There are three so-called achievement school districts in the nation that have some history. One in Tennessee, one in Michigan, one inNew Orleans. The three are so what different: New Orleans district is all-charter, all privatized. The other two were created by the legislature to gather the state’s lowest-scoring schools into a single district, then turn them over to charter operators.
Opinions differ about New Orleans, but no one claims that it has closed achievement gaps or left no child behind. It is not a miracle district. Some critics have called it the lowest performing district in one of the lowest performing states.
Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority has no defenders. It is a disaster.
The Tennessee Achievement District was studied by Vanderbilt researchers, who reported there was no statistically significant improvement in test scores. Gary Rubinstein looked at state data and concluded that there was virtually no improvement: the lowest performing schools are still very low performing schools.
Yet Georgia and North Carolina both plan to create achievement school districts, and now Nevada wants one too. Why? It must be ALEC model legislation.
Angie Sullivan wrote this about Nevada, where she teaches:
“This was the scary announcement yesterday in Nevada Education:
“Board of Examiners meeting Tuesday, Canavero announced the appointment of Jana Wilcox-Lavin as the superintendent-in-residence of a new Achievement School District.
“Based on similar models in Louisiana and Tennessee, the state-run district will hand over control of persistently failing schools to charter management organizations.
_________________
“Can someone explain to me why Nevada would want to create an Achievement School District – just as other states are closing their failing achievement school districts?
“Does anyone in the Department of Education or on the Nevada State School Board have google? I strongly suggest everyone google: achievement school districts Tennessee or Lousiana.
“Does anyone do research before they make these expensive decisions?
“It is obvious that the real plan is to privatize and destroy public schools like Tennesse and Louisiana. The data is in and students did not do better after expensive achievement school districts were created there. Extreme and documented failure.
“We are hiring someone from those failures to create a Nevada failure?
“Why are we doing this?
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/03/02/tennessee-dad-its-time-to-dump-the-achievement-school-district/
https://dianeravitch.net/category/new-orleans/
https://dianeravitch.net/2016/03/02/north-carolina-parents-we-dont-want-an-achievement-school-district/
“Bottom line: Business does not do better at running schools. Business type reforms are not changing schools for the better.
“The same data system that kills public schools -shows that privatization and business ran schools fail too – usually worse and more expensive.
“Somehow we are supposed to only use data to kill public schools but then ignore data that suggests expensive reforms are failures?
“Doesn’t Nevada already have enough failing segregated disenfranchising charters? Why don’t we clean up the charter messes we already made -rather than import a mess maker from another state to make another mess. Why are we renewing failing charters?
“We better start thinking about kids Nevada – rather than about making some business people very rich at the expense of our kids.
“We do not need to be scammed like Lousiana and Tennessee.
“Scary.
“Angie”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Failure is a Business”
Failure is a business
That generates big bucks
Some have clearly missed this
And those are sitting ducks
Segregation is alive and well in America. This allows school districts to marginalized poor, minority students and also Allows wealthy organizations and businesses to rip taxpayers off by profiting from segregation. By classifying low performing schools by deform generated testing,the fix is in and so is their ill gotten taxpayer bamboozled money.
Ironically, bamboozled is just the word President Obama once used about finding and avoiding school reform shell games…
I live in a county that will have most of the schools placed in the “Achievement District.” When the schools are charterized the parents will revolt. Not everyone in Nevada hates their schools.
Unfortunately, the families of poor students and ELLs are less likely to revolt. It may take years for it to all hit the fan. Many states influenced by regressive thinking are happy to adopt the failed, bad policies from other states, if it means paying less for education. Only the citizens can stop them by voting them out of office.
What can parents do when the powers that be announce that their school is closing? We have to have an action plan beyond the initial battle. Even when parents win, the losers have a big bag of tricks designed to make them regret their win. They can still turn the school into something those parents would never recognize. Remove a well liked and respected principal and replace him/her with a no nonsense, business type manager without a background in education. Transfer experienced teachers and replace them with inexperienced staff. Make the lives of any remaining holdouts. Destroy the building culture by removing those who defined it. Then, in a couple of years, there will be no battle to keep the school open because all that was valued has already been destroyed.
And our legislators ignore what is going on. It must take some effort to not see what is happening. At this point, can we really let anyone claim ignorance? We need to get more and more people involved in this struggle. It is only with numbers that we will succeed in changing direction. How? I hope the convention this weekend was revitalizing and came up with some ideas of how to reclaim the right to a free, public education system designed to serve the public good and not private pocketbooks.
2old2teach: your first paragraph is an excellent description of how the rheephormers “prove” their points by creating failure that they can then double down on—
The fix is in.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
cx: make the lives of any remaining holdouts miserable.
When these repeatedly failing and allegedly often fraudulent Achievement School Districts close, do those schools revert back to traditional, community based, transparent, humanitarian based, non-profit, democratic public schools or do they stay autocratic, no-nonsense, publicly funded, for-profit, opaque corporate Charters that make a few distant investors wealthy or wealthier?
States have thus far refused to relinquish control. They turn schools into charters,and they stay that way. The charter operates don’t succeed but they don’t want to give up the revenue stream.
It’s not about wanting, it’s about the scammers forcing it.
Lonnie, Please read attached. DF
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2016 15:01:20 +0000 To: dsmithfeemster@hotmail.com
It just gets better in Nevada. A TFA person, Alison Serafin, was appointed to the state board of education a few years ago, she left recently citing a potential conflict of interest. Now she has been given a 10 million dollar grant to recruit national charter chains to come to Nevada to run the Achievement District. Also, a charter lobbyist has been appointed to be the deputy secretary for student achievement to oversee said district. Don’t worry Nevada, the recent tax hikes that were passed will never reach the “failure schools,” the money will feed your good old corporate betters. Remember, the governor himself said at a private social dinner that we need to get the public out of public education. When I retire I will definitely leave Nevada….
Four of the eight CMOs that submitted letters of intent to Nevada’s new ASD last summer are Gulen Movement-connected. See the last paragraph here: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=157&sid=35835730&s_cid=rss-157
They are the Coral CMO of Las Vegas, the Coral CMO of Reno, the Magnolia CMO of California, and the Daisy CMO of Arizona.
The nightmare is getting worse.
http://m.reviewjournal.com/view/anthem/nonprofit-looks-turn-around-education-opportunities-low-income-students
We are paying Allison Serafin $10 million yo attract charters – for poor kids – and her office is in the wealthiest part of town?
Im surprised she did not vote to give herself a wad of cash – maybe she did since it seemed like one day she was VP on the Nevada State School Board and then next she was given $10 million to “attract” privatization schemes.