Archives for the month of: September, 2016
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Finn, Manno, and Wright: Public Schools and Elected Boards Are Obsolete

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2016 //
31

Chester Finn, Jr., Bruno Manno, and Brandon L. Wright declare in the Wall Street Journal that public schools and elected school boards are dying a slow death and being replaced by charter schools. All three are associated with right wing think tanks (Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Walton Family Foundation).

Bear in mind that some 50 million children attend public schools, and fewer than 3 million attend charter schools. Bear in mind also that voters have never voted to replace public schools with privately managed charter schools. Americans have never been asked whether they want to pay their taxes to private corporations to run schools that can choose their students. The charter movement has flourished because of massive investments by billionaires like Gates, Broad, and Walton, political support by right wing groups like ALEC, right wing governors, and the unfortunate support of the Obama administration.

Public education, open to all, has for many years been considered an essential democratic institution and a basic cause of the great economic, social, and cultural success of our nation. Finn & friends hope for and celebrate its demise. They tacitly acknowledge that charter schools don’t get higher scores than public schools. They note that some charter operators are frauds. What they don’t admit is that they welcome the Hyper-segregation of American society. One of the reasons our society functions as well as it does is because public schools bring children from different backgrounds together, across lines of race, religion, class, gender, and ethnicity. It doesn’t happen enough, but the authors don’t care if it happens at all. They welcome the return of segregation as a step forward, not retrenchment from our ideals.

Similarly, they see no value in democracy. Elected school boards are a fundamental exercise of democracy. They are established in state constitutions. Yet the authors would wish them away and replace them with privatization.

This article and the book it is based on comes at a time when the privatization movement is staggering. Charters were just recently criticized by the NAACP and the Movement for Black Lives, a collection of 50 organizations. Charter scandals are breaking into the mainstream media, most recently with the admission by an online charter founder in Pennsylvania that he stole $8 million from the school. And the CREDO study finding that students in online charters learn close to nothing. And then there was the John Oliver program on the shoddy and corrupt practices of charters that close overnight and charters that steal and cheat taxpayers. And there was the Washington State and NLRB decisions that charters are not public schools.

When the charter movement began, Finn and Manno wrote about the promise of charter schools: in return for public money, they would be held accountable for better results at lower costs. Now we know that charters are not held accountable, do not produce better results unless they cherrypick students, and do not cost less.

They write:

“America’s devotion to local control of schools is dying, but it is also being reborn as a new faith in charter schools. These independently operated public schools—nearly 7,000 across the country, and counting—provide a much-needed option for almost three million youngsters in 43 states.

“As students return to school, the enterprise responsible for educating them is changing in ways that few people are aware of. Charters are fomenting a quiet revolution in governance in public education.

“The prevailing arrangement in America’s 14,000 school systems starts with an elected board. The board appoints a superintendent, who manages more-or-less uniform public schools staffed by a unionized workforce of government employees. This setup functioned well for an agrarian and small-town society in which people spent their entire lives in one place, towns paid for their own schools, and those schools met most of the workforce needs of the local community.

“This arrangement does not perform nearly so well in a country of mobile and cosmopolitan citizens, where states make most education rules and furnish most of the money, where government intrudes in myriad ways, and where discontent with education outcomes is rampant. It doesn’t meet the requirements of people who change neighborhoods and cities as well as jobs and careers, and it’s ill-suited for an era of fervent agitation about equalizing—and compensating for—the treatment of children from different backgrounds, locales and needs.

“Nor does local control mean what it once did. Some 90 school districts today struggle to educate more than 50,000 students each in systems sprawling over many miles and run by massive bureaucracies. The Houston Independent School District is responsible for 215,000 pupils, Chicago for 400,000, Los Angeles for 700,000 and New York City for more than a million. The governance of these systems doesn’t work well when elected boards have evolved from panels of public-spirited civic leaders into gaggles of aspiring politicians and teachers-union surrogates.

“The feebleness of traditionally governed public schools explains the burgeoning alternatives. Yet far from undermining local democratic control, these new schools are reinventing it—down to small communities of families that now run their own schools, each with six or seven board members.

“Because these boards function more like nonprofit organizations than political bodies or public agencies, their members need not stand for election. Being generally union-free, they don’t have the headaches of collective bargaining. And with freedom to engage and deploy principals and teachers, and to adjust budget, curriculum and instruction to do their students the most good, charter schools are attracting to their boards selfless citizens and community leaders who see a plausible chance to promote change.

“The charter phenomenon is also reinventing the school district. Instead of geographically bounded municipal units run in top-down fashion, “charter management organizations” comprise virtual networks—confederations, really—of similar schools that may be located hundreds of miles apart, that mostly run themselves, but that can draw on the organization for expertise and services that individual schools may not be able to muster for themselves. The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) started as a single classroom in Houston and now boasts 200 schools in 20 states. Eva Moskowitz’s high-performing Success Academy began in Harlem and now has 41 schools in four boroughs of New York City.

“Charters don’t answer every education prayer. Their test scores are all over the place, though the best studies show strong, positive effects for poor and minority children. Funded with about three-quarters of the per-pupil dollars that traditional schools receive, many charters have trouble making ends meet and rely heavily on private philanthropy and entrepreneurial energy.

“Established education interest groups—always more attentive to adult jobs than to kids’ learning—fight them relentlessly, as do a few civil-rights groups aligned with the unions. Some charter leaders and board members have been guilty of self-dealing and corrupt behavior.

“But that’s where democracy comes in. While autonomous in many ways, charters are ultimately accountable to public authority. They’re a new species of school, but they remain public schools, open to all comers, paid for by taxpayers and licensed by the state. If they fail to meet standards of academic performance and fiscal soundness, charters—unlike district schools—are supposed to be closed or restarted under fresh leadership. More than 1,200 charters closed between 2010 and 2015 even as more opened. Some states are still figuring out how to make this work, but most are getting better at it.

“Twenty-five years from its beginnings, chartering portends profound changes in the structure of American public education. That’s why the battles around it are about more than market share, test scores and discipline codes. They’re proxies for what’s really in dispute: power and control over a K-12 education behemoth that spends more than $600 billion a year and employs some six million adults.

“Local control as we’ve known it is growing obsolete. Let’s hail the kind of local control that charter schools embody. And welcome back to school, girls and boys.”

Messrs. Finn, Manno and Wright are the authors of “Charter Schools at the Crossroads,” out from Harvard Education Press in October.

Charter Schools Are Reinventing Local Control in Education
http://www.wsj.com/articles/charter-schools-are-reinventing-local-control-in-education

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Karin Klein: Why Reformers Were Wrong about Teachers

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2016 //
25

Karin Klein wrote education editorials for the Los Angeles Times for years. She now writes freelance, and she wrote this sensible article for the LA Times.

So-called reformers have advocated their view that the way to improve schools is to fire “bad” teachers. The way they would identify “bad” teachers is by whether the test scores of students went up or down or stayed flat. Reformers seldom acknowledged that test scores reflect family income far more than teacher quality.

This hunt for bad teachers has proved fruitless, as scores have misidentified good and bad teachers, good teachers are demoralized by an idiotic way of evaluating their work, and there are teacher shortages now in many districts, as good teachers leave and the pipeline of new teachers has diminishing numbers.

Linda Darling-Hammond once memorably said, “You can’t fire your way to Finland.”

Karin Klein agrees.

One day, when the current era of test-based evaluation is evaluated, reformers will be held accountable for the damage they have done to teachers, students, and public education. That day will come.

Teachers need help and support to become better teachers.

There is no waiting line of great teachers searching for a job.

School districts must work with the teachers they have, making sure they are encouraged and mentored. And paid well.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching

Gene Bruskin: The Story Behind the Gulen Charter Schools and Their Reclusive Founder

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2016 //
11

Gene Bruskin, who works at the American Federation of Teachers, has followed the growth of the Gulen-affiliated charter chain for several years. Here he gives a summary of what he has discovered. He notes that few Americans ever knew that there was a Turkish charter chain until the recent coup attempt in Turkey, when President Erdogan blamed the failed coup on a little-known Imam who lives in Pennsylvania in exile. That man, Fetullah Gulen, does not make public appearances. But now the media routinely acknowledges that he has a large charter chain, probably the second largest in the nation.

He writes:


In 2009, we were stunned by what we were finding as we ran down charter applications and tax forms for these widely dispersed but seemingly related schools. Teachers at the schools were contacting the union to determine how to proceed with asserting their rights in the face of management practices. (This is part of the challenge charter schools overall pose in public education, as these schools may receive nearly all their revenue from public sources, but their practices more resemble private entities than public schools. The teachers at one of those charter schools, the Chicago Math and Science Academy, ultimately became the subject of a landmark National Labor Relations Board case that found the CMSA was in fact a private employer and not covered by Illinois public sector labor law.)

As we pieced together the origin stories of more than 100 charter schools across the country, we found what can only be described as a public conspiracy. Dozens of Turkish men were forming charter school boards and applying to open schools for approval by city officials or school district administrators or state education department bureaucrats. These charter schools were allied with education management organizations—the private foundations or companies hired to run the daily operations of the schools—that were also run exclusively by Turkish men. The charter applications stated that these schools in part would be staffed by teachers or administrators brought to the United States from Turkey under the H1-B visa program for “specialty occupations.” (The cumulative numbers of staff with H1-B visas nationally are difficult to know precisely; in 2014, the Cincinnati Enquirer identified 67 H1-B visa holders out of a total teacher workforce of 541—comprising 12 percent of staff at 17 Concept Schools in Ohio.)

The Turkish individuals who came as H1-B visa teachers then became founding charter board members at subsequent generation charter schools. The historic research showed that starting in 1999, the first Turkish charter schools were approved, and that by 2009, entire charter chains had been created to operate dozens of schools: the Horizon Science Academy chain in Ohio, the Magnolia Science Academy chain in California, the Harmony Science Academy chain in Texas, the Sonoma Science Academy chain in Arizona.

As a labor organizer, I was surprised by the organizational capacity and sheer bravado of the whole charter school enterprise. But then we found the links to Fethullah Gulen in the academic work of Joshua Hendrick, a scholar then at the University of Oregon. And I was simply amazed. Was it really possible that a network of charter schools in the United States was in fact affiliated with the Turkish international missionary organization headed by the exiled Fethullah Gulen from Pennsylvania?

Was it really possible that no one in the American education administration knew about this network or grasped the implications? A strict interpretation at face value of all of the Gulenist movement’s declared intentions means one has to accept its missionary purpose as primary. In the United States, the Gulen movement has successfully employed many hundreds of its adherents inside the charter schools and used public funds to further employ many thousands of other adherents through contracted products or services to the charter schools.

Read on to learn what he learned as he investigated this mysterious charter chain run by Turkish nationals, most of which assert that they are not connected to the Gulen organization. Most surprising is the lack of oversight of the Gulen schools and the U.S. Department of Education’s financial support for them.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Gulen Charter Schools

Aspen-Pahara Institute: Training for Reformers

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2016 //
9

One of our regular readers keeps warning about the corporate reform training program of the Aspen Institute and the Pahara Fellows. You will notice few people from public schools and a large representation of privatizes and entrepreneurs.

So when I received a press release about their new class of fellows, I paid attention. Open the link for more information.

http://pahara.org/2016/08/press-release-august-15-2016/

Press Release: August 15, 2016

Pahara and Aspen Institutes Announce New Class of Leaders for Pahara-Aspen Education Fellowship

SAN FRANCISCO (August 15, 2016) – The Pahara Institute, together with the Aspen Institute, announced today the Fall 2016 cohort of the highly selective Pahara-Aspen Education Fellows Program. These 23 individuals join the Pahara community of leaders, which is designed to support and challenge diverse and innovative leaders who are reimagining America’s public schools.

“The Fall 2016 cohort of Pahara-Aspen Fellows inspires us with their deep commitment to equity and excellence for all of our public school students,” said Kim Smith, Pahara Institute Founder. “We are honored to support these exceptional leaders as they bring together their diverse perspectives in order to challenge and support each other, to examine their personal values, and to lead with even greater purpose.”

The Pahara-Aspen Education Fellowship is a two-year, cohort-based program that identifies innovative leaders in the educational excellence and equity movement, facilitates their dynamic growth, and strengthens their collective efforts to dramatically improve public schools for low-income children and communities. The Fellowship provides these leaders with the unusual opportunity to step back from their demanding daily work to reflect with peers on their collective and individual impact as leaders and change agents. Fellows challenge each other to think beyond traditional silos and sector boundaries to develop strategies that enhance their effectiveness as leaders, address leadership challenges in public education, and accelerate the improvements needed to provide high quality learning opportunities for all of our nation’s children.

The Fellowship is a partnership between the Pahara and Aspen Institutes. The Aspen Institute has created a leadership development model through its renowned Henry Crown Fellowship program, which focuses on inspiring Fellows to make a lasting difference in their spheres of influence through the application of effective and enlightened leadership. Pahara-Aspen Fellows become part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, which currently includes more than 2,200 Fellows from over 50 countries who are collectively making tremendous positive change in the world.

The Fall 2016 Pahara-Aspen Education Fellows are:

Derrell Bradford, Executive Vice President and Executive Director NYCAN, 50CAN

Chris Cerf, Superintendent, Newark Public Schools

Linda Chaput, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Agile Mind

Naomi DeVeaux, Deputy Director, District of Columbia Public Charter School Board

Steven Dow, Executive Director, CAP Tulsa

John Eriksen, Co-Founder and Partner, The Drexel Fund

Lisa Flores, Board of Education, Denver Public Schools

Adam Freed, Chief Executive Officer, Teachers Pay Teachers

Drew Furedi, Superintendent and Vice President of Charter Schools, Para Los Niños

Laura Lee McGovern, Chief of Staff, Uncommon Schools

Jorge Lopez, Chief Executive Officer, Amethod Public Schools

Doug McCurry, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Superintendent, Achievement First

Michelle Molitor, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fellowship for Race and Equity in Education

Dianne Morales, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Phipps Neighborhoods

Gerald Richards, Chief Executive Officer, 826 National

LaShawn Routé Chatmon, Founding Executive Director, National Equity Project

Simeon Schnapper, Chief Executive Officer, Youtopia

Oliver Sicat, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Ednovate

Riccardo Stoeckicht, President and Chief Operating Officer, Innovative Schools

Annis Stubbs, Chief People Officer, Teach for America

Tammi Sutton, Executive Director, KIPP ENC Public Schools

David Sylvester, Partner, 3rd Gen Law Group LLP

Suzanne Tacheny Kubach, Executive Director, Policy Innovators in Education Network

“This cohort of Pahara-Aspen Fellows is comprised of unique entrepreneurs from around the country,” said Peter Reiling, Executive Vice President for Leadership and Seminar Programs at the Aspen Institute. “They embody the spirit needed to move the needle on the most complex challenges in American public education. We are excited for the journey we will take together and to welcome these leaders into the broader Aspen Global Leadership Network.”

To access bios and photos of the Pahara-Aspen Fellows, click here.

For More Information:

Saamra Mekuria-Grillo, Vice President of Strategy and Operations, Pahara Institute, saamra@pahara.org

About the Pahara Institute

The Pahara Institute is a national nonprofit organization focused on supporting the sustainability, diversity, and quality of leadership for the educational excellence and equity movement. The guiding principle of the Pahara Institute is that bold improvements are needed to our public schools so that every child in America has access to the tools and skills he or she needs to be successful in life. Pahara’s programs are designed to identify leaders in education innovation, and through a time-tested dialogue approach, strengthen and sustain their efforts to bring about critical improvements to our public schools. For more information, please visit pahara.org.

About the Aspen Institute

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. The Institute has campuses in Aspen, Colorado, and on the Wye River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It also maintains offices in New York City and has an international network of partners.

About the Aspen Global Leadership Network
The Aspen Global Leadership Network is a growing, worldwide community of entrepreneurial leaders from business, government and the nonprofit sector — currently, more than 2,200 Fellows from over 50 countries — who share a commitment to enlightened leadership and to using their extraordinary creativity, energy and resources to tackle the foremost societal challenges of our times. All share the common experience of participating in the Henry Crown Fellowship or one of the dozen Aspen Institute leadership initiatives it has inspired in the United States, Africa, Central America, India, the Middle East and China.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

How Do You Measure Creativity?

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2016 //
45

Is it possible to measure creativity? Is it possible to measure artistic talent? Is it possible to assign a grade to students in the arts based on a measure or on multiple measures?

Those are the questions posed in this article, which describes the efforts by states to develop metrics for the arts. https://m.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-forget-the-sat-this-new-standardized-test-measures-artistic-ability

I am assuming that the title of the article is a mistake. It is not about a “standardized test” for the arts but rather a replacement for standardized tests.

I instinctively recoil at the idea of measuring creativity or artistic talent. There is something inherently subjective about any such judgments. These days, who can say what is art and what is not.

Please, teachers of the arts, help me here. I can see grading students for participation, persistence, and engagement. But how can you grade them for talent and creativity?

Categories Arts Education, Testing

OUTRAGE: How the DeVos Family Paid the Michigan GOP to Block Charter Accountability

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2016 //
20

Okay, maybe you can’t be shocked anymore to learn that billionaires have bought politicians. Still, when you read this article in the Detroit Free Press, I think you will be as outraged as I was and am. The charter lobby has outdone itself this time. I haven’t paid as much attention to the DeVos family as I should have. Their fortune comes from Amway. Betsy DeVos started a privatization organization deceptively named the American Federation for Children. The family would like to replace public education altogether, preferably with vouchers. They are devotees of the free market ideology, though they are happy to have government subsidize the free market. One thing is clear: they despise public schools and will gladly reward legislators to agree with them.

This article was written by Stephen Henderson, editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. If the DeVos family and the Michigan GOP wanted to help the children of Detroit, would they insist on eliminating any accountability for charter schools?

Henderson writes:

“Bought and paid for.

“Back in June, that’s how I described the Detroit school legislation that passed in Lansing — a filthy, moneyed kiss to the charter school industry at the expense of the kids who’ve been victimized by those schools’ unaccountable inconsistency.

“And now, through the wonder of campaign finance reports, we are beginning to see what it took to buy the GOP majority in Lansing, just how much lawmakers required to sell out Detroit students’ interests.

“The DeVos family, owners of the largest charter lobbying organization, has showered Michigan Republican candidates and organizations with impressive and near-unprecedented amounts of money this campaign cycle: $1.45 million in June and July alone — over a seven-week period, an average of $25,000 a day.

“The giving began in earnest on June 13, just five days after Republican members of the state Senate reversed themselves on the question of whether Michigan charter schools need more oversight.

“There’s nothing more difficult than proving quid pro quos in politics, the instances in which favor is returned for specific monetary support.

“But look at the amounts involved, and consider the DeVos’ near-sole interest in the issue of school choice. It’s a fool’s errand to imagine a world in which the family’s deep pockets haven’t skewed the school debate to the favor of their highly financed lobby.

“And in this case, it was all done to the detriment of children in the City of Detroit.

“Deep pockets, long arms

“Back in March, the Senate voted to place charter schools under the same authority as public schools in the city, for quality control and attention to population need and balance, in line with a plan that had been in the works for more than a year, endorsed and promoted by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.

“But when the bills moved to the state House, lawmakers gutted that provision, returning a bill to the Senate that preserved the free-for-all charter environment that has locked Detroit in an educational morass for two decades. After less than a week of debate, the Senate caved.

“Even then, several legislators complained that the influence of lobbyists, principally charter school lobbyists, was overwhelming substantive debate. The effort was intense, they said, and unrelenting.

“Now we know what was at stake.

“Five days later, several members of the DeVos family made the maximum allowable contributions to the Michigan Republican Party, a total of roughly $180,000.

“The next day, DeVos family members made another $475,000 in contributions to the party.

“It was the beginning of a spending spree that would swell to $1.45 million in contributions to the party and to individual candidates by the end of July, according to an analysis by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

“The polite term for this kind of reflexive giving is transactional politics; it is the way things work not just in Lansing but in Washington, and in political circles in all 50 states.

“But the DeVos family has a singular focus on one issue, school choice. And given Michigan’s murky campaign finance laws, it’s harder to quantify what’s going on until long after it has happened.

“The substantive tragedy here, of course, is much starker.

“The legislation the DeVos family bought preserves a unique-in-the-nation style of charter school experimentation in Detroit.

“If I wanted to start a school next year, all I’d need to do is get the money, draw up a plan and meet a few perfunctory requirements.

“I’d then be allowed to operate that school, at a profit if I liked, without, practically speaking, any accountability for results. As long as I met the minimal state code and inspection requirements, I could run an awful school, no better than the public alternatives, almost indefinitely.

“That’s what has happened in Detroit since the DeVos family helped push the charter law into existence 20 years ago.

“On average, the schools don’t perform on state and national tests much better than public schools. A few outliers have reached remarkable heights. A few have done much worse. And charter advocates have become crafty liars in the selling of their product.

“They’ll crow, for instance, that nearly twice as many of their kids do as well on national math assessments as the public schools. What they don’t tout are the numbers, which show the public schools are 8%, and the charters at 15%.

“Regardless of outcome, none of the charter school establishment has been subject of a formal oversight and review that would reward the best actors and improve the worst.

“Education should always be about children. But in Michigan, children’s education has been squandered in the name of a reform “experiment,” driven by ideologies that put faith in markets, alone, as the best arbiters of quality, and so heavily financed by donors like the DeVos clan that nearly no other voices get heard in the educational conversation.

“The legislation debated this spring in Lansing was the first meaningful effort to change that — not to punish charter schools for independence, but to subject both charter and public schools to a rational means of review and improvement.

“There is no conscionable objection to this kind of basic oversight. But the DeVos family’s purchase of the souls of the GOP majority stalled progress for children in this state’s largest city.

“In all the other states where I’ve lived — Maryland, Illinois, Kentucky — it is impossible to imagine such a tightly held interest wielding that much influence.

“Why allow it?

“Beyond the substantive problem, there is the profound question of the sanctity of our political process.

“Is this how we do business in Michigan? Is this how we reach conclusions about important matters of public policy? The DeVos family isn’t breaking any law. The question we have to ask ourselves is why our laws permit this measure of single-interest dominance in politics.

“Back in the spring, I suggested that the legislators who sold out to the DeVos family be rounded up, sewn into burlap bags with rabid animals, and tossed into the Straits of Mackinac.

“My hyperbole was fueled by indignant outrage. I meant it to be. This kind of craven betrayal by public officials, so naked and with so much consequence for vulnerable citizens, ought to make all of us indignant, and outraged.

“Now that we know the other part of the story — the DeVos family’s apparent purchase of our state’s GOP — it should do more than outrage us.

“It should motivate us to make change.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Michigan, Privatization

NEWS: Democrats for Education Reform Will Back Some Democrats (But Only if They Support Charters)

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2016 //
45

This is a striking story about a group called Democrats for Education Reform, known as DFER. It was created in 2005 by hedge fund managers Whitney Tilson and John Petry. They held their first meeting in a plush apartment in New York City owned by another hedge fund manager, Ravenel Boykin Curry IV. Their speaker that evening was a brilliant young senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. In the past 11 years, they have funneled millions of dollars into state and local elections to elect candidates who support charter schools. They endorse Republicans and Democrats alike, so long as they support charter schools.

In New York State, they have supported Republican control of the State Senate and Governor Cuomo, as well as any Democrat who is charter friendly. Now comes news that DFER has decided to spend serious money to flip control of the State Senate to Democrats this fall. This is a strategic effort to hedge their bets, in case the Democrats sweep the state in 2016. DFER can’t risk losing control of the Senate. They know the Republicans will support school choice without their money.

Chris Bragg of the Albany Times-Union has the story.

http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/Breaking-from-allies-charter-group-to-back-9203320.php

Supporters of charter schools have had no stauncher ally in Albany than state Senate Republicans.
So why is a prominent national charter group saying it will spend money this year to try to flip the chamber to Democrats — many of whom were elected with the strong support of teachers unions, charters’ frequent nemeses?

“We understand the dynamic and the shift in the state Senate,” Nicole Brisbane, the New York director of Democrats for Education Reform, said in an interview last week. “We’re playing a long game.”

As the demographics of New York shift more and more toward Democrats — and Republicans continue to hang on to their Senate majority by a thread — there’s a growing sense that charter supporters need to “cultivate change in the hearts and minds” of the Democratic conference, Brisbane said.

DFER recently created an independent expenditure committee, called Moving New York Families Forward, that can raise and spend unlimited amounts. The charter backers will support pro-charter Senate Democrats in some general election races against Republicans this year, Brisbane said.

Informed of DFER’s strategy, other charter supporters reacted with skepticism and surprise.

“The expectation that State Senate Democrats will have goodwill towards education reform priorities is misplaced,” said one person heavily involved in education reform politics and policy.

“The only thing that will get accomplished is angering DFER’s true allies, Senate Republicans.”
As indicated by the group’s title, Democrats for Education Reform backs Democratic candidates across the country.

But in New York, that’s largely meant backing charter-supporting Democrats in primaries, not going after Republicans in general elections. And it doesn’t appear that any charter group has ever openly stated an intention to flip the Senate to Democratic control.

In 2010, DFER and its deep-pocketed donors — a number of whom have made hedge-fund fortunes — were heavily involved in backing challengers in New York City to three Democratic senators aligned with the teachers unions. All the charter-backing candidates lost soundly. After the election, the United Federation of Teachers issued a report calling the group “a letterhead stacked with super-rich backers.”

Now the union and DFER are putatively on the same side of the Senate
battle.

Brisbane said it was too early in the fundraising process to say how much would be spent. And she declined to say which districts the group will target in the general election, which means it’s not clear how much vulnerable Republicans would be impacted. (DFER is also set to back two New York City Assembly Democrats who are supportive of charters.)

Brisbane acknowledged that many members of the Senate Democratic conference don’t currently support her group’s stands — such as expanding the numbers of charter schools — but wants to make sure “more and more of them are championing our issues.” That list also includes increasing accountability through testing, another point of contention with the teachers union, and “Raise the Age” legislation increasing the age of criminal responsibility.
The Republican majority currently depends on the support of a Brooklyn Democrat, Simcha Felder, who conferences with them. And in a presidential election year, Democrats are likely to pick up seats in November, although they will still need to woo the five-member Independent Democratic Conference to join them to have a majority.

DFER’s new strategy “gives them protection for their agenda if the Senate goes Democratic without their help,” said Diane Ravitch, a prominent education historian and frequent critic of the charter movement. “If they get their favored candidates elected, then it doesn’t matter who controls the State Senate.”

Leadership of DFER has also shifted: Shavar Jeffries, who in 2014 lost a high-profile race for mayor of Newark, N.J., with the strong backing of charter supporters, became the group’s national president a year ago.

In recent election cycles, the New York State United Teachers union has spent millions to attain Democratic control of the Senate. NYSUT has endorsed mostly Democrats in swing districts this year. But with the fate of the Senate uncertain, NYSUT is also hedging its bets and supporting a Republican incumbent for a competitive Hudson Valley seat, while giving maximum $109,000 contributions to each side of the Senate battle.

Another pro-charter group, New Yorkers For a Balanced Albany, spent millions to help Senate Republicans in 2014 and again spent heavily to help Republican Senate candidate Chris McGrath in a May special election on Long Island; that race was narrowly won by Democrat Todd Kaminsky.

StudentsFirstNY, another New York City-based pro-charter group, runs that campaign group.
Brisbane, the New York director of DFER, insisted that some deep-pocketed donors supporting StudentsFirstNY — and Republican control of the Senate — would also give to her group backing Democratic control.
According to campaign finance records, there has been some overlap in the past between the groups’ donors.
For instance, DFER’s federal political action committee took a donation in 2015 from hedge fund magnate Daniel Loeb, who also gave $100,000 in June to the StudentsFirstNY campaign group. The executive director for StudentsFirst also gave last year to DFER.

A spokesman for StudentsFirst declined comment on DFER’s support of a Democratic Senate takeover.
Despite the fact that many Senate Republicans do not have many charter schools in their districts — the schools are concentrated in New York City — the conference has been a staunch supporter of their major financial backers. In the final hours of this year’s legislative session, for instance, the Republican-controlled Senate demanded a number of concessions for charter schools in exchange for granting New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio a one-year extension of mayoral control of city schools.

An open question in this year’s Senate races is the degree to which Gov. Andrew Cuomo — a charter supporter who has received major support from DFER donors — will act to help his fellow Democrats win the Senate. Critics of Cuomo say he has given them lukewarm support in past election cycles in order to maintain his close working relationship with the Senate GOP.

Brisbane said her group’s support of Democrats should not be read as an indication of Cuomo’s own intentions.
“We are supporters of the governor and of Democrats who support this issue,” she said, “but have not coordinated with him on this push.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Cuomo, Andrew, Democrats for Education Reform, DFER, Education Industry, New York, Privatization

Los Angeles: Who Will Be Held Accountable for Charter School Principal’s Wild Extravagance?

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2016 //
27

Karen Wolfe reports here on the surprising dilemma facing the Los Angeles school board: Whodunnit?

As has been reported, the principal of the El Camino Real Charter High School used the school’s credit card for his personal expenses. Apparently, there were other school officials who racked up heavy bills at the taxpayer’s expense. The principal billed the school credit card for first-class air travel, expensive meals, hotels, wine, and other luxuries. Now the school has been given a month to straighten out its financial mess.

Some commenters on this blog have said that if this were a public school principal, he would have been fired, not given a month to make things right.

At the recent school board meeting, defenders of the school said the school should not be blamed. They said that the school’s problem were the fault of the district for its failure to supervise the charter school!

Really!

This is like the old story of the man who murders his parents and then begs for the court’s mercy because he is an orphan.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Fraud, Los Angeles

This Shouldn’t Bother Me, But It Does: The Education Marketplace

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2016 //
43

I have trouble thinking of K-12 education as a marketplace. But that’s just me. I know that the textbook and testing industries have their marketplaces. Now there is a new marketplace where investors hope to profit on edtech.

Apparently, Education Week now has a regular feature that showcases the latest entrepreneurial ventures, where equity investors jump in with a million here, a million there.

I suppose I should not be surprised. Edtech is the next big thing, or maybe it is the Big Thing right now, where investors see the chance of a killing.

Which reminds me that several commenters on the blog have pointed out that the most innovative education today is hands-on, doing things, making things, creating things without the aid of a computer. Low-tech is now innovative. That is sort of a hopeful sign that our children will not turn into avatars.

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, Technology

Trump Tells the American Legion He Will Require Schools to Teach Patriotism

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2016 //
34

Donald Trump spoke recently to the American Legion and promised that he would restore the teaching of patriotism in American schools. No one can say anymore that he never mentions public schools.

A Trump administration, he said, would consult with the military veterans’ group to promote “pride and patriotism” in schools – “teaching respect” for the US flag and pledge of allegiance.

“That flag deserves respect, and I will work with American Legion to help to strengthen respect for our flag,” said Trump. “You see what’s happening. It’s very, very sad. And, by the way, we want young Americans to recite the pledge of allegiance.

“One country, under one constitution, saluting one American flag … always saluting,” he added. “In a Trump administration, I plan to work directly with the American Legion to uphold our common values and to help ensure they are taught to America’s children. We want our kids to learn the incredible achievements of America’s history, its institutions and its heroes.”

The call to “advance the cause of Americanism – not globalism” came as Trump reiterated the anti-immigration message at the heart of his campaign, which delighted core supporters and dismayed his few remaining Latino allies, who had expected a tack towards moderation.

You can be sure that Trump doesn’t know that the federal government is prohibited by law from interfering with or influencing what is taught in public schools. Since Arne Duncan ignored that part of the law by promoting Common Core, Trump must assume he can ignore it too.

Categories Curriculum, Trump
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »