What’s the Buzz? A Crown of Gadflies! Top 10 Articles (by Me) in 2017

December 26, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Badass Teachers Association, Betsy DeVos, bloggers, Campbell Brown, capitalism, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Common Core, Competency Based Education, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Data, Data Mining, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Facebook, Journalism, Media, Pennsylvania, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, President, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, Technology, Toxic Testing, White Privilege education, end of the year, Gadfly on the Wall, schools, teachers, teaching

We made it, Readers.

Somehow we survived 2017 – the first year of the Trump Presidency.

What a monstrosity that has been so far!

Republicans have stolen more than $1 trillion from our pockets to give to their mega-wealthy donors in the form of tax cuts. A 3-2 GOP majority on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed Net Neutrality. And the party of Lincoln endorsed and funded a child molester for US Senate – though he thankfully lost.

We’re in new territory. Politics has always appealed to the best and worst of our natures: Good people who really want to make a difference and sniveling cowards willing to do whatever their sugar daddies tell them. But unfortunately our world has increasingly rewarded the latter and almost extinguished the former.

However, don’t lose heart. The cockroaches are all out in the open. They’ve become so emboldened by the words “President” and “Trump” voiced together that they no longer feel the need to hug a wall.

All it would take is a good boot and a series of stomps to crush them forever.

Someone get me my shoes.

In the meantime, I sit here at my kitchen table recovering from a turkey coma preparing for a nostalgic look back at everything that’s happened here at Gadfly on the Wall in the past year.

It was quite a 365 days! Most amazing was the publication of my book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform” from Garn Press. It’s a thorough reworking and “Best Of” this blog over the last three years.

Sales have been strong and reviews are starting to come in. I am absolutely floored when I get messages from people I admire telling me they got the book and appreciate this or that. It’s been my lifelong dream to publish a book, and now I’ve done it. The New Year will involve lots of promotion – hopefully I can get decision makers to read it!

Other than that, it’s been a busy year blogging. I wrote 118 articles! That’s about one every three days!

And people have been reading them.

I’ve had more than 364,000 hits – about the same as in 2016. This puts the total views over the 1 million mark at more than 1,216,000! That’s quite a landmark for a blog that’s only been around since July, 2014. And it doesn’t count all the readers I get from articles reposted on the Badass Teachers Association Blog, Huffington Post, Commondreams.org, the LA Progressive, Alternet, BillMoyers.com or other sites.

I’ve also gotten 1,510 more people to follow me for a total of 12,845.

I’m so honored that readers still like coming to this site for news and commentary. As long as you care to enter those virtual doors, I’ll be here, hunched over my computer, pounding away at the keys.

So without further ado, let’s take a look back at the top 10 articles from this blog that got the Inter-webs humming:

10) Teacher Appreciation Week is a Pathetic Joke!

Published: May 10, 2017

Views: 4,320

Description: At the end of every school year we get Teacher Appreciation Week. It’s nice. Educators get free donuts and cookies, a pat on the head and then the rest of the year we get all the blame for society’s problems without any additional funding, repealing terrible policies or even acknowledgement of what the real issues are in our schools. It’s a sham. Someone had to say it, so I did. Thanks for the snack, but it takes a village, folks! Get off your butts and take some responsibility!

Fun Fact: Some people, even teachers, were really upset by this article. They thought it was ungrateful. Don’t get me wrong, I am truly appreciative for any crumb the public wants to give us, teachers, but I’m not going to let it pass as if that counts as true support. Salving your conscience isn’t enough. We need true allies to get down in the mud and fight with us. Otherwise, it’s just an empty gesture.

9) White Privilege, Public Schools and Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Published: Dec 22

Views: 4,324

Description: This one’s hot off the press! It describes a situation at one of the schools were I’ve taught over the years and how dress code policies can support white privilege. They’re the broken windows policing of academia, and we need to put much more thought into them before laying down blanket restrictions.

Fun Fact: Some readers took exception to this piece because they thought I didn’t do enough to stop a wayward administrator despite the fact that I never said what I did or didn’t do. Some even complained that it was dumb to simply acknowledge racism and racist policies and actions. I don’t know what world they’re living in. White folks voted for Donald J. Trump to be President. We’ve got a long way to go, and acknowledging everyday prejudice seems a worthy goal to me.

8) America’s Founding Fathers Were Against School Choice

Published: Feb 16

Views: 4,483

Description: The entire premise of school privatization goes against the founding principles of our nation. We were born out of the Enlightenment, not the profit motive. Our founders would look on in horror at charter and voucher schools. Though they aren’t perfect, only truly public schools embody the ideals of the Revolution. True conservatives and true patriots would support that system, not strive to blow it up for personal financial gain.

Fun Fact: Some people took issue with an appeal to the founders who were not exactly perfect. It’s true. In practice many of them did not live up to their own high ideals. However, who does? It is the ideal that matters, not the clay feet of our forebears.

7) Middle School Suicides Double As Common Core Testing Intensifies

Published: July 24

Views: 5,800

Description: Teen suicides are up – especially among middle school age children. At the same time, we’ve been testing these kids into the ground. More standardized assessments – and these are unnecessarily more difficult to pass Common Core assessments. This is exactly what happens in countries that put such emphasis on testing – they have a higher suicide rate. It’s no wonder that this is happening here, too. Policymakers want us to be more like Asian countries? Be careful what you wish for!

Fun Fact: This article infuriated the good folks at the Education Post. Peter Cunningham had his flunkies attack me on Twitter complaining that I was an angry white dude making undue correlations. Yet every other explanation for the fact of increased middle school suicides was merely a correlation, too. Proving causation is almost impossible. It is just as reasonable – even more so – to conclude that testing is having an impact on the suicide rate as to intuit the cause being increased reliance on social media. The big money folks don’t want us making the connection I made here. All the more reason to believe there is truth behind it.

6) School Choice is a Lie. It Does Not Mean More Options. It Means Less.

Published: Oct. 6

Views: 7,880

Description: School choice is a misnomer. It’s school privatization. It has very little to do with providing more options for parents or students. It’s about allowing big corporations to avoid public school regulations and profit off your child swiping your tax dollars. School choice is merely a marketing term.

Fun Fact: I must have really pissed someone off when I wrote this one because it caused Facebook to block me for a week. No matter. Readers liked this one so much they shared it for me all over. Why was I targeted? It could be personal since charter school cheerleader Campbell Brown is literally the arbiter of truth at Facebook. Or it could be the social media site’s attempt to bully me into spending money on advertising. Either way, their attempted censorship didn’t work.

5) Dear Teachers, Don’t Be Good Soldiers for the EdTech Industry

Published: Sept 3

Views: 8,358

Description: As teachers, we’re often expected to use new technology in our classrooms. However, we’re rarely involved in the decision making process. We’re rarely allowed to decide which technology to use and sometimes even how to use it. Software packages are just handed down from administration or school board. However, the EdTech Industry is not our friend. More often than not it is unscrupulous in the ways it is willing to profit off of our students through data mining, competency based learning and a variety of privacy threatening schemes. It’s up to us to be brave enough to say, “No.”

Fun Fact: I was surprised by how much the piece resonated with readers. So many other educators said they felt they were being bullied into using apps or programs that they thought were of low quality or downright harmful. Sure, there were some who called me a luddite, but the fact remains: we shouldn’t be using technology for technology’s sake. We should be doing so only to help students learn. That requires us to use our best judgment, not follow orders like good soldiers.

4) Teachers Don’t Want All This Useless Data

Published: June 23

Views: 12,459

Description: Administrators love to gift teachers with tons and tons of data. They bury us under reams of standardized test results and expect us to somehow use that nonsense to inform our teaching. It’s crazy. We already collect authentic data on our students for 180 days a year in the classroom in the course of our teaching. Yet they think these mass produced corporate evaluated snap shots are going to somehow change everything? That’s not how you help educators. It’s how you abdicate any responsibility yourself.

Fun Fact: This one really took off especially on the Huffington Post. Many readers seemed to be truly surprised that teachers felt this way. No authentic educator gives in to being data driven. We’re data informed but student driven. And if you want us to do something else, you don’t have the best interests of the kids at heart.

3) PA Legislature Plans Taking Away Teachers’ Sick Days

Published: Feb 2

Views: 17,702

Description: This was another tone deaf proclamation from the Republican majority in Harrisburg. It was pure meat for the regressive base in gerrymandered districts that if passed they knew would never be signed by our Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. It turns out the backlash was such that they didn’t even have the courage to put it to a vote.

Fun Fact: I never expected this one to be nearly as popular as it was. Usually articles about Pennsylvania get a few hundred local readers and that’s it. But this one infuriated everyone. How dare lawmakers propose this! Don’t they know how many bacteria teachers are exposed to!? Do they want us to come to school sick and spread the disease to our students!? I’d like to think that the article had something to do with this terrible piece of legislation disappearing, but I have no evidence to support it. However, I can say that it will probably be back when they think no one is looking, and it will still make me sick.

2) U.S. Public Schools Are NOT Failing. They’re Among the Best in the World

Published: Jan 29

Views: 23,841

Description: Everyone says public schools are failing. I call bullshit. It depends on how you’re evaluating them, and – frankly – we’re not being fair to our American education system. Sure. There are plenty of ways we can improve, but there’s a lot we’re doing right, too. In fact, many of the things we get right, few other systems do around the world. We excel in our ideals. If we just had the courage of our convictions, our system would be beyond the moon! Even as it is, we have much to celebrate. And other nations would do well to emulate us in these ways.

Fun Fact: I’m quite proud of this one. It’s the only article in the Top 10 here that was included in my book. For the definitive version, you’ll have to go there. Some sections received major rewrites and clarifications. I think the published version is much better. But no matter which version you choose, I’m proud to have an answer for all those out there spreading the myth that our education system is an irredeemable mess. They want us to get rid of the good and replace it with more bad. I say we keep the good and build on it.

1) Ignorance and Arrogance – the Defining Characteristics of the Betsy DeVos Hearing

Published: Jan 18

Views: 28,670

Description: Betsy DeVos’ confirmation hearing was an absolute horror show. It’s even worse when you consider she was confirmed by the Republican majority in a tie vote that was broken by Vice President Mike Pence (that still sends shivers down my spine). Here was someone who knows next to nothing about public education except that she wants to destroy it. She wouldn’t commit to protecting students rights even those under the umbrella of special education. There’s more I could say but I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Excuse me.

Fun Fact: I’m honored that so many readers turned to my blog for commentary about this. It was a moment of shared horror that hasn’t weakened much in the subsequent months. We’re all just waiting for sanity to return but at least we can do so together. We’re all in this side-by-side and hand-in-hand. We can defeat the Betsy DeVos’ and the Donald Trump’s of the world if we stay strong. It could happen any day now.

Gadfly’s Other Year End Round Ups

This wasn’t the first year I’ve done a countdown of the year’s greatest hits. I usually write one counting down my most popular articles (like the one you just read from 2017) and one listing articles that I thought deserved a second look. Here are all my end of the year articles since I began this crazy journey in 2014:

2016

Worse Than Fake News – Ignored News. Top 5 Education Stories You May Have Missed in 2016

Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year

2015

Gadfly’s Choice – Top 5 Blogs (By Me) You May Have Missed from 2015

Who’s Your Favorite Gadfly? Top 10 Blog Posts (By Me) That Enlightened, Entertained and Enraged in 2015

2014

Off the Beaten Gadfly – the Best Education Blog Pieces You Never Read in 2014

Betsy DeVos – Extreme Image Makeover as Champion of Special Needs Children

December 11, 2017December 11, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Child Safety, church and state, Civil Rights, Competency Based Education, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Education, Journalism, Junk science, Local Control, Media, Politics, Poverty, privatization, Propaganda, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Special Education, Standardized Testing, Students, Supreme Court, Teachers, Uncategorized, video games Betsy DeVos, charter schools, Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, education, education secretary, Politics, Privatize, propaganda, school vouchers, Special Education

Meet Betsy DeVos, Champion of Students With Special Needs.

At least that’s who she’s pretending to be this week.

The wealthy Republican mega-donor who bought her position as Secretary of Education published an article in the current issue of Education Week called “Commentary: Tolerating Low Expectations for Students With Disabilities Must End.”

It was almost like she expected us all to forget who she actually is and her own sordid history with these kinds of children.

Up until now, the billionaire heiress and public school saboteur always put the needs of profitizers and privateers ahead of special needs children.

During her confirmation hearing, she refused to say whether she would hold private, parochial and charter schools receiving tax dollars to the same standard as public schools in regard to how they treat special education students. Once on the job, she rescinded 72 federal guidelines that had protected special education students.

But now she’s coming off like a special education advocate!

What a turnaround!

It’s almost like David Duke coming out in favor of civil rights! Or Roy Moore coming out in favor of protecting young girls from pedophiles! Or Donald Trump coming out in favor of protecting women from crotch grabbing!

It begs the question – who exactly is she trying to fool?

Does Education Week really expect us to buy

this crap? Or has the so-called corporate media enterprise simply caved to the Trump administration’s demand to publish a puff piece for rubes without any journalistic integrity?

Real journalists might have published this BS, but only after giving readers the proper context.

Not Education Week. The only nod toward objectivity was inserting the word “Commentary” in the title of DeVos’s article.

It’s almost like saying – DeVos ALLEGEDLY champions students with special needs.

Give me a break.

She’s championing a feel good decision from the US Supreme Court from March. Way to get on that, Betsy!

Moreover, the decision isn’t exactly substantive.

It basically says that public schools need to ensure their special education students make more than minimal academic progress.

Great! Who doesn’t want that?

Has Congress jumped on this decision to increase federal aide to help public schools meet this requirement?

Nope.

And neither is DeVos calling for any additional federal help. In fact, her administration is proposing CUTTING federal special education funding.

Yet when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was enacted in 1975 by the Gerald Ford administration, the federal government was supposed to fund 40% of the cost of all special education students. It has never met that promise.

Today, the federal government only shoulders 15.7% of the cost with the states and individual districts picking up the rest.

This is extremely unfair.

It costs roughly twice as much to educate a special education student as a non-special education student. Yet the numbers of special needs students are on the rise.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 statistics (the most recent available), students with special needs account for 8.8% of the population. That’s up an additional 100,000 students from the previous year.

And the areas with the largest increase of special needs students are the most impoverished.

So we’re expecting the poorest communities to take up the largest percentage of the tab.

There are several bills in Congress demanding the federal government increase funding to the 40% threshold, but DeVos didn’t see fit to mention them.

To her, money is a thing only worth being lavished on private, parochial or charter schools.

Instead, she mentioned “personalized” education as a remedy for special needs students in public schools.

She wrote:

“No two children are the same. Each has his or her own unique abilities and needs. Personalized, student-centered education can help all children thrive, especially children with disabilities.” (Emphasis mine)

Though few people really disagree with this statement, the use of the word “Personalized” sets off alarm bells.

The term has come to mean “personalized learning” or “competency based education” which is code for making students sit on a computer or a device for hours at a time completing stealth assessments. These are programs made to look like video games that really just assess the same standardized material on the typical fill-in-the-bubble high stakes test.

And the results of these assessments are likewise used against schools and students as an excuse to privatize and strip them of local control, legal protections and mandated transparency.

There are authentic ways to use technology to help kids learn, but the rush by corporations to cash in on this emerging market has been largely unregulated, unstudied and unchallenged.

DeVos has already noted her commitment to edtech solutions to academic problems.

At a conference for edtech investors earlier this year she said:

“We’ve just scratched the surface in the role technology can play. I only have to look at my young grandchildren to see how powerful tech is. It is a thousand flowers, and we haven’t planted the whole garden.”

Another place she can look is her investment portfolio.

Both she and her husband have a $5 million and $25 million investment in a shady “brain performance” company called Neurocore. DeVos even sat on the company’s board until she got her job as Secretary of Education and had to step down.

The company claims to be able to train young brains to think better by hooking kids up to hats with wires hanging out of them.

I’m not kidding. The whole things goes against just about every peer-reviewed study in the field of neuroscience, but DeVos claims her company can help cure attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, anxiety, stress, depression, poor sleep, memory loss and migraines.

In other words, hooking kids up to machines of dubious scientific value is the cure for special education.

This is where we are people.

Our government is run by frauds and hucksters.

And the media calmly gives them an unchallenged platform to spout whatever nonsense they like with little to no skepticism.

So Betsy DeVos is a champion for students with disabilities, huh?

File that under B for Bullshit.

Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Two Theories Why Facebook Keeps Blocking Me When I Write About School Privatization

December 8, 2017December 8, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Campbell Brown, capitalism, Censorship, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Donald Trump, Education, Facebook, Journalism, Media, Politics, privatization, School Choice, Schools, Standardized Testing, Teachers, union busting, Unions, Value Added Measures, VAM bloggers, Campbell Brown, Censorship, charter schools, Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, education, Facebook, Facebook Jail, Mark Zuckerberg, Politics, public schools, teachers, Twitter

Facebook blocked me.

Again.

What did I do?

Did I post Russian-sponsored propaganda?

Nyet.

Did I post Nazi or racist memes?

Nein.

Did I post fraudulent or debunked accounts of factual events?

No.

So what did I do?

I had an opinion.

I took that opinion and wrote about it. I backed it up with facts, analogies, literary references and examples from my own experience as a classroom teacher in public school.

I took all that, wrote it up in a blog called “The False Paradise of School Privatization,” and posted it on Facebook.

It was the same kind of thing I do several times a week.

Write a blog. Post it on various Facebook pages and on Twitter.

And wait to see if anyone reads it.

But this time – BOOM!

I hadn’t even posted it to a handful of pages before the cyber arm of Mike Zuckerberg’s robo-security came down on me.

The same thing happened in October when I wrote an article called “School Choice is a Lie. It Does Not Mean More Options. It Means Less.”

I had hoped that that first time was just a fluke or that by now I had since sufficiently proven myself to be a human being and not some nefarious bot.

But no such luck.

After posting my latest article a few times on Monday, I got this message:

“ACTION BLOCKED

You have been temporarily blocked from performing this action.”

And I got a choice of clicking on:

“This is a mistake”

“OK”

So I clicked on “This is a mistake,” and got the following:

“Thanks for letting us know.”

My only choice was to click “OK.”

At some point I got a message telling me that I was blocked until Dec. 11 – a full week from my offense.

And now I have limited use of the social media platform.

I can still see posts.

I can like posts.

For some reason, I can even post and comment on my own page. But I can’t comment or post on other pages without getting the same error message.

At least I can’t do it consistently.

I’ve experimented and found that sometimes I can share posts to different pages. Sometimes I can’t.

It’s a bizarre, wonky system.

And it gets in the way of my work as an education blogger.

Facebook has more than 1.5 billion accounts. That includes more than 80% of all Americans.

Sharing my blog on the site gets me more readers than anywhere else.

Twitter is great and certainly more free. But when you push out a tweet, no one sees it unless they’re looking at their feed at that exact moment. Unless it gets retweeted – or you’re a famous unhinged former reality TV star turned President, then people seek out your own personal brand of nuclear-apocalypse-threatening madness.

So why does this keep happening to me?

I have two theories.

1) I am being purposefully censored by Facebook.

2) Facebook algorithms are targeting me because of how I post.

Let’s look at the first theory.

Could someone be actively censoring me?

Yes.

The proposal has a certain plausibility because the powers that be at Facebook undoubtedly disagree with what I have to say.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, is a huge supporter of edtech, standardized testing and school privatization. He’s spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make public schools rely more heavily on high stakes tests, evaluating teachers on their students’ scores and pushing Personalized Education software packages on public schools. And when that doesn’t pan out, he’s even backed his own charter schools to do the same.

But that’s not all.

Since early January of this year, he’s had Campbell Brown on the job as the arbiter of truth for his on-line platform.

That’s right.

Brown, a school privatization lobbyist and former NBC and CNN personality, heads Facebook’s News Partnership Team.

The newly created position was part of Zuckerberg’s attempt to limit fake news on his social media platform while prioritizing information in the mainstream media.

What exactly is fake news? Whatever Campbell Brown says it is.

This is quite a lot of power to give one person, especially someone who has a reputation for partisanship.

Brown, after all, co-founded a charter school propaganda network called The 74, funded – unsurprisingly – by Betsy DeVos, Republican mega-donor and current Secretary of Education.

After leaving the anchor’s desk, Brown has had a second career helping corporations destroy public schools and public school teachers.

And she does. Not. Like. Me.

Let’s just say we’ve gotten into a few Twitter skirmishes.

When she became the face of a New York lawsuit attacking teacher tenure in 2014, she received a tidal wave of public backlash. So she went on the Colbert Report to complain about how those fighting for workplace protections for themselves and their students were “silencing the debate” on how best to reform public education.

I responded with a blog called “Shhh! Who’s Silencing the Debate on Real Education Reform” claiming that Brown was actually doing the very thing she claimed to be decrying in shutting out teachers’ voices and rights.

She responded by cherry picking her rudest critics and tweeting “Sorry Steve but sadly this is not what I characterize as debate,” as if I had had anything to do with these comments.

As if any movement should be judged by its most extreme elements.

As if attacking someone’s job, someone’s kids and their future was fine so long as you did so with a smile and a polite comeback.

I don’t condone personal attacks, but I certainly understand them. In any case, Brown used the extreme fringes of her critics to condemn us all and conveniently refused to engage us – even those who had been unceasingly polite.

That lawsuit eventually failed, but Brown somehow landed on her feet.

Now she’s the one who gets to choose truth and falsity on Facebook.

Could she be actively working against people like me?

Yes.

Could she be directing Facebook’s programmers to select against posts that are negative to her pet projects?

Yes.

But there’s no way to know if she’s actually doing it.

Which brings me to my second theory.

Perhaps mindless Facebook algorithms are targeting me because of how I post.

I do, after all, try to post my articles on as many pages as I can.

They’re mostly pages focused on education and education policy with a few political and anti-racism sites thrown in, too.

Maybe I’m posting too quickly.

I might be triggering one of Zuckerberg’s bots to think I’m a bot, too, spamming up the works with advertising.

However, there’s a few problems with this theory.

Let’s say it’s true.

Why would that, alone, be reason to block me?

I’m not posting advertisements. I’m not asking for money. My blog doesn’t sell adds other than those WordPress puts on there, itself, so I can keep the page for free.

If an algorithm is stopping me because it thinks I’m unfairly selling something, it’s the result of some badly written code, indeed.

When programmers write code, that’s not impartial. It betrays their values. It betrays certain decisions about what’s acceptable and what isn’t.

For instance, I keep getting advertisements from Facebook asking me to pay money to the social media network so that they’ll post my articles on other people’s site for me.

I get reminders like “Boost this post for $3 to reach up to 580 people.”

Oh, really?

So I’m blocked because I posted my own writing to sites that have accepted me as a member and whose membership includes many I consider friends and colleagues. But for a fee, Facebook will post that same article to various sites filled with people I’d consider to be complete strangers.

Somehow that doesn’t “violate community standards” – the reason they said they blocked me in October.

This is very telling.

It seems to indicate that there is nothing wrong with what I’m doing, per se. It’s just that Facebook wants to encourage me to let them do it for me – so they can monetize my account.

They’re stopping me from doing this on my own, because they think I’m a sucker who should pay them for the right to communicate with others.

And that’s a very real possibility.

These blockages may not be political. They may be a simple marketing strategy.

So what can I do about it?

Well, first I need to wait a week until my account is unfrozen and I get back all the features Facebook users usually enjoy.

Then I can try to go back to the way things were posting my articles at all my favorite virtual watering holes.

Only slowly.

Much more slowly.

I figure if I only post once every five minutes or so, I can have my article at all the places that seem to like having them in about the course of an evening.

But I have a life, damn it!

I can’t spend the twilight hours posting and waiting and posting and waiting.

I guess another alternative is to rely on friends to post for me.

Spread the love.

Have others circulate my articles far and wide.

And that’s a great strategy. It’s very hard for Facebook to do anything about it.

But it requires me to impose on others. I don’t like doing it.

My readers, friends and supporters have lives, too.

They have more important things to do than post my writing all over the Internet.

So where does that leave me?

I’m not sure.

If I continue as I have, I’m bound to be blocked and thrown in Facebook Jail again.

Even if I don’t, I’m at the mercy of the wealthy elites who control the network.

And if the FCC does away with Net Neutrality, as they’re threatening to do in a matter of days, it may not even matter.

Regardless of where I post on Facebook, my blog site will probably be slow to the point of molasses and maybe even shut down entirely.

This is the brave new world of the plutocracy unrestrained.

This is American fascism triumphant.

I am only a single point of the resistance.

My voice is only as powerful as those who share it.

If Facebook, Twitter or WordPress somehow takes me down, I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

The False Paradise of School Privatization

December 4, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, church and state, Civil Rights, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, literature, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, school vouchers, Schools, Students, Teachers charter schools, dystopia, Lois Lowery, Politics, Privatize, public schools, School Choice, school vouchers, teachers, The Giver, utopia

Create a perfect world!

Go ahead! Don’t be shy!

What kind of government would you like? Republic, Monarchy, Dictatorship, Anarchy? Some combination or original system?

It’s all up to you.

How would you structure the economy? Capitalistic, Socialistic, Communistic? Something else?

You decide.

What would a family look like in your perfect world? How would careers be prepared for and chosen? What level of technology would you choose?

All these and more must be answered when creating the ideal community for you and I to live in.

It’s what Sir Thomas Moore famously did in his 1516 novel “Utopia” about an impossible “best state” for civil society.

And it’s what I had my 7^th grade students do last week in preparation for reading Lois Lowery’s contemporary science fiction novel, “The Giver.”

In small groups, my little ones clustered together at their tables and gave social planning a go.

It was stunning the variety of societies they created.

A group of kids with a history of confronting authority designed a nominal anarchy with an inherited monarchy controlling the military. Those with the highest grades decided all the decisions should be made by people like them in an oligarchy while the underachievers just played video games.

One of my favorites though was a group equally divided between boys and girls that decided to let women make all the rules except who could marry whom. That was decided only by the men, but women got to decide when to have kids and how many to have.

It was fascinating to see how their little minds worked. And even more so how their ideal societies reflected their wants and values.

But it was all a preview to Lowery’s novel of a futuristic society where utopia soon descends into its opposite – dystopia.

As it often does. In fact, the word coined by Moore literally means “nowhere.”

So it made me wonder about the most utopian thinking we find in modern life – education policy.

The economists, think tank partisans and lobbyists love to denigrate the public school system and pine for an alternative where corporate interests and business people make all the rules.

Sure they have literally billions of dollars behind them and a gallery of famous faces to give them legitimacy.

But they’re really just engaged in a more high stakes version of Moore’s novel or the assignment my kids did this week.

After all, what is a charter school but some naïve person’s ideal of the perfect educational institution? What’s a voucher school but a theocracy elevated to the normative secular level?

In each case, these world builders do the same as my middle schoolers – they build a system that would be perfect – from their own individual point of views and biases.

In his book, “Utopian Studies: A Guide,” Prof. Gregory Eck writes:

Because… utopia is rooted in theory, it will not always work. In fact, more is written about the failure and impossibility of utopia than of its success, probably because the ideal has never been reached.

And why is that ideal never reached? Margaret Atwood, the author of more than a few dystopian novels, has an answer.

“Every utopia,” she says, “…faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don’t fit in?”

One person’s paradise is another person’s Hell.

So the idea of designing one system that fits all is essentially bound to fail.

But doesn’t that support the charter and voucher school ideal? They are marketed, after all, as “school choice.” They allegedly give parents and children a choice about which schools to attend.

Unfortunately, this is just a marketing term.

Charter and voucher schools don’t actually provide more choice. They provide less.

Think about it.

Who gets to choose whether you attend one of these schools? Not you.

Certainly you have to apply, but it’s totally up to the charter or voucher school operators whether they want to accept you.

It is the public school system that gives you choice. You decide to live in a certain community – you get to go to that community’s schools. Period.

Certainly some communities are more accessible than others, and they are more accessible for some people – whether that be for economic, social, racial or religious reasons.

But you have much more choice here than you do from a bunch of nameless bureaucrats making decisions in secret that they never have to justify and for which they will never be held accountable.

What about curriculum? Don’t charter and voucher schools offer choice of curriculum?

No. They have one way of doing things. They have one curriculum. Either accept it or get out.

This is how we do things at KIPP. This is how we do things at Success Academy. You don’t like it, there’s the door.

By contrast, public schools tailor their curriculum to meet the needs of individual students. Each teacher does something different for every child in his or her charge whether those children are in special education, regular education, Emotional Support, the English as a Second Language Program, the academic or honors track.

Charter and voucher schools are naive utopias.

They propose one ideal way to teach all children and they expect parents to jump at their cultish schemes. All students will wear these sorts of uniforms and chant these sorts of phrases in response to these orders, etc. All children will be expected to provide marketing research to corporations on competency based learning programs and let their data be mined by these advertisers.

Because at these schools the emphasis is not on the curriculum. It’s on the system, itself.

These are privatized schools. They are schools run by private industry – not the public.

Decisions are not made by duly-elected representatives of the community in the light of day. They are made behind closed doors by corporate stooges.

THAT is the great innovation behind these schools. Everything else is mere window dressing.

If one of these schools found a better way to teach, public schools could pick it up and do it even better because the teachers and principals would be accountable for doing it correctly.

Funny how that’s never happened.

These so-called lab schools have never produced a single repeatable, verifiable innovation that works for all students without cherry picking the best and brightest.

Not once.

That’s because the utopia these policy wonks are interested in building isn’t for the students or parents. It’s for the investors.

They want to maximize return on investment. They want to decrease costs and increase profits. And whatever happens to the students is purely secondary.

It may be the ideal situation for the moneymen, but it’s often pure torture for the students. Charter schools are closed without notice, the money stolen under cloak of night. Voucher schools fool kids into thinking creationism is science and then are no where to be found when reputable colleges want nothing to do with their graduates.

Let me be the first to say that public school is no utopia.

We have real problems.

We need adequate, equitable and sustainable funding. We need integration. We need autonomy, respect and competitive pay for teachers. We need protection from corporate vultures in the standardized testing, publishing, edtech and school privatization industries.

But at heart, public schools are a much better choice because they don’t pretend to be perfect.

They are constantly changing. Teachers are constantly innovating.

A handful of years ago, I never had students design their own utopias before reading “The Giver.” But a colleague came up with the idea, I modified it for my students and we were off.

If I teach the same course next year, I’d modify it again based on what worked and what didn’t work this year.

I’m not expecting to be perfect.

I’m just doing the best I can.

Or as Jack Carroll puts it:

Perhaps the greatest utopia would be if we could all realize that no utopia is possible; no place to run, no place to hide, just take care of business here and now.

NOTE: A version of this article originally was published under the title “Creating a Charter or Voucher School is Like Designing a Utopia – Biases Prevail.” I reworked some of it, including the title, because I thought readers were confused by my intent and may have passed it over under a mistaken assumption about its contents.

Creating a Charter or Voucher School is Like Designing a Utopia – Biases Prevail

December 1, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bill Gates, capitalism, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education "Reform", Cyber Charter Schools, Education, Parents, Politics, privatization, Propaganda, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Social Justice, Special Education, Standardized Testing, Teachers, video games charter schools, dystopia, Lois Lowery, Margaret Atwood, Privatize, public schools, school vouchers, teachers, The Giver, utopia

Create your own Utopia!

Go ahead! Don’t be shy!

What kind of government would you like? Republic, Monarchy, Dictatorship, Anarchy? Some combination or original system?

It’s all up to you.

How would you structure the economy? Capitalistic, Socialistic, Communistic? Something else?

You decide.

What would a family look like in your perfect society? How would careers be prepared for and chosen? What level of technology would you choose?

All these and more must be answered when creating the ideal community for you and I to live in.

And that’s exactly what I had my 7^th grade students do this week in preparation for reading Lois Lowery’s science fiction novel, “The Giver.”

In small groups, my little ones clustered together at their tables and gave social planning a go.

It was stunning the variety of societies they created.

One group had a nominal anarchy with an inherited monarchy controlling the military. Another had an oligarchy of the smartest people who got the best grades to make all the decisions while everyone else played video games.

One of my favorites though was a group who decided to let women make all the rules except who could marry whom. That was decided only by the men, but women got to decide when to have kids and how many to have.

It was fascinating to see how their little minds worked.

But it was all a preview to Lowery’s novel of a futuristic society where utopia soon descends into dystopia.

As it often does.

So it made me wonder about the most utopian thinking we find in modern life – education policy.

The economists, think tank partisans and lobbyists love to denigrate the public school system and pine for an alternative where corporate interests and business people make all the rules.

Sure they have literally billions of dollars behind them and a gallery of famous faces to give them legitimacy.

But they’re really just engaged in a more high stakes version of the assignment my kids did this week.

After all, what is a charter school but some naïve person’s ideal of the perfect educational institution? What’s a voucher school but a theocracy elevated to the normative secular level?

In each case, these world builders do the same as my middle schoolers – they build a system that would be perfect – from their own individual point of view.

In his book, “Utopian Studies: A Guide,” Prof. Gregory Eck writes:

Because… utopia is rooted in theory, it will not always work. In fact, more is written about the failure and impossibility of utopia than of its success, probably because the ideal has never been reached.

And why is that ideal never reached? Margaret Atwood, the author of more than a few dystopian novels, has an answer.

“Every utopia,” she says, “…faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don’t fit in?”

One person’s paradise is another person’s Hell.

So the idea of designing one system that fits all is essentially bound to fail.

But doesn’t that support the charter and voucher school ideal? They are marketed, after all, as “school choice.” They allegedly give parents and children a choice about which schools to attend.

Unfortunately, this is just a marketing term.

Charter and voucher schools don’t actually provide more choice. They provide less.

Think about it.

Who get to choose whether you attend one of these schools? Not you.

Certainly you have to apply, but it’s totally up to the charter or voucher school operators whether they want to accept you.

It is the public school system that gives you choice. You decide to live in a certain community, you get to go to that community’s schools. Period.

Certainly some communities are more accessible than others, and they are more accessible for some people than others – whether that be for economic, social, racial or religious reasons.

But you have much more choice here than you do from a bunch of nameless bureaucrats making decisions in secret that they never have to justify and for which they will never be held accountable.

What about curriculum? Don’t charter and voucher schools offer choice of curriculum?

No. They have one way of doing things. They have one curriculum. Either accept it or get out.

This is how we do things at KIPP. This is how we do things at Success Academy. You don’t like it, there’s the door.

Charter and voucher schools are naive utopias.

Because at these schools the emphasis is not on the curriculum. It’s on the system, itself.

These are privatized schools. They are schools run by private industry – not the public.

Decisions are not made by duly-elected representatives of the community in the light of day. They are made behind closed doors by corporate stooges.

THAT is the great innovation behind these schools. Everything else is mere window dressing.

If one of these schools found a better way to teach, public schools could pick it up and do it even better because the teachers and principals would be accountable for doing it correctly.

Funny how that’s never happened.

These so-called lab schools have never produced a single repeatable, verifiable innovation that works for all students without cherry picking the best and brightest.

Not once.

That’s because the utopia these policy wonks are interested in building isn’t for the students or parents. It’s for the investors.

They want to maximize return on investment. They want to decrease costs and increase profits. And whatever happens to the students is purely secondary.

It may be the ideal situation for the moneymen, but it’s often pure dystopia for the students. Charter schools are closed without notice, the money stolen under cloak of night. Voucher schools fool kids into thinking creationism is science and then are no where to be found when reputable colleges want nothing to do with their graduates.

Let me be the first to say that public school is no utopia.

We have real problems.

But at heart, public schools are a much better choice because they don’t pretend to be perfect.

They are constantly changing. Teachers are constantly innovating.

A handful of years ago, I never had students design their own utopias before reading “The Giver.” But a colleague came up with the idea, I modified it for my students and we were off.

If I teach the same course next year, I’d modify it again based on what worked and what didn’t work this year.

I’m not expecting to be perfect.

I’m just doing the best I can.

Or as Jack Carroll puts it:

Perhaps the greatest utopia would be if we could all realize that no utopia is possible; no place to run, no place to hide, just take care of business here and now.

Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Check it out!

Killing Net Neutrality Would Muzzle Many Teacher-Activists

November 29, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bill Gates, bloggers, Campbell Brown, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Common Core, Competency Based Education, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Journalism, Obama, Politics, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Republican, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Standardized Testing, Teach for America, Teachers, union busting, Unions bloggers, education, Education Bloggers Network, freedom of speech, Internet, net neutrality, Politics, teachers, Web

As a blogger, I’m a big fan of net neutrality.

If the communications giants get to favor or block particular Websites, people-powered blogs like this one probably would become isolated and irrelevant.

As it stands, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to vote Dec. 14 to undo strict regulations on Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon that stops them from slowing down or blocking any sites, apps, or otherwise deciding which content gets to users faster.

If the Republican controlled five-member committee votes as expected, it would muzzle free speech.

It would effectively stifle hundreds, thousands of grassroots activists who’ve taken to the Web to educate and protest against the plutocracy strangling our democratic freedoms.

Think about it.

Close your eyes and imagine a United States where you couldn’t access your favorite Websites without paying a fee or – as in China – maybe even at all.

Want to know why standardized testing is harming our children and their schools? Sorry. That costs extra.

Want to know why Betsy Devos’ latest plan to give your tax dollars to Roy Moore’s Christian Fundamentalist Middle School and Dating Center endangers child welfare? Sorry. That information is no longer available.

Sure, you could probably look it up in the library and find it in a book, but that requires a complete change in how we consume media.

Most of us get our news on-line. We don’t read paper newspapers or glossy photo-print magazines. Books, when we read them, are often occasional pleasures or e-texts.

Searching out such material would take a paradigm shift back to the way we used to do things 10 or 20 years ago. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be onerous.

Remember traveling everywhere with a pile of books weighing down your bag, or a newspaper and magazines folded under your arm? People seeking such information would really need to want it.

Moreover, articles published in this way would almost surely become out of date quickly at least in regards to particulars. You can easily write something about the evils of charter and voucher schools in general that will be true for years if not decades, but it won’t as easily apply to individual charter and voucher schools by the time it’s published and been on the shelf for a while.

Additionally, writing and publishing such articles would become increasingly more difficult. Unless individuals or groups of activists bought up archaic printing presses or somehow funded mass media campaigns at Kinko’s and there were likewise an as yet undiscovered distribution engine that could disperse such periodicals across the country and the world – unless all of that, the resistance would be relegated to mostly scholarly tomes.

Take it from me: writing a book is not easy.

I just published my first volume of some of my best blog articles for Garn Press called “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform.”

I am embarrassingly proud of it, but this would not work for everyday activism.

Even though most of the articles were already written, it took a team of us months to revise them, insert end notes, edit, format, design a cover, market and all the other multidinous things that go into the process.

Whereas, with a blog, I can just write it and press “publish.”

The result isn’t as neat. It isn’t as error-proof. There’s bound to be spelling and grammar problems. It doesn’t pack nearly the authoritative punch. —But it’s so topical and subversive that it can slice through steel.

Campbell Brown can’t publish a billionaire-funded diatribe against those greedy teachers and their damn unions and their precious tenure without an army of teachers taking to the Web and showing her the error of her ways.

Bill Gates can’t send his well-paid trolls off to write op-eds praising Common Core without a grassroots tsunami of educators, parents and students responding with scores of counternarratives throughout the blogosphere.

And it’s net neutrality that allows us to do it.

The democratization of information made possible by the free Internet has greatly empowered the voices of the wise but penurious.

You no longer need a printing press or a think tank or a media empire to get information before the public.

Sure this means that even the lunatic fringe gets a voice in the conversation that is American culture, but it also allows ideas to win or lose based more on merit than money.

If enough people share an article on-line, it gets read. People see it. They know it.

False information is eventually found out, disproven and neutralized. But a factually-based critique of bad policy? That can move mountains. It can change the world.

And it has!

Think of how even neoliberal policymakers have rushed to claim they’re in favor of reducing standardized testing. Longtime standardization supporters like former President Barack Obama had to distance themselves from their own policies or face the torches and pitchforks of moms and dads everywhere.

Think of how Democratic and Republican partisans clamored over each other to denounce Common Core. Heck! The movement was so successful President Donald Trump even jumped on the bandwagon and used it as a rallying cry to help install himself in office.

And think of how the reaction to Trump’s dismal and dimwitted Education Secretary, Devos, caused a stampede away from school vouchers and even to some extent charter schools. Even longtime champions of privatization like Jeb Bush and Cory Booker are afraid to offer even a tentative thumbs up for fear of the Web’s blitzkrieg of Tweets, Facebook posts, blogs and other shade.

None of this would be possible without the Internet and the blogosphere.

None of this would be possible without net neutrality.

It’s no wonder Trump and his cronies want to destroy it. The open communication and debate on the Internet is a clear and present danger to his policies.

It is dangerous to the neoliberals and conservative fascists alike.

Though the movement fighting against corporate education reform has been rightly critical of unlimited technology for technology’s sake in our classrooms, that same confederation owes a great debt to technology for its current power.

We meet on Facebook and plan actions to be conducted IRL – In Real Life. Groups like the Badass Teachers Association, the Network for Public Education and United Opt Out use the technology to spread truth and question authority.

If the life line of net neutrality is severed, so will much of our activist networks.

I know we’re all concerned about competency based education, Teach for America and toxic testing, but we have to make room for net neutrality, too.

The 99% rely on it for the free exchange of ideas and the unhindered expression of our speech.

If the Trump administration crushes that venue, it will seriously weaken our ability to resist.

So before that day comes, exercise your rights.

Raise your voice for net neutrality – before it’s too late.

Please go to www.gofccyourself.com and urge the FCC to keep Net Neutrality.

The Staggering Naivety of Those Criticizing Public Schools as Out-of-Date

November 25, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bill Gates, Charter Schools, Common Core, Competency Based Education, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Cyber Charter Schools, Education, Journals, Junk science, Pennsylvania, Politics, privatization, Propaganda, School Choice, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers Big Picture Learning, charter schools, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, Cyber Charter Schools, Depersonalized Learning, individualization, naive, naivety, out of date, personalized learning, public schools, teachers

There is a popular idea going around that public schools need to change because they’re outmoded, obsolete and passé.

While public schools certainly could do with a great deal of change to improve, this criticism is incredibly naïve.

It’s the intellectual equivalent of displaying a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses prominently on your bookshelf without actually having read it.

It’s like demanding everything you eat be gluten free without actually having celiac disease or a wheat allergy.

It’s the conceptual analogue to learning a trendy “word of the day” and trying desperately to fit it into your every conversation regardless of need or propriety.

America’s public school system is incredibly complex. And like most complex things, any criticism of it is at least partially correct.

There are ways in which the system is antiquated and could use updating. But to claim that the entire system should be scrapped in favor of a largely untested, disproven and – frankly – profit-driven model is supremely stupid.

The criticism seems to be well encapsulated in a flashy animated video from Big Picture Learning, a Rhode Island-based charter school network operating 165 schools in 25 states and nine countries. The organization has been heavily praised by the likes of former President Barack Obama and philanthrocapitalist Bill Gates.

Let’s examine the six main components of the video explaining why the charter operators think public schools are out of date and should be replaced:

1) Public Schools are Relics of the Industrial Age

The criticism goes like this. The public school model was created in the Industrial Age and thus prepares students to be factory workers. All day long in public schools students follow orders and do exactly what they’re told. Today’s workers need different skills. They need creativity, the ability to communicate ideas and collaborate.

First, while it is true that the American public school system was created during the Industrial Revolution, the same thing can be said for the United States, itself. Beginning in 1760 and going until 1840, manufacturing began to dominate the western economy. Does that mean the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped? Clearly our form of government could do with a few renovations, but not by appeal to its temporal genesis, to when it was created.

Second, IS it true that America’s public schools expect students to do nothing but listen to orders and follow them to the letter?

Absolutely not.

In fact, this is exactly what teachers across the country DON’T want their students to do. We work very hard to make sure students have as much choice and ownership of lessons as possible.

We often begin by assessing what they know and what they’d like to know on a given subject. We try to connect it to their lives and experiences. We try to bring it alive and show them how vital and important it is.

Do we exclude creativity, communication and collaboration from our lessons?

Absolutely not.

In my class, creativity is a must. Students are required to write journals, creative fiction, and poetry. They draw pictures, maps, posters, advertisements. They make Keynote presentations, iMovies, audio recordings using Garage Band, create quizzes on Kahoot, etc. And they often do so in small groups where they are required to collaborate.

The idea that students are somehow all sitting in rigid rows while the teacher blabs on and on is pure fantasy. It betrays a complete ignorance of what really goes on in public schools.

2) Lack of Autonomy

The criticism goes that students in public school have no choices. Every minute of the day is controlled by the teacher, principals or other adults. However, in today’s world we need workers who can manage their own time and make their own decisions about what to do and when to do it.

Once again we see a complete ignorance of what goes on in public schools.

Today’s students are not only expected to make decisions and manage their time, they could not pass their classes without doing so.

Teachers often go to great lengths to give students choices. Would you like to read this story or that one? Would you like to demonstrate your learning through a test, a paper, an art project or through a digital medium?

For instance, my students are required to read silently for 15-minutes every other day. But they get to select which books to read. Eventually, they have to complete a project using their self-selected book, but they are in charge of ensuring the book they pick meets the requirements, how much they read each day in class and outside of class, and whether they should complete a given book or pick a new one.

Even when it comes to something as mundane as homework, students have to develop time management. I give my students the homework for the entire week on Monday, and it’s due on Friday. This means they have to decide how much to do each night and make sure it gets done on time.

Today’s students have much more ownership of their learning then I did when I went to school. Those throwing stones at our public school system would know that, if they actually talked to someone in it.

3) Inauthentic Learning

Critics say most of the learning in public schools is inauthentic because it relies on memorization and/or rote learning. It relies on a generic set of knowledge that all children must know and then we measure it with standardized tests. Learning should be deeper and its subjects should be something students intrinsically care about.

Once again…

Actually this one is kind of spot on.

Or at least, it’s partially true.

It accurately represents one kind of curriculum being mandated on public schools from the state and federal government. It’s called corporate education reform, and as pervasive as it is, you’ll also find the overwhelming majority of school teachers and community members against it.

This is why Common Core is so unpopular – especially among teachers. This is why almost everyone wants to reduce standardized testing and the kind of narrowing of the curriculum and teach-to-the-test practices it brings.

However, there’s something incredibly disingenuous about this criticism coming from a charter network chain. The educational practices these critics of public schools often propose replacing this standardization with are often just a rehash of that same standardization using more modern technology.

Business interests, like Big Picture Learning, often propose using competency based education or personalized education programs on computers or devices. These are extremely standardized. They follow the same Common Core standards and use computerized stealth assessments to determine whether students have learned the prescribed standard or not.

In short, yes, corporate education reform should be challenged and defeated. However, as in this instance, often the same people criticizing public schools for these practices don’t want to undo them – they just want to expand them so they can be more effectively monetized by big businesses like them!

4) No Room for Student Interests

Critics say the standardized public school system requires each child to learn the same things in the same ways at the same times. However, each of us are different and have individual interests and passions. The current system has no room for self-discovery, finding out what children enjoy doing, what they’re good at and where they fit in.

Once again, there is some truth to these criticisms.

The corporate education model is guilty of exactly these things. However, teachers have been pushing to include an increasing amount of individualization in lessons.

This struggle is inherent in the essential dichotomy of what it means to be an educator today. We’re told we must individualize our lessons for each student but standardize our assessments. This is fundamentally impossible and betrays a lack of vision from those making policy.

If the lawmakers and policy wonks who made the rules only listened to teachers, child psychologists and other experts, we would not be in this predicament.

As it is, many teachers do what they can to ensure students interests are part of the lesson. They gauge student interest before beginning a lesson and let it guide their instruction. For instance, if students want to know more about the weaponry used by the two sides in the Trojan War, that can become part of the unit. If, instead, they wonder about the role of women in both societies, that can also become part of the curriculum. Just because the higher ups demand students learn about the Trojan War doesn’t mean student interest must be ignored. In fact, it is vital that it be a component.

Moreover, creative writing, journaling and class discussion can help students grow as learners and engage in authentic self-discovery. Two weeks don’t go by in my class without a Socratic Seminar group discussion where students debate thematic and textual questions about literature that often spark dialogues on life issues. When students hear what their peers have to say about a given subject, it often results in them changing their own opinions and rethinking unquestioned beliefs and values.

In short, less corporate education reform means room for more student passion, interest and self-discovery.

But these critics don’t want less. They want more!

5) They Don’t Respect How We Learn

Critics say that each student is different in terms of how they learn best and in how much time it takes to learn. As a result, students who comprehend something at a slower rate than others are considered failures by the current system.

In the corporate model, this is true. However, most districts take great pains to give students multiple chances to learn a given concept or skill.

The fact that not all students will know the same things at the same times is built in to the curriculum. Teachers are familiar with their students and know which children need more help with which skills. Concepts are reviewed and retaught – sometimes through copious mini-lessons, sometimes with one-on-one instruction, sometimes with exercises for the whole class.

The further one gets from standardized tests and Common Core, the more individual student needs are respected and met.

But again that’s not the goal of these critics. They blame public schools for what they only wish to continue at higher intensity.

6) Too Much Lecturing

Critics say that under the current system, students are lectured to for more than 5 hours a day. However, this requires students to be unable to interact with each other for long periods of time. Students are at different levels of understanding and nothing can be done to help them until the lecture is over. Wouldn’t it be better to let students pursue their own education through computers and the internet so they could proceed at their own pace like at the Khan Academy?

And here we have the real pitch at the heart of the criticism.

People who wish to tear down public schools are not agnostic about what should replace them. They often prefer privatized and computerized alternatives – like the Big Picture charter chain model!

However, these are not entirely novel and new approaches. We’ve tried them, though on a smaller scale than the traditional public school model, and unlike that traditional system, they’re an abject failure.

Giving students a computer and letting them explore to their hearts content is the core of cyber charter schools – perhaps the most ineffective academic system in existence today. In my state of Pennsylvania, it was actually determined that students would learn more having no formal schooling at all than to go to cyber charter schools.

The reason? It is beyond naïve to expect children to be mature enough to control every aspect of their learning. Yes, they should have choice. Yes, they should be able to explore and develop as individuals at their own pace. But if you just let children go, most will choose something more immediately gratifying than learning. Most children would rather sit around all day playing Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty than watch even the most interesting educational video about math or science.

Adolescents need structure. They need motivation. In short, they need a teacher – a human authority figure in the same room with them who can help guide their learning and hold them accountable for their actions.

The mere presence of information on the Internet will not make children smarter just as the mere presence of a book won’t increase their knowledge. Certainly some children are self-motivated enough and may benefit from this approach, but the overwhelming majority will not and do not.

Our public schools do need a reformation, but this edtech-biased criticism only hits part of the mark.

The major problems are corporate education reform and standardization. And unfortunately edtech plans like privatization and competency based schemes only seek to increase these pedagogies.

Public schools are not outdated. They have changed and evolved to meet the needs of the students attending them. The fact that they serve every student in a given community without weeding out the less motivated or those with special needs as charter chains like Big Picture do, demonstrates this very flexibility and daily innovation.

They can be robust systems fostering self-discovery, autonomy and deep student learning. We just need to have the courage to support them, strengthen their autonomy and avoid trendy, shallow and self-centered criticisms from charter chains hoping we’ll buy what they’re selling.

The Completely Avoidable Teacher Shortage and What To Do About It

November 19, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Education, Healthcare, Labor, Media, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, Propaganda, protest, Racism, School Choice, school closings, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Seniority, small class size, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teacher Tenure, Teachers, Unions charter schools, class size, Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, Music, Privatize, school vouchers, seniority, Teacher Evaluation, teacher shortage, teachers

Hello?

Lo-lo-lo-lo…

Is anybody here?

Ere-ere-ere-ere…

Is anyone else left? Am I the only one still employed here?

Somedays it feels like it.

Somedays teaching in a public school is kind of like trying to run a resort hotel – ALL BY YOURSELF.

You’ve got to teach the classes and watch the lunch periods and cover the absences and monitor the halls and buy the pencils and tissues and fill out the lesson plans and conduct the staff meetings and…

Wouldn’t it be better if there were more people here?

I mean seriously. Why do we put the entire responsibility for everything – almost everything – involved in public education and put it all on the shoulders of school teachers?

And since we’re asking questions, why do we ALSO challenge their right to a fair wage, decent healthcare, benefits, reasonable hours, overtime, sick leave, training, collective bargaining… just about ANYTHING to encourage them to stay in the profession and to get the next generation interested in replacing them when they retire?

Why?

Well, that’s part of the design.

You see today’s public schools employ 250,000 fewer people than they did before the recession of 2008–09. Meanwhile enrollment has increased by 800,000 students.

So if we wanted today’s children to have the same quality of service kids received in this country only a decade ago, we’d need to hire almost 400,000 more teachers!

Instead, our children are packed into classes of 25, 30 even 40 students!

There’s no way a single teacher can give all those children her undivided attention at all times. There’s no way she can provide them with the kind of individualized instruction we know kids need in order to fulfill their potentials.

So why did we let this happen? Why do we continue to let this happen?

First, you have to understand that there are two very different kinds of public school experience. There is the kind provided by the rich schools where the local tax base has enough money to give kids everything they need including small class sizes and hiring enough teachers to get things done efficiently. And there’s the poor schools where the majority of our kids get educated by the most dedicated put upon teachers who give 110% everyday but somehow can’t manage to keep all those plates spinning in the air at the same time so the media swoops in, wags its finger and proclaims them a “failure.”

Bull.

It’s not teachers who are failing. It’s a system that stacks the deck against them and anxiously anticipates them being unable to meet unfair and impossible expectations.

Why do we let THAT happen?

Mainly because the people with money don’t care about poor and middle class children.

But also because they see the supposed failure of public schools as a business opportunity.

This is a chance to open a new market and scoop up buckets of juicy profit all for themselves and their donors.

It’s called privatized education. You know – charter schools and vouchers schools. Educational institutions not run by the public, not beholden to elected officials, but instead by bureaucrats who have the freedom to act in the shadows, cut student services and pocket the savings.

THAT’S why there’s a teacher shortage.

They want to deprofessionalize the job of teaching.

They don’t want it to be a lifelong career for highly trained, creative and caring individuals.

Why?

Those are people they have to pay a living wage. Those are people who know a thing or two and might complain about how the corporate scheme adversely affects the children in their care.

That’s why!

So these business people would rather teaching become a minimum wage stepping stone for young adults before they move on to something that pays them enough to actually support themselves and their families.

And to do that, the powers that be need to get rid of professional teachers.

People like me – folks with national board certification and a masters degree – they need to go.

THAT’S why class sizes are so large. That’s why so few young people are picking teaching as a major in college.

It’s exactly what the super-rich want.

And it doesn’t have to be some half mad Mr. Burns who makes the decisions. In my own district, the school board just decided to save money by cutting middle school math and language arts teachers – the core educators who teach the most important subjects on the standardized tests they pretend to value so much!

I’m under no illusions that my neighborhood school directors are in bed with the privatization industry. Some are clueless and some know the score. But the decision was prompted mostly by need. We’re losing too many kids to the local charter school despite its terrible academic track record, despite that an army of kids slowly trickle back to us each year after they get the boot from the privatizers, our district coffers are suffering because marketing is winning over common sense.

So number crunching administrators had a choice – straighten their backbones and fight, or suggest cutting flesh and bone to make the budget.

They chose the easier path.

As a result, middle school classes are noticeably larger, teachers have been moved to areas where they aren’t necessarily most prepared to teach and administrators actually have the gall to hold out their clipboards, show us the state test scores and cluck their tongues.

I actually heard an administrator this week claim that my subject, language arts, counts for double points on the state achievement rubric. I responded that this information should be presented to the school board as a reason to hire another language arts teacher, reduce class sizes and increase the chances of boosting test scores!

That went over like a lead balloon.

But it demonstrates why we’ve lost so much ground.

Everyone knows larger class sizes are bad – especially in core subjects, especially for younger students, especially for struggling students. Yet no one wants to do anything to cut class sizes.

If the state and federal government were really committed to increasing test scores, that’s the reform they would mandate when scores drop. Your kids aren’t doing as well in math and reading. Here’s some money to hire more teachers.

But NO.

Instead we’re warned that if we don’t somehow pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, they’ll close our school and give it to a private company to run – as if there were any evidence at all that this would help.

But, the school privatization cheerleader rebuts, why should we reward failing schools with more money?

The same reason you reward a starving stomach with more food. So the hungry person will survive!

Right now you’re doing the same thing with the testing corporations. They make the tests and grade the tests. So if students fail, the testing corporations get more money because then students have to take — MORE TESTS! And they are forced to take testing remediation classes that have to buy testing remediation materials produced by – wait for it – the same companies that make and grade the tests!

It’s a scam, ladies and gentlemen! And anyone who looks can see it.

But when you bring this up to administrators, they usually just nod and say that there’s nothing we can do about it. All we can do is keep trying to win the game – a game that’s rigged against us.

That’s exactly the attitude that’s gotten us where we are.

We can’t just keep doing it, keep appeasing the testing and privatization industry and their patsies in the media and government.

We must fight the system, itself, not go along with it.

We need to get on a bus and go to the state capital and Washington, DC, as a staff and protest. We need our school boards to pass resolutions against the unfair system. We need class action lawsuits. We need to tell everyone in the media what we know and repeat it again and again until it becomes a refrain.

And when we get these unfair evaluations of our under-resourced impoverished and multicultural districts, we need to cry foul. “Oh look! Pearson’s tests failed another group of mostly brown and black kids! I wonder what they have against children of color!”

Force them to change. Provide adequate, equitable and sustainable funding so we can hire the number of teachers necessary to actually get the job done. Make the profession attractive to the next generation by increasing teacher pay, autonomy, resources and respect. And stop evaluating educators with unproven, disproven and debunked evaluation schemes like value-added measures and standardized test scores. Judge them on what they do and not a trussed up series of expected outcomes designed by people who either have no idea what they’re talking about or actively work to stack the deck against students and teachers.

But most of all — No more going along.

No more taking the path most traveled.

Because we’ve seen where it leads.

It leads to our destruction.

My Students Are Addicted to Screens

October 31, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bill Gates, bloggers, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Data Mining, Education, Media, Parents, Politics, privatization, Schools, Standardized Testing, Teachers, Technology, Toxic Testing addiction, Bill Gates, Competency Based Education, Computers, Depersonalized Learning, edtech, education, personalized learning, public schools, schools, screen time, Steve Jobs, teachers, technology

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Michael sat at his desk with ear buds inserted, an iPad balanced in front of his eyes and an old fashioned paper book open on his desk.

His head was bopping and weaving. His eyes were transfixed on a YouTube video of an animated soldier blasting away bad guys. And his book was laid out in front of him, largely ignored.

This was during our class’ sustained silent reading time – a period of 15-20 minutes where my 7th grade students were supposed to read self-selected books. Eventually, they’d have to complete a project, but today all they had to do was read.

Still, many used the time the same way as Michael did – lost in cyberspace, merely pretending their eyes gloss over the page.

“And what did the teacher do?” I hear some readers say indignantly.

“If you allow this type of behavior, you’re worse than the child doing it.”

So come with me as I redirect Michael.

“Hey, buddy,” I say.

“Huh?” he responds as if awakened from a dream.

“Are you reading?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“You’re not just watching that video and ignoring your book?”

“Nope,” he says now fully awake. And he proceeds to give me a canned summary of the text that he memorized from the Internet.

But I’m still skeptical.

“I’m going to take your iPad away just for SSR time,” I say.

“BUT WHY!? I’M READING!”

“I just want you to be able to concentrate on what you’re reading.”

And as I gently pry the iPad from his curled fists, he stands up and gives me a look of pure hatred.

This is a look from a 7th grade boy who’s considering violence.

It’s the same look you’d get trying to take away a dog’s bone, or an addict’s crack pipe.

It truly depends on the child what happens next. Some will regain control, slam down into their seats and sulk. Others will whine and cause a scene. And some will lose all control and lash out.

This is what teachers deal with every day when it comes to technology in the classroom.

In point of fact, many of our children are addicted to their devices.
iPads, laptops, Smartphones – we might as well be giving them pills, joints and syringes.

According to Merriam Webster, addiction is defined as, “compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance… [characterized] by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal.”

For most students, their devices have become just that – a compulsion, the cause of a nearly irresistible impulse to check them, access them, use them to keep themselves entertained and plugged in.

With repeated use, it becomes habit forming, and separation from the device can lead to a kind of withdrawal.

From a neuro-psychological point of view, one wonders if repeated use is clinically damaging – especially to adolescent brains that have not yet fully formed.

From an educational point of view, one wonders if relying on such devices in class is pedagogically sound.

I’m not qualified to answer the first question (though it deserves much more study than it is receiving). But from my 15 plus years of experience in the classroom, I feel qualified to answer the second – and that answer is often a resounding “NO.”

In my kids’ everyday lives, this type of constant technology reliance doesn’t make them better students. It doesn’t give them access to more information. It makes them dependent on instant gratification and sensory overload.

Their minds are submerged in a soup of constant noise and conflicting demands for their attention. Stringing together thoughts and coming to reasoned opinions becomes increasingly difficult.

This isn’t to say that technology has no place in the classroom.

There are ways to use it that can enhance learning. However, in my experience these are NOT the ways it is being used most of the time. That takes, thought, planning, intention. Instead, many well-meaning administrators or school directors prescribe technology as an end in itself regardless of the goals of an individual lesson. They want to prove their buildings, schools or districts are cutting edge, and that only takes the constant use of technology – not surgical, intentional use.

It’s not that teachers don’t know how to apply it or don’t care. It’s that technology – especially the presence of a one-to-one device in the hands of every child at all (or most) times – creates more problems than it solves.

This is why the same people who invented these technologies strictly regulate them for their own children.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, two of the biggest tech titans in the business, famously limited screen time for theirs sons and daughters.

Gates, a Microsoft co-founder, refused to let his children have personal technological devices until they were developmentally ready for them.

“We don’t have cellphones at the table when we are having a meal,” he told the Mirror. “We didn’t give our kids cellphones until they were 14 and they complained other kids got them earlier.”

Today, most children get their own cellphones at age 10. And if their schools have one-to-one initiatives like mine, they have their own iPad as early as 5th grade with less but still substantial hours of usage as early as kindergarten.

Jobs, an Apple co-founder, also limited screen time for his children.

When asked if his children liked the original iPad shortly after it was launched, Jobs said, “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

In fact, according to Walter Isaacson, who wrote a near-definitive Jobs’ biography, technological devices were only allowed at prescribed times.

“Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and history and a variety of things,” he said.

“No one ever pulled out an iPad or a computer. The kids did not seem addicted at all to devices.”

And this practice seems common among parents in Silicon Valley.

According to educators Joe Clement and Matt Miles, authors of “Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse is Making Our Kids Dumber,” those in the tech industry know the dangers of their own products on children.

A number of specialty Silicon Valley schools, say Clement and Miles, such as the Waldorf School, rely almost exclusively on low-tech tools to teach. This often means chalkboards and pencils. The emphasis is on learning interpersonal skills such as cooperation and respect – not the ins and outs of computer coding.

At Brightworks School, even the physical environment of the class is a tool to learning. Students attend class in treehouses and kids learn creativity by building things with their hands.

This is a far cry from the technological wonderland our kids are being sold by these kids’ parents.

No one really knows what effect it’s having on growing minds. However, psychologists are beginning to see alarming trends.

For instance, frequent use of social media makes an eighth-grader’s risk for depression 27% higher. Moreover, use of smart phones for at least three hours a day increases children’s risk of becoming suicidal. Some experts believe that increased use of technology has contributed to the teen suicide rate which for the first time eclipses the homicide rate.

We are jumping head first into an educational model that puts technological devices like a tablet at the center of learning.

Teachers assign lessons on the device. Students complete assignments on it. Projects are virtual as is research. Even conversations are conducted through a chat page, emails or messaging.

Why? Not necessarily because of any proven link to increased academic results. It’s because tech companies are marketing their devices to schools and students.

This is industry-driven, not pedagogically-driven.

There is an unquestioned bias that doing things with technology is somehow better simply because we’re using technology. However, an article written on a computer will not necessarily be better than one written with pen and ink. There are other factors involved.

Now Gates and company are pushing personalized learning objectives. Sometimes called competency based education, these continue to place the device in the center of what should be the student-teacher relationship.

Student learning becomes a video game and the teacher becomes a virtual avatar. Kids spend their time doing infinite standardized testing as if it were authentic education, yet it’s all on-line so it appears to be cutting edge. It isn’t.

It’s just another scam.

In my own classes, I’ve put the brakes on unquestioned technology. I only use devices, programs or applications that are (1) reliable and (2) when I know why I’m using them.

Even then, I find myself unable to even talk to students without beginning every lesson telling them to at least temporarily put their devices away so they can hear the directions.

Sure, I could give them a QR code to scan and get a written copy of the directions. I could upload a video for them to watch. But that limits direct feedback. It makes it more difficult for them to ask questions. And it makes it almost impossible for me to tell if 20-30 kids are actually doing the assignment before they turn it in for grading.

These are just kids, and like kids in any age they’ll take the path of least resistance. Often they’ll try to get through the assignment as quickly as possible so they can listen to music, or watch a video, or play a video game or chat on-line.

Lessons can be engaging or thought-provoking or spark the creative impulse. But you have to get students’ attention first.

That’s hard to do when they always have the option to crack their brains open over a virtual frying pan and watch it sizzle away.

To be fair, living in the modern world, we’re probably all somewhat addicted to technology. This blog isn’t written on papyrus and it isn’t being accessed in a hefty library volume.

I use social media – Facebook and Twitter mainly – to disperse it.

But there’s a difference between me and my students.

I’m an adult.

I know the concessions I’m making. I enter into this with eyes open. I have a lifetime of experience and knowledge with which to make such a decision.

Children don’t have that. They look to us to protect them.

We are their guardians. We’re only supposed to subject them to things that will help them learn, keep them healthy and happy.

But in our rush to be trendy and hip, we’re failing them miserably.

We’re letting business and industry take over.

It’s time to take a stand.

Our kids may be addicted, but we don’t have to be their pushers.

We need to get them clean and show them how to use this brave new tool with moderation and restraint.

Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage

October 27, 2017July 22, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Arne Duncan, Betsy DeVos, Bill Gates, Budget, Campaign Donations, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, church and state, Civil Rights, Common Core, Compassion, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Obama, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, President, privatization, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Standardized Testing, Teachers, VAM Betsy DeVos, Bill and Melinda Gates, Bill Gates, charter schools, common core, Donald Trump, plutocracy, Politics, Privatize, public schools, sabotage, school vouchers

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America’s public schools are in crisis.

Because people make money when America’s public schools are in crisis.

And who sits atop this mountain of bribery and malfeasance?

Who gives the money that buys the politicians who make the laws that hurt the kids and profits the donors?

It’s none other than Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage!

Systemic underfunding, laissez-faire segregation and privileging privatization – this is what our children face every day.

It’s time we as a nation stop, take a moment – and offer our hearty congratulations to this years most pernicious saboteurs.

And what a year it was for disrupting education!

Charter schools, voucher schools – no one has benefited more from chucking the public school model in the trash in favor of control by corporations and bureaucrats than Betsy DeVos.

Because she’s both a dark money influence peddler AND a government flunky!

A two-for!

She turned complete ignorance and animosity toward public schools into the highest federal government job overseeing education! Her only qualification? CA-CHING!

But coming up right behind Ms. DeVos is this year’s crowned king.

He certainly knows a thing or two about CA-CHING!

It’s Bill Gates!

Progressive philanthropist by day, by night he transforms into the largest single purveyor of palm grease in the nation. No one has turned tax avoidance into influence more than Gates, the money behind the Common Core, evaluating teachers on student test scores and a plethora of irrational, untested ideas that are only considered mainstream because they have literally trillions of dollars behind them.

So there you have it, America! Your Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage!

Let’s take a closer look at these… winners.

DEVOS

As U.S. Secretary of Education, she’s proposed cutting $10 billion in public school funding, announced changes to make it harder for college students to report sexual assaults, and put struggling university students at risk of higher debt payments with changes to student loans.

But that’s child’s play for the billionaire heiress who married into even more money.

Now she’s planning to weaken the rights of students with disabilities.

That’s right – Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, they all went after those pesky post-graduate teenagers. But none of them had the audacity to go after kids with learning disabilities!

It’s not that DeVos is undoing any laws. She’s erasing decades of government guidance about how the laws are to be interpreted. And though she claims these 72 directives are simply “outdated unnecessary or ineffective,” she’s not replacing them with anything else. They’re just – gone.

Of the 72 guidelines, 63 affect special education and 9 affect student rehabilitation. And these aren’t simply undoing the work of the Obama administration. Some of these regulations have been in place since the 1980s.

The rescinded policies include “Satellite Centers for Independent Living,” “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Handicap in Programs and Activities Receiving or Benefiting From Federal Financial Assistance,” and “Information on the Provision of Vocational Rehabilitation Services to Individuals With Hearing Loss (Deaf and Hard of Hearing).”

Bah! Who needs all this paperwork?

Parents and students. That’s who.

These guidelines have helped parents of disabled and special education children advocate for their young ones’ rights. Without them, it may be more difficult for parents and teachers to ensure all children are receiving a free and appropriate education.

That’s some seriously stone cold sabotage, Ms. DeVos!

But at least her motivation is obvious to anyone with eyes.

She’s not purposefully making the lives of K-12, special education and college kids more difficult. Well, she is, but she’s not doing it out of spite. She’s doing it because it helps her investment portfolio.

How can she continue to promote charter and voucher schools that don’t provide the same kinds of quality services for special education and disable students as public schools do? She needs to degrade what the public schools provide, thereby making the privatized alternatives more marketable.

How can she keep making money off predatory lenders unless she loosens the rules to allow them more freedom to gorge on student debt? And how can she keep her lucrative job bending the rules in her favor unless she throws some red meat to the racists, misogynists and anti-Semites who helped elect her boss into the Oval Office?

And if kids get hurt, well those aren’t the people she’s looking out for, are they?

She’s only out for the other rich elites like herself making a mint off of our public tax dollars!

It’s almost enough to make you miss Arne Duncan.

Almost…

(Nah. Not really.)

GATES

Bill Gates, on the other hand, is more contrite.

His Common Core initiative has kind of exploded in his face.

No one likes it. NO ONE.

In fact, it was one of the key talking points President Trump used to garner support. The public’s hatred of Democratic plutocracy made them suckers for the Republican variety.

The problem isn’t so much political. It’s economic.

It’s rich people who think they can do whatever they want with the rest of us and our children.

More than anyone else, Gates is guilty of that kind of unexamined, unrepentant hubris.

Yet to hear him talk, after a string of education policy disasters, he’s learned his lesson.

He’s sorry – like a crack addict is after hitting rock bottom. But he’ll somehow find the courage to light up again.

Gates now admits that the approximate $2 billion he spent pushing us to break up large high schools into smaller schools was a bust.

Then he spent $100 million on inBloom, a corporation he financed that would quietly steal student data and sell it to the corporate world. However, that blew up when parents found out and demanded their children be protected.

Oops. His bad?

He also quietly admits that the $80 million he spent pushing for teachers to be evaluated on student test scores was a mistake. However, state, federal and local governments often still insist on enacting it despite all the evidence against it. Teachers have literally committed suicide over these unfair evaluations, but whatever. Bill learned a lesson.

When it comes to Common Core, though, Bill refuses to take his medicine – even to mouth the words.

By any metric, these poor quality uniform academic standards are an abject failure. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars for development and promotion. He influenced trillions of taxpayer dollars to be poured down the drain on it. All to no avail.

Instead, he’s quietly backing away. No explanation. No apology. Just on to something new.

Kind of like: “That didn’t work. Let’s try something else!”

His new plan – spend $1.7 billion over five years to develop new curriculums and networks of schools, use data to drive continuous improvement, and give out grants to high needs schools to do whatever he says.

What’s so frustrating is that Gates shows glimmers of self-awareness.

“It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade,” he said during a speech at Harvard in 2014.

But then when he sees it isn’t working, he just doubles down on the same crap.

While he may not be committed to any one policy, Gates is committed to the idea that he knows best. Whatever nonsense bull crap that floats through his mind deserves to be tried out on a national scale.

No asking experts. No asking teachers, parents or students. Just listen to me, Bill Gates, because I’m rich and that makes me better than you.

No, it doesn’t Bill. It makes you just like Betsy DeVos.

So there they are. Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage.

Short may their reign be.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made.”

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

gadflyonthewallblog

"To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

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1) Public Schools are Relics of the Industrial Age

2) Lack of Autonomy

3) Inauthentic Learning

4) No Room for Student Interests

5) They Don’t Respect How We Learn

6) Too Much Lecturing

My Students Are Addicted to Screens

Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage

DEVOS

GATES