educationalchemy

I STAND CORRECTED. BALTIMORE SUN DID PUBLISH MY RESPONSE IN TODAY’S PAPER:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-schools-letter-20130517,0,5919007.story

Lost in Translation: A response to “Six Steps for Post-Alonso School Reform”

In their commentary (May 14^th, 2013, p.17) called Six Steps for Post-Alonso School Reform regarding the future of education reform in Baltimore City, T. Wilcox, D. Bell-McKoy and L. Gamble use many lofty and idealistic sounding words to promote their vision. However, it bears noting that education “reformers” are well-versed in using terms that have an appeal, yet bear little substance. Its part the script to sell the public on a model for education that actually requires a deeper analysis and understanding. Words like “choice” and “accountability” have done for the corporate-model of education reform what buzz words like “whole grain” and “real fruit juice” have done for the food processing industry. Thus, commentaries such as this warrant a translation.  My translation as follows is not grounded in empty rhetoric or phrases, but instead relies on facts and examples from other urban areas, to predict what such school, reform may indeed come to look like in Baltimore. The question will then remain: are we willing to buy this model? Or should we read the label more carefully?

Wilcox and co. state that BCPS should maintain a “strict focus on … school choice and ‘fair student funding;” principles which, “under-gird a market-oriented approach.” What does that mean? It means that advocates of this model for reform believe that public education should be run like corporations under a free-market framework.  I’m not sure on what grounds they feel this will be a successful model for helping the most disenfranchised of our children. Is it the free market “success” of the housing and banking industries?

“Choice” is code for eliminating public schools and replacing them with “public” charter schools. There are several problems with this model. First of all, if other major urban centers can serve as cautionary tales, it is because “choice” via the free-market model and entrenchment of charter schools has led to greater racial segregation, fragmentation of the poorest neighborhoods, and providing “choice” for only the “cream of the crop” students. Charters, no longer fettered by what Wilcox and co. call “unnecessary compliance” can, and have, denied providing services to children with special needs, English-language learners, and students with behavioral challenges. Thus, they can manufacture higher test scores, graduation success, and operate at a lower budget.

What happens to those students? They fall in between the cracks, dropping out or winding up back at the dwindling community public school whose funding has been gutted by “fair student funding”-which translates as an increased voucher system in which children and monies attached to their foreheads have are siphoned off by charter schools. The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found in a 2009 report that only 17% of charter schools outperformed their public school equivalents, while 37% of charter schools performed worse than regular local schools, and the rest were about the same.   Never the less, charter school operators and investors reap enormous profits and six figure salaries.

Wilcox and co. claim that “families are choosing” charter schools now that 50 of the 200 public schools are being shut down, as if this were something to brag about. If Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York are any indication, the only ones hailing this as a good thing are the corporations and non-profits that have something ideological, financial, or political to gain from such reform.  Parents and communities all across the country are up in arms, protesting by the thousands and rallying to SAVE their public schools. May 10^th Empower DC fought against school closures in their communities.  The only “advocates” of school closures seem to be those politicians, corporations, and non profits that will profit by their closure. If this were such a good thing for children (remember them?)  then why are local communities all across the country fighting against it?

Bait-and-switch corporate moves such as the “parent trigger act”   which was the brain child of The American Legislative Exchange Commission use parents to advocate for school closures, and then corporate model-run charter schools like KIPP move in a serve as replacements.  And it’s coming to Baltimore.    When parents in LA discovered they had “been had” by this new legislation, they fought back. Perhaps Baltimore can learn for their cautionary tale?

Wilcox and co. claim that “unions are cooperating on contracts that reward performance.” There is absolutely no research to date, anywhere, that shows that merit pay boosts teacher performance or students achievement. None.

Wilcox and co. state that “private sector investment in public education” are on the rise. They are right. The Common Core standards, and new PARCC assessments among other things will create historic-level profits for Pearson publishing, data-base management companies, computer sales, e-learning companies, and private test preparation and tutoring companies.  There has been a national buzz among hedge fund investors rallying for interest in charter school investments because of the potential for financial return.

Google it for yourself: hedge fund companies+charter school investments.

Wilcox and co. also state that the city’s “population is beginning to grow.” Correct again. Education reform matters greatly in the maelstrom of gentrification.  To attract White upper middle class families into the city, development magnates must also offer appealing alternatives to the crumbling under-funded city schools occupied largely by poor black and brown children.

The organization which Mr. Wilcox and his co-authors serve is the Baltimore Community Foundation  (BCF), whose largest contributor is the Annie E Casey Foundation which promotes charter schools, school choice, and public-private partnerships. The BCF serves as a liaison for philanthropic giving. The BCF advocates for increased charter schools (HB1051/SB0194 Charter School Study). One might consider that as education reform seeks to privatize education serves, philanthropic “giving” might yield some profitable returns. For example, the New market Tax Credits- offered from the US Department of Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institution Fund, allows investors who subsidize charter schools and other projects in inner-city communities to write-off their donations, dollar-for-dollar, on their taxes. By using the NMTC, investors can double their money in no time.

If you want to know what’s going to happen in Baltimore using this free market approach to education reform, simply follow what’s happening in Chicago, DC, New Orleans, New York, or Philadelphia. While the think-tanks and corporations are laughing all the way to the bank, none of these reforms have actually benefited the children they claim to serve. Community members and parents need to learn how to translate and make an informed decision based on the evidence given to us from these other locations, rather than be spoon fed lofty platitudes proffered by corporate-minded policy which has no research to support its success for our children. tell the reformers of Baltimore and all over this country: Our children are not for sale!

In my house, my kids and I like to play a game called “Not me.” I am sure that many other parents play this same game with their children. When I find a wet towel lying on the floor, or a half eaten yogurt sitting on the kitchen counter,  or a pile of toys left scattered about I ask, “Who made this mess?” and the reply is usually “Not me!” claimed in unison by both my children. We joke about my “third child,” who must be named Not Me since he or she seems to be responsible for most of the misdeeds around my home.

And while I find this whole exercise endearing within the confines of my own family, I find it far less humorous when played by politicians and billionaires playing games with children’s education, and yet this is the game being played by individuals and groups from “both sides of the aisle.”

Of course the game is played slightly differently depending on the political and corporate affiliation of the “not me” in question. In essence, in the media and using their public “face” they easily lay blame on anyone but themselves, usually employing the political tactic of throwing the oppositional party, or politicians, under the bus- laying blame for the failure of education reform policies on one another. But as I said, this is simply game, used to dupe the public. Let me offer some examples.

The Democratic party are the ones who take ownership for the latest in ed deform, called Race to the Top, which brings with it among other things, the national Common Core Standards. They encourage schools, teachers, parents and politicians to embrace this initiative in the name of “equity” and “opportunity” for all children, providing benefits to the neediest of children living in underserved and underrepresented schools and communities. It is intended, they claim, to provide quality curriculum to “level” the playing field for all children. (I’ll come back to the sad reality behind this in a moment.)

Conversely, there seems to be a resounding resistance coming from the voices in the conservative “right”, opposing the national common core standards, claiming it re-entrenches “big” government, and strips states and local communities of their “freedoms” and “rights” to determine educational policy. Their basic ideology is one of private enterprise and the abolishment of government interference in private life.

But under the ideological rhetoric, under the façade of “caring” for children, or even honoring the beliefs and values of their party constituents, something quite the opposite has happened.

Business and political leaders from both parties are appealing to their members- using language that will draw us in. For conservative-minded parents, they claim that more charters and vouchers will offer greater “freedom of choice” and limit the role of the government. But if you want to know how this really plays out, just ask the parents who were duped by the Parent Trigger Laws. Private does mean more freedom for YOU… or your child. It means more freedom to billion dollar corporations to take over and own our rights, not to mention our private data. It’s not merely the government pulling those strings. It’s private corporate interest hailing from the conservative party lines. And from the Democrats, we receive sound bites of how the Common Core and all the goodies that come along with Race to the Top will provide more equity and opportunity for all children, especially those in poor communities. Say what they like…sorry, it ain’t happening. In fact, just the opposite is happening. Racial segregation has increased exponentially-so much for the promise of greater equity. Children with special needs and English Language Learners suffer (not flourish) with increased pressure from standardized tests, and denial of needed services in their new charter schools “of choice” (to which many are not even welcome).

Regardless of the ideological language that they use, all these leaders from both parties are gunning for the same things: money, power, and control. They just use different language and strategies to get there. They work for each other. Not parents. Not teachers. And certainly not children.

WE HAVE ALL BEEN SOLD UP THE RIVER to an unofficial yet powerful third party called The Corporatists, a party peopled by members hailing from both the so-called right and left of the political spectrum. Their ideology is grounded in a belief of the almighty dollar, which serves them.  And the leader of this third party is apparently Representative Not Me. But no one really knows who he or she is. Not Me’s job is to make sure that blame can be laid at the feet of their political opposition.

As children continue to suffer under conditions of tremendous poverty, a factor which Not Me likes to ignore, billions of dollars are funneled to charter school “managers”, testing companies, and the six figure salaries of the people who run them. Anyone who has ever voted Democrat or aligned themselves in that direction, hoping for justice, equity, and fairness to all people, especially those among us with the greatest needs, are probably sorely embarrassed by Democratic supported initiatives led by Arne Duncan at the right hand of President Obama, Michael Bloomberg, and Michelle Rhee. And many of will (and do) call them out for their misdeeds. Party “loyalty” be damned. These politicians and figure-heads have forsaken their supposed values to make back room deals with corporations, and with policies that will profit the rich, dis-empower the working class (including teachers unions), and hand over personal data into the hands of private corporate interests. So many of these policies appear far more in keeping with values and goals of politicians identified as conservative, including the stated goals of the American Legislative Exchange Commission. Randi Weingarten (in a document sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) articulated what she called good and effective measures in education reform. But as Jim Horn points out:

Your union dues are not going to protect you and your students from the corporate onslaught by efficiency zealots, privateers, and proto-fascist ideologues. In fact, your president, Randi Weingarten, has joined forces with the oligarchs to begin the Accountability Testing 3.0 regime that has failed so miserably in the two previous releases.

In another example, referring to the PARRC, a central facet of the Common Core (assumed to be an initiative of the current Democratic administration) Ravitch states:

The PARCC assessment group includes all or almost every member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change.

Quite curious to me are members of the Not Me party hailing from the conservative side of the aisle. I am sure there are average citizens (including parents) who genuinely resist the Common Core based on their own set of personal values. But are these same constituents aware of the numerous members (and organizations) of their own party who have been deeply enmeshed with creating the same set of education policies they now claim to reject? As one example, I have read in numerous places now where Rick Hess, of the conservative think-tank the American Enterprise Institute has warned of the problems with Common Core. As Ravitch succinctly summarizes it:

Rick Hess … has a completely different understanding of the Common Core. As he explains it, “reformers” expect that the Common Core standards will reveal to suburban parents just how awful their public schools are. This will set off the “reformers’” long-hoped for stampede for privatization among the smug and satisfied denizens of the nation’s suburbs. Imagine the possibilities as everyone discovers their local school is failing and runs to the exits, demanding charters and vouchers. Farewell, public education. Hello, free market. Even Rick Hess has his doubts about this scenario.

Yet, in spite of his luke-warm attitude toward the Common Core as stated more recently, his name is signed on a report written by the Council for Foreign Relations Independent Task Force Report No. 68 entitled US Education Reform and National Security. According to the report:

“Task Force members are asked to join a consensus signifying that they endorse ‘the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group, though not necessarily every finding and recommendation.’ Each Task Force member also has the option of putting forward an additional or dissenting view.”

As a member of this committee Hess essentially approved a document of projected policy recommendations which mention the Common Core (at minimum) 22 times; articulating the need for a national common core curriculum and its inherent values. Dr. Hess did not offer a dissenting opinion on the matter even though he was afforded the opportunity to do so. Now let me be clear, I am not picking on Dr Hess. I have no idea what was going on his mind at the time he served on this committee, nor the possible changes of heart he may have had since that document was signed in March 2012. I just find this to be a curious thing in light of a pattern emerging from members of “the right” seeming to do a “turn around” on the policies they helped put in to place. As Ohanian points out:

That’s why many conservatives dislike Chester Finn, Jr., and Louis Gerstner, Jr., and George W. Bush, Jr., even more than liberals do. Incongruous as it may seem, opposition to Goals 2000 might provide an opportunity for right-wing and left-wing zealots to join hands in their common belief that the state is the enemy of education.

More curious to me is the stance articulated by ALEC, which is now seemingly against the Common Core. And yet, one glance at the list of the “whose who” that orchestrated the Common Core, one can see their finger prints cannot be wholly erased. So many of the supporters of the Common Core through their association with CCSSO, NGA, Achieve, Pearson or other Common Core Partners are directly affiliated with ALEC and its education policies (which aim to privatize public education). This list includes but is not limited to: LUMINA, STATE FARM, CONNECTION ACADEMY, ALLIANCE FOR EXCELLENECE IN EDUCATION, THE WALTON FOUNDATION.  See http://unitedoptout.com/flyers/architects-of-a-brave-new-world/

Bill Gates himself donated millions to various organizations who praised the Common Core Standards:

The list ranges from the American Federation of Teachers ($1,000,000) to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction ($823,637), from the neoliberal Center for American Progress ($2,998,809) to the neo-conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute ($5,711,462). The PTA got money ($2,005,000); so did the National Writing Project ($2,645,593).

So why would organizations with the ideological bent to privatize public education, turning it into a free market enterprise, eliminating the federal department of education, and dismantling unions have an interest in funding and promoting the Common Core which supposedly is intended to STRENGTHEN public education? And why do they pretend to disown it? I don’t know the answer but I can damn sure guarantee there is one and they just don’t want us to know what it is.

Sound bites are pouring out from social media sources which support conservative values, calling the Common Core a big government conspiracy; as if it sole the fault of “the left” for its raison d’etre. I agree that Common Core sucks.  I do not defend the Common Core. Most people who still identify as hailing from “the real left” (not to be confused with being a Democrat) are just as outraged by the abuses of common core and high stakes testing as you are.

Writers at What is Common Core summarize the new Corporatist Party beautifully:

Republican Jeb Bush is behind the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a nongovernmental group which pushes Common Core and is, of course, funded by Gates.   Republican Rupert Murdoch owns not only Fox News, but also the common core implementation company Wireless Generation that’s creating common core testing technology.   Democrat Bob Corcoran, President of GE Foundation (author of cap and trade and carbon footprint taxes to profit GE on green tech) and 49% owner of NBC also bribed the PTA to promote Common Core, and gave an additional $18 million to the states to push common core implementation. Corcoran was seen recently hobnobbing with Utah’s Republican Lt. Governor Greg Bell, business leaders in the Chamber of Commerce, and has testified in the education committee that the opponents of Common Core in Utah “are liars”.  Meanwhile, Republican Todd Huston of Indiana got his largest campaign donation from David Coleman, common core ELA architect;  then, after Huston was elected as an Indiana State Representative and placed on Indiana’s education committee, Coleman hired Huston to be on the College Board.  They are both profiting from the alignment of  and AP courses and alignment of the SAT to the Common Core.  And of course, Huston’s listed on Jeb Bush’s controversial Foundation for Excellence in Education. Even my own Republican Governor Herbert of Utah serves on the elite executive committee of NGA, the Common Core founding group.  He doesn’t make money this way, but he does make lots of corporations happy.

I am not criticizing either political party for moving away from  entrenched ideologies or values (“reaching across the aisle” has become reaching into their own bank accounts to deposit our tax payer dollars). I am not calling for renewed political orthodoxy nor for stronger divisions between political stances.  However,  I think that the American public of all political affiliations, and OUR children, are sick of being duped, lied to, or manipulated by games played members of the Not Me party, whose goal seems to be to blame the “others” for their own failures, and collect the shared profits off the backs of all our children. The Democrats under the leadership of President Obama and Arne Duncan have sold out public education to private free-market enterprise, while leaders from the Conservative right such Rupert Murdoch, Jeb Bush,  Tony Bennett, and numerous hedge fund consulting firms (http://educationalchemy.com/2012/06/18/the-hand-that-holds-the-data-rules-the-world/) seem to have sold out their supposed values of “individual rights” and “privacy” to the owners of private data base agencies and testing companies; calling it a government conspiracy, when in fact it’s billion dollar conservatively-minded corporations like ALEC and the Walton Foundation pulling the strings BEHIND the “big government” they fear. They’re all members of the Not Me party.

In some sort of “Clash of the Titans,” the powerful elite from all sides of the political spectrum seem to be battling it out (and with each other) for money and power while the rest of us, regardless of how we vote, stand on the ground beneath them, knowing that their battles have little to do with actually improving the quality of education for our children. This isn’t a battle between us as parents, or as everyday citizens. This is a battle between them, and our children are caught in their cross fire.

Democrats and Republicans: A pox on both your houses.

There’s a telling scenario in the greatly under-appreciated cult vampire film classic called The Addiction. In it, the main character (soon to be vampire) named Kathleen in cornered in a dark alley by another vampire named Casanova. The dialogue goes like this:

Kathleen: “Please” (begging)

Casanova: “You think that’s gonna stop me?”

Kathleen (again): “Please?”

Casanova bites her, steps back and chuckles, calling Kathleen a “collaborator.”

Casanova then begins walking away.

Casanova: “Wanna know what’s going to happen? Just wait and see.”

Watch clip at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGw678lYFlw

I find this to a very apt introduction to this article about education reformers. Why? Because in this era of reform and our use of language to describe its effects, we have moved from metaphor to mytonymy. To my way of thinking, corporate reformers are not like vampires. They are vampires. Let’s look at the evidence. They are nearly impossible to destroy, they live forever, they use very attractive appearances and alluring words to lure in their prey, and in order to survive themselves they must find victims whom they suck dry of their vital life force. OK, we’re not literally talking about blood here…but we are draining children of their life force, killing them with high stakes tests, and the blood in this instance is the data. Corporations feed off the data they drain from children, and use it to reap billions of dollars of profits and gain control. What vampires crave more than anything is power.

It’s the words “You think you know what’s gonna happen? Wait and see,” that resonate for me.

Let me share with you what I think is going to happen to public education.

It’s apparent to most of us by now that privatization is their goal. But I wish to explore some of these details more specifically. Right now, the federal and state departments of education are (at least on paper) the “providers” of public education and they (to the tune of billions of dollars) contract with private corporations (i.e. Achieve, Pearson, Wireless Generation to name a few of the big ones) to serve as delivery vehicles.  The state depts. of education contract out nearly every service: teachers do not create curriculum they deliver curriculum (privately owned and created by NCCS developers), schools contract out for professional development (to teach the NCCS and the new PARRC/SBAC tests), they contract out the test developers (aka Pearson), they even contract out for the test evaluators (aka Pearson),  districts contract out to McCharter schools to provide the physical space (stolen in a colonizing fashion from the public schools), and to TFA to provide the teachers. CHA CHING. $$$$$

The only thing State Departments of Education provide anymore is the money (our tax dollars) and the bodies (our children).  I call it the victims-delivery-system (VDS).

State Departments of Education will be the vehicle through which corporations can be handed millions of children. If the latest corporate brain child, the e-learning craze, is any indicator, teachers and schools will no longer even be needed– just a child with a corporate-owned product or service in their hands, spitting back endless streams of personal data which the corporations can then use to sell the children even more of their products, and sell their personal information to other corporate entities who can use that data to serve their own ends.

Such third party groups are not only the makers of learning products. Other interested parties in “big data” include the Department of Defense (note their direct influence on overseeing the national common core standards, discipline records, and drop-out rates), insurance companies (ever wondered what State Farm’s interest was in contributing huge sums to promote the Common Core? It’s big data baby), and the prison pipeline (hell, they already anticipate how many prisons to build based on the test scores of third graders, so is this really a stretch to imagine?).

For example a Task Force launched by a report called   Schools Report: Failing to Prepare Students Hurts National Security, Prosperity:

“(B)elieves the annual audit should be aggressively publicized to help all members of society understand educational challenges and opportunities facing the country. This public awareness campaign should be managed by a coalition of government, business, and military leaders. It should aim to keep everyone in the country focused on the national goal of improving education to safeguard America’s security today and in the future.”

The evidence for corporate interest and surveillance is most telling. Cities around the country like Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, and New Orleans are closing down scores of public schools (they don’t even pretend to use the false premise of “poor performing” anymore, they just let the McCharters take what they like). And for the public schools that don’t become charter school fodder? Well, they’re owned in part and whole by the corporations that have been contracted through the state departments of education anyway.

And when the funding for RtTT runs out, who will pay for these services? This is what I predict: the corporations will now own the rights to every facet of public education. So if you wish for your child to have an education of any kind, well you’ll have to pay for it out of pocket. It will become a service for which we, the public, must pay out of pocket because the public system will have been eviscerated like a body at the feet of a vampire.

By now most people following the charade of education reform know the names of the vampire coven elite (aka Billionaire’s boys club) like Rhee, Murdoch, Broad, Walton, and Gates. But there is another BIG key player: McKinsey and Company. They’re the most powerful “behind the scenes” operation you’ve most likely never heard of. But their stake in the game of education reform is huge.

Their names can frequently be seen in the white papers of non-profits and other institutions with a statement like, “According a study done by McKinsey and Co. …” Their “studies” have laid the groundwork for perpetuating the greatest heist of our generation: the theft of childhood and public education. And they have enormous financial interests as well.

Former McKinsey partners can be seen cast across the constellation of education reform efforts. David Coleman, developer of the NCCS and now head of the College Board was a former partner at McKinsey. Sir Michael Barber, Chief Education Advisor for Pearson is a former McKinsey and Co partner. So is Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal.

See The Hand That Holds the Data http://educationalchemy.com/2012/06/18/the-hand-that-holds-the-data-rules-the-world/  for a full list

They are the Jedi knights of “big data” and have been trained by the best. And now they hold powerful positions where they can ensure that the distribution of data can be ensured. Their mantra is “big data.” The National Common Core Standards (NCCS) orchestrated by Coleman and new national testing (SBAC or PARCC) both managed in one way or another largely by Pearson (orchestrated by Barber) are the central vehicles needed for gathering this big data. In one McKinsey report it states: “One proven approach is to combine customization and scale by offering a standard core curriculum complemented by employer-specific top-ups.”

The Common Core and the mandatory standardized tests, as profitable as they are, are not the ends. They are the means. The ends are much larger. The ends lie with owning personal student data. And this is their area of greatest expertise.

McKinsey and Co. have a direct partnership with Murdoch’s Shared Learning Collaborative.

According to Susan Ohanian (quoting another site):

In education reform, McKinsey & Company appears to be a kind of Skull and Bones club, with the McKinsey firm involved directly, or with former McKinsey employees in key roles. The McKinsey firm itself is an SLC partner. Double Line Partners, builder of the first SLC-style systems in Texas and Delaware, has two former McKinsey employees on its team. And Jack Markell, Governor of early-adopter state Delaware, is himself a former McKinsey consultant.

In their promotional flyer “Transforming Learning through mEducation”McKinsey and Co. promote the values of hand held and mobile devices so that they can now have direct access to children as the consumers of their learning products with no messy overhead or interference from a teacher, peers, or a community of learners. They state “the market for mEducation products and services today is worth 3.4 billion dollars.”  They add that, “By 2020, mEducation may address up to 70 billion” of the anticipated 8 trillion dollars spent globally.

There’s an entire section on how mobile operators can “tap the market.”

There’s lots of rhetoric and promises…and every one of the 36 pages mentions at least once how profitable this market can and will be for companies who jump on the band wagon. “Higher education and k-12 will represent the biggest mEducation opportunities across regions.”

And when the gravy train of RtTT funds dry up?

By then the corporations like McKinsey will own the education industry anyway.

In the state of Florida, according to a State Board of Education meeting held December 2012:

“McKinsey has been retained through Gates and Hewlett Foundation funding to develop the business model/establish governing entity to succeed PARCC.”

Let me rephrase that for you: McKinsey will serve as or supervise the GOVERNING ENTITY to deliver state-wide testing/data collection to (from) public school children. And Gates and Hewlett Foundations foot the bill to make this happen.

Additionally, on their docket was: FL involved in study to investigate tablet use in large-scale assessments.

But Florida is not alone. Back in Louisiana, where Bobby Jindal (fomer McKinsey consultant) reigns supreme, according to their RtTT Blueprint:

“The Trailblazer Initiative also affords the opportunity for LDOE and LEA capacity building through professional development and learning opportunities facilitated by national education leaders (i.e., McKinsey, Mass Insight, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) to effectively implement and sustain reforms beyond Race to the Top. Additionally, Participating LEAs will receive coaching and mentoring support from local and national high-performing district leaders.”

McKinsey and Co. was a key provider for research and support for the voucher model system in Ohio as early as 2008.

Now fast forward to the future where: “Lumina Foundation has been asked to join two partner foundations (Hewlett and Gates) to create a series of scenarios dealing with governance, operations and funding concerning the two Common Core assessment consortia, PARCC and SBAC following the end of federal funding in 2014. This effort would be developed by McKinsey Consulting, with CCSSO serving as fiscal agent.”

So here we are. In a dark alley. The vampires are upon us. Are we collaborators? Or will we fight back? TELL THEM TO GO AWAY. And say it like you mean it.

Please also see this post available at Academe Blog (special thanks to Aaron Barlow)

I guess I had Tim Slekar’s clarion call to challenge EdWeek in mind when I was looking through my recent issue of Educational Researcher (ER) today. In his blog, Slekar illustrated quite accurately, honestly and pointedly how, “EdWeek’s ‘news’ stories are typically reprinted press releases from the ‘faith-based reformers’ or purely propaganda for the purveyors of the Common Core.” In other words, he asks his readers to consider whether or not EdWeek has sold out to corporate interests.

Educational Researcher (ER) is AERA’s main journal, and AERA is education’s largest research organization, so the numbers of readers are enormous. The new editors themselves note that given the large readership and frequent publications (9 times a year) the journal authors, have the ability to “influence policy” (p. 7).

One would like to believe that a journal of such “prestige” in education or at least a large readership would recognize the scholarship of education researchers, teacher educators, and teachers…but not in this current issue. Today, while perusing the articles in this issue something about the authors just “struck” me as a curious thing, something worth investigating. Something caught my eye- the number of authors that work for non-profits and/or corporations associated with education, and how few were actually sole educators/professors of institutions of higher education or public education.

Of nine total authors, FIVE of them listed their associations not with universities but with “non- profit” or education corporations. So, more than half the authors are employed by corporations. To be more accurate, one of them listed only his university affiliation but after some digging I found much more.

Is this something anyone else finds troubling? Is this worth drawing attention to?

So I did some of my own inquiry into these organizational associations and found a lot of it disconcerting. Why? Because: 1) the move of corporate agendas into education are quite insidious these days, and 2) ER is considered at tier 1 journal (I think) and there is perhaps a blind assumption about the rigor of scholarship in the journal, so that many people might just take what they read at its word as being ethical or valid, when instead we should be questioning the motives of the authors, their affiliations, and their ability to market their corporate agenda as “scholarship.”

I know that research is never really objective, that academics often have all kinds of ulterior motives when publishing, and that they are often self-serving. This is true of many journals and scholarship. Research claiming that climate change is a hoax might be funded by Exxon, and “evidence” that smoking does not cause cancer might be funded by Phillip Morris. But those companies are household names and therefore most people reading such research can make skeptical and informed decisions about their opinion of the “data.”

But far fewer people realize for example that Wireless Generation, who is on the editorial board of  one of the author’s (in ER) employers, has billions of dollars of contracts with school districts for electronic data collection and data tracking, an effort which this same author is promoting. Corporate interests in education policy are much more carefully camouflaged, but hold tremendous sway in the future of public education.

So when corporations start selling their ideology of education reform and the corporate voice becomes the dominant one in such a large scale educational research journal, it just seems like one more step in the direction of the corporatization of higher education.

I note too that the journal has just come under new editorialship. New editors sometimes steer journals in different directions. In their Inaugural Editorial Statement the editors identify two goals:

1)      We will be deliberate in drawing out new understandings from culturally diverse communities, with an eye for the role of policy in sharpening or suppressing development  of cultural identities, instructional differentiation, and educational progress of children from under-sourced locales.

2)      We aim to stay alert to domestic and international policy streams and policy initiatives emanating from governmental agencies, think tanks, and private foundations.

I find these two statements contradictory. Why? Because while the efforts and policies of education reform led by corporate (and think tank) interests have had dubious results at best for “children from under-sourced locales,” and rarely do such reforms actually represent “indigenous communities” (p.8), there can be no question of the enormous profits reaped by these same companies as the result of their initiatives. The new ER editors themselves concede that “policy making is influenced powerfully by and consequentially by research” (p. 7). So whose interests and what gets represented here matters.

Digging in to some info about the organizations from which these five authors herald I found some interesting details:

1)      Elfrieda Hiebert is president and CEO of TextProject (paper authored with faculty at VA Tech)

The Editorial Board of TextProject includes people from APEX Learning, Wireless Generation, MetaMetrics (now owned by Pearson), and Scholastic.

This company is a big promoter of the Common Core standards and offers services related to Common Core.

Her co-authored article in ER was about “upping the ante of text complexity in the Common Core standards” (p. 44) for young readers. While to the articles credit, the authors offered some complex range of concerns about the effects of Common Core on young readers, I cannot escape the facts that TextProject conveniently provides “services” for its successful delivery.

2)      Roy Pea (paper authored with Stanford doctoral student)

Roy Pea is the Co-Founder and Director (from 1999-2009) for Teachscape, a company providing comprehensive K-12 teacher professional development services incorporating web-based video case studies of standards-based teaching and communities of learners.

He is also Director of H-STAR Institute and a David Jacks Professor of Education and Learning Sciences at Stanford University.

This co-authored article in ER was on the need for “computational thinking” skills in K-12 classrooms.

3)      Ellen Mandinach is a senior research scientist at WestEd

Board of directors of West Ed includes John Huppenthal (the guy who helped close the Ethnic Studies program in Tucson AZ).

The number one funder of WestEd is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Their national affiliations include Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), key developers of the Common Core.

According to their website they offer (among other things) a “Comprehensive School Assistance Program (CSAP)” (which) “provides research-based services (cha-ching $$$) and support to help transform low-performing schools and districts into highly effective learning organizations.”

4)      Edith Gummer is a program director Education Northwest (EdNW)

Board Officers of Ed NW  include Tom Luna of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). CCSSO Director Tom Luna works closely with Jeb Bush.

From their website http://educationnorthwest.org/content/about : “The breadth of our work—ranging from training teachers, to developing curriculum, to restructuring schools, to evaluating programs—allows us to take a comprehensive look at education and to bring wide-ranging expertise and creativity to our clients’ challenges.”

In their article for ER Mandinach and Gummer write: “Data driven decision making has become increasingly important in education” (p. 30).

Of course Ed NW could provide these services …. right? After all, “Since 1966, Education Northwest has provided educators with top-quality professional development, technical assistance, evaluation, and research services.”

5)      Carla Monroe is the Education Director at Alliance Group International, Inc.

According to their AGI website “AGI’s Core Methodology outperforms traditional sales and marketing models to the delight of AGI clients, from start-ups to major corporations.” They offer marketing strategies for companies.

I found Dr. Monroe’s discussion in ER about critical race theory to be interesting and worthwhile. So why does her affiliation with an organization that calls itself the “single source partner for custom sales and marketing support solutions that will accelerate your revenue generation in the markets” make me uneasy?

I’m not quibbling over their scholarship/research itself per se–that would take an entire other blog entry.  But I thought it was interesting that for each of these individuals listed above, that their “data” suggested a need for something or other in education that of course the company for which they worked could naturally fill, and that the findings reflect the promotion of ideologies these organizations serve.  In short, it came across as little more than free advertising for the services these companies could provide.

Am I over reacting?

Reference:

Educational Researcher (Jan/Feb 2013), 42(1). Or accessible at http://er.aera.net

REBELS WITH A (DAMN GOOD) CAUSE

For my blog today I’d like to share part of a poem by the late poet Charles Bukowski. He writes in his poem called Style

“Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art … Bullfighting can be an art Boxing can be an art Loving can be an art Opening a can of sardines can be an art Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done”

Artful resistance IS dangeorus style. And just when we need MORE of it, the “powers that be” (i.e ed deformers) are aligning themselves to shut it down. Why? Because they know the power of the arst in the hands of communties to change things.

Not that the push for education deform and a new world order led by coprorate interest is anything “new” these days. Some of us have seen it coming from miles away, and are fighting it tooth and nail. But whenever I see it edge just a little closer to home, I become a little more deeply frightened. This time it’s the Rebel Diaz Arts Center in New York City.

You know things are getting worse when they come for the artists. Why? Because it is the arts, and our capacity to create, that empower us to know what is possible, to envision a world created by democratic communties rather than shoved down our throats by marketers, publishing companies and hedge fund coprorations. Through community-centered, socially conscious, and culturally centered arts movements we have the power to fight back. And, well…. the corporate deformers know this.

I am reposting an blend an older blog entry here with parts of a book chapter from The Left Handed Curriculum: Creative Experience for Empowering Teachers in honor of the Rebel Diaz Artists, and artists (and creative educators) everywhere struggling for their very existence.

As a reminder to us all about what is happening HERE and NOW, I wanted to share it again:

Most people think of the “arts” in education as something they do once a week in related-arts classes, or that fun activity a teacher pulls out on a rainy Friday afternoon.  But the importance of encouraging creativity and imagination through artful experiences goes well beyond Howard Gardner’s (1999) application of Multiple Intelligences. While multiple intelligences, related-arts, and “fun” in learning are all indeed valuable and worthy of our attention in education, something much more valuable is being lost in the race toward standardized curriculum, accountability and high stakes testing.

The imagination … our capacities to be creative (and equally innovative) are central to identifying and solving the variety of crisis we face in the world today.  We will not find the solutions to ending problems like poverty, racism, war, or global climate change on a standardized test.  We create them in the worlds that do not yet exist.  The solutions lie in our capacities to imagine, in the words of Maxine Greene (1998) “things as if they could be otherwise” (p. 54).

Naomi Wolf recently published a book and made a documentary on the book, both entitled The End of America (2007).  She argues that there are ten things needed in order to create a closing society, one that is not supported by democratic beliefs and policies.  I might suggest to her to add one more item to the list.  Number 11 of things needed in order to create a closed society would be: Putting an end to public education that is creative, meaningful, and rich in the experiences it provides for everyone in the school community. 

You see, in order to close a society you have to close the minds of its people. As we erase our children’s capacities to wonder, to question, to create, and to imagine, we close off their minds from the possibilities of seeing their world as anything other than the one that is being handed to them.  In order to close a society one must have a people who will cease to challenge the decisions being made or to question those in power making the decisions.  Saltmarsh (2007) contends that “The widespread retreat from participation and direct experiences (my emphasis) tend to limit political action to a narrow definition of procedural democracy …” (p. xix).

We want schools where students, teachers, and communities are collaborators in their efforts to provide learning experiences that have meaning for students.  I argue for a creative approach that embraces culturally relevant pedagogy (Robinson & Lewis, 2011); artful ways of being that bring marginalized voices and experiences back to the foreground of our curriculum and classrooms.  We want schools to be places where children can create the world they wish to see, rather than simply be tested on the world as it is.

The elimination of the arts and imaginative thinking from every classroom will confirm or solidify our fate as people dependent on those in power (at the top) who historically profit at the expense of those beneath them.  These are the same people to whom we will be completely reliant upon to make decisions for us.  The capacity to critically challenge or imagine a “way out,” created for ourselves by ourselves, will have been educated out of us.

The knowledge and ideas of students, teachers, and communities are being erased from the classroom in favor of a sterilized, technical, rigid, and homogenous approach to learning.  We need to fight for creative and artistic educational experiences that encourage collaboration, community centered-ness, intercultural exchanges, and diverse perspectives.  Through creative and artistic engagements, new voices can be heard and the faces of cultures and communities rendered visible.  The imagination not only entertains.  It is a powerful means to making cracks and fissures in the massive wall of educational policies which see students merely as consumers of text-book knowledge –knowledge that is pre-scripted for them.  Our children are not commodities to be mined, as Sir Ken Robinson once said, “the way that we mine the earth for a particular commodity” (2007).  And education is that commodity, through a process in which textbook companies and corporate billionaires use high stakes testing as a way to profit from both the success and failure of children in public schools. 

The arts, as a collaborative community-based effort to transform ourselves, are the most vital tool we have to create a sustainable revolution.  It’s not what we know, but what we can imagine that will save humanity from the self imposed crisis we can no longer evade.  In the words of Grace Lee Boggs (2011), “Students are crying out for another kind of education that gives them opportunities to exercise their creative energies because it values them as whole human being” (p. 145).  She also argues that revolutions are made not to prove the correctness of ideas but to begin anew.  We need to begin anew, and we must educate our children with the capacities to engage with their own humanity and with one another.

Art, Boggs (2011) suggests, can help us envision a new cultural image we need to grow our souls.  When we lose our imaginative capacities to envision and argue for social change, and to face an unknown future, I indeed fear for the end of our democratic society. We cannot let that happen.

Creativity and complacency cannot exist in the same space.  Which do we want for our children and for ourselves? A world that is constructed for us by others, or one in which we possess the tools to make one for ourselves? What is our choice to be?

“Originality is dangerous. If you want to increase the sum of what is possible for human beings
to say, to know, to understand, and to therefore in the end, to be, you
actually have to go to the edge and push outwards …This is the kind of art
whose right to exist we must not only defend but celebrate. Art is not
entertainment. At its very best, it’s a revolution“  Salman
Rushdie

Where will you be standing April 4-7th?

Upon picking up my two children, ages 5 and 7, from the bus stop today I was ready for our daily afternoon banter following my quintessential question, “How was school today?”  Usually, I get the vague “good” and sometimes even a great story about something fun or funny like when my daughter (in kindergarten) told me about her poor teacher Mrs. Y had to move them all to Mrs. X’s classroom because she found “poop” on her rug after recess.

And I have created a psychological filing system that prepares me to address the usual concerns I have over who wasn’t nice on the playground, or why they “got on yellow” for talking in the cafeteria, or tales of mind numbing Open Court lessons: I know how to deal with and even counteract these events.

But I had no psychological or emotional filing system for their stories today. Following the usual “How was your day?” my son (the older of the two) immediately announced, “We had the longest lock down ever!” Reading my face, which he is very adept at, he amended his comment and said “It was just a drill mom.”

My face softened a bit. But not my throat, which continued to tighten as my daughter (the younger) added in great detail how she and all her classmates had hidden in their cubbies, and she declared (with pride) how she had even covered herself with her backpack. Not to be outdone by his younger  sister, my son explained -as if he were an expert witness for an episode of CSI-in great forensic-like detail how Mrs. Z demonstrated precisely where to stand in the room so that they were neither too close to the door, nor in view of the windows. This is their summary of “what they did in school today.” No stories about Pokemon cards, shared reading, spelling tests, or music class.

I do not begrudge the school for these efforts. I know how desperately they are grasping at straws to keep our children safe.  I love my kids school and their teachers. I respect the administration.

How do we prepare against an unforeseen unknown? And how do children learn to develop and grow in a world riddled with fear? The first thing that came to mind when my kids were done providing me with all the details, and I was done (having a painfully overactive imagination) swallowing the vomit that had been rising in my throat picturing them actually having to enact these measures “for real,” I recalled the Duck and Cover drills of decades past. I am old enough to remember them. In hindsight, it’s infuriating to me that the military industrial complex could ever claim that simply hiding under a wood and metal desk with your arms over your head would somehow protect you from the effects of a nuclear explosion. Did any of them really ever really believe that would help? And how much of this potential threat was real anyway? Or were they just trying to simultaneously instill a false sense of security and a fabricated narrative of fear in us?And while we all ducked and covered, the military industrial complex had its biggest boom years.

I sit here typing, again picturing my five year old daughter huddled in a wooden cubby shielded by nothing more than My Little Pony back back, and being given some false sense of security that such efforts would stop the worst from happening if, god forbid, a lockdown were “for real.” I am disturbed by this image of course- but this is not what disturbs me most.

I am also disturbed by the possibility of things I cannot control nor foresee that sadly happen in our chaotic and violent society. But this is not what outrages me the most.

No. What infuriates me most about today’s story is knowing that out there are fat cat billionaire lobbyists doing their damndest to ensure THEIR RIGHT to free access to THEIR guns. And I don’t mean the hunting rifles. In the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook, the NRA reportedly has seen a growth of 8,000 members a day at $25.00 per membership. You do the math. That could pay a hell of a lot of new teachers to reduce class size or build new playgrounds. Meanwhile, the NRA “has blocked gun-control efforts in the past and is opposing any new ones.” The NRA’s solution is to provide hand guns to school personnel, or provide more armed security to schools. According to Daly, “Wayne LaPierre, has dismissed the assault weapons ban as ‘a phony piece of legislation’ and has recommended putting armed guards in all schools as a way to stop another school shooting.”

Duck and cover my friends. Such measures will do about as much good.  Or more likely, even do more harm.

I know … Let’s have more “zero tolerance” policies that send disenfranchised children of color to prisons at a rate exponentially higher than that of their White peers, for little more than bringing a nail clipper to school, while reaping huge profits to the prison system. I guess those kids’ rights don’t matter either in comparison to the Rights (capital R) of the Billionarie’s Boys Club.  Why do the policies set forth by the wealthiest most powerful corporate lobbyists always involve false (and harmful) solutions for us and huge profits for them?

Apparently what my daughter needs is to replace her My Little Pony backback with a bullet proof pack provided by Amendment II which “has reportedly tripled its sales since the Newtown massacre.” I don’t think she’ll mind. They actually have some with Disney characters and princesses on them. I swear, I am not making this shit up.

Why must my children live like prisoners in fear so that rich corporate billionaires can have their “freedom?” What about the rights of my children? Of all children? Schools, teachers and children are already imprisoned by the fear and sanctions of high stakes testing and education (de)form. Children have been put into the service of corporate interests, “mining their minds” (Sir Ken Robinson) for data that does not benefit them, but brings in billions of dollars of profits to the corporations who lobbied behind closed doors for new testing and evaluations because it serves them. Now, when children are not wasting away at their desks doing skill, drill, and kill to raise invalid and meaningless test scores, they’ll be practicing their lockdown techniques? Maybe we can replace the playgrounds or soccer fields with shooting ranges. Can you get PE credits for joining the NRA?

I refuse to allow my children to again be in service to the billionaire policy makers- playing “duck and cover” as ruse to ameliorate the grim realities of what I fear most: A total loss of the rights, freedoms, and real securities of our children so that others (who already live in abundance) may have more of theirs in abundance.

My children are not for sale. Are yours?