Archives for the month of: December, 2017
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Philadelphia: Hearing for Nine New Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2017 //
3

Philadelphia is overrun with charter schools, the public schools have been sacked and depleted of resources, but another nine charters have applied to the School Reform Commission for approval.The SRC is in control until June 30, 2018, then control shifts to a board appointed by the Mayor. The people of Philadelphia deserve democratic control of their schools.

Here is the sponsor of two of the proposed charters:

ASPIRA wants to open two new charter schools, despite evidence that it has been unable to operate its existing charter schools without running deficits. The Charter Schools Office has found, among other irregularities, that ASPIRA uses money meant for the education of students at Stetson Middle and Olney High —both of which are former District-run schools— to guarantee loans that the organization took out to purchase other buildings offering different services. The SRC voted 4-1 on Thursday not to renew those charters, and it is making plans to return the schools to District control.

The company’s finances were further hurt by payouts from sexual harassment lawsuits against CEO Alfredo Calderon.

“The SRC continued to fund these Aspira schools despite serious allegations of fraud, ghost contractors for painting Olney high school, admitted misuse of taxpayer dollars, failure to make PSERS payments, and other serious financial transgressions,” Lisa Haver said during her public comment at the hearing. Haver is the co-founder of the Alliance for Public Schools (APPS), an activist group that considers itself a watchdog of the SRC and charter expansion. “After following the Aspira financial and academic scandals for over two years, it’s hard to believe that they believe they are in line to open more schools.”

Here is another applicant:

Franklin Towne, which currently runs a national blue-ribbon charter high school, is proposing to open its own middle school at 5301 Tacony St. in Frankford — in the same building as its high school. It would link Franklin Towne’s elementary school to its high school, acting as a feeder. The school would serve grades 6-8 and open in the 2019-20 school year at its maximum enrollment of 450 students.

“If granted, we would be able, capable, willing and anxious to open a middle school to better serve the students in the 19137 area,” said Patrick Field, chief academic officer of Franklin Towne.

Franklin Towne has a solid academic record at both its elementary school and its high school.

However, the company is also known for running schools where the vast majority of the student body is white — 71 percent at its high school and 86 percent at its elementary school.

When will Philadelphia commit to rebuilding and reviving its public schools, where most students are enrolled and where facilities have been stripped bare to support charters?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Philadelphia

North Carolina: Coach at #1 Voucher School Embezzles Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars and Keeps His Job

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2017 //
5

Lindsay Wagner tells the strange story of crime without punishment in North Carolina, where the coach at a voucher school embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars, got a light sentence but kept his job. As Wagner points out, this would never happen in a public school; he would be fired and never hired by any other public school for a similar crime. What matters most: honesty or basketball?

When a coach at one of Fayetteville’s top private school basketball programs—a school that also happens to be the state’s top recipient of private school vouchers—pleaded guilty last summer in a Wake County courthouse to embezzling hundreds of thousands of tax withholding dollars he collected over eight years from the school’s employees, he received what some might consider an odd sentence.

Among the punishments handed down by the court for Heath Vandevender’s embezzlement activity at Trinity Christian School was 90 days in jail. He’s completing that sentence this fall by spending his weekends at the Cumberland County Detention Center.

But the sentence also allowed Vandevender to keep his job, despite having embezzled significant sums of money while employed by Trinity Christian—a school that has received more than $1.7 million in publicly-funded vouchers since 2014.
In between his weekend stints in jail, county and school officials say Vandevender continues coaching basketball and teaching journalism to high school students at Trinity Christian during the week.

It’s not the kind of thing that would typically happen at a public school.

“As a practical matter, we think it highly unlikely we would continue to employ this person given these facts unless there was something extraordinary going on,” said Ruben Reyes, the Associate Superintendent of Human Resources for Cumberland County Schools.

There are a couple of things that are extraordinary about Trinity Christian.

It’s the state’s number one recipient of private school vouchers—and it’s got one of the most competitive private school basketball programs in the state of North Carolina.

But that’s not all. North Carolina law allows voucher schools to hire convicted felons.

While Trinity Christian has risen to the top of the pack for producing elite basketball players, it’s not the only “top” distinction the school possesses. It’s also the state’s top recipient of private school vouchers (known formally as the Opportunity Scholarship Program), taking in more than $1.7 million in public funds since 2014 to subsidize tuition for low-income students, according to public records.

Despite the fact that the publicly-funded school’s coach and high school journalism teacher is now a convicted felon, that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to work at the school in between stints in jail—or stopped the school from receiving public funds.

That’s because there is nothing in the school voucher law or associated regulations that would prevent a school receiving funds from the Opportunity Scholarship Program from employing someone who has been convicted of a felony. Only the head of the school is required to undergo and submit to the state a criminal background check, explained Kathryn Marker, a representative with the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority (NCSEAA), the agency tasked with overseeing the state’s school voucher program.

Categories Fraud, North Carolina, Vouchers

Pennsylvania: Low-Performing Charter Gets Renewed for 9 Years While Bankrupting Local School District

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2017 //
7

In the bizarro world of charters in Pennsylvania, the receiver of a bankrupt district (Chester Upland) granted a nine-year renewal to a low-performing charter school (The Chester Community Charter School), pushing millions towards its sponsor.

The charter enrolls 70% of the primary school students in the district. It has been the prime mover in bankrupting the district, drawing away resources and students. In exchange for not opening a high school (which it did not plan to do), the receiver gave it another nine more years.

What is behind this sweet deal?

The owner of the school was one of the biggest contributors to former Republican Governor Tom Corbett and a member of his transition team.

He has profited handsomely by supplying goods and services to his Chester Community Charter School.

CSMI’s founder and CEO is Vahan H. Gureghian of Gladwyne, a lawyer, entrepreneur and major Republican donor –the largest individual contributor to former Gov. Tom Corbett. And though CSMI’s books are not public – the for-profit firm has never disclosed its profits and won’t discuss its management fee – running the school appears to be a lucrative business. State records show that Gureghian’s company collected nearly $17 million in taxpayer funds just in 2014-15, when only 2,900 students were enrolled.

The receiver is a Republican accountant who served as treasurer of Corbett’s campaign.

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, whose office has scrutinized the Chester school’s finances in the past and who has often called the state’s charter law “the worst in the country,” was unaware of the renewal until he was told this month by the Inquirer and Daily News.

DePasquale, a Democrat, said he had never heard of such a lengthy charter school renewal, and questioned whether the move limited the district’s authority to demand improvements, especially at a school where test scores are so low.

Things are going well on the financial side for the charter company, but not so well on the academic front. Its schools have shown very low performance. But poor academic performance is no deterrent to its longevity or its profitability!

CSMI, its parent company, has long been a prominent player in the charter world – and not just in Chester. The company runs a school in Atlantic County, N.J., and until last year had another in Camden – New Jersey denied its renewal because of low academic performance.

Chester Community has also struggled to succeed. The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) exams released in September showed that Chester Community had some of the lowest scores among charter schools in the region: Less than 16 percent of students passed PSSA reading tests in the last school year; 6 percent passed math.

The scores were lower than all but one of the four Chester Upland district schools that have K-8 students.

When the State Education Department tried to remove the receiver of the district, who has the same powers as a superintendent, Chester Community Charter School defended him, and he held on to his position.

Two weeks after the receiver was reappointed, the charter school filed its request for a nine-year extension and the receiver agreed.

By the way, the charter founder-owner has dropped the price of his Palm Beach mansion to only $64.9 million. It is a steal It is almost a $20 million drop from the original asking price.

The owners of a never-occupied, eight-bedroom mansion in Palm Beach cut their asking price by $5 million to $64.9 million.

The new $64.9 million asking price for the French Chateau-style mansion is almost $20 million below the original asking price when it was listed for sale more than two years ago.

The 35,993-square-foot residence at 1071 North Ocean Boulevard is still the most expensive home listed in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service…

The owner is a trust linked to Philadelphia-area lawyers Vahan and Danielle Gureghian, who initially planned to occupy the custom-built home.

The Gureghians’ Palm Beach residence features a bowling alley, home theater, pub room and library, plus dual ocean balconies and an eight-car garage.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Detroit: Charters Lag Far Behind State Averages by Almost Every Metric

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
4

Doug Ross, a charter founder in Detroit, wrote an opinion piece for the Detroit News in which he shows that Detroit charters outperform the much abused Detroit public schools. This’s is no surprise since charters are free unlike public schools) to choose their students and to push out the students they don’t want. The public schools must enroll the students not wanted by the charters. This is hardly a meaningful comparison.

Ross wants to make the point that the charters get better results than public schools—without acknowledging the fundamental difference mentioned above—but he does acknowledge that the charters are far below the statewide averages on every measure (except high school graduation rate, which is easily manipulated). No charter miracles here.

Curiously, the Detroit public schools have higher SAT scores than the charters.

The Detroit charters perform far worse than the state averages in math and reading.

The percent of students rated proficient in reading in grades 3-8 is 12.3% is public schools; 23.6% in charter schools; and 47.3% statewide.

Ross concludes:

“The next few years are not about DPSCD-charter competition. They are about learning together across DPSCD-charter lines about the best ways to help Detroit children get the education they deserve, and providing the quality public schools the city urgently requires if it is to continue to move forward.”

He is right. Where we part company is on the basic concept of charters, that they have the freedom to choose their students while the public schools take the kids unwanted by the charters.

That is not a formula for high quality public schools or for equity.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Detroit, Privatization

David Greene: RELAX

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
40

David Greene, teacher of teachers, author, and photographer, offers these thoughts and reflections in this time of anxiety. He says this is a “mashup” of the last chapter of his new book, He Could Make Words Sing: An Ordinary Man During Extraordinary Times.

He writes:

Relax. We are just ordinary people living in our own ordinary times. As my friend Harris sarcastically says, “We all think our times are the most extraordinary ‘evvvvverrrr’.” However bad things might seem as we read this today, they are really rather ordinary historically. Our times do not compare with the extraordinary times Harry Greissman’s generation faced.

Yes, we face economic inequality and loss of jobs, but the unemployment rate is under 5%, not hovering at 25% as it did in the GREAT Depression. Yes, we face racial issues and de facto segregation, but de jure segregation is pretty much gone. Black Lives Matters would have had a far more difficult task then, when lynching was rampant and whole neighborhoods in cities like Tulsa Oklahoma were burned down by whites. Watch the new movie, “Mudbound” as a reminder of Black Lives in the south in the 1940s.

Broken Healthcare system? Then, there was none to break. Medicare and Medicaid were mid 1960s inventions. The numbers of veterans with wartime injuries, both physical and emotional during World War 2 was in the millions, not thousands. The environment? Coal fired furnaces were everywhere. I played in a coal chute as a kid in the Bronx. Whole cities were covered in clouds of grey smoke and soot. Choose a domestic problem, any problem, and it was worse when they grew up. What rights did women have then? For the first fifth of the 20th century, they couldn’t even vote. I know that Tom Brokaw’s “greatest generation” had it far worse than my privileged Boomer generation, Generation X or today’s Millenials.

Of course, today’s new stories and cable shouting matches called newscasts scare the living shit out of many of us. We are still stuck in the longest war in our history, and face terrorist threats daily, these are nowhere as horrific as the death and destruction of World War 1 (when poison gas bombing was used as a weapon de jure), the Armenian Genocide (before Syria even existed as a country), World War 2, the Holocaust, the Korean “conflict” and the Vietnam War. North Korea is not exactly the same nuclear threat the Russians were, especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. We sat at the edge of our chairs watching Kennedy square off with Khrushchev.
Refugees refused? Border walls? How about turning away victims of the Holocaust? Poison gas in Syria? NO comparison to the Nazi poison gas chambers relatives of American families died in.

The Red Scare? McCarthyism? The Civil Rights struggles? Selma? Birmingham? Mississippi murders? Kent and Jackson State? The assassinations of MLK and RFK? Battles in the streets of NYC between hardhats and hippies? The whole world WAS watching. The Pentagon Papers? NIXON?

Relax. This is not to disparage those in duress today. God know our world faces too many serious man-made problems. We have Trump and his reality-TV version of the world that is becoming all too scarily real. Environmentally, like the Wicked Witch of the West, the world is mellllllting. The immediacy and verbal violence in social media’s, divisiveness and fear mongering stresses us to no end.

Are we as bad as Orwell’s1984 or Asimov’s Fahrenheit 451 predicted? No. We aren’t even as bad off as what was “predicted” in “The Man In The High Castle”, Philip K. Dick’s alternative history novel and the TV series based on it…All we have is “alternative facts”.

But if we take the long historical view of human endeavors, how special is our time? Even the “Jetsons” predicted we would be farther along technologically than we actually are. Where are our flying cars and personal robots? Alexa doesn’t compare to Rosie.

Relax. There is a monologue in Steven Levenson’s play, “If I Forget”, spoken by the patriarch of the family, Lou Fischer, who in the year 2000, is a 75-year-old World War 2 Veteran. In it he describes the horrors of being one of the American soldiers who liberated Dachau. After a long sigh, he says as I believe many of his generation would have said, “For you, history is an abstraction, but for us, the ones who survived this century, this long, long, century, there are no abstractions anymore.”

Categories Hope

Carol Burris: The Malicious Reformer Assault on Public Schools in Indiana

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
6

Indiana was once renowned for its public schools, which were beloved community institutions. Then rightwing zrepublicans took control of the state, and the result was disruption, chaos, and community division. Instead of working together to improve their public schools, the public was enticed to pursue private choices, all under the false promise of “reform.”

Carol Burris went to Indiana, visited schools, met educators, and has written a three-part series about the corporate attack on public education in the Hoosier State. At the center of destruction are two men: Mitch Daniels, the former governor who is now president of Purdue (a soft landing he engineered), and Mike Pence, the pious evangelical who is now Vice-President.

Here is part 1 of Carol’s gripping story of the attack on public education in Indiana.

“Entire public school systems in Indiana cities, such as Muncie and Gary, had been decimated by funding losses, even as a hodgepodge of ineffective charter and voucher schools sprang up to replace them. Charter school closings and scandals were commonplace, with failing charters sometimes flipped into failing voucher schools. Many of the great public high schools of Indianapolis were closed from a constant churn of reform directed by a “mindtrust” infatuated with portfolio management of school systems.

“When I asked who was most responsible for the downward spiral of public education in the state, the answer was always the same: Mitch Daniels, Indiana’s 49th governor.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Indiana, Privatization

Sinclair Media is Spreading Rightwing Propaganda Against Public Schools, And Coming to a Station Near You

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
15

This is a truly frightening story.

Far-rightwing media giant Sinclair Broadcasting has won approval from the FCC to buy Tribune Media. It will control the news feed into 72% of all homes, writes Jaisal Noor reporting from Baltimore.

Jaisal Noor writes:

“The Trump administration’s FCC recently changed local media ownership rules, paving the way for Sinclair Broadcasting to buy Tribune Media for $3.9 billion dollars. When the deal goes through, Sinclair has access to 72 percent of households nationwide. The Hunt Valley-based Sinclair is the largest distributor of local news in the country, and forces its stations to run commentary from pundits such as former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn and frequently offers up news with an unabashed, pro-administration spin (“Did the FBI have a personal vendetta in pursuing the Russia investigation of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn?”).

“While Sinclair consolidates its grip on the nation’s local TV market, in Baltimore, Sinclair is ramping up its local coverage with Project Baltimore on local affiliate Fox45, which aims to “save” Baltimore schools by bashing them. Project Baltimore’s propaganda is subtler than Sinclair’s employing click-bait headlines, skewed statistics, and half-truths to push a narrative that portrays Baltimore schools as beyond redemption and casts Project Baltimore as coming to the rescue.

“Its austere logo, in red, white, and blue offers up the tagline, “Save Our Schools.”

“Although Project Baltimore launched in March, recent stories have gone viral raising its profile and influence. A Nov. 8 report from Chris Papst titled “13 Baltimore City High Schools, zero students proficient in math” reported that over a dozen Baltimore City High Schools had zero students proficient in the math PARCC test—a test that’s part of the Common Core curriculum, aimed at evaluating students and teachers. Project Baltimore’s story was picked up by national right-wing outlets such as Breitbart and Fox News.

“While Papst’s reporting is technically accurate—13 city schools do indeed have no students that are math proficient—the story does not mention that in 2016 some of the highest performing schools in other parts of the state (including Montgomery County’s elite Walt Whitman High School) also have few if any students who scored proficient. Also not mentioned is that the PARCC test is not aimed at measuring achievement, rather measuring proficiency with Common Core curriculum. More than half the states administering the PARCC test have stopped using it due to concerns over the effectiveness of the test in measuring academic achievement and the burden it places on students. The test is also usually given on computers, which many Baltimore students lack access to at home or in their classrooms.”

Categories Accountability, Baltimore, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Philadelphia: Looted by the Entrepreneurs

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
5

When my book “Reign of Error” was published, my first presentation was in Philadelphia to an audience of parents, teachers, and community leaders. There were musical presentations before I spoke, and one was the marching band from a celebrated high school fabled for the musicians who got their start there. The marching band cane charging down the center aisle in somewhat tattered uniforms. Their leader explained that they had no musical instruments because the school’s budget couldn’t pay for them. I was aghast that the city would allow this to happen.

A reader wrote:

“On yesterday’s Vice News there was a story about music in the Philadelphia Public Schools. As a product of this school system, I was both angry and sad at this news. The story was about a music teacher that could no longer have an orchestra because the amount of damage to the instruments. In order to raise money to repair the instruments, the students were giving “concerts” with their broken instruments. What was upsetting was that the reckless, irresponsible leadership of the city and state has left the district a shell of its former self. They allowed the barbarian horde of “edupreneurs” loot the public schools with all their lies, waste, fraud and kickbacks for the so-called representatives.

“Developers have been allowed to make a fortune by rebuilding and resegregating neighborhoods with selective charters for middle class white families and cheap charters or crumbling public schools for the poor minorities. The misguided, blind acceptance of “market based solutions” makes money for a few at the top at the expense of many at the bottom. It is anti-democratic, rascist and sickening.”

Categories Education Reform

Leonie Haimson: Why New York City’s Renewal Schools Are Not Working

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
7

Leonie Haimson has long insisted that the single most effective intervention for children who are struggling in school is reduced class size. She has assembled an impressive body of research showing that class size gives teachers the time that they need for each child.

She has long been a critic of Mayor de Blasio’s Renewal Schools. The Mayor wanted to show that he could create a model of school improvement that differed sharply from the Bloomberg administration’s policy of closing schools in large numbers without any effort to help them.

Following the announcement that the city is closing or merging 15 of the Renewal schools, in addition to the 18 already closed, Haimson has written a scorching critique of the city’s refusal to reduce class size.

“Chancellor Fariña announced yesterday that the closure or merger of 15 more Renewal schools, to add to the 18 that were previously closed or merged.

“This means 33 Renewal schools of the original 94 have failed to improve sufficiently since the program began in 2014. Forty six of the Renewal schools will remain in the program for another year. The list of schools, including an additional five to be closed that were never in the Renewal program, is here.

“This record of failure is no surprise to many of us who have criticized the DOE’s plans for the Renewal schools since the program began in 2014. Despite the city’s promise to the state to focus their efforts on reducing class size in these struggling schools, only three of the Renewal schools capped class sizes last year at the appropriate levels designated in the city’s original Contract for Excellence plan — no more than 20 students per class in grades K-3, 23 in grades 4-8 and 25 in high school.

“Moreover, 70 percent of the Renewal schools continued to have maximum class sizes of 30 or more, and about half did not reduce class size by even one student per class. The DOE’s failure to take any demonstrable steps to reduce class sizes in the Renewal schools was cited in our class size complaint filed in July with the State Education Department, demanding that the CFE law be enforced…

“Instead of capping class sizes in these schools, the DOE spent about $40 million per year on consultants and bureaucrats to oversee the Renewal program, many of them with records marked by scandal and incompetence, as well as millions more on wrap-around services to create “community schools.” Though perhaps of value in themselves, these services do little to improve students’ opportunity to learn or teachers ability to teach…

“The contrast with an earlier NYC school reform effort is stark. When Rudy Crew headed DOE, he created a special program called the Chancellor’s district for the city’s lowest-performing schools. He consulted the research and used common sense by capping class sizes in these schools at no more than 20 students per class in K-3 and 25 in the higher grades, as well as taking other measures. The program was widely hailed as a success, but when Joel Klein took over as Chancellor, he disbanded the district. Lessons learned? Apparently none to this day– to the tragic detriment of NYC children.”

Categories Class size, Closing schools, New York City

Charles Blow: The Great American Tax Heist

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2017 //
59

Charles Blow dissects and trashes the GOP Tax bill.

It starts:

“With their tax bill, Donald Trump and the Republicans are raiding the Treasury in plain sight, throwing crumbs to the masses as the millionaires and billionaires make off with the cake.

“America should be aghast not only at the looting but also at the brazenness of its execution.

“It seems that for as long as I can remember, Republicans have been wringing their hands about deficits. And yet in this budget, they willingly, willfully exploded the deficit, not for public uplift or rebuilding America’s infrastructure but rather on the spurious argument that giving truckloads of money back to businesses will spark their benevolence.

“According to the government’s own nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the tax bill will lead to “an increase in the deficit of $1,455 billion over the next 10 years.”

“But be sure, when this bill leads to these predicted deficits, Republicans will return to their sidelined deficit rhetoric armed with a sickle, aiming the blade at the social safety net, exacerbating the egregious imbalance of the tax bill’s original sins.

“That’s the strategy: Appease the rich on the front end; punish the poor on the back. Feed the weak to the strong…

“Make no mistake: No matter how folks try to rationalize this bill, it has nothing to do with a desire to help the middle class or the poor. This is a cash offering to the gods of the Republican donor class. This is a bill meant to benefit Republicans’ benefactors. This is a quid pro quo and the paying of a ransom.

“Trump promised to drain the swamp. That was another lie among many. He and the Republicans are in fact feeding us to the gators…

“America must make an honest appraisal: Donald Trump is a plutocrat masquerading as a populist. He is a pirate on a mission to plunder.

“Trump is milking the American presidency for personal gain. If he can give the impression of compassion on his mission to cash out, all the better for him, but the general good, the health of the nation and the plight of the plebeians is not now nor has it ever been his focus.

“His ego is too big for egalitarianism, and his heart too small for it.

“So he sticks closely to what he knows, the brand of Trump: promoting it, positioning it, defending it and enriching it.”

Categories Education Reform
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