Is @Pearson the new KGB?

Pearson: Rolling over teachers who dare to speak out

It began with discreet data collection. For a while now Pearson has been quietly collecting information about our children, students and schools, and sharing it with third party vendors—many of which are funded with 'reformy' money—for a whole host of reasons. 

Then last year, Bob Braun's blog site was mysteriously shut down for a brief period coincidentally right after he posted this piece about Pearson spying on students who were tweeting about the PARCC test. Valerie Strauss picked up the story in her column at the Washington Post.

But wait, there's more...

Leonie Haimson and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy have been monitoring student data mining for quite some time. Just two months ago they reported that Lacey Twp parent, Heather Hicks, complained to her local board of ed about a blended learning software used in her son's biology class, the contract for which was later not renewed. 

Heather was surprised to discover later that she was repeatedly criticized by Bruce Friend, the chief operating officer of iNACOL (the International Association of K-12 Online Learning) in a February 10, 2016 workshop he gave at  Pearson’s CITE 2016 conference – in a presentation called “Gaining Stakeholder Buy-in for your Online/Blended Learning Program.”  He later gave the same presentation at the Mid-Atlantic Conference on Personalized Learning, where the session was described this way:

Gaining Stakeholder Buy-in for Blended Learning This session will address the importance of gaining stakeholder support as you seek to build a blended (or online) learning program. Stakeholders include students, parents, teachers, school leaders. We will share effective strategies in gaining the support of these key contacts; discuss barriers to gaining support; and share examples of the consequences when stakeholder support is not achieved.

Heather made this video to tell the real story of what happened. It highlights the lengths to which ed 'reformers' will go to spin their rhetoric, deny the facts and crush the opposition. This is the only way they can keep their house of cards from falling. Obviously what Heather did struck a nerve. Please watch this video before you read the rest of this post.




And then yesterday, Diane Ravitch posted this:

Celia Oyler, professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, posted a biting commentary by an anonymous teacher about the flaws of PARCC. She received a letter from PARCC threatening legal action unless she removed the post because it contained copyrighted material —and divulged the name of the author. 

Oyler left the post on her blog but removed anything that might be copyrighted. She has not given up the name of the author. Many people who posted a link to Oyler’s original post or tweeted it received an email warning that they should remove the link or expect legal action. 

Peter Greene posted about the test, based on Oyler’s blog, and flew under the radar. He didn’t receive a threat from PARCC, and I feel badly for him. 

He wrote, in his inimitable fashion (emphasis mine): 

“You know what kind of test needs this sort of heavy security? A crappy test.” 

As Leonie Haimson said in a tweet, it is crazy to give a test to millions of students and expect that no one would write about it or talk about it. 

There is something worse than disclosure of “secure” test items. There is loss of reputation. And that is what PARCC is putting at risk with its heavy-handed tactics.

This teacher is no Edward Snowden. He/she is not giving up state secrets. There is no imminent threat of invasion or terrorist attack. As Diane said, the only 'threat' here is the loss of a reputation built on... well... CCRAP.

Taxpayers have the right to know how their money is being wasted. Parents and students have the right to know how completely inappropriate this test is. And educators have the right to blow the whistle. 

Although I don't want to see this teacher punished in any way, I do look forward to the day that Pearson does take someone to court, and they have to defend this worthless piece of CCRAP.

Hey NJ! #EdReform Big Brother is watching your kids!

I'm coming for your kids' data.

The first time I heard then NJDOE Commissioner Chris Cerf speak at the NJEA Convention he spoke about all the student data the state was collecting. He was giddy with excitement over it; frothing over how it will 'transform' education... Into what exactly? My first thoughts were that Big Brother had indeed landed. 

So, where is all this fabulousness and wonderfulness that Cerf and other 'reformers' literally drool over? Because the only 'transformations' I've seen are the vast numbers of students refusing to take the PARCC and SBAC, massive public school closings, the expansion of segregationist charter schools, and the beaucoup bucks 'reformers', for-profit education services companies and 'non-profit' charter operators are raking in as a result.

But this is how America operates. We're a capitalist society. Money—not people—runs this country. And those with a lot of it and who want more of it have finally managed to crack the code of the last hold out against corporate takeover: public education. And they've got their sites (sic) set on our kids.

Right now it's being used to evaluate students, teachers and schools. It's also an ad hominem judgment on communities of low income and color. But who knows what the future will bring and how this data will be used? It's one thing for the government to have my child's social security and driver's license numbers. It's quite another for them to have her entire educational history at their disposal to use as a marketing tool so education companies can ply their wares. What other data will the government then try to collect? And of course, what proof do they have that any of this is valid?

So, what can you do? Well, thanks to the efforts of Leonie Haimson and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, you can send this letter to the NJ Department of Education:

To whom it may concern: 

I am the parent and legal guardian of (full name of child), currently (x ) years of age. 

My child attended x school in grades K-x (during what years); x school in grades x-y, (during what years) and x high school (during what years) in [what] school district.
Please provide me with whatever personally identifiable information (PII) that the State Education Department has collected on my child and which of this information is included in the state’s student longitudinal database, including any and all information in the database that has been contributed by other state agencies. 

To access this information, and challenge it if it is incorrect is every parent’s right under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99), and the state cannot charge me a fee for accessing it. 

This was confirmed by Dale King, Director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Family Policy Compliance Office, in a letter he wrote to the Nevada Education Department on July 28, 2014: 

….educational agencies and institutions, as well as SEAs [State educational agencies] may not charge a fee for search and retrieval of education records. See § 99.ll(b) 

I also demand a list of any and all third parties, and/or governmental agencies, that have been provided with any of my child's PII, which elements of PII they have received, and under what privacy and security agreements these disclosures were made. 

Finally, I would like to know what governmental, citizen or advisory board exists to oversee the collection, use, distribution and eventual destruction of my child’s PII data, and their members. 

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

The letter should be submitted to the NJ Department of Education by clicking here. Select Education, then Chief of Staff. Fill out the requested information at the top, cut and paste the letter in the space at the bottom including your child's information. Although these requests are free, write $1 under payment information, which is the maximum authorized cost. Without an entry in that space, the form won't allow you to submit.

You can submit as many forms as necessary to obtain this information about all of your children.

Keep a copy of what you submitted.

NJDOE must respond within seven days.

Please email info@saveourschoolsnj.org and let them know what you find out.

Thank you to Save Our Schools NJ organizer, Christine McGoey, for sharing this valuable information!

@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. 

Rally for NJ Public Education Part 2: Stop Bashing Teachers!

Is it just me, or is everything marketed as ‘sexy’ these days? Almost every bride on every bridal reality show (Ok, I admit it, I watch them all!) wants to look sexy. (Whatever happened to classy?) Cell phones, computers, paint colors, guns, food, tools, toothpaste and a zillion more products are all marketed in some way, shape or form as sexy. I’ll bet somebody somewhere thinks it’s a good idea to market shower caulk as sexy!

Along with “risqué” one of the definitions of sexy is “excitingly appealing; glamorous, as in: a sexy new car.” So although a commercial may not use the word ‘sexy’ in it, the subliminal messaging is there nonetheless. Marketing experts know that the key to opening consumer wallets is to offer the chance of an appealing, glamorous (sexy) life along with their product.

So, what does all this have to do with education? In their efforts to privatize public education and turn it into a multi-billion-dollar, for-profit enterprise, education ‘reformers’ have to market and sell it in slick, messaging that’s ‘excitingly appealing’, aka sexy! Public education advocate, Leonie Haimson, one of the founders of Parents Across America, and head of Class Size Matters in NYC, has assembled a compendium of reformy-speak buzzwords including:

“transformational”, “catalytic”, “innovative”, “bold”, “game changer”, “effective”, “entrepreneurial, “economies of scale”, “instructional efficiency"

“Wow!” you say, “They sound so excitingly appealing and glamorous! Damn it, why isn’t my local public school doing this?? I WANT THIS FOR MY KIDS!!"

Now hold on a second. Before you go opening your mental wallets to the education ‘reformies’, consider this from public school teacher/blogger, Jersey Jazzman, who also happens to be a doctoral student in educational theory, organization and policy at Rutgers University (you know, an expert):

“[Education reformers] do not care that all of the research points exactly AWAY from the solutions they propose. They do not care that it is inherently contradictory to say ‘we don’t have the money’ and then fund programs like vouchers that will further drain the state’s coffers. Nor do they care that it’s illogical to say how much they value teachers while simultaneously pushing to cut their pay.”

So, while ed ‘reformers’ are busy selling you that shiny new car, many veteran teachers have had it with the abuse, the bullying and the blame. Far too many are retiring earlier than they had originally planned. And with every experienced educator we lose, our students lose years of experience. But that’s okay because waiting in the wings is a “catalytic”, “innovative”, “bold”, “game changer” with absolutely no experience to take their place! 

You see, reformers don’t care if their plans work or not because this is what really motivates them:

Yes, this is an actual slide from an actual education ‘reform’ presentation. The You Tube link is no longer available. Hmmm… wonder why? Could it be that that video was so cringe-inducing (especially the part where the presenter tells the audience he’s an education expert because he saw the movie ‘Dangerous Minds’) that the blowback from the education community shredded it to pieces?

Bashing teachers is a marketing tool, folks! It’s been packaged and sold to the general public by politicians, billionaires and those who do their bidding as part of a slick and sexy marketing campaign that diverts attention away from the real problems facing New Jersey and the rest of the US: poverty, staggering income inequality and the decline of the middle class. Public education is a $600 billion industry, and corporations, certain ‘non-profits’ and Wall Street investors are hijacking it and making some beaucoup bucks at the expense of hard-working education professionals—and your kids! Oh sure, they love to tell you it's all about the kids, but how many of them sat back and did absolutely nothing while Congress cut SNAP benefits?

New Jersey does not have an education problem of epidemic proportions. We consistently rank at or near the top in student achievement in the US. But we do have about 200 apartheid schools in our inner cities, with high concentrations of poor and/or minority students. They are not, as Gov. Christie calls them, ‘failure factories’. The teachers in those schools are working with a higher concentration of students with special needs than those of schools in our wealthiest suburbs, and like the dedicated staff in that hospital in my previous post, they are being blamed.

Do we have some bad teachers in our profession? Of course we do—just like any other profession. And thankfully it’s now easier to remove them from the classroom. But we also have bad elected officials, business people and ‘edupreneures’ who have little to no education experience, but who have boatloads of influence, money and power, and have sold the general public on the hokum that teachers are responsible for all the ills of society. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to remove them from power.

Think about it: who is a bigger threat to the welfare and prosperity of New Jersey: a school teacher with a median income of $62K who is going to work every day, providing for her family, trying to make a difference, or a billionaire with a lot of political connections and a nose for venture capitalism who wants to privatize public education without a shred of evidence it will benefit children?

It’s time to stop blaming teachers! It’s time to stand up! Speak out! Fight back! Come to Trenton on March 27^th at noon and make your voice heard!