Dear concerned citizen: Over the past three-plus months, local and state print media have picked up on the value of a dialogue around the future of education in Indianapolis. A slew of commentaries, blogs, and stories from a wide variety of sources including NUVO, the Indianapolis Star and now even the Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette are providing readers a variety of view points to help them make informed decisions about the future of public education. In particular is the commentary on local education issues from someone outside Marion County by a Ft. Wayne newspaper editor /blogger. Black & Latino Policy Institute/ Parent Power / Education-Community Action Team September 6 “The problem is not parents” Here’s the link to a commentary “The problem is not parents; it's a crisis in democracy” by Councilor Jose Evans published in NUVO’s Perspectives on Education. September 9 “Daring to trust parents” Here’s the link to Indy Star columnist Dan Carpenter on the issues surrounding Local School Council proposal he titled, “Daring to trust parents…” September 12 “Coming to a school near you…” The Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette editorial writer Karen Francisco published a blog she titled: “Coming to a school near you…” September 13 “Our schools can benefit from self-government” Here’s the link to the Letter to the Editor published in the Star regarding the Local School Council proposal he presented: “Our schools can benefit from self-government” August 22 “A grassroots approach to school reform” NUVO article on the Local School Council Plan In mid-June, NUVO began an on-line forum for written commentaries regarding education called “Perspectives in Education. “ June 14 : Here’s the link to the first Perspectives on Education by community activist Wes Bernard, “What is the purpose of education?” where is argues that education is really all about skillfully drawing out of what is inside the student, establishing and fortifying the students' identity and competence and their place in community and society. June 21: Here’s link to comments by educator Jeffery C. White on urban education reforms around the idea that the cluster of incompetent administrators in IPS warrants significant change right now. June 28: Here’s the link to essay from local writer Doug Martin concerning those who study the corporate school movement realize that "autonomy" is merely a code word for letting charter school leaders do anything they desire to collect a hefty profit. July 5: Here’s the link to teacher Annette Magjuka’s essay on the issue of how we provide free public education for all citizens, so even poor children can compete. But unfortunately, all public education is not equal. July 12: Here’s link to the essay by IPS teacher Mary Noland on how it is terribly frustrating to hear people who are NOT teachers talk about reform, and add to that the term "accountability." August 16: Here’s the link to a commentary from our local NAACP encouraging participation in a new round of talks on education, adhering to the philosophy that "if you are not on the table, you are on the menu." The essay encourages a wide variety of citizens respond to the “What’s possible?” conversations so that solutions to the problems that we did not create should not be left to the politics of power, status, and wealth. June 8: Here’s link to NUVO story on “In the Mind Trust we trust? August 15: Introduction letter to the Local School Council proposal by Jose Evans The Local School Council proposal: www.indy.gov/eGov/Council/Documents/Local%20School%20Councils%20in%20IPS.pdf |
Showing posts with label education reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education reform. Show all posts
Monday, September 24, 2012
A Timeline of the Battle in Indy
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Who's Really Behind Education Reform?
Julie Underwood on ALEC & Education |
|---|
| Julie Underwood, the Dean of the UW-Madison School of Education, discusses ALEC's school privatization agenda. |
Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers from ALEC Exposed
- Indiana Rep. Cindy J. Noe (R-87)[17], ALEC Education Task Force Member, spoke on "Enacting a Comprehensive K-12 Education Reform Agenda" at the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting on August 3, 2011
- Featured speakers have included: Milton Friedman, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Dan Quayle, George Allen, Jessie Helms, Pete Coors, Governor Mitch Daniels
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
I-READ Petition
Indiana Legislators: Tell the IDOE to Scrap IREAD-3
www.change.org
Why This Is Important
www.change.org
IREAD-3 is a forty-question test that will determine whether public school students in Indiana may advance to fourth grade. It channels education dollars toward redundant assessment, not instruction, and favors retention over remediation; it is therefore a misuse of public funds.
No major decision about a child's future should be made on the basis of a single test score. Retaining students has been shown to increase the risk that they drop out of school and to have a null or negative effect on their academic achievement in the long run.Like other high-stakes standardized tests, IREAD-3 will disproportionately punish low-income children and families. Indiana students' reading skills are already assessed continually by their teachers as well as through ISTEP+ and NWEA or Acuity. Money allocated for this test directly reduces funds available for remediation. Our tax dollars should go to local schools for literacy programs and teachers rather than to assessment overhead and testing companies.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Upcoming Education Events
The next E-CAT of Innovate Indy continuing conversation on education reform in Indianapolis will take place 5:30pm to 7:30pm on Tuesday March 27th at the KI EcoCenter, 159 West 28th Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46208 (Southeast corner of Capital and 28th Street).
On Tuesday March 20th at Christian Theological Seminary, Rev. Dr. Floyd Flake will be making a presentation titled: "Politics, Religion, and the Common Good: The Case of Education Reform”. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is encouraged. The public event starts at 5 pm and will run to 7pm. More information can be found here: https://christiantheologicalseminary14608.thankyou4caring.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=387
On Wednesday March 21st at the Central Library, the Educate Indiana Speaker Series, presented by Education Reform Now, will feature Neerav Kingland, Chief Strategy Officer for New Schools for New Orleans , as well as David Harris, CEO of the Mind Trust. Registration is encouraged, but not required according to the Central Library. The event will be held from 6-7:30 pm at the Indianapolis Central Library, located at One Library Square, 40 E. St. Clair St. Indianapolis, IN 46204.
More info can be found here: http://indychamber.com/ContentFiles/1389/Educate%20IN%20speaker%20series.pdf
And here: http://indfer.org/2012/03/educate-indiana-speakers-series-lessons-learned-from-new-orleans/
We encourage everyone to attend these events. For those who have read the Mind trust plan you can see that they really need our help to transform education in a way that will help our children.
On Tuesday March 20th at Christian Theological Seminary, Rev. Dr. Floyd Flake will be making a presentation titled: "Politics, Religion, and the Common Good: The Case of Education Reform”. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is encouraged. The public event starts at 5 pm and will run to 7pm. More information can be found here: https://christiantheologicalseminary14608.thankyou4caring.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=387
On Wednesday March 21st at the Central Library, the Educate Indiana Speaker Series, presented by Education Reform Now, will feature Neerav Kingland, Chief Strategy Officer for New Schools for New Orleans , as well as David Harris, CEO of the Mind Trust. Registration is encouraged, but not required according to the Central Library. The event will be held from 6-7:30 pm at the Indianapolis Central Library, located at One Library Square, 40 E. St. Clair St. Indianapolis, IN 46204.
More info can be found here: http://indychamber.com/ContentFiles/1389/Educate%20IN%20speaker%20series.pdf
And here: http://indfer.org/2012/03/educate-indiana-speakers-series-lessons-learned-from-new-orleans/
We encourage everyone to attend these events. For those who have read the Mind trust plan you can see that they really need our help to transform education in a way that will help our children.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
TX school board resolution vs. high-stakes testing
For your consideration....an important reminder here that public education is still part of a democratic process (at least for now) and that we and are elected officials are responsible. It'd be very interesting to see some discussion here as it relates to Indiana. Have at it!!
Guy Brandenburg writes that here is an excellent resolution that has been passed by Clear Creek School District, a large district near NASA, as well as several other school boards in Texas. It has been called "The shot heard around the county." [see http://galvestondailynews.com/story/298894] Why not around the country? If Texas school boards can pass this resolution, why shouldn't all school boards in the nation adopt similar ones?
From Guy Brandenburg on the EDDRA2 listserve, Tuesday, March 13, 2012. See http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2012/03/clear-creek-tx-school-board-resolution-vs-high-stakes-testing/
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
CLEAR CREEK INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT
RESOLUTION CONCERNING HIGH STAKES, STANDARDIZED TESTING
OF TEXAS PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS
STATE OF TEXAS §
COUNTY OF GALVESTON
WHEREAS, the over reliance on standardized, high stakes testing as the only assessment of learning that really matters in the state and federal accountability systems is strangling our public schools and undermining any chance that educators have to transform a traditional system of schooling into a broad range of learning experiences that better prepares our students to live successfully and be competitive on a global stage; and
WHEREAS, we commend Robert Scott, Commissioner of Education, for his concern about the overemphasis on high stakes testing that has become "a perversion of its original intent" and for his continuing support of high standards and local accountability; and
WHEREAS, we believe our state's future prosperity relies on a high-quality education system that prepares students for college and careers, and without such a system Texas' economic competitiveness and ability and to attract new business will falter; and
WHEREAS, the real work of designing more engaging student learning experiences requires changes in the culture and structure of the systems in which teachers and students work; and
WHEREAS, what occurs in our classrooms every day should be student-centered and result in students learning at a deep and meaningful level, as opposed to the superficial level of learning that results from the current over-emphasis on that which can be easily tested by standardized tests; and
WHEREAS, We believe in the tenets set out in Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas (TASA, 2008) and our goal is to transform this district in accordance with those tenets; and
WHEREAS, Our vision is for all students to be engaged in more meaningful learning activities that cultivate their unique individual talents, to provide for student choice in work that is designed to respect how they learn best, and to embrace the concept that students can be both consumers and creators of knowledge; and
WHEREAS, only by developing new capacities and conditions in districts and schools, and the communities in which they are embedded, will we ensure that all learning spaces foster and celebrate innovation, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication and critical thinking; and
WHEREAS, these are the very skills that business leaders desire in a rising workforce and the very attitudes that are essential to the survival of our democracy; and
WHEREAS, imposing relentless test preparation and boring memorization of facts to enhance test performance is doing little more than stealing the love of learning from our students and assuring that we fall short of our goals; and
WHEREAS, we do not oppose accountability in public schools and we point with pride to the performance of our students, but believe that the system of the past will not prepare our students to lead in the future and neither will the standardized tests that so dominate their instructional time and block our ability to make progress toward a world-class education system of student-centered schools and future-ready students; therefore be it
RESOLVED that the Clear Creek ISD Board of Trustees calls on the Texas Legislature to reexamine the public school accountability system in Texas and to develop a system that encompasses multiple assessments, reflects greater validity, uses more cost efficient sampling techniques and other external evaluation arrangements, and more accurately reflects what students know, appreciate and can do in terms of the rigorous standards essential to their success, enhances the role of teachers as designers, guides to instruction and leaders, and nurtures the sense of inquiry and love of learning in all students.
PASSED AND APPROVED on this 27 day of February, 2012.
Guy Brandenburg writes that here is an excellent resolution that has been passed by Clear Creek School District, a large district near NASA, as well as several other school boards in Texas. It has been called "The shot heard around the county." [see http://galvestondailynews.com/story/298894] Why not around the country? If Texas school boards can pass this resolution, why shouldn't all school boards in the nation adopt similar ones?
From Guy Brandenburg on the EDDRA2 listserve, Tuesday, March 13, 2012. See http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2012/03/clear-creek-tx-school-board-resolution-vs-high-stakes-testing/
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
CLEAR CREEK INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT
RESOLUTION CONCERNING HIGH STAKES, STANDARDIZED TESTING
OF TEXAS PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS
STATE OF TEXAS §
COUNTY OF GALVESTON
WHEREAS, the over reliance on standardized, high stakes testing as the only assessment of learning that really matters in the state and federal accountability systems is strangling our public schools and undermining any chance that educators have to transform a traditional system of schooling into a broad range of learning experiences that better prepares our students to live successfully and be competitive on a global stage; and
WHEREAS, we commend Robert Scott, Commissioner of Education, for his concern about the overemphasis on high stakes testing that has become "a perversion of its original intent" and for his continuing support of high standards and local accountability; and
WHEREAS, we believe our state's future prosperity relies on a high-quality education system that prepares students for college and careers, and without such a system Texas' economic competitiveness and ability and to attract new business will falter; and
WHEREAS, the real work of designing more engaging student learning experiences requires changes in the culture and structure of the systems in which teachers and students work; and
WHEREAS, what occurs in our classrooms every day should be student-centered and result in students learning at a deep and meaningful level, as opposed to the superficial level of learning that results from the current over-emphasis on that which can be easily tested by standardized tests; and
WHEREAS, We believe in the tenets set out in Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas (TASA, 2008) and our goal is to transform this district in accordance with those tenets; and
WHEREAS, Our vision is for all students to be engaged in more meaningful learning activities that cultivate their unique individual talents, to provide for student choice in work that is designed to respect how they learn best, and to embrace the concept that students can be both consumers and creators of knowledge; and
WHEREAS, only by developing new capacities and conditions in districts and schools, and the communities in which they are embedded, will we ensure that all learning spaces foster and celebrate innovation, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication and critical thinking; and
WHEREAS, these are the very skills that business leaders desire in a rising workforce and the very attitudes that are essential to the survival of our democracy; and
WHEREAS, imposing relentless test preparation and boring memorization of facts to enhance test performance is doing little more than stealing the love of learning from our students and assuring that we fall short of our goals; and
WHEREAS, we do not oppose accountability in public schools and we point with pride to the performance of our students, but believe that the system of the past will not prepare our students to lead in the future and neither will the standardized tests that so dominate their instructional time and block our ability to make progress toward a world-class education system of student-centered schools and future-ready students; therefore be it
RESOLVED that the Clear Creek ISD Board of Trustees calls on the Texas Legislature to reexamine the public school accountability system in Texas and to develop a system that encompasses multiple assessments, reflects greater validity, uses more cost efficient sampling techniques and other external evaluation arrangements, and more accurately reflects what students know, appreciate and can do in terms of the rigorous standards essential to their success, enhances the role of teachers as designers, guides to instruction and leaders, and nurtures the sense of inquiry and love of learning in all students.
PASSED AND APPROVED on this 27 day of February, 2012.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Indiana Groups that Want to Privatize Your School
A center out of Columbia University is tracking the lobbying and funding actions of so-called education reform groups that--whether they say this publicly or not--support turning public education over to for-profit companies. Here's the Indiana list that I'm sure could be expanded. Comments?
National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education (NCSPE): Check it out.
Who supports privatization of education?
A descriptive analysis of NCSPE's links to national and state-specific organizations that tend to support or oppose privatization of education
INDIANA LIST:
Greater Educational Opportunities (GEO) Foundation Indiana
“GEO Foundation, as featured in Forbes Magazine, has been making access to quality schools a reality for children since 1998. GEO incubates quality charter schools and then supports their growth. All four GEO-sponsored public charter schools are high academic growth schools and feature a unique K-14 model--full day kindergarten all the way through two years of college. GEO seeks to provide greater access to quality education for all kids. The foundation currently operates four charter schools.” (website quote)
Indiana School Scholarship Tax Credit
“The Indiana School Scholarship Tax Credit is designed to provide scholarship support for thousands of low and middle income families to enroll their children into the private or public school of their choice. Funding for these scholarships will come from private, charitable donations to qualified scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). Donors (individuals or corporations) would be eligible to take advantage of a 50% credit against their state tax liability for contributions made to an SGO. The program is entirely privately-funded, with an incentive to charitable giving from the tax credit.” (website quote)
Indiana Virtual Families
“Indiana Virtual School Families (IVSF) is a grassroots coalition that was formed four years ago, before grassroots coalitions became popular! The Indiana Virtual School Families board consists of a group of passionate parent volunteers that have united in an effort to educate and inform the public and policymakers at all levels of the potential benefits virtual learning opportunities can bring to Indiana. A coalition supporting virtual schools in Indiana” (website quote)
School Choice Indiana
“School Choice Indiana, Inc. is a non-partisan, statewide organization dedicated to the principle that providing parents with real choices in the education of their children will improve educational outcomes and improve the quality of education, both in private and public schools.” (website quote)
Who supports privatization of education?
In 2000, the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education (NCSPE) began to collect and classify website links to organizations involved in advocacy or research related to privatization of education. We created three general classifications: (1) organizations that: "tend to support privatization of education," (2) "present both supporting and opposing perspectives," and (3) "tend to oppose privatization of education." Within the general classifications we subcategorized organizations as: "advocacy," "research and policy" "nonprofit and for-profit and education management organizations," "news," and "research journals." In addition, in 2009, since much of the debate and activity related to privatization of education occurs at the state level, we began to add and classify links to state-specific organizations that "tend to support" or "tend to oppose" privatization of education.
Because of the enormous expansion of activity and interest in educational privatization, we recently concluded a robust search of the internet in order to update our links. The purpose of this announcement is to share with you the results of that search.
First, some descriptive data about our links:
In 2005 we had 49 links to organizations that "Tend to Support Privatization in Education;" we now have 85 such links.
In 2005 we had 23 links to organizations that "Present Both Supporting and Opposing Perspectives;" we did not find any new links to add to this category
In 2005 we had 22 links to organizations that "Tend to Oppose Privatization in Education;" we found only one new link to add to this category
In 2009 we had 19 links to state-specific organizations that "Tend to Support Privatization in Education;" we now have 164 such links
In 2009 we had 7 links to state-specific organizations that "Tend to Oppose Privatization in Education;" we now have 247 such links
In addition to serving as a valuable resource for students of school choice and privatization, the links provide a unique window into the evolution of support for school choice and privatization at the state and national levels. The following observations are based on our review of the changes in the distribution of website links within and between the state and national levels.
Continued Ideological Polarization in the National Dialogue on Privatization of Education
Even though a plethora of new reforms, such as online learning, are now part of the national education reform debate, school choice remains a highly divisive political issue. There are a total of 71 advocacy organizations but only 17 research and policy organizations among the support and oppose categories. In fact, if we counted the Education Management Organizations (EMOs) on our list as advocacy organizations, then essentially all of the growth in our list of national-level organizations since 2005 has come from the addition of advocacy organizations. Furthermore, we could not find neutral organizations at the state-level so we left that category out entirely for the states.
Growth in Organizations that Tend to Support Privatization at the State-level
At the national level, there are significantly more organizations that tend to support privatization (85 that support vs. 22 that oppose), while the opposite is true across the states (164 support vs. 245 oppose). This is largely because every state has at least one well-established teachers' organization (usually more than one) clearly opposed to privatization. However, a diverse coalition of state-level organizations that support school choice has emerged to mobilize parents and counter the power of teachers' organizations. These organizations include religious groups (especially religiously-motivated homeschoolers), free market policy organizations, parent advocacy organizations (e.g. Stand for Children), private school networks, and state-specific education management organizations. Most of these organizations, however, are more recently established and not as well connected or entrenched as those that oppose privatization. This trend suggests that we may see some significant legislative conflicts on school choice issues at the state-level in the not-too-distant future.
About the NCSPE
The Center provides independent, non-partisan information on and analysis of privatization in education. The Center's program includes research, evaluation, conferences, publications, and dissemination on a full range of issues regarding privatization of education from pre-school to higher education, both national and international.
National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education (NCSPE): Check it out.
Who supports privatization of education?
A descriptive analysis of NCSPE's links to national and state-specific organizations that tend to support or oppose privatization of education
INDIANA LIST:
Greater Educational Opportunities (GEO) Foundation Indiana
“GEO Foundation, as featured in Forbes Magazine, has been making access to quality schools a reality for children since 1998. GEO incubates quality charter schools and then supports their growth. All four GEO-sponsored public charter schools are high academic growth schools and feature a unique K-14 model--full day kindergarten all the way through two years of college. GEO seeks to provide greater access to quality education for all kids. The foundation currently operates four charter schools.” (website quote)
Indiana School Scholarship Tax Credit
“The Indiana School Scholarship Tax Credit is designed to provide scholarship support for thousands of low and middle income families to enroll their children into the private or public school of their choice. Funding for these scholarships will come from private, charitable donations to qualified scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). Donors (individuals or corporations) would be eligible to take advantage of a 50% credit against their state tax liability for contributions made to an SGO. The program is entirely privately-funded, with an incentive to charitable giving from the tax credit.” (website quote)
Indiana Virtual Families
“Indiana Virtual School Families (IVSF) is a grassroots coalition that was formed four years ago, before grassroots coalitions became popular! The Indiana Virtual School Families board consists of a group of passionate parent volunteers that have united in an effort to educate and inform the public and policymakers at all levels of the potential benefits virtual learning opportunities can bring to Indiana. A coalition supporting virtual schools in Indiana” (website quote)
School Choice Indiana
“School Choice Indiana, Inc. is a non-partisan, statewide organization dedicated to the principle that providing parents with real choices in the education of their children will improve educational outcomes and improve the quality of education, both in private and public schools.” (website quote)
Who supports privatization of education?
In 2000, the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education (NCSPE) began to collect and classify website links to organizations involved in advocacy or research related to privatization of education. We created three general classifications: (1) organizations that: "tend to support privatization of education," (2) "present both supporting and opposing perspectives," and (3) "tend to oppose privatization of education." Within the general classifications we subcategorized organizations as: "advocacy," "research and policy" "nonprofit and for-profit and education management organizations," "news," and "research journals." In addition, in 2009, since much of the debate and activity related to privatization of education occurs at the state level, we began to add and classify links to state-specific organizations that "tend to support" or "tend to oppose" privatization of education.
Because of the enormous expansion of activity and interest in educational privatization, we recently concluded a robust search of the internet in order to update our links. The purpose of this announcement is to share with you the results of that search.
First, some descriptive data about our links:
In 2005 we had 49 links to organizations that "Tend to Support Privatization in Education;" we now have 85 such links.
In 2005 we had 23 links to organizations that "Present Both Supporting and Opposing Perspectives;" we did not find any new links to add to this category
In 2005 we had 22 links to organizations that "Tend to Oppose Privatization in Education;" we found only one new link to add to this category
In 2009 we had 19 links to state-specific organizations that "Tend to Support Privatization in Education;" we now have 164 such links
In 2009 we had 7 links to state-specific organizations that "Tend to Oppose Privatization in Education;" we now have 247 such links
In addition to serving as a valuable resource for students of school choice and privatization, the links provide a unique window into the evolution of support for school choice and privatization at the state and national levels. The following observations are based on our review of the changes in the distribution of website links within and between the state and national levels.
Continued Ideological Polarization in the National Dialogue on Privatization of Education
Even though a plethora of new reforms, such as online learning, are now part of the national education reform debate, school choice remains a highly divisive political issue. There are a total of 71 advocacy organizations but only 17 research and policy organizations among the support and oppose categories. In fact, if we counted the Education Management Organizations (EMOs) on our list as advocacy organizations, then essentially all of the growth in our list of national-level organizations since 2005 has come from the addition of advocacy organizations. Furthermore, we could not find neutral organizations at the state-level so we left that category out entirely for the states.
Growth in Organizations that Tend to Support Privatization at the State-level
At the national level, there are significantly more organizations that tend to support privatization (85 that support vs. 22 that oppose), while the opposite is true across the states (164 support vs. 245 oppose). This is largely because every state has at least one well-established teachers' organization (usually more than one) clearly opposed to privatization. However, a diverse coalition of state-level organizations that support school choice has emerged to mobilize parents and counter the power of teachers' organizations. These organizations include religious groups (especially religiously-motivated homeschoolers), free market policy organizations, parent advocacy organizations (e.g. Stand for Children), private school networks, and state-specific education management organizations. Most of these organizations, however, are more recently established and not as well connected or entrenched as those that oppose privatization. This trend suggests that we may see some significant legislative conflicts on school choice issues at the state-level in the not-too-distant future.
About the NCSPE
The Center provides independent, non-partisan information on and analysis of privatization in education. The Center's program includes research, evaluation, conferences, publications, and dissemination on a full range of issues regarding privatization of education from pre-school to higher education, both national and international.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Opting Out in Indiana
A great story here on WFYI on how some parents are choosing to Opt-Out of the standardized testing in Indiana. Interestingly, the Indiana DOE didn't respond to some of these folks for three months but sent an email the day this story came out. Shows what it takes these days sadly. The conversation is building steam and getting interesting.
Why Some Indiana Parents Won’t Let Their Kids Take State Tests This Spring
They’ve tried organizing. They’ve tried criticizing. They’ve tried testifying.
But despite efforts to get their message out, some parents still feel shut out of the discussion about changes in education policy across Indiana and the nation.
So now, a handful of them is trying a new way to make their point — resisting.
Having long criticized laws like the federal No Child Left Behind act and Indiana’s Public Law 221 for relying too heavily on test scores, small groups of parents are planning to have their students “Opt Out” of statewide testing this spring. On test day, their kids simply won’t show up to school.
- ‘This Page Intentionally Left Blank’: Opt Out In IndianaEvery Indiana third grader will take a new reading exam in March to determine whether he or she can move on to the fourth grade. As Kyle Stokes reports, that’s one more reason some parents who worry about the increasingly-high stakes of state testing don’t want their children taking the exams this spring.Download
‘WE DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH TESTING PER SE’
Though state officials doubt the legality of such a move, organizers say Opt Out is a vehicle parents can use to vent their frustration with education policies. National opponents of high-stakes standardized testing say if as few as five or six percent of students were to skip statewide exams, state officials could no longer consider the rest of the test results valid.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Good Points on the MindTrust Plan
Dan Carpenter does a nice job here of pointing to some of the logical problems with this plan. It is fundamentally anti-democratic, notably saying to the parents and communities of IPS that they're not capable of electing a school board. Don't get this wrong however; there's a lot to be desired in the IPS school board and its superintendent and changes are needed. But Carpenter is right that this plan is part of a corporate strategy to make money off of so-called reform.
Who's the board? It's the people chosen, for better or worse, without suburban supervision, by residents of the Indianapolis Public Schools territory to educate more than 30,000 children.
A better question: Who is "We," and who elected "Us"?
It wasn't We the People, but We the People get most of the bill. The $700,000 study that produced an IPS overhaul plan enjoyed a $500,000 grant from Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, a champion of non-public education and the state's co-leader with Gov. Mitch Daniels in channeling public money into privatization.
The wholly unsurprising makeover/takeover plan, with its emphases on charter schools, the gelding of the IPS central office and the disempowering of central city voters as well as the teachers union, fits the pattern of the prevailing "reform" movement but hardly strikes this writer as a blueprint for better times in and of itself.
Site-based decision-making was tried in IPS, and collapsed in the face of relentless pupil mobility. Mayorally appointed school boards have been tried in other cities, without notable success. Charter schools, for-profit and nonprofit, have not outperformed traditional public schools.
Yet these are the power relationships that eclipse pedagogy in the made-up minds of business-model reformers. Get the administration, the board, the union, the messy local politics "moved out of the way," and impose a simplified education market in which families' choices will be limited to consumer choices. And first, by all means, declare the system broken.
If the system is not broken, but merely running unsatisfactorily (like many of its neighbor systems), then reformers have a problem. They must find ways to help, not merely people and structures to discard. They must acknowledge strengths (of which IPS has many). They must address the low profile given school board races in the election process. They must answer for their own funding cuts, to education directly and to the demands of the monster at its doorstep called poverty.
If, on the other hand, class size and hunger and crime and families fighting to survive can be portrayed as excuses on the part of complacent incompetents who stand in the way of efficiency, the stage is set for a handover of control.
This is a national, even international, phenomenon. Check the rightwing American Legislative Exchange Council. Check the Milton Friedman brigade out of the University of Chicago and the Indianapolis-based Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Your Republican lawmakers, and some key Democrats as well, are listening to them. Are the people who own the public schools too few, and too small, to be heard?
Carpenter is Star op-ed columnist. Contact him at (317) 444-6172 or at dan.carpenter@indystar.com.
- Should a mayor who won re-election with 16 percent of the potential vote be given control of schools because of low turnout in school board elections?
- Is the answer to too little democracy, in other words, less democracy?
Who's the board? It's the people chosen, for better or worse, without suburban supervision, by residents of the Indianapolis Public Schools territory to educate more than 30,000 children.
A better question: Who is "We," and who elected "Us"?
It wasn't We the People, but We the People get most of the bill. The $700,000 study that produced an IPS overhaul plan enjoyed a $500,000 grant from Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, a champion of non-public education and the state's co-leader with Gov. Mitch Daniels in channeling public money into privatization.
The wholly unsurprising makeover/takeover plan, with its emphases on charter schools, the gelding of the IPS central office and the disempowering of central city voters as well as the teachers union, fits the pattern of the prevailing "reform" movement but hardly strikes this writer as a blueprint for better times in and of itself.
Site-based decision-making was tried in IPS, and collapsed in the face of relentless pupil mobility. Mayorally appointed school boards have been tried in other cities, without notable success. Charter schools, for-profit and nonprofit, have not outperformed traditional public schools.
Yet these are the power relationships that eclipse pedagogy in the made-up minds of business-model reformers. Get the administration, the board, the union, the messy local politics "moved out of the way," and impose a simplified education market in which families' choices will be limited to consumer choices. And first, by all means, declare the system broken.
If the system is not broken, but merely running unsatisfactorily (like many of its neighbor systems), then reformers have a problem. They must find ways to help, not merely people and structures to discard. They must acknowledge strengths (of which IPS has many). They must address the low profile given school board races in the election process. They must answer for their own funding cuts, to education directly and to the demands of the monster at its doorstep called poverty.
If, on the other hand, class size and hunger and crime and families fighting to survive can be portrayed as excuses on the part of complacent incompetents who stand in the way of efficiency, the stage is set for a handover of control.
This is a national, even international, phenomenon. Check the rightwing American Legislative Exchange Council. Check the Milton Friedman brigade out of the University of Chicago and the Indianapolis-based Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Your Republican lawmakers, and some key Democrats as well, are listening to them. Are the people who own the public schools too few, and too small, to be heard?
Carpenter is Star op-ed columnist. Contact him at (317) 444-6172 or at dan.carpenter@indystar.com.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Innovate Indy on Education Reform: Join us Jan. 5th!
DO NOT LEAVE EDUCATION REFORM IN THE HANDS OF “EXPERTS”
IN BUSINESS, FINANCE, AND LAW!
On December 3rd a conversation began about education reform in Indianapolis. That conversation continues next on: Thursday January 5th at 7:00pm at Big Car Service Center, 3919 N. Lafayette Road.
We will talk about authentic measures for learning and stopping the abuse of children by testing them.
Phil and Joan Harris from Bloomington, two of the three coauthors of:
The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don't Tell You What You Think They Do
will join us to share their knowledge and we will discuss further activities to educate a wider community.
Matthew Brooks, coordinator for Opt- out Indiana will also join the discussion of how to protect our kids and our communities.
Adults please bring students to share their insights and add their voices to this vital discussion.
A tremendous concentration of wealth and political power has been focused in Indianapolis to drive an agenda of change in education. We find that agenda dangerously misinformed. We intend to inform and redirect that agenda toward the betterment of our neighborhoods, our schools and our children. We need the participation of parents, students, teachers and all concerned members of the community in order to accomplish this goal. Please join our conversation.
IN BUSINESS, FINANCE, AND LAW!
On December 3rd a conversation began about education reform in Indianapolis. That conversation continues next on: Thursday January 5th at 7:00pm at Big Car Service Center, 3919 N. Lafayette Road.
We will talk about authentic measures for learning and stopping the abuse of children by testing them.
Phil and Joan Harris from Bloomington, two of the three coauthors of:
The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don't Tell You What You Think They Do
will join us to share their knowledge and we will discuss further activities to educate a wider community.
Matthew Brooks, coordinator for Opt- out Indiana will also join the discussion of how to protect our kids and our communities.
Adults please bring students to share their insights and add their voices to this vital discussion.
A tremendous concentration of wealth and political power has been focused in Indianapolis to drive an agenda of change in education. We find that agenda dangerously misinformed. We intend to inform and redirect that agenda toward the betterment of our neighborhoods, our schools and our children. We need the participation of parents, students, teachers and all concerned members of the community in order to accomplish this goal. Please join our conversation.
Monday, January 2, 2012
The Mind Trust and a Local Control Ruse
This post from School Matters nicely gives some counter voice to the local gushing over the Mind Trust's plan to gut Indianapolis Public Schools. It is important to note how much taxpayer money is already going to these folks and how much this "gift" as the Indy Star puts it positions them to receive in the future. We're not going to say that some of these ideas aren't good but this is shady politics and it's time that the public pay much more attention to the money trail. Finally, the idea that mayoral control is more democratic is preposterous (just ask community folks in DC, New York, New Orleans, or Chicago).
The Mind Trust’s plan to redesign IPS
Posted on December 20, 2011 by stevehinnefeld
The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that promotes education reform, released an ambitious proposal Sunday for remaking Indianapolis Public Schools. It certainly has people talking.
Here are some initial thoughts:
– A key feature of the plan involves killing off the IPS school board and turning control of the district over to the Indianapolis mayor and city-county council. Whether this is a good or bad idea, it’s certainly undemocratic. As Heather Gillers points out in theIndianapolis Star, it means “telling voters who live in IPS that they are the only ones in the state who will not be allowed to elect their school board.”
More significantly, the city of Indianapolis and IPS cover very different geographical areas –- the mayor of Indy isn’t the mayor of IPS. The mayor and city-county council are elected by voters from throughout Marion County, but IPS is only one of 11 school districts in the county. About three-fourths of public-school students in Marion County attend non-IPS schools.
The argument for mayoral control is that the mayor will be “politically accountable” for the schools. But even if the mayor screws up, IPS residents may not have the votes to punish him at the polls.
– More than 80 percent of IPS students qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. No other public school district in Indiana comes close to that level of poverty, except for some districts in Lake County (Gary, East Chicago). The Mind Trust plan barely mentions this fact, or the challenges it presents for any scheme to dramatically improve performance in IPS schools.
Sure, poverty can’t be an excuse for failing to do everything possible to improve schools. But as Helene F. Ladd and Edward B. Fiske wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed, pretending poverty doesn’t matter only gets in the way of serious attempts at reform.
– The Mind Trust plan envisions converting all IPS schools to what it calls “opportunity schools,” with the freedom and flexibility that are usually associated with charter schools. All would be “schools of choice”: parents could send their kids to any school in the district, subject to the IPS somehow playing traffic cop.
It’s the standard market-based ideology of education reform: “Great schools” will thrive because parents send their children there; “failing schools” will close for lack of enrollment. The models for this approach are New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The Mind Trust claims it will be possible to reallocate 80 percent of IPS administrative costs to the schools, leaving the district’s central office to be a low-level provider of services. This seems like a stretch. But even if it isn’t, a whole lot more responsibilities also would flow to the schools. Principals would apparently be responsible for hiring and firing teachers, establishing curriculum, selecting textbooks, arranging for school meals, lining up transportation, securing special-education services, handling the paperwork for federal Title I funds, etc., etc.
Oh, and also finding time to be great instructional leaders.
– According to the Star, the Mind Trust paid $700,000 to have its plan produced by Public Impact, a North Carolina consulting firm. That seems like a hefty price for a product that appears to involve no original research, and with its executive summary packed with reformist jargon about bold visions, reinventing education, empowering parents, great leaders, great teachers, ad nauseum.
Some $500,000 came from the Indiana Department of Education, the Star reports – a lot of public money to spend at a time when state government is cutting services.
– For those of us who don’t live in Indianapolis, it’s probably hard to comprehend the hunger that many civic-minded people must feel for something, anything, that will turn IPS into a great school system. It’s common to hear that “IPS is broken and can’t be fixed,” or words to that effect. Superintendents have raised hopes but produced disappointing results, at least when it comes to test scores. So it’s not surprising that the Mind Trust plan has won praise from folks on the left, right and center.
But as education historian Diane Ravitch often warns, there are no “silver bullets” in education. There are no miracle cures for poverty. Making a difference in the lives of children is hard work that takes time, resources, dedication and sustained focus.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
The Political Backers of Stand for Children
This article proved to be prescient in Illinois politics and education reform. Check out this video with a co-founder of Stand for Children and their plan to take down the teacher union there [LINK]. They're in Indiana now and also very vague about what their agenda is although they make an adamant case that they are grassroots, a coalition of community folks working to improve education. When I see this type of savvy political manuevering behind the scenes, I can't help but think that good folks in Indiana are being co-opted.
ILLINOIS Who’s behind Stand for Children?
BY RICH MILLER Illinois Times October 21,2010
It’s not every day that a group almost nobody has ever heard of gives $175,000 to a single state legislative candidate. But that’s just what happened on Oct. 7 when Stand for Children Illinois PAC handed over that gigantic check to Republican Ryan Higgins, who is vying to replace retiring state Rep. Paul Froehlich (D-Schaumburg).
In fact, Stand for Children’s $175,000 check represents the largest single contribution to a legislative candidate – other than from a caucus leader, party organization or candidate loans to themselves – since contribution records were put online 16 years ago. It’s probably a good bet that the group’s contribution to Higgins is the single largest “outside” legislative campaign check in modern Illinois history.
Yet Stand for Children has received almost zero press coverage. Fox Chicago followed up on a story I wrote earlier this month, but that’s it, even though the group has contributed $650,000 to rank and file legislative candidates since Oct. 4.
Republicans had hoped to receive nearly all of the group’s prodigious contributions this fall, but the majority of its money went to six Democrats. Rep. Jehan Gordon (D-Peoria) received a $100,000 check. State Reps. Bob Flider, Mark Walker and Keith Farnham and Sen. Toi Hutchinson have all received $50,000 contributions, as well as House Democratic candidate Daniel Biss. Three Republicans received money from the group.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan met with the group after hearing what it was up to, said his spokesman. Madigan can be a very persuasive man. Huge contributions have been the norm in Illinois for decades. Usually, though, when we see big checks run through the system we have a general idea what the group wants. So far, though, Stand for Children has not established any sort of public presence here. There have been no editorial board visits or public relations blitzes. Their campaign finance filings show that their money is coming from their parent organization, which doesn’t have to list its contributors. So we really don’t know who is actually bankrolling this group.
After several tries, the organization did send me a flier about how it intends to “Improve Illinois Public Schools.” “Our vision is to dramatically increase improvement for all Illinois children by building a powerful, independent, statewide voice asking that we make what’s best for public school children the center of all education policy,” the flier states.
Um, OK, but what do they want? They say they want to “redefine” teacher tenure so that it is a “benefit that is earned and kept based on high expectations and student achievement.” Their website indicates that the group strongly backs testing to gauge achievement. And they appear to want to apply those test results to teachers. They also want to make sure that administrators and teachers have “exhausted every possible avenue during contract negotiations before resorting to a strike.” Details about how they would do that were not available.
“Certainly, any time you see a new group not from Illinois dropping significant dollar amounts into legislative races, it does raise some red flags,” said a spokesperson for the Illinois Federation of Teachers. “Where is their money coming from, who is funding them, what are their objectives? We’re certainly curious to see what their agenda is.”
While they don’t seem to be explicitly saying so, it looks like the group is taking advantage of a peculiar situation in Illinois politics. The two teachers unions are furious at legislators for voting for a major pension reform bill, so many of those incumbents are not receiving the unions’ endorsements. Plus, the unions’ contributions, along with everybody else’s, will be capped at a much lower level starting Jan. 1, and that could hinder their influence.
The thinking is that Stand for Children is now filling a unique void created by the relative lack of teacher contributions. But that theory doesn’t totally hold up. For instance, Rep. Farnham and Sen. Hutchinson were both endorsed by the IEA. And Rep. Flider has sponsored three bills making it easier for teachers to receive tenure more quickly.
However, if Speaker Madigan retains the majority and the group continues to, um, “stand” with his candidates and the unions refuse to step up, it’s possible that we could see a significant education reform push next year. Stay tuned.
Rich Miller publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com.
ILLINOIS Who’s behind Stand for Children?
BY RICH MILLER Illinois Times October 21,2010
It’s not every day that a group almost nobody has ever heard of gives $175,000 to a single state legislative candidate. But that’s just what happened on Oct. 7 when Stand for Children Illinois PAC handed over that gigantic check to Republican Ryan Higgins, who is vying to replace retiring state Rep. Paul Froehlich (D-Schaumburg).
In fact, Stand for Children’s $175,000 check represents the largest single contribution to a legislative candidate – other than from a caucus leader, party organization or candidate loans to themselves – since contribution records were put online 16 years ago. It’s probably a good bet that the group’s contribution to Higgins is the single largest “outside” legislative campaign check in modern Illinois history.
Yet Stand for Children has received almost zero press coverage. Fox Chicago followed up on a story I wrote earlier this month, but that’s it, even though the group has contributed $650,000 to rank and file legislative candidates since Oct. 4.
Republicans had hoped to receive nearly all of the group’s prodigious contributions this fall, but the majority of its money went to six Democrats. Rep. Jehan Gordon (D-Peoria) received a $100,000 check. State Reps. Bob Flider, Mark Walker and Keith Farnham and Sen. Toi Hutchinson have all received $50,000 contributions, as well as House Democratic candidate Daniel Biss. Three Republicans received money from the group.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan met with the group after hearing what it was up to, said his spokesman. Madigan can be a very persuasive man. Huge contributions have been the norm in Illinois for decades. Usually, though, when we see big checks run through the system we have a general idea what the group wants. So far, though, Stand for Children has not established any sort of public presence here. There have been no editorial board visits or public relations blitzes. Their campaign finance filings show that their money is coming from their parent organization, which doesn’t have to list its contributors. So we really don’t know who is actually bankrolling this group.
After several tries, the organization did send me a flier about how it intends to “Improve Illinois Public Schools.” “Our vision is to dramatically increase improvement for all Illinois children by building a powerful, independent, statewide voice asking that we make what’s best for public school children the center of all education policy,” the flier states.
Um, OK, but what do they want? They say they want to “redefine” teacher tenure so that it is a “benefit that is earned and kept based on high expectations and student achievement.” Their website indicates that the group strongly backs testing to gauge achievement. And they appear to want to apply those test results to teachers. They also want to make sure that administrators and teachers have “exhausted every possible avenue during contract negotiations before resorting to a strike.” Details about how they would do that were not available.
“Certainly, any time you see a new group not from Illinois dropping significant dollar amounts into legislative races, it does raise some red flags,” said a spokesperson for the Illinois Federation of Teachers. “Where is their money coming from, who is funding them, what are their objectives? We’re certainly curious to see what their agenda is.”
While they don’t seem to be explicitly saying so, it looks like the group is taking advantage of a peculiar situation in Illinois politics. The two teachers unions are furious at legislators for voting for a major pension reform bill, so many of those incumbents are not receiving the unions’ endorsements. Plus, the unions’ contributions, along with everybody else’s, will be capped at a much lower level starting Jan. 1, and that could hinder their influence.
The thinking is that Stand for Children is now filling a unique void created by the relative lack of teacher contributions. But that theory doesn’t totally hold up. For instance, Rep. Farnham and Sen. Hutchinson were both endorsed by the IEA. And Rep. Flider has sponsored three bills making it easier for teachers to receive tenure more quickly.
However, if Speaker Madigan retains the majority and the group continues to, um, “stand” with his candidates and the unions refuse to step up, it’s possible that we could see a significant education reform push next year. Stay tuned.
Rich Miller publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Rethinking Schools on "Stand for Children"
A chapter has started in Indianapolis with the support of the Mind Trust, the Mayor's Office, and the State Superintendent. The story below, worth reading at length, tells the tale of a grassroots organization that has lost its way (or is co-opted a better word?). Questions abound when original members and leadership quit and corporate interests take over the Board. It seems important that Indiana Citizens knows the background of these powerful forces and what may indeed be its real agenda.
For or Against Children? The problematic history of stand for children
Fall 2011, By Ken Libby and Adam Sanchez
Last October, a friend called with a question: “What do you know about Stand for Children?” The advocacy organization, based in our hometown of Portland, Ore., was expanding into his state of Illinois, and he hoped to glean some insight into the kinds of reforms the group would support. Just two months later, Stand’s Illinois branch had amassed more than $3 million in a political action committee and unveiled an aggressive teacher evaluation bill. “Have they always been like this?” he asked. The short answer: no.
Stand for Children was founded in the late 1990s as a way to advocate for the welfare of children. It grew out of a 1996 march by more than 250,000 people in Washington, D.C. The aim of the march was to highlight child poverty at a time when Congress and the Clinton administration were preparing to “end welfare as we know it.” Jonah Edelman, son of children’s and civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman, co-founded the group and continues to serve as CEO. Stand’s first chapter was in Oregon, but the group now operates in eight additional states: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington.
According to Susan Barrett, a parent volunteer who recently left Portland’s Stand chapter, Stand started with a genuine focus on improving the lives of poor children:
[Stand] worked on smaller issues with positive impact, such as after-school program funding and emergency dental care for uninsured kids. Many parents like me who joined Stand a while back still remember how it was an organization fighting for the Portland Children’s Levy, which provided funds for early childhood education, foster care, child abuse prevention programs, and a variety of other programs centered on children.1
Here is a snapshot of Stand’s agenda during that period:
•Health coverage for uninsured children
•Monitoring the impact of welfare reform
•More money for affordable, high-quality child care
•Safe and productive after-school activities
•Schools that have small classes, well-trained teachers, high standards, and involved parents. 2
Fifteen years later, Stand seems to have morphed into something quite different. For Oregonians, the first public indications that Stand had made a striking 180-degree turn in its politics was its support for Race to the Top legislation and its active promotion of the antiunion, anti-public school film Waiting for “Superman.” Stand led a well-financed, intensive campaign for the film, organizing special invitation-only showings for various constituencies.
According to Barrett: This past year, Oregon Stand staff wanted us to press our legislators to pass a “bipartisan education package,” which basically tied the release of much-needed school funding to the expansion of charter schools, online learning, and other so-called “reforms.” Stand also pushed to lower the capital gains tax.
For Tom Olson, another former Portland Stand member, the final straw was the appointment of a new executive director for the Oregon chapter:
We were appalled that [Sue Levin] had virtually no experience leading grassroots organizations. Instead, we were told that she had a truly impressive background as an “entrepreneur” (a phrase we began to hear [CEO Edelman] use quite frequently during [his] transformation during 2009–10). Levin had been the founder and CEO of a women’s apparel company, Lucy Inc. Prior to that, she had been a women’s sports apparel VP at Nike Inc. Grassroots leadership experience? Absolutely none. Connections with millionaires? A whole bunch. 3
For Stand’s Portland chapter, where the organization is headquartered and one of the few places where it has a significant history of grassroots activism, the changes in Stand’s role have clearly been traumatic for parents and community members who had a very different image of the organization. This is clearly not a local phenomenon. As Stand has expanded, it has followed a similar pattern: In state after state, Stand has made the corporate-driven agenda of expanding charter schools and tying teacher pay and evaluations to student test scores their top priority.
To be sure, Stand has maintained some vestiges of its original focus on children. Stand recently supported bills in Colorado and Oregon that would allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at state colleges; in both states, conservative activists expressed hostility to these measures. The Colorado chapter opposed a proposition and two statewide amendments that would have gutted education funding. The Arizona chapter supported a temporary 1 percent tax increase that avoided significant cuts to public schools. The Tennessee chapter fought an English-only amendment that would have negatively affected schools and families, supported changes to suspension policies that hurt children, and pushed for more pre-K funds.
But, unfortunately, the dominant impact of Stand, everywhere it has a presence, is much more pro-business than pro-children. This was certainly the case in Illinois, where Stand for Children played a part in crafting what they are touting as their biggest victory yet: Senate Bill 7.
Standing Against Illinois Teachers
SB 7, which passed the Illinois Senate in a unanimous vote and the General Assembly with a single dissenter, undermines seniority as the basis of teacher job security and specifically singles out the Chicago Teachers Union by severely restricting its right to strike.
Chicago has become a testing ground for corporate education policy. Recent CEOs of Chicago Public Schools have included Paul Vallas (1995–2001), who later became the architect behind the union-busting and charterization plan in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; and Arne Duncan (2001–08), who privatized Chicago public schools at a rate of about 10 per year before becoming Barack Obama’s education secretary. The policies pushed by these corporate reformers have been touted as “miraculous” by business leaders, but have created a horrendous environment for Chicago teachers.
Intensive and strategic organizing in the face of layoffs, increasing attacks on teachers, and school closings led to last year’s victory for the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), which swept the 2010 Chicago Teachers Union elections, winning every single seat. But CORE came to power in the context of an economic crisis in which workers are being forced to bear the brunt of economic sacrifice. The city’s elite became even more determined to break the teachers’ union.
Bruce Rainer, a Republican venture capitalist, recruited Edelman to come to Illinois and help with this task. Thanks to a speech caught on video and posted on YouTube, we now know the intimate details of how Stand for Children helped shape Illinois’ latest anti-teacher legislation. Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, billionaire James Crown and Jonah Edelman caused an uproar with their comments about SB 7.
Their panel discussion, titled “If It Can Happen There, It Can Happen Anywhere: Transformational Education Legislation in Illinois,” began with Crown painting a picture of an all-powerful teachers’ union that consistently blocks education reform and has a stranglehold on Illinois politics. Crown was particularly angry that teachers in Illinois had maintained their right to strike. “In 45 of the 50 states, there is no right to strike by teachers,” he protested. “So this was an incredibly strike-permissive environment with these other efforts by the unions, and so forth, that created an unsustainable structure in our school system.”
Following Crown, Edelman gave a step-by-step account of how Stand for Children worked to undermine teachers’ union rights in Illinois. After explaining how Stand essentially bought a handful of Illinois legislators with campaign contributions—most crucially, Democratic Assembly Speaker Michael Madigan—Edelman explained Stand’s strategy:
After the election, Advance Illinois and Stand had drafted a very bold proposal we called Performance Counts. It tied tenure and layoffs to performance. It let principals hire who they choose. It streamlined dismissal of ineffective tenured teachers substantially—from two-plus years and $200,000 in legal fees, on average, to three to four months, with very little likelihood of legal recourse.
And, most importantly, we called for the reform of collective bargaining throughout the state—essentially, proposing that school boards would be able to decide any disputed issue at impasse. So a very, very bold proposal for Illinois, and one that six months earlier would have been unthinkable, undiscussable. . . .
We hired 11 lobbyists, including the four best insiders and seven of the best minority lobbyists, preventing the unions from hiring them. We enlisted a statewide public affairs firm. . . . We raised $3 million for our political action committee between the election and the end of the year. That’s more money than either of the unions have in their political action committees.
And so essentially, what we did in a very short period of time was shift the balance of power. I can tell you there was a palpable sense of concern, if not shock, on the part of the teachers’ unions in Illinois that Speaker Madigan had changed allegiance, and that we had clear political capability to potentially jam this proposal down their throats, the same way the pension reform had been jammed down their throats six months earlier.
Edelman’s comments produced outrage among union and education activists. He issued an apology, saying he regretted that he “left children mostly out of the equation,” and that the speech “could cause viewers to wrongly conclude that I’m against unions.” For their part, the leaders of Illinois’ three main education unions blasted Edelman in a joint statement:
"We heard a lot from Jonah Edelman about power in politics, power over unions, and management power over teachers. Sadly, we didn’t hear anything in that hour-long session about improving education. . . . What’s worse is that these false claims clearly show an organizational agenda that has nothing to do with helping kids learn."
It’s clear from Edelman’s remarks that Stand’s effectiveness is reliant on a public perception that it represents the interests of parents. But in fact, Stand’s agenda is now closely aligned with those who call for privatization, charters, vouchers, and an end to teachers’ unions.
This is true throughout the country. For example, Stand’s most significant work in Colorado was their support of Senate Bill 191, a landmark piece of legislation that bases 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation on student achievement data. As Dana Goldstein explained in a recent American Prospect article, this may lead the state to test every student, in every grade, in every subject—including art, music, and PE. The poisonous debate around the bill vilified those in opposition and demoralized teachers across the state. One teacher, recalling the negotiations over the bill, told Goldstein, “I’ve chosen a profession that, in the public eyes, is worse than prostitution.”
Stand’s Colorado operations are funded in part by the Walton Family Foundation and the Daniels Fund, two right-wing philanthropies that have pushed for vouchers and charter schools.
Stand entered Texas in early 2011 as the state wrestled with a budget shortfall that could be as high as $27 billion. The dramatic cuts to schools in the Lone Star state will undoubtedly harm children, yet Stand put their might behind a campaign to evaluate teachers. Texas Senate Bill 4 and the companion bill in the House call for basing from 30 to 50 percent of teacher evaluations on test score growth. In addition, Stand supported legislation that would aid Texas charter schools.
To further this agenda, Stand hired nine lobbyists with ties to the Republican Party, including three lobbyists from Delisi Communications. The firm’s president, Ted Delisi, purchased Karl Rove’s consulting and direct mail company when Rove joined the Bush presidential campaign in 1999, and ran the Bush/Cheney fundraising and mailer campaign the following year.
Stand set up shop in Indiana in early 2011 and began advocating for changes to teacher evaluations as Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Republican-controlled legislature passed the most expansive state voucher program in U.S. history, expanded charter schools, restricted collective bargaining, and made serious changes to teacher evaluations. Stand’s advocacy for test-based teacher evaluations included statements that were blatantly false, including: “Studies show that a teacher’s influence on student achievement is 20 times greater than any other variable, including class size or poverty.”
How Did This Happen?
What happened? How did Stand morph from an organization with a focus on children’s health issues, nonschool factors, and research-based school improvements to an organization that pushes core elements of the corporate destruction of public education? Stand has seen an enormous influx of corporate cash. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation began by offering a relatively modest two-year grant of $80,000 in 2005. In 2007, Stand for Children received a $682,565 grant. In 2009, the point at which Stand’s drastically different political agenda became obvious, Gates awarded a $971,280 grant to support “common policy priorities” and in 2010, a $3,476,300 grant.
Though the Gates Foundation remains the biggest donor to Stand for Children, other players in the world of corporate education reform have also begun to see Stand as an effective vehicle to push their agenda.
New Profit Inc. has funded Stand since 2008—to the tune of $1,458,500. According to its website, New Profit is a “national venture philanthropy fund that seeks to harness America’s spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship to help solve the country’s biggest social problems.”
The Walton Family Foundation made a 2010 grant of $1,378,527. Several other major funders are tied to Bain Capital, a private equity and venture capital firm founded by Mitt Romney.
In a similar time frame, Stand’s National Board of Directors has seen dramatic changes. Lauene Powell Jobs joined the board of Stand for Children in 2006. She also serves on the board of Teach for America. Both Powell Jobs and Julie Mikuta, who joined the Stand board in 2007, are integrally involved with the NewSchools Venture Fund. NewSchools is a venture philanthropy firm, started by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and financed by many of the same donors who give to Stand for Children—Bill Gates, the Walton Family—as well as Eli Broad and Gap founder Donald Fisher. NewSchools Venture Fund pours money into charter schools and “human capital” projects with the aim of using market models and corporate management to drastically reshape the education system.
In 2010, Emma Bloomberg, daughter of billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, became the newest member of Stand’s national board. Emma Bloomberg is a program officer at the Robin Hood Foundation, another venture philanthropy organization, whose board of directors is dominated by corporate titans like General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt and JP Morgan CEO Jes Staley.
Marian Wright Edelman is no longer a board member. In fact, 11 of the 14 board members of Stand for Children and the Stand for Children Leadership Center have joined the organization since 2006.
The education policy environment has changed significantly during the past 10 years. Particularly since the onset of the economic crisis, teachers have increasingly been blamed for “failing public schools.” Major foundations have spent millions in efforts to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores, make it easier to hire and fire teachers, and restrict teachers’ rights to due process and to strike. Co-opting organizations like Stand for Children Reshapes the public face of corporate education reform and helps make anti-union and privatization schemes more palatable to liberals and progressives. It’s clear that conservative foundations and corporate-backed operatives recognize that organizing parents is a promising way to further their agendas (see David Bacon’s “Trigger Laws: Does Signing a Petition Give Parents a Voice?” ).
Conclusion
There is a legitimate concern for teacher quality, how layoffs are handled, and the need for greater parent and community involvement in teacher contract negotiations. These are serious issues for low-income families and other marginalized communities, but Stand’s approach fails to bring parents, teachers, and communities together, and instead embraces policies favored by historic opponents of public schools and teachers’ unions.
As Susan Barrett explains: "My fear is that unwitting parents and community members will join Stand because they want to rectify the problems they see every day in their children’s public schools, such as underfunding, lack of arts programs, large class sizes and cuts to the school year, only to find that they get roped into very different goals. . . I worry we will lose a truly democratic discussion and action on education weighted in favor of corporate reforms."
We agree. There is a need for a parent- and community-driven organization that is not directly tied to teachers unions. An organization that pushes for quality early childhood education, adequate funding for the public education system, and attention to childhood health issues would certainly represent a kid-first agenda. It is even possible to critique teacher training, hiring, and firing in such a broad agenda. But putting kids first is no longer the focus of Stand for Children.
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For or Against Children? The problematic history of stand for children
Fall 2011, By Ken Libby and Adam Sanchez
Last October, a friend called with a question: “What do you know about Stand for Children?” The advocacy organization, based in our hometown of Portland, Ore., was expanding into his state of Illinois, and he hoped to glean some insight into the kinds of reforms the group would support. Just two months later, Stand’s Illinois branch had amassed more than $3 million in a political action committee and unveiled an aggressive teacher evaluation bill. “Have they always been like this?” he asked. The short answer: no.
Stand for Children was founded in the late 1990s as a way to advocate for the welfare of children. It grew out of a 1996 march by more than 250,000 people in Washington, D.C. The aim of the march was to highlight child poverty at a time when Congress and the Clinton administration were preparing to “end welfare as we know it.” Jonah Edelman, son of children’s and civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman, co-founded the group and continues to serve as CEO. Stand’s first chapter was in Oregon, but the group now operates in eight additional states: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington.
According to Susan Barrett, a parent volunteer who recently left Portland’s Stand chapter, Stand started with a genuine focus on improving the lives of poor children:
[Stand] worked on smaller issues with positive impact, such as after-school program funding and emergency dental care for uninsured kids. Many parents like me who joined Stand a while back still remember how it was an organization fighting for the Portland Children’s Levy, which provided funds for early childhood education, foster care, child abuse prevention programs, and a variety of other programs centered on children.1
Here is a snapshot of Stand’s agenda during that period:
•Health coverage for uninsured children
•Monitoring the impact of welfare reform
•More money for affordable, high-quality child care
•Safe and productive after-school activities
•Schools that have small classes, well-trained teachers, high standards, and involved parents. 2
Fifteen years later, Stand seems to have morphed into something quite different. For Oregonians, the first public indications that Stand had made a striking 180-degree turn in its politics was its support for Race to the Top legislation and its active promotion of the antiunion, anti-public school film Waiting for “Superman.” Stand led a well-financed, intensive campaign for the film, organizing special invitation-only showings for various constituencies.
According to Barrett: This past year, Oregon Stand staff wanted us to press our legislators to pass a “bipartisan education package,” which basically tied the release of much-needed school funding to the expansion of charter schools, online learning, and other so-called “reforms.” Stand also pushed to lower the capital gains tax.
For Tom Olson, another former Portland Stand member, the final straw was the appointment of a new executive director for the Oregon chapter:
We were appalled that [Sue Levin] had virtually no experience leading grassroots organizations. Instead, we were told that she had a truly impressive background as an “entrepreneur” (a phrase we began to hear [CEO Edelman] use quite frequently during [his] transformation during 2009–10). Levin had been the founder and CEO of a women’s apparel company, Lucy Inc. Prior to that, she had been a women’s sports apparel VP at Nike Inc. Grassroots leadership experience? Absolutely none. Connections with millionaires? A whole bunch. 3
For Stand’s Portland chapter, where the organization is headquartered and one of the few places where it has a significant history of grassroots activism, the changes in Stand’s role have clearly been traumatic for parents and community members who had a very different image of the organization. This is clearly not a local phenomenon. As Stand has expanded, it has followed a similar pattern: In state after state, Stand has made the corporate-driven agenda of expanding charter schools and tying teacher pay and evaluations to student test scores their top priority.
To be sure, Stand has maintained some vestiges of its original focus on children. Stand recently supported bills in Colorado and Oregon that would allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at state colleges; in both states, conservative activists expressed hostility to these measures. The Colorado chapter opposed a proposition and two statewide amendments that would have gutted education funding. The Arizona chapter supported a temporary 1 percent tax increase that avoided significant cuts to public schools. The Tennessee chapter fought an English-only amendment that would have negatively affected schools and families, supported changes to suspension policies that hurt children, and pushed for more pre-K funds.
But, unfortunately, the dominant impact of Stand, everywhere it has a presence, is much more pro-business than pro-children. This was certainly the case in Illinois, where Stand for Children played a part in crafting what they are touting as their biggest victory yet: Senate Bill 7.
Standing Against Illinois Teachers
SB 7, which passed the Illinois Senate in a unanimous vote and the General Assembly with a single dissenter, undermines seniority as the basis of teacher job security and specifically singles out the Chicago Teachers Union by severely restricting its right to strike.
Chicago has become a testing ground for corporate education policy. Recent CEOs of Chicago Public Schools have included Paul Vallas (1995–2001), who later became the architect behind the union-busting and charterization plan in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; and Arne Duncan (2001–08), who privatized Chicago public schools at a rate of about 10 per year before becoming Barack Obama’s education secretary. The policies pushed by these corporate reformers have been touted as “miraculous” by business leaders, but have created a horrendous environment for Chicago teachers.
Intensive and strategic organizing in the face of layoffs, increasing attacks on teachers, and school closings led to last year’s victory for the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), which swept the 2010 Chicago Teachers Union elections, winning every single seat. But CORE came to power in the context of an economic crisis in which workers are being forced to bear the brunt of economic sacrifice. The city’s elite became even more determined to break the teachers’ union.
Bruce Rainer, a Republican venture capitalist, recruited Edelman to come to Illinois and help with this task. Thanks to a speech caught on video and posted on YouTube, we now know the intimate details of how Stand for Children helped shape Illinois’ latest anti-teacher legislation. Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, billionaire James Crown and Jonah Edelman caused an uproar with their comments about SB 7.
Their panel discussion, titled “If It Can Happen There, It Can Happen Anywhere: Transformational Education Legislation in Illinois,” began with Crown painting a picture of an all-powerful teachers’ union that consistently blocks education reform and has a stranglehold on Illinois politics. Crown was particularly angry that teachers in Illinois had maintained their right to strike. “In 45 of the 50 states, there is no right to strike by teachers,” he protested. “So this was an incredibly strike-permissive environment with these other efforts by the unions, and so forth, that created an unsustainable structure in our school system.”
Following Crown, Edelman gave a step-by-step account of how Stand for Children worked to undermine teachers’ union rights in Illinois. After explaining how Stand essentially bought a handful of Illinois legislators with campaign contributions—most crucially, Democratic Assembly Speaker Michael Madigan—Edelman explained Stand’s strategy:
After the election, Advance Illinois and Stand had drafted a very bold proposal we called Performance Counts. It tied tenure and layoffs to performance. It let principals hire who they choose. It streamlined dismissal of ineffective tenured teachers substantially—from two-plus years and $200,000 in legal fees, on average, to three to four months, with very little likelihood of legal recourse.
And, most importantly, we called for the reform of collective bargaining throughout the state—essentially, proposing that school boards would be able to decide any disputed issue at impasse. So a very, very bold proposal for Illinois, and one that six months earlier would have been unthinkable, undiscussable. . . .
We hired 11 lobbyists, including the four best insiders and seven of the best minority lobbyists, preventing the unions from hiring them. We enlisted a statewide public affairs firm. . . . We raised $3 million for our political action committee between the election and the end of the year. That’s more money than either of the unions have in their political action committees.
And so essentially, what we did in a very short period of time was shift the balance of power. I can tell you there was a palpable sense of concern, if not shock, on the part of the teachers’ unions in Illinois that Speaker Madigan had changed allegiance, and that we had clear political capability to potentially jam this proposal down their throats, the same way the pension reform had been jammed down their throats six months earlier.
Edelman’s comments produced outrage among union and education activists. He issued an apology, saying he regretted that he “left children mostly out of the equation,” and that the speech “could cause viewers to wrongly conclude that I’m against unions.” For their part, the leaders of Illinois’ three main education unions blasted Edelman in a joint statement:
"We heard a lot from Jonah Edelman about power in politics, power over unions, and management power over teachers. Sadly, we didn’t hear anything in that hour-long session about improving education. . . . What’s worse is that these false claims clearly show an organizational agenda that has nothing to do with helping kids learn."
It’s clear from Edelman’s remarks that Stand’s effectiveness is reliant on a public perception that it represents the interests of parents. But in fact, Stand’s agenda is now closely aligned with those who call for privatization, charters, vouchers, and an end to teachers’ unions.
This is true throughout the country. For example, Stand’s most significant work in Colorado was their support of Senate Bill 191, a landmark piece of legislation that bases 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation on student achievement data. As Dana Goldstein explained in a recent American Prospect article, this may lead the state to test every student, in every grade, in every subject—including art, music, and PE. The poisonous debate around the bill vilified those in opposition and demoralized teachers across the state. One teacher, recalling the negotiations over the bill, told Goldstein, “I’ve chosen a profession that, in the public eyes, is worse than prostitution.”
Stand’s Colorado operations are funded in part by the Walton Family Foundation and the Daniels Fund, two right-wing philanthropies that have pushed for vouchers and charter schools.
Stand entered Texas in early 2011 as the state wrestled with a budget shortfall that could be as high as $27 billion. The dramatic cuts to schools in the Lone Star state will undoubtedly harm children, yet Stand put their might behind a campaign to evaluate teachers. Texas Senate Bill 4 and the companion bill in the House call for basing from 30 to 50 percent of teacher evaluations on test score growth. In addition, Stand supported legislation that would aid Texas charter schools.
To further this agenda, Stand hired nine lobbyists with ties to the Republican Party, including three lobbyists from Delisi Communications. The firm’s president, Ted Delisi, purchased Karl Rove’s consulting and direct mail company when Rove joined the Bush presidential campaign in 1999, and ran the Bush/Cheney fundraising and mailer campaign the following year.
Stand set up shop in Indiana in early 2011 and began advocating for changes to teacher evaluations as Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Republican-controlled legislature passed the most expansive state voucher program in U.S. history, expanded charter schools, restricted collective bargaining, and made serious changes to teacher evaluations. Stand’s advocacy for test-based teacher evaluations included statements that were blatantly false, including: “Studies show that a teacher’s influence on student achievement is 20 times greater than any other variable, including class size or poverty.”
How Did This Happen?
What happened? How did Stand morph from an organization with a focus on children’s health issues, nonschool factors, and research-based school improvements to an organization that pushes core elements of the corporate destruction of public education? Stand has seen an enormous influx of corporate cash. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation began by offering a relatively modest two-year grant of $80,000 in 2005. In 2007, Stand for Children received a $682,565 grant. In 2009, the point at which Stand’s drastically different political agenda became obvious, Gates awarded a $971,280 grant to support “common policy priorities” and in 2010, a $3,476,300 grant.
Though the Gates Foundation remains the biggest donor to Stand for Children, other players in the world of corporate education reform have also begun to see Stand as an effective vehicle to push their agenda.
New Profit Inc. has funded Stand since 2008—to the tune of $1,458,500. According to its website, New Profit is a “national venture philanthropy fund that seeks to harness America’s spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship to help solve the country’s biggest social problems.”
The Walton Family Foundation made a 2010 grant of $1,378,527. Several other major funders are tied to Bain Capital, a private equity and venture capital firm founded by Mitt Romney.
In a similar time frame, Stand’s National Board of Directors has seen dramatic changes. Lauene Powell Jobs joined the board of Stand for Children in 2006. She also serves on the board of Teach for America. Both Powell Jobs and Julie Mikuta, who joined the Stand board in 2007, are integrally involved with the NewSchools Venture Fund. NewSchools is a venture philanthropy firm, started by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and financed by many of the same donors who give to Stand for Children—Bill Gates, the Walton Family—as well as Eli Broad and Gap founder Donald Fisher. NewSchools Venture Fund pours money into charter schools and “human capital” projects with the aim of using market models and corporate management to drastically reshape the education system.
In 2010, Emma Bloomberg, daughter of billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, became the newest member of Stand’s national board. Emma Bloomberg is a program officer at the Robin Hood Foundation, another venture philanthropy organization, whose board of directors is dominated by corporate titans like General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt and JP Morgan CEO Jes Staley.
Marian Wright Edelman is no longer a board member. In fact, 11 of the 14 board members of Stand for Children and the Stand for Children Leadership Center have joined the organization since 2006.
The education policy environment has changed significantly during the past 10 years. Particularly since the onset of the economic crisis, teachers have increasingly been blamed for “failing public schools.” Major foundations have spent millions in efforts to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores, make it easier to hire and fire teachers, and restrict teachers’ rights to due process and to strike. Co-opting organizations like Stand for Children Reshapes the public face of corporate education reform and helps make anti-union and privatization schemes more palatable to liberals and progressives. It’s clear that conservative foundations and corporate-backed operatives recognize that organizing parents is a promising way to further their agendas (see David Bacon’s “Trigger Laws: Does Signing a Petition Give Parents a Voice?” ).
Conclusion
There is a legitimate concern for teacher quality, how layoffs are handled, and the need for greater parent and community involvement in teacher contract negotiations. These are serious issues for low-income families and other marginalized communities, but Stand’s approach fails to bring parents, teachers, and communities together, and instead embraces policies favored by historic opponents of public schools and teachers’ unions.
As Susan Barrett explains: "My fear is that unwitting parents and community members will join Stand because they want to rectify the problems they see every day in their children’s public schools, such as underfunding, lack of arts programs, large class sizes and cuts to the school year, only to find that they get roped into very different goals. . . I worry we will lose a truly democratic discussion and action on education weighted in favor of corporate reforms."
We agree. There is a need for a parent- and community-driven organization that is not directly tied to teachers unions. An organization that pushes for quality early childhood education, adequate funding for the public education system, and attention to childhood health issues would certainly represent a kid-first agenda. It is even possible to critique teacher training, hiring, and firing in such a broad agenda. But putting kids first is no longer the focus of Stand for Children.
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Sunday, September 25, 2011
Corporate Shock Doctrine in Indiana
Check out this article from Salon.com and think about all the shady connections emerging from Tony Bennett and the Mitch Daniels Machine. What's amazing about this is how even though standardized test scores are good enough to fire teachers and, as in Indianapolis, turn schools over to for-profit charter corporations, they're not good enough to determine if the multi-million dollar contracts for corporations peddling easy solutions and fairy dust. A previous post shared some the new information on corporate campaign donations to Dr. Bennett--we're sure its only the beginning. Didn't we learn to follow the money? This was found at the Newteacher blog.
"Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform." -- Tom Watkins, a consultant, summarizes the corporate education reform movement's current strategy to the Sunday New York Times. Watkins' outburst of candor, buried in this front-page New York Times article yesterday, is so important: It shows that the recession and its corresponding shock to school budgets is being used by corporations to maximize revenues, all under the gauzy banner of "reform."
"Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform." -- Tom Watkins, a consultant, summarizes the corporate education reform movement's current strategy to the Sunday New York Times. Watkins' outburst of candor, buried in this front-page New York Times article yesterday, is so important: It shows that the recession and its corresponding shock to school budgets is being used by corporations to maximize revenues, all under the gauzy banner of "reform."
The "Shock Doctrine" comes to your neighborhood classroom: Corporate reformers use the fiscal crisis and campaign contributions to hype an unproven school agenda
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Follow the Money--Bennett and Campaign Money
Murdoch’s Wireless Gen. and EdisonLearning Donated Money to Tony Bennett | |
| By: Doug Martin Monday August 29, 2011 11:58 am | |
As the Indiana State Board of Education decides to hand over Indiana’s so-called “failing” schools to EdisonLearning, Charter Schools USA, and Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation today, it is important to note that both Edison and Wireless Generation have donated to Education ReformIdol Indiana supt. of public instruction Tony Bennett’s campaign chest. In fact, Wireless Gen. even lavished money on Mitch Daniels and Indiana Republicans, the month before Murdoch acquired the company.
Freshly clabbered by public school advocates like Leonie Haimson, Diane Ravitch, and others in New York City, and thus losing out on a $27 million contract with the schools, Wireless Gen. will now “partner” with the New Teacher Project (whose CEO is Ariela Rozman, who also sits on the board of Indy’s corporate reform group, the Mind Trust) to run Washington Community High School in Indianapolis. EdisonLearning is taking over a school in Gary.
For 2009-2010, Bennett’s donors are both local and national corporate school reform players, and many of them also funded him in 2008:
EdisonLearning: $2,000
Wireless Generation: $1,000
James Bopp, Jr.: $250 (corporate lawyer of Citizens United; used his Terre Haute law firm’s mailbox to funnel millions of Amway-Besty DeVos’ American Federation for Children money to “school reformers” in Indiana and throughout the country)
Bopp Coleson, and Bostrom: $2,500 (law firm of James Bopp, Jr.)
Therese Rooney: $10,000 (daughter of J. Patrick Rooney, the man who started the Educational CHOICE Charitable Trust and was a national leader in the voucher movement)
Patrick Byrne: $5,000 (Overstock.com)
Luke Messer: $175 (School Choice Indiana)
Heather Neal: $150 (works at IDOE)
David Shane: $150, (member of Indiana Board of Ed. Wife Anne, now a trustee at Ivy Tech, worked for the Mind Trust)
Connections Academy: $2,000 (online school)
Education Networks of America: $2,000 (Tennessee network which connections Indiana public school corporations. Operates in several states)
Hoosiers for Economic Growth: $5,000 (front group behind Indiana school “reform”)
McGraw-Hill: $3,000 (mega-book and testing company which oversees ISTEP+ testing in Indiana)
Apangea Learning: $1,000 (online tutoring company which has a contract with IDOE)
Education Services of America: $1,000 (has a contract with East Allen County Schools to use their Ombudsman Educational Services for at-risk students)
Robert Enlow: $500 (runs Milton Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice)
Rollin Dick: $150 (consultant with MH Equity Investors, a private equity investing group, formerly of Conseco, works for charter operator, the GEO Foundation)
Thanks to Jane Ruppel Nicholls for pointing me to this new Follow the Money list. This piece is cross-posted at B-Town Errant. Please check it out!http://my.firedoglake.com/dougmartin/2011/08/29/murdochs-wireless-gen-and-edisonlearning-donated-money-to-tony-bennett/
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