by Larry Sand, City Journal | http://bit.ly/o6OXJy
25 August 2011 - A major study on teacher quality makes clear just how sclerotic ² the Los Angeles Unified School District has become—but while the diagnosis and prescriptions are clear, the prognosis is far from certain. The National Council on Teacher Quality’³ [smf: you may want to stop reading here] 58-page report, “Teacher Quality Roadmap: Improving Policies and Practices in LAUSD,” was commissioned by the United Way and several civil rights groups and paid for by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.4 [I’ve stopped reading here - it’s like a car crash, isn't it – you can’t look away!]
2. scle-rot-ic
Pronunciation: skl
-
rät-ik
Function: adjective
1 : being or relating to the sclera
2 : of, relating to, or affected with sclerosis
3. see #17 How to tell if your district is infected with the Broad Virus:
17. A (self-anointed, politically connected) group called NCTQ comes to town a few months before your teachers’ contract is up for negotiation and writes a Mad Libs evaluation of your districts’ teachers (for about $14,000) that reaches the predetermined conclusion that teachers are lazy and need merit pay. ["The (NAME OF CITY) School District has too many (NEGATIVE ADJ) teachers. Therefore they need a new (POSITIVE ADJ.) data-based evaluation system tied to test scores…”]
4, see # 37-41 in How to tell if your district is infected with the Broad Virus:
37. Grants appear from the Broad and Gates foundations in support of the superintendent, and her/his “Strategic Plan.”
38. The Gates Foundation gives your district grants for technical things related to STEM and/or teacher “effectiveness” or studies on charter schools.
39. Local newspaper fails to report on much of this.
40. Local newspaper never mentions the words “Broad Foundation.”
41. Broad and Gates Foundations give money to local public radio stations which in turn become strangely silent about the presence and influence of the Broad and Gates Foundation in your school district.
Sand's article, much like the report it discusses, is specious and fact-free. NCTQ is little more than a poorly regarded right-wing think tank that writes reports around a priori conclusions. Moreover, the CCSA proxy groups that "commissioned" the LAUSD report are funded by the same anti-public education oligarchs who fund both the NCTQ and the reports the screed above discusses. For a wholesale dismantling of the NCTQ and its so-called reports see:
ReplyDeleteNCTQ's LAUSD report's highly questionable veracity shows Bill Gates' pervasiveness and perniciousness
Let's also bear in mind where Sand writes "well-meaning philanthropists," the reality based community reads as "ideologically charged plutocrats."