Sunday, June 3, 2018

School Vouchers and Runaway EdTech Pave the Way for the Destruction of the Very Concept of School by Steven Singer

Originally posted at: https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/2018/05/30/school-vouchers-and-runaway-edtech-pave-the-way-for-the-destruction-of-the-very-concept-of-school/

School is where you learn to learn.


And, if she’s good, she imparts that lesson to you as well.

Imagine if we took that away.


No schools, no teachers, just gangs of students walking the streets, stopping along the way to thumb messages to each other on social media, play a video game or take an on-line test.

That’s the world many EdTech entrepreneurs are trying to build.

And school vouchers are helping them do it.

Take Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and other market based privatization schemes.

Normally, the federal, state and local government collect taxes to fund an individual child’s education, which is then spent at a public or charter school.

At a public school all that money must be spent on the student. At a charter school some of that money can be pocketed as profit by the private company who runs the school.

Public schools provide a better alternative because the funding must be dedicated to the student, living within a district’s coverage area guarantees enrollment, the school must be managed by an elected school board with open meetings and a plethora of other amenities you won’t find at a privatized institution. But at least the charter school is a school!

However, an ESA or other voucher would allow that money to go elsewhere. It could go to funding the tuition at a private or parochial school where organizers can use it however they like – pocketing some and using the rest to help the child as you’ll find in most charter schools.

But as bad as that is, vulture capitalists want to add another destination for that money – let it pile up in the bank where it can be used for discrete education services provided by the EdTech industry.

It’s almost like homeschooling – without the loving parent being in charge.


But it’s really a single person cyber school with little to no guiding principles, management or oversight.


Reading a book or an article gives you a badge. Answering a series of multiple-choice questions on a reading earns you more badges. And if you’ve completed a certain task satisfactorily, you can even earn a badge by teaching that same material to others.

It’s the low wage gig economy applied to education. We just transform a crappy job market where workers bounce from a few hours of minimum wage labor here to a few hours of minimum wage toil there – all without benefits or union protections – into learning. Children bouncing from a few hours of Khan Academy videos here to a software package there and Voila! “Modern” education!


And make no mistake, it’s not about improving the quality of education. It’s about providing the cheapest possible alternative and selling it to rubes as innovation.

The wealthy will still get institutions of learning. They will still be educated by the most qualified teachers in the world. They will still learn how to learn.


It is only the poor and middle class who will be released like chickens into the pasture of a learning ecosystem.

And as an added benefit, the badge structure creates a market where investors can bet and profit off of who gains badges and to what degree on the model of crypto-currencies like Bitcoin! So all the stability of the pre-crash housing market! What could possibly go wrong!?

Let me be clear – this is the ultimate goal of the school privatization movement.

Charter and voucher schools are only the tip of the iceberg. They still require real human beings to act as teachers (though they need not be as well educated or have as much experience as public school teachers). They still require buildings and grounds.

But this depersonalized learning approach allows them to do away with all of that. They can just provide students with an Internet accessible device and some dubious on-line tracking and management system.

Then they can pocket all the rest of the money taxpayers put aside to educate children and call it profit.

And they can use the programs students access to “learn” as a way to gather valuable marketing data about our kids. Everything students do on the device is free market research – every word they input, every keystroke, every site visited down to the slightest eye movement.

This is the logical conclusion of the monetization of education and an economy that only sees value in others as human capital that can be bought, sold and exploited.

This is where the privatization movement is going. And they’re laying the groundwork in legislation being proposed in our state capitals today.

In Pennsylvania, for instance, Senate Bill 2 proposes the creation of just such ESAs. If approved, the immediate result would be to boost private and parochial schools.

However, given a few years to strengthen the technologies and systems needed for a full learning ecosystem, the same law would allow taxpayer money to be used in this way.

And it’s something hardly anyone is talking about.

We’re fighting the privatization systems of today as the plutocrats set up the privatization systems of tomorrow.

Even if school vouchers never take off to the degree necessary to scaffold the most robust learning ecosystems, EdTech lobbyists are trying to install as much of this garbage as they can into our existing schools.

They are using one-to-one iPad initiatives and grants to fund up-to-date computers, Wi-Fi networks and software packages to pave the way for this brave new world of digital exploitation. They are selling our test score obsessed bureaucrats software like iStation and IXL that bridge the gap between test prep and learning ecosystems lite.

You can walk into many schools today where students spend hours on-line earning digital badges for watching videos and taking stealth assessments.

Few people are sounding the alarm because few people understand what’s going on.

This is not conjecture. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is the goal the edtech entrepreneurs will gladly tell you all about hoping you’ll invest.

There are hours of videos, pages of documents, mountains of graphs, charts and graphics about how this scheme will pay off for investment bankers and venture capitalists. (See below)

The only true way to win this battle is a cultural shift away from dehumanizing runaway capitalism.

We need to stop thinking that the private sector is always better than the public good. We need to stop allowing big business and corporations to get away without paying their fair share. We need to increase the voice of citizens and decrease the megaphone of money and privilege.

Otherwise, the science fiction dystopias of books like “Ready Player One” will no longer be fiction.

They will become the reality for every school child in this country.

A reality where school, itself, is a thing of the past.

And education is reduced to the mercenary collection of discrete skills that add up to nothing of value for the students except their own enslavement.

But don’t take my word for it. Here is the learning ecosystems model from the EdTech industry, itself, in corporate officers own words and graphics:

LEARNING IS EARNING – the scariest 6:58 video you’ll ever see.


KNOWLEDGEWORKS Vision for the Future of Education:

IMG_9654
More on KnowledgeWorks

Listing for PARENTS AS CONSUMERS Symposium


FIGHT BACK AGAINST SCHOOL PRIVATIZATION AND RUNAWAY EDTECH:

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Teachers Should March in Every State: Michigan, Let’s Go Next! by Renegade Teacher

Lecture at the University of Bologna, Italy, 1400s.
Originally posted at: https://renegadeteacher.blog/2018/05/29/teachers-should-march-in-every-state-michigan-lets-go-next/

Remember when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie loved yelling at teachers? Long before he orchestrated traffic jams on bridges and became Donald Trump’s lapdog, Chris Christie was a darling of the conservative movement because he loved talking down public school (and largely female) teachers. One clip in particular always stuck out to me.
Rita Wilson (Teacher): You’re not compensating me for my education and you’re not compensating me for my experience.
Chris Christie: Well you know what? Then you don’t have to do it.
In the clip, Christie offered no defense for abysmal teacher salaries- instead, he actually blamed the teachers themselves for signing up for the poor pay and inadequate benefits. In Christie’s world, if you want to complain, step away and someone else will take your job.
In fact, this is the Republican process on destroying government services.
  1. Decimate funding for a public service
  2. Watch the crumbling of that public service
  3. Blame workers of that public service for that failing public service
  4. Work with corporations/special interests to privatize or eliminate that public service.
With his unceremonious fall from public life (now, he’s reduced to confronting fans at sports games), Christie’s posturing looks ridiculous in hindsight. Yet, it reveals something deep about America’s view about teachers. There is this myth of the virtuous and self-sacrificing teacher who cares nothing of personal gain nor money; this is reinforced by films that show teachers experiencing school-related trauma, getting divorced and getting fired in pursuit of their love for teaching. However, when we teachers ask questions about our own livelihood and needs, suddenly society does not love us so much.
Teachers in 2018 say that enough is enough. We see an upward economy that has record corporate profits and sky-high stock market gains, yet the wages of teachers seem stuck in 1980. Teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, and North Carolina have yelled “Enough is enough” with marches, protests, and social media campaigns. These protests have worked because they have stripped away the romantic notion of the self-sacrificing teacher and replaced it with a professional vision for what teachers are worth. If this strategy can work in “red-state America,” it can work anywhere.
There are a few statistics that explain what is going on with teachers in America:
  1. In 2015, American public school teachers were paid 17 percent lower than similarly educated workers. In 1994, this gap was just 1.8 percent[1].
  2. Most industrialized countries pay public school teachers more than the United States . As of 2013, 26 of those countries pay teachers more (when compared to similarly educated workers); just 5 pay less[2].
  3. In 35 of 50 states, teacher salaries have dropped over the last 15 years(when adjusted for inflation) [3].
It is clear that teachers have a raw deal. As a young public school teacher myself, this is obvious to me. There is, however, a question that I cannot seem to answer: why are teachers in America paid so poorly?

Teachers are Paid like S*** Because of Sexism

In the excellent book “The Teacher Wars,” Dana Goldstein recounts the history of the teaching profession in America. In the mid-19th century, just 10 percent of American women worked jobs outside their homes [4]. When Catherine Beecher first pitched the idea of women teaching in American schools, she argued that schools could save money by paying female teachers less, saying,
“A woman needs support only for herself” while a man “requires support for himself and a family” [5].
This idea played into the assumption that women deserve less money for equal labor, and set forth a path for teachers to be underpaid.
Horace Mann, the father of the American public school system, noted that replacing male teachers with female teachers saved the state of Massachusetts $11,000 in one year alone [6]. In 1842, a manual for creating local schools said female teachers were an essential part of a “cheap system” of education and that women would be willing to work for half of what men of the “poorest capacity” would require [7].
In New York, by 1850, 4/5 of teachers were women, and by 1873, a majority of teachers in nearly all northern states were women [8]. As America increasingly turned to women to teach its children, it simultaneously ‘saved money’ by lowering the pay of teachers. The foundation for horrendous teacher salaries was set.
Goldstein admits in her book that during this era of American history, “teaching became understood less as a career than as a philanthropic vocation or romantic calling” [9].
This is why Chris Christie told Rita Wilson that she could either accept abysmal teacher pay or give up her job to someone else. Chris Christie did not show Rita Wilson the respect of a worker who was trying to get by on a meager salary in a time of increased cost of living. He treated her as someone who should unflinchingly accept awful conditions because that’s what teachers should do.
We teachers are sacred and romanticized until we ask for reasonable livelihoods and job security. Financial prosperity is not part of the romanticized notion of the selfless teacher. In 2018, teachers must fight together against this notion.

A Nation at Risk…of Having Inadequate Educators

The famous “A Nation at Risk” report released in the 1980s told America that it needed to get its act together on education or else trouble was ahead. Some of the recommendations for getting more professional teachers included “higher base salaries, merit pay to reward effective teachers, and stricter teacher evaluation systems that made it more difficult to earn and keep tenure” [10].
The “higher base salaries” part was conveniently ignored as evidenced by the fact that average teacher salaries have barely budged since the 1980s. What has proliferated instead has been intensive evaluation systems that tie student test scores to teacher evaluations as well as foolish merit pay experiments. Without higher base salaries, however, the other solutions fall apart.
Things have largely gotten worse for teachers since the 1980s.
Teach for America and other “quick-to-certify” programs de-professionalize the teaching profession and treat teaching as a stop in life towards more important work (Wall Street/law school/corporate ed reform). Many schools and corporations have dedicated themselves to “blended learning” schemes and overuse of technology that intentionally seek to lower the importance of teachers. Flipped lessons occur where students learn on their own at home and do self-guided homework in class…teachers in many American classroom are sadly no more than babysitters/disciplinarians. With decreasing pay and benefits as well as decreasing prestige, is it any wonder that America has a teacher shortage?
And yet, there is so much hope right now because of courageous teachers in Arizona, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Finally, educators are clinging together and fighting back against years of mistreatment and disrespect. There are Facebook groups and Unions and teacher friend groups that are talking. Now is the time for us to unite together- 50 states- and assert ourselves as a force that will not sit back as corporate reformers, big-tech peddlers, and government stooges further de-legitimize our noble profession into a charitable calling stripped of all humanity and dignity.
We must rise up in Michigan, where we teachers sacrificed when times were hard in the mid-2000s. But now that the economy is humming along again and Governor Rick Snyder has made sure to keep taxes on the rich nice and low, it is time to fight for our livelihood so that we can do what we love: teach kids (and cut down on our side-hustles). We will use this time as an opportunity to have an honest conversation about the sexism and disrespect that has led to the de-professionalization of teaching, we will use this time to reclaim our 12.1% pay cut over 15 years, and we will fight the idea that worthless test scores be tied to 40% of teacher evaluations starting in 2018-2019. It is our time in Michigan to take to the streets, to tell our stories and of our hardships, and to march on Lansing and tell Rick Snyder and the legislature to hear our cries for school funding and personal livelihood. As much as Donald Trump, Chris Christie, or believers of the sexist ‘charitable calling’ conception of teachers would disagree, we have earned our right to be respected professionals. Now, we must band together to claim that right.
[4] Goldstein, Dana. The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014. Pp. 20.
[5] Ibid, pp 21.
[6] Ibid, pp 26.
[7] Ibid, pp 27.
[8] Ibid, pp 36-40.
[9] Ibid, pp 31.
[10] Ibid, pp 170.


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The Best Charter School Cannot Hold a Candle to the Worst Public School by Steven Singer

Originally posted at: https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/2018/05/26/the-best-charter-school-cannot-hold-a-candle-to-the-worst-public-school/

There are good charter schools.

I admit that.

There are bad public schools.

I admit that, too.


Does that sound crazy? Does it sound ideological, partisan, or close-minded.

I don’t think so.

Imagine if we said the same thing about tyrannies and democracies.

There are good tyrannies.

There are bad democracies.

Still, I’d prefer the worst democracy to the best tyranny.

Why?

Because even a badly run democracy is based on the principle of self rule. The government gets its right to make and enforce laws from the consent of the will of the governed.

Even if our representatives are corrupt and stupid, even if our federal, state and local agencies are mismanaged and disorganized – there is the potential for positive change.

In fact, the catalyst to that change is embedded in democracy, itself.  Egalitarian systems founded on the principle of one person, one vote tend toward fairness, equity and liberty much more than others.

Bad leaders will be replaced. Bad functionaries will be retrained or superseded. Bad agencies will be renovated, renewed, and made to serve the will of the people.

However, in a tyranny, none of this is true.

Even if you have a benevolent tyrant who does nothing all day but try to do whatever is best for his or her subjects, that is a worse state of affairs.

Eventually the tyrant will change. Absolute power will corrupt him or her absolutely. Or even if this bastion of human goodness is incorruptible, he or she will eventually be deposed, replaced or die.

And there is nothing – absolutely nothing – to ensure the next tyrant is likewise benevolent. In fact, the system is set up to increase the likelihood that the next ruler will be as selfish, greedy and malevolent as possible.

This is because it is the system of tyranny, itself, that is corrupt – even if those that fill its offices are not.

The same goes for good charter schools.

These are schools that are publicly funded but privately run.

As such, the overwhelming majority have no elected school board, their meetings are held in private, their documents are kept secret, they discriminate in enrollment and they take advantage of a plethora of legal loopholes and bad policy to embezzle funds, overcharge for nonexistent utilities and cut services for students while pocketing the “savings” as profit.

If you can find a charter school that does none of these things – congratulations! You have found a diamond in the rough! But it is a diamond that is more likely to turn to coal the second you turn away.

Let’s say you find the rare charter school run by an elected school board. THEY AREN’T REQUIRED TO DO THAT. Organizers could at any time revert to an appointed board. Community members could be making all the decisions when you send your child to school, but by dismissal time they could have all been replaced with flunkies appointed by the private business people who took out the charter from the state in the first place!


Let’s say your charter school has open meetings and public documents. They invite the public to their deliberations. They take public comment and share all their internal communications with taxpayers and the media.  THEY AREN’T REQUIREDTO DO THAT. They could close the doors any day they wanted. And there’s nothing you could do about it.


Why? Because that’s what a charter school is. Despite all the propaganda to the contrary, it is not fundamentally a public school. It is a private school at public expense.


All these things that are optional at a charter school are required at public schools. Not just some public schools – ALL OF THEM!


Public schools are required to have elected school boards (unless taken over by the state). They are required to have open meetings and public documents. They are essentially democratic, whereas even the best charter schools are only democracies because of someone’s goodwill. When the wind changes, so will their system of government.


But that’ not all.


Let’s say you find a charter school that has open enrollment. It accepts every student who applies from its coverage area. Or at least it does so until it runs out of room. If demand exceeds supply, it conducts a lottery to determine which students to let in and which it has to unfortunately turn away.

First of all, if the school doesn’t have open meetings and public documentation, you have no way of knowing whether these lotteries are fair and unbiased. Operators are often charged with cherry picking the best and brightest and denying students with disabilities or behavioral problems – they’ve even been known to discriminate based on race and class.

Second of all, even if your charter school is one of the magical few that just does the right thing with no oversight, THEY AREN’T REQUIRED TO DO THAT. Once they figure out how much money they can save by only accepting the cheapest students to educate, inclusive enrollment policies will be a thing of the past. And you’ll probably never even know the difference.

Public schools aren’t allowed to do that. They have to accept every student from their coverage area regardless of academic deficits, emotional needs, race, religion, class or creed. And if there isn’t enough space, they still can’t turn students away. They have to expand!

And what about the most salient feature of charter schools?


Unlike public schools where all the funding has to be spent on student services, most charter schools are run for profit. They are allowed to cut services for students and swipe the savings for their investors.


Offering French AND Spanish? Adios muchachos. And bonjour to a fistful of dollars going directly into their bank accounts.

All of that is perfectly legal even though it’s your money they’re collecting – money you put aside to help your child learn – there’s not a thing you can do about it.

Sure, you can take your child out of the charter school. But the money funding the school isn’t just your child’s. You’re paying for every student enrolled there. Even if you don’t have kids, you’re footing the bill. And unlike the public school system where you get a voice in how that money is spent, here you don’t get to say a thing.

You just get to pay.

Call me crazy, but I think there’s something wrong with that.

I think that’s worse than even the most decrepit public school.

If a public school has a terrible school board, they can be replaced. In fact, they most certainly will be given time. With each bad policy and unpopular decision, bad school directors motivate taxpayers to vote them out.


Most of the problems with public schools aren’t located in the schools, themselves.

They are the result of strategic disinvestment – archaic funding formulas that allocate less to districts without a large tax base than those in richer neighborhoods. They are the result of segregation schemes that keep the poor and minorities in neighborhoods where they can be ignored and then blamed for their own underprivileged status. They are the result of national and state policies allowed to play the parasite on their budgets – high stakes testing, Common Core and – yes – charter schools.

So, no, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be so positive about public schools and so negative about charter schools.

The problem with privatized education isn’t just specific to individual schools. It is a feature of the very kind of school we’re talking about in the first place.

Charter schools are at heart a less democratic system than public schools.


I wouldn’t give up my country just because we have an idiot in the oval office. Nor would I give up my public school just because of inadequacies in my local district.

Democracy isn’t for wimps. You have to fight for it.


Don’t fall for it.

Public school proud.

Today.

Tomorrow.

Always.
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!
WANT A SIGNED COPY?
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