Archives for the month of: July, 2014
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A Partial Look at Michelle Rhee’s Finances

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
28

Politico.com reports on some of the finances of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and StudentsFirst Institute, based on the 990 tax form that her group is required to file. During the fiscal year from August 2012 to July 2013, her organizations raised $28.6 million, down slightly from the previous year. She does not disclose the names of her donors (we can all guess: the Koch brothers? Rupert Murdoch? Michael Bloomberg? Eli Broad? Members of the Walton family? Art Pope? Hedge fund managers? Who else disdains public education?).

She spent $2 million for the consulting services of SKDKnickerbocker, which is run by Anita Dunn, who worked closely with President Obama in his first term. She also paid $1.7 million to Change.org, which hosted many of her petitions (“do you want great teachers, sign here”). The article says Change.org cut ties with that lucrative client because of protests by organized labor but that is an overstatement. Many supporters of public education and teachers objected to Change.org presenting itself as “progressive” while promoting a group tat funds rightwing candidates and attacks umbilical education. I am embarrassed to say that I was tricked into signing one of those petitions. When I blogged about it, I got an email from a real person at Change.org informing me that I was a member of StudentsFirst after signing that misleading petition.

She gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservative supporters of charters and vouchers.

Her salary is nearly $350,000 a year, not including speaking fees (last reported to be $50,000 per speech but negotiable). A good gig. Sure beats being a teacher.

In addition, Rhee “spent heavily on political activism in the year covered by the tax forms. StudentsFirst gave $500,000 to a business-backed committee in Michigan that successfully worked to defeat a union effort to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state constitution. It also spent $250,000 to support a charter-school campaign in Georgia. StudentsFirst gives to candidates and committees from both parties but many of its biggest political donations went to Republican caucuses and conservative alliances in states including Florida, Maine, Michigan and Pennsylvania.”

When she started StudentsFirst, Rhee said she would raise $1 billion for her agenda to destroy teachers unions, de-professionalize teaching, and turn public education over to private entities. So far, she has raised $62 million. Guess the rightwing billionaires are not as generous as she anticipated. Or maybe the lingering questions about the D.C. Cheating scandal tarnished her image, even among the true believers.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Texas Commissioner Ignores State Board to Approve Great Hearts Charter

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
4

Michael Williams, Texas State Commissioner, gave Great Hearts Academy permission to open another charter in Dallas even though the state board of education tuned it down. Williams is not an educator. He is a favorite of the Bush family who previously served as head of the Texas Railroad Commission, which “regulates” the oil and gas industry (not?).

Great Hearts is controversial because it has campuses that have little or no diversity, it does not provide transportation, and it charges substantial fees to parents. It was repeatedly rejected in Nashville for its lack of diversity plans.

In Arizona, the charter chain was criticized by the Arizona Republic for buying nearly $1 million in books from a board member.

“”I certainly think it flies in the face of legislative intent,” said Thomas Ratliff, a Republican SBOE member from Mount Pleasant, of Williams’ decision. “Republicans are critical of this president for doing executive orders around an elected Congress, and it looks like Michael Williams decided that playbook looks OK.”

“Critics have pointed to the disproportionately white and affluent student body of Great Hearts’ campuses in the Phoenix area as evidence that those practices keep low-income students out of the school. In Phoeniz, nearly 60 percent of public school students are Hispanic or black, 69 percent of the nearly 7,000 students are white. Only two of Great Hearts’ 16 Arizona campuses participate in a federal program that offers free and reduced-price meals for low-income students. That concern led the Nashville school district to deny Great Hearts’ charter application last year because of what one official described as “serious and persistent questions about their definitions of excellence, and reliance on selectivity and mission fit for success.”

Categories Charter Schools, Texas

Good Riddance to the Common Core Tests!

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
83

A few years ago, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, David Coleman, and a merry band of policy wonks had a grand plan. The non-governmental groups like Achieve, the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Coleman’s own Student Achievement Partners would write the Common Core standards (paid for by the Gates Foundation); Duncan would require states to agree to adopt them as a condition of eligibility for a share of the billions of Race to the Top funds at a time when states were broke; the Feds would spend $370 million to develop tests for the standards; and within a few short years the U.S. would have a seamless system of standards and assessments that could be used to evaluate students, teachers, and schools.

The reason that the Gates Foundation had to pay for the standards is that federal law prohibits the government from controlling, directing, or supervising curriculum or instruction. Of course, it is ludicrous to imagine that the federally-funded tests do not have any direct influence on curriculum or instruction. Many years ago, I interviewed a professor at MIT about his role in the new science programs of the 1960s, and he said something I never forgot: “Let me write a nation’s tests, and I care not who writes its songs or poetry.”

So how fares the seamless system? Not so well. Critics of the standards and tests seem to gathering strength and growing bolder. The lack of any democratic process for writing, reviewing, and revising the standards is coming back to bite the architects and generals who assumed they could engineer a swift and silent coup. The claim, often made by Duncan, that the U.S. needs a way to compare the performance of students in different states ignores the fact that the Federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) already exists to do precisely that. In addition, critics like Carol Burris and John Murphy have pointed out that the Common Core tests agreed upon a cut score (passing mark) that is designed to fail most students.

As politico.com reports, support for the federally-funded tests is crumbling as states discover the costs, the amount of time required, and their loss of sovereignty over a basic state function. The federal government pays about 10% of the cost of education, while states and localities pay the other 90%. Why should the federal government determine what happens in the nation’s schools? What happened to the long-established tradition that states are “laboratories of democracy”? Why shouldn’t the federal government stick to its mandate to fund poor schools and to defend the civil rights of students, instead of trying to standardize curriculum, instruction, and testing?

So far, at least 17 states have backed away from using the federal tests this spring, and some are determined not to use them ever. Another half-dozen may drop out. In many, legislators are appalled at the costs of adopting a federal test. Both the NEA and the AFT, which have supported the standards, have balked at the tests because teachers are not ready, nor is curriculum, teaching resources, and professional development.

Time and costs are big issues for the federal exams:

“PARCC estimates its exams will take eight hours for an average third-grader and nearly 10 hours for high school students — not counting optional midyear assessments to make sure students and teachers are on track.

“PARCC also plans to develop tests for kindergarten, first- and second- graders, instead of starting with third grade as is typical now. And it aims to test older students in 9th, 10th and 11th grades instead of just once during high school.

“Cost is also an issue. Many states need to spend heavily on computers and broadband so schools can deliver the exams online as planned. And the tests themselves cost more than many states currently spend — an estimated $19 to $24 per student if they’re administered online and up to $33 per student for paper-and-pencil versions.

“That adds up to big money for testing companies. Pearson, which won the right to deliver PARCC tests, could earn more than $1 billion over the next eight years if enough states sign on.”

One of the two federally-funded testing consortia, PARCC, is now entangled in a legal battle in New Mexico, which was sued by AIR for failing to take competitive bids for the lucrative testing contract. This could lead to copycat suits in other states whose laws require competitive bidding but ignored the law to award the contract to Pearson.

Frankly, the idea of subjecting third graders to an eight-hour exam is repugnant, as is the prospect of a 10-hour exam for high school students, as is the absurd idea of testing children in kindergarten, first, and second grades. All of these tests will be accompanied by test prep and interim exams and periodic exams. This is testing run amok, and the biggest beneficiary will be the testing industry, certainly not students.

Students don’t become smarter or wiser or more creative because of testing. Instead, all this testing will deduct as much as a month of instruction for testing and preparation for testing. In addition, states will spend tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or even more, to buy the technology and bandwidth necessary for the Common Core testing (Los Angeles–just one district–plans to spend a cool $1 billion to buy the technology for the Common Core tests). The money spent for Common Core testing means there will be less money to reduce class sizes, to hire arts teachers, to repair crumbling buildings, to hire school nurses, to keep libraries open and staffed, and to meet other basic needs). States are cutting the budget for schools at the same time that the Common Core is diverting huge sums for new technology, new textbooks, new professional development, and other requirements to prepare for the Common Core.

Common Core testing will turn out to be the money pit that consumed American education. The sooner it dies, the sooner schools and teachers will be freed of the Giant Federal Accountability Plan hatched in secret and foisted upon our nation’s schools. And when it does die, teachers will have more time to do their job and to use their professional judgment to do what is best for each student..

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Technology, Computers, Testing

Rocketship Charter Chain’s Big Plans in Texas

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
3

A note from a reader in Texas, where Rocketship charter schools have big expansion plans:

Rocketship has re-applied for charters in Texas, 8 each in San Antonio and Dallas. Last cycle, in spite of support from San Antonio group, Choose to Succeed (along with the promise of million(s) in start-up funds), Rocketship failed to meet TEA external reviewers standards and was not eligible for consideration by the commissioner. It appears in order to promote the anointed California charter chain this year, Choose to Succeed offered the SBOE a donation for them to visit out of state charters which had applied to TEA. http://www.texastribune.org/2014/04/08/sboe-may-get-private-funds-see-out-state-charters/

However, questions were raised whether private funds should be raised for fact finding missions by a watchdog group as well as SBOE members and local superintendents expressed alarm at the proposal.
http://www.texastribune.org/2014/04/08/sboe-may-get-private-funds-see-out-state-charters/

The SBOE may consider a policy on accepting donations at their mid-July meeting. Interviews of charter applicants will take place 7/21-23 in Austin.

Rocketship has had some bumpy times since the resignation of its co-founder, John Danner. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/21/19el-rotation.h33.html

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And a scathing report on its Milwaukee expansion. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2014/04/new_paper_slams_privately-run_charters_rocketship_education_model.html

Even Nashville, where its school has not yet opened reported its academic shortcomings and a change in its development model in an investigative series reviewed by Diane Ravitch. https://dianeravitch.net/2014/04/15/rocketship-charters-have-a-bumpy-ride-in-nashville-follow-the-money/

Just this month, former USA Today reporter and editorial writer, Richard Whitmire, released his book, “On the Rocketship: How Top Charter Schools are Pushing the Envelope,” which was subject of a webinar 6/26 at the Fordham Institute which is quite favorable to the charter chain. http://edexcellence.net/events/on-the-rocketship-expanding-the-high-quality-charter-school-movement

The 860 page (!) Rocketship pending application can be viewed at: http://castro.tea.state.tx.us/charter_apps/content/downloads/Nocdn/19-20.pdf

Categories Charter Schools, Texas

Rocketship Charter Chain Sputters

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
8

Rocketship charter chain had an audacious plan to enroll one million students nationwide, drawing students from poor and immigrant communities, putting them in front of a computer in large classes, and relying on low-wage (mainly Teach for America) “teachers.” The chain got high scores and began opening charters outside San Jose, California, where it originated, but then something happened that was unexpected. The scores fell.

But now Rocketship hopes to enroll 13,000 students in the next three years.

“We didn’t deliver,” said CEO and co-founder Preston Smith, about disappointing results that led Rocketship to slow its growth. “That’s in response to our own expectations.”

“Primary among its difficulties, Smith concedes, is the failure of an audacious plan to knock down walls and create 100-student classrooms, which Rocketship is abandoning. Rocketship also suffered through a leadership transition after the exit last year of co-founder John Danner, who began a firm to supply software to schools.

“Yet, Smith maintains, “We have really great schools.” He also points to Rocketship’s loyal parents, long waiting lists for its eight Bay Area schools, all in San Jose, and proficiency scores that outshine schools with similar students. Rocketship still envisions tripling in size to 13,000 students in three years.

“Rocketship, Smith said, has been targeted partly because it challenges the status quo.

“Not so, said the network’s leading nemesis. Brett Bymaster, of San Jose, whose successful lawsuit led Rocketship to abandon plans for an already-approved school in Tamien, southwest of downtown. He said he’s most concerned about governance.

“What happens when you have a relatively secretive organization that has an unelected board and has large growth plans?” asked Bymaster, who organized his Tamien neighborhood to oppose a proposed Rocketship school there, filed a successful land-use lawsuit that has slowed the charter network and now runs a “Stop Rocketship” website that has attracted a local and national following.

“He noted that Rocketship reneged on a promise to maintain local school boards and instead consolidated them with the national board. “How do we as a community hold them accountable?”

“Rocketship maintains that its recipe works. Hiring enthusiastic recent grads from top colleges and employing online learning, the brash nonprofit won awards and attracted investment by getting the hardest-to-educate children to score as high as their wealthier peers. Placing children on computers and with non-credentialed tutors for more than an hour a day has saved on teacher salaries.

“The school day, even for young children, is eight hours. Teacher raises depend on test scores.

“Staffers’ long hours, however, are both a key to success and a source of burnout. Current and former Rocketship teachers characterized their workday as 11 to 16 hours, with just five weeks for summer vacation.”

The teacher burnout rate is high. Many find the workload and hours unsustainable. Certainly it is not compatible with a family life. Rocketship depends on a steady supply of low-wage college graduates willing to devote their life to the school until they can’t anymore.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Technology, Computers, Testing

Anthony Cody: These Tests are Designed to Fail Students

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
132

Anthony Cody points out the contradiction between claims that the Common Core will prepare students for college and careers and the reality that the Common Core tests are designed to fail most students.

He also notes what happened to the GED graduation rate after Pearson took control of the program. The pass rate on the GED plummeted.

What is going on? Cody has two hypotheses:

“Hypothesis #1:

“Corporations are unable to find an adequate supply of highly skilled and educated people, and if we make it harder to graduate high school or earn a GED we will get a larger number of people on track for these skilled jobs.

“This is the basic reason stated by the Gates Foundation and other advocates of “higher standards.” This has been the rationale for the Common Core, along with the idea that we are somehow losing in an international race for higher test scores.

“If this were the case, we should see employers experiencing some sort of shortage of skilled workers. Economists can find no evidence of such a shortage. This report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the top seven occupations with the largest projected numerical growth require at most a two-year Associates degree, and most require only short-term on-the-job training.

“Hypothesis #2:

“Employers actually need FEWER employees with college degrees, and perhaps even fewer workers overall, due to increases in efficiency that are coming through technology. This creates a challenge to the stability of the system – how can we justify leaving many people who are willing to work idle? Perhaps we need a system to label these people “unready for college and career.”

“I do find some evidence to support this hypothesis. We are already in what has been termed a “jobless recovery,” which means that while corporate profits are sky-high, these profits are being made with fewer and fewer workers. A report in the MIT Technology Review suggests that in the next 20 years, 45% of American jobs could be eliminated as a result of computerization.

“There is an idea, most recently expounded by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, that any student, including those with significant learning disabilities, can pass ever more difficult tests. If our entire education system is re-tooled to prepare for Common Core tests, teachers are evaluated based on test scores, and energetic innovators produce new devices and “learning systems,” ALL students will somehow rise to meet the challenge. Where have we heard this premise before? Oh yes. The mythical 100% proficiency rates of No Child Left Behind. We have abandoned one myth simply to embrace another. I think it is time to call an end to this charade.

“Tests do not and cannot accurately measure who is “ready for college and career.” They can only serve to stigmatize, rank, sort, and justify the abandonment of an ever larger number of our students. The Gates Foundation’s Common Core project, in spite of Vicki Phillips’ reassurances, is NOT acting in the interests of our students when it labels large numbers of them as rejects. It is putting millions of them in grave danger. Fortunately, the Common Core tests are encountering serious trouble. The Pearson GED test ought to be rejected as well, and the sooner the better.

“Our public education system has as its noble mission the elevation of all students to their highest potential. This is not defined by their future usefulness to employers. And if corporations find ways to make their billions while employing fewer and fewer of our graduates, that will not be a failure of our educational system, nor of our students themselves. Our economic system ought to be critically examined and re-thought, if, in fact, “all lives have equal value.” As advances in efficiency allow greater productivity, those gains should be shared widely, not hoarded by the .01%. Any testing system that results in massive failure is an assault on our students and should be fought by anyone who cares for their future.”

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Pearson, Testing

Detroit Free Press on Its Probe of Michigan Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
6

The Detroit Free Press published a series of deeply researched articles about the charter schools in the state, most of which operate for profit. The state spends $1 billion on charters but does not hold them accountable for financial practices or academic outcomes. Charter schools do NOT get better results educating students in poverty.

Will legislators or the governor care? Not as long as the charter lobby keeps sending in those campaign contributions.

Here is the summary: (Open the article for many links and videos)

A yearlong Free Press investigation of Michigan’s charter schools found wasteful spending, conflicts of interest, poor performing schools and a failure to close the worst of the worst. Among the findings:

Charter schools spend $1 billion per year in state taxpayer money, often with little transparency.

Some charter schools are innovative and have excellent academic outcomes — but those that don’t are allowed to stay open year after year.

A majority of the worst-ranked charter schools in Michigan have been open 10 years or more.

Charter schools as a whole fare no better than traditional schools in educating students in poverty.

Michigan has substantially more for-profit companies running schools than any other state.

Some charter school board members were forced out after demanding financial details from management companies.

State law does not prevent insider dealing and self-enrichment by those who operate schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Michigan

Connecticut: Another FUSE Employee Has a Criminal Record

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
29

A community outreach for a Bridgeport charter school organization managed by FUSE has a criminal record.

“The record of Mack Allen, 49, of Bridgeport, surfaced in a confidential background check that FUSE had a law firm perform in January after he had begun working. But the organization didn’t inform Bridgeport schools Supt. Frances Rabinowitz about it until Tuesday night, after she requested background information on several FUSE employees as part of an audit.

“Rabinowitz said Wednesday that she’s “incredibly concerned” about the revelation and that FUSE’s failure to disclose it until now adds to her doubts about whether the organization should continue running Dunbar School under a year-old arrangement approved by the state Department of Education.”

The chairman of the State Board of Education Allan Taylor said that a criminal record should not be a barrier to employment in charter schools in certain districts.

“At Monday’s board meeting, he said: “Background checks, it’s pretty obvious we need to do those, but coming from a city where an awful lot of people have criminal records that have very little to do with their ability to do whatever it is they are doing, I just don’t want us to go overboard – not on the background checks, but on what disqualifies somebody from a particular thing.”

Will he apply the same standard to educators? Is it okay if a teacher or a principal has a criminal record so long as he or she is in a charter school in an urban district?

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut

Connecticut: Who Endorsed Jumoke Charter Schools and FUSE?

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2014 //
31

Mary G. of Connecticut offers the following insight into the charter mutual support network. Jennifer Alexander of ConnCAN was quoted in this post extolling the superior performance of charters as compared to public schools. In this post, Jennifer Alexander said that the scandal surrounding Jumoke and FUSE should provide an opportunity to discuss not only accountability and transparency but funding and flexibility.

 

Jennifer Alexander, CEO of ConnCAN wrote a letter of support for the Booker T. Washington/FUSE charter school in which she said that one of the 2 key factors in her support was that the Booker T. Washington charter school was collaborating “with a proven high-quality provider, FUSE… FUSE has a track record of success.”
Alexander forgot to mention that ConnCAN has a track record of success in receiving grant money, not least from the Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck (Subway sandwich vendors) Foundation ($500K commitment in the past and promised for the next two years)–this Buck foundation provided $100K (approximately) for the writing of the Booker T. charter school application, and it also promised $250K to Jumoke; in addition, this Subway foundation gave $360K to the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, whose director, William W. Ginsberg, also wrote a letter of support for the Booker T. application; not to mention the millions the Buck/Subway group has donated to Achievement First, the charter management organization co-founded by CT commissioner of ed. Stefan Pryor and Dacia Toll, wife of Jeffrey Klaus–he, too wrote a letter of support for the Booker T./FUSE charter. In Hartford, a new Achievement First High School opened in 2012–with a pipeline of students directly from Jumoke.
Here’s the PCL Buck most recent tax filing; see pages 108-117 for most of these donations, plus myriad others to TFA and Northeast Charter Schools, etc., etc.: http://www.pclbfoundation.org/docs/2012-990PF-PCLB.pdf
Starting on page 273 you can read the letters of recommendation
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1099724-booker-t-washington-academy-charter-school.html

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform

Louisiana Carnival: State Auditor Investigating DOE for Payroll Fraud

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2014 //
13

While Governor Bobby Jindal and State Superintendent John White continue to slug it out over Common Core and PARCC testing, a new wrinkle has been added.

Blogger Louisiana Voice reports that John White’s office is being investigated for payroll fraud:

“LouisianaVoice has learned the Legislative Auditor’s office is conducting an investigation of DOE that could involve payroll fraud, according to sources inside the department.

“White, as we have reported several times in the past, has loaded up the department with unclassified appointments at bloated six-figure salaries.

“There are apparently three major problems with that:

“Many of these appointees seldom, if ever, show up for work and apparently are required to perform few, if any, duties to earn their keep;

“The department did not have enough money in its budget to pay their salaries so they are reportedly being paid from federal funds earmarked for specific purposes;

“The appointees are not assigned to areas for which the federal funds are allocated.

“If true, these are serious allegations and even more serious violations that could prompt a federal probe in addition to the investigation already underway by the Legislative Auditor.”

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana
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