NJ Ed Commissioner Cerf is Literally In Charge of Dog S#!^

Folks, there are days when I just can't believe what I have to report:

The state education commissioner has overturned the termination of Haddon Township High School’s athletic director, who in May 2012 was caught on camera placing dog feces on his ex-wife’s car in the school parking lot. 

Just months before, Alan Carr also lied to school administrators about secretly putting an upsetting newspaper article in his ex-wife’s mailbox, records show.
Carr and his ex-wife, also a teacher at the high school, had divorced shortly before the actions occurred.

An administrative law judge initially ruled in April to revoke Carr’s tenure, saying “his ability to serve as a proper example for students has been severely compromised.” The district school board had contended Carr’s behavior violated its anti-bullying policy and warranted dismissal from his tenured position. 

But Commissioner Chris Cerf this week said that punishment would go too far. 

Cerf said Carr’s actions, “although reprehensible, were not as egregious as the conduct that has been reported in some prior cases relating to teacher termination.” He also noted the “highly improper” incident “stemmed from a domestic incident not associated with (Carr’s) school duties.” [emphasis mine]

Obviously, I don't know all the particulars, so I won't comment on whether Carr is guilty or not. But here we have yet another incident where Chris Cerf seems more than happy to throw himself into a matter of local school governance and render a decision solely on the basis of his personal judgement.

You'll remember when Cerf overturned the decision of the Perth Amboy BOE to fire their controversial superintendent, Janine Caffrey. But that was just one of a series of events that point to a pattern of autocracy throughout New Jersey's school system.

Now, I understand that New Jersey's laws give the Commissioner the right to render judgements on all matters arising under school law. But the Commissioner also has an obligation to show restraint when overturning the decision of both a local school board and an administrative judge. In other words: he better have a damn good reason for reversing a previous decision. Does he?

Cerf said Carr’s actions, “although reprehensible, were not as egregious as the conduct that has been reported in some prior cases relating to teacher termination.” He also noted the “highly improper” incident “stemmed from a domestic incident not associated with (Carr’s) school duties.” 

Cerf instead said Carr must forfeit 120 days’ pay that had already been withheld as a result of his tenure charge. He said Carr also must give up a future salary increase and is to be suspended for an additional six months without pay.

Cerf is saying that there needs to be leniency here on Carr's behalf, because this arose out of a personal relationship. But even if the incident came out of a domestic dispute, these two people were still coworkers. Since when does the Commissioner have the right to overstep both a school board and an administrative judge in a matter of workplace harassment? Would Cerf have been OK with the termination if Carr's victim had not been his ex-wife?

Cerf implies that more egregious behavior has been let slide before. But I very much doubt there are many cases on file of ex-spouses who are employed at the same school engaging in behavior this outrageous. In other words, Cerf is making a value judgement; he's weighing the conduct here against other, separate cases. It seems to me that he ought not to do that unless there is a clear indication that the charges against Carr are frivolous, politically motivated, or fraudulent.

For that matter, what training does Cerf have to adjudicate these matters? I know he went to law school and clerked with Sandra Day O'Connor (admittedly, that's impressive), but I don't think he's ever been in a position to render legal judgments. His confirmation hearing certainly never hit on his qualifications to hear such matters, let alone determine what is and isn't a fair punishment. Does Chris Cerf really have the skills, training and standing to be able to make what is a legal determination in contradiction to a qualified administrative law judge?

Now, some of you may think I'm being inconsistent, because I am a strong supporter of teacher tenure. But it seems to me that the process worked exactly as it should have. Carr received due process; he was removed from his position. That's all tenure is: a guarantee of due process.

But when someone like Cerf comes in and, for all intents and purposes, vacates the decisions that follow from the process, it calls into question the validity of the entire system. How do I or any other educator know this can't happen the other way as well? What if the Commissioner decides to overturn an arbitrator's decision in favor of a teacher on a tenure charge simply because he decides he wants to?

No one can trust New Jersey's tenure laws if the decisions of administrative judges are overturned on the Commissioner's whims.

Again, I'm not privy to the particulars of this case, and even if I were, I'm not a lawyer. Maybe Carr was treated unfairly. But if Cerf is going to, once again, strip away local control, he should tread very lightly. Or he might wind up stepping in the same stuff Carr smeared over his ex-wife's car.

NJ education law, that is!

Philadelphia Superintendent Hite: Extortionist

William Hite, Philadelphia's latest superintendent, wants more money for the city's schools. And he figures the only way he can get it is to sell out his teachers:

William R. Hite Jr. knows it's a tough ask: $120 million from a state that historically views Philadelphia and its public schools "as a cesspool." 

So, the superintendent figures, the only way the nearly-broke Philadelphia School District is getting the cash it needs from state coffers is to end teacher seniority. 

"If we stand any chance to get money from Harrisburg, it's going to have to support something that is different from what we have now," Hite told the Inquirer Editorial Board on Thursday, adding that legislators are unlikely to support a system where "individuals get another increase just because they're remaining on the job another year." [emphasis mine]

First of all, if the teachers in Philly did give up their seniority, and Hite got all that money, how much was he planning on giving to the teachers? Because it seems to me that if their acquiescence is all that's required, they should get it all.

Think that'll happen?

Second: on behalf of Philly's teachers, I challenge Dr. Hite to present any compelling evidence whatsoever that ending seniority improves student outcomes. Just about every developed country uses seniority in its school staffing and/or compensation decisions. Eliminating seniority probably wouldn't save much money, and the unforeseen consequences may be severe, especially given how imprecise "quality-based" layoffs would be.

The truth is that Hite and Harrisburg want to end seniority not because that policy has been shown to improve student achievement; they want to end seniority because they want to dump their failures on to teachers.

The conservatives running the state have failed to provide the children of Philadelphia with the resources necessary to the run the schools; they have also failed to provide the housing, health care, public safety, economic development, and other infrastructures necessary to ensure that the city's young can grow up to lead productive lives.

They've failed because they are the puppets of a ruling class that has subverted the political system to its own ends. Governor Tom Corbett pushed Pennsylvania to spend more on prisons than on higher education. The state has led the way in expanding the growth of for-profit cyber-charters, which have been a fiscal and educational train wreck. Edu-pirates like Vahan Gureghian have paid for the campaigns of Corbett and his fellow conservative travelers; in return, they have abdicated their oversight responsibilities, allowing Gureghian to become a very rich man at the expense of the poorest children in the state.

But even worse: these politicians have refused to address the chronic poverty, immoral inequality, and regressive taxation that has crippled the Keystone State:

To be fair: Pennsylvania isn't alone. This pattern is to be found all across America: the working poor and middle class are working harder, making less, and paying more in taxes. Meanwhile, the plutocrats - like Eli Broad - spend their money training urban superintendents - like William Hite - to come into large cities and blame the shameful lot of their poor children on teacher seniority. Incredibly, they make the case that fixing all of their failures is not nearly as important as eliminating LIFO.

Of course, the nice thing about being a lackey to the rich is that you're never asked to sacrifice either:

IT'S NO secret that the School District of Philadelphia is facing its own fiscal cliff.

The district asked its blue-collar union to forgo wage increases and give back money to the district last summer as school closures loomed. Just two weeks ago, district officials were forced to borrow another $300 million from Wall Street to pay its bills.

So, why is the district giving out pay raises to certain groups?

The grumblings among district workers began to rise this month when word leaked that 25 nonunion employees had received salary increases since the summer.

"The environment is so negative right now. They might be sitting next to someone who got a raise," said one employee who works at district headquarters, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It doesn't do well for morale right now."

The beneficiaries of the $311,351 in increases, which average $12,454 per year, work primarily in information technology, human resources, finance and grants, and compliance. [emphasis mine]

Hite's plea for teachers to give up their hard-fought workplace protections would have a lot more credence if his central office was sharing in the pain. But that's not how the Broad-funded world of big city education works these days. The little money that these districts get flows away from the classroom and towards hacky consultants, petty bureaucrats, and incompetent "researchers" (trust me, if anyone knows about this, it's us New Jerseyans).

So even if Hite's faustian bargain was legitimate, and more money would come to Philly if teachers gave up their seniority protections, there's no guarantee that the money would wind up going to any part of the budget that would actually help kids.

If Hite wants to make his case against seniority, let him make it. But demanding that teachers cave to his demands in exchange for adequate school funding is extortion. Philadelphia's teachers have already shown they aren't going to take this crap lying down. The rest of us need to tell them we've got their backs while they continue to stand up to these bullies.

Billy Hite is our kind of guy!

Great Moments In White People Cluelessness

From Matt Kramer, Co-CEO of Teach For America:

As white person, I thk role of white ppl in ed reform is a fair Q. But, I believe answer lies in allyship, not abdicating responsibility.

So please don't get so upset, black parents, when Matt sends privileged, young, white, untrained, unqualified, uncommitted "teachers" into your children's schools, even as TFA racks up a billion dollars and shoves career teachers out on to the street.

After all, he's willing to admit it's "fair" to talk about race - just so long as you agree to engage in "allyship" with him. Golly, aren't you lucky?

Once again, I am reminded of a quote from a local resident regarding the state of the schools in Newark, NJ:

“The foundations are interfering with public education and dividing our community,” says Cassandra Dock, a local resident. “Leave us alone. We don’t want white people coming in here and doing what they do — taking over. Destroy and leave.” [emphasis mine]

Ouch.

(h/t the great EduShyster)

Charter Schools = Wingnut Welfare

No one who reads this blog will be at all surprised by this:

Last year, I wrote about fake Democrat Cody Bailey who had his ass handed to him by now-State Representative David Knezek. Bailey barely beat a candidate in the Democratic primary who didn’t even run a campaign and got his clock cleaned by Knezek. As I outlined in my expose, Bailey was anything but a Democrat and ran one of the sleaziest, most fact-challenged campaigns in my experience.

Imagine my (non) surprise to discover this week that Bailey, at the tender age of 22, is now the president of the Taylor Preparatory High School in Grand Rapids Taylor, a for-profit charter high school that opens in the fall. What qualifies Bailey to be the president of an educational institution with a lofty mission of being “a bridge to a life well lived” for high schoolers? In a word (well, two words): not much. [emphasis mine]

That's right, folks: Michigan didn't have enough money (until the last minute) to keep the public schools in Buena Vista running, but they can support a charter school run by a 22-year-old with no education training.

When Bailey ran for the Michigan statehouse, he was endorsed by StudentsFirst: that made him one of only 15 non-Republicans SF supported out of a total of 105 candidates in that cycle. After reading Bailey's story, I can't help but wonder how many of those 15 were also stealth conservatives, running as Democrats because it was the only way they could win in their districts.

Well, Bailey did his part to support Republican Governor Rick Snyder's assault on public education, and now he gets his reward: his very own charter school. What do you think the prospects are for Taylor Prep's "success"? Yeah, me too...

Mark my words: this wasn't the first, and it won't be the last time a political hack is "rewarded" this way for his fealty to the privatization cause. Charter schools are a great way to pay off cronies and fellow travelers. State education departments, if they aren't already, will soon become the new Tammany Halls, where any incompetent "reformer" can run his own school - as long as he plays for the right team.

Everybody gets a taste...

Nobody Likes Public School Destroyers

Maybe he thought they were going to lay palms at his feet?

No one booed. 

But the graduates of Millersville University didn't exactly cheer Gov. Tom Corbett either Saturday. 

In introducing Corbett as the class of 2013's commencement speaker, Michael Warfel, chairman of the Council of Trustees, explained the difficult fiscal conditions the governor has faced, highlighting the state's looming pension crisis. He noted that Corbett has signed two budgets on time. 

Warfel didn't mention education funding. 

That has been a major cause of contention on campus since Corbett was announced as the speaker. Students and faculty questioned how approprate it was for the governor who twice proposed massive funding cuts for state universities like Millersville to send graduates off into the world. Petitions were signed and there was talk of protest. 

As Corbett stepped to the microphone, about a dozen students turned their chairs away from the stage. Early in his speech, the governor asked the graduates to stand. A few dozen more remained seated. When it became clear Corbett wanted them to wave to their parents in the stadium, some stood, some waved from their seats, some sat motionless. One student had "Game of Loans" written on her mortarboard. 

About half of the faculty members wore yellow pins reading "I support public education." A few of the professors turned their chairs as well. 

The black armband protest that had been discussed on campus in the days and weeks leading up to graduation did not appear to materialize. 

Cobrett's speech itself was a generic May recitation. [emphasis mine]

An empty speech from an empty man - no surprise. Corbett has been terrible, not only for Philadelphia, but for the entire state. He took piles of money from edu-pirate Vahan Gureghian, then turned a blind eye as Gureghian destroyed Chester's schools. He's allowed cyber-charters to fester across Pennsylvania, costing the taxpayers millions and children their educations. His legacy is an approval rating that's in the toilet.

And yet corporatist governors around the country - Republican and Democratic alike - seem to think the money they get from plutocrats will offset the voters' growing disgust with the anti-public school agenda. They're hoping against hope that Chris Christie is the rule, and not the exception.

Take it from a Jersey boy, folks: if Superstorm Sandy hadn't hit, Christie would be in trouble, and we'd have a contested Democratic primary to decide who gets to go after him. Christie's re-elect numbers were 44 percent before the storm; they're 71 percent after. Why were they so bad before? Because everyone was tired of his anti-teacher, anti-public schools schtick.

I suppose Corbett could hope he gets his own natural disaster...

Trust me, Tom: you need a superstorm to save you!

God Bless Oklahoma

Any time a school is slammed by tragedy, we all feel a special, terrible pain.

Stay safe, everyone. Posting resumes tomorrow.

Bloomberg Blows Up the Reformy Argument

When the mayor of Reformytown admits one of the fundamental arguments of the corporate reformers is wrong, that's news:

Some advice from career counselor Mayor Bloomberg: If you are a so-so high school student, steer clear of college — and learn to clear clogged drains. 

Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show Friday that going to trade school to become a plumber is a better economic bet for many teenagers than obtaining an undergraduate degree. 

“The people who are going to have the biggest problem are college graduates who aren’t rocket scientists, if you will, not at the top of their class,” he said.

Oh, my - there are more than a few of Bloomberg's compatriots who wouldn't agree with that sentiment. Start (all emphases mine) with SecEd Arne Duncan:

In today's global economy a college education is no longer just a privilege for some, but rather a prerequisite for all. In the last year, 60% of jobs went to those with at least a bachelor's degree, and 90 percent to those with at least some college. Over the next decade, as many as two-thirds of all new jobs will require education beyond high school. Along with Vice President Biden and other senior Department of Education and Administration leaders, we have held town hall discussions around the country to stress the importance of higher education. We want to make sure that all students - regardless of income, race, or background - have the opportunity to cross the finish line.

Joel Klein:

From 1960 to 1980, our supply of college graduates increased at almost 4 percent a year; since then, the increase has been about half as fast. The net effect is that we’re rapidly moving toward two Americas—a wealthy elite, and an increasingly large underclass that lacks the skills to succeed.

Geoffrey Canada:

The only benchmark of success is college graduation. That's the only one: How many kids you got in college, how many kids you got out. Everything else is interim. 

The Gates Foundation:

A college education is the gateway to the American middle class, with college graduates earning substantially more than those without a degree. But low-income students are 28% less likely to finish college than those in higher income brackets, and the education gap is widening.

Barack Obama:

President Barack Obama's assistant secretary for postsecondary education told higher education leaders gathered in Boulder on Wednesday that the country is slipping in the proportion of people with college degrees and losing its competitive edge globally. 

The United States has slipped from first to ninth when it comes to the number of 24- to 29-year-olds with postsecondary degrees, said Eduardo Ochoa, a top official with the U.S. Department of Education. 

Ochoa was a guest speaker at the St. Julien Hotel & Spa, addressing the higher education officials convened for the 58th annual meeting of the State Higher Education Executive Officers. 

Ochoa said that Obama has outlined a goal to increase the number of Americans with postsecondary degrees from 40 percent to 60 percent by 2020.

Looks like the rest of the reformy world is out of step with the reformiest mayor in America. The truth is that Bloomberg is on to something - he just doesn't go far enough.

Rational people understand that not everyone should go to college; there are plenty of other ways talented people can have careers without earning degrees. The problem for most workers these days, however - college-educated or not - is that their wages have stagnated while America's productivity has increased.

The culprits responsible for this sate of affairs are the wealthy plutocrats - like Bloomberg - who have set up a system where nearly all the productivity gains are concentrated in the earnings of the wealthy. So it doesn't matter whether someone goes to college or becomes a plumber: no matter their career choice, they are less and less likely to have a decent middle-class life.

Further, Bloomberg and the college-pushers never want to talk about the millions of workers in America who are doing low-skill but necessary jobs while living what most other advanced countries would call an unacceptably squalid lifestyle. We need salesclerks and bricklayers and truck drivers and nurses aides and landscapers and food service workers and farmhands and all sorts of other workers. Yet these people are living paycheck-to-paycheck, with no health or dental care, little time or money for recreation, and no chance for a dignified retirement.

It's an immoral situation - and it has nothing to do with our education system. We can't continue to exploit the hard labor of millions of our fellow Americans, and then declaim that the problem is they aren't "college or career ready," when we need these people to do these jobs.

"College or career ready" is a favorite expression of Common Core guru and potty mouth David Coleman. I have to wonder: who cuts his lawn? Who pumps his gas? Who washes his dishes when he goes out to eat? Who picks his lettuce? Who will empty his bedpan when he's in a hospice bed taking his final breaths? Will Coleman's proselytizing of the Common Core gospel do anything to help the workers he relies on every day?

Those people are our fellow Americans, and they are doing necessary work. Yet no one in our little education passion plays these days ever acknowledges that this country wouldn't survive without them. And no one wants to admit that focusing on education "reform" won't do a damn thing to stop their exploitation.

I'm all for changing the system to a real meritocracy, where everyone gets access to high-quality education at the earliest age, and access to college is available cheaply to all who have the talent and the desire. I think it's fundamentally unfair that Bill Gates's and Mike Bloomberg's kids get to go to schools with small class sizes and lots of extra-curriculars, setting them up for elite college admission, while the working poor continue to send their children to testing factories disguised as schools that set them up to remain in the proletariat.

But arguing about whether college is the path to the middle class or not is a distraction. The real issue is that work of all types -  professional, skilled, and unskilled - is being devalued because Gates and Bloomberg and their ilk have set up a system where the vast money of the money flows to them. Charter school expansion and the Common Core won't change that.

Making people like Bloomberg and Gates finally start paying their fair share in taxes and breaking up the monopolies in the media, however, just might.

Instead of going to college, I should have been a cowboy!

Latest "Chiefs For Change" Fail: Bowen in ME #2

I just posted about Maine "Chief For Change," Stephen Bowen, and how he's had to back off on plans - written by his patron, Jeb! Bush - to fast-track for-profit virtual charter schools into the state.

Before we move on to another state and another CFC Fail, however, let's take a moment to enjoy the twisted logic of Commissioner Bowen:

Second, the Press Herald seems to feel that the new A-F grading system suffers from a fatal flaw because it does not discriminate between schools in more affluent areas of the state and those in less affluent areas. The paper seems to suggest that the department should have developed a grading system with one set of performance standards for wealthy areas and a second, presumably lower, set of standards for poorer areas.

Developing such a two-tier system was never a consideration for the administration, however, for the simple reason that we don't share the Press Herald's view that students in less affluent communities are necessarily destined, by virtue of where they live, to struggle in school.

There is, of course, a correlation, well supported in the research and illustrated by the grading system, between the income and education levels of families and the academic achievement of their children. There are also plenty of examples, however, in Maine and across the nation, of schools in very poor communities achieving extraordinary results for the students they serve.

All the negative press about how the new grading system is unfair to poor communities ignores the fact that a number of schools in poor communities across Maine earned an A or B in our grading system. Nearly 80 percent of the students attending Phillips Elementary School, for instance, qualify for free or reduced-price school lunch, yet the school earned an A for its students' high achievement. [emphasis mine]

There are layers and layers of reformy illogic to dig through here:

- If the correlation between income and education levels is "illustrated by the grading system,"how can you say for sure you're measuring school effectiveness, and not poverty levels?

Here's a tool that shows the correlation between student poverty and Maine's school grading system. The high school results:

And the elementaries (annotation mine):

It appears that Maine's school grades are strongly correlated to poverty levels for those schools.

We've seen this before:

There is a reason why over 97 percent of Florida’s lowest-poverty schools receive A or B grades, and virtually every one of the schools receiving a D or F have poverty rates above the median. It’s because schools are judged largely by absolute performance, and students from higher-income families tend to score higher on tests.

Same thing in Ohio. And Indiana (outstanding work here, as always, by Matt DiCarlo). 

I suppose Bowen would argue that, because the Maine school evaluation system uses both "growth" and "absolute performance" to judge schools, it wouldn't have as strong a correlation between poverty and performance. We'll leave aside the fact that there is substantial evidence that there is a correlation between poverty and "growth" (contrary to the statements of Bowen's fellow CFC, New Jersey's Chris Cerf); the problem remains the same:

If you aren't judging schools on absolute performance to begin with, aren't you in effect admitting high-poverty schools should be judged differently than low-poverty schools?

- Outliers are not proof that causation doesn't exist. This is one of the greatest hits of reformy types like the CFCs, and it needs to be put down once and for all: the existence of an outlier does not disprove a causal effect between two variables. For example:

• There is a correlation between between smoking and cancer rates.
• But there are some people who smoke and don't get cancer.
• Therefore, smoking doesn't "cause" cancer.

Yes, we hear it all the time from the reformy side: "correlation is not causation." But you can't just throw away mounds of inferential evidence because you found a few outliers; that's irresponsible and irrational. Even if Phillips Elementary appears to "beat the odds," that's no reason to believe that Bowen's A-F school grading system isn't biased.

Further, if you're going to investigate why an outlier outperforms its expectations, you have to be rigorous; you can't just say, "They're awesome!" and be done with it. Phillips Elementary does, indeed, do better than the school grading trend-line - the question is "how?" Is it really a superior school? Or is this the result of statistical noise or bias? Is the data used for grading not accurate or precise enough?

Bowen doesn't want to venture a guess, but maybe he should take a look at the school's demographic profile:

Special Education: 13.64%
(State Average Demographics, Grades K-8 Special Education: 13.9%)  

Free/Reduced-Price Lunch: 70.7%
(State Average Demographics, Grades K-8 Free/Reduced-Price Lunch: 48.72%)  

Limited English Proficiency: 0%
(State Average Demographics, Grades K-8 Limited English Proficiency: 2.15%) 

Location: Phillips, Maine
Enrollment: 154

So, yes, Phillips has more kids in poverty than the average for Maine, but no kids who are LEP. And it's a tiny school - 154 kids for grades K through 8. A population that small - a school that had 13 Eighth Grade students in 2010-11 - could easily be subject to significant swings in test scores year-to-year.

Again: how did Phillips get a good grade in spite of it's large FRPL population? What can be learned here that can be broadly applied across the state? Unless and until Bowen is prepared to give a serious answer, he ought not to be holding up any outlier as proof that his school grading system is fair.

- There is very little evidence that an A-F grading system will help "failing" schools improve substantially. Earlier this week, I blogged about Matthew Ladner - writing for Jeb!'s FEE website - and his contention that research shows Florida's A-F school grading system has improved low-performing schools. I found the evidence Ladner presented, based on the NAEP, to be very weak, but he also included a reference to a paper from the Urban Institute that purports to show real gains in test scores when a school is hit with a grade of "F."

However, as one of my commenters pointed out:

Am I reading this wrong or does the Urban Institute report at best, in math, give the grading system credit for 38% of a 6 to 14% of a SD gain? So... a 2% to 5% SD gain? They're hanging their hat on that?

Go to pages 4 and 5 of the report, and you'll see my commenter is correct about the reported gains and how they were attributed to the A-F accountability system. This is very weak tea, and it's certainly not indicative of any real, practical improvements in instruction.


So, no, there's no reason to think Stephen Bowen's school grading method is fair toward schools with higher levels of poverty. There's no reason to think it will help improve Maine's schools. And there's no reason to think chanting "poverty is not destiny" over and over again is going to make the correlation between income and test scores go away.

And if there's no reason to think any of this in Maine, there's no reason to think it in any of the other little educational fiefdom's Jeb!'s Chiefs For Change have set up for themselves.

Data gives me a headache...

Latest "Chiefs For Change" Fail: Bowen in ME

For the next installment of our "Chiefs For Change Fail" series, let's head up north to Maine, where the very reformy Stephen Bowen has had to confront the reality that his push for virtual learning is hardly universally popular:

A group of digital-education experts is recommending that Maine create an online directory to help school districts and teachers find, choose and write reviews of digital learning resources. 

But the 17-member group's report and "digital learning strategy" is most notable for what it doesn't recommend: the sweeping policy changes advocated by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, which seek to remove a range of state restrictions and limitations on how digital learning products are accessed, supervised and funded. 

The six-page report, overseen and composed by Maine Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen, suggests that Gov. Paul LePage's administration has slowed its effort to implement the controversial provisions of the Bush foundation's Digital Learning Now! initiative. [emphasis mine]

Jeb!'s FEE is, of course, nothing more than a front for the education-industrial complex, especially the virtual learning sector. FEE has basically written the legislation in Maine that would have opened the floodgates to virtual schools, which have a terrible track record nationwide.

Well, unlike many other states, at least the Democrats in Maine have figured out that giving buckets of money to the Tisch family so they can slap up "schools" with no requirements for instructional time or class size is probably a losing proposition with the voters:

The nation's two largest online-education companies -- K12 Inc. and Connections Learning -- have been seeking to manage virtual charter schools in Maine, but have been rebuffed by the Maine Charter School Commission.

Virtual charter schools -- which are funded by taxpayers -- have a poor record nationally. In other states, K12 Inc. has faced investigations and the revocation of charters for some of its schools.

In party-line votes Monday, the Legislature's Education Committee recommended passage of bills that would impose a moratorium on virtual charter schools and effectively ban for-profit charter schools.

Of course, you can count on Governor Paul LePage to veto any such moratorium; after all, that's why K12 Inc. pays him the big bucks.

Unfortunately for LePage and Bowen, all that campaign money, and all that lobbying by K12, can't change the sad fact that virtual schooling is a disaster that the voters do not want to support. And they can try to back away from it now, saying they're "slowing down" because "there's more work to be done," but that won't change the fact that cyber charters suck.

If LePage and Bowen want to keep their jobs, they're going to have to decide who they are loyal to: Jeb! Bush, the Tisches, and K12 Inc....

... or the taxpayers and students of Maine.

If Bowen puts the students' needs first, how can I make any money?!

Latest "Chiefs For Change" Fail: Skandera in NM

Jeb! Bush's "Chiefs For Change" are a group of state-level education chiefs that few educators, administrators, parents or public officials seem to like or trust. The reaction to their autocratic, reformy ways is a pretty good barometer of how the corporate reform movement is being received.

Thus, a new series here at the Jazzman: "Chiefs For Change" Fail. Let's begin with Hanna Skandera out in New Mexico:

DPNM Chair Sam Bregman called for Secretary-Designate Skandera to tender her resignation immediately, as unqualified, un-confirmable and for her unprecedented attempt to ignore the New Mexico State Senate and confirm herself as Secretary of the New Mexico Public Education Department.

“Governor Martinez has nominated a polarizing, partisan consultant as Public Education Secretary.  Ms. Skandera is unqualified, cannot get confirmed after three legislative sessions and has set herself above the law, ignoring the authority of the New Mexico State Legislature. She has bestowed the title ‘Secretary of Education’ upon herself because she dislikes the process.  This display of arrogance is a flagrant abuse of power and indicates the disdain Ms. Skandera and Governor Martinez have for the legislature and the laws of New Mexico.  Ms. Skandera should resign now,” stated Chairman Bregman.

Currently, the two nominees for state cabinet departments, David Martin, Energy and Minerals and Ryan Flynn, Department of the Environment, are following state law and using secretary-designate for their job titles. [emphasis mine]

But they don't have Jeb! backing them! After all, he's a Bush! And laws are for little people...

I always told the boys: "Don't waste your beautiful mind with pesky details like the law!"