Archives for the month of: September, 2015
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EduShyster: Three “White Shoe” Law Firms Sue to Lift the Charter Cap in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2015 //
9

EduShyster reports that three of the city’s leading law firms have filed a lawsuit to overturn the state’s cap on the number of charter schools.

The irony is that they are suing the state and the state board of education, which are led by charter advocates.

She writes:

So our defendants in a case alleging that the charter cap is a violation of students’ civil rights also happen to be wildly pro proponents of lifting said cap. Are there any other ways in which this case is in fact the opposite of what it purports to be? Funny you should ask…It turns out that the case has nothing to with individual rights period—it’s actually a separation of powers case that will hinge on the concept of *justiciability.* I will tell you no more about this now as we have officially stumbled onto a terrain in which I am *needs improvement.* But suffice it to say that this is yet another reason for the decided lack of enthusiasm that beshrouds this case. You see, our white-shod friends have accidentally raised a topic that our proponent-defendants would prefer to eschew: the increasingly unequal state of school funding in Massachusetts, and the role that charter schools play in exacerbating that inequality, especially in poor districts.

Remember the line about charter schools saving poor kids from failing schools? Here is the irony. Massachusetts is the highest performing state in the nation. As more charter schools are opened, more school districts will lose students and resources.

The Bay State–or at least its current leaders–seem determined to create a fiscal crisis for underfunded districts and a two-tier system of schools with public funds. One free to choose its students, the other required to enroll all students.

Categories Charter Schools, Massachusetts

Los Angeles: Public Magnet Schools Outperform Charter Schools–By Far

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2015 //
35

Parent activist Karen Wolfe reported that public magnet schools far outperformed privtately managed charter on the recent state tests.

The report released by Cortines said:

““While overall results indicate that independent charter schools scored higher on these tests than traditional LAUSD schools, it also highlights the stellar performance of our magnet schools, which out-performed charter schools at all grade levels,” Cortines wrote.

“In English Language Arts, 65% of magnets scored higher than the state average compared with 34% of independent charters. On the Math assessment, 56% of magnets scored higher than the state average, more than twice what the charters scored.

“This report proves what many public education advocates have always known: the diversity of our public schools is an asset, not something to avoid.

“Charter school parents often choose charters because class sizes are smaller and the school community is similar to their own. But this report turns that choice on its head.

“The performance of our magnets demonstrates how academic innovation can serve minority students and those from underserved communities who are seeking a nontraditional education. While the primary function of our magnets is to ensure ethnic diversity at schools districtwide, the 198 magnet programs and schools also provide a community of learning for students at all economic levels.” Cortines said.”

Categories Charter Schools, Los Angeles

Peter Greene Describes His Vision of Education “in a Perfect World”

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2015 //
23

Whenever anyone dares to challenge the corporate reformers’ ideas, whenever anyone points out that all their plans have come to nought, when anyone says that they are demoralizing teachers and promoting privatization, they will inevitably get the reply:

“Do you have a better idea?”

This is a curious response because it could apply in any number of dreadful situations: Suppose someone is pounding someone on the head with a rock, and you say “stop!” Would they answer, “Do you have a better idea?” Suppose a train is headed for a cliff, and you urge the engineer to change course; would he answer, “Do you have a better idea?”

Well, Peter Greene has better ideas. (So do I; read “Reign of Error,” which responds to that question.) Peter is a high school teacher in Pennsylvania who apparently reads everything and writes faster than anyone else on the planet.

He begins:

As much time as I spend writing about what I think people get wrong, it’s important to keep some focus on what I want to see done right. So let’s look at the major issues in education these days and consider what the positive outcome would be in a perfect world, and what would be a hopeful outcome in the real world.

SCHOOL CHOICE

Turning schools into a competitive marketplace is toxic for education. It does not drive improvement and, as currently practiced, it does not empower parents, but instead more commonly disempowers them.

In a Perfect World…

Choice pushers like to say that no child should be trapped in a failing school just because of her zip code. I say that no child should have to leave her neighborhood just to find a decent school. People don’t want choice; they want good schools.

So in my perfect world, every child is able to attend a great school in his own neighborhood, with his neighbors, near where his family lives. Every school receives the funding and support it needs to be excellent.

In this world…

No more building a well-funded, well-supported school as an excuse to abandon the school already existing school. If we must have choice, let it be between excellent schools with, perhaps different focuses, or with the goal of improving a city and community through creating a diverse learning community.

But all schools must be fully funded and fully supported. No more “Well, a thousand students are trapped in this failing school, so we’re going to invest millions of dollars in creating a great school for 100 of them.”

He has a good idea about standardized testing:

BIG STANDARDIZED TESTING

In a perfect world…

It just stops. It’s done. We don’t do it, at all, ever. Period, full stop.

In this world…

The BS Tests are uncoupled from any stakes at all. They don’t affect student standings or promotion. They aren’t used to evaluate teachers or to rank schools or to affect anybody’s professional future. “But how will we hold teachers and schools accountable?” someone cries out. Here’s the truth that some folks just refuse to see– the BS Tests do not hold anybody accountable for anything except test scores, and they do so at a cost to the real goals that most real humans expect from their teachers and their schools.

And once you do all of that, the market pressure is on test manufacturers to come up with tests that are actually useful, and not junk.

He offers other good ideas of what public education should look like. Read it and offer your own ideas.

Categories Funding, Standardized Testing, Students, Supporting public schools, Teachers

What Happens When a Top-Rated College Drops the SAT and ACT as Requirements for Admission?

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2015 //
29

Last year, Hampshire College in Massachusetts decided that it would no longer require either the SAT or the ACT for admission. This made Hampshire different from the 800+ colleges that are “test-optional,” where students may or may not submit their scores on college admission examinations. Hampshire College was founded in 1970 as an alternative private liberal arts college that was free to experiment with its curriculum; it relies on portfolios of work, rather than distribution requirements; it relies on narrative evaluations rather than grades and GPA. It is one of the top colleges in the nation in terms of the proportion of its graduates who continue to graduate school.

President Jonathan Lash wrote:


You won’t find our college in the U.S. News & Word Report “Best Colleges” rankings released this month. Last year Hampshire College decided not to accept SAT/ACT test scores from high school applicants seeking admission. That got us kicked off the rankings, disqualified us, per U.S. News rankings criteria. That’s OK with us.

We completely dropped standardized tests from our application as part of our new mission-driven admissions strategy, distinct from the “test-optional” policy that hundreds of colleges now follow. If we reduce education to the outcomes of a test, the only incentive for schools and students to innovate is in the form of improving test-taking and scores. Teaching to a test becomes stifling for teachers and students, far from the inspiring, adaptive education which most benefits students. Our greatly accelerating world needs graduates who are trained to address tough situations with innovation, ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and a capacity for mobilizing collaboration and cooperation.

We weighed other factors in our decision:

· Standardized test scores do not predict a student’s success at our college

· SATs/ACTs are strongly biased against low-income students and students of color, at a time when diversity is critical to our mission

· We surveyed our students and learned not one of them had considered rankings when choosing to apply to colleges; instead they most cared about a college’s mission

· Some good students are bad test takers, particularly under stress, such as when a test may grant or deny college entry; Multiple-choice tests don’t reveal much about a student

· We’ve developed much better, fairer ways to assess students who will thrive at our college.

In our admissions, we review an applicant’s whole academic and lived experience. We consider an applicant’s ability to present themselves in essays and interviews, review their recommendations from mentors, and assess factors such as their community engagement and entrepreneurism. And yes, we look closely at high school academic records, though in an unconventional manner. We look for an overarching narrative that shows motivation, discipline, and the capacity for self-reflection. We look at grade point average (GPA) as a measure of performance over a range of courses and time, distinct from a one-test-on-one-day SAT/ACT score. A student’s consistent “A” grades may be coupled with evidence of curiosity and learning across disciplines, as well as leadership in civic or social causes. Another student may have overcome obstacles through determination, demonstrating promise of success in a demanding program. Strong high school graduates demonstrate purpose, a passion for authenticity, and commitment to positive change.

We’re seeing remarkable admissions results since disregarding standardized test scores:

· Our yield, the percentage of students who accepted our invitation to enroll, rose in a single year from 18% to 26%, an amazing turnaround

· The quantity of applications went down but the quality went up, likely because we made it harder to apply, asking for more essays; Our applicants collectively were more motivated, mature, disciplined and consistent in their high school years than past applicants

· Class diversity increased to 31% students of color, the most diverse in our history, up from 21% two years ago

· The percentage of students who are the first-generation from their family to attend college rose from 10% to 18% in this year’s class.

Our “No SAT/ACT policy” has also changed us in ways deeper than data and demographics: Not once did we sit in an Admissions committee meeting and “wish we had a test score.” Without the scores, every other detail of the student’s application became more vivid. Their academic record over four years, letters of recommendation, essays, in-person interviews, and the optional creative supplements gave us a more complete portrait than we had seen before. Applicants gave more attention to their applications including the optional components, putting us in a much better position to predict their likelihood of success here.

This move away from test scores and disqualification from the US News rankings has allowed us to innovate in ways we could not before. In other words, we are free to innovate rather than compromise our mission to satisfy rankings criteria:
-We no longer chase volumes of applications to superficially inflate our “selectivity” and game the US News rankings. We no longer have to worry that any applicant will “lower our average SAT/ACT scores” and thus lower our US News ranking. Instead we choose quality over quantity and focus attention and resources on each applicant and their full portfolio.

-At college fairs and information sessions, we don’t spend time answering high school families’ questions about our ranking and test score “cut-offs.” Instead we have conversations about the things that matter: What does our unique academic program look like and what qualities does a student need to be successful at it?

-An unexpected benefit: this shift has saved us significant time and operational expense. Having a smaller but more targeted, engaged, passionate, and robust applicant pool, we are able to streamline our resources.

How can US News rankings reliably measure college quality when their data-points focus primarily on the high school performance of the incoming class in such terms as GPA, SAT/ACT, class rank, and selectivity? These measures have nothing to do with the college’s results, except perhaps in the college’s aptitude for marketing and recruiting. Tests and rankings incentivize schools to conform to test performance and rankings criteria, at the expense of mission and innovation.

Our shift to a mission-driven approach to admissions is right for Hampshire College and the right thing to do. We fail students if we reduce them to a standardized test number tied more to their financial status than achievement. We fail students by perpetuating the myth that high standardized test scores signal “better” students. We are in the top one percent of colleges nationwide in the percentage of our undergraduate alumni who go on earn advanced degrees – this on the strength of an education where we assess their capabilities narratively, and where we never, not once, subject them to a numerical or letter grade on a test or course.

At Hampshire College, we face the same financial challenges as many colleges. But these challenges provide an opportunity to think about who we are and what matters to us. We can not lose sight of our mission while seeking revenues or chasing rankings. We are committed to remaining disqualified from the US News rankings. We’re done with standardized testing, the SAT, and ACT.

– Jonathan Lash, President of Hampshire College, is also a Director of World Resources Institute, a DC-based environmental think tank, where he previously served as president. Jonathan is an widely recognized environmental leader who chaired President Bill Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development and was the State of Vermont’s Environmental Secretary and Commissioner. He holds a law degree and master’s degree in education from Catholic University of America and a bachelor’s from Harvard College.

Categories Higher Education

New York Voters Sour on Common Core

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2015 //
81

The latest Siena poll reports that most Néw Yorkers like the idea of a $15 per hour minimum wage. But not many like Common Core.

“The Siena poll shows that 40 percent of voters say the implementation of Common Core worsened public education, and 24 percent said the implementation had no meaningful effect. Only 19 percent said the implementation improved education.
A plurality of voters (38 percent) also called the standards too demanding. Twenty percent said they aren’t good enough, and 23 percent said they’re just right.

“The regional divide here isn’t much of a surprise either: Those in the suburbs and upstate are more critical of the standards in this poll than those in New York City are. Recall that the highest percentages of state test opt-outs in April were from outside the five boroughs.”

Categories Common Core, New York

Mercedes Schneider: More Holes in the Louisiana Charter Myth

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2015 //
4

By now, you may be feeling “reform fatigue” in relation to stories about Néw Orleans. But since the propagandists never sleep in their boasts about the glories of privatization, this is a story that remains important in our civic life.

Mercedes Schneider reviews a study of charter school performance on NAEP, conducted by Francesca Lopez and Amy Olsen of the University of Arizona.

Schneider writes:

“One of the primary problems with Louisiana’s state-run, all-charter Recovery School District (RSD) is that the same state that is in control of data (and the official word on its data) is also committed to representing its state-run district in the best light.

“For this reason, independent analysis of data on Louisiana’s schools is particularly valuable, especially when the researchers are able to procure data independently of the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE)….

“In order to make clearer comparisons between traditional public school students and charter school students on the eight-grade 2011 NAEP, Lopez and Olson controlled for socioeconomic status, special education status, English language learner status, and ethnicity of students as well as the ethnic and socioeconomic makeup of the schools.

“Regarding 2011 NAEP eighth-grade math, the five states with the greatest discrepancies between charters and traditional schools (with the traditional schools outperforming the charters) were Massachusetts, DC (counted as a state in this study), Texas, Rhode Island, and– with the largest discrepancy by far– Louisiana.

“As for the 2011 NAEP eighth-grade reading, the five states with the greatest discrepancies between charters and traditional schools (with the traditional schools outperforming the charters) were Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois, DC, and– once again with the largest discrepancy by far– Louisiana.

“On the 2011 NAEP in both math and reading, eighth-grade students in Louisiana’s traditional public schools outscored their charter-school counterparts by between two and three standard deviations.”

Schneider says the post-Katrina reforms was “too much ‘white’ done to the black community.”

“New Orleans charter success is white-privileged-blown smoke and state-controlled mirrors. However, a more realistic, sobering word is surfacing, and the frayed, marketing edges of all-charter, state-run RSD are getting increasingly more obvious to the American public despite the likes of John White and Campbell Brown.”

Categories Charter Schools, Louisiana, New Orleans, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

OECD: Technology in Schools Associated with Lower Test Scores

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2015 //
49

No state has invested so much in technology as Florida. Jeb Bush has made educational technology his signature issue, and his Foundation for Educational Excellence has received generous support from the technology industry. Jeb has encouraged states to require students to take online courses as a graduation requirement.

But the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development reports that use of technology is associated with lower test scores.

This story, from Florida’s NPR state Impact describes 5 things we learned from the OECD report.

This research matters in Florida, writes John O’Connor, because:

“State law requires schools spend half of the instructional budget on digital lessons. School districts have spent the past few years adding Internet bandwidth, improving networks and adding high-tech teaching tools.

“Here’s five things we learned from their study:

“The more technology, the worse the performance on tests — This was the big conclusion. The students who spent the most time using computers or on the Internet in school did worse than expected on international tests.

“The students who ranked in the middle for technology use — what the OECD called moderate use — did the best on international tests.

“That’s pretty sobering for us,” said Andreas Schleicher, who leads the OECD’s education efforts. “We all hope that integrating more and more technology in school is going to help us actually to enhance learning environments. Make learning more interactive…but it doesn’t seem to be working like this.”

“The OECD noted that east Asian nations, such as China and Singapore, intentionally limited students use of technology. They also used more traditional techniques teaching math — and have the best-performing students on math exams.

“Basically, you can say the less computers are used in mathematics lessons,” Schleicher said, “the better students perform.”

“The OECD couldn’t pinpoint why students who use technology more didn’t do as well on tests, but suggested a number of explanations: Reading online is a different skill than reading on paper; technology can be a distraction; and schools aren’t making the best use of technology.

“Teachers who use technology get better results — The OECD found that nations that emphasized training teachers to use technology performed better on tests. That meant allowing teachers to connect by video conferencing, observing other teachers, sharing lessons and ideas and just chatting with other teachers.

“Again, it was east Asian nations which encouraged teachers to connect via technology that also had the best-performing students on exams.

“For the most part, Florida policy has focused on connecting students to technology. Plenty of teachers are advocates of high-tech lessons, but the OECD study suggests the state and districts might want to consider emphasizing training for teachers to get the most out of all the new gadgets in classrooms.

“Slow down and get it right — Right now, the way schools are using technology isn’t working for students. Schleicher said schools might want to take a step back, look at what’s working and focus on those areas.

“In Florida, schools are moving ahead with the state’s digital instruction mandate and lawmakers are considering setting aside money in the state budget each year for new technology….

“Digital skills are important — Right now, students aren’t getting good results from technology in schools. But Schleicher said computer and Internet skills are important job skills.

“And other research shows that most workers never use Algebra 2, Caluculus or other high-level math courses in their work — but most jobs require some digital skills. Teaching students how to use computers and the Internet is still time well-spent.”

Categories Bush, Jeb, Florida, Standardized Testing, Teachers and Teaching

Celia Oyler: What Merryl Tisch Doesn’t Know about Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2015 //
29

Celia Oyler is a teacher educator at Teachers College, Columbia University.

In this post, she explains that the Chancellor of the Néw York Board of Regents, Merryl Tisch, does not understand how the teacher evaluation plan she snd 10 other Regents just approved works.

Tisch thinks she solved the problem of VAM mistakes by permitting teachers like Sheri Lederman to appeal ratings that are clearly wrong.

Oyler says that Sheri Lederman’s rating, egregiously wrong, was not an “aberration.” The whole system is flawed.

“What is extremely important for all New York State educators and families to understand is that the Chancellor of the Board of Regents does not understand a very basic aspect of a policy she has foisted upon us.”

Categories Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

Florida: Gates Bails Out of Hillsborough County

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2015 //
28

Hillsborough County in Florida was one of the major beneficiaries of the Gates Foundation’s fetish for teacher evaluation and bonus pay. Gates pledged “up to” $100 million, but is refusing to pay the last $20 million because there has been so little evidence of the link between bonuses and test scores. Duh. If the Gates Foundation read the research on incentive pay, it would have spent the money reducing class sizes for the neediest children.

The Gates program has cost a total of $271 million, including Gates’ $80 million.

The Hillsborough plan inspired state legislation:

“Enacted a year after Hillsborough launched its project, Senate Bill 736 in the Florida Legislature phased out teacher tenure and tied pay to supervisor evaluations and student test scores.”

The program never met its goal of firing 5% of teachers every year:

“The original proposal and a 2010 timeline called for the district to fire 5 percent of its teachers each year for poor performance. That would amount to more than 700 teachers. The thinking was they would be replaced by teachers who earned entry level wages, freeing up money to pay the bonuses for those at the top.

“But the mass firings never happened. While an undetermined number of teachers resign out of dissatisfaction or fear that they will be fired, only a handful of terminations happen because of bad evaluations.”

The Gates Foundation has another flop.

MaryEllen Elia, the superintendent of the Hillsborough school district when it received the Gates grant,, was fired by the school board, then hired this year as state superintendent in Néw York.

“Late in the process, the foundation rejected several of the district’s funding requests for Empowering Effective Teachers, which involves evaluating teachers using specially trained peers and bumping their pay with the idea that it would boost student performance.

“Each of the proposals were robustly outlined and presented,” a district report said.

“But Gates officials responded by pointing to language in the original agreement saying the foundation had promised “up to” $100 million, not necessarily the whole amount, according to the report.

“The district picked up the unpaid costs.

“Much of the disagreement amounted to a change in Gates’ philosophy, Brown said. “After a few years of research,” she said, “they believed there was not enough of a connection between performance bonuses and greater student achievement.”

Now for some laughs, enjoy Peter Greene’s take on Gates’ cancellation of $20 million. He reminds us that Hillsborough was a jewel in Gates’ crown in 2012.

Peter writes:

“Well, that was 2012. A few other things have happened in the meantime. Back in 2010, Arne Duncan and Dennis Van Roekel stopped by to make a fuss, but that was about the last time that anybody wanted to throw an EET party.

“That fire 5% of the sucky teachers thing? It should have gotten rid of 700 (700!!!) teachers– you know, the expensive ones, because everyone knows that the bad teachers that need to be rooted out are, coincidentally, the older teachers who cost a bunch of money. But it never happened.

“And that $100 million grant that Kinser was so proud of? Funny thing. Gates officials would now like you to know that the grant actually said “up to” $100 million.

“I am kind of excited about that, because I know realize that I can tell, say, a used car dealer that I will pay “up to” seventy grand for a car and just pay five thousand bucks. I could promise to buy a new house with “up to” $10 million and just fork over a check for $10.75. I do regret not knowing this trick when my children were young and I could have bribed them to do chores with offers of “up to” $100 for mowing the lawn.”

Now for a deep analysis, read Mercedes Schneider’s analysis of the Hillsborough debacle. The Gates money was a Trojan horse. Not only did it fail to produce a new generation of super-teachers, it drained the district’s reserves.

The Gates money–$80 million, not the promised $100 million–was a cause of great celebration when it was announced. Hillsborough would be a “national model.” In the end, Superintendent Elia was fired in January 2015, the district lost millions, and Gates learned…what?

Mercedes writes:

“Of course, Gates had some ideas about how this “teacher effectiveness” business should work. The report linked above has as its second sentence, “A teacher’s effectiveness has more impact on student learning than any other factor under the control of school systems, including class size, school size, and the quality of after-school programs.” When pro-corporate-reform organizations toss around such statements, they never seem to follow it with the fact that factors external to the classroom hold far more sway that does the teacher. (In analyzing the proportion of teacher influence captured via value-added modeling– VAM– the American Statistical Association notes that teacher influence accounts for between 1 and 14 percent of variance in student test scores. Thus, between 86 and 99 percent of a student’s test score is out of the teacher’s control.)

“Nevertheless, ignoring that the teacher controls so little of student outcomes in the form of market-driven-reform-loving test scores, in its efforts to try to purchase higher student test scores, the Gates Foundation offered ten school districts nationwide the multi-million-dollar-funded opportunity to prove that teachers could indeed be cajoled into producing better “student achievement” (i.e., ever-higher test scores) when such teachers were measured by their students’ test scores and offered more money for “raising” said scores.

“As a 2009 winner of an Empowering Effective Teachers grant, Hillsborough was thrilled (“We’ll be a national model!”). A December 21, 2015 archive of Hillsborough schools’ “Empowering Teachers” webpage includes a number of enthusiastic responses regarding the newly-acquired, $100 million Gates grant. Front and center in these celebratory public statements is then-Hillsborough superintendent, MaryEllen Elia (Then-Governor Charlie Crist: “I commend Superintendent MaryEllen Elia and the Hillsborough County School District for their enthusiasm and commitment to working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation during the next seven years to improve student academic performance through rewarding high quality teachers both professionally and monetarily. The foundation’s generous grant award of $100 million will greatly enhance the work the district has already done in this area.”)

“However, part of the Hillsborough-Gates agreement involved Hillsborough’s ponying up money of its own– which ended up eating into the Hillsborough schools’ reserves and threatening its bond rating. As reported in the August 04, 2015, Tampa Bay Tribune, the Empowering Effective Teachers initiative is not the only financial stressor affecting the Hillsborough bond rating, but it is nevertheless noteworthy.”

How many more such defeats can the reformers take before they figure out that their ideas are failures?

Categories Florida, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Merit pay, Teacher Evaluations

North Carolina: GOP Legislators Transfer Funds from Public Schools to Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2015 //
11

NC Policy Watch reports on the North Carolina legislature’s latest attack on public education. Its assault was enacted by spurning the democratic process, ramming through a funding bill that few legislators had read or understood. The bill is probably a violation of federal law and should be challenged in court.

“Senate leaders unveiled a proposal in the Senate Finance Committee Monday afternoon that would divert more funding from the majority of local school districts across the state to charter schools, including federal support for transportation and school lunches that many charters don’t even provide.

“The proposal appeared out of nowhere as a bill about school playgrounds was gutted and replaced with the controversial charter school funding provisions, a version of legislation that passed the Senate months ago but stalled in the House.

“Very few people seemed to know the charter bill was coming, including public school officials and most of the committee members themselves.

“A representative of the school administrators association, also blind-sided by the proposal, told the lawmakers that it would adversely affect their local schools and that their school officials would be strongly against it.

“That didn’t deter supporters of the funding change, led by Senator Chad Barefoot, whose only answer to every question was that the “money should follow the child,” a talking point that is not only an oversimplification, but a statement that makes little sense if a charter school is receiving federal funding for services it doesn’t have to provide or if a student attends a school outside a special tax district.

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown admitted he was confused by the effect of all the complicated provisions transferring money from school districts to charters and he wasn’t the only one.

“Even Barefoot acknowledged that he wasn’t an expert on the legislation and was handling it because Senate Education Chair Jerry Tillman was absent due to a death in family.

“The confusion of committee members and Barefoot’s inability to adequately explain the complicated finance changes didn’t seem to faze Finance Chair Bob Rucho who called for a vote on the surprise legislation anyway, brushing aside questions from committee members by telling them that the staff would provide the requested information to them.

“In other words, lawmakers would vote before they understood the actual consequences of what they were voting on, how much it would cost their local schools and whether not diverting federal funding violated the law.”

Chris Fitzsimon writes:

“The misguided plan is the latest evidence that Senate leaders have never met a charter school bill they didn’t like.

“They always seem to start with the same assumption, that charter school advocates are always right, that charters are always superior to traditional schools in their own district and that charters deserve more and more funding….

“It hasn’t turned out that way. Many charter advocates and most of their supporters in the General Assembly aren’t looking to innovate anymore.

“They are looking to compete and win and then dismantle and replace the traditional public schools they never fully supported. The legislation unveiled this week is their latest mode of attack.”

The legislators and governor in North Carolina are vandals, stealing from the many to benefit the few.

It is events like this that persuaded the Network for Public Education to hold its next annual conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 16-17, 2016.

Our keynote speaker is the great Rev. William Barber, founder of Moral Mondays, which organizes weekly demonstrations against the racist, exclusionist, privatizing agenda of the North Carolina legislature.

We will be there to learn from and support parents, educators, and concerned citizens who are appalled by the demolition of public institutions and outraged by the abuses of power that are exhibited on a regular basis by a legislature that puts profits over people.

Join us!

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, North Carolina
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