Thompson: Hess Hits Homeruns (When Not Striking Out)

When Rick Hess connects, his metaphors pack an awesome punch: "We would think it bewildering if we walked into a hospital and saw elite cardiovascular surgeons, novice residents, and bookkeepers taking turns conducting heart surgery and handling administrative duties. Yet that is standard practice in schools." Hess is absolutely correct that schooling is a team effort.  How he can square that awareness with a desire to hold individuals accountable for increasing student peformance is beyond me.  It is fun reading someone, however, whose homeruns and strikeouts are equally impressive.- JT(@drjohnthompson)Image via.

 

Comments

[Mary]

I followed the link. I thought Hess might actually be owning up to his complicity, after that "We're all implicated" bombshell, but there is no honest thinking behind this swing.

No, John, don't be taken in by Hess' attempt to shape-shift away from his discredited patrons, as public outrage mounts. He still works for the moneyed interests. The same sickening cash-cow of offshored entrepreneurial virtual education is still step 1 of his "solution" to the inferior teacher bogeyman:

"Virtual-learning options like Tutor.com can offer families online tutoring in a variety of subjects, 24 hours a day, from expert tutors around the world. Instead of relying on full-time, in-classroom teachers, this arrangement makes it possible ..."

I searched for the current operators of Tutor.com, but haven’t gotten a reliable fix. Has Milken swallowed it yet, or not? Anybody else interested can start with this zippy tool:
http://whois.pho.to/tutor.com

It is by no means easy to ascertain current ownership of virtual education scams. Since they infest my building, demanding continuous tribute in the form of helpless children failed by administrative fiat, I pay attention.

I’ve been following the Washington Post’s Kaplan Virtual Education, which disappeared this month into the yawning jaws of Junk-Bond King robert Milken’s behemoth, K12inc.

"Washington Post Co.'s (WPO) Kaplan Inc. is selling its online high school business to K12 Inc. (LRN), just months after buying another competitor to grow the business itself."
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110519-711124.html

Tracking back (in case you haven’t pulled up the baseboards in your own district yet)
http://onlineschoolsinfo.info/k12-inc-lrn/

http://whois.pho.to/v7.k12.com

Finally, it is interesting that, though the Milken Family itself hasn’t moved any of its stock since 2009, the current K12 CEO is selling, as of this month;
http://www.insiderhawk.com/symbol/LRN.htm