Monthly Archives: October 2014

On October 4, 2014, I wrote a post in which I considered numerous actions undertaken by American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten over the years, particularly in relation to billionaire corporate reform philanthropist Eli Broad, either via Weingarten’s direct interactions with Broad or in keeping with his publicized privatization agenda.

My finding was that Weingarten behaves as a matter of course like one actively promoting the education privatization agenda.

My post includes 16 incidents in which Weingarten either promotes the corporate reform agenda or gives her support (either overtly or covertly) to others who do so.

All 16 incidents represent actions that are in line with the Broad Foundation agenda. (For a sense of Broad’s priorities, consider Broad’s investments.)

I wrote the post for the same reason I write all of my posts exposing corporate reform: To heighten public awareness since awareness is the necessary precursor to…

The National Education Policy Center produces a valuable series reviewing think tank reports. In this latest one, Professor Francesca Lopez of the University of Arizona takes a close look at a meta-analysis of charter school studies published by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. It is useful to know that the Center is a leading proponent of charter schools. What would be truly shocking would be if they published a review critical of charter schools.

Here is a summary of Professor Lopez’s findings, as well as links to the original report and her review.

“The report was published in August by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. The report, by Julian R. Betts and Y. Emily Tang, draws on data from 52 studies to conclude that charters benefited students, particularly in math.

“This conclusion is overstated,” writes López in…

When is cheating not cheating? When it happens in a charter school whose owner is politically powerful. When it threatens the very foundations of test-based accountability, the foundation of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.

The story begins:

“The odds that 11th-graders at Strawberry Mansion High School would have randomly erased so many wrong answers on the math portion of their 2009 state standardized test and then filled in so many right ones were long. Very, very long. To be precise, they were less than one in a duodecillion, according to an erasure analysis performed for the state Department of Education.

“In short, there appeared to be cheating — and it didn’t come as a total surprise. In 2006, student members of Youth United for Change protested being forced out of class for test-preparation sessions and won…

This is a post about two individuals whose actions contribute to the privatization of American public education: billionaire Eli Broad and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten.

Weingarten is working in tandem with corporate-driven “reform.” I wish it were not so. However, the evidence of Weingarten’s pro-privatization bent is profound.

This post focuses chiefly on Weingarten and Broad.

It is a long one.

UFT/AFT and the Simulated “Company Union”

What led to this post was my recent reading about billionaire Eli Broad, who spends his foundation’s money in order to turn public education into a continuous churn of profit-driven chaos.

In writing A Chronicle of Echoes, I learned that Weingarten is a favorite of Broad. It was then-New York City Chancellor Joel Klein (also a privatizer) who was writing as much to NYC charter vixen Eva Moskowitz. (See page 32 of Echoes.) Weingarten was president…

Chris in Florida describes here his attempt to introduce “close reading” as required by the Common Core. No one who wrote the Common Core ever taught elementary school. Yet they have imposed the Néw Criticism on young children who don’t yet know how to read.

Chris writes:

“Yep. I’m forced to test my 1st graders on tests where they are expected to do a close reading of a passage and answer complex, text-evidenced questions all because of David Coleman and CCSS.

“It is ridiculous. In that wonderful 1st grade way of creating one’s own reality many of my children WHO CAN’T READ YET simply select random answers, smile, and move on to something far more developmentally appropriate and fun.

“This idiocy is obvious even to 6-year olds. One said to me yesterday: “Teacher, why do they think I can answer those questions when I can’t read yet and they won’t…

The Gates-funded poll called “Primary Sources” shows that teachers are souring on the Common Core. The report is co-sponsored annually by Gates and publisher Scholastic.

Emmanuel Felton of the HECHINGER Report writes:

“Fewer teachers are enthusiastic about Common Core implementation and fewer think the new standards will help their students, according to a survey sponsored by education publisher Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“The percentage of teachers who are enthusiastic about Common Core – a set of academic guidelines in math and English that more than 40 states have adopted – is down from 73 percent last year to 68 this year, according to a poll of 1,600 teachers across the country. And while more teachers continue to believe that the standards will help not hurt their students – 48 percent compared to 17 percent – the percentage of teachers in the survey who think the…

The new organization called Democrats for Public Education commissioned a poll, and it brought good news, reported here by Politico.com:

NEW POLL DATA BUOYS PUBLIC ED ADVOCATES: With a month to go before midterms, the activists at Democrats for Public Education are urging candidates to speak up – loudly – about their support for neighborhood schools. DPE gave Morning Education a sneak peek at new poll data that shows voters strongly back liberal priorities such as increasing funding for public schools, lowering class sizes and expanding programs to help low-income children overcome the disadvantages of poverty. Voters also express strong support and admiration for public school teachers – who have been popping up in candidates’ campaign ads for months, precisely because they’re seen as such trusted emissaries. Read more: http://bit.ly/ZvgcxK

– The national poll of 1,200 active voters, conducted by Democratic polling firm Harstad Strategic Research, found that 79…

Joseph Ricciotti, a former professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut, wrote a powerful article in which he describes the sinking morale of teachers, weighed down by the dehumanizing and demoralizing policies of George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top.

He writes:

“The war on teachers began with the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) program when George W. Bush was president and has continued with “Race to the Top” (RTTT) with President Obama and his non-educator, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Basically both programs are what is commonly referred to by public school educators as “test and punish” testing programs that are used primarily for closing schools, ranking students, demonizing teachers and for assessing teacher effectiveness. These programs have now morphed into the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in which the federal government has, in essence, usurped local control of education in the United…