Online charter schools, which the capital venturists (new word) like to refer to as “blended learning”, is basically putting a student in front of a computer where they are to read, do their lessons and take tests. Sports is not part of this program, just the basics. The reason for the proliferation of these enterprises…

CMO’s and EMO’s Charter Management Organizations (CMO’s) and Education Management Organizations (EMO’s) are hired by charter schools to manage a charter school and handle everything from transportation to hiring teaching staff and janitors. This is an additional layer of cost that is absorbed by a privatized school and leaves fewer resources for the students and…

On this page we will post articles on how people are doing what the can to make money off of our students with impunity. First up is from The Black Agenda: Georgia’s Governor Wants To Turn His Public Schools Into Post Katrina New Orleans An excerpt: There’s a constitutional amendment on the ballot in Georgia…

To follow is an article that discusses the pitfalls of describing charter schools as public schools. Charter Schools Are… [Public? Private? Neither? Both?] …Directly Publicly Subsidized, Limited Public Access, Publicly or Privately Authorized, Publicly or Privately Governed, Managed and Operated Schools Let’s break it down: Directly publicly subsidized Charter schools are directly subsidized by a…

The basic difference between a traditional public school and a privately run charter school is that with a charter school there is complete control of the school by a private enterprise within a public school district. Although taxpayer-funded, charters operate without the same degree of public and district oversight of a standard public school. Most…

In this category, there are the following articles, video’s and posts: What is a charter school? This is the analysis that Sue and I have developed after reviewing the material about charter school over the last three years. Are charter schools public or private? Neither or both? This is an article that discusses the pitfalls…

Diane Ravitch, who was the Assistant Secretary of Education during the Bush Administration, the administration that developed the atrocity called No Child Left Behind, made a heroic and very public u-turn when she realized that the policy that she helped configure was not the answer to the opportunity/achievement gap that was apparent at that time….

1. Amplify is owned by Rupert Murdock of News Corp. Joel Klein, the divisive ex-chancellor of New York City schools, is the leader of News Corp’s education division. 2. Murdock spent $360 million to buy Wireless Generation, which was rebranded as Amplify. 3. Amplify “partnered with inBloom to custom-build the open-source software that forms the infrastructure for inBloom’s system.” The…

Editor’s note: Cheri Kiesecker was a panelists for the Webinar: Stop the Ed Tech Juggernaut hosted by Parents Across America. Click here for links to the video recording and slides from the program. -Carolyn Leith The USDoE’s Digital Promise to advance the ed-tech field, CBE, and online education In 2011 the US Department of Education (USDoE)  launched the nonprofit Digital Promise,  and Digital…

At the beginning of the school year, I went to a showing of Most Likely to Succeed in Bellevue, Washington. I was irritated by the premise that High Tech High – which has been heavily subsidized by Gates – was held up as the answer to the movie’s depiction of public education as the factory…