Archives for the month of: January, 2015
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Bob Braun: Cami’s Disastrous Appearance at Hearing

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2015 //
44

Bob Braun, who worked as an investigative reporter in Néw Jersey for decades until he retired, here describes Cami Anderson’s disastrous appearance before a committee of the Néw Jersey state legislature responsible for state-operated schools.

Anderson was appointed superintendent of the Newark public schools by Governor Chris Christie. The district has not had local control for 20 years but it does have a school board. Anderson refuses to attend the meetings of the powerless board. Anderson imposed a plan called “One Newark,” which caused upheaval and resistance as students were reassigned, and some neighborhood schools were closed and converted to charters.

Braun begins his post like this:

“Not a great day for Cami Anderson.

“The chairman of the legislative committee that oversees state-operated school districts Tuesday accused the state-appointed Newark superintendent of “taking the fifth” because she repeatedly refused to discuss her personal and business ties to a Newark charter school leader to whose organization she sold a Newark public school at less than fair market value. Anderson also was openly caught in a lie when she insisted before the Joint Committee on Public Schools (JCPS) that no school principals were in so-called “rubber rooms,” getting paid to do nothing–apparently unaware one of the principals was attending the hearing. She also was openly laughed at by committee members when she talked about a “legislative liaison” aide whom none had ever met.

“But the oddest thing that happened at the four-hour hearing was Anderson’s insistence that her reforms efforts should not be judged by falling state test scores because such scores were “inaccurate” and “unfair”–this, from a woman who has closed public schools and fired educators because of falling state test scores.

“Anderson, a woman who has shown nothing but smug contempt for critics, was reduced to offering what amounted to personal pleas that the legislators try to “understand my journey”or “my passion”–mawkish and overplayed efforts to depict herself as someone whose past helped her understand the problems of poor people. In the end, she had to be rescued after four hours by state Education Commissioner David Hespe who told the committee Anderson had had enough for one day and should be allowed to leave.

“Hespe wasn’t a witness. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. He was a sort of a minder–or, maybe, big brother– to hold Anderson’s hand (figuratively) while legislators from both parties relentlessly asked questions that demonstrated they failed to understand her genius and couldn’t give a damn about her journey through life and her passion for education. After her ordeal ended, Anderson refused to answer reporters’ questions and all but fled the committee room, chased by television cameras shining bright lights.”

Categories Charter Schools, New Jersey, Newark, Testing

Connecticut Educator: The Keys to Success in U.S. Education

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2015 //
19

What does real education reform look like? Dr. Jeannette Faber, an educator in Connecticut, explains what is needed: innovation and investment.

We won’t achieve the improve t we seek by firing teachers, endless testing, or merit pay for higher scores. Genuine improvement requires positive and well/informed thinking.

She writes:

“To start, by innovation, I mean this: We do need to transform public education as we still largely work on a century-old model – the factory model. We do need to make education more innovative, creative, student centered, and constructivist – all focusing on critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. The current road of “corporate education reform” will not take us there. In fact, it will take us in the opposite direction.

By investment, I mean this: Equity in funding and resources. When public education became compulsory a century ago, education leaders vowed to make public education the great equalizer. We have failed at that for a century. Usually, wealthier students receive more funding; poor students, less. That is a betrayal of our democratic values.”

She then offers 12 resolutions to transform our schools. All rely on innovation and investment.

Categories Education Reform, U.S. education

RI: Will Deborah Gist Survive as State Commissioner?

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
24

Rumors are swirling about whether Deborah Gist will be reappointed as Commissioner of Education in Rhode Island. RI public radio prematurely announced that her contract would not be renewed but the state board said that no decision had been made. Gist is one of the few remaining members of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. She has been an advocate for high-stakes testing and charter schools. She received national attention (and acclaim by Duncan and President Obama) for supporting the mass firing of the staff at Central Falls High School (some of whom were rehired).

Politico reports:

“THE ACCIDENTAL STATE SUPERINTENDENT: Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist is known as a change agent, an education reformer who ushered in a new era of teacher evaluations, lifted the state cap on charter schools and created a statewide funding formula based on school district capacity and student need. But her turbulent time in office might be coming to an end. Her contract expires this June and the state board hasn’t indicated whether they’ll renew it. Gist says she has more work to do, such as implementing the state’s five-year education plan and expanding access to early childhood education. But she’s mum on her career plans. “I’ve never been someone who takes a job and thinks how that’s going to propel me to the next thing,” Gist said. In fact, she never even meant to leave her job teaching students in the classroom. I have the story, part of POLITICO’s Women Rule: Getting There series: http://politico.pro/1DwLTou”

The article is no longer behind a paywall. It is here.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Rhode Island

Jerry Brown: A Real Reform Governor

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
28

Governor Jerry Brown’s Inaugural address includes the following remarks about education. Governor Brown understands that schools need adequate funding to succeed. One of his biggest challenges when he took office was to begin to restore the billions that had been cut from public schools by his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think he is wrong about Common Core, which caused California to ditch some of the best state standards in the nation and will draw hundreds of millions, if not billions, out of strained school budgets (Los Angeles was about to spend over &1 billion on iPads for Common Core testing until the deal fell apart a few months ago). But, reasonable people differ, and time will tell whether the investment in Common Core is worth it.

Governor Brown said:

“Educating the next generation is fundamental to our collective well-being. An issue that has plagued our schools for decades is the enormous barrier facing children from low-income families. When my father was governor, he sought to remedy the wide inequities among different school districts by calling for equalization of funding. His efforts were not successful.

“Now – decades later – we have finally created a much fairer system of school funding, called the Local Control Funding Formula. Under the provisions of this law, state funds are directed to school districts based on the needs of their students. Districts will get significantly more funds based on the number of students from foster care, low-income families and non-English-speaking parents. This program also breaks with decades of increasing centralization by reducing state control in favor of local flexibility. Clear goals are set, and their enforcement is entrusted to parents and local officials. This puts California in the forefront of educational reform.

“After years of underfunding and even borrowing from our local schools, the state now has significantly increased its financial support for education. Next year schools will receive $65.7 billion, a 39 percent increase in four years.

“The tasks ahead are daunting: making sure that the new system of local control works; recruiting and training tens of thousands of teachers; mastering the Common Core Curriculum; and fostering the creativity needed to inspire students. Teachers need to be held accountable but never forget: they have a tough job to do. They need our encouragement, not endless regulations and micro-management from afar.

“With respect to education beyond high school, California is blessed with a rich and diverse system. Its many elements serve a vast diversity of talents and interests. While excellence is their business, affordability and timely completion is their imperative. As I’ve said before, I will not make the students of California the default financiers of our colleges and universities. To meet our goals, everyone has to do their part: the state, the students and the professors. Each separate institution cannot be all things to all people, but the system in its breadth and diversity, through real cooperation among its segments, can well provide what Californians need and desire…..”

Categories Budget Cuts, California, Education Reform, Funding

Brett Bymaster: Rocketship’s Rocky Expansion

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
6

Brett Bymaster, a community activist in San Jose, California, here describes the chain’s current plans to increase the number of its charter schools. Rocketship withdrew its applications for 8 schools each in Dallas and San Antonio. But it is moving forward in Nashville and D.C.

Bymaster writes:

Recently released board material from Rocketship Education indicates that the charter school corporation intends to grow significantly, tripling in size over the next 5 years. Rocketship is known for its high stakes test prep K-5 schools that minimize arts and extracurriculars, packing 650 kids on a 1.25 acre campus, running 41:1 student to teacher ratios, and elementary aged children receiving > 90 minutes of computer time in massive labs staffed by uncredentialed aids. Local and national pushback earlier this year led to Rocketship delaying school openings and committing to less aggressive growth. But board documents released last month indicate that Rocketship is ramping up growth plans again, hoping to triple in size nationwide by 2019. In the next 5 years, Rocketship hopes to double San Francisco Bay Area schools, opening 5,000 new seats, while opening 4,000 new seats in Tennessee, and around 3,500 new seats in Washington DC.

Rocketship recently announced plans for school takeovers in Tennesse through the statewide Achievement School District, with takeovers slated for August 2015. Rocketship’s executives worried that the Nashville and Memphis “community may be resistant and potentially obstructive” to school takeovers, and then stated that they intended to “aggressively build relationships and identify parent ambassadors” to mitigate the obstructive community in Tennessee. Labeling the low income minority communities that Rocketship targets as “obstructive” seems worrisome, even more so when one considers that Rockteship intends to take over the community’s local public school and replace it with a high stakes corporate charter school that is run from distant offices in Silicon Valley’s ultra-wealthy Redwood City. Rocketship’s aggressive stance in minority communities in San Jose has led, sadly, to division and rancor in communities that should be working together.

Rocketship’s newest school in Washington D.C. provides a good example of what to expect. Rocketship let Andre Agassi’s for-profit hedge fund corporation pick the site of the proposed D.C. school in the Anacostia community. Agassi chose a site adjacent to a halfway house. Rocketship’s V.P. of growth, Katy Venskus (who was convicted for felony embezzlement in 2002 working for a different non-profit) said that Rocketship did not participate in the process of selecting a school site, abdicating their responsibility to Agassi’s for-profit hedge fund. Rocketship attempted to hire a local D.C. outreach coordinator, who quit shortly after taking the job. Rocketship was unable to replace him and seems to have lost track of the project. Rocketship’s CEO Preston Smith recently told the Washington D.C. school board, “We’re really proud of our community outreach and partnership that we’ve done in other communities and it’s very clear that in D.C. we’ve still got some work to do” and then told Rocketship’s board that “during the process of approving this charter however, it became more apparent that we could do a stronger job in engaging the Washington D.C. community, especially the Anacostia neighborhood.” Agassi also just acquired another site for Rocketship in Tennessee. I have to ask the question, is Rocketship leading Agassi, or are the for-profit hedge fund managers really in charge?

The Progressive Magazine just did a special issue on Rocketsihp, with a satire video called “Profitship Learning” by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore


http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/12/187929/profitship-learning
http://www.progressive.org/content/dec-jan-2014-issue-table-contents

For more information on Rocketship’s growth plans, see:
http://www.stoprocketship.com/2014/12/15/rocketships-aggressive-new-growth-plans-triple-5-years/
http://www.stoprocketship.com/2014/12/07/rocketship-considers-forced-takeover-conversions-in-nashville/

Categories California, Charter Schools, District of Columbia, Tennessee

The Latest News about the York City Situation

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
5

The public schools of York City, Pennsylvania, are on a precipice. They have a deficit. The state, contrary to its constitutional obligation, refuses to help. The district is in receivership. A judge approved the receiver’s plan to hand the schools over to a Florida-based for-profit corporation. How the corporation can make a profit from a district in financial distress is not clear. The district school board wants to appeal. The judge will decide in the next week whether he will permit an appeal from his ruling.

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Judge: Ruling on York City School District’s receivership appeal to come next week

York Dispatch by MOLLIE DURKIN 505-5432/@YDHealth 01/06/2015 01:58:20 PM EST

A court ruling on the York City School District’s appeal of receivership will have to wait until next week. York County President Judge Stephen P. Linebaugh held a hearing about the appeal on Tuesday, a week and a half after granting the state Department of Education’s petition to appoint David Meckley as the school district’s receiver. Meckley has served as the district’s chief recovery officer for about two years. For several months, he’s advocated for a full conversion of the district’s eight schools to operation by Charter Schools USA, a for-profit charter company.

The appeal: Marc Tarlow, an attorney representing the district, filed an appeal to Linebaugh’s decision and is pushing for a stay that would prevent Meckley from officially becoming the receiver until the appeals process is finished. But Clyde Vedder, attorney for the state Department of Education, argued that the district has no authority to appeal and that only the directors of the school board may file appeals. “Which, as we pointed out in our motion, they have not done,” he said. Linebaugh said he is “somewhat troubled” by the assertion that an entity affected by a decision has no right to appeal.

http://www.yorkdispatch.com/breaking/ci_27264505/judge-ruling-york-city-school-districts-receivership-appeal

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Judge considers appeal questions in York City receiver case

State wants court to strike appeal from York City School District

By Angie Mason amason@ydr.com @angiemason1 on Twitter 01/06/2015 06:05:01 PM EST

David Meckley could know as early as next week whether a judge will clear the way for him to move forward with the York City School District’s recovery plan, or whether appeals filed over his appointment as receiver will keep district control in limbo. On Tuesday, York County Judge Stephen Linebaugh heard arguments on the state education department’s motions to strike the school district’s appeal in the case and remove an automatic stay of receivership triggered by that appeal. Linebaugh gave the attorneys until Friday to file any supplemental documents and said he could rule early next week, unless he determines there’s need for a hearing.

Clyde Vedder, attorney for the state, argued Tuesday there’s a “fundamental distinction” between the school district and the school board. The appeal was “allegedly” filed by the district, he said, but the district was placed under Meckley’s control when he was named receiver Dec. 26. The board itself, Vedder argued, has not filed an appeal.

http://www.ydr.com/ci_27268935/judge-considers-appeal-questions-york-city-receiver-case?source=rss

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Politics is as politics does in York school debate (letter)

York Daily Record Letter by Jeff Kirkland UPDATED: 01/06/2015 02:34:03 PM EST

Jeff Kirkland is a former York City School Board President.

In response to the letter by state Reps. Seth Grove and Stand Saylor, and state Sen. Scott Wagner:

When it comes to assessing what is good for the York City School District, these guys are as delusional as they were when they participated in the decimation of the district. It is obvious this is a political hack piece as these arrogant “do-gooders” attempt to support their crony, Tom Corbett, and cover their own tracks in undermining urban education across the state.

When it comes to concern about the education of the kids of York, these charlatans have proven over the years they have no real interest in the education of city youth.

Both Saylor and Grove supported the destabilization of the city district by pushing the failed Edison Charter school experiment. The Edison group, like Charter Schools USA, made many similar empty promises of savings, improved academics and even free computers for families who fell for their false promises. When they could not squeeze enough profits out of this community to satisfy their greed, Edison left town in a hurry, leaving a disrupted and unstable district in its lurch. Where is the accountable Mr. Grove and Mr. Saylor? Where were you as your experiment with our children failed?

http://www.ydr.com/letters/ci_27266986/politics-is-politics-does-york-school-debate-letter

These daily emails are archived and searchable at

http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Visit us on Facebook at KeystoneStateEducationCoalition

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Pennsylvania

Jersey Jazzman on York City, Pa., and the Death of Public Education

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
7

Sorry I missed this great post when it came out in November. Jersey Jazzman, one of the nation’s best education bloggers, foretells the handover of the York City public schools to a for-profit charter chain and excoriates the state officials who are permitting this travesty to happen.

 

He digs into the stats on York City to show that it is performing about where you would expect given the socioeconomic disadvantage of its students. York City, he says, needs help, more resources, not a for-profit charter chain to siphon money out of its budget.

 

He writes:

 

Let’s recap:

Tom Corbett abdicated his responsibilities to the children of York and defunded their schools.
He sent in his personal hack to force the district to turn those schools over to a private, for-profit corporation through a shell non-profit.
The hack — as if he were a made man — told the district if they didn’t take his offer, he’d take over.
No one knows how much money the charter company is going to make on this deal.
Trust me, folks, we’re just getting started…

 

Meckley believes this plan is warranted because York’s schools aren’t performing up to snuff. But the truth is that they are exactly where we’d expect them to be, given the demographics of the city.

 

Do you want to see a photo of Jon Hage’s gorgeous yacht? Look here. He is the CEO of Charter Schools USA. The yacht was up for sale recently. He lives well. His business is very profitable with taxpayer dollars.

 

Jersey Jazzman asks:

 

And what kind of performance have the good people of Florida received for all of that money?

 
The chain was considered high-performing until this year. And on Tuesday the Orange School Board voted 7-0 to deny its applications for three new campuses.

 
Because charters are publicly funded per pupil, Charter Schools USA would receive about $27 million a year to run the three schools at capacity if approved.

 
“Their performance in Orange County is abysmally poor,” board Chairman Bill Sublette said of the Renaissance schools. “They’re underperforming the schools in the area that they’re drawing from. How can we look taxpayers in the eye and approve them?”
But Jonathan Hage, president and CEO of Charter Schools USA, said he is proud of all of the company’s schools, including Chickasaw.

 
“We do an excellent job over time, even with the lowest-performing students,” he said. “We knew we wouldn’t be able to turn those scores around in a year.” [emphasis mine]

 
JJ: I guess David Meckley knows better than the entire Orange School Board. Maybe CSUSA’s history in Indiana convinced him:

 
“The four takeover schools in Indianapolis lost huge numbers of students — between 35 and 60 percent at each school — between the start of classes in 2011 and when the takeover operators took over in 2012. Schools are mostly funded on the basis of their enrollment, so the departures came at a steep cost for the private operators.
On top of that, the takeover schools saw their share of a pot of federal funds for low-performing schools that is controlled by the state shrink as more state schools became eligible to claim that money. Tindley lost $212,000, and Charter Schools USA’s three schools lost more than $601,110 because of across-the-board reductions.
Together, the cuts have left takeover operators with much higher costs than they anticipated.
Sherry Hage, CSUSA’s chief academic officer, says the operator is planning to stick with its schools despite the costs. But for some, the price tag is proving too high. Earlier this month, Tindley shocked state education officials by threatening to pull out of Arlington shortly after the start of the school year unless the nonprofit could get $2.4 million in additional aid.”

 
– See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/11/york-pa-and-death-of-public-education.html#sthash.wCR7cUKg.dpuf

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Peter Greene: The Sad Story of the Nation’s First All-Charter District

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
17

Peter Greene here recounts the sad story of the nation’s first all-charter district in Muskegon Heights, Michigan. You never hear about this important experiment on national radio and television. Want to know why? No big PR machine. No miracles. Instead, disaster.

Governor Rick Snyder appointed an emergency manager to impose change on Muskegon Heights. The students had low scores, and the district had a deficit. The emergency manager gave the entire district to Mosaica, a for-profit charter chain. It was “a historic opportunity” to show how private enterprise could raise scores, close achievement gaps, and succeed where the public schools had failed.

Things quickly went downhill. Teachers quit in large numbers, including new hires, wages were poor, scores remained low, discipline was erratic. The emergency manager warned Mosaica that it would be terminated if it couldn’t change things fast.

Last spring, Mosaica gave up or was pushed out or both. Even though they waived their management fee of $1 million, they couldn’t make a profit. Muskegon Heights didn’t suit their business model.

Greene concludes:

“First, Mosaica didn’t know what the hell they were doing. There are vague hints of protestations that they couldn’t be expected to fully staff and supply a system so quickly, but that’s exactly what they said they could do. They failed to recruit an adequate staff, and then they failed to retain them. They failed to provide the teaching supplies needed for the setting, and they failed to establish an environment of order and safety in the schools. The only thing Mosaica knew how to do was crunch numbers and manage cash flow (and that they did in ways that damaged every other part of their mission).

“Second, they brought no commitment, no ties, no roots, no intention of fighting to the end. They came to make money. When they couldn’t make money, they left…..

“And that is why school and business do not mix. A public school is a long-term commitment that stretches across the generations. It is a promise that a community makes to its children, past, present and future. That is not a reasonable expectation for a business, but it is the only acceptable expectation for a public school system.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Michigan

A Student Critiques What She Calls “Blended Delusions”

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
36

Will Fitzhugh, founder and editor of The Concord Review, received the following commentary from a brilliant student who previously received his organization’s Emerson Prize. The Emerson Prize is awarded to the high school students who writes the most outstanding history research paper. The Concord Review publishes history research papers written by high school students, and Will Fitzhugh is tireless in encouraging good writing, historical research, and the expectation that students read at least one complete history book (not a textbook).

 

 

BLENDED DELUSIONS

This message is from a highly capable high school senior,
Class of 2015 (name withheld)

 

Digital Side Effects:



 

In my opinion, technology’s place is not in the classroom, at least not for the most part. Sometimes it is necessary, but most of the time, it only serves as a distraction and offers activities that inhibit productive, successful learning.



 

At my school, students are allowed and actually supposed to use laptops to take notes during each class, unless the teacher specifically instructs otherwise, which they rarely do. Sitting in class, I often see other students’ laptops open to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, celebrity gossip websites, even Hulu, a website for watching TV shows. Then, a few days later when we have an assessment, students will anxiously ask a number of questions on the material taught in class while they were surfing the web. The entire class is slowed down, everyone’s time is wasted, teachers are disrespected, students come to value web surfing over learning, students retain less information which then makes for a shakier foundation for learning more in the future, and students learn to prefer cramming, or come to see cramming as the only way to prepare for assessments.



 

Additionally, technology can help students get out of doing assignments in the way that will most benefit them. For example, students will look up how to solve a chemistry or a math problem, rather than completing it themselves independently. Students will look up summaries of English texts to avoid having to actually read the full work. Students will look up translations of Spanish assignments to avoid having actually to read the full text in Spanish. Perhaps, using technology, students can still temporarily do well on in-school assessments, but in the long term, which truly matters, students will not be prepared for the challenges in their future and their career.



 

Many middle-school-aged boys, such as those at my younger brother’s school, are addicted to video games. After being introduced to video games, often through their classmates at school, these students cannot stop thinking about the games. Perhaps their parents and teachers will impose restrictions on when and how long they can play the games, but the entire time they are not playing games, they are probably thinking about, and looking forward to playing, the games. In that sense, the video games distract them almost all the time and have a large negative impact on their lives, especially their academic lives.



 

In the summer of 2013, I attended a math research summer program where instructors created made-up names for math theorems, concepts, and conjectures they were explaining, so that students would not be able to search for them using technology and thereby escape the crucial learning process. Overall, the program was a success largely, or at least partly, because of that practice, and students were able to learn much more, develop their math skills more, and discuss much more as a result.

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Categories Technology, Computers

Wall Street Downgrades Bonds for Faltering Albany Charter Chain

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
9

Charter schools continue to be a risky investment. The Albany (NY) Times Union reports that a Wall Street credit rating agency downgraded the bonds of certain Brighter Choice schools, once considered the “holy grail” of the charter school movement.

 

“Wall Street sensed trouble at the Brighter Choice middle schools for boys and girls even before the state notified them last month they may be forced to close their doors after this year.

 

One of the largest credit rating agencies, Fitch Ratings, in December downgraded the five-year-old schools’ bond ratings, citing improved but still lagging academic performance and the fact that the schools themselves had not sought full five-year renewals of their state charters.

 

In its Dec. 18 briefing for investors, Fitch noted the schools’ “limited renewal prospects” based in part on “testing results below (state) expectations…..”

 

The threat of closure looms large not just for the roughly 450 fifth- through eighth-grade students and staff but also for the Brighter Choice Foundation, which helped found the schools and could be on the hook for the $15.1 million in bonds owed on the brand-new building.

 

According to Fitch, the foundation — the 15-year-old nonprofit that once supported 11 city charter schools — guaranteed the schools’ bond debt. Yet the rating agency expressed doubt that the foundation has the money to make those payments over the long term.

 

As Governor Andrew Cuomo seeks to expand charter schools across the state, he might pay attention to what is happening in Albany, his backyard.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, New York
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