How Schools are Being Profitized, er, Privatized (and more)

Excellent Platform and Dispelling Myths about Public Education

Great stuff coming from our neighbors at Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education.

Be sure to check them out at  neifpe@blogspot.com where you can view and download their  platform
This from Diane Ravitch about their platform:

Is this the real purpose of REPA II?

Elimination of state certification and relaxed teacher licensing means a teacher in one state can teach hundreds of others via webcam while the students are monitored on-site by a non-professional and non-certified adult.

Ability to hire Teach for America students.

Study: Students from high schools with improving ISTEP scores perform no better on ACT exams

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A study published this week in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching covering thousands of Indiana high school seniors from three graduating classes finds that students at schools showing consistent improvement on the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress exam performed no better on the ACT science and math college entrance exams than classmates from declining schools.

Click here to read entire article at the original source.

Bennett's Education Reform in Indiana: How is this Acceptable to Hoosiers?

An article in the Indianapolis Star Monday asks readers, "Are market forces enough for schools accountability?"  Adam Baker, spokesman for Tony Bennett, State Superintendent, suggested the market could be counted on to solve the problem with failing online schools.

If you are wiling to believe that the market will solve school quality problems you must also believe that, by its nature, the market will also bring Hoosier school children and our education system racketeering, security fraud, and insider scandals.  They always accompany each other. In fact, under Bennett, it's already here.

Follow the money trail with Tony Bennett.  K12 (company) belonging to CorporationsMilken, is a cyber business that has donated to Bennett’s campaign. Reciprocally, Bennett has pushed hard that all Hoosier students must take at least one virtual class before graduation. Bennett has not seemed to give much consideration to the fact their product in other states have abysmal track records.

Perhaps a little "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" would not be so alarming, until you consider Michael Milken is a convicted felon whose junk bond dealings got him indicted on 98 charges of racketeering and security fraud. His K12 (company) is already mired in controversies.  Yet Bennett still support cyber charters and trusts the free market, despite a New York Times investigation that concluded K12 squeezes profits from public schools by lowering standards and a study from Western Michigan reporting only one-third of K12 schools made adequate yearly progress. 

Milken is an "education reformer".  He represents the education reform Bennett has introduced to the new "free market" once known as public education.   Make no mistake,  Milken is not here as some great philanthropist to save failing, impoverished  Hoosier schools.

Governor Daniels claims the state holds two billion dollars in surplus while about a quarter of  Hoosier students live in poverty. Instead of investing in Public Education, Bennett closes down schools in these high poverty neighborhoods and turns these students over to venture capitalists like Milken.  How is this acceptable to Hoosiers?

Hoosiers, do not be fooled.  Today's education reform movement is not about bettering our system of education. Today's education reform is not to help children.  Education reform is only about funneling money out of public education, giving huge for-profit corporations state contracts, which in turn uses a portion of that revenue to support campaign's like Bennett's.  We must break this cycle. 

Bennett and the DOE have been complicit in the intellectual defilement of Hoosier students, especially of those most in need.  We must stand up and say this is unacceptable by voting Bennett out of office this year. 

Resistance to Common Core Growing

New Group on Facebook: Hoosier Moms Say No to Common Core

Sign a petition to stop the implementation of the Common Core in Indiana.

ISTEP + Scores Released: Winners and Losers Announced

Tony Bennett, Superintendent of Public Schools in Indiana, is using student tests scores this election year to be the big winner after ISTEP results were released July 10^th.  The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) homepage boasts “Hoosier Students Set New Performance Records”.

Indiana’s students earned another year of record breaking scores on the Indiana Statewide Testing for Education Progress Plus (ISTEP+), State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett announced today … “More students are getting a world class education in our schools.”

Bennett translates improved scores on the ISTEP as “getting a world class education.” Ironically, the opposite is true.

Two New Pieces @ the Chalk Face

1. Education Reform: A Putrid Experience and an Undesirable State of Being

   
   If you are curious as to the direction education reform will eventually take public schools, a more evolved, parallel model … July 5, 2012 by ahuntingtonteacher
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2. Better School Principles Needed

   
   What I learned about school in 2nd grade is schools need good principles. We need a good principle at our … July 4, 2012 by ahuntingtonteacher
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Now @ the Chalk Face

I'm teaming up with the group at @ The Chalk Face working to dismantle high stakes testing, Common Core State Standards, teacher evaluation shams, voucher and charter schools that attempt to privatize education for profit, and every other aspect of the ruse misrepresented as education reform.


This blog will continue to communicate local and state issues.  Links to national issues will be posted here as needed.   


Thanks for the continued support of public education.


Sincerely,

HM

Latest pieces at  @ the Chalk Face

Common Core Skills Not Enough: Common Core Emotional Behavior Needed

June 25, 2012 by ahuntingtonteacher

Dear Council of Chief State School Officers, I wish to express my gratitude for your hard work and allegiance in …
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Jasmine

June 29, 2012 by ahuntingtonteacher

Thank you, ed deformers, for dragging public education into the black market alleyways of business tactics. Another one of these …
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Career Test for Kindergartners Article Rejected by Parody Newspaper

July 2, 2012 by ahuntingtonteacher

Dear sir; Thank you for your submission to our parody newspaper about career testing for kindergartners.  At this time, we cannot …
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A Letter to Every Teacher of the Year (with update July 2, 2012

Update July 2nd, 2012

Here's a video that should inspire others who have a platform in which to speak to use it to advocate for real and meaningful change. Ireland's Teacher of the Year passionately speaks out about the abusive federal programs in her country.

"I'm tired of saying nothing. Teachers have to stop going quietly because our students and our schools are suffering....My English teacher told me it's okay to rebel against stupidity and injustice... Politicians need to listen to the voice of teachers.  Destroying the morale of the teachers who will be implementing this change is NOT the way forward."  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Teacher of the Year,

Your editorials in the newspapers and speeches at the assemblies suggest you are ordinary teachers who have been given "extraordinary opportunities."  You embrace these opportunities to listen to fellow teachers, recognize the low morale, and work to uplift and honor their efforts.

As a fellow teacher, I thank you. I appreciate your good intentions and efforts to raise morale, even if my morale has been fine since the day I intentionally chose to advocate for all public education.  In fact, the intent of this letter is advocacy for both teachers and students by informing those with "extraordinary opportunities" to advocate for real and meaningful change in current educational policy.

Working with the federal RESPECT initiative or other, mimicking state programs as a means to uplift teacher morale is much the same as the person whose only intervention is to tell her friend with the swollen, black and blue face, "I know he does this to you, but he told me to tell you he really cares about you."