Here's An Emblem For What's Wrong With Education In The Reform Era

It's also an emblem for how so little has changed from Bloomberg to de Blasio at the NYCDOE:

Tom Porton is used to drama: Since arriving at James Monroe High School as an English teacher 45 years ago, he has taught and staged plays. Outside, in the Bronx River neighborhood where the school is, there was plenty of drama in the 1980s, when AIDS and crack ravaged the area. His response then was to establish a group of peer educators who worked with Montefiore Medical Center to teach teenagers about H.I.V. prevention. His efforts earned him awards, including recognition from the City Council and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and led to his induction into the National Teachers Hall of Fame.

Now he is at the center of drama: Last month he clashed with Brendan Lyons, the school’s principal, who disapproved of his distributing H.I.V./AIDS education fliers that listed nonsexual ways of “Making Love Without Doin’ It” (including advice to “read a book together”). This month, he said the principal eliminated his early-morning civic leadership class, which engaged students in activities such as feeding the homeless, saying it was not part of the Common Core curriculum. Mr. Porton was already skeptical of that curriculum, saying it shortchanged students by focusing on chapters of novels and nonfiction essays rather than entire works of literature.

So, next month Mr. Porton — a 67-year-old educator whom students praised as a lifesaver and life-changer — is walking away from teaching. He handed in his retirement papers on Friday.

Education in the Reform Era, in the Danielson Era, in the Endless Testing Era has no place for a teacher like this.

What, a curriculum that engages students in activities like helping to feed homeless people?

No, by God, that's not education!

Writing argumentative essays about this, that's education!

The principal who has successively pushed Tom Porton out sounds like a doozy:

Mr. Lyons — who repeatedly replied “no comment” to questions during a telephone conversation — arrived at the school at the start of the academic year. A previous tenure at a Manhattan high school was marked by his replacing paper hall passes with toilet plungers, which students used to wreak havoc on property and one another.

In December, on World AIDS Day, Mr. Porton handed out his flier, as he had for almost 25 years. Mr. Lyons sent him an email saying the flier was “inappropriate,” and asked that he collect those already distributed. Though Mr. Lyons said he would discuss the matter later with him, Mr. Porton said that conversation never took place.

H.I.V. and AIDS may have faded from the public mind, but they remain a danger in places like the South Bronx, especially among young blacks and Latinos. Mr. Porton said the school has failed to meet Department of Education mandates to educate students about the diseases, making his work all the more necessary.

Mr. Lyons, who would not say if the school met the mandates, never explained his objections to Mr. Porton. At the start of this semester, Mr. Porton said, the principal eliminated the 40-student leadership class because he said it was not part of the standard curriculum, even though the class met before the formal start of the school day. Because of that, combined with Mr. Porton’s disappointment over the standardized test frenzy that rules in many schools, he chose to leave.

And what kind of teacher was Tom Porton?

This kind:

Reaction among students and former students, many of whom learned of Mr. Porton’s retirement on Facebook, was immediate and full of outrage.

“How can anyone think what he does is inappropriate?” said Janelle Roundtree, a former peer educator who graduated from Monroe in 1995 and went on to Howard University. “He changed Monroe. He was in the forefront of so many things. The school is losing out on this one.”

David Gonzalez (no relation to this writer), a musician, poet and performer who graduated in 1973, was so grateful to Mr. Porton that he nominated him for the Kennedy Center’s Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award, which he received in 2011.

“Tom has been the consistent heart of that building since I was at Monroe in the ’70s,” said Mr. Gonzalez, who still wonders how the teacher managed to get tickets to Broadway shows. “He was always looking for the heart and soul of the individual. I would never have had the confidence to do what I do without him. He changed my life forever.”

The truth is, there is no place in public education these days for a teacher like Tom Porton.

Teachers who teach to the test, who teach by the Danielson rubric, who teach the crap they want her/him to teach and nothing but that - those are the kinds of teachers wanted these days.

As Porton says in the Times article, the powers that be pay lip service to the social and emotional needs of children, but all that really matters these days is the test scores.

This is just another outrage in a long line of NYCDOE outrages.

The principal, Lyons, ought to be the one leaving (see here for the mess he made at Graphics.)

Alas, life in the de Blasio NYCDOE is pretty much the same as life in the Bloomberg NYCDOE - incompetent administrators get moved around to destroy more and more schools while excellent teachers, inspirational teachers, are pushed out.

How Education Reformers Fund Their Reform Lobbying Efforts Without Revealing Their Donors

Chris Bragg of the Times-Union with an illuminating piece about how education reform groups push their political agenda without revealing who's funding it:

Three groups pushing education reforms that spent heavily lobbying state government this year funded at least a portion of their efforts though donations whose original sources are essentially untraceable.

...

StudentsFirstNY Advocacy, the Coalition for Opportunity in Education and Families for Excellent Schools spent more than $8.3 million during the 2015 legislative session lobbying state government to promote charter schools and other issues, according to recent lobbying disclosure filings.

Here is one of the games the education reformers play to hide where the money's coming from:

Manhattan-based group StudentsFirstNY Advocacy, which pushes for charter schools and other causes, spent $2 million this year, but the sources behind roughly half that spending are unclear..

One million dollars were donated to StudentsFirst NY Advocacy by another nonprofit, StudentsFirst NY Inc., that heavily overlaps with it: The two groups share an office suite and staff.

Both StudentsFirst NY Advocacy and StudentsFirst NY Inc. are issue-oriented nonprofits that must disclose their donors if they engage in substantial lobbying spending. If StudentsFirst NY Inc. had itself spent its $1 million on lobbying, it would have had to disclose the sources behind the funds.

But because the $1 million passed from StudentsFirst NY to StudentsFirst NY Advocacy, which then spent heavily on lobbying, only the name of StudentsFirst NY Inc. appears on the lobbying disclosure filing submitted by the Advocacy arm in July.

How did StudentsFirstNY explain the interesting arrangement of having one wing of StudentsFirstNY write the other wing a check, have that second wing do the lobbying and thereby hide where the money was coming from?

 StudentsFirstNY responded with this:

Asked if the money transfer was meant to obscure the identity of donors, a StudentsFirst NY spokesman maintained the $1 million came from pre-existing StudentsFirst NY funds — not from new donations funneled through the group.

Jenny Sedlis, executive director of StudentsFirst NY, added in a statement that "StudentsFirst NY is proud of the campaign we ran to increase high quality school choices for kids." Sedlis is also listed as a lobbyist for StudentsFirstNY Advocacy.

In short, the ends justify the means and that's that.

But wait, it gets better.

The StudentsFirstNY suite must be a pretty big place because it turns out the education reformers at Families For Excellent Schools also list the StudentsFirstNY suite as their base of operations - and boy do they drop some murkily-sourced cash on political lobbying:

Families for Excellent Schools, another Manhattan group that also lists the same address as StudentsFirst NY but says it operates separately, has taken a much more direct approach that has allowed its donors to remain anonymous.

Families for Excellent Schools, which spent $1.6 million on New York lobbying so far this year, has an issue-oriented nonprofit arm that would have to disclose its benefactors. But the group does almost all its lobbying through its apolitical arm, which does not have to report its donors under New York lobbying laws and can take tax-deductible donations.

The apolitical arm spent a staggering $9.7 million on Albany lobbying in 2014, but did not disclose a single donor.

Such apolitical nonprofits, categorized as 501(c)3 groups, face restrictions from the Internal Revenue Service on how much they can spend on lobbying — a likely reason why such nonprofits are exempt from disclosing their donors under New York law.

The heavy lobbying spending as defined by New York law, plus the IRS restrictions on lobbying by such nonprofits, could raise potential issues regarding the group's tax status.

But David Grandeau, an attorney for Families For Excellent Schools and former top state lobbying regulator, has maintained that the IRS definition of lobbying is far narrower than the one found in New York law, a distinction that he says makes the heavy New York lobbying spending by the group permissible under federal regulations.

The shell games the charter school advocates, hedge fundies and education reformers are playing are similar to the games Governor Cuomo plays with the LLC loophole - it's all about funding a political agenda with a lot of cash, doing it murkily but legally and ensuring that a small segment of the population (i.e., really, really wealthy interests)  can impose most of their political agenda on the rest of the state.

The corruption in this state is endemic and so deep-rooted that the US attorney can literally cart out most of the political leadership in Albany on corruption charges but the bribery, kickbacks and larceny continue apace like nothing's happened.

Bill Cosby And Kevin Johnson - Brothers In Education Reform AND Sexual Predation

When Diane Ravitch blogged in 2012 that Bill Cosby was joining Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst board, I left the following comment on her post, comparing Cosby to Rhee's husband, Kevin Johnson:

reality-based educator

September 17, 2012 at 6:13 pm

Actually Bill Cosby was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a 32 year old woman in 2004. She tried to bring a criminal case against him in 2005, but police declined to file charges. She brought civil charges against him. Her attorneys found 10 other women who also claimed to have been drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby in the past. Nine were listed anonymously in the court documents, one made the accusations publicly. The court documents are here:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/bill-cosbys-prior-bad-acts

The LA Times covered the story, including the settlement Cosby reached with the woman, here:

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/nov/09/news/wk-cosby9

Cosby settled the 2005 case for an undisclosed amount, the alleged victim of the assault signed a non-disclosure agreement, so no other details of the case emerged. But People magazine covered the aftermath and interviewed three other women who claimed they had been drugged by Cosby and assaulted. People also reported that Cosby had paid off several women who had made these accusations in the past against Cosby.

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20059561,00.html

I have two things to say about this:

First, Cosby fits right in with Kevin Johnson, Rhee’s husband, who himself has at least two accusations of sexual misconduct lodged against him (one by a minor.)

Second, how dare anybody with so many accusations leveled against him in the past lecture people about bad behavior, as Cosby has been known to do?

I stand by that comment tonight- both the Cosby part and the KJ part.

Cosby still fits in at StudentsFirst, which was founded by a woman who made sexual misconduct allegations against her boyfriend (now husband) go away.

Cosby lost his Netflix special, NBC canceled a sitcom they were developing with him and TVLand has stopped running The Cosby Show reruns.

While Cosby is free from the criminal justice system since all of the reported acts happened long ago, his career and reputation are in tatters.

His fellow ed deformer Kevin Johnson, however, remains free and clear tonight, still in power as mayor of Sacramento, even though he's got at least two accusations against him for sexual misconduct.

Isn't it time somebody revisits the Michelle Rhee/Kevin Johnson sexual misconduct case and cover-up again?

The Problem With Education Reform Centers On The Education Reformers Themselves

An editorial in The Worcester Telegram and Gazette:

We're all for quality and high standards in public education. But the taxpayers of Massachusetts should be asking some hard questions about the cost of and need for revamping the state's standardized testing system.

For the coming year, at least, school districts will be permitted to choose between the familiar Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS exams, and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Career tests.

So far, according to Mitchell Chester, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, 57 percent of school districts have opted for PARCC tests next spring.

Whatever the final numbers prove to be, it's clear that Massachusetts public schools will be running an experiment in 2014-15, with lots of debate and feedback.

But has anyone paused to consider whether any change was needed? Has anyone considered whether it makes any sense to spend millions to prepare for new tests, when Massachusetts has made solid progress for 20 years with MCAS?

We know that Mr. Chester chairs the PARCC consortium that developed the new tests, and that PARCC tests are designed to work with the Common Core curriculum that Massachusetts has accepted — even while some critics charge it represents a retreat in quality.

Mr. Chester insists no decision has been made on whether the state will ultimately choose PARCC or stay with MCAS, but it's hard to believe he doesn't have a preference, and harder still to accept that education officials would embrace Common Core without PARCC.

The more fundamental question is what has changed that requires new curriculum guidelines or tests. Did the elements of geometry change? Were rules for the use of the subjunctive suspended? Did the periodic table decay or expand?

And why would the state introduce a new testing regimen that may soon require taxpayers to invest at least $75 million in connectivity and equipment upgrades so that schools not currently up to technological snuff can take PARCC tests?

No doubt many schools could use better technology, but such needs ought to be met as needed for providing basic instruction today, not driven by a testing regime that comes wrapped in the Common Core.

Anyone who studies the curriculum frameworks that were at the heart of the 1993 Massachusetts education reform effort can see that they were built for performance and built to last.

A generation later, a new set of educational bureaucrats may perceive an expiration date where none exists. If unquestioned and unchecked, their experiment is likely to cost Massachusetts taxpayers many millions of dollars for bells and whistles, IT experts, consultants, retrofits, and, yes, more bureaucrats.

But will it yield any gains in education achievement? And, with MCAS in the rearview mirror, and Common Core and PARCC likely in the near future, will anyone be able to offer a meaningful comparison and draw useful conclusions about where public education in Massachusetts should head next?

Probably not, which means more studies, more research, and more time and treasure expended on arguing over the forms of education, rather than mastering its contents.

We're beginning to suspect that that's the whole idea behind these changes, and that the problem with education reform in Massachusetts today is the educator reformers themselves.

Why Wasn't Michelle Rhee Investigated For Taping Children's Mouths?

From the Daily News:

A New Jersey substitute teacher is in a sticky situation after she allegedly slapped tape across loud-mouthed third-graders as part of something she called the “quiet game,” school officials said.

The teacher has been removed from a list of possible substitutes used at Winfield Scott School No. 2 in Elizabeth after the May 29 incident, when five children told their parents, who told school administrators, of the cruel “game.”

"We consider this serious," Donald Goncalves, spokesman for the school board, told The Newark Star-Ledger. "We took the teacher out of the classroom and she will no longer be working for us."
The unnamed teacher allegedly used “a pink, fabric-based tape” to cover the kids’ mouths, according to the newspaper.

"I don't understand what she was thinking," the girl’s father, Munford Henderson, told WNBC-TV. "We're talking about kids. You're sworn to protect and teach, not to hurt them and put them in fear."

Elizabeth police and the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency are both looking into the allegations.

 It's interesting how a substitute teacher in New Jersey is under fire for taping the mouths of students shut but education reformer Michelle Rhee was feted for the same thing:

Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's talk to the new DCPS teachers Wednesday included two anecdotes I had not heard before -- one remarkable for its content, the other for its delivery. They described her struggles 18 years ago as a fledgling second grade teacher at Baltimore's Harlem Park Elementary.
"The worst and in many ways definitely the toughest year of my entire life," she said.

Rhee had poor class management skills, she said, recalling that her class "was very well known in the school because you could hear them traveling anywhere because they were so out of control." On one particularly rowdy day, she said she decided to place little pieces of masking tape on their lips for the trip to the school cafeteria for lunch.

"OK kids, we're going to do something special today!" she said she told them.

Rhee said it worked well until they actually arrived at the cafeteria. "I was like, 'OK, take the tape off. I realized I had not told the kids to lick their lips beforehand...The skin is coming off their lips and they're bleeding. Thirty-five kids were crying."

Rhee walked that story back after Bill Turque published it in the Washington Post

Rhee said in an e-mail Friday that the students' mouths weren't covered. "I was trying to express how difficult the first year of teaching can be with some humor. My hope is that our new teachers will bring great creativity and passion to their craft while also learning from my own challenges." Still, it's difficult to imagine a DCPS instructor, first-year or tenth-year, surviving the masking tape stunt without suspension at a minimum.

The story, like many stories about Rhee, is clouded in mystery and myth.

Did Rhee really tape students' mouths shut?

Did she really eat a bee to garner her students' attention?

Does she really not remember being informed about widespread cheating at Noyes when she was DCPS chancellor?

Or how she tried to convince young women who were alleging her fiance at the time, now her husband, Kevin Johnson, had engaged in unwanted sexual contact with them to drop their stories?

Why is Rhee still celebrated in the culture when so many of these questions circulate about her?

Cuomo Is Honorary Chair Of Pro-Charter Education Reform Retreat Run By His Donors

Here's Cuomo's brand of realpolitik in action:

ALBANY—Governor Andrew Cuomo will headline an education retreat next month in Lake Placid hosted by hedge-fund managers who support the Common Core standards, charter schools, mayoral control of schools, testing and student-data collection.

Cuomo is the “honorary chairman” of Camp Philos, “a philosopher's camp on education reform” presented by Education Reform Now, a group that has donated $65,000 to Cuomo since 2010 through its political action committee. The group, led by hedge funders who are active in the charter-school movement, is hosting the conference at Whiteface Lodge on May 4 to 6.

The group's board members, as well as the founders of its PAC, Democrats for Education Reform, have also given to Cuomo individually.

John Petry, founder and manager at Sessa Capital, gave $20,000 in the last two years. He is a co-founder of DFER and a board member for ERN, and he's also co-chair of New York City's Success Academy Charter Schools, headed by Eva Moskowitz.

Joel Greenblatt, founder of Gotham Capital and co-chair of the Success Academy network, has served on DFER's advisory board. With his wife, Julia, Greenblatt gave Cuomo $60,000 since 2010.
Whitney Tilson, founder and managing partner of Kase Capital Management and co-founder of DFER, gave $12,000 since 2012.

Cuomo has led a recent push to boost charter schools, including negotiating changes in the state budget that particularly benefit Success Academy charters. Teachers' unions and public-school advocates have railed against Cuomo, arguing that he's prioritizing privately run charters over traditional public schools.

Have ready cash and Cuomo will do your bidding for you.

But given the problems Como has had over the Moreland mess this past week, the Camp Philos retreat may end up being a bigger embarrassment to Cuomo then do anything beneficial for him.

Quite literally, he is dangling on the string for these wealthy Wall Street donors whose bidding on education reform he just did in the budget deal.

Cuomo's corruption out front and obvious for everyone to see.

Adding A 5th Reason To Why Kaya Henderson Won't Be NYCDOE Chancellor

Valerie Strauss lists four reasons why she thinks DCPS chancellor Kaya Henderson won't be NYCDOE chancellor despite rumors that her name is on Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio's short list for the job.

The four reasons are 1) Henderson's staunch support of charter schools 2) Henderson's emphasis on standardized tests as the most important measure of educational achievement 3) her antagonism toward the union and 4) her dismissal of class size as an important component of reform.

I would add a fifth reason - Henderson's part in the Michelle Rhee testing scandal in DC.

When Rhee was allegedly informed about widespread allegations of cheating at DCPS schools, Henderson's was said to be present.

Both Rhee and Henderson deny ever having been told about widespread cheating allegations.

So far, the news media has seemed complacent to let that cheating story die without checking much into Rhee's or Henderson's stories.

If Henderson is offered the NYCDOE chancellor job, that cheating allegation story will resurface and get much more rigorous coverage from the media this time around.

I bet that's something that neither Henderson's old boss and pal in crime, Michelle Rhee, nor Henderson herself want.

I bet it's something the education reform establishment doesn't want either.

The Myth Of Michelle Rhee must not be exposed.

Merryl Tisch Get A Subpoena From The Moreland Commission Yet?

Of course she hasn't - but she should.

We learned on Sunday that Regents Chancellor Tisch paid out of her own pocket for private employees to run NYSED offices - at least the first million came from the Tisch family fortune.

Millions more came from the Gates Foundation, General Electric and a bunch of other corporate entities - $19 million in total from more than two dozen private employees.

These private employees, called "Regents Fellows," many with connections to the Gates Foundation and other education reform groups, developed state education policy, implemented that policy and helped enforce it.

In short, the Gates Foundation took over the running of the NYSED.

Former NYSED Commissioner King, current Commissioner King and Regents Chancellor Tisch were all behind this scheme to turn over government functions to private personnel paid for by private companies and "non-profits."

Those actions warrant subpoenas from the Moreland Commission, which has been entrusted to look into influence peddling and corruption in Albany.

Tisch should be first on the list for a subpoena, followed by King and Steiner, all of the Regents Fellows and every company and non-profit that provided the cash to hire these people.

Here's a list of the contributors to the Regents Fellows fund:

Regents Research Fund contributors
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation $3.3 million
James S. and Merryl H. Tisch Fund $400,000 (draw-down on $1 million commitment)
Leona and Harry Helmsley Charity $3.83 million
Amy and Larry Robbins Foundation $500,000
Tortora Silicox Family Foundation $975,000
GE Foundation $3.5 million
Ford Foundation $788,000
Carnegie Corp. $1.2 million
Tiger Foundation $560,000
Robin Hood Foundation $600,000
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation $900,000

Doubtful Sheriff Andy or his merry Morelanders will want subpoenas sent to investigate this blatant corruption at the Board of Regents and NYSED.

But if we lived in a real democracy instead of a corrupt corporatocracy, you can bet it would be investigated.

Bloomberg Have Any DOE Emails Erased Yet?

The story first showed up on DNAinfo - the Bloomberg administration plans to erase many of their emails when they leave office, including those from the NYCDOE.

Diane Ravitch picked that story up with additional details from somebody she termed a "mole" at Tweed who said the data there is all suspect and should be independently investigated.

Norm Scott ran with the story yesterday, comparing Bloomberg's education reform ship to the sunken Costa Concordia, then noting that if Bloomberg has all the emails erased, he essentially erases all evidence of his administration's incompetence, corruption and malfeasance, Norm says:

All amazing points that the corrupt and corrosive education press like Education Nation will ignore. Not only ignore but laud the ship as it sinks.

And indeed, guess which member of the corrupt and corrosive press ignored the erasure story this morning?

If you guessed the NY Post, you guessed right:

Given the sorry state of so many city schools, Mayor Bloomberg’s “victory lap” celebrating some minor successes might seem a stretch. But at least Mike moved the ball forward — and that’s better than what Bill de Blasio is promising.

Mike and his aides are bragging that 22 schools here were ranked among the 25 best in the state. They’re proud that city students beat kids in other large cities in New York and almost matched statewide performance averages, despite an abundance of kids here who don’t speak English well and greater levels of poverty.

True, the bigger story is bleak: Less than a third of city kids passed the state math test, and barely a quarter passed English. And critics may be right that Bloomberg is “cherry-picking” by singling out these 22 schools. After all, 16 are “elite” schools with high admissions standards, and two are charters, which the city doesn’t run.

But as Bloomberg notes, when he took office, no city school made it into the top 25.

He’s worked hard to create more charters, close bad schools and open good ones. So, yes, there has been some progress.

That would not likely be the case under de Blasio. Remember, the Democratic mayoral hopeful boldly vows to keep failing schools open. He opposes charters, which have shown the greatest gains. And he offers nothing to suggest any schools would improve. (Given his close ties to the teachers union, it’s logical to expect him to put its interests over those of kids.)

GOP mayoral hopeful Joe Lhota, by contrast, supports key Bloomberg reforms, like charters, that drive gains in the schools.

No, Mike’s gains aren’t enough. But then, they might’ve been greater if it weren’t for the union and folks like de Blasio. In the end, the question for voters will be: Do you back progress — or its alternative?

Hey, Posties, dig into the "data" and you'll find that all they did to get 22 of the "top-ranked" 25 schools in the state is manipulate admissions policies.

I dunno about you guys, but I don't really think about exclusion as progress so much.

For the schools on that list that do not have selective admissions, take a look at the economic data of the families served.

As Mayor Bloomberg has rezoned the city and made it into a playground for the wealthy and the powerful, many more affluent people are living here and sending their kids to public schools (something that was not done so much back during the Giuliani days and before.)

Gee, do you think bringing affluent families who now send their kids to public schools changes the test scores at those schools?

You bet they do.

Bloomberg is, as Ravitch's mole told her, engaging in selective data use to burnish the Bloomberg reforms.

But even a rudimentary examination by an independent entity not connected to Bloomberg or some of other ed deform group like the Gates Foundation or the Broad Foundation or the USDOE will expose much of the data manipulation this administration has engaged in that borders on fraud (the same goes in other areas like crime statistics and emergency response times, btw.)

But if Bloomberg burns the Tweed computer system down on the way out the door, the myth of the Great Bloomberg Education Reform Movement will live on into eternity (or at least until U.S. civilization collapses.)

Don't think the Posties and the Newsies and the Timesmen don't know this.

As Norm says, they will turn a willful, blind eye to what amounts to a criminal act by the Bloomberg administration - destruction of evidence of fraudulent actions.

Why Are Wolfson And Bloomberg Attacking Thompson?

Political hack Howard Wolfson has been given three pages in the Daily News to attack the UFT and Bill Thompson while shilling for Bloomberg's education policies and legacy.

I'm going to leave the lies and manipulated data Wolfson spews to sell Bloomberg's policies and agenda for others to knock down.

What I'm interested in is why Wolfson and Bloomberg are feeling the need to attack Thompson.

To be frank, while Thompson is talking some about changing Bloomberg's school policies, a lot of his education agenda is little different from Bloomberg's education agenda.

Thompson is not anti-charter.

Thompson will not charge charter schools rent for stealing space from public schools.

Thompson wants to add more days to the school year and more time to the school day.

Thompson praised Bloomberg for refusing to give teachers the 4%/4% pattern raise every other union in the city got.

Thompson wants to continue mayoral control.

Sure, there are some subtle changes Thompson says he wants to make to Bloomberg's policies, perhaps around the emphasis on testing, but I'll believe those changes will happen when I actually see them happen and not until then.

Plus, with APPR state law forcing both increased state testing and increased local testing, it's hard to see how Thompson can change the insane testing schedules we have these days anyway even if he wanted to (which I doubt he does, in any case.)

So why is Bloomberg having Thompson attacked for his alleged education policy crimes in the pages of the Daily News?

Sure, the UFT endorsed him, but Merryl Tisch is the co-chair of his campaign and Al D'amato is one of his bundlers.

Thompson is hardly some radical bomb thrower looking to wash away the Bloomberg polices and turn the NYC school system into some bastion of progressive education.

So why are they attacking him?

Is this some reverse psychological operation to fool people who want an end to Bloomberg's education policies to vote for Thompson because they think he'll end Bloomberg's education policies while Bloomberg has some secret deal to ensure that Thompson will keep them in place?

As Tom Robbins pointed out in the NY Post today, Bloomberg uses his billions like this all the time, paying people under the table and in the back room to do what he wants.

I can see them attacking Thompson in public for saying he wants to break with Bloomberg's education policies while paying Thompson off behind the scenes to keep those policies in place.

As Norm Scott always says about the UFT, don't listen to what they say, watch what they do.

The same goes for Bloomberg, Thompson, and Wolfson.

The words mean nothing - the actions are what count.

NYSED Commissioner John King Rigs APPR Evaluation System

You can read Carol Burris' explanation of how the test score component and the local growth component are rigged in NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King's imposed teacher evaluation system for NYC teachers.

And when will Mikey Mulgrew and his merry men and women in the UFT leadership sue over this?

What exactly are they waiting for?

Bloomberg Looking To Stick Next Mayor With Multi-Year "Children First" Network Contracts

The NYCDOE has got charter school creation and space sharing in the pipeline for the next few years.

Now it turns out that they're looking to sign multi-year contracts with the Children First networks to force the next mayor to keep Bloomberg's school system structure:

Intent on preserving the Bloomberg administration’s education legacy, the Department of Education has hired a favored consulting firm to craft a plan that would safeguard a signature policy.

The city has hired the Parthenon Group to assess the strengths and weaknesses of system through which principals choose support organizations to provide professional development, curriculum, and budgeting help.

The consulting firm, which has previously studied school closures and small schools for the department, is charged with crafting a strategic vision to ensure that Children First Networks are preserved when another mayor takes over next year.

...

 Those steps could include recommending parts of the networks to sacrifice as “low-hanging fruit” in order to save the broader structure. They could also include launching restructuring pilots that the next mayor would inherit when he or she takes office in January.

...

The Parthenon project’s details reveal the extent of the department’s machinations to stop a new administration from changing the direction of the city’s schools. The department has previously worked to extend the Bloomberg administration’s education policies by getting the Panel for Educational Policy to sign off on school space-sharing agreements that would begin in 2014 and on contracts for network providers that would extend through the next mayor’s first term.

Bloomberg looking to keep his policies going long after he's gone.

If they sign multi-year contracts with these networks right before Bloomberg leaves office, the next mayor should cancel the contracts on January 1 and sue Bloomberg personally for fraud to recoup the lost money.

Dennis Walcott Belongs In Jail

That he didn't want to testify under oath tells you everything you need to know about Walcott and his ethics.

Every time he opens his mouth, he spews lies and horseshit.

He refused to take an oath before his City Council testimony yesterday because he knew he was going to be lying through his teeth.

The next time he testifies before the City Council, they need to let him know beforehand he will be testifying under oath.

Then when he lies and they catch him, they need to prosecute him for perjury and put him in jail.

That's where this criminal belongs.

Frankly they should have hit him with contempt yesterday and put him in jail anyway.

Microsoft And News Corp. Both Under Investigation For Bribery Of Overseas Officials

First News Corp. and the Wall Street Journal was investigated for allegedly bribing Chinese officials.

Now Microsoft is under similar investigation:

SEATTLE — Federal authorities are examining Microsoft’s involvement with companies and individuals that are accused of paying bribes to overseas government officials in exchange for business, according to a person briefed on the inquiry.

 The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have both opened preliminary investigations into bribery accusations involving Microsoft in China, Italy and Romania, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is a confidential legal matter. 

Microsoft’s practices in those countries are being looked at for potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a federal law passed in 1977 that prohibits American companies from making payments to government officials and others overseas to further their business interests.

...

Microsoft joins a list of about 100 other companies under investigation at present related to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to Mike Koehler, a professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Law and the author of a blog, FCPA Professor, about the anticorruption law. Because companies have such a strong incentive to settle cases of this sort, they rarely end up going to trial. 

Fines in these corruption cases can run into the tens of millions of dollars. In 2008, Siemens, the German engineering conglomerate, signed an $800 million settlement with the Justice Department and the S.E.C. to end an investigation into accusations related to the law.

So glad that NY State is going to hand over confidential data and information about children to these companies.

I'm sure they'll only do upstanding things with that data and info.

I Hope Jeb Bush Runs For President

The political press has been all abuzz recently about moves taken by Jeb Bush that could indicate Bush is going to run for president in 2016.

I would love for Jeb Bush to run for president in 2016 because his education record and his criminal and/or unethical activities would then get some serious scrutiny.

Let's start with the criminal and/or unethical activities via the Tampa Tribune first, shall we?

TAMPA -- Lobbyists are not allowed to finance perks like trips for state officials, but those at the Foundation for Excellence in Education get around that ban by being registered to another foundation run by Jeb Bush.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush's nonprofit, education reform foundation is taking heat for using donations from for-profit companies to lobby for state education laws that could benefit those companies.
Among the activities of Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education that have come in for criticism: It pays for state officials and legislators to go to conferences where they meet with the company's donors, including officials of corporations who stand to gain from the policymakers' decisions.

In recent years, several Florida Department of Education officials and legislators have attended the conferences, and in some cases, their flights, hotel stays, meals and incidentals were paid for with money that came partly from the foundation's corporate donors.

At these events, the state officials attended meetings, panel discussions, meals and receptions also attended by those donors.

The donors include companies that sell testing services, high-tech learning products and charter school services to the state and to Florida school systems, or that would like to.

Normally, it's illegal for lobbyists or lobbying organizations to provide benefits such as free trips to Florida legislators or top executive branch officials.

But the Foundation for Excellence in Education escapes that prohibition because lobbyists on its staff are registered to another, closely related Bush foundation -- even though the two share key staff members and even their Tallahassee address.

Among the corporate donors:

* Pearson, a $9 billion-a-year media conglomerate which has a $250 million, four-year contract to administer the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test. In the last few years, the company has been fined $14 million by the state for delayed test score results and criticized for its grading of writing tests.

* Amplify, the education division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which sells classroom and curriculum software.

* Charter Schools USA, a Fort Lauderdale-based for-profit company that manages charter schools under contract.

* IQity, which sells online learning materials.

The two-day summits include speeches by national figures including Bush, plus panel discussions on topics pertinent to the foundation's reform philosophy.

Last year's summit, for example, at the JW Marriott hotel near the White House, included "strategy sessions" on such topics as "Reaching more students with vouchers and tax-credit scholarships" and banquets with speeches by Bush, Condoleeza Rice and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
The 2011 conference at the historic Palace Hotel in San Francisco -- one of the city's most luxurious, with rooms starting at $350 per night -- featured a speech by Murdoch.

It also included a fundraiser hosted by Bush for Tony Bennett, then running for re-election as Indiana education superintendent and a champion of the kind of conservative education reform advocated by the foundation -- more charter schools, tax-paid tuition vouchers, more emphasis on testing, mandatory on-line courses and "virtual schools."

In an upset that surprised political analysts in the Republican state, Bennett lost his race in November but was appointed soon afterward by Gov. Rick Scott as Florida education commissioner.

In states including Florida, the foundation lobbies actively for its vision of public school reform. A peek into that activity was provided recently by In the Public Interest, an organization that calls itself a watchdog on privatization of government services.

After making public records requests in six states including Florida, the organization published hundreds of emails that show foundation officials lobbying state officials.

The emails also show sympathy and agreement between the foundation and Florida education officials, particularly Bennett and his predecessor, Gerard Robinson, who solicited the group's advice on legislation.

In Florida, the foundation has lobbied for such goals as counting FCAT results for more than half of the annual grade given to public schools, and a "parent trigger" that would allow parents to demand the conversion of their traditional public school into a charter school.

Narrowly defeated in Florida last year, parent-trigger legislation has been filed again for the coming legislative session.

In an email response to questions about the foundation's activities, foundation spokeswoman Jaryn Emhof said the organization doesn't endorse specific companies or products, and "The financial interest of specific companies or sectors is not a factor."

Instead, it "advocates for proven policies and innovative reforms that will improve the quality of education ... (to) ensure every student has access to the high-quality education experience that best fits them."

Emhof said the foundation gets most of its money from individuals or philanthropic groups, but uses corporate donations mainly to sponsor its conferences, which it calls education "summits."

As a nonprofit charity, the organization is not required to disclose its donors. In 2011, it reported revenues of about $8.5 million and cash and pledges totaling about $9.5 million.

The summits, Emhof said, are "an opportunity for ... lawmakers, policymakers, researchers, experts, innovators, and more to gather in one location to learn from each other."

She said the foundation reimburses public officials' travel because, "We don't want public officials to have to use taxpayer dollars to attend." She said state officials report receiving the gifts if their state laws require it.

"It certainly is not surprising that In the Public Interest, a union-backed organization, opposes school choice and the expansion of digital education," Emhof added.

Public school teachers' unions often oppose the reforms advocated by the foundation. In addition, there's a history of political hostility between Bush and the Florida Education Association, the Florida teachers' union, which heavily funded Bush's opponent in the 2002 governor's race, the late Bill McBride of Tampa.

In the Public Interest Chairman Donald Cohen is a former political director for the San Diego area AFL-CIO. He said the group "has relationships" with unions, nonprofit community groups and business organizations, but receives most of its funding from charitable foundations.

The group charged in a news release that the foundation "is writing state education laws and regulations in ways that could benefit its corporate funders."

"Testing companies and for-profit online schools see education as big business," and hope to use the foundation to write laws and promote policies that will expand the market for their products, the news release said.

It said the public records it obtained show the organization "wrote and edited laws, regulations and executive orders, often in ways that improved profit opportunities for the organization's financial backers."

In an interview, Cohen added, "When private corporations pay public officials or provide them benefits including trips, there's a clear attempt to influence public policy in a way that will benefit the corporation.

"There's no reason the corporation would spend the money other than to advance their own interest," he said. "They're paying to develop relationships with people with power."
Spokesmen for some of the foundation's donors said their interest is in fostering education reform, not expanding markets.

"Probably the best way to describe our support for the foundation and Gov. Bush's work is that there's a growing bipartisan consensus that education is one of the most important issues in the country," said Justin Hamilton of Murdoch's firm, Amplify. "We're lagging behind the rest of the world, we have to catch up fast."

He said the company's motive for sponsoring and attending the summits is "fostering a robust conversation about improving education in America."

A publicist representing Charter Schools USA forwarded a written statement from the company, saying, "We're not interested in being used in an article meant to misrepresent the great work the Foundation for Educational Excellence does to promote positive educational choices for students and parents by improving the performance of public schools in the U.S."

The state Department of Education said it couldn't produce records of how many of its employees have taken the free trips, nor could the foundation.

But according to the emails and to accounts of the 2011 summit on the foundation's website, about a half-dozen employees of the state Department of Education and three legislators attended the event.
At least one legislator and one employee got reimbursements for attending.

State Rep. Janet Adkins, a Fernandina Beach Republican, apparently was the only one of those officials who reported the reimbursements as a gift from the foundation, $961.

"I'm a stickler for this stuff. It's not worth it to me to accept something I'm not supposed to," Adkins said.

In spite of the foundation's role in advocating education policies and laws, its activities may not qualify legally as lobbying, said Florida ethics and elections law expert Mark Herron.

A lobbyist, in state law, is someone employed solely or mainly to influence the government.

The foundation's executive director, Patricia Levesque, is a registered lobbyist as well as a long-time Bush adviser. Her lobbying clients have included both nonprofit and for-profit education companies such as the College Board and IQity.

But she isn't registered as a lobbyist for the Foundation for Excellence in Education -- it has no lobbyist registered in its own name.

Instead, Levesque represents Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future, a group he founded shortly after his first, unsuccessful run for governor in 1994. Levesque is also executive director of Foundation for Florida's Future.

According to the foundations' tax returns, the Foundation for Florida's Future pays Levesque's lobbying firm, Meridian Strategies, for "consulting and management services" provided to both foundations by Levesque and her partner in the lobbying firm, Dierdre Finn, who is deputy executive director of both groups.

The two foundations also share other key staff members including another registered lobbyist, Joanna Hassell. Both foundations also list the same address on Monroe Street in Tallahassee.
 
Before getting reimbursement for her trip, Adkins received an opinion approving it from the state House counsel, who, at the time, was George Levesque, husband of Patricia Levesque. He's now state Senate counsel.

Rep. Erik Fresen, a Miami Republican, and Senate President Don Gaetz, Republican from Niceville, also attended the 2011 conference but neither sought reimbursement from the foundation, they said.
Emhof said Bush would not be available to interview for this story.

Since leaving the governor's office in 2006, Bush has devoted himself to education reform.
The Foundation for Excellence in Education has helped him create a national political profile as he prepares for what could be a 2016 run for president. He has travelled the nation representing the foundation and speaking on education.

In that way, the education foundation duplicates the earlier role of his Foundation for Florida's Future. After his unsuccessful 1994 campaign, Foundation for Florida's Future served as an advocacy group for Bush's conservative vision for state government reform, leading up to his successful 1998 campaign.

Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the Florida Education Association, the state teachers' union, said he considers the mission of Bush's education foundation more about profit and politics than education.
Asked about state officials attending the conferences, Pudlow said, "I think what it points out more than anything else is that the foundation and everything it does is all about business, and making sure there's plenty of opportunity for people in the business to make money off Florida's public education."

(c)2013 the Tampa Tribune (Tampa, Fla.)

And now the Jeb Bush education record in Florida:

Editorial: Florida needs no advice from Jeb Bush on education policy



By Jac Versteeg 

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Former Gov. Jeb Bush has an undeserved reputation as an education reformer. Florida’s recent education progress has come not from implementing Mr. Bush’s policies but from cleaning up after them.

Mr. Bush has been visiting legislators in Tallahassee to talk about education policy. Get out the mops and buckets. Taxpayers also should reach for their wallets, since the former governor’s new big ideas involve transferring more public dollars to the for-profit companies behind him.

Mr. Bush’s biggest idea, enacted immediately after taking office in 1999, was to give each school an A-to-F grade based on student scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. That misuse of the the FCAT continues. The test’s many shortcomings were even more serious when Gov. Bush initiated FCAT tyranny. The test covered only a few subjects, students took it long before the end of the school year, and half of elementary and high-school students didn’t even take it. Yet the entire school received a grade, on which parents, students and Realtors fixated.

Gov. Bush also instituted one voucher program the courts ruled unconstitutional and another “corporate voucher” program that, ironically, lets low-income students avoid taking the FCAT.
The Legislature gradually is replacing the FCAT with end-of-course exams. In yet another revision to the grading formula Gov. Bush perversely and prematurely treated as infallible, Florida made FCAT scores count less in some school grades. Still, Florida in 2011 also required teachers to be evaluated based on FCAT scores, even if a teacher had no students who took the FCAT.

This is not “creative destruction.” It’s harassment, and it has created enormous ill will. Gov. Rick Scott’s frantic reversals in preparation for a reelection run — he has called for teacher raises not linked to the FCAT — show how unpopular Mr. Bush’s education legacy is.

With the FCAT writing test looming this week, a Palm Beach County school board member spoke for many educators when she lamented that “this is one test on one day that means more than it should.” But urging students and parents not to stress out is futile. Failing the FCAT still has out-sized consequences — such as no diploma.

Mr. Bush’s fans note that Florida’s education rankings and results have improved. The dubious rankings give Florida credit simply for having “accountability,” systems even if those systems are bogus. Improving test results and graduation rates are incremental and could have been achieved — and surpassed — more quickly without the turmoil Mr. Bush inflicted.

Now Mr. Bush heads several foundations pushing for a rapid expansion of charter schools and virtual schools. His Foundation for Excellence in Education accepts donations from private companies that would profit from lax new laws that Florida and other states are rushing to enact. The sort of careless “reform” Jeb Bush advocates will end up with taxpayers fleeced and students and parents cheated. He has a reputation for reform. He has a record of making messes.

Nothing brings scrutiny to a politican's record or business dealings like a run for president.

Jeb Bush's record and his business dealings are both crying out for some scrutiny.

So I say, "Run, Jeb, run!"

Let's see Jeb Bush, his education reform record and his education reform "non-profit" ventures get the kind of scrutiny they deserve.

I'm going to bet that he actually never does run for president because he is aware of both of these problems (along with the other big GOP elephant in the room - the "Bush legacy" calls to mind those wonderful Dubya years.)

I'm betting Jeb only flirts with running in order to drum up more business for himself and his ventures.

But I hope I'm wrong.

The Career Of An Education Reformer

Michael Dell is one of those American oligarchs trying to make a big impact on education reform.

Through his charitable contributions and his own education reform organization, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Dell promotes non-unionized charter schools, data-driven performance assessments of teachers and students, school choice, and other reformy education policies in order to help "transform the lives of children living in urban poverty through better health and education."

Just how did Michael Dell, who is trying to engineer a leveraged buyout of Dell Inc. to himself and a private equity consortium for $24.4 billion dollars, a deal that is being hammered by critics as a way to screw investors and dodge taxes, get to be so rich and powerful that can become a Big Time Education Reformer/Union Buster like Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton Family?

As this Mother Jones piece shows here, pretty much by screwing investors, dodging taxes and exploiting and/or outsourcing labor to steal as much money as he can for himself:

Before he became the 15th-richest American, Michael Dell was hailed as a corporate wunderkind. His eponymous computer company's "dazzlingly efficient" factory in Austin, Texas, "may be the best hope of keeping blue-collar jobs in the United States," proclaimed [2] the New York Times in 2004. Recently, Dell Inc. has been better known for gobbling up federal contracts and pulling financial shenanigans to line its executives' pockets—all while exploiting tax loopholes, outsourcing production, and laying off American workers.

1984	19-year-old Michael Dell builds and sells computers from his University of Texas-Austin dorm room. He drops out, and by 1987 Dell Computer's sales hit $60 million.
1992	At 27, Dell becomes the youngest CEO to ever make the Fortune 500.
1993	Dell Inc. builds its HQ in an Austin suburb, lured by [3] sales-tax rebates, property-tax cuts, and $50 million in tax-free financing. Austin's mayor calls [4] Dell, known for his "made in the USA" computers, "a model corporate citizen."
1997	Dell and his wife, Susan, build a $30 million, 33,000- square-foot granite and stainless-steel mansion with 8 bedrooms, a gym, an indoor pool, and (reportedly) 21 bathrooms. Dubbed "the castle" for its elaborate security, it's appraised at $22 million; the Dells argue it's worth only $6.5 million [5], and the county eventually settles at $12 million. Feds fine [6] (PDF) Dell Inc. $50,000 for selling computers in Iran in violation of sanctions.
1998	Michael Dell forms a private-equity firm, MSD Capital [7], to manage his family's money. Today, their $12 billion in assets include a $100 million collection of Magnum photos; Dollar Rent-a-Car; real estate in Hawaii, Mexico, and California; and the companies that run Applebee's, IHOP, and Domino's. Dell Inc. opens a production and sales center in China [8], overseen by a subsidiary. By 2010, it has subsidiaries in 77 countries, including holding companies in tax shelters such as Bermuda and the Caymans that allow it to avoid at least $3.7 billion in US taxes. In 2010, it paid an effective tax rate of 7.5% on its foreign income.
1999	Dell Inc. gets an estimated $200 million [3] in city and state incentives to build a factory in Nashville, Tenn. Three years later, half of the plant's jobs are relocated to a nearby town, where Dell gets $6 million in tax breaks. George W. Bush names [9] Michael Dell to head his campaign's information technology advisory council. Dell Inc. becomes the country's top PC seller. Dell writes the bestselling Direct From Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry [10].
2000	Dell Inc.'s stock price hits all-time high. The New York Times declares [11] Michael Dell the richest Texan ever. (He's now No. 2.) Dell buys two ranches outside Austin for an estimated $75 million. One gets its property taxes slashed 99.8% by claiming an agricultural exemption (proof: turkey feeders, birdhouses, and deer "habitat control"). Recently asked by Time [12] about reducing his carbon footprint, Dell answered, "I'm sequestering way, way more than I'm using. I have a lot of land and a lot of trees." Dell and his wife give [13] $250,000 to the Republican National Committee.
2001	Susan Dell's personal fashion label, Phi, makes [14] Jenna and Barbara Bush's inaugural gowns. President Bush appoints Dell to his President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which warns [15] that outsourcing is destroying the US tech industry. Dell builds a four-story villa [16] on the exclusive Caribbean island of Anguilla.
2003	Dell Inc. replaces its call-center employees with part-time temps. Annual turnover soars to 300%. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation gives [17] $250,000 to a charity run by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who's later convicted [18] of illegally funneling corporate money to candidates. The "Dell Dude" actor is busted [19] for pot possession.
2004	Dell Inc. employs [20] more workers overseas (23,800) than it does in the US (22,200). After heavy lobbying by Dell Inc., Congress passes the American Jobs Creation Act, which lets US companies "repatriate" overseas profits at a one-time tax rate of 5.25%, rather than the normal 35%. The company brings home $4 billion.
2005	Michael and Susan Dell give [21] $250,000 for President Bush's second inaugural celebration.
2006	President Bush [22]: "It's tough in a time of war, when people see carnage on their Dell television screens." Dell Inc. recalls 4.1 million fire-prone laptop batteries. Dell Inc. discloses that it's been audited by the SEC, says it won't reveal details of any "misconduct," but revises four years' worth of financials. Dell Inc. says it's doubling its factory and call-center staff in India to 20,000.
2007	Michael Dell returns as CEO after a three-year hiatus. Less than six months later, his compensation exceeds [23] $153 million, making him the sixth-highest-paid CEO in the US. His benefits include more than $1 million for security, second only to Oracle's Larry Ellison. By year's end, Dell Inc. announces 8,800 layoffs, about 10 percent of its global workforce. Investors sue Dell Inc.'s executives, alleging inflated profits and billions in secret kickbacks from chip maker Intel. The company will settle [24] for $40 million. Customer service employees file [25] a class-action lawsuit claiming that Dell Inc. routinely underpaid them. The case also is settled out of court. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sues [26] Dell Inc. for luring customers into expensive finance plans. In 2009, Dell Inc. settles [27] another case with 34 state AGs and agrees to reform its marketing and financing practices.
2008	Dell Inc. announces $3 billion in cuts, including the closure of an Austin plant, eliminating 900 jobs. It imposes a hiring freeze, offers buyouts, and asks workers to take unpaid days off. Four former middle managers file [28] (PDF) a sex- and age-discrimination suit. None of Dell Inc.'s 14 top executives are women.
2009	Dell Inc.'s quarterly profits fall by nearly half; its shares have lost 80% of their value since 2004. The company announces another $1 billion in cuts. Opposition by Michael Dell helps defeat a proposal that would require federal stimulus money to be spent on American-made goods. Dell Inc., the 43rd-largest federal contractor [29], now makes most of its computers abroad. Lebanon, Tenn., threatens to sue Dell Inc. for eliminating 700 of the 1,000 jobs it had offered as part of a tax deal. Dell Inc. then shutters [30] its last large US factory, in North Carolina, and sends its 900 jobs abroad. Michael Dell's MSD Capital and other investors buy the remains of the failed IndyMac Bank from the FDIC, putting up $1.3 billion for a $158 billion mortgage-servicing portfolio. The FDIC, which expects to lose up to $9.4 billion on the deal, promises to reimburse the investors for their potential losses. By year's end, the new bank has made $700 million in profits and a New York judge excoriates [31] its "harsh, repugnant, shocking, and repulsive" practices. Susan Dell closes Phi, citing the poor market for items such as $1,495 suede harem shorts. Michael Dell's net worth hits $14.5 billion. He bills [32] his company $4 million for using his private jet, reportedly the priciest flying habit of any public company's CEO.
2010	Since 2008, Dell Inc. has cut 7,300 jobs in the US while creating 4,300 jobs overseas. Dell Inc. announces a "flagship" factory and customer center in China that will employ 3,000. It plans to spend $100 billion in China over the next decade. Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that makes many Dell PCs, erects [33] suicide nets around its dorms' roofs after 12 workers jump to their deaths. White House seeks to end a tax loophole that has let Dell Inc. save $546 million in three years by transferring patents and other properties to foreign subsidiaries. According to Bloomberg Businessweek [34], Dell lobbyists targeted the plan; the company denies it. Dell Inc. discloses [35] (PDF) that it's received nearly $1 billion in "tax holidays" from governments around the world in the past three years. Dell Inc. and Michael Dell agree to pay [36] $100 million and $4 million, respectively, to settle SEC charges they improperly hid $6 billion in payments from Intel. Michael Dell gives [37] $2,000 to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), bringing his family's total federal campaign contributions to more than $920,000—99% of which went to Republicans and GOP-leaning groups. By the end of 2010, Dell Inc. shares have gained nearly 80% from February 2009's low. Michael Dell tells Reuters [38] that one of his biggest problems is finding skilled American workers: "I want to put a massive 'we're hiring' sign out."

What a guy! 

So glad he cares so much about helping kids in urban poverty that he's willing to screw so many people, dodge so many taxes and exploit so much of his labor and so many of his customers that he has the money to run his own education foundation.

Also, so glad that Dell worries so much about American workers not having the skill sets to work in Dell Inc and other high tech companies that he promotes all kinds of education reforms meant to increase those skill sets among Americans.

Too bad Michael Dell doesn't actually employ many people in America anymore, having outsourced almost the entire company infrastructure abroad where he can more easily dodge taxes and exploit labor.

This is the career of an education reformer, Michael Dell.

As you can see, he cares about the kids and his country.

How Is Common Core For Kindergartners Not Child Abuse?

The NY Post has a horrifying article about the new Common Core expectations for four and five year olds in NYC schools.

Here's a taste:

Kindergarten has come a long way, baby — too far, some say.

Way beyond the ABCs, crayons and building blocks, the city Department of Education now wants 4- and 5-year-olds to write “informative/explanatory reports” and demonstrate “algebraic thinking.”

Children who barely know how to write the alphabet or add 2 and 2 are expected to write topic sentences and use diagrams to illustrate math equations.

...

The city has adopted national standards called the Common Core, which dramatically raise the bar on what kids in grades K through 12 should know.

The jargon is new, too. Teachers rate each student’s performance as “novice,” “apprentice,” “practitioner” or “expert.”

Kindergartners are introduced to “informational texts” read aloud, such as “Garden Helpers,” a National Geographic tale about useful pests.

After three weeks, kids have to “write a book about what they’ve learned,” with a drawing and sentences explaining the topic.

In math, kids tackle concepts like “tally chart,” “combination,” and “commutative property,” DOE records show.

The big test: “Miguel has two shelves. Miguel has six books . . . How many different ways can Miguel put books on the two shelves? Show and tell how you know.”

An “expert” would draw a diagram with a key, show all five combinations, write number sentences for each equation, and explain his or her conclusions using math terms, the DOE says. 

The consequences of these so-called "higher standards" on the four and five years blessed to have come of school age during the Great Common Core Movement is predictable - they're stressed, full of anxiety and scared:
 

“For the most part, it’s way over their heads,” a Brooklyn teacher said. “It’s too much for them. They’re babies!”

In a kindergarten class in Red Hook, Brooklyn, three children broke down and sobbed on separate days last week, another teacher told The Post.

When one girl cried, “I can’t do it,” classmates rubbed her back, telling her, “That’s OK.”

“This is causing a lot of anxiety,” the teacher said. “Kindergarten should be happy and playful. It should be art and dancing and singing and learning how to take turns. Instead, it’s frustrating and disheartening.”

The DOE spokesperson was less than empathetic about the horrific consequences of the new Common Core on kindergartners:

DOE spokeswoman Erin Hughes said, “These are the types of activities and exercises that students need to work on to acquire the skills they need to be ready for middle school, high school, college and careers.” 

Wow - this Erin Hughes person seems to have grown up under some similar kind of education system where getting along with others and learning the wonders of life were shelved in her kindergarten and replaced with physics and genome explorations.

Remember the Robert Fulghum book from years ago called "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten?

In that book, Fulghum wrote that every lesson that you really need from life is taught to you when you're in kindergarten:

Most of what I really need
To know about how to live
And what to do and how to be
I learned in kindergarten.
Wisdom was not at the top
Of the graduate school mountain,
But there in the sandpile at Sunday school.

These are the things I learned:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life -
Learn some and think some
And draw and paint and sing and dance
And play and work everyday some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world,
Watch out for traffic,
Hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.

That's what used to be taught in kindergarten.

Now under the Gates/Broad/Murdoch/Obama/Bloomberg/Cuomo/Klein/Rhee/Duncan/Bush education reform movement, they don't teach any of those things anymore.

Instead they teach how to get an eating disorder or a drug habit or an alcohol problem or workaholism or a shopping compulsion or OCD or a sex addiction or neurosis or any number of other issues because your kindergarten years have had all the joy and fun taken out of them and have been replaced with high stakes testing, higher order math and language lessons, and cutthroat competition with your peers.

It's not a mistake that the same oligarchs who have brought this insane Common Core to fruition do not send their kids to schools that use Common Core.

They send them to Waldorf schools.

Or Quaker schools.

Or Montessiori schools.

Or the Lab School.

You know, the kinds of schools that aren't run like army drill camps, where the teachers aren't graded using test scores, where the kids don't take high stakes standardized tests all throughout the year, where students get to explore meaningful subjects and lessons rather than endless test prep and drills.

The Common Core Federal Standards are tantamount to child abuse and we need to take the people promoting these things to court and charge them with crimes against humanity.

Seriously.

It's not a mistake either that the people who promote this abusive and authoritarian education system are the kind of people who would fail a standardized test based upon Robert Fulghum's book.

They never learned how to get along with others.

They never learned how to share.

They always need to win.

They always need things their way.

They like to hurt people (or fire them publicly on TV.)

And they never clean up their own messes.

Fred Rogers is dead but I really wish he were around today so that he could take the lead in exposing these Common Core Federal Standards for the garbage they are.

And I believe he would do just that.

Let's channel Fred Rogers and Robert Fulghum and John Dewey and Charles Dickens and Howard Zinn and George Carlin and all the other people who taught us that education is about more than testing and drilling, who taught us that education does not come out of a book but comes out of real world experiences with other people and other beings.

The Common Core as carried out by the NYCDOE is an abomination because we have a vindictive petty tyrant in charge of the city who wants to enforce compliance and obedience from the masses and thinks this kind of education system is the best way to do just that, but please know that the rest of the country is going to get similar treatment as these standards get implemented.

These standards are not meant to get kids up to speed with what they should really know.

These standards are meant to scare kids, parents, teachers and principals that what they're doing isn't good enough, that they need to work longer, harder and faster because omigod the Russians are beating us, er, I mean the Japanese are beating us, what I mean is, the Koreans are beating us, or the Chinese are...ah, screw it, SOMEBODY is beating us and we MUST take action to be Number 1 again!

The reality is, the only people who are beating us are the oligarchs and members of the 1% who have stolen most of the wealth in this country and now want the rest of it.

These wealthy, greedy oligarchs are using this education reform movement to educate the next generation of kids to expect to have to work longer and harder for less, to never get vacations or time off, to lead lives that are about drudgery and nothing else.

Most of all, these wealthy, greedy oligarchs want children to grow up rife with fear and anxiety, the earlier the better, so that they will grow into obedient and compliant adults, good workers who do what the bosses say and good consumers who buy what the advertisers tell them to buy.

As a side note, when you infuse a generation of children with the kind of fear and anxiety that the education reformers are infusing this current generation with, you are going to get a whole bunch of people with a lot of emotional issues that corporations can make a lot of money from - and I'm sure Big Pharma, the casino industry, the alcohol industry, the fast food industry, etc. are licking their corporate logos at that thought.

That's intentional on the part of the education reform oligarchs too - don't think they haven't thought that stuff through.

The only thing they like better than obedient workers is compliant consumers.

And so, I will say again, we not only need to kill the Common Core Federal Standards deader than a minimum wage hike in Mississippi, we need to take the people who promoted this crap - from the education think tankers who developed it and sold it to the politicians who put it into place to the education system functionaries who are carrying it out - and make sure they never get any power over anybody or anything ever again.

Because anybody who thinks four and five years need to learn permutations over sharing, test prep over play, and fear over wonder shouldn't be in charge of anybody or anything.

The Fix Is In: King Threatens To Strip Title 1 Money From NYC If No Evaluation System Is In By March 1

Gauntlet thrown down tonight by the corporate education crooks at the NYSED:

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — New York City has already lost out on more than $240 million in state school aid by missing a deadline to adopt a plan to rate its teachers, but hundreds of millions of dollars in additional state and federal funding remain at risk, Education Commissioner John King said Friday.

He threatened to take over control of certain grants should the impasse between the city and its teachers union continue.

He said the DOE was unprepared to implement any plan that's eventually adopted. In a letter Friday to NYDOE Chancellor Dennis Walcott, the commissioner set a Feb. 15 deadline for the department to outline its preparation plans.

He said hundreds of millions of dollars will be at risk, including $256 million in federal Race to the Top Funding that came with a promise to implement a new evaluation system, $727 million in federal Title 1 funding targeting at-risk children and $100 million in school improvement grants for low-performing schools, if the district doesn't comply with state law requiring the plan.

Without progress toward an evaluation system, King said he may declare the district a "high risk grantee" and take control of certain grants.

"It is unfortunate that I am forced to take these actions, but the 1.1 million children who attend New York City schools deserve the very best education we can give them," the letter to Walcott said.

Oh, sure you want to give the children of NYC the best education you can.

That's why you're threatening to take away the Title 1 money if your APPR system isn't imposed by a new deadline.

And that's why you and the governor and the legislature have refused to pay the money owed to poor districts as a result of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

It's because you care so much about the kids.

Clearly Commissioner King does not like that the state's largest school district will not implement his rigged teacher evaluation system, and so he is going to use every ounce of power he has to extract that agreement from the aggrieved parties here in NYC.

NY 1 reports that King has said that the DOE has until Feb 15 to come up with a plan, the UFT until March 1 to agree to it:

State Education Commissioner John King said the city's inaction on teacher evaluations has put the state's "Race to the Top" grant at risk.

He has given city officials until February 15 to come up with a plan.

The United Federation of Teachers will have until March 1 to sign off on it.

Now I dunno, I don't remember that stipulation being in the Race to the Top law.

I know the NYSED Commissioner was given broad powers in the law, so perhaps he can get away with what sounds very much like his giving the DOE the right to impose a system and the UFT the need to accept it or else.

Because if the NY1 report is correct, that sounds like what has just happened.

I don't know how else to read  that King "has given city officials until February 15 to come up with a plan. The United Federation of Teachers will have until March 1 to sign off on it" other than he's giving the NYCDOE a lot more power than they're supposed to have.

Perhaps the NY1 report is wrong. 

Or perhaps my reading of it is wrong.

More on this as we get information.

But surely you all can see - the fix is in and the boys and girl in charge are going to get their APPR system this year if they have to strip every cent of state and federal aid they can from the city in order to do it.

Criminals.