People Are Saying

Front Page News?

In a front-page article that smells a lot like finding something to write about, Los Angeles Times education writer Howard Blume reports on public sentiment regarding public education based on a U.C. Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll partially funded by the Times and conducted more than two weeks ago. 

From the subhead: "Poll shows decline in trust by parents who say education suffered during the pandemic." Not exactly breaking news.

In a startling combination of "duh, tell us something we don't know" and "wait, I don't think the data mean what you think they mean," Blume goes on to describe the poll as asking "voters to give schools a letter-grade rating from A to F" and then comparing the responses to the same question from 2011! Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll, concedes that "'the impact of COVID has probably contributed to it.'" You think?

A quick Google search of "pandemic impact on schools and education" yields 292,000,000 hits. Now, that's not always an indication, but anyone who has been alive for the last two years has been inundated with reports about the negative impacts of the pandemic on students and schools. Search "covid pandemic education" in Blume's own paper and  the L.A. Times coughs up over 280,000 results. 

From Blume himself: 

• February 10: "New threat to COVID-era education: Black and Latino teachers are leaving the profession."
• January 7: "LAUSD determined to open amid increase in infections; Montebello schools will delay term."
• January 6: "Omicron stresses schools across California to the limit as they fight to stay open."
• January 4: "Omicron wave is inundating California. How to protect yourself and others."

That's just a selection from this year alone. Big hits from times gone by:

• November 2021: "About 44,000 LAUSD students miss first vaccine deadline and risk losing in-person classes."
• October 11, 2021: "Facing major campus disruption and firings, LAUSD extends staff COVID-vaccine deadline."
• July 25, 2021: "Austin Beutner’s tenure as L.A. schools chief marked more by crisis than academic gains."
• On September 7, 2021 The Times Editorial Board weighed in: "Learning loss is real. Stop pretending otherwise." 

Sounds bad, right? And that's just the COVID stuff. There's no shortage of related doom-and-gloom:

• From Blume February 2: "Economic segregation in schools has worsened, widening achievement gaps, study says." 

And a bonus track--a re-release of an oldie but a goodie:

• From Mackenzie Mays January 11, 2022: "California schools face funding crisis as student population declines."

Public Education, you really need a new press agent. I haven't even mentioned fake "CRT" outrage and the erasure of history, or the war on LGBTQ+ youth. Book bans? Seriously? It's no wonder "parents have overwhelmingly concluded that the quality of education worsened during the pandemic."

But have they? How might people have reached that conclusion? Blume reports the polling as if it is based solely on parents' experiences with their own schools, ignoring the impact of his own reporting on pubic opinion. Even if the results of the poll were meaningful, the only person who thinks the decline in "trust" is surprising or noteworthy appears to be Blume. Maybe DiCamillo.

And then there's the poll itself. Let's check off the misleading and useless "A to F" grade framing. It obliterates nuance and prevents respondents from differentiating among different functions of their schools--for example "A" for instruction, "F" for safety. Next, notice the crossed out "their" because the poll asks about California public schools, and for the gazillionth time in a row, people rate their local schools more highly than schools in other parts of the universe. Oh, and while we're at it, some of the worst grades for public schools came from parents with their kid in religious, private, or charter schools. Which is surprising. Said no one ever. 

Even though respondents identified as "Black" in the survey rated California schools overall more highly than those identified as "White non-Hispanic," the question of why Black voters are more critical of their local public schools is a really good one and could have been further explored in the survey. It was not. There is a tantalizing little tidbit, though, in the fact that Black voters are "more likely than... voters in other racial or ethnic subgroups to view standardized testing as hurting rather than helping education." Maybe it's because their schools are subjected to a more burdensome testing regime, and they see first-hand the deleterious effects. Just thinking out loud, here.

A word about the "voter" - "parent" conundrum. The poll seems to have included responses from 8937 registered voters and was conducted in English and Spanish online from February 3-10. However, although it does break down some responses according to "Parent of a school-age child," it seems to combine the demographics in its overall statistics. Hence, the significant support actual parents have for their schools is diluted by attitudes more likely formed through interaction with media reports. 

For example, if I'm reading Table 1 correctly, and I like to thing that I am, 69% of parents with a child in school rate the school an A, B, or C, while 56% of voters with no child in school do so. That's still a pretty high percentage for people whose sources of information are out of date and/or indirect (i.e. strongly influenced by this kind of reporting), but since the raw data indicate--again, if I'm reading correctly--that 77% of respondents were "not a parent/legal guardian of school-age child," the difference is significant and skews approval downward.

And even more important, if you look carefully, you'll note that the table shows parents whose child is enrolled in an actual "traditional public school," and who therefore presumably know something about it, rate the school at 77% positive (A, B, or C). Yet somehow Blume still concludes that the sky is falling.

The problem with the article is not so much its accuracy as its tone. Instead of comparing "trust" from a survey from over ten years ago, an equally accurate account of the actual, unmediated poll results might read, "Even after two years of crisis, most parents still favor their local schools." 

Or, although the raw data is a bit confusing to this lay person, it looks like this one might fit: "In spite of manufactured outrage, Los Angeles County voters see teacher unions improving schools."

One of my favorite results:

Suggested Headline: "California Voters Reject Standardized Testing: Declare 47% to 42% that tests 'Hurt Education.'"

There's more. 

A not-so-brief word about charts. Although the online version of the article includes a comprehensive chart plotting attitudes in 2011 against those in 2022:

The chart in the print version of the Times included only data broken out by race and region. Passers still mostly outpace failers, but it looks close, right? See if you can spot what's missing:

 

Hint: A "C" is a passing grade. If the "C"s had been included the results wouldn't even look close. That was my conjecture, so I created a chart that does include them, along with the "no opinion"s.

Here it is without the "no opinion"s, the way the Times printed theirs:

I was unable to find the complete data from the 2011 poll for comparison, but even if we stipulate that yes, public confidence has weakened, there is no reason to manipulate the data or massage the charts to be extra scary. By omitting the substantial number of respondents who only gave their schools a "C" because, I don't know, two years of a pandemic, the Times makes the decline more dramatic. If the "C"s are included on the positive side of the ledger, readers get a different, more accurate picture.

There's more. 

In a forty-one paragraph article, we find out in paragraph twenty-eight that "A different California poll [PACE/Rossier] found voters giving the state's schools higher marks." Blume's answer? Certainly not to acknowledge that the poll on which he relies for the entire article may not be as authoritative as advertised. 

Blume does not address the conflicting results or attempt to reconcile them. He simply drops in a barely relevant quote from U.S.C.'s Rossier School of Education education policy professor Julie Marsh with a potential explanation: pandemic fatigue! I taught English for twenty-five years, and this is the lamest wink at a potential counter-claim I have ever seen.

As I've written, the purpose of the multifaceted, sustained assault on public education is to destabilize and enfeeble public schools, clearing the way for privatizers and profiteers to pick up and exploit the pieces. In paragraphs thirty-one and thirty-two of Blume's article we arrive at what I suspect is the point. 

I'm concerned about the eroding public trust we have in our public schools, [Professor Marsh] added.

Voucher proposal advocates hope to capitalize on that discontent.

This is followed by seven paragraphs on teachers unions. The first two quote the chief of the "American Federation for Children" without identifying the organization as a "dark money group that promotes the school privatization agenda via the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and other avenues." The next paragraph refers vaguely to "disenchanted L.A. Unified parents" who are promoting a voucher initiative because they "fault teachers unions and district officials for what they regard as inadequate education during the pandemic." 

We're granted one paragraph of rebuttal from an Eagle Rock parent who praises unions for "'looking out for students.'" Then it's right back to bashing, as someone identified as a "Contra Costa County parent" has a lot to say. Like the first detractor, this critic is given two full paragraphs in which to accuse teachers--through their union--of actually advocating for "'policies that are detrimental to students'" and "'harming the kids with their fear-driven advocacy.'" If that sounds like canned criticism to you, give yourself a "more astute than big-time journalist" merit badge. 

That these anti-public school activists are given such outsized space to promote their ideological agenda is unfair and reeks of bias. That these individuals and organizations are not properly identified is outrageous. 

Perhaps the most potent superpower journalists possess is the framing of a story. Selecting what to report and how to report it shapes the argument and determines the reader's understanding of an issue. The data behind colorful charts and assertions put forth as facts can be difficult to parse. What every reader can understand, however, are headlines like these:

Public schools given poor grades by voters

and

Poll shows decline in trust by parents

and

A third of voters give L.A. schools a D or F

(which is itself an embellishment, as the number is 27%)

and online, a headline double whammy with a new modifier:

Confidence in California public schools declines sharply; a third give L.A. a D or F

Again, returning to where we started, "Poll shows decline in trust by parents who say education suffered during the pandemic" is not news. What hasn't suffered? Who hasn't suffered? In a cynical demonstration of creating the news rather than reporting it, the Times funds (in part) the survey that tells us what we already know, cherry-picks the results, slaps on a sensationalized headline or four, and then prints it all as if it's front-page news. 

After a decades-long relentless assault on public education, Blume and the Times (and DiCamillo?) are shocked! shocked! to report that public confidence has eroded. Except they're not really. The narrative of "declining confidence" in "failing" public schools is essential for their destruction. It doesn't have to be honest. It just has to be effective. 

With friends like Howard Blume and the L.A. Times... Well, actually we need better friends. In the meantime, the beat goes on.

It. Doesn't. Work.*

*Unless by "work" you mean "advance The Big Project to Kill Public Education"

The road to public school privatization is paved with test scores. It's an industry hijacked-- some convincingly argue manufactured and developed--for the purpose of discrediting public schools so they lose students, become nonviable, and can be stripped down and sold for parts. 

<brief aside>

(At last report, Pio Pico Middle School here in Los Angeles was being "dissolved" to make way for a nearby charter school--one already co-located on the campus of Los Angeles High School but which apparently needs additional room to grow. Information has been hard to come by--looking at you, UTLA!--so if anybody out there knows what's going on over there on Arlington, please share in the chat. In the meantime, there's a petition at change.org if you're so inclined.)

Testing, particularly the state-sponsored standardized that is being carpet bombed onto schools all over Los Angeles, is the hired assassin of Privatization (alias "school choice"). The thing is, it's bullshit. The data produced by state-sponsored standardized testing--which is to say the test scores on which "school choice" depends--it's all bullshit. As @Liat_RO says in her retweet referring to a working paper from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, the testing fails even on its own terms.  

“NO measurable impact”

Any teacher could have told you this, but still https://t.co/T3W91pRdU8

— Liat in BK (@Liat_RO) January 24, 2022

More on the researchers' findings later. First, some scenes from previous episodes. 

When it comes to The Big Project To Kill Public Education, whether it's the organizations that benefit directly--like the testing corporations, consulting firms, and charter school management companies--or it's the broader freemarket  community that has invested heavily in the demolition of a public institution so that corporations might live! (more on ALEC and their interest in the Project in a future post. For a taste, go here), underneath nearly all of the destruction is testing. 

The notion that every student has to be tested every year using state-sponsored standardized tests is relatively new--I used to peg it at the arrival of No Child Left Behind in 2002, but friends remind me that, as bad as George W. Bush was at everything, about this one thing he comes in second at least. Winner of the presidential "Terrible on Public Education" championship is none other than President Barack Obama, whose diabolically named "Race to the Top" extortion racket brought truckloads of cash to desperate states with desperate school districts all over the country. 

The nearly four-and-a-half billion dollar pot of gold seems quaint now, but it was a lot of money in those days. And all the districts had to do--all we had to do--was sell our souls, nod our heads, give a few tests, raise a few scores, and base personnel evaluations--and the paychecks that go along with them--on  those scores. Hatchet man Arne "never met a charter he didn't love" Duncan, was tasked with delivering the bad good news, and is reported to have been the happiest former Secretary of E____ (I can't even write it) when one Betsy DeVos replaced him on the "Worst Ever" list. 

In any event, this "Are we getting our money's worth?" commercial--dare I say capitalist--model of education probably really goes back at least to Ronald Reagan's "A Nation at Risk," because most of today's awful shit does, and it has grown and evolved and metastasized until it resembles the blob who ate the world. 

Well, all that growing and evolving doesn't happen on an empty stomach, so test scores. Production for use, as the old socialists use to say (ironic much?), and once you get test scores you have to use test scores. Where do you think "failing schools" come from, anyhoo?

The incessant state-sponsored standardized testing that compels schools to compete for resources and students, narrows the curriculum, powers the "failing schools" narrative, falsely encourages parents to seek alternative "choices," and demoralizes students and staff is a crucial weapon of public school mass destruction.

And for what?  Lots of different justifications are given for the testing mania.  "Identifying holes in instruction" is one. And then there's "promoting racial equality and ensuring support for all traditionally marginalized groups of students." I like that one and wish it were true. But truly bad ideas like today's testing boondoggle require swanky suites of jargon for protection.  

Meet the overarching rationales for the state tests: "objectivity," "comparability," and "accountability." It's nice that they rhyme, but let's take a closer look. 

We'll start with objectivity and its explicit distrust of educational professionals. Not satisfied that training and experience might prepare a teacher to evaluate a student's learning in good faith, proponents of these exams declare that they prevent biased grade distortion which could redound to the teacher's benefit. It's code for "teachers can't be trusted" and is an important tool in school destabilization. The punch line? Testing, of course, is itself not objective, as it privileges certain kinds of knowledge and narrow, prescribed modes of demonstrating "proficiency." (You might be surprised how the "proficiency" cut-off point was determined. Story for another time.)

Comparability. Another of the main rationales for the testing regime is to use the "objective" metric of test scores to compare schools across a district, a state, or the country. Set aside for a moment the fact that the test scores are not valid measures of learning but simply a snapshot of how well a student can recall a favored subset of "knowledge" under a particular set of circumstances. The real question is: Why compare them at all? How does it help a school or its students to know their scores are lower or higher than the scores of another school across town, or across the state or country? The answer is: It doesn't. We compare schools so parents will have a way to choose when it comes to school choice. You need a mechanism for elevating certain schools and discrediting others. This is it.

Of course, although the hucksters talk objectivity and comparability, these testing "ideas" are only meaningful as tools to achieve the principal goal of testing. Coming in at Number One on the sounds-like-it-ought-to-be good-but-it's-evil hit parade is everyone's favorite: Accountability, which is to say, evaluating and punishing schools and everyone in them. 

This kind of testing is terrible. It degrades and destabilizes public schools, putting them under constant stress with its voracious appetite for resources, its capacity to place administrators and teachers in public jeopardy and to demoralize students and staff, and its power to distort the curriculum. The Big Project to Kill Public Education depends on it.

That's true in general, but it's stupendously true when teachers are evaluated based on test scores. And I'm not even talking about the art teachers evaluated based on math and English scores, or teachers evaluated based on students they never had. Oh yeah, it happens. Teacher evaluation systems. Value-Added. Merit pay, hirings, and firings have all been based on the test scores of individual teachers. Which are not their test scores. They are their students' scores.

Today's focus is teacher evaluation and the premise that all this testing is necessary because you need a metric to compare schools and teachers. That way you can separate the good ones from the bad and incentivize the bad ones to get better or get out. 

And to some people who have no idea what teachers do or what schools are like, that can make a kind of soggy-brained sense. I mean, if teachers are the selfish, cynical half-humans they are advertised to be, then just base their evaluations and paychecks on their test scores (by which we mean their students' scores) and watch them jump! All you have to do is threaten them a little (or a lot) and they'll change their attitudes, get off their asses, and raise those test scores! By which we mean their students' scores. It just stands to reason! 

It. Doesn't. Work. High-stakes reforms tying teacher evaluations to their students' test scores do not raise test scores. Usually bullshit is detectable by the smell, but thanks to a group of researchers we have more objective evidence.  Introducing the star of today's episode:

From the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, this report from December of last year details the findings of Joshua Bleiberg, Eric Brunner, Erica Harbatkin, Matthew A. Kraft, and Matthew Springer as they examined, just like the title says: "The Effect of Teacher Evaluation on Achievement and Attainment: Evidence from Statewide Reforms."

Now, cutting to the chase for those of you so busy you can't believe you've read this far, from the Abstract:

We find that, on average, state teacher evaluation reforms had no discernable effect on student achievement in math or ELA.

And just in case you missed it, from the paper's Conclusion: 

We find that, on average, teacher evaluation reforms had no detectable effect on student achievement or attainment.

To quote Liat in BK, "Any teacher could have told you this...." To which I say, "Yes, teachers have been saying this for freakin ever, but who listens to us?" The paper is a pretty good one and I'll discuss it further below for those of you so inclined. But regardless, it gives us something tangible to point to and say, "See?" 

Whether that matters to anyone whose paycheck depends on evaluating teachers using their students' test scores is an open question. 

Continuing on. Some background from the paper:

Between 2009 and 2017, 44 states and Washington, D.C. implemented major reforms to their teacher evaluation systems. Prior to the reforms, teacher evaluation was largely a perfunctory exercise that resulted in nearly all teachers receiving satisfactory ratings (Weisberg et al. 2009). Strong incentives by the federal government helped spur the widespread reforms. The $4.35 billion federal Race to the Top (RTTT) grant competition incentivized states to reform evaluation systems by regularly evaluating teachers based on multiple measures (including student academic growth) and using performance ratings to inform personnel decisions.

This evaluation reform wasn't just a suggestion. 

The rapid uptake of teacher evaluation reforms came, in part, as a response to President Obama’s RTTT program and its offer of large competitive grants to states that were struggling during the Great Recession (Bleiberg and Harbatkin 2020; Howell and Magazinnik 2017). In particular, the application rubric for RTTT rewarded states for using student outcomes to evaluate teachers and inform personnel decisions with evaluation ratings. (emphasis mine)

So the new study shows "null effects on achievement." Case closed, right? Not so fast, my friends. See, as we've discussed, the objective isn't to identify and nurture an army of fabulous instructors but rather to enfeeble the system to the point of defenselessness. And the Privatizers and Profiteers who promote this stuff and profit from it will not take "no" for an answer. 

So they look for the answers they want. They think they've found one in the infamous Michelle Rhee D.C. Public Schools brainchild IMPACT, and in fact, there have been some desired outcomes, by which I mean test scores. Test scores did move but, and there's always a but, the changes were generally attributed to the release or resignation of teachers deemed to be "ineffective" and replacement with new, presumably more "effective" teachers. Or at least teachers who are more test-focused. 

Easy, right? Disturbingly, from the same paper:

Similarly, evidence from a national study of teacher evaluation reforms found that these reforms increased the number of new teaching candidates who had attended more competitive undergraduate institutions but also decreased the overall supply of teaching candidates (Kraft et al. 2020). (emphasis mine)

This is not good. If there's one thing we know about schooling in a pandemic, it's that staffing is going to be a problem. Thanks to decades of depredation and character assassination, people are leaving in numbers, and replacing experienced teachers with bus drivers and the National Guard is unlikely to have positive effects on student outcomes. We'll have to wait for that study. 

In the meantime, IMPACT aside, the paper warns that the results of studies looking at teacher evaluation system reforms similar to those that have been "adopted at scale nationally" are "decidedly mixed."

Furthermore, even in districts that claim to have had success with "evaluation reform" (and when you hear the word "reform," you should always take a look over your shoulder), have done so with programs that offer much more than threats based on insufficient "value added."

Again, from Bleiberg, Brunner, Harbatkin, Kraft, and Springer:

Several quasi-experimental and experimental studies in large urban school districts point to the potential for evaluation systems to serve as engines for professional growth. Taylor and Tyler (2012) studied Cincinnati Public School’s peer evaluation and feedback system. They found that being observed and evaluated by experienced, expert teachers and school principals improved teachers’ ability to raise student achievement in math but did not affect ELA achievement. A similar study of France's national teacher evaluation system found that high-stakes observation and feedback by certified pedagogical inspectors improved teachers’ contributions to student achievement (Briole and Maurin 2020). (emphasis mine)

For evaluation reform to be authentically effective and not just bogus advertising, it takes tons and tons of resources. Lots of observations, lots of meetings about observations, lots of feedback about observations, all done by trained, certified experts in teaching. No teacher who has been evaluated in the last thirty years would waste ten minutes of their lives waiting for that to happen. 

More from the same paper:

The evaluation process itself may support ongoing improvements in teachers’ practice if evaluators provide feedback and coaching, prompt teachers to reflect on their practices, or provide data that allow districts to match teachers with targeted professional development (Donaldson 2020; Donaldson and Firestone 2021; Galey-Horn and Woulfin 2021; Mintrop and Trujillo 2007; Springer 2010; Woulfin and Rigby 2017).

No shit. Observation and feedback. As Liat in BK might say, any teacher could have told you that. 

And one more thing. "Evaluation Reform" also requires lots and lots of money for bribes incentives. Because that has worked out so well in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Virginia. At least. It's not that hard to raise test scores, if all you want is to raise test scores.

There are some problems with the paper. Start with the fact that, aside from a brief nod to graduation rates, "student outcomes" means what it always means: test scores. Until we force a broader, more humane set of metrics, the battle against the commercial model of schooling cannot be won. This paper, though, is a significant addition to our arsenal.  

The report's most serious failing, however, is that there are thousands of words about teachers and test scores, but very few about actual students. Maybe the authors figured that those considerations don't belong here. But then where do they belong?

I've been thinking a lot about that, so I decided to include here a short excerpt from my unpublished book, Answer Key. Based, as they say, on too many true stories:

Just imagine being one of those students--one of the ones you know quite well because, you know, you teach them every day. And imagine that you have been taking tests for what seems like your entire school life and that these tests are calibrated to yield a certain number of “not proficient”s every year, and that for as long as you can remember you have been one of them.

And even though you are “not proficient,” you have been going through school and learning stuff and passing your classes and doing pretty well, but every time you think you know something the test gets harder and you are once again one of the “not proficient”s. And imagine you don’t even find that out until the next year when there’s nothing you can do about it.

It must really suck, right? And so after having been battered and beaten with a number two pencil for long enough, a lot of those kids get discouraged and give up. Not all of them, but certainly enough for us to ask, “What significant and actionable information are we collecting by putting kids and parents and teachers and schools and districts through all this every year and sometimes every month? Why are we even doing this?”

As I've written before and will definitely be writing again, the scores on state-sponsored standardized tests are not meaningful for students or for teachers. The testing causes tremendous disruption--not in a good way--and it doesn't even deliver on its own terms. And the arguments for the testing regime are specious, because the people and organizations making those arguments know the data is not meaningful. 

Finally, a note regarding new LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. In support of his school choice agenda, Mr. Carvalho is extremely fond of repeating: "One size fits none." It will be interesting to see if he applies that same principle to the district's standardized testing obsession. 

Testing is Politics and Profiteering, not Pedagogy.

Testing is Politics and Profiteering, not Pedagogy.

Updated: For a glimpse of the future, look no further than the new super's profile today's (2.15) Los Angeles Times. If you can get past the word spray, you'll find that the core of Carvalho's "school choice" proposals is what it always is for Privatizers: a religious devotion to "data" by which they mean test scores. To diminish one element of a system in order to elevate a different element, you need metrics--a metric, really--and for school choicers that metric is invariably the scores on state-sponsored standardized assessments. The road to public school privatization is paved with test scores.

As reported by Howard Blume in the Los Angeles Times online Feb. 10, "Incoming Los Angeles schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho said Thursday that he would expand high-quality school choices so that every family would have access to the program they want without having to put their child on a bus to get there."

Sounds good, right? Everyone favors "high-quality" schools. And if a school has access to UCLA's professors or has an advanced theater program or a great marching band, and that's important to a particular student and their parents, then why shouldn't that kid have a chance to participate in that "program"? Right? Carvalho goes on to talk programs and promises to bring in partnerships with colleges and universities so students can begin earning credits while in high school, so there's that. 

But NEWSFLASH!--community schools are doing that right now. My former school had partnerships first with Santa Monica Community College and then Los Angeles Community College. These programs allowed students to begin taking free college classes after school on our campus, and potentially to graduate from high school with an AA degree and credits for transfer to a four-year university.

Ah, but the outfit Carvalho likes is the National Education Equity Lab, which receives funding from the Gates Foundation and boasts Arne "never met a charter he didn't like" Duncan on its Advisory Board.  These people are not supporters of public education. If you are a teacher working and believing in public schools, they are not your friends. No, these organizations and their fans are dedicated to slicing off a piece of the public pie for themselves. 

So let's talk about programs. Putting aside for a moment that implicit in Carvalho's framing is the fantasy that "programs" exist separate from the people--the teachers--who conceive and nurture them, who develop and promote and fight for them, the fact of the matter is it can't work. Even Carvalho, with his faith in technological answers to human questions, must know that it's impossible for every school in every community to satisfy every student's and parent's preference for every possible specialized passion. 

But Carvalho is a gifted politician and when he talks, he uses the word "program" quite intentionally. He doesn't mean marching bands and he doesn't just mean the project of some not-for-profit looking to be in the school business. In his Thursday remarks, the new boss was careful to say that he's committed to "Creating high-quality new schools and programs 'particularly in ZIP Codes where right now they do not exist.'” (emphasis mine) 

In fact, Carvalho doesn't necessarily mean what you think he means at all. The new LAUSD superintendent clearly wants to make sure that every neighborhood, every community has "access," but to... what exactly? 

As I wrote late last year, soon after Carvalho was hired: 

In a 2018 article, the corporate school-reform website The74 reported that then-Miami schools chief had a "sweeping vision for dramatically expanding educational choice," and went on to say this about Carvalho:

"Understand this fact: In Carvalho’s district, the fourth-largest in the country, more than 70 percent of the roughly 400,000 students do not attend their zoned public school. That’s not a typo. These students attend charter schools, take classes over the internet and at local colleges, and even attend private, faith-based schools — all with taxpayer funds or under tax credit scholarship programs." (emphasis mine)

That from an organization that thinks this is a good thing. 

No, the Privatizers and Profiteers are playing the long game and it depends on destabilizing existing public schools. They have a comprehensive, methodical plan for the destruction of a public institution and the transfer of its assets to private, commercial entities. 

According to The Times, Carvalho is planning a "multiyear project" predicated on the creation of competing schools and an escalation of school choice. "I don’t think it’s fair or equitable for students to have to get on a bus for hours on end to get to that one school or be shut out of that opportunity," says the new boss.

So, what kinds of "new schools and programs" will be planted in these allegedly  neglected zip codes? What will these new "high-quality" schools look like, and what impact will they have on existing schools and programs? 

And finally, how will parents and students decide among the "choices"? If not every school will have every program, what will signify that every student can get some "high-quality" schoolin' without having to get on a bus?

For Carvalho and the legion of Privatizers and Profiteers, it comes down to the same thing it always comes down to: test scores. 

The road to public school privatization is paved with test scores. Which are bullshit.

The answer to all your questions.

Via Tony Kornheiser, writing for the Washington Post in 1994: 

"TV wizard Don Ohlmeyer ... once told me, 'The answer to all your questions is: Money.'"

The superb Robyn Pennacchia @RobynElyse over at Wonkette has an excellent article that connects the dots between the hostility being directed at educators and the larger project of undermining public schools in order to privatize and cash in on education. 

It should surprise exactly no one that many of the loudest voices protesting and threatening teachers, administrators, school board members and even students themselves are Republican operatives, political hacks whose brief extends far beyond the banning of "uncomfortable" books and history or the rejection of school safety measures.

These ideological shock troops masquerade as concerned parents while acting as political goons, aided and abetted by Fox and the massive conservative ecosystem which promotes them while deliberately shielding their true identities, and enabled by a timid mainstream media that refuses to honestly describe and expose them.

Pennacchia describes the process:

Within the last couple years, there has been what seems like a massive uptick in outraged parents. Parents who are mad about masks, parents who are mad about books, parents who are mad about "critical race theory." They show up at school board meetings across the country to yell their faces off, frequently going viral due to the sheer number of stupid things they manage to fit into the three minute allotment they have to talk.

We're supposed to believe that these are grassroots efforts led by concerned parents who just want a say in their children's education. That these groups they form are organic. That those participating in them are, in fact, actual parents in the school district they're protesting in.

Of course, those of us who are hep know a large number of these people are not so much parents as they are Republican strategists, activists and think tank employees. That doesn't mean that there aren't parents who are "concerned" about these things — but it does mean that their outrage about them is being purposely stoked by professionals with an agenda.

And the agenda? What is the ultimate goal of inciting all this animosity and pointing it "march to the capital" style at educators? Pennacchia continues:

The obvious, immediate agenda is to get Republicans elected. Glenn Youngkin's victory in Virginia, for example, was largely spurred by parental outrage over masks and critical race theory.

But that may not be all they are after. As Truthout reports, many of the organizations ginning up the hysteria over these issues are simultaneously involved in efforts to encourage the privatization of schools by undermining support for public schools.

For years, the goal of school privatization advocates has been to oppose funding for education and then criticize the public school system for failing, hoping that this will lead to parents taking their kids out of schools and becoming increasingly supportive of voucher programs and so-called "school choice," with the ultimate goal being a for-profit education system usurping the public education system.

Penacchio goes on to quote this very good Truthout piece peeling back the veneer covering the scam. From Truthout:

School privatizers seem to know that sowing enough distrust in public education — and capitalizing on the genuine frustration of parents struggling to cope with pandemic-related work, schooling and child care issues — could fulfill their “great disenrollment” prophecy. One strategy of these “parent” groups seems to be using easily replicable resources to attack public schools, deploying them in school districts nationwide and attracting right-wing media coverage. 

Liat Olenick @Liat_RO raised the issue in a great article in The Nation, connecting the attacks over COVID and "Critical Race Theory" and describing them as "a primary Republican organizing strategy." The project to enfeeble public schools is well-funded and comprehensive:

What unites all these attacks are the right-wing, anti-union billionaires who benefit from them: The anti-CRT furor is a coordinated attack on the institution of public education and multiracial democracy, designed to justify defunding public schools and replacing them with segregated charter schools and voucher programs. The current attacks on teachers over Covid safety demands serve the very same purpose. The hedge fund managers and billionaires who have funded the charter school and school voucher movements for the past two decades are the same elites who stand to benefit from this latest raft of anti-teacher, anti-union vitriol.

Of course, educators in public schools are also familiar with contempt from the nominal "left."  We are witnesses to the charter school craze and white flight, and we sure as hell remember "Race to the Top" and Arne Duncan (looking at you Barack Obama). The pandemic, with its nondenominational rancor over masking and in-person schooling, has cranked the volume up to 11. 

Olenick rightly observes that even--I'd say especially--during these miserable times, "the vitriol isn’t just coming from Republicans, but also from leading “liberals” who conveniently refuse to hold politicians accountable for failing to implement basic mitigation strategies to keep schools open but are extra-eager to attack teachers’ unions demanding things like soap in the bathrooms and minimal Covid testing." And she has a warning for us:

The failure to confront authoritarianism and the failure to defend public schools and educators from Covid is the same failure. When an institution is a cornerstone of democracy, you fight for it, you fund it, and you respect it.

Democrats ignore attacks on teachers and schools to their peril. There is no democracy without public education. There is no public education without qualified, caring, and dedicated teachers.

In Olenick's words: "Healthy democracies don’t hate their teachers."

The other side--Republicans, religious conservatives, true believers and opportunists--are well-organized and committed. Theirs is a comprehensive, methodical plan for the destruction of a public institution and the transfer of its assets to private, commercial entities. You can see the plan playing out in real time in Virginia (h/t @jbouie). Like ALEC writing model legislation to be cribbed by legislatures all over the country, Youngkin and his Virginia mobsters have created the template for reducing public schools to rubble. 

When combined with pre-existing conditions such as diabolical funding formulas and the national testing addiction, this present demonstration of outrage over everything from masks to the accurate teaching of history spurs parents and students to take advantage of "school choice" portals, leave their former (public) schools impoverished, and delivers an entire system ready to be stripped down and sold for parts.

It's a pretty dreary picture and can feel like the ship has already sailed. As a teacher, I was always inside the event horizon. I could feel the gravity of freemarket schooling as it was warping spacetime and sucking the life out of my little corner of the universe, but what was I supposed to do about it? It was overwhelming and seemed unstoppable. I had 180 students. I was fucking busy.

What I didn't know and didn't have time to learn was that I wasn't alone. Other people felt like I did--and I'm not just talking about the half dozen in my "this sucks" lunch group. Now I know that lots of people--big important people--have been fighting this battle for decades, some of them successfully. The Profiteers and Privatizers are playing the long game but they haven't yet won the war. There's still time to join the fight. 

I'm just getting started and the sheer weight of what I don't know could tip the earth off its axis. However, I am exploring lots of different resources and include some of them here. I have not had time to fully vet them all, and if you have additional suggestions, please share. 

Diane Ravitch, author, historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education, has been a leader in this battle. Her blog is must reading and I'm working my way through her books, especially The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education; Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools; and now Cutting School: The Segrenomics of American Education co-authored with Noliwe Rooks. It takes time, but I'm retired and now I have time. I want to go to war fully armed. 

Ravitch also is president of the Network for Public Education, and though some of its material could be updated (toolkit), the website provides a very good rundown of organizations around the country that are fighting to save the public in public education. Email is here for more information.

There are other resources I've discovered as I've been teaching myself what lots of others seem to already know. On her blog, Diane Ravitch writes that an organization called
UnKoch My Campus "does a great job of tracking and exposing the influence of billionaire Charles Koch in schools and higher education." According to their website they are a "fiscally sponsored project" of Essential Information, the Ralph Nader-founded (1982) non-profit. Their K-12 report for 2020-2021 identifies many of the major players and details the strategies of the Koch Network's "capture" of education Privatization Plan and illustrates it this way:

It's a good graphic, though test scores and the national testing addiction really deserve their own space around steps 3 and 4.

Jennifer Berkshire @BisforBerkshire is a writer I'm now becoming familiar with. Her "Have You Heard" podcast is excellent and I'm looking forward to reading A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, co-authored with Jack Schneider. I first heard her speak about her work on the Know Your Enemy podcast.

"C'mon Waid," some of you might be thinking. "I did not come here for extra homework. I have 180 students right now, and you want to give me a reading list?" That's not it. I'm just telling you what I'm reading. So I understand the terrain and I'm not just bullshitting about what things used to be like. So I can get a clearer, more complete picture of our enemies, and our friends. And, ideally, to help you understand that you are not alone.

It would be helpful to have some models of successful resistance. Within the network of teachers, allies, and all advocates for public education and its offspring, multiracial democracy, we should be able to identify effective strategies and replicate them in diverse locations under varying circumstances. We're smart enough to reproduce successful plans just like the bad guys, only we use our power for good. 

I did manage to find a few ideas. Here, for example, Diane Ravitch joins a panel of international educators in a discussion titled "Fighting the Privatisation of Education," presented by the University of New South Wales Centre for Ideas, among others. I find Ravitch generally too optimistic regarding the impact of the pandemic on the public's attitudes towards schools and the people who work there. However, these remarks all predate the current "CRT"/book banning/masking brouhaha, so perhaps that explains it.  

It's a good conversation and much of it may sound familiar. Nevertheless, as we continue to learn the battlefield and our enemies and allies, we are still in the middle of an active warzone. What can a teacher do? What are some specific actions we can take to impede the drive to privatize public schools? When I know more, I'll say more, but for the time being I'll rely on Ravitch. I know you're busy I'll save you some time. 

Shorter Diane Ravitch: 

• Join your union. (Waid editorial: Just shut up and do it. They're not perfect, but if you think a union is expensive, try not having one.)
• Collaborate and organize with like-minded individuals around the country (Network for Public Education) and the world in order to amplify your voice. 
• The road to privatization is paved with testing data, so align yourself with the opt-out movement in your state.  
• Read Slaying Goliath.

Later this month I'll be starting Goliath, which is advertised as a collection of successful stories and strategies from around the country. I'll share them in a future post. In the meantime, please, if you have ideas that have worked for you or a colleague, please do share them in the comments section. You may comment anonymously if you prefer.

During my career I pushed back against bad administrators and bad policies at my schools and helped lead a strike against my district--all on behalf of my students and their families. I worked to support public schooling and fought threats like excessive testing and school choice, but my efforts were limited and local. Looking back, I spent my career in a silo grinding my teeth and shockingly unaware that there was an entire community of resistance just outside my classroom walls. Now I'm outside those walls and I have the time and bandwidth to educate myself and become part of that community. 

Fundamentally, this fight is about much more than a particular ideology, or politicians seeking to evade responsibility, or parents' rights (which, let's face it, is really just hostage-taking by the most extreme parents available), or fear, or class, or religion. It goes beyond someone's idea of morality, or even racism. All these are crucial elements of the battle, but they are engineered primarily to achieve the objective. The same plan was, is, or will be used to turn other public institutions into private profit centers. From the U.S. Postal service to national parks to public schools, it's up to us to protect them. 

The struggle is grueling because the stakes are high. Money is power and power concedes nothing. So if you ever wondered why school board meetings are now screaming matches or how "CRT" is even a thing, or when you see book banning and ask "What the actual fuck is going on?" remember: 

The answer to all your questions is money.