From a reader:
“The Arizona Legislature (Republican majority) just passed a bill to allow the hiring of uncertificated teachers. They also just opened up the voucher system to ALL students. Furthermore, they gave teachers a measly 1% raise. Arizona is 49th out of the 50 states in teacher pay and funding per pupil.”
Steven Singer tells us what he thinks of Teacher Appreciation Week: It stinks!
It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, America!
All over the country, millions of educators can look forward to a free burrito. Or maybe an Arby’s sandwich. Or a complimentary donut.
Because we REALLY appreciate teachers here.
What a pathetic joke!
I don’t mean to seem ungrateful.
I’ll redeem my coupon at Chipotle. I’ll take that Roast Beef Classic. I’ll grab that Dunkin’ Cruller.
But let’s be honest. These cheesy buy-one-get-one coupons don’t demonstrate appreciation. They’re guilt.
They’re a manifestation of the feeling that we SHOULD appreciate teachers, but don’t. Not really.
Not for one week, not for one day!
Why else would we begrudge them a middle class income? Why else would we provide them with so few resources and so much responsibility? Why else would we bar them from making any meaningful decisions about how their students should be taught yet hold them accountable for everything their students do?
Appreciate teachers? We don’t LISTEN to them. We don’t RESPECT them. Many of us don’t even LIKE them.
Thanks for the appreciation, folks. A middle-class income would be a good way to show real appreciation.
Stopping legislators from telling teachers how to do their job would be another.
Telling think tanks who know best to stuff it would be another.
Mercedes Schneider prepared to be a professor. She got her doctorate in research methods. She got a job as a professor. But she wanted to teach kids. So she left her university position and returned to Louisiana to teach high school English.
In this post, she explains what Teacher Appreciation Week means to her.
She describes psychic rewards that the suits will never know. She describes the psychic rewards that the guys in the air-conditioned, plush think tanks will never experience.
Well, this is a new one for me. After I posted Sue Legg’s piece about Erik Fresen, Sue contacted me and told me she had mistakenly sent me her notes, not the finished post.
So, here is the finished post. I must admit. It reads better. And there is a picture of Erik Fresen.
It begins like this:
Remember Representative Fresen, whose sister Magdalena Fresen is Vice President of Academica, Florida’s largest for-profit charter management company? He term limited out of the legislature this year. His next step is to go to jail?
Ethics Florida Style: Go Directly to Jail
The buzz about Florida is that there is more self-interest than public interest than in any other state. Are such allegations warranted? Information is not difficult to find. The Center for Public Integrity ranked states on a corruption index in 2012. Florida was rated an ‘F’ on ethics enforcement agencies. It appears there are rules that are easy to bend and break.
Take the case of former Florida House Representative Erik Fresen who served in the House for eight years. It looks like he will serve in a Florida prison next year. He was Chair of the House Education sub-committee on Appropriations, and a former property consultant for Civica, a real estate company with ties to Academica. Fresen’s sister and brother-in-law operate Academica, the largest for-profit charter management firm in Florida. Their charter school real estate holdings generate over $20 million per year.
Fresen pled guilty this week for failure to file federal income taxes for eight years. During the same period, his House financial record disclosures do not match the IRS income reports. This is simply a culmination of years of questions about Fresen’s ethical behavior.
I just noticed that the words “For-Profit,” “Florida,” and “Fraud” are consecutive in my list of categories. Kind of like “Testing” and “Texas.”
Betsy DeVos gave the commencement speech at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida and received an unfriendly reception from the graduates. Many booed and were chastised by the University President. Many stood with their backs to the speaker. It was probably not the best venue for a billionaire who works for the Trump administration, which has appealed to white males and the alt-right, no friends of African Americans.
I did not have time to watch her speech but I believe the link includes the video. I assume she spoke about school choice, the only subject in the world of education that interests her.
Peter Dreier is a professor of political science at Occidental College in California. He is also an astute observer of contemporary politics.
In this post at Salon, Dreier reviews the “Tuesday afternoon massacre” and compares it to Nixon’s “Saturday night massacre.”
He suspects that Trump will try to appoint a pliable FBI Director who will wind down the investigation of the ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
If Democrats win back control of the House of Representatives in 2018, the House would then open its own in-depth investigation, which might lead to impeachment proceedings.
Or Trump might decide that he really doesn’t like this job and prefers to return to his happy former life.
I heard this morning on CNN that the Senate Intelligence Committee has nine staff members working on the Trump-Russia, as compared to dozens of staff members who worked on the Benghazi hearings (which came up empty), and the more than 100 who worked on the Watergate hearings.
The issue will not fade away.
Sue M. Legg, education director of the Florida League of Women Voters, wrote the following post about the current situation in Florida, which is reaching a critical point. The legislature just passed a bill that showers favors and funding on the state’s charter industry, which has a poor academic and financial record. Scandal and profiteering are commonplace in the charter sector of Florida, yet there is never any accountability demanded by the legislature or the governor.
Legg writes:
Not a surprise that Erik Fresen removed the charter reform measures that Senator Gaetz included in SB 7029. Instead there is a hodge podge of new proposals attacking public schools. It all should finish today. Hopefully, the Senate will stand firm. Perhaps the best outcome is that nothing will pass.
Information is not difficult to find. The Center for Public Integrity ranked states on a corruption index in 2012. Florida received a total grade of ‘C-‘ which was better than that of many states. Internal auditing rules received an ‘A’, but ethics enforcement agencies rated an ‘F’. It sounds like we have rules but we bend and break them.
The legislature must address the problems and dispel the perception expressed in the media that its members are “too cozy with charter schools.” We know where that concern originates:
• Senator Legg, Chair of the Education Committee operates a charter school with his wife.
• Representative Marlene O’Toole is a representative from The Villages whose charter school just dismissed 140 students. While she does not appear to be a board member, she is employed by a private educational foundation Take Stock in Children, and is cited for conflict of interest in voting for millions of dollars in funding for it.
• Rep. Erik Fresen’s sister and brother-in-law operate Academica, a for-profit charter management firm. He is Chair of the House subcommittee for Education Appropriations.
• Representative Manny Diaz and Senator Anitere Flores run Doral College, an online dual enrollment school that is operated by Academica and funded by its charter high schools student enrollments and a transfer of $400,000 from Doral Academy, a charter school.
One of the worst stories involves a $400,000 ‘loan’ from Doral Academy to Doral College, a non accredited college started on the grounds of Doral Academy charter high school. The idea is to enroll high school students in dual enrollment courses at the college, taught by the charter high school teachers. Evidently, only students from these Academica run charters can enroll. Academica is under federal investigation. The students earn credit that cannot be transferred to any accredited school. The college earns money. Who is involved?
• Manny Diaz, Chair Florida House Sub Committee on Choice and Innovation. Representative Diaz is the dean of Doral College in Miami. Bob Sykes alleges there are other conflicts of interest.
• Senator Anitere Flores, Chair Senate Fiscal Policy Committee, member Senate Appropriations Committee, CEO of Academica affiliated Doral College
• Representative Erik Fresen. Chair of the House Education sub committee on Appropriations. Employee of Civica, a real estate company associated with Academica.
Rep. Fresen was named in the federal investigation due to a potential conflict of interest. He served on the board of an Academica charter school and approved a contract to his real estate firm. He currently has added an amendment to the House version of the charter school bill that would allocate part of local taxes for public school capital outlay funds to charter school facilities. No charges have been filed on that measure.
Fresen earns $150,000 from Civica that specializes in charter school construction. Sponsored a bill to share capital outlay with charters
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fred-grimm/article60512891.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1963142.html US DOE found that 3 Mater charter schools signed lease payments with Academica while Zulueta was on the Mater Board.
USDOE audit found at least 4 related party transactions while Fresen was employed at Civica between 2007-2012.
Ethics complaint filed against Fresen in 2011 because of a voting conflict on HB 7195 that prohibited cities and counties from imposing stricter building and zoning rules on charters than on public schools
Affect all charter schools not just him. Change in ethics laws ‘class’
2013 refused to pay a fine for failingto file financial disclosure in 2003
http://wlrn.org/post/ethics-commission-refuses-close-complaints-against-miami-lawmaker
2014 Neighborhood Strategies put out of business in 2009, but Fresen reported on his financial disclosure form that he collected $10,000 per year since 2010
In 2012, Ethics Commission found that From 2008 to 2011 Fresen failed to properly disclose his net worth assets and liabilities
2017 Plead guilty to failure to file income tax return for eight years. Was in office 2008-2016. Faces up to a year in prison. Owes $100,000 in back taxes. Financial disclosure forms and income tax owed do not match
Paid a $10,000 fine for failure to report campaign reports in 2008-9
Ethel Fresen was an ESE teacher at Somerset until 2008.
Magdalena Fresen is Academica vice president
George Levesque House General Counsel cleared Fresen of conflict of interest even though he filed the notification form nine days after he voted. HP 7195 http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2011/10/ethics-commission-clears-miami-rep-erik-fresen-of-alleged-voting-conflict.html
Academica lease costs were 16.9% compared to 12.2% of total expenses for other charters. Nine schools’ leases exceeded 20% of revenue of schools in 2010.
Mater Academy Inc. tutoring company received $380,000 from Miami Dade and Broward Counties. Fresen amended a bill in 2012 to protect private tutoring companies and then in 2013 was embarrassed by the fraud exposed and opposed the continuation of funding.
****
The buzz about Florida is that there is more self-interest than public interest than in any other state.
Are such allegations warranted? Information is not difficult to find. The Center for Public Integrity ranked states on a corruption index in 2012. Ethics enforcement agencies rated Florida an ‘F’. It sounds like there are rules, but we bend and break them.
Take the case of former Florida House Representative Erik Fresen who served in the House for eight years. It looks like he will serve in a Florida prison next year. He was Chair of the House Education sub committee on Appropriations, and a property consultant for Civica, a real estate company with ties to Academica. Fresen’s sister and brother-in-law operate Academica, the largest for-profit charter management firm in Florida. Their charter school real estate holdings generate over $20 million per year.
Fresen pled guilty this week for failure to file federal income taxes for eight years. During the same period his financial record disclosures required by the House do not match the IRS income reports.
This is simply a culmination of years of questions about Fresen’s ethical behavior.
For example:
• In 2003, he failed to file a financial disclosure form and was cited in 2013 for non payment of the fee.
• In 2009, he paid a $10,000 fine for failure to report campaign reports.
• In 2011, an ethics complaint was filed in 2011 because of a voting conflict on a bill benefitting charter school building and zoning requirements. The complaint was dismissed by the House attorney, George Levesque. He is married to Patricia Levesque who is the C.E.O. of Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education that promotes school choice nationwide.
• In 2012, the Ethics Commission found that from 2008 to 2011 Fresen failed to properly disclose his net worth assets and liabilities.
• In 2012, Fresen was criticized for a last minute amendment to protect private tutoring companies that included one owned by Academica, and then in 2013 was embarrassed by the fraud exposed and told by House leadership to oppose the continuation of funding.
• In 2014, Fresen reported large income amounts annually from Neighborhood Strategies, Fresen’s business. The State had closed the company in 2009.
• In 2014, he was named as part of a federal investigation of Academica. A USDOE audit found at least 4 related party transactions while Fresen was employed at Civica between 2007-2012. Academica made a $400,000 ‘loan’ from Doral Academy to Doral College, a non accredited college started on the grounds of Doral Academy charter high school. High school students were dual enrolled in the college and taught by their charter high school teachers.
This year, House Speaker Corcoran made a promise to improve ethics. Curbing profiteering in charters is not among his priorities. Bills from the Senate do not make it out of House committees.
This is a very interesting account by Mia Simring, a rabbi in New York City, about her family decision to choose a school for their daughter. She was warned not to send her to the public school across the street. She visited the school and to her surprise, was very impressed by the small classes and the emphasis on the arts. She visited other schools, including some that were highly selective. She considered a Jewish school that would inculcate her values.
And she and her husband decided to ignore the warnings of their neighbors and chose the neighborhood public school.
Peter Greene reviews the speech that Betsy DeVos gave to the annual meeting of the Global Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs at Arizona State University.
She interminably bashes and belittles the public schools as obsolete, failing, etc.
She has, as he puts it charitably, a one-track mind.
She visited wonderful public schools in Van Wert, Ohio, and saw children and teachers who were engaged in learning. She learned nothing. Whatever she saw passed through her mind immediately without leaving an impression.
She keeps searching for an analogy to plug school choice. She tried Uber and that didn’t go over so well. Now she has a new metaphor:
Think of it like your cell phone. AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile may all have great networks, but if you can’t get cell phone service in your living room, then your particular provider is failing you, and you should have the option to find a network that does work.
Because is just a commodity or a service. Of course, lots of folks live in a place where they have none of those networks as a choice because businesses only serve the customers that are profitable enough to get their attention. This may just be an area of ignorance typical to the really rich– I’m betting that DeVos has never been in a situation where a business told her it wasn’t worth their bother to serve her, nor has she found herself in a situation where that service was simply priced out of her reach.
She truly has no idea of what a public service is and why it is different from something you buy or rent.
She has already given up on the claim that school choice produces better results or better education.
She pushes choice for the sake of choice, even if the quality of choices are diminished.
Like Jan Resseger, Wendy Lecker paid tribute to the political philosopher Benjamin Barber. She acknowledged his work on behalf of democracy and the public good, which is currently under attack by a bipartisan coalition of corporate reformers.
She writes:
Political theorist Benjamin Barber, who died April 24, wrote about the importance of education as a public good. “Education not only speaks to the public, it is the means by which a public is forged.”
As he noted, education transforms individuals into responsible community members, first in their classrooms and ultimately in our democracy. Local school districts are also the basic units of democratic government.
Michigan professor Marina Whitman recently noted that the essence of a public good is that it is non-excludable; i.e. all can partake, and non-rivalrous; i.e. giving one person the good does not diminish its availability to another.
Some school reforms strengthen education as a public good; such as school finance reform, which seeks to ensure that all children have adequate educational resources.
Unfortunately, the reforms pushed in the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations attack education as a public good. For example, choice — charters and vouchers — is a favorite policy of all three administrations. Choice operates on the excludable premise of “saving a few.”
In operation, choice makes education rivalrous. As a New York appellate court observed, diverting funds from public schools to charters ‘benefit a select few at the expense of the ‘common schools, wherein all the children of this State may be educated….’”
Across this country, public money is diverted from public schools to charters with no consideration of need, quality or the impact on the majority of public school students. The result is invariably the creation of exclusive schools, out of the reach of voter oversight, at the expense of public schools that serve everyone.
Charter advocates claimed charters would be superior without the constraints faced by local districts. However, after more than 20 years, charters are no better than public schools.
Moreover, they leave public schools without resources to serve the most vulnerable and communities disenfranchised by unelected school boards.
As Barber predicted, “What begins as an assault on bureaucratic rigidity becomes an assault on government and all things public … (destroying) a people’s right to govern themselves publicly … (and) to establish the conditions for the development of public citizens.” Reforms that gut public education attack democracy.
You will enjoy reading the full article, which appeared in the Stamford Advocate. Lecker goes into detail about the ways that charter schools are draining resources from public schools and causing fiscal distress to schools that accept all students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 