Betsy DeVos visited Excel Academy in D.C. and praised it as a model of school choice and its benefits. So did Melania Trump.
The school is closing because of poor academic performance.
http://wjla.com/news/local/dc-charter-school-must-close-despite-white-house-praise-as-exceptional
”A charter school visited just last year by Education Secretary Betsy Devos and First Lady Melania Trump – who touted it as “exceptional” – must now shut down. That was the unanimous decision late last week by D.C.’s Public Charter School Board.
“In a 6-to-0 decision, the board voted to close Excel Academy in June, at the end of this school year. It’s the District’s only all-girls public charter school, serving more than 600 students, Pre-K through eight.
“The school board cited declining test scores and below average reading and math skills.”
We don’t expect the First Lady to be knowledgeable about schools.
Turns out the Secretary of Education is clueless about education too.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Let’s send DeVos on a tour of all charter schools so more close down!
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Like that idea.
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Good Idea . Word Press needs a like button .
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It has one — if you access the site through the WordPress mobile app or WordPress.com.
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I think what WordPress really needs is an “I don’t like WordPress” button
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Outstanding.
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Probably the “vendors” got the payoff, like the ones who profited from the failure that was Common Core. No school closing is anything to joke about, as the children who were students have suffered. My son attended a charter school that was nothing but a computer lab for online schooling. I’m awaiting a meeting as I type, for my daughter’s “charter school,” which is “virtual” but officially accepted by our home State, as official. It would be nice if the schools I pay very high taxes to support, were a nurturing place where my children could learn and thrive. That’s what I’d like for all children, no matter what shape or form it takes, but let’s stop the experimenting on them for profit.
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Charters come and go due to poor results, mismanagement or missing money, and none is this is good for students, particularly poor students whose lives are often in chaos anyway. They deserve better!
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Please be weary of schools and programs like this one that divide people by gender.
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What a shame that no one in the federal government can find a public school to praise.
There have to be some public schools that do something right. It can’t all be the blasted, hopeless landscape that Betsy DeVos describes where all children in public schools are “trapped” and wealthy women who didn’t attend public schools and don’t send their children and grandchildren to public schools must rescue my child from the unspeakable horrors of public education.
If I didn’t know better I might think this was more about a coordinated, sophisticated marketing campaign to eradicate public schools than it is about “education”.
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Oh, dear God thank you!
*Robert K. O’Rear* Concordia University Adjunct Faculty
PROVERBS 3:5-6
On Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 5:25 PM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: ” Betsy DeVos visited Excel Academy in D.C. and > praised it as a model of school choice and its benefits. So did Melania > Trump. The school is closing because of poor academic performance. > http://wjla.com/news/local/dc-charter-school-must-clos” >
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Well, look at the bright side. Ed reformers who seeks to “transform” public schools rarely enter public schools, but that might be a good thing. When DeVos does grudgingly and reluctantly visit she spends the whole time telling the students they’re trapped in 19th century systems and suffering from malaise, which probably isn’t helpful to them.
These particular adults don’t add a lot of value. The kids might be better off just reading at their desks instead of wasting a whole day providing photo ops. Maybe use the time for new fundraising schemes to replace the funding they cut.
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Well said.
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one S—–hole down and a lot more to go . Couldn’t resist .
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TARGO!
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👏! Good one.
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More from this POS DeVose. How many millions have been tossed down the toilet that should have gone to education. Get ride of vile corrupt stench.
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But Melania is such an intellect. . . . a true academian, a woman of letters, of research . . . . And Betsy is such an experienced pedagogue. . . Good thing they are not assessing the safety of passenger jet planes or medical technology equipment. I guess they leave that to the free and open market to solve.
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It seems there’s a pattern of charlatanism with prominent corporate education reformers.here.
When Obama announced Arne Duncan as his Sec. of Ed., he did so at a school that Obama touted as a success story for Duncan. Duncan fired all the teachers, turned it over to private management, and it blossomed like a flower.
A couple years later, the school imploded in ignominy, and closed.
When Jeb Bush was running for governor, he did the same thing with a photo op at a charter school he co-founded, as evidence of how much he cared about schools … blah-blah-blah …
The same thing happened.
Michelle Rhee was tied into the St. Hope charter school in Sacramento, which was touted as a miracle school .. until its leader — Michelle’s husband Kevin Johnson — was accused of molesting multiple girls, and lining his pockets with the funding provided for the school. (To date, Rhee has never commented publicly on the Mandi Koba molestation story, which was corroborated with taped (by police) phone conversations between Koba and Rhee’s husband.)
Rhee personally attempted to pressure the investigator to lay off her husband. (Waltrin was his name, I believe, and Johnson’s clout with Obama led to Obama firing Waltrin, effectively ending the investigation, but that’s another story.)
Last Fall, NJ Gov. Chris Christie cut the ribbon, and gave a speech for the opening of a charter school that promised the moon … only two months later, the school leaders announced it was closing, and the kids were being sent back to the public schools — not at the end of the school year mind you, BUT RIGHT NOW, NEXT WEEK.
The charter chain school then said that they would assist parents in the placement back to the public schools. Parents found this odd, because for years preceding the opening of the charter, that same charter org condemned those same public schools as miserable failure factories that the charter school would be the place to which students and parents can now escape. However, two months later, they were claiming those public schools were perfectly fine to attend … Huh?)
On the last one, the public pressure and embarrassment was so bad that they reversed themselves and said they weren’t closing the school after all. We’ll see if it continues beyond the end of this school year.
There’s several more stories like this involving prominent corporate ed. reformers, but those are the first four that spring to mind.
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Jack,
Here is another.
When Scott Walker was eliminating collective bargaining rights for teachers and cutting their benefits, there were massive protest marches around the State Capotol in Madison. At that time, in March 2011, President Obama and Arne Duncan did not fly to Madison to show their support for unions. Instead, in March 2011, they flew to Miami to meet Jeb Bush and celebrate the successful turnaround of Central High School after the staff had been fired and replaced. The press covered the event with great fanfare. A month later, the state of Florida announced that Central was on its list for closure because of poor performance. As I recall, the closing was stayed at least temporarily due to the school’s notoriety.
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Have you consistently heard reports about the people, who after taking the money and then shutting the charter down, returning all of those funds? I haven’t, so it seems like politicians have enabled a huge ‘take the money and run’ scam.
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The money disappears. The charters are called “ghost schools.”
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Diane, I think your blog is being closely monitored because not long after I shared info about some ways to legally circumvent paywalls, such as to access WaPo articles, those options were shut down –which resulted from Google changing how they operate, I think Google has too many ways of monitoring and tracking people, so folks should beware. (I recommend http://DuckDuckGo.com instead and suggest avoiding the use of Google, Chrome, G-mail and Google Play.)
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BTW, I did find another workaround for accessing those articles, which does not involve Google, but I hesitate to share it here…
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Kudos to the D.C. Public School Charter Board!
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“The school board cited declining test scores and below average reading and math skills.”
“Test score Perspective”
The test scores have declined?
The charter should be closed
But public school is fine —
Unless it was transposed
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So because they visited the schools the blood is on their hands? BS. If they visited a school that was excelling would you be okay with giving them credit for it. #FAKENEWS
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Snipe,
Don’t you think the Secretary of Education has someone on her staff who would do some basic research before sending her to praise a charter school?
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