Corporate Cheaters Always Prosper—Deasy Offers Crescendo a Reprieve

Crescendo Charters has continued running its six schools in LAUSD, despite the fact that their boss had directed teachers and principals to help students cheat on state standardized exams. The scandal led the state education department to invalidate the schools’ results. In March, the school board voted to shut down the schools, allowing LAUSD to take the campuses back and start collecting the state funding that had gone directly to Crescendo’s corrupt bosses (See LAUSD Changes Course, Modern School). All this is set to be reversed (again), this time by charter-loving Superintendent John Deasy, who has never met a charter (or profit-based reform) he didn’t like.

Deasy told the board Tuesday he's leaning toward a reprieve after seeing strong reforms at the charter in the wake of the 2010 testing scandal, the Sacramento Bee reported today. The school board would still have to approve Deasy’s recommendation. However, contrary to Deasy’s claims of reforms, six of the principals involved in the cheating are still on the job (they have terminations scheduled for the end of June), but two are being allowed to reapply for their jobs. Furthermore, members of the Crescendo governing board are still on the job.

Under Deasy’s logic, a bunch of education profiteers who cheat to appear more effective than their public counterparts, but then apologize and promise to be good, are entitled to a second chance. However, teachers who work hard, play by the rules, but happen to teach in low performing schools could get permanently fired, regardless of their skill and ability in the classroom. Worse, a mother returning from maternity leave could find she has been forever nixed from LAUSD for having the audacity to exercise her rights under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. (See Gates and Villaraigosa: Screw Family Leave! Screw the Feds! Fire 25% of All Teachers!)

Cheating in order to look effective and boost profits is fine if you apologize and make a few cosmetic changes. It certainly worked on Wall Street. And let’s not forget that it really was not the corporation or its board that caused all these problems, but just a few rogue elements. The fact that Crescendo is a profit-driven Educational Management Organization (EMO) certainly had nothing to do with this scandal. So why not allow them to continue to exist and continue to make a profit?

On the other hand, when the Crescendo board found out about the scandal they initially denied that any wrongdoing occurred. Then they downplayed the naughtiness. Then they gave the founder, John Allen, a love tap on the rear and asked him to go home, but not without first giving him a generous severance package (See 4lakids blog).

McGraw-Hill: Elevate Teacher Status (So We Can Sell More Books)

According to a new report published by McGraw-Hill, if the United States wants to improve the quality of its education system, it needs to elevate the status of the teaching profession by recruiting more qualified candidates, training them better and paying them more. Yes, you heard me. Pay teachers more.

However, while the report did mention that teachers are overworked and underpaid, it also pointed out that many high performing countries (like Finland) pay their teachers less than we do, and emphasized that raising teachers’ status is more about changing public perception. In other words, we don’t really have to offer teachers more money, we just need to be nicer to them and perhaps give them a little more autonomy. This message, of course, should sit nicely with those who want to crush teachers unions and slash their pay and benefits. The report also laid the blame partially on teachers themselves. (Stop whining so much about your health benefits when our children’s future is being torn out from under them!)

Dr. Steven Paine, co-author of the report and a CTB-McGraw-Hill Vice President, completely revamped his state’s curriculum when he was Superintendent of West Virginia. He felt that a similar plan nationwide could lead to much higher outcomes for students of all backgrounds. He also proposed adoption of national content standards (Common Core Standards). Obviously, this would suit McGraw-Hill, as it would force states to purchase new textbooks, tests, and curricular support materials, much of which McGraw-Hill would supply. However, it would do nothing to improve the material well-being of students, which is the most significant factor influencing their academic success. Indeed, poverty creates a significant achievement gap before kids have even started kindergarten. Spending a lot of money on new books, tests and curriculum, while ignoring poverty and stressful home lives, will do little to help poor students and is just another taxpayer give away to edu-profiteers like McGraw-Hill.

Interestingly, the report did mention that socioeconomic factors play a role in students’ academic performance, but offered nothing by way of a solution. Of course that is no surprise. Corporate bosses are not going to propose a redistribution of the wealth or increasing taxes and social spending.

The report held up Ontario, Canada as a model for the U.S., where the “heavily unionized” teachers are NOT a roadblock to “successful education reform.” Dr. Paine related how the Premiere and his staff sat down with the union and established common goals. The message for the U.S. is that we need more employee-management collaboration, something Arne Duncan has been pushing for some time. Of course a true collaboration would be nice, one where the politicians ask what we need, listen to us, and then make it happen. However, the Duncan model is more along the lines of “Do what I say and do it now and I won’t send you to your room without supper.” We are already seeing numerous examples of this with union bosses like Randi Weingarten sitting down with political and corporate bosses to hash out how far she can push teachers before getting pushed down the staircase herself.

Overall, one should be very suspicious of any education reform recommendations coming from corporations that benefit financially from public education. Paying lip service to the deplorable status of the teaching profession is an inexpensive bone to throw teachers in exchange for their support of Common Core Standards and their brand loyalty to McGraw-Hill. In the competition for education dollars, the charter schools and educational management organizations have been winning the biggest victories lately, while the publishers, who were the biggest initial winners under NCLB, are seeing their market share decline. The attacks on NCLB and the threat to modify or alter it (or, God forbid, abolish it entirely) must have the big publishers like McGraw-Hill and Pearson quaking in their boots.

Shutting Parents Out to Shut Them Up

(Image by t0msk)

What is the best way to get your way? Make sure that your way is the only way being discussed. Charter schools achieve this by cutting parents out of their governing boards and operating in secret. Republicans are attempting to achieve this by crushing unions and destroying their ability to fund Democratic candidates. The ruling elite achieve this by influencing members of both parties, controlling the media and by framing every issue in terms of whether it is good for “jobs” and the “economy” (i.e., profits).

There are plenty of stakeholders who oppose corporate education reform and who are shut out of the debate, the most obvious (and vocal) being teachers. However, there is another vocal group that is also left out of some of the most important education reform decisions: parents. Leonie Haimson (from Class Size Matters) & Julie Woestehoff (from Parents United for Responsible Education) have outlined many of the consequences of this in their commentary, SHUTTING OUT PARENTS: Obama's Disappointing Blueprint for Reform.

Excerpts are below (in quotes), with my comments in italics:

“As public school parents and parent advocates, we have grave reservations about the Obama administration’s "blueprint for reform" laying out its proposals for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Along with 16 other parent activists from throughout the country, we recently wrote a letter to the president and Congress, which hundreds more signed on to, registering our opposition to the administration’s agenda for the nation’s schools.

As this letter from “parents across America” pointed out, the parent voice has been missing so far from the national debate on education, and is entirely absent from the top-down, often draconian policies put forward by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.”

While the Duncan plan is certainly top-down and detrimental to students, the lack of parent voice in the debate is not an innocent oversight. The parent voice has been deliberately shut out because it is a nuisance and a hindrance to corporate profits, the ultimate goal of the Obama/Duncan education reform model. In much the same way that the U.S. cannot tolerate any sort of popular government in Egypt because it might make decisions that limit U.S. corporations’ ability to exploit their workers and resources, the current wave of education reform is all about plundering the public education system for private gain. Low wages, weakened unions and job protections, heavy reliance on testing and accountability, and the use of educational management organizations to run the schools like factories are all part of this strategy. Anyone who resists this, whether it is to protect their living and working conditions or to protect their children’s quality of education, must be stifled.

Haimson and Woestehoff do make reference to this in their critique (see below). However, they do so from the perspective of caring parents, laying out numerous important ways children will be harmed by it, while pleading for a seat at the table and arguing that as knowledgeable stakeholders they could help make smarter decisions. While they are very knowledgeable and certainly could make smarter education decisions, their pleas are likely to fall on deaf ears, as the objective here is not children’s well-being, but profits.

“We object to the reform blueprint’s focus on privatization and its push to radically expand the charter school sector. Though some charters may offer students a quality education, one of the largest national studies shows they are, on average, no better, and frequently worse, than neighboring regular public schools. Charters also draw money, space, and other resources from district schools, while enrolling fewer of their communities’ immigrant, special-needs, and poor children.

Tying teacher pay and tenure to gains or losses in students’ standardized-test scores will make the prospect of teaching in inner cities less attractive. According to the National Academy of Sciences, such tests are also a highly unreliable basis for judging teachers. Too many schools have already become joyless test-prep factories, rather than centers of real learning. All children, especially those in inner cities whose parents cannot afford to supplement their schooling, need and deserve a full complement of social studies, science, arts, and physical education. Yet these subjects are being driven out of the curriculum by the high-stakes testing regime imposed in recent years. The Obama blueprint pays lip service to the need for a well-rounded education, but its proposals to link teacher evaluation and pay to the results of high-stakes exams are likely to make a bad situation even worse.

Education is a public trust, and the very foundation of our democracy. Congress holds a great responsibility in its hands in the pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We are well aware that powerful corporate and foundation interests are shaping many federal and local education policies with dollars rather than evidence-based solutions. We hope that Congress and the administration will listen more carefully to parents as they deliberate on this crucial piece of legislation, and that the next version of the ESEA formally incorporates our views. As highly knowledgeable primary stakeholders, we must be permitted to have a seat at the decision making table.”

This last section repeats an oft-cited, but inaccurate premise: The education system exists to bolster democracy. While the notion of an egalitarian society in which all members participate equally and freely is a wonderful goal, it is not the political system we have, nor is it something that the education system was designed to bolster. Furthermore, it says nothing about the cruel conditions that force so many to live with so little. Rather, democracy, Congress AND the education system all exist in order to bolster capitalism, to ensure that there continue to be people who can operate the factories, provide services, purchase products and accept this reality stoically and patriotically.

Certainly a good educator has the power to inspire people to fight for freedom and equality. However, if we truly want to gain control of the education system and empower young people to fight for a better society, we need to empower young people now, together with parents and teachers, to confront the ruling elite head on. We need to wrest control of the entire socioeconomic system, not just the education system. We need to strip away the wealth and power that allow so few to rule over so many.

Beating ‘Right to Work (For Less)’

Labor Victory (image by HarryStaab)

The wave of government attacks on unions that has been growing across the country has the ultimate goal of abolishing unions entirely. Unions drive up wages for workers, which is a good thing, but it pisses off bosses to no end. Unions are also major contributors to the Democratic Party, which pisses of Republicans (and a lot of bosses) to no end, too. One of the tactics being used to destroy unions is to enact “Right To Work” legislation, more aptly named “Right To (Work For Less”) because it has the tendency to drive down wages by making it harder for unions to organize and maintain membership and to collect dues from existing members.

In a remarkable victory for workers in 1978, the National Right-To-Work Committee’s Missouri initiative was defeated by a 3-2 margin. Missouri Republicans have been at it again, trying to put together new “Right to Work (For Less)” legislation last year. 12 other states are also threatening to pass similar anti-union and anti-worker legislation.

In a recent piece in Labor Notes, Jerry Tucker, one of the organizers who helped defeat Missouri’s 1978 attempt at Right to Work (For Less), discusses some of the lessons from that campaign. I’ve included just a few excerpts, with my commentary in italics:

“Missouri in 1978 looked like a good target for the “right-to-work” forces. An industrial union stronghold with many characteristics of a Southern state, a RTW victory there could have a domino effect. Missouri would put organized labor’s unity and power to the test. Initial polls showed RTW passing by a 2-1 majority, and even union members were 51 percent in favor. State labor officials favored a legal strategy, and had no plan to reach union members—much less the communities beyond labor. We had to turn that around.”

It is significant that RTW seemed initially to be a done deal. The mainstream union bosses today are much too quick to look at data like this and accept it as a fait accompli, rather than buckling down for the tough fight. The fact that so much of the public today seems to be buying the anti-union rhetoric and jumping onto the anti-public sector worker bandwagon is very similar to the fact that 51% of Missouri’s unionized workers initially supported RTW. When overwhelmed by propaganda from the bosses, it is sometimes difficult see the truth buried underneath.

“The United Labor Committee, a statewide body with representatives from the AFL-CIO, UAW, Teamsters, and Mine Workers, raised $2.5 million to run the campaign against right to work. Twice the committee requested donations from member unions equivalent to 50 cents per member. Some unions asked locals or internationals to cover the donation. Some, like the UAW, went directly to the membership—which had important benefits. Members were educated about the campaign and gained a personal stake once they reached into their own pockets.”

Similar fundraising efforts may need to be replicated today. However, with a much smaller percentage of the workforce currently unionized, this will be much less effective than in 1978. The face to face meetings with members was probably much more significant than the actual money collected as it has the potential to amplify the message each time a member learns the facts and gets inspired to be more active. One of the most efficient uses of limited union funds today is to train and mobilize large cadres of organizers who can go out and meet with workers face to face, including non-unionized workers, whose support is desperately needed in all fights for labor rights, wages and benefits.

“Rank-and-file unionists were the mainstay of the campaign. In fact, some couldn’t seem to do enough, and at the outset thought their leaders weren’t doing enough. While the labor committee was still ramping up, members were acting on their own. They set up meetings, visited the merchants with whom they did business, painted signs on their cars, and worked the polls. . . New member organizing spiked upward for several years afterward.”

The last line here is important. Getting workers excited and motivated is key to winning a campaign. Keeping that energy going after the campaign has ended is always a challenge. People want to go back to their lives. They may feel burned out. They often believe that their activist work is done. Right now, there are so many attacks on workers that it is crucial to build up the excitement and mobilize workers to fight these attacks. The energy is certainly growing, especially in states where Republican governors have made explicit threats (e.g., Wisconsin, Ohio, Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee). These threats are still looming. There have not yet been any decisive victories for workers (except, perhaps in Illinois, where legislation to ban public sector workers from striking was withdrawn). So the struggles must continue.

What if we win? What happens next? Will we allow all that excitement and energy to wane and then wait for the next attacks? A much smarter strategy would be to start making long-term plans and looking at bigger, more impressive goals. The short-term strategy must obviously be to protect our rights to strike and collectively bargain, but it should also include protection of wages and benefit. No more one step forward and two steps back. Medium term goals must include recruiting more workers into unions and building union strength back up to its previous levels (or higher). Once we defeat the local anti-union initiatives, non-union workers will see the power and benefits of being in a union, while those who were active in the struggles will feel empowered and feel motivated to help in the organizing.

Medium-term goals should also include fighting for improvements in living standards. Each year the productivity of American workers increases, while profits soar, yet our living standards have steadily declined and the wealth gap has increased. We should demand higher wages, much higher, combined with higher taxes for the rich, not only to erase the budget deficits, but to turn them into surpluses that can be used to fund education, health and social services.

Long-term goals should include fighting for an end to poverty, and to wealth, as well as an end to bosses and to wage slavery itself. We should be organizing for shorter workdays and longer vacations and weekends. We should be fighting for universal health care, housing and food, an economy that prioritizes human needs, not bosses’ greed.