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May 23, 2013

Chicago: Time to End the Billionaires' Experiments With Mayoral Control?

Bill Gates suggested that in time teachers and voters would come along to see the benefits of the experiments the billionaire reformers want to do in our schools. That was four years ago - and the experiments have run their course. A research paper by Elaine Weiss and Don Wong took a close look at the results in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago, exactly the three cities touted by Gates as the petri dishes for his market-driven experiments.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 4:46 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

May 22, 2013

Paul Horton: Will Career Teachers Be Crowded Out by Corporate Reform?

The experienced teacher is the key: the conductor, musician, coach, and magician-of-motivation all wrapped into one person. Those who push the corporate education reform agenda do not understand or have forgotten what a great teacher does, so their solutions "crowd out" experienced teachers. Rather than investing in the human potential of teachers and students, they choose to invest in "bubble tests" and self-paced digitalized learning that are good for the profits of education corporations, but lousy for kids, parents, and communities.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:08 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

May 08, 2013

Bill Gates' TED Talk: Are Video Cameras the Missing Link?

Bill Gates has described himself as a technocrat, so perhaps it is natural that he would fixate on some piece of technology as the missing element. But the real things that are missing are the time that teachers need to work together, and the understanding that this time will be most fruitful when teachers are given the autonomy to tackle the challenges they face, rather than micromanaged and driven by test score data.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 5:32 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 16, 2013

John Thompson: Did Duncan Load the Bullets into Michelle Rhee's Smoking Gun?

Rhee has not been alone, however, in foisting high-stakes testing on the entire nation. She has done so with the financing of billionaires and Duncan's D.O.Ed. So all three groups of accountability hawks should be held accountable. Rhee and her team in D.C. should all be subpoenaed. Corporate funders should demand an accounting of Rhee's StudentsFirst. Above all, they should reveal the what factual basis, if any, the organization has for its teacher-bashing soundbites.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 7:11 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 05, 2013

Accountability for Mr. Gates: The Billionaire Philanthropist Evaluation

But let's imagine we could turn the tables on Mr. Gates and evaluate his performance as a philanthropist. Might we establish some goals to which we could hold our billionaires accountable? We do not have any measurable indicators such as test scores to use, but since I do not find these to be of great value in any case, I will offer a more qualitative metric, based on my knowledge of the subject's work. Since he has spoken glowingly of the salutary effect of feedback on teachers, surely he will welcome this feedback, even though it is unsolicited.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 00:36 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

March 03, 2013

New Mexico Education Secretary's Hearings Bring More Light to Corruption in Education Reform

Confirmation hearings for acting secretary of education Hanna Skandera in New Mexico took a decided turn towards the sensational yesterday, as testimony revealed details of the inner workings of what is looking more like a political machine advancing the combined interests of education "reformers" and the companies whose interests they are often found to serve. Skandera has been strongly supported by New Mexico's Republican governor Susana Martinez, but these revelations could throw a monkey wrench into the process.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 2:56 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

March 01, 2013

Who Will the Los Angeles School Board Represent?

This campaign is going to be fascinating to watch, because it shows the raw power of the wealthy supporters of corporate education reform, and their ability to bring that power to bear on a local school board race. The issues at stake are central to the direction of education reform. Will charter schools continue to expand at the expense of traditional public schools? Will teacher evaluations give more weight to test scores? Will seniority and due process protections be eliminated? The big question hanging over all of this is who will a locally elected school board represent? The interests of its constituents - or the billionaires who paid for their campaigns?  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:55 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

February 24, 2013

Yes, Virginia, There Really IS a Billionaire Boys Club

One does not need to be a "conspiracy theorist" to connect the dots here. We have a local school board race that has become the focus of a coordinated effort on the part of the wealthy advocates of corporate reform. This is no conspiracy. It is neither secret, nor is it illegal, thanks to rulings like Citizen's United. It is perfectly legal for billionaires to, in effect, buy up local school board races. And it is perfectly legal for them to hire "journalists" to write stories largely sympathetic to their point of view. Fortunately, it is also still legal for skeptics to point out all of the above, and suggest the voters of Los Angeles might want to think twice before they vote.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 6:27 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

February 18, 2013

Are Some Charter Schools Becoming Parasitic?

In order for our public schools to thrive they need to have the flexibility to meet the needs of the widest range of students possible. They need adequate funding and the support of their community - and that means we pull together and make sure that our district schools do not become the reservoir of last resort, overburdened with students left behind by charter schools seeking competitive advantages.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 2:16 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

January 30, 2013

Gerald Coles: Education in Obama's Second Term: What Lies Ahead?

In the president's inaugural speech, the few signs of his thinking about education and poverty offer no hope that policy in the next four years will differ from the last four. Bleak poverty will continue, education will be constrained within the boundaries of educating to "compete in the global economy," the curriculum will be narrowly crafted toward that goal, corporate attacks on the public schools will be promoted through more support of privatized alternatives, and the president will continue to regard charter schools as "incubators of innovation". It will be in stark contrast to the schooling that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have worked to achieve.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:47 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

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