Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé

Out of 73 students who began Success Academy in 2006, the first group of graduates crossed the stage a few weeks ago.  The fact that there were only 16 graduates was something that even the pro-Success New York Daily News felt inclined to write an editorial entitled ‘Student success*: In praise of a charter school’s graduates, with one caveat’ which at least draws attention to this issue, though they do try to minimize it.

Success Academy recently responded to these concerns on their own blog in a post called ‘Doing the Math on Success Academy’s First Graduating Class’  While defending themselves they, ironically, revealed some information that is even more controversial.

Image from https://www.successacademies.org/education-blog-post/doing-the-math-on-success-academys-first-graduating-class/

The Success Academy blog post is supposed to make two main points:

1) That over a period of 12 years it is not that bad to lose 80% of the students since it is only…

The Associated Press‘s Ashraf Khalil explains: “As recently as a year ago, the public school system in the nation’s capital was being hailed as a shining example of successful urban education reform and a template for districts across the country. Now…. after a series of rapid-fire scandals including one about rigged graduation rates, Washington’s school system has gone from a point of pride to perhaps the largest public embarrassment of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s tenure… A decade after a restructuring that stripped the decision-making powers of the board of education and placed the system under mayoral control, city schools in 2017 were boasting rising test scores and a record graduation rate for high schools of 73 percent, compared with 53 percent in 2011… Then everything unraveled.”

Teachers jobs were threatened if they didn’t raise test scores and increase graduation rates by passing students no matter what. Money was an…

It is no secret that the DeVos family controls state education policy in Michigan. As Betsy DeVos has acknowledged, when they make campaign contributions, they expect to see the changes they want.

Since DeVos took control, education in Michigan has been in decline. The state has hundreds of charter schools. Accountability is minimal. DeVos likes it that way. Michigan is the only state where 80% of charters operate for profit. That means less money for instruction because investors come first in a for-profit business.

Last year, the New York Times Magazine ran a very good article about the charter mess in Michigan. It points out that 70% of the charters are in the bottom half of state performance. So much for “saving poor kids from failing schools,” more like privatizing schools for profit without regard to the kids.

“The results have been stark. The 2016 report by the Education…

Colorado is heating up as a battleground over education issues. The gubernatorial race could be a watershed moment in the fight to reverse failed and punitive reforms.

There are three candidates for Governor. Two are corporate reformers: Jared Polis and Michael Johnston. The third, Cary Kennedy, has taken them both on for betraying public schools and teachers. I am not aware of any political race where the issues are drawn as sharply as they are in this race.

Polis and Johnston are angry at Kennedy because a teacher-funded group bought ads criticizing their education views. She can’t control the outside group. Polis and Johnston say she is engaged in negative campaigning and call the ad an attack ad. It seems to me that voters need to know where candidates differ. If they can’t criticize one another for their records, how will voters learn about the candidates?

Cary Kennedy was Colorado…

Joanne Barkan has been writing brilliant articles about the billionaire assault on public education for several years. Her first was “Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools.”

Her latest is this article, which appeared on Valerie Strauss’s “The Answer Sheet.” She calls it “Death by a Thousand Cuts.” It will ring true for everyone who is fighting the massive money and power of the privatizers.

Barkan supplies a brief history of neoliberalism, as well as the federal efforts to introduce competition and privatization into the schools.

She begins:

When champions of market-based reform in the United States look at public education, they see two separate activities — government funding education and government running schools. The first is okay with them; the second is not. Reformers want to replace their bête noire — what they call the “monopoly of government-run schools” — with freedom of choice in a competitive market dominated…

As a rule, if a progressive shares any part of Betsy DeVos’s agenda, chances are he or she is not a progressive. Progressives usually support public schools governed by a democratic entity; progressives believe that teachers should have the right to bargain collectively and to seek better funding and better working conditions for the students and staff; progressives think that all teachers should be well educated and certified; progressives believe that educators, students, and families should be treated with respect; progressives believe that civil rights law should be enforced; progressives work towards a society that is fair and just to all its citizens. Progressives do not defend racial segregation.

That’s my peroration.

Now comes Peter Greene’s response to Conor Williams’s loopy claim that progressives should defend charter schools even though they are segregated and non-union. Peter notes that Conor’s teaching experience was limited to a couple of years at the…