Archives for the month of: August, 2017
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North Carolina: The Great Voucher Hoax

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2017 //
26

The News-Observer of North Carolina, one of the state’s leading newspapers, published an excellent editorial decrying the state’s ill-conceived voucher program. The editorial board recognizes that the purpose of the voucher program is nothing more nor less than to cripple the state’s once-highly regarded public schools, which have done so much to build the state’s economy over the past century.

The voucher is worth all of $4,200, and it does not include the cost of items such as transportation or food. What kind of school can provide a good education on that small amount of money? Over the next decade, the costs of vouchers will increase every year, at the expense of the state’s public schools. A large part of the voucher funding will go to subsidize the tuition of students who are already enrolled in private schools. The newspaper predicts that none of the voucher students will enroll in the elite private schools where wealthy Republicans send their own children.

There’s a cynical side to this entire program as well. Yes, the $4,200 can cover a lot of expense at small church schools, for example, but wealthy Republicans aren’t going to see any of the Opportunity Scholarship recipients in the state’s most exclusive private schools, the ones that cater to wealthy families. Tuition in those schools is often $20,000 and above.

Parents with kids in public schools where arts and physical education programs are threatened, where the best teachers are leaving the profession to earn a better living, might point directly to Republicans in the General Assembly as the culprits. This voucher program was little more than a slap at public schools, which Republicans have targeted since taking control of the General Assembly in 2011.

Republicans in North Carolina should be ashamed of themselves for passing vouchers. The schools that accept voucher students are far inferior to the state’s public schools. Their curriculum, their programs, their teachers, their extracurricular activities, their provision for students with special needs–all are inferior to the state’s public schools.

Those who voted for this program and who vote to harm public schools should be voted out of office. Their goal is not to offer opportunity to students who are poor and struggling; their goal is privatization, regardless of the consequences for the children and the state.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article165488352.html#storylink=cpy

Categories North Carolina, Vouchers

The NAACP Report: Why Are Charter Supporters Complaining?

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2017 //
14

Please read the NAACP report on charter schools.

Ever since it was released, charter supporters have complained bitterly about the report and accused the NAACP of being paid off by the unions.

This is ridiculous. It is a sound and sober report.

Consider its recommendations.

1. There should be more equitable and adequate funding for schools serving children of color. The school finance system is extremely unfair and inequitable over states, districts, and schools. School funding in 36 states has not returned to its pre-2008 levels, when budgets were slashed. Federal funds in real dollar amounts have declined for Title I and special education over the same period.

Do charter supporters disagree?

2. School finance reform is needed to ensure that dollars go where the needs are greatest.

Do charter supporters disagree?

3. Invest in low-performing schools and in schools that have a significant opportunity to close achievement gaps. “Students learn in safe, supportive, and challenging learning environments under the tutelage of well-prepared caring adults.” Authorities must invest in incentives to attract and retain “fully qualified educators”; they must invest in creating instructional quality that provides a stimulating and challenging learning environment; they must invest in wraparound services that meet the need of children, including early childhood education, health and mental services, extended learning time, and social supports.

Do charter supports disagree? What would they object to? Maybe they would reject the idea that teachers should be “fully qualified,” since that might be a slap at Teach for America’s teachers, who are never fully qualified when they begin teaching.

4. Mandate a rigorous authorizing and renewal process. States with the fewest authorizers have the best charters. Only local school districts should be allowed to authorize charters, based on their needs.

This would be a problem for many charters, because they like it when there are many authorizers, and they can go shopping to find one that will give them an okay. They hate being overseen by local districts, because they see themselves as competitors to public schools, not collaborators. But that is part of what makes charters obnoxious.

5. Eliminate for-profit charter schools and for-profit charter management companies that control nonprofit charters. Not a dollar of federal, state or local money should go to for-profit charters. The report notes that the widespread reports of misconduct of for-profit charters and their for-profit managers is reason enough to forbid them. As for-profits, they have an “inherent conflict of interest,” and may well put the interest of their investors over those of students.

Do charter supporters disagree? Obviously, this is a sticking point for many charter supporters, including Betsy DeVos, who welcomes for-profit charters. More than 80% of the charters in her home state of Michigan operate for profit, and they get poor results. That doesn’t bother her at all. It bothers the NAACP.

Now, I ask you, what part of these five recommendations suggests that the NAACP is wrong? That it was doing the bidding of teachers’ unions? Is it so objectionable to charter advocates to propose that children should be taught by fully qualified educators? Are they prepared to fight for teachers who are not fully qualified?

Later in the report, on page 26, is an expanded discussion of the recommendations, including a recommendation that charters hire only certified teachers and that charters abide by common standards for reporting on disciplinary practices and admitting and retaining students.

I commend the NAACP for its common sense proposals to reform the charter sector.

Are charter advocates prepared to go to the mat to defend for-profit operations?

What part of this report and its recommendations has lit a fire of outrage in charter land?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Discipline and Suspensions, Education Industry, Privatization

Borowitz Report: Pence Considering a Run for Presidency–in 1820

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
9

Andy Borowitz, a humorist for The New Yorker, writes today that Mike Pence is seriously considering a run for the Presidency–in 1820.

According to several prominent Republican donors, Pence is already laying the groundwork for such a campaign, outlining what he believes are the most serious challenges facing 1820 America.

In a conference call with donors last week, Pence reportedly said that, as President, his No. 1 priority would be to repeal and replace the Bill of Rights.

He offered a sneak preview of a potential 1820 stump speech, in which he unleashed a brutal attack on the Bill of Rights’ author, James Madison, and called for the development of the telegraph key.

This satire reminds us that Trump has no ideology; he just does whatever he thinks will appease his evangelical base. Pence, however, is deeply ideological. He is no joke.

Categories Education Reform

Colorado: “The Most Important School Board Race” in the Nation

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
3

Douglas County, Colorado, will have a crucial election this fall between its current board majority and challengers. Some say it is the most important school board race in the nation.

Douglas County is the most affluent school district in the state. Yet wealthy Coloradans have showered money on pro-privatization school board members and candidates. On the other side is a pro-public education slate.

The rightwing majority consists of four members on a board of seven. The majority created a voucher program. Its anti-teachers policies have led to a high rate of exodus by experienced teachers.

The Douglas County voucher program is currently under appeal in federal courts.

Two slates are competing in the race for school board.

The differences between them are stark if you read this perceptive article. One is tied to corporate reform/Republican circles, the other is actually pro-public school.

Categories Colorado, Education Industry, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Politico: Colorado Voucher Case Will Be Crucial in Fight Against Privatization of Public Funding

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
13

Politico reports this morning (open the link for many other links–and for an important story about an online for-profit “university’s” struggle to hold on to federal funding):

RESET ON COLORADO VOUCHER CASE STARTS THIS WEEK: A high-profile school voucher case that had made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court is in district court in Colorado this week after the high court justices kicked it back in light of their June ruling in a Missouri case that religious institutions cannot be excluded from state programs with a purely secular intent. The case, out of the Douglas County School District, represents school choice advocates’ next best shot at scrapping constitutional provisions in 39 states known as “Blaine Amendments” that prohibit public money from aiding religious organizations, including private schools.

– Last week, the Colorado Supreme Court, which had been ordered to take another look at the case, sent it back to the Denver district court. In 2015, the Colorado Supreme Court found that a voucher program in which the majority of participating students elected to attend a private, religious school was in conflict with the state’s bar on tax dollars going to religious groups. Attorneys for the taxpayer group challenging the voucher program said in a notice filed last week that they will contact the trial court judge’s chambers this week to start work on scheduling a status conference.

– The voucher program at the center of the case is also shaping up to be the central issue in a Douglas County school board race. Three of the board’s four pro-voucher incumbents are up for reelection this year, the Colorado Independent reports, and the race to fill those seats is already crowded with voucher opponents, including one of the plaintiffs in the court case. The state’s former Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler, who lives in Douglas County, called the election “the most important school board election in the country,” the Independent reports. More on that here.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Privatization

Wendy Lecker: Real Reform Must Come from Within the District, Not by External Imposition

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
6

Wendy Lecker is a civil rights lawyer who writes frequently about education issues.

In this article, published in the Stamford (Ct.) Advocate, Lecker describes the imposed reforms that breed resentment and failure, not better education.

Corporate reform has been a disaster. Its day of reckoning cannot be indefinitely postponed. The corporate reformers fail and fail and fail, and continue to push their failed ideas.

Connecticut is a state that experienced major corruption in the charter industry. It is also a state with excellent public schools. Why not use the depth of knowledge and experience to help the neediest districts instead of parceling students out to private management?

Lecker writes:

The State Board of Education’s recent rubber-stamping of Capital Prep Harbor charter school’s expansion in Bridgeport is yet another example of a common theme in education reform: trampling community will. Capital Prep, which opened in 2015 over the objection the Bridgeport’s Board of education and community members, does not reflect the community. The school serves no English Language Learners, though 15 percent of Bridgeport’s students are ELL. The school has a 37 percent out-of-school suspension rate, over twice the rate in Bridgeport’s public schools.

Bridgeport’s Board of Education unanimously opposed the school’s expansion. Bridgeport already must pay several million dollars annually to charters. As the superintendent testified, the expansion will drain an additional $200,000 from Bridgeport’s budget; money it cannot afford. Last year, owing to decreased state funding, Bridgeport had to fill a $16 million budget gap. The state board ignored Bridgeport’s needs.

As recent education reform failures demonstrate, robbing local districts of decision-making power over education policies is a recipe for disaster. By contrast, reforms that emanate from the school districts themselves have shown success.

The ultimate in top-down reform for struggling districts is state takeover. Two much-hyped state takeovers occurred in Tennessee — the Achievement School District (“ASD”), and Detroit — the Educational Achievement Authority (“EAA”). After years of consistent failure, both recently closed, returning control of schools to the districts.

ASD and EAA employed reform’s “greatest hits.” Outside managers were hired to run the districts. Charter schools proliferated. They used ill-trained Teach for America recruits.

EAA also employed “student-centered” “personalized” computer-based learning, which caused 10,000 struggling students to fall further behind academically.

Both “reform districts” were plagued with high teacher turnover, a major factor in their failures, and rampant financial mismanagement.

State takeover made things worse for students in the ASD and EAA. In 2015, only one fourth-grader in Detroit’s EAA passed the state math test. After years of EAA control, only three of the 15 EAA schools moved off the list of the lowest 5 percent in the state. In Tennessee, the results were similar, with the ASD’s charter schools performing the worst.

She continues:

At the same time, officials ignore the slow and steady progress made by districts that engage in home-grown educational improvement. Long Beach, California, and Union City, New Jersey, are good examples. Both districts are diverse and majority economically disadvantaged. Yet both have been able to sustain improvement by focusing on the unique needs and strengths of their communities…

In contrast to failed state takeovers, that leave children and communities behind in their wake, district-led improvement methods have staying power precisely because they use the needs of their children and communities as their starting point. It is a shame that Connecticut officials ignore our own local, well-informed voices.

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Peter Greene: The Dirty Secret of the Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
21

Peter Greene identifies the dirty secret of the charter industry. Two words. Real estate.

In Ohio, a charter lobbyist wrote the charter law for the state. When a charter operator insisted that he owned everything the charter bought with public money, the courts upheld him. It was in the law.

In Pennsylvania, charter schools own the property where the charter school is housed, and they charge rent. They charge rents above the market rate. The state doesn’t ask questions. The state doesn’t even notice that the charter operator owns the property and pays himself rent.

Greene offers a few examples from across the nation, and he didn’t even include Florida, where the charter scams are commonplace:

Carl Paladino, the notorious bad boy of the Buffalo school board, has made a mint in charter-related real estate deals. Not only does Paladino build the charters and lease them, but he builds the new apartment buildings near the shiny new school– a one-man gentrification operation. And he sits on the public school board, where he can vote to approve and support the growth of charters.

That’s not even the most astonishing sort of charter real estate scam. A 2015 report from the National Education Policy Center outlined what might be the worst. Take a public school building, built and paid for with public tax dollars. That building is purchased by a charter school, which is using public tax dollars. At the end of this, you’ve got a building that the public has paid for twice– but does not now own.

In February of this year, researchers Preston Green, Bruce Baker and Joseph Oluwole dropped the provocative notion that charter schools may be the new Enron. It’s a lot to take in, but Steven Rosenfeld pulled out five takeaways for Alternet, if you’d like a quicker look. But just some little factoids give you a taste. For instance, Imagine Schools take 40% of the money they collect from taxpayers and put that right back into lease agreements. In Los Angeles, owners of a private school leased room on their campus for a charter school that they were also involved in running– then jacked that rent up astronomically.

His article has links. Follow them. This is the most underreported story of the charter world: The big money is in the real estate, not necessarily the students.

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

Buying and Selling Charter Schools as Investment Properties: A Repellent Practice

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
8

A school should be the anchor of its community. It should be a place where children and families feel welcome, a place where they learn to work and engage with others who are different from themselves but share common concerns. A public school is a mainstay of our democracy, because for many people, it is the first place where they have a chance to learn and work with others to achieve their goals for their community.

But read this story, and what do you see? Two charter schools were sold to an eager investor.

Colliers International Education Services Group brokered the sale of two Florida charter schools totaling 134,000 square feet. ESJ Capital Partners and MG3 Developer Group sold the properties for $30.5 million to AEP Charter KCC II LLC and AEP Charter Renaissance LLC, entities affiliated with Portland-based Charter School Capital, according to public records.

The assets included in the transaction are the 105,002-square-foot Renaissance Charter School at University located at 8399 N. University Drive in Tamarac, Fla., and the 28,998-square-foot Kid’s Community College Southeast Riverview at 11515 and 11519 McMullen Road in Riverview, Fla. Charter School Capital’s facilities arm, American Education Properties, paid $22.3 million for the Renaissance property and $8.2 million for the Kid’s Community College asset.

SKILLED MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATIONS

Renaissance Charter School at University opened in 2012 and will serve 1,426 students in the 2017-2018 school year. Managed by Charter Schools USA, the building was built in 1982 and underwent renovations in 2015. Kid’s Community College Southeast Riverview opened in 2003 and is slated to serve 397 students in the 2017-2018 school year. It is independently operated by Kid’s Community College, a charter management organization that manages a total of eight charter schools serving Pre-K through high school.

As part of the acquisition, Charter School Capital assumed the existing 20-year leases on both schools, which expire in 2032 and 2033, respectively. Charter schools have enjoyed rising popularity in the state since their inception in 1996. The deal is indicative of the continued interest in educational-based real estate.

“We enjoyed working once again with ESJ and MG3 to arrive at terms that will give the charter school operators the peace of mind that comes in knowing their facilities are securely theirs to operate for years to come,” said Stuart Ellis, president & CEO of Charter School Capital, in a prepared statement.

Todd Noel, executive vice president & national director of the Education Services Group based out of Phoenix, along with Achikam Yogev, senior vice president based in South Florida, represented the seller in the transaction. ESJ Capital Partners is the manager of ESJ Real Estate Fund LLC and focuses on investing in charter schools and medical office buildings. Charter School Capital provides growth capital and facilities financing services to charter schools.

GROWING INVESTOR INTEREST
“Because of the complexities, charter schools have traditionally sold individually and rarely as a portfolio, but the continued interest in this asset class has paved the way for more creative strategies and more complex deals being done on behalf of our clients,” stated Yogev, in prepared remarks.

This isn’t the first deal between ESJ Capital Partners and Charter School Capital. The Aventura-based investment advisor sold a portfolio of five Florida charter schools in November 2016 to Charter School Capital in a $72 million transaction.

No surprise, it happened in Florida, where charter schools open and close with unsurprising rapidity. They are not the anchor of their community. They are exemplars of commerce and consumerism.

My reaction on reading this story: revulsion. It is stories like this that persuades me that the very concept of charter schools is wrong, especially when they operate for-profit and when they are part of a corporate chain. They are not about education; they are not about learning; they are not about children; they are about money and profit.

Allowing the education of American children to be distorted by this greedy industry is a blight on American society.

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

Denis Smith: How Charter Schools Expose Republican Hypocrisy

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2017 //
21

Denis Smith explains how the charter industry has exposed Republican hypocrisy in his state of Ohio. As readers will be quick to point out, charters have also exposed the hypocrisy of Democrats who have jumped on the money train and sold out minority children, public education and unions.

To track the rise of the charter industry, follow the money and campaign contributions. In Ohio, politicians sell themselves for far less than in New York.

Consider this:

“In a page one article detailing the history of the notorious online charter school ECOT, the Columbus Dispatch published a detailed review of this operation that has been efficiently sucking up the low hanging fruit otherwise known as public tax dollars since 2000. In the last four years alone, that low hanging fruit has generated more $100 million annually for ECOT founder Bill Lager’s charter school companies, allowing him to maintain a very comfortable lifetstyle in several luxury residences, including one in Key West, Florida. In return, Lager has donated more than $2 million to the Ohio GOP and its candidates.”

So Lager gives a total of $2 million and in return he collects $100 million annually. That’s quite a handsome return on his investment. No wonder so many entrepreneurs want into the action.

Categories Corruption, Deregulation, Education Reform, For-Profit, Ohio

In Michigan, Few Want to Become Teachers: Thanks, Betsy DeVos, Rick Snyder, and Arne Duncan!

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2017 //
45

Alternet published an article about the dire condition of teachers and teaching in Michigan. Nancy Derringer describes the growing crisis over the future of the profession in a state that treats teachers like Kleenex.

The legislature has hacked away at teacher benefits, and would-be teachers have gotten the message.

The latest data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Title II program, which supports teacher training and professional development, show enrollment in teacher prep at the college level is falling, sharply in some states. In Michigan, 11,099 students were enrolled in the state’s 39 teacher-prep programs in 2014-15, the most recent data available. That is a 3,273-student decline from just two years previous, in 2012-13. Since 2008, the total number of Michigan college students studying to become a teacher is down more than 50 percent.

Michigan State University saw its teacher-prep enrollment fall 45 percent between 2010 and 2014, from 1,659 to 911. Grand Valley State University’s tumbled by 67 percent, from 751 to 248 in the same period. Only the University of Michigan-Dearborn and Central Michigan University saw increases, of 39 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Whether these numbers portend a coming teacher shortage is unclear. But it does reflect a trend that has been ongoing for some time, said Abbie Groff-Blaszak, director of the Office of Educator Talent with the state Department of Education. Not only are fewer aspiring teachers entering programs, but fewer are completing them, and there’s been a decrease in teaching certificates issued by the DOE.

The combination of Betsy DeVos, Rick Snyder, and Arne Duncan has been deadly for the teaching profession:

The push to improve student test scores, particularly among low-income students, has led to a number of changes that put more accountability on teachers. Groff-Blaszak said the decline in enrollment has tracked with Race to the Top reforms, which in addition to rewarding excellent educators, also provides for the removal of ineffective ones. Such reforms have not been universally embraced, for fear that they are a cover for sapping the power of unions, or holding teachers accountable, via testing, for factors they say they have little control over.

And before they even become teachers, teacher prep students must pass the state’s Professional Readiness Exam, which was toughened in recent years in an effort to raise teaching standards. In 2013-14, its first year, fewer than a third of students attempting it passed on their first try. At Western Michigan University, education students must pass the PRE and maintain a 3.0 average, said Marcia Fetters, the school’s associate dean and director of teacher education.

“When I entered teaching in 1982, there was no GPA requirement,” Fetters said, who described the current PRE, which tests math skills, reading and writing, as “infamous.”

“I don’t know how valid the test is to serve as a predictor of student performance in a teacher-ed program,” said Fetters. “On the one hand, we only want the qualified, but at the same time, if the test itself is not valid? We have had complaints.”

For charter school teachers, the situation is even more dire. They get little or no mentoring or support. Turnover among staff is high. And salaries are lower than in public schools.

Does anyone in Michigan care about educating the next generation of students? Apparently not.

Categories Michigan, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching
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