Corporate Reformers: Architects of Apartheid Education

Corporate Reformers: Architects of Apartheid Education

Alfie Kohn, a leading author and lecturer on progressive education, spoke Thursday evening at Macalester college in St. Paul, MN as part of the Theodore Mitau Lecture Series.  The event was hosted by Macalester's political science department.  A regular speaker at education conferences, Kohn noted the unique setting and focused more on educational policy than pedagogy.  His speech was titled, "Many Children Left Behind: "School Reform" and Corporate-Style Education Policy."

Kohn highlighted a number of destructive features of the corporate education reforms.  Among these, he discussed the increasingly poor experience forced on children who have historically been the most underserved: children of color, low-income students, English language learners, and special education students..   He was visibly angered by what the corporate reformers are doing to the children they claim to be trying to help, such as depriving them of recess time and exposure to the arts and music.   He also highlighted the "reformers" obsession with competition as a strategy to improve schools, as they ignore the fact that competition means there must be "losers."

Corporate reformers have been using the "invisible hand" of the "free market" to actively destroy our system of universal public education for decades.  Blind faith in competition has resulted in each school "marketing" itself to earn "customers."  In Minneapolis, it means our school district (MPS) holds its annual School Fair Showcase in which representatives from each school are pitted against one another, encouraged to persuade confused parents and students that their school is best.  This process has been corrupted further as politicians and "reformers" have convinced much of the public that test scores are the best way to determine the quality of a school.

The School Fair Showcase coincides with the time of year when mailboxes have almost daily postcards from local charter schools also vying for "customers."  My family received a card from a local charter school chain that operates one of their schools just a few blocks from our home.  It is operated and supported by the First Family of corporate education reformers here in Minnesota - the Kramers.

We could play a game of Six Degrees of Separation with the Kramers and all the corporate reform groups in Minnesota, but that would be a little boring.  The Kramers are either part of every major corporate reform group in the state, or just one "degree" away.  Edushyster has also documented some of the family's connections, but here are the highlights.

The Kramers - Minnesota's First Family of Corporate Education.

The family patriarch is Joel Kramer.  Joel made his fortune in the newspaper business and is now the CEO and editor of an online newspaper called Minnpost.  His wife, Laurie, is the Chief Revenue Officer for Minnpost.

Beth Hawkins is Minnpost's education "reporter."  Hawkins, must hold a record for the most "news" stories with a disclaimer. Her numerous articles about charter schools and the various corporate reform groups inevitably have ties to the Kramers, which compels her to try and distance herself from them.  Hawkins appears concerned with being seen as an "unbiased reporter" results in dislaimers that commonly include the following, "none of the aforementioned Kramers has been associated with any of my reporting on CSP or Hiawatha, except for that whole check-signing bit."

While Minnpost is a mouthpiece for the local corporate reformers, Joel's sons, Matt and Eli, are the two main actors.  Both sons grew up in Minnesota, got their starts in corporate education reform in New York, and both are back in Minnesota pushing the corporate agenda.

Matt Kramer originally worked for McKinsey and Company, a company that has played a lead role in the attacks on public education.  In 2005, he went to work for Teach for America (TFA), and is now the Co-Chief Executive Officer for TFA.  Matt's wife, Katie Barrett Kramer, is the Director for Academic Excellence at Charter School Partners in Minnesota.  She had been a TFA corp member in New York and was also a founding board member of Hiawatha Leadership Academy, a charter school in Minneapolis, part of the same Hiawatha Academies that recently sent me a postcard.

Eli Kramer was a 2003 TFA corp member and later worked for the Uncommon Schools, a Charter Management Organization (CMO) in New York.  Eli is now the Executive Director of Hiawatha Academy, the same charter school organization for which his sister-in-law served as a founding board member.  Eli's wife, Jessica Cordova Kramer, also started as a TFA corp member (2005).  She is now the "Vice President, Strategy & Operations, Alumni Affairs at Teach For America."

Hiawatha Academies: Charter Schools for "Other People's Children"

Hiawatha Academies started in 2007 and consists of two elementary schools and a middle school.  Eli Kramer is the Executive Director for all three schools, but his wife, brother, and sister-in-law all have a stake in the schools.  Current and former TFA corp members make up 65% of the charter schools' staff.  Matt Kramer and Jessica Cordova Kramer's have positions in TFA, and Katie Barrett Kramer is connected to Hiawatha both as an original board member and her postition at Charter School Partners (CSP).  Hiawatha Academies are CPS "Partner School."

So when an entire family is invested the corporate reform movement, and three Minneapolis charter schools in particular, what kind of education do they provide for their mostly low-income students and students of color?

Hiawatha Academy charters are schools that value compliance and test scores over critical thinking.  They are schools that indoctrinate rather than inspire.  As Alfie Kohn would say, they are schools that confuse rigor with learning, and they are schools in which scholars (what most of us know as students) have to "earn" their desks and chairs. 

Beth Hawkins wrote a story about Adelante College Prep, in which she seems to celebrate this disturbing approach to education.  Praising the atmosphere of compliance at Hiawatha Academy, Hawkins wrote, "students are spending the [first] week [of school] on mats in the lunchroom “earning” their chairs, desks and school shirts by getting one thing after another right."  She also noted that the 5th and 6th graders spent 90 minutes walking the halls the day she was there.  They had to do it until they all walked "single-file, in silence."  What was the teachers' rationale for this boot camp approach?  Teachers told their students, "In college... people walk in ones and twos conversing in soft voices."  Really?  That must be how students behave at Harvard where Eli Kramer went to school because I did not notice that at the University of Minnesota.

Students at Hiawatha Charter schools start at 7:50 a.m. and go until 4:15 p.m. (except on Fridays when they finish at 2 p.m.).  They start their school year in the third week of August and finish the third week of June.  This allows the school to boast of 40% more instructional time than a "traditional public school."  However, this extra time is filled with test prep and testing--and the school's calendar list little more than which test happens which day.

All of this begs a question.  Would Matt and Katie, or Eli and Jessica send their own children to the schools they operate, support, and profit from?  I do not know the Kramers personally, but it seems  the answer is no.

But why?  Why would they not want their own children to be "scholars...empowered with the knowledge, character, and leadership skills to graduate from college and serve the common good," as it says in Hiawatha Academy's mission statement?  Why would they not want "high expectations" and "40% more learning time than a traditional public school" for their own children?  Why would they not want their children to take numerous "standardized tests and other objective academic measures" to assess their "readiness for college and leadership?"

Not knowing the Kramers personally, maybe their own children will get to experience Hiawatha Academy's approach to school.  However, it seems they attend a very different school.  A school that sits kitty-corner from one of the  Kramer's charter schools.

The Best Education Money Can Buy

Adelante College Prep charter is Hiawatha Academy's middle school.  Just blocks from my own house, it is kitty corner from Lake Country School (LCS).  Lake Country is a private Montessori school with a pre-school, elementary, and middle school program.  Annual tuition at LCS ranges from $8,920 to $16,100.  As of last year, Matt, Katie, Eli, and Jessica were all listed as parents of children at Lake Country.  Do the children at Lake Country School have the same "rigorous" experience as the "scholars" of Adelante College Prep?

Lake Country's mission statement make no mention of "scholars" or "college-readiness."

"Lake Country School is a Montessori learning environment that fosters independence, critical thinking, and creativity within each child. We are a community that promotes diversity and inclusion, as well as respect and responsibility to self, to others, and to the earth."

I could only find two references to testing on Lake Country's calendar for the whole school year, and these references were hard to spot among the numerous field trips, class overnights, farm stays, community service days, potlucks, French week, sports and theater events. 

Lake Country School's website boasts about their experienced teaching staff.  60% of their staff has been there for more than a decade.  Compare that to Hiawatha Academy's Adelante College Prep across the street.  They boast of having 65% of their teachers as being Teach for America corp members or alumni.  TFA corp members receive only five weeks of training before entering their own classroom and are notorious for leaving the career within five years.

The curriculum of LCS is rich and student centered.  Their core values emphasize a Montessori approach that "nurtures the intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual potential of the whole child."  LCS focuses on building a "peaceful community" and encourages students to be "model citizens of a global community."  With respect to the "work" of learning, LCS promotes a "love of work" in an environment in which "children learn through purposeful activity carried out in developmentally appropriate urban and rural environments where the choice of meaningful work is expected and respected.

Compare that to Hiawatha's Adelante College Prep.  At Adelante, students are encouraged to "embody determination and relentless pursuit in the face of the economic, social, and political obstacles."  Adelante focuses on superficial details, calling on students to "complete 100% of their class work and homework, with special care taken in neatness and homework turned in on time."  Hiawatha focuses on the completion of tasks rather than depth of knowledge, critical thinking, and the needs of the whole child. 

Educational Apartheid

Eli and Matt Kramer not only sent their children to Lake Country School, but they are alumni themselves.  Eli went on to the private and prestigious Breck School in Minnesota, and Matt went to the equally elite Saint Paul Academy and Summit School(SPA).  Tuition at both schools is currently around $25,000 a year, and these schools all have less instructional time than "traditional public schools.  I do not think Breck or SPA offer the ideal educational experiences, but they are far better than what charter schools like Hiawatha Leadership Academy peddle.  Open, progressive, democratic schools in the mold of Maria Montessori, John Dewey, and Pablo Freire present the best hope for our students and our public schools.  The charter schools pushed by the corporate reformers are actually eating away at the types of public schools these educators advocated.

We have examples across the nation of corporate education reformers who reserve one form of education for themselves and their children and create another for "other people's children."   We see it with Obama sending his own children to Sidwell Friends School, and Rahm Emanuel sending his children to the University of Chicago Lab School.  R.T. Rybak, our former mayor of Minneapolis, turned full time corporate deformer, has also followed this path.  Edushyster has explained how the corporate education reformers push to create a two-tiered system of schools.

Photo by Ken Fager: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfagerdotcom/6152990410/in/set-72157627545238445/

Jonathan Kozol was not using hyperbole when he said, "Apartheid Education rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United States."  Corporate reformers are not fighting the "Civil Rights issue of our time," they are building an apartheid education system.  True progressives cannot be complicit.  We cannot be silent.  We must demand for all children, the education we want for our own.

Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United States.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jonathan_kozol.html#DPpGkHjgJjWhu277.99

Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United States.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jonathan_kozol.html#DPpGkHjgJjWhu277.99

Posted by Rob Panning-Miller

Teach for America: What do you mean were not exceptional?!

What do You Mean We are Not Exceptional?

June 14, 2013 was a dark day for Teach for America-Twin Cities and its neo-liberal backers.  It marked the second time in three weeks in Minnesota that TFA was rejected after having demanded that it be treated as the exceptional organization it pretends to be.

On Friday, May 24th, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed into law a higher education bill only after he line-item vetoed $1.5 million earmarked for TFA.  Crystal Brakke, the Executive Director of TFA-Twin Cities, claimed they needed the funding to train additional TFA corps members in the next two years.  Those corps members would have attended a five-week training before being put in front of classrooms full of students with the highest needs.  Of course that same $1.5 million dollars could have provided full two-year scholarships for those same college graduates to get a master's degree in education, including their student teaching, at the University of Minnesota.  I guess a two-year master's degree in education does not produce the same exceptional, transformational teachers that a five-week TFA summer training does?

On June14th, three weeks after the Governor's line-item veto of TFA's request for state money, the Minnesota Board of Teaching voted to discontinue a group license variance to TFA.  They had been granted this group variance for the past four years, but now TFA will actually have to play by the same rules as anyone else seeking a teaching license variance in Minnesota.  Corps members will now have to apply for a variance on an individual basis.  TFA and its supporters cannot believe they are being denied special treatment.  Surely their exceptional, transformational corps members deserve exceptional treatment, right?

Having effectively been told twice that they are not special, TFA leaders and supporters have been left completely dumbfounded and outraged. A number of tweets and quotes show how truly dismayed they are.

The somewhat low key Director of Teach for America - Twin Cities, Crystal Brakke at first responded to a Star Tribune reporter that the outcome was "disheartening."  By the end of the day, however, she was quoting an unknown philosopher and tweeted that "people will always shit on the things they're scared of."

The former Director of TFA - Twin Cities and now Director of MinnCAN, Daniel Sellers, did not hold back or hesitate in showing his contempt for those who failed to recognize the exceptional, transformational abilities he believes all TFA corps members possess.  He was quoted in the Star Tribune saying, "it’s unconscionable that many Board of Teaching members allowed politics and their allegiances to the teachers union to keep highly effective teachers from teaching in high-needs communities."

Brian Sweeney, director of external affairs for Charter School Partners (CSP) was quoted in Minnpost saying, “this is a 'Minnesota Nice' version of union thuggery.”  An MPR reporter quoted him saying, "There was little about what the classroom needs today and a lot about union politics. I think we've seen a coup d'etat today by the unions on Minnesota education policy." 

Minneapolis City Council member, mayoral candidate, and infamous opponent of public schools, Don Samuels said in a press release: "This is just the latest in a series of power-plays in the education debate that has no regard for its effect on students, schools, or the learning environment for our kids."

Finally summarizing the frustration and hurt feelings of the corporate reformers is the editorial board of our local corporate newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  On June 20th, a week after the decision, a Star Tribune's editorial echoed all the claims of TFA greatness, disparaged most teachers, chided the Board of Teaching for being influenced by the "all-powerful Education Minnesota teachers union," and declared colleges of education worthless.  This, as usual, was done by citing no evidence other than one "study" produced by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).  A "study" funded by the usual foundations like Broad and Dell, and locally by MinnCAN.

These are not the comments of bold reformers, but the simple arrogance of corporate reformers.  These comments come from people who use the "fierce urgency of now" as a cover for the fierce recklessness of neoliberalism.  These individuals argue for the use of data, but comfortably and brashly ignore the overwhelming data that exposes their hypocrisy and the destruction they bring to public schools.

Like Teach for America, the NCTQ has actually worked to deprofessionalize teaching and create short cuts to the classroom.  They don't blink at their own hypocrisy.  NCTQ created the "first national alternative to traditional teacher certification" called the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence.  Any state that accepted this would grant a teaching license to any applicant that has a "bachelor's degree, complete[s] a background check...pay[s] a $500 fee" and passes a computerized exam.  Wayne Au, a professor of education at the University of Washington - Bothell, describes the history NCTQ's "alternative certification" program and its board in the summer 2013 edition of Rethinking Schools.   The organization is a collection of "voucher proponents and advocates for privatizing schools."

The Star Tribune discredits colleges of education, claiming their students are not adequately prepared to face the challenges of the classroom.  They do this using a study that was paid for with money from foundations aimed at privatizing public schools and that recognize a strong teacher voice is their last major hurdle.  It is also a study done by an organization that argues teachers will be ready for the challenges of teaching with just a B.A. degree, passing scores on a standardized test, and $500.00.  This is even worse than TFA.

Daniel Sellers is typical of the neoliberal reformers as he declares completely inexperienced college graduates with five weeks of summer training "highly effective teachers."  Sellers, Sweeney, and Samuels argue our classrooms (students) will suffer because they may not have access to poorly trained and inexperienced TFA corps members.  Charter schools and the public school administrative sellouts may actually have to hire teachers who are actually licensed...maybe even with experience!

The local collection of corporate education deformers will continue to shed their crocodile tears for Minnesota students, while continuing their efforts to weaken teaching programs and dismantle our public schools.  TFA is not only not needed in Minnesota, it has become toxic for our students and students throughout the nation.

This past month has not been a victory for the status quo as the neoliberals would have us believe.  It has been quite the opposite.  There is no "all-powerful" teachers union, but there are true grassroots efforts that include union members working to liberate public schools from the corporate stranglehold.  We must continue to expose the hypocrisies and the true agenda of the neoliberal "reformers," and create truly democratic and socially just public schools.  Let's hope these small victories for public education are the beginning of the end of the corporate dominance of public education.

Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

FrankenGuild...It's Alive!

FrankenGuild... 

It's Alive!

The Monster
Two years ago the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) created the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools and were officially approved by the state to be a sponsor of charter schools.  This effort was financed by two Innovation Grants from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).  The Innovation Grants were funded in part by the Gates Foundation and the Eli Broad Foundation.

This is yet another attempt to do what Pasi Sahlberg called, "trying to do the wrong thing, righter."

Creators
Like our AFT and NEA presidents (Weingarten and Van Roekel), many of our local leaders in Minneapolis believe it is possible to work with those who are trying to privatize our public schools, or in this case, to beat them at their own game.  Both our current MFT President, Lynn Nordgren, and a former president, Louise Sundin, are behind this effort.  In fact both of them are board members of the Guild, along with Sandra Peterson, a former President of the Robbinsdale Federation of Teachers,  former President of the Minnesota Federation of Teachers and former Co-President of Education Minnesota.

They claim we can "show the reformers how to run a school."  While teachers should be an integral part of shared school leadership, the charter school system is a tool of the neo-liberal reformers.  Even if the Guild creates a "great" charter school, it will only empower the corporate reformer agenda.  You can't defeat the master, using the master's tools.

The Guild's Director is Brad Blue, a long-time educational entrepreneur, and a classic salesperson.  He sees no contradiction or irony in having the Guild sponsor a talk by Pasi Sahlberg, an opponent of the corporate reforms.  Mr. Blue has simultaneously worked as the Director of the Guild, while opening another charter school called Upper Mississippi Academy (UMA).  His UMA charter school was launched with the help of Charter School Partners and possibly the Walton Foundation, as noted on the Charter School Partners' blog:

Finally, since 2010, CSP has also assisted in the launch of eight other quality schools either through our Charter Start efforts or Walton Family Foundation support including Cornerstone Montessori (2010), Minneapolis College Prep (2011), Hennepin Elementary School (2012), Mastery School (2012), Adelante Prep (2012), Upper Mississippi Academy (2013), Prodeo Academy (2013), and Venture Academy (2013)).

Charter School Partners has a goal of opening 20 more charter schools in Minneapolis in the next five years.  Minneapolis is already one of the most charter-school-saturated cites in the country.  One of the leaders of Charter School Partners is Katie Barrett Kramer of the local "reformer" dynasty - the Kramers.  The CSP board includes Chris Stewart, a former Minneapolis School Board member and vocal defender of the corporate reform movement, and Daniel Sellers, former President of Teach for America - Twin Cities and current president of MinnCAN.

This Saturday, the Minnesota Guild will hold an open house at the office of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers.  Charters are not real public schools, and the measures of success (standardized tests) use to determine which schools work "best" are destructive.  In reality, the Guild is our Frankenstein's monster, and it will help to destroy the true system of public schools we, not only hold dear, but recognize as essential to a socially-just democracy. 

It's time to gather the torches and pitchforks.  This monster must be stopped!

Over 20 years ago, Minnesota created the first charter school law in the nation, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.  Minnesota, especially Minneapolis and St. Paul, are the targets of corporate reforms from across the nation and our own home-grown privatizers.  They are looking to enrich themselves and are destroying our system of public schools in the process.

Valerie Rittler, an active member of PEJAM, a Minneapolis teacher and parent, sums up the assault in the following commentary.  This was originally published on the MN2020 webpage on March 26, 2013.

Education Reform Industry Targets Twin Cities

March 26, 2013 By Valerie Rittler, Guest Commentary

Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul owner of Fox News and dozens of other companies around the world, recently announced he was moving into the “education” business. He said, "When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone.”

Murdoch is part of a growing list of corporate executives who see schools as profit centers. The education reform industry and their privatization efforts that have virtually destroyed the public education systems in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans have been quietly, and not so quietly, targeting the Twin Cities.

Since 1995, budget cuts and poor policy decisions have closed at least two dozen public elementary schools in Minneapolis, according to Eric Myott, research fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity (IMO). The impact has been larger class sizes and fewer neighborhood schools.

At the same time, the number of taxpayer funded charter school slots in Minneapolis has skyrocketed by over 600 percent from 1,529 in 2000 to 10,895 in 2010. In St. Paul, the increase in public funded charter seats has grown from 3,721 to 8,339, a 124 percent increase, according to school enrolment data compiled by IMO.

As our public schools deal with insufficient resources and increasing challenges, they need more support, not less.

But a group of unelected, corporate oriented, “education reform leaders” have announced that they are pushing to develop 20 more charter schools in Minneapolis. Last year, Charter School Partners, a pro-charter school lobbying and advocacy group rolled out their “Charters 2.0” initiative, in which they will use public funds to finance “the creation and growth” of charter schools and fast-track the approval process for new charter schools.

As part of their coordinated “Education Reform” effort, organizations from around the country are pouring money into an aggressive lobbying and public relations efforts to promote the expansion of charters.

According to recent lobbying reports, StudentsFirst, Inc., the controversial Sacramento-based education reform group headed by Michele Rhee, spent $99,122 over the past two years on media advertising to “influence legislative action” and other lobbying efforts. Meanwhile, the New York City-based 50CAN, Inc. spent $144,396 to lobby here. The chair of 50-CAN, Minnesota’s own Matthew Kramer, is also the CEO of Teach for America, a group that has also been spending money in Minnesota to impact legislation and campaigns.

What the national and state charter school proponents fail to reveal is that their “solution” to the challenges facing public education in America is failing.

For example, charter schools in the Twin Cities are even more racially isolated than our public schools. As of 2011, fewer than one in five Twin Cities’ charter schools qualified as “integrated.” As our cities grapple with the negative effects of segregation, charter schools in Minneapolis are making the problem significantly worse.

Just as troubling is the fact that studies continue to prove that charter schools are not “high achieving.” A major study conducted by the University of Minnesota School of Law’s non-profit; non-partisan Institute on Race & Poverty determined that “traditional schools outperformed charter schools after controlling for student poverty, race, special education needs, limited language abilities, student mobility rates and school size.”

The greatest threat of all is that charter schools are undermining the fundamental American principle that public schools should be governed by the communities they were built to serve. But one need only look at the Board of Directors of these various charter schools to see where education reform is taking us. Hiawatha Academies, for example, has a board of executives from major corporate entities such as United Health, Best Buy, Standard Health, and U.S. Bank. Similar evidence can be found with dozens of other charters. In some cases, the charter chain headquarters are not even located in Minnesota.

It is time for our elected leaders to put a stop to this attack on public education and re-dedicate themselves to rebuilding and renewing the public schools of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Valerie Rittler is a Minneapolis Public High School teacher and parent of three children in Minneapolis Public Schools.

Following the Money

Last Saturday, PEJAM hosted a Forum with Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report and Michael Brunson, the Recording Secretary of the Chicago Teachers Union.  The forum addressed the corporate assault on public education, and how the Chicago Teachers Union was able to fight back with an on-going community organizing effort and a strike.  One of the themes that came out of the forum was the growing effort of the corporate reformers to take direct control of leadership positions in local school districts.

Here in Minneapolis, our local TFA school board candidate, Josh Reimnitz, has raised a record-breaking $37,195! He is running to represent just District 4, and his revenue is substantially more than any city-wide candidate has raised. How does a 26 year old raise this much? He has contributions from almost every local corporate education reformer including people from Teach for America, McKinsey and Company, and Charter School Partners. Take a look at the full list. This is not what democracy should look like.

1. Go to http://www16.co.hennepin.mn.us/cfrs/welcome.do
2. Choose "candidate" and click "search"
3. Click on "r" and then select "Reimnitz, Josh"
4. Click "view details"
5. Finally click "Pre-General Report 2012" 

Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller