When a major Wall Street investor and the CEO of a fast growing chain of charter schools get together for a chat, what do you suppose they talk about? Well that’s obvious. They talk about the kids of course, and their shared dream of *crushing* the achievement gap in order to put those kids on a path leading straight to 21st century skills and success. In fact, when an executive from Prudential Financial and the CEO of the UNO Charter Schools in Chicago conversated this spring, the kids were topic #1. Let’s listen in, shall we?

Actual transcript of conversation between Juan Rangel, CEO, UNO Charter Schools and Steven Levy, Vice President, Prudential Financial.***

Rangel: Hello. And thank you for taking the time to speak with me today about the kids.
Levy: While I am very busy, I can always make time to talk about the kids because, as I like to say, it’s all about the kids.
Rangel: Would you like to hear about the various ways that UNO is *crushing* the achievement gap and putting kids on a path to 21st century skills and prosperity?
Levy: Boy, would I! I am investing in the future of minority kids in Chicago because I dream of a day when the financial services sector will not be dominated by the children of prosperous white people.
Rangel: How it pleases me to hear you say that, my brother. We are definitely on the same page when it comes to being in it for the kids.
Levy: I know we’ve reached that awkward part of the conversation when we should really talk about the $37.5 million we lent you but, man, I almost hate to go there. I just want to keep on keeping on talking about the kids. You know what I mean?

Missing kids
Reader: I know what you’re thinking—it’s like we’re right there on the horn with them! Alas, the audio of the actual conversation between Rangel and Levy, kindly shared by the Chicago Sun Times, is just a little bit different. The kids were never mentioned. Neither was the achievement gap, excellence, innovation, 21st century skills, outstanding-ness or even edupreneurs. The “investor update call” was about one topic and one topic only: cold hard cash.

All in the family
First a little background. In 2011 Wall Street investors ponied up more than $37 million to help fund the rapid expansion of UNO Charter Schools, the largest network of charters in Illinois—which, by the way, has a long history of being all about the kids. Things were going great until the Sun Times discovered that companies owned by two brothers of a high-ranking UNO executive had received $8.5 million in state grant funds. Which led the state to halt payments on an additional $98 million in state grants going to fund the construction of a brand new UNO charter, UNO Soccer Academy Charter High School. Got it?

Which leads us to the extremely *awkward* little chat between Prudential’s Levy and UNO CEO Rangel. In the first segment, Levy grills Rangel about UNO’s all-in-the-family approach to contract procurement, warning that UNO has succeeded in giving the excellence-hating Chicago Teachers Union a nice bit of ammunition. “I don’t have to tell you that the CTU and other folks will look for anyway to bring down charter schools.” You see, Levy *gets* that the CTU is in this game for the money, unlike say, Prudential Financial, which is clearly in it to help the kids. Listen in here:

Did I say “financials”? I meant “kids”
But Prudential’s Levy had another issue weighing heavy on his mind. Earlier this spring, more than 400 teachers at the 13 UNO schools in Chicago voted to form a union. And since UNO teachers earn an average of $20,000 less than their counterparts at district schools, Levy had an obvious question for someone who is investing in the future of Chicago’s kids—or ‘kid futures,’ as I like to call them. “Have you done any analysis on how this will impact your overall financials?”

Having seen UNO’s financials, Levy no doubt knows that UNO is what an analyst might call “top heavy.” As of January, the charter chain’s management staff included 44 employees earning close to $85,000 a year, and six executives with annual salaries of at least $150,000.

By the way: listen to the end of that clip and you’ll finally hear a mention of “the kids.” Well, sort of… Director of Finance Kathy McIntyre assures Levy that UNO won’t be giving the teachers a $20,000 per year raise, and that their pay will likely be tied to “per pupil funding.” See? It really is about the kids…

***Note: this is not an actual transcript but a simulation based on extremely advanced technologies and quantum theories of probability.

Send tips, comments and investment opportunities to tips@edushyster.com.

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Many of my classmates in business school assume that education reform is a good thing.  Accountability! Improvement!  Closing the Achievement gap! Usually they know some Teach for America alums (who are now lawyers), or they’ve watched “Waiting for Superman.” They’ve heard of charter schools (which of course they didn’t attend), and being business-minded, they assume that privately-run schools will somehow be better.  Because many of my classmates will go on to be business leaders, decision makers, employers and parents, I think it’s important that they understand what education reform is really about. Here’s what I tell them:

Data isn’t everything
Did anyone here get really fired up for practicing the GMATs?  Would your 9 year old self have loved school if you practiced 3rd grade GMATs all day, every day? Of course not. Testing is miserable, uncreative and doesn’t inspire us to be lifelong learners.

The education reform movement is driven by a vision of the world that isn’t grounded in the messy (and potentially wonderful) reality of education. Instead, these policies come from a world of numbers, data, and a deep, compulsive desire for statistics.  Which is fine if you are running a business and profit is the only outcome.  But education is not a business.  Test scores are not currency.  And doing well on a test does not serve as proxy measure for “received a high quality education.”

Critically-minded thinking, not something measured easily by standardized tests, is especially important at a time where cubicle-drone-work-hell-places are (thankfully) becoming so last century.  Your parents’ office, with its fluorescent lights, jacket-and-tie homogeneous culture and old-fashioned, hierarchical structure is not really that attractive to the best and brightest anymore.  The baby boomer generation was afraid of aliens and Communism, ours is afraid of cubicles.  Creative minds and passionate thinkers who protect their intellectual freedom and autonomy are the valued workers of this century—not rote-thinking zombies.  To turn public schools into intellectually-vapid, information-transferring mini testing centers is to misunderstand where the world is headed.

Elite education is very different
It’s a huge problem that we effectively have two different educational system now: One for the elites that emphasizes a true modern skill set, and a test-obsessed system for everyone else. One group is trained to lead and think, the other to follow and fill in the right bubble. In their effort to close the “achievement gap,” education reformers will likely make this problem worse.

I was lucky enough to attend an Ivy League school and am now working on my second master’s degree at Oxford. What these kinds of schools have in common is a central philosophy rooted in creative thinking and critical analysis.  Top schools encourage students to find unique ways of thinking and new ways of doing things and support the professionals who teach them. 

A number of top independent schools are abandoning all forms of standardized testing, including Advanced Placement tests. Why is this happening? Schools including Lawrenceville are dropping AP classes in favor of more thought- provoking courses to promote critical thinking in their students. Also, independent school teachers hate having to teach a prescribed curriculum because it limits their creativity and ability to move spontaneously towards a timely topic of interest. And because the opinions of faculty at these schools are highly valued, curricula are changing as a result.  

AP exams are generally regarded as among the least-bad standardized tests, yet still, top-flight elite independent schools are doing away with them in the name of education and teacher autonomy.  Why then are we allowing the proliferation of lower-quality tests across the country?

Independent schools are also going out of their way to minimize the importance of exams and grades.  To Dewey-inspired educators, school is not about outcomes or achievement, but experience and growth.  In several independent schools, notably Exeter, freshman grades have been eliminated in order to facilitate a love for learning rather than an obsession over scores.  At other schools, such as Blair Academy, effort grades are given alongside a numeric value.  But as most parents will testify, the most important component of their child’s report card is not the grade—it’s the high-quality, qualitative feedback that is written by teachers who know them. The result of de-emphasizing scores?  More meaningful experiences for all parties, and a great deal of communication between parents, students and teachers.  Which, by the way, puts teachers in a respected and oft-admired role, something our brethren at public school used to enjoy before the era of relentless and counterproductive teacher bashing.
 
Finally, there is an emphasis on the importance of balance at these schools.  Independent schools insist that all students engage in extra-curricular activities, often sports, music, art or theatre.  This is a far cry from many of the charters, whose students attend “academic” classes 10-12 hours a day.  What’s ironic of course is that so many education reformers attended private schools themselves or send their own children there.  Which brings me to my last point:
 
I would never ever want my own child to be educated in the KIPP method.  Would you?

Susan Altman attends Oxford University where she is pursuing a master’s degree in International and Comparative Education and Business Management. She formerly taught at a private boarding school in the US and is the proud product of public schools. Follow her on Twitter at @suealtman.

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Happy National Charter School Week, excellence lovers! Today we turn our extended attention spans to a fiercely urgent question: what if there was a way for teachers with enhanced excellence to find their perfect school match? And better yet, what if this dating service weeded out all of the duds—the dirty, low-expectations public schools that can be such a buzz kill for a young excellence lover? At last our dream has come true! myEDmatch.com uses the cool fun vibe of online dating to bring together “best-fit teachers and schools.” Best of all, these “best-fit” teachers don’t have to worry about being mis-matched or “ill-fit” with a LIFO-lifer loser school. Excellence lovers only please!

Date this school
The idea for making the search for a “best-fit” job more like the search for a “right-fit” mate came from an alumni of an organization called Teach for America, which places young people of enhanced excellence in two-year long trial relationships with failed and failing public schools or outstanding and innovative charters. While the young people have the option to marry, few do. Alicia Herald, founding executive director of Teach For America – Kansas City, explains that the inspiration for myEdmatch.com struck while she was enhancing her own excellence at an executive MBA program and also searching for dates online. “What if there was a way to combine the idea of online dating with human capital in education?” Intriguing – can you tell us more?

Numerous studies show mission and culture fit are key to a teacher’s satisfaction and school performance. But despite the evidence that fit matters, there is no easy or systematic way for teachers to find a school that’s a good fit. That is, until late one late night when my own adventures in online dating sparked an idea. As I sifted through profiles, I began to wonder, if online dating can help bring together compatible couples, could the same concept work to bring together high-fit teachers and schools?

ExcellentPeopleMeet.com
Now I happen to be a big fan of online dating despite the fact that I am *technically* married. Also I enjoy typing “best-fit,” “right-fit” and “high-fit” so I knew immediately that myEDmatch.com was going to be a “good-fit” for me. I started out by completing the Core Beliefs Profile so that I could be matched with schools that share my core beliefs. Did I want a school with a “whatever it takes” mentality? Or maybe a place that “sweats the small stuff” and makes every moment count? Or then again, maybe I’m best suited for a school that chooses which “big rocks” to focus on. Core Beliefs Profile completed, it was time to meet my ideal mate. Drum roll please….

OkCharter
OMG – I am in love! My top match is none other than Venture Academy in Minneapolis, USA where I am a “right fit” to be an edupreneur overseeing a pod of 25 trailblazers! If you are a regular reader of this blog you may know that I have had the hots for Venture Academy for like AGES – or at least since I learned that they were *crushing* the achievement gap before they actually opened. But suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted to commit. Was Venture’s approach, “a learner-driven and try-measure-learn-iterate learning design that blends rigorous personalized, digital and experiential learning and personal development,” really the “best fit” for me?

CharterMingle
Reader: the options were limitless. I wanted to say yes (yes, yes!) to YES Prep in Houston. Or slip into something a little more comfortable with KIPP in Missouri. Or how about getting my G.R.I.T. on (that’s Growth, Reflection, Integrity, and Teamwork) at DRW Trading College Prep in Chicago? So many potential love matches to choose from. In fact, since the beliefs-based algorithm that powers myEDmatch.com doesn’t take specialization into account, my matches ranged from high school chemistry positions to special education to speech language pathologist to high school Latin teacher. In other words, anything could happen…

#fitmatters
By the time I finished trolling my way through the profiles of 20 pages of potential employers, I had what I’m pretty sure is an excellence hangover. Expectations diminishing by the minute I searched in vain on myEDmatch.com for an old-fashioned, achievement-gap-widening public school. Nothing. In fact, while the site lists categories for various kinds of schools (district, Department of Defense, religious), only charters are currently available for dating. Which makes sense when you think about it. It is National Charter School Week after all. And what better way to celebrate than by finding the “right fit” and settling down because #fitmatters. You know you want to…

Would you like to lead a pod of trailblazers? Send comments to tips@edushyster.com.

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You see, here in Massachusetts, the annual occasion on which politicians and advocates for children spend the day bepraising teachers rather than besmirching them just happens to fall right smack in the middle of cap-raising season. For non-excellence lovers: the “cap” is the artificial limit on excellence and innovation that is prohibiting our children from reaching their fullest 21st century workplace skills and prosperity potential. But who among us has the enormous wealth to fund the grassroots movement well-oiled lobbying machine necessary to at last remove the constraints on excellence (and also sneak in a sneaky provision that will force public school districts to hand over “underutilized” property to privately operated charter operators at “rent controlled prices”)? Meet the generous hosts of today’s event, the Waltons: John-Boy, Zeb, Grandma and Olivia Alice, Jim, Rob and Christy. On this special day, we lift our caps to them!

It turns out that Walmart money is paying for virtually every aspect of the campaign to eliminate the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts. Millions in Walmart dough is being steered to the groups that advocate for charter school expansion, finance the construction of new charters, conduct the polls showing growing public support for more charters and place strategic op-eds calling for more charters. Some $2 million of that money, by the way, goes to individual academies of excellence and innovation, like MATCH and Excel, whose students are transformed into junior lobbyists come cap raising season. Breaking news: a new poll finds that support for excellence rises as voters learn more about its excellence.

But who are these Waltons and from whence did their big box of excellence cometh? Worth as much as the bottom 40% of Americans combined, the Waltons “get”  that there is nothing we can do about the low wages that cause poverty. What we CAN do, however, is “infuse pressure” into the K-12 education system in order to give poor people a “choice” of education options, much like local businesses are infused with pressure when a Walmart Super Center opens its doors nearby, giving the choice-loving consumer a choice of made-in-China goods.

Alas, the new buffets of choice will also present formerly stifled public school teachers with a choice of what hobby to pursue when their non-excellent schools close, unable to compete with the new “always high scores” academies. (Note: Walton Foundation consultants are available to help guide your community through this *painful* yet *inevitable* process). Meanwhile, for fresh new teachers with enhanced excellence, there will be choice-a-plenty. In fact, since the new schools that Walton is funding are free of union stifling of any kind, teachers can choose to return to their schools when their one year contracts are up—that is if they’re not fired for non-excellence first. Breaking news: a new poll finds that the majority of Massachusetts residents believe that the Walton heirs are “best choice” to determine the future of their public schools.

Reader: you can’t put a price on choice or excellence, which is to say that it’s impossible to determine exactly how much money the Walton family is spending to ensure that low-income families in Massachusetts have a bright future, while still remaining low-income. However much Walmart dough is priming the excellence pump, we can be certain that the Waltons will still have plenty of buckage left over for additional excellence enhancements elsewhere—like the $8 million kiss they recently sent Michelle Rhee’s way. In fact, the Walton heirs have so much money you would have to teach (non-excellently) for 2.5 million years to come close to matching their wealth.

So happy Teacher Appreciation Day! XOXOX Walmart

Send comments, tips and job-retraining ideas to tips@edushyster.com.

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Bonjour tout le monde! EduShyster has just returned from an exciting (and excellent) adventure in Paris. But what was I doing there, inquiring minds want to know? Like your own grand dame, the unstoppable Madam Wendy Kopp, I find that one continent is simply no longer enough to contain my ambition (or excellence).

The French economy is in la toilette
With unemployment at a 16 year high, the French economy stinks worse than an overly-ripe Epoisses. But here’s the weird part: no one in France seems to have figured out the fact that teachers are too blame. You see, unlike in États-Unis where we put students first by paying their teachers less, employers in France have insisted on trying to pay everyone less. Here’s a little tip French employers: next time you decide to try to eliminate les pensions of French workers, just explain that you’re doing it for les étudiants. It works great every time!

The French have no word for EduPreneur
Whenever I encountered a teacher in my travels, I was quick to present them with a fiercely urgent question: are you an old-fashioned union-stifled teacher or an EduPreneur?  And yet I received only looks of utter bafflement in return, and not just because  of my deplorable accent. You see, the French have yet to discover a fundamental truth of American-style education rephorm: no matter how nonsensical the concept or term, through repeated use it will eventually come to be used repeatedly. So repeat after me: je suis un edupreneur. Note: be sure to pronounce the French ‘r’ with the style and flourish it deserves!

Ou est les groupes de réforme???
Just as the French have no word for what is obviously a French word, I noticed a suspicious dearth of grassroots organizations expressing a passionate grassroots movement in favor of standardized testing and teacher un-stifling. Reader: I’m telling you it was très étrange. Try to imagine, if you can, a world without FranceCAN, French Students Première, Stand for Les Enfants Français, French Socialists for Education Reform, the French Fédération des Enfants Français, Teach for France, Education Reform Maintenant. Why it’s simply unthinkable!

The best ideas travel in first class
Like their American counterparts, too many French teachers are union-stifled and hence suffer from low-expectations, long vacations and other international test score lowering limitations. Fortunately newly elected French President François Hollande  [pronounced: fʁɑ̃swa ɔlɑ̃d] had an excellent idee: why not enhance the excellence of French teachers and put their stifled young charges first by asking them to work for free? Understandably, French teachers were thrilled with this idea and expressed their enthusiasm by taking to the streets. 

A Tom Friedman column makes no sense in any language
It’s time now for a gratuitously dismissive reference to a Tom Friedman column. Did you know that we are living in a 401(k) world “where everyone needs to pass the bar exam and no one can escape the most e-mailed list”? Are you aware that “more schools can now instantly measure which teachers’ kids are on grade level in math every week, Jamba Juice can see which clerk sells the most between 8 and 10 a.m., and factories in China can find out which assembly lines have the fewest errors”? Je n’avais aucune idée!

Send comments, tips and canapé recipes to tips@edushyster.com.

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In their first official foray into Massachusetts politics, DFER spent big but came up short.

Say you’re a young man who is all about *crushing* the achievement gap and you just happen to have a cool $20K of daddy’s money to plunk down in order to influence an important local election. But who do you support? Do you go with the first-generation Haitian-American who would be the first minority OR woman to represent a part of Boston still scarred from the busing wars of the 1970′s? Or do you go big and bold, backing the white guy with the Irish name from a powerful South Boston family of the sort that has dominated this part of Massachusetts for decades?

Well that was easy! According to Democrats for Education Reform’s patented endorsement process, which seems to involve googling a candidate’s name together with “charter schools, support for,” there was only one boldly disruptive reform candidate in this race. Here’s a clue: Linda Dorcena Forry never even mentions charter schools and their outstandingess or their excellence on her campaign website. Instead, she only wants to make college more affordable for low-income students and who did that ever help??? Meanwhile, DFER pick Nick Collins sits on the board of our favorite local miracle academy along with other boldly disruptive innovators like the VP of Bain Capital, the head of equities for Columbia Management and the chief of staff for the Mayor of Boston. Which makes Collins the ideal choice to INSERT FAVORITE REFORMY PLATITUDE HERE.

Poll dancing
Alas the DFER kiss and a crew of energetic young business students banking the phones wasn’t enough to propel brother Collins past Dorcena Forry and her support from minorities, immigrants and gays and lesbians, a coalition that political observers say heralds a new day for Boston politics. Which is ironical in the extreme because if there is any organization that has the backs of Boston’s people of color community it’s DFER. In fact, DFER cares so much about voters of color that it recently placed this op-ed in the local African American paper, the Bay State Banner, reporting on the results of a DFER “poll” in which support for charter schools among people of color was found to increase as these voters were told more and more great things about how great charter schools are. OK, so the op-ed doesn’t mention that the number one concern of voters was budget cuts in the public schools which are absolutely not related in any way to the expansion of charter schools that is DFER’s sole policy objective.

The white way
The point is, that win or lose, the brothers of DFER (and I’m referring to actual fraternity brothers) bought it brought it. And while some haters may be relishing the opportunity to point out the group’s almost comical lack of knowledge about Boston, their well-funded quest to INSERT REFORMY PLATITUDE HERE has won them at least one new BFF: hot-for-charters Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh. In this “column,” Lehigh reports on the results of DFER’s “poll” and drools at the prospect of the DFER boyz playing a significant role in the upcoming mayoral contest.

Besides, EduShyster has to give mad props to local DFER chief Liam Kerr for his excellent time management skills. In the past year, he’s managed to graduate from one of the country’s elite business schools,  marry into one of the country’s elite families and churn out a steady stream of op-eds devoted to overhauling the public schools he never attended.

You go, DFER! Now if you’d just stay gone…

Send tips or comments to tips@edushyster.com.

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Dr. Steve Perry, America’s “most wanted educator,” thrilled Minneapolis by “bringing it” and “raising the roof.”

This week found America’s “most wanted educator” venturing to perhaps the reformiest place in America: Minneapolis. There, Dr. Steve Perry delighted the reformer-heavy crowd with his unique brand of high-octane, high-expectations roof raising, including referring to teacher unions as “roaches” and regaling the audience with tales of children who are literally dying from excuses. In this special guest post, an embittered veteran teacher (is there any other kind???) weighs in on what she and her low-achieving colleagues learned from Dr. Perry’s visit—or what they would have learned had they not been too lazy to attend. *

Imagine our delight when an email from Minneapolis Public School alerted us that the famed education motivational speaker, Dr. Steve Perry, was not only coming to Minneapolis to speak, but that we had a chance to win a free ticket!  Was it possible that we would get to see the man whose “heart pumps passion and produces positive change” in the flesh??? Our expectations were high—then came the excellent news. Thanks to the generosity of The Minneapolis Foundation, we were in!

We are pleased to be able to accommodate your request for a free ticket to “The Leadership Factor with Dr. Steve Perry,” the first in a series of Minnesota Meetings, on Monday, April 22, at 7 p.m. at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul.  We are grateful to The Minneapolis Foundation for coordinating this free ticket opportunity as part of the RESET Education campaign. Thank you for your interest!

There was just one problem. The Minneapolis Foundation and team RESET clearly forgot we’re union teachers—with tenure— and hence, lazy, unmotivated, deficient in excellence and “part of the problem.” Also, we learned that wine boxes were not allowed in the auditorium, which caused our motivation to plummet. So we stayed home and followed the play-by-play on Twitter…Alas the scene was a familiar one as we know our local achievement gap score settlers all too well. Shall we introduce them now?

• Beth Hawkins, a “reporter” for MinnPost,  published by Joel Kramer, who is the father of…
• Eli Kramer, Executive director of Hiawatha Academies. Eli’s charter school coincidentally receives lots of good press from his father’s paper.  Eli is also a TFA alumni and his brother, Matt Kramer, is the new co-CEO of TFA. It’s a bit confusing, but if you’re a regular EduShyster reader, you already know that education rephorm phever is hereditary in Minneapolis
• Eric Mahmoud, excellently compensated charter school entrepreneur who also has a lucrative side gig.
• Dr. Steve Perry, who requires no further introduction.

Wine boxes at the ready, we watched #resetedu unfold on Twitter. The night began with a flurry of reformy platitudes keen observations about low expectations and “belief gaps” causing the achievement gap, that zip codes shouldn’t impact the education of our kids, who are literally being killed with excuses. We were sad not to hear Dr. Steve Perry referring to union teachers as roaches for ourselves, but we at least got to read about it later. The Minneapolis Foundation, one of the main funders of RESET Education, tweeted this during the event:

@mplsfoundation22 Apr@DrStevePerry on effective teaching & data: “I know you think you can teach, but let’s look @ your data.” #realtalk #ResetEdu

Too bad the Minneapolis Foundation didn’t look at Perry’s data—or at allegations from parents that Perry routinely counsels out challenging students and oversees a hyperdisciplinary culture where humiliation is routine. Not only is Perry an inflammatory speaker, but like so many education reformers, he misrepresents data about his school and its wild success. In other words, armed with sound bites and street cred, he is a perfect emissary to carry forward the disingenuous reform agenda of RESET Education.(For more on RESET Education, including its reliance on misleading statistics, propaganda and flawed pedagogy, read Teach for America alum Gary Rubinstein’s analysis).

Besides the Minneapolis Foundation and Minneapolis Public Schools, RESET Education is comprised of an alphabet-soup of education reformers, including Achieve Minneapolis, Teach for America and MinnCAN, all of whom happen to be using an urgent, crisis, “social justice” message to push for publicly-funded, yet privately managed charter schools. RESET’s corporate sponsors include General Mills, Medtronic, and Cargill, while media partners include Minnesota Public Radio and MinnPost. When audio becomes available a link will be posted and you can listen along and play the edreform drinking game and take a drink from your wine box whenever teachers and their unions are criticized. You will also have time to RESET your thinking about continuing to contribute to Minnesota Public Radio.

Thank you RESET Education for helping to bring us closer to privatizing public education in Minnesota. Who knew if could be so easy?

But we’ve saved the best news for last! Currently, stories of reformy straw are spun into miracles on the Kramer-controlled MinnPOST. But now it looks as though we may NEVER have to worry about getting any real media coverage on the vast transfer of public money to private pockets masquerading as the civil rights i$$ue of our time. It was recently announced that the Koch brothers may buy the Star Tribune.

Note: after the event, our local teachers union published a letter stating, “Dr. Steve Perry, a magnet school principal from Connecticut, and noted anti-union activist, spent the evening abrasively trashing teachers and our unions. He went as far as to say “we need to call out the roaches” when referring to teachers unions. Dr. Perry went on to blame teachers for the literal death of children. It was truly beyond the bounds of acceptable dialogue.”  In response, Minneapolis Public School Superintendent, Bernadeia H. Johnson, urged Minnesotans not to dismiss Dr. Perry’s “overall message of acting urgently to save a generation of young people because of the sharp rhetoric he used during his speech and the subsequent panel discussion.” Read the entire exchange here.

*EduShyster is not responsible for any spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors  contained above. If you actually attended the event and would like to share your thoughts or “sprinkle some Tabasco” write to tips@edushyster.com.

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Michigan officials have launched a bold and secret project known as Skunk Works to create “value schools.”

Someday, in our bold choice-tacular future, once-stifled students will be able to choose the educational option of their choice. Choice chosen, they will then swipe their EduCards to pay for 21st century skills building served up steaming and blended. And should they have any Edu Bucks left after choosing their choice, they can spring for extras like AP courses, athletics or super cool cyber courses. What’s that, you say? Such a choice-tacular future is already in the werks in none other than Michigan, USA? Why we must go there directly to smell the odeur de choix for ourselves…

According to the Detroit News, a secret work group that includes top aides to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has been working to come up with a model for so-called “value schools.” These K-Schools will cost just $5,000 per formerly-stifled student, compared to the $7,000 that Michigan currently spends. The savings will come by applying “concepts familiar in the private sector — getting higher value for less money.” That certainly sounds choice-tacular. What else do we know about this boldly innovative plan?

Other records distributed to group members indicate they want to explore using fewer teachers and more instruction through long-distance video conferencing. Each “value school” student would receive a “Michigan Education Card” to pay for their “tuition” — similar to the electronic benefits transfer used to distribute food stamps and cash assistance for the poor. Students could use leftover money on the “EduCard” for high school Advanced Placement courses, music lessons, sport team fees, remedial education or cyber courses, according to an outline of the advisory team’s agenda.

These bold innovators even came up with a cool name for their boldly innovative plan to disrupt Michigan’s public education system: Skunk Works. That name, by the way, refers not to the smell of sulphur and rotten eggs that indicates disruption is under way but to a secret group working within an organization but freed from the hampering constraints of bureaucracy. You see, Michigan’s boldest innovators understand that in order to produce the kind of out-of-the-box boldness that their state’s stifled students so desperately need, they must be free of the shackles of oversight, regulation, public reporting requirements and the state constitution, which prohibits exactly the kind of voucher program that operation Skunk Works is clearly intended to be.

Also totally not needed in this bold experiment: teachers and other so-called educational experts who are incapable of outside-of-the-box thinking because they are literally inside of their box-shaped classrooms. I’ll let Governor Snyder’s chief information officer, David Behen, break it down for you:

“[I] purposely didn’t put a bunch of teachers on (the panel)” to generate a different approach to delivering K-12 education through rapidly changing technology. “Just like if I was going to do something new with law firms, I wouldn’t bring a bunch of lawyers in,” Behen said.

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Coming to a classroom near you: advanced edu-drone technology.

A sophisticated algorithm has calculated that visionary and change agent Bill Gates produces approximately 3.7 excellent transformational ideas per day. (Note: due to a glitch in the program, neither bad ideas nor ideas that Gates himself is ‘walking away from’ are included in this calculation.) So what’s the next Gates idea that will at last enable our low-achieving educators to guide their hopelessly-stifled charges across the achievement Rubicon? The buzzing in your ear is not merely the result of excessive wine boxing, dear reader. That’s an edu-drone circling overhead and you and your low expectations are in its sights.

It looks like you’re trying to ferret out bad teachers. Would you like help?

One Gates idea after another
Before we hone in with infrared precision on the latest Gates idea, a quick review of every Gates idea since the beginning of time is in order. Once upon a time there was a company called Microsoft that was outstanding and excellent and begat many excellent products including the Zune. With the proceeds that had so enrichethed him, Mr. Bill Gates determined to end many global blights including malaria and bad teaching. The source of malaria was obvious but from whence came the bad teaching? Hundreds of millions of dollars later the answer was clear: the bad teaching came from inside of bad teachers themselves. But sophisticated tools intended to ferret out the bad teaching through the sophisticated use of advanced Value Added Models proved not very sophisticated which resulted in too many teachers being reported as ‘adding value.’ So it was time to go back to the drawing board and also the mother board.

I spent a billion bitcoins and all I got was this lousy report
Well that sucks! You spend about a billion bitcoins and still can’t figure out what is causing this epidemic of terribleness and mediocrity among our nation’s teachers who are now so beyond terrible that they are actually stifling the kids that they are not even teaching. But the thing about being a transformational visionary is that you don’t give up and go home just because you’ve produced the education reform equivalents of the Zune, C#, Vista and the Kin. (What is the Kin???) You get up, you dust yourself off and you produce another great transformational idea.

Rise of the edu-drones
Which brings us at last to the latest greatest Gates idea: cameras.

Actors do it. Professional athletes do it. Now Bill Gates wants the country to spend $5 billion for every teacher in every classroom in every district to be filmed in action so they can be evaluated and, maybe, improve.

There are no details yet on the latest and greatest Gates plan to at last separate the outstanding wheat from the non-excellent chaff. To find out more, you’ll have to tune into TED Talks Education, “an hour of electric, emotional and thought-provoking television,” airing on PBS on May 7. I for one don’t require pesky details to know that this is the latest greatest Gates idea for saving our failed and failing public schools since the last greatest Gates idea for saving our failed and failing public schools. As for that blinking eye over head, you’ll get used to it in no time…

Send comments, tips and on-camera wardrobe advice to tips@edushyster.com.

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Excellence goggles like these are de riguer among New York Times writers.

The New York Times has long been known as “the grey lady” referring to its historical tendency to present a higher-than-usual proportion of copy to graphics (thank you, Wikipedia!). But might that moniker also refer to the thick cloud of ganja smoke fog of excellence through which the Times’ many excellent writers view the world? What else but a serious case of the “excellence goggles” could possibly account for the current state of education “reporting” at the nation’s most excellent newspaper? So reader, if you’re playing along at home, now is the time to strap on your own goggles and gaze in astonished rapture at the edu-landscape the way that it appears to a New York Times writer. Note: If you are wondering why everyone suddenly appears so small, it is because you are looking down on them from the  acme of Mt. Merit, home to the select tribe known as homo excellentus as well as a few friends in high places. Here’s a peek at the world as seen through excellence goggles…

Dude—everyone looks so excellent
That’s not an illusion, young New York Times writer. Just as you almost certainly attended Yale, Harvard, or, gulp, both, nearly everyone you espy through your excellence goggles has a pedigree uncannily similar to your own.

And also small (from up here atop Mt. Excellence)
Smell that, New York Times writer. That’s rarefied air you’re breathing as you gaze down from the very peaks of Mt. Merit. Her slopes, by the way, are eminently scalable as long as one comes from the top 10% of graduates, as you almost certainly did. Did I mention that you are outperforming the Chinese with your 21st century skills? Bravo!

The path out of poverty is excellence
Your own ascent up Mt. Merit contains plenty of lessons for the poor and less fortunate among us. Why excellence is easily attained if one simply attends the right college. Like Bowdoin, for example, which all sorts of poor people could attend if only they’d heard of it. Meanwhile, there’s an easy peasy solution to putting poor young students on the path to excellence. Simply surround them with rich people!

Peripheral vision (and context) are so over
Your goggles have also been specially designed to block out distractions, like context for example. (Warning: goggles may cause objects to seem jumbled or distorted at close range.)  How else to explain this recent story by education writer Motoko Rich about the education rephorm express that is currently bearing down on Memphis? All aboard! Next stop: excellence.

Reformy talking points suddenly make so much cents!
That glistening object that just attracted your attention is a talking point, young New York Times writer. And viewed through your goggles of excellence said talking points appear to glisten more brightly, more common-sense-ically than ever. Did you hear the one about the employers rising up to demand more excellence among their future employees? Or how about American education being a “rising tide of mediocrity”? Viewed through goggles of excellence, everything old is new again. (Warning: goggles may obscure conflicts of interest.)

Statistics are just another way to measure excellence
Your goggles may cause you to make far-fetched claims, buttressed by “numbers.” For example, did you know that 100% of the graduates of this California academy of excellence and innovation are headed to college? Or that Finland has just eight universities that train its outstanding teachers while the US has more than 1200, even though our two countries are exactly the same size? Some will question your claims or liken your work to a “statistical gong show.” But they are haters as well as shills for the non-excellent and your goggles do not allow you to see them anyway.

Do these goggles make me look fat?
Au contraire, young New York Times writer. They make you look excellent.

Send tips, comments and excellence sightings to tips@edushyster.com.

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