Schools Matter: The Monica Garcia - Betsy DeVos connection

First published on Schools Matter on December 13, 2016

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“Monica Garcia believes in… choice… She expanded charter schools” — Michael R. Bloomberg and A. Jerrold Perenchio’s Coalition for School Reform

Extremist Betsy DeVos was a long time favorite of neoliberal corporate education reform oriented Liberals and reactionary organizations like Democrats for Education Reform, so it's surprising that there's a little bit of consternation coming from some Democrats over Trump's ED pick. On the other hand, right-wing extremists like Campbell Brown seemingly can't contain their joy over the arch-reactionary appointment. Ultimately DeVos's school privatization policies won't differ substantively from those of the doltish Arne Duncan or John King. She'll just get to our rulers' end goal of eliminating public education quicker than the Bush and Obama Administrations were able to.

Los Angeles has had its own Betsy DeVos for many years in the form of anti-public school politician Monica Garcia. Garcia is running for a third term, and her long record of expanding revenue streams and market share for the lucrative charter school industry is legendary. Here are some of DeVos and Garcia's connections and shared values:

• Betsy DeVos financially supports, and was on the board of publisher (The 74) of the dubious "LA School Report", a high-profile blog that has provided non-stop favorable publicity and propaganda for Moníca García since its inception.

• DeVos has made sizable contributions to organizations that in turn made campaign contributions to SuperPAC Independent Expenditures supporting García's elections. Follow the money to organization like the now defunct Coalition for School Reform, and Great Public Schools Los Angeles, and also the current CCSA run Parent Teacher Alliance dark money SuperPAC.

• DeVos funds the organizations espousing racist "school choice" policies from which García derives many of her policy positions and talking points.

• DeVos and García openly support religious, and religious affiliated organizations running charter chains. DeVos with the various Christian Identity and white supremacist organizations she's associated with, and García, whose long time relationship with The Pacifica Institute and the shadowy Gülen network are well documented.

Schools Matter: The Monica Garcia - Betsy DeVos connection

Schools Matter: Another defeat in court for right-wing privatizer David F. Welch

First published on Schools Matter on September 23, 2016

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“People need to understand that there’s tons of money in nonprofits.” — Brett Bymaster

Gates Foundation rag EdSource and irrepressible education writer Peter Greene recently announced another resounding defeat in court for the anti-public education outfit Students Matter. The trial court ruled against David F. Welch's corporate reform group in Doe vs. Antioch. Welch's other action, the wrongheaded Vergara suit, recently ended with the Supreme Court of California's refusal to hear his group's appeal. I had some observations reproduced here.

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Once more right-wing extremist David F. Welch costs the people of California untold sums of money with his reactionary group’s wrongheaded causes of action. One wonders how many school libraries could have been stocked with the resources squandered defending against these bad faith lawsuits brought by his group.

As a Juris Doctor candidate myself, I suppose I can consider Marcellus McRae, Joshua S. Lipshutz, and Theodore Boutrous of corporate firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as somewhat instructive. They have demonstrated repeatedly how NOT to read statutes, how to present evidence that is neither logically nor legally relevant, and how to make bad faith arguments without conscience. I will take their lessons on how not to conduct myself as an attorney to heart.

Seems like they need refreshers in issue spotting and ethics. Having just scored a 124 on the MPRE myself, perhaps I could help them with the latter.

Schools Matter: Another defeat in court for right-wing privatizer David F. Welch

K-12 Wire: Thank you John Oliver for exposing how charter schools steal from children

First published on K-12 Wire on August 26, 2016

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“Fraud is a feature of deregulation, not a bug. When no one is looking, some people steal. Not everyone steals, but many do. That is why Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and California are scamming taxpayers.” — Professor Diane Ravitch

The vile poverty pimps and privatization pushers of the lucrative charter school industry were infuriated when John Oliver had the temerity to speak truth to their power. Given their fortunes at stake, the charter sector has launched an unprecedented attack on the truth teller. The Network For Public Education has begun a letter writing campaign to counter that of the well funded efforts by the school privatizers to silence Oliver and other public school supporters. Not one to use boilerplate text, I composed my own thank you note, reproduced here.

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Dear Mr. Oliver:

I've spent the past two decades of my life researching and writing about the lucrative charter school industry. For many of those early years I, and a few others, were subjected to scorn and abuse for our audacity to speak truth to power.

My motivation has always been to defend those with the most to lose because of the charter project's existence—students with disabilities (SWD), students with disciplinary issues, low-performing students, and so on. All these students are discriminated against because they threaten charter school revenues.

Today our voices are no longer alone, ignored, or silenced. The recent NAACP announcement, and your brilliant segment are testament to that. I understand that the charter industry has been launching vile attacks against you for exposing their insatiable greed. Please know that people of good conscience stand behind you. The neoliberal corporate education reform project backing the charter industry puts profits before pupils, and that's unacceptable.

It's time to end the horrifically failed charter school project, and turn our attentions to public schools.

Thank you for your courage.

Robert D. Skeels
Juris Doctor Candidate

K-12 Wire: Thank you John Oliver for exposing how charter schools steal from children

Schools Matter: Perhaps Bill and Melinda Gates need their folly expressed in a more familiar format to understand it?

First published on Schools Matter on August 16, 2016

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“Philanthropy is not progressive and never has been.” — Tiffany Lethabo King and Ewuare Osayande

Seems Bill and Melinda Gates have great difficulty learning from their myriad mistakes. Our Professor Stephen Krashen is frequently reminding them and their fellow neoliberal corporate education reformers of what the real problem is. While the convicted predatory monopolist has no degree, Melinda Gates actually attended and graduated college, so one would think the two of them could sort these issues out. Despite this, the Gates Foundation duo are demanding yet more data, as if that doubling down on their poorly-thought-out ideas will work.

Since they're both computer science types, the problem may just be that they need to see their folly expressed in code. To that end, I've written a short program illustrating what the two Gates Foundation plutocrats do.

If I were more cynical, given their behavior in the face of overwhelming evidence discrediting their ideas and ideology, I think that their constant calls for more data are an attempt to rationalize their conduct, rather than actually trying to help anyone.

Schools Matter: Perhaps Bill and Melinda Gates need their folly expressed in a more familiar format to understand it?

Schools Matter: Neoliberal Corporate Education Reform… for “other” peoples’ kids

First published on Schools Matter on August 12, 2016

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“CCSS assume an American population embodied with a similar history of freedom and cultural ‘neutrality’ or ‘universality’” — Donald H. Smith, Ph.D.

The Atlantic has a surprisingly candid piece entitled “A Public-School Paradox” about the hypocrisy of the establishment elite in Washington not sending their own spawn to public schools. This has been exacerbated by the fact that the most vociferous neoliberal corporate education reform proponents — like Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, and Hillary Rodham Clinton — are all private school parents. Disconnected and disinvested from the public commons, they advocate for horrific, racist, classist “reforms” that only serve to widen the gap between working class families and themselves. Especially disturbing is this trio of Democratic politicians’ full-throated support of the white supremacist Common Core State Standards (CCSS), a curriculum from which their own scion were spared.

My brief comments in reaction to the piece follow.

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Sidwell Friends School is the polar opposite of the horrific KIPP dungeons Obama advocates for other POC kids. My editor at Schools Matter — Dr. Jim Horn — has been publishing chapters from his book on KIPP, but I have a paper copy I’ll read once the MPRE is over. It was Horn that coined the phrase “cultural sterilization” to describe the no excuses model inflicted on students. I can’t think of a better way to frame it, nor anything more removed from the experience of establishment elitists that advocate it for “other” peoples’ children.

Schools Matter: Neoliberal Corporate Education Reform… for “other” peoples’ kids

Schools Matter: Meritocracy myths allow neoliberal Democrats to proffer education as an inequality palliative

First published on Schools Matter on April 15, 2016

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“They favored policies that created “equal opportunity” and fostered “individual rights,” instead of those designed to eradicate the structural underpinnings of racial segregation and economic inequity.”—Professor Lily Geismer, "Atari Democrats", Jacobin

Thomas Frank has a new book out. While I've only read excerpts from his previous works, and several of his essays, I think Paul D'Amato sums up Frank well in that he: "offers some important food for thought–but it’s more of a snack than a full meal." That said, given the precariousness of public education in this era of neoliberalism, even a snack may stave off starvation. Frank is making the tour discussing his new work, and a friend posted one of the interviews. I was listening to it in the background while studying for my Civil Procedure midterm (the arcana of Judgment Non Obstante Veredicto, and other FRCP 50 mysteries), when I heard Frank say something that most of us touch upon when discussing the plutocrats pushing neoliberal corporate education reform. That is regarding the meritocracy myth.

The audio being discussed is at the 21:07 mark and my rough transcription follows.

Democrats are like no, no, no... that's not right. You've got to give everyone student loans. You got to build charter schools. Both sides have their pat answers that have nothing to do with the problem...

This is a book about Democrats, and they see every economic problem as an educational problem, requiring more student loans, more charter schools. That sort of thing. People studying STEM subjects, or whatever it is. This is just how they interpret the world. Why do they do they interpret the world that way? Because that's what worked for them personally. If you look at the biographies of different, prominent Democrats of our time, they all have this eerily similar biography. They are often plucked from obscurity by prestigious universities. Look at Bill Clinton, this kid in Hot Springs Arkansas, goes to Georgetown University, then he's a Rhodes Scholar, then he goes to Yale Law School. All his friends have this similar kind of background. Look at Barack Obama. He goes to Columbia, then Harvard Law School, and is the editor of the Harvard Law Review. For these guys academic achievement and prestige, that's what opened the doors for them, and it is very natural for them to assume that is what will open the doors for everyone else. Now I'm a great believer in education, I spent twenty-five years of my life getting one. But I'm here to tell you that that's not the solution for inequality. We need education, obviously everyone needs to know how to read and do math. We need experts.

That is not the problem with the economy. The problem is not that workers are not smart enough. The problem is that workers don't have any power.

That last, overarching issue is the crux of the problem. I'd like to delve into it further, but that will have to wait until summer break. The other issue of the Democrats championing the meritocracy myth and their pandering the false notion that education will solve inequality is of crucial importance during this election cycle. The Geismer piece cited in the beginning of this post discusses a Democratic Party candidate's ties to many of the worst of the cult of meritocracy.

In her 2016 campaign bid, Hillary Clinton has strengthened these ties, surpassing candidates from both parties in individual donations from employees at the ten highest-grossing companies in Silicon Valley, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and eBay.

Four more years of neoliberalism and wrongheaded education policy are a frightening prospect. Now is time for action.

Schools Matter: Meritocracy myths allow neoliberal Democrats to proffer education as an inequality palliative

Schools Matter: Guest Post: Dr. Jill Stein: A failing grade for Obama's Education pick

First published on Schools Matter on March 27, 2016

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“Public education is another example where there has been a complete scam [regarding privatization]—charter schools are not better than public schools—and in many cases they are far worse. They cherry-pick their students so they can show better test scores. The treasure of our public schools system has been assaulted by the process of privatization.” — Dr. Jill Stein

Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for President, has consistently articulated the best public education platform of all the candidates. Her basic education tenets are the anthesis of those advanced by the neoliberal corporate education reform crowd:

Education as a Right: Abolish student debt to free a generation of Americans from debt servitude. Guarantee tuition-free, world-class public education from pre-school through university. End high stakes testing and public school privatization.

Her campaign sent out a press release on the woefully inappropriate appointment of John King as Secretary of Education. So well reasoned and written, it warrants reproduction here:

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A failing grade for Obama's Education pick

President Obama’s choice for Education Secretary has earned a failing grade from parents, students, teachers, and education advocates across the nation.

Former New York State Education Commissioner John King’s education reforms have been such a disaster for NY schools that last year an incredible 20% of students opted out of the Common Core high-stakes tests introduced by King.

King’s corporate education agenda has given Wall Street A+ profits, but has robbed our children of the quality education they need and deserve.

That’s why I’m asking you to join my call today for a public education system that puts our children first, not corporate profits!

How do we know that Obama’s new Education Secretary is the wrong choice to be in charge of our schools? Let’s look at his report card.

John King co-founded Roxbury Academy in Boston, a charter school noted for rigid, authoritarian zero-tolerance policies that gave it one of the highest suspension rates in the state. In some years, students were punished with suspension at a rate ten times the state average or more.

As NYS Education Commissioner, King moved quickly to implement Common Core standards, which the Obama administration coerced schools into accepting by offering “Race to the Top” money while many school budgets were being slashed due to the recession and austerity.

Despite a firestorm of controversy across the state over the rushed implementation of high-stakes testing, as well as the lack of field testing and input from parents, teachers and students, King brushed off these concerns and insisted on ramming his plan through.

Warnings from King’s critics came true in 2013, when just 31% of students passed the new Common Core math and reading tests.

We’ve seen a common pattern with the education agenda pushed by Wall Street and standardized test corporations: high-stakes testing sets up public schools to fail, paving the way for the takeover of education by charter schools with their profits subsidized by taxpayer dollars.

Within two years after King’s disastrous Common Core rollout, 20% of students were sitting out the tests in protest. Even NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, who appointed King as commissioner, told state education officials that “Common Core’s implementation in New York has been flawed and mismanaged from the start.”

So John King gets an A for boosting corporate profits from high-stakes testing, but an F for improving educational opportunities and outcomes for students.

It’s outrageous that both Democrats and Republicans agree on an education agenda that comes from Wall Street profiteers.

Sign and share my call for an education system designed to educate our children, not to enrich corporate profiteers!

As President, I will halt the destructive push for high-stakes testing and school privatization. Instead of teaching to the test, we need to teach to the whole student for lifetime learning.

We also need increased federal public education funding to correct the shameful disparities between rich and poor school districts, and policies to reverse the growing de facto race and class segregation in public schools.

I will work together with educators, parents, and students to create a world-class public education system that works for people, not profit.

Because our children deserve better.

It’s in our hands!

Schools Matter: Guest Post: Dr. Jill Stein: A failing grade for Obama's Education pick

Policing students and testocracy

http://itspeoplepower.tumblr.com/post/132028279148/policing-students-and-testocracy

Policing students and testocracy

Guest Post: Jose Lara's Open Letter to Parents on Common Core Testing Results

“We can get the same information from low-pressure testing of small samples of students every few years, each student taking only a part of the test, and extrapolating the results to larger groups.  This will save taxpayers’ money, reduce testing anxiety, and give teachers more time to teach. When you go to the doctor, they don’t take all your blood. They only take a sample.” — Professor Stephen Krashen

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The Honorable José Lara is a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Vice President of the El Rancho Unified School District. He is the Coordinator for ethnicstudiesnow.com and recipient the National Education Association's 2015 Social Justice Activist Award.

Open Letter to Parents on Common Core Testing Results

Dear Parents,

Soon California will release the results of your child’s Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, or SBAC tests. These tests are also known and the new Common Core test that California and states across the country implemented last year.

Please know that as you receive the results of your child's SBAC scores our child’s results may show up as failures. This does not mean that your child is not intelligent, that your child's teacher is doing a poor job or that the school your child is attending is failing.  However, it does mean that the SBAC test is achieving expected results. You see, the SBAC test is a failure by design.

The testing company, who was hired to design the SBAC tests,with no input from educators, has purposely designed it to produce a high failure rate. This is so those same testing companies can now sell your child's school the "new" curriculum, test prep materials, intervention programs, textbooks, apps, technologies, etc.to bring up test scores. Not only that, they also hope to fool enough people that they start demanding "better" schools (mind you the problem is the test not the school). Corporate Charter Schools can then come in and takeover. All the while the fat cat CEO's of these corporations make a killing off of our tax dollars.

This moves hundreds of millions of dollars from the public to the private sector where the focus is not in educating our children, but instead making a profit. After all, that is purpose of the business model.

So I write you to take heed of the your child’s results. The results are not a true measure of anything except that the test is working, as it was designed to produce failure. Do not be fooled. 

I write to you as a parent of two public school children and as a teacher to warn you of what is coming and to tell you that, no your child is not a failure and yes your child is more that just a test score. A test does not teach students anything, but teachers and schools do.

Lastly, if you are as upset as I am of this planned failure and the enormous about of money that is being wasted on this tests, then join me in opting out of school testing. There is a growing national movement to stop to over testing of our children and you actually have the right to opt out to have your child in a meaningful educational experience instead of testing. It is time to join this quite revolution against wrongful and over-testing of  our children. 

You can find more information about on the website here at www.unitedoptout.com

Sincerely,

Jose Lara

Guest Post: Jose Lara's Open Letter to Parents on Common Core Testing Results

Schools Matter: Ref Rodriguez's school scandals unreported by LA School Report?

First published on Schools Matter on May 17, 2015

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“Of course, the network of power and privilege that eases access to the Ivy League isn’t severed at matriculation—it supports the scions of the superrich throughout. Further emails from the Sony hack show the Lynton nepotism machine gearing up for his elder daughter, Eloise, an undergraduate at Harvard who found herself unable to get into a very popular class with Dr. Jerome Groopman, a New Yorker writer and professor of biology.” — Sam Biddle

Jamie Alter-Lynton's blog byline should read "what Deasy wants you to think is really going on in LAUSD"

Professor Diane Ravitch discussed a recent Daily News piece in her Los Angeles School Board Race: Attack Ads and Lies Aplenty. The Thomas Hines article in question rightly points out that all of Ref Rodriguez's and his California Charter Schools Association's attacks on the Honorable Bennett Kayser have been patently false, but the issues brought up about Rodriguez—like the PUC Lakeview Charter Academy Audit—are true. Of course, not every Los Angeles media outlet has covered the myriad scandals surrounding the billionaire's candidate. I addressed this issue in the following commentary.

I keep wondering when Jamie Alter-Lynton, sibling of the dubious Jonathan Alter, will have her “news” blog — LA School Report — cover either the Lakeview Audit, or the Jacqueline Duvivier Castillo (Better 4 You Meals) self-dealing scandal, or both? Alter-Lynton’s site claims that it practices “journalism in the public interest”, yet somehow misses two of the biggest Los Angeles education scandals of the year, both centering around their candidate: charter industry profiteer Ref Rodriguez.

This quote says it all: “audits… indicated charter officials [i.e. Ref Rodriguez] knew of the alleged conflict of interest” http://4lakidsnews.blogspot.com/2015/05/lausd-charter-group-gave-food-contract.html

The well heeled Rodriguez was PUC Corporation’s CEO, and then their Board Treasurer during both the Lakeview financial malfeasance and Duvivier Castillo incidents. He claims to have known absolutely nothing about either situation, the former occurring for over a decade, the latter for several years now. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, that means Rodriguez is either grossly incompetent, or criminally complicit (there are some that would posit he manages to be both). Neither of those are desirable qualities for a trustee of the nation’s second largest school district.

Maybe the LA School Report can run this piece on education and privilege?

Schools Matter: Ref Rodriguez's school scandals unreported by LA School Report?

Maybe the LA School Report can run this piece on education and privilege?

Maybe the Deasy School Report can run this piece on education and privilege? h/t @K12NN http://t.co/mkzqBEdi2a @LASchoolReport #LAUSD

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) April 23, 2015

How the Rich Get Into Ivies: Behind the Scenes of Elite Admissions

Jamie Alter-Lynton's blog byline should read "what Deasy wants you to think is really going on in LAUSD"

There's some other investigative reporting that "journalists" Michael Janofsky, Vanessa-Romo, and Craig Clough might want to look into.

Maybe the LA School Report can run this piece on education and privilege?

Schools Matter: Husband of John Deasy confidant, Jamie Alter Lynton, cashed in big on Pearson PLC's LAUSD iPad Deal

First published April 19, 2015 on Schools Matter

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From: "Robert D. Skeels" <***@ucla.edu>
Subject: RepairsNOTiPad's alert: Husband of Deasy confidant, Jamie Alter Lynton, cashed in big on Pearson PLC
Date: April 19, 2015 at 06:43:29 AM PDT
To: [REDACTED]
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Colleagues:

I was alerted to the WikiLeaks of Sony emails early yesterday. I had a seven hour mock of the State Bar of California FYLSX exam yesterday, and have a lot of studying to do today, so I don't have much time. That said, the leaks are devastating in that they prove unequivocally that the billionaires, ideologues, charter executives, and their school board candidates all work together for their common cause of eliminating public education (and profiting thereof).

We're frequently told that we dabble in guilt by association, but then you see items like this leaked:

https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/117253

and it confirms that we have been correct all along in our assertion that this is a well coordinated project by the ruling class (or 1% if you prefer), and their hangers on.

This email is of great import: https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/133248

establishing Jamie Alter Lynton's husband Michael Lynton, Sony CEO, cashed in big on the major corporate player in the disgraced John Deasy's iPad scandal, Pearson PLC.

I am putting out both a call for help, and an assertion that we all need to writing about this. Both charter profiteer Ref Rodriguez, and longtime neoliberal corporate education reformer Tamar Galatzan have insurmountable funding advantages in this upcoming election, and it is the individuals discussed in this email that are bankrolling them. Here's what I need help with, and following that, is a few items that will help others with research and writing their own articles.

NEED

• Someone to go through all of Rodriguez and Galatzan's current 460 Forms looking for contributions by Jamie Alter Lynton and Michael Lynton.
• Doing the same for the various Independent Expenditures for this election.
• A time table of Deasy's iPad fiasco, including the attacks on Stuart Magruder, and when Annie Gilbertson wrote her brilliant articles about Deasy's inappropriate relations with Pearson and Apple executives.
• If the Lyntons are trying to sell off $38,099.31 of Pearson PLC  shares in March 2014, is that tantamount to insider trading, given their relationship with Deasy?
• Someone to go through all of Rodriguez and Galatzan's current 460 Forms looking for contributions by anyone on this list https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/117253.
• Figures of how much LAUSD bond money was squandered in the Pearson deal.
• Statement from https://www.facebook.com/pages/Repairs-Not-IPads/228827333958584 Repairs not iPads representatives on their thoughts on these latest developments.

PROVIDING

Here's some helpful information for other people's articles and research.

Jamie Alter Lynton has supported the Coalition for School Reform (CSR) and its candidates—including Galatzan—in the past with obscene sums like $100,000.

• http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/03/03/why-are-walmart-billionaires-bankrolling-phony-school-reform-la
• http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/14/local/la-me-adv-lausd-money-20130415/2

CSR was an anti-public education SuperPAC started in conjunction with right-wing extremists Philip Anschutz, Jerry Perenchio, Eli Broad, and Frank Baxter. These plutocrats are now funding California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) and its associated SuperPAC directly. For more on CSR.

• http://www.kcet.org/shows/socal_connected/undertheinfluence/education/the-reformers-with-deep-pockets.html

Here's some background on Jamie Alter Lynton from K-12 News Network's The Wire August 11, 2014:

The second issue is that the link in Johnson’s tweet is to the notorious Deasy School Report*, an anti-public education blog created by Jamie Alter-Lynton, a wealthy reactionary who sits as a board member on Superintendent John Deasy’s LA Fund slush 501c3. Alter-Lynton, sibling of corrupt charter cheerleader Jonathan Alter, practices Breitbart style “journalism” — feeling that outlets like the LA Times and LA Daily News weren’t planted in the the neoliberal corporate reform camp firmly enough. Her Ayn Rand leaning views on the public sector are second to her almost maniacal hatred of working class schoolteachers. One can really gauge Alter-Lynton by her letting go of both Alexander Russo and Hillel Aron. Neither of those writers would ever be accused of supporting public schools or saying anything positive about teachers, but they weren’t willing to pursue the white whale with Alter-Lynton’s Ahab-like vengeance.

The distinguished Dr. George McKenna owes nothing to Alex Johnson, the Deasy School Report, or Jamie Alter-Lynton. He is right not to respond to her constant badgering and attention seeking. The best thing we could all do is allow Alter-Lynton’s me-too-reformer blog die a deserved death of obscurity by not visiting or linking to it.

* Properly “LA School Report,” but most activists don’t call it by that very misleading name.

Schools Matter: Husband of John Deasy confidant, Jamie Alter Lynton, cashed in big on Pearson PLC's LAUSD iPad Deal

SKrashen: Do education officials understand why the opt out movement is so strong?

Posted at: http://www.sfgate.com/…/Education-commissioner-Students-can…

In response to: "Education commissioner: Students can't opt out of testing"

Missing from this article is why parents are refusing to allow their
children to be tested: the parents are not against assessment but are
against excessive and inappropriate assessment. This is the reason the
opt-out movement is so widespread. I wonder if those imposing penalties
for opting out understand this.

S Krashen

SKrashen: Do education officials understand why the opt out movement is so strong?

Schools Matter: Another peek behind the neoliberal corporate education reform curtain

First published on Schools Matter on March 30, 2015

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“Yes! Of course they [public schools] can, but my charter (school) friends don’t like it when I say that.” — Paul Vallas

The only nice thing about the right wing is that they don't obscure the reasons behind corporate education reform. Devoid of empathy, compassion, or even an inkling of the notion that human need should trump corporate greed, devotees of Randian "thought" are often entirely honest about motives of neoliberalism. Contrasted to leadership in the Democratic Party, who try to hide the premise underpinning neoliberal policies, the right wing is far more transparent on this issue. For example, arch-reactionary (and charter industry profiteer) Andy Smarick gave us an early peek behind the curtain in 2008 when he admitted that the lucrative charter industry deliberately discriminates against Students with Disabilities (SWD) and other special needs children in order to help bankrupt public school districts. The candor of his Wave of the Future piece in the fringe-right Education Next is as refreshing as it is chilling:

"As chartering increases its market share in a city, the district will come under growing financial pressure. The district, despite educating fewer and fewer students, will still require a large administrative staff to process payroll and benefits, administer federal programs, and oversee special education. With a lopsided adult-to-student ratio, the district's per-pupil costs will skyrocket." [emphasis mine]

Confronted with incontrovertible evidence that the charter industry discriminates, so-called "liberal" corporate reformers like Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, or Ben Austin never publicly admit this is true, much less admit that it is deliberate and by design. The same goes for their assault of the teaching profession. Corner reformers on their attacks on teachers and one gets treated to an array of platitudes about wanting to "elevate the profession", and so forth. One of their reform darlings, Paul Vallas, is up-front about the war on professional educators, particularly the experienced ones. Here is the text from the slide pictured above:

"I don't want the majority of my teaching staff to work more than 10 years. The cost of sustaining those individuals becomes so enormous. Between retirement and healthcare and things like that, it means that your are constantly increasing class sizes and cutting programs to sustain the cost of a veteran workforce."

Doesn't need any explanation, does it?

Another area where the right-wing is forthcoming about the true purpose of neoliberal corporate education reform is in the rationale behind "school choice." Never mind the racist origins of the phrase school choice, or how it is the key factor behind today's schools being as segregated as the times prior to the nineteen-sixties, corporately subsidized Democrats, like Ben Austin of Students Matter, are on record saying of school choice: "It would force the district to learn how to run great schools by forcing them to compete." There is absolutely no evidence that this is true. The disciples of the radical right-wing economist who first advocated "competition" and "choice" in the education sector are entirely honest about this. I was exposed to Robert Weissberg's essay by someone during the struggle against the former Gates Foundation executive, Yolie Flores's, attack on Los Angeles public schools in the guise of her vile Public School Choice giveaway program to the charter sector. The paper was quite revealing in that like the Smarick piece above, it was candid about the real reasons for school choice — which have nothing to do with improving schools. Here is an excerpt of the abstract:

"Despite ample debates over the efficacy of school choice, theorizing has lagged behind and this hinders progress. Milton Friedman, the choice movement founder, never claimed that choice would improve academics; choice was inherently valuable and parents might demand anything. Choice advocates also exaggerate the remedial power of markets and proliferating academic options seldom brings academic diligence. Given free tutoring opportunities, those lagging behind reject them, and costs will usually be too high for most low achievers. Extensive schooling options already exist, so waging political battles to add more is unnecessary."

School choice has never been about improving education, rather it has always been a specious argument used to advance the privatization of education. I suppose in a way we owe Smarick, Vallas, and Weissberg a thank you for being honest about what really drives the charter school project, and all its attendant education reforms.

Schools Matter: Another peek behind the neoliberal corporate education reform curtain

More Than a Score The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing

More Than a Score The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing with editor Jesse Hagopian

Friday, March. 6 at 4:30pm: United Teachers Losa Angeles (UTLA) in L.A. Saturday, March 7 from 8am-3pm: ARE 2015 Conference, San Diego Across the country, students are walking out, parents are opting their children out, and teachers are refusing to administer detrimental exams.  More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing More Than a Score is a collection of essays, poems, speeches, and interviews--accounts of personal courage and trenchant insights--from frontline fighters who are defying the corporate education reformers, often at great personal and professional risk, an fueling a national movement to reclaim and transform public education. "Those who support public education and a respected teaching profession can find hope in the stories of resistance in this book." —Diane Ravitch  "The eagerly engaged voices assembled here present an action plan to combat the increase in high-stakes standardized testing currently plaguing K–12 education…the focus is on doing rather than shouting, and each essay in this anthology is a blueprint for civic action….The contributors build on Hagopian’s optimism for the blooming of an “educational spring” and make this book exceptional." —Publishers Weekly Starred Review "For anyone who wonders what’s powering the virulent opposition to standardized testing, Common Core standards and so-called education reform, Jesse Hagopian’s new book, More Than a Score, will be an illuminating read." —Seattle Times "More Than a Score is an exciting book, filled with anger, passion and creative strategizing over ways to defeat standardized testing. It’s also a call to arms and a well-argued plea for educational equity and a thoughtful defense of public education, the teaching profession and student-centered learning." —Truthout JESSE HAGOPIAN teaches history and is the Black Student Union adviser at Garfield High School, the site of the historic boycott of the MAP test in 2013. He is an associate editor of Rethinking Schools, a founding member of Social Equality Educators, and winner of the 2013 “Secondary School Teacher of Year” award from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences. Hagopian is a contributing author to Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation and 101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals Who Changed US History, and writes regularly for Truthout, Common Dreams, Socialist Worker, Black Agenda Report, and the Seattle Times Op-Ed page.

More Than a Score The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing

Board Member Galatzan says Let Them Eat iPads!

Street Theater and Rally Against Tamar "Antoinette" Galatzan

Board Member Galatzan says Let Them Eat iPads! by Robert D. Skeels

Board Member Galatzan says Let Them Eat iPads!

Tamar Galatzan Stop Failed Experiments TV Spot

LAUSD School Board member Tamar Galatzan was the chief backer of the school district's disastrous iPad program that the L.A. Times called a mess from the beginning to end. Tell Tamar Galatzan to stop the failed experiments and stand up for our kids.

Be sure to check out Corporate education reform privatizer Tamar Galatzan's greatest neoliberal hits at LAUSD

Tamar Galatzan Stop Failed Experiments TV Spot

Ultimately Coro is far more shadowy and cultish than even the Gülen charter school network

""Their real contribution is that they defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right. They alter the public psyche. They turn people into dependent victims and blunt the edges of political resistance. NGOs [NPIC] form a sort of buffer between the government and public. Between Empire and its subjects. They have become the arbitrators, the interpreters, the facilitators. In the long run, NGOs are accountable to their funders, not to the people they work among." — Arundhati Roy

Recently I wrote a piece on neoliberal corporate education reform operative Caprice Young. It discussed an exchange I had where I informed California Badass Teacher Association (BATs) members of some of Young's activities since she left ICEF: "…after she [Caprice Young] left ICEF she was doing consulting and working with her fellow right-wing CORO alum, Bill Jackson, at the disgusting "Great Schools" #NPIC". I then needed to add Jackson's name to the list of Coro operatives known to be working to eliminate public education in Los Angeles. I maintained a running list in a footnote of a 2011 Schools Matter piece, but realized that was becoming too unwieldy. Therefore, I've begun this new list. It's of Coro acolytes that have inflicted considerable damage on Los Angeles schools. It isn't intended to be a list of all known Coro operatives. When I get time I'll try to fill in backgrounds and details on those listed here.

Coro operatives menacing Los Angeles schools

Yolie Flores-Aguilar

Wesley George Farrow

Jordan Henry

Bill Jackson

Ricardo Mireles

Alex Padilla

Gabe Rose

Ryan Smith

Caprice Young

Currently Magnolia division of the Gülen Charter school fiefdom

Ultimately @CoroSoCal is far more shadowy and cultish than Gülen's network itself #LAUSD #NPIC http://t.co/50W67agg1g pic.twitter.com/jD8H4DYcqN

— RDSkeels4Schoolboard (@RDSkeels4LAUSD) February 4, 2015

What is Coro?

Information on Coro is hard to come by. Activists rarely get Coro operatives to talk about their organization, and when they do, there's nothing said of substance. During my last quarter at UCLA I reached out to them as a prospective fellow. They encouraged me to apply, but wouldn't provide any details without applying and committing first. I suppose that's like not learning about Xenu until one achieves OTIII (perhaps John Deasy's friend Megan Chernin can confirm that). You can't learn much about them by reading their literature either. The philosophically threadbare propaganda of neoliberalism is typically littered with vapid and vacuous prose, and Coro's explanation of who they are and what they do is no different. To wit:

Coro contributes a group of trained individuals whose personal skills and civic involvement promote broader civic engagement and expand the social capital of the community. By developing a network of local and regional organizations willing to create internship and project opportunities for program participants, Coro creates a safe space in which diverse organizations and leaders enter into dialogue with program participants and with each other.

That's sixty-five words of prose with no meaning whatsoever, putting it right along with "no excuses," or "work hard and be nice." Professor Noam Chomsky addresses these types of phrases best:

It doesn't mean anything... That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? [1]

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NOTES
[1] Chomsky, Noam. Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, Second Edition. New York: Seven Stories Press., 1991. pp. 25-26.

Ultimately Coro is far more shadowy and cultish than even the Gülen charter school network

Millionaire extremist David F. Welch's reactionary lawsuit hurts kids, educators, and sticks CA taxpayers with his bills!

For more on anti-public-education extremist David F. Welch, see Capital & Main's David Welch: The Man Behind Vergara v. California. For updates on the appeal, and information from experts like Professors Linda Darling-Hammond and Jesse Rothstein refuting the groundless premises of Vergara, see CTA's site.

Millionaire David F. Welch's reactionary lawsuit hurts kids, educators, and sticks CA taxpayers with his bills #LAUSD pic.twitter.com/U9LvZkvaac

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) February 5, 2015

Reactionary millionaire David F. Welch's vile move hurt kids, educators and taxpayers by Robert D. Skeels

Millionaire extremist David F. Welch's reactionary lawsuit hurts kids, educators, and sticks CA taxpayers with his bills!

Jersey Jazzman: Howard Dean's Reformy Scream for TFA

Jersey Jazzman: Howard Dean's Reformy Scream for TFA: There was a time I really admired Howard Dean. Alas... In the debate over education, progressives have been presented with a series of fa...

Jersey Jazzman: Howard Dean's Reformy Scream for TFA