Archives for the month of: August, 2017
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Arizona: Public School Advocates Block Voucher Expansion Plans!

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2017 //
17

Congratulations to Save Our Schools Arizona!

You did it!

Save Our Schools Arizona collected enough signatures across the state to block implementation of the legislature’s expansion of vouchers. SOS needed 75,000 signatures and gathered 100,000.

“A law expanding Arizona’s school-voucher program was put on hold Tuesday after foes delivered 111,540 signatures to the secretary of state in hopes of giving voters the final say on whether the controversial measure should stand.

“Save Our Schools Arizona, a volunteer group that formed in opposition to Republicans’ expansion of the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, said it gathered the signatures from public-education supporters across the state who oppose using tax dollars for private-school tuition and are critical of the program’s lack of transparency.

“Supporters transported the petitions to the Capitol in 76 bankers boxes using a yellow school bus and a red wagon.

“To refer Senate Bill 1431 to the November 2018 ballot requires 75,321 valid signatures.

“The law’s implementation was immediately put on hold while the secretary of state evaluates whether Save Our Schools has met that threshold, a process that could take until the beginning of October.

“The bill made all 1.1 million Arizona students eligible to apply for the program, which grants tax dollars to parents for private school tuition or other education expenses. While broadening eligibility, the bill capped the number of recipients at 30,000 by 2022.

“Prior to expansion — which Gov. Doug Ducey and GOP lawmakers narrowly muscled through the Legislature in April — the program had been limited to certain students, including those with special needs, in poor-performing schools, or from military families.

“For now, the law is stayed,” state Elections Director Eric Spencer told members of the group.”

Categories Arizona

Ohio: “It’s Not About the %&*%$% Kids, It’s About the Money”

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2017 //
2

Denis Smith once worked in the charter office of the Ohio State Department of Education. Now that he is retired, he writes often about the scams and frauds in Ohio’s charter sector.

In this article, he points out that political contributions by its founder William Lager have greased the way for ECOT to claim hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money for a very low-performing cyber-charter.

The good news that he brings is that the Columbus Dispatch, an influential newspaper in the state, is all over the charter scams and is acting as a guardian of the public interest. Some Republicans even felt impelled to return charter money because it has become “radioactive.”

Smith says he once took a series of proposals for charter reform to a key legislator and the legislator was not interested.

That one proposal he thought would never happen was an outright ban on political contributions by charter schools and their management companies to state political parties and candidates, as they use public funds to craft state law to their liking, including more than 150 exemptions from the educational requirements provided in Section 3314 of the Ohio Revised Code.

Unless we’re terribly naïve about the corrupt, indeed corrosive effects of money on the legislature, the great Swedish pop group Abba said it best: Money, money, money/Always sunny/In the rich man’s world.

But with ECOT in seeming eclipse, perhaps things right now aren’t sunny in that rich man’s charter world. Indeed, the upcoming solar eclipse might in some way serve as a metaphor for the twilight of ECOT, and, hopefully, the mysterious, gloomy, overcast charterworld, where for nearly 20 years, anything goes.

Could it be that the corruption in the charter industry in Ohio has reached a tipping point?

Has ECOT finally gone too far?

This is a very positive development, if true.

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

John Merrow: Don’t Believe the Latest Hype About D.C.’s “Reform Successes”

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2017 //
9

John Merrow has been digging deep into the facts about the D.C schools, working with a veteran D.C. researcher and civil rights attorney, Mary Levy. Their article will appear in the next issue of The Washington Monthly. They decided to do the research and publish the results after reading Tom Toch’s paean to Michelle Rhee’s “reforms.”

Merrow jumped the gun when he read what purported to be new research about Rhee’s IMPACT teacher evaluation program, claiming that this test-based evaluation had been a great success. That did it for Merrow.

We have heard that D.C. is the fastest improving urban district in the nation. But, says Merrow, this claim must be qualified:

“Despite small overall increases, minority and low-income scores lag far behind the NAEP’s big-city average, and the already huge achievement gaps have actually widened. From 2007 to 2015, the NAEP reading scores of low-income eighth graders increased just 1 point, from 232 to 233, while scores of non-low-income students (called “others” in NAEP-speak) climbed 31 points, from 250 to 281. Over that same time period, the percentage of low-income students scoring at the “proficient” level remained at an embarrassingly low 8 percent, while proficiency among “others” climbed from 22 percent to 53 percent. An analysis of the data by race between 2007 and 2015 is also discouraging: black proficiency increased 3 points, from 8 percent to 11 percent, while Hispanic proficiency actually declined, from 18 percent to 17 percent. In 2007 the white student population was not large enough to be reported, but in 2015 white proficiency was at 75 percent.”

But hasn’t IMPACT been a huge success? No, says Merrow:

“Under Rhee and Henderson, spending on non-teaching personnel has swollen dramatically. According to the latest statistics from Census Bureau fiscal reports, DCPS central office spending in 2015 was 9.5 percent of total current expenditures, compared to 1 percent 4 or less in surrounding districts. Today DCPS central offices have one employee for every sixty-four students, a striking change over the pre-Rhee/Henderson era ratio of one to 113 students. Those central office dollars could have been used to provide wraparound social services for children, services that would have allowed teachers to be more effective.

“Many of these highly paid non-teachers spend their days watching over teachers in scheduled and unscheduled classroom observations, generally lasting about thirty minutes—not even an entire class meeting. Why so many of these teacher watchers? Because those who subscribe to top-down management do not trust teachers.”

Why are so many so eager to protect the reputation of Rhee’s reforms?

He writes:

“It’s all part of a fairly well-designed campaign to convince the world that the top-down, test-and-punish approach to fixing schools is just what the doctor ordered. It’s the reform that Democrats for Education Reform and most Republicans favor, despite strong evidence that it does not work.”

Merrow says this tale is like the blind men and the elephant. Each person picks a different part of the elephant and describes it differently.

I would say a better metaphor might be the Emperor Who Had No Clothes, or the futility of putting lipstick on a pig.

Categories Accountability, District of Columbia, Hoax, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Who Cares More About Black Children: The NAACP Or Rightwingers?

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2017 //
90

The NAACP bravely spoke out in favor of regulating charter schools to make them accountable, transparent, and subject to the same standards as public schools.

Most people would say that the NAACP’s concerns and recommendations are reasonable.

But supporters of charter schools are outraged and hysterical.

The Center for Education Reform, which has advocated for charters for more than 20 years, astonishingly called the NAACP “opportunity’s opponent.” This is a breathtakingly insulting slur coming from a conservative organization that has long been hostile to public education.

CER provides a link to other rightwing organizations that oppose the NAACP’s criticism of public schools.

Who cares more about black children?

The NAACP or the Heritage Foundation?

The NAACP or CATO?

The NAACP or Betsy DeVos?

The NAACP or hedge fund managers?

The NAACP or the Walton Family Foundation?

The NAACP or the Center for Education Reform?

The NAACP or the Thomas B. Fordham Institute?

The NAACP or the Koch brothers?

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

Mike Klonsky: Rahm Emanuel Will Lay Off Nearly 1,000 Staff in Chicago

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2017 //
9

Mike Klonsky reports that Mayor Rahm Emanuel intends to lay off nearly 1,000 staff, including 350 teachers.

The Chicago Teachers Union responded:

Once again, Mayor Emanuel has topped Governor Rauner’s ruthlessness towards Chicago’s public school students with his own savage, short-sighted response, by further stripping to the bone schools that he’s forced to function in a climate of civic abandonment and the violence that his neglect has caused. — CTU Blog

Mike Klonsky writes:

“Yes, it’s true that the lion’s share of the blame for the devastation of public education now taking place statewide, falls on our sociopathic Republican Gov. Rauner who just last week, vetoed the emergency school-funding bill. Then there’s a Democratic-Party-dominated legislature, has long been gutless when it comes to making the state’s wealthiest shoulder their fair share of the tax burden.

“But when it comes to racist duplicity, the buck stops at the fifth floor of City Hall. Why? Because this latest round of cuts, which hits hardest at predominantly African-American and Latino high school students, comes on the heels of Rahm Emanuel’s plan to make it more difficult for city students to receive their hard-earned high school diplomas.

“The mayor mandates that kids without a job offer or college acceptance can no longer graduate from high school. There’s an exception to the new rule. Enlisting in the military can fulfill the graduation requirement which could make CPS the nation’s number-one military recruiter of black and brown youth.

“Yesterday’s layoff of hundreds of staff, follows last year’s round of layoffs of 1,000 teachers and staff, including counselors, and will condemn that many more students to academic failure and loss of future college and job prospects. They’re losing the very support network needed to help them fulfill the new mandates.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Chicago, Teachers

Mateo, a YouTube Sensation: 54+ Million Views

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2017 //
7

You may have seen this already. Three-year-old Mateo makes his case for cupcakes.

“Linda, Linda, listen to me!”

It is very funny. This boy will be a great lawyer someday.

Categories Education Reform

John Oliver: Why Stephen Miller Was Not Elected President of His High School

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2017 //
21

Stephen Miller is a 31-year-old man who worked for Jeff Sessions when he was a Senator from Alabama. Now he works in the White House and is rumored to be in line to be the next Communications Director.

Miller is the guy who explained why the Emma Lazarus poem attached to the Statue of Liberty is no longer relevant. That won him plaudits from his colleagues.

John Oliver somehow obtained a tape that was made when Stephen Miller ran for Class President of his high school in uber-privileged Santa Monica. Watch it and you will understand why he was attracted to Sessions, Bannon, and Trump.

By the way, John Oliver’s takedown of rightwing talkshow host Alex Jones (the guy who spread the vicious claim that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax) is well worth watching. In fact, it is both informative and hilarious. If you watch, watch it to the very end, where Oliver does a very funny parody sketch.

Categories Education Reform

Valerie Strauss: What Betsy DeVos Has Accomplished in Six Months

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2017 //
8

Valerie Strauss describes the accomplishments of Betsy DeVos in her short time as Education Secretary. Most would think that such a list would cover less than a page, because none of her priorities has been enacted into law. Fortunately.

But don’t be fooled. She has used the “bully pulpit” to send her message: Choice. Choice. Charters. Vouchers. Charters. Vouchers. Tax credits. Charters. Vouchers. Choice. Choice. Choice.

She has also intervened in telling states how to fix their schools under the Every Student Succeeds Act, which is contrary to the letter and spirit of the law. Then there is the fact that she doesn’t have a clue about how to fix any school, other than closing it down and giving everyone a voucher to a private or religious school.

She has made clear that civil rights enforcement is not high on her list of priorities. In cases of rape, she and her designated Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights have aligned themselves with the alleged perpetrators, not the victims.

She even endorsed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord on climate change. The irony, of course, is that she claims to be encouraging girls to go into STEM fields (aided by that great scientist Ivanka Trump), even as she denies the science of climate change, of evolution, and of anything that is not in accord with her religious views.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, School Choice, Science, STEM, Vouchers

An All-Purpose Guide for a New Era of Direct Action and Resistance

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2017 //
12

It is no secret that everything in the public sector is under assault by the forces of privatization and greed. Public schools, public infrastructure, public libraries, public airport, everything that is funded and controlled by public authorities is up for grabs. Given that all three branches are controlled by the same party and that the Supreme Court will increasingly lean to the right, it is important that citizens take action.

Here is a manual for direct and nonviolent action written by a veteran of the struggles of the 1960s.

One thing is easier now: to create virtually instant mass protests, as was done by the admirable Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration. If one-off protests could produce major changes in society we would simply focus on that, but I know of no country that has undergone major change (including ours) through one-off protests. Contesting with opponents to win major demands requires more staying power than protests provide. One-off protests do not comprise a strategy, they are simply a repetitive tactic.

Fortunately, we can learn something about strategy from the U.S. civil rights movement. What did work for them in facing an almost overwhelming array of forces was a particular technique known as the escalating nonviolent direct action campaign. Some might call the technique an art form instead, because effective campaigning is more than mechanical.

Since that 1955-65 decade we’ve learned much more about how powerful campaigns build powerful movements leading to major change. Some of those lessons are here.

The manual is short. It offers valuable lessons about how to organize a resistance movement.

There are many fronts on which this current struggle will be and is being waged. For readers of this blog, the central issue is the survival of public schools, democratically controlled and governed.

The privatization movement is well organized and well funded. The entering wedge for privatization is the misuse of testing to defame teachers and schools. The entry point for privatization is charter schools. Then cyber charters, then vouchers. It is a continuum. The goal is to take tax money away from public schools and direct it to privately managed schools, private schools, religious schools, and tax dodges for the wealthy whose money is then used to support vouchers.

The Network for Public Education is dedicated to preserving and improving public schools. We are not satisfied with them as they are today. For one thing, they are burdened by the detritus of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act. We must fight for them or lose them. The time is now.

Join NPE at its annual conference in Oakland, California, in mid-October. Meet your allies. We will join together to support our schools and our democracy.

Categories Democracy, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Resistance

Laura Chapman on Charter Scams and Frauds

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2017 //
16

 

 

Our faithful friend Laura Chapman writes:

“There is a hybrid model for charter school development. Real estate is only one part of it. It has multiple components.

The charter company has its own land acquisition arm, its own construction contracts, has a master architectural plan for the design of the school facility (K-8), has a “services” arm for front and back office operations, vendors for components of the preferred curriculum, managerial schemes for accountability and marketing, templates for outsourcing transportation, and a legal firm at the ready to draft very specific policies bearing on attendance, conduct of students and staff, and so on.

A school “district” for the charter school is informally defined by a specific recruiting area for students and by the availability of land for development. Development includes getting subcontractors for school construction, operation, and services such as meals and transportation. The charter school and its self-defined district may have more than one school and the charter district may overlap one or more regular public school districts (compete for those public school students).

Here is one example of the model, developed by Athlos Academies.

First, there is no special focus on low-income neighborhoods. The Athlos Leadership Academy operates in a north Minneapolis suburb that overlaps school districts for Maple Grove, Brooklyn Park, and Falcon Heights. All have relatively low poverty rates. In Falcon Heights the median home value is $323, 805. Maple Grove’s poverty rate is below 5%.

The governing board for the Athlos Leadership Academy is elected. The policy states: “Those eligible to vote for the governing board for the school are restricted to staff members, board members, and parents or legal guardians of children enrolled at the school. … Voters will need to show a photo ID in order to verify voting eligibility. ALA seeks school board nominees with professional experience in business, marketing, law, accounting, fundraising, education, and human resources. The ALA Board is comprised of community, parent, and teacher board members with professional expertise in one or more of the aforementioned categories.”

Second, the Athlos model clearly separates Management decisions from Governance. Governance for ALA means that board points to an issue and a law firm is contracted to write up a policy, citing any federal regulations or state statutes that may be relevant. “Thin” democracy works for the governance of the school. Management is everything else.

Third, in addition to marketing specific features of an Atlos curriculum (see below) the Atlos Model includes a full-service multi-stage package for starting a school.“ This includes everything from developing a charter application and building a facility, to school operations and educating students.”

A complete package of Athlos Academies services includes:<br />PRE-APPROVAL SERVICES: Charter application development; Authorizer approval assistance; Board governance training.

PRE-OPENING SERVICES: Site identification, Facility construction, Lease agreement, Board policy development, Board training and cultivation, Budget development, School launch, Staff professional training, Staff and student recruitment.

OPERATIONAL SERVICES: Bond market assistance; Research-based curriculum; Professional development; Website, email, social media, and marketing; Payroll processing and benefit management; Budgeting and financial management; Uniforms for purchase; Data reporting tools. https://athlosacademies.org/start-a-school.

Fourth, the Athlos charter model appeals to parents/caregivers who want a school that offers a “three pillar” program with an explicit focus on character education, healthy living and physical fitness, and academics.

Pillar One. The Character Curriculum is present in every grade. “Athlos Character is part of a formal, year-long curriculum. Our proprietary lesson plans identify 12 essential performance traits.” (e.g., Grit, Self-control, Optimism, Leadership, Social Intelligence, Courage, Focus, Integrity, and Humility ). “These concepts become part of daily academic instruction and athletic activities.” The traits are taught through “Character Huddles” where “performance attributes” are discussed in relation to student goals and other real-life examples. “Reflections” are re-teaching exercises lead by students. “These are the strengths and skills that social researchers identify with success—far more so than an academic GPA. And they act as the foundation Athlos Leadership Academy uses to point our students toward success.”

Pillar Two. The Athletic Curriculum is a fitness and health program—not training for sports, although some team sports are included for “fun” and to teach the virtues of team play and competition. The program is intended to support the Academic Curriculum, reinforce the Character Curriculum, and ”create good habits, improve skills, and promote healthy bodies.” This aspect of the program is marketed as essential for mental, emotional, and social well-being, not just for physical fitness and health.

Pillar Three. The Academic Curriculum. This will vary by state, with non-standard components and topics developed as needed. So far, the Athlos Curriculum Model is for Pre-Kingergarten to grade eight. I analyzed the curriculum components.

The curriculum is keyed to college preparation with one target, high scores on PSAT, SAT, and ACT tests. The curriculum uses Common Core resources in language arts and mathematics, along with vocabulary exercises drawn from Core Knowledge. Science modules and hands-on kits of materials were developed at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California. Traditional skills in cursive writing are part of the program.

I estimated that the instructional resources—some with scripted lessons, posters, worksheets, online digital materials—would require contracts for at least twenty vendors, some of these very well known, including Pearson, Prentice Hall, and Scott Foresman.

You can see that the facilities are designed as if for a suburban community and to compete with schools that taxpayers have financed. https://athlosacademies.org/schools-our-facilities/

The founders of the Althos Model are claiming to be on a social mission. The mission is market-based education with a full-service operation that prevents public participation in anything except supplying funds to combine with those of venture capitalists.

http://thecharterschoolfund.com/index.html

Categories Education Reform
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