Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, said to be a progressive worked out a deal where his state will get $71 million in federal funds, with oversight by the charter-loving US Department of Education. As readers of this blog know, Ohio has large numbers of low-performing charters and some of the worst for-profit charters in the nation.
“Sen. Brown said various measurements will be used in oversight by DOE to monitor how the money is spent. If Ohio doe not satisfactorily comply with the conditions, he said federal officials can suspend or terminate the grant. “They [DOE] know a lot more now than before,” he said, adding, “The days of the federal government throwing money around is over.”
And here is the oversight entrusted to John King:
ED will require the Ohio Department of Education to:
Hire an ED-approved independent monitor to oversee the Ohio Department of Education’s implementation of the special conditions ED has placed on its grant;
Create a database that indicates public charter schools’ academic, operation, and financial performance;
Submit expenditure documentation to ED for review and receive approval for all withdrawals from the grant account;
Submit semi-annual budgets to ED for review and approval;
Submit to ED and post publicly semi-annual financial reports related to the use of the grant; and
Form a Grant Implementation Advisory committee of parents, teachers, and community members to create transparency.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My senator Sherrod Brown is like Obama in this regard: progressive overall but with an exception for education. Big blind spot for them. It’s frustrating when you look at both of their other accomplishments, and I have to remind myself not to be a one-issue voter when there are so, so many other critical issues. If Brown left the Senate, it would be a huge loss (and more so when you consider my state could very well elect a conservative Republican to take his place. One Rob Portman is enough).
I do think that Brown is capable of changing his mind, just don’t know who would be the one to help him see the light.
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Barbara,
You’re aware that Brown was unwilling to endorse his fellow Democrat for Senate? The Dayton Daily News published a front-page article about Brown’s chummy relationship with Portman. If the Senate goes Democratic, the voters will expect Democrats, like Brown, to achieve legislation and federal funding for the 99%. Without the majority, some Democrats have a convenient excuse, IMO, there are “progressive” plants who vote in favor of a liberal issue, when it hasn’t a chance of success, in order to create an image. I haven’t followed Brown’s entire record but, I recall a recent comment that followed an article referencing Brown, the commenter, wrote that Brown “always buckles”, when voting on issues related to the financial sector.
No one hopes, more than I do, that Brown is just misguided/misinformed, and will change his view of ed rephorm, particularly after the NAACP issued its opinion in Cincinnati. My family donated to his campaign and applauded his speeches at Democratic fund-raising events.
There is, no way, to reconcile a Democratic politician supporting the privatization of public education nor, his silence about the Wall Street and tech industry plot.
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Is Hillary ducking away from this issue……playing into TRUMP’S hands? What is the deal with Hillary….is she just counting on teachers because they have no other choice.
We need to hear from her…..or a lot of teachers just might not bother to show up. Teachers do not have to stand for bullying from her..
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AGREE, Joe.
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Outrageosu!
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Diane,
The problem with publically-funded charter schools goes far beyond the lack of oversight, transparency, and accountability. Most fundamentally, they are an assault on democracy. Individual choice is no substitute for democratic governance (See:https://goo.gl/lKAIKT). In addition, they drain limited resources from remaining public schools, exacerbate racial and socio-economic isolation, and undermine public investment in socially responsible solutions for all in favor of “saving” a select few.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
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If you read the letter from the US DOE to the OH DOE, note that the US DOE essentially admits that “nonprofit” is really a vague term in ed reform.
All Ohio “charter schools” are nonprofits. The school entity is a “nonprofit”. What aren’t necessarily nonprofit are the management companies.
This seems like a huge omission on the part of ed reformers as far as portraying these schools to the public. They really need to tell people you can drive a for-profit truck thru the term “nonprofit”. All you need are legal entities that perform various functions.
The public would have to do fairly exhaustive research to really understand what’s going on in Ohio with charters. There’s “the school” then there’s “the authorizer”, then there’s the various commercial contracts.
It’s really complex! These sweeping terms they use are deceptive.
Authorizers ALONE would merit a transparency law all by themselves.
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I love that Kasich is now pushing public school kids into manufacturing and skilled trades.
I’m all for vocational education but maybe they should find someone who has some experience. Kasich has only worked in two places- government and a job in the finance sector.
These people have absolute contempt for trades. I can tell by the way they treat working people. He’s the last person I’d send out to tell a 7th grader to be a welder. If it were up to any of these people welders would be making 7 dollars an hour.
Don’t bank on ed reformers for your future, 7th graders. The Best and the Brightest Club doesn’t include trades. You’re not in their plans.
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Kasich is a loser, but the trades are not, and the primary driver for the push for education in them is the serious lack of skilled workers by business. They are the ones advocating for the return of vocational education, and from what I have seen, being in the construction industry, they are more than willing to pay top dollar for good people. Dolts like Kasich are just following the private sectors lead here and trying to take credit for the idea. In the building trades, the skills are durable and portable with only a little continuing ed needed to keep up with improvements in codes and techniques. Unlike in teaching right now, employers wil go to great lengths to hold onto good workers since their work is the foundation of the company’s success.
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Here in NJ, many carpenters are out of work. Electricians are out of work. Vocational schools will turn out what?
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There’s a lot of work in the Midwest and other places. The NAHB has a strong apprenticeship program. I don’t know what is going on in Jersey, but the jobs are out there.
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Here’s a link to an industry site. http://www.tradesmeninternational.com/news/the-construction-labor-shortage-where-did-all-the-skilled-labor-go/
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Glad I don’t teach in Ohio anymore.
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I sent an email to the US Department of Education about Ohio charters once, back when I still believed they were capable of taking in information that doesn’t promote The Movement.
I got back this patronizing explanation of what a charter school is, under the ed reform dogma. Yeah, yeah, “charter schools are innovative public schools who are free to …blah, blah”.
Thanks! Always nice to deal with people who both assume you’re an idiot and completely dodge the specific nature of your complaint.
About a year later charter school scandals were front page of every Ohio newspaper and they all finally admitted the “sector” they designed was a disaster.
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THIS is awkward, huh?
“As the countdown to the Chicago Teachers Union’s October 11 strike deadline approaches, another teachers’ union in Chicago has voted to authorize a strike as their own contract negotiations have dragged on over strikingly similar disagreements.
The teachers and staff at the fifteen-campus UNO Charter School Network (UCSN) have spent seven months bargaining for a successor to their groundbreaking first collective bargaining agreement. But talks with management have stalled. So this week, all but one of the 533 bargaining unit members participated in the strike vote, which delivered a 96 percent vote in favor of strike authorization.”
A real dilemma for ed reform.
How do they come down when their hatred of labor unions is combined with their adoration of all things charter? 🙂
My guess is the anti-labor faction in the ed reform political alliance win that fight and UNO all of a sudden becomes an unfashionable school that we all must oppose with every fiber of our being.
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I can’t find anything about the labor unrest in UNO charters on ed reform sites.
They’re not ignoring this because it doesn’t fit the formula, are they?
If Chicago Public School teachers are all greedy incompetents what does that make UNO teachers?
The narratives are hitting the rocks of reality! Send help! 🙂
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I read some of the ed reformers who used to work for the Obama Administration. They all went on to exciting careers in privatization.
Anyway, you-all should read them. To a man (or woman) they promote charters and bash public schools.
Makes me feel great that I had these anti-public school people on my payroll for 8 years, let me tell you. Maybe if you take a paid public position in “public education” favoring “public education” needs to be a job requirement.
They’re “agnostics” on public education. They’re on the fence. They might prefer private education, who knows?
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I want Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown to explain why hard-working, middle class taxpayers should pay $245 mil and, another $ 71 million, for the Walton’s Ed. agenda, when the Walton’s are willing to pull the freight, at $1 bil.+.
I want Brown to explain why Ohio middle class taxpayers should pay, for oversight of a failed ed. plan that they don’t want, anymore than they wanted E-check.
I want Brown to tell the middle class taxpayers why they are paying for a duplicated
ed. service that mocks democracy.
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Brown has mandated the kind of full daylight transparency that can easily bring the whole mess crashing down. He has to be able to show, in no uncertain terms, what we here already know. I think this strategic move on his part is being mistaken for an ideological position. This is one of the things I have long hoped for, that politicians would make the charter sector take possession of enough rope to hang themselves with, and I think they will since I doubt they can change course.
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…Really?
Brown asked for $71 mil. to expand charter schools.
Brown won’t endorse his fellow Ohio Democrat for Senate.
Your answer- a Machiavellian strategy? …Really?
BTW- Politico is one of the media positioning Brown as a “progressive”.
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Why won’t he endorse the other democrat?
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The Dayton Daily News posed the question you asked.
Does Brown have a record of “always buckling” on issues involving the financial sector, which would corroborate what a commenter described at a political blog?
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Just so people know,the charter lobby (and affiliated government employees) are pushing a “model law for charter accountability”
Except it has no additional “accountability”. What is HAS is a massive expansion of charter schools.
Read it so you can see if your state lawmakers are doing their job or if they should be replaced by people who will do their jobs. If they change the caption and a couple of words and bring it up for a vote you’ll know they’re captured and letting this one lobby draft state law instead of doing the work you’re paying them to do.
http://www.publiccharters.org/publications/model-law-supporting-high-quality-charter-public-schools/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=35373500&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_quIR-xxacU2WCvMu4P5JooV4YOPyuaqVDPKX34Hj1LRV_lu2JWyR7tz1PM5exJszEnY3-BbwV3W7eDEnvVszlTQdEipIv8Gv6nzyGxCu1CzMK4Zw&_hsmi=35373500
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Sen. Brown could write and disseminate a letter addressed to the Secretary of Education, that made it clear, referring to charter schools, as “public”, is intentional deceit. Brown knows the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that assets, bought by taxpayers, are owned by charter operators. The odds that that letter will be sent…slim to none.
A well-crafted Republican campaign strategy (used by Portman and other GOP candidates), is selling its candidates as heroes against heroin. For the media, who also glommed onto that band wagon, Sen. Sherrod Brown. Thick as thieves.
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The fight within the Republican Party is real. It draws blood. There’s theater but, no fight, within the Democratic neoliberal party. The fight exists outside of the walls. When the Ohio Democratic Party tells us that the financial sector’s candidate, Cory Booker, is the future of the Party, people listened. In the last polling, Trump was ahead of Clinton in Ohio, a state that went for Obama.
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SPREAD THE WORD because state lawmakers and voters everywhere need to know right now that the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a warning that charter schools posed a risk to the Department of Education’s own goals. The report says: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals.”
The report documents multiple cases of financial risk, waste, fraud, abuse, lack of accountability of federal funds, and lack of proof that the schools were implementing federal programs in accordance with federal requirements.
Throughout our nation, private charter schools backed by billionaire hedge funds are being allowed to divert hundreds of millions of public school tax dollars away from educating America’s children and into private corporate pockets. Any thoughtful person should pause a moment and ask: “Why are hedge funds the biggest promoters of charter schools?” Hedge funds aren’t altruistic — there’s got to be big profit in “non-profit” charter schools in order for hedge fund managers to be involved in backing them.
And even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its “reporting” on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.” Without needed oversight of what charter schools are actually doing with the public’s tax dollars, hundreds of millions of tax money that is supposed to be spent on educating the public’s children is being siphoned away into private pockets.
One typical practice of charter schools is to pay exorbitant rates to rent buildings that are owned by the charter school board members or by their proxy companies which then pocket the public’s tax money as profit. Another profitable practice is that although charter schools use public tax money to purchase millions of dollars of such things as computers, the things they buy with public tax money become their private property and can be sold by them for profit…and then use public tax money to buy more, and sell again, and again, and again, pocketing profit after profit.
The Washington State and New York State supreme courts and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions.
Charter schools are clearly private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money. Moreover, as the NAACP and ACLU have reported, charter schools are often engaged in racial and economic-class discrimination.
Charter schools should (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that they are accountable to the public; (2) a charter school entity must legally be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) charter schools should be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property.
NO FEDERAL MONEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GO TO CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT FAIL TO MEET THESE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC. Hillary Clinton could, if elected President, on day one in office issue an Executive Order to the Department of Education to do just that. Tell her today to do that! Send her the above information to make certain she knows about the Inspector General’s findings and about the abuses being committed by charter schools.
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Gates funds Aspen’s, Senior Congressional Education Staff Network. The executive branch and Congressional representatives serve the richest 0.1% not, because they don’t know what’s obvious, like the OIG’s report but, because they don’t care. When hedge funds (their industry drags down GDP) and, the tech industry, offer suggestions about anything, including education, the words self-serving describe the speakers and, the words, victim and/or clueless, describe the listeners. Gates exploits. He is the 800# gorilla in the state where the poor pay up to 7 times the tax rate as the rich- most regressive state tax in the nation.
Never-the-less, thanks to the OIG.
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