My open letter to @campbell_brown

Dear Campbell,

I hear you have filed another lawsuit seeking to do away with seniority rights for teachers. You've already got a suit going in New York, and your case in Minnesota was thrown out, and now you're coming after us in New Jersey. 

Why?

Are you aware that Gov. Christie signed a bipartisan tenure reform law that puts the responsibility of helping underperforming teachers squarely on the shoulders of administrators? Do you know that attaining tenure in New Jersey now takes four years instead of three? That there is a definite process and timeline that must be followed? That the evaluation process is now far more detailed and rigorous than before? So, exactly what do you hope to attain with your lawsuit? 

If you're trying to get rid of veteran educators, you're doing a good job. The power and money (and the influence they buy) behind the education 'reform' movement have seen to it that more veteran educators are leaving the profession now than ever before because it's becoming almost impossible to effectively do our jobs. And in urban districts—the very same ones you and your lawsuit avatars claim to want to 'fix'—new teachers are fleeing the profession within the first five years. 

As far back as 2003, education experts were sounding the alarm bells about the increasing teacher shortage. It has only gotten worse, and efforts such as yours, and the education 'reform' movement in general, have only added to the brain drain.

It continues to amaze me that those who seek to improve my profession and student achievement, but who lack any real knowledge of my day-to-day classroom existence, simply refuse to acknowledge the scholarly and vetted research showing the real causes of student and school underachievement, and best practices to help them succeed. Instead, you construct your agenda based on the fast food model: cheap, fast, loaded with unhealthy CCRAP (read it backwards) delivered by underpaid employees while the corporations selling this swill rake in billions.

But then, this does seem to be the American way, doesn't it? 

The education 'reform' movement's refusal to accept the facts and research puts you in the same category as climate deniers and birthers. 

And speaking of facts, here are a few from  a 2014 New York Daily News article authored by Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the UC Irvine School of Law, with additional research by Raymond Pryke, Professor of First Amendment Law at the university. They analyzed the case made by the Vergara plaitiffs' attorneys. Chemerinsky writes (all emphasis mine):

American public education desperately needs to be improved, especially for the most disadvantaged children. But eliminating teachers’ job security and due-process rights is not going to attract better educators — or do much to improve school quality.

In recent months, several respected progressive scholars and politicians have endorsed litigation, like a successful case in California, to weaken the protections afforded public school teachers. Former CNN anchor Campbell Brown is spearheading a suit in New York. Their goals are laudable, but their means are misguided.

The problem of inner-city schools is not that the dedicated teachers who work in them have too many rights, but that the students who go to them are disadvantaged in many ways, the schools have inadequate resources and the schools are surrounded by communities that are dangerous, lack essential services and are largely segregated both by race and class.

Taking the modest job security accorded by tenure away from teachers will address none of these problems.

The causal relationship alleged by the plaintiffs in these lawsuits — that teachers’ rights cause minority students to receive substandard educations — is belied by readily available empirical evidence.

If the plaintiffs were correct, similarly situated students in states with weak protection of teachers — such as Texas, Alabama and Mississippi — would have higher levels of achievement and the racial achievement gap would be smaller in those states. But there is no evidence that minority students in Houston, Birmingham or Jackson outperform those in Los Angeles or New York.

In fact, a study published in the Harvard Educational Review found a significant positive relationship between rates of unionization (and accompanying job security) and student scores on the SAT and ACT.

Every year, the states with the highest student performance are those with robust protections for teachers — places like Maryland and Massachusetts.

(... and, may I add, New Jersey) 

One of the key reasons they are successful is that these states do a better job at getting resources to the neediest students and creating a climate where teachers have the support needed to succeed and therefore stay in the profession.

Similarly, though there are some outstanding charter schools where teachers lack union protections, the lack of union protections never guarantees quality. New York State has plenty of schools where principals can hire and fire teachers at will. Many do not excel.

In the California anti-tenure litigation, the judge found that between 1% and 3% of teachers in the state are grossly ineffective. They, of course, should be replaced. But the evidence also showed that it is possible to do so while respecting basic protections teachers have under law.

The reality is that job security and protection against arbitrary treatment are terms and conditions of employment that, like higher wages, attract good people into teaching and keep them in the classroom.

And if that is our objective, it should be noted that teachers in the United States work more hours and are paid less than their counterparts in almost every other developed country — and their salaries have fallen dramatically relative to pay for comparable jobs in our economy since 1940...

We need to find better ways to attract talented people to become teachers. Every study, and common sense, supports the conclusion that teacher effectiveness improves with experience. I hope and believe that I am a far better teacher than when I began as a law professor 35 years ago. Thus, the lawsuits’ attack on consideration of seniority in assignments and layoffs is misguided.

One of the biggest challenges in education today is teacher retention... Getting rid of tenure and due process will not encourage more teachers to stay in the profession. It will drive them out and discourage other qualified people from entering the profession in the first place...

Cloaking the attack on teachers’ rights in the rhetoric of the civil rights movement is misleading. Lessening the legal protections for teachers will not advance civil rights or improve education.

So, the research (and this piece is only one in a large body of evidence) says that your lawsuits hurt—not strengthen—the teaching profession. And if teachers are hurting, how can they effectively teach? So, again I ask, What is your point? Other than trying to break the unions, what exactly are you trying to accomplish? The only thing you are doing is sucking the life out of us and driving highly qualified people from the profession—and that hurts students. 

Public school teacher Susan DuFresne sums up the crush of corporate 'reform':

What corporate reform is asking of teachers today is impossible for one human being to accomplish – even in a 24 hour period. With the start of each day at 5:30 am... I carry the burdens of exhaustion, the unfinished workload, the guilt of what reform does to young children... and the build-up of prior weeks of stress. 

I am not alone.  Other teachers in my district are ready to quit. At one school in my district 11 out of 14 teachers said they have thought about quitting – leaving their profession.  Our local union president notes we are at our tipping point. What will it be like when the uninhabitable death zone is the only place left in our public schools and all the creative passionate teachers have gone? 

In addition, our paychecks have shrunk. We're doing more test prep and data collection than actual teaching. We are held accountable for all the ills of society that plague our students. We are vilified in the press. Our pensions are disappearing. Heck, even our 403(b) plans suck. Enrollment in schools of education is down nationwide in part because young people simply don't want to go into a profession where they are attacked on an almost daily basis. There is absolutely nothing attractive about the teaching profession right now, and you want to make it worse—and that is supposed to somehow magically make it... better. 

Look, no one wants to work with an ineffective colleague. But whose fault is it that an ineffective teacher has been allowed to languish in the classroom for years? Not the teacher. The responsibility rests solely with the administrators. And yet, other than New Jersey's new tenure law, I have not seen one 'reform' that addresses administrators who turn a blind eye to ineffective teaching. 

If you win your case (and this is your case—not the avatar plaintiffs'), do you know what will happen to all the highly effective teachers who have 15, 20, 30 years of experience who lose their job? They will either never teach again or, if they do, they will have to take a drastic pay cut because, when push comes to shove, school districts simply can no longer afford to hire experienced, veteran educators. And that is a damned shame. But the blame for that rests squarely on the shoulders of the education 'reform' movement of which you are a large part, because your movement's efforts have resulted in billions of dollars being cut from public education all across this country. 

Don't believe me? Consider this scenario:

Teacher A has 25 years experience and a masters degree. During that time she has received outstanding observations and been considered an excellent teacher. Last year her summative score was 3.70—highly effective. She is at the top of the salary guide earning about $80,000.

Teacher B has 4 years experience. During that time she too has received outstanding observations for her excellent work. Last year her summative score was 3.72, also highly effective. She is toward the bottom of the salary guide earning about $48,000.

Due to a charter school opening in town, the district has to send 90% of its per pupil funding over to it with every student who enrolls, so the district is forced to lay off staff to fill the hole in the budget. 

If seniority rights are removed, Teacher A will lose her job. And she will never work again because no district can afford to hire her. If she were to be offered a job, it would be at a drastically reduced salary. This would be financially devastating—not to mention demoralizing.

If seniority rights are in place, the district would lay off Teacher B, who would have no trouble securing another job because because of her effectiveness and comparatively lower salary. She's a good investment for another district and has decades to earn more money.

Are you prepared for this? Do you even care that your actions could result in many excellent, veteran teachers losing even more take home pay than they already have? Have you thought about how effective a school with little to no teaching experience can truly be? Have you considered that all the 'innovation' you all love to demand from us first requires experience in what works and what doesn't? And that experience takes years to acquire? 

Teaching—the most important profession there is—is the only profession nowadays where experience doesn't matter.

And how do you justify nepotism and discrimination as educational best practices? I mean, they will no doubt play a huge role in many hiring and firing decisions if seniority is removed. I'm very serious. How will you combat that?

My guess is you won't because you seem to only care about ridding our schools of all those 'bad teachers'. Well, no teacher wants to work with an ineffective colleague. But, there are procedures for improving or removing them, and here in New Jersey that process has been greatly strengthened. But it's up to the administrators to make that happen. Teachers don't work in a vacuum.

Despite some of the snark in this letter, I truly, seriously welcome a response. After being beaten up by the press, elected officials, billionaires and education 'reformers' for the past six or seven years, I've grown weary of being polite to people who simply have no knowledge of what I do, how I do it and what my students are going through. 

The great irony of the education 'reform' movement is that, in your zealous demand for data, you refuse to acknowledge the data that is staring you right in the face: it's the poverty.

@DmitriMehlhorn who's really being uncivil in the ed 'reform' debate?

Venus, Jupiter and Mars weren't the only planets aligning in the sky this month. For the past couple of weeks, Jersey Jazzman has been engaged in a debate on the merits of charter schools with Dmitri Mehlhorn, venture capitalist, education 'reform' blogger and co-founder of Michelle Rhee's ed 'reform' lobbying group StudentsFirst. 

Last week, former news anchor turned education 'reformer', Campbell Brown posted a piece on her ed 'reform' website, The Seventy Four, in support of Britain PM David Cameron's call to end public education in his country titled, Britain's Education Reboot And Why America Needs A David Cameron. Brown's husband is on the board of StudentsFirst. She is a vocal opponent of public education, tenure and teachers unions, and accuses them of coercing suburban parents into opting out of CCSS-driven standardized tests even though the opt-out movement was started by parents. Then Jeff Bryant wrote this scathing piece in Salon about how dangerously out of touch Brown and the ed 'reform' movement in general are about labor unions.

My colleague Dave Johnson at the Campaign for America’s Future recently came across a new study conducted for the Center for American Progress, which found in places where union membership is higher, low-income children, in particular, benefit from “economic mobility” and “intergenerational mobility.” In plain English, this means union strength correlated with low-income children being more apt to rise higher in the income rankings — and for their children in turn to be better off. 

Reporters at the New York Times looked at the study as well and noted, “There aren’t many other factors that are as strongly correlated with mobility” as the presence of unions. “A 10-percentage-point increase in the rate of unionization in an area coincided with a rise of an additional 1.3 points on the income distribution as the average child becomes an adult,” they wrote. 

Combating unions is not only a strategy unlikely to result in good outcomes for low-income kids, it also seems completely out of step with the political zeitgeist of the times.

So, when Brown tweeted out her post about Cameron and privatizing America's public schools, I tweeted this meme:

And I've continued to do so every day since. I don't have billionaire backers to finance and spread my message the way Brown does, but I do have social media. 

So, after one of my tweets, Dmitri responded with this, which Brown 'liked':

I read Mehlhorn's link. You should, too. There are some contradictions in there that had me scratching my head. But this quote in particular stuck out:

If we want a civil debate, we should first and foremost strive to be civil.

He uses the example of Vladimir Putin's ruse of pacifism and civility to justify his invasion of the Ukraine, then goes on to say that "in education policy, although some genuinely seek productive discourse, calls for civility often serve as cover for nasty personal attacks."

And that's where his hypothesis derails. He immediately attacks Diane Ravitch for being uncivil:

While Ravitch was attacking Rhee for lack of civility, she was receiving financial payments from the teachers unions that were funding a secret campaign to personally demonize Michelle Rhee.

Those financial payments are speaking fees, no doubt the same ones that Michelle Rhee and Campbell Brown receive when they speak in front of education 'reform' groups who attack public education on a daily basis. But I never hear either woman publicly denouncing the vilification of public school teachers that they regularly pump out.

Personally, I knew nothing about that website until I read his post. And I certainly can't speak to whether or not Diane knew about it. That said, if in fact AFT did create a website that mocked Michelle Rhee, then shame on them. That's a low blow. Shame on NJEA members who mock Gov. Christie for his weight. Shame on any education professional who puts personalities before principles. But, Dmitri, you must admit, there's plenty of uncivil behavior to go around. Do I need to recount all the horrible things Gov. Christie has said about teachers? Look at this picture. Is this a man with whom educators could sit down and have a 'conversation'? 

"I am tired of you people."

How about Campbell Brown's outlandish accusation that the New York City teacher's union harbors sexual predators? What about the NRA blaming teachers for the Newtown massacre because they weren't carrying guns? Are you aware that while he was working for then NYC Schools Chancellor, Rupert Murdoch, former NJ Education Commissioner and current Newark Schools Superintendent Chris Cerf was spying on Diane Ravitch and Parents Across America founder and education activist, Leonie Haimson? Don't you think it's uncivil to blame tenure for 'failing schools' as Campbell Brown does, despite the fact that some of the nation's leading legal scholars find no basis in that claim, nor have there been any long-term studies to support it? Don't you think it's just a tad disingenuous when newspaper reporters and editorial writers don't even bother to do their homework about education policy, relying instead on baseless talking points from 'reformers' to spread their propaganda? Don't you find it mind boggling that there is a mountain of research like this showing how poverty affects children's brain development and their ability to learn, and yet it is summarily dismissed by education 'reformers' and elected officials on both sides of the aisle who do nothing but hold teachers responsible? Don't you find it hypocritical that Governors like Scott Walker, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Rick Scott and Rick Snyder—to name just a few—have done all they can to destroy labor unions in the name of helping the middle class despite the fact that strong labor unions help lift low income earners out of poverty, and provide the middle class with more financial stability? Don't you find it downright mean and cruel that Michelle Rhee fired an educator with cameras rolling? How would you feel if you were an educator and you saw this? 

The woman in this picture does not want to have a 'civil conversation' about 'fixing' America's schools. Any third grader looking at this as a writing prompt could figure that out. I'm sorry, I know she's your friend, but can you walk a mile in my shoes for a minute and see how this image sends the wrong message?

I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. These are attacks, plain and simple. They are not 'conversations' and they certainly are not 'civil'. They are not even debates. If education 'reformers' such as you think you unequivocally know what will 'fix' education, why not sit down to a 3-hour debate on national television with leading education experts? I would pay good money to be in the audience for that! Unfortunately, I doubt that will ever happen because the facts are on our side. But Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Foundation, ALEC, StudentsFirst and many other anti-public education 'non profits' have boatloads of money which is used to buy up the media and politicians, and thus control the message. 

And if you think I'm off my rocker, then please tell me why organizations like the Broad Foundation are pouring millions of dollars into local board of education races in states all across this country? 

No, there was never any plan to have any type of civil discourse. Bill Gates simply showed up at America's public school doorsteps and declared, "This is what I'm doing because I believe it will work." He never sat down with educators to hear our expert views on education in America. He has treated public education as another novelty on which he can focus his vast wealth. He manipulates it, shapes it and molds it to his liking, then moves on when he tires of it. We're not real to him; we're just his lab rats scurrying through his mazes, unwillingly helping to carry out his grand scheme to turn public education into a system to which he would never send his own children. No, his children, along with many other 'reformer' children, are educated in elite private schools that would never stand for this nonsense. Education 'reform' isn't for his children; it's for everyone else.  

Now, I know what you're thinking: See? That's just what I'm talking about. You're not being civil; you're attacking. But we've tried—really, really tried to no avail. Anthony Cody, bless his heart, is still the most civil educator out there debunking 'reform'. He tried to engage Bill Gates and members of the Gates Foundation in civil discourse about ed 'reform'. He even wrote a book about it: The Educator and The Oligarch. But not all of us are blessed with his time and patience. And when somebody is standing over you kicking you repeatedly in the gut and blaming you for starting the fight, it's really hard to be civil. When a billionaire tells an oncologist she's got to treat her patients with cotton candy because he believes that's the cure (and said billionaire coincidentally owns a cotton candy factory), would you blame the oncologist if she acted just the teeniest bit incredulous?

There are a lot of people in this country who have lined up to grab their piece of the $700 billion public education pie. But those people have already eaten their way through the entire bakery— banking, real estate, the military, prisons, healthcare—and left the rest of us scrambling for crumbs. The only thing left is public education. And most teachers are just too nice, too polite to fight back. As for the rest? Well, some think that if they bog us down with so much extra, meaningless work, we won't have time to fight. But that's backfiring.

So, excuse me if I'm not polite. Excuse me if I don't know my place. Excuse me if I don't genuflect at the altars of the super rich and powerful who have brought this country to its knees with greed and selfishness as they plow through one economic sector after another leaving a wake of death and destruction as they toss aside the foundations of our democracy like over-indulged children at Toys-R-Us hell-bent on the next immediate gratification.

I am not becoming a better teacher because of the Common Core, Race to the Top, standardized testing, defunding of public schools, the expansion of charter schools, and the demonizing of my profession. I am working longer, harder and getting less results and personal satisfaction from the work I do. But I am becoming stronger. And every educator who becomes stronger, empowers others to become stronger, too. 

So, if you don't like my snark, I'm sorry, but as the saying goes, "You don't bring a knife to a gunfight."

So, in answer to your question: 'Has Ravitch said anything else we need to keep in mind?" Yes. Here's a sampling:

Poverty is the greatest handicap to the academic performance of students today, not “bad teachers.” 

The problem with turning public education over to the private sector is that they don't know anything about education. 

American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so? 

We are now reducing corporate taxes, reducing taxes on the richest people in this country and cutting the budget of public education. This is crazy. 

Bill Gates is wrong. American education is not 'broken'. Federal education policy is broken. Testing children until they cry is a bad idea. It is educational malpractice. 

Can teachers successfully educate children to think for themselves if teachers are not treated as professionals who think for themselves? 

Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure. The tests we have now provide useful information about students' progress in reading and mathematics, but they cannot measure what matters most in education....What is tested may ultimately be less important that what is untested... 

Testing is not a substitute for curriculum and instruction. Good education cannot be achieved by a strategy of testing children, shaming educators, and closing schools.

Oh, and fyi... parents are more powerful than educators. Remember, the Opt-Out movement was not started by the teachers unions. It was started by all those white suburban moms Arne Duncan accused of daring to have an opinion about their child's public education. Hell hath no fury like a mother of an over-tested child. 

The 12 Reformy Days of Christmas

Happy holidays, everyone! I hope all my fellow educators out there are enjoying a much-deserved break before we gear up for testing season! (Sorry, no coupons, sales or bonus buys are associated with this much anticipated season, but boy-oh-boy your job sure is on the line!)

To keep you all in the holiday spirit for a few more days, here's a little Christmas ditty from me to you. Enjoy!

Many thanks to Save Our Schools NJ for inspiring me with their great post on the upcoming PARCC test! 

The 12 Reformy Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas reformies gave to me a test that is designed for students to fail.

Credit: Students365

On the second day of Christmas reformies gave to me two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail.

On the third day of Christmas reformies gave to me three billionaire edupreneures...

Bill Gates. Credit: NY Post 

Eli Broad. Credit: LA Times

Credit: Washington Post

... two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail.

On the fourth day of Christmas reformies gave to me four talking heads...

US Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Credit: US News

Michelle Rhee

Amplify CEO Joel Klein. Credit: Mark Von Holden Getty Images

Campbell Brown. Credit: NY Times

... three billionaire profiteers, two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail.

On the fifth day of Christmas reformies gave to me FIVE CELEBRITY CHARTER SCHOOL OWNERS!

Andre Agassi. Credit: Getty Images

Deion Sanders. Credit: AP

Jalen Rose. Credit: Getty Images

Kevin Johnson. Credit: AP

Rapper Pit Bull. Credit: Gary Miller via Getty Images

...four talking heads, three billionaire profiteers, two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail. 

On the sixth day of Christmas reformies gave to me six vulture philanthropists...

Mark Zuckerberg. Credit: Forbes.com

Arthur Rock. Credit: Rock Center for Corporate Governance

Netflix's Reed Hastings. Credit: Richard Brian, Reuters

David Tepper. Credit: Business Insider

The Koch Brothers. Credit: Salon.com

... FIVE CELEBRITY CHARTER SCHOOL OWNERS! Four talking heads, three billionaire profiteers, two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail. 

On the seventh day of Christmas reformies gave to me seven Chiefs for Change... 

Idaho Chief Tom Luna

Louisiana Chief John White

Delaware Chief Mark Murphy

New Mexico Chief Hanna Skandera

Oklahoma Chief Janet Barresi

Rhode Island Chief Deborah A. Gist

Tennessee Chief Kevin Huffman

... six vulture philanthropists, FIVE CELEBRITY CHARTER SCHOOL OWNERS! Four talking heads, three billionaire profiteers, two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail.

On the eighth day of Christmas reformies gave to me eight burned-out teachers, seven Chiefs for Change, six vulture philanthropists, FIVE CELEBRITY CHARTER SCHOOL OWNERS! Four talking heads, three billionaire profiteers, two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail. 

On the ninth day of Christmas reformies gave to me nine days of testing...

... eight burned-out teachers, seven Chiefs for Change, six vulture philanthropists, FIVE CELEBRITY CHARTER SCHOOL OWNERS! Four talking heads, three billionaire profiteers, two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail. 

On the tenth day of Christmas reformies gave to me ten poorly-trained TFA recruits... 

TFA's Wendy Kopp. Credit: Wikipedia

... nine days of testing, eight burned-out teachers, seven Chiefs for Change, six vulture philanthropists, FIVE CELEBRITY CHARTER SCHOOL OWNERS! Four talking heads, three billionaire profiteers, two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail. 

On the eleventh day of Christmas reformies gave to me eleven charter school scandals (merely scratching the surface), ten poorly trained TFA recruits, nine days of testing, eight burned-out teachers, seven Chiefs for Change, six vulture philanthropists, FIVE CELEBRITY CHARTER SCHOOL OWNERS! Four talking heads, three billionaire profiteers, two flawed evaluation systems and a test that is designed for students to fail.  

On the twelfth day of Christmas reformies gave to me twelve reformy governors (these are but a few)...

NJ Gov. Chris Christie. Credit: NY Post

Maine Gov. Paul LePage. Credit: Bangor Daily News

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. Credit: Huffington Post

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Credit: Daily Kos

Former PA Gov. Tom Corbett. Credit: Lehigh Valley Live

... eleven charter school scandals, ten poorly trained TFA recruits, nine days of testing, eight burned-out teachers, seven Chiefs for Change, six vulture philanthropists, FIVE CELEBRITY CHARTER SCHOOL OWNERS! Four talking heads, three billionaire profiteers, two flawed evaluation systems... 

And a test that is designed for students to fail!

NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia has no time to be diplomatic – Part II

(UPDATE: Please see the addendum at the end of this post.)

Part I of this series on the round table discussion between NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia and NJ education bloggers and activists focused on the devastating effects of high-stakes testing on special needs children, and how edu-preneurs are profiting from the testing boom. 

Part II focuses on the mainstream media blackout.

As with Part I, unless otherwise indicated, all quotes are Lily's.

When you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth* 

*Attributed to both Vladimir Lenin and Dr. Joseph Goebbels.

"Everything [Secretary Duncan] said, everything [he's] advocated for says there must be a consequence for not having your quota of kids hitting your cut score...  

"[He] needs to see teachers being evaluated by students' test scores, students being labeled by their test scores, schools being called 'failures' by student test scores...

"Let's call it what it is; it's not 'accountability'...

"The fact is that standardized tests won't tell you if kids are college and career ready, yet they say it and the mainstream press prints it. And that has to end." (emphasis mine)

In the past six years or so education blogging has exploded. My blog roll is but a small sampling of the highly educated and well informed citizens who are writing about what's happening. Lily blogs and Tweets: here's her account of her NJ trip. Diane Ravitch's blog alone gets thousands of hits a day. Ed bloggers are doing incredible investigative work connecting the dots between Wall St., Silicon Valley billionaires, charter schools, test prep companies, 'charities' such as The Broad, Walton and Gates Foundations, ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) and Washington, DC. They're writing books, too. Years from now, when this house of cards falls, I hope somebody will be giving out awards for all their efforts.

"The bloggers and the educators are the only ones asking, 'Why are we basing so much of education funding on something that benefits the testing industry?'"

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know about the ongoing feud some of us have with The Star Ledger editorial board including director, Tom Moran (here, here and here for starters). Despite numerous attempts to educate him on the facts, he simply refuses to do his homework. It's no wonder Lily didn't want to meet with them. They're not alone. Other Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers are equally inept in their reporting, preferring to shill for those setting the policies or, like The Los Angeles Times, resorting to McCarthy-era tactics like publishing teachers' evaluation scores (the newspaper's reasoning being this is public information). A short time later a teacher who was rated ineffective took his own life. "Family members have guessed that the rating contributed to his death." 

Why the dearth of factual reporting? Much has been written about the incestuous relationship between the mainstream media and the billionaires who fund ed 'reform', but a good place to start is this David Sirota piece. For example, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and Fox Broadcasting Co. as well as Amplify, the company that was awarded a $12.5 million contract from the Obama administration to develop Common Core assessments. 

Is it any coincidence that Fox News comes down squarely on the side of 'reform'? There is so much wrong with this Tucker Carlson piece it's cringe-inducing, and my own appearance on Fox and Friends had me wondering how anyone in their right mind could believe that garbage. 

The traditionally 'liberal media' isn't entirely innocent. Although MSNBC's Morning Joe generally has a balanced roster of panelists and guests, Joe Scarborough has a personal ax to grind with teachers unions. (And I'll talk about NBC's Education Nation in Part III.) As I've said before, with all the excuses we hear from students about why they didn't do their homework, educators are experts in B.S. detection, and there's a whole lotta that being shoveled at the uninformed general public by media outlets that fan the flames, beat the war drums and call for teachers' heads on platters because "it's all about the children profits."  

Sirota writes (emphasis mine):

"Though it is rarely mentioned, the truth is that the largest funders of the 'reform' movement are the opposite of disinterested altruists. They are cutthroat businesspeople making shrewd financial investments in a movement that is less about educating children than about helping 'reform' funders hit paydirt. In that sense, they are the equivalent of any industry leaders funding a front group in hopes of achieving profitable political ends (think: defense contractors funding a front group that advocates for a bigger defense budget). The only difference is that when it comes to education 'reform,' most of the political press doesn’t mention the potential financial motives of the funders in question. 

"While I’ve written about this reality before, recent news perfectly exemplifies how the 'reform' movement is really just a sophisticated business strategy."

(Note to Tom Moran: Is David Sirota a 'conspiracy theorist', too?)

Rutgers University Professor and blogger Dr. Bruce Baker weighs in (emphasis mine): 

We've entered a bizarro world I never could have imagined when I started out doing this stuff back in the mid-1990s. And this Bizarro world is being promoted from the supposed highest echelons of our highly stratified society.
[...]

This idiocy - cast as lofty super-intellectual progressivism that us poor common folk simply can't grasp... has to stop.

We are being led down a destructive road to stupid - by arrogant, intellectually bankrupt, philosophically inconsistent, empirically invalid and often downright dumb ideas being swallowed whole and parroted by an increasingly inept media - all, in the end creating a massive ed reform haboob distracting us from the relatively straightforward needs of our public schools.

Lily gets the last word:

"It's just incredible that Campbell Brown and Silicon Valley [billionaires who are financing Vergara] are all very wealthy and most of them have Wall Street ties. Isn't it just a coincidence that all these really wealthy billionaires woke up and said, 'I want to make the world a better place. Let's fire more teachers.' Not 'let's find better ways to train or hire teachers.' If you fire a bunch of people but have the same hiring practices, you're still going to get the same people, so how serious are you?

"What they're really saying is, 'We need a really fast, easy way to get rid of a bunch of teachers.' And replace them with... what? Teachers who never taught pre-NCLB. [Teaching to the test] is the only way they know how to teach."

... and not doing their homework is the only way mainstream media knows how to report on education.

That's it for Part II. Stay tuned for Part III:

The false invitation to educators and what happened when one said, "No more!"

ADDENDUM:

The following two excellent blog posts on the ways ed 'reformers' are buying the media and shaping the message were brought to my attention after I originally posted this piece.

First is Mercedes Schneider's post about how Bill Gates purchases messaging, particularly via NPR:

Those with the obviously-declared education privatization agenda have appointed themselves the “keepers of the education conversation.” They will publicize what they decide “works.” After all, they are above actually doing the educating, and since those of us doing the educating are “too busy,” we need for them to cement the narrative that what they pay for (test-driven reform, charters, vouchers) is what “works.” As Washington Post’s Lyndsey Layton reports:

Bruce Reed, president of the Broad Foundation, said the idea for Education Post originated with his organization but that other philanthropic groups had recognized the need years ago. …

One of the goals of Education Post is to publicize what works in public education, Reed said.

“Administrators, school leaders and teachers have papers to grade, schools to run, and they don’t have time to get out and talk about this,” he said. “This is an effort to help spread information about what works both inside the field and outside.”

Education Post also will have a “rapid response” capacity to “knock down false narratives” and will focus on “hot spots” around the country where conflicts with national implications are playing out, [former Arne Duncan communications shaper] Cunningham said. [Emphasis added.]

Information control, my friends. And, of course, the controlled narrative will feed the idea of corporate reform “success”:

While there are myriad nonprofit organizations devoted to K-12 education,none are focused solely on communication, said Howard Wolfson, an adviser to Bloomberg Philanthropies.

“There hasn’t really been an organization dedicated to sharing the successes of education reform around the country,” Wolfson said. “You have local success, but it isn’t amplified elsewhere. And there is a lot of success. There is also an awful lot of misperception around what ed reform is, and there hasn’t been an organization . . . focused on correcting those misimpressions.” [Emphasis added.]

I’m sorry, but the “misimpression” of corporate reform as being punitive and destructive to the community-based school and the career teacher and friendly to a grossly-under-regulated privatization is beyond “impression”; it is a reality fostered not only by years of a failed NCLB but one that continues to be fostered by NCLB waiver-yanking US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

How funny that those keen on promoting the traditional public education “failure” narrative now want to shape it into a “success” designed to conceal their own failure.

Second, Anthony Cody writes about the overt ways corporate money buys messaging. Please read the entire post and share. This is the next wave of ed 'reform':

We have some brand new players entering the field. Peter Cunningham, former PR agent for Arne Duncan at the Department of Education, has convinced billionaires Bloomberg and Walton to give his new Education Post $12 million to “shift the conversation” about education reform, away from the polarized place it has been.

In an early post on the Education Post, Cunningham wrote,

With the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation, we are launching a new organization called Education Post to provide a strong voice for those who believe the current education system needs to get better.

We will spread the word that in communities around the country progress is being made. All across America, there are countless success stories where states and districts had the courage and determination to put aside politics and work together to improve education.

And coming soon, with funding from the Gates Foundation and others, Edreports.org,

a new, independent nonprofit designed to improve K-12 education in the United States, will launch in winter 2014. EdReports.org will provide free, web-based reviews of instructional materials series focusing on alignment to the Common Core and other indicators of high quality as recommended by educators, including usability, teacher support and differentiation. These Consumer Reports-style reviews will highlight those instructional materials that are aligned to the higher standards states have adopted so that teachers, principals and district and state officials charged with purchasing materials can make more informed choices.

How does this represent bias?

This week, some in the media have begun to take notice of the effect money attached to an agenda can have. Areport in Current describes what has become the elephant in the editorial room, especially in what is now inaccurately called “public” media:

The [Gates] foundation has supported public radio and TV journalism for years, backing coverage of global health, another priority for its philanthropy, as well as education. Within the past year, it has extended that commitment with $1.8 million in support to NPR for expanded education reporting. It also gave $639,000 to American Public Media for multiplatform coverage of education technology, to be featured on Marketplace’s broadcasts and website. In previous years, the Gates Foundation has also supported Frontline, PBS NewsHour and Teaching Channel, a nonprofit producer of public TV programming.