Howard Dean's son ex-TFA, now a charter school wonk. "Who on the national scene supports public ed?"

[HiPointDem]

Remember Howard Dean? He ran for President in 2004. He is a leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic party.

His son was TFA and now runs charter schools.

Who on the national scene supports public education?

http://dianeravitch.net/2012/08/06/news-about-the-best-and-the-brightest/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/fashion/weddings/naeha-chaudhry-paul-dean-weddings.html?_r=1&ref=weddings

[Larkspur]

1. The article Diane Ravitch cites says that...

Paul Dean, Howard's son,

is the executive director and a founder of the Student Leadership Project, a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia that works to help urban charter schools and students at those schools.

It didn't say he ran the charter schools. It says that he works with them and their students, so it's unclear how much influence this 26 year old has.

The article also doesn't say if those charter schools are non-profit or for-profit. Ravitch actually supports non-profit charter schools. It's the for-profit ones that she claims are scams.

[HiPointDem]

2. that's why i changed it to 'charter wonk". Though the ravitch column says "runs charter schools".

Here's what Paul Dean does:

The Student Leadership Project was founded in 2011 by two Teach For America alumni whose experiences teaching in New Orleans, LA confirmed their belief that every student deserves both great instruction and a school culture that sets students up for success.

The founders of the Student Leadership Project recognized that a lot of progress was being made to address the epidemic of educational inequity; however, they knew that things could definitely improve.

High performing urban charter schools were moving their students forward and demonstrating gains in student achievement. At these schools, teachers were working relentlessly to manage their classrooms, motivate their students, create and execute engaging lessons, track data, continuously improve instruction, and be the gatekeepers of the school culture.

From experience, they understood this was not a sustainable nor an efficient model. The partners of the Student Leadership Project noticed that these school's greatest assets, their students, were not being leveraged.

With all this in mind, they created a framework to maximize the success of these schools and their students by cultivating and training student leaders to serve as gatekeepers of school values and builders of culture.

http://www.student-leadership.org/about.php


All I understand from that is that Paul Dean founded an organization to support charter schools. I don't care if they call themselves "non-profit" as "non-profit" allows plenty of profit-making to go on.

If you read between the lines in that bureaucratic gobbeldy-gook what you take away is that Dean's organization is training student 'leaders' to be charter-school spokespeople/front persons/whips for rank & file students so the movement can parade them around for a gullible public.

Just more of the financiers public relations bullshit.

I'll add that Dean's tenure in New Orleans means he took part in the post-Katrina takeover of public education there. *All* his work experience since graduation from Yale has been in education deform.

Diane Ravitch doesn't "support" non-profit charters in any global sense as you suggest.

At one time ravitch supported the charter movement. she no longer does.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Ravitch doesn't support charters

[Larkspur]

6. At the 2012 Netroots Nation convention, Ravitch in a forum on Education

was asked by a local non-profit charter school teacher if she supported non-profit community charter schools. Ravitch said that she supported charter schools that were non-profit and worked with or supplemented the local public education system. She was strongly opposed to the charter schools run by for-profit corporations.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. So he taught for a quick minute and then decided to become an advisor?

I'm about over these 20 somethings who believe they have the answers in education. Scholars twice their age still struggle to find solutions, particularly in our urban schools. And as long as they ignore poverty and its surrounding issues, these problems won't be solved.

One of the things the Chicago teachers are striking over is air conditioning in their schools. Can you imagine? They're being blamed for the students' failure to achieve and their schools aren't even air conditioned!!!!

Wake up America. You too, Dr. Dean.

[HiPointDem]

5. My take is different. All his work experience since graduating yale has been in charters. The Dean

family has multi-generational connections to finance/Wall Street.

Young Mr. Dean, imo, doesn't believe he has 'answers,' he's 'in the know' & simply joining in/positioning himself for the finance community's 'next big thing' -- which is the privatization of public services.

The website for his org. is written in business-speak -- a lot of words that sound fancy to disguise the utter lack of substance in them or hide the actual facts. Sit down & parse them, they add up to nothing -- you don't really have any idea what his organization does after going through multiple pages on his website. Textbook example of bad writing. Smoke & mirrors & crap.