Friday, October 28, 2016

A Free Book on Amazon That Explains the Plot to Privatize Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Free Book on Amazon That Explains the Plot to Privatize Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog:

A Free Book on Amazon That Explains the Plot to Privatize Public Schools

You can go to Amazon and click on this link to receive a free pdf of a 40-page report called “Who Controls Our Schools? The Privatization of American Public Education.”

It is up-to-date, concise, and well-written. It was prepared by Don Hazen, Elizabeth Hines, Steven Rosenfeld, and Stan Salett of THE INDEPENDENT MEDIA INSTITUTE.

If your friends and relatives don’t understand why you are worried about the future of public schools, share this document with them.

Here is the table of contents:

Introduction………………………………….

Analysis/Findings ……………………………..

2.1 How the School Privatization Industry Has Hijacked the Concept of Education Reform

2.2 How a Group of Billionaires Has Aggressively Pushed to Privatize the Public School System

2.3 How the Myth of “Failing Schools” Helped Spur
a Movement. . . One-Sided Propaganda Machine. . . . . . . . . . . ….

2.4 How a Lack of Transparency Undermines Schools
and Communities: Privatization in Action . . . . . . . . . . .

2.5 How Locally Elected School Boards and Democratic Governance Have Been Destroyed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In Los Angeles, Pushing Charters,
by Every Means Necessary . . . . . . . . . . .. ……..

2.6 How the Legal Framework for Privatization
and Total Control Has Taken Hold. . . . . . . .. ……. .

2.7 How the Rapid Expansion of Privatized
Charters Is Pushed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ……..
Today’s Battlefront States . . . . . . . . . . . .. ……..

2.8 How to Take a Hard Look at Charter Schools
and Educational Outcomes: Rhetoric Is Not
the Same as Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……..

2.9 How Charters Create Self-Enrichment Schemes
and Crony Capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Self-Enrichment……. Nepotism … Corporate Profiteering . . . . . . . . .

2.10 How School Privatization Keeps Out Regulators
or Captures Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Policy Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Acknowledgments ………………………………

About the Authors ……………………………….

A Free Book on Amazon That Explains the Plot to Privatize Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Charter School Expansion Should Be Paused, NAACP President Says

Charter School Expansion Should Be Paused, NAACP President Says:

NAACP President: Why We Should Pause the Expansion of Charter Schools

[Op-Ed] The organization's leader explains their position on the schools and responds to those who have been critical of it

As America’s oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP has fought to this very day to give each of the nation’s youngest citizens a quality education regardless of race. We have even taken that fight to the marble steps of the Supreme Court. There, in the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled, “In the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

Over 60 years later, these words ring resoundingly true in the hearts of parents who know all too well that in all too many cases, the education their children are receiving remains separate and unequal.

Earlier this year, 2,000 delegates representing virtually every school district across the country passed a resolution calling for a reasoned pause on charter school expansion, not rash elimination. The National Board then ratified the convention delegates’ position, reaffirming decades of NAACP support for public education. Many allies have commended our position and raised very similar concerns, including the Movement for Black Lives, which called for an end to charter schools as we know them just weeks after our July convention. But there has also been much unfounded outrage, with some critics even claiming that our decades-old position is contrary to the NAACP’s mission.

The NAACP has called for a pause on the expansion of charter schools in order to ensure the quality of them all. We are also calling for solutions, such as better educated and certified teachers that work for students across the board.

Let us be clear, there is a role for high performing charter schools. However, we cannot continue to ignore the proliferation of low-performing charter schools that lack accountability. According to the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, while 27 percent of charter schools outperform traditional public schools in math and reading, 25 percent of charters performed worse. Charter schools are doing no better than traditional public schools at meeting the expectations that we parents hold for our children’s education.

We are sensitive to the needs of African-American parents across our country whose public school systems have failed their children. Parents should not have to wait for the public school system to get this right. However, many parents have also been lured by the false promises of charter school systems that actually underperform public schools. As The New York Times reported earlier this year, in Detroit the results have been disastrous to both traditional and charter schools. And, there are similar races to the bottom in communities all across the country.

Every school district is like a large family, made up of all sorts of students with diverse skills and abilities. Charter schools fragment those families, selecting only some students with the most apparent skills and abilities. As a result, only about 25 percent of charter schools have student bodies that mirror the demographics of their respective sending districts.

Research demonstrates that though charter schools promise a superior education, many have created a privileged subset of privately run, publicly funded schools with minimal government oversight, transparency, or accountability and many fail to provide a quality education. The quality of charter schools is inconsistent at best.

Thriving charter schools often owe their success to exclusionary selection

Wall Street 'Influence'? Teachers Unions Request Probe Of Donations To Charter School Measure

Wall Street 'Influence'? Teachers Unions Request Probe Of Donations To Charter School Measure:

Wall Street 'Influence'? Teachers Unions Request Probe Of Donations To Charter School Measure

The two largest teachers unions in Massachusetts asked federal and state law enforcement officials to investigate whether large donations to a charter school ballot measure backed by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker violated anti-corruption rules. The request Thursday from the unions was prompted by an International Business Times/MapLight report showing that the state pension board — which Gov. Baker appoints members to — gave lucrative contracts to manage teachers’ pensions to Wall Street firms whose executives then bankrolled the Baker-backed ballot initiative.

“This is about the integrity of our pension investments and the integrity of our elections,” said Massachusetts Teachers Association President Barbara Madeloni. “We need an investigation to find out whether these firms are wielding inappropriate influence in state government.”

Baker’s office did not respond to IBT’s questions. An official at the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board (MassPRIM) declined to comment.

The request by the unions — who represent 135,000 public school personnel in Massachusetts — revolves around federal pay-to-play rules that went into effect in 2011. Those rules are designed to prevent financial firms that manage state pension investments from donating to public officials who can influence investment decisions.

Baker is covered by those rules because he appoints three members to the board of the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board (MassPRIM). IBT/MapLight’s report showed that eight firms delivered more than $778,000 to groups supporting Question 2, which would expand the number of charter schools in Massachusetts. Baker has led the fight for the ballot measure, and a group that received money from MassPRIM money managers is now airing television ads promoting Baker.

While the federal pay-to-play rules aim to restrict Wall Street donations directly to public officials and political parties, they do not explicitly bar such donations to groups that support a lawmaker’s favored cause — or that promote a public official in paid ads. However, the rulesdo include anti-circumvention provisions which prohibit financial firms and public officials covered by the law from doing “anything indirectly which, if done directly, would result in a violation of the rule.”

“These rules are in place specifically to prevent Wall Street firms from throwing money at the feet of those responsible for awarding financial contracts in an effort to curry favor in the awarding of those contracts,” said Public Citizen’s Craig Holman, whose watchdog group advocates for tougher ethics laws. “We are seeing Wall Street funnel their money to nonprofit organizations and super PACs that support the same governors — and now to a pet policy project of Massachusetts Gov. Baker, backing Wall Street 'Influence'? Teachers Unions Request Probe Of Donations To Charter School Measure:

Parent: My first-grader hates being at school — and I don’t blame her - The Washington Post

Parent: My first-grader hates being at school — and I don’t blame her - The Washington Post:

Parent: My first-grader hates being at school — and I don’t blame her

Tama Koss spent more than 12 years as a child abuse prosecutor in Florida before recently leaving the practice of law to teach and write. She and her husband have two children, ages 6 and 4. Their oldest daughter currently attends public school, and it is her experience in kindergarten and now in first grade that prompted Koss — who focuses on children’s issues and public service — to write this post.

By Tama Koss

I have a young child who turned 5 years old just six days before kindergarten began. My husband and I made a decision to allow her to attend because we believed she was ready. Now she is in the first grade. Did we make the right choice?

She is now resisting her education and regressing in her emotional development. While she is succeeding in school, she is very resistant to direction at home, is not interested in her homework and often discusses her love of art, which is ignored in school except for 30 minutes each week.

She learns best and is excited by exploring the world around her, a skill not taught in today’s public schools. She loves to create and play. At school, however, she is herded like cattle, not treated like a child. She is forced to sit in a chair most of her day watching a screen. Her teacher teaches through a computer projected onto a wall and uses classroom computers and iPads to occupy students. There is no real guidance on the use of computers. The only restriction is in using “child-friendly” websites.

Excessive computer use, conformist teaching methods and minimal playground and outdoor time frighten me. Is she learning? Will she succeed in the ways I want her to? If I don’t push her, will she fall behind? If I do push her will she succeed in life?

My job as a parent is confusing. I want to foster my daughter’s interest in learning, not squander her curiosity at the age of 6. I want to feel comfortable knowing my daughter’s teachers are fostering her individuality and assisting her in finding her own way of learning. How are we accomplishing this by conforming to a bureaucratic view of how best to educate our Parent: My first-grader hates being at school — and I don’t blame her - The Washington Post:

Where The Money Comes From In The Fight Over Charter Schools | Edify

Where The Money Comes From In The Fight Over Charter Schools | Edify:

Where The Money Comes From In The Fight Over Charter Schools

Both sides in the ballot fight over the charter cap are out knocking on doors in the run-up to Election Day. The public faces of each campaign are students, parents and teachers, pleading for fairness and excellence in every child’s education.

Behind the scenes, though, an unprecedented clash of titans is taking place.

Supporters of Question 2 — the ballot measure that would raise the cap on the number of charter schools allowed to operate in Massachusetts — have contributed $19.5 million to the campaign; opponents have kicked in $13.4 million, according to filing data kept by the state Office of Campaign & Political Finance.

Together that makes almost $33 million — more than twice the $15 million spent, mostly by gaming interests, in the 2014 casino debate, which had been the state’s most expensive campaign on a ballot question.

And very little of that money comes from small, Bernie Sanders-sized donations. Though hundreds of people have contributed modest amounts of money this past year, the average contribution on both sides is about $40,000.

The opposition to Question 2 — organized under the name “Save Our Public Schools” — is almost entirely funded by national and local teachers’ unions; less than 1 percent came from other sources.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association, the largest state union, contributed $5.9 million, surpassing the $5.4 million given by the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union with 2.9 million members. Smaller locals, led by the Boston Teachers Union, contributed around $300,000.

In total, about 56 percent of the “No” funding comes from sources inside Massachusetts.

On both sides, the money mostly bought a relentless wave of TV advertising and outreach. Save Our Public Schools has spent almost $9.2 million on "media placement" with advertising firms as well as with Hulu and Facebook.

Meanwhile, groups in support of Question 2 have spent $13.2 million on media buys with a single Alexandria, Virginia, ad agency — as well as $627,000 on canvassing.

If the “No” contributions are mostly from teachers’ groups, they’re at least transparent. The base of “Yes on 2” supporters is more varied — and more unknown.

According to OCPF data, almost 82 percent of contributions in support of Question 2 come from out-of-state, but it’s hard to say exactly where they originate. That’s because almost $15 million of the campaign’s total receipts Where The Money Comes From In The Fight Over Charter Schools | Edify:

Community Schools: Steady Improvement for Students and Support for Families | janresseger

Community Schools: Steady Improvement for Students and Support for Families | janresseger:

Community Schools: Steady Improvement for Students and Support for Families

A test-score-yardstick and a short time line—those are the tools we use these days to evaluate school improvement. Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Obama’s Race to the Top gave us four approved plans for school “turnaround,” and if the school wasn’t turned around quick enough, the most stringent of the four was imposed—closure.

Policy makers have assumed that school turnaround could be neat, quick, and cheap only to discover that the solution too often made things worse for the students and their communities. Rachel Cohen, writing for The American Prospect, describes the impact of school closures on neighborhoods—specifically in Chicago where 50 schools were closed at the end of the 2012-2013 school year: “While black students were 40 percent of Chicago’s school district population in 2013, they made up 88 percent of those affected by the closures.” “(T)hree years later, Chicago residents are still reeling from the devastating closures—a policy decision that has not only failed to bring about notable academic gains, but has also destabilized communities, crippled small businesses, and weakened local property values. With the city struggling to sell or repurpose most of the closed schools, dozens of large buildings remain vacant, becoming targets of crime and vandalism throughout poor neighborhoods.” “In Chicago… 87.5 percent of students affected by closures did not move to significantly higher-performing schools.”

A mass of social science research demonstrates the correlation between students’ standardized test scores and their families’ economic circumstances. Recognizing the futility of the school turnaround plans that pretend it is easy to raise test scores, New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio has instead been turning schools in the poorest neighborhoods into full-service, wraparound Community Schools with health and dental clinics and services for parents located right in the school building. Here is how the Children’s Aid Society, the huge social service agency in NYC that has been supporting the development of Community Schools, Community Schools: Steady Improvement for Students and Support for Families | janresseger:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: New study provides more good reasons to vote NO on 2 in Massachusetts

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: New study provides more good reasons to vote NO on 2 in Massachusetts:

New study provides more good reasons to vote NO on 2 in Massachusetts

On Tuesday, voters in Massachusetts will decide whether or not to lift the cap on their state's privately-run charter schools. I hope they will consider the findings in a newly-released studydone by Michael Robinson, who describes himself as a concerned parent, taxpayer, and private citizen, and vote NO on Question 2.

Like Mr. Robinson, who has children of his own with disabilities, this issue is more than academic for me, both as an educator and grandparent of a Chicago student with disabilities. The unconstrained expansion of charters has not only drained badly-needed resources from our city's public schools, it has led to further segregation of special-needs and disabled students and less than adequate services delivered to those students within the charters themselves.

Robinson's study confirms a pile of anecdotal evidence showing that MA charter schools underserve students with disabilities and attempt to improve standardized test performance by using discipline (especially suspensions) as a punitive lever, which many of these schools use to encourage attrition for this resource-intensive population.

This new report on Massachusetts charters, released today, found "91.3% of districts with highest discipline rates for special education students are charter schools" and 25% of charters have no full-time special educators.

The movement against raising the charter cap is growing. Recent polls show the ballot Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: New study provides more good reasons to vote NO on 2 in Massachusetts:

Missing Socialization in Today’s Public Schools

Missing Socialization in Today’s Public Schools:

Missing Socialization in Today’s Public Schools

How do democratic public schools address the socialization of students? How are children brought together to make a kinder world? Does anyone even ask that question today?

This past weekend I read “My Pedagogic Creed” by John Dewey (a little light reading on a Sunday afternoon), and I was struck by how far our public schools have strayed from addressing the social needs of children and their families.

Even if you are no Dewey fan, his ideas about schools growing out of community, with special consideration of the child’s home life, are compelling. Dewey believed schools should be about this social connection.

He saw schools as “social institutions.”

Think how far we have strayed from this concept today. The total focus is on the student’s future. Yet, what we need most is to teach students, not only how to get along, but, and excuse me if it sounds mushy, how to be friends.

Several anti-social conditions surrounding today’s public schools jump out Missing Socialization in Today’s Public Schools:

Image result for my best friend in 2nd grade

With A Brooklyn Accent: The Origins of Unlawful Teacher Discipline in the Berkeley (Cal) School District

With A Brooklyn Accent: The Origins of Unlawful Teacher Discipline in the Berkeley (Cal) School District:

The Origins of Unlawful Teacher Discipline in the Berkeley (Cal) School District

Image result for Unlawful Teacher Discipline

We have a crisis of administrative attacks on teachers in Berkeley. Specifically our teachers are being falsely accused of unprofessional conduct and unsatisfactory performance based on false pretenses. In addition classified employees are being targeted with trumped up statements of charges of misconduct also leading to termination.

Regarding the certificated statutes of the ed code, we feel that a crime has been committed before the district implements ca ed code 44938 and 44939c to terminate our employment. (California ed code 44938 is derived from Ca ed Code 44660 performance evaluation. Ca Ed Code 44939c requires improper conduct with student or criminal act)

District law firms specifically Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud &Romo, compile the statement of charges with administration. These charges in turn are filled with false, misleading and or fraud filled statements and or charges. These charges in turn are the basis for the termination and disciplining of employees under false pretenses. Needless to say the district law firms in question appear to be conducting a racketeering scheme as the are making financial gain from the trumped up charges. This in turn drains the resources of the school district unnecessarily. There are currently no ed code protections in the BFT or BCCE contract that address this issue in codified fashion.

Quoting Penal Code 132:

”132. Every person who upon any trial, proceeding, inquiry, or

investigation whatever, authorized or permitted by law, With A Brooklyn Accent: The Origins of Unlawful Teacher Discipline in the Berkeley (Cal) School District:

Bill Gates Targets Judge Who Voted Against Charter Schools - Law Blog - WSJ

Bill Gates Targets Judge Who Voted Against Charter Schools - Law Blog - WSJ:

Bill Gates Targets Judge Who Voted Against Charter Schools

A judge on Washington State’s highest court is lashing out at Bill Gates and two other billionaires who have spent at least $850,000 on efforts to oust him from the bench.

Washington State Supreme Court Charles “Charlie” K. Wiggins, elected six years ago, is vying for another term. Opposing his campaign are two political action committees backed with six-figure donations from America’s richest man, Bill Gates, fellow Microsoftco-founder Paul Allen, and money manager Ken Fisher.

One of the PACs — funded by the Microsoft billionaires — is running ads urging voters to back the judge’s challenger, municipal court judge Dave Larson. The other, supported by Mr. Fisher, is attacking Justice Wiggins’s record, focusing on a child-pornography case in which he voted to overturn the conviction of a man accused of possessing child pornography.

Bill Gates donated $200,000. The company that manages Mr. Allen’s business and charitable undertakings gave another $300,000. Mr. Fisher donated $350,000 to the other PAC.

Justice Higgins is none too pleased about it, reports the Seattle Times:

“This is an attack on the credibility of the court,” Wiggins said, expressing astonishment over what he called an “eleventh-hour” stroke of the pen by a group of billionaires.

The independent spending dwarfs the $205,000 raised by Wiggins’ campaign. Groups including Planned Parenthood have reported an additional $12,000 in independent spending to support him.

Justice Wiggins’s tenure has been marked by a number of controversial rulings, including a 2015 decision he favored declaring the state’s system of funding charter schools unconstitutional and another case where the court ordered the state to spend billions of dollars more on public schools.

Mr. Gates and other donors “were big supporters of the state’s charter-schools law,” says the Seattle Times.

A former Eagle Scout and U.S. Army captain from Bainbridge Island, Justice Wiggins Bill Gates Targets Judge Who Voted Against Charter Schools - Law Blog - WSJ:

Charter Schools Accused Of Discrimination In Admissions Process « CBS Sacramento

Charter Schools Accused Of Discrimination In Admissions Process « CBS Sacramento:

Charter Schools Accused Of Discrimination In Admissions Process

SACRAMENTO– More than two 200 California charter schools are accused of violating state and federal laws.

A recent report by The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California says those charter schools are discriminating when admitting students. They say just like public schools, there needs to be equal access for all students enrolling.

About 20 of the flagged charter schools are in and around the Sacramento region. .

The study looked at 1000 of the state’s 1,200 charter schools and their online enrollment policies.

“With that information we realized this is a huge problem,” said Public Advocates attorney Rigel Massaro.

“We thought if these are the written policies, then this may only be the tip of the iceberg for families that come to a school and try to enroll their child,” she said.

The ACLU accuses charter schools of violations that include:

Discrimination against English learners
Requiring parents to volunteer
Pre-enrollment essay requirements
Requirements that discourage undocumented students
and exclusion based on Academic performance

“If you have a student that’s a lower performing student they’re going to feel like they can’t apply and they probably wouldn’t have success if they applied, and that’s discriminatory,” said Massaro.

About 20 schools from Sacramento to El Dorado and Placer counties have been named, including Sacramento’s Community Outreach Academy.

The school is accused of requiring all parents who enroll children to volunteer a minimum of 12 hours a year, but the school says it’s an old policy that has never been enforced and they’ve fixed the wording in their handbook.

“It’s a recommendation not a requirement and we want to reach out to the ACLU to be removed from the list,” said Jason Sample of Gateway Community Charters.

Sacramento’s Fortune School CEO, Margaret Fortune, says schools should have been alerted properly before a list was made public

“If there are policies that we need to take another look at, we’re more than happy to do, but we wont engage with the ACLU in a public shaming campaign :33

Other schools like Alta Vista Community Charter in Auburn said:

“We have recently been made aware of an alleged ACLU violation against our charter school. We have attempted to contact ACLU for clarification so that we may remedy this, and have not received a response. Until we know what we are in violation of, it is difficult for us to know how to resolve this. If we do receive clarification, rest assured we will address this matter quickly and effectively so that we may continue to represent our school and our community in the best way possible.”

Since this report has come out, about 90 schools have been taken off this list because they have corrected the violation.

The ACLU is working with each school that contacts them

Meanwhile the California Department of Eduation said: “The ACLU report raised some important issues that the California Department of Education has been investigating. Charter schools are a popular education option for many California families. As public schools, they need to be accessible to all students and follow state law.”Charter Schools Accused Of Discrimination In Admissions Process « CBS Sacramento:

Image result for cream and cherries charter schools

Teachers Union Head Brings Political Clout to Bear for Hillary Clinton - WSJ

Teachers Union Head Brings Political Clout to Bear for Hillary Clinton - WSJ:

Teachers Union Head Brings Political Clout to Bear for Hillary Clinton

National Education Association chief Lily Eskelsen García takes campaign to defeat Republican nominee Donald Trump personally

Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association, talks to volunteers at Hillary Clinton's campaign office in West Chester, Pa., a key Philadelphia suburb, on Oct. 15, 2016. PHOTO: BRODY MULLINS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

PHILADELPHIA—Lily Eskelsen García, the president of the National Education Association, is using her union’s vast campaign machine to wage a personal fight against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

As a Hispanic married to a Mexican citizen, she was insulted by his derogatory comments about Mexican immigrants. As the daughter of a U.S. Army veteran, she was upset by Mr. Trump’s criticism of the parents of a Muslim veteran killed in Afghanistan. And, as a woman, she was offended by Mr. Trump’s comments about how his status as a celebrity allowed him to grope women.

“This has hit me in every place I live,” Ms. García, 61 years old, said in an interview.

Under Ms. García’s watch, the teachers union is waging its most extensive election effort ever. She pushed the union to endorse Democrat Hillary Clinton last fall, months before the primaries had started, and to start campaigning for her much earlier than the union has in prior elections.

The NEA has doubled the amount of money it is spending on a campaign to help Mrs. Clinton and other Democrats, making it the top-spending labor union in the 2016 elections, according to election-spending reports.

The NEA has donated more than $14 million to groups that support the Democratic ticket.

Ms. García helps direct a union-led super PAC, For Our Future, that has raised roughly $60 million for the presidential race and key Senate races. The NEA has pledged $5 million to the For Our Future PAC and an affiliate, and another $1 million to the super PAC backing Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, Priorities USA Action.

Her union can also deliver key voters. Among NEA’s three million members, roughly three-quarters are women, many of them with college degrees, who live in the swing suburban areas in presidential battleground states.

Based on the union’s internal analysis, its members support Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump by 36 percentage points.

Some unions have had to work harder this year to hold their members as Mr. Trump’s antiestablishment message and criticism of trade deals has resonated with many of their white voters who lack a college degree. The GOP nominee has been endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police and the National ICE Council, which represents border-control workers.

The AFL-CIO has been working to remind members and their families about Mr. Trump’s antilabor stances, such as his support for so-called right-to-work laws that can drain Teachers Union Head Brings Political Clout to Bear for Hillary Clinton - WSJ:

Thursday, October 27, 2016

When It Comes to Colorado Montessori, James Walton Is Calling the $hots | deutsch29

When It Comes to Colorado Montessori, James Walton Is Calling the $hots | deutsch29:

When It Comes to Colorado Montessori, James Walton Is Calling the $hots

James Walton, grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton, has taken a liking to Montessori schools in Colorado.

On September 28, 2016, the Walton Family Foundation via the Chronicle of Philanthropy began advertising for an education director for the Colorado-based “James Walton Fund.”

Below is how the ed director job ad presents James Walton’s involvement in Montessori in Colorado:

As an engineering undergraduate at Colorado School of Mines, James regularly volunteered with local schools, working directly with students. One day, he walked into a Montessori charter school that had been a previous WFF grant recipient. Observing a group of children independently engaged in learning within a structured environment, it occurred to him:

This seems to be a unique and important way of helping children succeed

Why is this school model wildly underrepresented within the public school system?

Since that moment, James has devoted his time and his investments to better understanding child-centered approaches. He has worked on the ground as a Montessori high school apprentice and dedicated observer. He started a Montessori teacher-training center. His grants have expanded beyond Montessori to organizations and research that serve students in a
When It Comes to Colorado Montessori, James Walton Is Calling the $hots | deutsch29:

Education Reformers and Gates Foundation Want Free-Flow Of Private Student Data – Exceptional Delaware

Education Reformers and Gates Foundation Want Free-Flow Of Private Student Data – Exceptional Delaware:

Education Reformers and Gates Foundation Want Free-Flow Of Private Student Data

Last Friday, the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking held a hearing for the handling of data in America’s future. Make no mistake: this would allow student data to flow out of schools more than it already is. FERPA would become more of a joke than it already is. The written statements are now available. And we see more of some of the names behind these foundations. Folks like KIPP and the Gates Foundation are knee-deep in this. We know Bill Gates doesn’t care about student data privacy. And what company actually talks about how brick and mortar schools should no longer be used for a certain population? The answers are in here. This is a must-read. I’m glad to see some of the data privacy groups were able to get public comment submitted for this. But what in the heck is “Moneyball For Government”? There are a lot of names involved with that one!

The Gates Foundation came out with a long report last month on student data. They want the U.S. Government to lift the ban on a Federal database for student data. How ironic that President Obama issued an Executive Order creating this commission that would allow for Bill Gates’ dream to come true. Corporations run this country. This is all just the set-up that will lead to Smart Cities and Blockchain takeovers of society. When children lose their individual uniqueness and become a part of the hive. I am all for transparency of government activity, but not things that should never see the light of day. Personal information should be private. If someone wants to make their business public, that is one thing. But when that choice is taken away from you by what amounts to corporate profits, every single American needs to be concerned about this. Students are no longer people. They are the human capital for a return on investment.

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