Delaware Senate Passes Blockchain Bill With Unanimous Vote & Things I Heard At Legislative Hall Today

My question is how many of these Senators even know what this bill means.  Do they know what they are opening the door to?  To be fair, all this bill does is allow Blockchain technology into Delaware corporate law.  The word “education” does not even appear in the bill.  Blockchain would allow for secure transactions.  It also allows for secure dataflow.  But who owns that data?  If it is meant for one business or one person, does that business or that person own that data?

What happens when a student’s standardized test data, medical information, discipline record, and attendance become a part of this permanent record?  What happens if that information is wrong?  How do you go about correcting it?  Who puts information in this distributed ledger?  There are so many unanswered questions about this technology.  For businesses and corporations, I get it.  But when it comes to the eventual distribution to ALL people, my red flags go way up.

The Senate passed Senate Bill 69 with 20 yes and 1 not voting (Senator Bryant Richardson).  I’m not sure why he chose not to vote.  There was hardly anyone else during this vote.  A handful of lobbyists and that was about it.  I did see the primary sponsor, Senator Bryan Townsend, leaving Governor Carney’s office shortly before the Senate convened.

There was a flurry of activity at Legislative Hall today.  Pro-lifers and some pro-choicers caused a long line to get in.  I guess nobody told them that arriving at 2pm does nothing because the House doesn’t vote on bills until after they go to Caucus.  Which they are still in since the House isn’t back in session yet.  I went for the SB69 vote and got back home a little while ago.  Many of the pro-lifers left.

I did have some chats down here.  I heard some rumblings about a few things.  One of them being a school district consolidation bill that is floating around.  I haven’t seen it yet.

I did have this conversation:

I just wanted to let you know your analysis is always right.  I read every article you put on your blog.

Yeah, but does HE read it? (pointing to Governor Carney’s office)

He doesn’t read your stuff.  He doesn’t have time for that.  But I know his education policy advisor does.

That is always a comforting thought.  The most powerful political guy in the state doesn’t read my stuff.  How assuring!  I know Jack did.  Jack read everything that had his name on it, good or bad.  This led to a conversation about the time I sang for Jack Markell.  When asked if I was going to make a song for John Carney, I answered my singing days are over.  But you never know…

State Rep. Earl Jaques’ new tax ’em without a referendum bill was officially introduced today.  House Bill 213 was assigned to the House Education Committee.

I heard some people having extreme agita about Senate Bill 50, Senator Harris McDowell’s love fest for Del-Tech.  Which would mimic how vocational school districts are funded for minor and major capital projects.  It would also give Del-Tech’s board the, you guessed it, ability to raise property taxes without a referendum for these projects.  Yes folks, they want us taxpayers to now fund community colleges and their pet projects as well!

State Rep. John Kowalko introduced House Bill #209 which would prevent the abuse of epilogue language in the state budget.  Kowalko’s bill would prevent the “waivers” that occur every single year which go against Delaware state code.  Think of the Charter School Transportation Slush Fund as just one example of this abuse.

I can’t imagine what State Rep. Jeff Spiegelman was thinking when he introduced House Bill #194 which would eliminate the senior tax credit for anyone born after 1967.  I can’t imagine too many Republicans would be on board with this, but they are all Republican sponsors on the bill.  That tax credit was something I was looking forward to.  Thanks for that Jeff!  It still has to pass.  Can’t imagine that happening with all this talk about budget deficits and “shared sacrifice”… insert sarcasm here…

I saw some faces from yesteryear as well.  Always good to chat with people I didn’t think I would see again.  I see on social media that some people I know were there today and I didn’t even see them.  Maybe next time.

That’s it for now folks.  In the coming days I’m going to have to list ALL the Delaware education legislation floating around.  I used to keep track of this stuff daily but it is a lot of work.

Why Corporate Education Reform Eventually Fails

I love me some good Steve Newton in the morning!  Earlier today, I posted an article about a Blockchain technology bill getting a vote in the Delaware Senate.  If you haven’t read that article yet, you need to now so you can understand this response by Steve Newton.  Steve nailed it!  But this is also why I blog.  I like to get information out as well as my thoughts and predictions on it before these possible futures come to pass.  The best way to fight the future is to expose that future!

I both do and don’t agree with your analysis. In the abstract what you say about the intended potential of Blockchain is correct; I don’t doubt your assessment of the motivations (profit and otherwise) of corporate reformers. In fact I share them. But…

I do not believe that Blockchain or any other internet-based platform actually possesses the power to replace public education, though I do agree that under certain conditions it possesses the power to wound or destroy it. Nonetheless I don’t see that happening as the “reformers” intend.

Mostly this is because the reformers are just about as politically inept as it is possible to be. In Delaware the reform movement is in its third or fourth distinct incarnation because it’s lost almost every round by overplaying its hand. Not only is the domination of charters cracking open, people are beginning to question the concept of “choice” as it is currently written. Communities are mobilizing, in no small part because children like your son or my grandson cannot be successfully educated that way, and because it doesn’t provide any path forward at all for children from low SES backgrounds.

People tend to miss two big points in examining public education in America. The first is how WELL the system actually works, despite all its warts. It sends literally millions of graduates well-prepared into college or a career every year, despite the best efforts of critics and enemies to wreck the system. Even many of the children the current system “fails” are actually achieving some value from the system, which is remarkably resilient.

Second, we often fail to acknowledge that the US attempts to do something amazing on a scale approached by no other country on the planet: we attempt to educate everybody’s children. It is perhaps one of the most unparalleled experiments in the limits of the possible ever conducted in human history. No other country attempts to do this on such a scale with such a heterogenous population.

Finally, Blockchain and corporate intrusion into education highlight the ultimate dynamic–centralization versus decentralization. Corporations are pretty much as interested in centralization of authority as the government–they just want to do it in order to profit from it. But the tradition of public education here is all about local control (which, we know, Rodel would like to stamp out), and the irony is that the same technology they’re pushing to use in centralizing is the very technology that makes decentralized control more functional and adaptable if we seize the tools for our own purposes.

What’s really under attack here (and I think you get this part exactly right) is the SOCIAL objective of American public education as an empowering institution for ALL children, regardless of ethnicity, wealth, or class. That’s actually the part that the reformers (sometimes unconsciously) are attacking, because an American public education system that actually levels the playing field in statistically significant ways will change both the nature of economic relationships and political power in ways that scare the hell out of them.

Those changes are actually under way and more or less inevitable. The reformers are fighting a rear-guard battle with the very tools that will in the end undo them.

Townsend’s Death of Public Education Bill Gets A Senate Vote Today…Say What?

I should have been paying closer attention.  Delaware Senator Bryan Townsend introduced a bill on May 5th.  It cleared the Elections and Government Affairs Committee on May 17th.  Now it is up for a Senate vote today.  Let me be very clear: for all intents and purposes, this legislation will eventually destroy public education.