Toxic Philanthropy Part 1: Surveillance – Wrench in the Gears

Toxic Philanthropy Part 1: Surveillance – Wrench in the Gears

Toxic Philanthropy Part 1: Surveillance

We are living through desperate times: populations dislocated by climate catastrophe and dispossessed by state violence. Many are attempting, unsuccessfully, to navigate economic systems grounded in low-wage, disposable labor and insurmountable debt. The cost of living continues to rise, especially in cities where wealth is concentrated in the hands of speculative investors.

Stable housing is hard to find; food insecurity is real. Addiction is rampant with limited treatment options, and affordable healthcare is beyond reach. Meanwhile, education is being privatized as children are plugged into devices and told to cultivate a “growth mindset.” Digital tracking of mental health and social-emotional competencies is being normalized. It’s as if the Davos / Fourth Industrial Revolution crowd knows things are about to get much, much worse, and is rapidly locking systems into place to track and manage citizens before they become ungovernable.

As the buying power of the working class withers, capital must find new ways to circulate. Increasingly it will flow into investment markets created by outcomes-based service contracting. Such a model will fuel growth in P3 public-private partnerships and enrich those consulting firms, like Ridge Lane LP, angling to broker agreements. Seed funding to jumpstart this transition was part of the Federal Budget in February, the Social Impact Partnerships Pay for Success Act.

Against such a backdrop, we must critically examine the toxic network of arrangements that have been made between non-profit health and human service organizations (including public education systems), predatory venture philanthropy, and companies that have developed technologies to turn citizens into “impact” commodities that can be tokenized and traded like toxic bundled mortgages in derivatives markets.

Branding poverty-mining as “what works” government makes it easier for finance and technology interests to convince elected officials that wringing profit from the misery of society’s most vulnerable is something that could actually be made palatable enough to sell to the unsuspecting masses. Whether living in abandoned warehouses or tents in Kensington, in rural Indian villages, or refugee encampments, those needing access to services Continue reading: Toxic Philanthropy Part 1: Surveillance – Wrench in the Gears

A White Supremacist Murdered Two At My Supermarket: Kentucky teacher speaks out against racist violence and the school-to-prison-pipeline – I AM AN EDUCATOR

A White Supremacist Murdered Two At My Supermarket: Kentucky teacher speaks out against racist violence and the school-to-prison-pipeline – I AM AN EDUCATOR

A White Supremacist Murdered Two At My Supermarket: Kentucky teacher speaks out against racist violence and the school-to-prison-pipeline

In October, two Black grandparents were gunned down by a white supremacist in a Kroger supermarket in Louisville, Kentucky, sending shock waves through the Black community.

The shooter was recorded on surveillance video trying to get into a predominately Black church just before the killing. Michelle Randolph, who teaches fourth grade in a school with a majority of Black and immigrant students in Jefferson County, Kentucky, lives in the neighborhood and shops at the Kroger that was targeted.

Randolph helped organize the over 5,000 Kentucky educators who shut down schools in 30 counties and rallied with students, parents and unionists on the state Capitol for education funding. Kentucky educators were part of the “Red State Revolt,” which included strikes that shut schools down in more than five states dominated by Republican legislatures — including West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona and North Carolina — and won many millions of extra dollars in education spending for their school districts.

Jesse Hagopian, a Seattle high school ethnic studies teacher and co-editor of the book Teaching for Black Lives, interviewed Michelle on the fight against racism and the struggle for education in an article that first appeared in Socialist Worker.

Jesse: Thanks for taking the time to talk after a long day in the classroom.

Michelle: My pleasure.

Jesse: I wanted to first ask you about the recent escalation of racist, hateful violence. There were the mail bombs sent to political opponents of Trump. Then there was the attack on the synagogue that killed 11 people, which has been called the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. And in the midst of these, there was the racist killing of two Black grandparents in Kentucky, Maurice Stallard and Vickie Lee Jones, while they were doing their weekly shopping at the Kroger supermarket. Tell me about the Continue reading: A White Supremacist Murdered Two At My Supermarket: Kentucky teacher speaks out against racist violence and the school-to-prison-pipeline – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Kansas’ next governor says job protections for teachers should be restored statewide | The Wichita Eagle

Kelly would ‘welcome’ bill to restore teacher due process | The Wichita Eagle

Kansas’ next governor says job protections for teachers should be restored statewide

TOPEKA 

Kansas Gov.-elect Laura Kelly said she would welcome a bill to again provide thousands of public school teachers with statewide due process protections that were eliminated years ago.

During an interview Thursday with McClatchy, she also said that she wants to strengthen the state’s civil service system, which has lost thousands of employees over the past several years.

Under due process, teachers have the right to an administrative hearing before they are fired. Advocates say that provides protection from wrongful termination. Opponents say decisions about whether to extend due process should be made by local school boards and districts, not state lawmakers.

Lawmakers and then-Gov. Sam Brownback eliminated that right from state law in 2014. Teacher unions and Democrats – including Kelly – have wanted to reverse the decision ever since.

“I voted against eliminating due process for teachers and I would welcome a bill that repeals what we enacted in 2014. I fully expect that there will be efforts to do that during the legislative session,” Kelly said.

Previous bills to restore teacher due process have not advanced to the governor’s desk. But some measures have found support among lawmakers in the House. In 2017, for example, Continue reading: Kelly would ‘welcome’ bill to restore teacher due process | The Wichita Eagle

Tony Thurmond beats Marshall Tuck in California schools chief race Charter school backers spent millions on statewide races in 2018. They still lost twice| The Sacramento Bee

Tony Thurmond beats Marshall Tuck in California schools chief race | The Sacramento Bee

 Charter school backers spent millions on statewide races in 2018. They still lost twice.

When former charter school executive Marshall Tuck called Assemblyman Tony Thurmond to concede over the weekend, it marked another defeat for charter-school advocates in California.

Thurmond was elected California’s top education official in the wave that led more liberal-leaning voters to cast ballots. Although both are Democrats, Thurmond had the party’s endorsement.

He also was backed by teachers unions, who were outspent more than two-to-one.

Independent groups supporting Tuck spent more than $36 million this cycle. Prominent education reform supporters, including frequent political donor Bill Bloomfield, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and philanthropist Eli Broad were among the biggest contributors to those efforts. Tuck’s official campaign raised another $5 million.

“The group of people who have provided significant funding to candidates that are associated with a charter-friendly agenda have proven that they don’t have the ability to capture statewide offices,” said John Rogers, an education policy expert at UCLA.

It’s only the latest big loss the pro-charter school movement has suffered in California.

In June, many of the same donors were disappointed when their chosen candidate for California governor Antonio Villaraigosa didn’t make it out of the primary despite their more-than $20 million effort to bolster him.

Tuck also ran for schools chief unsuccessfully in 2014, when incumbent Tom Torlakson beat him – again with support from the teachers unions.

The California Teachers Association provided most of the more-than $16 million independent effort supporting Thurmond. His campaign raised more than $3 million. Labor unions and the California Democratic Party were among the biggest donors for both Continue reading: Tony Thurmond beats Marshall Tuck in California schools chief race | The Sacramento Bee

CURMUDGUCATION: Is This The End Of Ed Reform Policy?

CURMUDGUCATION: Is This The End Of Ed Reform Policy?

Is This The End Of Ed Reform Policy?

From time  to time Mike Petrilli (Fordham Institute) grabs himself a big declaration and goes to town. Last week, the declaration was "We have reached the end of education policy."

He frames this up with references to Francis Fukuyama's book about the end of history, and I don't know that he really ever sticks the landing on creating parallels between Fukuyama's idea (which he acknowledges turned out to be wrong) and his thoughts about ed policy, but it establishes an idea about the scale he's shooting for-- something more sweeping and grandiose than if he'd compared ed policy to video game arcades or no-strings-attached sex.

His thesis?

We are now at the End of Education Policy, in the same way that we were at the End of History back in 1989. Our own Cold War pitted reformers against traditional education groups; we have fought each other to a draw, and reached something approaching homeostasis. Resistance to education reform has not collapsed like the Soviet Union did. Far from it. But there have been major changes that are now institutionalized and won’t be easily undone, at least for the next decade.

Okay. Well, first I'd argue that he has it backwards. It was reformsters who championed centralized top-down planning and the erasure of local governance, often accomplished with raw power and blunt force, so if somebody has to be the Soviet Union in this analogy, I think they fit the bill.

He ticks off the gains of the reformist movement. Charters are now fact of the landscape in many cities. Tax credit scholarships, a form of sideways voucher, are also established. He admits that the growth of these programs has slowed; he Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: Is This The End Of Ed Reform Policy?

4-H: Trump agency push to dump LGBT policy led to Iowa leader's firing

4-H: Trump agency push to dump LGBT policy led to Iowa leader's firing

EXCLUSIVE: How Trump administration pressure to dump 4-H's LGBT policy led to Iowa leader's firing

The Trump administration pushed the national 4-H youth organization to withdraw a controversial policy welcoming LGBT members — a move that helped lead to the ouster of Iowa's top 4-H leader earlier this year, a Des Moines Register investigation has found.

The international youth organization, with more than 6 million members, introduced the new policy to ensure LGBT members felt protected by their local 4-H program — part of a larger effort to modernize the federally authorized youth group and broaden membership.

Several states posted the policy on their websites, including Iowa, where it prompted fierce opposition from conservatives and some evangelical groups.

Andy Turner, a New York state 4-H leader at Cornell University (Photo: Cornell University)

"The current focus of this campaign may be Iowa, but the values and vision of the entire Cooperative Extension are under attack," Andy Turner, director of the New York 4-H program, wrote in an email to John-Paul Chaisson-Cárdenas, Iowa's top 4-H leader, last April.

But within days of the LGBT policy's publication, Heidi Green, then-chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, requested that it be rescinded, Sonny Ramaswamy, then-director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the federal department that administers 4-H, told the Register.

Afterward, a NIFA communications manager sent an "urgent" email to at least two states — Iowa and New York — urging the 4-H organizations there to remove the LGBT policy from their websites, the Register found.

The subsequent decision to take down the policy set off a firestorm this spring for 4-H programs in at least eight states — including Iowa, Idaho, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and New York.

It eventually precipitated the firing of Iowa 4-H director John-Paul Chaisson-Cárdenas, a fierce advocate of the LGBT policy, the Register found after conducting extensive interviews and examining more than 500 pages of state and federal communications.

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John-Paul Chaisson-Cardenas, a former 4-H Youth Development Program leader, was a fierce advocate for a more inclusive 4-H program that welcomed LGBT youth. He was fired earlier this year. (Photo: Bryon Houlgrave/The Register)

The 4-H policy's removal comes amid other moves by the Trump administration to roll back federal protections covering gender identity — the deeply held sense of who one is that may differ from the sex organs with which one is born.

The Trump administration previously declared it would place limits on transgender troops serving in the military, and it rescinded a 2016 Dear Colleague letter issued by Obama’s Education Department that said prohibiting transgender students from using facilities such as restrooms that matched their gender identity violates federal anti-discrimination laws.

The Trump administration has also attempted to remove questions about gender identity from the 2020 census.

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In October, the New York Times obtained a leaked memo from the Department of Health and Human Services that seeks to define gender as “either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with.”

The move would “essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million” transgender Americans, the Times reported.

The Trump administration to date has declined to comment on the leaked memo.

Iowa director pressured to drop policy

As Iowa’s document — and the ones posted to other states’ sites — circulated the internet this spring, Christian conservative leaders and media outlets rallied their supporters to pressure 4-H leaders to remove the document, and a Christian law firm threatened legal action.

Some states relented. In Iowa, Chaisson-Cárdenas, the first statewide Latino director of 4-H in the organization’s 115-year history, resisted.

A dyslexic Guatemalan refugee who graduated from Continue reading: 4-H: Trump agency push to dump LGBT policy led to Iowa leader's firing

In Kansas, Teach for America Underdelivers and Still Gets Paid $270K | deutsch29

In Kansas, Teach for America Underdelivers and Still Gets Paid $270K | deutsch29

In Kansas, Teach for America Underdelivers and Still Gets Paid $270K

On November 16, 2018, KMUW.com (NPR in Wichita, Kansas) published an article entitled, “Kansas to Pay Teach for America $270,000 for Recruiting Three Teachers.”

$270,000. Three teachers. (But if you count last year, which was pre-TFA-contract, and allow those teachers to become part of the TFA commitment, the number rises to five recruits….)

Still, $270K for five TFAers. A waste of public money, for sure.

Add to that story the reality that those three teachers aren’t permanent hires. TFA doesn’t promote classroom teaching as a career, just a temporary stop onto a more lucrative potential career: Ed Reform Ladder Climber.

Of course, one rung of said ladder is to spend two or three TFA years in the classroom, only to turn around and be compensated handsomely as a TFA recruiter. (For examples, see here and here and here and here.) It is even possibleto become a TFA recruiter having been a substitute teacher for under two years, though, to be fair, one might possibly break the four-year mark in the classroom before landing on the incomey softness of TFA recruitment.

And as a TFA recruiter– regardless of the number of recruits, apparently– the payoff is sweet.

From the KMUW.com article:

…The Kansas City, Kansas school district says it only hired three Teach For America instructors this year. Two other recruits started teaching in the district last year before Kansas hired the organization. …

The state education department says Teach For America told the Continue reading: In Kansas, Teach for America Underdelivers and Still Gets Paid $270K | deutsch29  

How Facebook Dealt with Crisis: A Tale of Denial | Diane Ravitch's blog

How Facebook Dealt with Crisis: A Tale of Denial | Diane Ravitch's blog

How Facebook Dealt with Crisis: A Tale of Denial

This article was published by the New York Times on November 15. You will learn how Facebook dealt with questions about its slipshod handling of multiple crises. Facebook has the power for great good, connecting people to act collectively as they did in the teachers’ protests last spring, or for great evil, as it has been used to sell personal data, to spread racism and hate speech, even to facilitate genocide, as in Myanmar (see here and here). Congress has pondered whether or how to regulate this communications behemoth. This article describes how Facebook responded to this threat to its autonomy.

Sheryl Sandberg was seething.

Inside Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, top executives gathered in the glass-walled conference room of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. It was September 2017, more than a year after Facebook engineers discovered suspicious Russia-linked activity on its site, an early warning of the Kremlin campaign to disrupt the 2016 American election. Congressional and federal investigators were closing in on evidence that would implicate the company.

But it wasn’t the looming disaster at Facebook that angered Ms. Sandberg. It was the social network’s security chief, Alex Stamos, who had informed company board members the day before that Facebook had yet to contain the Russian infestation. Mr. Stamos’s briefing had prompted a humiliating boardroom interrogation of Ms. Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, and her billionaire boss. She appeared to regard the admission as a betrayal.

“You threw us under the bus!” she yelled at Mr. Stamos, according to people who were present.
The clash that day would set off a reckoning — for Mr. Zuckerberg, for Ms. Sandberg and for the business they had built together. In just over a decade, Facebook has connected more than 2.2 billion people, a global nation unto itself that reshaped political campaigns, the advertising Continue reading: How Facebook Dealt with Crisis: A Tale of Denial | Diane Ravitch's blog

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Light Up Night Hangover Edition (11/18)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Light Up Night Hangover Edition (11/18)

ICYMI: Light Up Night Hangover Edition (11/18)

Last night was my town's big Light Up Night parade, which includes a huge parade (well, huge by our standards) fireworks, and cold children. But I still have some reading for you. Remember-- sharing is caring.

If People Talked To Other Professionals The Way They Talk To Teachers

A painfully hilarious piece from McSweeney. Just in case you're one of the three people who hasn't already seen this.

Former Camden Superintendent on Testing, Drawbacks Thereof

From our catalog of reform dudes discovering insights that we've been saying for years. It's still a pretty sharp indictment of testing.

Seattle High School TGeacher Shares the Wonder of Books with Students

This is so awesome-- a book store field trip. Read this and then start thinking about how you're going to do the same thing in your community.

Students Protest Zuckerberg-backed Digital Learning Program

Valerie Strauss with details about the Brooklyn students who walked out on Summit Learning.

You Are More Than Your EVAAS Score  

Justin Parmenter with words of encouragement aimed at NC teachers, but applicable to many others.

ReadyNation Prepares for More Next Gold Rush  

Impact investing, pre-K, and a pair of new governors make for a depressing game of connect the dots at Wrench in the Gears. 

Public Schools for Private Gains

From the Kappan.

Balance Is The Key

How is privatizing the weather like privatizing school?

Building an Early Childhood Resistance Movement

Defending the Early Years continues the work of standing up for the littles.

Disruption Using Technology Is Dangerous To Child Development and Public Education

Nancy Bailey sorts out some of the issues of ed tech and the threat it poses to children (and teachers).

The Best Woman for the Job

Nancy Flanagan reflects on meeting the glass ceiling in the world of music and teaching.

CURMUDGUCATION - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/

Public advocate beats charter supporter for California schools chief - The Washington Post

Public advocate beats charter supporter for California schools chief - The Washington Post

Public advocate beats charter supporter for California schools chief
It was the most expensive race for a state superintendent.

By Valerie Strauss

November 17 at 6:08 PM

Finally, more than a week after the vote, there is now a winner in the race for California’s superintendent of public instruction after the most expensive race in history for a state schools chief.

State legislator Tony Thurmond, an advocate for traditional public schools, beat out charter schools supporter Marshall Tuck. He tweeted the following on Saturday:

Tony Thurmond@TonyThurmond

I want to thank the voters of CA for electing me to serve the 6 million students of CA. I intend to be a champion of public schools & a Superintendent for all CA students. I want to thank Marshall Tuck for his gracious call to congratulate me & wish me well. Time to get to work!

5,742

11:38 AM - Nov 17, 2018

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The election of Thurmond was a victory for forces in California who want to reform the scandal-ridden charter school sector and a blow to the charter school lobby and wealthy philanthropists, some of them out of state, who had poured millions into Tuck’s campaign. Both men are Democrats.

Thurmond had established an insurmountable lead more than a week after the actual election, with 50.8 percent of the vote to 49.2 percent for Tuck, who lost his second consecutive bid for the job.

Until Saturday the race appeared to be too close too call, with a gap of only a few thousand votes at one point. Tuck initially led, but as more votes were counted, Thurmond took the lead and opened a wide enough margin for Tuck to concede.

Thurmond was elected to the California State Assembly in 2014 from the East Bay and has been a member of two school boards.

Tuck was the first president of the Green Dot network of charter schools in Los Angeles and then founded a nonprofit that used private donations to help turn around troubled traditional public schools. Four years ago, Tuck ran for state superintendent, losing in a race that cost some $30 million, with a lot of coming from billionaires backing Tuck.

This year’s race had a price tag of more than $50 million, making it the most expensive for a state Continue reading: Public advocate beats charter supporter for California schools chief - The Washington Post