Panel following screening of "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" from Robert D. Skeels on Vimeo.
Dr. Stephen Krashen and activist Robert D. Skeels spoke following a screening of "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" on Monday, October 24, 2011.
I know facts are of little consequence to yellow journalists like Ms. Wilson, but for those of us outside of the Ayn Rand circle of influence, there are some egregious factual errors in this piece.
"self-serving antics of our local teachers union -- ahem, Occupy L.A."
No need to tell the truth that many of us at OccupyLAUSD were not members of UTLA, or any union for that matter, since that would get in the way of the false narrative this drivel presents. Unlike the well paid members of the "Don't Hold Us Back" astroturf coalition, we were grassroots activists demanding former Gates Executive Deasy to hire back librarians in our schools and to stop wasting our money on programs proven not to work.
"may not see the correlation between failing students and teachers' job protection."
Please cite one legitimate peer reviewed study that backs this wildly specious statement. I know you aren't really a journalist, but this goes beyond the pale. Yolie Flores' wholly uneducated opinions, policy papers or preliminary reports from right wing thinks like the NCTQ, or the vile Gates Foundation itself are not considered peer reviewed studies. You won't be able to find any such studies, since none exists, but don't let that inconvenient fact muddle your mendaciousness Ms. Wilson.
Another amusing oversight of this article is to state that the individuals on the list above are in addition to the Broad/Gates backed groups that comprise the so-called "don't hold us back coalition."
I know this would require Wilson to research her writing, but she might want to look at names like Kwoh, Buik, Avila, Taylor, and Mack and see if they have anything in common with the groups already onboard the reactionary anti-public education groups comprising "don't hold us back." Here's a hint, they are the CEOs and Executive Directors of those selfsame organizations, each of whom make massive six figure salaries and collect money from anti-public school foundations including the Broad, Gates, Milken, and others to advocate their policies and ideas. Now that's self serving!
The handful of other 1%ers on above list that aren't Gates Foundation hacks are some folks really concerned about inner cities? I mean, the Chamber of Commerce? That's a bastion or worker and civil rights if we've ever seen one.
I'm sure this disgusting piece of propaganda will be well received by those who read the Weakly in between chapters of The Fountainhead, but for those of us that actually possess critical thinking skills, it is repugnant. Aside from her extremist boss, Wilson has an uncanny ability to write on education without ever having to tell the truth or reference factual information. Bravo.
First published on Schools Matter on October 26, 2011
Dana Goldstein is a widely read journalist and a fellow of the right-of-center New America Foundation think tank. Her education writings are occasionally mildly skeptical of the corporate reform clique's claims of miracles, but at the same time she has no problem casting vile villains like Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Eva Moskowitz, and Joe Williams as individuals with legitimate concerns and ideas for public education, rather than the insatiably greedy opportunists they are.What a wonderful Public Relations piece for a lucrative Charter Management Organization! Those of us that follow Green Dot Charter Corporation in Los Angeles can shed a little light on the yellow unionism that Green Dot holds up as a model for the future. Asociación de Maestros Unidos (AMU) has never had single case of successfully defending a teacher against termination by Green Dot Corporation's capricious unelected board of trustees.
Moreover, AMU's CTA/NEA affiliation notwithstanding, tell us of a single "right" AMU has in their contract that isn't superseded by the unchecked power of their unelected corporate board. Anyone who has actually read the corporate contract knows the answer to this since they're familiar with article 4.1 which states:
"It is understood and agreed that the Board retains all of its powers and authority to direct, manage and control to the full extent of the law. While input from the staff will be considered and decisions will be derived in a collaborative model; final decisions will rest with the Board." (emphasis mine)
That's some real collective bargaining! That's why the pernicious former hedge fund manager, Marco Petruzzi, CEO of Green Dot Corporation was able to close Animo Justice by fiat, and neither the school community, parents, students, nor the supposedly "unionized" teachers were able to do a thing about it. Some "culture of fairness."
Let's hope that this isn't the "contract of the future," since all it does is further consolidate power into the hands of those that are the least knowledgeable and most unqualified to be making decisions about pedagogy. Their only concern? The bottom line and the bloated salaries of their executive staff.
Rest assured that Eli Broad, Bill Gates, the Walton fortune heirs, and all the other funders of the corporate Green Dot model to educate impoverished children on the cheap really appreciate your article though. We know how much those plutocrats care about kids.
Hi,
As an avid user of petition sites such as Change.org and Care2.com I was shocked to see Michelle Rhee's Students First organization utilizing this platform. These sites promote progressive values and push for progressive change. Rhee's organization is anything but progressive. Students First advocates against collective bargaining, teacher unions and contrary to its name, does not put students first.
I unknowingly signed a petition on Change.org's site from Students First... as a result of this deception I am asking both Change.org and Care2.com to stop promoting Rhee's pro-corporate agenda. Below are the links to my post announcing the actions as well as the links to the petitions themselves.
- Hold Progressive Change Agents Accountable
- Stop tricking progressives into signing Michelle Rhee’s union busting petitions (care2.com petition)
- Stop tricking progressives into signing Michelle Rhee’s union busting petitions (moveon.org petition)
Feel free to contact me at this email if you have any questions.
--
Peace
Aaron Krager
Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of listening to the malevolent and misinformed rhetoric of the corporate education reform crowd is how they've mastered the art of elusive promises and shifting goals. Pin them down on any point and it turns out that that wasn't their point all along. They'll vehemently argue against research showing class size matters, but then shamelessly tout low class sizes in their glossy brochures and marketing materials. They claim they're open to every student, until they're exposed for openly discriminating against children with special needs, then they'll make specious and mendacious arguments that overwhelming evidence of charter school discrimination is a "manipulation of data." Even in terms of their singular obsession on test scores the corporate cabal keeps moving the target. They'll use low test scores as cover for closing down or privatizing public schools, but have found myriad ways of explaining away their own failures in this regard (of course we social justice advocates call for an abolishment of high stakes standardized testing)."give LA's Promise credit for the massive increase in scores"
| LA's Promise SATs are below the LAUSD average for 2009-10 | |
| LA's Promise West Adams Preparatory High SAT Composite | 1,128 |
| LA's Promise Manual Arts Senior High SAT Composite | 1,171 |
| Los Angeles Unified School District's SAT Composite | 1,334 |
| Fall 2010 West Adams Preparatory High Admits to CSU | |
| Proficient in English | 09% |
| Proficient in Mathematics | 18% |
| Fall 2010 Manual Arts Senior High Admits to CSU | |
| Proficient in English | 03% |
| Proficient in Mathematics | 10% |
I only resigned from LA's Promise last month. In fact, I was still celebrating the awesome academic gains we just got, good numbers that I thought would finally shut up all the negative chatter from the haters like Board Member LaMotte and her cronies. I mean, the school actually achieved undeniable results in CAHSEE pass rates, attendance, API growth, and other metrics this last year. But today's articles by Howard signal a strange turn of events indeed: even though LA's Promise delivered substantially better results than the District and the other reform efforts, LaMotte and unnamed "District leaders" want to give the school back to the District.
I'm confused. Isn't the increase in scores what we are all hoping for? Doesn't that mean the reform is working?
My friend has been following the doings at this quasi-charter school due to their association with Jamie Oliver, since she's into school food issues. An observation:
http://api.cde.ca.gov/Acnt2011/2011GrowthSch.aspx?allcds=19647330114850
Up about 50 points - BUT (isn't there always a BUT) if you click on the link to last year's API, you can see that they lost almost 400 kids since last year. For a school which was over 1900, that is a loss of more than 20% of their kids in just one year, including what appears to be about 1/3 of their AA [African American] population. So one has to wonder what, if any, effect that had on their big jump.
A good question is why and how they lost 20% of their school population!
And your friends numbers are off. We are enrolled at about 2500-2600 at West Adams. We've always, regrettably, had a small number of African American children. But that number isn't declining or increasing in any substantial way. The growth is real... our CAHSEE shows it too for our tenth grade. Our college going rates, our graduation rates. It all lines up.
I wouldn't call it quasi charter either. it's full union contracts. Just staffed with a bunch of great teachers and a strong leadership team.
The enrollment figures came from the API and STAR test reports posted at the CDE; they may not be accurate, but we didn't make them up either.
The numbers given were for students in the TESTED grades (9-11); I assume the 25-2600 number is total enrollment, which would also include 12th graders.
This school demographic report for 2010-11 (2011 growth) shows 1723 enrolled in the tested grades on the first day of STAR testing , with 1673 actually tested http://tinyurl.com/3gmf766
The comparable report from 2009-10 (2010 growth) shows enrollment in the tested grades of 2146, with 2100 tested.
How is this not 400 fewer tested students in the tested grades, and 427 fewer tested?
The only thing I can think of that would explain it is if there had been a much bigger class of seniors last year; those kids would have been tested as 11th graders in spring 2010, but not as seniors in spring 2011; the pig moving through the python. Is that the case, and if not, what's the explanation?
Enrollment by ethnicity 2010-11
http://tinyurl.com/3cwbcjz
total enrollment 2491
2221 Latino
227 African-American
(the figures show that the number of African-American students is declining every year -- last year's 12th grade, class of '11, had 67 African-American students; in 11th grade, the class of '12 had 65 African-American students; in 10th grade, the class of '13 had 50 African-American students, in 9th grade, the class of '14 had 45 African-American students.)
Going back two years to 08-09 via the drop-down menu.
total enrollment was 2663
2312 Latino
282 African-American ( 51 in 12th grade (class of 09), 43 in 11th grade (class of 10), 106 in 10th grade(class of 11), and 82 in 9th grade (class of 12)
So the class of 11 lost 39 (of 106, or about 37%) African-American students between 08-09 and 10-11
The class of 12 lost 17 (of 82, about 21%) African-American students in the same 2 years.
Go back another year to 07-08: when the class of 11 entered as 9th graders, there were 150 African-American students; by 2011 when they graduated, it was 67. Assuming they all graduated, that is a drop of 83 African-American students, or 55% of the number who entered in 9th grade did not graduate 4 years later.
Yes. See enrollment of our senior class which was unusually large. Far exceeded schools capacity when they came in as our schools first 9th graders.
Regarding AA enrollment: if you think those declines are substantive in some way, I suppose I'd need to hear your argument.
At any rate, not sure what the argument is. School, made 113 point API growth over three yrs. With very high attendance. Not bad!
I believe the Rudyard Kipling poem ["White Man's Burden"] is an analogy to [your] goal to colonize South LA from Pico to Slauson...
...honestly I get sick to my stomach when I look at you. Maybe it is the arrogance of your white, male, class privilege that thinks you have all the answers for the people of south central or perhaps it's... the horror of what is possible in all white folks socialized under white supremacy.
"My education is at risk," she said. L.A.'s Promise "claim[s] to want to do a community turnaround. They've definitely done that, but not in a positive way."
But after spending more than $1.5 million of investors’ money on consultants and lawyers, Mr. Vander Ark, 52, has walked away from the project, and the schools will not open as planned this fall, leaving others involved stunned and frustrated.
"For the truly humanist educator and the authentic revolutionary, the object of action is the reality to be transformed by them together with other people — not other men and women themselves. The oppressors are the ones who act upon the people to indoctrinate them and adjust them to a reality which must remain untouched." — Paulo Freire
