Archives for the month of: July, 2018
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Peter Greene: If You Had $575 Million to Spend on School Reform, What Would You Do?

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2018 //
41

Peter Greene is flummoxed by the idea that Bill Gates leveraged his giving to persuade several districts and charter chains to spend a total of $575 million on a failed experiment to evaluate teachers by student test scores.

The experiment flopped.

He asks, what would you do if you had $575 Million to improve schools. Not that. He reminds readers that this is a lost opportunity cost. If you do X with that discretionary money, you are giving up the chance to do Y, which has real research behind it.

What is the Gates Foundation lacking? Common sense.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

Mercedes Schneider: Atlanta Mayor Creates de Facto Mayoral Control

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2018 //
0

Mercedes Schneider assesses the strange political maneuvering in Atlanta.

Atlanta has an elected school board and a superintendent. TFA elected at least two of the board members. The superintendent Meria Carstarphen is a data-driven reformer, eager to expand the charter presence in Atlanta.

But, but, but…the mayor has stepped in to name a “chief education officer.” Her choice is a TFA with corporate entrepreneur experience.

I know it’s confusing. I don’t understand it either.

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Education Industry, Privatization, Teach for America

Ed Johnson on Atlanta’s New “Chief Education Officer”

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2018 //
2

Ed Johnson is an Atlanta community activist who is deeply concerned about the corporate reform takeover of the school board.

He wrote this open letter to the school board:

10 July 2018

Atlanta Mayor’s first-ever Chief Education Officer, an alum of TFA and BCG

Yesterday The Atlanta Voice reported that Atlanta’s new Mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, has hired Aliya Bhatia to be the city’s first-ever Chief Education Officer.

Unsurprisingly, Bhatia comes into the job by way of Teach for America (TFA), Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Harvard University. BCG is known to charge exuberant fees for cookie-cutter-like recommendations to downsize and privatize public services and for being a danger to public education.

According to The Atlanta Voice (my emphasis):

“As Chief Education Officer, Bhatia will work with community stakeholders to improve collaboration and identify and advocate for policies and resources that will improve access to high-quality education for all Atlantans.”

“Bhatia will also be tasked with creating a citywide Children’s Savings Account program for every child entering kindergarten and with working across city government to ensure that public schools are a priority for infrastructure investment and public safety.

“‘Quality education can transform lives. Aliya Bhatia’s experience, passion, and commitment to creating high-quality, accessible educational opportunities will allow her to effectively partner with APS [Atlanta Public Schools] and other education and industry leaders from throughout the community as we work to improve access to education and training for all of our children and residents,’ Bottoms said.

“A native of metro Atlanta, Bhatia started her career as a teacher with Teach for America and later joined the Boston Consulting Group as an associate and consultant. She recently completed her master’s degree in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University[.]

“The search for this position was led by two members of Mayor Bottom’s transition team: Bill Rogers, Chairman & CEO of SunTrust Banks and Virginia Hepner, former CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center.”

So now we have Mayor Bottoms leading Atlantans to believe it is necessary to “improve access to high-quality education.” Such messaging typically exemplifies the language school choice and school reform proponents so often use to bamboozle and sucker especially Black parents and others into selfishly demanding charter schools on the pretense charter schools are public schools.

Charter schools are not public schools; they are private entities that suckle public school funds for profit and thereby necessarily help destroy public schools and public education. Top priority for charter schools requires making money off children; no profit, no school. Thus saying “high-quality education” is very different from saying “high-quality public education.” Besides, what does “high-quality” mean, anyway? Or even low-quality?

Mayor Bottoms’ messaging implicitly argues that charter schools naturally provide “high-quality education” because, after all, they are like private schools and private schools always provide “high-quality education,” unlike public schools. Therefore, it is never necessary to improve charter schools; it is only necessary to “improve access” to them, which generally means having more of them. In contrast, access to public schools is a given, and public schools have always stood to be improved, continually. Disturbingly, however, charter schools are about replacement of public schools, not about improvement of public schools.

Atlanta City Council President and Members advised what was coming

On 20 April 2018, in a separate email to Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore, Post 1 At Large Council Member Michael Julian Bond, Post 3 At Large Council Member Andre Dickens, and District 4 Council Member Cleta Winslow, my district representative, I wrote:

Today I became aware of the [Mayor’s] “confidential” search for a City of Atlanta Chief Education Officer per the attachment, enclosed by linked reference.

The search bespeaks entangling City of Atlanta in Atlanta Public Schools Leadership’s continuing actions to expand school choice as a consumer good, to include inciting profit-making opportunities for private investors, rather than work on improving public education as a common good. Consequences for Black children, as a category attending Atlanta Public Schools, is education made worse for them and their learning resilience virtually destroyed. These consequences have become quite apparent during just the past three years.

Therefore, I wish to meet with you in your role [on Atlanta City Council]. I wish to share and discuss perspectives and understandings about the matter that otherwise may go unconsidered.

I can be available to meet at a time and a place convenient for you. Kindly let me know, won’t you?

Only Councilman Andre Dickens bothered to respond, explaining he had not “seen the application. The new mayor has stated during her campaign that she plans to hire an education liaison role that reports to her under her office. She has the discretion to hire staff that she sees fit as long as it fits in the budget.”

Given his explanation, Councilman Dickens then intimated disinterest in meeting.

Nonetheless, on 22 April 2018, I followed up to Councilman Dickens, with copy to various others that included all council members:

Yes, I know it is Atlanta Mayor’s personal decision to add to the staff of the Office of the Mayor various positions by whatever title, including the position titled “Chief Education Officer.” And that is the concern. The Mayor’s “Position Description for the Position of Chief Education Officer, City of Atlanta” reads as if the Atlanta superintendent [Meria Carstarphen, Ed.D.], or a devotee of hers, such as the one elected last year to Atlanta City Council from having served one term on the Atlanta school board [that being TFA alum Matt Westmoreland], may have written it or controlled the hand that wrote it.

Atlanta Mayor’s position description for Chief Education Officer, City of Atlanta, is, without question, pregnant with school choice and school reform language the superintendent and her devotee are known to speak and work to make happen. Consequently, the position description strongly intimates the Mayor seeks a person of low moral and ethical integrity who, if hired, will further normalize and expand the superintendent’s school choice ideology and machinations that target especially Black parents to become willing, selfish participants in destroying public education in Atlanta for all children and in destroying Atlanta Public Schools as a public good.

Surely you will agree “education liaison” connotes a very different expectation than does “Chief Education Officer.” The former connotes assisting communications and cooperation and such; arguably, involvement. The latter connotes command and control, as by “governance and outcome targets,” as you say; arguably, entanglement.

Besides, the title “Chief Education Officer” is generally understood to mean, in corporate-speak, the top administrator of a local education agency; for example, Chief Education Officer of Chicago Public Schools. However, City of Atlanta is not a local education agency.

Moreover, alarmingly, Atlanta Mayor’s position description for Chief Education Officer, City of Atlanta, allows a “camel’s nose in the tent” to institute quasi-mayoral control of Atlanta Public Schools in a way that can effectively skirt City Council’s lawmaking authority and responsibility. City of Atlanta quasi-mayoral control of APS will have a structure like that of, for example, DC Public Schools, but without the necessity of being codified, thus allowing for democratic ideals and proceedings to be undermined to benefit private interests at the expense of public interests. Not surprisingly, the politics of mayoral control of DCPS are known to precipitate fraud and ethical and moral lapses as normal behavior, as the recently fired DCPS Chancellor, Antwan Wilson, demonstrates.

Expect City of Atlanta quasi-mayoral control of Atlanta Public Schools to be, at least, a first step for the superintendent to begin doing away with the publicly elected Atlanta Board of Education. After all, the superintendent once brassily intimated to Atlanta school board members during a public board meeting that the school board is in her way.

Finally, it is interesting to note Atlanta, the so-called Black Mecca, will eventually find itself on the trailing edge of the nation’s emerging rejection of bipartisan Bush-Obama-DeVos school choice and school reform ideology. Witness, for example, recent teacher strikes and walk-outs in several cities and states. This should not come as a surprise. People beaten down will take only so much. Atlanta, especially, should know this, and should have learned the lessons by now.

Why must being on the trailing edge be the case for Atlanta, the so-called Black Mecca? Why did Atlanta, the so-called Black Mecca, even allow the “camel’s nose in the tent” that is Atlanta Public Schools in the first place by hiring a pro-school choice superintendent [Meria Carstarphen]? Why now allow that camel’s nose into the tent that is the Office of the Mayor? What has Atlanta, the so-called Black Mecca, yet to learn about lack of authentic education that sustains intergenerational cycles of servitude, hence poverty?

Should you change your mind and wish to meet to discuss more about the Mayor’s “Position Description for the Position of Chief Education Officer, City of Atlanta,” I can be available; it’s up to you. In the meantime, I, as a reasonable person, believe the public has a need to know about this, hence my Bcc (which is a way to avoid displaying a very long list of cluttering email addresses and is not meant to imply secrecy; people Bcc’ed may reply or not as they wish).

Perhaps one now knows why one would have been wise to put aside ones Black racialist ideology during last year’s mayoral runoff election in order to cast a rational, well-informed vote for Mary Norwood.

Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality in Public Education
Atlanta GA| edwjohnson@aol.com

Bcc: List 2

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

Randi Weingarten: The Right-Wing Assault on Unions Won’t Win: It Just Makes Us Angrier

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2018 //
38

Randi Weingarten wrote this commentary in Education Week about the Supreme Court’s Janus decision, which ruled that people do not have to pay agency fees to unions, thus allowing them to collect benefits negotiated by the union without paying dues.

The final day of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 term may have been overshadowed by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement, but in one of two important cases decided that day, the court overturned four decades of precedent to bar public-sector unions from charging fees to nonmembers who enjoy the benefits of a union contract.

On its face, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31 claimed to be about free speech. But the right-wing forces behind it admitted a detailed plan to “defund and defang” unions and dismantle their political power. That’s according to documents obtained by The Guardian from the State Policy Network—a national alliance that includes the primary Janus-backer, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, as an associate member.

As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, the precedent established by the court’s 1977 Abood v. Detroit Board of Education ruling was embedded in the nation’s law and its economic life. It ensured the labor peace that gave teachers, firefighters, nurses, police, and other public-sector employees a path to a better life. It made communities more resilient and kept public services strong.

In Janus, the plaintiffs weaponized the First Amendment from its original purpose of securing the political freedom necessary for democracy by arguing compulsory union fees violated free speech. By a 5-4 majority, the court put the interests of billionaires over established law and basic principle—just as Justice Kennedy did with his deciding vote in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010. The right wing’s thirst for power again trumped the aspirations of communities and the people who serve them.

Janus will, of course, hurt unions, but most importantly—and by design—it will hurt workers. Nevertheless, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.

Unions are still the best vehicle working people have to get ahead. Workers covered by a union contract earn 13.2 percent more than comparable workers in nonunionized workplaces, and they are far more likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance, paid leave, and retirement benefits, according to a 2017 report from the Economic Policy Institute. Unions negotiate everything from manageable class sizes to safety equipment for emergency personnel.
Unions help make possible what would be impossible for individuals acting alone.

For the American Federation of Teachers’ 1.75 million members (our largest membership ever, and growing—we’ve added a quarter million in the last decade), Janus poses opportunities as well as threats. In the face of right-wing attacks on public education and labor, we have come to understand that when we walk the walk with the community, we become exponentially more powerful.

Years before Janus, the AFT embarked on a plan to talk with every one of our members on issues that matter—supporting public education, creating good jobs that support a middle-class life, securing high-quality and affordable health care, pursuing affordable higher education, fighting discrimination and bigotry, and defending democracy and pluralism. Whether you lean conservative or liberal, higher wages, a voice at work, safe schools, and a functioning democracy are American values.

Since January, all over the country, more than half a million of our members signed new cards recommitting to the union, and that number is growing. Many of the AFT’s 3,500 local affiliates are reporting that 90 percent or more of their members have recommitted.

After the Janus decision hit, groups funded by the Koch brothers and the DeVos family launched their own campaigns, urging Los Angeles Unified School District teachers to “give themselves a raise” by dropping the union. Think about it—not only did U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos attend the Janus oral arguments at the Supreme Court (while not bothering to put it on her public schedule), her fortune is funding the post-Janus assault on unions.
When our members at AFT discover the special interests behind these “opt out” campaigns, they get extra mad. You only need to look at Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia to show that when salaries and benefits are stripped away, the response can be intense—and righteous. In Los Angeles, 34,000 members of the local union affiliate were contacted by those Koch- and DeVos-linked groups trying to get them to opt out. So far, only one member has….

We are in a race for the soul of our country. But if we really double down, if we fight not only for what’s right but for what the vast majority of Americans believe, working people—not Janus’ wealthy funders—will emerge as the real winners.

Categories Billionaires, Equity, Justice, Unions

Pennsylvania: Accountant Sentenced to Prison for Helping Cyber Charter Founder Evade Taxes

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2018 //
11

A former certified public accountant who helped hide the tax evasion by the leader of Pennsylvania’s first cyber charter was sentenced to prison for a year and a day.

The founder of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, Nicholas Trombetta, will be sentenced later this month.

Trombetta scammed $8 million and didn’t pay taxes. By some fluke in the law, he was not charged with theft of public’s money, but only with failing to pay taxes on the money he stole.

The school was the state’s first cyber charter. It had 10,000 students, each producing a revenue of $10,000 to the school. That’s $100 million, just lying around. What was Trombetta to do with all that dough?

Don’t you think the legislature might reconsider the need for regulation and oversight of these sweet deals? No accountability, no transparency, no supervision. Just lots of money.

Categories Fraud, Pennsylvania, Virtual Charter Schools

New Jersey: Reversing Chris Christie’s Sustained Assault on Public Schools Begins Under Democratic Governor

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2018 //
18

Governor Chris Christie did his damndest to harm the public schoolsin New Jersey during his eight years in Office. Its public schools are among the best in the nation outside of the so-called Abbott districts, a group of highly segregated, impoverished school districts that Christie determined to hand over to private charter chains.

The Education Law Center provides an update hereon Governor Phil Murphy’s efforts to reverse Christie’s foul legacy.

At the end of June, the New Jersey Legislature passed the FY19 State Budget and several other bills impacting the state’s 1.4 million public school students.

“Over the last eight years, lawmakers did little to prevent former Governor Chris Christie from cutting school funding; imposing PARCC exams as the high school exit test in violation of state law; and rapidly expanding charter schools, depleting resources and fueling student segregation in Newark, Camden, Trenton and other districts.

“With Governor Phil Murphy’s election, legislative leaders had the opportunity to reverse course by taking bold steps to restore equity, adequacy and opportunity for public school children, especially those at risk and with special needs.

“So did legislators heed the call for change?”

“Here’s a recap of the major actions taken by the Legislature on public education:

“School Funding: The FY19 Budget contains a $340 million increase in K-12 funding, with much of those funds allocated to districts spending below their constitutional level of adequacy under the SFRA funding formula. Yet other districts, including many below or slightly above adequacy, will have their state aid reduced by a total of over $600 million in seven years under changes to the formula pushed by Senate President Stephen Sweeney. While some last minute changes may mitigate the full impact of the cuts, many districts are facing the grim prospect of laying off teachers and support staff and eliminating needed programs as the reductions in state aid accelerate in the coming years.

“Preschool: The FY19 Budget includes $57 million in SFRA preschool education aid, providing the first increase in per pupil funding for existing preschool programs since 2013-14. It includes $32.5 million to address years of flat funding and adds $25 million for expansion of high quality preschool to low-income students across the state, as promised in the SFRA formula.

“School Construction: In passing a bill to authorize $500 million in school construction funds targeted to county vocational school districts, lawmakers did nothing to address the urgent need for school construction funding in all other school districts across the state. Legislators turned a blind-eye to the stark fact that the state school construction program has run out of money for 381 health and safety, capital maintenance and major projects recently identified by the NJ Department of Education for urban districts, as well as for grants for needed facilities improvements in hundreds of “regular operating districts.”

“Camden Charter School Expansion: Lawmakers bypassed the education committees in both chambers to rush through a bill to allow three out-of-state charter chains – KIPP, Uncommon and Mastery – to continue to expand across the city and, in the process, pave the way for these private charter operators to close and replace most or all of Camden’s public schools.

Private School Vouchers: Legislators decided to table a bill to use public funds to pay the salaries of science and math teachers in private schools. The bill would have added millions more to the over $110 million in public funds already allocated to private schools for textbooks, security, nurses and remedial programs. Lawmakers failed to take action to reduce the millions in taxpayer dollars diverted to private schools and to redirect those dollars to the state’s chronically underfunded public schools.

“The Legislature completely avoided other pressing issues, such as the looming high school graduation testing crisis, the need to reform the state’s charter school law, and the consolidation of K-6 and K-8 districts into unified K-12 districts across the state.

“The scorecard on the Legislature’s actions on public education is decidedly mixed. But one lesson is clear. Advocates for our public school students and their schools must redouble efforts to hold elected officials to account for advancing, and not threatening, the right of all children to a thorough and efficient education, as guaranteed under our state constitution.

“David Sciarra is the Executive Director of Education Law Center and lead counsel for the plaintiff school children in Abbott v. Burke.”

Education Law Center Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, New Jersey, Privatization

Trump Tariffs Will Hurt Trump Voters Most

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2018 //
44

The New York Times showed that Trump tariffs on cars will boomerang and hurt Trump voters in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama.

“BRUSSELS — President Trump has complained about seeing too many German cars on Fifth Avenue, and threatened heavy tariffs on the companies that produce them. There is a good chance, though, that those Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs were not only made in the United States, but made by workers who voted for Mr. Trump.

“European companies have turned Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee into auto manufacturing powerhouses in recent years, churning out cars not just for American buyers but also for export to China and Europe. Germany’s three biggest carmakers all have facilities there, and Volvo Cars, which is owned by a Chinese company but based in Sweden, began producing at a new plant in South Carolina just last month.

“Yet being major employers in regions that voted heavily for Mr. Trump has not protected them.

“With barely a peep of resistance from his own party, the president has threatened tariffs — expected to be 20 percent — on imported cars and car parts. In a prelude to such a move, he has ordered an investigation into whether the imports pose a threat to national security. Trade restrictions could be put in place within months. And if he follows through, the European Union has pledged to retaliate.

“The damage would be far-reaching, draining an estimated $14 billion from the United States economy. If other countries retaliated, the cost would skyrocket to nearly $300 billion, the European Union’s Washington delegation said last week.

“Carmakers, both foreign and domestic, say such penalties would severely damage their lines of supply, interfere with exports and eventually force them to curtail operations in, of all places, Republican strongholds.

“Mr. Trump won 63 percent of the vote in Spartanburg, S.C., home of BMW’s biggest factory anywhere in the world. But Allen Smith, president of the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce, said the president’s tariffs would threaten the region’s livelihood.

“For BMW and its many, many suppliers scattered across the state and region, you’re talking tens of thousands of jobs,” Mr. Smith said. “We would all agree with the president’s overall aim to improve trade with America’s interests top of mind. But getting to that end by inflicting so much pain on American business is the wrong approach.”

“Mr. Trump’s threat to impose auto tariffs would be the latest manifestation of his willingness to alienate longtime allies and American companies, ostensibly to protect domestic jobs. He has already imposed levies on steel and aluminum from the European Union, Canada, Mexico and other nations, and on Friday will place tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products.

“But this new front in the trade war carries substantial risk not just for the auto industry but for Mr. Trump and Republican officeholders nationwide, given the impact that a full-blown trade war could have on American jobs tied to the auto industry.

“Virtually all cars made in the United States contain imported parts. Unlike steel and aluminum tariffs, whose costs may not be obvious to most consumers, automotive levies would show up in showrooms within weeks. Sticker prices would rise by hundreds if not thousands of dollars. That is why Ford and General Motors, alongside foreign automakers, have also roundly condemned the protectionist measures.

“The times are gone that a producer was only headquartered in one country with production in that country and exporting from that country to the rest of the world,” said Erik Jonnaert, the secretary general of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, in an interview in Brussels.

“The economic impact would be greatest in a triangle demarcated by BMW’s factory in Spartanburg; Daimler’s Mercedes complex in Tuscaloosa, Ala.; and Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn…

“Over time, the European carmakers have expanded their operations in those regions not only to build vehicles for American buyers, but also to serve customers in places like China. Last year, Daimler added 900 jobs to its American operations, which also include truck factories, and it is investing $1 billion to expand the Tuscaloosa operation to produce electric vehicles and batteries.

“Mr. Trump’s contention that these companies may present a threat to American national security, though, has thrown that growth into doubt.

“BMW exports 70 percent of the vehicles that it makes in Spartanburg, about 270,000, helping to reduce the trade deficit that Mr. Trump often complains about. BMW plans to add 1,000 jobs in Spartanburg as part of a $600 million expansion. If trade tensions continue to escalate, BMW warned in a letter on June 28 to Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, the result could be “strongly reduced export volumes and negative effects on investment and employment in the United States.”

Categories Economy, Education Reform, Jobs

Tom Ultican: iReady, Privatization, Blended Learning, and the Assault on Public Education

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2018 //
11

Tom Ultican pulls together four divergent strands of the effort to undermine public education, and iReady seems to be the tie that binds them together.

He writes:

“iReady is an economically successful software product used in public schools, by homeschoolers and in private schools. It utilizes the blended learning practices endorsed by the recently updated federal education law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). iReady employs competency-based education (CBE) theory which is also advocated by ESSA. The outcome is iReady drains money from classrooms, applies federally supported failed learning theories and undermines good teaching. Children hate it.

“Public education in America contends with four dissimilar but not separate attacks. The school choice movement is motivated by people who want government supported religious schools, others who want segregated schools and still others who want to profit from school management and the related real estate deals. The forth big threat is from the technology industry which uses their wealth and lobbying power to not only force their products into the classroom, but to mandate “best practices” for teaching. These four streams of attack are synergistic.”

What does iReady have to do with the big picture?

“Profiting from Education Law

“A group of billionaires with varying motives are using their vast wealth to shape America’s education agenda to their own liking. The last rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 called ESSA was larded up with provisions like the big money for technology which is listed in Title’s I and IV. It also specifies generous grants to promote both “blended learning” and “personalized learning.” (See page 1969 of the official law.) Charter schools, vouchers and social impact bonds are promoted in ESSA. All these initiatives drain money from the classroom and none have been credibly shown to improve education outcomes.”

Read the tangled web that Tom Ultican unweaves.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Blended Learning, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Technology

Charles P. Pierce: Who Will Be Held Accountable for the Toddlers Lost by the Trump Administration?

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2018 //
45

Charles P. Pierce, a regular blogger at Esquire, describes the Trump administration’s blatant indifference to a judge’s order to produce the hundreds of toddlers that were taken away from their parents, then “lost” in the system.

He says, someone should go to jail for this. I agree.

Try this sometime. You’re in court and the judge gives you a deadline to do something by Day X. Then, when Day X arrives, tell the judge that you’ve only been able to do four percent of what the judge demanded that you do. See where you’re eating dinner that night.

What are the odds that anyone will pay other than the children and their parents? Zip.

Categories Education Reform

Puerto Rico: Judge Declares Public Funding for Charters and Vouchers Unconstitutional

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2018 //
15

Readers of this blog got the scoop a few days ago in the comment section, as reported by Christine Langhoff. But she did not have the English translation.

Here it is in Politico:

NO GO FOR PRIVATELY RUN CHARTERS, VOUCHERS IN PUERTO RICO: Key elements of the Puerto Rican government’s push to reform education through school choice suffered a blow in court over the weekend — one that leaders say they plan to appeal.

— Tribunal de Primera Instancia Judge Iris Cancio González ruled that privately run charter schools and publicly funded vouchers used in private schools run afoul of the Puerto Rican constitution, which says public funds should only sustain government-run schools. Cancio González wrote that even when regulated, charter schools more closely resemble “a private education system funded by the government, than the public schools we know today.”

— “Their framework creates a financing system that supports private institutions, which the government simply licenses with limited supervision,” Cancio González wrote. She added that the private donations charter schools are allowed to receive could influence their objectives and practice, and agreed with teachers union arguments that charter schools could “dilute” the funding that goes to traditional public schools.

— The ruling makes an exception for charter schools run by local governments and public universities.

— The challenge was brought by Puerto Rico’s largest teachers union in a lawsuit filed in April. The union has for months fought the reform plan pushed by Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, arguing that charter schools and vouchers are a threat to the island’s public schools. “We’ve always said, both charters and vouchers are unconstitutional,” Aida Díaz, president of the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, said in a statement . “Justice has been served for our children and their right to a public education. We continue to fight for them and for our teachers.”

— Ramón Rosario Cortés, Puerto Rico’s secretary of public affairs and public policy, said in a statement that “great changes usually attract resistance” and that the government plans to appeal the ruling.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Puerto Rico
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