by John Laesch, posted on Monday, April 1st, 2013 at 10:55 am
After making 16 similar presentations at public hearings over the course of 10 days in the Fox Valley, and receiving hundreds of tough questions, K12 Inc. finally showed up with a panel of executives. I counted seven K12 Inc. executives, one attorney, and three board members from Virtual Learning Solutions. They were all nicely dressed in business attire, their PowerPoint had new graphics, and their data was still non existent. K12 Inc. had 10 days to do their homework and once again failed to produce any substance.
For almost three hours the D365U School Board kept pushing for data, substance and explanations about K12’s questionable history of grade doctoring, cover-ups, lawsuits, scandals and investor settlements. The board was phenomenal, and Dr. Vince Gaddis (NIJwJ Steering Committee member) drove it home in a “worth the watch 12 speech” below the fold.
by John Laesch, posted on Friday, March 29th, 2013 at 9:16 pm
State Senator Heather Steans and Stand for Children are ultimately responsible for Chicago school closings and the recent increase of charter school applications like the 18-district virtual charter initiated by K12 Inc. in the Chicago suburbs.
I started researching SB79 and HB 5825, the legislation that created and gave the Illinois Charter Commission super “override powers” and autonomy from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). If SB7 gave education activists concern, SB79 and HB 5825 should have started a five-alarm fire.
Because of SB79, K12 Inc., a for-profit, Wall Street-traded company applied for a virtual charter scam in 18 suburban school districts. Why are they doing this? K12 Inc. anticipates that the state charter commission will override local rejections of their taxpayer rip-off scheme and approve the charter despite overwhelming local opposition.
Gloria Steinem joins Thom Hartmann. The nation’s third largest school district is without teachers today. After contract negotiations fell through over the weekend, the Chicago Teachers Union declared a strike and walked off the job this morning. This is the first time Chicago teachers have gone on strike in 25 years. Altogether 29,000 teachers and school workers are joining in on the strike to demand better pay, working conditions, and stop the march toward privatization of the city’s schools. At the heart of the strike are several issues: One is a four-percent pay increase teachers were promised last year — but was cancelled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Instead, the mayor is asking teachers to work a longer school day. Also, teachers are asking for a state limit on classroom sizes — a law that’s in place in 32 other states, but not in Illinois. Plus, teachers are trying to reverse the Mayor’s plans to slash public education funding and use that money to create 250 non-union, for-profit charter schools. Chicago has now become ground-zero in the battle over how we as a nation will educate our children. Will we embrace the public school system that Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann worked so hard to create — and support teachers who perform one of the most important jobs in our society? Or, will we hand off educating our kids to the money-changers and corporate CEOs who see education as a get-rich-quick scheme? Keep an eye on the Windy City.
