So President Obama has always wanted to privatize K-12 education?

[Chiquitita]

Last edited Tue Jan 28, 2014, 08:17 AM - Edit history (4)

and, he doesn't respect teachers. That's the conclusion we have to come to folks. He's kept Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education and stood by as Duncan has overseen the privatization of our public funding. They have contempt for teachers and ignore their voices and experience. That's how it is.

What it is like to be a public K-12 teacher? A constant fight. A fight dedicated educators are currently losing against the competitive business models colonizing K-12 schools, robbing them of their autonomy, and attacking teachers’ vocational identity and their historic civic role.


Here's a great description of the state of things:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/why-the-ed-department-should-be-reconceived--or-abolished/2012/03/09/gIQAHfdB5R_blog.html

Thanks DUers who commented on my earlier Arne Duncan thread. You opened my eyes. Arne Duncan isn't incompetent and President Obama isn't blind. Duncan is doing Obama's will. And if this goes on until 2016 we'll have a hell of a time trying to repair the damage.

ADDED ON EDIT: I COULD HAVE TITLED IT: SO PRES OBAMA DOESN'T MIND GIVING LOTS OF PUBLIC K12 MONEY TO PRIVATE COMPANIES AND HE LETS ARNE DUNCAN INSULT PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS WITH IMPUNITY.

[RobertEarl]

1. Seems that way

Sad, isn't it? We had such high hopes when we fought to get Obama elected.

Two things about education that I feel are driving these moves.

One is that we find in our education system a great deal of money expended. That money is controlled by the public in an open and transparent way. Going private will enable much skimming of that vast amount of money.

Two is that the more educated the common person becomes the harder it is to hood-wink them via Fox, et al. There are powers that be that want a dumbed down public.

[Chiquitita]

2. for teachers it's becoming unlivable.

Good teachers who can are getting out. Cynicism is so high. I really believed in Obama and here -- poof!-- you'd have to be a fool to believe.

[RobertEarl]

4. I've personally known 3 teachers.

Each one was a class act and they all were quite disturbed by the system.

Of course, I heard more complaints from soldiers about the defense system.

Privatization and driving out the good educators is a sure way to destroy our educational system. I know why Obama can't see that, his kids are getting the best it can offer, so he thinks it's all good.

[AAO]

93. You hit the nail on the head

The masses should be ignorant, but if you have money, you send yourself to Harvard, or MIT.

[elleng]

3. I doubt very much that he doesn't respect teachers,

as his daughters attend a school with excellent teachers who are widely respected.

[liberal_at_heart]

7. His education policy demonstrates he has no respect for teachers. If his daughters

ever struggled even for one solitary moment they would have all the help they need to get right back on track; parental help, tutors, teacher involvement. Not all us are that lucky. Believe me. My child is struggling through school with no help.

[Chiquitita]

9. Teachers as professionals are held in contempt by Duncan and he's Obama's man

[elleng]

19. I don't think the two go together,

but he's as caught in the power/$ problems of education 'policy' as most pols are.

Your child, and all of our children, should have all the help his children have, and education policy should encourage that, but his worst decision, imo, was duncan and the crap that came with him.

[liberal_at_heart]

46. he also does not support teachers unions. I am totally 100% against his education policy.

He hired Duncan. He is meeting with companies that make billions in profit from all the standardized testing, and he supports tying funding for schools and teachers to state standardized testing. He sucks at education policy. Plain and simple.

[elleng]

48. I too am against his education 'policy,'

his worst, imo, from the beginning.

[JDPriestly]

68. If you live near a university, try to see if they have a volunteer tutoring program that recruits

students to volunteer to help kids in school. Some do. My daughter's college offered math tutoring for kids.

[sabrina 1]

17. His daughters attend a private school. I believe the OP is speaking about Public School Teachers

who are being forced to teach under a draconian, business oriented 'system' conceived by the Bush Business group, no educators involved, which we were hoping to abolish, being how much of a failure it has been for students and teachers, only to see it enhanced. The purpose of NCLB was to pass Public School funds into private hands. From that perspective it has been a huge success.

[elleng]

22. Quite right, and his worst decision, imo,

was duncan and all the crap that's come with him.

[JDPriestly]

70. And Obama attended a private school.

So did GWB. (part of the time)

Let's get a presidential nominee who attended public school and did well. Most people do.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

110. A friend proposes outlawing private schools ...

His theory is that is is like the military in that unless you have a daughter, son, family member, kid down the street who is actually in the military and therefore has to deal with ongoing war, that you don't really don't care as much about when we chose to invade this country or that, because, you know, it doesn't really affect you.

And since the draft ended - what, 40 years ago? - that people with money and power are even less likely to be affected than they were when the was a draft (hell, even Junior had to deal with the allusion that he was part of the Texas Air Guard, even if he never showed up).

And my friend believes it is the same for k-12 education in America. What real changes? Make sure the children of the wealthy, the children of the Presidents, the children of Senators and Representatives and judges, the the grandchildren of them all have to be sitting in a public school room. Then, you would see the greatest public k-12 education system the world has ever known really kick it back into high gear.

But for now, the wealthy and powerful - President and Michelle Obama included - can always write a check and live outside the reality they create for the rest of us.

And their actions are an embarrassment.

[840high]

29. Private school.

[elleng]

31. So?

We sent our daughters to private school, because DC public schools treated teachers and students badly. We respected teachers, and wanted our daughters in schools where the administration did the same. I suspect that's why President + Mrs. Obama send their daughters to private school, in addition to security concerns.

[Chiquitita]

34. If we had the right leaders then public schools would treat students and teachers right.

[elleng]

35. 'Right leaders' includes teacher union leaders, imo,

and its only recently that Randi Weingarten has appeared to see the light:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2014/01/weingartens_retrenchment_on_va.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/01/13/weingarten-slams-teacher-evaluation-by-student-test-scores/

[cui bono]

91. I highly doubt that most parents, including Obama, put their kids in private schools

because they want teachers to be respected. They do it because they want their kids to have a better education.

We need to stop privatizing and get public schools up to par with private schools. If Obama wants to respect teachers - all of them, even those who teach at public schools - he can easily do so with his policy and appointments.

[elleng]

92. Right, about why we send our kids to private schools,

but not 'right' about what he can do with policy and appointments 'easily,' nothing about addressing our public school problems is easy. I do think duncan was and remains his worst appointment.

[Divernan]

40. Obama is a product of an elite private school; his daughters have NEVER attended public school.

I'm sure his daughters' teachers at Sidwell Friends School ARE indeed, highly respected. Sidwell is described as the Harvard of Washington, DC's elite, private schools. Before the Obama family came to DC, his daughters attended the even MORE elite University of Chicago's Laboratory School. In a recent WSJ piece, U. of Chicago's prep school was ranked fourth in the nation. Sidwell is ranked 54th in the country, but number 1 in DC.

Ellen, Ellen, Ellen - have you had no experience with elite schools? Or perhaps, like President Obama, your ONLY personal experience has been with elite schools, so you have no concept of the difference between them and public schools. The student/teacher ratio at the $35,000 per year Sidwell is SEVEN TO ONE. (1132 STUDENTS, 165 FACULTY). In contrast, in Chicago's PUBLIC high schools, the student/teacher ratio is 24.6 to ONE. http://www.cps.edu/about_cps/at-a-glance/pages/stats_and_facts.aspx

Mr. and Mrs. Obama have such a very low, low opinion of public schools that when they were planning their move to DC, and visiting potential schools for their daughters, they visited only elite private prep schools. Despite pleadings by Washington's mayor, they never set foot in, let alone gave ANY consideration to sending their kids to a public school.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty of Washington strongly lobbied the Obamas to consider a public school, but that was apparently never an option.

You see, Ellen, they well know what a quantitative and qualitative difference there is between public education and elite private education. I use the term "elite" to differentiate between the traditional elite private prep schools and the nouveau, often scandal-riddled charter schools.

Let us compare the elite Sidwell, where students can enjoy such team sports as golf, crew, squash, lacrosse & field hockey and choose to study Mandarin Chinese, Latin, French or Spanish AND take a year abroad; to the thousands of public schools which have dropped foreign languages as a graduation requirement or even offering them at all, and where students who wish to participate in a team sport have to come up with an athletic participation fee of $190 per sport with a $475 maximum per family. http://www.egrps.org/Athletics/High-School-Athletics-Department/index.html

Sidwell offers 9 Spanish courses, 5 Latin, 5 French & 6 Chinese courses. Students can spend their year abroad in France, China, Italy or Spain. http://www.sidwell.edu/data/files/gallery/ContentGallery/us_curr_guide_32113.pdf

I wish every child in this country could have such a top level educational experience. Given the choice & financial resources, I would have been delighted to send my kids to Sidwell. Just don't try to tell anyone that Obama, whose only experience has been with this elite level of education, has any real-world knowledge of what the classroom experience is for either teachers or students in public schools, let alone inner city public schools. Nobody's buying it.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-COLLEGE0711-sort.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us/politics/22sidwell.html?_r=2&em&
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidwell_Friends_School
http://www.sidwell.edu/athletics/teamlist.aspx

[elleng]

43. I attended public schools throughout my education,

until law school, so I know about good public school teachers. My high school, in Long Island, NY, remains one of the best public high schools in the country, and I wish everyone could have that experience. My daughters attended private and then parochial schools in DC as the public schools were inadequate.

It horrifies me what has happened to public education in this country since I attended.

I wish every child in the country could have such top level educational experience as President Obama has had. I think Mrs. Obama attended public schools in Chicago. I'm sure they wish every child in the country could have the type of education their daughters have now.

[Divernan]

82. If your view of Obama were accurate, he'd NEVER have appointed Duncan!

[awoke_in_2003]

42. His daughters go

to a private school for the wealthy. Of course he likes those teachers.

[elleng]

44. and that means he doesn't like or respect ANY teachers?

Not logical to me.

[awoke_in_2003]

55. If he respected teachers...

he wouldn't have appointed Arne Duncan.

[elleng]

57. I think he was somehow misled, in that decision,

which was, imo, his worst. I supported Linda Darling-Hammond,

'an adviser to Mr. Obama's campaign and an education professor at Stanford University, whose research and teaching has focused on issues of school restructuring, teacher quality, and educational equity. She is co-director of the School Redesign Network, established in 2000 at Stanford University to pursue and promote research that seeks to improve secondary schools.'

http://chronicle.com/article/Obamas-Possible-Candidates/1300

[awoke_in_2003]

59. He is a 15th dimensional chess player...

yet he gets "fooled" into appointing people like Duncan. He, like every other person who makes it to the White House, are lackies for the people who really run this country.

[Squinch]

102. Then he must have also been misled into his recent appearance with the folks from Pearson.

He is very clear: he wants education privatized. And that is a disaster. Where he sends his children to school is not the issue. It is his education policy, and there is no element of it that is not detrimental to public education in the US.

[ljm2002]

86. "His daughters attend a school with excellent teachers"...

..."who are widely respected."

Well, see, that's different. Those are PRIVATE school teachers. So they deserve to be respected.

[ProSense]

5. You know

"So President Obama has always wanted to privatize K-12 education"

...the anecdotal nonsense in these articles being passed off as justification for these privatization claims are absurd.

It’s well known that President Obama, for whom I voted and whose presidency I continue to support, relies on the counsel of people with whom he has played basketball. Obama made his very worst cabinet appointment when he chose his fellow player, Arne Duncan, as secretary of education.

What the hell does that have to do with anything?

Facts:

Question:
What are the new Back to School statistics for 2013?

Response:
America's schools and colleges will welcome back record numbers of students this fall, as population increases and high enrollment rates continue. In particular, more elementary students (prekindergarten through grade 8) are expected to enter U.S. public school systems than ever before.

Elementary and Secondary Education

Enrollment

In 2010–11, there were about 13,600 public school districts (source) with over 98,800 public schools, including about 5,300 charter schools (source). In 2011–12, there were about 30,900 private schools offering kindergarten or higher grades (source).

In fall 2013, about 50.1 million students will attend public elementary and secondary schools. Of these, 35.3 million will be in prekindergarten through 8th grade and 14.8 million will be in grades 9 through 12. An additional 5.2 million students are expected to attend private schools (source).

About 1.3 million children are expected to attend public prekindergarten this fall. Enrollment in public kindergarten is projected to reach approximately 3.8 million students (source).

This fall, about 4.1 million public school students are expected to enroll in 9th grade—the typical entry grade for many American high schools (source).

Teachers

Public school systems will employ about 3.3 million full-time-equivalent (FTE) teachers this fall, such that the number of pupils per FTE teacher—that is, the pupil/teacher ratio—will be 15.1. This ratio is lower than the 2000 ratio of 16.0. A projected 0.4 million FTE teachers will be working in private schools this fall, resulting in an estimated pupil/teacher ratio of 12.3, which is also lower than the 2000 ratio of 14.5 (source and source).

Expenditures

Current expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools are projected to be $591 billion for the 2013–14 school year. These expenditures include such items as salaries for school personnel, benefits, student transportation, school books and materials, and energy costs. The current expenditure per student is projected at $11,810 for this school year (source).

Attainment

About 3.3 million students are expected to graduate from high school in 2013–14, including 3.0 million students from public high schools and 278,000 students from private high schools (source).

The percentage of high school dropouts among 16- through 24-year-olds declined from 12.1 percent in 1990 to 7.1 percent in 2011 (source and source). Reflecting the overall decline in the dropout rate between 1990 and 2011, the rates also declined for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics (source).

- more -

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

[Chiquitita]

8. ah ProSense, and there are 100 Billion Brain Cells in my head that expected someone to respond with

statistics that answer nothing about my post. Yes, there are record numbers of students who could be much better served by real democratic policies. Arne Duncan is the worst secretary of Education of my lifetime.

[ProSense]

13. "Arne Duncan is the worst secretary of Education of my lifetime."

Another irrelevant fact in terms of the privatization claim.

[Chiquitita]

14. Go ahead, fight me. And tomorrow I'll go teach your kids

until I'm replaced with a test from Pearson and an online course.

[ProSense]

25. The Decline in Private School Enrollment

The Decline in Private School Enrollment

<...>

Figure 1 shows multiple estimates of private school enrollment for kindergarten through grade 12 over the last twenty years. The PSS and CPS data, which allow us to track enrollment for a longer period of time than the ACS, show that the number of students enrolled in private school grew steadily from 1990 to about 2001. After 2002, the number of students enrolled in private school began to decline in both datasets. For example, the PSS shows that there were 5.3 million students enrolled in private school in the 2001-2002 school year but only 4.7 million in the 2009-2010 school year. Similarly, the CPS data indicate that there were 5.4 million private school students in 2002 but only 4.5 million in 2010. The ACS, with data available starting in 2005, shows an increase in private school enrollment until 2008.1 This is the year in which an explicit instruction was added to include homeschool as private school. After the classification of homeschool was clarified in 2008, the ACS data show a decline in private school enrollment. The percentage of students enrolled in private school in kindergarten through grade 12 declined from 10.7 percent in 2005 to 10.0 percent in 2010. All three datasets therefore show decreasing private school enrollment by the late 2000’s, illustrating that the decline in private school enrollment is an actual phenomenon rather than the result of a particular system of data collection.

- more -

http://www.census.gov/hhes/school/files/ewert_private_school_enrollment.pdf

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2021/tables/table_01.asp

[knitter4democracy]

27. That's due to the economy and the rise in numbers of charters.

Charters are public schools in that they're funded with taxpayer dollars. They're run by private groups, more and more often, corporations out to make a fast buck.

[ProSense]

28. Actually,

"That's due to the economy and the rise in numbers of charters."

..no it's not. That was the point of the report, disproving that claim. The fact is they've gone down.

[knitter4democracy]

32. Private school enrollment has been going down for decades.

Funny how that enrollment decline has mirrored the decline in real pay in the middle class. Did the report deal with that, because I didn't see it.

Look at page 27, towards the bottom: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED517579.pdf

Edited to add a Cato Institute study: http://eric.ed.gov/?q=private+school+enrollment+decline&id=ED534734

[abelenkpe]

33. It's the economy

if we could still afford to send our kids to private school we would.

[Chiquitita]

36. That's not what I mean by privatization.

I mean the use of Public School funds for required standardized tests, privately developed teacher evaluation systems and other assessments -- all of which require personnel to administer (adminstrators) in Public Schools. The more you pay private companies for tests and create the infrastructure to teach to them and evaluate by them, the more administrate personnel you need to be paying and the more teachers you need to fire, or make work more by increasing their class sizes.

I'm not even talking about charter schools or private schools. I'm talking about the money sucking line of assessment and evaluation products and the bureaucracy being created to integrate them into a system that could sorely use funding for teaching.

[ProSense]

41. Well,

I mean the use of Public School funds for required standardized tests, privately developed teacher evaluation systems and other assessments -- all of which require personnel to administer (adminstrators) in Public Schools. The more you pay private companies for tests and create the infrastructure to teach to them and evaluate by them, the more administrate personnel you need to be paying and the more teachers you need to fire, or make work more by increasing their class sizes.

I'm not even talking about charter schools or private schools. I'm talking about the money sucking line of assessment and evaluation products and the bureaucracy being created to integrate them into a system that could sorely use funding for teaching.

...thanks for clarifying. By some of the comments, it's clear that others are misunderstanding the point, invoking private/for-profit charter schools.

The funding is for public schools. The Dept. of Education does not provide funding to for-profit charter schools. There is no attempt to privatize public schools.

[Chiquitita]

50. It looks like the funding is going to Public schools

But it's not going to the right stuff. It's not going to create rich learning environments, small class sizes, supported teachers.

The blaming of teachers in our society is problem. Teachers are being used as scapegoats for reducing meaningful funding for public schools. "Bad teachers" are a distraction from the real problems of poverty, long term economic and social oppression.

[knitter4democracy]

51. No, the states do.

You might want to check out Diane Ravitch's book, Reign of Error, and her blog to see what we're talking about. I admit, she's not always the best source, but she does a good job of showing where the money's from and where it's going. She started out this administration more pro-Obama, and in reality, she still isn't really against him as much as against the Gates money being used to privatize public ed and the Common Core.

http://dianeravitch.net/

[knitter4democracy]

47. Oh Lord, Pearson et al.

Marzano's cashing in, Pearson's making money hand over fist, Apple takes billions from schools every year, and the list is almost endless.

[Chiquitita]

11. These are not "CLAIMS"! Public money is going into private hands

51 million is Georgia's slice of "Race to the Top" -- lots of it going to a new kindergarten entry assessment system, read: that's not going into teachers, teaching resources or creating a rich classroom environment.

For all kids, brightest future to become a reality we should be pouring our precious funding into the teaching resources and the hard-working human beings who are doing the delicate, complex, and very interpersonal work of building the curiosity, confidence and academic prowess of each child in their classroom. These children will then ask questions, they will invent, they will have a healthy skepticism, and they will be able to defend themselves from unscrupulous power.

[ProSense]

15. What

"51 million is Georgia's slice of 'Race to the Top'"

...does that have to do with "privatization"?

Pre-K in Vermont

Vermont today won a $37 million federal grant for a statewide, pre-kindergarten program at public schools. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a member of the Senate education committee, worked closely with federal officials and Gov. Peter Shumlin’s administration to secure the grant for early childhood education.

Sanders said, “Psychologists tell us that, in terms of human development, the most important years are birth through four years of age. Yet, in terms of early childhood education, our nation does a very inadequate job in making quality pre-kindergarten education available to working families. This major federal grant will significantly improve early childhood education in our state and better prepare our kids for school and the challenges and opportunities of life. I am very appreciative that the Department of Education provided Vermont with this major grant.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) supported Vermont’s application for the award from a U.S. Department of Education program called Race to the Top.

Leahy said, “An educated Vermont is a prosperous and better Vermont. Vermont has always understood the importance of early childhood education and how effective it can be in helping children break the cycle of poverty. This funding will allow Vermont to reach an even greater number of young children and expand their programs to ensure all children have access to quality, early education. I am excited to see the further work this federal partnership with Vermont will make possible in the next few years and the difference it will make for so many Vermont families.”

Welch said, “This is great news for Vermont and recognition of the quality of our education system and its leaders. Investments in early childhood education give children the best opportunity to succeed in school and in their future careers. Vermont has distinguished itself with this integrated, statewide approach to serving and educating children.”

The four-year grant will help establish an innovative system to serve every child in the state. It will invest in the professional development of teachers and promote improved health care for children and counseling for their parents.

Sanders played a leading role in persuading the Obama administration to reconsider its priorities for granting Race to the Top funds. In private meetings and public hearings, Sanders pressed U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to help Vermont and other rural states that had largely been excluded from the grant program. Most of the funds in the past went to states with big-city school systems.

The grant to Vermont was one of only six announced today by the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. In addition to Vermont, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania will share a total of $280 million awarded in the third round of the early learning grants.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/pre-k-in-vermont

[sabrina 1]

20. Vermont? Vermont has an actual Progressive Senator who fights for the people who voted for him. How

about some statistics on Chicago? Or NY's inner cities?

Vermont is how things could be if we had more Progressives in Congress and if we did not have so many Corporatists in our Government.

[Chiquitita]

21. That's Vermont for you -- leading the country

Sanders had to persuade the Obama Administration to reconsider its priorities -- as your article states. The money for GA has been spent for Teacher Assessment and K entry assessment.

You know that assessment isn't teaching, don't you?

Assessment is like a scale. It's not food for child's mind. Who provides assessment tools? Private Companies.

[ProSense]

38. It is

That's Vermont for you -- leading the country


Sanders had to persuade the Obama Administration to reconsider its priorities -- as your article states. The money for GA has been spent for Teacher Assessment and K entry assessment.

You know that assessment isn't teaching, don't you?

Assessment is like a scale. It's not food for child's mind. Who provides assessment tools? Private Companies.

funding for public schools. The conflating of funding for public schools with the hype about for-profit charter schools and private schools are attempts to mislead. Georgia was one of six states, including Vermont, that received the grants

Georgia wins $51 million education grant

Georgia has won a second multimillion-dollar federal education grant — one aimed at improving learning for the state’s youngest children, it was announced early Thursday.

The state will receive $51 million over four years to expand access to high-quality child care for low-income families, to increase training for early childhood teachers and to put extra resources into areas of the state where test scores and other indicators show the greatest need.

Sixteen states were vying this year for a Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant. Six were chosen — Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Vermont, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced.

- more -

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/georgia-wins-another-federal-education-grant51-mil/ncPXB/

[Chiquitita]

45. Pro Sense

All I can say is -- talk to some K-12 Public school teachers in states like mine. Their workload is so increased they now have less than 30 minutes of planning time per day. Much of that is eaten up by meetings about individual children. They plan at night, on weekends.

Do you not care at all that K-12 teachers are demoralized? They deal with so much mandated assessment and data collection these days that their precious instructional time is seriously cut into.

I read the article you cite from the AJC the day it came out. If you take $51 million dollars and don't spend it right -- then that's just a wasted $51 million dollars.

[ProSense]

52. That has

"All I can say is -- talk to some K-12 Public school teachers in states like mine. Their workload is so increased they now have less than 30 minutes of planning time per day. Much of that is eaten up by meetings about individual children. They plan at night, on weekends."

...nothing to do with the point I made. That has to obviously be fixed. That's still does not support the OP claim: "So President Obama has always wanted to privatize K-12 education"

"I read the article you cite from the AJC the day it came out. If you take $51 million dollars and don't spend it right -- then that's just a wasted $51 million dollars. "

That doesn't change the fact that it's funding for public schools.

[Chiquitita]

62. See my edit on the title in the OP

[roody]

73. Pearson, of course.

[knitter4democracy]

16. Charters run by private companies are up; public schools are closing.

Meaningless data is meaningless. Look for what the OP is referring to, the privatization of public schools.

[ProSense]

18. "Meaningless data is meaningless."

Nonsense. Ignoring facts to fit a narrative doesn't render them "meaningless."

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2021/tables/table_01.asp

[knitter4democracy]

24. Exactly.

Michigan leads the nation in for-profit companies running charter schools:
http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2013/11/national_charter_school_report.html

For-profit schools are on the rise:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2013/12/for-profit_charter_management_organizations_grow_in_number_report_says.html

Just take a wander through the Education group here and see what else has been written on it.

[knitter4democracy]

26. Where's your data on school closings?

The school board, under pressure from the state dept. of ed., closed my high school last year.
https://www.google.com/search?q=public+school+closings&oq=public+school+closings&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.18032j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=permanent+public+school+closings

[Chiquitita]

30. Just to clarify

I'm not talking about Private Schools -- but rather companies like Pearson and McGraw Hill.

[madrchsod]

6. sad isn't it..

obama has agreed with everything duncan and his friends have done. rahm left, became a mayor,and is gutting public education and selling off school buildings in chicago.

[JEB]

10. Privatization is killing our Public Institutions.

Keep the money grubber's filthy mitts of our Public education system.

[defacto7]

12. If privatization is really where we are going with education...

all I have to say is... If privatization worked for the prison system, then it will work for K-12 education.

Right?

[jsr]

23. Well, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship

[Todays_Illusion]

37. Oh I see DU is now getting a direct iv of libertarian influence.

No thanks.

[knitter4democracy]

53. No, just Badass Teachers.

We're sick of being asked to support the Dems when elections roll around only to have our party work with the 1% and corporations to privatize this, that, and the other thing in education. Worse, when they call us liars (Duncan) or ignore National Teachers Week (Obama) but still want us hitting the pavement and sending checks.

[Chiquitita]

76. Here we go... we now have the first school district in the country with no publicly run schools...

http://www.alternet.org/education/school-nobody-wanted-except-community

January 20, 2014 |
"The recently announced closure of Sarah T. Reed Senior High School in New Orleans will usher in the first school district in the country with no publicly run schools – and some community advocates see Reed’s demise as a sign that the local community’s voices don’t count."

[questionseverything]

83. from the article...

The reasoning was that it is a failing school,” Sang says. Once a school receives a failing score for a consecutive number of years, it can be taken over by the RSD, which is in turn run by the Louisiana Board of Education. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education makes the final assessment of failure.

But Sang contends that the closing became a rigged game. “When the decision was made to end a grade each year, given the subsequent student loss [and the resulting loss of resources], there was no way for Reed to ever recover,” he says. The decrease in experienced teachers and staff was but one consequence of the diminished funding.
//////////////////////


the reason many schools are failing is the tests are too difficult.....according to common core standards kindergarteners are supposed to be able to read a site word book and then write 3 sentences about it, with caps, proper punctuation and spelling....and 92% have to be able to do it before the grade would "pass".....they are set up to fail

do any of these pols read the fine print on what is expected when they approve this crap?

[knitter4democracy]

112. Muskegon Heights is run by a for-profit charter.

The EAA, which runs like a charter, controls much of Detroit's schools, and the state just voted to expand it.

Make no mistake--this is deliberate.

[Chiquitita]

56. Check out a place called Freedom University

...then you'll see how "libertarian" I am.

[Todays_Illusion]

61. I didn't know even libertarians had extremists.

[Chiquitita]

63. Ha ha.

[Maedhros]

98. Wait - what?

Todays_Illusion criticizes the OP as "a direct IV of libertarian influence?"

Is this person not aware that libertarians are all about dismantling public education and replacing it with private schools, but he criticizes a post defending public education as "libertarian influence"?

[Squinch]

103. Either you misread the OP, or "libertarian" doesn't mean what you think it means.

[Todays_Illusion]

104. It was the link to the WaPo article, and the link in OP's reply to look up Freedom University

[Doctor_J]

49. I think one of his goals before leaving office is to corporatize the schools

just like he did with healthcare. He works for the billionaires and they want the education money badly. He might also try to privatize ss. He ignored the Wisconsin teachers strike and approved of the mass purge of the Rhode island teachers, and supports arne "teachers are the bottom of the barrel" Duncan.

[Lifelong Protester]

74. What Dr.J said!

I can't stand Duncan. I'm a WI teacher, one who waited and waited for our President to find that "comfortable pair of shoes" and walk with us. Never happened, guess he was listening to old "bottom of the barrell" Arne.

WI has practically done handstands re-arranging education to get a bit of the RTTT funds-we got squat. And we are still busy 're-arranging'. People are leaving the ship, however.

[okaawhatever]

77. Give me a break. Obama supported the 'Wisconsin teachers heavily. Even inviting a local reporter

from there into the white house for an interview on the matter. All in hopes of bringing more attention to the matter.

MADISON, WIS. - President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin's broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits and planning similar protests in other state capitals.

Obama accused Scott Walker, the state's new Republican governor, of unleashing an "assault" on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would change future collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.

The president's political machine worked in close coordination Thursday with state and national union officials to get thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.

Their efforts began to spread, as thousands of labor supporters turned out for a hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a measure from Gov. John Kasich (R) that would cut collective-bargaining rights.

By the end of the day, Democratic Party officials were organizing additional demonstrations in Ohio and Indiana, where an effort is underway to trim benefits for public workers. Some union activists predicted similar protests in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/17/AR2011021705494.html

[Lifelong Protester]

88. Still not buying that idea...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/race-to-the-top/the-irony-of-obamas-help-for-w.html

[knitter4democracy]

113. Check the dates on that.

I remember when it happened--ages after the teachers had been begging for White House help. If he so heavily helped, where's the evidence he did more than an interview?

This is a guy who stood by when entire districts were taken over and sold to the highest bidder, who actually complimented a supt. for firing all of the teachers, and who has consistently ignored teachers' opinions on educational policy.

[okaawhatever]

75. You sound more like a right wing troll than a Democrat. There wasn't a "mass purge" of Rhode

Island teachers. All teachers at Central Falls were fired, but rehired after they came to terms on a turnaround plan. The remainder of the teachers in the district were given a pre-emptive notice when facing a $40 million dollar budget shortfall. That was because by union contract, the teachers had to be notified March 1 and the district didn't know what changes would be made yet. Oh, and the Central Falls teachers who didn't lose thier jobs? One teacher hung an effigy of President Obama in his classroom. Real class act, that one. That school also had only 7% of it's 11th graders pass the state's math tests. While it's in a poor area where worse outcomes are statistically the norm, they exceed even the worst schools nationally in failing their students. And the "turnaround" plan was part of a federal initiative where Obama budgeted federal money to help the nation's 5k worst schools. It's not like his administration wasn't doing anything.

From an article in WaPo:

Teachers unions, predictably, have rallied to the Democratic president. They dislike some of his policies, such as his push to rate teachers largely by their students' progress on standardized tests. Still, they are expected to spend millions supporting his campaign.

But Weingarten also credited the president's stimulus bill with saving the jobs of 300,000 school employees across the nation. More recently, Obama requested - but failed to get - $55 billion from Congress to prevent some 320,000 teacher layoffs and repair crumbling schools.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/01/AR2010030103560.html

He didn't corporatize healthcare. It was already corporatized, he made it more consumer friendly. Yes, the billionaires want public education money, that's why they heavily support Republicans. Remember, it's Jeb Bush at the helm of a lot of that.

Oh, and what were you saying about Obama and Wisconsin? You're flat out lying saying he ignored the strike?

Obama joins Wisconsin's budget battle, opposing Republican anti-union bill

MADISON, WIS. - President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin's broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits and planning similar protests in other state capitals.

Obama accused Scott Walker, the state's new Republican governor, of unleashing an "assault" on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would change future collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.

The president's political machine worked in close coordination Thursday with state and national union officials to get thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.

Their efforts began to spread, as thousands of labor supporters turned out for a hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a measure from Gov. John Kasich (R) that would cut collective-bargaining rights.

By the end of the day, Democratic Party officials were organizing additional demonstrations in Ohio and Indiana, where an effort is underway to trim benefits for public workers. Some union activists predicted similar protests in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

"Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions," Obama told a Milwaukee television reporter on Thursday, taking the unusual step of inviting a local TV station into the White House for a sit-down interview. "I think everybody's got to make some adjustments, but I think it's also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/17/AR2011021705494.html

Oh, and the privatizing social security comment is just comical.

President Obama has remained consistent in his views that overall social security is fiscally sound with the exception of the actuarial anomoly caused by the baby boomers. To address this problem, President Obama supports removing the payroll tax cap for anyone earning more than $250,000. He has remained opposed to any form of privatization. Under Presdient Obama, the structure of the Social Security system has changed significantly by altering the system from one that did not take in funds from the general tax fund to one that does.

http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profiles/President/US/Barack_Obama/Views/Social_Security/

Obama Pledges to Fight Privatization of Social Security

http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-pledges-to-fight-privatization-of-social-security-100681299/123802.html

[Doctor_J]

87. Really? Right wingers are complaining that the president is too corporate?

Can you include a link to that?

the WH and other Dems have repeatedly floated the Chained CPI trial balloon. that is a SS benefit cut. The president appointed Duncan, is friends/cronies with Rhee, and has embraced the Jeb Bush school "reform" plan.

[Enthusiast]

94. +1 a whole bunch.......nt

[blkmusclmachine]

54. "Obama has always wanted to privatize public education."

I believe it. Just look at Obama's actions, and forget all his fancy little speeches to the contrary.

Do you remember who it was that said: "We want an empty suit to sign all our pet legislation"
??

[El_Johns]

64. No, who? I can't find the quote on search.

[okaawhatever]

78. That was a Republican statement. Either Karl Rove or Grover Norquist. It has nothing to do with

Obama or the teachers, or education.

Obama's actions have never supported privatizing public schools. It was very much a hot button issue in the 2012 campaign and he and Romney were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Romney was for privatization and removing the stipulation Obama put on for-profit higher education schools stating that they had to have better outcomes or they would lose federal funding.

[okaawhatever]

58. What an absolute p.o.s. editorial. Give me a friggin' break. Obama has fought hard for federal

money to help states who were going to cut teachers to keep them working. In 2009 it states it helped save the jobs of 300,000 teachers and added $10 Billion in 2010 to keep another 130k. That's a small portion of what he has done. This article is pathetic and insulting to anyone with half a brain.

From an article about WaPo and Kaplan:

Kaplan’s role poses challenges for the company as for-profit colleges struggle with declining enrollment amid renewed competition from traditional colleges. For the past three years, President Barack Obama’s administration, Congress and state and federal authorities have scrutinized for-profit colleges’ marketing, job-placement claims and their students’ debt levels.

“Kaplan is a piece of a much larger story about the emergence of the for-profit education model that had its gilded age and is now facing its demise in the face of what we know about the horrible outcomes in the sector,” said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal policy at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities in Washington.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-08-07/washington-post-co-dot-s-future-tied-to-for-profit-kaplan-business#p1

And Obama wants to privatize?????

The Obama administration has had no shortage of spats (and some out-and-out warfare) with the for-profit sector of higher
education. But typically administration officials outside the Oval Office have been the ones directly expressing views on the sector.
On Friday, however, in a question-and-answer session at the State University of New York at Binghamton, a doctoral student at (nonprofit) Syracuse University asked the president about the sector and for-profit colleges that the student called "predatory." The president responded with some language that didn't go over well with officials in for-profit higher education.


Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/26/obama-speaks-directly-profit-higher-education-noting-concerns-sector#ixzz2rZJu4peZ
Inside Higher Ed

One of Obama's many education programs:
Preparing 100,000 Effective STEM teachers Over the Next Decade

President Obama believes that great teaching is a key part of any child’s success, and in the STEM fields, it is critical to creating educational experiences that project-based, hands-on and build a love of lifelong learning.

That’s why President Obama challenged the nation to recruit and prepare 100,000 new effective teachers over the next decade.

Already, more than 150 foundations, companies, and others have come together to lead 100Kin10, a coalition that will work to help reach part of the President’s goal through private funds and challenge Congress to fund the rest.

100Kin10 partners take action by 1) increasing the supply of excellent STEM teachers; 2) hiring, developing, and retaining excellent STEM teachers; and 3) building the 100Kin10 movement. All partners bring content expertise and programmatic or funding capacity to advance the initiative and will participate in an R&D platform designed by the University of Chicago, which will enable continuous improvement for partners and measure a broad range of outcomes across the initiative.

With leadership from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the coalition has already raised over $30 million from a broad range of foundations and philanthropists under a unique “funding marketplace” model through which funders can choose from a registry of high-quality proposals.

Additionally, the Administration also recently announced the creation of a STEM Master Teacher Corps that seeks to elevate and engage a talented squad of existing STEM teachers from across the country in the proliferation of best practices and effective professional development.


More on Obama and teachers:

Keeping Teachers in the Classroom


President Obama believes that our children cannot win the future if teachers are not where they belong—in our classrooms, teaching our nation’s children. America’s education system has always been one of our greatest sources of strength and global economic competitiveness, as well as an engine of progress in science, technology and the arts. Our nation cannot expect to train our children for the high-skilled jobs of today, or for the opportunities of the future, without investments in a world-class education system. And America cannot build a world-class education system without teachers in our classrooms.

But cuts to education budgets nationwide put education jobs at risk. These cuts force states and districts into difficult decisions, including laying off teachers and other school personnel, overcrowding classrooms, reducing preschool and kindergarten programs, or even shortening the school week and year.

That’s why the President has invested in education, providing funding to keep hundreds of thousands of teachers on the job over the past three years and creating a proposal to prevent further layoffs from taking place:

In 2009, the President effectively deployed stabilization funds for state education budgets through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which enabled states and schools districts to keep approximately 300,000 educators on the job in the face of budget cuts caused by the economic recession. In 2010, the President signed the Education Jobs Bill into law that provided states $10 billion in emergency funding to keep approximately 130,000 educators in the classroom.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/k-12

From a Huffington Post Article during the election where they compare Obama and Romney on privatizing education:

Romney seeks to encourage - with federal subsidies, when necessary - robust participation from the private sector in teaching American kids and training workers. He would use public dollars to enroll more children in private schools; keep federal aid flowing to private, for-profit colleges; and pay private banks to take over part of the federal student loan program.

Obama, by contrast, has sought to expand government's role in education.

He has directed billions of dollars in federal funds to states that adopted his vision of a revamped kindergarten through 12th grade curriculum, with more emphasis on standardized testing. He has secured billions more in public funding to help states avert teacher layoffs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/26/obama-romney-spar-over-p_n_1830895.html

but all that being said, most K-12 teachers are dealt with at the state level. The issues about pay, vouchers, public v. private, unions etc. are all state-level programs. I doubt teachers really believe the tripe in this article.

[Chiquitita]

60. One of my son's best High School English teachers sent it to me

So, yes, great teachers applaud this article. And oh yes, praise the President and Arne Duncan for all they've given us.

[El_Johns]

65. Oooh, they're investigating Kaplan. Well, I was hearing about what a POS company was years

ago from friends who teach post-secondary ed.

I wonder what took DOE so long, after the government's given them billions dollars & promoted the policies that made it possivle.

The fact remains that Kaplan Federally funded funds received under Title IV programs from the government in 2009 accounted for approximately $1,283 million, (1.2 billion) or approximately 83%, of total Kaplan Higher Education revenues.

http://my.firedoglake.com/7434be/tag/dana-milbank/

A billion a year and its default rates have always been above the norm and its completion rates below the norm. Anyone looking at those numbers would look further.

Students at for-profit institutions represent only 9% of all college students, but receive roughly 25% of all Federal Pell Grants and loans, and are responsible for 44% of all student loan defaults.[67] University of Phoenix tops this list with Pell Grant revenue of $656.9 million

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_education#2010_Pell_Grant_fraud_controversy

Those colleges exist to con the poor who don't understand the higher ed system & are afraid they can't do "college" -- & to suck up taxpayer money in the process. It's all they do.

While to some extent for-profit colleges have always existed, their numbers exploded after 1992, when after the United States House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce created a federal regulation known as the "90–10 rule" and defined "institution of higher education" for the purposes of federal-aid eligibility as including for-profit institutions. The idea behind the 90–10 rule was that if a proprietary school's offerings were truly valuable—for example, if they filled some niche that traditional State and private non-profit educational institutions did not—then surely 10% of their students would be willing to pay completely out-of-pocket, i.e., those who fell above federal guidelines for receiving taxpayer subsidies to attend college. Traditional educational institutions routinely met this bar without even paying attention.[3][4][5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_education#2010_Pell_Grant_fraud_controversy


The current federal 90/10 rule is a provision in the law that bars for-profit colleges and universities from deriving more than 90% of their revenue from the U.S. Department of Education’s federal student aid programs. The other 10% needs to come from sources other than the federal government. The purpose of this rule is to ensure that schools are not counting on taxpayer dollars to be their sole source of revenue.

Because of the way the legislation was written, veterans’ and active duty service members’ federal student aid – such as G.I. bill benefits and the Department of Defense’s tuition assistance funds – does not currently count toward the 90%. As a result, for-profit educational institutions have been aggressively recruiting and enrolling veterans, service members and their families to their programs as a way to comply with the 90/10 rule.

The POST Act would re-instate the original ratio of 85/15 (it was loosened to 90/10 in 1998) and change the definition of what counts as federal revenue so that it includes all federal funds. This new definition would eliminate the powerful incentive for-profit schools to aggressively recruit service members and veterans and ensure that all schools are complying with the law as it was intended.

http://www.durbin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=5d89cc27-9d3a-4865-9f9b-abda42795d9c

[Chiquitita]

67. I'm talking about something very specific regarding public k12

not for-profit colleges, not charter schools. Pres. Obama's North Star goal for example is great. Getting more people to great colleges is great.

I'm saying he is ignoring the damage Arne Duncan is doing to the public k12 piece. I'm trying to tell DUers who don't know what is happening. Private companies like Pearson and McGraw Hill are getting an increasing share of the pie -- and kids are paying for it with larger class sizes, teachers burdened with bureaucratic absurdity and dehumanizing evaluation systems that have a Kafkaesque feel.

For example -- teachers are required to have the "standard" they are teaching on the board as they teach it. If they are teaching something other than the standard when an administrator walks through -- they get a a bad evaluation. So, there goes improvisation. The requirements and systems Arne Duncan supports are making teachers into marionettes. Its very disempowering.

[liberal_at_heart]

72. I have a special education student who is struggling

in school right now. I know better, and it is the fault of both the state and federal government. And Obama's policy of Race to the Top and tying funding to state standardized testing sucks, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise. He is meeting with companies that make billions in profit in state standardized testing. He ties funding to state standardized testing, and he wants to invest money mainly in the areas of math and science. Our entire school system needs more funding. Special education needs more money. Art needs more money. PE needs more money. Music needs more money. To concentrate funding in math and science just shows that he is only interested in improving the areas of education that will satisfy business leaders.

[freshwest]

79. Problem is not Obama. It's the voting public and bagger media. I've been hearing the horror stories

pushed by privatization forces about teachers and public schools for years. Obama is not going after teachers or publis schools.

Those who are involved, vote on everything. I just mailed in a ballot to approve more tax levies for more infrastructure and tech labs in my local school district. We are not losing to privatization, but we live in a blue area that knows that tax money must be paid.

Who are our biggest opponents?

The fundie churches, libertarians and baggers. Their mantras are different, their groups not all the same, but they all want public schools gone and their method is defunding.

The fundies say our public schools teach anti-Christian secularism and evolution They had their shouts for creationism being taught in schools shut down and want their kids in private schools They organize in their church social groups. I think some people have disregarded the power of groups that meet a few times a week, get to know each other as individuals, and pretty all believe the same thing about the world. Many liberals cannot say the same thing, that we do this as often. The fundie type I am talking about always vote against all school levies and vote for charters, so they can teach religionin private schools.

Then the Libertarians want all public schools and everything else to go away. Their conspiracy branch along with the teabaggers, claim the public schools are about indoctrinating kids into socialism. They vote down all levies for schools, but do vote for charter schools.

The GOP baggers, are a mix of the Libertarians and fundies but don't quite follow all the same things. They hate police, public workers, unions. public schools, the social safety net, everything government does. They are the very first to attack everything government does and love to print horror stories and whip up the fear and hatred. They vote against public schools, projects, and all the rest.

They want everything privatized to they can make a profit. They are often ill educated and act with bad intent, manipulating to get contracts. None of them support Obama, not one single one of them. He is not doing their will but has to live with what the voters of this country do.

They fill up school boards and get in legislatures to stop public functions. And they want to send in their little consultants to teach public sector institutions to do things the private or corporate way. I xan't stand them, to me they are grifters.

The place to stop it is the voters that vote against the things we want. I find the cheap shot at the people in Washington who must respond to these ___on the state level and in the Congress unproductive. It's exactly what the three groups I named above do all the time.

Vote out the people that screw us at the local level. That is what it is all about. The truth is our problem is the success of public education. It made too many people complacent. So they don't run for school board. They don't do anything on the local level but their jobs, until the battle is already lost. We got charter schools approved here to the shock of many.

We did not see it coming as our educational system, despite the Libertarian, CTer and bagger propaganda, was doing a great job getting out kids ready for the future.

They had the media and churches and lobbyists from out of state working against us in private. We only talked in public. This is what is happening to public schools and all public institutions across the country.

For many of us that are products of public education and love it, seeing how good it worked for us, just can't imagine anyone thinks differently. We finish our years in public school and move on to other sucesses of whatever sort in our lives and forget.

The three groups I listed definitely do not want what we want, and they vote in every election to get power. Those who are not involved, don't think twice about what is going on in terms of what kind of society is being created by those three groups. We are being changed from the ground up, and not from the top down.

Obama and his administration has to live with what millions of people do or don't want, voted for and against, and are pushing for in this country.

In short, if you’re still disappointed in Barack Obama, it’s only because you never understood whose job it was to produce change in the first place.

~ Tim Wise

[okaawhatever]

80. Amen. Absolutely. People like the Koch Brothers have been recruiting and funding candidates for

judicial seats and school boards for years. This has been in the works for some time. There are billions to be made with privatizing schools so companies who will benefit have no problem throwing a few hundred million at it to see if they can accomplish their goal. Too much of the fight with education is at the local and state level. That's where we have to fight back.

Thank you for either writing that or reprinting it. Much appreciated.

[freshwest]

81. Thank you for your excellent comment. I'll send you the link to the entire Tim Wise piece. n/t

[liberal_at_heart]

96. So I take it that Obama will tell Pearson to go to hell then right?

You do know that Obama is taking a meeting with Pearson right? One of the companies making the most profit off of the privatization of our schools. So, Obama will tell them to take a hike right? oh, and he'll fire Duncan too right? And he'll repeal Race to the Top too right? His education policy. His version of No Child Left Behind? He'll repeal that right? Give me a break. Nothing you say is going to convince me that Obama does not approve of what is going on.

[reddread]

111. He's a good speaker

you can lay blame on the public and the media, but lets solve the chicken and the egg first.
A misled public guzzles at the medias trough, who guzzles at the money thrown by people who
want the public misled.
and stupified.
There are guilty parties and there are GUILTY parties.
Arne Duncan and pretty much ALL of Obama's appointments serve the corporate money interests that
like a stupified, misled public that doesnt mind paying the taxes that they wont.
and feast upon.
lets not be simple.

[great white snark]

84. Outstanding reply.

Thanks for the facts.

[knitter4democracy]

114. We teachers who pay attention have been saying it for years.

http://www.badassteacher.org/

Many of us have been fighting to save our schools (mine was closed last year, and I was blessed to find another job at all), save our students from insane tests all to put more taxpayer dollars in private pockets, and save our nation's future. Trust me, there isn't a teacher I know who doesn't think Arne Duncan's a corporatist idiot and who likes Obama's education policy. Just look into the Common Core and how Gates funded it to get around the federal laws prohibiting the US DOEd mandating a national curriculum--and then look into who's making money hand over fist from it, starting with Pearson.

[MannyGoldstein]

66. Privatizing schools is a win-win-win

Look at how much more the public sector teachers make! That money really should be going to the job creators!



Since we can pay the lumpenteachertariat lower wages when we break their evil unions by privatizing, the 1%ers who own the school have more to spend. Trickle down magic happens then.

The lumpenteachertariat who are privileged to work in the private sector will be exposed to good role models rather than the gumming bureaucrats.

And students get a better education, even though there's no evidence that's true. Just trust me, OK?

Regards,

TWM

[Chiquitita]

69. Thanks! Why didn't I think of that? : )

And, the new teacher evaluation system Duncan likes will give a few hard-earned "incentive bonuses" for teachers whose middle-class "gifted" students do well on standardized tests sold to states by nice business leaders.

Then, our most vocationally-minded teachers, in low-income districts or working with slower learners will get what they deserve: the worst pay and the least respect.

[MannyGoldstein]

71. As it should be.

Education is like Sensible Adult politics: much better to hang out with the wealthy.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

107. This and so much else. Those who are defending the President on this are either uninformed

or to the far right of where Democrats ought to be if they want to be any different than the Rs. President Obama appointed Duncan and continues to support him and his forces of privatization. It's extremely disappointing.

The idea that the Charter schools are a part to improved education does not hold water.

In 2004, the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) released an analysis of charter school performance on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as The Nation's Report Card. The report found that charter school students, on average, score lower than students in traditional public schools. While there was no measurable difference between charter school students and students in traditional public schools in the same racial/ethnic subgroup, charter school students who were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch scored lower than their peers in traditional public schools, and charter school students in central cities scored lower than their peers in math in 4th grade.

http://www.nea.org/home/16332.htm

[ljm2002]

85. I've said it before and I'll say it again...

...Barack Obama never attended a public school, not once. So he has no skin in the game, so to speak. No particular reason to support public education over private education. Similar to someone who has grown up rich, having a hard time comprehending what life is like for the poor -- similar to that, he has zero experience with public education and apparently as a result, zero understanding of how it fits into our society.

Public education is a very big part of what made this a great nation. It's a crying shame that President Obama does not support this most egalitarian of institutions.

[SomethingFishy]

89. Not Obama's fault... it's Republican Obstructionism...

[bvar22]

90. Go Ahead!

Privatize all the schools and Bust the Teachers Union!
What are they going to do?
Vote for a Republican?
Hahahahahahaha![/font]

[Enthusiast]

97. +1

[Cali_Democrat]

95. "President Obama has always wanted to privatize K-12 education"

That simply isn't true.

[jopacaco]

99. Something is going on

As a person who is nearing the end of a career in teaching, I can say it used to be a great way to earn a decent living. It has never been an easy job but I used to feel respected. I used to be able to tune into a need or interest of my class and go off script for a period or two when it was important. I have always done my best to focus on my students and ignore as much of the bureacracy as possible. Unfortunately that is becoming impossible. I have never seen my colleages more defeated.
We are inundated with standardized testing on changing standards. Testing systems change every few years so it is hard to know what to teach. We are now preparing for the next new test, Smarter Balanced (Pearson), to assess knowledge of the new Common Core Curriculum which we are all trying to figure out so we can teach it. Thanks to Race to the Top, teacher's evaluations are tied to student scores. Teaching to the test is the reality. Unfortunately those things that most adults remember most from their own education (field trips, craft projects, life skills topics) are gone because they are not testable.
I have no respect for Arne Duncan (and I know that he has none for me) and there is no one else responsible for him having the power that he does except for President Obama. Education has been on a downward slide since Regan. There is a big pot of money to be claimed in privatization and testing. Bush gave it a big shove with No Child Left Behind. Sorry to say, Obama and Duncan are making sure that we keep on sliding.

[senseandsensibility]

101. Welcome to DU!

Your words ring true to me as a veteran teacher. I am experiencing much of what you describe. Thanks for adding your voice of experience to the mix. It is very important that teachers, as exhausted and disillusioned as they are, don't stop talking, writing, and sharing their experiences.

[madfloridian]

105. Indeed it is. Something ugly is going on.

I feel contempt for Arne Duncan, just as he feels contempt for public school teachers.

I retired earlier than I wanted to, but when Jeb took office in Florida....things went downhill fast.

[liberal_at_heart]

108. We parents can feel it too. Some want to deny it, but those of us who are in the middle of it

know better and you are absolutely right. It started heading down hill since Reagan and then No Child Left Behind and now Race to the Top and Common Core. Race to the Top and Common Core are no better than No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top is Obama's policy. He owns it. He also owns keeping Duncan around. This stinks all the way from the top down.

[knitter4democracy]

115. If you're not already, check us out!

http://www.badassteacher.org/

We're on Facebook, too. It's a private group, but you can request to join, or I can add you.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

100. I retired earlier than planned

because of the unbearable onslaught teacher abuse. I'm a strong person and a fighter, but they won. I couldn't handle it anymore. I have always been a staunch supporter of public education. It is painful that I now have to advise parents to find alternatives if possible. The public school have been destroyed. Teaching, as a profession, has been destroyed. it does not bode well for this country.

[Chiquitita]

106. I hear you and am feeling the same

We're distracted by Chris Christie and the latest atrocious thing said by a "Wing nut" while what's most important is crumbling.

[woo me with science]

109. K&R. Consistent with every other aspect of this corporate administration.

Direction of policy does not change significantly from administration to administration anymore, because both parties are owned by the same banks and corporations. Certainly they plan and expect the next administration to continue the agenda of transforming this country from a representative democratic country to a globalized, corporate, authoritarian state.

[WinkyDink]

116. And given the GREAT GOTV support of Democrats by unions in general and teachers specifically,

the Administration's actions and apparent philosophy truly baffles.

Well, until one realizes the money involved.....