Exterminating Public Schools in America

[FOTD]

We all at this forum want to help set the world and this country right. Taking time to read, understand and discuss issues makes the effort worth it. Participants feed on setting each other on a mutual course of harmony.

Many oppose aggresive government regulation and business oversight. "It's become evident that the corporate surge against public schools is only part of a much broader assault against the public sector, against unions, and indeed against the public's rights and public control of public institutions."

I read this article and thought I'd pass it on against the objection of others here who think repostings from other blogs is not right.

Exterminating Public Schools in America

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8288
by Steven Miller and Jack Gerson


Global Research, March 10, 2008
Educator Roundtable  


The "Tough Choices or Tough Times" report of the National Commission on Skills in the Workplace, funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and signed by a bipartisan collection of prominent politicians, businesspeople, and urban school superintendents, called for a series of measures including:

(a) replacing public schools with what the report called "contract schools", which would be charter schools writ large;

(b) eliminating nearly all the powers of local school boards - their role would be to write and sign the authorizing agreements for the "contract schools;

(c) eliminating teacher pensions and slashing health benefits; and

(d) forcing all 10th graders to take a high school exit examination based on 12th grade skills, and terminating the education of those who failed (i.e., throwing millions of students out into the streets as they turn 16).

These measures, taken together, would effectively cripple public control of public education. They would dangerously weaken the power of teacher unions, thus facilitating still further attacks on the public sector. They would leave education policy in the hands of a network of entrepreneurial think tanks, corporate entrepreneurs, and armies of lobbyists whose priorities are profiting from the already huge education market while cutting back on public funding for schools and students.

Indeed, their measures would mean privatization of education, effectively terminating the right to a public education, as we have known it. Many of the most powerful forces in the country want the US, the first country to guarantee public education, to be the first country to end it.

For the last fifty years, public education was one of only two public mandates guaranteed by the government that was accessible to every person, regardless of income. Social Security is the other. Now both systems are threatened with privatization schemes. The government today openly defines its mission as protecting the rights of corporations above everything. Thus public education is a rare public space that is under attack.

The same scenario is being implemented with most of the services that governments used to provide for free or at little cost: electricity, national parks, health care and water. In every case, the methodology is the same: underfund public services, create an uproar and declare a crisis, claim that privatization can do the job better, deregulate or break public control, divert public money to corporations and then raise prices.

In the past year, it's become evident that the corporate surge against public schools is only part of a much broader assault against the public sector, against unions, and indeed against the public's rights and public control of public institutions.

This has been evident for some time now in New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina's devastation is used as an excuse for permanently privatizing the infrastructure of a major American city: razing public housing and turning land over to developers; replacing the city's public school system with a combination of charter schools and state-run schools; letting the notorious Blackwater private army loose on the civilian population; and, in the end, forcing tens of thousands of families out of the city permanently. The citizens of New Orleans have had their civil rights forcibly expropriated.

Just as the shock of the hurricane was the excuse for the shock therapy applied to New Orleans, so the economic downturn triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis is now the excuse for a national assault on the public sector and the public's rights. . .

In public education, the corporate surge has grown both qualitatively and quantitatively. Where two years ago the corporate education change agents were mainly operating in a relatively small number of large urban areas, they have now surfaced everywhere. The corporatization of public education is the leading edge of privatization. This has the effect of silencing the public voice on every aspect of the situation.

Across the US, public schools are not yet privatized, though private services are increasingly benefiting from this market. However, increasing corporate control of programs - a different mix in every locale - is having a chilling influence on the very things that people (though not corporations) want from teachers: the ability to relate to and teach each child, a nurturing approach that nudges every child to move ahead, human assessments that put people before performance on standardized tests.

Perhaps the single most dramatic development of the corporate approach was the launching of the $60 million Strong American Schools - Ed in '08 initiative, funded by billionaires Bill Gates and Eli Broad. This is a naked effort to purchase the nation's education policy, no matter who is elected President, by buying their way into every electoral forum.

Ed in '08 has a three-point program: merit pay (basing teachers' compensation on students' scores on high stakes test); national education standards (enforcing conformity and rote learning); and longer school day and school year (still more time for rote learning, less time for kids to be kids. . . )

Where two years ago charter schools were still viewed as experiments affecting a relatively small number of students, in 2007 the corporate privatizers - led by Broad and Gates - grossly expanded their funding to the point where they now loom as a major presence.

In March, the Gates Foundation announced a $100 million donation to KIPP charter schools, which would enable them to expand their Houston operation to 42 schools (from eight) - effectively, KIPP will be a full-fledged alternative school system in Houston. Also in the past year, Eli Broad and Gates have given in the neighborhood of $50 million to KIPP and Green Dot charter schools in Los Angeles, with the aim of doubling the percentage of LA students enrolled in charter schools. Oakland, another Broad/Gates targets, now has more than 30 charter schools out of 92. And, as we shall see below, the same trend holds across the country.

NCLB in 2008 is still a major issue. It continues to have a corrosive effect on public schools. It is designed an unfunded mandate, which means that schools must meet ever rigid standards every year, though no more money is appropriated to support this effort. This means that schools must take ever-more money out of the class room to meet federal requirements when schools with low test scores are in "Program Improvement". Once schools are in PI for 5 years they can be forced into privatization.

NCLB is a driving force that decimates the "publicness" in public schools. In California, more than 2000 schools are now in "Program-Improvement". This means that they have to meet certain specific, and mostly impossible standards, or they must divert increasingly greater amounts of money out of the classroom and into private programs.

For example, schools in 3rd year PI must take money out of programs that helped schools with a high proportion of low achieving schools and make it available to private tutors. . .

Privatizing public schools inevitably leads to a massive increase in social inequality. Private corporations have never been required to recognize civil rights, because, by definition, these are public rights. If the corporate privatizers succeed in taking over our schools, there will be neither quality education nor civil rights.

The system of public education in the United States is deeply flawed. While suburban schools are among the best in the world, public education in cities has been deliberately underfunded and is in shambles. The solution is not to fight backwards to maintain the old system. Rather it is to fight forward to a new system that will truly guarantee quality education as a civil right for everyone.

Central to this is to challenge the idea that everything in human society should be run by corporations, that only corporations and their political hacks have the right or the power to discuss what public policy should be. . .

The real direction is to increase the role and power of the public in every way, not eliminate it. . .

[cannon_fodder]

That totally fails to convince me.  Not only is it poorly written - it lacks citations, is full of unsupported hyperbole (the corporations will kick millions out of school), and fails to make sense on a basic level.

Bill Gates gave $100,000,000.00 to fund schools in Houston, that is part of the conspiracy to take peoples rights away, end social security, cripple labor unions, and fund private companies?  

They are against merit pay (article in the World today talked about the 99.9% retention of teachers in Tulsa, that it is likely more than 1/1000 deserved to be fired for incompetence).

Against longer school days/time frame (we are last in the industrialized world).

And against standardized testing (we should all get "A" for our effort, if school suck or kids are stupid we shouldn't tell them).

quote:The system of public education in the United States is deeply flawed. While suburban schools are among the best in the world, public education in cities has been deliberately underfunded and is in shambles. The solution is not to fight backwards to maintain the old system. Rather it is to fight forward to a new system that will truly guarantee quality education as a civil right for everyone.

Actually, urban schools have nearly twice the funding per child now than they ever have, and they continue to fail.  Instead of proposing a way to make failing schools improve they are advocating eqaulity in failure.  If EVERYONE has a crappy education then we are all equal, and all is well.

And the solution to this problem is . . . ?  something other what the Gates foundation is funding. Hey, thanks for the insight, I love articles that complain about the status quo and proposed solutions while offering no solutions of their own.

[FOTD]

Hmmm.... could it be the dumber the general population, the easier are they to manage?

Seemed to have worked in 2000 and 2004.

Public schools have been dumbed down since the 1960's. Private schools have the envy.
I guess the solution would be to reinvest more into our Public School system through government funding and more aggresive  government regulation. Trillions of dollars need to be allocated towards our schools in light of war allocations during the past 7 years.

[Midtowner]

My anecdotal experience tells me that this article, and the premises that public education is better than that urban education is necessarily bad are off base, at least in my experience.  I personally attended Bishop McGuinness HS in Oklahoma City, then I went to Edmond North H.S.  I found Edmond (at least in their AP programs) offered a more challenging, better supported curriculum.  So the private > public comparison just doesn't cut it for me.

Add to that the fact that my wife teaches at one of the urban-est of the urban public charter schools in OKC, Harding Charter Prep, where enrollment is open to all (there's no admission test), the curriculum is every bit as challenging (more so) than anything I had at either of my suburban/public or private High Schools.  

quote:Actually, urban schools have nearly twice the funding per child now than they ever have, and they continue to fail. Instead of proposing a way to make failing schools improve they are advocating equality in failure. If EVERYONE has a crappy education then we are all equal, and all is well.

I agree -- at least here in Oklahoma City, that seems to be the case.  The charter/contract schools offer an option for kids and parents who aren't content with failure, but don't have the means or desire to move or to pay private school tuition.  

[cannon_fodder]

quote:FOTD wrote:
I guess the solution would be to reinvest more into our Public School system through government funding and more aggresive [sic] government regulation.

Current expenditure per pupil in fall enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools: Selected years, 1961-62 through 2003-04
School Year    

Year:  Unadjusted:  Adjusted Money:
1961-62    $393    $2,603
1970-71    842    4,219
1980-81    2,307    5,301
1985-86    3,479    6,363
1990-91    4,902    7,284
1995-96    5,689    7,328
1996-97    5,923    7,418
1997-98    6,189    7,615
1998-99         6,508    7,871
1999-2000    6,912    8,125
2000-01    7,380    8,387
2001-02    7,727    8,629
2002-03    8,044    8,790
2003-04    8,310    8,886

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

So we are spending 4 times more than we were when schools were better.  I'm going to go ahead and assume that throwing MORE money at the problem is not going to solve the problem.  We are spending more per kid than ever and arguably having the poorest results (compared to other nations).

You admit the private schools do far better with far less resources (average spending near $5000 per pupil in private).  You also admit that in the past we did better in education with less resources.  Yet your solution is MORE government and MORE money.

So explain to me why you think still MORE money and MORE government will fix the problem when there is a direct correlation between those two elements and failure.

[FOTD]

I defined by what I meant as more government....oversight and regulation which in the past 7 years has been dimineshed. And we are talking about cutting school allocations in the next state budget hearings from what I've read.

Outside of the inner city and rural districts of poverty (not Bixby Jinx etc.), America has one of the best systems in the world.

It seems unfair to compare the average private per pupil cost with that of public schools.

[TheArtist]

I have been lightly pondering the school thing for a while. Still havent come to any firm conclusions, but here are some thoughts and observations.

Parents and the class/socio-economic status of students plays a big part on a students performance.

1.  A parent who doesnt even know where their 12yo child is at 2 in the morning, isnt likely to properly push that child to do well in school "if they truly even care whether the child is in school". That child is not likely to do as well in any school.  

2.   A parent who has the care to take their child to a private school is going to pay more attention to the childs education. With the same parent, that child would do better even if they were in a regular school. Kids in private schools are likely going to do better than similar kids in the first example.

So already we see that kids in private schools would have a tendancy, on average, to do better than kids who are in regular schools.

3.   I looked at Gleenpools average scores as compared to other schools. Students there did far worse than Jenks schools and many Tulsa schools. I guarantee you as the demographics shift, Gleenpools scores will go up. The average student in a class a few years from now, will do far better than the average student in the same classroom, same desks, same books, same teacher,,, did a few years ago. The demographics are shifting. Upwardly mobile and  middle to upper middle class people, tend to parent better, educationally wise.  

4.  Same kind of thing can be said for some older inner city schools, except in reverse. Some of the schools I went to as a kid in east Tulsa, were at the time in new neighborhoods. As the demographics have changed,,, more poor parents, (poor because they dont have the same life "toolkits" expectations, viewpoints and outlooks as wealthier or upwardly mobile people) more immigrants, etc. The school remained the same, even same teachers in many cases. But the scores are lower.

5.  I went to some good schools and some bad schools (my parents moved a lot). I always made good grades. It didnt matter what teacher I had, I took the book home and learned from it. My parents made sure I did. Teachers can have an impact, but ultimately, they are irrelevant. Same with what kind of room or desk you are in, wooden bench, fancy desk, doesnt matter. Having the book and the the right parents are what truly matter.

How do private schools and charter schools change these observations? Seems to me that some students are going to need more work and attention, aka, more money in order to make up for the fact that they do not have good parents. Most private schools do not have as many of those students by far and therefore do not have that extra expense. As you build more private schools or schools where parents take their students to that charter or elite school... dont you then just "concentrate" the worst parents and worst students making the public schools performance look even worse? "even though we have shown that its not so much the schools fault as the parents fault as to how well the students perform".

If you were to take a good charter or private school, teachers and programs, magically multiply them to replace every public school in the city. I am willing to bet you that the scores that the original charter or private school was able to attain, would not be replicated in the other schools and would often be lowered where the scores were already lower because they would be faced with an entirely different suite of students, parents, and situations. There would have to be extra attention, extra money, and changes, put into those schools in order to get the scores up.

Seems to me that some students and schools, often poor and with "bad parents" are going to require more attention and money. Wealthier parents, students and schools actually require less money than the other students and schools. But what we have is the reverse which would result in making any school performance disparities even wider.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

Hmmm.... could it be the dumber the general population, the easier are they to manage?

Seemed to have worked in 2000 and 2004.

Public schools have been dumbed down since the 1960's. Private schools have the envy.
I guess the solution would be to reinvest more into our Public School system through government funding and more aggresive  government regulation. Trillions of dollars need to be allocated towards our schools in light of war allocations during the past 7 years.

Um, Bill Gates is pretty liberal and no Bush supporter.

[Wingnut]

quote: I defined by what I meant as more government....oversight and regulation which in the past 7 years has been dimineshed.

How so? Please document that statement.
Gov't has done nothing but try to completely take over the local public school and remove the parent involvement from it.

quote: Outside of the inner city and rural districts of poverty (not Bixby Jinx etc.), America has one of the best systems in the world.

Again, please cite a study that backs up your statement.
America consistantly ranks low globally in education at most all levels.
http://nces.ed.gov/Pressrelease/reform/

Stossel had done several stories about education.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16774&keywords=education
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23154
And some by others:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23707
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=20171
As most all agree, teaching the basics, school choice, competition, and returning control of education to the state and local level is the only real way to improve education in these United States.

Just a sampling from the Education Watchwebsite:
S.761, America COMPETES (poorly) Act
Will more federal involvement in education help America compete?


       No wonder public confidence in Congress is at an all-time low. Last April, the U.S. Senate passed S.761, a bill with the bizarre title of "America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act," or the "America COMPETES Act."  The supporters claim S.761 will make America more competitive in math and science. The fact is, it will do just the opposite.

       For example, S.761 would double funding for the National Science Foundation from $5.6 billion in 2006 to $11.2 billion in 2011. The fact is that the NSF has been highly destructive to math education in America's schools. The NSF has spent $1 billion subsidizing fuzzy math. The Fordham Foundation's publication, The Education Gadfly of March 4, 2004, stated:
"No single institution in the United States has caused more damage to the mathematical education of our children than...the National Science Foundation."
       Money to the NSF is actually damaging to our math performance, not beneficial.

       Overall, S.761 assumes that spending more money on math and science is the solution. Numerous studies demonstrate there is no correlation between federal education spending and achievement. S.761 doubles spending for the Department of Energy's Office of Science over the next ten years to $5.2 billion. Private schools spend far less on education with generally better results. Improving America's competitiveness might begin by removing the politically correct obstacles to school competition. The big issues that matter are ignored in S.761, like genuine school choice and the aggressive promotion of traditional math.

A SINGLE MONOLITHIC EDUCATION SYSTEM
        At a time when the public is deeply disaffected with the federal power grab of No Child Left Behind, the America COMPETES Act uses NCLB as its stepping stone to amass ever more centralized power. More federal money goes to states to align curriculum from pre-K through post-secondary, creating a single monolithic education system. All states will be pressured into the same mold, as would every post-secondary institution, including private colleges. This pressure will ultimately determine acceptable college course content and acceptable college entrance tests.

       The "alignment" of all curriculum is a backdoor federal curriculum. S.761 claims its purpose is to prepare students for college without remediation, but this purpose is actually undermined by allowing grant money to be used to teach ì21st century learning skills: critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, global awareness, and business and financial literacy." These are not primarily academic. They are beliefs and values. They are the classic transformational education agenda that federal programs have been pushing for thirty years. For this reason, the actual nature of the bill is contrary to its stated purpose.  

        Allowing "alignment" money to be used for the purposes listed above also effectively extends the scope of this legislation beyond math, science, engineering and technology into every single course of study. The federal government is extending itself into the entire curriculum.

SUBSIDIZING MATH & SCIENCE CURRICULUM
        S.761 establishes a ìpromising practicesî panel. When it comes to math, federal involvement has been harmful. (See "If we Really Hope to Improve Math Education.") For example, in October 1999, the US Department of Education released a report designating 10 mathematics programs as "exemplary'" or "promising." These were integrated math curricula which had been sharply criticized by mathematicians and which had been demonstrated to be inferior for math achievement.

       Over 200 university mathematicians signed an open letter to US DOE Secretary Richard Riley urging him to withdraw those recommendations. Signers included seven Nobel laureates and winners of the Fields Medal, the highest international award in mathematics. Mathematics department chairs of many of the top universities in the U.S. were included, as were state and national education leaders.
 
        Mirroring the ìpromising practicesî math panel of the 90's, S.761's "promising practicesî panel is composed primarily of educrats, not professionals in those fields. The DOE is then directed to publicize the panelís findings, lending the federal stamp of approval to specific curricula.

        Congressman Hoekstra (R-MI) sponsored a motion last April to remove a similar panel in another bill, H.R.362. His motion eliminated a federal panel to provide "recommendations" on curricula, because they would essentially be endorsements. The Hoekstra motion passed by a vote of 389-22.  Following the vote Republican Minority Leader, Cong. Boehner (R-OH) issued this statement: "Curriculum decisions should be made at the state and local level, not by politicians in Washington, D.C."  

       Congress has a history of funding national standards and textbooks that reconstruct history, redefine our founding documents, and undermine our national sovereignty. (See FedEd : The New Federal Curriculum & How It's Enforced.) Should we expect something different?

SUBSIDIZING INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE (IB)
        S.761 not only subsidizes IB, but the money comes with a requirement that the states subsidize it, too, with 200% matching funds. S.761 also prioritizes states that have a "statewide strategy" for expanding IB.

       By its own admission, IB is primarily about beliefs and values. (See "The International Baccalaureate Curriculum" and " Terrorism as Taught by International Baccalaureate.") IB requires that all curricula in IB schools promote its beliefs and values. By its own account, the primary document that defines the IB beliefs and values is the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is inconsistent with the American Creed expressed in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. For that reason and many others, IB has been called " un-American."
       
       IB math curriculum is also inferior to Advanced Placement. One reason for that is that IB "integrates" its politicized social studies curriculum (from global warming to radical feminism and class struggle) into its math classes, leaving less time for real math. In fact, the money spent on IB results in significantly less resources available for AP. IB always piggy-backs on the good reputation of AP. Subsidizing IB is no formula for increasing American competitiveness.

A SINGLE DATA TRACKING SYSTEM
        S.761 institutes a single federal data tracking system for children from preschool through college, something colleges have resisted in the past. Data collection is a massive intrusion of federal authority over states, schools, individuals, and teachers. Promises of restricted use and confidentiality are less reassuring all the time. The federal government should get out of the business of tracking our kids though the schools.

CENTRAL PLANNING
        S.761 also organizes a high-profile Summit and a brand new federal bureaucracy. The Summit will come up with a "comprehensive plan" to oversee what states will do, what schools will do, what NGOs will do, and what the private economic sector will do to get Americans to compete. It will coordinate its plan with the National Economic Council and the National Security Council.

       Central planning and bloated bureaucracy actually destroys creativity and innovation. Expanding unlimited powers to federal agencies undermines success. We could go a long way toward improving America's competitiveness by re-valuing and encouraging independent, competitive qualities that nurture innovation. Classrooms routinely belittle traditional values of individualism and competition. Preschool outcomes include teaching toddlers early that being a member of a group is of far greater value than individual success. Is it any wonder we have fewer innovators, people willing to launch out on their own and move out of the crowd?

8 SENATORS VOTE NO
       Eight Senators had the clarity and good leadership to penetrate the fog of disinformation and vote no on S.761. Please tell them thanks (202-225-3121). They are: Allard (R-CO), Coburn (R-OK), DeMint (R-SC), Graham (R-SC), Gregg (R-NH), Inhofe (R-OK), Kyl (R-AZ), and Thomas (R-WY).

[we vs us]

Kudos, Artist.  I was thinking the exact thing when reading throught this thread. As it stands now, private and charter schools are self-selecting, usually by socio-economic level, and as you said, certain socio-economic levels enjoy advantages in upbringing that lower ones don't.  

A public school system has to educate everyone, the goods and bads.  The bads just really take a whole lot more time and money.

[Chicken Little]

FOTD, why do people like me think that reposting blog content is tricky?  Well, let them explain:

quote: CF said:
Not only is it poorly written - it lacks citations, is full of unsupported hyperbole

He's not wrong.  

And because you started it, Wingnut is perfectly justified in introducing his own unsupported hyperbole in the form of...Mr...John...Stossel!    That guy's a libertarian nutjob.

You don't have a debate, you have a mess:  15% cherry-picked facts, 70% ideology, and 15% raw emotion.  A few are brave enough to put up with this mess to get to the interesting discussion, but not many.

[FOTD]

Some of it floats....some of it sinks....most of it surely stinks.

[Wingnut]

From one of your own...
From the Founder of Modern Education: Socialist John Dewey

1896

"It is one of the great mistakes of education to make reading and writing constitute the bulk of the school work the first two years. The true way is to teach them incidentally as the outgrowth of the social activities at this time. Thus language is not primarily the expression of thought, but the means of social communication ... If language is abstracted from social activity, and made an end in itself, it will not give its whole value as a means of development... It is not claimed that by the method suggested, the child will learn to read as much, nor perhaps as readily in a given period as by the usual method. That he will make more rapid progress later when the true language interest develops ... can be claimed with confidence."

1899: School and Society

"The tragic weakness of the present school is that it endeavors to prepare future members of the social order in a medium in which the conditions of the social spirit are eminently wanting ... The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat."

1916: Democracy and Education

"When knowledge is regarded as originating and developing within an individual, the ties which bind the mental life of one to that of his fellows are ignored and denied. When the social quality of individualized mental operations is denied, it becomes a problem to find connections which will unite an individual with his fellows. Moral individualism is set up by the conscious separation of different centers of life. It has its roots in the notion that the consciousness of each person is wholly private, a self-inclosed continent, intrinsically independent of the ideas, wishes, purposes of everybody else."

1935: Liberalism and Social Action

"The last stand of oligarchical and anti-social seclusion is perpetuation of this purely individualistic notion of intelligence."


"Our state never releases the human being from the cradle to the grave...We do not let go of the human being and when that is over, the Labor Front comes and takes him once more and does not let him go until he dies, whether he likes it or not."

    --Dr. Robert Ley, head of the Labor Front, Nazi Germany

"What is essential is that we create a seamless web of opportunities, to develop one's skills...that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system everyone..."

    --Marc Tucker, in his letter to Hillary Rodham Clinton



   More unsupported hyperbole....


Clinton Education Agenda Being Pushed in Minnesota

February 5, 2005

Senate Republicans refuse to sign on

Marc Tucker, the Executive Director of the National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE), will conduct a private briefing for legislators-only on what is being billed as "transformational issues and trends affecting public education today." "Transformational education" is understood to mean what the McGraw Hill textbook website defines as existing for the purpose of "the transformation of society."

Less than twenty-one months after the Minnesota legislature overwhelmingly repealed the Profile of Learning, Marc Tucker a close Clinton ally and recognized architect of the federal education take-over (the Profile of Learning), is privately selling his curriculum to state legislators, beginning Feb. 9th. No media, no staff, and no public are allowed into three nights of private wining and dining by Tucker and his associates from the National Center for Education and the Economy.  

Background
Marc Tucker is known for his infamous letter [this is a pdf link] to First Lady-elect Hillary Clinton after the 1992 presidential election in which Tucker wrote:

"We [will] have a national system of education in which curriculum, pedagogy, examinations and teacher education and licensure systems are all linked to the national standards [federal curriculum]..." [p. 3]

Tucker and his NCEE organization have been key players in the development and implementation of transformational education in our country, largely through his influence in the crafting of the Goals 2000 and School-to-Work legislation of 1994, his America's Choice curriculum, and his New Standards Project. Tucker's letter to Hillary Clinton proposed a plan which, Tucker explained, came from a meeting of key players he brought together. One of those participating in his planning meeting was Lauren Resnick, a partner in his New Standards Project, and another speaker at the private briefings to Minnesota legislators.

In his letter to Hillary, Tucker described his plan for transforming education this way:

"to propose concrete actions that the Clinton administration could take—between now and the inauguration, in the first 100 days and beyond... We took a very large leap forward in terms of how to advance the agenda on which you and we have all been working—a practical plan for putting all the major components of the system in place within four years, by the time Bill has to run again." [p. 1]

All this laid the foundation for Goals 2000, School-to-Work, and the radical national standards (federal curriculum) in civics, history, social studies, geography, and math. (See the book FedEd.)

Tucker's NCEE changes to "for-profit".
According to an article in Education Week, November 17, 2004, Tucker's star is fading under the Bush administration. Federal grants that were "once lavished on it" are harder to come by. As a result, last year, Tucker's NCEE reinvented itself as a for-profit company, with Tucker himself as the majority shareholder. The EdWeek article states:

"Like other nonprofit initiatives involved in comprehensive school reform, America's Choice no longer can attract the large sums of money that foundations and the federal government once lavished on it for research and development. Instead, it sees its future tied to the delivery of services to help schools improve... That growing market niche for services has been richly supported by federal grants and by funding distributed by states. Some states have endorsed and steered districts toward specific improvement programs or lists of programs...Mississippi, for example, has a contract with America's Choice..."

Tucker went on to explain to EdWeek that America's Choice needs new money to expand to serve thousands of schools, rather than hundreds. Tucker's group has used more than $100 million of foundation and federal grant money over the past 15 years to develop its curriculum and training materials. Now those resources "have largely dried up," Tucker stated.

How did Tucker get a private presentation to MN legislators?
St. Paul Superintendent Pat Harvey is a protégé and former employee of Marc Tucker. She has aggressively promoted America's Choice in St. Paul schools, and next week she keynotes Tucker's national conference on America's Choice in Orlando, Florida.  Harvey's office also played a key role in getting Tucker's group three private briefings with the legislators.

In a slick insider job, an employee from Pat Harvey's St. Paul School District headquarters approached DFL Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson and Republican Speaker of the House Sviggum with a proposed letter to be sent out to all legislators signed by the legislative leaders, directing the legislators to attend three evening forums and receptions in February. Called "the Capital Forum Series 2005," the forums are sponsored by the Minneapolis Foundation, which also receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grant money ($390,000 in 2003).

The forums are about "transformational" education. As the letter to legislators stated, the forums are about "transformational issues and trends affecting public education today that may have significant impact on into the future." Transformational education is all about changing society, not about educating the student. (See McGraw Hill textbook website.)

The forums are also about changing Minnesota's laws and schools. The letter to legislators stated that the forums will "reflect on educational policies we can enact now that will affect long-term outcomes for Minnesota's children."  The first forum features Marc Tucker himself on Feb. 9th. On Feb. 16th and on Feb. 23rd, two other close Tucker associates are featured, one of them being Lauren Resnick (see above). In other words, Tucker is pushing his radical transformational agenda.

Senate Minority Leader Dick Day and Senate Republicans refuse to sign on.
Tucker maneuvered himself and his new NCEE into being personally promoted by Minnesota legislative leaders. Sen. Dean Johnson and Speaker Sviggum were quick to sign the letter, as was the House minority leader, Matt Entenza. Sen. Dick Day and the Republican Senate minority refused.

Julie M. Quist
EdWatch Director

All quotes from the http://www.edwatch.org/ website