Corporate Education Reform Proponent George Miller To Retire From Congress

The corporate education reform movement and for-profit post secondary school industry lost a reliable shill:

California Rep. George Miller, Nancy Pelosi’s strong right arm and one of the top Democratic legislators of his generation, is stepping down at the end of this year after four decades in Congress. 

Miller informed Pelosi, the Democratic leader, of his decision last Wednesday and began telling personal staff Monday morning in advance of a public announcement in his Bay Area home district.

Miller was a huge supporter of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, a big proponent for high stakes testing and teacher evaluations tied to high stakes tests and a vacuum cleaner when it came to sucking up huge amounts of campaign funds from the for-profit schooling industry.

I'm sure Miller will slink off to become a lobbyist in the education reform world somewhere, either for the charter sector or the for profit college sector.

One way or another, Miller will cash in.

The good news is, at least he's out of Congress.

Eric Cantor Blames Education System For Crime, Unemployment - Says "Choice" Is The Answer

The privatization express rolls on:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Friday delivered an impassioned call for education reform, citing in part schools that are “too dangerous” and saying that the answer is school choice.

“One of our priorities this year will be to move heaven and earth to fix our education system,” Cantor (R-Va.) said at CPAC, referencing his commitment to moving on education reform in Congress.

He said that the best way to solve the problems ailing American students is to promote school choice.
“In short, school choice is the answer,” Cantor said. “It puts our conservative values to work and provides opportunity for our kids. Now President Obama and the Democrats have got to see the light. We can find common ground. But as Ronald Reagan said, ‘If they don’t see the light, we’ll make ‘em feel the heat.’ The fight for the future of our country is here.”

Cantor said that in the current education system, underprivileged students ultimately fall victim to poor job prospects — “or worse, a life of crime.”

“Our schools are too dangerous,” he said. “They don’t teach to grade level and they certainly aren’t preparing our kids for college or a better future. Too many end up unemployed, or worse — a life of crime. Yes, that costs us as a society, but worse, it costs our children their future. We’re losing them. It’s a tragedy, we’ve got to fix it.”

Oh, yeah - Cantor cares about poor kids so much.

I'm sure "choice" has nothing to do with, you know, this kind of thing:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) rehashed the education portion of the GOP platform Tuesday, promoting for-profit colleges in a speech labeled a "rebranding" of the Republican Party.

"Over the course of this Congress, we will also work to reform our student aid process to give students a financial incentive to finish their studies sooner," Cantor said in his speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "We will encourage entrepreneurship in higher education, including for-profit schools. And we will fix the way we subsidize education by making the costs more transparent to parents, students and the millions of taxpayers who help pay some of the bill."
Cantor said a goal for the year is to "move heaven and earth to fix our education system for the most vulnerable," and to "expand" choices for college. It's those "most vulnerable" students that for-profit colleges have been accused of exploiting.

According to a Government Accountability Office report and a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee investigation, for-profit colleges aggressively recruit ex-soldiers and people from low-income backgrounds, who are eligible for more federal student aid. A 2012 study by Education Sector, a think tank, found for-profit college students more likely to end up with student loan debt and no diploma than peers at non-profit institutions.

...

 Cantor's support of for-profit colleges is nothing new for the GOP. Republicans wrote a defense of the industry into the party platform in 2012, and presidential candidate Mitt Romney was the top recipient of campaign funds from for-profit education in the 2012 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

 Whenever you hear the word "choice" come out of some politician's or political functionary's mouth - whether it's Eric Cantor, Joel Klein Michelle Rhee or Bobby Jindhal - you can be sure the profit motive is not far behind.

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.

Extrapolate These Findings To For Profit Charters And On Line Schools

The Senate released a report on for profit colleges tonight that found the following:

As of 2009, the report said, three-quarters of students in for-profit colleges attended institutions owned either by publicly traded companies or private equity firms. It said the schools excelled at recruiting students, but not necessarily at retaining them: More than half of students at for-profit schools who enrolled in the 2008-09 academic year left without a degree, the report found. Half of all non-finishers ended their studies within four months.

...

Investigators studied operations at 30 for-profit higher-
education companies, including industry leaders Apollo Group, Education Management, DeVry and Kaplan. Kaplan is owned by The Washington Post Co.

“We uncovered two very big problems in for-profit higher education,” Harkin said in a statement. “One, billions of taxpayer dollars are being squandered. And two, many for-profit schools are doing real, lasting harm to the students they enroll.

It's so interesting that even as Harkin's committee is finding that for-profit schools in higher education harm students, put shareholders before stakeholders, and steal billions in tax dollars, they're promoting education reforms that will help bring for profit charters and online schools to K-12 school districts all across the country.

If the hedge fundies and private equity funds calling the shots at for profit colleges are stealing billions and putting themselves above anything and anybody else, what makes the boys and girls at the Obama USDOE or in Harkin's committee so certain that promoting charters (including for profits) and online schools (all of which are for profit) isn't going to bring the same results - harmed students and bilked taxpayers?

Philadelphia is already seeing some of the raping and pillaging the charter operators are capable of - especially when they lack oversight (see here and here.)

It looks an awful lot like what some of those for profit college companies are doing.

And yet, instead of proceeding with caution, the administration and education reformers in both the House and the Senate (including some in Harkin's committee) are pushing for more for profit charters and for profit online schools.