Archives for the month of: September, 2018
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Michigan: In Prison, Charter Founder Continues to Collect Rent from Charter School

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2018 //
17

This is one of the most bizarre stories of charter malfeasance that I have ever heard of.

Steven Ingersoll, the founder of a charter chain in Michigan, is currently serving a 41-month term in prison for tax fraud. In a series of complicated transactions, Ingersoll tapped the schools’ funds and transferred millions to his own bank account. The board of the chain consisted of his friends, and they were okay with the arrangement; apparently, they forgave him for funneling millions of dollars from the schools for his personal enrichment and did not demand repayment. Ingersoll owned the properties on which the charters paid rent. Ingersoll is an optometrist, and the sales pitch for his charter chain was that he had a unique take on “visioning.”

Ingersoll is in jail, but the charter for one of his schools was renewed earlier this year, and the charter is paying rent to Ingersoll while he is in prison.

“Bay City Academy had its charter renewed for the next three years, allowing the school to graduate its first class in 2020.

“Lake Superior State University renewed the charter this week. It included an option to renew for an additional two years, which would make it valid until 2023. Officials said the renewal is a result of the school’s recent uptick in enrollment and improved test scores.

“We have made huge growth in our academic achievement this year and continue to focus on school culture and success beyond the traditional classroom setting,” Principal Darci Long said in a statement.

“Brian Lynch, founder of Mitten Management, the charter school’s management company, said the renewal is validation that the school is moving in the right direction.

“It has had a rocky past. In March 2015, its founder, Steven J. Ingersoll, was convicted of tax fraud and later sentenced to 41 months in prison. Federal prosecutors said Ingersoll, who founded and managed Bay City Academy, ran a shell game and moved significant sums of money between business and personal bank accounts in an effort to hide the money for tax purposes…

“In November 2016, the school closed its Madison Arts Campus at 400 N. Madison Ave., after Chemical Bank foreclosed on it. Ingersoll owned the building at the time.

“Since February, the school has operated out of its Farragut Campus building, 301 N. Farragut St., which Ingersoll continues to own. Lynch said the school has an agreement with Wildfire Credit Union to continue making rent payments on the building.”

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

Chicago: Here Comes “Backpack Full of Cash”!

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2018 //
3

In Chicago-land:

Backpack Full of Cash will be showing at the Chicago International Social Change Film Festival

Saturday, September 29, 2018. 12:00 – 2:30 pm

DuSable Museum, 740 E 56th Pl, Chicago, IL 60637

Tickets available here: https://www.eventcombo.com/e/chicago-changefest-31850– be sure to use our code CHANGEMAKER for a special discount!

The festival also includes other documentaries about pressing social issues, musical performances, talented art vendors and more.

Also, on October 10th, Backpack will have the NYC premiere of our new Spanish subtitles at Barnard College! Here are the details:

Wednesday, October 10, 2018. 6:30pm
Hosted by The Barnard Education Program and the Barnard Urban Studies Program.
Event Oval, Diana Center LL1 at Barnard College
New York, NY 10027
The screening is Free and open to the public, and the filmmakers will be in attendance and participate in a panel discussion to follow the film.
Please RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/backpack-full-of-cash-documentary-screening-discussion-registration-50370872636

Categories Chicago

On Watching Christine Blasey Ford Testify

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2018 //
89

I have been glued to the television since 10 a.m.

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has testified candidly. She doesn’t remember every detail but she vividly remembers every detail of being sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh. Her most vivid memory: hearing Brett and his friend Mark Judge “laughing uproariously” as Brett pinned her down and tried to remove her clothes.

She is modest, sincere, honest. She is totally credible.

I believe her.

The other striking visual is the “visual” silence of the Republican Senators (except Senator Grassley, the 85-year-old chairman, who opened the hearings by haranguing Dr. Blasey without giving her the courtesy of introducing her). The fact that they brought in Rachel Mitchell, a prosecutor from Arizona, to ask questions on their behalf speaks volumes about their cowardice. They are literally afraid to ask questions of Dr. Blasey for fear that they would look like sexist pigs and bullies. They were right about that. Ted Cruz is afraid to speak. Lindsey Graham is afraid to speak. All of them are afraid to speak and show their faces contorted with derision, rage, and condescension.

The Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchel has asked many questions but failed to rattle Dr. Blasey or to refute anything she has said.

The lesson today to boys and men: Don’t get dead drunk. Don’t assault women just because they are physically weaker. Behave. Do not take advantage of women. Not your girlfriend. Not your wife. Not your sister. Not your daughter. Not strangers. Treat women with respect, as you want to be treated with respect.

(Senator Lindsey Graham just said on TV that he will vote to confirm Kavanaugh no matter what Dr. Blasey says or how credible she is.)

Categories Accountability

Massachusetts: The Waltons Won’t Take “No” for An Answer

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2018 //
18

In 2016, the Waltons decided that Massachusetts needed more charter schools. It must have annoyed them that the Bay State is considered the best state in the nation even though it has less than 100 charters.

They began planning a strategy to lift the cap. After Republican Governor Charlie Baker was elected, they thought it would be easy to add more charters. But the legislature refused. They launched a referendum and poured millions into “Yes on 2,” aided by other billionaire who love privatization. When the vote was tallied in November 2016, Walton and Friends (many of their names kept secret by Dark Money groups) got their backsides kicked. Yes on 2 was overwhelmingly defeated (62%-38%), winning only in a handful of affluent districts that never expected to see a charter school in their town.

They filed a lawsuit, claiming that the cap on charters denied black children educational opportunity. The state’s highest court threw out their case.

The main purveyor of Dark Money in the referendum was “Families for Excellent Schools,” which was required to reveal the names of donors after the election, pay a fine of nearly half a million dollars, and stay out of the state for four years. Shortly after, the New York-based FES collapsed.

Did the Waltons learn anything from this fiasco?

No. They have returned to Massachusetts with another AstroTurf group called the Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership. Some of the same players are present.

Professor Maurice Cunningham has chronicled the Datk Money intrusion into Massachusetts.

He tells the story of the new fake front here.

What Is the Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership?

As he reminds us, “Dark Money Never Sleeps Follow the money.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Detroit: Charter School Abruptly Closes, Stranding Students

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2018 //
15

Only days into the new school year, the Detroit Delta Preparatory Academy for Social Justice announced that it was closing, stunning students and parents. Enrollment was lower than expected, and the school was not financially viable, according to its authorizer, Ferris State University.

The decision left many of the high school’s students in tears.

“Everybody was breaking down,” said Ajah Jenkins, 17, a senior at the school, which had just begun its fifth year of operation.

Ajah called her mother, Kelye King, “crying, hysterical, screaming, saying, ‘My school’s closing. How am I going to graduate,’ ” King recounted.

Saturday is supposed to be the school’s homecoming. It’s unclear whether it’ll still happen, said King, who is upset because she believes the school should have given parents a heads-up that this might happen.

“I’m just disappointed. I entrusted her education to a group of people — they’re making me feel like I failed her, like I didn’t do enough research.”

The other day, we learned that a charter school in Delaware was closing with no prior notice.

That’s the market for you. Stores open and close without warning.

Schools are not supposed to be like that. They are supposed to be a public service that is always there for the students.

Maybe the market for schools is saturated. After all, you can’t expect to open a shoe store on every corner and expect them all to thrive or survive.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Competition, Detroit, Disruption

Chalkbeat in Tennessee Admits Failure of the Achievement School District, But State Sees a Silver Lining

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2018 //
6

You read it here first, straight from Gary Rubinstein’s superb blog (or, if you subscribe to Gary’s blog, you read it there first. The much-hyped Achievement School District in Tennessee is a flop. The same ASD that several red states have copied, not waiting for evidence or results.

Now Chalkbeat’s Tennessee outpost covers the story, and it isn’t pretty.

“Most of the schools that were taken over by Tennessee’s turnaround district remain on the state’s priority list six years after the intervention efforts began.

Four of the six original Memphis schools that were taken over by the state in 2012 are on the newest priority list released last week. And more than a dozen schools that were added to the district later also remain on the list.

Four of six original ASD schools remain on list…

Brick Church College Prep

Corning Achievement

Frayser Achievement

Westside Achievement

For years, the district has fallen short of its ambitious promise to dramatically raise test scores at the schools by handing them over to charter operators — a goal that the district’s founder later acknowledged was too lofty. And researchers with the Tennessee Education Research Alliance recently concluded that schools in the state district are doing no better than other low-performing schools that received no state help…

Of the 34 schools that have ever been part of the Achievement School District, 17 are on the new priority list, and four have closed. Thirteen schools are not on the new list.

In contrast, Memphis’ Innovation Zone, an improvement initiative from the local district, saw more of its schools move upward: 16 out of 25 schools absorbed into the iZone improved enough to exit the list.

One thing is clear: the charter schools that took over the low-performing schools did not have a secret sauce.

For some unknown reason, the state sees a silver lining in this failed effort to vault the lowest-performing schools into the top of the state’s rankings.

“Still, the state says the Achievement School District has had a positive influence that might not be reflected in its own school’s scores. Education Commissioner Candice McQueen recently praised Shelby County Schools’ progress, giving partial credit to the state’s own Achievement School District for creating a sense of urgency in Memphis.”

The schools may have failed to keep their promise but they created “a sense of urgency” in Memphis, where most are located.

Yes, there must be a sense of angst, like, what do we do now that the magic bullet failed?

Is reality replacing magical thinking?

The article links to one posted by Chalkbeat in August which did a “deep dive” into the dismal results of the $100 Million spent on the ASD.

“Six years after the state took over six of Tennessee’s lowest-performing schools, all of those schools continue to struggle, new state test results show…

“Of the schools in the original state-run district, four of the six had fewer than 10 percent of students testing at or above grade level in math or English during the 2017-2018 academic year, according to TNReady test results released last week. Meanwhile, Cornerstone Prep Lester Elementary School in Memphis performed better than its counterparts with 11.5 percent of students at grade level in English and 20 percent of students at grade level in math. Frayser Achievement Elementary had 12 percent of students at grade level in English, but just 9 percent at grade level in math.

“As a point of comparison, statewide averages for grades 3-8 had 33.9 percent of Tennessee students at grade level in English and 37.3 percent at grade level in math.”

The ASD was based on the Recovery School District in New Orleans. The research czar in New Orleans, Douglas Harris of Tulane, says that the Tennessee ASD should have been more aggressive in turning over low-performing charters to other charter operators. That would be almost every school in the ASD. Surely there mus5 be charter operators who have cracked the code of raising test scores. But then, Memphis didn’t have a natural disaster to drive out a substantial portion of its poorest families.

The bottom line in Tennessee is that none of the ASD charters was catapulted from the bottom 5% to the Top 25%. None even cracked the top 90%.

Time for fresh thinking?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Memphis, New Orleans, Privatization, Tennessee

The Guardian Reports on the Showdown Between the Koch Brothers and the Parents/Teachers of Arizona

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2018 //
21

There will be many important elections this fall, with the future of our democracy in the balance.

One of the most notable elections will take place in Arizona, where parents and teachers–organized as SOS Arizona–are facing off against the Koch brothers and the DeVos combine.

The Guardian tells the story here.


Arizona has become the hotbed for an experiment rightwing activists hope will redefine America’s schools – an experiment that has pitched the conservative billionaires the Koch brothers and Donald Trump’s controversial education secretary, Betsy DeVos, against teachers’ unions, teachers and parents. Neither side is giving up without a fight.

With groups funded by the Koch brothers and DeVos nudging things along, Arizona lawmakers enacted the nation’s broadest school vouchers law, state-funded vouchers that are supposed to give parents more school choice and can be spent on private or religiously affiliated schools. For opponents, the system is not about choice but about further weakening the public school system. A half-dozen women who had battled for months against the legislation were angry as hell.

Convinced that the law would drain money from Arizona’s underfunded public schools, these women complained that Arizona’s lawmakers had ignored the public will and instead heeded the wishes of billionaires seeking to build up private schools at the expense of public schools.

“We walked outside the Capitol Building, and we looked at each other, and said, ‘What now?” said one of the women, Dawn Penich-Thacker, a mother of two boys in public school and a former army public information officer. “We had been fighting this for four months. We realized that there’s something we can do about it. It’s called a citizens’ referendum. We said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Little did they know the challenges ahead. They would need 75,321 signatures to get their referendum on the ballot to overturn the law. They formed a group, Save Our Schools, and set out to collect the needed signatures. Opposing lobbyists sneered, saying no way could they do that.

The six women inspired a statewide movement and got hundreds of volunteers to brave Arizona’s torrid summer heat to collect signatures – in parks and parking lots, at baseball games and shopping malls. Their message was that billionaire outsiders were endangering public education by getting Arizona’s legislature – in part through campaign contributions – to create an expensive voucher program.

“We knew something was rotten in the state of Arizona,” said Beth Lewis, a fifth-grade teacher who is president of Save Our Schools. “We drew a line in the sand. We said, ‘We’re not going to let this happen.’” Lewis said Arizona’s schools are so underfunded that some classes have 40 students and her school needs to ask a private citizen to donate money when a teacher needs a set of books for her class.

One study found that Arizona, at $7,613, is the third-lowest state in public school spending per student, while another study found that from 2008 to 2015, school funding per pupil had plunged by 24% in Arizona, after adjusting for inflation – the second-biggest drop in the nation.

Upset that the vouchers law would funnel money toward private schools, Lewis said: “We can’t fund two different school systems. We can hardly afford one.”

Save our Schools submitted 111,540 signatures to the secretary of state in August 2017, but the Koch brothers’ political arm, Americans for Prosperity, sued to block the referendum. A judge dismissed the lawsuit and approved the referendum for 6 November – it’s called Proposition 305. The vote will be closely watched by people on both sides of the debate as the Kochs and DeVos hope to spread the voucher scheme and opponents look to Arizona for clues on how to stop them.

And that’s only the beginning of the story. Read it all. If you live in Arizona, please vote!

Categories Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Koch Brothers, Resistance, Vouchers

New York Releases Tests, Six Months After Students Took Them

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2018 //
34

The New York Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department remain firmly committed to the testing regime that has aroused so much parent rebellion and produced no gains on NAEP for 20 years. The state always finds good news in the test scores, but NAEP has been consistently flat.

Opt outs declined by a percentage point, but still nearly one of every five eligible students did not take the tests.

Long Island continues to be the epicenter of the opt out movement. About 50% of the students in Nassau and Suffolk counties did not take the tests.

Federal law (the “Every Student Succeeds Act”) says that parents have the right to opt out if their state permits it, but at the same time requires that every school must have a 95% participation rate or face sanctions–a flat contradiction.

New York has not yet clarified how it intends to punish the high-performing schools on Long Island where half the students didn’t take the tests.

This article appeared in Newsday, the main newspaper on Long Island.

The number of students boycotting state tests has declined slightly statewide, but Long Island remains a stronghold of the opt-out movement, state officials announced Wednesday.

The state Education Department, in a media advisory, said the percentage of students in grades three through eight opting out of exams last spring dipped to 18 percent, down from 19 percent in 2017 and 21 percent in 2016. Tests, which are mandated by federal law, cover English Language Arts and mathematics.

The advisory provided no specific percentage for Nassau and Suffolk counties, but did note that the bicounty region “remains the geographic area with the highest percentage of test refusals in both mathematics and ELA.” Newsday’s own surveys of Island districts last spring found boycott rates of nearly 50 percent.

Among students who took the tests statewide, 45.2 percent scored at the proficient level in English, and 44.5 percent in math, the education department reported. Agency officials said results could not be compared with those from prior years because the format of last spring’s tests was sharply revised.

Total testing days in the spring were reduced to four, down from six in prior years, in an effort to provide some relief for parents and teachers who had complained the assessments were too stressful.

New York’s opt-out movement has proved the biggest and most enduring in the nation. The movement first appeared on Long Island in 2013, then exploded statewide two years later, and has remained especially strong in Nassau and Suffolk, and in some suburbs of Westchester County and the Buffalo area.

On the Island, more than 90,000 students in grades three through eight refused to take the state English Language Arts exam in April, representing nearly 50 percent of those eligible, according to Newsday’s survey of Island districts at the time.

Across New York, the number of students boycotting the state tests from 2015 through 2017 has hovered near 200,000 of 1 million eligible pupils in each of the past three years.

Categories Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students

California: Tony Thurmond Needs Our Help As Billionaires Swarm to Aid Marshall Tuck

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2018 //
15

Tony Thurmond, candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, needs our help. The charter industry and billionaires are showering millions of dollars on his opponent Marshall Tuck. Despite the widespread graft and corruption in California’s charter industry, the billionaires want to continue expanding their “market share” of students and draining resources from the public schools.

Please donate whatever you can to Tony Thurmond’s campaign.

The race for state superintendent has become the key race in the state because the gubernatorial race appears to be a slam dunk for Gavin Newsom, the Democratic candidate, who is leading his little-known Republican opponent by double digits.

Tuck has been endorsed by Arne Duncan and the state Republican Party.

Thurmond has been endorsed by the California Teachers Association and the Los Angeles Times.

Think of this race as the Public School Candidate vs. the Charter School Candidate, and it explains why the usual herd of billionaires are supporting Tuck. If they can capture this key spot, California’s public schools will be in deep trouble.

“With seven weeks to go before Election Day, fundraising for Tuck has already surpassed what his supporters raised in the former school administrator’s unsuccessful run for superintendent four years ago.

“This is going to be the most expensive election, period,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy…

“Thurmond is a former social worker, school board member and council member in Richmond. Tuck is the former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school organization based in Los Angeles, and CEO of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a district-city initiative that runs 18 district schools.

“Tuck will benefit from $10.8 million raised by an independent expenditure committee backing him as of Monday, compared to $4.9 million raised by an independent committee supporting Thurmond.

“In addition, Tuck raised $3.1 million in direct contributions to his campaign through June 30, the most recent reporting deadline, outpacing Thurmond’s $2.1 million in direct contributions…

“Wealthy donors pushing to expand charter schools in California have driven much of the spending to support Tuck so far by pouring large donations into the Sacramento political advocacy organization EdVoice For The Kids PAC, which runs the committee backing Tuck. Although EdVoice has donated to dozens of candidates over the past two years, nearly 90 percent of the money it gave as of the most recent reporting date went to its Tuck committee, which calls itself Students, Parents and Teachers supporting Marshall Tuck for Superintendent of Public Instruction 2018, a project of EdVoice. EdVoice officials did not respond to an interview request.

“Contributors to EdVoice include venture capitalist Arthur Rock, who gave $3 million, real estate developer Bill Bloomfield who gave $2.9 million and philanthropist Eli Broad who gave $1.3 million….

“Neither candidate can be simply characterized as “pro-charter” or “anti-charter.” Each has said there is a role for effective charter schools in public education and that the schools need greater transparency and oversight. They both support a ban on for-profit charter schools that was recently signed into law.

“But Tuck and Thurmond have differed over how to handle the growth of California’s charter schools, which in some areas have attracted students and state funding from traditional school districts. Thurmond has hinted he could support a moratorium on new charter schools. Tuck opposes that idea and has instead called for the state to keep in place funding for districts affected by charter school growth for a time, so those districts can adjust to lower enrollment.”

There is the key difference between them. Tuck wants to manage the continued shrinkage of public schools, while Thurmond wants to stop the shrinkage and rebuild public schools.

Here is a Tuck supporter:

“Rebecca Morgan — a former Bank of America executive and former Republican state senator from the South Bay — cited Tuck’s time in Los Angeles, where he led Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school network, and the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, as one of the reasons she supports him. Morgan has contributed $500,000 to EdVoice.

“Marshall has proven that he understands education and he knows how to turn around school districts, as he has done in Los Angeles,” Morgan said. “He is not in the pocket of any organization, as Thurmond is with the teachers union.”

“Asked how much more she is willing to spend to elect Tuck, Morgan said, “Lots.””

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Kevin Ohlandt: Delaware Charter School Closes Immediately, Students Out of Luck

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2018 //
15

Kevin Ohlandt reports that the “Delaware Academy of Safety and Security” has closed down effective immediately.

The school leader has had problems with “ghost students” in the past, students who were counted but never attended. That’s called inflating enrollment for the sake of getting more money from the state.

Kevin wonders why the school wasn’t closed at the end of the last school year, in June. Now the students and families must find a new school, now.

Here is the closure notice.

The school was neither “safe” nor “secure.” It was a gamble. Why do parents gamble with their children’s lives? Are they so easily fooled into buying a shady deal?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Delaware
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