Board of Education — also threw up its hands Wednesday.

“I don't want to shut down a school that’s performing well for kids, but the evasiveness and foot dragging … is a huge concern,” said Caitlin O'Halloran, a member of the advisory State commission makes no recommendation on L.A. charter schools’ future - LA Times:

Big Education Apes can tell when humans are wrong

Apes can tell when humans are wrong:

Apes can tell when humans are wrong

Great apes, including chimpanzees, orangutans and bonobos, might be able to tell when humans are wrong, according to researchers. In a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers revealed experiments in which great apes helped humans when witnessed them making an incorrect decision.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany tested 34 apes to see whether they would be able to accurately determine when a person was wrong. As the apes looked on, researchers had a person place an object in one of two boxes before leaving the room. A second person would then enter the room and switch the location of the object. When the first person returned to look for the object in its original place, the apes were able to assist the humans in finding the object.

Read: Chimpanzee Seen Performing Funeral Rites On Adopted Son

“This study shows for the first time that great apes can use an understanding of false beliefs to help others appropriately,” said David Buttelmann, the lead author of the study.

A chimpanzee looks on its in enclosure near Malaga, Spain, Feb. 8, 2017. Photo: Reuters

Previous studies led researchers to believe that great apes did not have this capacity for understanding the intent of humans. The study cautioned that additional research is necessary to further investigate the ability to discern false beliefs.

“Apes are able to use this understanding in their social interactions,” the study said. “If supported by further research, the apparent difference between great ape and human social cognition would thus lie not in their basic capacity to ‘read’ other minds, but elsewhere.”

Other recent research has shown similarities between humans and great apes. In March, scientists revealed that they may have observed for the first time ever a chimpanzee performing funeral rites. A chimpanzee named Noel housed at a wildlife refuge in Zambia was seen using a blade of grass to clean the body of her adopted son after his death.

“To date, this behavior has never been reported in chimpanzees or any other non-animal human species,” said Dr. Edwin van Leeuwen, a research fellow at the University of St. Andrews and the lead author of the study. “Chimpanzees may form long-lasting social bonds and, like humans, may handle corpses in a socially meaningful way.”Apes can tell when humans are wrong:

Understanding the Privatization State Report Card Ratings - Network For Public Education

Understanding the Privatization State Report Card Ratings - Network For Public Education:

Understanding the Privatization State Report Card Ratings

The Privatization State Report Card is a rating system designed to let the public know what privatization programs exist in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is a simple system. We rated each state on whether or not it allows the following:

Charter Schools: Charter schools are privately owned and managed schools that are funded by the taxpayers. Some are directly funded by the state. Others receive “tuition” from the student’s home district in an amount similar to the district per pupil spending. The color red (1 point) means that the state has charter schools.

Charter Authority Outside District: Some states permit only school districts to authorize charters. It is the district that identifies the need for the charter and supervises and monitors it.

Other states grant authority outside of the district thus allowing district decisions to be overturned by a State or other governmental board. Some states allow other authorizers to grant and supervise charters anywhere in the state. The color red (1 point) means that charters can be authorized and managed outside of the district.

Virtual Charter Schools are charter schools in which all or nearly all of the instruction is provided through the internet, and pupils and teachers are geographically remote from each other. The color red (1 point) means that virtual charter schools are allowed to provide instruction, grant credit and issue diplomas in the state.

Vouchers are payments made to private schools to finance all or part of a K-12 student’s education. The color red (1 point) means that the state issues vouchers.

Tax Credit Subsidies for Private Schools exist when the state allows taxpayers to pay into a fund specifically designed to issue money to a private school in order to reduce or eliminate a student’s tuition. That donation becomes a credit that reduces the state taxes paid by the donor. The fund is privately or publicly managed for a fee. Tax Credits are a way to avoid breaking state laws regarding taxpayer contributions to religious schools. The color red (1 point) means that the state has one or more tax credit programs. Tax credits are voucher system in disguise.

ESA Voucher Programs: ESAs go by a variety of names including Education Savings Accounts, Educational Opportunity Scholarships, Gardiner Scholarship Programs and others. They are another form of voucher. Money is placed into a savings account or on a debit card for parents to spend on approved educational activities or settings, as long as the parent agrees to withdraw her child from the public school. Money can be spent on homeschooling costs, virtual schools, private schools or educational materials. The color red (1 point) means that the state has an ESA program.

Grades:

0 points	A
1 point	B
2 points	C
3 points	D
4 – 6 points	F

Learn more about all of the above and how privatization undermines our neighborhood public schools by reading our toolkit: School Privatization Explained.

Understanding the Privatization State Report Card Ratings - Network For Public Education:

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Chicago has made the flip to declaring what students owe the state – Missouri Education Watchdog

Chicago has made the flip to declaring what students owe the state – Missouri Education Watchdog:

Chicago has made the flip to declaring what students owe the state

Thank goodness this isn’t in Missouri, but we have a history of following the other lemmings so let’s rightly denounce the nonsense coming from our neighbor to the east. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed a new policy wherein CPSD students, having completed the academic requirements for a high school degree, will not receive a diploma if they do not submit a post-high school plan before graduation. Under this “brilliant” policy, high school seniors would have to show “an acceptance letter to a four-year university, a community college, a trade school or apprenticeship, an internship, or a branch of the armed services in order to receive their high school diploma.”

The Illinois Constitution Article X says only this about the state’s view of education. “A fundamental goal of the People of the State is the educational development of all persons to the limits of their capacities. The State shall provide for an efficient system of high quality public educational institutions and services. Education in public schools through the secondary level shall be free.” There is no quid pro quo of what the People owe to the state in exchange for this free education… until now. Now students owe the state proof that they have some place to be after graduation.

The policy is justified by this absurd bit of pablum. “The school system of K through 12 is not applicable to the world and the economy and the world that our high school students are graduating to. So we’re moving to a pre-K to college model,” said Mayor Emanuel. A system you are required to submit to by law, where you must wait your turn, submit your work by deadlines, read, write, do calculations, be respectful of others, take tests, don’t cheat, and succeed or fail through a combination of natural talents and hard work is not representative of the real world? Has he been in a school lately? What does he think they do in there? Practice drinking upside down and rating Nick at Night tv shows?

They’re moving to a pre-K to college model? Illinois has had early learning programs for more than two decades. Their early Learning Council was established in 2003, when Rahm was in Congress. Prior to that they participated in the federal Head Start program. At the other end of the spectrum Illinois, along with everyone else, adopted Common Core, which was all about making students college ready, conservatively four years ago, realistically eight years ago. The mayor needs to do a little more research before declaring that he is moving the city in a new direction to solve its education problem.

The state has been moving to send more kids to college for many years and apparently now it’s the children’s turn to demonstrate to the state that their goal has been achieved.

If you really want more kids to go to college Mr. Mayor why don’t you do something about the cost of attending Illinois Chicago has made the flip to declaring what students owe the state – Missouri Education Watchdog:

Connecticut will no longer use SBAC and SAT as part of teacher performance evaluations. - Wait What?

Connecticut will no longer use SBAC and SAT as part of teacher performance evaluations. - Wait What?:

Connecticut will no longer use SBAC and SAT as part of teacher performance evaluations

As the CT Mirror reports,

The state Board of Education voted late Wednesday afternoon to adopt new usage standards for state mastery test data, explicitly prohibiting the use of those test scores in evaluating teacher performance.

[…]

State education board Chairman Allan B. Taylor and Education Commissioner Dianna Wentzell both praised the board’s approval of the plan as an important clarification of the role state tests should play: a goal-setting tool for teachers, not part of a formula for rating an individual teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom.

While state mastery tests – which include the Smarter Balanced assessments, SAT, CMT and CAPT science – are no longer an option, school districts are still required to measure teachers in part on their students’ testing success, which makes up 22.5 percent of the teacher evaluation rating. Now, school districts will have to choose from a number of non-state exams to evaluate teachers in that category.

In a written response, the Connecticut Education Association posted;

This is a big victory for students, teachers, and public education,” said CEA President Sheila Cohen. “The voices and expertise of teachers were heard and addressed by policymakers who did the right thing by putting the focus back where it belongs: on teaching, learning, and student 

Connecticut will no longer use SBAC and SAT as part of teacher performance evaluations. - Wait What?:

Crony Capitalism – Have You Heard

Crony Capitalism – Have You Heard:

Crony Capitalism

Deregulation in education has led to cronyism, corruption and conflicts of interest. Dr. Preston Green sees a familiar pattern and a cautionary tale…

Jennifer Berkshire: Our Secretary of Education is visiting a Florida charter school that is best known for being started by rap-u-preneur, Pitbull. But a lesser known true fact is that the school’s powerful and politically connected management company, Academica, ran afoul of the feds for a little something something called *related-party transactions.* What is a related-party transaction? And why do I have the feeling that Betsy DeVos didn’t drop by to, um, continue the investigation

Preston Green: Related-party transactions occur when you have two entities that have a pre-existing relationship. For example, if two entities have common management, or in the charter sector context, you could have an EMO that also has a real estate arm, which then leases property back to the charter school at a greatly inflated rate. In the case of Academica, which is the management company that runs the school Secretary DeVos visited, it’s *all of the above.* You see different entities sharing the same board of directors, conflicts of interest and questionable real estate dealings, including charter schools paying rents that are well above the market rate to companies that Academica owns.    

Berkshire: Betsy DeVos is a huge fan of charter schools because they remove the shackles of oversight and regulation that have kept our teachers in receive mode for too long and caused the nation’s students to descend to the bottom of the PISA pile. But as you’ve been warning, *shackle removal* in other sectors has led to, oh I don’t know, the subprime mortgage crisis and Enron.  

Green: That’s right. My recent research has involved looking at privatization in other contexts, and trying to determine whether the issues and problems you see in these other contexts could impact charter schools. I explored the issue of whether a charter school *bubble* is emerging, akin to what we saw in the lead up to the housing crisis. My most recent paper, with co-authors Bruce Baker and Joseph Oluwole, looks at similarities between what’s happening with charter schools today and what happened in the energy sector. Charter schools were to be freed from the shackles of rules that applied to public schools and those rules were regulations. The thinking was that by removing those regulations, the industry Crony Capitalism – Have You Heard:

Trump and Rahm double team Chicago schools and public education. | Fred Klonsky

Trump and Rahm double team Chicago schools and public education. | Fred Klonsky:

Trump and Rahm double team Chicago schools and public education.

I’m back from our trip to Memphis where we spent Tuesday honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King and joining with young southern Black Lives Matter activists, college students, those fighting for $15 and religious leaders like Reverend William Barber in reminding folks that The Movement is now and not a video display in a museum.

Driving the nine hours back north to Chicago I read that Trump had met with business leaders and attacked Chicago again. And New York. And Los Angeles.

This time for the state of our public schools.

Easy target, Donald. Just like Chicago’s violence.

He even attacked Common Core. It s almost enough to make me support Common Core.

Never mind.

I once heard Reverend Barber say about Trump that people get all upset when he talks about poverty and poor people. We go, “Oh, don’t talk about poor people because it helps Trump.” But, said Rev. Barber,  we have to talk about the intersection of race and poverty.

I get it that Trump going after Chicago, New York and L.A. schools is a carefully crafted racist message – we know who lives in our cities, who we are and who our neighbors are – and that it is part and parcel of the DeVos DOE plans to privatize public education.

The Mayor may be outraged. Yet our Mayor’s outrage over Trump’s attack on public education is as real as an episode of Chicago Med.

And coming from the Public-School-Closer-in-Chief, it reeks of hypocrisy.

Almost at the same moment as Rahm was feigning outrage at Trump, he was talking about closing more Chicago high schools and announcing the most stupid plan for Chicago high school graduation requirements.

Emanuel’s proposal would add one more big item to the graduation checklist for high school seniors: proof they’ve been accepted into college or the military, or a trade or a “gap-year” program. The requirement would also be satisfied if the student has a job or a job offer.

Ah, yes. A job offer.

The share of 20- to 24-year-old black men who were neither working nor in school declined modestly between 2014 and 2015, from a dismal 47 percent to a still-dismal 43 percent, according to a report set to be Trump and Rahm double team Chicago schools and public education. | Fred Klonsky:

Choice Advocates Not Only Want More Money for Vouchers, They Want It with No Strings Attached - Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

Choice Advocates Not Only Want More Money for Vouchers, They Want It with No Strings Attached

Ever since the Betsy DeVos was nominated as Secretary of Education, school choice advocates have been salivating over the possibility that the privatization of education would enter a new expansive era.  Last week, the USA Today interviewed some of the nation's leading advocates of school choice and vouchers who are raising new concerns.  Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute  and Richard Hess of the American Enterprise Institute warn there is a downside to this expansion: the federal government will begin to regulate private schools more.  Hess remarked "when you get a Democratic administration, an Elizabeth Warren administration, and they decide that eligible schools ... need to have anti-bullying programs and other accommodations? We will very quickly wind up and wonder, ‘What were we thinking?’”  Petrilli said many private schools would forgo the funding if they have to abide by these types of regulations.  “They just won’t participate,” he said. “And then what’s the point? You don’t have a program.”

Is this a sign of an evolving school voucher position that not only should the public fund private education, it should fund it with no strings attached?  

That choice advocates could take such a position shows just how far the ground has shifted in a few short months.  This position is incredible on any number of levels.  

First, it assumes an entitlement to public funding for private choice.  The problem is that there is no such entitlement.  If the federal or state government is giving money to private schools or facilitating private choice, it goes without saying that it has the right to regulate that money.  In fact, conditioning federal money is the real reason for giving out federal money to begin with.  The federal government knows that its ability to regulate state and private actors is relatively small.  Thus, it achieves its policy objectives by exchanging money for conditions.  We do this in everything from health care to education.  

Second, state and federal government has funded public education for the past century and a half because it is Education Law Prof Blog:

The Will of the People Doesn’t Seem to Be with Trump and DeVos on School Privatization | janresseger

The Will of the People Doesn’t Seem to Be with Trump and DeVos on School Privatization | janresseger:

The Will of the People Doesn’t Seem to Be with Trump and DeVos on School Privatization

On Tuesday, Tony Evers was elected by Wisconsin voters to his third term as state superintendent of schools, and he wasn’t merely re-elected.  It was a tsunami.  Evers carried 70 percent of the vote and his opponent, Lowell Holtz, only 30 percent.

Why is Tony Evers’ re-election as Wisconsin state superintendent of schools so remarkable?  Well… Wisconsin is one of 25 super-majority Republican, trifecta states: Governor Scott Walker is an outspoken, far-right Republican, and both houses of the legislature boast huge Republican majorities. Wisconsin is the home of the nation’s oldest school voucher program in Milwaukee, then Racine, and, in 2013, expanded statewide.  It is the state where, back in 2011, Governor Scott Walker and his legislature severely limited collective bargaining for public employees including teachers. It is a state whose legislature is now also considering an ALEC-designed plan for Education Savings Accounts—yet another kind of school vouchers. It is the state where Governor Walker tried to re-write the mission statement of its flagship university to emphasize job training and delete this clause: “Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.”  And it is the home of Reince Priebus.

So what happened in Tuesday’s  election for state schools superintendent? Here is Scott Bauer of the Associated Press explaining the election of Evers over his opponent, Lowell Holtz: “The win keeps Evers in place as the only Democratic-backed statewide official in a meaningful office. Even though the race is officially nonpartisan, Evers had strong support from Democrats along with state and national teachers’ unions who favored his positions in support of increased funding for public schools and opposition to private school vouchers… Evers and Holtz disagreed on almost every major issue that’s come up in the campaign. Evers opposes expanding the private school choice program and supports Common Core academic standards, increasing funding for public schools and addressing teacher shortages across the state… Both candidates supported Walker’s budget sending $650 million more to schools. But they disagreed on Walker’s requirement that the bulk of that money be tied to schools that require employees to pay at least 12 percent of their health care costs. Evers opposes the provision, while Holtz backs it.”

Unlike our national education secretary, Betsy DeVos, both Wisconsin candidates brought some experience working in public schools, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “A Plymouth native, Evers, 65, worked as a teacher and principal before joining the Department of Public Instruction. Holtz, 59, worked as a parochial school teacher, police officer and The Will of the People Doesn’t Seem to Be with Trump and DeVos on School Privatization | janresseger:

The Schools Betsy DeVos Wants Parents To Choose

The Schools Betsy DeVos Wants Parents To Choose:

The Schools Betsy DeVos Wants Parents To Choose

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos finally found a public school she could visit where there wouldn’t be protests. It’s on a military base, safely inside the compound of Ft. Bragg in North Carolina.

As a local news outlet reports, DeVos used her appearance at Kimberly Hampton Primary, a school operated by the Department of Defense and funded by the federal government, to make her usual pitch for “school choice,” in this case, in the form of vouchers parents can use to withdraw their children from public schools and send them to private schools at taxpayer expense.

For DeVos to use this visit to a public school as an opportunity to tell parents they would do better for their kids by sending them to privately run schools suggests her leadership will continue to advocate for funding more alternative schools rather than for supporting traditional ones.

But as her administration encourages parents to leave public schools, what types of schools would she prefer parents choose instead?

Based on other schools DeVos has chosen for her itinerary, the possibilities are truly frightening.

DeVos Does CARE

After the Ft. Bragg gig, DeVo’s next stop is CARE Elementary School in Miami, Florida.

CARE is a private school, which DeVos has a well-known preference for. Also, DeVos may want to showcase the school because its name, CARE, stands for Christian Academy for Reading Excellence.

DeVos’s belief in using education as a way to “advance God’s Kingdom” is well documented.

As Kristina Rizga reports for Mother Jones, the lengthy philanthropic record DeVos and her husband have amassed over many years shows “the couple’s clearest preference is for Christian private schools.”

CARE elementary certainly fits that profile. Students at CARE, according to the school’s handbook, “Attend weekly chapel, they are taught The Schools Betsy DeVos Wants Parents To Choose:

 

NEWS AND VIEWS

Everyone Pays A Hefty Price For Segregation, Study Says

NPR

“Researchers … found that if Chicago – the fifth most racially and economically segregated city in the country – were to lower its level of segregation to the national median … it would have a profound impact … including raising the region’s gross domestic product, raising incomes, and lowering the homicide rate… Less segregation would also make Chicago and its environs more educated, with an estimated 83,000 more people who have bachelor’s degrees, bringing the region an added $90 billion in total lifetime earnings.”
Read more …

Trump’s Education Department Nixes Obama-Era Grant Program For School Diversity

The Washington Post

“President Trump’s Education Department has decided to nix an Obama-era grant program meant to help local districts devise ways to boost socioeconomic diversity within their schools … The Education Department said through a spokesman that the $12 million grant program was discontinued because it would not be a wise use of tax dollars … Research has shown that poor children who go to mixed-income schools fare better academically than poor children who go to high-poverty schools and that such integration doesn’t hurt the performance of affluent students. And yet U.S. public schools have become more segregated by race and class over the past two decades.”
Read more …

Debt Load Could Snag Students, Hurt U.S. Economy: Fed’s Dudley

Reuters

“Rising student loan debt in the United States could ultimately hurt overall home ownership and consumer spending and erode colleges’ and universities’ ability to elevate lower-income students, a top Federal Reserve policymaker said … Aggregate student loan balances $1.3 trillion at the end of last year, up 170 percent from 2006 … There are ‘potential longer-term negative implications of student debt on homeownership and other types of consumer spending … Continued increases in college costs and debt burdens could inhibit higher education’s ability to serve as an important engine of upward income mobility.'”
Read more …

Bernie Sanders Just Introduced His Free College Tuition Plan

The Nation

“The College for All Act aims to eliminate tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities for students from families that make up to $125,000 per year. The bill would make community college tuition-free for all income levels. Clearly the bill will go nowhere in a Republican Congress … But [Senator Bernie] Sanders and several of the co-sponsors clearly see the bill as a valuable organizing tool … The act would have the government pay 67% of tuition subsidies at public colleges and universities, while asking state and tribal governments to pay the other third … It would be financed by a tax on Wall Street speculation.”
Read more …

4 Disturbing Facts About Preschool Suspension

Center for American Progress

“47% of the preschoolers who received suspensions or expulsions in the 2013-14 school year were African American, even though they made up only 19% of preschool enrollment. In total, nearly 7,000 3- and 4-year-olds were suspended or expelled from public preschools during the same school year … Disturbing, facts to know about preschool suspension and expulsion … It pathologizes normal child behavior … It can be driven by implicit racial bias … It’s more common in school districts that still use corporal punishment … It may be an even bigger problem in private preschools.”
Read more …

Fake News, Common Core and How Parents Are STILL Getting Thrown Under the Media Bus | Truth in American Education

Fake News, Common Core and How Parents Are STILL Getting Thrown Under the Media Bus | Truth in American Education:

Fake News, Common Core and How Parents Are STILL Getting Thrown Under the Media Bus

From 2010 to 2014 – for four consecutive years – I researched and wrote about, lobbied against, designed memes until my hard drive nearly crashed, and crisscrossed virtually the entire state on speaking tours, appealing to as many people as I could to stop the implementation of the Common Core State Standards in Oklahoma. Ultimately our little Common Core is not OK band ‘won,’ and the Standards were repealed from state law in 2014 during a campaign that captured national attention.

Today the simple lack of time (stemming from homeschooling four kids, teaching Chem 1 and Pre-Algebra at our Co-Op, running a small farm and needing at least 6 hours of sleep) has pared my education policy involvement down to research and writing on the side. When I saw an article loudly proclaiming “New Research Shows How Common Core Critics Built Social Media ‘Botnets’ to Skew the Education Debate,” listed in my daily “Common Core” Google Alert, however, I stopped everything I was doing to absorb each condescending word.

Imagine my surprise when I learned from ‘The 74′ – a “news site covering education in America” partially ‘supported’ by the premier Common Core Apologist Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that a study was done at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE – adding ‘education’ was necessary; otherwise it just would have been CPR, which, come to think of it, the study badly needs) at the University of Pennsylvania, “…suggests public animosity toward Common Core was manipulated – and exaggerated – by organized online communities using cutting-edge social media strategies.”

I have to admit, the story intrigued me – none in our group were savvy Twitter users, yet we had been able to put the kibosh on Common Core in Oklahoma – so I clicked the link to the study in the article. Immediately I was sent to a website so slick it took over a minute to load (shocker here, the study was underwritten in part by….wait on it….Bill Gates) which told me I could use it interactively to “tell the story of the Common Core debate on Twitter.”

Gates-Funded Echo Chamber Amplifies Meaningless Mantras

Unwilling to sit twiddling my thumbs while the website loaded, and pretty much knowing what I would find when it did, I went back to finish reading the 74 article. To my amazement, I discovered that a group of ‘right-wing’ conservatives had banded together to take over Twitter and riddle it with ‘Twitterbots.’ I imagine this must look like a massive infestation of the terrifying Tooth Fairies from HellBoy 2 – spewing out ‘fake news’ messages against Common Core into the Twittersphere, ‘drowning out’ and ‘supplanting’ messages from the likes of ‘teachers and think tank experts.’

Thanks in no small part to the fact that the Bill Gates Common Core echo chamber has underwritten so much of today’s American education policy network, the #CommonCore study hit the news cycle with force. It found its way back to me numerous times through such venues as Fake News, Common Core and How Parents Are STILL Getting Thrown Under the Media Bus | Truth in American Education: