Archives for the month of: January, 2017
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Federal Agents Raid Los Angeles Charter Chain Offices

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2017 //
7

Here we go again. Another day, another charter scandal. With Trump and DeVos in charge, expect to read more stories like this one.

 

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security raided the offices of the Celerity charter chain in Los Angeles.

 

Celerity currently manages seven charter schools in Southern California and four more in Louisiana.

 

“The first signs that Celerity and its Los Angeles schools might be in trouble came in 2015. The organization had petitioned L.A. Unified to allow it to open two new charter schools, an application process it had gone through successfully several times before.

 

“But this time, L.A. Unified’s school board said no.

 

“School district officials raised new concerns over the charter school organization’s finances and its complex governance structure. In their final report, in which they advised board members to reject the group’s charter petition, they accused Celerity’s leaders of unorthodox fiscal practices, such as borrowing money from one school in order to pay another schools’ bills, spending money on expenses unrelated to the school and commingling the organization’s finances with those of separate legal entities.

 

“Celerity’s leaders denied any wrongdoing. Ultimately, the state Board of Education voted to allow the new schools to open.

 

“While all of this played out in the foreground, L.A. Unified’s inspector general opened an investigation into Celerity and McFarlane.

 

“The charter school organization’s battle with L.A. Unified continued. In October of last year, Celerity asked the school board to renew two of its schools’ charters — Celerity Dyad in South Los Angeles and Celerity Troika in Eagle Rock — for another five-year term.

 

“Renewals typically sail through LAUSD’s review process, but Celerity’s did not. Although district officials said the schools’ academic performance had met their standards, they reiterated their concerns about the organization’s fiscal management and potential conflicts of interest.”

 

Why does the state board override local charter denials? Perhaps federal agents should raid the offices of the State Board of Education to determine its ties to corrupt charter organizations and Eli Broad.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Carol Burris: The True Costs of School Choice

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2017 //
14

Carol Burris has been traveling the nation investigating states where choice is flourishing –and public schools are being underfunded to pay for choice.

 

She reports here that the public has little idea of the waste, fraud, and abuse that is embedded in the school choice movement.

 

Many taxpayers don’t know that every dollar that goes to a charter or a voucher is subtracted from the community public schools.

 

She asks the billion-dollar question:

 

The Washington Post published a 2013 story detailing issues at private schools that accepted public funds from the federally funded voucher program approved by Congress for the nation’s capital. It said in part:

 

[A] Washington Post review found that hundreds of students use their voucher dollars to attend schools that are unaccredited or are in unconventional settings, such as a family-run K-12 school operating out of a storefront, a Nation of Islam school based in a converted Deanwood residence, and a school built around the philosophy of a Bulgarian psychotherapist.

 

I suspect that Betsy DeVos and her followers would say that all of the above is the price we must pay to keep charters free of regulations. But if regulations are the problem, and deregulation the solution, why don’t the “choicers” push to deregulate public schools? Shouldn’t their creativity be unleashed as well?

 

Time to wise up.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

How Many Times Did Trump Lie in His First Interview?

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2017 //
56

Greg Sergeant valiantly tries to list the lies told by Trump in his first interview since becoming president. 

 

Start with his claim that 3-5 million votes were cast by illegals. Add to that his claim that all of those votes went for Hillary. Then his claim that a Pew study backs up his story. Then his insistence that the author of the study, who disagrees with Trump, is “groveling.”

 

If Trump is right, the election results should be thrown out and another election should be held.

 

Categories Education Reform

A Message to Californians: Urge Diane Feinstein to Vote NO on Sessions and DeVos

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2017 //
18

The following message came from People for the American Way. It urges Senator Feinstein of California to vote NO on Jeff Sessions. While you are at it, urge her to vote NO on the unqualified Betsy DeVos.

 

 

Senator Feinstein, who has the immensely important position of ranking Democratic member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been emerging as a real champion in the fight to STOP SESSIONS.
Sen. Feinstein particularly values constituent phone calls, so she needs to hear from Californians now telling her, “thank you and keep up the good work!”
Please call one or more of Sen. Feinstein’s offices now to let her staff know her leadership is not going unnoticed and to help keep the wind in her sails. We NEED her continued leadership in this fight!

 
Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Offices:
Washington, DC: (202) 224-3841
San Francisco: (415) 393-0707
Los Angeles: (310) 914-7300
San Diego: (619) 231-9712
Fresno: (559) 485-7430

 
The fight to stop Sessions from being confirmed as Attorney General is THE true test of whether Senate Democrats can band together and FIGHT against Trump’s dangerous and bigoted agenda.
Yesterday, Trump said he’d call for an investigation into voter fraud, likely as a pretext for heightened restrictions on voting and based on his own claims — without any evidence — that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election.

He’ll likely instruct the Justice Department to carry out at least part of this witch hunt.
On issues of ethics, racial justice and civil rights, and more, Sessions has NOT been satisfactory or forthcoming in the information he’s provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
And as PFAW’s Marge Baker wrote in a Huffington Post piece yesterday:

 
It’s becoming more and more clear that we could have a president and attorney general who simply do not understand nor care that religious discrimination is at odds with the very fabric of our nation. Sessions was “deeply involved in the extended debate” over Trump’s planned orders. Just as disturbingly, in answers to Senator Coons’ follow-up questions after his confirmation hearings, Sessions failed to rule out mass internment of U.S. citizens and residents based on religious identity. While he acknowledged that the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was “unjustified,” he would only state that internment shouldn’t happen “without a clear legal basis.” Our Constitution allows for no possible internment based on where people are from, what religion they practice, or any other factor. It’s ominous that the person who could be the next attorney general disagrees.

 
Tell Sen. Feinstein THANK YOU, and KEEP UP THE FIGHT!

 
Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Offices:
Washington, DC: (202) 224-3841
San Francisco: (415) 393-0707
Los Angeles: (310) 914-7300
San Diego: (619) 231-9712
Fresno: (559) 485-7430

 
THANKS!
Ben Betz, PFAW

Categories Education Reform

Senators Flooded with Anti-DeVos Calls, But GOP Senators Holding Firm Behind Incompetent Nominee

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2017 //
39

Politico reports that Betsy DeVos is the single most unpopular Cabinet choice made by Trump, as judged by the numbers of calls and emails coming to senators.

 

It appears that all the Democratic members of the Senate HELP committee will vote against her, but so far every Republican is falling into line, despite her abysmal performance at her sole hearing. DeVos showed the public that she was uninformed, knew nothing about federal law, thought that federal protection for students with disabilities was optional (it is not), and displayed complete ignorance about higher education.

 

Despite all that, the hundreds of millions she has donated to Republicans may be enough to get her confirmed.

 

In an era when morality and ethics have evaporated, this makes sense. It compromises the credibility of everyone who votes for her and shows how little they care for the education of our children.

Categories Betsy DeVos

The Onion: Jimmy Carter Asks Why He Was Forced to Sell the Family Peanut Farm

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2017 //
10

This article appeared in The Onion, but it is so close to truth that it might as well have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post.

 

The only fiction in it is the pretense that it was written by Jimmy Carter. It was not.

 

The essence is the question, why was I forced to sell the family peanut farm when I became president when Donald Trump is allowed to maintain control of his far-flung business empire and not even to disclose what businesses he is invested in?

 

Seriously, it was just a few fields and a warehouse, and you idiots still appointed a special prosecutor and spent six months investigating it.

 

Not a day goes by when I don’t think about what life would be like if I still had my peanut farm. I miss it so much. I miss feeling the sun on my face. I miss the earth in my hands. Sometimes, I’d go out to the fields before dawn. I’d watch the sun come up, watch it cast golden light on my plants, row by row. It was so calm; so quiet. Those were some of the best days of my life. It sure would’ve been nice to live out the rest of my years there, but I had to do what was right. I suppose only some of us have to.

 

God, I loved that peanut farm!

 

And where were my conflicts of interest, exactly? Seriously, do enlighten me, America, because I honestly have no idea. Did you worry I might be cutting deals in back rooms with the peanut butter lobby? Or that I might be too busy at harvest time to focus on the economy or the Middle East? Apparently, you did, and almost obsessively. Meanwhile, your new president holds a lease from the federal government to operate a $200 million hotel six blocks from the White House. I mean, come on!

 

Maybe I’m just a sucker. Apparently, all I needed to do was hand off control of the farm to my family. If I’d staged an elaborate song and dance about distancing myself—whatever that means—from all the day-to-day planting, picking, and salting, maybe I could have kept my peanut farm with the full blessing of you, the American people.

Categories Ethics, Trump

Entire Top Management Team at State Department Resigns

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2017 //
25

The Washington Post reports that the entire top management team at the State Department resigned today rather than work for Trump and Tillerson. This is unprecedented.

 

 

“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” said David Wade, who served as State Department chief of staff under Secretary of State John Kerry. “Department expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector.”

 

 

Categories Trump

SomeDam Poet: Recap of Education Reform, in Rhyme

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2017 //
10

Thoughts on the recent events in education reform, by our blog Poet:

 

 

 

“The Maestro”

 
(A brief historical recap for those who have already forgotten — or perhaps never knew)

 

 

Chetty played the VAMdolin
At Nobel-chasing speed
Arne played the basket-rim
And Rhee, she played the rheed

 

Coleman played his Core-o-net
Eva played the lyre
Billy Gates played tete-a-tete
With Duncan and with higher

 

Sanders* beat his cattle drum
Devalue added model
Pseudo-science weighted sum
Mathturbated twaddle

 

John King played the slide VAMbone
But Maestro was Obama
Who hired the band and set the tone
For current grizzly drama

 

 

*William Sanders, who tweaked his algorithm for modeling cattle growth to model the intellectual growth of students and evaluate teachers.

 

Categories Duncan, Arne, Humor, John King, Obama, Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

Fred Smith: Edwin Arlington Robinson, Meet Betsy DeVos

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2017 //
7

Fred Smith, professional testing expert and amateur poet, sent the following thoughts on Betsy DeVos (I too read “Richard Cory” when I attended San Jacinto High School in Houston, taught by my favorite teacher, Mrs. Ratliff):

 

 

Apologies to Edwin Arlington Robinson. Something about Betsy DeVos reminded me of “Richard Cory.” Robinson’s poetry was opened to us when we were boys in the Bronx at De Witt Clinton High School by my favorite teacher, Mr. McConnell.
Betsy DeVos

Whenever Betsy DeVos came to town,
We ordinary people felt her eyes:
A golden god-blessed woman of renown,
Bejeweled, dressed in wealth beyond all size.

 

For riches were the robes she always wore,
And we mere humble always feared to delve
Too deeply ‘neath the smile and crown she bore,
Whose mission was to save us from ourselves.

 

We did not know what darkness might belie
Such crafted goodness she put on display;
How many she had buried or could buy,
When anybody dared stand in her way.

 

And one day, as if queens could know the poor,
When asked what she would do to lift all schools,
She deigned not say, but that cold smile we saw
Said “One thing I know: Money sets the rules.”

 

~fred

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires

An Interview with Julian Vasquez Heilig: Charter Schools Don’t Serve Black Children Well

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2017 //
15

Joan Richardson of Phi Delta Kappan interviews scholar Julian Vasquez Heilig about opposition to charter schools by the NAACP and other civil rights groups.

 

He explains that the Trump administration will try to destroy public education:

 

 

With a Trump administration, this (NAACP) resolution has more importance than ever before because he’s said that he’s going to pump billions of dollars into charter schools and vouchers, which are really partner market-based school choice approaches.

 

It’s also important because DeVos’s view of what a charter school means is antithetical to what many “education reformers” support. Trump is supporting forms of parent choice and privatization that are beyond what even the Democratic education “reformers” have been supporting. So it remains to be seen if the reformers move toward Trump or if they continue with their argument that there are some good charters but that these other forms of market-based choice are not desirable.

 

Charters have not satiated the privatization and private-control proponents. In fact, it has become readily apparent that charter schools were just the initiation of the conversation for private control and privatization in other forms such as vouchers.

 

Trump’s election may turn the tide in favor of private control and privatization of public education. Donald Trump promised in the campaign that his administration would pass the School Choice and Education Opportunity Act and perhaps spend billions on school choice in the first 100 days. So while the NAACP and many in the civil rights community may be supporting community-based, democratically controlled education, the bully pulpit of the presidency may enforce a new era of private control and privatization of the public education system.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers
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