On Inconsistent Agendas and Shifting Scores

A young woman writes a piece in the Post expressing outrage that she graduated. After all, she barely attended one of her classes. There was just no way she deserved to pass. But when it comes time to go to college, she's right there.

“I don’t think I did anything bad,” she said.

I don't think so either.  But her own story suggests outrage:

New York City gave me a ­diploma I didn’t deserve.

It may seem odd that I’m speaking up, but it’s only because I’m fully aware I didn’t deserve to pass a course that allowed me to graduate.

You know, it's not like the young woman couldn't have done something about it. She could have read a book, sat for a test, written a paper, or done something to ease her anxiety. Her teacher also spoke to the Post, saying she passed the young woman because she was under enormous pressure. This pressure, though, is nothing particularly new. The teacher is not jumping up and down with pride over this decision:

But if we set the bar higher, we would be a failing school.

That's pretty much the case, from all I see.  And what exactly is a failing school? Well, there are several metrics. One, of course, is the graduation rate. In a perfect world, every student would graduate in four years, without exception. In this world, though, there are all sorts of messy things that get in the way. Maybe the kid doesn't speak English. Maybe the kid has a severe learning disability. Maybe the kid's parents work 200 hours a week, offer no supervision, and the kid has no sense of discipline. Or maybe the kid, like the one in this story, just didn't bother coming to class.

In 2015, all of that is the teacher's fault, and all of that is the school's fault. Never mind that these things occur with great frequency only in high poverty areas with high concentrations of kids with high needs. The NY Post editorial board can't be bothered hearing about such things. Better to blame Carmen Fariña, as though this didn't even exist for the interminable years their BFFs Mikey Bloomberg and Joel Klein ran the city.

Rather than rely mainly on test scores, grades and other clear measures to see if a student is ready to advance, Fariña OK’d “a comprehensive evaluation of student work using multiple measures.”

Actually, NY Post, that was based on state regulations. But don't expect to see them asking Tisch or Cuomo to step down any time soon. But the Post editorial board loves test scores. They'd feed them to our children for breakfast, lunch and dinner given half a chance. The fact that state tests seem to get worse with each passing year is neither here nor there.

Where was the Post's outrage when Bloomberg's scores miraculously went up as the state dumbed down the tests? Did they ask for Klein to step down? Did Post chief Murdoch refrain from giving Klein a megabucks corporate gig on his DOE departure? Did they ask for Bloomberg's resignation? Of course not.

There is an agenda at the Post editorial department, and it has little or nothing to do with ensuring our children get a great education. Murdoch saw, long ago, that there was tons of cash to be made off the backs of our children. Therefore public education is bad, teacher unions are a menace, and anyone who isn't simply trying to crush union must be humiliated at each and every opportunity.

The series of Post stories are open to interpretation. Mine is that teachers and schools ought not to be under such pressure to pass absolutely everyone. We should teach students that there are consequences when they fail to be responsible. It's not Carmen Fariña's fault that there is ridiculous pressure to graduate as many kids as possible. It's not her fault the Heavy Heart Assembly passed an insane bill that will place public schools into receivership. And it's certainly not her fault that there is such ridiculous pressure on school administration that things like this occur.

The Post is already running gleeful articles suggesting this could be the end of mayoral control. I'd be fine with the end of mayoral control, but the Post only wants the end of de Blasio's control. And let's be honest, he hasn't got all that much anyway since Cuomo took Eva's money and forced NYC to foot the rent whenever she feels like expanding her company.

Should we get another reformy mayor, the Post will once again be enamored of mayoral control, and passing kids for no reason will no longer be a problem. The names change, but the agenda remains the same. It's tough keeping a level head with people trying to punch us in the face all the time, but that's still our job.

We'll have to let the crazies do their thing while still striving to keep our eye on what's important. And in case you don't know, that's our kids. One day they will have to work for a living just like us. We need to fight the crazies at least long and strong enough to make that possible.

The Coolest Thing About Being Reformy

When Joel Klein left his job as NYC Schools Chancellor, he landed in a big old pile of cash, working for none other than extreme right-wing Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch. This certainly beats working for a living, and even beats being Bloomberg's mouthpiece while pretending to put "Children First. Always."

As head of Amplify, Klein can devote his attention to selling crap we don't need to schools, and raking in a tidy profit for Rupey, who simply cannot amass enough money. And who better to get it from than NY City's 1.1 million public schoolchildren? For goodness sake, if the money weren't going to Rupey, it would be frittered away on teachers, and you need only read Rupey's NY Post to learn how worthless they are.

Furthermore, were the city to run around hiring teachers, it might have the effect of reducing class sizes, and it's well known that Mayor Bloomberg would like to fire half of all working teachers and double class sizes. This would benefit students by letting them know how little attention they merit, knowledge that would serve them well in Rupey's vision of an entire non-unionized, serf-like work force. Of course, a big step toward that goal is getting rid of those pesky unionized teachers, and we're getting closer each and every day.

In fact, it's no longer just right-wing lunatics who want to profit off of our children rather than educate them. President Barack Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, as often as not echoes whatever nonsense Bill Gates sees fit to spout. He gleefully broke the New Orleans teacher union, gave the city to charter schools, and declared Katrina the best thing to happen to education in New Orleans. The fact that the schools are not so good as a result is of no consequence, just as his abysmal failure to fix Chicago schools through closing them means nothing but a replication of the system nationwide.

Now, Duncan's press secretary, Justin Hamilton, has abandoned all pretense of being a real Democrat or supporting working Americans. He's jumped ship for a gig with Rupey and Joel. So it really pays to do the reformy stuff Rupey favors.

If you don't believe that, just ask the ex-teachers who run Educators for Excellence and pretend to represent working teachers. Is it a coincidence that every time they get 100 people to sign a petition saying teachers need fewer rights Rupey's Post runs a story about it? Why should they bother going to some crappy trailer to teach unpredictable teenagers when they can simply do whatever Rupey wants and get paid for it?

There's gold in that there reformy stuff. What the heck is it that makes 80,000 UFT teachers get out there every day and try to educate children when there's so much more money to be made elsewhere?

The Coolest Thing About Being Reformy

When Joel Klein left his job as NYC Schools Chancellor, he landed in a big old pile of cash, working for none other than extreme right-wing Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch. This certainly beats working for a living, and even beats being Bloomberg's mouthpiece while pretending to put "Children First. Always."

As head of Amplify, Klein can devote his attention to selling crap we don't need to schools, and raking in a tidy profit for Rupey, who simply cannot amass enough money. And who better to get it from than NY City's 1.1 million public schoolchildren? For goodness sake, if the money weren't going to Rupey, it would be frittered away on teachers, and you need only read Rupey's NY Post to learn how worthless they are.

Furthermore, were the city to run around hiring teachers, it might have the effect of reducing class sizes, and it's well known that Mayor Bloomberg would like to fire half of all working teachers and double class sizes. This would benefit students by letting them know how little attention they merit, knowledge that would serve them well in Rupey's vision of an entire non-unionized, serf-like work force. Of course, a big step toward that goal is getting rid of those pesky unionized teachers, and we're getting closer each and every day.

In fact, it's no longer just right-wing lunatics who want to profit off of our children rather than educate them. President Barack Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, as often as not echoes whatever nonsense Bill Gates sees fit to spout. He gleefully broke the New Orleans teacher union, gave the city to charter schools, and declared Katrina the best thing to happen to education in New Orleans. The fact that the schools are not so good as a result is of no consequence, just as his abysmal failure to fix Chicago schools through closing them means nothing but a replication of the system nationwide.

Now, Duncan's press secretary, Justin Hamilton, has abandoned all pretense of being a real Democrat or supporting working Americans. He's jumped ship for a gig with Rupey and Joel. So it really pays to do the reformy stuff Rupey favors.

If you don't believe that, just ask the ex-teachers who run Educators for Excellence and pretend to represent working teachers. Is it a coincidence that every time they get 100 people to sign a petition saying teachers need fewer rights Rupey's Post runs a story about it? Why should they bother going to some crappy trailer to teach unpredictable teenagers when they can simply do whatever Rupey wants and get paid for it?

There's gold in that there reformy stuff. What the heck is it that makes 80,000 UFT teachers get out there every day and try to educate children when there's so much more money to be made elsewhere?

No Reality Needed Here

Rupert Murdoch's money-losing rag, the New York Post, has run yet another illuminating editorial about teacher evaluation, this time criticizing Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Let's put aside the fact that VAM, as a part of evaluation, has no scientific validity. Let's forget about the stories of excellent teachers being rated poorly, or wild year-to-year variations with the same teachers. Let's not even discuss the notion that students themselves bear no responsibility for their own test scores, good, bad or otherwise. Because we're so good-natured, we'll also forget about the massive flaws in the standardized tests themselves.

Let's simply focus on the Post's thesis that unions block the evaluation system because they don't want teachers held accountable. I can't speak for every school district in the state, but I'm pretty familiar with the largest one, New York City. Here's one fact about it--for better or worse, the UFT President was instrumental in pushing the plan that made VAM part of new evaluations.

A more important fact is this--it isn't the UFT blocking implementation of this plan, but rather the Post's hero, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It was he who introduced a ridiculous turnaround plan to protest the lack of a framework between the city and the UFT, and it was he who persisted with this plan even after a framework was agreed upon. The fact that his plan was very publicly scuttled by the courts is not even relevant here.

The important factor, either unknown or willfully ignored by the Post's crack editorial staff, is that it's Mayor Bloomberg, not the UFT, blocking enactment of an evaluation system. In fact, Mayor Bloomberg would need to write the system into a contract, and that would entail coming to an agreement with the union. I don't suppose it's escaped the attention of 80,000 teachers that all city employees but educators got an 8-plus percent raise between 2008-2010, and that Bloomberg unilaterally declared we alone would not get it.

Meanwhile, the puppets at E4E request that a system be imposed upon us. They care so much about the professionalism of working teachers that they don't give a damn whether or not we ever get a raise. Nor do the saints over at TNTP mention that when they pontificate about the retention of teachers.

Personally, I'm not at all persuaded a raise would be worth taking on the new system. It's hard for me to see how good teachers will not be fired on the basis of junk science. But it's a blatant falsehood to contend that the union is blocking any evaluation system.

Two Hundred Percent Crap

From what I read, the state agreement is pretty much what was negotiated in 2010--20% state tests, 20% local or other tests, and 60% other evaluation. This will surely be a bonanza for testing companies ready to design whatever the hell it takes to extract more money from districts. And that, my friends, is business sticking its craw into education--Rupert Murdoch's wet dream. Though he'll surely want others, and with faux-Democrats like Andrew Cuomo and Barack Obama eager to please, this is not the end.

So, 20% crap, or 40% crap (and a cursory reading of Cuomo's press release has me leaning toward 40), it's all crap. And we're running headlong into a system for which tests do not exist, a formula for value-added has not been developed, and whatever it may be it will surely not work anyway, all because Bill Gates says it's a good idea. I see it all now--"watch it, you son of a bitch, don't ask me to tutor your damn kids. You could take points away from me. And don't try dumping that troubled kid in my class anymore. I have troubles of my own. If only I could persuade those losers to drop out."

And the UFT, the UFT has finally negotiated a system that utilizes an independent arbitrator. After all, it's absolutely unacceptable for the chancellor to decide, what with his having rejected 99.6% of appeals. And this is someone's job on the line. So what do we have? An agreement that 13% of appeals will be heard by an independent arbitrator. If you're not part of the 13%, you must rely on the tender mercies of whatever Bloomberg puppet happens to be chancellor. How do you make it to the lucky 13? Who decides? What sort of response does UFT expect to get from the 87% who are surely screwed?

I'm very glad I don't have to pick and choose. In my view, anyone facing loss of position ought to have due process, a fair hearing, and an unbiased arbitrator to decide. Under this agreement, 13% get it, while 87% are SOL. This does not appear to be a huge victory, particularly when you consider 20% VAM is 100% crap. Extrapolating, I can only determine that 40% VAM is 200% crap.

Murdoch's Education Ventures Go Forward With The Help Of Politicians On His Payroll

The Independent reports today that Rupert Murdoch is going ahead with his plans to create a News International-sponsored academy school near his newspaper headquarters in east London despite the hacking and political corruption scandal that is embroiling his company, News Corporation.

The hacking scandal has seen 11 former News International employees arrested on a variety of charges, from phone hacking to conspiracy, including the former News of the World editor and News International chief Rebekah Brooks and one of British Prime Minister's David Cameron's former top aides and former editor at News of the World, Andy Coulson.

News International is the British subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

News International employees have been accused of hacking into the phones of murder victims, murder victims' family members, 7/7 terrorism victims and their families, celebrities, politicians and members of the Royal Family, bribing the police for information, and conspiring with police and political officials to cover-up the scandal and sidetrack any official investigations into the matter.

The scandal has led to the shuttering of the newspaper at the center of the hacking allegations, the 168-year old News of the World, as well as the withdrawal of News Corporation's bid to take over shares of the British satellite network BSkyB that are not already owned by News Corp.

The nexus between News International criminal activity, News International employees, politicians and police in this scandal has been getting special scrutiny since former News International employee Andy Coulson was forced to resign from his government position earlier in the year as a result of the scandal and since allegations came to light that current or former Murdoch employees hired by the police may have helped quell past investigations into the hacking scandal.

Top officials at Scotland Yard have resigned in the wake of these allegations.

But neither Murdoch nor the political establishment seem disturbed enough by the scandal to put a temporary halt on Murdoch's education moves.

The news about the Murdoch-sponsored academy in Britain is just the latest example of a Murdoch move into the education sphere and he is doing these moves with the help of politicians either currently on his payroll or formerly on it.

For example, former News International employee and now British Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has met with News Corp. executives at least 21 times since the last election, more than any other member of the British government, including six times with Rupert Murdoch himself.

Gove, a corporate education reform advocate with close ties to another Murdoch employee, former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, has called for a radical overhaul of education in Britain, comparing his reform efforts to Chairman Mao's Long March.

Gove's plans include starting networks of "free schools," which will be similar to charter schools here in the U.S., that will be free from many of the rules schools in Britain have to abide by as well as a radical shift in the school curriculum and an increased emphasis on testing. Gove has also pushed for a ten hour school day and half day school on Saturdays, though the extended hours would not be compulsory.

Gove had a three day series of meetings with Joel Klein on the free schools issue earlier this year. Like Klein, Gove is also a proponent of technology education and hopes to digitize many of Britain's classrooms in the near future for online instruction and education.

Rupert Murdoch himself said he sees online education and instruction as a $500 billion dollar profit sector in the near future and has bought a U.S. company that provides the kind of software and technology that is used for online education, Wireless Generation.

Former New York City Schools Chancellor Klein signed a no-bid contract with Wireless Generation for a few million dollars when he was running the NYC school system.

Klein went to work for Rupert Murdoch after he resigned his chancellorship. Two weeks later, Murdoch purchased Wireless Generation and put Klein in charge of running the News Corporation K-12 online education division, which includes Wireless Generation.

Wireless Generation has since been given a no-bid contract by the NY State Education Department worth $27 million dollars.

That contract is under scrutiny, as 16 other companies tried to bid for the contract but NYSED officials claimed there was no time to bid out the contract competitively, as they were under a deadline for Race to the Top funds.

The Daily News has reported this was not so, that the timeline would have allowed for competitive bidding but that the NYSED decided not to take any competitive bids for the contract

This week the United Federation of Teachers and the New York State Union of Teachers called for the Wireless Generation contract to be voided, citing concerns over the News International hacking scandal in Britain.

Which brings me back full circle to the Independent article about the Murdoch-sponsored free school in Britain that will focus on technology education.

It is apparent that Murdoch, with the help of former political operatives now on his payroll, like Joel Klein or former Murdoch employees now working in the public sector, like Michael Gove, is intent on creating a public/private education system with an emphasis on technology and online instruction, then carving out a substantial part of that sector for News Corp profit-taking.

As he said himself, he expects to make billions off such a partnership even as his own media outlets like the NY Post and the Wall Street Journal call for more technology-friendly reforms from their editorial pages that will ultimately make News Corporation more profitable.

That Murdoch and his minions like Gove and Klein are getting away with this even as the News International hacking scandal continues to grow is disturbing.

An official British inquiry team into the scandal led by Justice Brian Leveson has begun an investigation that is expected to take a year to look into the matters.

Here in the United States, the FBI has opened an investigation into whether News Corporation employees or their British counterparts at News International hacked into the phones of 9/11 victims and their families.

Murdoch announced his own internal News Corp. investigation led by Joel Klein, the man who prepped Rupert Murdoch and his son, James, for their July appearance before a Parliament committee.

Klein reports to another Murdoch employee and News Corporation board member, Viet Dinh, for this investigation, but the internal News Corp. probe has been widely criticized as compromised since men very close to Rupert Murdoch are leading it.

Questions of a continued Murdoch cover-up surfaced when news broke that Murdoch has given employees fired as a result of the News of the World closure raises and bonuses, a move that sounds very much like bribery to keep possibly disgruntled employees quiet about the hacking scandal.

In addition, James Murdoch has been accused of lying before Parliament about his knowledge of the phone hacking scandal and News International payoffs to victims of the hacking by two former high level News International employees, lawyer Tom Crone and former News of the World editor Colin Myler.

Murdoch paid out a 700,000 GBP payment to News International hacking victim Gordon Taylor, but claimed he was only doing so on the advice of Crone and Myler and did not know the reason for the payout.

The statement seems absurd on the face of it (who hands out $1.2 million as a payout without knowing why?) and Crone and Myler are now stating that openly.

So the Murdoch hacking scandal, while at a low level now with Parliament on recess, is not even close to being over.

Many more allegations and disclosures are to come and the scandal may still bring down both James Murdoch and his father, Rupert.

For governments in either the United States or Britain to do education business with News Corp. or News International while this scandal continues to break is disgusting and hypocritical.

But given that so many in the governments of both Britain and the United States are either on the Murdoch payroll, used to be on the Murdoch payroll, or want to be on the Murdoch payroll in the future, I suppose it is not a surprise that Murdoch is continuing with his education ventures unimpeded.

Men like Joel Klein and Michael Gove have shown their allegiance is to Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation, not to children or the public or public education, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when many other people in the political establishment feel the same way.

In Britain, that means the Cameron government.

In America, that means the Bloomberg administration, the Cuomo administration, the New York State Education Department and the Regents, and even the Obama administration's USDOE.

It seems that short of murder itself, there is nothing that Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch or News Corporation employees can do that would get the political establishment to bar them from doing business in the public education system.

But who knows?

Given the severity of the hacking scandal already, with News International employees hacking into a murdered teenager's phone and erasing messages, with News International employees hacking into the phone of the mother of another girl murdered - a phone that News International gave her - and with allegations that News International employees hacked into the phones of 7/7 and 9/11 terrorism victims, the investigation may just yet turn up a body or two as well.

Murdoch And Klein Game The System

The NY Daily News reports that News Corporation, the media and news conglomerate owned and run by Rupert Murdoch, has gamed the political system to get a no-bid contract for its educational division:

More than a dozen private firms wanted to work on a project like the one the state Education Department is set to award to a Rupert Murdoch-owned company in a $27 million no-bid contract.

Agency officials have cited "an extremely challenging time line" in their decision to partner with News Corp. subsidiary Wireless Generation to build a data system of student test scores and other information.

The Daily News has learned that the agency has explored the project for at least two years - proof, critics say, state officials had ample time to competitively bid out the contract and still meet a fall 2012 deadline for a federal Race to the Top grant.

"It raises all kinds of questions," said Susan Lerner, executive director of good government group Common Cause New York. "There appears to be time in this process to go through a much more open-bidding process to ensure that the public is getting the best vendor at the best price."

The News has also learned that Wireless Generation paid as much as $5,000 a month to lobbying firms to advocate for the contract and Race to the Top funds with state officials.

The biggest lobbying Murdoch could have done for this business was to hire Joel Klein, the former chancellor of New York City schools and a big proponent of Wireless Generation, to run the education division of News Corp. that now owns Wireless Generation.

In 2009, Klein had handed Wireless Generation a contract for School of One, a computerized education program that Klein said would help create "a school system where instruction was individualized by cutting down on the number of teachers and relying more on technology."

This contract was extended in October 2010 by the DOE, just one month before Klein resigned from his chancellorship of the NYCDOE and announced his hiring by News Corporation and a month and a half before Murdoch's News Corp. bought Wireless Generation.

Rupert Murdoch has been a wizard at greasing the wheels for much more lucrative deals in the past then this one (after all, $27 million is just chump change to Murdoch), but don't kid yourself, Murdoch and Klein envision a very profitable future for their for-profit online education division.

In a speech he gave in June, Murdoch said he expects News Corporation's education division to become "a leading provider of educational materials within five years, aiming for about 10% of total revenue to come from this source."

Now that Murdoch has dropped his bid for BSkyB, the British satellite broadcasting company that would have added billions to News Corporation's profits, Murdoch may need the extra revenue from his education division even more.

The loss of the BSkyB deal came as fall-out from the phone hacking scandal that is embroiling Murdoch's News International company in Britain.

Allegations that Murdoch's employees at his British newspapers hacked into the phones of murder victims, victims' families, politicians, celebrities and others, bribed the London Metro police for hacking information, and subverted justice by paying off cops charged to investigate News International and politicians have Murdoch's empire in Britain reeling.

Murdoch has already shut the newspaper at the center of the scandal, News of the World, and may be forced to sell his remaining British newspapers in addition to losing the BSkyB deal.

Ten people have been arrested in the scandal, including the former editor of News of the World and one of Rupert Murdoch's closest allies in News International, Rebekah Brooks.

Murdoch named Joel Klein to head an internal News Corporation investigation into the hacking scandal. Klein can be seen at the photo at the top left seated behind Rupert Murdoch's son, James, as he testified to Parliament back on July 19 that he knew nothing about a cover-up of the phone hacking scandal.

James Murdoch's testimony has since been disputed by former News International employees.

The scandal, seemingly isolated to Murdoch's British News Empire, has crossed to the United States in the last few weeks when allegations surfaced that News International employees may have hacked into the phones of 9/11 victims.

Representative Peter King (R-NY) asked for the FBI to investigate the allegations and the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the matter. In addition, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC may be opening an investigation into News Corporations' business practices and the Daily News has reported that employees at the NY Post have been advised by the editor to save any information related to the hacking case for an internal News Corp. investigation.

Les Hinton, the former chairman of News International during the period the phone hacking scandal was alleged to have taken place and the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, was forced to resign from the paper over the scandal earlier this month.

All of this brings me back to just how Murdoch and Klein, still engulfed in a phone hacking scandal that has seen new allegations that News International employees hacked into the phone of a murdered girl's mother News International itself had given her, can be winning the $27 million no-bid contract from the New York State Department of Education when the rest of the News Corporation Empire is so scandal-ridden.

And the answer is of course the same as how Murdoch got away with so much criminal activity in Britain for all these years.

He's got politicians like Andrew Cuomo in his pocket as allies to do his bidding for him, he's manipulated the political process by using his media empire as a bludgeon over the heads of politicians who don't give him what he wants, and paid off the right people either with campaign contributions or jobs.

As John Nichols wrote about Murdoch's political influence in The Nation:

As in England, Murdoch and his managers have for many years had their way with the American regulators and political players who should have been holding the mogul and the multinational to account. Sometimes Murdoch has succeeded through aggressive personal lobbying, sometimes with generous campaign contributions (with Democrats and Republicans among the favored recipients), sometimes by hiring the likes of Newt Gingrich (who as the Speaker of the House consulted with Murdoch in the 1990s) and Rick Santorum (who as a senator from Pennsylvania was a frequent defender of big media companies), sometimes by making stars of previously marginal figures such as Michele Bachmann.

Former White House political czar Karl Rove, who prodded Fox News to declare George Bush the winner of the disputed 2000 presidential election and who remains a key player in Republican politics to this day, still works for Murdoch, as does former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a prospective GOP vice presidential candidate.

But Murdoch is not the rigid partisan some of his more casual critics imagines. He often discovers unexpected political heroes or heroines—such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former target whose 2000 US Senate run in New York and whose 2008 presidential run earned surprisingly generous coverage from the New York Post and Fox after Murdoch determined that she was on the rise politically. The Clinton embrace was classic Murdoch. He plays both sides of every political divide. But when he is not aiding and abetting the party of the right he looks for conservative and centrist figures (Britain’s Blair, America’s Clinton) within traditional parties of the left. The point, always, is to assure that those with power are pro-business in general and pro-Murdoch (or, at the least, indebted to Murdoch) in particular.

The strategy has been so successful that, even now, there is some debate about the extent to which Murdoch’s influence will diminish in the United States.

Murdoch has taken that strategy into public education by hiring former NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, by using his Americans news outlets like the NY Post, the Wall Street Journal and FOX NEWS to promote the meme that public education is a failure that can only be saved by radical reform of the system, and aggressively lobbying behind the scenes for business deals and radical education reforms like tenure changes that will help his for-profit online K-12 education division grow into the moneymaker he envisions.

So far, it's still working in education even as Murdoch sees his news divisions here in the U.S. come under scrutiny for the hacking case and his British division come close to collapse.

In fact, News Corporation is sponsoring an education conference that will promote online K-12 education as well as give Republican 2012 presidential hopefuls a platform to air their views on the issue:

NEW YORK - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and not-for-profit the College Board said Tuesday that they will work together to make education reform a top issue in the 2012 presidential campaign with an event that will give Republican candidates the opportunity to outline their vision for improving the U.S. education system.

...

To help set the agenda, the two organizations said they will co-host The Future of American Education: A Presidential Primary Forum here on Oct. 27, which will be televised and streamed online. It is timed to coincide with the College Board’s annual national forum, which attracts representatives from educational institutions across the country.

All Republican primary candidates "who meet a threshold level of support in national polls" will be invited to participate in the event, the companies said.

“Whoever is elected President in 2012 will need to take dramatic steps to improve the way we prepare our students for college and ensure our nation’s ability to better compete in the global economy,” said News Corp. chairman and CEO Murdoch. "This forum will provide a great opportunity for candidates for the Republican nomination to articulate their plans to achieve these goals."

Klein and the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot will host the forum.

This conference was announced before the phone hacking scandal broke wide open, so we'll see if News Corporation remains a public sponsor of the event or if Klein remains one of the hosts now that he has become a very prominent face in the Murdoch damage control team.

But the point of all of this remains whether this education conference comes off or not.

Murdoch is creating a very profitable environment for his online education business by denigrating public schools in his media, buying off the politicians to get them to change labor laws and regulations to help promote this business (just as he has done with the media enterprises in the past in both Britain and the U.S.) and hiring the right people with the right connections to promote his education business as an alternative to the public school system.

The Wireless Genration/ARIS contract is just a little glimpse into that very corrupt process and Murdoch and Klein should NOT be allowed to get away with this, NOT after the phone hacking, NOT after the bribery of the London Metro police, NOT after the conspiracy to subvert justice in Britain, NOT after all the political manipulation and chicanery.

The Murdoch phone hacking scandal points us toward the future.

It is not only time for a Murdoch-free news media in Britain.

It is time for a Murdoch-free education system here in America.

His Area of Expertise

Joel Klein, who blithely observed scandal upon scandal for Mayor Bloomberg, has been tapped by Rupert Murdoch to oversee his own scandal. It's about time we saw Klein utilized for something he actually knows about. Wasn't it Klein who oversaw his no-bid contracts result in children freezing on street corners, while waiting for buses that never came? And didn't Klein tirelessly plug the achievements on state tests that proved to be nothing whatsoever after revelations in 2010 that they'd been dumbed down?

Joel Klein brought accountability to students, making sure they could pass tests before graduation. Diana Senechal took one of these tests, marked A, B, C, D in a pattern without reading the questions, and passed.  Klein bravely fought to fire teachers, as nothing that occurred under his tenure was ever his fault. He presided over the closure of almost every high school in the Bronx, contending they were failures. None, of course, were failures on his part. That's what Klein called "accountability."

Klein spent years at the job, dispensing favored treatment to people like Eva Moskowitz, and setting up a two-tier system that ensured Eva's students were better treated than the overwhelming majority of kids attending city schools. He took almost a billion dollars to reduce class sizes, and through innovative management techniques, managed to make them go up just about everywhere.

So, if a scandal's brewing, Klein's your guy, Rupert. He's seen scandal from just about every angle there is. Only one thing, though--making things better for Rupert Murdoch is not necessarily the same as problem-solving. Klein's image was in the toilet when he resigned. I'm not remotely certain he's the guy to rehabilitate the image of a propaganda king.

I'm Shocked, Shocked

Just as Claude Raines was, I'm amazed that Educators 4 Excellence, funded by Bill Gates and Joel Klein's new plaything, Education Reform Now, has submitted its shocking conclusions to Mayor Bloomberg. Who would've thunk they'd tell Mayor Bloomberg to just do whatever he wanted to do?

After all, the mayor would have done whatever he felt like anyway. Certainly that goshdarn term limits law, twice affirmed by city voters, had to go when the richest man in New York City decided he needed a third term as mayor. And that awful Board of Education was out of the question, since it contained independent voices that might not tell him to do whatever he wanted to do.

So now, we have the Panel for Educational Policy, 8 of whose 13 members are hand chosen by the mayor. They do whatever he asks, and he fires them before he lets them do otherwise. I watched a politician at Brooklyn Tech tell them they'd sold their souls, and that since the job didn't pay they'd done so for nothing. He said he hated to think what they'd do for ten dollars. Me too.

There we are, at hearings where we know no one listens, listening to decisions we all know were made in advance. Everyone in the room knows none of the 8 people can be swayed by reason or logic, and when people protest or make loud noises the mayor calls it an affront to democracy. So what was lacking?

A teacher group, of course. And when you're the richest man in New York City, with friends like Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch, you don't even half to buy off the group yourself. You have Rupey buy off you ex-chancellor, the one who couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag, and get him a gig running a front group. Then, have that front group and Bill Gates pay get a couple of people out of the classroom. Finally, have them pretend they're concerned teachers, and hoodwink people into signing pledges of support with the lure of free drinks.

You have to wonder what those people would do for ten dollars. I shudder to think.

Riding Rupe's Gravy Train

One of the best things about taking a gig with good ol' Rupert Murdoch is he doesn't care what you do with your spare time. You can make a few mil a year, and in your spare time, you can chair Education Reform Now. You remember them? They're the folks who started bankrolling our pals at Educators 4 Excellence. Gotham Schools mentioned that after commenting on the E4E lovefest with Joel Klein.

And now, waddya know, Joel is in a position to fund them even more, surreptitiously or otherwise. So now, when Joel fumes about how much he hates having job protections for Americans with families and mortgages, he can fund a bunch of people who agree, keep them on for a few years, and then fire them to save even more money. It's a win-win.

Oddly, the piece about Joel Klein's continued sellout tour didn't merit mention in Gotham. Maybe they consider Joel old news. After all, he's been replaced by Cathie Black, who's not only devoid of any educational experience (Joel apparently taught for a few months), but is of an entirely different sex. That she shares every single policy position, without exception, is neither here nor there.

Anyway, DFER calls Education Reform Now it's "non-partisan partner." Perhaps that's why they selected Joel Klein to run it. It's well-known that Joel Klein is absolutely non-partisan about education, except for his opposition to teacher tenure, LIFO, raises, contracts, class-size reduction, decent learning conditions, workers' rights, democracy, Mom, or apple pie.

Other than that, I'd vote for the man myself. Anyway, congratulations to Joel Klein on that new gig, and congratulations on that nifty new pension. After all, what's important is making sure those who've devoted their lives to educating children don't get a dignified retirement. Since you've devoted your life to nothing of the sort, you deserve everything you get.

Just make sure, when you're trying to retroactively destroy government agreements with the working class, that there's a loophole for you. Losing pensions is for the little people.


Card via Leonie Haimson