Diane Ravitch has posted this on Eva Moskowitz’s loose version of the facts.

Moskowitz’s Success Academy 4 has almost none of the highest special needs students as compared to nearby Harlem public schools. In a school with nearly 500 students, Success Academy 4 has zero, or one, such students, while the average Harlem public school includes 14.1 percent such students. With little sense of irony or embarrassment, Moskowitz has attacked Bill de Blasio for preventing the school’s expansion inside PS 149. Her school’s expansion would have come at the cost of space for students with disabilities. The school has already lost “a fully equipped music room … A state-mandated SAVE room … A computer lab… Individual rooms for occupational and physical therapy … and the English Language Learners (ELL) classroom,” due to earlier Success Academy expansions in the same building.

~~~~~~~

Moskowitz made a number of other claims during her Morning Joe appearance. She said “we are self-sustaining on the public dollar alone.” In fact, Success Academyspends $2,072 more per student than schools serving similar populations. This additional funding comes from donations by the very same hedge fund moguls who have donated over $400,000 to Governor Cuomo’s re-election campaign (charter supporters in the financial and real estate sector have contributed some $800,000 to Governor Cuomo’s campaign).

~~~~~~~

Jan Resseger posts about the dangerous bipartisan conventional *cough* wisdom.

As early as 1989, President George H.W. Bush, responding to fears that the United States was becoming uncompetitive,  launched a movement based on standards, assessments, and accountability by convening an education summit of the nation’s governors, chaired by Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, to agree on national education goals. Through the 1990s states began to embrace test-based accountability. Then in 2001, when Congress—under President George W. Bush—reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, with a new name, “No Child Left Behind,” the federal government mandated test-and-punish.

~~~~~~`

Once again, the Bushes and Clintons responsible for so much destruction and misery.

Today, DN hosted a debate between public schools and charters.  The car salesman, er I mean, charter school proponent, Steve Barr,of Green Dot, who was behind the fiasco of Los Angeles schools, Parent Revolution, and  Brian Jones , a public school teacher now pursuing a doctorate.

Barr did the usual charter proponent schtick:  he tried to once again pull the wool over the public’s eye and say that charter schools were public schools; he refused to answer direct questions (because he knew it would make charters look bad); and repeatedly stated he was a “progressive”.  Yeah, right.  Just like Bill Clinton is a progressive.  Wink, wink. Nod, nod.

He was pushing the “progressive” schtick a little too much in hopes that would make opponents back down, I guess, because he’s a “good guy”.  Pffft.  He also lied about charters NOT being about profit.  Thankfully, he got called on that….but some key points were not countered by Amy or Juan.  I was disappointed in that.

Finally, Reclaim Reform has a post up on Diane and the FUD, or Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt propaganda campaign to destroy public education.  This is one of the psychological techniques used in communications that turned my stomach and why I would never be in PR.  Fear, sex, anger, and love are the top communications techniques to persuade people….keep that in mind, folks, whenever you view any type of media: spoken word, radio, TV, internet, printed, etc.

Related to this, the local school administration said this on the radio: “A teacher can ask the student how many nickels equal a quarter…but if they go to a computer, it can be illustrated how many nickels equal a quarter, and then a dollar, and so on…” (may not be verbatim, but close).  What I heard from that is two things:  1) teachers are boring, so we have to have computer animation; and 2) another way to slip online/computer learning as a replacement of live, human beings.  I personally would have illustrated how many nickels equal a quarter by bringing out five nickels.  I would always use visual cues to help kids understand.  This is especially important for dyslexics, of which I am one.

And a question that keeps rolling around in my head is…why are these people called philanthropists?  Isn’t philanthropy giving money away, not expecting anything in return?  ‘Cause the Broads, Clintons, Bushes, Gates, and billionaires boys clubs absolutely expect to gain from their so-called philanthropy. Absolutely.  So I don’t see that this is philanthropy, but should be called “investment”…