Education Reinventers | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Education Reinventers | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Education Reinventers

For the past ten years public education has been under assault by the self-proclaimed education ‘reformers.’ Strong personalities like Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Michael Bloomberg, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Corey Booker, and others led the movement that gave us Race To The Top, Race To The Top waivers, and the Every Child Succeeds Act.

They got a chance to experiment with their ideas subjecting kids and neighborhoods around the country to school closures, charter schools, and state test madness. After a few years they declared that their experiments were working, they pointed to a few schools that seemingly proved that if you replace unionized teachers who are not scared of being fired with non-unionized teachers who are scared of being fired, you will close the achievement gap measured by standardized test scores. But the successes were mostly false — charter schools were shedding 75% of their students in order to get a so-called 100% college acceptance rate. Other schools were practicing abusive discipline practices that forced out many of the most difficult to teach students. There was even a fiasco called the Tennessee Achievement School District which promised to take over schools in the bottom 5% and move them to the top 25% within five years. Ten years later exactly none of the schools made it out of the bottom 10%.

Reformers needed to change their PR strategy. They replaced Michelle Rhee with CONTINUE READING: Education Reinventers | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

TFA Snags Top Job in Biden Administration | Diane Ravitch's blog

TFA Snags Top Job in Biden Administration | Diane Ravitch's blog

TFA Snags Top Job in Biden Administration

Well, that didn’t take long!

The Biden administration has selected a TFA person for one of the plum jobs in the White House.

At least half a dozen individuals recently appointed to positions in the White House include those with teaching experience and others who have worked with education-focused organizations. While several have most recently worked on the Biden-Harris campaign — and didn’t necessarily jump straight from the classroom into government — they’ll still have direct knowledge of issues that matter to both teachers and parents.

The incoming White House staff, for example, includes Kaitlyn Hobbs Demers, who taught fifth grade in the CONTINUE READING: TFA Snags Top Job in Biden Administration | Diane Ravitch's blog

Ugly Attacks on Teachers and Teachers Unions | janresseger

Ugly Attacks on Teachers and Teachers Unions | janresseger

Ugly Attacks on Teachers and Teachers Unions

As a candidate for President, Joseph Biden promised to appoint a teacher or someone experienced in public school education as U.S. Secretary of Education. Now as Biden is appointing the members of his Cabinet, we are reading opinion pieces filled with all the old conventional biases against schoolteachers in general and against the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.

Many Republicans are suspicious of teachers unions, but a lot of the current attacks on teachers are coming from Democrats—from the supporters of the “corporate school reformer” education policies of President Barack Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan. These are Democrats who adhere to the neoliberal policies that endorsed school privatization in the form of charter schools whose operation is entirely private. Some of these Democrats are people who promote business school school accountability based on incentives and punishments said to increase teachers’ productivity. The current protesters are worried about the possibility that President Elect Biden will appoint Lily Eskelsen Garcia, NEA’s recent president, or Randi Weingarten, AFT’s current president, as the next U.S. Secretary of Education.

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal printed an extraordinary classist, sexist, elitist, and insultingly anti-teacher screed by Joseph Epstein, the former editor of The American Scholar.  Here is how Epstein begins his personal attack on Jill Biden: “Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo…  Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the CONTINUE READING: Ugly Attacks on Teachers and Teachers Unions | janresseger

Carol Burris: The Secretary of Education We Need–and Those We Don’t | Diane Ravitch's blog

Carol Burris: The Secretary of Education We Need–and Those We Don’t | Diane Ravitch's blog

Carol Burris: The Secretary of Education We Need–and Those We Don’t

Carol Burris wrote the following post. Marla Kilfoyle provided assistance. They asked me to add that there are dozens more exceptionally well qualified people who should be considered for this important post: they are career educators who believe in public education, not closing schools or privatization.

The media has been filled with speculation regarding Joe Biden’s pick for Secretary of Education. Given the attention that position received with Betsy De Vos at the helm, that is not a surprise. 

In 2008, Linda Darling Hammond was pushed aside by DFER (Democrats for Education Reform) for Arne Duncan, with disastrous consequences for our public schools. Race to the Top was a disaster. New Orleans’ parents now have no choice but unstable charter schools. Too many of Chicago’s children no longer have a neighborhood school from the Race to the Top era when it was believed that you improved a school by closing it.

But the troubling, ineffective policies of the past have not gone away. Their banner is still being carried by deep-pocketed ed reformers who believe the best way to improve a school is to close it or turn it over to a private charter board. 

Recently, DFER named its three preferred candidates for the U.S. Secretary of Education. DFER is a political CONTINUE READING: Carol Burris: The Secretary of Education We Need–and Those We Don’t | Diane Ravitch's blog

CURMUDGUCATION: Betsy DeVos Will Be Leaving. Prepare To Curb Your Enthusiasm.

CURMUDGUCATION: Betsy DeVos Will Be Leaving. Prepare To Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Betsy DeVos Will Be Leaving. Prepare To Curb Your Enthusiasm.

It has been a few hours since the race was finally called, and now, once we get past a few hundred petulant lawsuits, the Trump Train will be leaving DC (undoubtedly kicking over every table it can find on the way out).

That means that Betsy DeVos will be leaving the department of education, and that is unquestionably, undeniably a good thing. And if you want to celebrate it for the rest of the weekend, I don't want to take that away from you--just put a pin in this post and come back to it Monday.

Feel better? I certainly do. Now then...

DeVos is almost certainly not going away. She has devoted her entire adult life to the pursuit of privatized, Christianized education, to a system that aids the Betters and keeps the Lessers in their proper place, to a world in which the wealthy can hold onto their well-deserved piles of money without having to use any of it to pay for nice things for Those People. She is not going to stop now.

She is far more experienced and suited to the life of a billionaire political operative than that of a government bureaucrat. That is what she knows how to do (hell, Secretary of Education is the only actual job she's ever had). In some ways, she did more damage as a private citizen then a government functionary. Ask any education advocate from Michigan--the DeVos family has mastered the art of checkbook advocacy, of backing politicians who will do their bidding and threatening those that won't. In fact, the DeVos family never stopped--they raised money for John James, even though he ultimately lost.

That loss (and a few others) may signal how things have changed for DeVos. For much of her career, she was able to operate somewhat stealthily. She now has spectacular name recognition--and it's not very good recognition at that. "This candidate is back by Betsy DeVos," is likely to be an albatross around the neck of any future politicians willing to answer her call. She has attained a huge level of unpopularity among the general public, and teachers at one point reported they dislike her more CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Betsy DeVos Will Be Leaving. Prepare To Curb Your Enthusiasm.

DFER Names Its Candidates for Secretary of Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

DFER Names Its Candidates for Secretary of Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

DFER Names Its Candidates for Secretary of Education

Chalkbeat reports that the privatizers at “Democrats” for Education Reform have identified their candidates for Biden’s Secretary of Education. They are three big-city superintendents who have worked harmoniously with charter schools.

DFER is an organization of hedge fund managers and financiers who are supporters of charter schools, merit pay, high-stakes testing, and value-added evaluation of teachers. In 2008, DFER successfully advocated for the appointment of Arne Duncan, a supporter of their goals.

Democrats for Education Reform is coordinating a behind-the-scenes push for Chicago schools chief Janice Jackson, the head of Baltimore schools Sonja Brookins Santelises, or Philadelphia superintendent William Hite, according to an email sent to supporters Monday by the group’s president Shavar Jeffries and obtained by Chalkbeat. All three, Jeffries wrote, would represent a “‘big tent’ approach to education policy making….”

DFER was an influential actor in policy during the Obama CONTINUE READING: DFER Names Its Candidates for Secretary of Education | Diane Ravitch's blog