Assault on Kansas City Teachers: Many To Be Replaced by TFA Newbies

If you haven't noticed yet, Teach for America and the charter school movement has one major purpose: destroy the teacher union movement. And they are succeeding. The fact that the UFT/AFT/NEA has had rings run around them has left America's urban teachers defenseless.

I've been trying to follow this story in Kansas City where senior teachers are being fired and to be replaced by raw Teach for America recruits.

I don't have any trouble making this prediction: check back after all unions lose collective bargaining, merit pay is in force and all the other ed deform goodies are operating -  there will be not only no improvement, but severe deterioration. Then who are they going to blame? Don't worry, they will find another scapegoat, but never themselves. Of course we will lose another generation of students but why quibble?

It’s not a blanket condemnation of teachers,” said Steve Gunn of the Michigan-based Education Action Group. “It’s a blanket condemnation of their unions.” The organization has been backing efforts against teachers’ unions across the Midwest. “Teachers need to remain motivated, and the best motivation is that you can be replaced,” Gunn said. “Due to inattention, unions have come to dominate public education policy, and we see the results in high labor costs and high school graduates who can’t read their own diplomas.”

Sure Steve. It's all about motivation.

As for the non-renewed teachers, Superintendent John Covington said he was not passing judgment on individual teachers. There are good teachers and outstanding teachers in the district, he said. But he has publicly recited many times that in more than 75 percent of the district’s schools, less than 25 percent of the students are proficient. And that, he added in a written reply to The Star, “strongly suggests that our overall teaching core is not of a quality our students deserve.” Covington looked to Teach for America to bolster the teaching ranks — seeking at least 150 candidates from the national organization that recruits top college graduates from various fields and trains them to serve at least two years in classrooms. The non-renewals of some current teachers would have happened whether Teach for America agreed or not, he said. The district had considered non-renewing all of its 210 non-tenured teachers and letting them reapply for positions but chose instead to make decisions based on what teachers had in certifications, specialized training, curriculum-writing experience and other assets to fit the district’s “reorganization.” The non-renewed teachers who gathered last week took stock of the many instances of dual certifications, master’s degrees, and curriculum writing among them and had trouble seeing the method in the district’s decisions.

A KC teacher sent this to Lisa North

I haven't stopped crying for two weeks. I taught with four of the teachers who bravely volunteered to be interviewed for this piece - all great teachers. One of them asked me to come and sit with her for the interview. The reporter had contacted our union to arrange the interview and was hoping two or three would show up and there were 17. They sat in a circle around a conference table and each one told her story. It took over two hours and I had to leave the room several times to stand in the hall and cry. Then two days later I sat at a conference table with our superintendent, school board president and Claire McCaskill, listening to those two men trying to impress a US senator. I wanted to gag. This has just been devastating. Our profession is under attack. I'm so angry I am going to need therapy. Are any of you planning on attending the march in DC in July? It looks like it could be huge. AFT signed on to sponsor this week. NEA is likely also going to sponsor.

Ellen McHugh on the NYCEdNews Listserve wondered:

the vast majority of teaching staffs are women, the vast majority of those attacking teachers are men. Are these men afraid of what women have achieved through education and negotiation? Or, is this a conservative, religious belief driven attack?

Read the article below the fold

Another Charter School Outrage - This Time in LA

The minute I read about Diane Ravitch's shared video link of a charter co-loco in LA I decided to blog it. I put up the entire thread at Norms Notes as it was in response to a piece written by Pedro Noguera.(Pedro Noguera Advice for Walcott).

The video has all the pro-charter school people, who packed the place and took all 7 speaker slots, all speaking the same talking point nonsense about diversity. But they just happened to leave out the zip code of the local projects for kids eligible for the charter. You hear the words "cherry picking" more than once. One parent points out he only found out about the meeting 2 hours before as he points to the well-organized charter people who clearly were organized to come out in force. Try watching their faces as people speak.

The Reflective Educator also blogged about it, so head over there to watch the video and comment: Charter Schools, LAUSD, and Equity?

NOTE: Next week will be Harlem Success Academy week at Ed Notes, with telling videos I shot at the District 14 CEC meeting on April 14 and a new piece on the same topic by my co-blogger M.A.B. who was at the meeting with me.

Gardening Glory

I spend a lot of time in the winter months just staring out the window. Just waiting for the sign. The sign of spring. My pals in the garden let me know. A bud here, a little flower there. Once we get into mid March I start making daily visits to my friends.

Yesterday was Mah jong day at my house and I was banished from the kitchen (though I sneaked down every so often to steal some cheese and macaroons. 5 hours of tiles crashing into each other was deafening so I had to get outside.

I had gone to Cosco earlier - practically had lunch eating my way down the aisles - and stopped at the gardening center next door. I can't walk out of these places without buying something. So I did. Some lettuce and some early spring flowering perennials. While planting I realized just how nice the space on my front lawn looks. So I whipped out the Blackberry phone. Not bad pics for a phone. Note my prize weeping red maple. I work very hard on getting that look. But once it blooms out you won't see it again until late November.

If I were to take pics tomorrow they would already look different. In a few weeks there will be no bulbs and other things have to happen to make it look good. It will take some creativity. That is the wonder of gardening. You get a new look almost every day. Just don't ask me to name any of them. I just go around saying "Hi pal."

New DOE Program to Boost Grad Rates: Tweeting for Credit Recovery

There has been a lot of criticism over the credit recovery program where high school students short on credits to graduate can spend a little time copying and pasting from on-line encyclopedias to make up these credits and receive a quickie diploma before entering a remediation program in college.

Despite these tricks, when you take the kids pushed into phony GED programs or into trade schools disguised as legit transfer schools into account, the grad rates haven't budged all that much and may even be dropping. What is needed is a way to help boost the graduation rates and raise the standings of poor Mayor Bloomberg whose poll numbers as the education mayor have been dropping almost as fast as the scandals coming down on his head.

Really, why make the students come into school at all? Why not just let them tweet their way to a high school diploma – in 140 characters. Or less. And if they can do it in less, let's toss in some extra credits for being thrifty.

Tweed jumped at my idea and is even having a contest for the best credit recovery tweets.

Here is the leading tweet candidate so far, worth 3 social studies credits and exemption from the American history regents exam: GWash cut dwn chrry tree, bad boy.

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Social Note

Murry Bergtraum CL John Elfrank sent this wonderful photo. Guess the location and win a front row seat at the April 28 PEP meeting at Prospect Heights HS.

Students Are Not Consumers

.. the fact that Republicans are demanding that we literally stake our health [or education system], even our lives, on an already failed approach [see results of ed deform failure in Chicago, NYC, etc.] is only part of what’s wrong here...there’s something terribly wrong with the whole notion of patients [students] as “consumers” and health care [education]  as simply a financial transaction. 

Paul Krugman


I've been hoping that Paul Krugman would take on the ed deform issue. He has touched on it at times but his focus has been on health care. Today's column (Patients Are Not Consumers) takes on the use of the word "choice" - something we hear at every charter school co-location meeting -every parent and teacher and even young children are given the "choice" talking point.

Just change a few words in these paragraphs and it becomes a column on ed deform (emphasis is mine.)

Earlier this week, The Times reported on Congressional backlash against the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a key part of efforts to rein in health care costs. This backlash was predictable; it is also profoundly irresponsible, as I’ll explain in a minute. 

But something else struck me as I looked at Republican arguments against the board, which hinge on the notion that what we really need to do, as the House budget proposal put it, is to “make government health care programs more responsive to consumer [parent/student] choice.” 

Here’s my question: How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients [parents/students] as “consumers”? The relationship between patient and doctor [student and teacher] used to be considered something special, almost sacred. Now politicians and supposed reformers talk about the act of receiving care [an education] as if it were no different from a commercial transaction, like buying a car — and their only complaint is that it isn’t commercial enough.

What has gone wrong with us?

Nothing has gone wrong with US. Krugman does not tread in areas that might talk about the inevitable evils of a capitalistic system run amuck.

Krugman goes on to talk about choice and vouchers - I won't parse anymore but leave it to you.

Now, what House Republicans propose is that the government simply push the problem of rising health care costs on to seniors; that is, that we replace Medicare with vouchers that can be applied to private insurance, and that we count on seniors and insurance companies to work it out somehow. This, they claim, would be superior to expert review because it would open health care to the wonders of “consumer choice.” 

What’s wrong with this idea (aside from the grossly inadequate value of the proposed vouchers)? One answer is that it wouldn’t work. “Consumer-based” medicine has been a bust everywhere it has been tried. To take the most directly relevant example, Medicare Advantage, which was originally called Medicare + Choice, was supposed to save money; it ended up costing substantially more than traditional Medicare. America has the most “consumer-driven” health care system in the advanced world. It also has by far the highest costs yet provides a quality of care no better than far cheaper systems in other countries.

But the fact that Republicans are demanding that we literally stake our health, even our lives, on an already failed approach is only part of what’s wrong here. As I said earlier, there’s something terribly wrong with the whole notion of patients as “consumers” and health care as simply a financial transaction.

Medical care, after all, is an area in which crucial decisions — life and death decisions — must be made. Yet making such decisions intelligently requires a vast amount of specialized knowledge. Furthermore, those decisions often must be made under conditions in which the patient is incapacitated, under severe stress, or needs action immediately, with no time for discussion, let alone comparison shopping.

That’s why we have medical ethics. That’s why doctors have traditionally both been viewed as something special and been expected to behave according to higher standards than the average professional. There’s a reason we have TV series about heroic doctors, while we don’t have TV series about heroic middle managers.

The idea that all this can be reduced to money — that doctors are just “providers” selling services to health care “consumers” — is, well, sickening. And the prevalence of this kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong not just with this discussion, but with our society’s values.

Do you recognize the word "vouchers"? Charter schools were supposed to be the answer for the privatizers. But that is not enough. Too many restrictions, maybe? Or a little too much scrutiny?

The deal between Obama and the Republicans extended the voucher program in Washington DC and the Indiana Senate just passed the strongest education voucher law in the nation. Want to hear more about how the 20 year voucher program in Milwaukee has failed just read Diane Ravitch - or watch this Ravitch Interview  on Channel 13.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Must See Video: Honduras to New Orleans to New York

Film report from The Nation. Naomi Klein connects the dots -

Special Report: Honduran Teachers get Shock Treatment

Here are some comments from Arjun Janah:

Do watch this video. It's an indication of what's coming next. The workers will be put back in their traditional place, including the teachers. Of course, in many countries, teachers and their students are active in social movements in an organized way. Here, it has been less so.


The current movement, backed by global finance, including the IMF but also private financiers, corporations and their surrogates in government, is to roll back whatever little is left of organized labor, and to increase the opportunities for private profit from what have been public concerns -- such as water supply and education. The movement has its tireless pundits and advocates in the media, and their ideological gurus are the economist Milton Friedman and the visionary Ayn Rand.


Workers are useful only so long as they produce surplus value by their labor. After that, they are utterly discardable, belonging to the class that the elite, by virtue of innate abilities and practiced virtues, is meant to rule. Anything that disturbs this order causes inefficiency and must be eliminated. In particular, any attempt of the working class to act in its collective interest must be crushed, and individual aspirations and achievements celebrated.


Job security, pensions, health benefits, access to higher education that is not necessary for economic productivity, all of these are unnecessary for the working classes. And those who are poor and unproductive are best left to perish. So forget about things like access to clean water and basic necessities for such.


Of course, in more affluent places, the masses are still needed as consumers who will purchase the goods and services that produce the profits. And to pay taxes. So we need to grow or maintain a mindless consumer class that is ever hungry for these goods and services and willing to keep running (at low wages) for these -- including housing.

Arjun

Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman House/School Parties

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman is finally here!

Have a Movie Party and show the film

Get a group of friends and teacher colleagues together to view the Grassroots Education Movement’s newly released movie “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman”. Enjoy refreshments and engage in a discussion about the ongoing attempts to privatize our public education system, why this is happening and what we can do about it.

WIN A PHONE CALL FROM DIANE RAVITCH

Schedule your Movie Party by May 19th and you will automatically be entered into a lottery to win a phone call from Diane Ravitch! Winner will be chosen at the official movie premiere at Riverside Church in Harlem on May 19th, 2011 from 6-10 pm.  This event is free and open to the public.   The evening will include a panel featuring a NYC parent, teacher, and student as well as Dr. Ravitch and a few other prominent education advocates. 

What is the movie about?

A group of New York City public school teachers and parents from the GEM- the Grassroots Education Movement- wrote and directed this documentary in response to the Davis Guggenheim highly misleading film, Waiting for Superman. Waiting for Superman would have audiences believe that free-market competition, standardized tests, destroying teacher unions, and above all, the proliferation of charter schools are just what this country needs to create great public schools.

Our film, the Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman highlights the real-life experiences of public school parents and educators to show how these so-called reforms are actually hurting education. Our film talks about the kinds of real reform – inside schools and in our society as a whole- that we urgently need to genuinely transform education in this country.

View the trailer at       

http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/

DVDs will be mailed out the second week of May.  Order your free copy now by filling out an online form at:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFNLNWtFYy1fSGFLYkYwNXRhTW1wVXc6MQ
 http://gemnyc.org

or email gemnyc@gmail.com for a free copy of the DVD and a Film Party Guide:

Name:                                                Email address:

Phone number:

Mailing Address:

Are you a teacher? Parent? Community Member? Student? Other?

If teacher, where do you work?

Date of Film Party?               Expected number of attendees? 

Check out GEM at: http://gemnyc.org/

Donna Nevel: The Slow Death of Khalil Gibran International Academy

"What does the story of Debbie Almontaser and KGIA tell us? The story is about Islamophobia and racism. But the story is also about a public education system that is accountable to nobody it should be accountable to–not to its students and families, nor to its educators." 

..........

The story of KGIA is yet one more example of the danger of a school system controlled by a mayor with little input from, or respect for, community members, educators, parents, and students. It is yet one more example of a school system that has little regard for the cultures, languages, and histories of the families that make up our schools. It is yet one more example of a school system that makes decisions based on outside interests that don’t grow out of the needs of, or what is in the best interest of, our children, schools, and communities. - Donna Nevel at Gotham Schools

Beyond the specifics of how the DOE killed KGIA, Donna lays out a powerful case for why mayoral control must end. (Donna doesn't go there but Randi Weingarten also played a negative role in calling for Debbie Almontaser's removal.) And then there is our new weaselly chancellor Dennis Walcott:

In August 2007, New York City’s then Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott called Debbie Almontaser, then the acting principal of KGIA, into his office to tell her that Mayor Michael Bloomberg had lost confidence in her and wanted her to resign from her post. But that wasn’t all. Walcott also told her that the mayor wanted the resignation immediately because he intended to announce it on his radio show the next day. She was told that if she did not resign, KGIA would be closed. Knowing how much the school meant to the Arab community and to so many others, Almontaser submitted her resignation.

She brought suit soon after, charging that the city and the DOE had discriminated against her by bowing to anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry in demanding her resignation. In March 2010, the federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission upheld Almontaser’s charge of discrimination. It ruled that, in demanding her resignation, the DOE “succumbed to the very bias that the creation of the school was intended to dispel, and a small segment of the public succeeded in imposing its prejudices on the DOE as an employer.”

 Nice work Dennis as you demonstrate your major qualification for the job of Chancellor in the Bloomberg administration: the art of using threats, intimidation, discrimination, bullying tactics. A perfect hit man - albeit with a smile - for the times.

Brooklyn Teacher Reacts to Teacher Data Report in Letter to UFT Leader Mulgrew

...were teachers to be rewarded for their classroom's performance on the state test or alternatively, sanctioned for low performance many of these teachers would have demonstrated quite different results on a low-stakes test of the same subject.  Importantly, these differences need not be due to real differences in long-run skill acquisition…

Teacher effectiveness on high- and low-stakes tests - Corcoran/Jennings/Beveridge

I won't make any comments at this time as to whether Lynda's plea to Mulgrew will have an impact given that the UFT record on making a stand on these reports has not been good. But the letter is very powerful and illustrates the folly of flawed teacher ratings systems as indicated in the Corcoran/Jennings/Beveridge report from which the above quote comes - see more below Lynda's letter. Lynda touches on all the evils of data mania – of teachers abandoning testing grades and teaching solely to the test while ignoring some of the most important elements of a good education.

Also check out Jose Vilson.

From Lynda Costagliola, PS 3 Brooklyn

Dear Mr. Mulgrew,


I am a veteran public school teacher of 33 years and have taught a variety of subject areas and grades during my tenure. I began as a middle school special education teacher and am currently a licensed teacher for the Gifted and Talented Program, grade 5 . I have an exemplary record and have contributed in a positive way to many, many students most of whom I still keep in contact via that technological wonder, Facebook!

I received my Teacher Data Report on Wednesday, April 13 and was demoralized beyond words. I was rated an "average" teacher in both E.L.A. and Math and "below average" in one area of the math. I sat and stared at the computer screen reading through tears of frustration insisting that someone made a terrible mistake. I am NOT "an average/below average" teacher!


In June of each school year, parents line up outside my principal's office begging to have their children in my class. If I was such an "average/below average" teacher, why would parents do that? Over the years many of my fifth grade students have been accepted into such prestigious middle schools as DeLaSalle Academy, Medgar Evers Prep School, Mark Twain Middle School for the Gifted and Talented, Philippa Schulyer Middle School and the Prep for Prep Program. I prepare all my students to take these entrance exams as well as introduce them to the interview process. I don't think an "average/below average" teacher's students would be able to pass such rigorous entrance exams.


My principal told me to rip up my Teacher Data Report as she does not give it any merit, especially in my case. As a teacher of the Gifted and Talented, many of my students enter my class with perfect E.L.A. and Math scores. Where can I move them? What if my principal leaves and I am at the mercy of some Tweed Operative who only deals with statistics?


I hope my Union, one that I have supported and believed in since the days of Albert Shanker, will alert the public to the offensive nature and inaccuracies of these Reports. Fight their release and get rid of them! My livelihood is being challenged on the basis of two exams, which are administered over four days. Three hours of testing can measure a teacher's worth?


My evenings and weekends are consumed with paperwork. My preps? My lunch periods? I coach the Oratory Team and am the coordinating teacher for The Stock Market Game. I also coordinate many of the senior activities at my school. Should I give this all up and focus on test-taking? Teaching in Brooklyn certainly has it advantages. I have taken my class on many school trips to concerts, plays, museums and art galleries, all related to various areas of the curriculum. Should I stop and just focus on test-taking activities? Should I stop molding my students into becoming well-rounded young men and women and just focus on test-taking skills? If the answer is yes, then I fear I may have to retire.


Please Mr. Mulgrew. Get the word out that Teacher Data Reports are flawed, inaccurate and do not measure the worth of a competent, motivated teacher. These Teacher Data Reports do not take into account students who have to overcome incredible obstacles just to make it to class every day. What about students who, through no fault of their own, arrive at school late, hungry and unprepared? A teacher can only do such much in the course of a day, a week, a month and a school year. Many of my colleagues are reconsidering teaching the testing grades and are applying for lower grade positions or out of classroom positions.


I do not deserve such abuse. I have dedicated my life to the children who have passed through my classroom door. Please help me.


Lynda Costagliola, PS 3 Brooklyn

AFTERBURN

Teacher effectiveness on high- and low-stakes tests_

Sean P. Corcoran

Jennifer L. Jennings

New York University

Andrew A. Beveridge

Queens College/CUNY

April 10, 2011

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sc129/papers/corcoran_jennings_beveridge_2011_wkg_teacher_effects.pdf

This study finds that teacher effects are 15-31% larger on high stakes tests than low stakes tests, that the value-added results of the same teacher on the two types of tests are only weakly correlated, that teaching experience matters more over a longer period of time in terms results on the low-stakes tests, and that teacher effects on high-stakes test decay at a faster rate.

We find that only 46% of teachers in the top quintile of effectiveness on the TAAS/TAKS reading test [high-stakes test] appear in the top quintile on the SAT [low stakes] reading test. More than 15% of these are in the bottom two quintiles on the SAT. The same asymmetry is observed for the bottom quintile of TAAS/TAKS teachers.

Here only 48% of bottom quintile reading teachers also appear in the bottom quintile of the SAT. One in eight (13%) ranked in the top two quintiles according to the SAT. A similar pattern is observed in math, though the quintile rankings are a bit more consistent than in reading…

To summarize, were teachers to be rewarded for their classroom's performance on the state test or alternatively, sanctioned for low performance many of these teachers would have demonstrated quite different results on a low-stakes test of the same subject.  Importantly, these differences need not be due to real differences in long-run skill acquisition…

In terms of experience level, there appears to be positive returns for up to 21 years of teaching experience in low-stakes math exams (as opposed to high-stakes exams, where the value of experience levels off sooner): “If anything, teachers with 21 or more years of experience have the greatest differential over novices (at 0.131 s.d.).”

For reading, there are gains for 16-20 years of experience (though these graphs only go up to 11 years).

Very interesting paper and one well worth reading for all sorts of implications on ed policy. A good corrective to the highly misleading paper put out  by Gates on the same subject. -- Leonie Haimson

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Education Deformers Ignore "The Street"

The NY Times story of a student who was everyone's favorite - teachers, parents, church - and ended up in an exclusive out of town prep school- holds some lessons for all.

Now this is one anecdotal case where the student was arrested for being connected to drug and gangs. But over the years there have been a number of them. In some cases it is an innocent kid coming back to the neighborhood and being cut down in intentional or accidental violence. For those of us who taught for a long time in one school there have always been these heartbreaking stories.

I remember one of my kids in the 1975 top class - his name was Benjamin. He had a older brother in hie late teens or early 20's named Michael who was a real role model - I think he might have gone to a prep for prep. I don't remember if it was that year or a few years later but one night he went to a party, left the party and was never seen again. Benjy's dad was naturally devastated and I think the search went on for a long time but don't remember it ever being resolved. I have visions of that dad's face as I write this.

I've often written about my former student Ernie Silva's coming of age one man play and how even bright, academically successful students have to battle the street.

So when I get hot about the ed deform agenda that pushes the idea that all we need to do is get rid of the bad teachers we will go a long way to solving the problems. One could make the case that all we need to do is get rid of the bad cops - I mean if there is street crime and drugs it must be the fault of the cop on the beat, right? Or maybe get rid of the worst social workers who don't seem to be able to stop the street from getting so many kids. And I'll venture into the health field - the bad medical people who "allow" a higher degree of sickness amongst poor people. Did you see that one third of patients in hospitals get something bad happen to them while there and how there were screams they were not allowed to adjust for risk factors of the patients?

I guess I get particularly perturbed by E4E types - led by 2 or 3 year teachers - who put their energies into the kind of activities that have minuscule if any impact on the kids while proclaiming to care about kids. But they ignore the street. But of course the people backing them are purposely ignoring the street as a factor. But that is where the buck to open an office and hire staff to do no good works lie.

I was sufficiently worked up about these activities to put together a leaflet which I can send to anyone who is facing an E4E invasion of their school.

How Educators 4 Excellence Puts Children Last and Adults First

If you were a 3rd year teacher given funding by some very rich people and organizations to leave your full-time teaching job to set up an organization to ostensibly fight for the interests of children, what issues would you put at the top of your list to fight for? Given the immense problems we face in the schools, exacerbated by a decade of control of the NYC school system in the hands of one person - a billionaire mayor who makes major decisions without consulting anyone and who makes his disdain for professionally trained educators clear - which issues would you choose to put your efforts into:

Would you make the focus of your activities ending the last in first out policy in case there are layoffs (which in the entire 110 year history of the NYC school system has occurred only 2 or 3 times)? Layoffs that look extremely unlikely no matter how much the mayor blusters given the fact that there is a budget surplus? Can your school be managed effectively if there are 6000 less teachers and enormous class sizes?

So instead of joining others in fighting against the blatant use of children for political reasons by the mayor, E4E chooses to partner with the mayor in an assault on children and teachers. But then again, E4E has been funded by billionaires who have an agenda:

·       An agenda that disparages lower class sizes.

·       An agenda that promotes merit pay schemes that every bit of research shows actually lowers achievement while distorting education into a narrow test-driven.

·       An agenda that pushes charter schools while attacking the public schools you work in.

An agenda that puts adult self interests, not children, first.

If E4E was really interested in improving the lives of children they would be out there fighting to improve social services to protect abused children and the poor medical services so many of our children receive.  Has E4E attacked the enormous wastes in the DOE: non-bid contracts, ARIS, semi-useless networks, an expanding Tweed bureaucracy, enormous costs associated with assessment, the enormous paperwork burdens being put on you as teachers that have nothing to do with children? Not a peep from E4E!

But this is not the agenda that E4E's billionaire backers are interested in.

They are also not interested Real Reforms that would actually work in the interests of children:

·       Smaller Class Sizes

·       Excellent Community Public Schools for ALL Children

·       More Teaching – Less Testing

·       Parent and Teacher Empowerment and Leadership

·       Equitable Funding for ALL Schools

·       Anti-Racist Education Policies

·       Culturally Relevant Curriculum

·       Expand Pre Kindergarten and Early Intervention Programs

·       Qualified and Experienced Educators and Educational Leaders

These are the Real Reforms that we in the Grassroots Education Movement, a group dedicated to fighting for the interests and rights of children, parents AND teachers and defending public education. Come join us as we also fight for a social justice oriented union.

http://gemnyc.org/ Email us at: gemnyc@gmail.com

Also come see our response to the film "Waiting for Superman" also funded by billionaires. It is called "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" and will be premiering in May. This film has no funding and was made by educators in NYC schools working in NYC schools. We will be making DVDs available for showing in school and house parties. Check our blog for the premiere.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits. Recent posts:

• Michael Winerip: In Public School Efforts, a Commo...
• Computer-based tests to measure the newly-develope...
• Breaking News: NYS Education Tenure Laws Shake Dow...
• Insanity in Kansas City
• The Myth of the “Crappy Teacher”
• Troubles at Omni Prep charter school

There's an April Brizard Hitting Chicago

When news reports surfaced late last year about his wife angling for a role in the all-girls charter school, Superintendent Brizard said he was trying to keep the media off of the story until the charter application was in. Brizard's new boss, Rahm Emanuel, successfully did the same thing by keeping media questioners at bay.  -

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&id=8080428&rss=rss-wls-article-8080428

Chicago, Chicago - the birth of mayoral control and vicious ed deform - still not getting it right after 16 years. Vallas, Duncan, Huberman, Brizard - what a lineup.

Lots of Brizard stuff - Rahm bringing him in to stand up to Karen Lewis and CORE. What a laugh. He will however last longer than Cathie Black - but hey, isn't she from Chicago? Now that she has some ed experience why wasn't she a candidate?

Brizard is another Broad Acad grad. (Scroll down sidebar for Sharon Higgins' list of failed Broad Acads.)

Ed Notes has done some Brizard stuff in the past:

From Ttilden HS teacher john lawhead

"jean-claude brizard in a letter to parents of december 12 the major problem was that tilden was “not on track” to meet the city's goal of “raising the city-wide 4-year graduation rate to 70% and the 6-year graduation rate to 80"

Education Notes: John-Claude Brizard in line to become Rochester ...

Nov 24, 2007

He basically pegs Brizard as a Klein flunkie. What is the real story on Brizard? He gets appointed on Thursday and then there is no turning back. http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? ...

My friend Bill Cala (who should be NY State Ed Commissioner AND Chancellor) preceded Brizard in Rochester as Superintendent. He had this to say about Brizard's claims he raised grad rates - from Substance:

Brizard’s claim has even been called into question by his predecessor, former Interim Superintendent of the Rochester schools, Dr. William Cala.
Here’s what Dr. Cala had to say about the graduation rates, in a series of e-mails with Brizard which were obtained by a Rochester reporter using the Freedom of Information Act: "Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. Brizard had nothing to do with a 12 point graduation increase. Here are the facts. In 2007 the graduation results were announced by SED for 2006 graduates at 39%. In 2008 the results for the 2007 year were announced at 51%. 2008 was Brizard’s first year. The 12% increase came before he stepped in the door. The real facts are that graduation rates dipped below 51% during his tenure, thus actually losing ground.

More on the story at Substance.

Here (http://bit.ly/dHP3kB) is a good year by year summary of articles related to Brizard from his tenure in Rochester. I know a few goodies from his time here but he was bumped around a lot because he was not on a fast track - I think he kept going down in the pecking order - Klein passed the lemon in this case.

Just some of the titles should stimulate some debate. Here are a few favorites:

RCSD School Officials in Vegas During Testing, Layoffs
RCSD Board to Question Brizard’s Raise
Brizard Hires $100,000-a-Year, Part-Time Special Assistant
Principals Told to Cut Art, Music, Phys EdRCSD Staff Stayed at Luxury Resort During Budget Crisis
Brizard Said He Didn't Give Raises to Top Staff, but He Did
State Test Scores Plummet, Erasing Gains
Brizard Spinning Graduation Data
EEOC Finds Brizard Discriminated Against Official
Staff Survey Finds Little Support for Brizard
Fact-Checking Brizard on Cabinet Spending
State: Only 5% of RCSD Grads Ready for College

Looks like the right guy for Rahm.

Seung Ok on Social Promotion

If there is a grey area involving a medical decision, I would hope that  a specialist in that field makes it.  So if a teacher who knows their students and knows the curriculum, makes a decision to pass on a struggling student - devoid of outside pressure - I'm okay with it.--- Seung Ok

 
It was so good to hear from Seung Ok, one of the early members of GEM, who has been busy at his new school. As usual, Seung drills deep - this time on social promotion. And note the comments he inspired, especially from Deb Meier.

When he says, "Have I ever socially promoted a child? Sure I have," I am in agreement, having done the same. The Ed Deformer policy of trying to "automate" such a delicate process - part of the litany of taking basic ed decisions out of the hands of teachers - is idiocy. But it also works both ways for ed deformers. When it comes time to pump the grad rates so they look good politically, they also take the decisions out of the hands of teachers by using gimmicks to socially promote kids.

Seung gets to the heart of it: Who is making the basic decision?  I had a battle with a new principal in 1978, a woman who had taught for 6 months, who took the decisions on promotion out of our hands. She wanted to hold as many kids back as early in the grades as possible so that when they took the tests in future years they would always be a year early (brilliant woman). So it is not just ed deformers. But she was data driven, hoping to use it to move her career, so she interdicted our decisions in order to create a system that manipulated the data. She turned our school into her own high stakes school decades before the ed deformers. I immediately saw the evils personified in our little den (it took another 6 years but this change was what led to my leaving the self-contained classroom - the infantry of teaching). One day I'll share a few stories on how I used to beat her system - I have to check if the statue of limitations has run out.

Like the ed deformers, she didn't really give a rat's ass as to what kids really were learning. She could be the mother of ed deform.

In today's world, if we want to get to the essence of ed deform, whether you talk Cathie Black/Dennis Walcott, the business types at Tweed, Teach for America, it comes down to not trusting professional educators but instead placing blame for past system failures on them.

Posted to NYCEdNews listserve by Seung Ok:

In Frank McCourt's humorous passage, he describes how a group of high school teachers creatively added points to a student's score to help him obtain a 65 on the NY state English exam. He was describing an event that occurred back in the 1970's. This may me think of the key differences between the social promotion that had occurred in the old days compared to the state sanctioned promotion encouraged by education reform ala Mayor Bloomberg and NCLB.  

When I first came into teaching, and during the era of Frank McCourt's career, there was a choice of 2 high school degrees.  A student could  opt for the Regent's diploma ( by passing all the state mandated tests) or the non -regents diploma (which just required passing the classes offered by the school).  Obviously, top colleges looked to the regents diploma for their selection criteria.

Combine this with the fact that in 2002 - when the United States still led all countries in the number of those obtainment of college degrees- the US census reported that only 27 % of all Americans held a bachelor's degree.  Specifically for whites alone, the rate was 37%. 

So, the majority of house owning families in suburban areas like long island lived self supporting and productive lives as small business owners, civil servants, plumbers and whatnot - without a college degree. The myth that college is the only route to success is repeated so often that it is accepted as doctrine.

Have I ever socially promoted a child? Sure I have.  I passed struggling students who have taken the same course multiple times, and obtained a 55 average instead of the 65 minimum standard for proficiency.  However, I can recall many more times that I have  failed a student who performed a 55 average, but had the potential be be an 80 student - but lacked the motivation and work ethic to perform in class.  The key criteria I used in making the decision, was whether that student would be helped by taking the class over again.  

The main difference in the social promotion of old and what is occurring today - is centered on who makes that decision.  If there is a grey area involving a medical decision, I would hope that  a specialist in that field makes it.  So if a teacher who knows their students and knows the curriculum, makes a decision to pass on a struggling student - devoid of outside pressure - I'm okay with it. It is similar to the decisions of a jury of our peers who have to dispense justice- even though it is an imperfect system. 

However, the social promotion policies of today derive not from educators but politicians and corporate ideologues who believe they know more than those specialists working in the schools. It is a one size fits all approach that brings social promotion to a massive and uniform scale with dumbed down tests and punitive pressures for schools with many high needs students.

Frank McCourt's description of teachers helping to artificially boost up a student's scores in a state test was indeed humorous, mainly because the consequences was not high stakes.  In other words, the graduation of that student , the closure of that school, and the livelihood of the teachers were not dependent on the that student passing the state exam. 

And there is a difference when that scale for "helping" students slides down from those that earn a 55 to 50 to 45 to 40 to 35.  It is a lot like comparing the speed limit posted on the highways and the actual speed most of us drive.  The exponential increase in risk in driving 10 miles over the limit than say 20 is stark - and it is society who will take the burden of that risk.

Dangers always arise when simple solutions are offered for complex systems and problems.  The focus on high stakes testing and evaluation is one such example.  We may argue that the particular child in Mr. McCourt's passage may never become a surgeon or engineer, but the institutionalized promotion happening in all the grades today - which are promoted by the likes of Mayor Bloomberg - are destroying the drives of those otherwise destined to become the surgeons and engineers of tomorrow. 

Seung Ok

Comments on Seung's piece

Ed Deform Hypocrisy: Class Size - share with your anti-teacher Seda Relatives, Tchr Eval at Schools they pick for their kids, and Brizzard Resigning Today in Rochester

UPDATE:

Poor Chicago parents, teachers and kids! 

Brizard received a nearly unanimous no-confidence vote among Rochester folks. 

For more on how his policies have been deeply unpopular among Rochester stakeholders, see

http://communityeducationtaskforce.rocus.org/?p=162

Eli Broad and Joel Klein have a lot to answer for!

Rahm Emanuel to name new Chicago schools chief

By KIM JANSSEN Staff Reporter / kjanssen@suntimes.com Apr 18, 2011 11:13AM
Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel plans to name Rochester Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard (right) to be the Chicago Public Schools CEO. He'll replace Ron Huberman, who resigned last year.
Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel plans to name the man in charge of schools in Rochester, N.Y., to head Chicago’s public schools, The Associated Press is reporting.
Jean-Claude Brizard — who has headed the 32,000-student Rochester City School District since 2008 — was with Emanuel Monday awaiting the start of a news conference at Kelly High School on the Southwest Side.
Brizard signed a three-year contract there in February paying $235,000 a year but has clashed with the teachers union there.
Previously, he taught and worked as an administrator in New York City’s schools.
Brizard replaces Ron Huberman, who resigned last year. Since then, Terry Mazany has served as interim schools chief.

---------------

Lots of stuff coming in. Leonie has a piece you should share on class size. Then there is the hypocritic oath taken by ed deforms :

I shall not send my own child to a school where teachers are evaluated based on test scores or where there are few senior/experienced teachers, or with high class sizes, or where my child must spend the day doing test prep, or where the school has a KIPP like discipline program.

From Leonie:
The education Deformers like to say that class size does NOT matter, only teacher "quality". That is why we must pay and fire teachers based on test scores. Read below a report from Leonie Haimson of Class size Matters that counters the education "deformers".


Last week, the Center for American Progress released a report by Matthew Chingos, who previously wrote a highly-flawed critique of Florida’s class size reduction program. (See my recent debate with Chingos on CNN.)

CAP has put out a series of crude reports posing as educational research, but this must be one of the least impressive. Despite its title, “The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction,” lowering class size is only one of K-12 four reforms that, according to the Institute of Education Sciences, have been proven to work through rigorous evidence.

In this report, Chingos falsely claims that that the benefits of smaller classes, as shown by the Tennessee STAR studies, faded out over time:

“The bump in test scores after one year would be impressive if it didn’t erode over time despite the continued use of small classes.”

Actually, follow up studies by Jeremy Finn reveal that students who were randomly assigned smaller classes in the early grades had significantly higher graduation and college-going rates. The gains were especially impressive for low-income students:

“For all students combined, 4 years in a small class in K–3 were associated with a significant increase in the likelihood of graduating from high school; the odds of graduating after having attended small classes for 4 years were increased by about 80.0%. Furthermore, the impact of attending a small class was especially noteworthy for students from low-income homes. Three years or more of small classes affected the graduation rates of low- SES students, increasing the odds of graduating by about 67.0% for 3 years and more than doubling the odds for 4 years.”

The report continues:

http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2011/04/more-clap-trap-from-cap-on-class-size-reduction

Combined w/ Winerip story tells a very sad story.

Teacher evaluations at the schools that Obama, Duncan picked for their kids

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/teacher-evaluations-at-the-schools-that-obama-duncan-picked-for-their-kids/2011/04/15/AF1S1cwD_story.html

By Valerie Strauss, Sunday, April 17, 10:35 PM

Bill Schechter taught history for 35 years at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Sudbury, Mass. Now retired from the classroom, he supervises the student-teacher practicums of students earning master’s degrees in teaching at a local university. He is also a volunteer tutor at a Boston public school.

•  

A question occurred to Schechter recently when he was preparing testimony to give before the Massachusetts Board of Education, which will soon hold hearings on whether to base teacher evaluations on students’ standardized test scores — and if so, to what extent.

The question was: How do the schools serving the children of President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan handle this important school reform issue? He decided to find out.

The issue of linking a teacher’s salary and pay to how well students do on a standardized test has come to dominate the national education debate.

With the Obama administration’s support, more states are passing laws to connect teacher pay and test scores, even though experts on assessment say it is a bad idea.

The tests being used today were not designed to evaluate teachers (and they don’t do a good job of assessing students, either).

Furthermore, everybody who has ever taken a test understands that there are numerous factors that can affect how well someone does that have nothing to do with the teacher; kids who go to school hungry or tired or mentally ill or sick or anxious aren’t likely to do well, even if the teacher is to the teaching profession what Einstein was to physics.

Knowing that the Obama administration’s policies support linking teacher pay with test scores, Schechter wondered what Sidwell Friends School, the private Quaker school in Washington where Obama’s two children are enrolled, does regarding teacher pay-for-performance.

Schechter wondered the same about the Arlington County public school system, where Duncan’s children attend school.

This is part of what Schechter wrote to me:

“What did the president and the secretary seek and obtain for their own kids, where the important issue of teacher evaluation was concerned? The answers recently arrived in two e-mails:

“Arlington school district teacher, March 31, 2011: ‘We do not tie teacher evaluations to scores in the Arlington public school system.’

“Sidwell Friends faculty member, April 1, 2011:

“ ‘We don’t tie teacher pay to test scores because we don’t believe them to be a reliable indicator of teacher effectiveness.’ ”

straussv@washpost.com

Is he going elsewhere, say Chicago?  Hope not for their sake.

Jean-Claude Brizard expected to announce resignation today

9:38 AM, Apr. 18, 2011  |  

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110418/NEWS01/110418008/Jean-Claude-Brizard-expected-announce-resignation-today?odyssey=nav|head

Purchase Image

Rochester City School District Superintendant Jean-Claude Brizard talks with the media recently about raising graduation standards. / JAMIE GERMANO staff photographer

Written by

Tiffany Lankes
Staff writer

School board President Malik Evans said this morning that Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard will likely announce his resignation this afternoon.
Evans said the board planned to meet in executive session to discuss its legal options regarding his contract and then hold a press conference.
Evans said he did not know where Brizard is planning to go.
School board members said last week that they had not been able to reach Brizard for several days amid rumors that he may be considering a job in another district.
Check back for more details as they become available.

Washington TU protest at WAPO - LInks to Kaplan Test Prep and Virtual Schools Push as Critical Blog Post is Rejected by WAPO

Updated, Monday, April 18, 10AM- This blog keeps changing every 10 minutes, so check it out again even if you read it.

mport84 Comment

The Post editorial board is not entirely separate and independent of Kaplan. Furthermore, Kaplan Educational Services in involved in something far more troubling than even their higher-education frauds. I will explain.  

In October, at Jay Mathews invitation, I wrote a guest blog for his Washington Post education column, Class Matters. I discussed Kaplan's stealthy expansion of its tax-funded, public K-12 for-profit virtual charter schools. I was concerned that the Kaplan website appeared to be hiding these ventures from the local communities whose education budgets are paying for them. Judge for yourself:  http://www.kaplanonlineschools.com/district/soluti...  

Mathews says his editors refused permission for him to print the blog, saying they would handle the Kaplan matter themselves. Ask him. Is that editorial independence?

I was contacted by teacher/blogger mport84 about the link between the protest at WAPO and their parent company, Kaplan Industries. I'm updating this post with information sent to me by mport84.

(There have been some calls from teachers to protest Murdoch's NY Post but other than Gotham Schools most people don't take the Post too seriously. WAPO is different with more of a NY Times-like rep.)

To be fair: It's not all one-sided at WAPO. They have ed deformer Jay Matthews balanced by the fabulous Valerie Strauss and good reporting from Bill Turque.

The WTU did mention the Washington Post's distorted and pro-ed deform policy to their ownership by testing and test prep giant Kaplan which makes so much profit from ed deform. Kaplan's new push is for virtual schools where the kids will never leave their house - think of it - no messy school building, or teacher salaries - all costs go directly into the hands of corps - see why Joel Klein pushed the idea and then left to join Rupert to get some of that business - reason enough for him to have fulfilled my failed prediction (so far) that one day he would be taken out of Tweed in cuffs. Mport84 also touched base with WTU President Nathan Saunders:

I spoke to Saunders, who said that while there was no direct connection between Kaplan and the DC public schools, Kaplan was part of a “testing culture” that had permeated the public school system, ruining the educational experience for both students and teachers."

Here are a bunch of reports on the protest. The first one is WAPO's own coverage:

Teachers’ union protests Post editorial board

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/teachers-union-protests-post-editorial-board/2011/04/15/AFVFJ2kD_story.html

 

"The D.C. teachers union staged a rally outside The Washington Post on Friday alleging that the paper’s editorial positions are influenced by Kaplan, the for-profit educational services division owned by The Post Co.

 

Dozens of teachers clad in red chanted “Down with The Post lies” during the midday protest. Union activists parked a giant inflatable rat near the entrance to The Post’s headquarters at 15th and L streets in Northwest Washington.

 

“Absent Kaplan, The Post would be out of business,” Washington Teachers’ Union President Nathan Saunders said. Saunders said The Post’s editorial board stakes out positions that are in keeping with the general business aims of Kaplan, which offers a range of services, including degree programs and standardized test preparation. Saunders pointed to a Post editorial supporting IMPACT, the D.C. teacher evaluation system, which is partly based on students’ performance on standardized tests. Kris Coratti, The Post’s communications director, said Kaplan is not involved in The Post’s editorial decision-making."

 Now one from Politico:  On Media: Teachers union protests Washington

http://www.politico.com/blogs/onmedia/0411/Teachers_union_protests_Washington_Post.html

 

"But the greater oddity is connecting Kaplan to the kinds of editorials that the teachers union was upset about – in this case, supporting the controversial teacher evaluation system that was former DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s signature initiative. The former is primarily about higher education, the latter about K-12. Kaplan does also run a test-prep business that might mingle with the interest of DC public schools, but not in any fundamental way that is worth waging a policy battle about.

Blogger mport84 left the comment that leads this piece. Here are reports from themail which includes WTU VP Candi Peterson's report of the rally.

The Washington Teachers Union held a protest against the editorial board of The Washington Post on Friday, and the protest was much larger than either of the DC statehood protests that got much more publicity. So, if you haven't heard about it, read Candi Peterson's article below.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############

WTU Protests the Washington Post
Candi Peterson, saveourcounselors@gmail.com
Approximately three hundred teachers, school personnel, city workers, union and community members protested outside The Washington Post building on Friday, April 15. This day was selected because it coincided with a day-off furlough for DC Public Schools employees and DC government workers. The protest was organized by the Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) against the Post due to their biased reporting that consistently vilifies DC public school teachers and fails to include more balanced reporting of the obstacles teachers face in a mostly urban school district. According to WTU President, Nathan Saunders: "You've got to understand that the Washington Post has been vicious against, not just teachers unions, but the Washington Teachers' Union in particular, for the last three or four years," he said. "And everything that the former chancellor, Michelle Rhee, has done in the district, they have embraced wholeheartedly at the expense of working teachers.

In the words of Reflective Educator blogger, a former DC teacher: "Why is the Washington Post such an awful place for citizens to get information about what's really going on with education in the District?" We have to ponder why did it take USA Today newspaper's investigative journalists, Jack Gillum and Marisol Bello to cover the story, "When Standardized Test Scores Soared in DC, Were The Gains Real?" Another reason for Friday's protest was to call attention to the Washington Post's relationship with Kaplan Testing Company, which accounts for the majority of their revenue. It is the Washington Teachers' Union position that the Post fails to adequately cover education reform from all vantage points, fails to print letters to the editor from education stakeholders, colors their editorial viewpoint, and heaped undeserved praise on former Chancellor Michelle Rhee during her term in DCPS, despite her many transgressions.

At the protest, teachers carried signs that read: "Cancel your Washington Post subscription today" and "We'll stop buying until you stop lying" while singing chants, as a big inflatable union rat loomed large in front of the Post. Speakers included other union leaders, including Jos Williams, President of Washington, DC Metro Labor Council; Bill Simon, Former WTU President; AFSCME representative, Caneisha Mills; AFGE representative, Johnny Walker; Vincent Orange, At-Large City Council candidate; Robert Brannum, President of the DC Federation of Civic Associations; Jerome Brocks, a now-retired activist teacher; and Sheila Gill, a wrongfully terminated school counselor; and a host of others, with closing remarks given by Reverend Grayland Hagler, who encouraged protesters to march in solidarity around the K street corridor. All in all, it was a beautiful day and just the start of actions planned by the Washington Teachers Union which will seek to build momentum and convince our government and the mayor of the need to provide adequate funding for public education.

MPort84 also sent this info along:

Here are some quotes from Kaplan website extolling virtual schools:

“IMAGINE REACHING EVERY CHILD, EVEN IF SHE NEVER WALKS THROUGH THE DOOR....PROGRAM SOLUTION: DISTRICT-LABEL VIRTUAL SCHOOL”

Kaplan created public school programs to address the needs of districts seeking a partner....Districts can also open an intact virtual school that has the look and feel of the district and not that of Kaplan.

Districts can accommodate students who cannot be served by a traditional brick and mortar school, thus keeping them in-district and capturing per-pupil funding. Plus, a dedicated Account Manager will work as a district partner to deliver results.”

http://www.kaplanonlineschools.com/district/solutions

There is a great need to discuss the actual educational consequences of the profit-driven drive to curtail brick-and-mortar and flesh-and-blood education in favor of virtual products.  

 

Others have voiced genuine reservations, especially considering the horrific record of the for-profit online college mills.  Here is a respected columnist from Forbes, E.D. Kain:  “The Next Step in Scott Walker’s Corporate Education Reform Agenda: Diploma Mills”

 

“But a virtual school does not fully replicate an actual classroom, and even if it did, we should be deeply troubled by the funneling of public education dollars into the coffers of for-profit businesses with very dubious transparency and even more dubious results.”

http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/03/23/the-next-step-in-scott-walkers-corporate-education-reform-agenda-diploma-mills/