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Cheats For Change

#Cheats4Change are committed to putting themselves first through bold, visionary education deform that will increase their donors' profits and prepare themselves for success in politics and careers.

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Question:

If changing an entire grading system to make one school look good— a school which had been held up as a policy-guiding example, and just happens to be owned by a wealthy and influential political patron, for fear of losing support in the legislature and the statehouse— doesn’t reveal a sense of “political expedience (sic)," then what does?

• occupyedu
• education reform
• education policy
• corporate agenda
• public schools
• public education
• school reform
• school privatization

Direct quotes unless otherwise noted. (As in, yes, he *actually* said that.)

If this is what passes for leadership in Jeb’s book, his definition is way different from ours. True leaders might have taken this situation as a moment to reflect, or even to consider the possibility that the system they created might be mis-characterizing a lot of schools, not just this one.

In other words, it would require the humility to consider the possibility that they could be wrong.

But that would require conceding that all of the ordinary stakeholders who have said (long beforeMike Petrilli) that “the problem wasn’t the schools, it was the metric" might actually have valid reasons for defending their schools, too.

And that might mean it was also wrong to ignore and criticize them this whole time.

And that could lead to wondering whether those ordinary people were right about other things, and that their insider crew of “reformers" might be wrong about other things, too.

But that can’t be possible. Better to pretend one of their own is incapable of doing wrong, and stick to the same discredited talking points.

Michelle Rhee embraces disgraced charter school advocate

Education reformers rush to defend Florida schools chief, Tony Bennett, after he resigned in a pay-to-play scandal

#fail: Michelle Rhee and others commended Tony Bennett for his legacy of "fewer failing schools"…after he resigned because he was caught changing Indiana’s school grades system to benefit one of his biggest donors. Why are they still quoting information that comes from a system we now know was rigged?

Read the rest at Salon.com.

Legislature's changes to Texas education go far beyond zapping of 10 STAAR tests | Dallasnews.com - News for Dallas, Texas - The Dallas Morning News

Legislature's changes to Texas education go far beyond zapping of 10 STAAR tests | Dallasnews.com - News for Dallas, Texas - The Dallas Morning News:

Legislature's changes to Texas education go far beyond zapping of 10 STAAR tests

Staff Writer

jweiss@dallasnews.com

Published: 03 August 2013 11:17 PM

Updated: 03 August 2013 11:42 PM

First in a series

Anyone who cares about Texas schools probably knows the state just whacked a bunch of STAAR tests. But that was only the simplest part of an 83-section new law that demands myriad changes, from TEA headquarters in Austin to the smallest school district’s classrooms.

Graduation requirements? Transformed. STAAR tests for cognitively disabled students? Revamped. Accountability ratings for schools and districts? Changed. Responsibilities for school counselors? Multiplied. New academic decisions for every ninth-grader? Unprecedented.

A few of the provisions will affect the school year that starts this month. Most don’t take effect until 2014.

Last month, state Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, chairman of the House Education Committee, explained the broad themes of the education bill, known as HB 5, to the State Board of Education: greater flexibility for districts and students, more local control, fewer state-mandated tests. And with a much greater emphasis on career preparation for students whose futures do not necessarily include college.

“There are about 40 percent of our students who we are not adequately meeting their needs,” said Aycock, R-Killeen.

Many of the new elements are barely outlined in the law, the most sweeping of the past session’s education bills signed by Gov. Rick Perry. For any detail the legislators couldn’t agree on, the state boar

Around Florida: Education job a revolving door | jacksonville.com

Around Florida: Education job a revolving door | jacksonville.com:

Around Florida: Education job a revolving door

Posted: August 4, 2013 - 7:44am  |  Updated: August 4, 2013 - 8:56am

By Matt Dixon

A word of advice to those who aspire to become Florida’s top education official: keep your resume updated.

For the third time since 2011, a Florida education commissioner has resigned under less than squeaky-clean circumstances.

The latest was Tony Bennett, who resigned Thursday. It was two days after the Associated Press reported he pushed changes that helped a school operated by a GOP donor while serving as Indiana’s superintendent of public instruction.

Though Bennett’s departure is under different circumstances, it is the third time under Gov. Rick Scott’s administration that Florida has been without an education chief.

Months after Scott took office, Eric Smith resigned as education commissioner after holding the post for three years. He left amid rumors that Scott was

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/2013-08-04/story/around-florida-education-job-revolving-door#ixzz2b0biCbDP

Teach for America criticized for apparent stance on education policy - latimes.com

Teach for America criticized for apparent stance on education policy - latimes.com:

Teach for America criticized for apparent stance on education policy

Critics say Teach for America has strayed from a core mission of helping needy urban schools, favoring efforts seen as anti-teacher union.

By Howard Blume

August 3, 2013, 7:40 p.m.

Over its 24-year history, Teach for America has won accolades for taking top college graduates and putting them to work in some of America's toughest schools, creating what it regards as a national model of nonpartisan service in education.

But some former participants and academics, among others, have recently accused the Peace Corps-like organization of taking sides in the education policy wars. They criticize the nonprofit for aligning too closely with its largest private donors and high-profile alumni who have gone into politics. They say the group has diverged too far from a core mission: addressing a teacher shortage with top college grads primed to inject energy and success into low-income, urban campuses.

The key backers of Teach for America include foundations that support efforts to expand charter schools, limit teacher job protections, weaken union clout and evaluate instructors by using student test scores.

The Walton Family Foundation, for example, last week donated $20 million that will help fund about 

All Things Education: Turtles and Hares in Modern School Reform

All Things Education: Turtles and Hares in Modern School Reform:

Turtles and Hares in Modern School Reform

I ended my last post with a larger point about the problem of "disruption" in modern education reform:

"This is exactly what happens when you rush into big, 'disruptive' changes without thinking about them or fully understanding what you're doing. You break things that weren't already broken and you make messes."

This is not an original thought to me. For one, it's been said over and over again by many more knowledgeable about education than I am. For example, look at Larry Cuban's recent post about turning around urban schools and Paul Vallas, comparing wiser marathon turnaround superintendents to the more impetuous sprinters:

In many instances, sprinter superintendents follow a recipe: reorganize district administrators, take on teacher unions, and create new schools in their rush for better student achievement. They take dramatic and swift actions that will attract high media attention. But they also believe—here is where ideological myopia enters the picture—that low test scores and achievement gaps between whites and minorities are due in large part to reluctant (or inept) district bureaucrats, recalcitrant principals, and knuckle-dragging union leaders defending contracts that protect lousy teachers from pay-for-performance incentives. 

Such beliefs, however, seriously misread why urban district students fail to reach proficiency levels and graduate high school. As important as it is to reorganize district offices, alter salary schedules, get rid of incompetent teachers and intractable principals, such actions in of themselves will not turn around a 

Will liberals stand up to “corporate school reform”? - Salon.com

Will liberals stand up to “corporate school reform”? - Salon.com:

Will liberals stand up to “corporate school reform”?

For too long, they've assumed that schools can be "fixed" without tackling social and economic inequality

BY LOIS WEINER

This article originally appeared on Jacobin.

An eloquent call to “reclaim the conversation” challenges leading liberal educators to repudiate their involvement in what’s being called “corporate school reform.” We finally see liberal activists opposing the bipartisan education project that has subjected school and teachers to “free market” policies. Liberals are starting to contest privatization, testing, and attacks on teacher unions, rather than accepting neoliberal assumptions and policies taken wholesale from right-wing think tanks and functions.

Since last fall’s Chicago teachers strike, we’ve seen an acceleration of critique in traditionally liberal media about school reform — from Teach for America to charter schools and Michelle Rhee. There’s even been a whiff of real reporting in the New York Times on the common core curriculum. Why did liberals urge teachers unions to back down on contractual issues that protect kids and miss what the unions should have been doing, like mobilizing their members?

And why do liberals who expose what’s wrong with standardized testing, as John Merrow has, continue to propagandize for charter schools, ignoring compelling research about the educational devastation in New Orleans because of “charterization”?

School reform needs reform | Ocala.com

School reform needs reform | Ocala.com:

School reform needs reform

By Brad Rodgers
Editorial Page Editor

Published: Saturday, August 3, 2013 at 10:48 p.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, August 3, 2013 at 10:48 p.m.

Since we here in Florida like to grade our education system, or at least our politicians do, let’s take a look at how things are going.

We have been measuring our students and their schools based on a single test since 1998, long enough for a couple of classes of students to go all the way from kindergarten to diploma, and we still can’t get it right. The “accountability” system developed in the name of education reform has become an in-state joke, with annual testing foul-ups, school-grade inflation and a revolving door at the state education commissioner’s office.

Tony Bennett is the latest education commissioner to come in full of reform ideas and promise, only to end up slinking out the back door in either disgrace or frustration. Bennett quit Thursday after it was revealed that he helped orchestrate a school-grade change back in his home Indiana, where he had also been education commission. Turns out the owner of the charter school for which Bennett is accused of altering the grade just happened to donate $100,000 to his election campaign — they elect the education commission in the 

Michelle Rhee embraces disgraced charter school advocate - Salon.com

Michelle Rhee embraces disgraced charter school advocate - Salon.com:

Michelle Rhee embraces disgraced charter school advocate

Education reformers rush to defend Florida schools chief, Tony Bennett, after he resigned in a pay-to-play scandal

Tony Bennett, Florida’s education chief, abruptly resigned yesterday after an AP investigationrevealed that in his old job running Indiana’s schools, he frantically overhauled the state’s evaluation system to avoid giving a poor grade to a charter school run by a prominent Republican donor. In addition to his charter school advocacy, Bennett was also known for his staunch support of standardized testing.

Emails obtained by AP showed that Bennett and his staff scrambled to make sure the donor’s school received an “A” grade, despite initially earning a “C” thanks to poor test scores. “They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work,” Bennett wrote in September to his chief of staff, who is now Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s chief lobbyist.

Despite the controversy (Bennett calls the charges “malicious and unfounded,” saying he decided to resign within days of the AP’s report only so he could avoid becoming a “distraction”), Bennett has plenty of defenders in the school reform movement. Here’s Michelle Rhee, the former D.C. schools chancellor who has become a patron saint of school reform and one of its 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 8-4-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Teacher: Too Many Ignorant Know-It-Alls

This teacher is tired of getting instructions from inexperienced policymakers and politicians. He writes: “Really! We always seem to pay the price for self proclaimed “know-it-alls” when it comes to Schools. Why is it those who have never stepped foot in a school since the day they (dropped out) or graduated seem to think they can do better than those who have invested in a higher education as wel

by dianerav / 16min 

Conservative Columnist Slams Tony Bennett, Jeb Bush

Michelle Malkin is known for her strong conservative opinions, strongly expressed. In this article in the National Review, titled “Jeb’s Education Racket,” Malkin eviscerates Tony Bennett and Jeb Bush. She writes: [Bennett's] disgraceful grade-fixing scandal is the perfect symbol of all that’s wrong with the federal education schemes peddled by Bennett and his mentor, former GOP governor Jeb Bush:

by dianerav / 9:05 AM UTC-7 

Your Gift for This Sunday

Frank Breslin, retired teacher of German, Latin, and social studies in New Jersey, shared this treat with me. I now give it to you for a few minutes of unalloyed beauty.

by dianerav / 0min 

Is Corporate Reform Crumbling?

The corporate reform movement is built on a series of suppositions, hunches, and unfortunately, fraud. The innocent reformers impose their will on teachers who know more than they do and say it’s “for the kids.” But others are in it for money, control, and power. The problem for the reform movement is that they ARE the status quo. They rail against it, but in doing so they have to pretend that No

by dianerav / 2min 

Your School Library: A Profit Center

A retired librarian spots a scam: Reference: here is another blog that is relevant to the discussion. “Apple’s iPad Textbooks Cost 5x More Than Print” By Lee Wilson —————————————- Comment: I have watched the dismantling of the public library in my district. The newest “schemes” provide some kind of digital “books” that are only licensed for so many readers; once you go over that limit the fees are

by dianerav / 0min 

Should MOOCs Replace Professors?

Jonathan Chait writes in New York magazine that President Obama is taking the risk of alienating his fervent supporters in higher education by his advocacy of online learning to cut costs. The traditional Democratic response to expanding access to higher education is to increase tuition subsidies for needy students. The President came out against that idea, and said that costs must be contained by

by dianerav / 27min mark as read  //  save

Does It Help to “Throw Money” at Schools?

I occasionally get a comment on the blog that says something like this: “Throwing money at schools doesn’t work. We already spend too much. …” The other day, I responded to a comment of this sort by pointing out that the people who say this have no issue “throwing money” at the schools their own children attend. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the city and state will no longer “throw money” at the pub

by dianerav / 2h  

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 8-3-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Reader: How Will Privatization Improve Education?This comment was posted by a reader: A HUMBLE OPINION ON THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD How will privatization of our school system over the presently run public school system be certain to have any effect on education let alone making education improve by having students achieve better g

by mike simpson / 8h 

Perdido Street School: Ed Deformer Jeff Bezos Buys Washington Post + Why Are Tisch And King So Afraid To Reveal The Common Core Test Contents?

Perdido Street School:  Why Are Tisch And King So Afraid To Reveal The Common Core Test Contents?:

Ed Deformer Jeff Bezos Buys Washington Post

From Kaplan to Amazon:Billionaire Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos bought himself a new toy on Monday: the 136-year-old newspaper The Washington Post, which he acquired for $250 million from the Washington Post Company. The announcement blindsided the media world, where seemingly no one knew the U.S. capital’s flagship paper was for sale.Bezos says he will keep the Post separate from Amazon and w

by reality-based edu... / 28min 

Why Are Tisch And King So Afraid To Reveal The Common Core Test Contents?

The scores from the Common Core tests - the one's the kids didn't have the time to finish - are going to be released this week and NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King says they are really, really bad:

State education officials will drop a bomb on thousands of city kids and parents Wednesday when they release scores from the controversial and tougher reading and math exams.

State Education Commissioner John King sounded the alarm for disastrous results with a letter sent to principals Friday afternoon.

“Scores are expected to be significantly lower than the 2011-’12 scores,” he wrote, adding that principals should use the scores “judiciously” when making decisions about whether to fire teachers.

King and his buddy in corporate reform Merryl Tisch cannot wait for these scores to be released and for parents to freak out so they 

8-4-13 SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE

SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE:

Check out @adambessie at his latest, automated teaching machine

Speaks for itself. Via Truth-Out.

by Chalk Face, PhD / 11min 

Response to Joe Nathan’s hawking for tech industry profits

Charter charlatan Joe Nathan has made a decent living pushing privatization and pimping poverty. A regular participant in the active comment section on the Professor Diane Ravitch’s blog, Nathan can always be content on for advocating neoliberal education reform and corporate profits. Today was no different, with Nathan effectively defending the demise of school libraries […]

by Robert D. Skeels ... / 4min 

Education Reform Takes Notes From The Multi-Industry Playbook On Corporate Ownership

  All multinational corporations use the same playbook to push privatizing a public good– whether it’s a human resource like clean drinking water or food; or a public service like education. The similarities between the various industrial giants aren’t coincidental. Each stage in their endeavors is part of their shared ideology, and their strategies, therefore, […]

by educationalchemy / 3min 

NEA Appeasement in Wisconsin: Withdraws from Battle When Most Needed

The Koch Brothers’  stooge, Gov. Scott Walker, has led the charge in Wisconsin to eliminate any political opposition to rolling back American economic and social systems by a hundred years at least.  As Rachel Maddow has reported, the key to achieving a one corporate party rule is to eliminate unions, which represent the only significant […]

1 by Jim Horn / 54min 

Charleston P&C: How Media Fails Education

The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC) has a long history of endorsing every education reform movement that doesn’t have any credibility: Teach for America? Sure. Charter schools? You bet. So it comes as no surprise that the P&C has penned an endorsement of SC’s move to reform teacher evaluation, by framing the issue as something […]

by plthomasedd / 2min 

This Week 8-3-13 SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE

SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE: Have you heard of Blue Engine? Well, take a seat.I want you to read the following poem by Shel Silverstein, one that is the inspiration for a new “reformy” organization called Blue Engine. The little blue engine looked up at the hill. His light was weak, his whistle was shrill. He was tired and small, and the hill was tall, And his face blushed […]by Chalk Face, Ph

by mike simpson / 8h 

Another View: Board should take new look at school closures - California Forum - The Sacramento Bee

Another View: Board should take new look at school closures - California Forum - The Sacramento Bee:

Another View: Board should take new look at school closures

By Mark Merin
Special to The Bee

Published: Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013 - 12:00 am | Page 2E

The July 24 editorial, "Forget the lawyers, focus on the students," which criticized the parents who brought a legal action against the Sacramento City Unified School District for its decision to close selected elementary schools missed the point. The issue before the court was not the need to close schools – but its selection of particular schools for closure.

• The district selected for closure elementary schools that were located in struggling, poor neighborhoods, mostly those where African American, Mexican American, Latino, Hmong and other minorities are concentrated. The court issued a 39-page decision, finding that the school closures will have a discriminatory impact on racial minorities. The court also found "troubling" the district's removal of certain schools in affluent neighborhoods from the closure list, even though these schools were less financially "efficient" than those ordered closed – exposing the weakness of the claimed justification for the closure of the selected schools.

• The parents and community members in neighborhoods facing the school closures filed suit in federal court as a last resort. The district's flawed closure decisions left the communities out of the

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/08/04/5620404/board-should-take-new-look-at.html#storylink=cpy

Turning Around Urban Districts: The Case of Paul Vallas | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Turning Around Urban Districts: The Case of Paul Vallas | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Turning Around Urban Districts: The Case of Paul Vallas

Lee Iaccoca, Steve Jobs, and Ann Mulcahy were CEOs that resurrected  Chrysler,  Apple, and Xerox from near (or actual) bankruptcy to profitability. They were turnaround heroes–saviors, if you like–to their corporate boards and shareholders.

Salvaging a sinking business means that the CEO charts a new direction, outsiders     arrive  and veterans exit, novel products appear and old ones disappear–constant and unrelenting change is the order of the day in saving a company.  A tough job that  demands a thick skin with little time for regrets.

Turning around low-performing urban school districts is in the same class as CEOs turning around failing companies.

After serving in Chicago for six years, Philadelphia five years, and New Orleans four years, Paul Vallas put the saga of urban superintendents in stark, if not humorous, terms:

“What happens with turnaround superintendents is that the first two years you’re a