"Achieve, Inc." : Political Patronage Scheme

[Moses]

"Achieve, Inc" is a right wing, neocon, bipartisan political patronage scheme, favored by pols in both parties who want to give to and get from, corporations, AND achieve their totalitarian objectives in the US through the public school system, which has always been the playing field of imperialists and ideologues throughout the world, as a means of controlling the public. In addition, it is a big public dollar source of potential patronage for business, both in terms of dollars and in terms of political control.

They are raking in taxpayer dollars state by state, throughout the country, and pocketing these funds. They are a front org for the imposition of "standards" through NCLB, and then they go to each state and are given the lions share of the federal dollars allocated for NCLB to "consult" on how to bring about "compliance" w/ NCLB. Their reports are self-serving, and depend on what the pols who hired them want them to say. They serve as a means of funding for the neocon pols in both parties.

They are very cozy w/ neocon publishers and editorial boards, who push their agenda.

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Officers and Board of Directors
Achieve's board of directors is composed of six governors (three Democrats and three Republicans) and six CEOs.

Chairs
Arthur F. Ryan
Chairman and CEO, Prudential Financial
Ryan leads New Jersey effort to improve schools

Governor Bob Taft
State of Ohio


Co-Vice Chairs
Governor Gary Locke
State of Washington


Kerry Killinger
Chairman, President and CEO, Washington Mutual


Board Members
Craig R. Barrett
CEO, Intel Corporation


Governor Bill Owens
State of Colorado


Governor Edward G. Rendell
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Rendell supports increase in graduation requirements

Governor Mike Rounds
State of South Dakota
Rounds links school to good jobs

Edward B. Rust, Jr.
Chairman and CEO, State Farm Insurance
Rust appeals to "stay the course" on standards-based reform

President
Michael Cohen

Secretary
Ronn Robinson

Treasurer
Buddy Piszel
Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller, Prudential Financial

Chairman Emeritus
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.
Gerstner lays out challenges ahead for standards-based reform

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Achieve Contributors


Agilent Technologies Foundation
The Annenberg Foundation
The Atlantic Philanthropies
AT&T Foundation
BellSouth Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Boeing Company
Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Inc.
Citicorp Foundation
Eastman Kodak Company
E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company
IBM Corporation
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Phillips Petroleum Company
The Procter & Gamble Fund
The Prudential Foundation
State Farm Insurance Companies
State Street Foundation
The UPS Foundation
The Washington Mutual Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Williams
The Xerox Foundation

[Moses]

TEXAS:

"That is what we have done for many years in education.

Standards are higher and test scores are rising again. According to a study by Achieve Inc., Texas is the first state to make a college-prep curriculum the standard coursework in high school, starting with this year’s ninth grade class.

We were the first state to require individual graduation plans for at-risk students, and provide a personalized study guide for 11th grade students that fail state assessments. And we have joined the Gates Foundation in investing $130 million in the Texas High School Initiative to reorganize and reconstitute failing schools."

Gov. Rick Perry, State of the State Address, Jan. 26, 2005

[Moses]

Oregon:

Portland students could face greater expectations

Friday, January 21, 2005

"Achieve Inc., an independent group of business leaders and governors, has ranked Oregon and Washington schools near the bottom in the nation for the number of math and English courses required to graduate high school.

[Moses]

ARIZONA:



Friday, January 21, 2005

Guest Opinion: Rigorous coursework imperative for success
SUSAN CARLSON
[e-mail]



....Why are so many of our high school graduates unprepared for the demands of the workplace or higher education? A recent nationwide study found that most states do not require students to take rigorous courses that truly reflect the demands of life after high school, leaving them ill-prepared for college, advanced training, the military or the workplace.

That study - "The Expectations Gap - A 50-State Review of High School Graduation Requirements" - reveals that not a single state requires every high school student to take a college - and work - preparatory curriculum to earn a diploma.

While all states offer students the option to pursue a truly rigorous course of study, something less remains the default curriculum in almost every state, says the Achieve Inc. study.

Should students and parents settle for something less? We at the Arizona Business & Education Coalition think not.

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Susan Carlson is executive director of the Arizona Business & Education Coalition (www.azbec.org).

[Moses]

Tennessee:

...A recent national report called Expectations Gap, A 50-State review of High School Graduation Requirements, showed Tennessee is failing to adequately prepare high school graduates to succeed in higher education or work along with other states.

The review by Achieve Inc., a nonprofit group created by the nation's governors and business leaders, studied the math and English requirements in all states.

[Moses]

THE WASHINGTON POST

High School Reform



Saturday, January 15, 2005; Page A22


IT WAS SOMEWHAT disconcerting to hear President Bush propose, as he did on Wednesday, to extend to high schools the No Child Left Behind Act's testing and accountability requirements for elementary and middle schools. True, there's plenty wrong with the nation's high schools. According to Achieve Inc., an organization that has looked closely at achievement standards in high schools, more than half of high school graduates need remedial help in college; most employers say high school graduates lack basic skills; and most high school exit exams don't measure those skills anyway. Far too few high school students take the algebra, geometry and English courses they need to get by in adulthood. More accountability and higher standards clearly are in order.

What was disconcerting was the impression a listener might have gotten that the nation can move on to high schools because the first stage of No Child Left Behind reforms is more or less complete. Mr. Bush was, as always, anxious to declare victory in a few selected instances: for example, quoting statistics showing school improvement in Virginia. But Virginia created an accountability system long before the federal one was even contemplated. And Virginia's test-score gains have very little to do with the federal reforms, which themselves have not yet proved universally successful.

The national problem is not merely about funding, the element that Democratic critics tend to emphasize. The still-unsolved question is whether failing schools, when given accurate assessments of their failure, will begin to improve. In many districts, the improvement mechanisms contained within No Child Left Behind are not yet working, or they are proving prohibitively expensive. How many children can be shuffled from failing schools to successful schools without making the latter less successful? How much help is it to hire tutors if no qualified ones are available? In his speech, the president said that "in the No Child Left Behind Act, if a school fails to make progress, parents have options." Where do parents in the District send their children if their school is failing? To another failing school? We welcome the president's ambitious plan to expand the current system to older students, but we would like to hear more about making the first installment work as intended.

[Moses]

OKLAHOMA

Toughen the courses
Originally published on Thursday, January 13

Oklahoma high school graduates need to complete more rigorous courses that reflect demands of life after school, according to a national study released last week.

What else is new?

The report by the Washington-based Achieve Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps states raise academic standards, isn’t an earth-shattering revelation. The need to present our students greater challenges in the classroom has been called for numerous times by several groups during the past decade or so.

The latest report recommends that Oklahoma students complete a minimum of four years of rigorous math and four years of grade-level English. Currently, Oklahoma students are required to complete four years of English and three years of math.

The State Board of Education raised the requirements from two to three math courses in the mid-1990s, but it wasn’t until fall 1999 that specific courses in each subject were detailed in state law. ...

But state Education Department officials said Oklahoma students are challenged by a “good, college-preparatory curriculum that if students applied themselves, they’d do well in college.”<br>
Evidently, a large number of state students are not applying themselves.

National remediation rates reveal that 28 percent of the nation’s college freshmen do not possess the basic skills to begin college. The rate is even more staggering in Oklahoma, where 39 percent of incoming college students are not ready to tackle college courses. ...

It seems like a no-brainer that changes are needed if almost four of every 10 students who graduate from Oklahoma high schools aren’t proficient enough to take college courses. But it’s the sort of change that’s most difficult, needing the support of all parties involved.

With emphasis on GPAs, most are happy when half the class makes the honor roll. But are we doing our children a disservice? Is there a problem when a high school honor roll student has to take remedial courses before beginning his college courses?

Don’t throw the blame toward our educators. To make real changes in the system, parents must demand their children be challenged with tougher courses, not by a variety of classes with easy As and Bs.

[Moses]

Missouri

State Capitol Week in Review
The South Missourian News, AR - Jan 6, 2005
According to Achieve Inc., a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC, Arkansas will be one of only three states that require students to take college ...

[Moses]

The Business Roundtable and Achieve Inc. are sponsoring a pow-wow later this week, where all-knowing corporate CEO's will gather to decide exactly how they will turn all American high schoolers into standardized McStudents fit for the 21st century global economy www.2005summit.org/ .

As can be seen from their "report" picked up by media (see above) and then, used as quotes to bolster their own propaganda, they are orchestrating propaganda for Bush's next ruinous phase of NCLB:

"Governors [who like corporate contributions] and CEOs have been at the forefront of states' efforts to improve student achievement. Significant progress has been made in the nation's elementary and middle schools. Now we must extend that effort to high schools.

Specifically, we must increase graduation rates and ensure that a high school diploma truly prepares students to succeed in higher education and the workplace.

This Summit represents an extraordinary opportunity for the nation's political, education and business leaders to build consensus around an agenda for high school improvement - and to continue the momentum toward ensuring a high-quality education for every American student. "

[Moses]

On Bullnuts

Jerry Bracey reflects on his attendance at a preview press conference of the 2005 National Education Summit On High Schools.

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Last week I bought a slight volume--67 pages about the size of a 3 X 5 card--by Princeton University philosopher, Harry Frankfurt. It's called On Bullnuts (Princeton University Press, 2005). I think I'm gonna need it as a talisman, as a cross to hold up to vampires because here we go again.

I just got back from a preview press conference of the "2005 National Education Summit On High Schools." This is a operation that, if the preview represents the summit accurately, is distilled bullnuts. The principal defecators are the National Governor's Association, (represented this morning by Bob Taft of Ohio and Mark Warner of Virginia, and Achieve, Inc., represented by Arthur Ryan, CEO of Prudential Financia and co-chair of Achieve, Inc. The Business Rountable and the Education Commission of the States are also co-conspirators.

It's the same old story. We need to rethink high school, said Taft, because of the "rapidly escalating demands of the work place." He also referred to the "high skills economy." He said that many kiids "make it to the top of the K-12 ladder but do not reach even the bottom rung of what they need for success later in life." Whew. Obviously, he hand't read my "Education's Ground Hog Day" in the February 2 edition of Education Week.

Warner also mentioned the "global economy" wherein a high school diploma is not enough.

Ryan, for his part said that 2/3 of jobs were currently filled by professionals and skilled workers. I pointed out that the Bureau of Labor Statistics analyses indicate only 1/4 of jobs require a B. A. or better and that their projections are for mostly expansion of low-skill jobs, jobs that require no more than a diploma and short (a few weeks) on the job training. I asked for a reconciliation of these contradictory statements. Taft mumbled something about good jobs going abroad and Ryan looked glum.

Taft indicated even high school students know they lack the skills they need. In an Achieve survey, graduates said they "would have worked harder if they had been challenged more." Sure. The whole thrust of the morning was that for achievement to improve, schools must have better teachers, more accountability and they must and snap the whip harder. This position, of course, is what led Paul Zoch, a long-time teacher to write Doomed to Fail: The Build in Defects of American Education. Kids in American schools do not learn that they are responsible for their own learning--it is all external to them.

Warner justified the focus on high schools by saying, "For years we focused on pre-school. And then for years we focused on K-8." Couda fooled me. I thought the post-Sputnik reforms were almost entirely about high school. Certainly "A Nation At Risk" talked about nothing else but.

Warner presented the 5 point "Action Agenda" of the governors' thrust. The first item is to "restore the value of the high school diploma." We must "push students harder" and we must "develop better tests" (Zoch's ears no doubt burning).

I pointed out that the March 24, 1958 issue of Life, devoted to the "Crisis in Education," claimed that the "high school diploma has been devalued to the point of meaningless." Twenty-five years later, "A Nation At Risk" claimed that "the average graduate of our schools and colleges today is not as well-educated as the average graduate of 25 or 35 years ago" (emphasis in the original). I then asked Warner to what year he would "restore" the meaning of the high school diploma. He, at least, laughed.

He also said that he wanted to make the high school "once again a 'cutting edge' institution." If anyone has a date in mind when people viewed high schools as "cutting edge," please let me know. In response to my query, Warner said that "the crisis in 1958 or the crisis in 1983 pales in comparison to the crisis of 2005. Well, there was no crisis in 1958--at least not one that pertained to education; I keep hearing that we could have beat the Russians but the Army, Navy and Airforce fought among themselves as to who would get the launch the rocket--and there was no crisis in 1983, so maybe we can relax about 2005, although I'm certain they will attempt to construct a manufactured crisis (hmmm, good title for a book).

All of this strikes me as the very essence of bullnuts as described by Frankfurt:

When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullnutster, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose (p. 56).


The summit takes place here in DC February 26-27.

Oh, well, across the street from the National Press Club is Red Sage which, while hardly the restaurant it once was, still presents a decent lunch.



— Gerald Bracey
Notes
2005-02-22