Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé

It really all comes down to this.

You can talk all day about delegates and superdelegates.

You can talk about polls and electability.

You can talk about political experience, likeability, and authenticity. You can talk about political dynasties, union endorsements and campaign ads. You can talk about how many people show up at who’s rallies and who did what during the Civil Rights movement.

But when push comes to shove, there is one undeniable reason Bernie Sanders is the best mainstream 2016 Presidential candidate: He is running against privatization.

That’s it. Sold.

Everything else is nice. It adds to the appeal, but that one essential reason is enough to tip the scales – knock them over, really – to Bernie’s favor.

America’s parents and teachers are fighting a battle for our children’s schools. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle…

EduShyster interviewed Preston Green, who has studied the legal status of charter schools and published scholarly articles on the subject.

Green points out out in the interview that a major difference between public schools and charter schools is the rights of students. The constitutional rights of charter students are significantly less than those of students in public schools.

Dr. Green points out that charter schools have a different legal status than public schools.

EduShyster writes:

“Dr. Green warns that both state and federal courts have issued rulings stating that students in charters do not have the same due process rights as public-school students. So what does this mean for cities like Los Angeles where a dramatic expansion of charter schools is on the table? *Half of the publicly-funded schools in Los Angeles might be legally permitted to ‘dismiss’ students without due process.* says Dr. Green. *We have to ask ourselves…

Valerie Strauss reports on an important statement signed by more than 100 education researchers, asserting that the Common Core standards will not improve the achievement of the neediest students and will not reduce the achievement gaps between haves and have nots. Furthermore, the education researchers recommended that high-stakes exams should be abandoned, because they are not reliable, valid, or fair.

She writes:

“The researchers, from public and private universities in California — including Stanford University, UCLA, and the University of California Berkeley — say that the Common Core standards themselves do not accomplish what supporters said they would and that linking them to high-stakes tests actually harms students.

The brief says:

Although proponents argue that the CCSS promotes critical thinking skills and student-centered learning (instead of rote learning), research demonstrates that imposed standards, when linked with high-stakes testing, not only deprofessionalizes teaching and narrows the curriculum, but in so doing…

Steven Singer writes here about a dumb policy that is now commonplace thinking among both Ivy League corporate reformers and redneck legislators: If you make the tests harder, they reason, students will get higher test scores.

No, no, no, and no.

Singer says his students are weary of the endless testing. And it is getting worse because the tests will be even harder to pass in Pennsylvania.

He writes:

In the last two years, Pennsylvania has modified its mandatory assessments until it’s almost impossible for my students to pass.

Bureaucrats call it “raising standards,” but it’s really just making the unlikely almost unthinkable.

Impoverished students have traditionally had a harder time scoring as well as their wealthier peers. But the policy response has been to make things MORE difficult. How does that help?

Consider this: If a malnourished runner couldn’t finish the 50 yard dash, forcing him to run 100…

This is a must-read article. Share it with your friends who don’t understand the corporate assault on American public schools.

Jeff Bryant writes here about the Walton family’s effort to impose the Walmart business philosophy on public education. I have called it the Walmartization  of public education. The he family collectively is worth about $150 billion.

When Walmart enters a community, the local businesses can’t compete with its low prices and vast inventory. The local businesses close down. Main Streets across America are filled with empty stores and a dying commercial core, thanks to Walmart’s cutthroat competition. Walmart doesn’t care about community. It has only one purpose: profits for Walmart.

Central to to its business philosophy is cost-cutting. It wants the lowest-paid employees. It wants the lowest price products, so it buys wherever labor costs are lowest. I would be surprised if anything sold by Walmart is American-made.

To to…

Who do you think is really powerful? I will tell you: students and parents. When either group gets organized, they have real power. Consider the parents who opted out in New York: they made Governor Cuomo beat a fast retreat. No one knows how to stop them. No one can stop them.

And now there are the high school students in Boston. They organized a protest against massive budget cuts. They planned meticulously. And thousands of students walked out, ready with signs of protest. The students are fighting for what they need and deserve: a well-resourced education. This should be their right. They should have to fight for it. But they are fighting, and their voices are powerful.

Hours before more than 3,500 of their peers would march out of their classrooms toward Boston Common, a small group of high schoolers was glued to a group chat on their phones…

I watched the replay of the Ohio Town Hall specifically to understand what Bernie said about charter schools.

The teacher who posed the question was a TFA charter teacher. She asked a leading question. She asserted that in Ohio, charter schools led the state in helping poor black and Hispanic children, then she asked whether they should play a role in solving the problems of these children.

To begin with, her assertion was inaccurate. It was propaganda for charters, which in Ohio have experienced numerous financial and academic scandals. In addition, she failed to mention that charters are far more likely to be low-performing than public schools. (See: here and here). Ohio has charter operators who give large campaign contributions and evade accountability. Some Ohio charter owners have made millions.

Bernie Sanders responded that he supports public education, and he supports public charter schools. He then talked about the…

“Cashing in On Kids” reports that ALEC education legislation is quietly spreading across the nation. ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a secretive far-right organization that is funded by major corporations and whose members are state legislators. Its goal is privatization and deregulation. It writes model laws, then its members introduce them into their state legislature as their own. To learn all about ALEC, go to Alec Exposed.

Despite widespread public opposition to the corporate-driven education privatization agenda, at least 172 measures reflecting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model bills were introduced in 42 states in 2015, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of ALECexposed.org and PRWatch.org. (A PDF version of this report may be downloaded here.)

One of ALEC’s biggest funders is Koch Industries and the Koch brothers’ fortune. The Kochs have had a seat at the table – where the private…

Jeff Bryant writes that charter schools have enjoyed an elevated status as a “sure cure” for low-performing students because most Americans know so little about them.

He cites a number of polls showing that the appeal of charter schools wears thin when people realize that they draw resources away from the local public schools. As one person quoted in the article says, charters have a “negative fiscal impact” on local public schools.

Furthermore, the local press in many cities–especially in Florida and Ohio–has reported frequently on charter frauds and scandals, on money flowing to politically connected charter operators, on legislators with conflicts of interest, on charters that push out unwanted children and avoid students with disabilities, and on charters whose “CEO” is paid over half a million. As more such articles appear, the public begins to see that the absence of regulation leads to systemic abuse, not just a one-time…