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Created 6-Aut-2010

The Spoils (for private interests) and the rotten fruit (for children) of Education Reform.

 22-Sept-2010  Marion Brady finds that founders of charter schools are often motivated not by a desire to provide a great school, but by other less laudable goals.  http://www.truth-out.org/are-charter-schools-really-innovative63823 

09 Aug 2010  New York Times, page A1: 

• This article provides an example of how Education Reform has succeeded in getting the Federal Govt. to adopt programs that channel tax payer dollars into private hands, and indicates that this process does not serve the best interests of children.  Education Reform prioritizes private interests over childrens interests.  The Education Reformers are not upset about poorly qualified consultants getting this money, are they?
•  Title"  "Inexperienced Companies Chase U.S. School Funds"  By SAM DILLON 
• URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/education/10schools.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1281877856-gtIT8IpSds4FHZTpHOoogw  
• Quotation: "With the Obama administration pouring billions into its nationwide campaign to overhaul failing schools  [through the "School Improvement Grant" program], dozens of companies with little or no experience are portraying themselves as school-turnaround experts as they compete for the money....The Obama administration has sharply increased federal financing for school turnarounds, to $3.5 billion this year, about 28 times as much as in 2007. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is pushing to overhaul 5,000 of the nation’s 100,000 public schools in the next few years. Expenditures on each failing school are capped at $6 million over three years. Under federal rules, school districts can hire companies or nonprofits to help, and experts said a significant percentage, perhaps a majority, were likely to hire at least one outside contractor..."

6-Aug-2010 news report. 

 OUTRAGEOUS exploitation of Filipino guest workers hired as test-prep instructors in public schools to fill openings created when the District let go professional teachers.  Read this story to see an example of what can happen in a District that has broken the teacher's union, that enthusiastically "restructures persistently low performing schools" (as judged by test scores) so as to create opportunities for charter shcools to pop up in publically owned school buildings, which is to say a District that has fully embraced all of the reforms that Race-to-the-Top seeks:  http://www.care2.com/causes/education/blog/outrageous-exploitation-of-hundreds-of-filipino-teachers-in-the-u-s/  Key words: Filipino guest workers, Phillipines,

If we follow the links in the article (e.g, see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/education/15teach.html?_r=1) we find that Baltimore school system is one district that engages in this practice. Baltimore is a thoroughly reformed, Broad-Foundation-Hijacked district. The article quotes a spokesperson in Baltimore, thus: 

"For Baltimore, the question is how do we get highly qualified teachers into our classrooms,” Mr. Sarbanes said. “International teacher recruitment has produced some exceptional results for us.”But, he said, the number of foreign teachers the city recruits each year is now dropping because it is finding enough teachers for most hard-to-staff subjects from other sources, including Teach for America.

5-May- 2010  http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/7/juan_gonzalez_big_banks_making_a   Title: Big Banks Making a Bundle on New Construction as Schools Bear the Cost.   Synopsis: "Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction," Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez write in the New York Daily News. "The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years."