Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 5/8/15

Special Nite Cap 

CORPORATE ED REFORM

What are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talking about? - The Washington Post

What are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talking about? - The Washington Post: What are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talking about? Here’s one depressing conversation.Three of the most successful men in the history of men — Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway chief  Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger — were on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”this week to talk about pub

by mike simpson / 8min 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Finally, Vallas appears on the crime scene.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Finally, Vallas appears on the crime scene.: Finally, Vallas appears on the crime scene.The Synesi/SUPES Connection Once S-T reporters finally discovered the Synesi/SUPES connection in the current federal investigation of CPS contracting, I couldn't understand why they missed the obvious connection between Synesi/SUPES founder Gary Soloman and Chicago's first schools

by mike simpson / 13min 

Opt-out parents have a point - AEI

Opt-out parents have a point - AEI: Opt-out parents have a pointMiddle-class parents are right to question whether today's education reforms will help their kids.A new phrase has rapidly become familiar in schooling: “opt-out.” Across the nation, hundreds of thousands of students are refusing to take state reading and math tests, usually at the behest of their parents. In New York, 200,000 student

2 by mike simpson / 40min 

"Funky Monkey" and Pearson Fail the Test | Alan Singer

"Funky Monkey" and Pearson Fail the Test | Alan Singer: "Funky Monkey" and Pearson Fail the TestJohn Oliver nailed Pearson on his HBO Last Week Tonight show on Standardized Testing. If you have not seen it yet, clink the link and watch it. I laughed a lot but can't really say I enjoyed the show; it was too disturbing. It won't be funny until companies like Pearson are brought d

1 by mike simpson / 2h 

As Obama Admin Seeks More Funding for Charter Schools, Questions Raised over Billions Already Spent | Democracy Now!

As Obama Admin Seeks More Funding for Charter Schools, Questions Raised over Billions Already Spent | Democracy Now!: As Obama Admin Seeks More Funding for Charter Schools, Questions Raised over Billions Already Spent As the Obama administration asks Congress to increase funding for charter schools by almost 50 percent, a new report claims charter schools are spending billions of dollars with near

1 by mike simpson / 3h 

What Are Appropriate Roles for Companies in Education Reform? - Bridging Differences - Education Week

What Are Appropriate Roles for Companies in Education Reform? - Bridging Differences - Education Week: What Are Appropriate Roles for Companies in Education Reform?Today Deborah Meier and Joe Nathan discuss the role of corporations in improving schools. Deborah Meier begins, followed by a response from Joe.Deborah Meier writes:Dear Joe,I always hesitate to turn any help down. One of the best grant

1 by mike simpson / 3h 

What Really Happened to Atlanta's Students When Their Teachers Cheated - The Atlantic

What Really Happened to Atlanta's Students When Their Teachers Cheated - The Atlantic: What Really Happened to Atlanta's Students When Their Teachers CheatedEight educators have been sentenced to prison for the decade-long testing scandal. But was the tampering even necessary?A Georgia judge just finalized prison sentences for eight Atlanta educators, the latest development in a drama that has tra

1 by mike simpson / 3h 

CREDO: Trying Hard to Shape Urban Charter Success from Shoddy Research | deutsch29

CREDO: Trying Hard to Shape Urban Charter Success from Shoddy Research | deutsch29: CREDO: Trying Hard to Shape Urban Charter Success from Shoddy ResearchIn December 2014, Margaret Raymond, founding director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, (CREDO), made the following remarks about charter performance at the City Club of Cleveland (Ohio):I’ve studied competitive markets for much o

1 by mike simpson / 3h 

NYC Public School Parents: Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner

NYC Public School Parents: Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner: Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards DinnerLeonie Haimson and Diane Ravitch,Patrick Sullivan and Monica MajorEmily Horowitz, and Cynthia Wachtellinvite you toClass Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards DinnerWhen: Tuesday, June 9 at 6:30 PMWhere: Il Bastardo/Bocca Di Bacco191 7

1 by mike simpson / 3h 

Gates Foundation: Time to Declare an End to EdReform 2.0 - Living in Dialogue

Gates Foundation: Time to Declare an End to EdReform 2.0 - Living in Dialogue: Gates Foundation: Time to Declare an End to EdReform 2.0 By Anthony Cody.This coming week I will be back in Seattle, a few months shy of the third anniversary of my first visit to the Gates Foundation. I will give a talk at the University of Washington, introduced by Jesse Hagopian and several Teachers of Conscience fro

1 by mike simpson / 5h 

Remember the String - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association: Remember the String By Anthony Griffin, a Long Island Teacher and Co-founder of Lace to the TopOriginally published on the Lace to the Top Blog: https://lacetothetop.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/remember-the-string/The only tangible thing I give students in my English 12 class is a piece of bakery string. I don't give them tests. I don't give them jobs. I give them a piece

1 by mike simpson / 7h 

Feds Spent $3.3 Billion Fueling Charter Schools but No One Knows What It's Really Bought | PR Watch

Feds Spent $3.3 Billion Fueling Charter Schools but No One Knows What It's Really Bought | PR Watch: Feds Spent $3.3 Billion Fueling Charter Schools but No One Knows What It's Really Bought -(Madison, WI)–The federal government has spent more than $3.3 billion over the past two decades creating and fueling the charter school industry, according to a new financial analysis and reporters' guide by t

1 by mike simpson / 8h 

Discrimination against students of color rampant in Louisiana school district | Southern Poverty Law Center

Discrimination against students of color rampant in Louisiana school district | Southern Poverty Law Center: Discrimination against students of color rampant in Louisiana school districtThree years after a Southern Poverty Law Center complaintsparked a U.S. Department of Education (DOE) investigation into the disproportionate number of African-American students arrested for minor rule violations i

1 by mike simpson / 9h 

Los Angeles teachers face political fight to defend public education

Los Angeles teachers face political fight to defend public education - World Socialist Web Site: Los Angeles teachers face political fight to defend public educationMore than 35,000 teachers are currently voting on the agreement reached between the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest public school system in the United States

1 by mike simpson / 10h 

Stephen Colbert: SC Teachers' $800,000 man

Stephen Colbert: SC Teachers' $800,000 man: Stephen Colbert: SC Teachers' $800,000 man Comedian Stephen Colbert announced Thursday that he would fund every existing grant request South Carolina public school teachers have made on the education crowdfunding websiteDonorsChoose.org.Colbert made the announcement on a live video feed Thursday at a surprise event at Alexander Elementary School in Green

1 by mike simpson / 10h 

Jersey Jazzman: Lifestyles Of The Rich and Reformy

Jersey Jazzman: Lifestyles Of The Rich and Reformy: Lifestyles Of The Rich and ReformyBack in 2013, I told the story of Joe Bruno, a former accounting and health care executive who is now heads a non-profit that is one of the biggest sources of capital for charter school construction.This picture was taken at the 2013 National Charter School Conference; apparently, charter school advocates thought

1 by mike simpson / 10h 

A love letter to tireless teachers everywhere, who deserve a little appreciation

What teachers really want for Teacher Appreciation Week: A love letter to tireless teachers everywhere, who deserve a little appreciationOur teachers are under siege. They're underfunded, over-scrutinized and exhausted. And we're all paying the price.We're losing our best teachers. Nearly half. Four out of every 10 freshly minted teachers will leave the profession in the first five years of their

16 by mike simpson / 10h 

It’s National Charter Schools Week. Are charters really worth celebrating? - The Washington Post

It’s National Charter Schools Week. Are charters really worth celebrating? - The Washington Post: It’s National Charter Schools Week. Are charters really worth celebrating?Celebrating National Charter Schools Week: Dark Money Part 4  #CharterSchoolsWeekCelebrating National Charter Schools Week: Re-Segregating America’s Schools Part 3 #CharterSchoolsWeekCelebrating National Charter Schools Week: Fr

1 by mike simpson / 10h 

Los Angeles School District Builds Apartments for Teachers | L.A. Weekly

Los Angeles School District Builds Apartments for Teachers | L.A. Weekly: L.A. RENTS ARE SO HIGH THE SCHOOL DISTRICT IS BUILDING APARTMENTS FOR TEACHERSTeachers in Los Angeles aren't exactly poor. But consider the cost of living here: A report last year said it takes you nearly $100,000 a year in household income just to make a median rental home in L.A. affordable.Furthermore, a UCLA study conclu

by mike simpson / 11h 

YESTERDAY

Gonzalez: Feds failed to keep tabs on $3B in school aid to launch new charter schools - NY Daily News

Gonzalez: Feds failed to keep tabs on $3B in school aid - NY Daily News: Gonzalez: Feds failed to keep tabs on $3B in school aid  The federal government shelled out $3.3 billion over the past 20 years to launch new charter schools nationwide, yet failed to monitor how that money was used, a new report has found.Federal spending to launch charter schools zoomed from a mere $4.5 million in 1995 to m

34 by mike simpson / 20h 

Education doesn’t need Common Core reform, teachers need the time and resources to build great schools - The Hechinger Report

Education doesn’t need Common Core reform, teachers need the time and resources to build great schools - The Hechinger Report: Education doesn’t need Common Core reform, teachers need the time and resources to build great schoolsNow that every state has modified the Common Core and cherry picked their tests, are the standards “common?"Dear Jayne,In my last letter, I asked a question that I th

1 by mike simpson / 20h 

Oklahoma's Poor Need Much More than Charters Can Give

Oklahoma's Poor Need Much More than Charters Can Give: OKLAHOMA’S POOR NEED MUCH MORE THAN CHARTERS CAN GIVEWhat was once Harding High School in Okla. City Public Schools is now Harding Charter Preparatory High School, authorized by the district.| Photo by Brett DickersonThere has been a surge of anti-public-education talk in the past several weeks. Why?Legislation to allow the governments of Tuls

1 by mike simpson / 22h 

CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett Troubles Make You Wonder What They "Teach" at The Broad Academy

CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett May Have Met Her Match in Chicago - Working In These Times: CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett Troubles Make You Wonder What They "Teach" at The Broad AcademyLatest CPS Scandal Highlights Chicago’s Need for Democratically Elected, Representative School Board http://bit.ly/1H56qFFAs her inner circle draws federal heat, CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett steps down | Chica

4 by mike simpson / 22h 

9 Investigates high rate of charter school failures | www.wftv.com

9 Investigates high rate of charter school failures | www.wftv.com: 9 Investigates high rate of charter school failuresORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — There are 60 charter schools in central Florida, one-fifth are failing.Compared to the area’s traditional public schools, charter schools have about the same percentage of A-rated schools, however, charter schools have 10 times the number of F-rated schools.“

2 by mike simpson / 23h 

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 5/7/15

Special Nite Cap CORPORATE ED REFORMCalifornia Standardized Tests Spark Backlash in Oakland | News | East Bay ExpressCalifornia Standardized Tests Spark Backlash in Oakland | News | East Bay Express: California Standardized Tests Spark Backlash in OaklandTeachers say that the new test is significantly disrupting class time, is plagued by technical malfunctions, and is an unfair assessment of stude

3 by mike simpson / 23h 

What are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talking about? - The Washington Post

What are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talking about? - The Washington Post:

What are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talking about?

 Here’s one depressing conversation.

Three of the most successful men in the history of men — Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway chief  Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger — were on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”this week to talk about public education. (You can watch it above or here.)

Why does it matter what they say about public education? Gates in recent years has had an outsized role in public education policy as the world’s largest philanthropist, having put billions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation into controversial and questionable school reform efforts. He funded the development of the Common Core State Standards and has poured millions of dollars into efforts to promote them across the country. Buffett has given billions of dollars from his fortune to the Gates foundation.

So what exactly did they say, and why is it so depressing?

Here’s what Gates said in part:

“One piece of good news is that the charter schools are doing a very good job of educating kids in the inner city where typically the dropout rates are very very high and very few kids go to college. The good charters have overcome that, so by using long school days, a long school year, a different way of working with the teachers, amazing results have taken place. … We haven’t moved the needle for most students. Charters are only a few percent, so we have to spread those best practices in order to get real change….

“It’s not easy [ to change the public education system]. School boards have a lot of power, so they have to be convinced. Unions have a lot of power…. We need more pilot programs, more dialogue to get all the entities — government, school boards, unions — moving towards more intensive educational process..

“Of all the foundation areas we work in, I’d say this has proven to be the most difficult…  There are some entrenched practices. It’s a very big system. Its over $600 billion a year being spent and it’s a system very resistance to change. The best results have come in cities where the mayor is in charge of school systems. So you have one executive and the school board isn’t as powerful. So New York city made real progress. In Chicago, they are making real progress. But those area really the only cities where the mayor has a strong role.”

What?

Good schools of any kind have had success in helping students achieve — not just good charters. Gates seems to be perpetuating the myth that only charter schools have had success in cities. Charters didn’t pioneer the use of long school days, or a longer school year. Meanwhile, his reference to “amazing results” suggests stories about charter “miracle” schools that have been debunked over and over. As for mayoral control, it is hardly a panacea.  New York and Chicago are  not the “only cities where the mayor has [had] a strong role.” Former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, who won total control over the school system and hired Michelle Rhee to run it in 2007, would probably take issue would that, as would other mayors who had control of their systems (Seattle, Baltimore, Philadelphia, etc).

As for “real progress” in Chicago and New York City under mayoral control, it’s hard to understand what he is talking about. Perhaps Gates doesn’t know that when Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York City and hired Joel Klein as chancellor, the improvements that Bloomberg/Klein touted were illusory; the achievement gap was not narrowed and standardized test scoreimprovements that the two men touted for years were found to be inflated.

In the CNBC conversation, Buffett complained that public schools would be better if the “wealthy in many many cities” had not “opted out” of the system and sent their own kids to private schools. He recalled how his own father had served the “thankless” job of being a member of a local school board, and he said that city schools would improve if the rich cared more about them.

“We are spending the money. It isn’t like there is any lack of resources going into it…. If the only choice available were public schools, we’d have better public schools, but the wealthy in many many cities have opted out of the public schools system. They might vote for the bond issues out of conscience, and some of them may engage philanthropically, but with their own kids they send them to private schools, and by having this division essentially between the rich and poor…. In the end the people who don’t have their kids in public schools and know their kids are not going to go to public schools or their grandkids… .. are not going to have the intensity of interest across the board.”

We do spend a mountain of money on public education, but that doesn’t What are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talking about? - The Washington Post:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Finally, Vallas appears on the crime scene.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Finally, Vallas appears on the crime scene.:

Finally, Vallas appears on the crime scene.

The Synesi/SUPES Connection 

Once S-T reporters finally discovered the Synesi/SUPES connection in the current federal investigation of CPS contracting, I couldn't understand why they missed the obvious connection between Synesi/SUPES founder Gary Soloman and Chicago's first schools CEO, Paul Vallas. For some reason, no reporter would dare mention Vallas' name. This even though he had a direct connection to Synesi and was a central player in Synesi/SUPES expansion into other school districts including Chicago.

I can almost understand the omission. Vallas tried to keep his ties to Soloman and Synesi a secret, especially once the investigation began, even while setting the table for their consulting contracts in district after district. Then Soloman came out and claimed, "he had used Vallas’ name without permission and it was a mistake.”

Sorry -- It always takes me a while to stop rolling on the floor with laughter when I hear stuff like that.

I kept badgering the reporters on Twitter. Sometimes it takes a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to get their attention:

Vallas said lawyers for the Philadelphia district sent Solomon a cease-and-desist letter because Solomon’s consulting company at the time boasted of holding “the exclusive rights to Paul Vallas’ model” for education reform. “He apologized and Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Finally, Vallas appears on the crime scene.:

Opt-out parents have a point - AEI

Opt-out parents have a point - AEI:

Opt-out parents have a point

Middle-class parents are right to question whether today's education reforms will help their kids.

A new phrase has rapidly become familiar in schooling: “opt-out.” Across the nation, hundreds of thousands of students are refusing to take state reading and math tests, usually at the behest of their parents. In New York, 200,000 students have opted out of this spring’s state tests. Some New York districts have had more than half of their students refuse to take the tests. Polling suggests that half of all New York voters say they support the families that have opted out of the tests. Meanwhile, more localized opt-out pushes are bubbling up in states including New Jersey, Colorado and California.

Opt-out is partly antipathy for the Common Core standards and the new Common Core-aligned tests. It’s partly a sense that students are taking too many tests. It’s partly due to agitation by teachers irate that the test results will count heavily under New York’s new evaluation system. While there’s really no way to know whether we’re witnessing the leading edge of a national wave or a temporary, localized backlash, New York officials and their allies have generally raced to dismiss opt-outs as a blip.

They’ve chalked the situation up to the imaginings of conspiracy theorists, the ravings of malcontents, parental ignorance and teacher union machinations. This all sounds familiar. It was the same reaction that greeted initial concerns about the Common Core or, more than a decade ago, those raised about No Child Left Behind. In fact, this familiar diagnosis may tell us less about opt-out than it does about the myopic nature of contemporary education reform. By and large, education reformers have seemingly concluded that it’s fine to ignore or alienate middle-class families.

After all, today’s school reform agenda was crafted with the troubles of the inner-city in mind. It focuses on ensuring that low-income and minority children who had been “left behind” would master essential skills and graduate high school. The overriding mission has been to take dysfunctional schools and make them functional. The goal is admirable. However, the diagnosis and remedies are configured for a particular set of schools and students.

It turns out that many suburban and middle-class parents have issues when those reforms are extended to the schools that educate their children. This has been taken as a sign that these parents are ignorant or selfish. As U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has put it, “Pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who – all of a sudden – their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary.”

Reformers see parental skepticism as irrational. The fact that 70 percent of the nation’s parents consistently give their child’s school an A or a B simply shows how blind they are. The fact that 68 percent of parents don’t believe standardized tests help teachers teach or that just 31 percent think it’s a good idea to use test results to evaluate teachers serves only to underscore their ignorance.

But there’s another possibility. It’s that these parents are being reasonable when they worry that the reform agenda, whatever its merits when it comes to schools steeped in dysfunction, does more harm than good for their kids. Reformers have tended to dismiss this possibility, while seeking to convince middle-class parents that their schools are much worse than they may realize.

Oddly enough, suburban parents seem oddly ungrateful for these efforts to help them see that their children’s schools actually stink. When reformers wonder why these parents don’t get it, the usual culprit is “messaging.” And the usual solution is better PR.

But maybe the parents do get it. Maybe they figure that having their child sit for a dozen hours of testing, as part of an effort that seems to be narrowing their school’s curriculum, doesn’t add a lot of value. Maybe these parents aren’t convinced that the results of these tests will be used in ways that benefit their kids. Using those test results to identify “effective” teachers so that these teachers can be more “equitably” distributed (e.g. moved from middle-class schools to low-income schools) sure doesn’t seem designed to help middle-class kids. It’s no great wonder that middle-class families can regard the reform agenda as hostile, when it doesn’t feel irrelevant.

Maybe the solution is not to berate these parents, but to ask what they want for their children, find ways to help make that happen and seek opportunities to promote reform that benefits a broad coalition of low-income and middle-class families. Here are three simple ideas to start.

State officials can be vastly more transparent about whether and how state tests results are used to improve the education of all children. This would include a much more aggressive effort to solicit parental concerns about test length and content, take those concerns seriously and address them.

Those designing accountability systems and teacher evaluation should champion a vision of school excellence that stretches beyond reading and math scores. Amid the focus on reading and math scores, much of what parents want for their children can get lost. Reformers would do well to celebrate a vision of excellence that more consciously includes the arts, world languages, citizenship and history.

Reformers should spend less time scheming how to redistribute good teachers and more on growing the number of great teachers. Today, there are extensive efforts to recruit teachers into impoverished schools but almost none in recruiting promising teachers who want to teach in other environs. It’s not an either-or. We can recruit both the missionaries and those who just want to teach calculus.

Historically, in the American system, the social reforms that last have been those that also serve the broad middle class. The nation has tended to be far less generous with reforms that pit the middle class against the poor. Today’s school reformers have been slow to learn this lesson, and have suffered for it. Opt-out offers a chance to start getting this right.Opt-out parents have a point - AEI:

"Funky Monkey" and Pearson Fail the Test | Alan Singer

"Funky Monkey" and Pearson Fail the Test | Alan Singer:

"Funky Monkey" and Pearson Fail the Test

John Oliver nailed Pearson on his HBO Last Week Tonight show on Standardized Testing. If you have not seen it yet, clink the link and watch it. I laughed a lot but can't really say I enjoyed the show; it was too disturbing. It won't be funny until companies like Pearson are brought down, especially given how they keep failing our children and schools by failing their own tests.

Oliver broadcast videos being used to promote high-stakes standardized testing as fun and showed one particularly bizarre elementary school testing rally in Texas that featured a dancing "Funky Monkey" test mascot. He even had an ersatz "Funky Monkey" live on the show that he banned for bad behavior

During the HBO program Oliver systematically took apart both the national testing regime and Pearson. According to Oliver, American students take on the average over 100 high-stakes standardized tests during their school careers. Often the tests are so upsetting to students that the test instructions actually alert teachers to what to do if students vomit on the test booklets. And a big problem is that despite more than a decade of increased testing and test-aligned curriculum, U.S. students are not performing any better on international benchmark exams.

In one of the best segments of the show, Oliver described how the computer algorithm used to evaluate student performance on high-stakes tests and teacher effectiveness is based on mathematical formulas developed for breeding cattle. If you doubt Oliver, Professor Stephen Caldas of Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York did a careful analysis of the New York State "2013-2014 Growth Model for Educator Evaluation Technical Report." Pages 65-67 show the mystery equations used to calculate the future of New York State children. I have a PHD in history and I used to be pretty good in math. The only part of the equations I understood was repeated use of the term matrix which appears six times in the report and three times in that section. I don't want to be alarming, but the movie may be right. We may all be living in "The Matrix."

But there is some hope on the horizon.

Nationally, although final numbers will not be available for a few months, hundreds of thousands of student probably opted-out of the last round of high-stakes standardized tests. In some schools and districts where parents and students were well-organized opt-out rates were well above 50%. In addition, Pearson's contract to write, "Funky Monkey" and Pearson Fail the Test | Alan Singer:

As Obama Admin Seeks More Funding for Charter Schools, Questions Raised over Billions Already Spent | Democracy Now!

As Obama Admin Seeks More Funding for Charter Schools, Questions Raised over Billions Already Spent | Democracy Now!:

As Obama Admin Seeks More Funding for Charter Schools, Questions Raised over Billions Already Spent

 As the Obama administration asks Congress to increase funding for charter schools by almost 50 percent, a new report claims charter schools are spending billions of dollars with nearly no oversight, regulation, or accountability. The Center for Media and Democracy argues the federal government has spent more than $3 billion over the past two decades on the charter school industry, but there is no comprehensive database showing how these funds are spent and what results they produce. The new report analyzes materials obtained from open records requests regarding independent audits of how states interact with charter schools and their authorizers. It concludes that the anti-regulatory environment around charter schools coupled with their lack of financial transparency warrants a moratorium rather than increased charter funding. We are joined by Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy. The group’s new report is "New Documents Show How Taxpayer Money Is Wasted by Charter Schools."

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well with the Obama administration asking Congress to increase funding for charter schools by almost 50 percent, we turn to a major new report that claims charter schools are already spending billions of dollars of federal money with nearly no oversight, regulation, or accountability. The report was released by the Center for Media and Democracy and it’s called, "New Documents Show How Taxpayer Money is Wasted by Charter Schools." According to the report, the federal government has spent more than $3 billion over the past two decades on the charter school industry, but there is no comprehensive database showing how those funds are spent and what results they produce.

AMY GOODMAN: The new report analyzes materials obtained from open records requests regarding independent audits of how states interact with charter schools and their authorizers. It concludes that the anti-regulatory environment around charter schools, coupled with their lack of financial transparency, warrants a moratorium, rather than increased charter funding. Well for more, we go to Denver, Colorado, to Denver Open Media, where we’re joined by Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy. Their new report is called, "New Documents Show How Taxpayer Money is Wasted by Charter Schools." Lisa, welcome to Democracy Now! Lay out the key findings of your report.

LISA GRAVES: Thank you so much. We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how much money has even been spent by the federal government fueling this industry. And it turned out the sum is $3.3 billion. And so we thought, with that much money at stake, there’d be tremendous controls on that spending. But our open records request showed time after time in which the federal government and the state governments have no idea how that money’s being spent. And that, in part, is due to the design of those schools. The design at the state level, driven by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council’s, policies and a number of sort of extreme policies represent a real hostility to government schools, to the idea of public schools and government oversight. And so what we saw in our records request was, time after time, in which no one really knew how much money was being spent by the schools, how much of those tax dollars was being spent on executive pay, how much money was being outsourced to for-profit corporations.As Obama Admin Seeks More Funding for Charter Schools, Questions Raised over Billions Already Spent | Democracy Now!:

Big Education Ape: Feds Spent $3.3 Billion Fueling Charter Schools but No One Knows What It's Really Bought | PR Watch http://bit.ly/1JUhhDp

Big Education Ape: Gonzalez: Feds failed to keep tabs on $3B in school aid to launch new charter schools - NY Daily... http://bit.ly/1cdxB3E

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What Are Appropriate Roles for Companies in Education Reform? - Bridging Differences - Education Week

What Are Appropriate Roles for Companies in Education Reform? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

What Are Appropriate Roles for Companies in Education Reform?

Today Deborah Meier and Joe Nathan discuss the role of corporations in improving schools. Deborah Meier begins, followed by a response from Joe.

Deborah Meier writes:

Dear Joe,

I always hesitate to turn any help down. One of the best grants we ever got at CPE was from EXXON for a longitudinal study of our grads in the 1980s. I've never been able to get another for this purpose.  

For me it's about power. Who has power over who?

There was a time when corporate giving to schools was truly "charity" in the best sense.  Plus a little good will of the PR sort. Today the money kind of power (vs the people kind) ) is running too many things, setting the agenda with a grand political purpose: to demonstrate that education would work better, as would a lot of other public institutions, if they followed a free marketplace business model.

I think this ideology is putting democracy at further risk as an idea and a reality.  

Buyer beware.

Deb

Joe responds:

Deb, for decades, corporate involvement in public schools has varied. Some corporations have provided cash, volunteers, and other contributions as part of their effort to be, and be seen as good citizens. Some corporations have tried to influence public policy. And the policy changes companies recommend vary. 

For what it's worth, I grew up in Wichita, Kan. (graduating from a public, district high school in 1966) and have known of the Koch brothers and their efforts for many years. They may have become more active (or more well known nationally). Unquestionably they have been promoting a voucher agenda for a long time, which you and I oppose. They have been joined by some others such as ALEC, which is funded by various individuals and corporations. 

These differences are part of why I think the phrase "corporate education reform" is meaningless.  Corporations have and do vary in their approach to improving public schools. But even more important, I don't see how labeling people increases achievement.

Staying with policy issues for a moment, corporate, union and community influence varies from state to state, city to city, town to town. You mentioned that you think some corporations "drive" education.  But I don't think any single group "drives" public ed.  I think many groups have a significant influence.

My special interest is what can be done by various groups (including companies) to increase student learning (measured in various ways).  

What do you think educators should do to encourage constructive corporate activity in education?

Dear Joe,

I used to tell corporate "allies"—when together on panels—that I'd appreciate it if they'd just pay their fair share in taxes so that public schools would have access to the kind of funding that is available to the schools that their own kids' attend.

I call them "corporate reformers" because roughly 95 percent of the funds being pumped into the current reform movement comes from corporations, corporate leaders, and rich individuals with corporate ties. It's no more pejorative than the label  "union reformers."  It's just descriptive.  

They honestly believe that the market place&mdashunencumbered by regulation&mdashis the best way to operate most of life's business, including the business of education. They believe that marke choice is at the heart of democracy. I disagree with them.  

And they are, indisputably (I think) the primary organizers and funders of the current reform movement in education. For them test scores are the currency for assessing the market value of schools. They oppose unions, minimum wages, and federal/state regulations which, they believe, should be decided by the invisible hand of the market.

They are also driving a number of other reforms (both in the U.S. and other western democracies) that seek to unfund public institutions, turn them over to private entrepreneurs—like prisons and post offices—and, in general, deregulate private enterprise.

The attack on "public institutions" is part and parcel of the unsecret plan of the Koch brothers, Walton family et al. to redefine democracy. They seek to dismantle the reforms that defined the New Deal and the Great Society, not to mention those that go back the progressive politics of Teddy Roosevelt  (like the progressive income tax and the inheritance tax).  

I think their self-interest and mine conflict—in ways more fundamental than the conflicts I have with union leaders, school bureaucrats, parents and colleagues.  I hold this belief without demonizing them as human beings—just as I did toward colleagues with Communist sympathies in my younger days!   If we both want the same thing (e.g. small class sizes,  more self-governing schools) I'd happily join with them to make that possible just as I happily accepted Communist support for social security. 

Joe responds:

Sorry Deb, I think there are several over-generalizations in what you wrote above. For example you wrote, "I call them 'corporate reformers' because roughly 95 percent of the funds being pumped into the current reform movement comes from corporations, corporate leaders and rich individuals with corporate ties." 

There are many, many efforts to improve schools. Some are being promoted by unions, some by colleges, some by certain companies and foundations. For example:

• Project-based learning being promoted by the George Lucas Education Foundation viaEdutopia 
• Charters and vouchers being promoted by Walton and the Koch brothers, among others 
• Teacher-led district schools  being promoted by Minnesota Business Partnership and the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Lakeville, Minn. teacher unions
• Improving reading instruction promoted by Target
• Improved science education promoted by Siemens Corporation, among others 

I could go on and on. My point this week has been that I don't think we help students by making generalizations about "corporate education reform." I think it's more helpful to students to work with those we agree with, and question those whose efforts we oppose.  Making generations generally does not help students.What Are Appropriate Roles for Companies in Education Reform? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

What Really Happened to Atlanta's Students When Their Teachers Cheated - The Atlantic

What Really Happened to Atlanta's Students When Their Teachers Cheated - The Atlantic:

What Really Happened to Atlanta's Students When Their Teachers Cheated

Eight educators have been sentenced to prison for the decade-long testing scandal. But was the tampering even necessary?

A Georgia judge just finalized prison sentences for eight Atlanta educators, the latest development in a drama that has transfixed the city since 2011. That year, state investigators found that nearly 180 teachers and principals had illegally tampered with scores on state tests, both by telling students the right answers and by secretly correcting the work students handed in.

Once held up as a model of urban school reform, Atlanta now  gets cited as an example of everything wrong with test-based accountability. Under intense pressure to meet impossible targets, as well as the guidance of a superintendent who fostered what investigators called "a culture of fear," educators cracked—or so the story goes.

But Atlanta students, who are overwhelmingly African American and low-income, may have actually made genuine academic progress over the decade when the cheating took place. "It is possible that if they did cheat, they didn't have to cheat because they were really were improving," said Peggy Carr, the acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics.

"I wouldn't be surprised at all if kids were improving. It's just that some of the gains were not legitimate."

Since 2002, test scores in Atlanta have steadily risen on a federal test that doesn't have a lot of stakes and is hard to game. It's called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, and it's been used since the 1970s just to track data on national trends in math and reading proficiency. "It's sort of an outside indicator, almost a second opinion," said Carr, whose office administers the test.

During the period in which the cheating took place—which could date back to 2001—Beverly Hall, who was superintendent at the time, implemented an array of school-reform strategies. She expanded charter schools, broke large high schools into small, themed academies, and raised millions of philanthropic dollars to support schools lacking in resources.

She also set up an aggressive system focused on accountability that revolved around state test scores. Her administration set academic targets for every school in the district, doled out bonuses when those benchmarks were met, and humiliated and intimidated educators when they failed to fulfill goals. Schools were expected to higher benchmarks each year; the administration would not accept failure. Hall, who was among the educators indicted in connection with the cheating scandal but she died before she could stand trial, later told investigators that the federal No Child Left Behind law compelled her to set ambitious targets.

Slowly but surely, school leaders started to encourage cheating. "Teachers who conducted themselves ethically but failed to achieve required results were sanctioned," the state investigation found in 2011.

Early in her tenure, Hall also signed up Atlanta to pilot a new NAEP test designed for urban school districts. She later told investigators that she wanted external validation of the district's progress. "We wanted an independent third party," she said—an assessment that the district did not administer, grade, or proctor, and that students were randomly assigned to take.

The NAEP data shows mixed success. Atlanta fourth- and eighth-graders still score below the national average in math and reading. The achievement gap between black and white students remains as wide today as it was aWhat Really Happened to Atlanta's Students When Their Teachers Cheated - The Atlantic:

CREDO: Trying Hard to Shape Urban Charter Success from Shoddy Research | deutsch29

CREDO: Trying Hard to Shape Urban Charter Success from Shoddy Research | deutsch29:

CREDO: Trying Hard to Shape Urban Charter Success from Shoddy Research

In December 2014, Margaret Raymond, founding director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, (CREDO), made the following remarks about charter performance at the City Club of Cleveland (Ohio):

I’ve studied competitive markets for much of my career. That’s my academic focus for my work. And it’s [education] the only industry/sector where the market mechanism just doesn’t work. I think it’s not helpful to expect parents to be the agents of quality assurance throughout the state.

As one might expect, these words coming from the CREDO director shocked some in attendance at this pro-charter-funded, Ohio event. As blogger and attendee Stephen Dyer reported:

Considering that the pro-market reform Thomas B. Fordham Foundation paid for this study and Raymond works at the Hoover Institution at Stanford — a free market bastion, I was frankly floored, as were most of the folks at my table.

Thus, it is with raised eyebrow that I learned of a new CREDO study released in spring 2015 and that supposedly demonstrates urban charter school superiority. The study also caught the attention of Baruch College researcher/journalist Andrea Gabor, who informed me of her painstaking invesrigation of the “new” CREDo study. As Gabor noted to me in an email:

…After years of researching schools on the ground in charter-heavy districts like New Orleans and New York City, I was skeptical about the [new CREDO] study’s approach and its findings. So, I hired Kaiser Fung, a respected statistician, to help me analyze the study. I then asked CREDO’s director, Macke (Margaret)Raymond, several questions via email; her answers raised more concerns. In the end, Fung and I found several major problems with the study; in the case of its analysis of New Orleans charter schools, the study even violated its own methodology. The problems go well beyond technical quibbles and suggest that any generalizations drawn from the study about the quality of traditional public schools relative to charter schools would be a big mistake.  

 Gabor wrote a post regarding her findings, New CREDO Study, New Credibility Problems: from New Orleans to Boston, which I feature here, in part:

Last month, Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) released a new study on urban charter schools, which purports to show, for the first time, that charters outperform city public schools, at least on standardized-test scores. If true, the study’s findings are a potential bombshell since, thus far, studies have shown no meaningful difference between charter and public schools.

The new study, Urban Charter School Study Report on 41 Regions claims to show that “urban charter schools in the aggregate provide significantly higher levels of annual growth in both math and reading compared to their TPS [public school] peers.”

The years I’ve spent researching schools on the ground in charter-heavy districts like New Orleans and New York City made me skeptical of such an outcome. But because I am not an expert in research methodology, I decided to hire a respected statistician, Kaiser Fung, author of Numbersense and an adjunct professor of statistics at New York University who has no connection to the education-reform movement (and thus no axe to grind), to help me analyze the CREDO study.

After combing through the study and its accompanying technical document, and after exchanging a series of emails with Macke Raymond, Director of CREDO, we found significant problems with the CREDO study. The problems go well beyond technical quibbles and suggest that any generalizations drawn from the study about the quality of traditional public schools relative to charter 

CREDO: Trying Hard to Shape Urban Charter Success from Shoddy Research | deutsch29:

NYC Public School Parents: Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner

NYC Public School Parents: Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner:

Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner

Leonie Haimson and Diane Ravitch,

Patrick Sullivan and Monica Major

Emily Horowitz, and Cynthia Wachtell

invite you to

Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner

When: Tuesday, June 9 at 6:30 PMWhere: Il Bastardo/Bocca Di Bacco
191 7th Ave (21st St)
New York, NY 10011

A fundraiser for Class Size Matters

This year we are honoring the NY leaders of the Opt-Out movement:

Change the Stakes

NYC Opt Out

New York State Allies for Public Education

Please join us for an opportunity to enjoy a four course dinner to celebrate three organizations that led a historic movement resulting in 200,000 students refusing to take the NY state tests this year.

Ticket Information:

http://www.nycharities.org/events/EventLevels.aspx?ETID=8217

$250 - Defender of Public Education

$150 - Patron

$75 – Supporter

Thank you for your support and we hope to see you there!

If you can't attend, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Class Size Matters, to help support our work