Celebrating National Charter Schools Week: Dark Money Part 4 #CharterSchoolsWeek

Celebrating National Charter Schools Week: Dark Money Part 4  #CharterSchoolsWeek

Celebrating National Charter Schools Week: Re-Segregating America’s Schools Part 3 #CharterSchoolsWeek

Celebrating National Charter Schools Week: Fraud Corruption Lack of Accountability Part 2 #CharterSchoolsWeek

Celebrating National Charter Schools Week: THE ISSUES: Part 1 #CharterSchoolsWeek

Funding “Education Reform”: The Big Three Foundations 

The Gates Foundation, The Walton Foundation and the Broad Foundationcould easily be called the un-holy triad of the education reform complex.

While exact numbers are hard to pin down, since 2008 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent at least $2 billion, the Walton Foundation at least three-quarters of a billion and the Broad Foundation an estimated half a billion dollars on efforts to “reform” America’s system of education by promoting charter schools, pushing the use of standardized testing, lobbying for teacher evaluation programs based on student’s standardized test results and other corporate-driven initiatives.

The foundations themselves explain their goals and funding strategies through innocuous rhetoric.  For example, the Gates Foundation opines that: “We invest in programs with a common aim to strengthen the connection between teacher and student. To that end, we work with educators, policymakers, parents, and communities to expand and accelerate successful programs and identify innovative new solutions that can help unlock students’ potential.”
But the actual agenda becomes much clearer when one examines their actual list of grantees, which includes most of the country’s charter school management organizations, education reform “think tanks,” and advocacy organizations.

The Gates Foundation: “They’re Everywhere” 
Education reform advocacy organizations that have received Gates money include Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence, Stand for Children, the Center for Reinventing Public Education and the Partnership for Learning and Parent Revolution. Gates has even supported the work of ALEC, the right-wing entity that helps conservative state legislators draft and pass legislation. 

A primary focus of the Gates Foundation has been the push for the extensive use of high-stakes standardized testing.  Although undisputed evidence shows that low standardized test scores are primarily driven by poverty, language barriers, and students’ special education requirements, the Gates Foundation, in its belief that data will solve all problems, has been spending hundreds of millions on developing teacher evaluation systems based on standardized tests, as well as the standardized tests themselves and the huge databases that would be needed to stores and analyze standardized test scores.

To counter the voices and concerns of teachers, the Gates Foundation has also played an essential role in creating pro-education reform teacher organizations includingEducators 4 Excellence and TeachPlus, both of which are dedicated to advocating against unions and teacher tenure and for specific teacher evaluation systems that rely on the use of standardized test scores.  Both Educators for Excellence and TeachPlus were the recipients of significant start-up and operational funds from Gates.

The Gates Foundation is especially fond of funding “independent” think tanks that are involved in studying, reporting and developing education reform models.

The Walton Foundation: “The One Stop Education Reform entity”
If the funding isn’t coming from the Gates Foundation, it is probably coming from the Walton Foundation, the entity created and managed by the family that owns Wal-Mart.
By providing over $750 million in grants to education reform organizations over the last five years, not counting another $35-$40 million to actually pay for reforms in Arkansas, the Walton Foundation is the trendsetter when it comes to funding the development, analysis, advocacy and implementation of education reform.

In Milwaukee, for example, Walton funded the organizations that developed and pushed through the city’s school voucher program. But as a reporter for Gannett News Service discovered, the Walton Foundation also paid for the “external” study of the Milwaukee experiment. Not surprisingly the study, conducted by the School Choice Demonstration Project at the University of Arkansas, concluded that Milwaukee’s voucher experimenthad been a success in raising graduation rates among program participants. Left out of the study was the inconvenient fact that 56% of the students who enrolled in the voucher program left before graduating.

The Walton Foundation also underwrites a growing roster of organizations that focus their resources almost exclusively on advocacy efforts to “insert competition into public education.”  One recent review found that just looking at funds dedicated exclusively to advocacy efforts, Walton money for “Advocacy" Exceeds $100 million.  

Among the top recipients of Walton funds: StudentsFirst, the advocacy group started and run by controversial former Washington DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and Teach for America, which has received more than $50 million since 2011.

And while Advocacy has been a prime activity for the Walton Foundation, the organization has devoted the vast majority of its funds to the proliferation and expansion of charter schools.

Eli Broad Foundation: “Top-Down Education Reform”
And finally the last of the “Big Three” education reform funders is the Eli Broad Foundation which claims to be driven by the mission to, “dramatically improve K-12 urban public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition.”

Although the Broad Foundation hands out its fair share of money directly to education reform entities, the Foundation’s focus has primarily been to train a cadre of school administrators to go out and take over public school systems and force the reforms using top-down strategies.

The Broad Superintendents Academy and the Broad Residency in Urban Education are the two primary vehicles in that effort.  The Broad Superintendents Academy is an executive management training program that takes “senior executives from business, nonprofit, military, government and education backgrounds to lead urban public school systems.”
The number of Broad Academy graduates in senior public school leadership positions has topped 200 including well over 70 superintendents who are working in more than half the states around the country.

Meanwhile, the Broad Residency program places education reformers in school districts and charter management organizations (CMOs).  Broad Residents receive “two years of professional development,” although taxpayers often end up picking up the costs of salary and benefits for Broad Residents.

The Broad Academy and Broad Residency programs really took off with the election of President Barak Obama.  As the Broad website coos:
“Prior to becoming U.S. secretary of education, Arne Duncan was CEO of Chicago Public Schools, where he hosted 23 Broad Residents. Duncan now has five Broad Residents and alumni working with him in the U.S. Department of Education.”
And, the web site adds, “The election of President Barack Obama and his appointment of Arne Duncan, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, as the U.S. secretary of education, marked the pinnacle of hope for our work in education reform. In many ways, we feel the stars have finally aligned…With an agenda that echoes our decade of investments—charter schools, performance pay for teachers, accountability, expanded learning time and national standards—the Obama administration is poised to cultivate and bring to fruition the seeds we and other reformers have planted.”

Jonathan Pelto served in the Connecticut state legislature from 1984 until 1993. A communications strategist and public education advocate, he writes the blog “Wait, What?”

Funding “Education Reform”: The Big Three Foundations 

Walton Family Foundation 2013 Grant Report

In 2013, the Walton Family Foundation invested more than $325 million in initiatives to expand opportunity for individuals and communities in the United States and internationally. The majority of investments were made in three key areas of focus – K-12 education reform, freshwater and marine conservation and quality of life initiatives in Arkansas and Mississippi.

A full list of grants made in 2013 is below:

Systemic K-12 Education Reform	$164,205,764
Shape Public Policy	63,412,817
Create Quality Schools	70,104,357
Improve Existing Schools	20,586,114
Research and Evaluation	1,127,100
Other Education Grants	8,975,375
Freshwater and Marine Conservation	$93,103,004
Marine Conservation	37,113,766
Freshwater Conservation	33,010,552
Other Environment Grants	22,978,686
Home Region	$32,489,424
Arkansas Education Reform	7,362,269
Northwest Arkansas	18,932,091
Delta Region of AR & MS	6,026,404
Research and Evaluation	168,660
Special Interests	$33,571,010
Grants Less Than $10,000	$1,733,196

Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools

Small Change?

Foundations are turning to education-reform advocacy. How’s it going?

Why do the Waltons care about education?

How Bill Gates pulled off the swift Common Core revolution

Heal Our Schools: documentary on teaching, testing, and more | Education Town Hall Forum: Archives, Announcements, & Extended Discussion on Weekly Broadcasts...

Heal Our Schools: documentary on teaching, testing, and more | Education Town Hall Forum: Archives, Announcements, & Extended Discussion on Weekly Broadcasts...:

Heal Our Schools: documentary on teaching, testing, and more

vspatz / 38 mins ago

Laurie Gabriel, veteran teacher and videography, joined the Education Town Hall to discuss the latest version of her documentary film, “Heal Our Schools” (formerly “Hear Our Teachers). The film highlights “virtually cost-free answers to the education crisis” based on real educators’ experience and vision.

Gabriel is a veteran teacher and videographer. She has taught grades K-12 in everything from struggling inner-city schools in Denver, CO to rich private schools in Potomac, MD. Her previous video work was classroom-centered. For this film she is partnering with her filmmaker husband, Ethan Gabriel. (see trailer)

Track 2 below —

The Education Town Hall broadcasts from Historic Anacostia in Washington, DC, Thursdays
at 11:00 a.m. Eastern on We Act Radio.
Listen live via TuneIn.
Shows are archived for convenient listening shortly after broadcast.

“Insanity Reigns” in New York |

“Insanity Reigns” in New York |:

“Insanity Reigns” in New York

 As per an article in Capitol Confidential, two weeks ago New York’s Governor Cuomo – the source of many posts, especially lately (see, for example, here, here, here, here, andhere) — was questioned about the school districts that throughout New York were requesting delays in implementing the state’s new teacher evaluation program. Cuomo was also questioned about students in his state who were opting out of the state’s tests.

In response, Cuomo “stressed that the tests used in the evaluations don’t affect the students’ grades.” In his direct words, “[t]he grades are meaningless to the students.”

Yet the tests are to be used to evaluate how effective New York’s teachers are? So, the tests are meaningless to students throughout the state, but the state is to use them to evaluate the effectiveness of students’ teachers throughout the state regardless? The tests won’t count for measuring student knowledge (ostensibly what the tests are designed to measure) but they will be used to evaluate teachers (which the tests were not designed to measure)?

In fact, the tests as per Cuomo, “won’t count at all for the students…for at least the next five years.” Hence, students “can opt out if they want to.” Inversely, if a student decides to take the test the student should consider it “practice” because, again, “the score doesn’t count.” Nor will it count for some time.

In others words, those of a colleague who sent me this article: “Cuomo’s answer to parents who are on the fence about opting out, “oh, it’s just practice.” He expects that when parents hear that testing is low stakes for their kids they will not opt out, but once kids hear that the tests don’t count for them, how hard do you think they are going to try. Low stakes for students, high stakes for the teacher. Insanity reigns!”

This all brings into light the rarely questioned assumption about how the gains that students make on “meaningless” tests actually indicate how much “value” a teacher “adds” to or detracts from his/her students.

What is interesting to point out here is that with No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Governor turned President George W. Bush’s brainchild, the focus was entirely on student-level accountability (i.e., a student must pass a certain test or face the consequences). The goal was that 100% of America’s public school students would be academically proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 – yes, last year.

When that clearly did not work as politically intended, the focus changed to teacher accountability — thanks to President Obama, his U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and their 2009 Race to the Top competition. Approximately $4.35 billion in taxpayer revenues later, we now have educational policies focused on teacher, but no longer student accountability, with similar results (or the lack thereof).

The irony here is that for the most part the students taking these tests are no longer to be held accountable for their performance, but their teachers are to be held for their students’ performance instead, and regardless. Accordingly, across the country we now have teachers, justifiably nervous, who without telling their students that their professional lives are on the line — which is true in many cases — or otherwise lying to their “Insanity Reigns” in New York |:

Las Vegas: Betting On New Teachers But Coming Up Short : NPR Ed : NPR

Las Vegas: Betting On New Teachers But Coming Up Short : NPR Ed : NPR:

Las Vegas: Betting On New Teachers But Coming Up Short

 Beyond Sin City's casino strip, what happens in Vegas also includes an education system in crisis. Its schools are severely overcrowded, as we reported Wednesday onMorning Edition. And Nevada and Vegas' schools are ranked at or near the bottomnationally.

NPR ED

What Happens In Vegas Includes Crowded, Struggling Schools

Amid these long-term problems is an immediate crisis: finding enough teachers to educate the fast-growing student population. That's led to frantic recruitment efforts and new strains on veteran educators.

"I feel like I'm being challenged, which is a definite change," says first-year teacher Jessica Adams. She used to work as a cocktail server at the Planet Hollywood casino and resort on the Vegas strip. Unfulfilled with that career, she joined a fast-track teacher training program to get into the classroom.

Server Jessica is now Ms. Adams, the fourth-grade teacher.

"I really enjoy being with the kids and making a difference instead of serving tables," she says with a chuckle.

The 26-year-old, who has a college degree in hospitality management, now works the floor in a temporary classroom trailer at Robert Forbuss Elementary, an overcrowded school in southwest Las Vegas.

The city wishes it had a lot more teachers like Adams.

It needs almost 3,000 more teachers, to be exact. Las Vegas and Clark County consistently top the lists of American cities most in need of new teachers. And the most pressing needs — 75 percent of vacancies — are in schools that are lower-performing and have a high percentage of children living in poverty.

Teacher turnover is a big challenge. Bucking a national trend, Vegas has a high first-year-teacher attrition rate. Studies show that high turnover in underperforming schools can hurt academic performance.

Some 600 classes in the district today are being taught by long-term substitute teachers.

"Those 600-plus classrooms are not getting full-time education in my opinion," says Tom Skancke, the CEO of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, which is part of the state's economic-development arm. "Is that child being educated for the amount of money we're investing in the classroom? The answer is no."

Many veteran educators here say the shortage is undermining morale and student learning.

"It shouldn't necessarily all be put on the veteran teachers to help the new teachers," says fifth-grade teacher Rob Rosenblatt. The shortage and overcrowding issues, he says, mean more work and more stress for teachers.

The district increasingly relies on long-term substitutes and online classes to help plug the holes. And there is a critical shortage of qualified substitutes.

Sarah Sunnasy teaches fifth grade at Bertha Ronzone Elementary School. She has back trouble but says she almost never calls in sick.

"I've come to school on days where I cried trying to get out of bed," Sunnasy says. "Because I know if I try to call in a sub, there is not going to be anybody there. And I'm not gonna put that pressure on the people that I work with to split my class or cover my class."

Last school year in the district about 500 teachers quit without giving any reason. One of Rosenblatt's colleagues resigned a few weeks into the new school year. Rosenblatt says he and a colleague have had to pick up all the slack — lessons, report cards, grading and tests.

"Basically it was the two of us teaching not just our two classes but a third class on top of it. I even told my kids, 'I'm neglecting you guys.' "

He apologized to his regular class but told them he had to step in because the class next door "just wasn't getting the education they deserved."

Beneath the flash, glitz and dollars flowing into Vegas, the city's school woes trouble Skancke and some others in the business community. "We've got to act. We've been talking about fixing K-12 education in this state for 30 years! We have to stop talking and start doing."

The district is aggressively trying to tap into alternative teacher certification programs including the one Adams attends at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It works to get teachers into the classroom fast, and they finish their degree work at night.

"It's very much a quick, down-and-dirty boot camp for students," says Brad Keating, who heads recruiting for the district's Alternate Route to Licensure, or ARL, program. The former political aide and casino executive says he took up teaching special education here to make a difference.

"We give them as much knowledge as humanly possible during a six-week program to learn the pedagogy, to learn about classroom management, learn about lesson plans," Keating says. "Being a teacher is very much on-the-job training. There's only so much we can teach you at a university level."

Most times the new teachers are paired with teacher mentors who help them adjust to classroom realities.

Shawn Paquette, the principal at Forbuss Elementary, says Adams is "swimming hard and she may be overwhelmed at times, but I'm dedicated to getting these teachers to where they need to be."

But he worries that the alternative certification pipeline may not be the long-term solution. "It concerns me because it now falls upon me to fill in some of the gaps that they don't have and that puts more work on myself and my staff to catch people up."

The district is also hitting up other alternative certification programs including Teach for America and Troops to Teachers.

The total number of teachers coming through those alternative pipelines is just over 450, and not all of them will want to live and work in Las Vegas.

That still leaves the city some 2,500 teachers in the red. And those teachers have less training and experience than do traditionally certified ones.

"They are an adequate Band-Aid with the appropriate level of support. But is it acceptable? Absolutely not," says Staci Vesneske, the chief human resources officer for the Clark County School District. "Do we have a national teacher pipeline issue? Absolutely we do. So we have to do everything to fill that gap."

Others see the alternative certification push as positive for the city. The students "tend to be older, they tend to be from more diverse backgrounds and they bring different life experiences to the classroom," says Joseph Morgan, a UNLV assistant professor of education. "I think they all end up being really good teachers — with the right preparation and supports."

Signing Bonus?

Pay is not a big draw helping to fill that gap. A starting teacher base salary here is $34,500. If you count tips — and Vegas' casino workers live on tips — card dealers and servers can make more than that in a state with no individual income tax.

"We would probably attract more teachers if we could offer them a signing bonus like they do in sports," says professor Linda Quinn, associate dean of UNLV's College of Education. "But we can't."

Part of the shortage problem here, veteran educators say, is that nationwide, teaching is now seen as a less attractive, less stable career choice. Quinn says a culture of testing has sucked some of the joy out of the K-12 profession: "We're doing way too much testing, way too many forced programs."

With pay not a huge draw, the district is trying to attract more teachers by touting other benefits, including sunshine and the wider community beyond tourism and casinos.

"It's a fabulous city to live in, not just to visit," says Vesneske. "So we're really selling Las Vegas as a community."

The district launched an ad campaign dubbed "Calling All Heroes" that it hopes will play to would-be teachers' sense of social responsibility.

"Breaking news: Turns out we are in crisis!" kids say in one school-made video spread via the Web and social media. "And with the hero shortage, who will teach us?"

But it's a tough sell in a city better known for betting and benders than community-building and which has to compete with that bigger budget effort — 11 years running — to sell Vegas' naughty side.

"You're unpredictable, reckless, and no one would ever let you date their sister," says one of many ads for the city's famous "What happens in Vegas" series.Las Vegas: Betting On New Teachers But Coming Up Short : NPR Ed : NPR:

Ed tech company folds after receiving millions in Race to the Top funds - The Washington Post

Ed tech company folds after receiving millions in Race to the Top funds - The Washington Post:

Ed tech company folds after receiving millions in Race to the Top funds

 An education technology company has folded after receiving millions of dollars in federal Race to the Top funds to provide online assessments and other services to school districts.

Charlotte-based Thinkgate LLC shut down last week, according to state education officials in Ohio and Massachusetts, two states that used Race to the Top money to contract with the company.

Their joint contract with Thinkgate does not expire until the end of the school year, leaving some schools scrambling to fill the void left by the company’s closure and some parents concerned about the security of student data in the company’s systems.

The company also had statewide contracts in North Carolina and Illinois, and altogether served more than 500 education agencies and 3 million students, according to its Web site.

Thinkgate chief executive and founder Eric Waynick did not respond to e-mail requests for comment Wednesday and calls to his office were sent to a voice mailbox that was full and not accepting messages.

The growing company had 70 employees last year when it moved from Atlanta to Charlotte, and it had been planning to hire another 120 people, according to the Charlotte Business Journal.

Ohio and Massachusetts teamed up to sign a joint contract with Thinkgate after each state promised, in their 2010 applications for Race to the Top grants, to create “instructional improvement systems”: Online platforms meant to give teachers a one-stop shop for accessing academic standards and curriculum; creating classroom tests aligned to state academic standards; and storing and analyzing student test scores and other data.

The joint contract covered two school years, 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. Education officials in both states said they hoped that at the conclusion of that period, school districts that liked the system would sign individual contracts with Thinkgate.

But last week the company went out of business, surprising educators in both states.

Ohio education officials were informed on April 28 that Thinkgate would be going out of business within two days, according to an e-mail from a state official to school district superintendents

“If you would like to keep and use any assessments that you have created, you will need to immediately print and save them before the system shuts down,” said the e-mail, obtained by The Washington Post.

Ohio, which received about $400 million in Race to the Top funds, has paid Thinkgate $9.8 million to date for its services, said John Charlton, a spokesman for the state education department. More than 300 school districts signed up to use the system in 2013, he said. In 2014-2015, fewer than 150 school districts were using the system.

Mark Neal, the superintendent of the Tri-Valley Local School District, criticized the state education department’s contract with Thinkgate as a waste of time and money, and he said the company’s sudden closure raised questions about the security of children’s private information.

The contract “was a dismal failure that ended exactly in the way that most parents and educators were most concerned about. Student data in the hands of for-profit corporations,” he wrote in a text message.

Charlton said that the Thinkgate contract includes safeguards regarding secure storage and destruction of data. Ohio’s student data has been transferred to a secure server in the state, he said.

Massachusetts education officials also said that student data would be destroyed in accordance with state standards. Approximately 60 of Massachusetts’s 400 school districts were using the Thinkgate system.

Officials could not immediately say how much Massachusetts has paid Thinkgate to date. The state received $250 million from Race to the Top.

Officials in both states said they could not immediately provide a copy of the Thinkgate contract.

Schools of Opportunity: the inaugural winners - The Washington Post

Schools of Opportunity: the inaugural winners - The Washington Post:

Schools of Opportunity: the inaugural winners

Last October I wrote about a pilot initiative to identify and recognize public high schools that seek to close opportunity gaps through practices “that build on students’ strengths” — not by inundating them with tests. Today the first winners are being announced, and in the coming days, the schools will be profiled on this blog.

The people behind the Schools of Opportunity project are Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in New York, and Kevin Welner, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s School of Education who specializes in educational policy and law. Burris was named the 2010 Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and in 2013, was named New York State High School Principal of the Year. She is taking early retirement at the end of the school year to advocate for public education. Welner is director of the National Education Policy Center at UC Boulder, which produces high-quality peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions.

Here are the winners from the pilot initiative in New York and Colorado.

By Kevin Welner and Carol Burris

We are delighted to announce, exclusively on The Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog, the 17 recognized Schools of Opportunity for 2015. During this pilot year, all schools are in New York and Colorado, with five singled out for Gold-level recognition. These high schools use research-based practices to ensure that all students have rich opportunities to succeed. Some are working against great odds. All put students, not scores, first.

In the upcoming weeks in the Answer Sheet, we will describe these remarkable schools and what we can learn from them.

The Schools of Opportunity project, designed as a way to highlight schools that actively and equitably promote the success of all students, was piloted this school year in Colorado and New York, with plans to expand next year to include high schools nationwide. It is a project of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed in the CU-Boulder School of Education. The Ford Foundation and the NEA Foundation have both generously provided funding assistance for the Schools of Opportunity project.

The Gold Schools of Opportunity in 2015 are, in alphabetical order:

• Centaurus High School, Lafayette, Colorado
• Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, Bronx, New York
• Grand Valley High School, Garfield, Colorado
• Jefferson County Open High School, Lakewood, Colorado
• Malverne High School, Malverne, New York

The Silver Schools of Opportunity in 2015 are, again in alphabetical order:

• Center High School, Center, Colorado
• Charles C. D’Amico High School, Albion, New York
• Durango High School, Durango, Colorado
• Eastridge High School, Rochester, New York
• Elwood – John H. Glenn High School, Elwood, New York
• Fox Lane High School, Bedford, New York
• Harrison High School, Harrison, New York
• Long Beach High School, Long Beach, New York
• Long View High School, Lakewood, Colorado
• Mapleton Early College High School, Thornton, Colorado
• Sleepy Hollow High School, Sleepy Hollow, New York
• Sunset Park High School, Brooklyn, New York.

The recognized schools illustrate practices designed to close gaps in opportunity between students who come from advantaged and disadvantaged circumstances. They model what true reform is all about. Each and every one keeps the welfare of students at the center of their reforms.

We invite you to click in the link embedded in each school’s name to learn about some of the outstanding practices that expand opportunity for their students. Some of these schools are large, and some are small. Some are located in rural communities, some in the suburbs and others in urban cities. Some are traditional high schools, while others are small schools that serve at-risk students. What they all have in common is a fierce commitment to provide excellent opportunities designed to reach all their students.

The recognition of these schools is based on 11 specific principles identified by experts in the 2013 book, Closing the Opportunity Gap published by Oxford University Press, which Welner edited along with Stanford University Schools of Opportunity: the inaugural winners - The Washington Post:

Louisiana Educator: Paranoid Grigsby Wants LABI to Drive a Spear Through the Hearts of the Teacher Unions!

Louisiana Educator: Paranoid Grigsby Wants LABI to Drive a Spear Through the Hearts of the Teacher Unions!:

Paranoid Grigsby Wants LABI to Drive a Spear Through the Hearts of the Teacher Unions!

This is almost unbelievable! Bob Mann reveals here why delusional Lane Grigsby wants LABI to make the passage of HB 418 denying payroll dues deduction to teachers, the number one priority of LABI! He believes that this denial of a basic benefit to teachers will finally kill the evil teacher unions! Please watch the video in this article in nola.com by Bob Mann. Grigsby who is a key board member of LABI has somehow convinced himself that if big business could somehow cripple the teacher unions, that finally the ill advised reforms of education pushed by LABI would fix our education system.

This whole fantasy by big business bosses that only the teacher unions prevent the success of their  experiments with education reform is both delusional and paranoid! 

LABI leaders believe that the main reason public education is not producing college ready, work ready, "human capitol" is that thousands of lazy and incompetent teachers are just not teaching hard enough and well enough to get all kids ready for the workforce! No matter that some parents do not send their children to school regularly, and that no one at home sees to it that kids do homework and study for tests, or even pay attention in class. It never occurs to LABI leaders that kids who get kicked out of their homes regularly, don't know where their next meal will be coming from, and have almost no good role models that instill in them a solid work ethic, are just not going to do well in school no matter how hard teachers work.

LABI is convinced that if the Louisiana Department of Education could just require that large numbers of teachers be fired based on VAM scores, and if those teachers had no due process rights, and no organizational support to allow them to challenge unfounded dismissals, the remaining teachers and the new TFA replacements would finally get through to the kids. Good luck with that one!

My opinion is this: If more teachers were active, involved members of their teacher unions, LABI, CABL, John White, Arne Duncan, and Bill Gates would not be using our students as lab rats for their unscientific reform ideas.  HB 418 will be going to the House Floor for a vote of all Representatives (not Senators yet) sometime next week. If you care about the teaching profession, please ask your Representative to vote no on this bill.

Click on this link at the Louisiana Legislature web site to plug in your address so that you can get the contact information for your state representative. You can then send and email or telephone his/her office and leave a message to oppose HB 418.