Who in Chicago awarded lucrative school contracts to Rupert Murdoch?

From the Madfloridian at DemocraticUnderground: Who in Chicago awarded lucrative school contracts to Rupert Murdoch?

Posted by madfloridian in General Discussion

Mon Nov 19th 2012, 01:51 AM
Rupert Murdoch sees $500 billion profit waiting in US public education. Getting his share in Chicago and some in NYC.

There's a battle being waged in this country against our public school systems. It's not irate parents, it's a corporate battle.

These education "reformers" have the money to buy up politicians in both parties to get laws passed for their benefits. Public schools have little resources to fight back.

Hey, lobbyist, leave them kids alone! [October 28, 2012 Oneonta, NY Daily Star column]

There is no doubt that the performance of U.S. students against their international counterparts continues to disappoint. But since the reasons for this are so difficult to pin down, a parade of self-proclaimed experts and “reformers” has emerged in recent years, touting the urgency of their proposed solutions – never mind if they require redirecting streams of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of their friends.

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch is among the more-recognizable faces of this movement, having purchased education technology firm Wireless Generation for $360 million in November 2010.

“When it comes to K-12 education,” Murdoch said at the time, “we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching.”

Despite the scandals associated with his name and his News Corp company, Murdoch is getting a foothold in the "reforms" going on now. He and his Wireless Generation company are getting a huge profit from a contract with the Chicago school system.

Just like I always say, accountability is only for public school teachers....never for the very rich.

Looks like Rupert Murdoch will profit from "reform" of Chicago school system. [August 20, 2012, Daily Kos]

In case Chicago missed it, Rupert Murdoch is now profiting from the testing craziness hitting Chicago's public schools. He owns an outfit called "Wireless Generation" that is now a contractor with CPS. Anyone who doesn't already know that the administration of Chicago Public Schools, the nation's third largest school system, is in the hands of amateurs (or worse, outsiders who want to destroy public education and turn it over to the private sector at all costs), should be contacting any of the 241 principals of the so-called "Track E" schools which begin receiving their students on August 13, 2012.

Things have gotten so crazy in the 2012 world of edits, memos, Power Points, orders, reforms, re-reforms, and re-re-re-reforms from the administration of former Rochester school supt. Jean-Claude Brizard and former "Relationship Banker" Rahm Emanuel that it would take a team of a dozen investigative reporters on the ground school-by-school (with a backup team of another dozen researchers) to separate out the greed, mendacity, incompetence, and silliness that is being foisted on Chicago behind the smokescreen of the latest iteration of "School Reform." Meanwhile, the city's communities, teachers, principals, and children will be facing centrally planned chaos as the first full year of Rahm's version of "School Reform" kicks in non Monday August 13, 2012. The 241 Chicago "Track E" schools would make this sub-system one of the 20 largest school districts in the USA were it a separate system. But it would be one of only three (the other two are Detroit and New Orleans) currently ruled by a group of outside mercenaries dedicated to destroying public education.

Murdoch was going to get 27 million from the Race to the Top money in New York City, but State Controller Thomas DiNapoli rejected the contract.

"New York City ditched a $27 million education contract with News Corp subsidiary Wireless Generation, citing the ongoing investigations into the phone hacking allegations related to News Corp's now-defunct News Of The World tabloid.

State Controller Thomas DiNapoli rejected the Education Department's contract with the company, the New York Daily News reports, which would have paid $27 million to create software to track test scores. The funding would have come out of the state's $700 million "Race to the Top" education funds, but DiNapoli's office said that there were concerns about News Corp's "incomplete record" and about the ongoing scandal.

"In light of the significant ongoing investigations and continuing revelations with respect to News Corp., we are returning the contract with Wireless Generation unapproved," wrote DiNapoli's office of the decision.

Daily Kos has this added news, citing the New York Daily News from August 13, 2012, that New York State has snuck in Wireless Generation as a subcontractor for a New York City schools contract.

Nearly a year after the state Education Department’s failed attempt to award a no-bid, $27 million technology contract to Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation company, the state announced a do-over Monday.

The contract with the News Corp. subsidiary overseen by former city schools chancellor Joel Klein was initially rejected last August by State Controller Thomas DiNapoli, who raised concerns over allegations of illegal phone-hacking by News corp newspapers in England.

This time, Wireless Generation lost out to four other companies on a competitive bid for $50 million in technology contracts — though one of the companies will employ Wireless Generation as a subcontractor.

“They’ll get a small piece of a smaller pie than they would have received under last year’s proposed contract,” state Education Department spokesman Tom Dunn said.

The new contracts will help teachers, administrators and parents track student test scores and other data and will replace a costly system in use in city schools called Achievement Reporting and Innovation Systems, or ARIS, as soon as the end of 2013.

The writer at the Daily Kos closed, "They should not be getting any of the pie. Teachers are held accountable almost to the extreme, but those on the side of the "reformers" are not held to similar standards."

2 Suburban NY Principals Attribute Rhee-esque Spike in Ed Urgency to Speaking Fees; Cite $ 500 Billion Market in Ed Profiteering

A NASSAU COUNTY PRINCIPAL AND A ROCKLAND COUNTY PRINCIPAL PEN DETAILED OPINION PIECE, ATTRIBUTING SPIKE IN URGENCY IN EDUCATION "REFORM" TO PROFITS TO BE MADE - $50,000 MICHELLE RHEE SPEAKING FEE + EXPENSES - CANADA AND MOSKOWITZ APPROXIMATE $ .5 MILL SALARIES CHUMP CHANGE TO MURDOCH'S CASTING ED MARKET AS $500 BILLION MARKET WAITING TO BE TRANSFORMED

Valerie Strauss, August 7, 2012, in her "Answer Sheet" column at "The Washington Post."

Posted at 08:00 AM ET, 08/07/2012
Principals: Our struggle to be heard on reform

By Valerie Strauss
This was written by Carol Burris and Harry Leonadartos. Burris is the principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre, New York. Leonadartos is the principal of Clarkstown High School North in Rockland County, New York. Carol is the co-author and Harry is an active supporter of the New York Principals letter of concern regarding the evaluation of teachers by student scores. Over 1,500 New York principals and more than 5,400 teachers, parents, professors, administrators and citizens have signed the letter which can be found here.

By Carol Burris and Harry Leonardatos

Several weeks ago, on Meet the Press, Michelle Rhee unveiled her new ad, designed to hammer away at how bad she believes American schools to be. The ad likened public schools to an unfit male athlete competing unsuccessfully in a women’s sport. Many found the ad to be offensive in its stereotypical portrayal of an overweight and effete man. But the true offense was that it took a moment of national pride, the Olympic Games, and used it to give American educators a kick in the pants.

It is reasonable to wonder why it is so important for Michelle Rhee and other “reformers” to constantly deride and disparage American public schools. Although we should always seek to improve, why should those efforts be expected to follow from derision? In truth, while we and others see daunting and unfilled needs in many schools, there has not been a sharp and sudden decline in student performance as is being implied, and in fact scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — sometimes referred to as the nation’s educational report card — are higher than ever before.

The answer is simple. School reform has generated a marketplace, and a profitable one at that. Michelle Rhee’s standard fee is $50,000 an appearance, plus expenses. In Michigan, Clark Durrant is paid over half a million dollars a year to run five charter schools. Eva Moskowitz, Geoffrey Canada and Deborah Kenney all make between four and five hundred thousand a year running their New York City charter school organizations.

And these are the minor players. The real money is corporate.

Rupert Murdoch announced that public education is a $500 billion market waiting desperately to be transformed. He is creating the data systems and hiring the people to help him make that profitable transformation happen. All the while, the editorial departments of his newspapers hammer away at New York City’s schools and teachers.

Reformers’ financial successes, their careers and their celebrity rest on their ability to convince the public of the failures — real, perceived, and generated — of our nation’s public schools. Yet in national polls the vast majority of Americans have continually awarded high marks to their own schools, even while giving substantially lower marks to public schools across the board. The poll results represent the disconnect between the judgment that the public makes based on day to day experience with their own neighborhood schools, and the perception the reformers and the press have created.

And this is all before the upcoming Parent Trigger advocacy movie, “Won’t Back Down.” There is now so much money and power backing market-driven reforms that it is nearly impossible for alternative views to break through.

We recently had our personal experience with how difficult it is to be heard. On July 26th, New York Governor Cuomo’s Education Commission held its only meeting in New York City.

[Ed.'s note: the linked New York state government education commission page has an introductory slogan, "Putting Students First," echoing Michelle Rhee's group's name.]

The purpose of the commission is to travel around the state in order to hear from stakeholders regarding suggestions for New York State school improvements.

Prior to the time and place of the meeting being posted, both of us sent a request to testify on the topic of teacher and principal quality. As high school principals, we are deeply concerned about the direction of the Regents reform agenda, especially in regard to evaluating teachers using test scores. We were joined by an outstanding New York City high school principal and two teachers from South Side High School. Both teachers had submitted requests to speak, one sending that request and her remarks weeks in advance.

We were not allowed to speak. That was certainly troubling, but even more troubling was the overall staging of the event to ensure that the weight of testimony would support the predetermined, favored policy agenda. The selected panelists on teacher and principal quality were not practicing educators. The first speaker, former CNN reporter Campbell Brown, spoke about sex abuse and arbitrators’ decisions. Brown has no experience as an educator or public school parent, and she has been inconsistent in disclosing that her husband [Dan Senor] is on the board of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

The other panelists were Jermima Bernard, the New York executive director of Teach for America; Lesley Guggenheim from The New Teacher Project; and Evan Stone, an 18-month sixth grade teacher who described himself as the CEO of Educators 4 Excellence, another group aligned with the favored policy agenda.

So, with the exception of Campbell Brown, they all represented organizations that embraced the governor’s policies, and they all advocated for the following three policies: state imposition of teacher evaluation systems if local negotiations are not successful, elimination of contractually guaranteed pay increases, and the use of test scores in educator evaluations.

We patiently waited through the testimony because the directions on the website stated that the final 30 minutes would be reserved for those who wished to speak, determined via a sign-in, first-come basis. Because we were among the first five to sign up, we believed we would have time to make brief remarks. We were stunned when the list in the lobby was not used. Instead, additional speakers were hand-picked. The speakers selected to comment on teacher and principal quality were a teacher who told the committee how she looked forward to being evaluated by test scores, and Anna Hall, the new head of StudentsFirst NY. Hall is a former principal from the Bronx, and she argued that teacher tenure should be abolished.

After one of us (Harry) confronted the governor’s representative, he promised us that we would be allowed to speak at later hearings. We are hopeful that he will keep his word. The rules on the website regarding public comment have changed to now say that the speakers chosen would be the first to email rather than the first to sign in. You’ll excuse us for worrying that this might be one more attempt to control testimony at what is supposed to be an opportunity for the public to speak.

None of us who came to the Bronx on that sweltering July day believed that we would change the direction of the Governor’s reform agenda by our testimony. We were there to give testimony and witness to the teachers and principals across our state who know that the barrage of negative press and misguided solutions generated by the young “CEOs” of hundreds of Gates-, Broad- and Walton-sponsored reform centers is wrong. We were there to give testimony that by setting teachers up on a bell curve, you are creating the contrived headline — “Half of all New York teachers not effective when judged by test scores,” thus cynically undermining the faith of parents in their public school teachers and principals.

We hoped to speak for the teachers and principals who know that our students are being over-tested [Marion Brady, "The complete list of problems with high-stakes standardized tests"] and that this is happening for purposes other than the assessment of their learning. We were there to represent the views of the 1,508 New York principals and the 5,400 teachers, parents, school board members, professors and administrators who have signed on to the principals letter in opposition to using student test scores in teachers evaluation. South Side High School teachers, Katie Burke and Debbie Tanklow were there to say how the evaluation system would undermine their relationship with their students. We also went to present our own ideas on how New York State schools can serve students better.

Ironically, across town on that same day, venture capitalists were eagerly searching to invest in companies that will sell the products to ‘fix the crisis.’ They were huddled in a private club in Manhattan to scope investment opportunities. As reported by Stephanie Simon of Reuters, the venture capitalists were told to “Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools… If they’re as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They’ll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it.”

These venture capitalists could stay in the club. They had no need to worry about their concerns being heard, and they had no need to attend the Governor’s hearing. They were well represented.

Follow The Answer Sheet every day by bookmarking www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet .

The original Answer Sheet post carries the YouTube video reproduction of StudentsFirst's video ridiculing the man representing American education.

UPDATE: Comptroller Nixes No-Bid NYS Contract w/ Murdoch Firm; Will Steiner Get Penalty?

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli cancelled the no-bid $27 million contract that the New York State Department of Education made with Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Communications. The contract came just weeks after New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein left the New York City Department of Education to work on Murdoch's News Corporation. The contract was to have enabled schools to track student and teacher data. The Daily News' article on the story. Former New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner, who inspired some of us a year or two back with his recognition that European teachers pride themselves in their knowledge of their subject, has had his slip-ups. Last year he signed off on the wacky idea of Cathy Black as New York City Schools Chancellor.

Latest on Steiner: He is caught in a conflict of interest scandal in benefiting from a corporate-paid junket to London, England, United Kingdom. Soon after Steiner's London trip, Pearson found itself in a $32 million dollar deal with New York State. From the New York Daily News:

A State Education Department commissioner took a roughly $2,000 junket financed by the charity of a learning firm that later won a $32 million state contract. Then-Commissioner David Steiner traveled to London in June 2010 for a conference held by the Council of Chief State School Officers - which reimbursed him for his expenses. Ultimately, the foundation connected to education firm Pearson gave money to the council to foot the conference's bill. Six months later, the state contracted with Pearson to develop new math and reading tests. "It doesn't take long for people to connect the dots," said Jack Jennings of the Washington think tank Center on Education Policy.

Read Rachel Monahan's story in the New York Daily News.