Archives for the month of: August, 2018
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Oakland: Why is the School Board Trying to Save This Gulen Charter?

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2018 //
13

Oakland, California, has a Gulen problem.

One of its charter schools is a Gulen affiliate, meaning that it has a shadowy connection to a shadowy figure who is an imam who lives in seclusion in the Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania.

The imam Fethullah Gullen has the same shadowy association with nearly 200 charter schools, meaning his Gulen movement is collecting hundreds of millions of dollars to run “public” schools in which most of the board and teachers are Turkish. The current authoritarian ruler of Turkey, Recip Erdogan, once Gullen’s ally, blames Gulen for a failed coup and wants him extradited. The U.S. is protecting him. That’s okay, but why is this Turkish national running American “public” schools. He used to give free trips to Turkey to key legislators in states like Ohio and Texas, but he can’t do that anymore since Turkey no longer welcomes him or his movement.

Oakland has at least one Gulen school, called BayTech. The principal (Turkish, of course) revised his contract so that he could collect $450,000 if and when he left, and he quit and took off for Australia with $450,000 of taxpayer dollars.

Now the Oakland school board is scrambling to save the school.

Amid a management crisis and allegations of fraud at Oakland’s BayTech charter school, the Oakland Unified School District is exploring the possibility of appointing an independent director to the school’s board. State law allows public school districts to make board appointments to charter schools under their supervision. BayTech has also hired Kathleen Daugherty, a retired superintendent from Sacramento who runs an education consulting firm, to assist with the school’s recovery. Classes began on Monday at BayTech, even though the school’s principal and several other senior administrators all abruptly quit at the end of the last school year.
Meanwhile, OUSD is continuing to investigate allegations that the school’s former principal, Hayri Hatipoglu, defrauded BayTech by modifying his employment contract to obtain a lucrative three-year payout, instead of a standard six-month severance package. BayTech’s three current board members, Fatih Dagdelen, Kairat Sabyrov, and Volkan Ulukoylu, allege that Hatipoglu made the contract modification without their knowledge.

But Hatipoglu wrote in an email to the Express that the allegations are untrue and have unfairly damaged his reputation.

“This allegation is such a big lie that even OUSD, CSMC (BayTech back office) would be able to refute that immediately as they can view/have access to school finances,” Hatipoglu wrote.

OUSD hasn’t commented about the school’s situation or the allegations against Hatipoglu except to confirm several weeks ago that the district is conducting an investigation. School district records show that OUSD has obtained detailed financial information from BayTech.

As is usual in a Gulen school, the management is Turkish.

The article goes on to explain that the school required its student to buy uniforms from a Turkish-owned vendor.

Hatipoglu has maintained in emails sent to the Express that Sabyrov’s allegations are false, and that he is instead being retaliated against for breaking ties with the Accord Institute.

Accord is a nonprofit that was founded by members of the Gülen movement, a Turkish religious sect run by the elderly imam Fethullah Gülen.

In an email sent over the weekend, Hatipoglu wrote that Sabyrov, who is originally from Kyrgyzstan and BayTech’s two Turkish board members are part of a “shady network that is exploiting the school’s resources.”

Hatipoglu didn’t specifically identify this “shady network,” but BayTech’s links to followers of Fethullah Gülen are well-known. The school was founded by Gülen movement members, including the current CEO of the Accord Institute, and BayTech has contracted with several companies that are suspected of being owned and operated by Gülenists. BayTech also paid the Accord Institute about $70,000 a year for various education training services.

Why is the school board trying to keep this Gulen school afloat?

Given the allegations of fraud and mismanagement, why doesn’t the board return the school and the students to the public schools?

Sharon Higgins, an Oakland parent who has been tracking the Gulen movement for years, says that Oakland taxpayers are funding the Gulenists.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Gulen Charter Schools, Privatization

Audrey Hill: The Hoax of the Great White Savior

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2018 //
14

Audrey Hill tells a fascinating story about Michael Johnston, the highly accomplished TFA alum from Colorado who was briefly a principal, then became a very influential state senator, and recently tried unsuccessfully to run for the Democratic nomination for governor. While Johnston was in the State Senate, he wrote a bill for evaluation of teachers, principals, and schools called SB 191 (2010), which tied evaluation firmly to test scores and was one of the most punitive in the nation. Standardized test scores count for 50% of overall evaluation. He pledged that his bill was historic and would produce “great teachers, great principals, and great schools.” Eight years later, it is clear that it had no effect other than to demoralize teachers (who are among the most underpaid in the nation. It did not produce great teachers, great principals, or great schools, yet Michael fought to keep it in place until he was term limited out of the legislature.

But that is not what Audrey Hill writes about in this post. She writes about the bald-faced whoppers that charter advocates tell.

She quotes Johnston telling a group of innocent young college graduates about the miracles he accomplished when he was a principal because he believed (!) She has a tape of his 21 minutes of self-praise.

She begins:

At a Teach for America fundraiser, DFER politician and then Colorado Senator, Mike Johnston, tells a story that will be brief because (he jokes) he doesn’t want to keep his audience from dessert. He launches into a narrative about a scrappy, young, founding principal who beat all the odds because he believed in truth and hope. Johnston’s story is peppered with the names of students and their stories. Over the course of 21:53 minutes, we meet Tasha, Flavio, Jermaine and Travis (the 44th kid). He weaves from story to story and then back to how he and others (mostly TFA alums) fight against a system that has been catering to “an old set of interests with a wrong set of priorities,” and he ends by telling an eager, young audience that they are the army who, through sheer force of will “…would hoist America onto its shoulders and carry it across the water…”

What Johnston is saying at that moment (without a shred of irony) is that what America needs most is to be saved by an army of over-privileged youth right out of selective college who will move, with all deliberate speed, into positions of influence and power and more privilege. To return to the 2010 ed reform documentary, they are the Supermen that America has been waiting for, and they will, through sheer force of will (and a rehabilitated mid 20th century vernacular), fix all the things. The message is classic trickle down theory:

More privilege for the over-privileged helps the underprivileged.<!–more–>

Despite all obstacles, 100% of his seniors graduated from high school!

What he didn’t say was that 40% of the class never made it to senior year (the dirty little secret).

There was an increase in the graduation rate, but what Hill notices is the 40% who disappeared and were forgotten.

However, modest improvements don’t sell privatization, unfair labor practice and fast track careerism… all goals in the private interest that are sold alongside the goals of the public interest. Ed Reform makes serving a private interest virtually indistinguishable from serving the public one. It becomes easiest for a rising star to make the pragmatic, commonplace choice to accept whatever half truth or lie of omission keeps the train running. So, 40% of juniors have got to go. But, this article is not about Johnston. It is about other stakeholders: the 45th kids, the families that love them, and the teachers that teach them. And, it asks one question about removing a large share of a junior class…

Celebrating the personal success of students going off to college does not require celebrating the fake success of a business model. Students going off to college deserve all the accolades, but their interests are not served by the disappearance of 40% of their peers at the end of 11th grade. The only interests that are served by a school’s 100% Forever Mission Accomplished party are the private ones… the career of the rising star, the reputation of a school network, the agenda of the wealthy donors that fund them.

What Audrey Hill has discovered is that reform is not about the kids. It is about the heroes of their story, the privileged elite who make up stories about saving them. The saviors are the heroes! They can fudge the data as much as they want, and a credulous media won’t care. Their funders won’t care either.

As a result, a disposing school can remove as many students as they wish to fulfill their 100% Forever claim. They can hold onto non-disruptive kids and use their per pupil dollars for years and still not return a high school diploma. They can create a culture of winners (who gets to stay) and losers (who’s got to go). They can use fake data to suggest that superior performance is a result of at-will employment, ending due process, high class size with exceptional teachers, blended learning, daily test prep, low community agency, mayor controlled school systems, two hour bus rides to school, high but unpublished attrition rates. They can dump any educator, any child, any parent who displeases them and effectively dampen protest and oversight. They can maintain a parasitical relationship to living public schools and return only those students who they do not prefer. They can pursue instability with no concern for the people they are supposed to serve.

All of these are the bad policies of more privileged people on the backs of less privileged people… the kids that are removed or taught in test prep factories, the teachers that labor every day under a cloud of undeserved censure, the schools that are shamed by fake data, and the users and benefactors of public education itself. The mission is not only NOT accomplished, it is subverted and harnessed to an entirely different mission serving the oldest set of interests and the wrong set of priorities.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Data, Teach for America

William Mathis: Everything Important Cannot Be Measured

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2018 //
38

The following was written by William Mathis, vice-chair of the Vermont State Board of Education and Managing Director of the National Education Policy Center in Boulder, CO.

Education Reforms: Everything Important Cannot be Measured

We’re now in our seventieth year of national crisis. “Society is in peril of imminent collapse unless we do something about education,” is the mantra. It would seem that if we had an “imminent” crisis a lifetime ago, something bad would have happened by now. While doomsayers can go back to the Mayan calendar, we can start with the 1950s with Admiral Rickover attacking the “myth of American educational superiority” and unfavorably comparing the United States to other nations. He proclaimed education as “our first line of defense.” This was followed by the “Nation at Risk” report in 1983 which proclaimed that our schools were besieged, “by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.” Unfavorable test score comparisons and military metaphors remain popular with the reformers. These prognostications failed to come true.

Perhaps, the reformers got it wrong.

Attributed to Einstein, “Everything that can be measured is not important and everything important cannot be measured.” In focusing on what is easily measured, rather than what is important, we fail to grasp the real problem. To be sure, tests measure reading and math reasonably well and we need to keep tests for that purpose. But that’s only one part of education. Schools also teach children to get along with others, prepare young people for citizenship, encourage creativity, teach job and human skills, integrate communities, teach tolerance and co-operation, and generally prepare students to be contributing members of society. These things are not so easily measured.

Even if we limit ourselves to test scores, as a society, we misread them. That is, the low scores are strongly affected by circumstances outside the schools. Children coming from violent, economically challenged and drug addicted homes, as a group, are not going to do as well as their more fortunate classmates. As the family income gap between children has widened, the achievement gap has also widened.

A Stanford professor compared all the school districts in the nation using six different measures of socio-economic well-being and found that a stunning 70% of test scores could be predicted by these six factors. When the PARCC tests, which are used to test “college and career readiness” were compared with freshman grade point average, the tests only predicted between one and 16% of the GPA. What this means is that the tests do a better job of measuring socio-economic status than measuring schools.

This pattern has been solidly and consistently confirmed by a mountain of research since the famous Coleman report in 1966. It pointed to family and social problems rather than schools. So what did we do? We collected more data. We now have “data dash-boards.” Countless ads on the web tout this lucrative market and proclaim how people can “drill down,” create interactive charts and visuals to provide “deep learning.” They display all manner of things such as differences by ethnic group, technical education, graduation rate and a myriad of exotic esoterica. By all means, we need to continue to collect this important data. The problem is that we already know what the dash-board tells us. What it doesn’t tell us is the nature of the real problems and how to correct them. First, we must look to those things outside the school that affect school performance. Second, in addition to hard data, we must use on-the-ground observations to see whether we provide legitimate opportunities to all children, whether the school is warm and inviting, and whether the curriculum is up to date and well-delivered.
By concentrating only on the easily measurable, we squeeze the life out of schools. We devalue, deemphasize and defund things that lead to a better life, better schools and a better civilization.
Finally, it misses the most essential point. Parents want their children to grow and lead productive, happy lives and contribute to society. They want their children to practice civic virtue and have loving relationships. But these things are not easily measured by a test. “Everything that can be measured is not important and everything important cannot be measured.”

William J. Mathis is Managing Director of the National Education Policy Center and Vice-chair of the Vermont State Board of Education. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of organizations with which he is affiliated.

[i] https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html
[ii] Haran, W. J. (may 1982). “Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, USN: A Decade of Educational Criticism, 1955-64.” Loyola Dissertation. Retrieved July 3, 2018 from https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3077&context=luc_diss
[iii] https://ww w.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/02/12/whats-the-purpose-of-education-in-the-21st-century/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cead22f07401
[iv] Reardon, S. F. (July 2011). “The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and possible Explanations. Retrieved July 3, 2018 from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58b70e09db29d6424bcc74fc/t/59263d05c534a59e6984a5fd/1495678214676/reardon+whither+opportunity+-+chapter+5.pdf
[v] Reardon, S. F. (April 2016). School District Socioeconomic Status, Race and Academic Achievement. https://cepa.stanford.edu/…/school-district-socioeconomic-status-race-and-academic-achievement
[vi] http s://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/05/27/alice-in-parccland-does-validity-study-really-prove-the-common-core-test-is-valid/?utm_term=.12cf542ae0cf
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Categories Accountability, Data, Education Reform, Research

Thomas Ultican: The Destroy Public Education Movement Creates a New Vehicle

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2018 //
21

Retired physics and math teacher Tom Ultican continues his investigation of the Destroy Public Education movement with this post about a new organization determined to extinguish public education by privatization.

He begins:

Billionaire Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, has joined with billionaire former Enron executive, John Arnold, to launch an aggressive destroy public education (DPE) initiative. They claim to have invested $100 million each to start The City Fund. Neerav Kingsland declares he is the Fund’s Managing Partner and says the fund will help cities across America institute proven school reform successes such as increasing “the number of public schools that are governed by non-profit organizations.”

Ending local control of public schools through democratic means is a priority for DPE forces. In 2017, EdSource reported on Hastings campaign against democracy; writing, “His latest salvo against school boards that many regard as a bedrock of American democracy came last week in a speech he made to the annual conference of The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools in Washington D.C., attended by about 4,500 enthusiastic charter school advocates, teachers and administrators.”

When announcing the new fund, Kingsland listed fourteen founding members of The City Fund. There is little professional classroom teaching experience or training within the group. Chris Barbic was a Teach for America (TFA) teacher in Houston, Texas for two years. Similarly, Kevin Huffman was also a TFA teacher in Houston for three years. The only other member that may have some education experience is Kevin Shafer. His background is obscure.

The operating structure of the new fund is modeled after a law firm. Six of the fourteen founding members are lawyers: Gary Borden; David Harris; Kevin Huffman; Neerav Kingsland; Jessica Pena and Kameelah Shaheed-Diallo.

Ready to Pilfer Community Schools and End School Boards

In a 2012 published debate about school reform, Kingsland justified his call for ending democratic control of public education writing,

“I believe that true autonomy can only be achieved by government relinquishing its power of school operation. I believe that well regulated charter and voucher markets – that provide educators with public funds to operate their own schools – will outperform all other vehicles of autonomy in the long-run. In short, autonomy must be real autonomy: government operated schools that allow “site level decision making” feels more Orwellian than empowering – if we believe educators should run schools, let’s let them run schools.”

This is a belief in “the invisible hand” of markets making superior judgements and private businesses always outperforming government administration. There may be some truth here, but it is certainly not an ironclad law.

Please open the post to read the rest of this shocking story of arrogance and contempt for democracy, as well as many links.

If we lived in a society that took democracy seriously, the perpetrators of the City Fund would be ridiculed as agents of plutocracy.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Eva Moskowitz’ High School is “in Chaos”

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2018 //
30

Eva Moskowitz, the Queen of no-excuses charter schools in New York City, has a problem.

Her high school, according to Chalkbeat, is “in chaos.”

Someone leaked a tape recording of her speech to parents at the elaborate graduation ceremony for 16 students.

The school had a mass exodus of teachers and principals.

Eva’s obsession with rules, discipline, and obedience was upsetting everyone.

On a muggy morning in August, Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz stood before a group of parents inside the network’s first high school, trying to regain their trust.

Parents were angry that students were being told they could be held back a grade if they missed four assignments. They were concerned about teachers going too far to enforce the dress code. And they were fearful about an exodus of teachers — as well as an email that said if parents missed a June meeting, Success would “assume your scholar is withdrawing.”

Moskowitz, a fixture in New York City politics who talks about her network of 47 schools with an almost religious fervor, acknowledges that she never planned to run high schools. But Success did open one in 2014 and a second several years later. It hasn’t gone smoothly.

I knew that I was putting it together with bubble gum and Scotch tape,” Moskowitz told the parents, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by Chalkbeat. Of the Success Academy High School of the Liberal Arts in Manhattan, she added, “We’ve been at this for 13 years, and I have never seen a school in our network that has been this disorganized.”

Success Academy, New York City’s largest network of charter schools, graduated its first high school students in June to much fanfare. But behind the scenes, according to nearly two dozen parents, students, and current and former school officials, its first high school spent last year in crisis….

Success Academy is famous for rules.

That was true when the network launched with a kindergarten and first grade in 2006 and remains true now, as Success serves about 17,000 students — mostly students of color.

The schools deploy an at-times controversial “no excuses” approach, with strict discipline and high academic standards. As some other charter schools backed away from out-of-school suspensions in the last few years, Moskowitz has defended them with vigor.

Her schools are also known for their academic rigor, intense test prep, and sky-high state test scores. Their elementary and middle schools regularly blow past city averages on state tests and even beat much wealthier districts like Scarsdale and Chappaqua.

But how should Success’ trademark strictness be adapted for students who are older, more independent, perhaps less inclined to accept big consequences for small infractions? That question has dogged other no-excuses high schools, and Success appears to be struggling to find answers.

For the last three years, the task of figuring that out fell to Andy Malone, a well-liked former Success middle school principal who took over the high school in 2015. (The school’s first principal lasted one year.)

Malone didn’t last either.

Read the rest of the story.

Categories Accountability, Discipline, Harlem Success Academy

Florida: Peter Greene Explains Amendment 8, Which Was Tossed Out by a Judge This Morning

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2018 //
4

Peter Greene provides an excellent explanation of Amendment 8, which was thrown off the ballot this morning by a Florida judge.

The lawsuit against Amendment 8 was filed by the Florida League of Women Voters.

It will be appealed, so it is important for you to understand what Peter Greene explains in this post.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, Privatization

Florida: The Judge’s Decision Striking Amendment 8 Off the Ballot

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2018 //
1

As you read here earlier today, a Florida judge removed Amendment 8 off the ballot because the language was confusing and deceptive. The language fails to inform the voter what the purpose and the effect of the proposal is. It was written to mislead voters. Its true purpose was to remove from local school boards the ability to control, supervise, regulate, and manage schools within their district.

Thank God for the Florida League of Women Voters!

Here is the decision.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, Privatization

ICE Orders Dozens of Full-Body Restraints for Immigrants Seeking Freedom

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2018 //
45

They come to America as immigrants seeking freedom. They are arrested, separated from their children, and imprisoned.

Their children are sent to distant facilities. Some will never see their parents again.

ICE has ordered 60 full-body restraints for the immigrants who resist.

Is this America?

Categories Justice

DeVos Refuses to Defend Transgender Students

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2018 //
11

Politico Morning Report tells the sad story of Betsy DeVos’ abandonment of transgender students. This administration prefers that these students suffer discrimination and humiliation and bullying.

Let it be noted that the DeVos family is notable for homophobia. Betsy’s family were founders and major funders of the anti-gay Family Research Council and Focus on the Family. Her mother and brother are still board members. Her mother was the single biggest contributor to the fight to block gay marriage by referendum in California. When Betsy was asked during her Senate hearings about the virulently anti-gay activism of her mother’s foundation, she claimed to know nothing about it. When someone pointed out that she was a member of the board, she said it was a clerical error. A clerical error for 17 years. I.e., she was prevaricating. Lying to Congress is a crime.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree.

Politico reports:

TRANSGENDER STUDENTS GET NO SATISFACTION FROM DEVOS’ EDUCATION DEPARTMENT: Alex Howe spent his junior and senior year barred from using the boy’s bathroom at his Texas high school because he was transgender. When the debate team traveled for competitions, he was forced to room alone. He felt isolated, alienated and depressed. “I was counting down the days until I graduated,” Howe told POLITICO, the first time he has spoken publicly about his experience.

— Howe appealed to DeVos for help just after graduating high school last year, hoping to ease the way for other transgender students. But his complaint was thrown out by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights six months later. That’s because the Trump administration is no longer investigating complaints filed by transgender students over bathroom access.

— Howe’s complaint is one of at least five involving transgender students denied bathroom access that were also shelved. Another transgender student interviewed by POLITICO and also speaking publicly for the first time said his bathroom-related complaint hasn’t been dismissed, but has been stalled for three years. He hasn’t been told why.

— Both Howe and the second student, who wants to be identified only by his first name, Drake, described the human cost of DeVos’ decision to turn down and hold off on their appeals for help. While high school isn’t easy for many kids who don’t fit in, it can be so much worse for transgender kids. Caitlin Emma has the story.

— The Education Department released a statement saying it is “committed to defending the civil rights of all students and ensuring all students have an equal opportunity to learn in an environment free from harassment and discrimination.” But officials declined to comment on any specific complaints.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Education Reform

Wisconsin: Two Former Aides of Scott Walker Turn Against Him, Support Evers

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2018 //
9

A former top aide to Governor Scott Walker turned against him and made an ad endorsing his Democratic challenger Tony Evers.

“A second former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker has come out against him, saying the GOP governor’s team told him to meet with payday loan lobbyists and discouraged him from creating documents that could be turned up under the state’s open records law.

“Former Financial Institutions Secretary Peter Bildsten joins ex-Corrections Secretary Ed Wall in excoriating their former boss, claiming they were told not to send emails and cutting digital ads for Walker’s Democratic challenger, state schools Superintendent Tony Evers.

“A third former top aide to Walker has also contended he was told not to create documents that would have to be turned over under the public records law.

“I was told to avoid creating electronic records,” Bildsten says in a digital ad debuting Monday. “I thought Scott Walker was different, but he’s just another politician looking out for himself.”

The people of Wisconsin should throw this charlatan out of office. Walker has earned a stunning defeat. Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end for this puppet of the Koch brothers.

Categories Fraud, Koch Brothers, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin
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