David Safier

by David Safier

As Mari Herreras put it in the Weekly, Crazily Enough, Someone Qualified Is Interested In Run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Dr. David Garcia is an education prof at ASU who has experience working with the legislature and in the Department of Education. I've had a chance to talk with him. He has the practical, no-nonsense manner of a man who knows how things work. He's a very viable candidate for the office with qualifications we haven't seen for 20 years, the last time we had an educator in the Ed Supe's office.

"Like" Garcia's Facebook page, dg4az, to show your support and keep up with his campaign. Here's his statement on the FB page:

Phoenix, Ariz. – June 3, 2013 — Dr. David Garcia, an Associate Professor at Arizona State University, announced the formation of an exploratory committee, Garcia 2014, for Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction.

A nationally recognized expert in education policy and research, Dr. Garcia served as the state Associate Superintendent of Public Instruction for Standards and Accountability, Director of Research and Policy for the Arizona Department of Education, research analyst for the Arizona State Senate Education Committee, and peer consultant for the U.S. Department of Education. He is the current director of the Arizona Education Policy Initiative.

“The very sustainability of Arizona public education is at risk,” declared Dr. Garcia. “Our current officials have fallen in the trap of nationalization, seeking permission from D.C. to make decisions for Arizona schools and creating a public education system that is big, slow and monolithic. Void of ideas, they are more concerned about complying with federal regulations than preparing our students our way.

by David Safier

The outsourcing of student data by public schools is a dangerous and underreported part of the ever-growing corporatization of education. It's even more dangerous when Rupert Murdoch is involved. TUSD is now using a data outsourcing product, mCLASS, created by Murdoch's education wing. I imagine TUSD purchased the program without giving much thought to the nature of the provider, but the District should put an end to the contract as soon as possible. Even disregarding Murdoch's politics and his use of the media for propaganda, his companies have a known criminal history of hacking into private citizens' data for profit.

With increasing frequency, information about students is being stored in computer systems owned and run by private companies. That means student data, some of it very sensitive, is sitting in private hands waiting for someone to mine it for profit. As a retired teacher, I consider student information to be a sacred trust between a child's parents and the school, and the information should not be divulged without parental consent. But the fact is parents have no idea that information about their children is in private hands.

The most outrageous project which clearly violates student privacy is the new nonprofit inBloom, funded mainly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which can write a check for $100 million to fund the project as easily as I can give $10 to a cause I support). The inBloom infrastructure is created by a division of Rupert Murdoch's multi-national mass media corporation, New Corp. The goal is for inBloom to house student data from across the country without getting parental consent first — data which can be accessed by private education companies. The information includes learning disabilities, test scores, attendance and much more — even name, address and social security number for easy identification.

At this point, Arizona is not involved with inBloom. But another Murdoch-owned data storage project, mCLASS, is being used in Tucson to store information about elementary school children. The program was created by Amplify, a company which describes itself as "an independent subsidiary of News Corporation." As I understand it, TUSD has bought the mCLASS program as part of its reading program. Using an assessment tool named DIBELS, mCLASS allows teachers to perform one-minute reading assessments of their students. The information is automatically uploaded and stored in Murdoch-run computers.

by David Safier

Ann-Eve Pedersen and I have recorded the second program for our new cable news show, Education: The Rest of the Story, produced by Carolyn Brown through Access Tucson Community Media. The first segment is online, and it's worth watching. Ann-Eve talks about a new charter school handing out fliers to her son and other children outside their middle school — to the children, not the parents — promising the kids $100 for enrolling in the school. "I see this as a natural extension of what happens when we treat education like a business," Ann-Eve says in the video. "Our children have become commodities."

The new charter is called The Rising School (subhead: "Rising to Achieve Greatness"). It looks like a BASIS clone, all the way down to the "diagnostic tests" students have to take after they're admitted. "[N]o one can 'fail' a baseline test and be kept out of The Rising School because of his/her performance on the test," the website says. What it doesn't say is parents can be discouraged from sending their children, telling them they will be held back a grade if they don't pass muster.

As for that $100, here's what it says on the website:

Earn $100! Any student who enrolls in The Rising School by August 5, 2013, spends the entire 2013-14 year at TRS, and finishes the year with 95% or higher attendance and a 3 or higher Civic Score will earn $100! Tell your friends about this opportunity, too!

And right under that is a link to a "Student Interest Form" kids can fill out if they want that hundred bucks. No parental consent is required on the form, though address and home phone are required.

You can watch the 3 minute video below the fold.

by David Safier Arizona Senator Richard Crandall is one of three finalists to head the Wyoming Department of Education. I see Crandall's interest in the job was in the Capitol Times, and Craig McDermott cross-posted about it on BfA in March, but it looks like Crandall's name has recently made it to the finals. McDermott, … Read more