Here is TRUMP today being VERY CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL in pushing SCHOOL CHOICE pretending like CLINTON that CHOICE means PARENTS AND COMMUNITIES choosing schools as charter community schools when CHOICE means GLOBAL NEO-LIBERAL EDUCATION CORPORATIONS choose which child gets what kind of education ---mostly NO EDUCATION----just learning to
DO AS YOU ARE TOLD....DON'T THINK.
BASIS as a global neo-liberal corporate EDUCATION CHARTER CHAIN means a child will get the most BASIC of education---just enough to CONTROL.
WE CALL THIS COMMONER CORE----MYTH-MAKING AND PROPAGANDA----A CHILD WILL KNOW NOTHING ATTENDING THESE GLOBAL NEO-LIBERAL SCHOOLS.
It's all about helping MINORITY CHILDREN say global banking 1% -----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---now TRUMP.
'Bill Clinton on School Choice
www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Bill_Clinton_School...
Bill Clinton on School Choice Expand public school choice and public charter schools The FY 2000 budget provides a $134 million accountability fund to help turn around the worst performing schools and hold them accountable for results through such measures as overhauling curriculum, improving staffing, or even closing schools and reopening them as charter schools.
Hillary Clinton on School Choice
www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Hillary_Clinton...
I stand behind the charter school/public school movement, because parents do deserve greater choice within the public school system to meet the unique needs of their children. Slowly but surely, we’re beginning to create schooling opportunities through the public school charter system-raising academic standards, empowering educators'.
TRUMP pretending to be very RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVE while being very FAR-RIGHT WING NEO-LIBERAL.
Trump unveils $20B school choice proposal
By CAITLIN EMMA
09/08/2016 05:18 PM EDT
Updated 09/08/2016 08:37 PM EDT
Donald Trump unveiled a school choice plan on Thursday that would create a $20 billion block grant to expand charter and private school options for low-income children — an idea championed by conservatives, but which has previously fizzled in Congress.
"As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice," he said, vowing to use the presidential bully pulpit and campaign in all 50 states for the proposal.
Trump said expanding school choice would help minority students who are currently trapped in "failing government schools." But the backdrop for Trump's speech was an Ohio charter school that is itself failing.
Trump made his remarks at the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy, a small school located in a predominantly African-American neighborhood of the city.
Nearly all of the school's students, in kindergarten through eighth grade, are African-American and eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch, according to the most recently available federal data. CASSA was rated highly by the nonprofit education group Battelle for Kids in 2014 for making year-to-year progress on student learning, but the school's latest state report card essentially labels it a failure. CASSA earned an “F” for overall student progress in math and reading.
Early in his speech, Trump thanked Ron Packard, who is the CEO of the for-profit education company that runs the Cleveland charter school. Packard is a national figure in the charter school movement who is also active in supporting political campaigns.
Trump said his proposed block grant program would come from redirecting existing federal funds, and he would leave it up to states to decide whether the dollars would follow children to public, private, charter or magnet schools. He didn't specify which existing federal programs would lose funding to pay for this new initiative.
The notion of portable funding to expand school choice has been backed by conservatives like former Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who made it a big part of his education platform in 2012.
Trump’s proposal bears resemblance to a 2014 bill introduced by Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a leading senator on education issues. That legislation would have redirected federal funding to millions of poor children, which they could use to attend private or public schools of their choice.
When Congress rewrote No Child Left Behind, Alexander and Indiana Republican Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.) introduced amendments that would have allowed federal dollars to follow students to public or private schools. But the amendments didn't make it into the final bills.
The Hillary Clinton campaign on Thursday blasted Trump’s new plan, saying it would “gut” nearly 30 percent of the federal education budget to fund private school vouchers, and “decimate public schools across America.”
Clinton's campaign said Trump would have to cut all federal Title I funding for poor students, in addition to $5 billion in additional federal education funding, to pay for the proposal.
Hillary for America senior policy adviser Maya Harris said the "proposal could strip funding from up to 56,000 public schools serving more than 21 million children" and it "might only serve 1.4 million students, while stripping funding from the other 10.5 million low-income students in America."
The libertarian Cato Institute had a lukewarm reaction.
Said Cato's Neal McCluskey: "Donald Trump is right to emphasize school choice: It is the key to empowering parents to get the education that is best for their unique children, and for educators to teach how they want and try new, innovative approaches.
OH, REALLY EXTREME WEALTH LIBERTARIAN CATO INSTITUTE-----IT EMPOWERS PARENTS?
But this is not something that should come from Washington. The federal government has no constitutional authority to meddle in education, and as it has proven over the last several decades — including by coercing states to adopt the Common Core — once it starts paying for education it starts controlling it, telling everyone what to do and how to do it."
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools wouldn’t say whether it’s supportive of Trump’s plan because the organization hasn’t seen all of the details. But the group lauded presidential candidates generally for focusing on school choice.
______________________________________
We discussed yesterday the global neo-liberal K-12 CORPORATE CHARTER BASIS -------Here is KIPP again----BAD TO THE BONE.
The motto BE HARD is indeed the ethos ---we think HITTING ----MAKING PEOPLE PORN--------would qualify for these goals. The targeting of our 99% WE THE BLACK STUDENTS is planting the idea that these BASIS schools are creating RACE AND CLASS SCHOOLING when these schools will be the only game in town for US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown and our new to US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE immigrants.
When I speak of HOSTING SERVER NOSY NEIGHBORS AND THE GANG----HITTING people scaring and intimidating people-----I think of graduates from these global neo-liberal CORPORATE CHARTER CHAINS.
Looking below we see the founder of KIPP-----as a CHILD SEXUAL PREDATOR no doubt taking TOILET CAMS of children while sending them to DARK WEB as PORN for PROFITS. Feinberg says-------I was sexually exploiting children for our KIPP SHAREHOLDERS--
KIPP IS BASIS------THEY ARE THE SAME GLOBAL NEO-LIBERAL CORPORATE K-12 CHARTER MODEL.
KIPP Co-Founder Mike Feinberg Fired Over Sexual Misconduct Allegations
By Arianna Prothero on February 22, 2018 8:27 PM | No comments
UPDATED
A co-founder of KIPP, the largest charter school network in the country, has been fired over allegations of sexual misconduct with a child.
Michael Feinberg was accused of sexually abusing a student in the late 1990s
'Monday, July 18, 2016
Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools, Part 1
In March I posted some disturbing new research findings on the caustic disciplining of students within corporate charter schools. With that new information, I also posted the Preface of my book, Work Hard, Be Hard..., which provides an insider's perspective and accompanying analysis of the KIPP Model charter school phenomenon that has been responsible for the most profitable educational eugenics program in American history.
In the coming weeks I will be posting chapters from the book. Today I offer the Introduction and Chapter 1.
If you are considering a job in a charter school, or if you know someone who is considering working in a charter school, or if you are thinking about enrolling a child in a charter school, please read and share before making that decision'.
TRUMP'S Education Secretary DeVos trying to expand KIPP in Texas is that CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA BILLIONAIRE from all that sacking and looting of our US FEDERAL EDUCATION funding for public K-12. PRITZER of Chicago BILLIONAIRE from all this via OBAMA-----so, too WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ.
We get nothing but FAKE DATA-----FAKE NEWS-----and nothing but EXPLOITATION of children when we allow global banking 1% to PRETEND these COMMUNITY CHARTERS are populist ----supporting parents, students, teachers.
Exposed by CMD: KIPP's Efforts to Keep the Public in the Dark while Seeking Millions in Taxpayer Subsidies
Submitted by Lisa Graves on April 28, 2016 - 10:04am
By Lisa Graves and Dustin Beilke
Charter schools are big business, even when they are run by "non-profits" that pay no taxes on the revenue they receive from public taxes or other sources.
Take KIPP, which describes itself as a "national network of public schools."
KIPP (an acronym for the phrase "knowledge is power program") operates like a franchise with the KIPP Foundation as the franchisor and the individual charters as franchisees that are all separate non-profits that describe themselves as "public schools."
But how public are KIPP public schools?
Not as public as real or traditional public schools.
New documents discovered on the U.S. Department of Education's website reveal that KIPP has claimed that information about its revenues and other significant matters is "proprietary" and should be redacted from materials it provides to that agency to justify the expenditure of federal tax dollars, before its application is made publicly available.
So what does a so-called public school like KIPP want to keep the public from knowing?
1. Graduation and College Matriculation Rates
KIPP touts itself as particularly successful at preparing students to succeed in school and college.
Yet, it insisted that the U.S. Department of Education keep secret from the public the statistics about the percentage of its eighth graders who completed high school, entered college, and/or who completed a two-year or four-year degree.
A few years ago, professor Gary Miron and his colleagues Jessica Urschel and Nicholas Saxton, found that "KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion of African-American students than the local school districts they draw from but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades 6 and 8," as reported by Mary Ann Zehr in Ed Week.
Zehr noted: "'The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking,' said Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research" at Western Michigan University, who conducted the national study.
Miron's analysis was attacked by KIPP and its allies, who said KIPP's success was not due to the attrition of lower performing students who leave the school or move to other districts. One of its defenders was Mathematica Policy Research, whose subsequent study was used to try to rebut Miron's analysis. (That name will be important momentarily.)
The Department of Education has been provided with the data about what percentage of KIPP students graduate from high school and go on to college, but it is helping KIPP keep that secret—despite the public tax dollars going to these schools and despite KIPP's claim to be operating what are public schools.
Real public schools would never be allowed to claim that high school graduation rates or college matriculation rates are "proprietary" or "privileged" or "confidential."
Why does the Education Department's Charter School Program "Office of Innovation and Improvement" defer to KIPP's demand to keep that information secret from the public?
Meanwhile, the KIPP Foundation regularly spends nearly a half million dollars a year ($467,594 at last count) on advertising to convince the public how great its public charters are using figures it selects to promote. Almost no public school district in the nation has that kind of money to drop on ads promoting its successes.
2. Projected Uses of Federal Taxpayer Dollars (and Disney World?)
Even as KIPP was seeking more than $22 million from the federal government to expand its charter school network, it insisted that the U.S. Department of Education redact from its application a chart about how much money would be spent on personnel, facilities, transportation, and "other uses" under the proposed grant. KIPP also sought to redact the amount of private funding it was projecting.
The agency's compliant Office of Innovation and Improvement obliged KIPP.
However, after the grant was approved, KIPP did have to comply with IRS regulations to file a report on its revenues and expenditures, as all entities given the privilege of having their revenue tax-exempt or tax-deductible do. (Those filings usually are made available a year after the revenue and expenditures accrue.)
That is, the federal government's Office of Innovation and Improvement redacted information about KIPP's revenue and expenditures on the basis of an unsupportable assertion that such information was exempt under the Freedom of Information Act as proprietary, confidential, or privileged even though it is not.
Here are some of the key details from KIPP's 2013 tax filings (uploaded below):
In that tax year, which covers the 2013-2014 school year, as traditional public schools faced budget cuts across the country, KIPP spent more than $3.5 million on "lodging and hospitality," including more than $1.8 million alone at the posh Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Since its revenue from taxpayers is commingled with its revenues from wealthy charter school advocates and the foundations they control, there is no way to sort out how much of taxpayer money has directly gone into luxurious trips for KIPP employees versus how much having revenue from taxes helps subsidize such largesse.
But, there is no public school district in the country that would be allowed such travel and promotional expenditures for its executives or teachers if the voters knew about it or had a say in it.
Perhaps it should be no surprise that KIPP would want the grant-makers at the U.S. Department of Education to redact the amount of its expenditures for personnel, facilities, transportation, and "other uses"—especially with extravagant expenditures like its transportation and lodging at fabulous resorts, as opposed to transportation for kids to school—but why would the federal agency charged with oversight go along with redacting information about how much KIPP was projecting to spend in those categories?
KIPP did request that budget information about how much it or its affiliates paid the executive directors for individual charters, principals, accountants, grant managers, community coordinators, and IT teams be kept from the public, under a claim that such information is proprietary.
But the Office of Innovation and Improvement did not accommodate that request.
Notably, KIPP's grant application sets forth "regional leadership" expenses that total nearly $5 million of the projected budget for the grant. There is no indication how much taxpayers are directly or indirectly subsidizing the six-figure salaries of its executive suite including the nearly half-million in total compensation for each of KIPP's two highest paid employees. (This grant application only pertains to one source of federal and state grants that annually provide revenue to KIPP.)
3. Full Disclosure of Attrition and Performance Results
Not only did KIPP seek to keep the public in the dark about how it spends tax-exempt funding and how many KIPP students make it to high school graduation or college, it also sought to redact information "KIPP Student Attrition" by region and "by subgroup" and "KIPP Student Performance" on state exams on "Math and Reading."
The Office of Innovation and Improvement did as KIPP requested.
But why would KIPP, which advertises its claimed superiority, and the Department of Education, which uses KIPP as an example of the success of charters, keep information about attrition and performance secret, especially when that subject is one of great public interest as noted by the Economic Policy Institute?
Page after page after page in KIPP's application that shows the percentage of school students who leave KIPP is blacked out along with information about student test results by school for the three years prior to the grant application.
How can the Department of Education acquiesce in a request by a charter it cheerleads for to keep data about that charter's retention or dropout rate secret?
WELL, COULD BE THEY ARE BEING MADE BILLIONAIRES BY GLOBAL BANKING 1%.
If both sets of redacted figures were truly excellent, why wouldn't both KIPP and the Department of Education release those results? After all, KIPP included glossy PR documents on some of its schools in its application materials touting select data about test results.
Why should unelected bureaucrats at the federal agency get to see the data about attrition and performance in awarding millions in taxpayer dollars to KIPP but go along with KIPP in keeping those specific statistics from the public?
In short, what are KIPP and the Department of Education hiding from the American people?
4. The CEO Foundations Pushing School "Choice" and Subsidizing KIPP
KIPP also asked the Office of Innovation and Improvement to redact the amounts of funding provided to KIPP by foundations that wrote letters of support for KIPP to receive federal taxpayer money under the grant.
The grant documents the Center for Media and Democracy has examined reveal that these are the names and amounts that KIPP sought to keep the public from knowing and that the Department of Education blacked out at KIPP's request:
Why would the Office of Innovation and Improvement go along with a request to keep secret from the public information that is subsequently required to be made public?
While many of the foundations listed above are led by corporate CEOs or their families, only a few are corporations whose donations might not be routinely disclosed.
SAP, for example, is the name of a German corporation that made headlines 18 months ago for dumping the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) after Google dumped ALEC for its climate change denial and obstruction. Should Americans be concerned that a foreign multinational corporation is influencing American "public charters" through KIPP? The truth is foreign multinationals are exercising increasing influence over American charter schools and testing. Just look at the growth in U.S. business of the British firm, Pearson.
At the same time, the volume of such private philanthropic support begs the question of why the American taxpayer ought to be subsidizing schools that are touted as public but act like private ones when it comes to executive compensation and roadblocks to transparency, especially at a time when traditional public schools are facing such budgetary pressures?
KIPP is a taxpayer-subsidized school franchise that pays no taxes on its revenue and provides a tax-deductible vehicle for uber-wealthy families to promote the school "choice" agenda.
And, the fact that taxpayer money is going to a group spending millions on luxury trips to resorts in Las Vegas is mind-boggling in an age of austerity when many public schools are going without basic necessities.
With each new fact that comes out, the charter school industry is looking more like the military defense industry with the scandals of the 1980s as with the infamous $600 toilet seat. There's no indication of fraud by KIPP.
But from an optics standpoint some might consider a $600 plastic seat small change, compared with a "public school" spending more than a million to go to Disney World in one year, even if only one-third of KIPP's funding comes from taxpayers directly and the remainder comes at taxpayer expense due to CEOs writing off donations to foundations that help underwrite KIPP.
Plus, separate from the grant application discussed here, KIPP has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education to conduct leadership training summits for KIPP principals and other personnel. That application also includes significant redactions, including about key components of the budget for what it calls KIPP "summits" or annual meetings and other gatherings (as well as a total redaction of the Mathematica analysis commissioned by KIPP).
ARNE DUNCAN AND OBAMA------GREAT BIG KIPP AND BASIS PLAYERS.
Meanwhile, KIPP told the Education Department that in its first 10 years it had raised more than $150 million from private philanthropic sources, which underscores the question of why taxpayers are subsidizing an operation that already has ample support from the corporate community and those taxpayer dollars could be going instead to strengthen traditional public schools that are truly public and that are not subsidized by tax write-offs for the one percent through their foundations.
Indeed, those tax write-offs serve to diminish the base of revenue available for tax revenue to fund public schools and other genuinely public goods in the first place.
A Closer Look at KIPP
It appears that all the redactions were in response to "proprietary" instructions KIPP dictated to DOE through a four-page document titled, "Proprietary Information."
The Education Department complied with almost all of KIPP's instructions, despite how contrary they are to public policy and even to publicly available information.
These black marks come at a time when cracks are starting to show in KIPP's once beyond-reproach veneer.
KIPP is the largest and most lauded charter school chain in the United States and the recipient of many millions of dollars in taxpayer grants, foundation gifts and handouts from billionaire charter school enthusiasts.
A new book by Jim Horn, Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through ‘No Excuses' Teaching, focuses on the experiences and perspectives of dozens of former KIPP teachers who have become critics of the chain and many of the principles it is based on, including the Teach for America program that supplies KIPP with many of its teachers.
The book's title is a reference to "Work Hard. Be Nice" the book-length puff piece authored by Washington Post education reporter Jay Matthews about KIPP's founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levine.
In a review of Work Hard, Be Hard that is excerpted on Diane Ravitch's blog, education professor Julian Vasquez Heilig writes that screaming at students is accepted teaching practice in KIPP schools:
Why does KIPP encourage and/or allow these practices?
Horn writes, school leaders relayed that ‘because of cultural differences, black students are accustomed to being screamed at…because that's how their parents speak to them.' A KIPP teacher characterized the worst offender at her school as a ‘screamer, swearer and humiliator.'
"KIPP might also argue that they are the beneficiaries of widespread support in communities across the nation. It is very clear that KIPP benefits from powerful influential and wealthy supporters in government, the media, and foundations. Their no excuses approach to educating poor children has resonated with the elites in society and they have showered the corporate charter chain with resources for decades. So it may be surprising to some to read the counternarrative from KIPP teachers that is quite different than what you typically read in the newspapers, see in documentaries like Waiting for Superman, and generally experience in the public discourse. I proffer that the KIPP teachers' counternarratives in Journeys should be required reading for all of KIPPs influential supporters."
So what is the disgruntled KIPP teachers' counter-narrative?
For one, the model seems to create lousy working conditions for the purpose of encouraging high teacher turnover. One former teacher says, "I wouldn't wish it on anyone who wanted to be a teacher for the long-term…It's exhausting. It's demoralizing."
And this is where Teach for America comes in. "Without a constant infusion of new teachers to replace all those who burn out," Horn writes, "KIPP would have to shut its doors… The role of Teach For America and programs based on Teach For America's hyper-abbreviated preparation are crucial, then, for the continued survival of… KIPP."
In short, the new book offers a devastating critique of the KIPP business model at a time when KIPP and the Department of Education appear to be aiding each other in trying to keep critical information out of the public debate through redaction.
____________________________________________
We will end our discussion on education public policy tied to GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERAL K-12 CHARTER CHAINS------by reminding our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE---the same global banking 1% having sacked and looted our US TREASURY as too US Federal Education funding these few decades are now those HEDGE FUNDS------GLOBAL INVESTMENT FIRMS complete with FOUNDATIONS pushing these BASIS----KIPP et al with goals of completely eliminating not only our US PUBLIC K-12----but any resemblance of a local community charter school which many right wing citizens thought all this might be.
ONE WORLD ONE ONLINE EDUCATION---VOCATIONAL PRE-K TO CAREER HAS THAT GOAL OF ------YOUR CHILD IS PROPERTY OF A GLOBAL CORPORATION.
Why hedge funds love charter schools
A board at the New York Stock Exchange . (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
By
Valerie Strauss
Reporter
June 4, 2014 at 5:00 a.m. EDT
One of the features of corporate school reform is the interest that Wall Street has shown in supporting charter schools.
Why?
No doubt hedge fund managers would say they want to support education and help young people have educational choices. But here’s another part of the answer, written by Alan Singer, a social studies educator in the Department of Teaching, Literacy and Leadership at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, and the editor of Social Science Docket (a joint publication of the New York and New Jersey Councils for Social Studies).
He taught at a number of secondary schools in New York City, including Franklin K. Lane High School and Edward R. Murrow High School. He is also the author of several books. This appeared on his Huffington Post blog.
By Alan Singer
Obscure laws can have a very big impact on social policy, including obscure changes in the United States federal tax code. The 2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, included provisions from the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000. The law provided tax incentives for seven years to businesses that locate and hire residents in economically depressed urban and rural areas. The tax credits were reauthorized for 2008-2009, 2010-2011, and 2012-2013.
As a result of this change to the tax code, banks and equity funds that invest in charter schools in underserved areas can take advantage of a very generous tax credit. They are permitted to combine this tax credit with other tax breaks while they also collect interest on any money they lend out. According to one analyst, the credit allows them to double the money they invested in seven years. Another interesting side note is that foreign investors who put a minimum of $500,000 in charter school companies are eligible to purchase immigration visas for themselves and family members under a federal program called EB-5.
The tax credit may also explain why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg partnered with the former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, to promote charter schools; donated a half a million dollars worth of stock to organizations that distribute charter school funding; and opened his own foundation, Startup: Education, to build new charter schools.
The real estate industry, which already receives huge tax breaks as it gentrifies communities, also stands to benefit by promoting charter schools and helping them buy up property, or rent, in inner city communities. One real estate company, Eminent Properties Trust, boasts on its website:
USING FAKE PUBLIC SCHOOL STATUS AS EMINENT DOMAIN?
“Our investment portfolio of nearly $3 billion includes megaplex movie theatres and adjacent retail, public charter schools, and other destination recreational and specialty investments. This portfolio includes over 160 locations spread across 34 states with over 200 tenants.”
The Charter management group Charter Schools USA recommends that rental costs should not exceed 20 percent of a school’s budget. However the Miami Herald reported that in 2011, 19 charter schools in Miami-Dade and Broward exceeded this figure and one in Miami Gardens paid 43 percent. The Herald called south Florida charter schools a “$400-million-a-year powerhouse backed by real-estate developers and promoted by politicians, but with little oversight.” Its report found charters paying exorbitant fees to management companies and that many of the highest rents were paid to landlords with ties to the management companies running the schools.
Tax benefits and real estate investment may also explain why Wall Street is so hot on raising money for charter schools. On Monday night, April 28, 2014, hundreds of Wall Streeters gathered at Cipriani in Midtown Manhattan to raise funds for Success Academy Charter Schools. Former Florida governor and possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush gave the keynote address. The dinner was chaired by hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb. Loeb is the founder of Third Point LLC and chairman of the board for Success Academy. The gala raised at least $7.75 million for Success Academy.
Also attending were Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital Management, Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management, Boaz Weinstein of Saba Capital, John Paulson of Paulson & Co. and Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater USA.
According to The New York Times, the 10 highest-paid hedge fund operators with close ties to charter schools also includes David Tepper (No. 1 at $3.5 billion in 2013), founder of founder of Appaloosa Management and New Jersey based “Better Education for Kids”; Steven A. Cohen (No. 2 at $2.4 billion) of SAC Capital Advisors, which was forced to pay a $1.2 billion dollar penalty for insider trading, who has given over $10 million to the Achievement First charter school network; and Paul Tudor Jones II (tied for tenth at $600 million), founder of the Tudor Investment Corporation who has supported charter schools through his Robin Hood Foundation.
_______________________________________
REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS have been shouting against REVISIONIST history being written by NATIONAL FAKE NEWS media and global corporate university academics selling corporate FAKE DATA to advance profit or brand power. We write every day to protect what is OUR US 99% WE THE PEOPLE history as we know it. When global banking 1% HEDGE FUNDS/INVESTMENT FIRMS control media---control academics we don't know what TRUTH is-----TRUTH say global banking 1% is whatever the global markets tell us.
US PUBLIC EDUCATION TAUGHT OUR US CITIZENS TO HOLD POWER ACCOUNTABLE---TO KEEP CORPORATIONS FROM TOO MUCH WEALTH AND POWER.
'Volume 13, ISSUE 5, P212-220, May 01, 2005
Geologically ancient DNA: fact or artefact?
Martin B. Hebsgaard
Matthew J. Phillips
Eske Willerslev
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2005.03.010'
This is as discussed before tied to GOULD'S PUNCTUATED EVOLUTION theories where SCIENCE DATA is FORCED to create pathways to theories having NO BASIC SCIENCE.
'But in 2014, Bedford got another surprise call, this time from a researcher affiliated with a genetics team at Harvard. A small group of pioneering lab scientists had found ways to isolate and analyze DNA from ancient bones'
'3. The Revisionist
David Reich’s lab is folded into a corner of a glassy, long-corridored labyrinth at Harvard Medical School'.
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER----OXFORD UNIVERSITY having scientists saying ancient DNA is not possible.
Volume 13, ISSUE 5, P212-220, May 01, 2005
Geologically ancient DNA: fact or artefact?
Martin B. Hebsgaard
Matthew J. Phillips
Eske Willerslev
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2005.03.010
Is Ancient DNA Research Revealing New Truths — or Falling Into Old Traps?
Geneticists have begun using old bones to make sweeping claims about the distant past. But their revisions to the human story are making some scholars of prehistory uneasy.
By Gideon Lewis-Kraus
PART I
1. The Ghosts of Teouma
A faint aura of destiny seems to hover over Teouma Bay. It’s not so much the landscape, with its ravishing if boilerplate tropical splendor — banana and mango trees, coconut and pandanus palms, bougainvillea, the apprehensive trill of the gray-eared honeyeater — as it is the shape of the harbor itself, which betrays, in the midst of such organic profusion, an aspect of the unnatural. The bay, on the island of Efate in the South Pacific nation Vanuatu, is long, symmetrical and briskly rectangular. In the expected place of wavelets is a blue so calm and unbroken that the sea doesn’t so much crash on the land as neatly abut it. From above, it looks as though a safe harbor had been engraved in the shoreline by some celestial engineer.
In late 2003, while clearing land just above the seaside, a bulldozer driver found a broken piece of pottery in the rubble. The villagers of Vanuatu often happen upon shards of timeworn ceramic, which spark an idly mythical curiosity; they’re said to be fragments of Noah’s Ark, or the original Ten Commandments, or the burst water vessels of powerful ancestral spirits. These shards are often left alone, but word in this particular case traveled quickly, and the artifact soon found its way to the Vanuatu Cultural Center and National Museum, where Stuart Bedford, a New Zealand archaeologist who had studied local pot shards for years, was called in to inspect it. He immediately recognized its distinctive pattern — “dentate stamping,” an ancient technique so named because it looked as though some tiny-toothed creature had bitten an intricate pattern into the ceramic — and understood that this pottery coincided with the very first movement of ancient peoples into the South Seas.
Bedford rushed to the site of the discovery, an old colonial coconut plantation that the bulldozer had been clearing for use as a prawn farm. Further burrowing turned up not only more pottery but also tools of obsidian and a great cache of human bones, which had lain undisturbed and unusually well preserved over thousands of years. The site was soon identified as the oldest and largest prehistoric cemetery ever found in the Pacific. Everything at the site indicated a founding colony — first arrivals to the shores of uninhabited islands. Teouma was, according to Bedford, “unlike anything anyone had ever seen, or was likely to see, in this part of the world ever again.”
Archaeologists hoped the bones might help provide a clue to the abiding mystery of how anybody had gotten to these far-off coastlines in the first place. Vanuatu is a volcanic archipelago of more than 80 islands littered in an extended slingshot shape across an 800-mile arc of the South Pacific. Europeans first heard of its existence in 1606, when a Portuguese navigator stopped through on a brief but violent imperial errand for the Spanish crown. The islands were largely left to their own devices until the end of the 18th century, when French and British ships arrived to plant their own flags. The two countries ruled the archipelago as a joint colony, called the Condominium of the New Hebrides, until independence was achieved in 1980. National coherence remains a work in progress. By some measures, Vanuatu is per capita the most linguistically diverse country on the planet: Its quarter-million citizens, predominantly the native ni-Vanuatu, speak as many as 140 different indigenous languages and maintain an astonishing variety of cultural practices. A meaningful national identity has been constructed from a common appreciation of ceremonial pig-tusk bracelets and the taking of kava, a very mild narcotic root that looks like primordial pea soup and tastes like a fine astringent dirt. Above all, however, the ni-Vanuatu are bound together by the fact of the country’s nautical isolation: Their nearest neighbors are hundreds of miles in any direction.
It is the peculiar geography of this isolation that made the Teouma site so significant. Many of the islands of the South Pacific are much farther-flung: Easter Island makes Vanuatu look like an Australian exurb. But with one very small exception — the tiny eastern outliers of the Solomon Islands — Vanuatu offers the first solid ground on the far side of a major but invisible maritime boundary. On the west side of that border is a string of archipelagoes called Near Oceania: islands chained to one another (and to the rest of the world) by lines of sight. Prehistoric peoples, after tens of thousands of years of travel by foot from Africa, had arrived at the end of Southeast Asia and hopscotched their way forward via short sea outings, presumably crossing the narrow channels they encountered on crude watercraft. Finally, however, some 40,000 years ago, their path was decisively blocked by open ocean. In front of them, across more than 200 miles of empty sea, was the vast aquatic wilderness of Remote Oceania.
That border marked the absolute limit of human expansion for tens of thousands of years, until at last someone sailed out across the naval event horizon and into the unknown. This first traversal was one of the greatest and most courageous passages in human prehistory. The peopling of Remote Oceania — an obscure exodus that easily ranks among the signal triumphs of the ancient world — has inspired awe and vexation for generations. In the mid-20th century, archaeologists came to identify these first voyagers with a set of jars and tools unique to the region, the “Lapita cultural complex,” and determined that they crossed the boundary into Remote Oceania some 3,000 years ago. Further details were presumed lost to history.
But in 2014, Bedford got another surprise call, this time from a researcher affiliated with a genetics team at Harvard. A small group of pioneering lab scientists had found ways to isolate and analyze DNA from ancient bones, methods potent enough to inspire a wholesale revision of our knowledge about ancient peoples. The Harvard operation, which was then preparing a landmark paper about European origins, now intended to visit their attention upon the South Pacific, and they wanted to know whether Bedford might facilitate access to the Teouma remains. Bedford agreed, and over the next four years, the Harvard team used the DNA they found to present a radical new story about Remote Oceania’s first settlers.
Bedford and I met last summer in the hilly and sedate capital of Port-Vila, outside the towering thatched A-frame of the national museum. He is tall and friendly, with a square head, short brown hair, a rancher’s open gait and the incessant squint of someone in perpetual communion with the near-hopeless complication of human affairs. We climbed into his white Land Cruiser and drove to a tidy village compound outside town. There, Bedford embraced the local chief, Silas Alben, who led us through village gardens of banana and tuber to a high limestone cliff with a sprawling view of the Teouma site.
______________________________________________
'The scientists concluded that their inability to detect ancient DNA in relatively young – 60 years to 10,600 years old – sub-fossilized insects in copal, despite using sensitive next generation methods, suggests that the potential for DNA survival in resin inclusions is no better, and perhaps worse, than that in air-dried museum insects.
This raises significant doubts about claims of DNA extraction from fossil insects in amber, many millions of years older than copal'.
Extracting Dinosaur DNA from Amber Fossils Impossible, Scientists Say
Sep 17, 2013 by News Staff / Source
According to Dr David Penney and his colleagues at the University of Manchester, UK, the existence of ancient DNA in amber fossils is highly unlikely.
The scientists have tried to extract ancient DNA from two stingless bees Trigonisca ameliae. This image shows Trigonisca ameliae bee in Colombian copal. Image credit: Dr David Penney / University of Manchester.
The idea of recreating dinosaurs by extracting DNA from insects in amber has held the fascination of the public since the early 1990s.
But Manchester University scientists in their new study, published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, have revealed this technique is unlikely to succeed.
They used highly-sensitive sequencing techniques – the most advance type of DNA sequencing – on insects in copal, the sub-fossilized resin precursor of amber.
The study was conducted wearing full forensic suits in an ancient DNA facility, which comprises a suite of independent, physically isolated laboratories, each with an ultra-filtered air supply maintaining positive displacement pressure and a managed access system.
“In the original 1990s studies DNA amplification was achieved by a process called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which will preferentially amplify any modern, undamaged DNA molecules that contaminate an extract of partially degraded ancient ones to give false positive results that might be mistaken for genuine ancient DNA,” explained senior author Prof Terence Brown.
“Our approach, using ‘next generation’ sequencing methods is ideal for ancient DNA because it provides sequences for all the DNA molecules in an extract, regardless of their length, and is less likely to give preference to contaminating modern molecules.”
The scientists concluded that their inability to detect ancient DNA in relatively young – 60 years to 10,600 years old – sub-fossilized insects in copal, despite using sensitive next generation methods, suggests that the potential for DNA survival in resin inclusions is no better, and perhaps worse, than that in air-dried museum insects.
This raises significant doubts about claims of DNA extraction from fossil insects in amber, many millions of years older than copal.
“Intuitively, one might imagine that the complete and rapid engulfment in resin, resulting in almost instantaneous demise, might promote the preservation of DNA in a resin entombed insect, but this appears not to be the case. So, unfortunately, the Jurassic Park scenario must remain in the realms of fiction,” Dr Penney concluded.
DO AS YOU ARE TOLD....DON'T THINK.
BASIS as a global neo-liberal corporate EDUCATION CHARTER CHAIN means a child will get the most BASIC of education---just enough to CONTROL.
WE CALL THIS COMMONER CORE----MYTH-MAKING AND PROPAGANDA----A CHILD WILL KNOW NOTHING ATTENDING THESE GLOBAL NEO-LIBERAL SCHOOLS.
It's all about helping MINORITY CHILDREN say global banking 1% -----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---now TRUMP.
'Bill Clinton on School Choice
www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Bill_Clinton_School...
Bill Clinton on School Choice Expand public school choice and public charter schools The FY 2000 budget provides a $134 million accountability fund to help turn around the worst performing schools and hold them accountable for results through such measures as overhauling curriculum, improving staffing, or even closing schools and reopening them as charter schools.
Hillary Clinton on School Choice
www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Hillary_Clinton...
I stand behind the charter school/public school movement, because parents do deserve greater choice within the public school system to meet the unique needs of their children. Slowly but surely, we’re beginning to create schooling opportunities through the public school charter system-raising academic standards, empowering educators'.
TRUMP pretending to be very RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVE while being very FAR-RIGHT WING NEO-LIBERAL.
Trump unveils $20B school choice proposal
By CAITLIN EMMA
09/08/2016 05:18 PM EDT
Updated 09/08/2016 08:37 PM EDT
Donald Trump unveiled a school choice plan on Thursday that would create a $20 billion block grant to expand charter and private school options for low-income children — an idea championed by conservatives, but which has previously fizzled in Congress.
"As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice," he said, vowing to use the presidential bully pulpit and campaign in all 50 states for the proposal.
Trump said expanding school choice would help minority students who are currently trapped in "failing government schools." But the backdrop for Trump's speech was an Ohio charter school that is itself failing.
Trump made his remarks at the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy, a small school located in a predominantly African-American neighborhood of the city.
Nearly all of the school's students, in kindergarten through eighth grade, are African-American and eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch, according to the most recently available federal data. CASSA was rated highly by the nonprofit education group Battelle for Kids in 2014 for making year-to-year progress on student learning, but the school's latest state report card essentially labels it a failure. CASSA earned an “F” for overall student progress in math and reading.
Early in his speech, Trump thanked Ron Packard, who is the CEO of the for-profit education company that runs the Cleveland charter school. Packard is a national figure in the charter school movement who is also active in supporting political campaigns.
Trump said his proposed block grant program would come from redirecting existing federal funds, and he would leave it up to states to decide whether the dollars would follow children to public, private, charter or magnet schools. He didn't specify which existing federal programs would lose funding to pay for this new initiative.
The notion of portable funding to expand school choice has been backed by conservatives like former Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who made it a big part of his education platform in 2012.
Trump’s proposal bears resemblance to a 2014 bill introduced by Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a leading senator on education issues. That legislation would have redirected federal funding to millions of poor children, which they could use to attend private or public schools of their choice.
When Congress rewrote No Child Left Behind, Alexander and Indiana Republican Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.) introduced amendments that would have allowed federal dollars to follow students to public or private schools. But the amendments didn't make it into the final bills.
The Hillary Clinton campaign on Thursday blasted Trump’s new plan, saying it would “gut” nearly 30 percent of the federal education budget to fund private school vouchers, and “decimate public schools across America.”
Clinton's campaign said Trump would have to cut all federal Title I funding for poor students, in addition to $5 billion in additional federal education funding, to pay for the proposal.
Hillary for America senior policy adviser Maya Harris said the "proposal could strip funding from up to 56,000 public schools serving more than 21 million children" and it "might only serve 1.4 million students, while stripping funding from the other 10.5 million low-income students in America."
The libertarian Cato Institute had a lukewarm reaction.
Said Cato's Neal McCluskey: "Donald Trump is right to emphasize school choice: It is the key to empowering parents to get the education that is best for their unique children, and for educators to teach how they want and try new, innovative approaches.
OH, REALLY EXTREME WEALTH LIBERTARIAN CATO INSTITUTE-----IT EMPOWERS PARENTS?
But this is not something that should come from Washington. The federal government has no constitutional authority to meddle in education, and as it has proven over the last several decades — including by coercing states to adopt the Common Core — once it starts paying for education it starts controlling it, telling everyone what to do and how to do it."
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools wouldn’t say whether it’s supportive of Trump’s plan because the organization hasn’t seen all of the details. But the group lauded presidential candidates generally for focusing on school choice.
______________________________________
We discussed yesterday the global neo-liberal K-12 CORPORATE CHARTER BASIS -------Here is KIPP again----BAD TO THE BONE.
The motto BE HARD is indeed the ethos ---we think HITTING ----MAKING PEOPLE PORN--------would qualify for these goals. The targeting of our 99% WE THE BLACK STUDENTS is planting the idea that these BASIS schools are creating RACE AND CLASS SCHOOLING when these schools will be the only game in town for US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown and our new to US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE immigrants.
When I speak of HOSTING SERVER NOSY NEIGHBORS AND THE GANG----HITTING people scaring and intimidating people-----I think of graduates from these global neo-liberal CORPORATE CHARTER CHAINS.
Looking below we see the founder of KIPP-----as a CHILD SEXUAL PREDATOR no doubt taking TOILET CAMS of children while sending them to DARK WEB as PORN for PROFITS. Feinberg says-------I was sexually exploiting children for our KIPP SHAREHOLDERS--
KIPP IS BASIS------THEY ARE THE SAME GLOBAL NEO-LIBERAL CORPORATE K-12 CHARTER MODEL.
KIPP Co-Founder Mike Feinberg Fired Over Sexual Misconduct Allegations
By Arianna Prothero on February 22, 2018 8:27 PM | No comments
UPDATED
A co-founder of KIPP, the largest charter school network in the country, has been fired over allegations of sexual misconduct with a child.
Michael Feinberg was accused of sexually abusing a student in the late 1990s
'Monday, July 18, 2016
Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools, Part 1
In March I posted some disturbing new research findings on the caustic disciplining of students within corporate charter schools. With that new information, I also posted the Preface of my book, Work Hard, Be Hard..., which provides an insider's perspective and accompanying analysis of the KIPP Model charter school phenomenon that has been responsible for the most profitable educational eugenics program in American history.
In the coming weeks I will be posting chapters from the book. Today I offer the Introduction and Chapter 1.
If you are considering a job in a charter school, or if you know someone who is considering working in a charter school, or if you are thinking about enrolling a child in a charter school, please read and share before making that decision'.
TRUMP'S Education Secretary DeVos trying to expand KIPP in Texas is that CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA BILLIONAIRE from all that sacking and looting of our US FEDERAL EDUCATION funding for public K-12. PRITZER of Chicago BILLIONAIRE from all this via OBAMA-----so, too WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ.
We get nothing but FAKE DATA-----FAKE NEWS-----and nothing but EXPLOITATION of children when we allow global banking 1% to PRETEND these COMMUNITY CHARTERS are populist ----supporting parents, students, teachers.
Exposed by CMD: KIPP's Efforts to Keep the Public in the Dark while Seeking Millions in Taxpayer Subsidies
Submitted by Lisa Graves on April 28, 2016 - 10:04am
By Lisa Graves and Dustin Beilke
Charter schools are big business, even when they are run by "non-profits" that pay no taxes on the revenue they receive from public taxes or other sources.
Take KIPP, which describes itself as a "national network of public schools."
KIPP (an acronym for the phrase "knowledge is power program") operates like a franchise with the KIPP Foundation as the franchisor and the individual charters as franchisees that are all separate non-profits that describe themselves as "public schools."
But how public are KIPP public schools?
Not as public as real or traditional public schools.
New documents discovered on the U.S. Department of Education's website reveal that KIPP has claimed that information about its revenues and other significant matters is "proprietary" and should be redacted from materials it provides to that agency to justify the expenditure of federal tax dollars, before its application is made publicly available.
So what does a so-called public school like KIPP want to keep the public from knowing?
1. Graduation and College Matriculation Rates
KIPP touts itself as particularly successful at preparing students to succeed in school and college.
Yet, it insisted that the U.S. Department of Education keep secret from the public the statistics about the percentage of its eighth graders who completed high school, entered college, and/or who completed a two-year or four-year degree.
A few years ago, professor Gary Miron and his colleagues Jessica Urschel and Nicholas Saxton, found that "KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion of African-American students than the local school districts they draw from but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades 6 and 8," as reported by Mary Ann Zehr in Ed Week.
Zehr noted: "'The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking,' said Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research" at Western Michigan University, who conducted the national study.
Miron's analysis was attacked by KIPP and its allies, who said KIPP's success was not due to the attrition of lower performing students who leave the school or move to other districts. One of its defenders was Mathematica Policy Research, whose subsequent study was used to try to rebut Miron's analysis. (That name will be important momentarily.)
The Department of Education has been provided with the data about what percentage of KIPP students graduate from high school and go on to college, but it is helping KIPP keep that secret—despite the public tax dollars going to these schools and despite KIPP's claim to be operating what are public schools.
Real public schools would never be allowed to claim that high school graduation rates or college matriculation rates are "proprietary" or "privileged" or "confidential."
Why does the Education Department's Charter School Program "Office of Innovation and Improvement" defer to KIPP's demand to keep that information secret from the public?
Meanwhile, the KIPP Foundation regularly spends nearly a half million dollars a year ($467,594 at last count) on advertising to convince the public how great its public charters are using figures it selects to promote. Almost no public school district in the nation has that kind of money to drop on ads promoting its successes.
2. Projected Uses of Federal Taxpayer Dollars (and Disney World?)
Even as KIPP was seeking more than $22 million from the federal government to expand its charter school network, it insisted that the U.S. Department of Education redact from its application a chart about how much money would be spent on personnel, facilities, transportation, and "other uses" under the proposed grant. KIPP also sought to redact the amount of private funding it was projecting.
The agency's compliant Office of Innovation and Improvement obliged KIPP.
However, after the grant was approved, KIPP did have to comply with IRS regulations to file a report on its revenues and expenditures, as all entities given the privilege of having their revenue tax-exempt or tax-deductible do. (Those filings usually are made available a year after the revenue and expenditures accrue.)
That is, the federal government's Office of Innovation and Improvement redacted information about KIPP's revenue and expenditures on the basis of an unsupportable assertion that such information was exempt under the Freedom of Information Act as proprietary, confidential, or privileged even though it is not.
Here are some of the key details from KIPP's 2013 tax filings (uploaded below):
- KIPP received more than $18 million in grants from American tax dollars and more than $43 million from other sources, primarily other foundations;
- KIPP spent nearly $14 million on compensation, including more than $1.2 million on nine executives who received six-figure salaries, and nearly $2 million more on retirement and other benefits;
- KIPP also spent over $416,000 on advertising and a whopping $4.8 million on travel; it paid more than $1.2 to the Walt Disney World Swan and Resort;
- It also paid $1.2 million to Mathematica for its data analysis; that's the firm that was used to try to rebut concerns about KIPP's performance and attrition rates.
- KIPP received more than $21 million in grants from American tax dollars and more than $38 million from other sources, primarily other foundations;
- KIPP spent nearly $18 million on compensation and nearly $2 million more on retirement and other benefits;
- KIPP paid its co-founder, David Levin, more than $450,000 in total compensation, and its CEO, Richard Barth, more than $425,000 in total compensation, in addition to six-figure salaries for eight other executives;
- KIPP also spent over $467,000 on advertising and more than $5 million on travel;
- It also paid nearly $1 million to Mathematica for its data analysis.
In that tax year, which covers the 2013-2014 school year, as traditional public schools faced budget cuts across the country, KIPP spent more than $3.5 million on "lodging and hospitality," including more than $1.8 million alone at the posh Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Since its revenue from taxpayers is commingled with its revenues from wealthy charter school advocates and the foundations they control, there is no way to sort out how much of taxpayer money has directly gone into luxurious trips for KIPP employees versus how much having revenue from taxes helps subsidize such largesse.
But, there is no public school district in the country that would be allowed such travel and promotional expenditures for its executives or teachers if the voters knew about it or had a say in it.
Perhaps it should be no surprise that KIPP would want the grant-makers at the U.S. Department of Education to redact the amount of its expenditures for personnel, facilities, transportation, and "other uses"—especially with extravagant expenditures like its transportation and lodging at fabulous resorts, as opposed to transportation for kids to school—but why would the federal agency charged with oversight go along with redacting information about how much KIPP was projecting to spend in those categories?
KIPP did request that budget information about how much it or its affiliates paid the executive directors for individual charters, principals, accountants, grant managers, community coordinators, and IT teams be kept from the public, under a claim that such information is proprietary.
But the Office of Innovation and Improvement did not accommodate that request.
Notably, KIPP's grant application sets forth "regional leadership" expenses that total nearly $5 million of the projected budget for the grant. There is no indication how much taxpayers are directly or indirectly subsidizing the six-figure salaries of its executive suite including the nearly half-million in total compensation for each of KIPP's two highest paid employees. (This grant application only pertains to one source of federal and state grants that annually provide revenue to KIPP.)
3. Full Disclosure of Attrition and Performance Results
Not only did KIPP seek to keep the public in the dark about how it spends tax-exempt funding and how many KIPP students make it to high school graduation or college, it also sought to redact information "KIPP Student Attrition" by region and "by subgroup" and "KIPP Student Performance" on state exams on "Math and Reading."
The Office of Innovation and Improvement did as KIPP requested.
But why would KIPP, which advertises its claimed superiority, and the Department of Education, which uses KIPP as an example of the success of charters, keep information about attrition and performance secret, especially when that subject is one of great public interest as noted by the Economic Policy Institute?
Page after page after page in KIPP's application that shows the percentage of school students who leave KIPP is blacked out along with information about student test results by school for the three years prior to the grant application.
How can the Department of Education acquiesce in a request by a charter it cheerleads for to keep data about that charter's retention or dropout rate secret?
WELL, COULD BE THEY ARE BEING MADE BILLIONAIRES BY GLOBAL BANKING 1%.
If both sets of redacted figures were truly excellent, why wouldn't both KIPP and the Department of Education release those results? After all, KIPP included glossy PR documents on some of its schools in its application materials touting select data about test results.
Why should unelected bureaucrats at the federal agency get to see the data about attrition and performance in awarding millions in taxpayer dollars to KIPP but go along with KIPP in keeping those specific statistics from the public?
In short, what are KIPP and the Department of Education hiding from the American people?
4. The CEO Foundations Pushing School "Choice" and Subsidizing KIPP
KIPP also asked the Office of Innovation and Improvement to redact the amounts of funding provided to KIPP by foundations that wrote letters of support for KIPP to receive federal taxpayer money under the grant.
The grant documents the Center for Media and Democracy has examined reveal that these are the names and amounts that KIPP sought to keep the public from knowing and that the Department of Education blacked out at KIPP's request:
- Robertson Foundation: $20M
- Atlantic Trust/ Kendeda Fund: $15 million
- Marcus Foundation: $4.5M
- Zeist: $1.7M
- Lowe Foundation: $357,000
- Webber Family Foundation: $351,780
- Sooch Foundation: $675,000
- Tipping Point Community: $2M
- Schwab Foundation: $2.5M
- Koret Foundation: $2,135,000
- SAP: $297,389
- Kobacker: $100,000
- Todd Wagner Foundation: $1,000,000
- El Paso, $1,000,000
- Charles T. Bauer Foundation: $1,242,000
- Karsh: $8M
- Charter Schools Growth Fund: $2 million
- Formanek: $526,000
- Goldring Family Foundation: $1,000,000
- Charles Hayden Foundation: $1.393 million
- Victoria Foundation: $626,000
- CityBridge Foundation: $2.9M"
Why would the Office of Innovation and Improvement go along with a request to keep secret from the public information that is subsequently required to be made public?
While many of the foundations listed above are led by corporate CEOs or their families, only a few are corporations whose donations might not be routinely disclosed.
SAP, for example, is the name of a German corporation that made headlines 18 months ago for dumping the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) after Google dumped ALEC for its climate change denial and obstruction. Should Americans be concerned that a foreign multinational corporation is influencing American "public charters" through KIPP? The truth is foreign multinationals are exercising increasing influence over American charter schools and testing. Just look at the growth in U.S. business of the British firm, Pearson.
At the same time, the volume of such private philanthropic support begs the question of why the American taxpayer ought to be subsidizing schools that are touted as public but act like private ones when it comes to executive compensation and roadblocks to transparency, especially at a time when traditional public schools are facing such budgetary pressures?
KIPP is a taxpayer-subsidized school franchise that pays no taxes on its revenue and provides a tax-deductible vehicle for uber-wealthy families to promote the school "choice" agenda.
And, the fact that taxpayer money is going to a group spending millions on luxury trips to resorts in Las Vegas is mind-boggling in an age of austerity when many public schools are going without basic necessities.
With each new fact that comes out, the charter school industry is looking more like the military defense industry with the scandals of the 1980s as with the infamous $600 toilet seat. There's no indication of fraud by KIPP.
But from an optics standpoint some might consider a $600 plastic seat small change, compared with a "public school" spending more than a million to go to Disney World in one year, even if only one-third of KIPP's funding comes from taxpayers directly and the remainder comes at taxpayer expense due to CEOs writing off donations to foundations that help underwrite KIPP.
Plus, separate from the grant application discussed here, KIPP has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education to conduct leadership training summits for KIPP principals and other personnel. That application also includes significant redactions, including about key components of the budget for what it calls KIPP "summits" or annual meetings and other gatherings (as well as a total redaction of the Mathematica analysis commissioned by KIPP).
ARNE DUNCAN AND OBAMA------GREAT BIG KIPP AND BASIS PLAYERS.
Meanwhile, KIPP told the Education Department that in its first 10 years it had raised more than $150 million from private philanthropic sources, which underscores the question of why taxpayers are subsidizing an operation that already has ample support from the corporate community and those taxpayer dollars could be going instead to strengthen traditional public schools that are truly public and that are not subsidized by tax write-offs for the one percent through their foundations.
Indeed, those tax write-offs serve to diminish the base of revenue available for tax revenue to fund public schools and other genuinely public goods in the first place.
A Closer Look at KIPP
It appears that all the redactions were in response to "proprietary" instructions KIPP dictated to DOE through a four-page document titled, "Proprietary Information."
The Education Department complied with almost all of KIPP's instructions, despite how contrary they are to public policy and even to publicly available information.
These black marks come at a time when cracks are starting to show in KIPP's once beyond-reproach veneer.
KIPP is the largest and most lauded charter school chain in the United States and the recipient of many millions of dollars in taxpayer grants, foundation gifts and handouts from billionaire charter school enthusiasts.
A new book by Jim Horn, Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through ‘No Excuses' Teaching, focuses on the experiences and perspectives of dozens of former KIPP teachers who have become critics of the chain and many of the principles it is based on, including the Teach for America program that supplies KIPP with many of its teachers.
The book's title is a reference to "Work Hard. Be Nice" the book-length puff piece authored by Washington Post education reporter Jay Matthews about KIPP's founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levine.
In a review of Work Hard, Be Hard that is excerpted on Diane Ravitch's blog, education professor Julian Vasquez Heilig writes that screaming at students is accepted teaching practice in KIPP schools:
Why does KIPP encourage and/or allow these practices?
Horn writes, school leaders relayed that ‘because of cultural differences, black students are accustomed to being screamed at…because that's how their parents speak to them.' A KIPP teacher characterized the worst offender at her school as a ‘screamer, swearer and humiliator.'
"KIPP might also argue that they are the beneficiaries of widespread support in communities across the nation. It is very clear that KIPP benefits from powerful influential and wealthy supporters in government, the media, and foundations. Their no excuses approach to educating poor children has resonated with the elites in society and they have showered the corporate charter chain with resources for decades. So it may be surprising to some to read the counternarrative from KIPP teachers that is quite different than what you typically read in the newspapers, see in documentaries like Waiting for Superman, and generally experience in the public discourse. I proffer that the KIPP teachers' counternarratives in Journeys should be required reading for all of KIPPs influential supporters."
So what is the disgruntled KIPP teachers' counter-narrative?
For one, the model seems to create lousy working conditions for the purpose of encouraging high teacher turnover. One former teacher says, "I wouldn't wish it on anyone who wanted to be a teacher for the long-term…It's exhausting. It's demoralizing."
And this is where Teach for America comes in. "Without a constant infusion of new teachers to replace all those who burn out," Horn writes, "KIPP would have to shut its doors… The role of Teach For America and programs based on Teach For America's hyper-abbreviated preparation are crucial, then, for the continued survival of… KIPP."
In short, the new book offers a devastating critique of the KIPP business model at a time when KIPP and the Department of Education appear to be aiding each other in trying to keep critical information out of the public debate through redaction.
____________________________________________
We will end our discussion on education public policy tied to GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERAL K-12 CHARTER CHAINS------by reminding our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE---the same global banking 1% having sacked and looted our US TREASURY as too US Federal Education funding these few decades are now those HEDGE FUNDS------GLOBAL INVESTMENT FIRMS complete with FOUNDATIONS pushing these BASIS----KIPP et al with goals of completely eliminating not only our US PUBLIC K-12----but any resemblance of a local community charter school which many right wing citizens thought all this might be.
ONE WORLD ONE ONLINE EDUCATION---VOCATIONAL PRE-K TO CAREER HAS THAT GOAL OF ------YOUR CHILD IS PROPERTY OF A GLOBAL CORPORATION.
Why hedge funds love charter schools
A board at the New York Stock Exchange . (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
By
Valerie Strauss
Reporter
June 4, 2014 at 5:00 a.m. EDT
One of the features of corporate school reform is the interest that Wall Street has shown in supporting charter schools.
Why?
No doubt hedge fund managers would say they want to support education and help young people have educational choices. But here’s another part of the answer, written by Alan Singer, a social studies educator in the Department of Teaching, Literacy and Leadership at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, and the editor of Social Science Docket (a joint publication of the New York and New Jersey Councils for Social Studies).
He taught at a number of secondary schools in New York City, including Franklin K. Lane High School and Edward R. Murrow High School. He is also the author of several books. This appeared on his Huffington Post blog.
By Alan Singer
Obscure laws can have a very big impact on social policy, including obscure changes in the United States federal tax code. The 2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, included provisions from the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000. The law provided tax incentives for seven years to businesses that locate and hire residents in economically depressed urban and rural areas. The tax credits were reauthorized for 2008-2009, 2010-2011, and 2012-2013.
As a result of this change to the tax code, banks and equity funds that invest in charter schools in underserved areas can take advantage of a very generous tax credit. They are permitted to combine this tax credit with other tax breaks while they also collect interest on any money they lend out. According to one analyst, the credit allows them to double the money they invested in seven years. Another interesting side note is that foreign investors who put a minimum of $500,000 in charter school companies are eligible to purchase immigration visas for themselves and family members under a federal program called EB-5.
The tax credit may also explain why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg partnered with the former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, to promote charter schools; donated a half a million dollars worth of stock to organizations that distribute charter school funding; and opened his own foundation, Startup: Education, to build new charter schools.
The real estate industry, which already receives huge tax breaks as it gentrifies communities, also stands to benefit by promoting charter schools and helping them buy up property, or rent, in inner city communities. One real estate company, Eminent Properties Trust, boasts on its website:
USING FAKE PUBLIC SCHOOL STATUS AS EMINENT DOMAIN?
“Our investment portfolio of nearly $3 billion includes megaplex movie theatres and adjacent retail, public charter schools, and other destination recreational and specialty investments. This portfolio includes over 160 locations spread across 34 states with over 200 tenants.”
The Charter management group Charter Schools USA recommends that rental costs should not exceed 20 percent of a school’s budget. However the Miami Herald reported that in 2011, 19 charter schools in Miami-Dade and Broward exceeded this figure and one in Miami Gardens paid 43 percent. The Herald called south Florida charter schools a “$400-million-a-year powerhouse backed by real-estate developers and promoted by politicians, but with little oversight.” Its report found charters paying exorbitant fees to management companies and that many of the highest rents were paid to landlords with ties to the management companies running the schools.
Tax benefits and real estate investment may also explain why Wall Street is so hot on raising money for charter schools. On Monday night, April 28, 2014, hundreds of Wall Streeters gathered at Cipriani in Midtown Manhattan to raise funds for Success Academy Charter Schools. Former Florida governor and possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush gave the keynote address. The dinner was chaired by hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb. Loeb is the founder of Third Point LLC and chairman of the board for Success Academy. The gala raised at least $7.75 million for Success Academy.
Also attending were Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital Management, Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management, Boaz Weinstein of Saba Capital, John Paulson of Paulson & Co. and Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater USA.
According to The New York Times, the 10 highest-paid hedge fund operators with close ties to charter schools also includes David Tepper (No. 1 at $3.5 billion in 2013), founder of founder of Appaloosa Management and New Jersey based “Better Education for Kids”; Steven A. Cohen (No. 2 at $2.4 billion) of SAC Capital Advisors, which was forced to pay a $1.2 billion dollar penalty for insider trading, who has given over $10 million to the Achievement First charter school network; and Paul Tudor Jones II (tied for tenth at $600 million), founder of the Tudor Investment Corporation who has supported charter schools through his Robin Hood Foundation.
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REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS have been shouting against REVISIONIST history being written by NATIONAL FAKE NEWS media and global corporate university academics selling corporate FAKE DATA to advance profit or brand power. We write every day to protect what is OUR US 99% WE THE PEOPLE history as we know it. When global banking 1% HEDGE FUNDS/INVESTMENT FIRMS control media---control academics we don't know what TRUTH is-----TRUTH say global banking 1% is whatever the global markets tell us.
US PUBLIC EDUCATION TAUGHT OUR US CITIZENS TO HOLD POWER ACCOUNTABLE---TO KEEP CORPORATIONS FROM TOO MUCH WEALTH AND POWER.
'Volume 13, ISSUE 5, P212-220, May 01, 2005
Geologically ancient DNA: fact or artefact?
Martin B. Hebsgaard
Matthew J. Phillips
Eske Willerslev
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2005.03.010'
This is as discussed before tied to GOULD'S PUNCTUATED EVOLUTION theories where SCIENCE DATA is FORCED to create pathways to theories having NO BASIC SCIENCE.
'But in 2014, Bedford got another surprise call, this time from a researcher affiliated with a genetics team at Harvard. A small group of pioneering lab scientists had found ways to isolate and analyze DNA from ancient bones'
'3. The Revisionist
David Reich’s lab is folded into a corner of a glassy, long-corridored labyrinth at Harvard Medical School'.
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER----OXFORD UNIVERSITY having scientists saying ancient DNA is not possible.
Volume 13, ISSUE 5, P212-220, May 01, 2005
Geologically ancient DNA: fact or artefact?
Martin B. Hebsgaard
Matthew J. Phillips
Eske Willerslev
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2005.03.010
Is Ancient DNA Research Revealing New Truths — or Falling Into Old Traps?
Geneticists have begun using old bones to make sweeping claims about the distant past. But their revisions to the human story are making some scholars of prehistory uneasy.
By Gideon Lewis-Kraus
- Jan. 17, 2019
PART I
1. The Ghosts of Teouma
A faint aura of destiny seems to hover over Teouma Bay. It’s not so much the landscape, with its ravishing if boilerplate tropical splendor — banana and mango trees, coconut and pandanus palms, bougainvillea, the apprehensive trill of the gray-eared honeyeater — as it is the shape of the harbor itself, which betrays, in the midst of such organic profusion, an aspect of the unnatural. The bay, on the island of Efate in the South Pacific nation Vanuatu, is long, symmetrical and briskly rectangular. In the expected place of wavelets is a blue so calm and unbroken that the sea doesn’t so much crash on the land as neatly abut it. From above, it looks as though a safe harbor had been engraved in the shoreline by some celestial engineer.
In late 2003, while clearing land just above the seaside, a bulldozer driver found a broken piece of pottery in the rubble. The villagers of Vanuatu often happen upon shards of timeworn ceramic, which spark an idly mythical curiosity; they’re said to be fragments of Noah’s Ark, or the original Ten Commandments, or the burst water vessels of powerful ancestral spirits. These shards are often left alone, but word in this particular case traveled quickly, and the artifact soon found its way to the Vanuatu Cultural Center and National Museum, where Stuart Bedford, a New Zealand archaeologist who had studied local pot shards for years, was called in to inspect it. He immediately recognized its distinctive pattern — “dentate stamping,” an ancient technique so named because it looked as though some tiny-toothed creature had bitten an intricate pattern into the ceramic — and understood that this pottery coincided with the very first movement of ancient peoples into the South Seas.
Bedford rushed to the site of the discovery, an old colonial coconut plantation that the bulldozer had been clearing for use as a prawn farm. Further burrowing turned up not only more pottery but also tools of obsidian and a great cache of human bones, which had lain undisturbed and unusually well preserved over thousands of years. The site was soon identified as the oldest and largest prehistoric cemetery ever found in the Pacific. Everything at the site indicated a founding colony — first arrivals to the shores of uninhabited islands. Teouma was, according to Bedford, “unlike anything anyone had ever seen, or was likely to see, in this part of the world ever again.”
Archaeologists hoped the bones might help provide a clue to the abiding mystery of how anybody had gotten to these far-off coastlines in the first place. Vanuatu is a volcanic archipelago of more than 80 islands littered in an extended slingshot shape across an 800-mile arc of the South Pacific. Europeans first heard of its existence in 1606, when a Portuguese navigator stopped through on a brief but violent imperial errand for the Spanish crown. The islands were largely left to their own devices until the end of the 18th century, when French and British ships arrived to plant their own flags. The two countries ruled the archipelago as a joint colony, called the Condominium of the New Hebrides, until independence was achieved in 1980. National coherence remains a work in progress. By some measures, Vanuatu is per capita the most linguistically diverse country on the planet: Its quarter-million citizens, predominantly the native ni-Vanuatu, speak as many as 140 different indigenous languages and maintain an astonishing variety of cultural practices. A meaningful national identity has been constructed from a common appreciation of ceremonial pig-tusk bracelets and the taking of kava, a very mild narcotic root that looks like primordial pea soup and tastes like a fine astringent dirt. Above all, however, the ni-Vanuatu are bound together by the fact of the country’s nautical isolation: Their nearest neighbors are hundreds of miles in any direction.
It is the peculiar geography of this isolation that made the Teouma site so significant. Many of the islands of the South Pacific are much farther-flung: Easter Island makes Vanuatu look like an Australian exurb. But with one very small exception — the tiny eastern outliers of the Solomon Islands — Vanuatu offers the first solid ground on the far side of a major but invisible maritime boundary. On the west side of that border is a string of archipelagoes called Near Oceania: islands chained to one another (and to the rest of the world) by lines of sight. Prehistoric peoples, after tens of thousands of years of travel by foot from Africa, had arrived at the end of Southeast Asia and hopscotched their way forward via short sea outings, presumably crossing the narrow channels they encountered on crude watercraft. Finally, however, some 40,000 years ago, their path was decisively blocked by open ocean. In front of them, across more than 200 miles of empty sea, was the vast aquatic wilderness of Remote Oceania.
That border marked the absolute limit of human expansion for tens of thousands of years, until at last someone sailed out across the naval event horizon and into the unknown. This first traversal was one of the greatest and most courageous passages in human prehistory. The peopling of Remote Oceania — an obscure exodus that easily ranks among the signal triumphs of the ancient world — has inspired awe and vexation for generations. In the mid-20th century, archaeologists came to identify these first voyagers with a set of jars and tools unique to the region, the “Lapita cultural complex,” and determined that they crossed the boundary into Remote Oceania some 3,000 years ago. Further details were presumed lost to history.
But in 2014, Bedford got another surprise call, this time from a researcher affiliated with a genetics team at Harvard. A small group of pioneering lab scientists had found ways to isolate and analyze DNA from ancient bones, methods potent enough to inspire a wholesale revision of our knowledge about ancient peoples. The Harvard operation, which was then preparing a landmark paper about European origins, now intended to visit their attention upon the South Pacific, and they wanted to know whether Bedford might facilitate access to the Teouma remains. Bedford agreed, and over the next four years, the Harvard team used the DNA they found to present a radical new story about Remote Oceania’s first settlers.
Bedford and I met last summer in the hilly and sedate capital of Port-Vila, outside the towering thatched A-frame of the national museum. He is tall and friendly, with a square head, short brown hair, a rancher’s open gait and the incessant squint of someone in perpetual communion with the near-hopeless complication of human affairs. We climbed into his white Land Cruiser and drove to a tidy village compound outside town. There, Bedford embraced the local chief, Silas Alben, who led us through village gardens of banana and tuber to a high limestone cliff with a sprawling view of the Teouma site.
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'The scientists concluded that their inability to detect ancient DNA in relatively young – 60 years to 10,600 years old – sub-fossilized insects in copal, despite using sensitive next generation methods, suggests that the potential for DNA survival in resin inclusions is no better, and perhaps worse, than that in air-dried museum insects.
This raises significant doubts about claims of DNA extraction from fossil insects in amber, many millions of years older than copal'.
Extracting Dinosaur DNA from Amber Fossils Impossible, Scientists Say
Sep 17, 2013 by News Staff / Source
According to Dr David Penney and his colleagues at the University of Manchester, UK, the existence of ancient DNA in amber fossils is highly unlikely.
The scientists have tried to extract ancient DNA from two stingless bees Trigonisca ameliae. This image shows Trigonisca ameliae bee in Colombian copal. Image credit: Dr David Penney / University of Manchester.
The idea of recreating dinosaurs by extracting DNA from insects in amber has held the fascination of the public since the early 1990s.
But Manchester University scientists in their new study, published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, have revealed this technique is unlikely to succeed.
They used highly-sensitive sequencing techniques – the most advance type of DNA sequencing – on insects in copal, the sub-fossilized resin precursor of amber.
The study was conducted wearing full forensic suits in an ancient DNA facility, which comprises a suite of independent, physically isolated laboratories, each with an ultra-filtered air supply maintaining positive displacement pressure and a managed access system.
“In the original 1990s studies DNA amplification was achieved by a process called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which will preferentially amplify any modern, undamaged DNA molecules that contaminate an extract of partially degraded ancient ones to give false positive results that might be mistaken for genuine ancient DNA,” explained senior author Prof Terence Brown.
“Our approach, using ‘next generation’ sequencing methods is ideal for ancient DNA because it provides sequences for all the DNA molecules in an extract, regardless of their length, and is less likely to give preference to contaminating modern molecules.”
The scientists concluded that their inability to detect ancient DNA in relatively young – 60 years to 10,600 years old – sub-fossilized insects in copal, despite using sensitive next generation methods, suggests that the potential for DNA survival in resin inclusions is no better, and perhaps worse, than that in air-dried museum insects.
This raises significant doubts about claims of DNA extraction from fossil insects in amber, many millions of years older than copal.
“Intuitively, one might imagine that the complete and rapid engulfment in resin, resulting in almost instantaneous demise, might promote the preservation of DNA in a resin entombed insect, but this appears not to be the case. So, unfortunately, the Jurassic Park scenario must remain in the realms of fiction,” Dr Penney concluded.
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