Archives for the month of: March, 2018
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North Carolina: “Opportunity School District” Fails Before It Begins

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2018 //
8

Here is a good laugh.

North Carolina wanted to copy Tennessee’s Achievement School Sisteict, but the ASD was an abject failure. So the North Carolina ASD became the NC Opportunity School District. It was supposed to take control of low performing schools across the state, but due to popular resistance, it ended up with a well-paid superintendent and only one school.

Here is the report from Public Schools First NC:

“Innovative School District – Public Schools First NC

“Southside Ashpole Elementary School Selected for 2018-19 School Year

“On November 2, 2017, the State Board of Education selected only one school for the Innovative School District for the 2018-19 school year: Southside Ashpole Elementary School, Rowland, NC.

“This school is a part of the Robeson County School System. The local community in Robeson County was very upset about this decision and held many community meetings to show their disagreement with this school takeover. According to state statute, once selected for takeover, Robeson County School Board either could close the school or join the ISD. On January 9, 2018, the Public Schools of Robeson County School Board approved the transfer of Southside Ashpole Elementary in Rowland, NC into the Innovative School District beginning in the 2018-19 school year.

“School Works, a third-party evaluation firm contracted by the ISD, is tasked with evaluating any operator applications submitted and will report to the ISD Superintendent on their findings. The application process for being an operator of an Innovative School District is here. Applicants presented their proposed plans to improve student and school outcomes to the NCISD Superintendent. NCISD received applications from The Romaine Group and Achievement for All Children. Public school advocates note neither entity has a strong, proven performance history. The Romaine Group, a for-profit Michigan based organization manages eight schools in Maryland and one in NC. The NC school, Capitol Encore Academy in Fayetteville, is a K-8 charter that earned a ‘D’ according to 2016-17 school report cards. Achievement for All Children is a new nonprofit, created by supporters of the school choice movement including a wealthy donor who helped support the bill that resulted in the creation of an Innovative School District. Many have questioned applicants’ ties to the controversial bill and pointed out that they stand to benefit financially from being chosen as operators.

“SchoolWorks evaluated the operator applications and found that at the time of assessment, neither entity met the requisites established by the ISD guidelines. According to press release issued on February 1, 2018: “Based on the reports received from SchoolWorks, at this time neither entity met the high expectations imposed by the ISD. The ISD now plans to convene negotiations with both entities to gain additional insight on their respective capabilities and approaches to improving student achievement at Southside Ashpole.” The ISD Superintendent asked for an additional 60 days to decide on an operator. Critics and supporters of the ISD model expressed concern over the small number of applicants. Once the State Board approves the Innovative School operator they will be given a 5-year contract.

“Concerns about NC’s ISD

“Where takeover districts have been implemented, there is no evidence that they offer high-quality educational alternatives to children from low-income families.

“According to Dr. Mercedes Schneider, a New Orleans educator, “Just over 6 percent of high school seniors in the Recovery School District scored high enough in English and Math to qualify for admission into a Louisiana four-year college or university straight out of high school. Five of their 16 high schools produced not a single student who met these requirements.”

”From Chris Barbic, the Texas charter school operator named superintendent of the Tennessee Achievement School District in 2012, “As a charter school founder, I did my fair share of chest pounding over great results. I’ve learned that getting these same results in a zoned neighborhood school environment is much harder.” Barbic resigned at the end of 2015.

”A Vanderbilt University study of Tennessee’s ASD found “that the vast majority of teachers exited schools once they came under the auspices of the ASD. Therefore, the ASD faced a significant need to hire new teachers in their first year. Among the new hires, nearly a third were novice teachers.”
The following year, Vanderbilt researchers found that the ASD did not had a marginal effect on student test scores, while district-led turnaround efforts had “moderate to large positive effects in Reading and Math.”

”Tulane University Prof. J. Celeste Lay warned the state of Georgia not to model its school takeover after New Orleans: “Like other businesses, schools operating within market models must also turn a profit. The principal at my nearby charter school makes over $300,000 per year, a 246 percent increase from her salary before the school was chartered. For-profit management companies charge schools 15-20 percent of school revenue. Taxpayer dollars go into hefty administrator salaries and corporate profits instead of reducing class sizes, upgrading facilities, or recruiting and maintaining high-quality teachers.”

”An Education Week commentary concluded that “a growing body of independent investigations shows that the preferred strategies of closing and chartering schools in takeover districts open the public treasury to fraud, waste, and abuse. … Whether the arrangement is called a portfolio district, a recovery district, or, most egregious, an ‘opportunity’ or ‘achievement’ district, the goal of these policies is the same: the transfer of local, public funds and decision-making to non-accountable, often remote- or chain-charter operators.”

 

“A Center for Popular Democracy comprehensive review of existing state takeover districts found: “The rapid proliferation of the takeover district as an educational panacea is alarming. There is little clear evidence that takeover districts achieve their stated goals of radically improving performance at failing schools. At the same time, children, particularly students of color and those with special needs, face greater risk of discriminatory discipline and enrollment practices in takeover districts. Furthermore, hastily created districts with opaque governance structures breed fraud and mismanagement.”

”In August 2016, Tennessee’s state auditor found massive problems with the fiscal management of its ASD. The Times Free Press reports that analysts found “seven key areas where ASD did not establish processes over key human resources and payroll functions, including segregating duties; maintaining personnel files; verifying education credentials; documenting time and attendance; completing performance reviews; documenting approvals of bonuses and pay raises; and exiting employees.”

”In 2017, Tennessee’s legislature seriously curtailed the purview of the ASD, taking away the district’s ability to start new schools and restricting its authority to take over struggling schools. The state also cut its leadership team and consolidated management offices. Chalkbeat reports: “Education Commissioner Candice McQueen says the state will no longer default to the Achievement School District when considering how to help Tennessee’s lowest-performing schools. … Tennessee will lean on more local district-led turnaround initiatives.”

”The structure of NC’s ISD, as detailed in the legislation itself, offers no more safeguards than the others discussed. Former NCGA analyst Kris Nordstrom wrote of the aforementioned TN report, “The researchers note, ‘the turnaround space for charters (in an ASD) is indisputably different from their usual circumstances, and as such calls for a very different type of schooling operations.’ The Tennessee program failed despite relying upon private charter operators with ‘a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge and experience.’

”North Carolina’s ASD program is similarly set up for failure. Despite the assurances of the bill sponsors, there are no ‘guardrails’ to ensure success.”

”Low-performing schools in North Carolina are making significant progress, according to a recent study on the existing program designed to improve low-performing schools known as Turning around North Carolina’s Lowest-Achieving Schools (TALAS) found that: “TALAS made significant investments in professional development, comprehensive needs assessments, school improvement planning, and instructional and leadership coaching in low-performing schools. These investments have paid off in improved outcomes for students. The primary threat to this progress is the high level of staff turnover that occurs in these schools and the increased level of spending on professional development that is required for new staff members each year. ASDs would make the turnover problem in low-performing schools even worse.”

”Since the lowest achieving schools have almost exclusively high-poverty student populationsand come from high-poverty districts, these reforms are doomed to fail. Telling cash-strapped districts to reform schools by adding administrative layers (like an innovation zone office) or mandating higher pay for staff (as in the principal turnaround model) with no funding beyond local “discretionary funds” is meaningless. Turning around our lowest achieving schools cannot happen without a significant commitment of resources and time.

”Students at low-performing schools deserve reforms that ensure better academic and social outcomes. Giving the state control of local public schools will introduce more uncertainty and less stability to our most vulnerable elementary schools without guaranteeing their students’ success.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, North Carolina, Privatization

Teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: THANK You!

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2018 //
7

On Saturday, the world witnessed an amazing outpouring of energy and passion to protest gun violence.  The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (a public school) organized a mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. that drew hundreds of thousands of supporters, accompanied by like demonstrations across the nation and the world.

The media have rightly commended the remarkable young people who brought these events together with amazing skill in a very short time.

But what about their teachers?

Other than those who died protecting their students, we don’t know their names.

We don’t know the names of those who taught them debating skills.we don’t know the names of those who taught them government, civics, and history. We don’t know the names of the English teachers who taught them clarity of thinking and expression and correct use of language.

They too are heroes.

They are unsung heroes. They deserve to be acknowled and thanked publicly.

If you know them, please thank them. Please send me their names, so they get the recognition they so richly deserve.

Categories Baltimore, Education Reform

George Miller, Fake Liberal, DFER Favorite

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
25

 

I posted the 2012 Democrats for Education Reform list of electoral favorites, which included Cong. George Miller of California, then chair of the House Education Committee and an architect of NCLB; Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who fought to keep high-stakes testing and NCLB punishments in the new ESSA and is now a possible candidate for president in 2020. A few years ago, the California Democratic Party passed a resolution denouncing DFER for advancing corporate policies and urged them to drop the D from their name.

Miller was the most powerful Congressional Democrat on education issues, and Nancy Pelosi follliwed his lead. Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott is now chair of the committee, and he too was on the DFER LIST.

A reader who lives in Miller’s district describes what happened:

“Miller was my Congressman. I too had an unpleasant encounter with him at a local hearing where he showed up to personally push to convert one of the high schools in my district to charter. Since then that high school has among other things, experienced huge teacher turnover. Key senior classes have had multiple substitutes with “emergency crediamtials.” They hired an “executive director” whom they pay a quarter million dollars a year,! whose primary job seems to be opening more charters in our county who will hire him as a “consultant” and who hired his wife as an administrator for a salary of $170,000 per year. He also recently put one of the Candidates for Superintendent if the County Office of Education on his payroll as an “Assistant Prinicipal”. The County Office approves charters if they are turned down at the District level.”

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Closing schools, DFER

NPE: Let Students Learn and Teachers Teach, Without Fear

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
1

 

The latest from the Network for Public Education. 

Join us as we speak out against high stakes testing, privatization, and gun violence.

Let teachers teach and children learn without fear—without fear of failing, or being stigmatized, or dodging bullets, in safe, well-funded schools.

Categories Network for Public Education

Jennifer Rubin: Kids Today Are Ready for Prime Time

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
19

 

Jennifer Rubin was hired by the Washington Post to Be inte “conservative” columnists. But a funny thing happened after Trump’s election. She became one of his sharpest critics because she recognized that he betrays conservative principle, lies with abandon, and shames the nation.

In this article, she reflects on the March for Our Lives.

“By the hundreds of thousands, they came. They gave impassioned and articulate speeches. The shared their experiences in Chicago, South Los Angeles and Florida. They gave one TV interview after another, displaying remarkable poise and heart-breaking sincerity. Adults decades older watched with awe. These are teenagers. How did these kids learn to do this?

“The sense of amazement among adults, including jaded members of the media, was palpable — both because supposedly sophisticated adults had not pulled off this kind of change in attitudes about guns in the decades they’d been trying and because the teenagers shredded the talking points, the lies, the cynicism and the indifference that we’ve become accustomed to in our politics.

“If this was a movie, you’d think it was inauthentic. However, it may be our image of our fellow Americans and teenagers that has been wildly inaccurate and unfairly negative. Too many of us have bought into the notion that teenagers are passive, addicted to their phones and lacking civic awareness. Too many have been guilted into accepting that “real Americans” are the Trump voters, and that the rest of us are pretenders, pawns of “elites.” The crowd reminded us of the country’s enormous geographic, racial, gender and age diversity. (Plenty of teachers, parents and grandparents turned out.) And in the case of guns, these people are far more representative of the views of the country than the proverbial guy in the Rust Belt diner….

“The decision to let only children and teenagers speak was key to the entire endeavor. No canned political speeches; no feigned emotion. The experience of the more than 180,000 students who have been exposed to gun violence in schools over the past few decades was suddenly very real, very immediate.

“Those on the event stage talked about their friends, their certainty in political change, their solidarity with other victims, and their fearlessness in the face of naysayers and cynics. They mocked and condemned the National Rifle Association and the politicians who take their money. (Sen. Marco Rubio was a favorite punching bag.) They sounded angry, sad and serious. They spoke about democracy and urged the crowd to vote; they inveighed against party politics.”

She concludes:

”And so we are left with the stark contrast — the sincerity of the students vs. the canned platitudes of the gun absolutists; the speed and vibrancy of a mass movement vs. the gridlock and sameness of our politics; the dogged determination of teenagers not yet world-weary vs. the sense of futility that pervades our politics. The outcome is not preordained. Yes, democracies are under assault. Xenophobes and nativists certainly have come out from under the rocks. The president has tried to make the abnormal commonplace and the unacceptable inevitable. But if nothing else, the marchers reminded us we have a choice. We can be fatalistic and passive, or determined and active. If teenagers can take the capital by storm, surely the rest of us can do something more than complain and yell at the TV.”

The next time you hear some blowhard rail against the younger generation, remember “The March for Our Lives,” an international event organized by teenagers in less than six weeks after a horrific event.

Every great revolution begins with the young. They have the idealism, energy, and fearlessness to lead.

Categories Guns in Schools, Students

Tim Slekar Interviews Mothers of Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
6

 

Tim Slekar, dean of education at Edgewood College in Wisconsin, is a tireless activist for public education and teachers. He created a podcast that hits on every important issue and he interviews important figures in education.

In this powerful podcast, he interviews two mothers of amarjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. They remember that terrible day when they didn’t know whether their children had survived.

Please listen.

PS: A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation announced on Twitter that it was launching the first podcast ever by and for teachers, created by the Gates-funded Educators for Excellence, as Astroturf group of young teachers who frequently testify against tenure, seniority, unions, and other job protections that Bill Gates finds unnecessary. Obviously, Gates never heard of Tim Slekar’s “Busted Pencils” or “The Rick Smith Show” or the BATS podcasts. But then, they are not Gates funded.

 

Categories Guns in Schools

DFER’s Choices for 2012: Still Relevant

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
10

The hedge fund managers created an organization called “Democrats for Education Reform” to advocate for charter schools and high-stakes testing, including evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students (VAM).

In the comments section, someone recalled that George Miller was one of the architects of No Child Left Behind, and I remembered having an unpleasant encounter with Miller in 2010, after the release of my 2010 book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. I was invited by Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro to a private dinner at her home to talk about the book to the Democratic members of the House Education Committee, and Miller was there. In my talk, I was highly critical of NCLB. Miller was outraged. He defended it vociferously.

Yesterday I remembered that I had received an invitation to a fundraiser in 2012 for George Miller from DFER at a posh restaurant in Manhattan. The cost of each breakfast was $1,250. Miller did  not have an opponent. I did not attend.

Miller has since retired. I was told that Nancy Pelosi relied on him as the leading education expert in Congress

Here is the list of Democrats (pro-charter, pro-high-stakes testing) endorsed by DFER in 2012. You may be surprised to see who is on the list, including Congressman Bobby Scott, who succeeded Miller as the leading Democrat on the House Education Committee, and Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, now a leading voice for gun control, but sponsor of the Murphy Amendment to ESSA, which was intended to preserve the George W. Bush punitive consequences of testing. Although every Democrat on the Senate HELP committee (including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders) supported the Murphy Amendment, it was defeated by the Republican majority on the committee. Had it passed, schools would still be judged by AYP. And, of course, Jared Polis was on the DFER list; he is now running for governor of Colorado. He is a zealous supporter of charter schools.

This year, DFER’s big cause is the governor’s race in California, and their candidate is Antonio Villiraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, who is carrying forward the DeVos agenda of privatization by charters.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization

Parent Founder of Long Island Opt Out Explains Why She Fights against the Tyranny of Testing

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
6

 

Jeannette Deutermann is the parent who founded Long Island Opt Out, and whose tireless activism inspired parents and education activists across the state. In this powerful video, she explains why she did it.

She saw that the tests were destroying her children’s spirit and love of learning. The more she learned about the uselessness of the state tests, the more determined she became to protect her children.

Jeannette is a gifted and passionate organizer. She joined with dozens of independent parent and educator groups across the state, which created a coordinating organization called NYSAPE (New York State Allies for Public Education).Through their efforts, 20% of the students in grades 3-8 have refused the tests for three straight years. They objected not only to the tests but to the developmentally inappropriate, highly standardized, lockstep Common Core.

In response to the Opt Out Movement, the state shortened the exams, which had stretched over two weeks for many hours and promised to revise the Common Core. State testing begins April 10-11, and the Opt Out Movement will once again reach out to parents across the state.

Opt out rates in the state have been highest on Long Island and upstate in rural communities. The Education Department in New York City has discouraged opting out and warned schools that low participation rates will harm their school.

Jeannette is a brilliant grassroots leader who is fighting not only for her kids but for all children in the state.

The test scores serve an insidious purpose: they are used to label and stigmatize students, teachers, and schools. They are essential to the privatization movement, which uses low scores as a pretext—not to help schools—but to close them and replace them with privately managed charter schools.

Please watch the video, tweet it, and share it on social media. Join the Movement to restore the joy of learning!

The video was filmed in Brooklyn and produced by professional videographer Michael Elliott with the assistance of Kemala Karmen. It was sponsored by the Network for Public Education.

https://www.facebook.com/carol.c.burris

 

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Opt Out, Parents, Privatization, Students, Testing

Journey For Justice and Its Fight Against Destructive Education “Reform”

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
7

 

The Schott Foundation is one of the few philanthropies that unabashedly supports public education and recognizes its importance in a democracy. Schott has supported the civil rights group, Journey for Justice, whose leader Jitu Brown has a powerful voice. (Jitu is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education.)

Schott underwrote the production of a video about the work of J4J. 

“Schott grantee partner Journey for Justice Alliance released a compelling short documentary chronicling the fight against education reform in the age of Trump and DeVos. Beyond the rhetoric coming from DC, for years Journey for Justice has been raising the voices of those most impacted by budget cuts and privatization. Following J4J’s cross-country trip from Detroit to Washington, D.C. to oppose Betsy DeVos’ appointment as Education Secretary in early 2017, this film not only shows the profound hurt that these policy changes cause, but the inspiring organizing done to resist them.

“As J4J National Director Jitu Brown is led away from the Senate hearing room, he says “it’s an act of cowardice to run toward privatization and away from equity. We are as far away from Brown v. Board as we were in 1957.”

“Film Description:

“Many are voicing concerns that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is unqualified, motivated by profit, and advancing a harmful agenda.

“Over a year ago, we organized a group of parents, educators, and students to travel from Detroit to Washington to raise their voices at DeVos’ confirmation hearing. We came to advocate for a public education system based on equity and democracy. We came because we had already lived with the consequences of policies that undermine those values, policies that DeVos had advocated for in Michigan. We came to speak truth to power and we were silenced—shut out.

“Please watch and share this 30 minute documentary made by 180.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, Equity, Justice, Privatization

Michigan: Legislators Narrowly Pass Bill to Let Charters Share Millage Votes

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2018 //
4

 

The Michigan House decided to let charters share in the bounty of votes on millage, where citizens vote to fund their public schools. 80% of charters in Michigan operate for profit, so this will boost their bottom line and steal taxpayer dollars intended for the 90% of children in public schools. The decision now goes to the State Senate.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Charter schools could receive the same designation as public schools in a district’s millage ballot under a bill narrowly approved by the Michigan House.

Legislators on Thursday voted 56-53 to pass an amendment to the General Property Tax Act allowing districts to describe charter schools as “public schools” on ballots. The initiative now heads to the Senate and follows a January law signed by Gov. Rick Snyder to let charter schools receive revenue from certain voter-approved property tax hikes….

Democrats counter that voters would be unaware of their tax dollars being funneled to for-profit education corporations.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Michigan, Privatization
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