Archives for the month of: December, 2017
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Federal Government Switches Sides on Janus Decision, Opposes Union Dues

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2017 //
18

The federal government has switched sides on the Janus decision, and will now argue that people should not be required to pay union dues. The purpose of the Janus offense is to cripple unions, which usually support Democrats in political campaigns. Like others on the far right, the federal government is now opposed to unions.

Although Janus bases his appeal on free speech grounds, meaning he does not want to pay for speech he does not agree with, most union members do not pay for political action.

The Trump administration has weighed in against continuing mandatory union dues for public workers, a shift in the federal government’s position ahead of upcoming Supreme Court arguments in the much-watched Janus case.
Solicitor General Noel Francisco filed a brief Thursday supporting Mark Janus, an Illinois state worker who argues it’s a violation of the First Amendment to force him to pay dues that support a union that advocates positions Janus himself doesn’t support.

The First Amendment establishes a “bedrock principle” that except in “the rarest of circumstances,” no one should be compelled to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she doesn’t wish to support, the government’s brief says, quoting an earlier Supreme Court ruling.

“That principle has added force when applied to the compelled subsidization of speech on public issues, which lies at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection and triggers demanding scrutiny,” the government said, urging the court to overturn a precedent from the 1970s known as Abood that set up the current system.

Public-sector employees, including teachers, are forced to pay most union dues every year in about 20 states. Those who are opposed may opt out of paying for “political” activities. Janus and others argue that funding even basic union duties, like negotiating wages, benefits, and layoff rules, are inherently political in public-sector unions because they affect government policy and funding.

The filing is a departure from the position the Obama administration took in similar cases in recent years in which it supported the continuation of mandatory dues, sometimes called “fair share” fees.

In other words, Janus wants the benefits that his union wins for him, but he doesn’t want to pay any dues to the union.

This court case is purely political. It is an effort to try to crush unions so that employees have no rights.

As Gordon Lafer writes in his important book, The One Percent Solution, the reason that corporations, ALEC, and right-wingers attack unions is because unions raise the aspirations and expectations of non-union workers. Union workers have health benefits, pensions, and higher wages. Non-union workers want the same. If unions are crushed, all workers will see a downward trend in the terms of their employment. They will be at-will employees with no rights. There will be a revolution of declining expectations.

Categories Education Reform

David C. Berliner on the Latest International Test Scores: It’s Poverty, Not Common Core, That Matters

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2017 //
15

A few days ago, I wrote a post speculating about whether Common Core had caused the decline in forth grade reading scores on the latest international test.

David C. Berliner, one of our nation’s most distinguished social scientists, wrote to say that Common Core is not the culprit; demographics is.

I stand corrected.

He writes:

It may be, as you posit, that the introduction of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) had its effects on our PIRLS scores. But before you or any others of us worry about our latest PIRLS scores, and the critics start the usual attacks on our public schools, remember this: Standardized Achievement Tests are quite responsive to demographics, and not very sensitive at all to what teachers and schools accomplish.

With that in mind, let’s ask first what the average score for the USA was in comparison to a few other nations that we often think of as high performing nations. On the paper and pencil version of PIRLS 2016 the USA achieved a score 549. (There was also an e-version of the test reported separately, but nothing in that analysis contradicts anything I say below) Singapore, however, scored 576, Hong Kong scored 569, and Finland scored 566. Clearly these other nations exhibited considerably higher scores than did the USA. Our public schools would seem to be doing something wrong. Perhaps it is related to the introduction of the CCSS. But since demographics are powerful influences on Standardized Achievement Test scores, let’s break down the US PIRLS scores by some of the demographic information that we have available to us.

First, we can note that Asian Americans scored 591. That is, our Asians beat the hell out of Asian Asians! Since the vast majority of Asian Americans go to public school it would appear that there isn’t much of anything wrong with the public schools they go to, nor can the curriculum in use in those schools be bad, even if it is the CCSS. And from Asian American achievement in literacy, we must acknowledge that the skills of their reading teachers appear to be more than adequate.

White kids in the USA, taken as a group, are generally wealthier than non-whites. How did white kids do on PIRLS? They scored 571, close to Singapore, and better than Hong Kong and Finland. Since white kids make up something like 50% of the public school population of the USA, we can say that about half of our school kids, about 25 million or so, are, on average, high performing students in the area of reading—whatever the method chosen to teach them.

How do kids in schools where there is little poverty do on PIRLS? The data tell us that in schools where there are fewer than 10 percent of the students on free and reduced lunch, students had a score of 587—handily beating Singapore, Hong Kong, and Finland. In fact, even higher average scores were found in in schools that cater to upper middle-class kids, schools where the poverty rate is between 10 and 24 percent. That very large group of American public school kids scored 592, handily exceeding the schools that serve even wealthier families, and easily beating the two Asian nations and Finland. Furthermore, there was also a group of kids from schools where 25 to 50 percent of the kids were considered to be in poverty because they were eligible for free and reduced lunch. These were schools that clearly do not cater to the very wealthy. Yet they scored 566, the same as Finland, a nation we always look up to and one with childhood poverty rates of about 4%.

So why did the USA, overall, look mediocre in score and rank on this test? I think it is for the same reason that we always look mediocre in score and rank on PISA! It’s our social and economic systems, not our schools, that cause lower scores than is desired by our nation.

Poor kids in general, but often Black and Hispanic kids in particular, do not grow up in the same kinds of stable families and secure neighborhoods that are more likely to nurture higher levels of school achievement. It’s not America’s schools that are a problem: its America’s social, economic, and housing policies that are our educational problem. While Singapore and Hong Kong both have disturbingly high poverty rates, compared to Finland, both are so small that poor and rich live in proximity to each other. Thus, there is a lot more mixing of children from different social classes and ethnicities than is true in the USA, where income determines housing and housing determines schooling. Here, schools that predominantly serve poor and minority kids, and schools that predominantly serve wealthier kids, are the rule, not that exception. It seems clear to me that those demographic realities are the predominant determinants of scores on Standardized Achievement Tests—be they domestic (NAEP, ACT, SATs) or international (PISA, PIRLS).

So, if we want better scores on such tests, we need to get off the backs of teachers and schools. Our teachers and schools are presently educating a high percentage of our kids to very high levels of literacy. But that is not true for another high percentage of our kids. What we need to help those kids is to exert a lot more influence on our nations politicians to give us the equitable society that will promote higher achievement for all our citizens.

David C. Berliner
Regents’ Professor Emeritus,
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College,
Arizona State University,
Tempe, AZ 85287

Categories Equity, International, Testing

Chicago: Claypool Resigns as CEO of Schools

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
11

Forrest Claypool, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, resigned following an ethics investigation critical of him. Rahm Emanuel applauded his performance, which was marked by cost-cutting. He will be succeeded by Janice Jackson, chief academic officer and a graduate of CPS.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/under-fire-forrest-claypool-resigns-as-chicago-schools-250000-ceo/

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Budget Cuts, Emanuel, Rahm

Bill Phillis: Betsy DeVos Never Heard of “the Common Good”

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
10

Bill Phillis is a tireless crusader for public schools in Ohio.

He writes:

“U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ troubling remarks at Jeb Bush’s November 30 National Summit on Education Reform”

“Not a word praising the great American public school system which still educates 90% of America’s children. Not a word about the low performance and corruption in the charter industry.

“The take away of her remarks is students before systems. These are code words for privatizing public school districts.

“The clever little talking point-students before systems-assumes the “system” is inferior and broken. It suggests the “system” harms students and the lack of a system inherently benefits students. In general, choice alternatives to the public “system” are inferior, and often corrupt.

“Suppose the Ohio Department of Highways would farm out part of its funds and operation to individuals and private groups. This would put private citizens before the “system.” Transportation voucher holders could build a road in front of their respective properties. The transportation charter groups could build roads connecting their properties. Although this arrangement would be disastrous, privatizers could use the argument that it puts individuals before the system.

“Privatization of public services diminishes the function and efficacy of “community” at the local, state and national levels. It disrupts the balance between individual benefits and the public good. Billionaires like Betsy DeVos may not understand the need for community building and maintenance.”

William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540 | ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net|

Ohio E & A, 100 S. 3rd Street, Columbus, OH 43215

Constant Contact
Try it free today

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Larry Lee Reports from Alabama on the End of an Ugly Political Season

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
9

My good friend Larry Lee lives in Alabama and blogs about education.

We have been exchanging emails about the Senate election, but I could tell Larry was getting fed up. The polls have swung back and forth, and no one knows who will win. My view, for what it’s worth, is that if Roy Moore wins, he will be an albatross for the entire Republican Party. If they couldn’t bring themselves to disown a man who was twice thrown off the State Supreme Court for refusing to obey the law, a man who hates Muslims and gays, a man who longs for the good old days of slavery, then the party stands for nothing but ambition and power.

Larry finally broke down and wrote about the election.

Categories Alabama, Republicans

Rochester, New York: Developer of Gulen School Pockets $300,00 Profit in Sweet Deal

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
10

One of the biggest scandals associated with charter school finances has to do with “related parties.” That means that the school engages in financial transactions with a “related party” and money changes hands and ends up in the pockets of friends.

The Gulen schools are one of the nations’ largest charter chains. They are somehow associated or owned by the imam Fethullah Gulen, who lives in seclusion in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. General Michael Flynn apparently offered to extradite Gulen because the Turkish Government blames Gulen for a failed coup. Gulen schools have been accused of hiring Turkish contractors who were not the low bidders on contracts. You can tell a Gulen Charter by the large number of Turks on the board of directors and Turkish teachers.

In Rochester, New York, the local newspaper has uncovered a shady deal between related parties involving a Gulen charter school.

The story reads in part:

“A real estate holding company based in Syracuse cleared more than $300,000 in profit at the expense of a charter school in Greece earlier this year, according to real estate and financial records obtained by the Democrat and Chronicle.

“Both the company, Terra Science and Education Inc., and Rochester Academy Charter School, which opened in 2008 as the first local charter high school, have evident connections with each other, and broadly with the nebulous network of Fethullah Gulen, the reclusive and controversial Turkish cleric living in exile in rural Pennsylvania.

“Both the school and Terra deny there is a connection, but the D&C investigation has found numerous examples of overlapped personnel, lax invoicing, a lack of auditing and shared community affiliations.

“Many Gulen-suspected schools across the country have entered into questionable real estate transactions with related parties, something critics label an attempt to siphon off the public money charter schools receive for their pupils. The importance for Monroe County residents, though, is the disbursal of hundreds of thousands of public dollars to a connected organization.

“Such transactions, while not illegal, point to an oversight weakness in charter schools, which rely more heavily on contracted space and services than traditional public schools.

“The Democrat and Chronicle has rebuilt the timeline of the deal that generated the substantial return for Terra.

*May 2016: Terra Science and Education Inc. buys a shuttered school building on Latta Road from Our Mother of Sorrows Church for $700,000.

*August 2016 to June 2017: Terra spends between $1.2 million and $1.5 million in renovations. Rochester Academy Charter School (RACS) leases the building from Terra in the meantime for $30,000 a month, paying a total of $300,000.

*June 2017: RACS purchases the newly renovated building for $2.5 million — at least $300,000 more than Terra’s costs for purchase and renovation, not including the lease payments.

“The fat profit margin for Terra comes from public funding intended for the hundreds of students attending the school — about $5 million in 2016-17, and growing as the school adds grade levels each year.

“Under normal circumstances, if a developer turned a $300,000 profit after owning a property less than one year and selling it to a public school, it would be evidence of ruthless commercial skill for the one party and hapless poor luck for the other.

“When there is evidence the two parties are connected, it is a different story.”

Bottom line: Taxpayers were ripped off.

Categories Gulen Charter Schools, New York, Scandals

Ethan Siegel: How to Break Public Education

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
56

Astrophysicist and author Ethan Siegel writes in Forbes magazine about the way that federal policies have disrespected and demoralized passionate teachers. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act have been disasters for teaching and learning.

Every sentence in this short article is priceless, and I hate to abridge it. You will have to open the link and read it yourself in its entirety.

He writes:

The ultimate dream of public education is incredibly simple. Students, ideally, would go to a classroom, receive top-notch instruction from a passionate, well-informed teacher, would work hard in their class, and would come away with a new set of skills, talents, interests, and capabilities. Over the past few decades in the United States, a number of education reforms have been enacted, designed to measure and improve student learning outcomes, holding teachers accountable for their students’ performances. Despite these well-intentioned programs, including No Child Left Behind, Race To The Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act, public education is more broken than ever. The reason, as much as we hate to admit it, is that we’ve disobeyed the cardinal rule of success in any industry: treating your workers like professionals.

Everyone who’s been through school has had experiences with a wide variety of teachers, ranging from the colossally bad to the spectacularly good. There are a few qualities universally ascribed to the best teachers, and the lists almost always include the following traits:

*a passion for their chosen subject,
*a deep, expert-level knowledge of the subject matter they’re teaching,
*a willingness to cater to a variety of learning styles and to employ a variety of educational techniques,
*and a vision for what a class of properly educated students would be able to know and demonstrate at the end of the academic year.

Yet despite knowing what a spectacular teacher looks like, the educational models we have in place actively discourage every one of these.

The first and largest problem is that every educational program we’ve had in place since 2002 — the first year that No Child Left Behind took effect — prioritizes student performance on standardized tests above all else. Test performance is now tied to both school funding, and the evaluation of teachers and administrators. In many cases, there exists no empirical evidence to back up the validity of this approach, yet it’s universally accepted as the way things ought to be…

If your goal was to achieve the greatest learning outcome possible for each of your students, what would you need to be successful? You’d need the freedom to decide what to teach, how to teach it, how to evaluate and assess your students, and how to structure your classroom and curriculum. You’d need the freedom to make individualized plans or separate plans for students who were achieving at different levels. You’d need the resources — financial, time, and support resources — to maximize the return on your efforts. In short, you’d need the same thing that any employee in any role needs: the freedom and flexibility to assess your own situation, and make empowered decisions…

Like any job involving an interaction with other people, teaching is as much of an art as it is a science. By taking away the freedom to innovate, we aren’t improving the outcomes of the worst teachers or even average teachers; we’re simply telling the good ones that their skills and talents aren’t needed here. By refusing to treat teachers like professionals — by failing to empower them to teach students in the best way that they see fit — we demonstrate the simple fact that we don’t trust them to do a good job, or even to understand what doing a good job looks like. Until we abandon the failed education model we’ve adopted since the start of the 21st century, public education will continue to be broken. As long as we insist on telling teachers what to teach and how to teach it, we’ll continue to fail our children.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

South Carolina Cracks Down on Virtual Charters

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
4

Betsy DeVos loves virtual charters, but they have dreadful records. Even her like-minded Choice zealots Are backing away from this money-making machines.

In South Carolina, the state agency in charge of charter schools refused to allow some Virtual charters to change authorizers, which would enable them to restart the time clock on failure.

“Following months of political tensions and a contentious public hearing, the South Carolina agency that oversees 39 of the state’s charter schools has signed off on the requests of five charters seeking permission to transfer to a new sponsor. Another four, though, including three online schools, are in “breach” status because of persistently poor performance and will not be allowed to leave.

“We don’t feel that’s taking care of our fiduciary duties,” Don McLaurin, chair of the statewide South Carolina Public Charter School Board, said of the underperforming schools’ request to leave. “That’s just not how you improve education.”

“The three virtual schools — the Cyber Academy of South Carolina, the S.C. Virtual Charter School, and Odyssey Online Learning — all contract with the for-profit, publicly traded K12 Inc. for services ranging from day-to-day operations and instruction to curriculum. The fourth, Midlands STEM Institute, is a technology-focused “bricks-and-mortar” public charter school located near the city of Columbia.

“Separately, the state’s Office of the Inspector General is examining data the schools submit to the board that raise questions about enrollment and attendance at the four schools whose transfer requests were denied. Early in the hearing at which the transfer requests were heard, board members were told the auditors have found nothing so far that should factor into their decision.

“Other states and charter school authorizers that have attempted to shutter poorly performing online schools with for-profit operators have found themselves waging wars of attrition, with the companies spending lavishly on lobbying and donating to sympathetic elected officials.

“South Carolina, where 10,000 of the state’s 26,000 charter school students attend virtual schools, is shaping up to be no exception. According to public disclosures analyzed by The 74 in a previous story, the for-profit schools and their representatives have spent nearly $1 million in the state since 2010. In 2015 the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, better known as CREDO, found that online schools have an “overwhelming negative impact” on student growth.”

K12 Inc. is great for profits, not very goood for students or taxpayers.

Categories K12 Inc., South Carolina, Virtual Charter Schools

Indiana: Governor Wants to “Do Something” about Horrible Online Charter School

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
2

In choice-happy Indiana, where all choices are presumed to be good choices, Governor Eric Holcomb called for the state to do something about the woeful performance of the Indiana Virtual School. Be it noted that virtual schools have low performance everywhere, rake in millions of dollars, and buy political support. Will Indiana be any different from other states that have ignored the scandal of virtual charter performance?

In October, Chalkbeat reported that Indiana Virtual School, one of the state’s largest online charter schools, had received more than $20 million from the state while graduating about 61 students. And between at least 2011 and 2015, a for-profit company headed by Indiana Virtual’s founder, Thomas Stoughton, charged the school millions of dollars in management services and rent.

Wow! More than $20 million to graduate 61 students. A good haul for the school, not the taxpayers.

Indiana Virtual and its sister school that opened this year, Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, together enroll 6,332 students. Across the state, more than 12,000 students are enrolled in online charters, most of which earned F grades this year. Two other major online charters, Hoosier Academies and Indiana Connections Academy, also opened new schools in the past year or so.

What will the state do? Certainly the state won’t close down this fraud.

At this point, Holcomb said he doesn’t see a need just yet for legislation addressing online schools, although he wouldn’t rule it out. He said his team has communicated with the state board that this area needs “immediate attention and action.” It’s not yet clear what measures they want to introduce, or how much authority the state board has to change charter school rules, but he indicated authorizing could be on the list.

David Harris, of the faux-liberal Mind Trust in Indianapolis, took time from privatizing public schools in Indianapolis, to suggest the need to change authorizers.

Ah, yes, change authorizers. That won’t help.

These scams should be closed. For-profit schools should be banned.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Fraud, Indiana, Virtual Charter Schools

North Carolina: The News-Observer Opposes GOP Tax Plan Because It Will Harm Public Education

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
61

North Carolina is one of the states where the legislature has been working overtime to pass programs to harm public schools. Charters, vouchers, cybercharters, Teach for America, and regular assaults on the teaching profession.

That context makes it especially surprising and gratifying to see that the editorial board of the News-Observer wrote a strong critique of the GOP Tax Plan because it hurts public education.

This is a fantastic editorial:

There’s no doubt that tax-cut proposals in the House and Senate will increase income inequality today, but provisions in the bills could also weaken the earning power of many in the future by eroding the quality and the diversity of public schools.

One change that as approved by the Senate and also found in the House bill extends a tax benefit for college savings accounts to cover tuition for private elementary and secondary education. The change means that those who can afford to save money for non-public school tuition will be able to see that money grow tax-free.

Extending the tax break won’t mean much for families of modest incomes since they can’t afford to save large amounts for pre-college schooling, but it will have the effect of making high-priced private schools less costly to the wealthy. The Senate version of the change offered by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas even allows those who home school to draw up to $10,000 annually out of the tax-favored accounts to cover loosely defined school expenses. In the end, the change reduces tax revenue to give the wealthy a break on private education costs.

This relatively narrow adjustment will be joined by sweeping proposals in both the House and Senate tax bills that limit federal deductions for state and local taxes. Those changes will make it harder for local and state governments to raise taxes to support public schools. Together, the changes will lighten the tuition bill at private schools while adding to the tax burden that supports public schools.

Of course, higher education is also threatened by provisions in the tax plans that would include levies on endowments and on tuition benefits provided to graduate students and children of college employees. But the plans’ broader threats are to public schools, which are already being undermined by Republican-backed efforts to increase the number of charter schools – publicly funded but privately run – and to expand the use of tax funds for private schools through voucher programs. Now that “school choice” movement has gained support at the federal level with the appointment of Betsy DeVos – a charter and private school advocate – as the U.S. education secretary.

Fueling re-segregation

As Republicans cut away at the financial foundation of public schools they are also accelerating the re-segregation of all schools at the elementary and secondary levels. Adding charters and using tax dollars to subsidize private and sectarian school tuition is leading to a great sorting by race. And that, rather than enhancing education, deprives children of learning through exposure to classmates of different racial groups and economic backgrounds.

In a recent report on charter schools, The Associated Press found the number of charter schools has tripled over the last decade and racial isolation has grown with them. Charters tend to be overwhelmingly white, or overwhelming one minority. The AP reported: “While 4 percent of traditional public schools are 99 percent minority, the figure is 17 percent for charters. In cities, where most charters are located, 25 percent of charters are over 99 percent nonwhite, compared to 10 percent for traditional schools.”

The trend worries even some charter school advocates. Pascual Rodriguez, principal of a Milwaukee charter where nearly all the students are Hispanic, told the AP: “The beauty of our school is we’re 97 percent Latino. The drawback is we’re 97 percent Latino … Well, what happens when they go off into the real world where you may be part of an institution that’s not 97 percent Latino?”

The AP report mirrors what an October News & Observer report found about racial segregation in North Carolina charter schools. The report found that the schools are more segregated and have more affluent students than traditional public schools.

Christine Kushner, a member of the Wake County Board of Education and a former chair of the panel, said that despite efforts to foster diversity in the Wake County school system, the state’s largest, minorities are the majority, largely because of an increase in Hispanic students and more white students enrolling in schools outside of the system. She said Wake schools remain strong, but their reduced diversity both in race and income is a setback.

“It’s troubling to me that we are going backward because I think diverse schools are what’s best for all children and economics and history affirm that,” she said. School choice is fine, she said, but public schools need to have the resources “to be the first choice for all parents.”

Good public schools and strong support through taxes are inseparable. But the tax bills in Congress are adding to the forces that are splitting that bond and jeopardizing public education.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article188972429.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, North Carolina, Privatization, Republicans, School Choice, Segregation, Supporting public schools
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