The Star-Ledger Editorial Board Continues To Make Stuff Up

UPDATE: Trust me, you need to read what Bob Braun, who spent decades at the Star-Ledger, has to say about all this.


I don't care if you are a news reporter or an opinion columnist: if you write for a newspaper, your first priority is getting your facts correct.

And yet, once again, the Star-Ledger's editorial board just makes stuff up:

Especially in larger districts like Newark, which lose hundreds of students each year and therefore need fewer teachers, seniority is a major impediment to a school's ability to hang on to the best people.  

We see the repercussions every time a standout teacher gets a pink slip — like the "Teacher of the Year" for the Sacramento City Unified School District, or New Jersey's own Christina Passwater, an award-winning literacy teacher at Whittier Elementary School in Camden. [emphasis mine]

Is it true? Was an award-winning teacher really let go by the Camden City Public Schools? When I first read this, it didn't smell right; claims that seniority ends the careers of dedicated teachers quite often turn out to be exaggerated when you start looking at the facts.

So I did what Tom Moran, head of the S-L's Editorial Board, should have done before he put this into print: I checked out the truth of the claim.

It took maybe a total of 15 minutes of my time. I emailed the offices of the NJEA (of which I am a member) and asked if they could find out if Passwater was still teaching in Camden. A few back-and-forths later, I learned the truth:

Christina Passwater is currently teaching in Camden, and is looking forward to teaching there again next year. The Star-Ledger editorial page got her story completely wrong.

So how did Tom Moran, or whoever else wrote this unsigned piece, screw up? If you look further down the editorial, you'll find a link to a piece by John Mooney for NJ Spotlight.* In that post from May 13, 2014, Mooney interviewed Passwater after large cuts in staff were announced.

But here's the problem: the Renaissance charter schools, which were supposed to be draining students from Camden, didn't meet their enrollment projections. Which means that CCPS likely had to retain staff they thought they would let go. Sure enough, Passwater got a call during the summer letting her know the district needed her to return.

Now, some might think Moran and his crew made an honest mistake here. But I don't, and for two reasons:

1) The editorial page of the state's largest newspaper should confirm every "fact" it prints. It's lazy and sloppy and amateurish not to, especially when you're printing the name of a private citizen. You would think a group of people who are obsessed with "bad" teachers would take a little more pride and care in their own work.

2) This is part of a pattern; it's yet another example of the Star-Ledger editorial board's indifference toward accuracy in their education "journalism." Once, when bemoaning the alleged poor performance of Camden's schools, the board cited the low proficiency rates of Camden Street School. Too bad that school is in Newark. To this day, you can go on-line and read the article which remains uncorrected.

That editorial also neglected to mention that Camden Street, at the time, served large numbers of students with significant learning disabilities, including autism, behavioral disabilities, and cognitive impairments. Did anyone at the SLEB bother to look at the data? Did they bother to look at the school's website, which clearly stated its mission? Did they even think to pick up the freakin' phone and talk to someone at the school about its students?

The SLEB once called the teachers in Newark's NEWCaucus "liars" for publishing what turned out to be a completely accurate analysis of the 2012 teachers contract. Moran has repeatedly declared his favored charter schools have equivalent populations to district schools when that clearly is not the case. He has made claims about student demographics in Hoboken that are simply not accurate. He gave an anti-tenure superintendent space in his paper to tell stories about her district that members of her own board declared were not true. That might be defensible if he acknowledged the other side of the story... but, of course, he never did.

Let me be clear: I don't think Moran and his editorial board deliberately make stuff up. I think, instead, that they just don't give a s***. 

As their last exchange with Bruce Baker (and me) proves, Moran and his fellow opinion makers are intellectually lazy. They like their facts pre-chewed; they consider their job to be regurgitating opinions that reformy types have spoon-fed to them. And if they screw up and get something that is easily verifiable wrong...

Well, who cares? We're only talking about schools for children of color, many living in disadvantage, right? So what if the facts of your case are completely wrong? It's not like it matters...

Except it does. It matters a lot. Which is why Tom Moran and his staff should be ashamed of their negligent, ignorant blatherings on education, and why Moran's whines about "tone" should be mocked or, ideally, ignored.

The Star-Ledger Editorial Board:

Ignoring the facts is what we do!

ADDING: You'll notice that the SLEB couldn't even be bothered to find out the name of the Sacramento "Teacher of the Year" they use as an example of the evils of seniority. Almost certainly, it's Michelle Apperson, who garnered a fair bit of attention back in the spring of 2012 when she was laid off.

Now, school websites are not the most reliable source of updated information. But if you go to the site for Apperson's school, Sutterville Elementary, you'll see that she is still listed as a faculty member for 2013-14. Maybe you want to check this one out too, Tom...

Apperson's district tried to shuffle the blame for her dismissal on to the seniority system. In truth, she was a given a layoff notice because of severe school budget cuts in California.

But, hey, the SLEB thinks districts like Newark have all the money they could possibly need. The $7 billion in accumulated underfunding of New Jersey's schools just doesn't excite the SLEB like giving senior teachers a good, swift kick in the teeth.


* Full disclosure: I write regularly for NJ Spotlight, and John is my editor.

@GovChristie's Pension Mess: Fat Wall St. Firms, Screwed Public Employees

David Sirota of the IBT has been doing stellar work on the conflicts of interest that have become a staple of the Christie administration. And no where is the skirting of ethics more brazen than in New Jersey's management of public employee pensions:

During today's meeting of the New Jersey State Investment Council, private equity executive Robert Grady announced he is stepping down from the chairmanship of the panel. Christie has called Grady a "friend of mine for nearly 40 years" whom he relies on for political advice.

In recent months, campaign finance documents revealed that under Grady’s leadership, the state has awarded lucrative pension management contracts to hedge fund, private equity, venture capital and other so-called “alternative investment” firms whose executives made campaign contributions to Christie's campaign, his state party, the Christie-led Republican Governors Association and the Republican National Committee. The donations included a $10,000 contribution from Massachusetts Republican Gov.-elect Charlie Baker to the New Jersey Republican State Committee just months before Baker’s firm was given a New Jersey pension investment. 

The donations were made despite New Jersey and federal rules aiming to restrict contributions to state officials like Christie who oversee pension investment decisions. Documents uncovered by International Business Times showed that Grady, a former Carlyle Group executive, was in regular communication with Christie’s campaign officials at the time the campaign was raising money and he was overseeing the state's pension investments. Grady pushed New Jersey to move pension money into an investment in which his private financial firm was also investing, documents revealed. New Jersey also invested in Carlyle Group funds during Grady's tenure, though he recused himself from final votes on those investments. 

New Jersey's largest union has filed a complaint with the state ethics commission about the donations, and New Jersey lawmakers are currently considering legislation to strengthen existing restrictions on campaign donations to state officials from firms managing state pension money.

Good luck with that one, guys: you can't even get Christie to agree to keep his promise to partially fund the pension according to a timetable he agreed to back in 2011.

As in so many areas of policy, Christie is nothing more than a tumbleweed of contradictions, blowing wherever the political winds take him. He rails against the pensions being far too generous, even though that is demonstrably untrue. But he has never come out and said he wants to shut them down; in fact, his plan so far has been to get public workers to pump in more money, against our wills, into the system.

There are two reasons for this. First, and most obviously, is that the system would collapse far faster if public employees are ever given the option to opt out of the system. I've made this offer a bunch of times, and I'll make it again: give me back my money and I'll get out of the pension. All the state has to do is pay me back what I put into the pension funds, with interest, and include what they were supposed to put in, with interest.

I'll renegotiate with my district to make up the lost compensation (the taxpayers of my district can take up with the state whether they want to continue to subside a pension that doesn't accrue to their employees). Then I'll manage my own retirement in cooperation with my district. Isn't that fair?

The problem, of course, is that the current retirees, to whom the state has a contractual obligation, need to be paid. No court in the land will ever allow an entire state to go bankrupt; in fact, the courts have even said Christie's attempt to take away the cost of living adjustments for current retirees is unconstitutional. If you can't even mess with COLAs, how can you cut payments themselves?

You can't. The truth is this state could easily raise taxes -- particularly on the wealthy and corporations, although that most likely won't do it all. But that would kill Chris Christie's presidential ambitions, and nothing comes before that, including rational and honest governance.

Which brings us to the contradiction on Christie's pension policy, and the second reason he won't call for phasing out the pensions. Because as much as Christie doesn't want to raise taxes, he and his Wall Street pals just love, love, love that great big pile of pension money, ripe for the plucking.

They just don't want to put in their share -- they'd rather have us teachers and cops and firefighters and state workers and municipal employees pony up more and more, all while they shave off larger and larger slices for themselves.

Which is why anyone who has been paying attention shouldn't be the slightest bit surprised by this:

When the New Jersey pension system terminated a $150 million investment in a fund called Angelo, Gordon & Co. in 2011, that did not close the books on the deal. In the three years since state officials ordered the withdrawal of that state money, New Jersey taxpayers have forked over hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to the firm. As those fees kept flowing, Angelo Gordon made a prominent hire: Mary Pat Christie, wife of Gov. Chris Christie, who joined the company in 2012 as a managing director and now earns $475,000 annually, according to the governor's most recent tax return.

The disclosure that New Jersey taxpayers have been paying substantial fees to a firm that employs the governor's spouse -- years after state officials said the investment was terminated -- emerged in documents released by the Christie administration to International Business Times through a public records request.

A spokesman for the New Jersey Treasury Department, Christopher Santarelli, said via email that while New Jersey “ended its investment” with Angelo Gordon in 2011, the payments were legitimate because the state continues to hold an “illiquid” investment in the firm. Christie officials declined to disclose details of what exactly that illiquid investment is and the justification for continuing to pay fees to Angelo Gordon. The governor, Mary Pat Christie and executives at Angelo Gordon all declined to comment. [emphasis mine]

Now that is a conflict of interest so outrageous that even the Star-Ledger's Editorial Board took notice -- even if their response is, as always, to make excuses for the governor:

Only some perspective is needed here, starting with the fact that the original $150 million investment with Angelo, Gordon & Co. – a monolithic hedge fund, with tentacles that reach every corner of the investment world – was made in 2006 and closed in 2011. 

The reason the fees keep coming is that a vestige of the original investment (about $6.5 million) is illiquid, which means it cannot be sold because there are no interested buyers. And while it may be suspicious that Mary Pat Christie’s firm won’t disclose details of the deal in question, industry experts will tell you that Angelo Gordon either has no obligation to reveal it, or it has a contract that mandates as much. [emphasis mine]

Oh, yes, let's take lessons in ethics and disclosure from the very industry that is screwing the taxpayers of New Jersey! Way to stand up for your readers, Star-Ledger!

Jersey Jazzman reads the Star-Ledger's editorials (artist's conception)

I want to acknowledge one thing before continuing: many times, when the press reports on the business dealings of wives of powerful politicians, there is more than a little air of sexism surrounding the story. Back in the day, Hillary Clinton took heat for being a successful lawyer in her own right while her husband was governor of Arkansas; most of that was unfair (some, however, was rightfully questioned, in my opinion). 

It's quite legitimate to question Mary Pat Christie's critics as to whether they are suggesting that she is not allowed to have a career separate from her husband's simply because he holds public office. That said: this case is so clearly tied to New Jersey's pensions and Chris Christie's policies that, at the very least, the deal should have been disclosed in real time the moment Mary Pat Christie took the job. Even the S-L agrees with that: 

Yes, in an ideal world, disclosure is a tenet of good governance, and transparency is the best disinfectant.

Here comes the "but...":

But [see? -- JJ] while New Jersey is governed by someone who often thinks differently – check out his administration’s record on OPRA requests sometime – it’s hard to find the fire beneath the smoke in this case. 

For starters, the fund was purchased by the State Investment Council three years before Christie was elected.

Which actually makes Mary Pat Christie's hiring even more suspicious. Why didn't the state just walk away from paying fees on the investment if it's "illiquid"? Because that would be "illegal"? It's no more illegal than reneging on promises made in statute to fund pensions, isn't it?

The a real question here is whether the hiring of Mary Pat Christie was a way to ensure the money kept flowing to her firm, even though the investment is now illiquid. It's a question Sirota asks -- because he is a real journalist -- in his article:

Spokesman Santarelli told IBTimes that while “New Jersey redeemed its interest in the AG fund and ended its investment [in 2011] we still have a remaining market value of $6.6 million invested related to illiquid investments, which have been winding down slowly over the last few years.” 

That explanation “does not pass the smell test,” financial analyst Susan Webber, who covers alternative investments at the website Naked Capitalism, said.

“Either they don't want to accept a market price and recognize a big loss, or the investment is something so complex and exotic they can’t sell it at all,” she told IBTimes. 

In all since 2006, state documents show New Jersey has paid more than $11.8 million in fees to Angelo Gordon -- more than the amount the state currently says it is projected to make on its investment in the firm. Former hedge fund manager Marshall Auerback told IBTimes that the outstanding illiquid investment is unusual. 

"The obvious question here is, why is the Christie administration allowing fees to be paid to a financial firm for three years after the state terminated its investment?" Auerback, who is now an executive at the economic policy group Institute for New Economic Thinking, said. "This seems like a very one-sided deal for the manager. After three years, there doesn’t seem to be a time frame for selling the illiquid parts of the investment, and yet the manager gets to keep collecting fees. It's a great deal for Mary Pat Christie's firm, but a terrible deal for taxpayers and for the public employees whose pension money is being used to pay the fees."

Thomas Byrne, the Christie-appointed acting chairman of the New Jersey State Investment Council, countered that argument. "This is standard; we are not doing something different here that is outside the norms of the financial industry and the world of private partnerships," he said. [emphasis mine]

And that, of course, is exactly the problem.

One other point the Star-Ledger conveniently forgets: Chris Christie is chairman of the Republican Governor's Association, which means he now has influence over many state pension plans. What are Angelo, Gordon's interests in pensions located in states in which Christie was directly involved in gubernatorial elections?

This entire thing stinks on ice, even leaving Mary Pat Christie's part in it aside. Under Chris Christie, Wall Street firms are getting fat off of the mandatory contributions of public employees, all while our pensions continue to degrade in value. There is no transparency and no accountability in these investments, yet the state continues to take our money while attempting to slash our earned compensations.

This is perhaps the best reason for the NJ Legislature to insist that the wealthy start kicking in more to the pensions. Because maybe if these plutocrats started having to put their own money on the line, they wouldn't allow these sort of shenanigans to occur. Maybe if the wealthy had as much skin in the game as we public employees do, these sort of outrageous practices would cease.

In any case, it's well past time for public employees to start standing up and demanding that our money be managed responsibly and with full transparency. Chris Christie shouldn't be allowed to use our compensation to enrich his cronies without any safeguards in place to protect our interests.

But, but, but... JOB CREATORS! Or something...

An Open Letter to Star-Ledger Editorial Board Director @tomamoran

Note: Shortly after I read Tom Moran's piece in the Star-Ledger this past Sunday, I got an email from fellow teacher-blogger Marie Corfield, who suggested we write a response together with our friend and colleague Ani McHugh. We're posting this at all three of our blogs simultaneously, and over at Blue Jersey.

Moran has ignored us individually; he's going to have a much harder time ignoring us collectively. But what do you say, Tom? Care to respond with more than a few cheap platitudes?

Dear Tom,

This week, you crossed a line.

Until now, your pieces in the Star-Ledger about Newark’s school system and the reorganization of the district have been ill-informed and reckless. You’ve ignored the warnings of teachers, parents, community leaders, researchers, and students, preferring instead to cling to recycled talking points crafted by those with scant little experience in education policy, but much to gain in profits.

You’ve paid a price: like your ridiculous attempt to walk back from your disastrous endorsement of Chris Christie, your continuing effort to support State Superintendent Cami Anderson while distancing yourself from the consequences of her catastrophic leadership has shredded any integrity you had left as a journalist. Any standing your newspaper had left as a champion of the people of Newark has also eroded: as with Anderson, no one in the city trusts you or the Star-Ledger’s editorial page anymore.

“Shame on you for refusing to educate yourself about the policies you endorse.”

But as awful as your previous meanderings about Newark’s schools have been, at least you never had the bad taste to try to pawn off Anderson’s failures and your own poor judgement to others. At least you never tried to make the case that the impending disaster of One Newark was the fault of anyone but the Christie administration, its appointed superintendent, and her enablers in government and the press.

This week, however, you crossed that line. We have tried individually in the past to get your attention and set the record straight to no avail (see all the links later in this piece). Therefore, we—professional educators with a combined total of seven degrees, a PhD in the works, and 38 years of teaching experience—who, along with countless others across this state, have stood against the illogical, faith-based, and racist education policies you espouse for Newark regularly from your position of influence, have come together to deliver you a message:

Shame on you, Tom Moran.

Shame on you for sanctioning One Newark, a plan so controversial and discriminatory that it’s the subject of both state and federal civil rights complaints. Shame on you for ignoring and then blaming the people your newspaper is supposed to serve. Shame on you for refusing to educate yourself about the policies you endorse.

Why do you insist that educators must be held accountable for the sins of greed and the failure of government to address generational poverty, while no one holds you, the editorial director of the state’s largest newspaper, accountable for the half-truths and misinformation you spread?

Fact vs. Fiction

Fiction:

You claim: “At the same time, the city’s most successful charter school chains will take over management of three district schools, fueling their explosive growth.” As we have explained to you over and over again, the ‘success’ of these charters hinges on the fact that they do not serve the same population of students as their neighboring public schools.

Fact:

Percentage qualifying for Free Lunch

NPS: 80%

North Star (Uncommon): 68%

TEAM (KIPP): 73%

Robert Treat Academy: 60%

Fact:

Percentage Limited English Proficient

NPS: 9%

North Star (Uncommon): 0%

TEAM (KIPP): 0%

Robert Treat Academy: 1%

Fact:

Percentage Special Education

NPS: 17.7%

North Star (Uncommon): 7.8%

TEAM (KIPP): 12.3%

Robert Treat Academy: 5.8%

(All enrollment data 2014 from the NJDOE; special education classification data 2013 from NJDOE.)

Fact:

The small number of special education students within Newark’s charters overwhelmingly have low-cost special educational needs: milder learning and speech disabilities. And both TEAM and North Star have engaged in well-documented patterns of student cohort attrition: according to Julia Sass Rubin of SOSNJ, nearly 60 percent of the black males from North Star’s Class of 2014 dropped out between 5th and 12th Grade.

Fact:

Mark Weber and Dr. Bruce Baker have published several policy briefs explaining, in painstaking detail, why One Newark has little chance of succeeding:

• There is no evidence Newark’s charters can succeed with equivalent populations of students to those of NPS. 
• The plan is racially biased, both against students and against their teachers. 
• The district has apparently committed several serious methodological errors in creating the plan; we say apparently because NPS has never released its methods, and the Star-Ledger has never demanded that they do so. 
• The information the district released in the One Newark application about the quality of Newark’s schools is invalid.

We would think this last issue would concern you, a journalist, the most. You claim that Newark’s parents are clamoring to get into charter schools. What if, however, those parents are making their choices based on false information from Anderson’s administration? What if the waiting lists you point to—lists, by the way, whose lengths are wildly exaggerated—are the product of both the state’s neglect of Newark’s public schools and oversold claims from NPS—and your editorial page—of charter schools’ successes?

Separate and Unequal Education

The sad truth is that parents in your town of Montclair (or any other mostly white, mostly wealthy suburban community) would never willingly subject their own children to what’s happening in Newark right now:

• Public schools being closed without community input 
• Children in the same family being sent to different schools in different parts of town on a transportation system that’s never been tested 
• Tax dollars going to a school system that is separate and unequal: that segregates the neediest students from those who are the easiest and least expensive to educate 
• The harsh, unforgiving “no excuses” disciplinary policies that are characteristic of so many charter schools 
• Mass layoffs of education professionals 
• A superintendent who has been a colossal failure at fiscal management 
• Schools in such disrepair that they are unsafe to occupy
• A superintendent who refuses to listen, who refuses to attend board of ed meetings, and who is not supported by the community

In fact, the parents of Montclair are fighting back right now, but you have not written one word about it. Why is it okay for them to fight back, but when the parents of Newark do so, you accuse them of “shrieking" and being "shrill and unreasonable"? Are the parents of Newark not smart enough to know what’s good for their own children? Don’t you think they can smell a rat as well as someone from the ‘burbs?

Public education belongs to the public. The board of ed is answerable to all the people. But in Newark? Meh, what do those people know? They have no money, so they have no voice. They aren’t the right skin color, so they have no voice. They can’t write big campaign checks, so they have no voice. They aren’t concerned parents. They are, in your words:

“CONSPIRACY THEORISTS”

Yea, these parents look really crazy.

… so do these students.

Were these people “conspiracy theorists” too…?

Tin Foil Hats and Fox Mulder: The Truth is Out There

The message Newark parents hear from you is that if they would just shut up, take off their tin foil hats and let all these rich, smart (that term is used very loosely) white folk completely up-end their lives, they’ll crawl back on their hands and knees someday in thanks and praise.

But you’re wrong. Just because many are working class or poor, don’t speak the King’s English as well as you, refuse to stand on protocol at board of ed meetings because they’re sick and tired of the people in charge not listening when they use their ‘indoor voices’, are “voting with their feet” (as you so love to say of all those charter parents) by boycotting the first day of school, you accuse them of being crazy and—perhaps the cruelest cut of all—not giving a damn about their own children:

“[Anderson] is facing determined opposition from local activists and politicians who don’t seem to give a damn about the children.

[…]

“why not organize a protest march, or a sit-in, or even acts of civil disobedience? Why would your first big move be to keep kids out of classrooms when so many of them can’t read at grade level?”

Tom, the activists are parents. Keeping children home from school is an act of civil disobedience. The parents of Newark are not “conspiracy theorists”; they are concerned citizens who want what’s best for their children—just like parents in your town—but they’ve been shut out of the conversation. And you owe them an apology.

The fact is, Tom, the majority of opposition comes from parents and students who are supported by the clergy, unionized education professionals (whom you seem to hate for some reason even though NJ consistently ranks at the top in public education) and elected officials, some of whom also happen to live in the community. In case you hadn’t noticed, Mayor Ras Baraka ran and won on a platform to stop this madness. He was elected by a majority of the citizens of Newark, and he has dedicated his professional career—most recently as principal of Central High School—to the children and families of Newark. But you, Tom, wonder “if the kids fit into the mayor’s political calculus at all?” Do you really believe that Ras Baraka is less committed to the children of his city than Cami Anderson, an outsider from California who lives in the suburbs?

In your X-Files world, conspiracy theorists are people “who see charter schools as a dark plot by Wall Street to somehow suck money out of the public system.” Should we assume you aren’t aware of the ways Qualified School Construction Bonds enrich charters while neighborhood schools starve—and at the same time translate to big profits for banks? (Are you also unaware that David Samson, who just resigned from his Port Authority position because of that pesky Bridgegate mess, is a partner of the law firm that oversees bond transactions between charters and banks?) The fact that you flat-out refuse to accept the mountains of evidence (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here) linking Wall Street profits with the explosion of charter schools completely discredits you as a legitimate journalist.

“The fact that you flat-out refuse to accept the mountains of evidence linking Wall Street profits with the explosion of charter schools completely discredits you as a legitimate journalist.”

And as for children not being able to “read at grade level,” it’s important first to note that the link you reference details students’ scores on standardized tests, which are inherently flawed and economically-and racially-biased—and which are not indicators of students’ “grade level.” But if we are to keep with your language, there are a myriad of reasons children can’t read at grade level; many have little to do with what goes on inside a classroom. And setting up a system that closes schools, replaces veteran educators with inexperienced ones, and prevents hundreds of parents from enrolling their children does nothing to help those children.

How many times do we have to say this?

We’ve tried to reason with you and the rest of the Star-Ledger editorial board many times (here, here, here, here, here, and here), but your failure to acknowledge the evidence with which you’ve been presented makes your defense of Cami Anderson and her One Newark plan all the more troubling.

Unlike you, Tom, we believe that responsibility for the gross failures of One Newark rests solely on the shoulders of Cami Anderson and her supporters—not on the shoulders of the parents, educators, researchers, community members, and elected officials who recognize and denounce One Newark’s glaring flaws and Cami Anderson’s failed leadership.

Who will be sitting at this bus stop on the first day of school in Newark? It’s not hard to figure out, Tom. It won’t be kids from your town.

Sincerely,

Marie Corfield

Ani McHugh (aka. Teacherbiz)

Mark Weber (aka. Jersey Jazzman)

Just Smell the Money!

Like the aroma of ripe peaches in July!

Senator Charles E. Grassley is examining whether Education Department officials disclosed confidential government information to hedge fund managers, including the well-known stock picker Steve Eisman. 

The inquiry stems from the agency’s recent efforts to overhaul the for-profit collegeindustry, which has been accused of saddling students with huge piles of debt. Expecting tough new rules in the wake of the controversy, Mr. Eisman and other hedge fund traders placed huge bets against the industry. In a letter this week, Mr. Grassley questioned the education secretary, Arne Duncan, about the agency’s ties to the hedge fund world and the lack of policies restricting contact with Wall Street players.

“If it is indeed the case that Department of Education employees were on familiar terms with hedge fund short-sellers, this raises serious questions regarding the internal controls,” Mr. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said in the letter. “My concerns center on the possibility that senior Department of Education staffers may have provided information to short-sellers during the time leading up to the public release” of new regulations. 

[...] 

The Education Department’s internal watchdog is already looking into whether certain traders influenced the for-profit college rules. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, wrote to Mr. Duncan in April to request an update on the outcome of that investigation.

Mr. Eisman — the former manager at FrontPoint Partners who made a fortune betting against subprime mortgages — was one of several investors to lobby the agency about the potential regulations. In an e-mail sent to agency officials in May 2010, he pushed for tough new restrictions on the colleges, according to agency documents reviewed by The New York Times.

Last month, a report by the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group, raised questions about Wall Street’s influence over the agency. The group obtained several e-mail chains between agency officials and hedge fund traders who discussed the for-profit college rules.

Hey, look, Grassley's a Republican, OK? Obviously, there's nothing here. Hedge fund managers are interested in eduction out of altruism, right?

Uh, right?

Hello?

Testing Nation

To paraphrase Bob Dylan: "Everybody must get tested!"

Skeptical parents and adamant administrators are squaring off over a surge of new testing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, as teachers watch warily and brace for hours of new work. 

Next week CMS will launch trial versions of 52 new tests, including an exam for kids as young as kindergarteners who must be tested one-on-one. The tests will be used to evaluate teachers, as the budget shrinks and officials prepare to lay off faculty. 

Superintendent Peter Gorman acknowledged Wednesday that the tests put a burden on teachers and volunteers, especially in elementary schools. But he said they ensure that kids get the best possible instruction: "We can see who's a great teacher, who's a good teacher and who's a teacher that needs improvement."

You know, you could have principal and peer evaluations determine that. But I guess it's better to have strangers test kindergartners TWICE - because you'd have to do a pre- and post-test to find teacher effect, right?

All testing is to be monitored by another adult so teachers don't cheat on tests that rate their effectiveness.

For a standard class of 22 students, that's up to 44 hours of adult time spent on testing. 

"It's crazy at a time like this," said Mary McCray, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Association of Educators. 

Gorman said it's considered "best practice" for teachers to test their own students, because young children respond best to someone they know. But he said assistants, administrators and other faculty could also do testing. 

However, his 2011 budget plan calls for eliminating assistants in grades one and two. [emphasis mine]

Did this guy graduate from the Broad Institute? Because he's as dumb as a bundle of fill-in-the-bubble sheets.

What's finally going to stop this are parents who care about their kids' education enough to stand up and demand that these corporate tools stop implementing their unproven, nonsensical plans:

Parent protests

Katie Catron, a former teacher and member of the Cotswold PTA board, said she learned of the new tests last week, when the school issued a call for volunteers to cover classrooms for four days while teachers give a trial version of the new exams. 

She wrote Gorman and the school board, saying she won't let her kids participate. 

"You are overburdening a system that is at a breaking point," she wrote. "I give full support to the staff at my children's school. This is one area that I must stand up for my children and other CMS students to say enough testing is enough. Find another way to evaluate your staff." 

Gorman and Chris Cobitz, who oversees the new program, say they've gotten several requests for kids to be pulled out of the testing. But CMS won't allow that, they said. 

Catron says that's not CMS' decision to make: "If I have to take my kids out of school next week, I will do it."

Good for her. Maybe if more parents take this attitude, districts can avoid the inevitable lawsuits that are coming from good teachers who were fired on the basis of bad testing.

Until then, follow the money:

Gorman says the $1.9 million for test development came from money left from the 2009-10 budget. Ongoing costs are estimated at $300,000 a year - the equivalent of about six teacher salaries. 

Gorman said that cost is justified by the benefit to students across CMS. Even before results are used for performance pay in 2014, they'll help identify areas where students are struggling. CMS can identify successful teachers in those topics and design training to help others reach students more effectively, he said.

You can design the training now with tons of unnecessary standardized tests, you idiot. And I guarantee you'll be spending much, much more on testing; the security alone will cost you plenty.

Not that the costs of creating and administering bad tests is prohibitive: just get a bunch of $10 an hour temps to plow through them. But the pockets of the testing company owners must be lined.

By the way: when this guy retires, how much do you want to bet he takes a job at one of those companies? The career path of military officer to defense contractor is coming to education, folks: just smell the money.

ADDING: micaela in the comments rightly takes me to task for not following through on my own snark:

micaela said...

yes, OF COURSE he's a Broad alumnus. I'm a CMS parent and I feel sick every time I see/hear him on the evening news.

It's true: Gorman is a Broad Academy grad.

I'm really speechless. I swear to you, I was joking when I made the comment about Gorman being a Broad alumnus.

Lord help us all...

Just Smell The Money!

Like a fresh spring breeze:

TRENTON — Vowing to create "more transparency," acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf today said the state will ask an outside agency to analyze why some charter schools out-perform traditional public schools. 

Speaking at a meeting of the state Board of Education, Cerf said "we stand by" controversial data about charter school performance released in January, but acknowledged that "deeper analysis" is necessary.

Maybe they'll hire Edison, or Wireless Generation, or Sangari, or Global Education Advisors, or...

In any case, I'm sure that Chris Cerf's story will be that he has completely cut his ties with the company that does the analysis and will not make a dime from the contract. It's what he does.

And what do you think the odds are of the firm Cerf hires telling him anything besides EXACTLY what he wants to hear?

But the data released did not go one step further, to link specific performance on test scores to children at the different income level — showing, for example whether schools with a higher percentage of children receiving reduced-price lunch, compared to a free lunch, achieve higher test scores. 

Cerf said New Jersey’s state aid formula, and federal accountability programs, do not distinguish between the two levels of poverty. "Most charters in New Jersey cross a threshold of concentrated poverty that makes these distinctions meaningless," the report read. 

Critics disagree, however. 

"They have no basis for arguing that this is a trivial distinction. This is spin," said Bruce Baker, an associate professor at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education. He had commented widely on the January data and was, in fact, mentioned by Cerf at the meeting. 

"The data just aren’t precise enough to make any reasonable conclusions about relative performance of charters versus district schools," Baker said. "Some of this is better than previous information, but there are certainly mis-statements and spin." 

Baker said charter schools still serve many fewer special education students than public schools, and that the data on special ed does not break out how severe the children’s disabilities are. 

Cerf said he is not an unqualified supporter of charter schools. 

"I don’t believe all charter schools are good," he said. "The state’s core mission is to support traditional public schools"[emphasis mine]

Perhaps you'd like to remind your boss  about that "core mission" sometime, Acting Commissioner.

Just Smell The Money - Murdoch Style!

Because my commenters rock, jcg makes a connection (scroll down) I completely missed:

Wireless Generation is Murdoch's Education Corp. Note the location of their next planning session on opportunities and risks in our latest edu-reform: 

http://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=cfb5b3dae0d0b7da2e949d8d1&id=078f7efb22&e=2e4c6c94e1

A snippet from the flier:

"Last year, a group of about a dozen education reformers, entrepreneurs and investors met in snowy Sun Valley for a series of discussions on the progress of education reform and the opportunities and risks associated with private sector investment in the space. The result was three days of creative thinking and camaraderie, collaboration and planning. And of course, skiing."

Well, of course there was skiing. It's for the kids...

Wait a minute: Wireless Generation - the company that screwed up NJ's Race To The Top application - is owned by Rupert Murdoch? Of Fox News?

The same Rupert Murdoch who hired ex-NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to run his new education division?

The same Joel Klein who is Acting NJ Education Commissioner Chris Cerf's former boss?

Yep:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NWS) just purchased Wireless Generation for $360 million. Technically it's $360 million for 90% of the company, but either way it's a lot of money.

When a company in your general space gets bought for a huge amount by an unnatural acquirer, it merits some attention. But before I go on, I want to congratulate the Wireless Generation team on the acquisition. Good for all of you!

As Audrey notes, this is on the heels of News Corp appointing NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. So with that hire, and the WG acquisition, it looks like News Corp is getting into education technology in a big way. [emphasis mine]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA! I can't keep this straight any more! How about we diagram it?

OK, I think I got it. Except... where are the teachers?

I don't know nuthin' 'bout no fancy stock deals, but there are some who can't figure out why Murdoch bought Wireless Generation:

But so much of the above just doesn't make sense. Here's why:

• A high revenue multiple for a business with tough sales cycles: As of this summer, Wireless Generation was on a $60 million revenue run rate. Given that the News Corp purchase essentially values the company around $400 million, that means News Corp bought the company at a +6.5x revenue multiple. That's crazy. Just one more point of context, Wireless Generation has been around roughly 10 years.
• Where are the profits? Wireless Generation isn't a wildly profitable company. In 2007, the last year I have detailed financial data on them, they were not profitable and they had about 250 employees. Now they are up to about 400 folks, and perhaps they might be investing in people ahead of growth, but even then I'm not sure that a wildly profitable business will ever be there.
• Was anyone else at the altar? I had to get on the phone and chat with a private equity guy about this. He agrees with my arguments in this post, and was actually at one of the shops that looked at their business at one point. Let's just say he choked when he saw the purchase price.
• No unique advantages for News Corp: when an acquirer is looking to make a deal of this size, usually they enjoy some unique advantage. For example, if you are Google and you purchase DoubleClick or YouTube, it fits in very nicely with your core business model. News Corp is a media company. That's film, cable programming, TV, satellite broadcasting, newspapers, magazines, and a small publishing business. Actually, if you dig into their annual reports, education or anything related to education is not one of their core eight operating segments. So where does Wireless Generation fit within their core competencies?

Look at my diagram above if you want an answer. Wireless Generation doesn't have to really produce anything; its value is in its connections.

I'm very happy for the Wireless Generation team — they pulled a rabbit out of their hat and were a ~10 year overnight success. They sold a non-attractive business at a high revenue multiple. But they just got bought by a company, News Corp, that likely has no clue what to do with them. And just because News Corp has Joel Klein now, it doesn't mean they will know how to manage this kind of business, let alone figure out a way to justify the purchase price.

It's going to be a tough road ahead for the new Wireless Generation entity.

Oh, my naive little friend; do you really think Rupert Murdoch is looking at the medium-term profits of a company that will provide consulting for school districts?

This is not about winning the game; it's about changing the game. We are on the cusp of the most significant transformation of American society since Ike warned us of the military-industrial complex.

The privatization of the American military continues apace and will be completed very soon. A select privileged few have become very, very rich on the selling out of our national security. Smacking their chops, our corporate titans are looking for the next piece of our society to devour. And education is looking mighty, mighty tasty.

So Fox News, NBC, and the rest of the corporate media are ginning up a phony crisis in education. Billionaires have installed phony experts who have convinced bought-and-paid-for politicians that the only solution to the low academic achievement of the children of the permanent American underclass is to privatize the entire system.

Now, using a fiscal crisis created by those very same corrupt overlords as an excuse, they are transforming the greatest education system in the world into a tawdry bazaar, where dubious "solutions" are sold to the public using gobs of money that should be flowing into classrooms.

Make no mistake: the breaking of the public sector unions is not primarily about keeping taxes low on the wealthy (although, again, that's a nice bonus). No, public unions must be destroyed because they are the last bulwark against the corporate takeover of the very civic institutions that guarantee our freedoms.

When the last high school is turned over to Halliburton, the public will have given over a vast amount of our economy to a select few aristocrats who have absolutely no interest in a well-educated populace capable of critical thought. And they won't stop at schools. Law enforcement and public safety is sure to be on the agenda.

I know - I'm crazy. There's just no way this could happen. There's no way the public will stand for privatizing an entire sector of the economy when every other nation has significantly involved the government and kept costs far lower.

The schools will be fine; you'll see. Everything is going to be just fine...