December 30, 2014

Judge gave all of York PA city schools to these guys from Florida?? Frightening.

The city of York, Pennsylvania is set to make all of its schools for-profit charter schools. It wasn't exactly their choice. A court sealed the deal.

In what appears to be a last-ditch effort to carry out a two-year-old plan to turn all of York’s schools over to for-profit charter corporation Charter Schools USA, Pennsylvania’s Department of Education filed a petition in a York County court earlier this month to take away almost all local control from the school board, and put the district in the “receivership” of state-appointed York education official David Meckley.

Meckley, a local businessman who once served on the board of a nearby school district, was appointed in 2012 to oversee York’s financially beleaguered school system under a 2012 law that allowed the state to appoint “recovery officers” for any school districts with significant debt. His plan for York involves a slew of concessions from the district, from teacher layoffs to extracurricular cutbacks. But the most controversial part is the handing over of the entire operation of the district to Charter Schools USA.

While placing struggling school districts in state control is relatively common across the U.S., a state has only converted an entire school district to a charter system once before — in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Well, these are the guys who will profit.

From Coral Springs Talk back in March.

Charter Schools USA Founder Sets Sail for Riches

Charter Schools USA founder Jonathan Hage and his first mate Edward Pozzuoli, attorney for Charter Schools USA who is also president of the law firm Tripp Scott, have registered a yacht under the name of “Fishin’ 4 Schools” as well as formed an LLC under the same name.


Hage and Pozzuoli’s yacht in back of Hage’s Coral Ridge Country Club home in Fort Lauderdale.

This begs the question: What other assets do they own that are hidden under aliases?

Charter schools are public schools that receive state tax dollars, but function with their own boards of directors and enjoy substantial independence from state and local regulations. Charter Schools USA is a for-profit company which operates 58 schools in several states, including Florida, for a combined 48,000 students, however, both Hage and Pozzuoli send their children to Pine Crest Schools – a private school located in Fort Lauderdale.

There are big dollars in those students numbers. If Hage and Pozzuoli make $100 off each of those 48,000 students, that would be a $4.8 million dollar annual payday.

They later put the Yacht up for sale for $349,500.

As Jersey Jazzman points out at his blog...Charter Schools USA have not exactly set a shining example in Florida.

Our shining local examples in Hillsborough County are owned by Charter Schools USA. My first glimpse of Winthrop Charter School in Riverview in November of 2011 was during a scheduled visit with then Rep. Rachel Burgin. When told the two story brick building was a charter school, I was mystified. The site on which it was built was purchased from John Sullivan by Ryan Construction Company, Minneapolis, MN. From research done by the League of Women Voters of Florida all school building purchases ultimately owned and managed by for-profit Charter Schools USA are initiated by Ryan Construction. The Winthrop site was sold to Ryan Co. in March, 2011 for $2,206,700. In September, 2011 the completed 50,000 square foot building was sold to Red Apple Development Company, LLC for $9,300,000 titled as are all schools managed by Charter Schools USA. Red Apple Development is the school development arm of Charter Schools USA. We, tax payers of Hillsborough County, have paid $969,000 and $988,380 for the last two years to Charter Schools USA in lease fees! [emphasis mine]

And what kind of performance have the good people of Florida received for all of that money?

The chain was considered high-performing until this year. And on Tuesday the Orange School Board voted 7-0 to deny its applications for three new campuses.

Because charters are publicly funded per pupil, Charter Schools USA would receive about $27 million a year to run the three schools at capacity if approved.

"Their performance in Orange County is abysmally poor," board Chairman Bill Sublette said of the Renaissance schools. "They're underperforming the schools in the area that they're drawing from. How can we look taxpayers in the eye and approve them?"

December 30, 2014

Some great questions in picture form about harm done by ed reform.

These are from a blog by Steven Singer, educator, called Gadflyonthewallblog.

No explanation needed.

December 28, 2014

Frank Schaeffer. My horrible right-wing past: Confessions of a one-time religious right icon

From Salon this week:

My horrible right-wing past: Confessions of a one-time religious right icon

I am a white, privileged, well-off, 61-year-old former Republican religious right-wing activist who changed his mind about religion and politics long ago. The New York Times profiled my change of heart saying that to my former friends I’m considered a “traitorous prince” since my religious-right family was once thought of as “evangelical royalty.”

.....The leaders of the new religious right were gleefully betting on American failure. If secular, democratic, diverse and pluralistic America survived, then wouldn’t that prove that we were wrong about God only wanting to bless “Christian America?” If, for instance, crime went down dramatically in New York City, for any other reason than a reformation and revival, wouldn’t that make the prophets of doom look silly? And if the economy was booming without anyone repenting, what did that mean?

What began to bother me was that so many of our new “friends” on the religious right seemed to be rooting for one form of apocalypse or another. In the crudest form this was part of the evangelical fascination with the so-called end times. The worse things got, the sooner Jesus would come back. But there was another component. The worse everything got, the more it proved that America needed saving, by us! Plus, it was good for fundraising.

And his last paragraph appears to be an apology for his role in the current mess we have in this country.

Some 30 years later, what we helped start — I am sorry! — continues. With the Republicans in control of the House and Senate the question arises — again — Where does the American far right find the energy to oppose everything and everyone again and again?

December 28, 2014

Alfie Kohn's very angry rant about ed reform. Says Obama has intensified what Bush began.

I think I will sit back, have some coffee, and watch this very real truth disappear down the rabbit hole or wherever.

Hat tip to educator Steven Singer on Twitter

A: What is the purpose of education?

B: To raise test scores.

A: Why?

B: To raise corporate profits.

Listen closely to his words about STEM and why it is crowding out subjects like literature and history.

Who in the world is Alfie Kohn?

Kohn has been described in Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." His criticisms of competition and rewards have helped to shape the thinking of educators -- as well as parents and managers -- across the country and abroad. Kohn has been featured on hundreds of TV and radio programs, including the "Today" show and two appearances on "Oprah"; he has been profiled in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, while his work has been described and debated in many other leading publications.

Kohn lectures widely at universities and to school faculties, parent groups, and corporations. In addition to speaking at staff development seminars and keynoting national education conferences on a regular basis, he conducts workshops for teachers and administrators on various topics. Among them: "Motivation from the Inside Out: Rethinking Rewards, Assessment, and Learning" and "Beyond Bribes and Threats: Realistic Alternatives to Controlling Students' Behavior." The latter corresponds to his book BEYOND DISCIPLINE: From Compliance to Community (ASCD, 1996), which he describes as "a modest attempt to overthrow the entire field of classroom management."

Kohn's various books have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, and Malaysian. He has also contributed to publications ranging from the Journal of Education to Ladies Home Journal, and from the Nation to the Harvard Business Review ("Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work&quot . His efforts to make research in human behavior accessible to a general audience have also been published in the Atlantic Monthly, Parents, and Psychology Today.

His many articles on education include a dozen widely reprinted essays in Phi Delta Kappan from 1991 to 2008. Among them: "Choices for Children: Why and How to Let Students Decide," "How Not to Teach Values: A Critical Look at Character Education," "Test Today, Privatize Tomorrow," and "Why Self-Discipline is Overrated."

Crossposted at my Twitter link

December 27, 2014

Court gives York, PA schools to Charter Schools USA. Stripped local school board of power.

I wonder when people will start getting concerned about the takeover of public education?

Merry Christmas. We’re Stealing Your Schools.

A judge ruled the district is now under direction of its Chief Recovery Officer David Meckley instead of its duly elected school board.

Why?

Meckley wanted the board to approve a plan to convert all district schools into charters run by Florida-based operator Charter Schools USA. This would make York the only all charter district in the entire state.

The agreement was made in secret by Meckley and details weren’t forthcoming before the board was asked to make a decision.

The board just couldn’t make up its mind fast enough. Members tabled it – they might even have refused it if given enough time to think!

So now Meckley will just make the conversion, himself. Dictatorship is so much easier than Democracy!

Al Jazeera has been covering this hostile takeover of a whole public school system.

Pennsylvania town poised to make all public schools for-profit charters

In what appears to be a last-ditch effort to carry out a two-year-old plan to turn all of York’s schools over to for-profit charter corporation Charter Schools USA, Pennsylvania’s Department of Education filed a petition in a York County court earlier this month to take away almost all local control from the school board, and put the district in the “receivership” of state-appointed York education official David Meckley.

Meckley, a local businessman who once served on the board of a nearby school district, was appointed in 2012 to oversee York’s financially beleaguered school system under a 2012 law that allowed the state to appoint “recovery officers” for any school districts with significant debt. His plan for York [PDF] involves a slew of concessions from the district, from teacher layoffs to extracurricular cutbacks. But the most controversial part is the handing over of the entire operation of the district to Charter Schools USA.

While placing struggling school districts in state control is relatively common across the U.S., a state has only converted an entire school district to a charter system once before — in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Charter Schools USA has been under scrutiny in Florida. Here's an interesting story about about it's founder, Jonathan Hage. He put up his yacht for sale. The name of the yacht was Fishin' 4 Schools.

The Thin Line Between Charter Schools USA and Florida Law

This week’s hilarious story that Charter Schools USA CEO Jonathan Hage owns a yacht called Fishin’ 4 Schools overshadows what may be some major wrongdoing on the part of Hage. In a column that appeared in the Tampa Bay Times, Hillsborough League of Women Voters president, Shirley Arcuri revealed this little tidbit:

Another area where the distinction between public and private is blurred for the benefit of for-profits is in the issuing of bonds. Although Florida law prohibits charter schools from issuing bonds, Charter School USA has found a way.
When naming Jon Hage, CEO of Charter USA, as Floridian of the Year, Florida Trend in December 2012 contended that Charter School USA is the largest seller of charter school debt in the country. “It will sell $100 million worth of bonds this year, Hage says. … The bonds come with tax-exempt status because they are technically held by the nonprofit founding boards that oversee the schools.”

Hage is being modest. Over a three-year period, the amount is closer to $200 million.

December 26, 2014

Time for Outfoxed again. So much harm done by their tactics.

I am watching it again after so many years and still seeing new stuff. How was one man allowed to buy and control such a media machine when he is an Australian?

3:09 During the first few years that Murdoch's ownership of Fox's DC affiliate, he had a hands-off approach to new content; partially due to their success. One day orders came from Murdoch's offices that the network should cut away from their regularly scheduled program and broadcast the RNC's fawning tribute to Reagan: "we were ordered, from the top, to carry propaganda; Republican, right-wing propaganda". It foreshadowed what Fox News would later become.

6:30 Former Fox News reporters and bookers say that they are afraid to be seen "talking to the wrong people". Working for Fox meant you were constantly being monitored. It created a culture of fear. If you challenged the heads of the network On ideological matters, you were history.

10:45 “Some People Say” – FOX uses the phrase "some people say" to mask opinion as news.

19:04 Fox News contributors are under paid contract for their appearance; if they deviate from the party lines, they might not get asked back onto shows.

22:28 They put weak-looking , lesser known liberals up against photogenic, self-assured conservatives.

26:29 Republicans accounted for 83% of the guests while Democrats accounted for 17% of guest on the network's most prestigious show. Of those democrats, most were either centrist or conservative.

27:50 Stories they Cover...Stories they Ignore - Management set the tone for stories: Jesse Jackson was always to be painted in a negative light, as were immigrants. Culture war issues - abortion, affirmative action, gay marriage - were often covered while ignoring issues regarding the economy, health care, and the environment.

34:38 O'Reilly's show is a good example of everything that is wrong with Fox News --
Stories are selected to prop-up the Republican party and their point of view; O'Reilly is very hostile to guest who disagrees with him; and he distorts and misrepresent things.

More at the You Tube site.

Remember this major effect that happened in the lead up to the Iraq War? Still affecting our media today.

1:06:57 The Fox Effect - It made other news organization more conservative because they saw how well Fox did.

December 25, 2014

Pope Francis: ‘There are so many tears this Christmas’

This pope is impressive. He shows compassion.

Pope: ‘There are so many tears this Christmas’

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis focused his concern on those weeping in the world this Christmas, singling out refugees, abused children, hostages and others suffering in the Middle East, Africa, Ukraine and elsewhere as he prayed for hope and peace Thursday.

Anguish for children who are mistreated or victims of violence, including those who died in the recent terrorist attack on a Pakistani military school, tempered the pontiff’s traditional Christmas message, which he delivered to a crowd of about 80,000 from a balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica.

“Truly, there are so many tears this Christmas,” Francis said, noting all the pain and suffering in the world.

....Referring to refugees and exiles, he prayed: “May indifference be changed into closeness, and rejection into hospitality.”

He expressed hope they’d receive humanitarian help to withstand the “rigors of winter, return to their countries and live with dignity.”

December 25, 2014

A Merry Christmas card from our collection of vintage postcards.

From 1907.



Merry Christmas!

December 23, 2014

Repost from 2002. Pilger's Squeezed to Death. A sad image of Iraq after decades of war.

A defense of John Pilger.

Those of us here at DU in 2002 were in shock what our country was doing. I posted this article years ago. I have wondered how in the world they could have been any kind of threat to us after all those years of sanctions and daily bombings.

From the Guardian UK March 2000:

Squeezed to Death

Wherever you go in Iraq's southern city of Basra, there is dust. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat. It swirls in school playgrounds and consumes children kicking a plastic ball. "It carries death," said Dr Jawad Al-Ali, a cancer specialist and member of Britain's Royal College of Physicians. "Our own studies indicate that more than 40 per cent of the population in this area will get cancer: in five years' time to begin with, then long afterwards. Most of my own family now have cancer, and we have no history of the disease. It has spread to the medical staff of this hospital. We don't know the precise source of the contamination, because we are not allowed to get the equipment to conduct a proper scientific survey, or even to test the excess level of radiation in our bodies. We suspect depleted uranium, which was used by the Americans and British in the Gulf War right across the southern battlefields."

Under economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council almost 10 years ago, Iraq is denied equipment and expertise to clean up its contaminated battle-fields, as Kuwait was cleaned up. At the same time, the Sanctions Committee in New York, dominated by the Americans and British, has blocked or delayed a range of vital equipment, chemotherapy drugs and even pain-killers. "For us doctors," said Dr Al-Ali, "it is like torture. We see children die from the kind of cancers from which, given the right treatment, there is a good recovery rate." Three children died while I was there.

A 95% literacy rate before the 1st Gulf war.

"The change in 10 years is unparalleled, in my experience," Anupama Rao Singh, Unicef's senior representative in Iraq, told me. "In 1989, the literacy rate was 95%; and 93% of the population had free access to modern health facilities. Parents were fined for failing to send their children to school. The phenomenon of street children or children begging was unheard of. Iraq had reached a stage where the basic indicators we use to measure the overall well-being of human beings, including children, were some of the best in the world. Now it is among the bottom 20%. In 10 years, child mortality has gone from one of the lowest in the world, to the highest."

More about the care being withheld:

Just before Christmas, the department of trade and industry in London blocked a shipment of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever. Dr Kim Howells told parliament why. His title of under secretary of state for competition and consumer affairs, eminently suited his Orwellian reply. The children's vaccines were banned, he said, "because they are capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction". That his finger was on the trigger of a proven weapon of mass destruction - sanctions - seemed not to occur to him. A courtly, eloquent Irishman, Denis Halliday resigned as co-ordinator of humanitarian relief to Iraq in 1998, after 34 years with the UN; he was then Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, one of the elite of senior officials. He had made his career in development, "attempting to help people, not harm them". His was the first public expression of an unprecedented rebellion within the UN bureaucracy. "I am resigning," he wrote, "because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that . . . Five thousand children are dying every month . . . I don't want to administer a programme that results in figures like these."

Just including this as a background on the voices of both parties. In These Times has a paragraph called The B Team.

Strangers to the Truth

The B team

On the other side of the aisle are the shining lights of the Democratic Party, James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Bob Shrum (the consultant who ran Kerry’s campaign and shied away from confronting the Swift Boat Veterans). These three men founded the Democracy Corps, a nonprofit “dedicated to making the government of the United States more responsive to the American people.” Recall that on Oct. 3, 2002, prior to the Iraq war resolution votes, Democracy Corps advised Capitol Hill Democrats: “This decision to support or oppose an Iraq war resolution will take place in a setting where voters, by 10 points, prefer to vote for a member who supports a resolution to authorize force (50 to 40 percent).” In other words, Carville and friends advised Democrats to cater to public opinion and let Bush have his war.

This invasion will define us forever. Perhaps Rachel's special Monday will bring it to the forefront again so our younger Americans won't forget.

December 23, 2014

Florida adjusting passing test scores up and down. Too many A schools? Raise the standards.

Too many schools getting poor scores? Lower the standards. Are they trying to produce schools that look mediocre on paper? Yet in reality are quite excellent schools?

Start with 2012.

Test scores plummet — so Florida drops passing grade

Here’s the latest disaster in Florida’s standardized test-based school accountability system, which has been touted as a model for education reform around the country since it was developed by former Gov. Jeb Bush.

Florida gave a new standardized writing test to students in various grades and the scores were worse than awful. Only 27 percent of fourth-graders had proficient scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), which was down from last year’s 81 percent. Eighth graders and 10th graders also had dramatically lower scores than last year.

State education officials panicked, and at an emergency meeting last week, the Florida Board of Education decided in a 4-3 vote that the best thing to do was to lower the passing score on this exam.

Let me repeat that: In order to make sure that students succeeded on the test, the passing grade was lowered.

Last year many Florida schools scored very well. In fact too many were scoring A's to suit the powers that be. So for 2014 they raised the standards. That of course made it harder to get A's and B's as a school.

Number of top-rated high schools falls in Florida

Grades released by the Florida Department of Education showed that the number of A-graded schools dropped from 49 percent last year to 36 percent this year.

Education Commissioner Pam Stewart said a key reason for the drop in A-rated schools was that the grading formula was changed to make it more difficult to earn a top grade.

In one county that I know of the only high school making an A was a charter school that sends 12.5% of its students back to public schools because they don't meet the standards set by the charter school. That really makes it easy to get an A, just send back the ones who don't perform well.

Most of the high schools in that county made C's, and some A schools slipped down to B's.

Florida High School Grades, Graduation Rates Released: Six Schools Fall One Letter Grade

McKeel Academy of Technology in Lakeland earned the only A. Lakeland and George Jenkins high schools dropped from an A to a B. All other schools earned a C, except Tenoroc, which dropped to a D.

The grading scale used was tougher than the previous year's, which caused some schools to receive lower grades.

ADJUSTED UPWARD

The state Board of Education requires the scale to be adjusted upward when 75 percent or more of schools get A and B grades, as they did for 2012-13.