On Sunday the LA Times published a story which, once again, lays all the ills of US schools at the feet of teachers. In the months to follow, the Times will publish "effectiveness ratings" of individual teachers in the LA system; ratings the Times itself commissioned:
"Seeking to shed light on the problem, The Times obtained seven years of math and English test scores from the Los Angeles Unified School District and used the information to estimate the effectiveness of L.A. teachers — something the district could do but has not... In coming months, The Times will publish a series of articles and a database analyzing individual teachers' effectiveness in the nation's second-largest school district — the first time, experts say, such information has been made public anywhere in the country."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers-value-20100815,0,2695044.story"The Times hired Richard Buddin, a senior economist and education researcher at Rand Corp., to conduct a "value-added" analysis of the data... The Times obtained scores for the academic years 2002-03 through 2008-09 from LAUSD under the California Public Records Act. Included were 1.5 million scores from 603,500 students. Students' names were not included, but their teachers' names were.
Buddin calculated value-added scores for more than 6,000 elementary school teachers in terms of standard deviations from the average. For a technical explanation of his analysis, go to
http://www.latimes.com/teachermethod.Buddin worked for The Times as an independent contractor; Rand was not involved in his analysis.
A $14,000 GRANT FROM THE HECHINGER REPORT, an independent nonprofit education news organization at Teachers College, Columbia University, HELPED FUND THE WORK. The institute did not participate in the analysis.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers-value-about-20100815,0,3603373.storyA few key points:
1. The Hechlinger Report has been in existence only one year; the Gates Foundation was one of its start-up funders & continues funding to this day:
NEW YORK, NY – An independently funded arm of Teachers College at Columbia University today announced the creation of an innovative newsgathering effort called The Hechinger Report to provide in-depth coverage of national education issues on its own and in collaboration with other news organizations...The Institute’s entry into the expanding field of non-profit, non-partisan journalism is supported by $1 million in initial funding from Lumina Foundation for Education and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/hechinger-announces-new-nonprofit-to-cover-education/2. Lumina Foundation, Hechlinger's other funder, is also a recent creation (2000) & associated with finance & ed deformers:
Lumina Foundation was created in the summer of 2000 when USA Group— at the time the largest private guarantor of student loans in the country—sold its assets to Sallie Mae. The proceeds of the sale, $400 million in cash and $370 million in Sallie Mae stock, formed the basis of the new foundation...
(Initiatives include) Making Opportunity Affordable, which is also funded by the Wal-Mart Foundation...
(The CEO) has forged informal partnerships with organizations that have similar objectives, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation...
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/article.asp?article=1579&paper=1&cat=1413. RAND Corporation is a think-tank of the military-industrial complex which branched into school deform propaganda within the last 10-20 years:
RAND Corporation (Research ANd Development<2>) is a nonprofit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces by Douglas Aircraft Company. It is currently financed by the U.S. government, a private endowment,<3> corporations <4> including the healthcare industry, universities<5> and private individuals.
Governance
The organization's governance structure includes a board of trustees. Current members of the board include: Paul G. Kaminski (Chairman), Karen Elliott House (Vice Chairman), Richard J. Danzig, Francis Fukuyama, Richard Gephardt, John W. Handy, Jen-Hsun Huang, John M. Keane, Lydia H. Kennard, Philip Lader, Peter Lowy, Michael Lynton, Charles N. Martin, Jr., Ronald Olson, Paul O'Neill, Michael Powell, Donald B. Rice, James E. Rohr, James F. Rothenberg, Hector Ruiz, Carlos Slim Helu, Donald Tang, James Thomson, and Robert C. Wright.
Trustees Emeriti include: Harold Brown, Frank C. Carlucci
Former members of the board include: Walter Mondale, Condoleezza Rice, Newton Minow, Brent Scowcroft, Amy Pascal, John Reed, Charles Townes, Caryl Haskins, Walter B. Wriston, Frank Stanton, Carl Bildt, Donald Rumsfeld, Harold Brown, Robert Curvin, Pedro Greer, Arthur Levitt, Lloyd Morrisett, Lovida Coleman, Ratan Tata, Marta Tienda, Jerry Speyer, Timothy Geithner, Rita Hauser, Ann Korologos, and Bonnie McElveen-Hunter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_CorporationIsn't it funny how whenever you look at ed deform stuff, 9 times out of 10 you'll find GATES, BROAD OR WALTON MONEY in the picture?
Don't you love living in a plutocracy? Don't you love being manipulated by the rich?
They invent your thoughts for you.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
